Blood Angels Devastators: 26 to 29 November 2019

I finally finished the Blood Angels Devastator kitbash, getting 18 models out of the kits with the addition of just a few pieces from the bits box!

=][= Danforth Laertes

Organizing and Background: 22 to 24 November 2019

I realized I'd let things get a mess in my hobby space and this was no good (notice the lack of photographs of this . . .) so I bought some divided storage containers to organize the various bitz I had. I also, in light of the changes and expansions coming to the Sisters lore with the new release, took this opportunity to work on the background.

Truth be told, the 25th might be tidying up as well . . .

=][= Danforth Laertes

Ephrael Stern: 21 November 2019

Some Contrast paints arrived and I experimented with them on a limited edition Ephrael Stern model. In hindsight, it is a good job it worked as well as it did . . .

=][= Danforth Laertes

RPG: 20 November 2019

In which the party fights the cannibalistic homosexual mutant ratmen of Zugg Island in an attempt to find and deactivate the 808 RO55 "happy little" void shield generator.

=][= Danforth Laertes

Blood Angel Devastators: 11 to 19 November 2019

Very few pictures of any of this, but I spent a lot of evenings kitbashing the BA devs.

=][= Danforth Laertes

Blood Angels Rhino: 10 November 2019

Did a bit more work on the Rhino.

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Blood Angels: 9 November 2019

Finished off the Blood Angels I'd ordered bitz for, finishing out the third squad of the first platoon of the 9th company!

=][= Danforth Laertes

Blood Angels Devastators: 8 November 2019

Some Anvil Industry pieces and the flawed models from my old Devastator squad are looking less flawed!

=][= Danforth Laertes

Blood Angels Rhino: 5 to 7 November 2019

Worked on the Rhino and got some tracks, details and decals on it.

=][= Danforth Laertes

Blood Angels Rhino: 4 November 2019

This Rhino has been sitting in boxes for years (in bits boxes for a lot of them, getting jostled and chipped for a lot of them). I assembled it with the Forge World decorative plates, but left off the cupola and the tracks for ease of painting. Of course, half the tracks went missing in the interim and the paint on the resin pieces started flaking (I guess I didn't clean it properly).

So, as part of my project to get my Angels up and running I hauled it out and worked on it. I gave the resin pieces a really good scrub with a stiff nylon brush and dish soap (scraping off most of the paint) and washed the rest of the model, too. Then, I masked the resin pieces and sprayed them black and then gold.

For the cupola, I found one in the bits box and kitbashed a Techmarine crewman. I am going to use this model for my "dudebros" (the footslogging Sanguinary Guard) so I sprayed him gold.

You can't see it in the photo (which makes all the reds look the same) but the years-old spray paint is a different color to the brush-on red I use and I don't have the red spray any more, so there is a lot of mismatch I have tried to leaven with some washes and careful drybrushing.

Not pictured is my solution to the tracks - I took a simple one-sided mold of the left-side tracks, pressing them into the foamboard I used as the bottom of the mold box so only the tracks were molded (and not the protrusions that key in to the wheels) and took a copy. I then used some sprue offcuts to replicate the protrusions.

(For all of you saying "it would have been easier to get spares from eBay"; yes, it would . . . if eBay had had any. There are third-party versions of decorated tracks, but they were very expensive and I have the silicone and resin already ... and it needed to be used up as it was reaching the end of its shelf-life).

The tracks don't look half-bad, TBH - I think once they are on they will look just great for the tabletop. I've sprayed them black and gunmetal and they fit very nicely in place.

I think if I go to town on painting the decorated panels nicely, put some transfers on it, and give it a good coat of satin varnish the unevenness of the mismatched and damaged paint will be smoothed out and distracted from. It'll be a nice addition to my army.

=][= Danforth Laertes

"Revelations": 1 & 3 November

The first of the NaNoWriMo vignettes - "Revelations" wherein Alicia and Danforth meet for the first time, and Alicia discovers where she comes from . . . and makes a decision about where she is going.

=][= Danforth Laertes

NaNoWriMo: November 2019

As you may know, November is National Novel Writing Month. The idea is simple - write the first-draft of a novel (50,000 words) in a month. I've attempted it three times and succeeded once (the first time, writing a novel I'd had in my mind for decades). Other times, I faltered and failed.

This year, NaNoWriMo is going to be my excuse to get some of my fanon written down as narrative. I've got a ton of background on my World Anvil page (so much so you could actually probably write the narrative yourself if you wanted - I've got the "plot" settled) but I don't have that much narrative.

I don't want to try to write a novel - I am not sure exactly what novel I would write (there are interlocking stories of great complexity) and that is probably an effort too far. Instead, I want to write vignettes from the background totaling 50,000 words.

That's the goal, and it is going to count as my #1HourANight on the days when I do it!

=][= Danforth Laertes