The End Times...

So, last week a thought crossed my mind.

It was the day after Christmas, and it was one of the most Games Workshoppy ones my lady and I'd had in a while.  I’d already been hit with a financial crunch, but really... by seventh edition I’d lost most hope for the game.  As I’ve mentioned before.

Eighth edition has really rekindled my love for 40K. And I’d already been having this ongoing fling with Age of Sigmar, so it was kinda the best of both worlds.  And my girlfriend’s okay with it as long as she gets included sometimes (I'm a lucky guy).

So this Christmas was some Death Guard and a core of Stormcast Eternals for me, while she got the core of a shiny new Arkanaut/ Kharadron force (she’s had her eye on the steampunk dwarves and their airships since they first showed up). 

There was much rejoicing.

But it got me thinking about building a lot of this stuff.  And the tweaks I still need to make to my Death Guard so they’ll fit this brave new millennium we’ve entered into.  Plus some Primaris I have left to build.  Really, there’s a ton of additions for the Relictors that have kinda piled up.  And the core of a Seraphon army that I’ve been collecting for ages...

That’s a lot of stuff to work on.  And not a lot of time.  Especially since I’m really pushing to get two new books done in 2018.

When you also consider that I barely managed to post twelve times last year...and only nine times the year before that.  Trying to do any sort of noteworthy project, document it, and write up semi-useful directions takes up a fair amount of time.  Plus, there hasn’t been any real response on anything in about two years, and even then it’s not like there were long lines of people waiting to share their thoughts.

So... I think I’ll be shuttering this blog. I won’t be so extreme as to delete it—there’s still plenty of advice here for conversions and Paperhammer models.  Plus the models themselves in the STC files.

I may still post something now and then, too.  I’ve got a scratch-built Ogre Tyrant that I put together for about six bucks.  Some updates on my cheap Legion of the Damned.  And I’ve been toying with building a cardstock version on Witchfate Tor.  Maybe even get some of these Paperhammer projects finally done and painted...

I may put some new stuff over on my just-as-neglected Relictors blog. It’s a little less instruction, a little more of my musing about the game and the chapter and my take on them (and how my models fit into that take).  And I'll continue to do stuff with the Atomic Warlords (for as long as they'll have me).

So, to the three of you who still check this page every other month or so...  thanks. If you have any interest, I actually blab a lot about geeky stiff on Twitter and Instagram. Maybe I’ll see you there.

The Emperor Protects.

New STC Data Discovered

Just a quick post this time.

As has been noted, I haven’t added the templates for the past few projects into the STC archive.  Sorry about that.  There were some password problems, now resolved.

(and, as a reminder to myself, the new password is now in the original document for this post...)

Anyway, everything should be current now, including templates for the promethium pipes and the Kroot tents (there's a whole Scenery folder in the archive now).  I’ll try to be a lot better about keeping it up to date.  Maybe even pre-updated, so the templates are uploaded before I start new projects.

Over the next few weeks, I’m hoping to finish off an old project that’s been sitting here for... well, about four years waiting for final touches.  Maybe dabble with some cheap or easy conversions.  A few tricks and techniques.  And I’m going to get back to a basic Paperhammer tank.  Something to deal with all the Knights and Gargants.

Kroot Encampment

Very sorry for the long delay.  As mentioned before I had copyedits. And then I was a guest at New York Comic Con.  And then I came home to a week’s worth of emails and messages and it turned out my publisher already had layouts done.  And all of that finally got squared away... well, yesterday.

Anyway...

Some of you may remember this little tent template from about fifteen years back.  Games Workshop actually just gave it away on their website at one point, no strings attached.  I went looking for it but couldn’t find it anywhere there.

(For the record, it should be up in the STC archives shortly after I post this)

This template was originally designed for the Kroot.  There’s a large one and a small one, but they don’t look that different side by side.  I think it might be a 1/2” difference, tops.  Even on this scale, that’s not much.

The template’s pretty solid and can be built as-is with no problem.  I put together five tents (two large, three small) in about two hours.  That’s printing them out, gluing them to some old frozen pizza and cereal boxes, cutting them out, and assembling them.

It’s goes together very easily, too.  My only suggestion might be to make the tab on the tent body a bit wider.  I scored the corners, pre-folded, and then clamped the tab with a few clothespins.  I let those each tent body sit for about ten minutes as I assembly-lined through them.

I glued the entryway and the front panel together as a separate piece.  I tried this template back when it came out and this is where I had trouble with it.  I decided to assemble this first, then attach it.  The tabs fit in the slots, then I folded them over and glued them for extra stability.  Again these sat for about ten minutes each with  a clothespin holding them together.

Once they were dry, I glued the flaps of the front panel, set the tent body over it, and wiggled it until everything was in the right place.  This helped me make sure that entrance sat flat on the ground and didn’t end up “floating.”  Again, maybe ten minutes for the glue to dry.  I didn’t glue them on to bases, but really any irregular piece of foamcore or cardstock would work.

Helpful Hint—If you want to do a cardstock base, stack two or three layers on top of each other, glue it, and let it dry under a stack of books for at least half an hour—preferably longer.  Wrap it in wax paper, too, in case glue squeezes out onto the books.  This will give you a heavier and much more solid base that won’t bend or flex when things dry on it.

Here’s a large and small tent side by side.  As I said, not much difference in size.  That’s a pretty solid little Kroot camp, though, and three or four can cover a good-sized space on the gaming table as an obstacle, objective, or whatever you want to use them for. With the assembly line and drying time, I ended up building four tents in just over an hour.

Now... let’s look at some options and variations.

I wanted to make the tents look a little more unique and handmade, and I remembered something from way back when the Ogre line was first released for Fantasy. There was a great article in White Dwarf (remember those days?) about how to scratch-build oversized yurt-like huts for an Ogre village.  And there was a great detail idea in there...

Get a paper towel or some textured paper.  Or get some better cotton paper (dollar store envelopes work great), crumple it up, smooth it out, and repeat until the paper has some fine texture to it.  Then trace out some simple “pelt” shapes on the material.  They don’t need to be exact, but I try to average most of them closer to 1” long.  I glued these around the tent at a few places to help hide seams and add to the “primitive” feel of the whole tent.  The texture contrasts the smooth cardstock and will look like fur or hide when it gets painted (in an appropriate color).

Helpful Hint—When you’re gluing the pelts in place, don’t put the glue on the pelt or the tent.  Put it on your finger and wipe it on the tent that way.  This will keep it from getting too thick and wet and soaking/flattening your material.

Helpful Hint II – do not do what I did.  Some of you may have already noticed the material in the above picture is actually toilet paper, not paper towels.  My paper towels had a very distinct linear pattern to their texture, so I decided to use a few squares of toilet paper.  Problem is, toilet paper’s made to dissolve once it absorbs... well, not much moisture.  So once my pelts touched the glue they turned into... well, mush.  I managed to salvage them, but it ended up taking me almost twenty minutes per pelt.

Save yourself a headache.  Do what I say, not what I do.

On a more positive note...  I didn’t do it, but it’d also be easy to cut a small opening off the top of the tent and put some round toothpicks up there as tent poles.  Just flip the tent over and glue the toothpicks into the interior creases.  It’s a tiny detail, but it’ll look really cool and makes the tents look even more handmade.

The Imperial Guard... sorry, Astra Militarium... use tents, naturally.  I’d just build the template as-is so they look more mass-produced and use a color scheme that works for your army or whatever scenery you use often.  Jungle tents, desert tents, arctic tents, or just a flat-looking canvas.  With such a big expanse of flat surfaces, it’s an easy place to practice your camo painting, too. 

Once that’s done, there are so many decals available to make this look Guard-issue.  A large aquilla or a few stencils pretty much sell it.  You could make a larger scenery piece by putting two or three of these in a row as if they were in-the-field barracks.   Or base them individually and just set them up that way.

They could also work for traitor Guard, naturally, but you’d want different symbols on the tents.  And maybe lean even more toward the primitive.  Perhaps a blood splatter or three.  And there are tons of skulls and ruinous symbols on the Chaos Marine decal sheet.

What about the Tau?  It makes sense that Fire Warriors would have temporary housing of some kind for exploration missions, but I’m sure the Earth caste wouldn’t send them out with something as flimsy as fabric and poles.  So what about using this template as a sort of pre-fabricated, lightly armored outpost?

It actually wasn’t hard to do this.  The two different sizes of tent are identical except for the scale.  I printed up one of each size and built the large one as is.  While that was drying, I cut up the small tent into its individual panels.  I mostly wanted the sides of the tent body and the top two panels from the entranceway.

Each component was centered on the corresponding panel of the larger tent (remember, it’s the same template) and glued in place.  Once they were all attached, it gave the whole thing kind of an “armored” look that made it feel more assembled.  Giving it a bright color scheme will make it look more like hard plastic than fabric.  And, again, a few spare decals will look fantastic.

Last but not least, if you’re a Fantasy/ Age of Sigmar player, I’d imagine a tent like this would work for a bunch of armies.  Brettonians peasants and Empire troops would definitely be sleeping in simple tents, if they had anything.  So would Chaos Marauders.  Even Orcs could manage something simple like this.  So they’re a quick set piece for lots of armies.

Tents. Fast, cheap scenery for almost any setting, almost any army.

Promethium Pipes

I have to admit, I like that scenery is a lot more interactive now in Warhammer 40,000.  Different buildings have slightly different rules, bunkers are more durable than office buildings, statues can inspire, and all that.  Just recently we’ve seen the Plasma Obliterator (limited edition, already gone) and the promethium pipes (not limited, but also already gone).  It’d be nice if Games Workshop made something besides Imperial scenery, but... well...  You can’t have everything.

Where would you put it?

Anyway, for no reason whatsoever... I thought I’d show how you can build some great refinery/ pipe pieces that’ll cost you, well, pretty much nothing if you have some really basic modeling supplies and a few empty boxes.

I stumbled across these basic templates in a scenery pack five or six years ago.  This led me back to the creator’s DeviantArt page, where taerSliver (his spelling) had created a few more options (including a horizontal bend, a T-intersection, and a double support).  I’m also going to try to get all of them up into the STC Archive in the next couple days (there’s some kind of recurring error happening at the moment).

I decided to build some basics and printed these out two each of the basic pipe length and the ground pipe.  They look a little complex on the page, but I was impressed how well they quick they went together.  The two ground support pieces took about an hour to mount on cardstock, cut out, and assemble.  Once I started folding it,  taerSliver’s template became clear and easy to work with.  I built the bottom first, sat a spare bottle of glue on it while it dried, and then folded the top over and used the bottle to hold that in place, too.

Next was the actual ground pipe.  This is probably the most complex part out of all the different components.  There are regular and inverted folds, and on some of the underside points they’ll actually triple up.  This piece requires the most time and patience.  It’s complicated to cut out and most of the joins require you to just hold them—it’s not possible to get a clothespin on them.

Helpful Hint—There is no actual bend to the underside of this piece.  It’s a right angle.  I wasted about ten minutes assuming taerSliver had left off a fold line or two.  The template’s fine—just assemble it as directed and be amazed by the optical illusion.

The pipes themselves are very simple octagons, just like a lot of the gun barrels, engines, and towers I’ve made in the past.  Once they were scored and glued, I clamped them and let them dry for about ten minutes.  One nice thing to consider is it’s very easy to extend or shorten these if you’ve got a specific layout in mind you want to build.  Either cut the template short, double it up, or just extend the lines as long as you’d like.

The other support was very simple.  It’s not much more than a box with two angles at the top.  Again, it went together without any challenge.

There’s a plug piece as well. This gives the pipe a bit more solidity, and also a surface to fasten the pipe ends to the supports on either end. I didn’t build them for this example, but they’re good to use if you want to make this whole thing rock-solid.

And that was pretty much it. I’d built two groundpipes, two regular pipes, and two supports in a little over three hours.  That’s from printing them out to dried and done.  Well, done as they are on the template, anyway...

I decided to toss on a little more detail.  I used my 1/16" hole punch to make a bunch of rivets, and these gave me some nice texture.  I almost put a little control/ monitor panel on one of the regular supports.  They’ve got tons of room for such things.  And once this was painted, it’d be very easy to add on tank decals and such to the pipes.  Numbers, aquillas, warning signs.  These templates have so much empty space it’d be easy to load them up with whatever details you want.  You could mount the whole thing on a piece of foamcore and have a great, solid scenery piece that matches up with a refinery or fuel depot or whatever else you may have in your collection.

I joined these pieces up so you’d have a sense of what it looks like.  I also realized, at this point, I’d had my printer settings off and these template were a bit larger than they should’ve been. Maybe about 10-15% larger.  Even then, that would make these about chest-to-neck-high on a Space Marine.  If you wanted to get these very close to the GW Promethium Pipes, you’d probably want to print these out at around 80% normal size.  This will make that ground pipe really nightmarish to assemble, but it’ll be worth it.  In fact, on that scale it almost might be worth doing some of  these components on heavy paper rather than cardstock, but that’s going to depend on your own tastes and comfort.

Imperial Knights, Part IX

So, much thought was had about how to do the armor plating on the Knight’s legs.  While the current GW model has a single large armor piece over the shin/calf area, this paperhammer model has a pretty elaborate set of sections that go around the leg.  I debated trying to merge them into a single piece, but I didn’t feel confident that I could do it in a way that would look good (and that I could re-create here).  In the end, I decided to simplify.  I’d do the two big side pieces, the knee, and the front ankle, but not the back sections.  That would match up a little more with the GW model, too.

I added the armor supports for the upper sections.  They’re the oblong boxes on pages five and six of the template. 

Helpful Hint—the boxes attach so their small/short end is at the top.  This is important so the armor ends up angled in the right direction.

I also added one of the longer supports for the front ankle—it sits between the two armor supports, but its top lines up with their bottom edge.  The angle on this one is steep, so it’s a bit tricky getting it in the right position.  Patience is important on this one.  I held each one for a good six or seven minutes while it dried.

 

However...  this left some empty sections around the ankle.  This is one of those models where a lot of detail is “printed on,” so not adding the armor (or its support) would mean, well, a hole in the detail.  I decided to make up for the lack of printed pistons by adding real ones.  Or, at least, something close to real ones. 

My first thought was round toothpicks, but I decided pretty quick they’d be too small.  Small coffee stirrers might work, if I could find single ones somewhere (instead of the double-shaft ones).  Inspiration came from my girlfriend’s garden bag, where she had a bunch of bamboo skewers she used for marking plots and making small frames for seedlings to climb. And these came from the dollar store, so they’re still keeping this project cheap.  I used two of them and cut sixteen pieces (eight pairs), each one 1” long.

I arranged these so they lined up between the armor supports.  The front ones went on either side of the support for the front ankle armor.  A dab of glue on either end held them in place.

Then it was time for the armor itself.  First off was what to use.  Again, this looks very complex, but mostly because (as mentioned before) the template assumes you’re just working with paper.  All of this is supposed to be doubled up.  But since we’re working with cardstock, I only needed half of these pieces.  And only one of the eight ankle pieces (since front and back are identical).

I gave each piece a gentle bend around my utility knife.  That’s the knee, the ankle, and the two large sides.  The large sides got more of a bend, because they need to go around the entire leg.

Helpful Hint—If you look at the lines for the side pieces, you’ll see they’re not straight up and down.  That’s because the side armor flares out (like huge, 41st Millennium bellbottoms).  So putting a bend in them involves moving the knife shaft across the piece and bending along each line individually.  Don’t roll the whole thing around the shaft or nothing will line up later.

Then I attached the ankle armor.  This one was tough, because the support’s angle makes it hard to put any pressure.  It’s another exercise in patience.  It also sticks out just a tiny bit more than I’d like, but not so much that I feel the need to tear anything apart.

I took the small box that’s supposed to be the kneepad support and cut it into four parts.  I layered these together to give me a spacer that was about 1/8” thick.  Once it was dry, I glued it right below the knee joint.

And this made the legs pretty much armored and done.

Which meant it was time for the best part... weapons.

The design on this cannon is kind of magnificent, to be honest. As I mentioned, it’s made around the all-paper idea, but it still works great in cardstock. Simply put, the designer made the barrel and details all one piece.  I cut it out, wrapped it around the hobby knife twice to give it a good curl, and then glued the main part of the barrel (where the tab lines up).  I put some clothespins on this and let it sit for a while.

Once it was dry, I wrapped the rest of the detail work around the barrel.  Normally I try to go easy on the glue so nothing slips, but here I went a little heavy just for that reason. I wanted to be able to slide the cardstock a bit so I could make sure things lined up.

Helpful Hint—Pull these pieces very tight.  It’ll make the whole piece more solid and it’ll also help all the seams line up as much as possible (which makes them easier to hide).

The co-axial heavy stubber barrel goes together the same way.  I gave it a curve on the knife.  I glued the main section together and then, once it was dry, I wrapped the detail around.

Helpful Hint—Because this barrel is so narrow, I had to fold the tab in half.  I couldn’t bend it enough for it to fit well inside the rolled-up barrel.  You may want to trim it with a hobby knife.

The body of the cannon is a simple box. Rather that cut out the three circular vents for the back, I just used my 1/4” hole punch to make three discs.  They’re slightly smaller, but it’s so much easier and faster... I decided I could live with that.

The cannon also has a “hood” of sorts that fits over it.  The extra section actually folds under the hood, so when it’s in place the front edge is double-thick and has a small ridge underneath it. This ridge will but up against the box when they get put together.

There’s a big magazine for the cannon. It looks a little complex, but it goes together very easily (alas, most of the detail here is only printed on). Just remember to score the top half on the opposite side, because it’s going to be a concave bend, not a convex one.

(yep, I’m bringing geometry into this...)

I glued the hood onto the main body.  Once it was dry, I added the magazine to the bottom.  I also punched out two more 1/4” discs and used those for detail on either side of the cannon. 

Helpful Hint—If you’d rather have a Knight Errant with a thermal cannon, there are lots of titan models out there with other weapons options.  You could use part of the melta cannon from the  Warhound Titan template and I don’t think anyone would question it.

Next up is the chainsword. Which we will get to... next time.

Imperial Knights

I have to be honest.  This was on my list for sometime in June or July, probably after this new book was done and turned in to my editor.  But Games Workshop seems to have forced my hand, and it’d be silly not to work on this right now when everyone’s interested in such things.

Not to mention if I can show how to build a half-decent model for ten bucks or less instead of $140, well, I think that’d go over pretty well.

I’d also planned to do two—a loyalist and a Chaos one, but now I think I'll just stick with loyalist.  I doubt GW will do Chaos rules without building any actual Chaos models.  Partly because of the whole Chapterhouse thing, partly because... well, Chaos gets screwed a lot.  Sad but true.

Anyway...Imperial Knights.

This is a great little template I found through the BWC group on Yahoo a few months back.  You can join up there, and I’ve added it to my own archive as well.  Feel free to grab it and follow along.  I’m also probably going to be doing a few small changes and tweaks along the way to bring it more in line with the new GW model.  You can ignore, improve, or mock those changes as you see fit.

Also, this template’s in full color—intended for the paper to be left on—but I’ll be building it from card and peeling the template off (as I usually do).  This may result in a need for more detail in some places, but I think it’ll all work out fine. 

Let’s get started with the basics...

I printed out two sets of templates (in black and white, just so there's no confusion) and I glued one set onto bulk cardstock (a.k.a. frozen pizza and cereal boxes).  The other set is a spare for possible accidents of detail pieces as they become necessary.  Or if this goes insanely fast and I decide to build another one.  Not likely, but I'm trying to think positive.

I decided  to start right on page one with the main hull/ torso.  I gently rolled the piece around a thin bottle to give it a nice curve for that “beetle back” look.  I’ve used this technique before for small detail pieces on engines or weapons.  This is the same thing, just on a slightly larger scale.  It's a bit trickier and takes a little more work, but it makes everything so much easier I think it's worth it in the long run.

Helpful Hint—I want to make sure I only roll the back/top of the hull.  If I put a curve in the side pieces, it’s going to make assembling this section a pain.

This section is going to take a lot of work to make it all fit well.  I spent almost an hour on it, working each tab to make sure they were solid.  I didn’t want to rush it and have it popping apart later.  It really is the core of the whole model, so it needs to be solid.

Helpful Hint—I didn’t close the hull quite yet.  I left the last panel, the bottom, free so I could reach in and apply counter-pressure when adding a lot of these detail pieces.

There’s also a small detail piece—a box—on this first page.  It sits right between the bases of the engine stacks, more or less in the small of the Knight’s back (there's a clearly marked spot for it on the template--I love it when people add stuff like that to their designs).  Assembling the box is very straightforward and I glued it in place with no problem.

Helpful Hint--This little box is one of the first places you might have tab issues.  They're snug here, so if I've leaned a little too far one way or the other while cutting this piece out, the tabs won't fit together well.  Always remember--tabs aren't seen.  They can be trimmed, cut down, or even removed if you think there won't be a structural problem.

Next up are the engines themselves.  All the tabs make these look complex, but they really aren’t.  There’s only two tabs that actually connect to assemble each piece.  The rest are to attach it to the back of the hull. 

Also, just like on the hull, I want to curve these pieces, but I don’t want to curve all of them—just the section that’s going to wrap around and be the engine housing.  These are a little bit tricky because they only hold together at the very top and bottom.  If there's not a really good curve, they're a chance they could splay out in the middle and cause problems later.

There are three big vents on each engine.  After a bit of debate, I decided to cut them out for extra detail.  I did all the cutting before I assembled the engine.  Once it was together, I curved another piece of card for some backing and it glued it inside.  Wipe off the excess glue and it looks great.

I used my 1/4” hole punch  and added a disk to the bottom of each engine stack.  It replaces some of the 2D paper detail.  Plus it looks good in that semi-circular section.

There’s also a 2D Mechanicus logo that goes between the two engine stacks.  I held off because I didn’t want to create any problems on the off chance the stacks didn’t fit well—I didn’t want to end up with a weird overlap.  And as it turns out I was right to hold off.  As I worried about above, the engine pieces are splayed out just enough that the logo won’t fit.

I like the general level of detail, though, so I played around and found something round to trace that fit the space (an old Warhammer fantasy shield--you may need your own object depending on how yours turns out).  I also added another 1/4” disc at the center of this piece.  It doesn’t look like the logo, but it looks a little more like the “engine core” on the GW model.  It’ll probably look even better when I hit the rivet phase.

More next week.

Standard Template Construction

In the couple of years since I started this page, I’ve noticed that a lot of Paperhammer resources on the web have... well, folded.  Some archives have vanished altogether.  A few of the ones that have stuck around have become a bit more insular and less likely to let in new folks.  So I decided I’d set up a little archive and share a lot of what I have for anyone who needs it.

A few points, just to be clear.  I didn’t create any of these templates.  All along I’ve tried to give credit where credit is due, and if you ever spot something of yours here that you don’t want out in the world, just say the word and it’ll be gone (I'm big on creator's rights).  The flipside of that...everything here is available somewhere else on the web—a huge amount of it is at the BWC Archives—so please don’t complain if you can’t find anything new here.  This also isn’t everything I have (not by a long shot), but that’s a deliberate choice. 

Y’see, I think this is kind of a unique (or very rare) resource.  Pretty much every model I’m sharing is something I’ve built here at In The Grim Cheapness of the Future.  From the bare-bones Rhino to the Baneblade, from Ork Kans to a Necron Monolith.  So you can grab a template you like, browse the cloud on the right, and see step-by-step instructions for how it goes together.  There’ll be hints, corrections, and suggestions to get the most out of each model.  And a fair amount of photos for every step.

So, please check it out, let me know if I missed something, and I’ll keep adding to it as I work on new projects.