Temple of Chaos Undivided: 28 September 2019

The basic structure of the Chaos Temple is complete!

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Temple of Chaos Undivided (Slaanesh Facade): 27 September 2019

I cut out and assembled the Slaanesh facade of the Temple of Chaos Undivided. The basic structure is the same as for the Khorne and Nurgle ones, except that I used 2" thick XPS foam for the sides as I scavenged some from the dumpster at work! The upper voids will be framed out with a heart-shaped piece of card - it was easier to cut a chunk out and rebuild the sides with foamcore than try to cut them out.

The main entrance at the bottom was cut to fit the Ghostly Summons Reaper figures, and the surface of the foam was carved to fit the back of them by using acetone and pressure. The other archways are just cut through a single layer of foam to the one underneath.

All the figures are Reaper Bones figures and will be painted as statues.

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Chapel: 26 September 2019

Hobby ADHD it seems, but I got some basecoats on the Kromlech chapel and started painting some details - I wanted to make something brighter, hence the bold sunburst colors.

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Brother Wilhelm Valens: 25 September 2019

A pretty basic conversion of an RPG character - Brother Wilhelm Valens of the Black Templars, sole survivor of his crusade ship having been lost in the Warp. He saved the Black Sword from the shrine and was forced to use it against his brethren who turned to Chaos when the escape pod's Geller capacitor discharged. He has now joined the party and is fighting to free Ophelia from the Tyrant of Blueflame.

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Temple of Chaos Undivided (Khorne Facade): 23 & 24 September 2019

More work on the Khorne facade of the Chaos Temple - I added in a load of metal plates made from squares of thin cardboard, and also started adding rivets made from seed beads.

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Power Station Pipe Ends: 22 September 2019

Not much time for hobby today, but I made a mold of a master I made from spare pieces, cast up some resin versions of it, and used them with some EMT connectors and Lego steering wheels to make some little pipe ends. These can be used to block off the unused mouths on my power station pipe layout.

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Power Stations: 21 September 2019

The RPG I am playing has a plot wherein the bad guys are trying to destroy or damage the power stations of the Ophelia VII 'Dust Zone. So, I want to have some power stations - I have a Kromlech MDF kit awaiting assembly, and I'd started work on these models earlier, but I did some more work today.

One thing I wanted to do was make it modular - so I used some 1/2" dowel to make pipes and various supports to be able to run a pipe network around the table. The video at the top shows it working.

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Power Station: 20 September 2019

I'd been carrying these pieces of packing material around for months, thinking I could use them to make some kind of scenery (they are exactly 8" square; the same size as the "blocks" on my board). Today, I pulled out the hot glue gun and started throwing them together!

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Arbitratorum: 17 & 19 September 2019

Nothing done on the 18th, but the spare part arrived for the Arbitorium and so I continued work on it. These Kromlech kits are slow going!

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Mod Podge Fun: 16 September 2019

I used some printed images and a big of Mod Podge to add some posters and a banner to models.

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Bunker: 15 September 2019

I'd assembled this bunker a while ago but today I painted it, setting up a few miniatures to take a picture on the board. I think it needs some posters to add a splash of color, which I will print out and glue on later.

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Temple of Chaos Undivided: 14 September 2019

I continued work on the Chaos temple, detailing the Khorne and Nurgle facades.

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Temple of Chaos Undivided: 13 September 2019

I bought a big sheet of XPS foam and got to work on the Chaos Temple (I couldn't wait for vacation!). I drew out the pieces I would need for two facades on a 2x4 piece (I cut the big sheet at the store to fit in the car). I also used the spare pieces to make two walls and some buttresses. A bit of hot glue and the basic assembly for one facade was done.

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Big Building: 12 September 2019

I actually bought this kit for my birthday over a year ago, and assembled it shortly after. It is too big to go on the 8" x 8" squares on my Ophelia 'Dust Zone road grid board, but a larger base which covers several will block line of sight. I used some spray cans and masking tape to get some basic colors down (the tan and the silver look very similar, so I will have to do something with painting to get a difference in) and then hot-glued it in place.

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Temple of Chaos Undivided: 12 September 2019

I've been left with a lot of time at work recently when I am doing labeling DVDs, which is mindless work that requires hands but lets you watch YouTube videos :) So, I've been binging videos from Wyloch's Armory. Great fun, even if it's not the sort of thing I do (he makes a lot of tiles for D&D, and I neither play D&D nor use tiles). But he recently posted a video where he made the "Hold of the Deepking".

I thought this was a great terrain piece and I was suddenly inspired! My board represents an Imperial city - a ruined one, certainly, but definitely Imperial (specifically, it is the 'Dust Zone of Ophelia VII). But, some variant terrain would be fun - especially with the RPG I am running (I also spent a bit of time today working out where the story is going to go ... and it's going to end up at some point in a temple of Chaos Undivided!)

So, to planning on the backs of expended sheets of DVD labels!

The plan is super simple; the same basic shape as the Hold of the Deepking, but constructed from insulation foam rather than foamcore (it's all basically 1" layers, so it seemed like that would be simple - it would also allow for cutting into the foam to sculpt and texture it). I want to make four of these buildings and arrange them in an octagon with simpler walls between them, to enclose a central amphitheater wherein adventures can happen! Each face will reflect the nature of the particular Chaos god, and I made some notes on how I would accomplish this.

I am really excited about this - I placed an order for some Reaper Bones minis to use as statues for Slaanesh (I didn't to just make it all about perversion and sex - it's a bit puerile - but some statues of alluring-yet-repulsive females seemed appropriate) and made a list of the crafting supplies I would need.

I've got a couple weeks' vacation coming up, and I want to build these during that time. My goal is going to try to emulate not Wyloch's style or technique, but instead his attitude - which seems to be "don't make the perfect the enemy of the good (or even the done)" and "80% result for 50% effort is worth it". All of Wyloch's stuff looks great, but it's not some photorealistic perfection - its strength is the spectacle of seeing it all together on the tabletop.

So, that is the plan! I've made a special label for these posts so you can find them all together if you are interested in following it.

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RPG: 11 September 2019

A new player (a Black Templar's Emperor's Champion) joined the party!

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Unpacking Models: 10 September 2019

As you may know, I recently moved - and hadn't fully unpacked. But I took some time this evening to unpack some cases and fix a few models that had got damaged, and then put them in the display cases.

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Sanguinius: 9 September 2019

Major drybrushing on the wings!

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Sanguinius: 8 September 2019

I primed Sanguinius and got some basecoats down. The base and daemon I primed black, Sanguinius himself red and the wings and his head white. I laid down a rattlecan coat of gold (traditionally, you use a red base when gilding and I rather like the way it gives reddish shadows for Blood Angels) and then got painting.

The wings got a watered-down mix of Talasar Blue (a Constrast paint) and some Vallejo London Grey. The daemon was drybrushed up from a base of reddish-brown to an orange and the metal picked out with gunmetal thinned with brown wash. Sanguinius got his cloak lined in dark red and then the whole model washed with earthshade - the photo looks washed out, but the end result is lovely for just two colors - all the detail is picked out and I don't want to touch anything else on it!

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Nothing Done :( 7 August 2019

I didn't get anything done today as I was helping a friend install a floor. So, no hobby, but a good deed.

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Sanguinius Assembled: 6 September 2019

I finished all the assembly of Sanguinius, so he would be ready for priming and paint. Although I had washed all the individual pieces, I also washed the final assemblies, too - just to make sure.

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Sanguinius: 4 & 5 September 2019

"If you truly do hail from the realm that men once called hell, when you return there, tell your kindred it was Sanguinius who threw you back."

I bought this model just before I moved house - literally, the box arrived the day after I'd packed up all my hobby stuff. That was deliberate - not the arrival of the box, but the following its tracking and making sure I was packed the day before so I wouldn't be able to work on it and it would be a reward for getting my hobby space set up.

I was working on scenery for a while, trying to get the table filled, and I wanted to get my hand back in before working on what is - absolutely - the model we've been waiting for for thirty years.

So, here it is! And I can't leave well-enough alone - many people have complained about the rock outcropping supporting him, and I never liked the way he had his hand on the daemon's horn. Obviously, the combat pose between him and the daemon is based on Catholic art of Michael vs Satan, and in virtually every single one of those Michael has his foot on Satan's head.

The conversion is minimal and easy - I cut Sanguinius away from the column and repositioned his foot to change the angle, as well as trim his hand from the daemon's horn. I also gave him a shield, because I just like the way it looks (even if it's neither canon nor appearing in most of the St Michael images!)

The model is very well-sculpted and well-cast; it goes together very nicely (I will have to do minimal, if any, filling).

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Shipping Containers: 2 to 3 September 2019

 Kromlech had some 20% off coupons and you get free shipping if you spend a certain amount, so I got a few cheaper kits because it was better to get them than not! Even these simple things are complex with lots of parts but the end result is nice. The painting was simple - yellow basecoat dirtied up means they don't look much different from raw MDF, but they are a nice contrast to the rest of the darker scenery.

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Hive City Habitat: 30 August to 1 September 2019

Combining three days in one post (because, really, what's the point? I'm not actually sure anyone but me reads this blog . . .) I got the Hive City Habitat finished - it's a great kit and looks really fine. There are few places where I made mistakes, but the overall effect looks just great.

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