Now That I've Lured You In With A Cat Picture...

I'm not above exploiting my kitten painting buddy for site traffic.

But really, this post isn't about how cute my foundling kitten is. No, I've had a horrible case of conjunctivitis for the last week (bad enough that I missed three and a half days of work that I could ill afford) that pretty well prevented me from painting; or doing much of anything requiring sight, for that matter.

Now that I'm better, I'm raring to make up for lost time. A month or so ago I ordered the Iron Hands tactical squad from GW. I'm not making Iron Hands, but I wanted to use the bionic bits as prosthetics for the Marines Cruor Dexter and I needed another tactical squad anyway. I am imagining them as having been nearly destroyed in a Dark Eldar retaliatory sneak attack, and I wanted some way to show that they were war-weary and hardened without resorting to battle damage, which I am in general not a huge fan of (although, to be fair, I have seen some excellent Imperial Fists that have nearly changed my mind).

Why Dark Eldar? Well, assuming that they actually do get a new Codex, there are sure to be plenty of DE armies sprouting up for me to get destroyed by... I mean... blow off the table. Also, it's an excuse to paint up Dark Eldar prisoners as objectives.

Ooh la la. Hopefully they cast up some new ones, too. I know there's a gag there about objectifying women, but I digress.

For those of you who haven't seen the Iron Hands tactical squad, it's a regular plastic Tactical Squad plus a blister with some metal Iron Hands pauldrons (9 for your basic troops, and onefit for a Sergeant, all useless to me), 2 torso fronts of dubious bionic-ness, 2 bionic right arms with bolters, 2 bionic left arms in generic "Here, hold this bolter!" pose, 1 bionic left arm brandishing a thunderhammer (which, after a quick glance at the Codex, I won't actually be able to use on anything but an Assault or Vanguard Sergeant), 5 funky bionic heads, and 2 sets of cybernetic legs. It's really not a bad buy, considering it was only $15 more than a regular Tactical Squad. Considering the price increase it's an even better buy now- a Tac Squad is up to $37.25 from GW DIrect, but the Iron Hands squad is still only $45.

Anyway... I needed more. Considering the pieces I could use (arms, torso fronts, heads, legs) I only had enough bits to make 13 Marines with prosthetics, and that's stretching it awful thin with only 1 bit per marine.

Frank Zappa being the mother of invention, I decided to try to split the cyber-legs in two and combine them with plastic tactical legs thereby doubling my pleasure hardship and doubling my fun heartache.

Lacking any real modelling skill, I had to position the plastic feet on chips of rock bulked up with greenstuff to keep the models from leeeeening way over.

I'm happy to say that I am not too disheartened by the results. I'm pretty sure these guys with the bionic legs will stand head and shoulders above the rest...

...literally.

Songs in the Key of WAAAGH! Red Fang- Prehistoric Dog

Never mind how hard the song rocks (like brass, that's how hard), the important thing is that they make armor out of their empty beer cans.



I mean, really. How Orky is that?

Just Enough of a Good Thing

Much grass to sonsoftaurus and bi0m3trics for encouraging me to stick with my guns on this AoBR Dread. He's still not quite done (You know how I roll... slowly), but at least I have an idea where it's headed, and I like it.


When I paint a new type of model I'm always full of self-doubt and indecision. I'm glad you guys commented on the first pic of this guy and convinced me to do what I knew I should be doing.

I love the internet. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy sometimes.

What Work Hath Wrought

AAARGH! Lost my dang post. Don't you hate it when that happens?

Anyway, here's a Scout-Sniper that I painted over the Memorial Day weekend. The week that followed that was a total hobby bust, but I suppose that happens to everyone now and again.







And here's a closeup on the skull-and-wings. I went for a natural bone look, to represent a muted version of the usual gold, never mind that the whole thing got covered up by his rifle.



I can't believe I lost that whole post.

That thing was sure to win me a Pulitzer...

I Want You To-

Here's a quick post. I've been trying to force my thoughts on the recent price increase into something more like a post (and less like a fortune cookie) but every time I tried it just wound up being a rambling, incoherent stream-of-consciousness wordamajig.

Obviously, that's not the way to go about it. Bear in mind, I'm only recently returned to the hobby after a near-decade long absence so I don't see this as one price hike on top of another; to me, it's just bad timing on my part that I'm getting back into a hobby right before the supplier feels the need to raise prices. C'est la vie, no biggie. It's a hobby, I can opt to spend the money or not.

But there's one thing that does really bother me about GW raising prices, and here's a simple exercise that many (perhaps most) of you can do yourselves.

I want you to grab a Tactical Marine sprue, the one with the helmeted heads. Now look at the horrible mould misalignments and tell me that GW has any business raising prices on kits that haven't been redesigned (or even had new moulds made) in who knows how long.

You want to introduce new kits at higher prices? Fine, that's to be expected. Shoot, if you want to retool the olds stuff and raise the prices, I'm cool with that, too. I'm not upset with your prices, GW... I'm upset with your manufacturing quality.

Songs in the Key of WAAAGH! Motörhead- Iron Fist

A little Rock 'n' Roll to start your Wednesday right.



Let's face it- Lemmy is the vanguard of an Orky invasion.