115. A Road to Glory. Butter Biscuit Basecoat. Sister of Battle part 20.

I know, I know, it has been a while.

Being made redundant a while back really hit me hard emotionally and financially.
Lucky fr me the cover work I spoke of has carried me through just about, but November, December and January where not comfortable for me.

I did a bit of hobbying here and there, but didn't really feel any joy from it... in fairness I didn't feel a great deal of joy form anything.

Over January though my mood has improved, and I've focused on making as much progress I can, in the areas under my control

One of those areas is my hobby.


Sometime in November I set about the task of basecoating all of my Sisters of Battle.

This was a pretty long and arduous process, especially considering
a ) I'm a terribly slow painter
and
b ) I hate batch painting
Purples, Greens, Browns and Blacks (for the black parts and in anticipation of the metal parts)

I'm happy to report though that they are all done... or hey were, until I acquired some more XD
( I couldn't turn down the new canonness and plastic Celestine!)



That's a lot of girls!

Here is what they look like up close




It took me until late December to finish these basecoats, and then I took a break from them and did some work on some other stuff (which I have subsequently completed, so expect pictures soon)

I'm going to try and forge ahead.
I imagine I'll get distracted at some point though, so no promises.

Thanks for reading

-DH-

93. A Road to Glory. Fly You Fools! Sisters of Battle part 19.

#TBT

While I'm deciding what colour to paint my Imperial Knight I thought I'd work on some other stuff I've been neglecting...so I've been doing a spot of painting and trying to finish off projects here and there.

On project that has been crying out to be finished is my much loved Sisters of Battle.



I had someone make a mold of the metal prototype and have been casting these from green stuff.

As well as this I've started the long process of undercoating and base coating, as well as tidying up the tanks and stuff.

While I've been doing this I've thought about expanding the army a little.
Someone bought me a squad of Sister Repentia. I love the way this unit looks so I've been considering building them.
As well as this, I've got enough Battle Sisters spare to throw in another Battle Sister Squad for extra bodies if needed.
I pretty much 'need' to build 4 heavy flamers and a Promethium relay pipe for my new 1,500 point army anyway, so it wont hurt.

Who knows what else?
Another Exorcist maybe?
Some extra priests?

We'll see.
But expect to see an appearance from L'ordre Des Angels soon!

-DH-

54. Bad Casting. 40K Urban Terrain - Pavement Side Crater part1.

In one of my posts on the Underhives bulletin board (I don't know what I'm talkign about), I was talking about casting some stuff for making terrain.

The basic story is, on what once was a fairly nice bi-weekly trip to a local town, I picked up a plaster cast kit at a charity shop (which was pretty random, I'll admit).
I bought it because
A) It was from the British Heart foundation (Y)
B) It was cheap
C) Why not? If I could make something usfull with it, then we we're onto a winner.
A while back (when I got the hobby bug again) I thought I'd try it out.
So I grabbed a couple of the Rhinos from my 'car pool,' and...



What?!



THE BUBBLES!!



Needless to say, it did not go well at all.
I know when casting you're meant to tap/vibrate the mould/surface to aid in releasing the air bubbles, but it just didn't seem to work.
I've cast many smaller pieces before using a two part liquid silicone.
This stuff was a 1 part powder and 1 part water mixture.
It just... NO!

The good thing about plaster of Paris is that it is fairly malleable, so it was fairly easy to get rid of those crazy air bubbles.





Looking a'ight for ruined vehicles?
That is what I thought! So I continued on, but it wasn't long until I found another problem.

I'll get to that in a moment.


With these new found trashed vehicles, I thought I'd do some more themed terrain.

Enter the crater;





This terrain piece, like all my others, tells a a little story about what has been happening on this battlefield (in relation to my armies).
In this piece the Space Marine (Probably a Marines Malevolent captain) lies dead in the crater left behind by an explosion.

The cause of the explosion? The destruction of his command Rhino;



I love the concept.

I was going to add large chunks of shrapnel to make it look like it had one of its flanks and part of the under carriage blown out by a mine or something.
This would visual explain why it is in the position it is in.
The Marine would be one of the casualties thrown clear from the wreckage.

All going well? WELL FUCK YOU DARKHAZZL3!

Here is where we return to the aforementioned problem.

PLASTER OF PARIS WONT GLUE TO ANYTHING FOR LOVE NOR MONEY!

Seriously!
I tried Super glue, Plaster of Paris, Polly filler, green stuff, milliput., PVA...
You can't pin it either, or it just crumbles.

So this terrain piece will likely be the last to be finished (if ever!), as I figure out a way to fix the rhino to the base, or just re- model the crater a bit to make it look like one created by an artillery shell (maybe from the entrenched gun position).

Either way. I promised a post about this experiment.
So unto you; The Underhivers, I deliver.

If you have any experience with Plaster casting then feel free to drop me a comment.
Weather it is words of advice, words of frustration or examples of casts done by you.
You can do it below this post, or at my WiP on the Bolter&Chainsword!
Failing that you can tweet me @Twitter - @DarKHaZZl3

Until next time.
-DH-

13. A Road To Glory: Sisters of Battle part 4. Anti-Chirst Air. 1,500pts Built.

Yeah, that is a skateboarding reference. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_Air

  In my last ARTG update I posted my sister list and the models that make up that list.
Currently they are in the paint stripper bath... due to a bad batch of white spray some of the details were a bit...blurred?
That and the mold lines were terrible... As much as I want a gaming force up and running, my new hobby ethos simply wont allow that kind of sloppiness.

In the meantime, I have been working on my Aegis Defence line.
I wanted to make it more fitting with the army's aesthetic without going over the top.
There isn't much you can add to the walls, so I just stuck on a couple of Adeptus ministorum icons and other sister iconography;

Enjoy the reems of pictures with very few words...












And now for some more words.

The Aegis defence lines Quad auto cannon is... well. Rubbish.
I really think it is very lack lustre in appearance. However, the kit itself is extremely versatile.
If you've ever seen the sprue you'll understand. The base is the same size as a turret base, essentially making it able to swap around with other turrets from other tanks.
You can see where this is going right?



Yeah boi! Sisters AA gun!





  All I've done here is magnetise the ADL's auto cannons to the Sisters of Battle's repressor turret weapon mount.
I've then glues the ADL's weapon mount to the back to make it look a bit more substantial (And AA gun firing solid slug weapons would need some form of stabilisation after all).
All I need to do now is glue on a SOB head and the arms  and she'll be ready to paint.

YUP! Take that Air unit spam.
I say that.... but in all seriousness, I'm not entirely confident that a single ADL will solve my aircraft issues.
But I have no other options (without taking allies), so, it will have to do!

In a bizzle

-DH-