The Left Hand of Doom

OK, so maybe Hellboy has a right hand of doom, but Entombed walked the Left Hand Path...

Yep. I've not been updating this old blog all that much recently. Been a bit busy doing other stuff which has mainly included not enough drinking and not enough curry, along with a stray bit of skateboarding.  "But dude, you're nearly 35!" I hear you cry.  Yes, and I still paint toy soldiers as well.  When I get the chance at least!!

Something rotten on Okassis...

Strange silhouettes flit through the smoky ruins and a stench most foul pervades the very atmosphere itself.

What hope can there be for mankind when the lost and the damned stalk these rubble-strewn streets?

something a bit different - here's some hefty tomes

So, I thought I'd write about something a bit different to gluing loads of monsters together for a change.
The Mrs will be well pleased. Not writing about Warhammer can only enhance my street cred.  Yes, I actually had some once, and everything.

I digress...

Back to the matter I wished to discourse on, I have come into possession of a fair few tomes in recent months, some of which were Christmas gifts, and others that I managed to pick up from charity shops, Ebay and the like.

This one is quite special to me, and is the book that is the deep seated root of my inevitable downward spiral into becoming a near total spazz-nerd.  I found this edition in a charity shop on Putney High Street a couple of weeks back.  It's a 1966 edition, and at the time it would've set you back 8s & 6d, according to the cover.  What's remarkable is that this is the very same edition that my dad gave to me a 7 year old way back in 1984.  So I was made up when I found this. Two quid. Victory to the Maher.  I'm particularly enamoured with the original concept sketch on the cover of the death of Smaug. 

Anyway, next up is a snap-shot of my 'To Read' pile:

Yep. This lot should keep me occupied on my journeys too and from work for the foreseeable.  

It's become a bit of an aim for me to try and read as many of the titles in the Fantasy Masterworks and Sci-Fi Master Works series of books.  I've read a couple before, namely Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep by Phillip K. Dick (uhhuhhuhhuh, he said 'dick'), which is way beyond good, just in case any of you haven't read it before.  If you don't like reading, a) don't panic, there's not many pages, and b) I suggest you kick your computer screen in so that you won't have to read my rantings and ravings any more.  I also read (after years of persuasion from my dad) Rendezvous With Rama by Arthur Clarke.  I thought the quality of writing was good, and he had some nice ideas and all, but the complete lack of conflict in the story kind of left me scratching my head a bit.A good enough read and all that, but it did not inspire me in the slightest to pick up any of the sequels.  I can well imagine it was way more thought provoking back in the day (1972) when it was originally published.  Anyways, reading those two, as I was saying, inspired me (in a very lazy way) to check out other stuff in the collections.  If you feel interested, here is a link to the wikipedia page for the Fantasy Master Works series of books, and another to the SF Master Works if you want to see a list of titles.  In the picture above you can see a couple of them, including Fevre Dream by George RR Martin, which is going to be the next thing I read, and The Book of the New Sun volumes 1 & 2.  People on the internet keep insisting I read these, so when I saw them for a couple of quid in a charity shop the other day, I thought I may as well grub them up. Word.

By this point in the post, it's likely people have stopped reading, and may not even care that much, but below is a picture of what I'm reading at the moment:

These are like a collaborative sequel to Raymond E. Feist's original Riftwar saga, which was set on the world of Midkemia (a typical Middle Earth rip-off), but very enjoyable nevertheless.  These ones here are set on the world of Kelewan, which is on the other side of the Rift.  It's almost like a feudal Japan type setting, only with sentient insects and all the animals have 6 legs.  And the sky, obviously, is green.  I'm currently on the 3rd book (yes, the one with the cheesy painting on the front that makes it look like a lady's book), and I have to say, this series is far superior to the original Riftwar trilogy.  if you for some mental reason want to find out more about these go to the Wikipedia page

If you made it to the end of this, I thank you for your patience and your indulgence.

Possessed Death Guard marines - in progress

This weekend I've managed to get some modelling done.  Some of you may recall that a few weeks back I posted up a couple of pictures of an idea I'd had for some possessed marines for my Death Guard army.

Well, I managed to find the time to do a bit more work on them, including one that I managed to build completely.  Behold the dread apparition that ripped it's way through Tim's penal legion yesterday evening.  All they did wrong was fail to dedicate enough care and attention to maintaining their kit and weapons.  The next thing they know, they've had a sound bollocking from the local commissar and found themselves in the vanguard and a whole world of manure...

Bleuuurrrr. I want to eat your pancreas with some acorns.

I once met a dude with even worse teeth than this.

The situation at the moment is that I'm in need of a selection of suitable right arms to help finish off the other four.  I've got a couple of ideas, but we'll see how we get on...  As it is, I've added in legs from the loyalist marine assault squad, and fixed the heads in place using a mix of super glue and green stuff.  Well, here they are. Warts n'all.

Don't look them in the eye. They'll only get angry.

These were great fun to mess about with.  I reckon I'll be adding more soon...

Death Guard marine with plasma gun revisited

I'll be surprised if that hunk o' junk can even shoot...

So bit by bit, I attempted to follow Deadestdai's advice and put a glow effect on the energy coils of the plasma gun.  Never tried this type of glow effect before and I'm not entirely convinced I've got it right, to be quite honest.

I've tried to give the glow a purple tinge in an attempt to be in keeping with the purple in the helmet lenses. Part of me is thinking it looks OK for a first attempt. Part of me is thinking "that's the same colour as Windolene".

Anyways, this guy is pretty much done.

Work in progress Death Guard marine with plasma gun

This one's been taking a while.  Where does the time go?

Thought I'd take another opportunity to post something up as it's been a while.  This guy had been partially completed for a few weeks, so thought I'd take the time to do a bit more on him this morning.

I've added in a bit of purple on the helmet lenses. Not sure how strongly it comes out in the photos, like. But the colour seems to contrast well with the rest of the model (cheers for the suggestion, Tim!).  Thought I'd see what other people thought before I added it in to the models I've already been working on.  So please comment. And it's fine to say it looks crap or whatever. Which it is possible that it might.

As I was saying, this is a work in progress and I've a few more bits to do on him yet.

Hopefully I will be feeling a bit better tomorrow, as currently feeling too thick-headed to concentrate very well.  Thanks, man-flu.

Test pieces 27th Feb 2012

Some spare chaos marine shoulder guards I found laying around seemed like a good place to start on  attempting to use colour theory in my Death Guard scheme.

So, the last week or so has been a total write-off for one reason or another. Which I probably shouldn't go into, but I love moaning. So moan I shall, in a minor way.

This week, I'd hoped to get painting sessions in most evenings. This did not happen. My cunning plans were ruined.  Instead, this week has mainly featured some mentally long working days and man flu.  I've been feeling pretty rotten and tired.  It was very rubbish indeed.

Minor groan over with.

Anyways, above is a picture of some spare chaos marine shoulders which I finally got round to working up as a test piece.  Earlier on in this blog, I've probably mentioned hoping to try and learn something about colour theory.  So it seemed like I should get some purple into my colour scheme somewhere.

So first off, in the top part of the picture are some Chaos aspiring champion shoulder guards. I'm working on a Nurgle army, so obviously I had no reason to use the other three for anything.  I started out with a thin base coat of Tin Bitz and then gave it a wash with Leviathan Purple, and left it to dry. For about a fortnight (Thanks, busy life).  The one at the top left has been left in this state so as folk can see it.  From there I painted on Knarloc Green in a patchy covering on the raised parts, so that some of the base coat showed through.  Finished off with a 50/50 mix of Knarloc Green and Gretchin Green thinned out with Vallejo's Thinner Medium (invaluable stuff - you need this in your life).  White bit done as usual. Mix of Dheneb Stone and Vallejo Off-White and Thinner Medium.

The stuff at the bottom is worked up from a different method.  Nothing ground breaking, obviously.  Base coat of  Knarloc Green.  Washed over with Leviathan Purple. Again the white bit was done as above, and again I used the mix of Knarloc Green and Gretchin Green which I attempted to put on roughly.

The state of greeness that I've left these in is a bit different from what I'd previously been doing, as it's brighter and sharper as opposed to the mouldier green finish I've put on to the full models further down the blog.  I'll add in the mouldy green later.