E TENEBRAE LUX: Painting Challenge

Man, does time fly. I've been holed up playing 6th Edition and working on my entry for the E TENEBRAE LUX painting challenge from over on Bolter and Chainsword. It's a cool thing the forum does every once in awhile where the different chapters from the various subforums duke it out and see who can paint the most models.

This is my first time contributing and it figures that the Blood Angels are getting crushed. I still wanted to finish my vow, get my models done, and preserve my honor. I really wish this competition didn't take place during the 6th Edition release window as I would have been able to get a lot more done. I'm contemplating upping the ante and doing a second vow, but there is less than a week left so we'll see what happens.

Below are the completed pictures of what I pledged: 2 Baal Predators, a converted Lascannon and Twin-linked Plasmagun Turret, and a Death Company Dreadnought is 480 points. A pittance I know, but every little bit helps. I'm fairly satisfied with how these turned out. Messed around with weathering powders for the first time and I can see a lot of potential for these in the future.

I also included a pic of my converted Librarian as I've been working on him forever. Reminds me a lot of the Librarian that Ron was working on over on From the Warp. Great minds think alike!

You may have seen some of my blog posts over on the 40K Radio website. I volunteered for the staff writer position so you'll be seeing my posts over there as well. If you don't know what 40K Radio is, it's THE 40K Radio Podcast that caters to all things 40K. You can check it out here.

I have my first 6th Edition Tournament this Sunday so I'll try and take some pics and provide a quick tournament report. Have a lot planned for the blog in the coming weeks so stay tuned!

Till next time,

–The Harrower

Blood Angels Painted Models & Avoiding Burnout

I've been all over the place with my hobby the last few weeks. For starters, I have been doing a rebalance on Mordheim called Newheim, painting and assembling my Blood Angels, and planning our first 40K Battle Report featuring something really cool that I don't think anyone in the 40K blogosphere has done before.

There was a great post by Miniature Tim on how to avoid hobby burnout. If I can give any advice, have multiple projects going on at once. When you get bored of one, switch to something else. Also, try to avoid too much hobby crunch time leading up to a tournament or an event. While those deadlines are good to get some serious work done, a lot of times you finish that last model and walk away from the hobby for a few months. Just look at my run up to the Doubles Tournament at Adventure Games. No posts for almost 2 months after and I didn't get close to getting done what I wanted to.

The painting bug has struck me recently and I have been working a lot on my Blood Angels. It all started at our recent Club Day with getting busted on how all my Land Speeders had no pilots so they couldn't move or shoot. I started assembling and magnetizing a new Land Speeder and I couldn't fully assemble it without painting some of the details. So I've been working on that, my converted Librarian, and my Death Company Rhino/Razorback. Here's some pics.

I'm happy with how the Land Speeder is coming together. All of the magnets are in except for the gunner. Don't fret, I'll have a tutorial on how to magnetize a Land Speeder in the future. My recent snag is trying to get transfers on the shoulder pads of the gunner and the pilot. My first experience with Micro Sol and Micro Set didn't end very well. Hopefully my next go will yield decent results.

This is my Death Company Rhino/Razorback. I picked up an airbrush recently and the dust on the bottom half of the tank was done by spraying vermin brown. It still needs more weathering/battle damage and I'm not sold on the dust effect. The back door is a conversion I did. I figure the only way the Death Company would get back in the vehicle after the battle would be at the behest of Sanguinius himself. I'm not happy with the realistic painting of this. I'm going to redo it in aged bronze like I painted the Honoured Imperium. Tutorial and pics here.

I got tired of being schooled by all the Psykers in Farseer Frank's Eldar army and one of my other friends recently joined the hobby and started playing Grey Knights. I figured I needed to do my own Librarian and aside from hating metal miniatures, none of the Librarians available appealed to me. This one is made from a variety of bitz. You'll see Death Company, Sanguinary Guard, Grey Knights, and Dark Angels parts on there. I'm thinking of changing the Warding Staff for the Flaming Sword from the Empire Wizards kit. Do you like it as is or should I change it up?

Not sure what I'll be posting next time as I just bought a bunch of tea lights to make some destroyed vehicle markers and I've been doing a bit more work on Mordheim. Who knows what the future holds?

Till then,

–The Harrower 

Doubles Tournament Results

Long time no post. I won't go into a long winded apology about why I haven't updated in almost two months as Ron Saikowski had a good post on what not to post about and I don't want to break the Lord of the Warp's 3rd rule.

Anyway, the doubles tournament is long since over. For my first tournament experience, it went well. I paired with a friend of mine from the DED 'ARD Club that plays Imperial Guard. He brought all the big guns and I brought forth the might of Sanguinius with my Blood Angels and a deadly assault force. 

We ended up winning our first two games and playing in the third and final game for the championship which we lost to a really tough Grey Knights and Orks list. They used a Big Mek with a Kustom Force Field and a Grey Knights Librarian with The Shrouding to blanket most of their army with a 3+ cover save. It was like Episode I all over again. Unfortunately (fortunately?) our opponents were the Gungans and while I kept thinking it would get better, in the end it just sucked.

Late in the game, I made a last ditch charge with my entire army and beheld my Death Company felling an impressive 23 Ork Boyz on the charge and running down the remaining few. We had them on the ropes and nervous, but in the end, the nut was too hard to crack and some Grey Knight reinforcements arrived via deep strike and sealed their victory. One highpoint was my Reclusiarch standing toe to toe with an Ork Dreadnaught for 2 rounds and refusing to go down. I actually made four 4+ invulnerable saves in one round to stay alive at the end of the game and made the Primarch proud. I also got a good chuckle out of their Vindicare Assassin who couldn't hit the side of the barn even with an 8 Ballistic Skill.

As for my models, I never got them finished. I got the required 3 colors done for the bonus points, but I don't think they even scored painting (not that it would have mattered anyway). I'm still working on my Assault Squads, but honestly I haven't painted much since. I did pick up a Paasche Talon Dual Action Airbrush that I have been messing with, but I really haven't had a lot of time to do hobby stuff. I worked on some scenery here and there, but that's about it. I did finish up a lot of the details on my Death Company Rhino/Razorback and I'm pretty happy with how that turned out.

There's going to be a bit of a shift in what I'm covering in the blog in the coming weeks as I start doing some game design work again and focusing a little more on... Mordheim!

I'll talk a bit more about my history with Mordheim and describe the changes to the blog in my next post.

Until then,

–The Harrower

March 2nd is Old Stuff Day!

Warhammer 39,999 is attempting to start a Blogging Movement by declaring March 2nd Old Stuff Day. In the forum world, this is called thread necromancy where old threads rise from the grave. I think this is a very cool thing to do, so I jumped on the band wagon (with just an hour to spare!). For the image, I wanted to post a picture of my parents as they're pretty old, but I would be the only one that would get it.

Bad humor aside, I just took a quick look at some of the stats on my posts and I wasn't surprised that the Stormraven Conversions Part 1 and Part 2 were up at the top. I was surprised by the amount of page views though. Part 2 has more views than all of the other posts on my blog combined! I've been planning a Part 3 for some time and now that I see the stats and know how popular those posts are, I'll probably finish it off sooner rather than later. If you have a cool Stormraven conversion that you want me to use as part of that post, contact me.

Converting a Twin-Linked Assault Cannon Turret

This post was a landmark for me as it was the first tutorial I ever did for my blog. I got a really good response from the community and it made me realize how much I liked blogging. This post, coupled with my acceptance to From the Warp, really solidified my latest foray into 40K and helped to reignite my passion for the hobby. I can't express how pivotal I think From the Warp is for the entire 40K community and while I know Ron Saikowski has a thankless job and is going through a rough patch, I'm happy to hear he is exploring easier ways to update the site. 

Converting a Twin-Linked Heavy Flamer Turret

This conversion post I did in 2 parts. Maybe that's why it didn't get the attention I thought it would. I think of all the Razorback turret conversions I've done, this is my best. I haven't seen many heavy flamer turrets add hoses like I did and I think that makes all of the difference. If there is a post on here that I think people should see, it's this one. 

I'm glad that Warhammer 39,999 started Old Stuff Day and I hope to see more things like this in the future that get the 40K blogging community together.

Till next time,

–The Harrower

SP200 Photo Studio Review

So my wife bought me the SP200 Photo Studio for my birthday last week. I had a little bit of time to mess around with it and my first impressions are very good.

I have a Canon PowerShot SD780 and while it's not the greatest camera, I like it a lot and it does take really nice photos. I don't think the pictures on my blog are bad, but I definitely don't have the best lighting or a good backdrop and I want an easy way to take nice photos of my finished miniatures.

All of the miniature company's out there retouch their photos in Photoshop and that's definitely something I can do to make up for bad photography. Problem is, it's too time consuming and I'd rather spend time working on my various projects or just being lazy. While I don't have a ton of time with it, these are the pros and cons from my experiences so far.


PROS

• Comes with everything you need including 2 lights, a tripod, the photo booth itself, and 4 different colored backdrops (red, blue, white, and black)
• Folds up for easy storage and doubles as a carrying case
• Good price at $50
• Easy to set up

CONS

• The lights seem to be cheaply made
• Requires an entire table to setup correctly
• Lights need to be plugged in (only an issue if you want to take it to a tournament and grab pics of someone's army)
• Backdrops wrinkle easily and need to be ironed (I don't do ironing)

Overall, I'm definitely happy with it. I was having a bit of difficulty taking clear shots with single miniatures, but that is something I need to work on and has to do with my camera settings. Here are some sample pics with only minor tweaking in Photoshop.

My Death Company Rhino back from the 3rd Edition days. This model made final cut for Golden Demon, but didn't place because I glued it to a scenic base. I believe I might have been one of the first people to put a vehicle on a scenic base because no one else had them that year. The judges were arguing and one of them wanted to put it in, but the other bloke won out. Sissy. Reason I didn't win was because "I couldn't use it in a game". The only reason I glued it was so it wouldn't fall and get broken.

This is the Baal Predator that I entered in the following year at Golden Demon. That year I didn't make any cut because I didn't bring a scenic base! Seems I started a trend the year prior and everyone was sporting cool bases. I was so upset about the irony that I never entered Golden Demon again...

The old and the new. That's the first Blood Angels figure I painted along with my latest converted Razorback.

Once you have a nice picture like this, you can take it into Photoshop and trim out the background. This is currently what Games Workshop does with all of their new miniature photography.

Once the background is trimmed, you can make your pics all retro style with the gradient tool like in the old 'Eavy Metal Painting Guides!

So in conclusion, I think the SP200 Photo Studio is pretty awesome and I'll definitely get my uses out of it. I have seen higher end photo tents like this and while this isn't ready for publication in White Dwarf, it suits me fine for my hobby.

Tomorrow is our monthly gathering of the DED 'ARD Gaming Club and we have a couple new faces this week with Necrons and Imperial Guard. I'll take some pics of our games and post them in the next few days.

Till then,
–The Harrower

Converting a Lascannon Twin-linked Plasmagun Turret

As promised, here's the tutorial on how to convert a lascannon and a twin-linked plasmagun turret. This is what you'll need to get started:

• Complete twin-linked lascannon turret
• 2 plasmaguns
• 1 Raven Wing assault cannon
• Plastic cutters (I use Games Workshop)
• Saw (I have one from Micro-Mark and Games Workshop)
• Pin vise (got mine at Micro-Mark)
• Liquid Cement for Plastic Models (I use Testors)
• Super glue (I use Zap-A-Gap)
• Needle Files (I use Games Workshop)
• X-Acto Knife

For the 40K bitz, I'd again recommend Hoard O' Bits on eBay. If you already followed my twin-linked assault cannons tutorial, you should already have the bit we'll be using from the Raven Wing assault cannon. Now that we have what we need, let's get to it.

Step 1: Cut the lascannon barrel from the housing. Use whatever method works best for you. I've been leaning more toward using an x-acto knife and cleaning up the edges with a needle file as I have a hard time cutting straight with a saw. I wouldn't cut the right lascannon like I did in the below pic. Use the left lascannon and I'll explain why later.

Step 2: Cut the front of the assault cannon from the housing. Keep the assault cannon bit and put it in your bitz box. You never know when you an use those extra pieces! Now, take the housing and cut it in half at the end of the ribbed piece like in the pics below.

Step 3: Cut off the tips of the plasmaguns at the redline below. I don't have a picture of this step because I ended up changing the turret before I glued everything together.

Step 4: Clean up any mold lines and dry fit the turret to ensure that it fits. You want to assemble your turret by following the pictures below and using liquid cement. The reason I suggested to cut the barrel of the left lascannon earlier is because the bit from the assault cannon appears to have plasma coils on only the one side and I think it looks better. You can click the below right pic and look at the red circled area to see what I am talking about.

Step 5: Use the pin vise to drill out the gun barrels and fill in any unsightly gaps with super glue. Let everything dry and paint it up!  When you are done, it should look like the below pics.

 

That's it for this tutorial. I hope you enjoyed the article. If you have any questions or comments please let  me know. I am currently in the process of working on my new gaming tables. I hope to have a tutorial on them soon.

I did get this photostudio in a box kit for my birthday today which should make taking pictures of my miniatures a lot easier. I plan to give it a try this weekend and post a review.

Till next time,
–The Harrower

Converting a Heavy Flamer Turret for a Razorback Part 2

Last time, I discussed the bitz you'll need to convert a twin-linked heavy flamer turret for a Razorback as well as the tools that I use and links to where you can buy them. If you missed it, make sure you check out part 1.  Let's get on with the tutorial.

Step 1: You want to cut the tips off of the heavy bolters and the heavy flamers. There's a couple different ways you can do this. You can use a saw, plastic cutters, or an x-acto knife. I tend to use all 3 methods. Use what works best for you. I typically don't get the straightest cuts with the saw and I end up straightening everything out with the needle file. You can click on these pictures for a larger image. Make sure to cut the heavy flamers where the edge is in the below pic.

 

Step 2: Clean up the edges with a needle file so everything is nice and smooth and glue the pieces together with liquid cement. If you cut the heavy flamer like you were supposed to, there is going to be a gap on the one side. This is okay as we will fix this later, but you might have a hard time getting this to sit right. When you are using liquid cement, don't just put the glue there and stick the two parts together. You want to make circular motions and rub the parts together at the contact point so the glue starts to work. I left flash on both pieces and used that to line them up. When you are done, your heavy flamer barrels should look like the below pic.

Step 3: While the main gun barrels are drying, pop off the tips of each of the LEGO® hoses and cut them in half with an x-acto knife. You don't have to be dead center, just relatively close. The hoses are going to sit down inside the Rhino body, so it isn't a big deal if one is longer than the other. Once they are cut in half, cut off the tips were the connector pieces were. Be a bit more careful here as you'll need a  flat surface that we can glue to in our next step.

Step 4: On the bottom of the heavy flamer bit is a little round disc of plastic that you want to shave off. I just used the x-acto knife and filed it smooth. This is where our hoses are going to connect to the bottom of the heavy flamer. Take some super glue and attach the hoses here. I also put a little bit of super glue between the heavy flamer and heavy bolter piece for added strength and let it dry. While that was drying, I cut 2 small rectangles of plastic card and attached them to the side of the heavy flamer over the holes with liquid cement. Again, make sure to rub the squares against the gun so the glue starts to work. I didn't make my squares exactly the same, because one is in the middle of the guns that you won't see and once they are painted you won't be able to tell the difference. When you are done with this step, it should look like the below pic.

Step 5: At this point, you want to assemble your turret. After I did, I found there was a lot of extra tension on the hoses and the turret was difficult to move up and down. While the hoses seemed fine, I didn't want them to break off later or in the middle of a game. Turn the turret upside down and cut off the entire front piece of plastic ring. I'd also recommend widening the hole at the front of the turret with a needle file until the turret can freely move up and down with just a little resistance.

Step 6: Clean up the flash and any unsightly gaps or holes and dry fit your turret to make sure that everything fits together. Oh, and don't forget to use your pin vise and drill out your gun barrels! Pet peeve of mine is guns with no barrels. When you are done, it should look like the below pic.

Step 7: Prime all of the pieces black, paint everything up, and glue it all together and you should end up with a nice turret for your Razorback.

The Razorback above just has base colors on it right now and just a few washes and no highlighting or weathering. I need to add a lot before I call it done, but I want to get basic painting on my entire army before I finish anything. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. Please leave me some feedback and ask questions so I know that you guys are getting something out of this. Also, if you do your own conversion, let me know and I'll post it here.

There is a lot that I am currently working and have planned for the blog in the coming weeks:

• I'm currently working on replacing my gaming tables and I'll have a tutorial on how you can make two 4'x6' tables for under $100
• Farseer Frank has agreed to come back from his Craftworld and report on his first tournament experience at Conflict GT
• I'm planning on converting a Space Marine Drop Pod to a Dreadnaught Drop Pod from this awesome article that was posted by There is Only War...
• I'll have some more conversion tutorials as I continue to work on my Razorbacks and move on to my Sanguinary Priests

Next time, I'll jump right into another tutorial and show you how to convert a lascannon and twin-linked plasmagun turret for a Razorback. See the pic for a sneak peek.

Till then,

–The Harrower