Scenery: 31 July 2018

I slapped on some of the homemade gesso over the scenery pieces I was working on, getting them ready for spray paint.

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Statue of the God-Emperor: 30 July 2018

I finished off the statue of the God-Emperor with a bunch of wires and cables, and a couple of extra characters at the rear.

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Scenery: 28 and 29 July 2018

I worked on some 1:1 scale scenery :) and also painted the bottom pillars of the triumphal arch.

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In which Sub-Lieutenant Gregor cheeks an Astartes: 27 July 2018

Our RPG continued, and this time Gregor decided he wanted to insult a Space Marine as well as blaspheme the God-Emperor. So, next session we might very well be opening the rules to the character generation section . . .

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Statue of the God-Emperor: 26 July 2018

As part of my scenery collection, I wanted a statue of the God-Emperor. So, I made one out of spare tat I had in the bits box.

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Statue Base: 25 July 2018

The basics of another scenery piece. There will be a large statue of Sanguinius on the central plinth and four columns at the corners, each with a statue representing an element of the Imperium (armed forces, church, administration, workers) on it.

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Arch of Imperial Triumph: 24 July 2018

Using the same simple techniques as for the lower sections, I constructed the basic structure of the upper arch as a separate section.

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Arch of Imperial Triumph: 23 July 2018

Work on my "Arch of Imperial Triumph" to go on my "cityblock" board. The two pillars will be separate with a separate top arch (for ease of storage) resting on the top and straddling the road.

The main construction is foamcore (with lower blocks made of chunks of polystyrene because I didn't really plan all that much . . .) and some cheap wooden plaques from JoAnn's. The statues are castings which I got from a chap on Facebook who sculpted them himself.

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Game Board Details: 21 and 22 July 2018

Two of the boards have road markings painted on - notice they are laid out for right-hand drive, because Games Workshop is a British company and so the Imperium of Man drives on the left! Similarly, the details of the road markings are British rather than American. The manhole covers are a photograph of manholes from a German town whose heraldic symbol is a double-headed eagle.

The buildings were similarly painted - the insides were painted a dark cream, the outsides were left the existing weird gray-turquoise. I dusted the whole thing with some black spray and painted the base gray. I think clear-coated the whole thing - which caused a weird reaction with the still-slightly-wet paint! The insides went a cool sort of mottled dark green!

They still need floors, but I thought it would be easier to paint them without the floors getting in the way.

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Roleplaying: 20 July 2018

In the words of Elizabet the Savant, Sub-lieutenant Gregor needs to shut the Throne up.

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Imperial Brutalism: 19 July 2018

I textured the Imperial Brutal buildings with more DIY gesso, with some sand mixed into some of it, to create some nice texture. The final color was weird - a sort of turquoise-green; I think because the black poster paint is not a true black, but instead a very dark green and when mixed with the white plaster, it goes green. I mixed in some older DIY gesso I had made that used a true black, and the end result was a weird mottled color I could never have achieved if I'd tried!

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Undercoating: 18 July 2018

I was going to start painting this flier, but I pulled out the undercoat and slapped some on and it went blobby and cracked - I guess I didn't shake it enough. I had to scrape it off and then carefully reundercoat it. The end result was good . . . but it's hardly a lot done for one evening!

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Imperial Brutalism: 17 July 2018

The two "Imperial Brutalism" buildings are finished except for floors and painting. I think they will need to be painted BEFORE the floors go in (and maybe even the floors will do well to be left unattached for ease of putting models in - we will have to see.

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Not-crons completed: 16 July 2018

The Not-crons are complete - a ridiculously simple paint scheme, but one that took a long time to execute. After varnishing, I glued on 3mm plastic rhinestones, which I think gives a nice effect.

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Gaming Table & Scenery: 15 July 2015

Behold the garden! But mostly behold the three sections of gaming table painted flat black with cheap acrylic paint (69c a bottle from JoAnn Fabrics!).

The first two pieces of scenery (on 8" square bases) to go on the board. These are some very simple ruined buildings, built using a technique I came up with back when I worked for GW. It makes buildings that are more "Brutal" than "Gothic", but that is an acceptable look, I think.

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Gaming Table: 14 July 2018

While the boards might not look much different than they did yesterday, there is another coat of my DIY-gesso on top of them. Specifically, I mixed up poster paint (which is cheaper than acrylic), PVS glue, plaster of Paris and water and slopped it all over (basically what I mixed up yesterday, but another coat). This filled in gaps and covered everything.

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Gaming Table: 13 July 2018

I did some more work on the gaming table; three 2'x4' sections of 1/4" board. I'd done a bit of work yesterday on it, but the techniques I was using weren't ideal. So, I had a bit of a thought and had another go!

The basic idea was to create a grid of roads bounding "city blocks", all of a standard size (like American urban planning and, frankly, like the Imperium itself - the scene in "Descent of Angels" where the forests are cut down and the hills leveled and concreted over reveals that; a disquieting scene in many ways). Individual pieces of scenery - buildings, ruins, bunkers, statues, whatever - based on boards the same size as the blocks will fit neatly on them and can be reorganized as needed to create new layouts. Blocks can also be left empty for a more open battlefield.

First, I marked out a pattern on the boards. It might not be terribly clear, but it is a simple grid of roads and "city blocks". Each block is 8" square and the roads are 2" wide for the narrow ones and 4" for the wider ones. With the 2" ones on the edges, they will join up to make 4" wide roads when the boards are put together.

I cut out a bunch of 8"x8" panels of ordinary box cardboard . . .

I glued them in place with ordinary wood glue and used an electric staple gun to secure them while they dried (the ones I had contact-cemented to the board yesterday I quickly secured with a few staples so they didn't curl up).

I mixed up a sort of DIY-gesso - a mix of water, wood glue, plaster of Paris, and black acrylic paint - and slapped it all over. This filled in the texture of the wood fragments, the divots left by the staples and gave a fine rough texture to the whole board.

I am quite happy with this so far. I am going to mix up another batch of DIY-gesso using a greater proportion of black paint and give it another coat, and then paint the roads black and the blocks gray. I will paint some markings in yellow and white on the roads, some detail on the blocks and so forth.

I have some nice bits of polystyrene packing, cardboard tubes, foamcore, soda cans etc. etc. which I am going to use to build some quick and dirty scenery to go on the blocks.

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Gaming Table: 12 July 2018

No pictures of this, but what I did wasn't all that good and interesting - I need to redo it. But . . . !

After the game I played recently it was clear I needed a larger playing area. Really, I needed a playing area. So, I went to the local home improvement store and grabbed some 2'x4' sheets of 1/2" board. They are that engineered construction board; not solidwood, plywood or MDF but those random shards of wood glued together. They were cheap and as I was going to put a texture on them, I didn't think I needed a smooth surface.

My plan was to mark out a basic street grid pattern, glue down some squares of cardboard to make "city blocks" and then texture the thing with textured spray paint.

Well, marking it was easy. Cutting out card squares was easy. I tried gluing them down with Super 77 spray contact adhesive . . . not sure if that worked (they kept cupping up, but maybe the glue just wasn't dry or cured?) I used a can of textured spray paint - I didn't like that at all (didn't really give a nice texture or fill in the gaps in the wood) and then sprayed it black. That basically took two cans of spray paint for just a black surface.

Anyway - live and learn. I will take a more detailed look at it tomorrow and will probably change tack. I think I will glue the squares down with woodglue, stapling them in the corners to hold them in place, and mix up DIY textured paint (water, plaster, glue, acrylic paint - basically a gesso) and slap that all over.

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Not-crons: 9 to 11 July 2018

Again, no pictures - and I am sure some of those days I didn't do anything. Plodding along with the Not-crons (really; they should have taken five minutes each . . . urgh).

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Wargaming: 8 July 2018

Got a game in with some friends. I'd introduced them to 40K before, but now I actually sat down and taught them (starting with just one squad each so they would get the basic rules). And then we pulled out some armies and played a proper game. The table was too-small, really, and there was no scenery (so the Armigers I took to make up the AdMech side's points really dominated) but it was a fun game (which the Imperial Cultist allies of Sisters & Templars won!)

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Not-crons & Sisters of the Chalice: 30 June to 7 July 2018

Few pictures of this, and really some shame here - I am sure there are some days when I didn't do anything at all. I finished assembling the Sisters of the Chalice (see above) - small conversions using Custodian swords (because I wanted to tie the models to the Custodians lost in the Crystal Labyrinth against the Seraph but also because the resin swords were very fragile and bent.

I also did a fair bit of work on the Not-crons, which would be painted far quicker than they should be . . .

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