djizomdjinn

UPS: Your package was delivered. Oh hey, that thing I ordered last week arrived. Wait a sec. What's that big box? ...oh. The mini backlog just got bigger.

I used to use Loctite 403 (or 401, I don't remember), one of their industrial-grade superglues with MSDS, cure time vs. temperature charts, and everything. Also 420, their super-low viscosity glue that wicks into cracks (and inevitably glues your fingers together. Also don't get it on paper or cloth, the increased surface area will let out a small cloud of CA fumes) Honestly overkill, but once you've used the good stuff, the stuff Loctite puts on the shelves on your local hardware store feel a bit meh by comparison. Are they good? Yes, best CA glues I've used. But they're also $20 a bottle, last time I checked.

Did a bit more work on Eversor, mostly just filling out pelvis with layers, I'll post pics when there's something interesting to see. But in more Mechanicus related news, I got my jury duty paycheck. And it just covered a Knight Armiger, so that's what I got. Now, originally I was planning on replacing the face with a statue of a robed woman, kind of like a figurehead, but then a comparison struck me. The Armiger design is cool, but it somehow feels... familiar. So yeah, Vanguard-class Knight diorama, complete with reposing is something that will be happening. I'm probably going to shove it into it's own thread though, since it doesn't really fit into the theme of Sisters Mechanicus anymore.

In my experience, the paint for prepaints is so ridiculously tough it might as well be considered part of the miniature. Any chemical attempt at removing it will probably destroy the plastic underneath as well. If you have some sort of spray primer, give it a coat and look again? It might not be as bad as you think it is.

I did see the Wargame stuff, but personally I find their sculpts to be tasteless at best. There's better ways of making a female mini other than slapping on a pair of F-cups wrapped only in bandages, IMO. Man these Sicarians are cool. Not much work here other than swapping heads, fabricating a few silencers, and using the Ruststalker left arms instead of the meh Infiltrator ones. If you're going to chop off all their limbs to make them more killy, why would you leave one random organic elbow on their gun arm? The Sicarian Alpha I did do some more modding on, resculpting the shoulder so that she holds her stubcarbine in both hands, and modifying the Ruststalker Alpha backpack to hold her power sword. I also added in a cog-Iron Halo, because praise the Omnissiah. Hmm. The kit came with 6 torsos and 15 arms to make 5 characters. Surely I can make something out of the sixth torso...? Kit bashing together some of the leftover bits with some of the left over Sydonian Dragoon bits, and I have maybe 85% of an Eversor. Just needs some sculpting on the feet and pelvis (the legs are floating, only held to the torso by their pins right now). Those legs are made by gluing the Sydonian Dragoon servitor's leg stumps to the extra Sicarian left arms. They make passable legs, they look like pants that have tight equipment straps above the knee.

Studio: Apparently whereas October is Inktober, May is "MerMay", where people draw a mermaid every day. I am not going to do it every day, but I am going to draw a few of them. Mantis shrimp mermaid. ----------- Workshop: Ooh, sounds like a good read, everything I know about machining has come from pestering my brother and watching Youtube videos. Though speaking of which: a non-update on the mill build. My brother didn't tell me, but he bought a modular all-metal 3d printer for my dad that, with a few bolts, can be quickly changed into a CNC router. Looks to be 1/8" spindle, which is what my machine would have accepted anyways. So now I'm seriously considering whether or not to finish this build or use the router for most of what I would have done. I'll have to play with its limitations, but if this covers all my small work needs, I might just end up buying a Taig after all...

I'm starting to think that I like converting more than painting, been doing a lot more of it recently. I'm liking the Adeptus Mechanicus models from 40k, and got a few of them. While I probably won't have an army per se, I did get quite a few of the ones I thought coolest. Been playing around with the idea of an Order of the Sisters of Battle converting to worship of the Omnissiah, more specifically Moirates. (Unfortunately there's not much lore on what the Moirae Schism was, despite it lasting two millennia, because it didn't really involve Space Marines. ) First up is a Sydonian Dragoon Knight (dragoons are mounted infantry, not cav!), with the servitor converted to a skitarii pilot. The (literal) backseater had more work than just a headswap, I had to lengthen the torso and reposition the right arm to grasp a saddle horn instead of handlebars. The pilot I essentially resculpted the entire torso and added on some of the extra arms from alternate weapon options. Next is a Tech-Priest(ess) Domin[a]. GW lists him at $36(), but with the release of a few boxed sets that include it recently, third-party prices have dropped to something much less ridiculous. I'm not too happy with this conversion honestly, I might give her longer hair or something, we'll see. The axe is bashed together because I wanted that axe arm for another model... I didn't use the chest plate from the Sororitas Terminatrix, and the Sydonian Dragoon came with 5 great head choices, of which I used... none. So, seeing as how the Techpriest Dominus comes with four weapon choices, of which they can take only two, I figured why not kitbash a very different Dominus together. The process for this was much like the "true-scale" or "art-scale" Terminators that several other people have made. Take Terminator bits, lengthen torso and legs, and in my case, build a Mechanicus backpack thing. Some Sicarian Infiltrators are on the way, but the mailman is running late, which means they probably won't arrive until Monday. I'll probably get some Skitarii fairly soon (the same third-party price drop that's affected the Dominus has cut their price in half), and... maybe some Kataphrons? Probably not the Kataphrons, because the conversion I'd want to do to them would throw out 90% of a $50 kit. Hmm, a Knight Armiger Warglaive though...

If I ever do a Sisters army, it will not be Order of Our Martyred Lady. The shine of the metallics is absolutely killing the subtle shading I can do on the black armor. Also downside to enamels: Since they have a tendency to wreck brushes, I never use my good brushes on them... Anyways. clean up, some heat staining on the heavy flamer with blue, purple, and red glazes, some messy freehand. You can also see how I decided to do the braziers / exhausts in the end; I'm not really sure how to sculpt a properly 3d brazier that small. Something for wiser men than I. (probably digital sculpting) Somewhat goofy proportions (tiny lower body and generally horizontally stretched), but that's Terminators for you. If I decided to revisit this idea, 54mm might be nice.

Yeah, got the new version. Went together super easily for me, though I was using plastic cement instead of superglue. Half of it was scale reference so my termie wouldn't look ridiculous next to them, half of it was because... well, Sisters. First of the new line of plastic sisters, and likely to be one, if not the centerpiece of any Sisters collection I make. Armiger will probably wait until the separate box drops, I've been thinking about converting it to a Sisters Armiger...

I bought Celestine, the Living Saint. I don't even play 40k, nor is there any nearby location to do so ever since the local mall closed down... Seriously thinking about getting a Sydonian Dragoon and an Armiger Warglaive too.

Thanks guys! First thing I decided to tackle was the head. If you're wondering where it's from, it's actually a (recast) of the Kingdom Death limited Thief mini. Honestly a bit big, and the expression is... not especially appropriate, but my go-to source of conversion heads is currently out of stock and if I wait to get this finished it'll never get done. The lower edge of the terminator armor will block the bottom half of her face, so I think it's fine. Of course, the anime-esque size of the eyes means she looks like a teenager in terminator armor... but whatever. If it really really bugs me I can yank it out and put in a new head. Forgot to take pics both times, but the arms are only friction fit on styrene pegs right now to give me access to the torso and right thigh. When I'm done painting they'll be superglued into place. I forgot this is a styrene model, not Bonesium, so I can happily use enamel metallic paints without fear of curing problems. I love enamel gloss metallics whenever I can use them, they just have this amazing shine that no acrylic paint I've seen matches. So base coats of some colors and most of the enamels because they take forever to dry. (yes, that is Celestine in the back there)

It's been far, far too long since I sat down and painted a mini. Too many other life priorities. But anyways... So, I painted a Sisters of Battle terminator, and I decided I wanted her as a mini. Games Workshop does not sell SoB terminators. And so began my long conversion process, spending far too much money on bits for a model that probably can't be ever fielded. A ton of plasticard cementing, ProCreate sculpting, and general hackery later, I came out with this. Proportions are somewhat wonky, but I think they're beyond my capability to fix short of sculpting everything from scratch. Plus GW's proportions have always been wonky, especially for terminators. A coat of primer and I'm feeling better about this whole project already.