Hammer of Daemons

While the Grey Knights range - and indeed my army - have been reinforced with power armoured troops, dreadnoughts, huge walking thingies and the like. There has always been just one true pattern of Grey Knight. The Grey Knight Terminator.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that these are my favourite terminators in general circulation (the space hulk ones are my favourites). They're just so well designed, the poses are natural and if you pick the right componants in the right places they're dynamic too. Like the power armoured lads, their details are crisp and nicely cast - the script on the shoulders and knees is excellent - and their weapons look even more badass than the power armoured chaps are! These have actually been hanging around for a while, painted before my wrist started hurting again but lacking a couple of highlights and basing. So I finished them off! Lets take a closer look at some of them.

As with the power armoured ones, the daemonhammer is the only slightly disapointing pose. It always looks a little "weak". I know the huge shoulders cause them posing difficulties but slung over a shoulder or planted on the ground might have looked better. I went for "turned sideways urging the men into battle" as the only viable option. Nice, but not as nice as:

These two are awesome. The two handed grip on the haft coupled with the moving feet makes for a lovely dynamic pose. The one on the left seems to be shifting his weight ready to step forward with his right foot and pivot through it to deliver a savage chop. The one on the right, winding up to strike with the butt-end of the weapon, driving his target back to open room for a chop or stab. It is this sort of thought in sculpting - and careful experiments in dry fitting and part selection - that can make or break a miniature. So many of these models end up looking a little stiff or awkward where a few moments work experimenting with rotating waists and altering head positions can make all the difference. Stand up and get into the pose the model is in. If it is not comfortable or stable then the model will always look awkward. It's why models with poorly sculpted centres of mass look like they are falling over. You know instinctively where a body should be to be stable.

The psycannon was a tiny conversion. I didn't like the passive arm it is designed to go on, I wanted a much more action-packed pose. By trimming some bits to help the fit I was able to get the cannon on to the aiming arm and by putting it on one of the braced pairs of legs I was able to give a nice impression of the Grey Knight lowering his weight, bracing himself and then letting rip with a savage volley of gunfire. Seemed to work!

You'll notice that I talked about posing a lot this time rather than painting. Two reasons why, first, I talked about painting these guys extensively in the power armour article and not a lot has changed since then. Secondly. I really believe that we overlook posing at our peril. Too many of us race through assembly and into painting to get them onto the table. Well, the best painting in the world will not change a bad miniature. You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. When the miniature is a solid, totally sculpted one then you kind of have not a lot of choice. When it is parts that you assemble and pose yourself? You are doing your collection a great disservice not to spend just ten more minutes experimenting and acting the prat standing in poses. Heck, we spend enough money on them. Lets make 'em good. Until next time folks.

TTFN

The Black Crusade Completed

It is done! All five of Grandfather Nurgle's drippiest terminators are complete and will be posted off to join the Black Crusade this afternoon! Lets take a look at the last three:

I spoke extensively about the painting methods for these lads in the previous post. Thus I'll just pull out the interesting bits of these three to showcase.

This chap is an example of how thinking about assembly can create a sort of theme in the model. In this case the repeating eye of horus motief on the shoulder and chest.

The aspiring champion of the unit needed a little more to subtly differentiate him from the rest of the unit. The central trophy rack - with skewered Blood Raven helmet - helped but I decided to add some design work to the loincloth. The open, drooling mouth is an old Nurgle transfer that I trimmed to remove as much carrier film as I could manage - sharp blades for the win. Then with copious amounts of MicroSol I gradually softened and dissolved the carrier film forcing the printed region to conform to the shape of the cloth. Finally I added some Seraphim Sepia to kill the very white transfer.

Love those lightning claws, so crude and brutal. I oiled the exposed workings with a couple of layers of brown ink. Also quite chuffed with how the freshly severed hand came out.

The last of the Puppetswar plague warrior heads was a doozy. This poor fellow is in the process of developing the face of a plaguebearer. The gods bestow their gifts uncaringly after all. I love how this was sculpted, the nose seems to have collapsed inward leaving room for the eyes to merge into the classic plaguebearer cyclopean orb. The teeth have sharpened and the classic single horn has erupted. The original brow ridge and facial architecture is still present. Very cool. I adjusted my usual skin painting to include a thin wash of Athonian Camoshade to create a greenish tinge.

I was so torn about the big skull shoulder pad. Part of me wanted it brass, I couldn't see any justification for bone so in the end I just left it rusted! Worked for me.

And so here they are! Proper bad ass terminators. If you want them then there is still time! Go to the Black Crusade website and contribute. You'll get an entry for every $1 you donate.

Well, that's all from me, next week we are on holiday but I have two posts scheduled and ready to go, just have to rely on Mulder to push the button. See you in a week folks!

Hmm, Mulder doesn't seem to be concentrating on posts...

TTFN

Black Crusade: Forward, for the Grandfather!

Greetings all, today - in somewhat stark contast to last post's Harlequin Troupe Master - we look at a pair of completed Black Crusade Nurgle Terminators.

In my previous posts (Assembly and rusting) I talked about the parts I used and their posing and also mentioned the rusting and basic weathering so I will brush past them and just take you around some of the key features of these delightful gents.

I've always, always loves this chainfist. Just such a brutal design, it is specifically built to catch the opponant and pull into the body for maximum damage. The double edged construction also means he can strike on the return stroke as well! I've added some brass detailing to break up all that rust. The new brass tones are lovely (Warplock Bronze base, Brass Scorpion highlight and Runelord Brass second highlight) and a quick wash of Sotek Green and White Scar mixed in roughly a 2:1 ratio gives a nice verdigrised finish.

That chaos marine champion headon the terminator bodies works very nicely. I debated for some time about which chapter to skewer on the trophy rack. Imperial Fists or White Scars would draw the eye from the face, Dark Angels, Crimson Fists or Black Templars would blend with the armour, in the end good old Ultramarines was a smart choice, the cool blue contrasts the warm greens and browns without leaping out too much. Speaking of leaping out, the lenses needed those brass rims as the green lenses dropped into the background without them.

Lord alone knows what is leaking from that bag on the trophy rack. I'm thinking loyalist proganoid organs to corrupt and implant in new Death Guard. The insignia is an old transfer which I applied using my usual method (see tutorials above).

A nice shot showing the final colour of the armour. This was achieved entirely with streaky glazes of shading washes, specifically: First a fairly comprehensive wash of Athonian Camoshade over the Vallejo Grey-Green. Once this has dried I applied streaks of Seraphim Sepia making sure to "stump" the streaks (feathering the edges with a clean damp brush to prevent ugly tide marks). Finally very thin streaks of Agrax Earthshade gave texture and depth. This, on top of the scratched rust showing through from previous stages left a lovely deeply textured finish.

The bases are Secret Weapon Bone Field 40mm bases which were kindly donated to the Black Crusade project. After painting the earth Dryad Bark and the skeletons, well, bone, I added copious amounts of water effects - these bases have a raised lip to contain water effects - and stirred in thin streaks of my blood mix (3:1 red ink to chestnut ink), Athonian Camoshade and brown ink to add colour, depth and the ewww factor.

Speaking of the ewww factor his friend has it in spades. This is one of the Puppetswar plague warrior heads and they look great in place. This one has some aweful form of necrotising fasciatis eating away the skin of his face while leaving the poor sufferer alive. Ick. Several thin layers of blood mix and then some mixed 2:1 with brown ink for older blood made a decent job of it.

Decent shot of the exposed, rotting brain (add grey to a pinkish flesh tone and then liberally wash with blood mix, I'm a Biomedical Scientist, I like to get these things right... don't judge me!) and of the severed hand dangling from the waist.

And then yaay, more copse parts! This chap was painted with a 50:50 mix of Ratskin Flesh and Rakarth Flesh with more Rakarth Flesh added for highlights, then treated the same way as the exposed skull.

The ranged weapons were painted black to add a little more colour interest to the models. I painted them in a stippling fashion leaving the edges rusty to give the appearance of chipped and flaking paint.

Finally another Secret Weapons Bone Field base, this one with more room for water. I like the finish this achieves, reminds me of the plague swamps encountered by the Sons of Horus in False Gods.

So, two down, three to go! Should have all of them done by the end of the week and then pack them up and send them off to Black Crusade central. Like what you see? Why not contribute to the charity drive and win them!  More soon folks.

TTFN

Black Crusade 2012: Work in Progress

Hello to all you lovely people, thought I'd share with you my progress on the Black Crusade charity event. My contribution is some Death Guard Terminators, I've just finished the kitbashing so here they are:

All the models are based on Secret Weapon Miniature's Bone Fields bases which they kindly supplied to the entire project team. I don't post much about this phase of painting and modelling so I thought I'd write up my thinking as to how these were posed and why.

When posing a large, heavy weapon trooper you either want the model in a strong braced pose or manoevering a weapon. Firing on the move poses don't really work for weapons of this size. To add a little more visual interest and to mark the models out as Nurgle I added one of the severed arms from the zombie kit and a Puppetwars plague warrior head. Decided to use the one with half his head missing as the damage is on the left. In order to bind the pose together the eyeline of the head would have to follow the line of the gun barrels. With the head turned to the right to achieve this you will be able to clearly see the damage.

As an alternative to following the line of the gun, you can have the model posed as if scanning for targets. Or spotting a new close target and starting winding up for a strike with the axe.

If you are left with a fairly static pose and there isn't much you can do about it, resist the temptation to do something like having a weapon randomly waving in the air. Often looks more Saturday Night Fever than Last Samurai... Instead, have the warrior posed passively and use kitbashed (mixing parts from different kits) elements to add visual detail. In this case a Terminator Lord's chainfist and a shaved down Nurgle champion head should do the job.

When you do get a chance for some dynamism though, grab it with both hands! One of the advantages of the moulded bases is that you can put the model a few degrees off centre. Combining that with the walking legs adds a sense of motion. Having the storm bolter levelled and in firing pose with the head in the right position makes it look like laying down covering fire as it advances. Imagine the head glued straight forward on the torso, instead of firing it would just look like it was waving the gun around instead.

Another kitbash, the Terminator Lord lightning claws are massive and thus present their own posing problems. Instead of allowing the claw to swing all the way back I kept them in front of the hipline. This gives a look of a large model "hustling" rather than running. As this was to be the Aspiring Champion I needed a way to mark him out of the unit. A personal icon pole and the Terminator Lord helmet helped this.

My general rule with posing miniatures is that the position of the heads and waist joins determine much of the realism of the pose. Care must be taken with this to bind the position of the weapon arms with the rest of the body. Too often you see stiffly standing models waving weapons around like flags or not looking the way the guns are aimed. Daft, in other words. To help this, the head is ALWAYS the very last thing I glue on to finish the model.

So, posing over, painting next I guess! Until next time...

TTFN