Phenomenal Nid Conversion Bits

I'm still out in the black, and all of GW's recent foolishness seems to be keeping me soured to the hobby (I was shown a COMPLETED shot of a new, plastic Eldar jetbike by someone in the studio in 2006 or 2007, and yet the recent Eldar release still features the same plastic bikes that we've had for more than 15 years. The company is clearly in it for the money and not for the models.), but this simply MUST BE SHARED with Nid players.

Get. This. (Genestealer Cult Rules)

Kids,

I'm still out in stasisland, but I wanted to make sure no one missed the opportunity to download this new rules set from the Tempus Fugitives for the updcoming Second Tyrannic War Campaign. Sure, they are only house rules, but since I've always been a fan of the Cult, I eagerly collect any and all semi-official Genestealer rules documents.

What's more, in the current age of Games Workshop's Oppressive Online Regime (maybe I'll write more on that later, but it is the prime reason for my existential ennui when it comes to The Hobby these days), I don't doubt The Company will be seeking to get these rules taken down, whether they are for an independent event or not. Thus, you should grab them while they are grab-able.

Here's a link to the event page:
http://tabletopnation.simpletix.com/Event/16/WH40000-Second-Tyrannic-War-18/

Here's a link to the campaign document/experimental ruleset:
http://www.tempusfugitives.co.uk/pdf/40k/2TW%20Pack.pdf

How to Sculpt Miniatures 5: How to make spines/Spinal Columns (Video tutorial)

Folks had requested that I expand my How to Sculpt Miniatures Series into a video format (hence the "(V)") so that they could watch me apply the kinds of stuff I wrote about in the articles. This was a somewhat-hurried first attempt that PinkPonny and I shot the other day.

Love is a drug, but my Lady prefers Polymorphetamines

Here's another guest post from the PinkPonny, but you should already know that since it contains a model that has actually been painted ;). On the surface, the following is an article about painting a Callidus Assassin. However, delve a little deeper, and you'll find this is another angle on something that I touched on in my Wisdom of the Norns article about balancing The Hobby with relationships.

Well... Have you heard of Deadpool? He’s a Marvel comic character, he says silly things, sometimes he’s a villan, sometimes he’s an anti-hero? Yeah, that’s all I really know about him. Still I had this Callidus assassin floating around for upwards of ten years. One day I just looked at it and realized this model had the same face as deadpool (and spider-man, for that matter).

Deepthought: Accommodator (or, On the Life of a Friend)

This is a hobby editorial. I went to school to become and try to make my living as a writer. Though I love the hobby, and I'd like nothing better than to sculpt all day, posting amazing things on here for all to ogle, there are times when the urge to write strikes, and I try to use these interludes to delve deeper into important parts of the hobby. I hope you find the following article interesting, and I promise to get back to posting cool models soon!

When I started writing this, it was titled "On the Death of a Friend," but then I realized that, were I in your shoes, that is not the type of title that would inspire me to read an article. Thus, I changed it, and I like it better already.

This is an anniversary of sorts, i guess, though it's hardly a thing to memorialize. This is the 3-year anniversary of the death of a good friend of mine, who went by the name Ross Nickle under the sun and the stars, but who was known as Accommodator in the digital world of posts and threads. Ross was most active on the Tyranid forum Warpshadow, and for the years when he was as our administrator, that board ran like a well-oiled machine. You may have run into him on other boards as well: particularly those that had anything to do with Titans and Titan Legions.

Like the passing of Brimstone (for those of you who can still remember Brimstone), Ross' death was an odd thing. It happened once in Real Life, happening to families and friends and co-workers. But then it happened again Online, weeks later, when the news was released to the communities. And in those communities, that news spread further than it ever could in Real Life, for over these information superhighways we touch more lives than we know.

If you knew Ross online (as Accommodator), you may not have known him as well as I had the fortune to in Life. As an attempt at remedying any disparity, I am finally getting around to this: something I've been meaning to write for some time. In it I hope to capture the Ross that I knew, and I hope to further fill out the Ross that you might have known. I'm not sure why it came to me now, but here it is.

Project Pyrovore

Howdy!

I can't remember where the conversation took place, but somewhere along the way I was talking to someone about how very useless Pyrovores were in the current Tyranid Codex incarnation. We were joking that about the only thing they seemed to be of any use for was to function like Banelings from Starcraft.

Put them in a Mycetic Spore, drop them in the middle of some marines, and hope that they fry a couple before they get shot to shit and are forced to detonate.

...Except, they can't even be relied upon to do that as they'll only blow if struck by a weapon that insta-kills them, and then only on a 4+.

Useless.
Utterly so.

A Proper Parasite Engine

That's no parasite.

THIS is a parasite!

Okay, so, the Talos model is phenomenal. I love the damn thing, which should be apparent from all the bits from it that I've used in my Wracks and Grotesque conversions. The only reason I haven't modeled a Talos yet is that, for me, there is no challenge to it; nothing needs to be improved. You take that model out of its box, assemble it, bog-standard, and you've got a work of art!

The Cronos Parasite Engine, however, is another story. I understand that they needed a secondary model to build out of a Talos kit, but for me the fluff doesn't match up with the suggested model that is built off the Talos kit. You've got this PARASITE that feeds off the SOULS of its victims, repackaging the unused lifeforce and beaming it out to other nearby Dark Eldar models. This thing, as far as I'm concerned, is the single GRIMMEST unit in the Dark Eldar codex. It gives me chills up my spine the same way the Doom of Malantai did when I first read its fluff.

Cheap 'n Easy Shrikes

This is my attempt to make cheap 'n easy winged Tyranid warriors. It's an older project that I'm rolling out again to get it finished off. I was inspired to go this route because one of my mad ideas (other than a full Coven army) is to have a full warrior army. To do that justice, I would need me some winged warriors/shrikes, but I want more than wings tacked on a warrior model!

So, on this attempted return to Tyranid Tuesdays, I'll be showing the work I've done so far on converting shrikes out of--mostly--spare bits.

Coven of the Unmarred

Despite having started as a commission for another modeler, this little Coven that I have been working on has colonized ever growing parts of my heart and creative mind. Commission or not, the initial concept for it was an original one, and my plans for it go pretty far beyond the limits of the commission I entered into.

Thus, on this first Flesh Friday in a long while, I’m going to attempt to explain out the concept and background I’ve come up with for the Coven. But, before we get to all of that, we need to address one thing: the Coven’s name.

I call them The Coven of the Unmarred.

Tyranid Archive: Birth of the Bugs

 

It's been nearly a year since my last Tyranid Archive post, and it's likely time for another, so welcome back to Tyranid Archive Wednesdays!

This is a repost of scans that were sent in to Faeit 212 by Deejay, but for the sake of the completeness of my Tyranid Archive series, I wanted to post them up here as well. They break the chronological flow of the previous articles, but I hope you'll forgive me that!

It's amazing to look back at some of this stuff (apparently from 1992) now, 20 years later, when the majority of the Tyranid line is in beautiful plastic. Most interesting to me is some of the art included, which I've never seen before. Even though these sketches are ancient, there may still be some inspiration for modern-day bugs hiding therein.

Also, this is a nice flash back to when the Genestealer Cults were actual forces. Here's hoping they return to tables again soon!

Coven Warriors: The Hunters

It's about time I got back to my All-Coven Dark Eldar army project. Today I finally get around to reimagining Dark Eldar Warriors from a Coven bent.

More Chaos: Hydra's Demons for Sale

Howdy! I'll be dabbling in chaos a little longer, apparently. Everything seems to be demons these days, so why should modern synthesist be any different ;)

First up, if you saw the previous post about my brother's run at converting some flamer models for nurgle, you'll understand just how clueless the two of us are when it comes to chaos/demons. Having since read some of the Demon rumours, I now understand that there is no way Tzeentch would ever give Nurgle a gift of anything. Woops. Here I was thinking Nurgle and Slaanesh were opposed on the chaos wheel on account of all that rot not being very sensual/aesthetic!

Apology done, it's time to get onto the real focus of this article: Hydra's phenomenal demon models. You can read his post about them over on the H-Archive here. You already know that I think the boy is a genius, but I figured I'd repost these images as further proof. I'm particularly fond of the way he has made sure to add at least one large monstrosity to each squad. This stuff is pretty inspiring, and I've already got a want for some Horror mouths for some coven-related ideas.

Anyway, here are the models.

Guest Post: Tzeentch's Gift

Since I'm clearly not doing any modeling these days, I thought I'd open the floor up to the person who actually got me into this hobby in the first place. We're going to be keeping it in the Pink family, though. May I introduce for his blogging debut: Brother Pink!

Or, you know, PinkPonny {sic}, as he prefers to be known.
___________________________________________________

Never did I think I'd find myself devoting time towards the ruinous powers of chaos... but I got commissioned, sorta. I was paid in advance with this army case.

Our older brother had a friend who was into 40K, but he no longer wanted this case, so our brother asked if I wanted it, and I said sure.

I assumed it was a freebie, but when I opened it up, I found the following note:

Hydra Has a Home

Might just be time to get back to the hobby briefly. There have been more developments in the #spacemarine fiasco, one of the most interesting of them being GW actually acknowledging the situation, if not bending low enough to actually apologize, but it's something. They even managed to leave up everyone's angry comments about the acknowledgement post on their facebook, rather than summarily deleting them as you'd expect them to do (considering @VoxCaster was blocking anyone who referenced them on Twitter).

Anyway. More on that later.
This one is meant for my dear Hydra!

He finally has a home! HUZZAH! (click the image to be directed)

He's still getting it off the ground, but I wanted to share the link so that people could find it.

For a time, Hydra, Moloch, and I formed a fantastic little team of Tyranid artists. We were active on Warpshadow, but we spent just as much time bouncing ideas back and forth through the background medium of email. We collaborated at all levels, from concept through to actual models. It was a glorious, fruitful little synergy that I've also meant to post about for bloody ever, but I guess that full story will have to wait.

Anyway, though I've posted numerous articles here featuring the works of the Moloch, I have been woefully behind in sharing the work of the Hydra. Once again, it's something I always meant to get to but didn't manage. Of our little Tyranid shadow team, Hydra has ALWAYS been the most prodigiously productive. I've described the guy's inspiration and modeling through-put as a nuclear reactor of creativity.

Also, did you know the guy can fly!?

Stop that. That's silly.
Ahem. The best thing about Hydra's creative drive is that it's very much contagious. You hang around the Hydra enough, and you start to achieve things of which you never thought you were capable.

And now is your chance to bask in the boy's brilliance. He's a very busy man, so it might take him some time to get the site up to full operating strength, but best to follow it now so that you don't miss the amazing updates later.

H-Archive

And, because I can...