Buying new terrain for my pet Hierodules.

This is a bit of abstract humor I thought I would share.

Earlier this week I had a small conversation with my friend Masta Cheef. Initially I asked if he shops at a nearby pet store and if the store was still open for business. He said he occasionally does shop at the pet store and the store is still open for business. I explained I needed new cages for my Hierodules. Amusing enough, Masta Cheef caught the reference and said he wanted pictures of their faces if I ask.

I met my wife at the pet store to check the store's cage designs and hopefully purchase new cages. This was the cage design and setup I had in mind I wanted. The pet store had a different cage design which we ultimately decoded upon purchasing.

The store had two of the cages in stock and they were actually slightly larger models. We ended up taking advantage of the larger size and bought the two cages they had in stock. The store owner gave us $15 off each cage as we were going to order a third as well.

We went home, setup the new cages and transferred three of our Chinchillas to their new cages. These cages are much easier to maintain and give them plenty of room as well. These larger cages will provide all of my Chinchillas with an upgrade from a three story to a six story cage.

Some more humor.

Not more than two days after purchasing the new cages two of my Chinchillas a father and his on to be exact  managed to break out and get loose. I told my wife we had a jail break. My daughter helped me find the two escape artists.

She found the younger Chinchilla (Outlaw) first hiding among the lower contents of my hobby shelf.

She spotted what looked like a Chinchilla and saw one sitting on top of a bag. The same bag contains some of my larger Tyranid models such as my Carnifex and my Trygon models. :)

She found the older Chinchilla (Bandit) last hiding behind the (Damsel) our female Chinchilla's cage. Damsel was Bandit's mate awhile back. I received the cutest pet picture one can receive.

Bandit!!!

Later on in the evening I think my daughter finally caught on how the whole jail break ordeal went perfectly along with the Wild Wild West name theme we give our Chinchillas. I explained I told her mother earlier there was a jail break, an Outlaw was caught, and a Bandit was caught, all while a Damsel watched. She loled. :)

One day I will have to place some unused 40K models and let one my Chinchillas loose and see how many he can knock down.

Further Progress Update on Devastator Squad

The Devastator squad is almost finished. I would like to show how they look once more before they receive any final alteration and or cleanup. Plus I have a few concerns I am still trying to resolve.

The Devastator squad

This is the normal squad size I use in most of my games. A lot of times a power sword on a tactical squad Sergeant is useless and I might start investing in adding an additional Marine to the Devastator squad size instead. This squad also received the new base scheme. I like it so far. I have experimented with some grey paints, grey washes, and grey weathering powders. I still need something to help set the crushed rubble from the bricks. I thought Badab Black, but it is too dark. I'll have to see if I can obtain a lighter wash somewhere.

Marine Sergeant

I have not painted flesh in many years, but the painted flesh on the Sergeant's head came out nicely. I haven't painted the eyes yet though. I seem to be out of a very thin brush suitable for painting eyes. Painting eyes uses a smaller brush than lenses in my opinion. I might invest in a superior quality paint brush just for this reason and then clean it and leave it only to use it again for painting eyes. The eye sockets have a light Badab Black wash applied and that was it and I am not sure if this helped any.

Sergeant Sir Point to Nothing Useful

Marines with missile launchers

I retouched the outer lenses of missile launcher sights so I will need to apply a bit of Badab Black. I might also add a very light Badab Black wash to the side of the purity seals throughout the squad to help define them a bit more, but either way they do look nice. I need to practice making inscriptions some day. The bases really give them models contact to the ground and is much better than the previous green.


Heads glued on? Check
Weapons glued on? Check

The other half of the Devastator squad

Marines with bolters

These Marines look bad ass and I think they will look bad ass on the table when I finally use them. The poses I chose although are almost generic look good. The leader in the middle, three firing away, another advancing weapon at the ready. Sadly, hey have no idea or rules on how to pick up their fallen brethren's weapons and finish the fight. This picture shows the eye lenses are lacking a bit. The color of the eye lenses would be the same for red armor, but encased in blue the green color needs a little more to help it show through. I don't want a glow though.

Heads glued on? Check
Weapons glued on? Check

Squad portrait

Damn we look good!

The Army Painter Ultramarine Blue along with the Liquitex Prussian Blue ink really helped the blue helmets match the color intensity of the red armor. I know they look shiny  but this is because of the ink and the nature of the color intensity I want. The most important fact in the models never fail to stand out in a picture and this I like. :)

I am so glad this squad is done. It is beyond annoying when ole boys missile launcher falls off during the fight or ole boy can't doesn't have the strength to raise his missile launcher to the enemy. One thing is the squad was famous for taking down enemy units having no heads and no weapons. Hopefully with a complete removal from the battlefield while being painted and a reintroduction to the battlefield fully painted will allow the squad to shine through.

Call it what you want, but the models when I view them or handle them seem larger and better than their unpainted states. Maybe it is the whole painted feel, but who knows. This squad would have been great to field in my last game, I dropped so many marines on the table it really wouldn't have mattered and might have been overkill.

The Devastator squad has been off the battlefield ever since they were paint stripped and last week the Baal Predator was not on the battlefield either. I currently have the Baal Predator in production behind this squad alongside a Land Raider. I should have no issues getting some WIP pictures of the Baal and maybe the Land Raider depending upon what work I can do soon.

Progress update on Devastator Squad

I haven't been active lately on my blog, but I have been active in the game and hobby world. I figure I would show how the Devastator squad looks so far. The pictures could be better, but I haven't been in the mood to setup both lamps to get the best lighting.

For the most part, the squad looks great. I did something different in which I painted the inner coils metal instead of the normal black, but also applied a wash as well. I made a fair number of over painting mistakes, but the matching army painter pure red paint works great for covering those areas. Something new I have painted is the rear section in their packs. I liked the look of this so much I will apply to all future painted Blood Angels marines. All of the purity seals turned out nice as well even though I never add lines to them.

The squad sergeant is taking a bit longer than expected, but the overall looks has proven worth the extra time. I tried and new paint recipe for the leather portions and a new paint recipe for the flesh portion as well. I would like the flesh a bit lighter, but it looks good for now. I went with green for his hair just for color contrast reasons. Every time I start a new Fallout game  I seem to create a character with a Mohawk hair style colored green  I never see it, because having a helmet in Fallout helps considerably. I need to finish the auspex/signum or for simplicity just leave it green screen.

You can barely see the frag grenade to the right of the bolter. I started out dark and worked up to light with a light recess application Badab Black wash.

Just what was GW's intention to have him pointing at anyway?

The marines holding the missile launchers are up to par with the sergeant. I am in the finishing stages of painting the helmets and then they are good to go. This particular marine I tried to remove the head prior to paint stripping, but couldn't do it and damaged the front vent a bit. I left the front vent damage as is and considered it some form of battle damage.

The missile launchers for some reason never seem to paint nice and smooth. They didn't look appealing, but after some clean up they did look much better. The under slung coil had to be repainted to though. I initially debated on how to paint them and eventually decided to keep the barrel of the launcher black and the other parts metal in color.

The other half of the squad which are normal bolter marines and according to GW have no idea how to pick up their fallen brother's weapons and use them against the enemy. They lighting was not good in the lower portions, but the marines do look stunning up close. I didn't use any special paint ideas, just normal armor and a metal chest armor plate decoration. They will have their heads attached once those are done.

I painting the base of this marine as a test bed for the basing material I will be using. I will be using a combination of Army Painter Black Battleground mixed with Pegasus Hobbies Small Grey Bricks for an urban base theme. The Blood Angel's in general are shown fighting in urban landscapes so the original boring green base and green flock had to go. I can debating what is better a black or grey base rim. The Black Battleground starts black in color and is designed to be glued and dry brushed as desired. I believe leaving the rim black is the best choice as the Black Battleground mix will be dry brushed slightly grey and I don't want to avoid color issues. The black base visually helps bring the model back to the playing field as well.

This particular marine will be the leader of the rest of the squad. I chose the Aquila chest plate for only this marine in the squad. All of the normal marines will receive normal marine heads, but I was thinking of using a Corvis helmet for the Aquila plus beak deal.

Here are the heads so far in the painting process. I initially used a 5:1 ink mix when I intended to use a 10:1 ink mix causing me to paint strip these heads again, lol. The 10:1 ratio works great alongside matching the color intensity of the ink mix on the normal armor. I have painted the eyes so far with Warpstone Green and not sure how to proceed from there besides a glaze of Waywatcher Green. The front vents are done along with the side metal pieces. I am undecided on the metal coils to the side of the front vent as sometimes they tend not to look so good. 

The head closest to the camera had some odd flash stuck to the front vent. I didn't see this till to far in so I left it as a possible enemy round permanently lodged in the front vent. The mistakes from the eyes shoukd be easy to clean up with a light ink mix application.

Here are the materials I will be basing the army with. Army Painter Black Battleground mixed with Pegasus Hobbies Small Grey Bricks. I might even add a few random skulls in the mix I bought from Secret Weapon Miniatures because who doesn't need more skulls.

Once these heads are down I believe I will place the Assault squad heads and start working on them. Painting the Assault squad is no big deal, the heads are the toughest part to get the colors right.

My intentions are to finish this squad for good this week and then proceed with the Baal Predator next. I would like to get the Baal Predator spry painted before the wet weather sets in this week. I also have spray painted my other Land Raider and it is ready for painting as well.

Any thoughts on the areas I am concerning or pondering to much are greatly appreciated.

Battletech Battle Report

I have a fresh new Battletech Battle Report for your reading pleasure complete with story and pictures. Please enjoy the battle report and add some feedback if you will.

Hobby desk update

Here are a few items I have been working on the past few days.

In the world of Battletech

New Vehicles

Last Christmas season my good friend Masta Cheef gave me the gift of Battletech in the form of a pair of Harasser Missile Platforms. I figured I need to get these vehicles assembled and into my regular vehicle inventory so they can be used in upcoming games. Masta Cheef loves destroying my vehicles as much as I love trampling his with assault mechs.

Assembling the models was easy. I wondered if the SRM launchers were actually mounted to a turret so I stopped before gluing the launchers permanently in place. I did some research and sure enough there is a turret. Since the vehicle has a turret and I had some small magnets which would work perfectly I magnetized the turret. I have not added the hover base yet and may not at all, it sometimes gives the model balance issues on mapsheets.

The red marker gives away the presence of where I have placed a magnet. I used very small magnets which were 1/16 x 1/32 in size. The magnets stay connected quite well for their size.

Turret twisting is a go. I have no idea how these vehicles are going to fire into their left or right side firing arcs. Who needs the rear spoiler anyway.

In the world of 40K

Painting Space Marine heads

If you have read some of my previous posts featuring the WIP shots of my Space Marine Devastator squad all but seven members of the squad have their heads missing. The sergeant has a flesh head which is not a concern and two squad members have their heads attached as I could not remove them prior to paint stripping the models. Blood Angels Devastator Marine helmets are blue compared to the rest of the army so they have to be painted separately. I do this to avoid having to paint blue over the red prime coat. The two Marines with heads were carefully covered to avoid any red spray applied.

Painting heads attached to a chest is easy, but what about painting detached heads? I tried using pins in the necks so I could hold the heads in place with my fingers but this did not work. Neither did holding the pins with some pliers or even placing them in styrofoam. The heads would continuously spin which was not helpful. I was not in the mood to go purchase cork material either.

An Ingenious and Cheap Idea

Then I thought of an idea from a bit of excess sprue left over from a new model. Using the out lining portion of a sprue as a base and leaving some for holding and structure I made a pallet base to attach and paint the heads on. I originally was going to super glue the heads to the side of the sprue, but I saw the round joints on the sprue would work perfectly as a base to mount the heads upon with a bit of super glue. I can easily remove the heads at the base where they are glued and attached them to their respective models and no one will notice.

This idea has worked great. I have been able to prime them much easier as I used a brush on white primer and a brush on blue paint. I can add ink to the heads just as easy and paint them with ease. Heck I hate painting eyes, but I can hold this sprue bit steady and paint them much easier than a model in hand.

One area I am still at odds with is the blue ink I have applied to the heads so far. I could not find a blue ink which is close to the Army Painter Ultramarine Blue so I used the closest color being Prussian Blue ink. I am not using the inks as a wash necessarily, but rather as an enhancement to the overall color. The ink becomes the next layer and gives the armor the shine and color of the Emperor's finest. 

The blue heads on the Devastator Marines have a 1:1 distilled water/ink mix applied. I felt this was maybe too heavy and mostly it gives off a definite purple hint in natural light. I tested out a 10:1 ratio which appeared too light and even tested a 2:1, 3:1, and even a 4:1 ratios. Oddly enough the 2:1 and 3: 1 ratios appeared the same while the 4:1 appeared a bit dark for my tastes. I even tried mix some chestnut in as I do with red ink, but it did not work at all, however it produced a wonderful teal color i might be able to use for plasma weapons.

For clarity here is the Devastator Marines before and after the original 1:1 ratio was applied to the blue paint.

Blue helmets without blue ink applied.

Blue helmets with blue ink applied.

Replace the Sergeant's auspex with a mic and the bolter with a guitar and he is platinum.

Here is a close up of the heads on the sprue. The middle helmet and the helmets adjacent to it have had ink applied with 2:1 ratio. You can see they have a slight purple tint, but they look good. The purple tint might only be showing in direct light focus as the lower row does not have the light focused directly at them. Perhaps after painting the various other parts oft the helmet the purple may become less noticeable or naturally work itself in. There might be a way to tone down the blue ink a bit, but I am unsure of how. I could apply highlights, but I tend not to on armor. I can try to apply some water across the heads to perhaps wash some of the ink away leaving the stained portion behind. If this works it should remove the purple tint, but it loses the shine which matches the rest of the armor the ink application gives.

Heads On A Sprue!

I presume I will probably decide on using the 2:1 ink ratio as I would rater not wait longer or fall into another viscous cycle of the inability to decide. If I don't get any ideas I will either have made a decision or left the heads of as usual.

Check back very soon for a new Battletech Battle Report.

WIP Devastator Squad and other upcoming units.

Send The First Squad To Help!

Here is how the Devastator Squad appears as of now.

I have moved past using black paint to painting the metal portions and the parchment/purity seals. I initially used black and then a metal dry brush over vents and coils, but dry brushing causes a lot of extra clean up. With some consulting I have moved to painting those areas with metal on top of black and then applying a black wash and then a second black wash.

Here is the sergeants pack. The picture might not be able to give the full detail of the vents yet.

I have done the coils on the missile launchers. I am deciding how to go about painting the missile launchers themselves, but once I have an idea they should be no trouble.

Here is proof the other half of the Devastator Squad has made it into production. I have the heads being painting separating along with the bolters which both are part of the post painting assembly. I have tried pinning heads to paint them and it has not been all to helpful so my next idea it to glue the heads to some scrap sprue and hope they hold while painting. Another noticeable detail is the ink wash is heavier than the first half of the Devastator Squad, but I like it and can easily apply it to the first half if needed. Ideally these Marines do not need heads or weapons, but visually they say adding them is a better overall gaming experience. What do they know anyway.

Squad portrait day.

Everyone knows the bolter Marines are cannon fodder and even the Sergeant eventually is as well. Eventually I need to come to an agreement upon base flock. I used plain green paint and green flock, but I would like to move to something better. I think urban might be better as my Tyranids have a foliage flock base scheme.


I have slowed down a bit in painting, but it was for good reason as I was prepping other models in the background for their initial prime stage.

Send The Second Squad To Help.

Why send three squads when you can send three priests?

Why send three priests when you can send three priests with jump packs?

By land, air, or transport, you can send three magnetized priests as one elites choice.

Magnetizing the priests was a bit of a challenge. The back of the chest armor of a plastic model is easy to drill out, but the metal model is much more difficult. The drills slipped and tore the edges away on all of them a little. The fact the tear is between the armor and the pack, no one should care or notice. The metal models with the metal packs are heavy in their own weight class though.

Send The Third Squad To Help.

For a long time I have wanted to make more Assault Marines and most of all have better assault posses. I can say I want dynamic poses, but how long can I use the world till it becomes like the word pop, lol. I have about 26 Assault Marine models to work with, but for the meantime I only assembled models with the basic bolt pistol and chainsword loadout.

Here is a selection of some new poses for my Assault Marines and a brief explanation of the various poses.

Left - Is focusing with his bolt pistol with his chainsword ready to swing in a wide sweeping angle.

Middle - Is advancing with chainsword raised in challenge.

Right - Slows momentarily to select a new threat to tear apart. The idea of twin chainswords gives the model the extra awesome factor.

Left - Advancing bolt pistol raised while bringing his chainsword up.

Middle - Advancing with chainsword raised with a more menacing look while detaching his bolt pistol from a magnetic grip on his thigh.

Right - Slows momentarily bolt pistol raised in his left hand suppressing the enemy while ready to toss a frag grenade held in his right hand at the suppressed enemy.

I did purchased a new small reinforcement unit for my Blood Angels army and some new large reinforcement units for my Tyranid army. These units should be shown soon enough, until then I have magnets to apply.

Land Raider Crusader Finished

I still have a small list of minor things to do to it, but nothing major at all. I need to add the searchlight, correct a few paint mistakes on the exterior and the interior. The interior has to made till a matching dropper bottle color is off back order at a local retailer. Finally I need to purchase a new foam tray to protect it during future storage and transport. Otherwise this tank is done and I am happy how it turned out.


Here is the Land Raide Crusader as of now.

You can see the horrible mold on the right Assault Cannon. I really likes how the blue glass sights turned out. I wonder if the smoke launchers stick out in black instead of matching the metal pieces.

The front lower right portion of the hull near the treads is the only real area which needs a minor paint touch up. The cupola has some, but I don't think they matter much to most eyes.

Bless the brass and glue holding metal to plastic.

The screen on the Multi-Melta shield is kind of messed up paint wise. I figure it either works or may no longer work anymore as the machine spirit tends to fire it most of the time.

Eventually I will tackle my other Land Raider in the same fashion, but it should paint up much faster. Currently it is in the last stages of paint stripping. Older Citadel spray paint apparently is VERY difficult to remove right along with cheap auto spray paint. However I experimented with Super Clean in the purple bottle and it works great. Super Clean compared to simple green it is ten times better and doesn't hurt plastic. I might do a visual documentary on how good it works in the future.

Next in line is my Devastator squad.

Sergeant Sir Point to nothing useful and his Marines of Martial Art Mastery.

Damn that is one sweet Auspex Signum!.

One interesting fact is I have not used a single drop of Citadel paint products on them yet. All of the Missile Launchers are pinned either to the chest or to the launcher itself. Yes the two Marines on the left will have heads. Like the ink I use on the red spray paint I believe I have found a suitable ink to use on the blue paint.

With the help of a collection of ideas, opinions, and thoughts from outside sources I have decided to assemble and paint the other half of the Devastator squad. By the end of the month I will have a full Devastator squad. Yes they will all have heads.


On the side I have added a few more magnets to my Baal Predator for even more versatility. I am also in the process or rebuilding, rearming, and reposing my Assault Squads. There will more new stuff to show very soon.