Friday 40K: Meet The Big Man

My small coterie of Ultramarines (all of thirteen dudes) just got a wholly unnecessary addition to their command structure with Lieutenant Calsius. I'm still trying where possible to maintain a bright line between my Firstborn and Primaris armies (such a stupidly confusing pair of names), but Calsius' sculpt would have made it very difficult to paint him as anything else but XIII Legion. 

I'm fairly happy with him in the end - the freehand helmet stripe isn't quite straight, but having let my painting skills atrophy considerably in the last decade-plus, I can live with it. The power sword has my trademark gradation across the blade, but it's easy to miss it with so little of it showing. I thought about painting it a duller colour, given presumably one doesn't switch a power weapon on while it's still sheathed, but the need for the red as a spot colour eventually took me a different direction. Maybe the dude is just that good that he can slide a powered blade from its scabbard without anything catching fire at all.

I quite like the lad in all three angles here. The common denominator is they're all carefully chosen to not show how poorly his right leg fits to the rest of his body - that was a huge problem in assembly, and a reminder that I really need to get better at using green stuff to plug gaps.

Friday Talisman: A Dreaded Sunny Day

The mission to paint the whole of my Talisman collection continues with a trip to the cemetery. 

The Talisman ghoul is pleasingly craggy, so this was mostly just a basecoat and some dry-brushing. I thought about deviating from the colours the official art gives him, but having already done that with the Troll, and with the FF iteration not having any orcs or goblins, I decided this was probably my only chance to let the greenskins represent.

Just the Sorceress and one more Toad to go, and that'll be the base game I bought back in (fuck) 2009 fully painted.

Friday Talisman: Somebody Embosses A Dwarf

Or his armour, anyway. Pretty happy with this particular ginger axe-swinger. It's an unusual Talisman figure just because of its density, but that lent itself well to some blacklining, which I always like as a look.

Friday Talisman: "I Kick Arse For The Lord!"

Regularly voted one of 4th edition's worst characters, it's the one man brave enough to bring spectacles to a dragon fight: the Priest!

Just look at that bling! I guess being able to banish any spirit he stumbles across means he doesn't have to fret about the spectre of Communism. Sooner or later this lad's going to learn that Strength 2 ain't much use against a guillitone, but until then; respect to a lad willing to go questing in slippers.

Friday Dreadfleet - Cultural Appropriaship

Not super-sure how I feel about The Flaming Scimitar as a concept. I mean, it looks great, all the Dreadfleet ships do. I'm just keenly aware of how liberally it swipes from a culture neither mine nor the designer's.

Still, it is what it is. Trying to get the masts, sails and fire efreet to all coexist on the model was basically fucking impossible. The efreet's head should be higher, really, but having broken it off twice and the rear sail come loose three times just to get to the state you see below, I decided to abandon ship.

And here she is with her auxiliary cog.

 

Friday Talisman: Yosemite Swam

My ongoing attempt to paint every miniature I bought before 2010 continues, with this: the third of the four toads from Talisman 4th Edition. This time, I based my paint job on a Yosemite toad, using the picture below as a rough guide (image credit: Roger Hall at Science Photo Library).

Not a hue amount to say about this one, except that this is easily the most successful application of Agrellan Earth I've yet managed. I read a tip about giving the base an Ardcoat coat before trowelling the Agrellan Earth on, which seems to have worked.

With this wee bufonidian boy done, I'm down to just twelve Talisman figures from the noughties, including the aforementioned and truly feared fourth toad. For how long will he squirm away from my paintbrush? SOON WE SHALL KNOW.

Friday 40K: Sick Scenes

Continuing my habit of painting things that I've had lying around for a frankly embarrassing amount of time, I present the contents of Warhammer Conquest Issue (published Feb 2019). I've not really got any burning interest in the sons of Mortarion, but after some time poking around the internet, I found a colour scheme for Plague Marines I rather liked: The Purge.

This is my version of that scheme. The green was extremely difficult to even approximate - I eventually settled on a 5:1 mix of Death Guard Green and Sotek Green.

I assume that, as with my Primaris Interceptors, we're well past the point that a mere three Plague Marines are playable as a complete squad, but it's not like I've bought a Chaos codex in the last twenty years. These guys can just chill out with my Red Corsairs in my miniatures cabinet, grossing out visitors with their red-raw tentacles and copious pus-holes. Delightful.

 

Friday Talisman: A Troll On The Internet

I've decided to try and finish my remaining Talisman miniatures in order of release, as part of my broader effort to paint everything left that I acquired during my twenties*. The character art from the game is pretty different for this lad: a very green, slimy, Flubberesque vibe. I decided to go with something rockier, with the only green occasional outbreaks of moss/lichen.

I tried a new approach to shading red here, as well as a new recipe for wood. You can't really tell here, but I've given him somewhat catlike eyes, figuring they'd be helpful for making out any adventurers who've broken into his cave, what need a good clubbin'.

*Seventeen Talisman minis, a quarter of Assault On Black Reach, four Bretonnian knights, three Bonesingers, and a Chaos Sorcerer to go! Unless I've forgotten something! Which I almost certainly have!

Friday Dreadfleet: Additional Squid

At last! The miniature I was born to paint! Four years after I first started her base, the Black Kraken is done.

And her little dog auxiliary, too!

I reckon this pushes me just past the halfway point of painting up the entire set (fourteen years after it was released), so here's a nice moody (read: without proper lighting) picture of everything done so far. Genuinely think this is the best painting I've ever done.

Trek Update: April

A double helping of Trek stuff from me this month. First, my essay on the first episode of Lower Decks is up on the other blog (along with a link to buy my first book in paperback, if you live in the UK).

Second is a podcast I was invited to do with the hosts of Pedagodzilla, an awesome site which uses sci-fi and fantasy stories as a starting point for discussions on pedagogy. I got to chat to them for a while about why the Kobyashi Maru is an absolutely wretched test from a pedagogical standpoint.

Go check all that out!

Maps Of Legend

Happy March! New month, new blog post. I take some time out from charting the progress of 21st century Trek by looking at maps of a rather different kind.

IDFC 8.1.1

 Forgot to put this up, like some kind of chump. I've started the dispiriting process of picking apart Picard.

Friday Talisman: The Southest Paw

It's the guy who never skips the first half of arm day: The Possessed. 

Look at him! He's furious! His absurdly swollen limb has torn right through his regulation Naughty Cultist (Generic) robe. It gets chilly down in the damp cave where they perform their brazen rites to Nghtha-Ky'Badan, and his goosebumps are now the size of blood oranges.

Plus, female fiddler crabs keep giving him the wink, and that's just not right.

Friday Dreadfleet: Iron And Ale

Halfway through the big ships, lads! Grimnir's Thunder, reporting for cannonades and chunder.

I love the tiny little sub that's come along. He just wants to feel included. 

Also painted: free bonus blimp, because if you're going to drink until you're sick, you might as well try to hit a few seagulls with your toxic vomit.

A More Final Frontier

Happy New Year, everybody. I'm delighted to announce that IDFC is back on its bullshit. I'm going to be covering the first seasons of Discovery, Picard, Lower Decks, Prodigy, and Strange New Worlds over the next (sigh) six years. We kicked off yesterday with "The Vulcan Hello": check it out!

Infinite Diversity, Finite Combinations Volume 1.1

 I done a book.

This Is How I'll Do All Music Reviews From Now On

 (With apologies to Alexei Berrow's apologies to Brian Molko)

It's been seven long years, but hey ‘Lexei Berrow
I’ve finally made my first home-ground show
When I found you in the teenies
All sick riffs and ghost beanies
You’d made meals from each time you ate crow

I turned my friends to converts, I went looking for concerts
But you’d shut shop on cruel ironies
Just those embers left strewn cooled on closed-comments Youtubes
Sharp sadness it hurt just to see

So I respect what you’ve built up with time
Learned structures still stand, planned on land you’ve not self-undermined
That you can just risk feeling fine

And that new JoFo is lit
Tongue further from cheek
Sun on the peaks, lights in the deep
More beauteous than bleak
In King’s Heath

Friday 40K: End Of The Beginning

Forgot to turn the lightbox on for these ones, but hey: grim darkness, innit. Anyway, here's what would once have been a complete Intercessor Squad, representing the long-awaited completion of Conquest Issue #1's miniatures. Totally useless these days, of course, but it's not like I've had any chance to play 10th Edition anyway.

On to the next thing, anyway. If I very hard, I might have the Plague Marines from Issue #2 finished by Christmas, at which point every 40K miniature that was on my painting desk when I moved back up North three years ago will be done. DARE TO DREAM.

 

Wee Jock

Wee Jock was a dog that could whistle 

And track legs like a heat-seeking missile 

So a ref he became 

Until he ruined a game 

Pissing on strikers while at Partick Thistle

Friday Dreadfleet: Bonesheads

Did me a Bone Hydra.