Necromunda Underhive Zone Mortalis terrain - pt.1

Shortly after the release of the new Necromunda Underhive, a company called Deathray Designs produced an mdf set of walls/corridors to use on the boards called Deadbolt's Derelict.

I managed to get a set during last years Black Friday sales at a cheaper price, shipping was insane though. But it' is a very nice set and I really wanted that claustrophobic feel to my Necromunda tunnel fighting.

I've been working on the kit a little here and there between other projects and they were finally fully constructed recently and waiting for the paint queue:

These are the corner columns with the holes that anchor all the walls together.

The single wall sections, notice the hooks that lock into the columns above.

The double wall sections, with all sorts of industrial detailing.

I actually broke the very the very last piece I was removing from the frames, it was the only one that didn't separate easily out of the entire set. I'll just hide the damage with a load of rust texture.

I've kept all the refuse from the frames, thought they might come in handy for detailing any scratch built terrain in the future.

I've only had experience working with MDF terrain kits once before. And that just so happened to also be some Necromunda terrain that I made for a local games club.

I remember the MDF being very thirsty on paint and soaking it up like a sponge. I got some advice in the comments back then about sealing the terrain first with a P.V.A/water mix.

But there are an awful lot of fine lines and detail on these kits and I didn't know if the glue mix might fill some of the said detail. So I thought I'd experiment with satin varnish to seal the pieces before priming:

I use this brand of varnish through my airbrush regularly with no problem whatsoever, so I thought I'd give it a try.

First coat of varnish on the pieces upside down to get under the details so I don't miss anywhere.

I'm just letting that first coat dry while I write this, so I can flip them over and give them all a coat from the top.

Once I've made a bit more headway and got the primer down, I'll update and report how the varnish worked as a sealer.

Well... Looks like everything is almost dry now, so going to get back to it.

Until next time, take care.

Great Unclean One, my completed model, construction and inspiration.

So I completed this miniature quite recently as part of my Maggotkin of Nurgle army that is currently in progress (well and 40k too). And it's been shared in various places already I was just waiting until I'd cleaned up the blog before sharing him here.

I got the miniature when it was released and was just completely blown away by it. Just an absolutely wonderful kit to work with.

It just so happened that as I was starting to work on him that Helge Wilhelm Dahl decided to host a Great Unclean One competition over on his awesome blog, so this gave me much impetus to get the project finished with a deadline.

There were a lot of amazing entries, some of which I followed during their construction in various places across the web, take a gander at the gallery of entrants and while you're at it give Helge a follow if you don't already:  GUO Competition Gallery.

As you can see that was a beautiful bunch of miniatures and art showcased there, the winners were announced shortly afterward: GUO Competition Winners.

I didn't place, but it was a wonderful thing to be a part of and two of my favourites did place and very well deserved. 

But I'll stop the ramble, here is my rendition of the Greater Daemon of Nurgle in all his glory, I'll be going into my inspirations and construction after the images:

My first White Dwarf and a Chaos Renegade Terminator Centaur

This post is kind of a follow on from my previous one about hobby motivation.

A while back I found myself tired of all the projects I was working on at the time. I was still very much wanting to do something hobby related, just not on anything I already had on the go.

So I decided to treat myself to another quick fun hobby project while my creative drive was buzzing.

I found myself flipping through art books and old magazines for a bit of inspiration, when I happened upon my very first issue of White Dwarf magazine.

Issue 123, March 1990. I do love this issue still, it really was one of the things that pulled me deeper and interested in the miniatures hobby after the release of Heroquest the preceding year. I recognised the Games Workshop logo on the magazine when I was in the newsagents at the bus station. My Grandfather bought me it to keep me occupied during the journey and long wait times.

I was spellbound, Orcs and Goblins, Space Marines, Titan Legions, Waaagh the Orks! This issue probably has a lot to do with my big love of Greenskins. And more importantly there were some absolutely fantastic full colour pages of peoples miniatures that I just couldn't stop poring over.

I may have to write another article that is a complete review of this issue and the wonderful colour pages that enthralled so very much as a child and stayed with me.

but probably most significant to this post, it was the first time I'd ever encountered a word that really stuck with me... Conversion.

This post is regarding specifically the one in the image above. A Chaos Terminator Centaur conversion by Nick Reynolds. I'd always loved it and over the years I'd always wanted to make my own. But for one reason or another I never had.

This was perfect for a quick little project, to finally recreate my own version of a much loved conversion from my youth. Not an exact copy, but something inspired by the concept.

And here's what I managed to do:

When all said and done I really enjoyed this quick project and he lives in my cabinet at the moment. I've not really had any ideas about using him in game.

I'm really happy with how the textures on the armour turned out, the battered leather and the look and colour of the base. I wasn't completely happy with how the sword turned out, but hey. It's all the process. I made this as a bit of fun and overall it came out pretty much how I imagined it, so I'm still happy with the final result.

Until next time, take care.

My Hobby Progress of 2018 and thoughts on hobby motivation

I just read a really interesting article by JB/Asslessman over at his blog Leadplague. The post in question: Hobby mojo or how to make the best of our hobby. I recommend getting your butt over there and reading it and if you don't already follow JB, why not you weirdo?

I guess this is kind of my own personal response to that article.

For a quick summation, in it he discusses hobby motivation, the use of terms like "hobby mojo" and "hobby burnout", in what is essentially a past-time meant for enjoyment. And he mentions how partaking in said hobby is a choice and shouldn't feel like a chore and highlights ways he keeps his motivation going in his own hobby space.

In my comment on the article I mentioned how I believe those terms can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people and what I usually mean by them. After stepping away a combination of the thoughts provoked by that article and that were stirred up after my own comment were still ticking over and I needed to write them down.

I think what that combination did was make me look hard at my own perspective on my hobbies. I do tend to get very critical of my own hobby work and output, which garners me a lot of flak from my partner and friends looking in from the outside.

I had even said on a recent Instagram post I was coming out of a "hobby drought" when I posted a w.i.p. of something. And again this ties to JB's article, but mostly on my negative head-space. Was I really going through a hobby drought? No, not really after thinking about it.

I'd made the choice to put my hobby work on hold to organise and clean up my hobby space (and the blog) so that when it was done I would be able to concentrate more on my hobby projects and get more efficiency out of my work-space.

So why the negativity? Why make it seem I was unable to do hobby work against my wishes when it was me that had made that choice to begin with?

I think the answer to that is, it's all a matter of perspective. If you'd asked me a week ago:
"How is your hobby work/output going?"
I'd have responded:
"Terrible, I've ONLY completed 1 miniature this year and I've done nothing else..."

But... My perspective has changed since reading that article and writing that comment. I looked around me and thought "But I haven't done NOTHING else, that's just blatantly not true, let's make a list of what I've been working on since the beginning of 2018!"

And here is that list:

Miniatures: (all built 2018 unless otherwise noted)

Fully painted:

1 Great Unclean One

Paint in progress:

1 Poxbringer Herald of Nurgle (carried over from 2017)
60 Nurgle Plaguebearers (carried over from 2017, 40 built 2018)
6 Plague Drones of Nurgle (carried over from 2017, 3 built 2018)
9 Nurgling Swarms (carried over from 2017)
1 Tree Monster (carried over from 2017)
1 Beastclaw Huskard on Thundertusk
1 Beastclaw Thundertusk Beastriders
1 Death Guard Plague Surgeon
5 Death Guard Blightlord Terminators
3 Myphitic Blight-Haulers
1 Canoness (carried over from 2017)
10 Sisters of Battle (carried over from 2017)
15 Chaos Cultists (built 2016, pulled out of storage and back into the painting queue)

Tentacled Beast - A Creature Collaboration

I posted the images of this creature on Instagram and Facebook some time ago.  And I just wanted to go into a little detail of how it came about.

My friend Jess from over at Neon Pink Apokalyse and I, have known each other for somewhere around 25 years or thereabouts.

We met through the hobby at our local Games Workshop store and have been long time opponents and allies on the tabletop and real life... Or something like that... We've traded and gifted miniatures over the years, sometimes whole armies! Just to trade them back again later down the line.

But other than raiding each others bits boxes for choice parts for whatever we were working on at the time, we'd never collaborated or made anything together. And this basically came about out of a mistake purchase.

Jess had been after a Karanak the hound of Khorne and knew that I had been too, so she put some speculative bids on a few on Ebay and ended up with three. One for her, one for me and the last one... :

Jess: "What the heck do I do with this one?"

Me: *looks at it for a few moments* "Well... You could lose the heads, carve off all the Khorne crap and give it a face full of tentacles and just have it as a random beastie..."

Jess: "That sounds awesome! Do you want it?"

Me: "Nah, not really. Not something I really need right now. Why don't you do it?"

Jess: "I'd like to, but I don't think I could pull it off properly..."

Me: "Well... I could do it, pretty simple really... How about I make it, you take it home and paint it for your collection?"
Jess: "Yeah! Alright then!"

And there you go, the really underwhelming moment we agreed on our first miniature collaboration. And here it is: