+ inload: Using a paint scheme to unite an army +

+ Catipürnan World-Turners +

+ The Silence event, run by Bristol Vanguard, is coming up this weeked [+PROTOCOL: commence calming respiro-stressorcism+], and my genestealer cult/dominated PDF force is... ticking along. Not quite where I'd like to be, but the end is in sight. +

+ Basing still to do +

+ The pict-capture above shows some battle-ready late generation hybrids, toting shotguns and supported by a heavy stubber. While not finished to a great standard, I think they're a good example of how a pre-planned scheme and tonal contrast can give good results. +

+ Theoretical +

+ In any army that contains markedly different aesthetics – such as the Steel Legion guardsmen and xenos genestealers – it's particularly important to have some way of tying the different strands together visually; otherwise it'll just look hotch-potch. To make things more manageable for myself here, I chose to run with a near monochrome scheme of cool off-white and off-black, with yellow-orange accents. +

+ Still WIP; the goggles will be red-orange. +

+ The brood brothers (the PDF that have come under the sway of the Patriarch and his coven) are painted virtually white. Their fatigues are Calth Brown, and their armour and gun casings Charadon Granite. +

+ The genestealers turn this on its head, being mainly black (Chaos Black with a touch of Macragge Blue), with near-white skin – the latter painted with Pallid Wych Flesh, with touches of Screamer Pink and Macragge Blue. +

+ The hybrids sit midway between the two, using elements of both: Calth Brown fatigues and Charadon Granite armour, but near-white flesh and blue-black carapaces. I've used Dheneb Stone hints here and there, too – on the ragged clothing, for example. As a similar near-white hue, it fits in nicely, while not matching the skin. +

+ Practical +

+ This WIP shot shows how I approached painting them – starting from the inside out; by which I mean that I painted the underlying clothing (brown fatigues), then painted the hard armour, then the equipment (guns etc.). The skin is left to near to the end. Because I spend far more time and effort on this, leaving it 'til last reduces the chances of accidentally getting paint or muck on it. Much easier to repaint an anonymous patch of clothing than an obvious focal paint like the face. +

+++

+ Personalities +

+ These two – the cult icon bearer and a PDF ogryn bodyguard – show that a sufficiently flexible scheme will work even for egregious or unusual models in an army. The icon bearer is an earlier generation hybrid; so the skin is closer to the Patriarch's cool blue-tinged hue than the ruddier skintones of the 'normal' humans. Both use the dull grey armour – and this 'neutral' hue is used for both the cultist's banner and the ogryn's shield, too. Both have some eye-catching yellow accents. +

+ Neither is particuarly well-finished (I hope at some point to come back and refine them a little; particuarly the banner), but the strong paint scheme and more attention on the faces means that they will add to the army's overall visual well. Basically I want them to stand out a little – but remain obviously part of the army. +

+++

+ Grandfather Nurgle is whispering temptingly +

+ Plague Marines. Plague Marines! Part of the delay in getting my genestealers done is the steadily-swelling mass of Death Guard lurking on my desk and distracting me. +

+ I showed off this chap last week, but managed to get a pict-capture over the weekend in better light. These colours are a lot more accurate, and help show that even a near-monochrome scheme doesn't need to be flat and boring. Judicious use of yellow and purple pin washes, and warming sepia-based inks help give some interest; helped along with accents like the yellowing ivory spikes and ice-blue vision slit. +

+ Two Plague Marines and their squad leader. The leader's a minor weapon swap, giving him a plasma gun and plague sword in place of the default power fist. The other two are the first multi-part Death Guard I've put together; and proved a slightly frustrating experience. It turns out that the kit has lots of pegs and guides – useful to help avoid poses that won't work without conversion (a boltgun across a chest bursting with tentacles that physically block the other arm, for example) – but an annoyance for more substantial conversion work, as you have to trim them away to free up the limbs. +

+ Nothing dreadful, but worth me bearing in mind. 

+ Poxwalkers are de rigeur, but I quite fancy having some cultists. More recognisably human, they'll provide a good baseline size to make the Plague Marines appear suitably hulking. +

+ inload: Sprucing up second-hand miniatures +

+ Aberrant +

The feared Abominant of the Catipürnan World-Turners Dunpha Gnao (you can blame Warmtamale) alongside some of his less twisted brethren. Not quite at the level I'd normally hope for, but I think he works. +

+ Buying second-hand +

+ Renovating miniatures can be a fun part of the hobby. For single-piece models like metals, it's often a necessity, as they're no longer available directly. There are lots of guides on stripping paint (I use a dwindling supply of Fairy Power Spray, for the record), so I won't dwell on that. Instead, I thought it might be useful for people to see what you can do with second-hand plastics. +

+ The finished Plague Marine from yesterday's inload [ref: pictcapture above] is an example of a second-hand model that I've repainted.  As a point of interest, I thought I'd post up some of the others from the batch, to show what I look for when buying second-hand. +

+ For this example, I worked directly over the underlying paint: buying the right second-hand models can mean the difference between a frustrating strip and rebuild, and a speedy, pleasing experience. +

+ Buying second hand +

+ The things I look for are:

• Thin paint – details should still be clear. This is less important if you're planning to strip before repainting, but blobby paint is generally a bad sign anyway. It can hide poor construction. If you can, examine them in person, or ask for close-up details.
• Quality of build – Look for outstanding mouldlines and sprue detritus, plus any nicks, cuts or scrapes. Do always ask how the model has been put together – superglued plastic figures are easily broken apart to rebuild, while poly cemented ones are more labour. 
• Parts used – This is the big one for plastic kits. Unless the seller is including the leftover parts, you'll be stuck with the options they've picked. Make sure they're what you want; or you can end up with false economy. 
• Construction – Are they well-posed? Multi-part kits can easily look a bit [SCRAPSHUNTERRORABORT] if they're badly assembled. I prefer to look for ones with more standard posing, as this eliminates the need to break them apart and rebuild.
• Basing – Although bases are amongst the easiest things to update, the base is something that is very distinctive. If your aim is for the second-hand models to fit in with your army, look for models with bases that match yours  or better still, are unbased.
• Compatibility –  This is more of an issue if your army is heavily converted or otherwise non-standard; in which case out-of-the-box models can stand out like a sore thumb. The same applies in the other direction too – cool converted models don't always fit in nicely.
• Price – The price can be the kicker in these deals. A seeming bargain can be outweighed if you can't fix them up to your satisfaction; and equally it's sometimes worth paying near-retail if they're exactly what you want. Do make sure to take fees, postage etc. into consideration. If the difference is a couple of quid, it might be worth just buying retail (or discounted retail) and having the reassurance of the full, fresh kit.

+ These models are a good example of great second-hand models. I paid less than half retail price for them, they're nicely assembled, unbased and have only a thin coat of paint. +

+ In order to fit into my army, I'm only going to need to make minor tweaks – drilling out the weapon barrels, a couple of head and weapon swaps etc. They've been cleanly assembled. +

+ inload: The King of Beasts +

+ The King of Beasts +

Representing nature, mastery of fear, and fruitfulness, the Suit of Beasts has belonged to the traditional Cephean card deck since its earliest generation. Inverted, these qualities become associated with malignant growth, panic and moral turgidity. While the other suits are only occasionally decorated, the Beasts are traditionally individually illuminated with man-animal hybrids that reflect the problems of the state at the time. In the past, poverty, disease and outside powers have dominated, while later periods subtly allude to political unrest, economic uncertainty or division within the Wellborne houses.

Cephean folkart also traditionally associates the Cardinal cards with the Beasts – the artwork for the Bishopric Martial (VII) and The Cyngs Enthroned (XIX) being particularly ripe for satire – in theory reminding heads of the state that they sit by the will of the people; while in practise being an opportunity for the lowest form of mockery.

Of course, such satire walks the fine line of sedition. The Wellborne court have traditionally allowed the people of the City this minor vent for their frustrations – indeed, Ferlinghetti has seen the cards of Cyng Bodonis VIII, who – for a period – hoarded and revelled in the most seditious of such cards, particularly favouring those who reflected him most monstrously. Other rulers or governors have banned such cards – and meted dreadful punishments on their artists, ranging from imprisonment to torture; even exile and death in some cases. 

This has lent the artists a certain cache in some circles, and the card-artist is a stock figure in many Cephean entertainments, being a symbol of puckishness and mischief. Colyn of Cern is the semi-fantastical tale of a celebrated artte-bandyt of Cephean folklore; his tale describes his rise to fame; his triumph over the Forwandlers of the Heath; and finally his sticky (and fingerless) end at the hands of Cyng Bodonis, whose indulgence and sense of humour evidently failed him at the last.

While the tale is certainly sensationalised, Colyn of Cern was definitely an historical figure. Two extant cards can be attributed to him with certainty, as they formed the primary evidence in his trial: the King of Suns and the King of Beasts. One is gloriously gilded and triumphant, showing a noble man clad in golden armour; the other a base beast, distorted and monstrous, with altogether too many limbs and a sinister air. 

Colyn's genius – and guilt – was simply in making the cards form a pair; the crime simply being the transposition of the symbols for Sun-King and Beast

+ Extracted from Childeric's notes on Cepheus – Three Years On + 

+ Some miniatures are straightforward; build as intended, then paint. Others take a more leisurely and planned approach; starting from an initial concept.  My Court of the Sun King project is mostly made up of the latter – and that's part of the reason it takes so long! +

+++

+ Theoretical +

+ Some miniatures are straightforward; build as intended, then paint. Others take a more leisurely and planned approach; starting from an initial concept.  My Court of the Sun King project is mostly made up of the latter – and that's part of the reason it takes so long! +
+ Primarily a conflict between my characters Inquisitor Unfortunus Veck and Sephran Mawl, the project has a third crucial figure: the genestealer patriarch, Papakakek Pameras, who will work as an antagonist to both. +

+ The concept behind this miniature started out fairly simple – for years I've wanted to bring a bit more David Cronenberg-style body horror to Tyranids (Advanced Space Crusade has some really disturbing incidental images of semi-human tyranids, which really stuck with me). A key theme of 40k revolves around the human form and its degradation or corruption – with spiritual or moral corruption often becoming visible physically. +

+ As well as being scary aliens, tyranids also encompass the fear of becoming consumed or subsumed, converted into something else. Big Boss Red Skullz brilliant Nestorian Infestation project [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+] explores this concept through an really creative genestealer cult, and that turned me towards genestealers rather than tyranids. They already have hybrids, and I wondered whether I could explore the other side of this – tyranids develop as they progress; so they should presumably explore some human-like elements in their directed evolution. +

+ With these key visuals in place, I thought some more about the character. How would a genestealer operate on a feudal world like Cepheus? I thought that the populace would treat it much like another creature of horror – the vampire. Both are creatures that stalk the night and turn people into things like them, and I thought there'd be some great storytelling opportunities. +

+ Papakakek is patriarch of the Catipürnan World-Turners, a genestealer cult centred on Cepheus. It's slow-growing owing to the isolation of the cult and the planet's low tech-level; but at least one person is aware of the xenos – though not our Inquisitor! +

+++

+ Practical+

+ The model is based on the genestealer broodlord from Space Hulk, as it has a lovely pose; perched like a gargoyle. I toyed with draping it in a tattered cape, but in the end decided that would humanise it too much – I want him still to read as an alien, and a monster; and that meant having the limbs and carapace visible. +

+ I trimmed away much of the technological gubbins – especially the Terminator helms! – and replaced one of the hands. I toyed with removing a limb entirely, as I thought having an injured patriarch would be quite a cool storytelling twist. In the end, I decided I didn't want anything to evoke sympathy or suggest weakness in the creature, so contented myself with reposing the legs into a more passive squat than the stock model. Similarly, I trimmed the arms off and draped them downwards, changing the posture from active and gestural to more considered and passive. +

+ The most obvious change is the face, which is sculpted from greenstuff. I've left the eyes hollow – a common body horror trope – and tried to create an elongated but recognisably human visage. I wanted it distorted, rather than warped, as I didn't want to create a Chaotic (with a capital C) appearance, but keep it alien. +

+ The base is an objective marker – I wanted him to be perched on something high so he can look down on other characters. He is posed to be in opposition to the Sun King model. A nice little unplanned extra is that viewers need to pick the model up to see the face. That forces them to be a bit closer, which keeps the face a – rather unpleaseant! – surprise. +

+ Painting +

+ Still work-in-progress, the idea here was to keep things muted and subtle. I've used blue-greys to suggest a nighttime feel. The Engineers from Alien were a bit inspiration. +

+ inload: Bristol Silence, the genestealer threat, and The Alien Wars +

+ Chrono-shunt active: Deadline deployed +

+ As the pict-capture below shows, it's not all games and theory for me – though if you fancy trying out some Gargant rules for the new Adeptus Titanicus, I'd very much appreciate your input [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+] – I'm also (slowly) getting on with my infiltrated PDF force for the Bristol Silence campaign. +

+ The only model that's recently reached a finished (bar the base) state is the officer above, thought the long and tedious batch-painting on the remaining infantry is starting to bear fruit. They've all reached what I consider the base-coat stage. The officer above was a test of how far I can realistically take such base-coated figures in a short period of time, and I'm pleased to say that he took only around twenty minutes to take to this state. That's given me a realistic target to aim for for the remainder; and I think I can probably tackle half a squad or so in an evening going forward. +

+ The second part of the force I'll be taking to Bristol is the genestealers, of course; but it wouldn't be me if they weren't converted or altered in some way – particularly since the Steel Legion models I'm using for the infiltrated PDF are for the most part unaltered. + 

+ Just as the Steel Legion will see double-duty in my Alien Wars project [REF: tab-bar at the top of the page – +noosphericinloadlink embedded+]as the ldebaran 4th/5th; so too will some of the genestealers appear in another project. +

+ As a little work-in-progress preview, here's the King of Beasts:

+++

+ LOOPACTIVE: Procrastination subroutine  +

+ As is traditional, in trying to finish the Steel Legion, I had the sudden urge to clear up other bits and bobs. The Blood Angels 3rd gained a lieutenant:

+ Fairly simple stuff, using the new Blood Angels lieutenant as the base, but with a few bits and bobs to make him fit in with the rest of the army. I wasn't a huge fan of the original's pose – the head in particular looks really awkward; and so I've opted for a more open feel, as though urging on his comrades. Creating M35 marines (for The Alien Wars project) is interesting – not quite so uniform as HH marines, nor so opulent as M41. +

+ ...And having popped open the Dark Imperium box to get sprues to build the Blood Angels lieutenant, the inevitable happened, and I got sidetracked building Death Guard. +

+ Such cool models! I've done some minor conversion work (altering poses I found awkward, and making the heads a bit more uniform) but the underlying models are so gorgeous (in a horrid gribbly way) that they just work. +

+ The design has some great callbacks to Jes' classic Plague Marine sculpt. I've no great plans for anything big with these, but they were a genuine delight to put together. If they're fun to paint, I might expand them a little. +

 + Like much of GW's recent Chaos releases, the dolorous chap carrying the great bell has an wonderfully over-the-top and silly name – my main objection to the Death Guard release was the stupid naming – but the figure itself is fantastic. The conversion work here was mainly trimming off the really over-the-top elements to reveal the underlying silhouette. A headswap to more closely match the iconic Death Guard helm gives him a bit of individuality, and I twisted the arm to give a swaggering motion. +

+ inload: Bubbling under; and post CCIII +

+ It's not all terrain building round here, though it has occupied almost all of my hobby time recently. I've got a couple of little projects bubbling away, based on nothing more than – in the first case – really liking the models; and in the second, getting a rather fantastic bargain. +

+ Genestealers +

+ First up are these fellas; the first main release of metal genestealers (I think there were a couple of earlier prototypes, but these were the ones used for promotion of the first edition of Space Hulk. Perhaps an Oldhammerer could clear that up? I seem to remember there were metal arms for these at some point; but these ones have the plastic set. +

+ You'll also spot a Dark Emissary, a figure from a Warhammer campaign based around Albion. He's likely going to be the basis for a withered Genestealer Magos. +

+ I really like these models. The blue plastics are the ones I remember playing with – first from Space Crusade, and then the slightly different Space Hulk ones – but the metals have a charm of their own. They are more rounded and hunched than the plastics, and their features are more similar to humans than the plastic versions. This lends them a certain sinister feel. I'm sort of tempted to use them as first-generation hybrids by playing with the arms... nearly complete genestealers, but with a definite human heritage. +

+ I suspect the sculptor is Bob Olley; but am happy to be corrected. +

+ Solar Auxilia +

+ Secondly is a Solar Auxilia force, who will likely be appended to my Ultramarines or Iron Warriors (or if painted neutrally, both). This was a bit of a bargain. The picture and description was a little unclear, but I took a punt on what I thought was two squads of volkite-armed auxilia. Imagine my surprise when I opened the box to find the following:

+ Okay; so the two full squads I was expecting... which seem to be in good order – nicely assembled and cleanly primed *phew* – but there was more in the box. In addition to a big pile of 32mm bases:

+ What looks like a complete third squad – I'll double check, but any arms etc. missing will be perfect for conversion-fu. On top of the there's a command section, missing only the commander himself:

+ Quite the haul! +

+ inload CC +

+ In all the excitement I missed Death of a Rubricist's two hundredth-pot [+ auditory-phial exload: fanfare +]. Without making too much of a fuss, I'd like to thank you all for reading along and your comments. Here's to another 200 inloads! +