Pathetic Excuses Post

This spring has turned into a whirlwind for me, and (as usual) modeling and gaming is what’s taken the hit.   I wanted to be working on a paperhammer Destroyer by now (I’m going to need it), or at least some Tyranid scenery (also paperhammer—it’s going to be great).

Pretty much all I’ve managed to do is prime a few things.  But I thought some of you might like this—it’s the Imperial Knight I made last year.  I don’t put up pictures of painted things that often, and I know sometimes it’s easy to write off paperhammer projects when they just look like... well, cardboard.  But even just a basic coat of primer shows how great these models can look.

I’ll put up a few more shots as it gets some color on it, but I wanted to give you a look at it right now.

And next time, I thought I could go over some basics before diving into that Destroyer.

Gaming on the Cheap

It’s the new year, so I thought I’d post a few quick thoughts about this geeky blog and... well, what I feel like I’m doing here.

Yeah, I know.  I don’t do much here.  Very funny.

Anyway, on one level, this page is pretty straightforward.  Miniature wargaming can be an expensive hobby.  Bare-bones entry level can be over a hundred dollars, and that’s not even talking glue, paint, or time. A few years back I hit a long stretch of poverty—not imagined-poverty or slight-belt-tightening, but actual how-do-we-pay-rent-this-month poverty?  It was a really bleak time, made more so because my absolute favorite hobby went from a big part of my life to completely unaffordable in about a month.

Then I found Paperhammer.  It’s like finding the light of the Emperor, just... cheaper.  I’d worked in the film industry for a bunch of years as a prop guy, so I had some passable art/craft skills.  I dug around online (using the internet at the library) and found templates for Rhinos, Land Raiders, Baneblades, Monoliths... even Titans.  And there are some great templates out there.  Almost identical to the company models once they’re painted.  Suddenly 40K was affordable again!  The big expense was white glue and paper for the printer.

Alas, while I’ve managed to claw my way back into the middle class, I know there are still some folks who haven’t.  Worse yet, Games Workshop’s prices have skyrocketed over the past few years.  Thirty dollars per figure?  Fifty dollars for bare-basic tanks?  I remember when $150 would pretty much get you a solid army—and that wasn’t so long ago.  Now it’s a lucky thing if that same $150 can round out your Heavy Support choices. 

So being able to build a lot of these models on the cheap means keeping the game open and available to a lot more folks.  That’s a good thing.  And I’m glad to share my tips and experience with you.  Read another way, I’ve screwed up so you don’t have to.

On another level, though... The hobby part of this game doesn’t just mean buying the boxed set, putting it together with company glue, and painting it with company paints. In fact, there was a time when said company encouraged creativity and offered tips to players who couldn’t afford to drop a lot of money.  Making terrain out of cardboard and styrofoam used to be a regular feature in White Dwarf  articles.  Black Gobbo ran a great piece (remember Black Gobbo?) showing how to mix parts from a Basilisk and a Leman Russ to create  a very passable Salamander and Destroyer.  Heck, I remember when the Ogre line was first introduced for Fantasy, White Dwarf ran a whole article about how to convert Hero characters from basic ogres (just in case you couldn’t afford the big metal models.

(I’ll touch on this again in a few weeks)

Thing is, I like making my own models and scenery pieces.  I enjoy it.  I’m proud of the fact that I turned three Tony’s Pizza boxes into a very solid Imperial Knight and some bargain-store Halloween decorations into multi-use scenery.  I like being able to turn some random pieces I dug out of my local gaming store’s bitz bins into a unique and impressive Captain for my Relictors or a character for an Age of Sigmar game.

So, that’s that this is all about.  For me, anyway.  Making the game accessible to a lot more people and giving those people a chance to do something a lot more personal and unique with the units in their army.

If any of that interests you... thanks for being here. 

I’ll try to be semi-interesting.

Warm Liquid Goo Phase

Austin Powers reference.  Only eighteen years late...

I know one question a lot of people have about paperhammer stuff is “but how durable is it?”  We hear paper and think of fragile origami birds and the soaked, floppy newspapers we just primed some models on.  Nobody wants to spend two or three long weekends building something that won’t even survive getting painted, let alone moved around the tabletop for one game.

Speaking for myself, I almost never build with paper, always with cardstock.  So the models I’m building are very rigid and solid in that sense.  Some of them I even reinforce a bit more with very simple supports.  Everything I’ve ever shown here at In The Grim Cheapness of the Future... is pretty close to its plastic counterpart as far as sturdiness goes.

But there is another process I take some models through.  It adds a few bucks to the final cost, but makes for an even sturdier model in the end.  Behold...

This Imperial Knight might look like it got wet, but I’ve actually given it a coat of thin superglue.  The glue soaks into the cardstock, dries, and the resulting material has the  consistency of plastic.  I try to hit all the joints, broad surfaces, and the points that are going to get bumped on a regular basis.

Helpful Hint—make sure you’re using thin superglue, not regular and definitely not the thick, gap-filling stuff.  It needs that watery consistency to flow smoothly and soak into the cardstock.  Thicker glue will just sit on the surface and form blobs or runs.

Now, a word of warning.  The superglue will make all the surfaces rigid.  If there’s some coarse or ragged spots where the cardstock peeled or a paper template didn’t come off in one piece, the glue will make them like that permanently.  I’ve used this to my advantage a few times, turning those rough areas into patches of rust or battle damage (on the Plaguereaper, for example).  But if the end result’s supposed to look super-clean, it’s worth taking some extra time with a hobby knife to scrape and polish all the surfaces.

 Helpful Hint II—Thin superglue gives off some powerful fumes.  Hard to believe I know, but... they’re not healthy for you.  At all.  When you start a project like this where you’re going to use a lot of glue, make sure you’re either outside or in a well-ventilated area.

A bottle of thin superglue is about five or six dollars, depending on where you get it.  I used about half a bottle on the Knight, maybe 3/4 of a bottle on the Plaguereaper, and a whole bottle for all the different Gargant components.  Add that to the dollar or two that some of these paperhammer models end up costing (or even the higher Gargant price tag), and you’re still getting a fantastic deal on a model that would usually be $75 or more.

Gargant X-Ten

One last, quick post to show some basics with the painted gargant.  It’s by no means done, but I wanted to give the seven of you who follow this (thanks for sticking around, Mom) a quick idea of how it turned out.

So, first things first...

  

Helpful Hint—Foamcore and spraypaint do not play well together.  The aerosol will eat away at the Styrofoam(TM) like acid and make things, well... a lot less stable.  Always coat and/or cover exposed foamcore.  Several times while I was building the gargant I would either add cardstock edging or coat exposed foam with white glue.  And even after all of that, I went back and covered most of the foamcore with black acryllic paint.

Don’t let all your hard work go to waste!

Once the acrylic paint was dry, I primed the arms, shoulder weapons, and head.  Then I traded them out and did the assembled body.  It’s worth noting this ate up a lot of black spraypaint.  About a can and a half.  Used up all the black I have and there’s still some unprimed bits below the skirts. 

Once all the black had dried, I did a very light dusting with the silver-aluminum paint I normally use on my Necrons.  Since this model is so big, the idea was that the dusting would act a bit like drybrushing and give me a bit of metallic texture across some of the big, wide spaces.  Alas, it didn’t work quite that way, mostly because it was very easy for “a light dusting” to become “Ork tagging” if the can got just slightly too close.  It isn’t horrible, but if I could do it over again... I’d probably skip this step.

I also used the silver spraypaint to give the jaw, horns, and deffkannonz a good base.  They’re all going to end up some version of steel/gunmetal, so this was a way to get ahead quickly.

I let these base colors dry for almost two hours and then dove in with some other colors.  I painted the big skull icon blue to tie the gargant to my DeathSkulls.  I also made a few random panels on the sides and back blue as well.  They do love painting things blue to show ownership.  What do you mean, one of the Goff gargants went missing a few hours ago?  I find your insinuation insulting, sir.  Highly insulting.  It reeks of low character...

I did some dark red on all the rokkit tips and covers.  Eventually there’ll be some brighter red over that to make them really pop.  Maybe a few ork glyphs, too.  And names for all the supa-rokkits.  I also used the red on that little “horn” at the center of the head and to pick out a few engine details.

I used a bunch of brass and some old Tin Bitz across the engine, the megakannon, and the gaze of Mork.  I drybrushed it onto about 80% of the rivets, which made them stand out a bit against the dusting of silver spraypaint.  Also used it on the “hydraulics” of the bamboo skewers on the arms.

For the record, this was the stage that convinced me the silver spraypaint had not been the best idea.  It did give the gargant a nice, metallic sheen, yes.  But one thing I discovered is that on this scale detail can vanish against the sheer size of the model.  That “dusting” is lots of tiny dots of silver, so a lot of the rivets are almost invisible against it—one brass dot in a cluster of ten silver dots.

Might be worth mentioning that I bought a little pot of GW’s “drybrush” paint and, well, it really did nothing for me.  Maybe I just got a bad batch of Necron, but I felt it really clumpy and overly dense.  I haven’t been terribly impressed by any of the new function-specific paints—bases, drybrush, and so on—but that may just be me. I’d hoped to use it on the remaining rivets and weapons.  All things considered, it’s probably worth adding another ten or fifteen bucks just for paint to the overall price tag for the gargant.

The last touch before marching off to the Labor Day war was to paint the faceplate white.  Yeah, I know it looks a bit silver in the picture, but it’s classic Skull White.  This is another visual link-up with the color scheme of my Stompa.

And that was all I had time for before the Imperial Guard and the Blood Angels showed up with a Knight company backing them.  But you can read about all of that over at Atomic Warlords, and learn how the gargant was dubbed Great Morkzinga.  I’ll probably still do a lot of touch-ups and more detail work, so expect to see it again in the future.

Next up...  a smaller project.

Flayed Ones, Part III

 Wanted to post some of these ages back but with the holidays and other stuff, I’ve just been swamped.

Speaking of which—new book comes out next week from Broadway Paperbacks.  Ex-Purgatory, fourth in the Ex-Heroes series.  Check it out in whatever format you like from your preferred bookseller.  It’s a (hopefully) fun read and you can passively support this page at the same time.

Anyway, Flayed Ones.  Now in color.

As I’ve said before, I’m not the greatest painter, but here’s what worked for me.  I primed them black and then hit them with an aluminum chrome spray paint I’ve used on all my Necrons.  It’s quick and fast and I like the shine white-silver shine it gives them.  I’ll probably take these guys down a bit with a drybrush of Boltgun a.k.a. Leadbelcher.

These are just base colors, mind you but hopefully they’ll give you a sense of how the whole thing will turn out.  I added Abbadon Black on the thighs, upper arms, and spine.  The skin’s all Kislev Flesh, but I’ll be making some distinctions with my next pass.  I dabbed the last of my red gore on the mouths and also under the ribcage, as if all the blood and flesh is leaking down through.  I also ran a bit of it along the edges of the skin flaps and on some of the blades.  All the assorted skulls and bones got a base of dark flesh.  I also realized most of my browns have dried up...  Good thing I'm going to the store tomorrow.

Skin is like a beer label.  The goal
is to get it all off in one piece...

With my next pass I want to add some brighter blood.  I’ll drybrush the bones, too, and bring the bases in line with the rest of my Necrons.

Next... I’m going to try to push my plastic models over to the Relictors page I set up, so here I can focus on the Paperhammer Destroyer I want to try.  Mostly because I’ve wanted to do it for ages and (if rumors are true) I might get it done just as GW releases a plastic model for it.

Painted Stuff

I’ve been having some camera issues which have slowed down posting about my latest project.  But I have been working on stuff.  Honest.

In the meantime, I thought I’d share this quick shot of that Necron Cryptek I built a few months back.  I’m still going with Dagon of the Shadowed Matrix for a name.  Figured it’d give a nice sense how he turned out.  I got some basic colors on him – I’ve mentioned many times before that painting is not my strong point—so he could go up against Marc’s Tau. 

Which would’ve gone great if I hadn’t jumped the gun with said Cryptek and split my forces too soon...

Ah, well.  At least Marc took some good photos for the Atomic Warlords page.

Cool scenery project hopefully up by the end of this week, and then (getting back to basics here) I start work on a new paperhammer tank.

Big Slabs o' Meat Update

I just thought I’d toss up some shots of how the Grotesques ended up looking with a little paint on them.  Here they are with just two or three colors each.  Please keep in mind, I’ve said many, many times here that painting is not by strongest suit (in fact, I'd ask you to remind yourself of that quite often on these pages).  I’m also using up the last of my old paints, so feel free to grab the Citadel conversion chart if you want to follow along...

First, though, I wanted to show off this one last guy (who's still waiting on a perfect head).  I mentioned that I was going to go with two squads of four most of the time.  This is my other Aberration, the one who’ll probably end up with my ancient haemonuclous, Pyn (last week’s guy with the scissorhand will be with Rakarth most of the time).  Like all the Grotesques, he got a pile of spare vials and cylinders, and like the other Aberration he got one of the spare Talos racks to help mark him out.

I wanted to give him a venom blade to go with his close combat weapon.  It’s a cheap way to give an Aberration a little more punch in close combat.  I tried a few different things (including the blades off old Dark Eldar rifles) before I settled on these.  They’re some of the spare fins from the new Raider sets.  In this guy’s hands, they look like curving knives, which is perfect.  The pommel of each knife is actually an old Space Marine dagger.  I cut off the hilt, then cut the blade so its back sat against the guard.

So, as to painting... I primed the Grotesques black and then based their skin with Fortress Grey.  The next step will be a drybrush with Pallid Flesh and a very light brush of Skull White.  The loincloths will go red to tie them in with the rest of my army (I went with the Obsidian Rose Kabal color scheme).  Yeah, it's not much so far, but I just wanted to give a sense of how these guys would look with some paint on them.  

It’s worth noting that their pants are essentially just painted on.  The uneven texture of the Rat Ogres gives the appearance of ragged material, and once there’s a dark gray drybrush on some of the “bandages” at the ankles and thighs that’ll really sell it.  A wash of Nuln Oil should give them a semi-glossy, leathery appearance.

Hopefully next time these guys are seen, they’ll be doing awful things to Marc’s Orks.

By the way... I’ve lucked into a very nice contract with the Crown Publishing Group, but it does mean I’m going to be very busy for the next couple of months.  I’d hoped to do a paperhammer Destroyer Tank Hunter this month and maybe start a Warhound before the end of the year.  Alas, the Warhound’s definitely not going to happen now, and I might not get to the tank until the end of the year... and someone just tempted me with a new Thunderbolt template.  But I’m going to try to keep offering all my cheapskate ideas and tips on a semi-regular basis.

Watching Paint Dry

Hey, just a quick bonus post for all of you to consider...

With the huge new paint collection from Games Workshop, I’ve been going through my paint box and figuring out what I need more of (and what it’s being called now).  I’ve also been discovering a few older paints that have gotten a bit rubbery, or openly dry at some times.  There was a point that these paints went right into the trashbin.

Then money got tight.  And I got thrifty.  And I was already clever, so...

If you’ve got rubbery or dry paint, try this.  Use your hobby knife and make a lot of cuts through it.  The drier it is, the more you want to break it up.

Now add in a few drops of water.  Let me stress—drops of water.  If your paint is rubbery, you’ll probably only need around five.  If it’s very dry, you might need ten or twelve.  Maybe as many as twenty.  Then put the cap back on tight and shake it hard.  Shake that little paint pot like it was a can of spraypaint.  At least a hundred times back and forth.  Let it settle for a minute and then shake it again.

This probably isn’t a terribly new idea to any of you, and I can guess what most of you are thinking.  It’s not going to help.  There’s a good chance the paint will be too watery for fine detail work, probably too coarse for broad coverage.  Once paint passes a certain point, it’s just dead.

And you’re right.  This won’t help me do camo patterns on my Catachans or their Sentinels, and I definitely don’t want to use it on that pair of Necron Scythes I got for my birthday. 

However... it’s fine for their bases.  In fact, for bases, terrain, and some scenery pieces, this restored paint is perfect, because these elements are almost never the focus of attention.  All those different greens, browns, and grays can be used for different plants, soils, and stones.  Various blues can make fine water in moats or rivers.  If these colors end up too watered down, they make great washes.

It’s texture and it’s cheap (since I was thinking of throwing it out anyway).  So when your paint isn’t good for your primary pieces, think about some of your background pieces before you send it to the bin.

Now I’m off to finish the Crypteks.