Weekly Hobby Group: Kroot-a-saurus Coming Together

 Kroot-a-saurus looks nearly done to me, which probably means that he only looks 60% done to Jimmy (aka "King Kitbash.") Tonight he magnetized the top turret and attached both... sponsons? I dunno, what would you call the little booms with Kroot gunners on them?

 I managed getting quite a bit done on a Malifaux Punk Zombie and Crooked Man. Jimmy, Seth and I spent a lot of time just gabbing yesterday, so I'm surprised I got as much done as I did. All that's left to paint in my Malifaux crew are the three belles (one is WIP below) another Punk Zombie and Crooked Man, half a nurse and two more Canine Remains. Well, not counting the Nightmare Teddy, Dead Justice and Miss Demeanor I picked up GenCon weekend. I really want to sculpt a second Teddy to use the alternate head supplied, but multiple Teddies implies I'm starting a Dreamer list, doesn't it? (Resist, Mike. Resist.)

Seth mostly worked on some wood (shields?) on Harry the Hammer's base. I don't know if I mentioned it previously, but he got some Forge World Chaos Dwarfs that he's been painting and the models are fantastic.

I finished the back of Tristan's Harlequin. One more good inspection for mistakes and I think he's as good as in the mail. The polyurethane coating (Minwax Polycrylic clear gloss) seemed to have worked, since I haven't knocked any more paint off the model despite quite a bit of handling. A little Testors DullCote takes the shine form the polyurethane off nicely.

Mike's DIY Servo-Arms

Regular weekly hobby guy Mike (not me) shared his method for making Do-It-Yourself Servo-Arms for his Chaos Space Marines this week.  The method also works well for regular Space Marines, which is what we're demonstrating since I only had loyalist backpacks to work with.

Step 1. Get a backpack, 2 combat knives, and 2 flamers.

Step 2. Cut the flamers as shown. Concentrate on
making a clean cuts.

Step 3. Cut a vent off the backpack and glue the barrel
portion of the flamer in its place.

Step 4. Glue the flamer tank to the flamer barrel.  To
get a flush fit you can either file the rounded tank side
flat or file a round section onto the flamer tank.

Step 5. Cut the other flamer barrel at the angle shown.

Step 6. Glue the barrel to the tank. Glue the other
flamer tank to the end of the second barrel.

Step 7. Cut the combat knives' blades to form the servo-
arm clamp.

Step 8. Glue the two knife pieces on to form the clamp.
You're done with the servo-arm.

Step 9. Bonus! User the two leftover pieces of the
flamer to make Blood Angels hand flamers!

And just to be double clear, this method comes from Mike (one of the weekly hobby gang) and not me. Mike is an Iron Warriors fanatic, so this sort of conversion is right up his alley. He did the conversion work on Wednesday and I took pictures as he went along.  Some more chaos-looking version he has done can be seen here.

Weekly Hobby Update - Magnification!

Just Jimmy and me for hobbying tonight.
I finally took some pics of what Jimmy has been working on....

But first! Magnification!

 I don't use the LED lights because they are oddly blue colored.

This is the magnification headset that Jimmy gave me last week.  This week I used it to refine the painting on the Malifaux fig "Mortimer, the Grave Digger."

Results are below.

BEFORE, without magnification... not terrible
from a distance but less than awesome up close.

AFTER, lots of touch ups with the magnification lenses on.
The focus is a little softer but I hope the improvement is evident.

And here is the updated Kroot-a-saurus.

Now with more gunners!

Detail of the gunner and his awesome expression.

This side still needs its gun sponson thing.

Also, the Chaos Kroot tank.  His Kroot are Tzeentch-leaning.  Shapers / Change... it makes sense.

Captain Kroot is very enthusiastic about change.

And I worked on Nicodem a little too.  Pimptastic.

I thought the purple was kind of original until I saw that the
picture of Nicodem in the new rulebook has him purple.

Weekly Hobby Group Update: Malifaux Models in One Night

First off, I don't know what kind of crazy voodoo plague I got a couple weeks ago, but I am just now getting to the point of doing anything at night besides falling asleep on the couch after putting the kids to bed.  I probably would have slept for two weeks straight without the help of Five Hour Energy Drink.

Even with my life-sapping malady, we've still had Thursday night hobby time.  Both nights I have resolved to paint an entire figure in one night.

Behold last week's nurse and last night's zombie dog handler:

Quit barking at me or you'll get a dose of this.

I plan on using the zombie as a flesh construct for my McMourning crew.  Since the crew has a bunch of zombie dogs I figured that this dude was appropriate.  It has been observed that he looks like a Best Buy employee.  I don't know what the dark genesis of the extended warranty is, but I would wager that it involved the undead.  The nurse was last weeks model.  The original has a red cross over each of her nipples, which I did not find terribly appealing.  I removed them.

Seth worked like crazy on that shield for Harry the Hammer.  He is a total perfectionist, which makes for awesome single models and vast, unpainted armies.  This is the second base-coat that Harry himself has gotten, the first being stripped for inadequate awesomeness.

Mike has been working on his Dark Elf test warriors.  He can't decide on a blue/red/gold scheme or just a red/gold scheme.  I thought I had taken pics, but I can't find them on my phone.  hmmm....  He also explained that the servo-arms from the last hobby post I did were constructed from other parts.  We will be coordinating to do a tutorial on how to make those soon.

Jimmy continued adding things to Kroot-a-saurus.  He can't decide whether to keep the banded mail armor from the last picture or go with a more round armor that he made from pastic bottles.  He really has an amazing ability to see conversion fodder in everyday items.

Just for kicks, here is the rest of my Malifaux crew in their unpainted splendor.

In this picture there are 8 dogs.  Can you find them all?

Okay, so the Convict Gunslinger has paint on his face.  I guess that disqualifies him from one-night paint job status.

I am more and more wanting to play Malifaux.  The soonest I can get out to RIW in Livonia to play is 5/31.  Ach!  In the meantime I'll paint and listen to The Aethervox podcast, which is 99% Malifaux.

Weekly Hobby Group Update: Servo Arms, Armor and Nid Wins

Seth, Jimmy, and Mike came over to hobby last night.  Seth wasn't in the painting mood so I got out Space Hulk and we played mission one a couple times.  Nids always won.

Jimmy, crushed by the "scrot-a-saurus" comment from last week's blog, finally took all of our advice and added armor plating.  It helped that I gave him a sheet of plasticard and a paper cutter to use.

Mike wanted to show off his Iron Warriors models, complete with servo arms.  The one on the left is converted with a nifty shield, but the black priming sucks all the light out of the photo.

Meanwhile, Stef and Mimi watched "Wire in the Blood" and discussed the portrayal of various religions in film/TV.  Mimi doesn't think witches are getting a fair shake.

And me?  I haven't done anything of note lately.  I've been working on a coding project, but it makes for boring blog posting.  (What?  You want to talk about SQL queries?  You are a sicko.)

Weekly Hobby Group: Kroot-a-saurus, Zombie Fish and Bad Pants

Who can resist a title like that?

Jimmy and I hobbied it up on Thursday.  Chips flew.  Glue dripped.  Paint was applied.

First up, Kroot-a-saurus got some work.  Jimmy (aka "King Kitbash") started with some head enhancements and went on to trying to make some armor.  It was supposed to look like giant turtle shell pieces bolted to the side, but it never quite got there.

Next up, Jimmy brought the zombie fish bowl he's been working on for his roommate's belated Christmas present.  I helped him by painting the tombstone last week, and he brought it over to show me the finished product.

Hive Fleet Emervac's hormagaunts got some more attention.  I'm probably one serious night away from finishing this unit.

And lastly, Tristan's Harlequin got some pants.  I am decidedly unhappy with the consistency of the yellow.... so chalky.  The plan is to go over it a few more times to try and smooth the color, then shore up the borders with more purple so that the lines are sharp.  Maybe I'll blackline around them...

Weekly Hobby Group update

Just me and Jimmy tonight. I worked on my Elf Blade Mistress a little.

I completed more of the gaunt unit from Hive Fleet Emervac. These are a few machine painting steps away from being done. I really can't, in good conscience, start painting any of the cool Eldar I traded for this paint job until I finish them!

Jimmy added spines and more spines to his Kroot-a-saurus. "Kroot Warbeast" he corrects me. Yeah, I'm going with Kroot-a-saurus. Ha!

Weekly Hobby Group update

Hobbying was a good time tonight, with newcomer Andrew joining me, Seth, Jimmy and Mike.  Much coffee was consumed.  It was loud.  Things got painted.  Poor Andrew had to ensure everyone showing him my painted models.

I worked mostly on "Hive Fleet Emervac" gaunts.  Seth worked more on chaos warriors, and his "Harry the Hammer" shield that he is painstakingly trying to make look like Alexi Z's version in the CMON annual.  His "lava" shield is coming along nicely.

Jimmy sculpted a new face on a dollar-store dinosaur to match his Kroot mercenary army. Everyone thought it was pretty cool!

Finally, Mike worked on some Tau and Andrew worked on his chaos warriors.  I put some paint on a very old Elf Blade Mistress Ral Partha mini.

After some consideration, we decided to move hobby night back to Thursday.  I had hoped to start going to an Android development group Thursday nights, but it just never happened.

Weekly Hobby Group: Harby and Eiryss Lighten the Mood

Each week, more or less, a few guys come over to my house to paint and hobby.  We have a floating group of 6, and typically 3 or 4 are there each week (including myself.)  I have kids to put to bed, so the group comes to my house.  It's a nice arrangement for me, and they seem to enjoy it.  I dispense a lot of painting advice and get to see what everyone is working on.  I think I will start to chronicle what we work on here.  If I remember, I might even take photos.

I really needed last night.  The mood was light and we painted our little toy soldiers while Jimmy's wife made fun of us (in a good natured way) for playing with toys.  I mentioned in the last post that we had some family tragedy, so the mood had been quite a bit more somber recently.  On Tuesday, March 8, my three year old nephew died suddenly.  We basically moved in with my wife's brother and sister-in-law on Wednesday and didn't go home until Wednesday of this week, the day after the funeral.  My three  kids are each slightly older than their three other kids, and they have all grown up together, so the kids were able to play and keep each other busy while the parents made arrangements.  I think staying there was as much to comfort us as it was for them.   "Danger Johnny" (as his brothers named him) was a fantastically vibrant and energetic child, getting into absolutely everything.  I so clearly remember him crashing around the house with the kids, jumping in my lap to say hi, then squirming out of my arms to go chasing after the kids again.  He was something else, and we're all missing him terribly.

So after all that, and a funeral that included the funeral director's cell phone ending up buried at the bottom of the grave, we're all home and I enjoyed goofing off with my hobby group.  I had no real focus, so I just started painting models as the mood hit me.

I started with Eiryss' cloak.  Then started some freehand swirls with VGC livery green.  I didn't like that, so I made vines by adding leaves of GW snot green.  They didn't show up well enough, so I outlines the leaves in white.  I still didn't like it, so I extended the vines out and eventually adding little flowers of white and GW blood red.

I also put some paint on the Harbinger of Menoth.  I've had these two models for years without doing more than priming them, so they both were dusty.  After brushing all the dust off I realized how bad the priming job on the Harbinger is.  Her face had a paint texture on it that ended up looking like acne after putting a little flesh color down.  I guess she's supposed to be a teenager, so it makes sense in a way.  Why wouldn't the floating girl who acts as a voice for a god not have acne?  It's also attire for a teenager that would make the authors of (warning: NSFW) "Go Make Me A Sandwich" pull their hair out.

I also put together a unit of 10 Flameguard Cleansers.  I am greatly looking forward to getting off a CRA with them at POW 22, AOE 4" and RAT 15.  Oh, yes.  That might even hit Lylyth.