Moving on...

...or trying to anyways.

I love this T-Shirt, and plan to wear it when I vote
in the presidential election later this year...

My hobby mojo has more or less up and wandered off. With my whole world in a current state of flux that's easily understandable I guess. I've painted a bit on the Coyotes' Razorback and the contrast on a large flat sided box netted the predictably bad results that I've had in the past with washes on rhinos. 

Bleh. When next you see this it will be predominantly black...

I've spent a fair bit of time on the ol' blog here of late waging a war of deletion vs. the fucking link SPAMMERS! In the past week or two, close to if not more than 300 SPAM comments have been deleted. Three spam blogger's blogs reported to blogger (try saying that line fast...), and one particularly annoying spammer's blog has been forwarded on to a hacker friend of mine who knew My Wolfy for decades and is rather annoyed that they took this particular point in time to bombard me. So in the highly unlikely event that said spammer actually reads any of this: have fun with my old and your new friend!

I've been browsing thru the various minis, bitz and bobs in and amongst my hobby area...the whole house really, but nothing draws me to want to paint on them (the above Razorback isn't helping either). Digging thru the piles, tossing out real life old stuff that honestly ought to have been sorted thru ages ago, I've managed to uncover a pair of hidden gems.

First up is the long buried (SEVEN YEARS?!?!...don't anyone tell Neverness ok? Great thanks) Pig Tank which, I'm inclined to just send to my buddy John at White Whale Studios Miniature Madness with the simple instructions of 'have at it'. I've mentioned the idea to him in the past, but will have to wait till I get all of my finances sorted out first. 

So much truth.

More to the present, I've also recovered my (probably equally long buried) Ork Fighta Bomma kit, all still new on the sprue. So...with no want to paint maybe I'll try gluing my fingers to some plastic instead. We'll see I suppose. 

Also a follow up to my last post: My Beloved Wolfy is both home and enshrined in our living room. As I told folks on Facebook, whilst she never quite explained her attachment to the Samurai display swords, she absolutely adored them! Also her beloved 'familiar' (kitty) Kiya is at her side, as well as the antique hourglass her late grandmother gave her.  

Just as she did in life, her urn now wears 'my heart' as well as two beautiful pendants that her father gave her. Sadly though, the dog tag styled one on the right was a recent gift that he wasn't able to give to her before she was gone. A casualty of the quarantine. 

Other than that, the only thing of recent note is I got a hair cut and will be donating my 17" pony tail (when straightened out) to Wigs for Kids. 

Till next time. o7

Rudderless...

o/

This blog may go dark for a bit...or maybe there will be LOTS of posts as I frenetically drive to hide from my reality. Honestly I don't know. Don't know what the future holds for both this blog and/or myself. 

My favorite of all of photos of My Beloved Wolfy.
We said this was the day her aura was showing.

Saturday we had a good a good day, a typical Saturday really. 

We slept in late, ate popeye's chicken sandwiches for 'brunch' followed by a fruit salad she had made whilst we watched the pioneer woman cooking show. Switched to BBC america's Planet Earth II reruns, napped a bit, had some 'quality time' in the bedroom. I made a stir fry that we love and watched Hail Caesar (odd movie) that she had wanted to see in the theater but we missed it, followed by Horse girl (odder still and honestly not recommended), followed by 2 episodes of Log cabin living before we turned in for the night. 

Kisses goodnight and snuggled up in bed with our daily 'Good night baby I love you. Sleep well, I'll see you in the morning'. 

That was about 2am. When I awoke in the morning she was gone. 

My Beloved Wolfy suffered from end-stage kidney failure these past 2 years (spread across 3 calendar years, but in reality about 2 years time total). We're guessing her heart just gave out. No pain, peaceful and snuggled up with me. The best way to go really. Compared to those suffering from the COVID, something I've been terrified of her catching for months now, I couldn't ask for anything more to be honest. 

For me though, Sunday morning was hell. The days following aren't much better. I'm holding together mostly. Mom is here for the week, but I've yet to make it a day without totally breaking down. I don't expect that to change for quite awhile. I'll go back to work Monday, no use sitting in an empty house. 

Hobbies are good to keep busy, to keep the mind from reality. Guess I'll soon find out how tightly I cling to mine like it's some sort of life raft...or not. Just don't know. 

My whole world. 

I'm stalling...apparently

o/

Ya know it occurred tome earlier this week that in all of my 20+ years of mini gaming, and the myriad of colors I've primed said minis in, I've never once (until now) primed a 40k tank in white. Now, whilst to many folks that statement will likely elicit a mental 'so what?', it's been my experience from watching others that priming tanks in white always ends either badly, or takes two to three times as long to complete (unless you're intending for the whole thing to predominantly white in the end). Indeed, I used to game with a guy who's White Scars' paint jobs barely went beyond their primer coating...

One day this will be a dirty, dust covered orange
(or, thanks to Monkeychuka is it actually red?)...

Yeah I know contrast paint is apparently great and all, but washes on large, flat, horizontal surfaces has also been a bit of an issue in the past for me, and given that contrast is essentially paint mixed with a wash, I think that that maybe part of my worry.  

As such, it appears that I'm stalling. 

1 finished, 3 WIP, and being rebels...conformity is blissfully nowhere in sight!

I've painted two and a half Battletech minis this week (the 'half' was a partial repaint). My second Silver Drakes sergeant is about a third of the way done, and then...clear out of left fucking field (yes, waaaaay out there) I started painting on the rest of my Rebel Ghar Tectorists from Beyond the Gates of Antares. 

The rest of my so-called army (sans one unassembled bodyguard suit), with some Imperial Forestry Service Rangers in the foreground.

BtGoA....you know...that game that I've: (1) never played (2) have in the past tried repeatedly to sell off both in it's entirety as well as in portions (3) and am trying once again to do so now as I'm tired of kicking the box of these around after 3-4 years of not touching them  (4) and know that painted or not, the game locally is pretty much dead (I could be wrong, but when it comes to gaming I don't get out much these days) meaning this 400 point 'army' will likely go back into stasis to not be seen again for who the fuck knows how long. 

So um yeah...that's me for this week. 

Another Child of Torment enters the fray

o/

Just a quick post this morning. It was kindova lousy weekend, but I did manage at least to finish the WIP Children of Torment Chaos marine. This brings me up to a whopping TWO finished plus the Helbrute which I bought pre-painted. 

Its hard to tell here, but the black bit on his base is a
mostly-buried loyalist space marine helmet. 

Amusingly, next to the pink sand on the base, the
pink armor pretty much qualifies as camouflage!

Wasn't quite what to do with this pauldron...but this works I guess.

Oh well, progress is progress, no matter how meagre it is I suppose. Additionally I started base coating my 2nd Silver Drakes sergeant. I think I'll try and finish him up before tackling the Coyotes' Razorback.

Distractions aplenty...

o/

In amidst the work on the last three Incandescent Coyotes I was distracted many a time which slowed progress considerably. Be it waiting for an ink, or the contrast paint, or a weathering wash to dry, or simply 'I don't fucking want to today' my hobby area is as littered with distraction as much as my mind is prone to looking for it. As such, here are a few of the other things I was dabbling with during that little project.

First up, my Razorback: 

A few scars still remain from the removal of the original iconography.

Okay so yeah, I've already posted about this previously. Now however it has been cleansed of its Black Templar heritage and is now ready for priming. I took these pics prior to that as primed white models photograph so well...

Originally it was to have a twin-heavy bolter, but I grabbed the wrong drill bit (apparently) and broke/wrecked one of the gun barrels when drilling it out. So a twin-lascannon it is! I guess this will function as a tank destroyer as much as it will an AFV.

Next up, the scout snipers:

Yes, it seems that the Incandescent Coyotes will be cursed with this unit...

More commonly known as the Bane of MY existence due not to the damage they've ever inflicted on my armies, but rather the almost complete lack of damage they've inflicted on other forces whilst in my armies. Seriously, Ever since the debacle of my old Aurora Chapter 10th company army, scout snipers just seem to materialize around here and my dumbass keeps working on them for some stupid reason. They still need to have battlefield debris added to the non-sculpted bases before they get primed. Bleh.

...and then there are the Silver Drakes:

Raptors we are not.

I ordered an easy-build Intercessor 3-pack and got 'em built and primed to hide the Smurfy shade of their bare plastic. Originally I was going to just fill out my lone Intercessor squad, but instead i think i'll just split that instead into two 5-man squads. Telling one squad from the other was going to be an issue as I've dispensed with the squad number decals (being both annoying to apply and practically illegible once the minis are done), and instead have opted for their bolt rifles having scopes in one squad, and none in the other. Easy peasy.

Of course technically those scopes change them into stalker bolt rifles. So were these to actually make it into a game, then I might even consider using them as such since my Drakes lack any heavy weaponry. Currently however, they're all just plain ol' bolt rifles to me.

Finally, let's not forget the Children of Torment:

Obviously still a work-in-progress...

Jesus, never has an army been so aptly named! These fuckers have so much frickin' detail on them that they're a nightmare to work on!! 'Chaos' by definition does not equal conformity, so this guy's trim is in leadbelcher rather than gold. Hell, I have several metallic colors, so this army will one day be painted in a rainbow of colors (assuming I don't rage-quit the project).

So there you have it, my version of short attention span theater. The razorback has since been primed a snowy white and it...or one rather (maybe?) one of the above will get worked on next. Who knows, could be something else entirely.

The first combat squad is completed!

o/

And so a new chapter starts to coalesce...

Indeed my Incandescent Coyotes need to bolster their numbers quickly as they've already roused the ire of the Black Templars. Luckily that particular crusade is waging war in another segmentum, with the vast gulf of the Atlantic space between the two chapters.

I just clear coated and left these as is...though I'm keen to see how much of this layer of rust wash will show thru from under a layer of sand.

First up I had another go with the rust wash that I added to the track links on the meltagunner's base. I really slathered it on and whilst it's a bit more subtle in normal light, under the camera's flash it looks fantastic!

Whoa! That was one hellova sand storm! 

Above the sand wash is dry but not yet blended. Good coverage again after a minimal dry brushing of Vallejo light Ivory. I see a few spots that it looks like I missed when applying the wash (the tail was not washed intentionally), but I've found that it all ought to work out fine during the blending process.

Following this I then painted the bases and hit 'em with a quick matte coat in hopes that when I apply the agrellan earth you won't see the white and orange poking thru the cracks this time (not that the inking won't cover that up). In hindsight, there will be yet another varnish layer as I went ahead and added the sand wash too, and once blended that will come off to the touch unless it is also sealed. 

The latest completed three.

I'm pretty pleased with how these are turning out just a few models in from the initial disasters. I especially like the weathered look of their armor. 

At that point, It was just a little bit of dry brushing on the agrellan and tail, a few final touchups, a final matte varnish coat and they're done!

Can't really see the rust thru the sand, so not sure if I'll do one atop
the other again as its largely unnecessary. 

The same goes for the Iron Warriors' helm, the sand wash
obliterated the rust layer beneath.

The finished Combat Squad. 

Another, slightly different angle showing off the chapter icon and
the sergeant's coyote tail.

My next post will feature the myriad distractions that were 'also in-progress' whilst I was working on these three. Because ya know...short attention span and all that.

Digging thru the ol' bitz box...

o/

I took a bit of a break from painting to do a bit of destruction disassembly of the vehicle complement that came in the horde that was given to me by Kushial: three Rhinos and a Landraider Redeemer. The redeemer and two of the rhinos are festooned with Black Templar iconography and that stuff just needs to go! I had briefly entertained fielding a small BT force but then had flashbacks of my old, horridly monochromatic Iron Hands army and nixed the idea.  

The central rhino is what you see in pieces above.

It seems that I don't have any plain doors for the Redeemer which pushes it to the back of the line. I do however have quite a few parts for the rhinos and I set about dismantling and rebuilding those instead. Digging thru my still, somewhat vast array of bitz, I found enough weaponry to expand from one to two rhinos with stormbolters, whilst the third will be a razorback with either a twin-heavy bolter or lascannon (not sure which yet).

I picked up some dirt cheap spellcrow replacement rhino doors as well as a rhino front plate aways back. The doors are resin with molded tactical arrows which look rather nice. Wheres the front plate looks a bit more armored than that of the stock rhino version. As such I'll probably use it on whichever Rhino turns into a Razorback. 

Basing bitz, from left-to-right: An Iron Warriors helm, probably from my 3rd ed army (replacing the awkward looking Eldar bit that was there previously), a discarded Coyote helm (recently slathered in orange contrast paint) and combat knife, and lastly a few spare track links. 

Of course any digging in the ol' bitz box for one thing invariably turns up other cool stuff as well. Lots of basing bitz, as well as enough spares to salvage a half dozen scout snipers out of Kushial's horde that needed some help (ugh, scout snipers: the bane of my existence!).

That tail color is what the gryph-hound contrast paint, followed by a light sepia wash looks like over bare plastic. It's not bad really. 

I also found three Space Wolves' wolf tails to use as coyote tails, as per Siph's suggestion. Having so few they'll be limited to squad sergeants and my Lt. Fun Fact: my first ever space marine army way back in 2nd ed was the Space Wolves. I had a 2nd, small Space wolves army since that one probably in 4th ed or thereabouts. SInce then however I've bought none making their bitz few and far between as they so often end up on the bases of my other armies if for no other reason than to taunt Screech and Neverness' armies. 

Anyways I hope to maybe finish up these three marines this week. Hopefully I'll get some white primer and then I'll be able to add a transport or two to their ranks as well.