AGHHHH I fell off the Wagon!

Alright, ever since I took my short vacation a few weeks ago I have gotten little to nothing accomplished. The specific I finished the armor and the black clothing on Llylth Herald of Everblight, not even enough to call her finished. Now I get word that Jeff M. has completed my two Trollblood conversions and my progress is not matching what I need it to.

In two weeks I’m picking up those two conversions and I need to set myself up to work on those. So here it goes.

This week I’m finishing the Everblight Box. That means I need to finish 1 Shredder, 1 Carnivean, and Llylth. That will be taxing, given my other responsibilities this week, but I think it’s workable. Particularly since the Shredder and Carnivean have the skin base on.

MI Cap Troops

Well, the blues on these fuckers are DONE. Now just some metals and I'm home free - they should be done tonight. Then it's on to the 3 Marauder suits and the CHAS - got an idea for how to rail these guys out pretty quick - I hope it works, else I won't have any time to get my own stuff painted by the time we leave next week.


Damn the body's need to sleep.

Attack of the Rabid Chickens! And Preatoran Review

Summary from the previous week. I had a very productive week excedding all the goals from last week.
Painting Progress
Finished 3 Everblight Shredders
Finished the 2nd Cyclops in full NMM
Got the base coat down on the 4th Shredder

Assembly progress
Assembled the Dire Troll Mauler
Assembled the Titan Cannoner
Assembled the Seraph
Assembled 6 Preatorians.
Assembled 2 Shredders

I picked up the Preatorians on Friday afternoon and now that I've got them in hands I'm quite happy with them, but at the same time there was no point which I hated the models in the first place so maybe that doesn't say much. Models come in 4 parts.

Preator
Main body
Left arm and Should Pad
Right Arm
Shoulder Pad

Dakar
Main Body
Left Arm and Should Pad
Head
Banner

Models went together pretty well. I ended up pinning almost every piece, with the exception of the individual Shoulder Pads. Details on the miniature came through nicely.

Next week's Goals:
This week is going to be pretty busy. Heading out of town Friday morning and won't be back until Monday nigh, mix that with class Thursday night and meeting friends tonight I'm lookng at roughly 1.5 nights available for painting. So I'll take care of either 1 Shredder or Llylth this week. Depending on time I may get all the assembled work primed for later use.

priorities, state of the union

So, my week's vacation from painting is just about over. Time to start setting priorities for what games I should use for the focus my painting time, which is kind of a statement for what games I want to play most (1).

1. Warmachine (Cygnar, Mercs) (2)

2. 40k (Imperial Guard, Inquisition) - Playing around with armylists for the MegaBattle, I kind of fell for the Inquisition all over. And learned a bunch about how to use them. So, yeah, definitely here to stay. Including Sisters.

3. StarGrunt (OUDF, Kra'vak, more) - I'm planning to hit GZG-ECC next February, so might as well get crackin' (3). And have recently uncovered that Mr. Sawez has an army he's itching to try out, so, yeah.

4. Urban War (Triad) - No, I haven't technically played a game yet. I will. And either way, them's some nice figs, that I could use for loads of games. Loads.

Anything I'm forgetting?


(1) - Star Wars and Heroclix excepted, for obvious reasons.

(2) - At this point, I think I am holding off on Hordes. I don't like enough of the models for any one army. I still like Everblight's backstory the best, though the Circle is running a close second. After 6-9 months of the release, I'm sure I'll have a better idea, or a better use for my cash. Heh. Until such time, I can beat up your beasties with my warjacks and bullets, anyways.

(3) - Bringing an army of Star Wars figs to GZG-ECC also. Probably Empire.

Dire Troll Assembly Guide

I should have photoed along the way, but with at least a few Trollblood players in the targeted audience of this Blog I though I’d run through how I assembled my Mauler. I took several weeks to accomplish it (Bought him the day Game Parlor got him in and just finished him last night)but I spent probably a total of 1-2 hours working on him, it could probably be done in as little as 1-2 hours over 2-3 Days. You need that curing time to ensure good adhesion of some of the pieces with the green stuff. Thus I don;t recomend putting this off until the night before a tournament. (Speaking to both Khador Players who tried to assemble a Behemoth just before the Disorderlies Warmachine tourney.)

First thing go out and pick up some green stuff. It will make your life easy in the assembly process and later painting process.

Parts
Left Upper Torso
Right Upper Torso
Lower Torso and Left Leg
Right Leg
Spine mane
Face
Left Fang
Right Fang
Left Arm
Right Arm

As usual clean all the mold lines flash, and weird crap found on the miniatures. Sometimes the Mold releaser can affect miniature assembly. I always wash minis before priming but lately I have also started washing up the pieces before assembly. Do what you normally do to prep complex minis for assembly

Day 1
I started with the upper torso. All I did was roll out a snake of green stuff and ran it all along the joint between the left and right upper torso. Press together and hold for a minute or so, then set it out of the way for 30 minutes.

Next, I drilled a pin hole into both the lower torso and right Leg. Test fit and ID if you have any glaring gaps. I had a decent size gap on the bottom of the mini so I set a short snake of epoxy on one side glued the pin in place on the other side and then pressed together. Hold for about 30 seconds to make sure the super glue adheres, set aside for 30 minutes.

Go back to the upper torso and clean up the semi-hardened epoxy to get a smooth joint that looks good, do the same on the lower torso and legs. Now let this cure for a good 12-18 hours, I let mine go for almost 24 hours. The only thing holding the upper torso together is the green stuff. I’ve discovered it has marvelous adhesion properties, but only if you let it cure properly.

Day 2
Get yourself some more green stuff made up and roll out a nice snake on the joint for the upper and lower torso. Follow the same steps done for the upper torso halves. Let it cure at least 30 minutes and then clean up the joint so it looks nice and smooth. Again let this cure for a good long while. I let mine go for another 24 hours.

Above are the two time-limiting events. The steps below can be taken in pieces during the 30 minute curing times or whenever you feel like it.

The Arms
Once again make up a fresh batch of epoxy. I drilled pin holes for both the left and the right arm joints. Test fit to ensure the pin holes line up acceptably, then roll out a snake of epoxy for the joint and lay it around the outer rim of the upper torso side of the joint. Glue the pin in place on the upper joint, add glue to the bottom of the pin (I used pretty long pins to keep super glue/Epoxy interaction to a minimum) Squeeze together and hold for 30s to let the super glue cure, Repeat on the other side and let the upper torso rest for 30 minutes. Clean up the epoxy around the joint to make it smooth. In this step the epoxy is mostly aesthetic. Otherwise you will likely have an exposed joint seem just above the biceps that will look pretty bad. But the green stuff will assist the pin holding the joint and should provide a very strong joint for gaming.

Face
I pinned both of the fangs into the face with a sewing pin, small enough to drill into the bottom of the fang but sturdy enough to help hold it. I them placed a ball of green epoxy onto the top of the joint in the back of the face, and a little super glue in the bottom. Squeeze the face onto the torso and hold for 30 seconds. As usual after it’s cured for 30 minutes go back and clean the joint up.

Spiney Mane
I did something similar with that that I did with arms, pin and green stuff. I had a pretty significant gap between the bottom of the mane and the top of the torso that was supposed to be under it. I drilled pin holes at the top of the mane/torso juncture and snaked out epoxy along the entire length of the mane. The difficult part on this one is finding the pin hole through the green epoxy. I found it without too much trouble and didn’t bother with the Super glue/epoxy interaction. Green stuff was shoved up into the pin hole during the process and there was plenty of epoxy left unmarred by super glue along the rest of the mane. Once again after a 30 minute cure time go back and clean up the joint.

In the end I’m pretty pleased with the way it came out. I’m still working on my Green stuff sculpting skills, I’ll never be as good as Jeff M., but I’m beginning to manage my way around joint filling better, and still making it look decent. I’m a little disappointed with the size of the Dire Troll. Wish it was a little bit larger, at least the size of the Carnivean! But he’s pretty good looking. He’s somewhat down on the paint que right now, but I’ll post pics when he is done.