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Hobby Blog Number 3: The one that details my lack of self-control.
I haven’t been able to get quite as much hobby work does this month as I have previously. However, here is what was.
40K
Sisters of Battle
There has not been a lot of progress on the sisters this month and that is mainly due to a lack of black spray paint in Istanbul. Yes, I know I could undercoat by hand, but I like the consistency of spray paint so I’ve held off. It’s also really expensive to ship spray paint around the world, though I am unsure why. I will investigate.
I did, however, get this cheeky girl bashed and painted.
It is a ridiculous pose and I love it.
Genestealer Cult
Yeah, I started a new army. I have a friend who has been trying to get me to build up a Necromunda gang. When my hobby shop got in a Start-Collecting box (still no black spray paint though), I picked it up.
I like the idea of the army being a desperate uprising, carefully planned over generations. I love that workers and freaks from the underhive with the right preparation can overcome even the Space Marines. Of course, the double application for Necromunda makes them attractive.
It also seems like fertile ground for conversion, kit-bashing and 3D printing (here’s looking at you, the entire Necromunda range). In particular, I’m looking forward to my abominants who will be unholily bashed at some point into some particularly nasty mutants.
This, however, is in the future. For now, I didn’t do any conversion work or kit-bashing. I just kind of built them from the box. I’ll do some more ambitious stuff when I’ve saved up enough pennies for new kits.
The paint scheme I’m using here I ripped straight from a goonhammer post. I liked that they looked aquatic though it has proved to be quite a hard scheme to replicate. White is an unforgiving colour to work with. Even though I was doing a lot of cleanup, there were still little mistakes that I had to go back to and they still don’t look as sharp as I might like. On all of them, I attempted a rudimentary object source lighting effect using yellow. I think it looks good, certainly better than other attempts I’ve made in the past.
On the other hand, painting the ridgerunner was a dream. I borrowed advice from Tabletop Minions and used a make-up brush to do some rudimentary stippling and dry brushing to create a slight gradient on the car. It’s subtle and no doubt more talented painters can make it more dynamic and stark, but I’m happy with the effect.
I built up a thick layer of mud on the tires using dried-out coffee grout and cheap black paint that I daubed on before priming. Next time I will do more on the body of the car as well because I like the effect.
You’ll notice that none of the Genestealer Cult models are based yet. I have plans for that, but they will have to wait until I get the right stuff.
Terrain
I made a new building for my Mordheim table and I started work on a new statue to go along with the rest. I’ll probably get them done next month. I’m getting very close to a tables’ worth now and I’m going to slow down. I want the last few I do to be more creative and that doesn’t necessarily mean bigger, but less table-filler, more more objects of interest.
I also, with some trepidation, began building some new stuff for sci-fi settings e.g. Gaslands, 40k or Necromunda. I wanted big, blocky pieces to start filling out a board so I built some armoured containers. It is a really simple build using corrugated cardboard and bits of insulation foam to make the thing. Then I sprayed them metallic and red, dulled them down with a bit of Nuln oil, and added a bit of pigment and rust effect. Then I decorated them with some Milliput casts of various sci-fi bits, cables, dirt and some plants I got from the art shop.
All in all, I am almost happy with it. The mistake I think I made was to make it too big. My sci-fi-bits box is quite limited at the moment so I don’t have a whole lot of bits for decoration. As it currently stands, the elements I did are lost in space (pun intended). I’ll keep working on this from a design point of view when I make more. Though I am happy with it as a piece of functional terrain that will block line of sight and provide a firing position.
Going forward I’m going to try and make some more that are not just rectangles but are closer to desert bunkers and gun nests, also on a more appropriate scale.
That’s all there is to this month. It felt like I got more done but I guess I didn’t and that’s OK. This is a hobby and I don’t think you can do too much or little on something you do for fun.
