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Thursday, March 28, 2013

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.

Monday, March 25, 2013

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).

Friday, March 22, 2013

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.

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

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.

Friday, March 15, 2013

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.

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

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.

Friday, March 08, 2013

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.

Wednesday, March 06, 2013

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!

Sunday, March 03, 2013

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.

Saturday, March 02, 2013

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.