Inq28: The Mercenary from Belis Corona

The mercenary is done. Considering the most difficult thing on this model was adding the sheathed hellgun, that he is finished first isn't too surprising.

Luka Genadiyevich was recruited by Inquisitor-Magos Heiloran on the expansive orbital dockyards of BELIS CORONA. Genadiyevich scored a kill shot on a bounty head who also happened to be a drawing a bead on Heiloran.

 Genadiyevich ended up on station at the BELIS CORONA dockyards after chasing another bounty there. A freak accident caused Luka's original bounty to be crushed to death by a misfunction in the control linkage of a servitor-crane. The mercenary was on the beach, so to speak, and so found temporary work chasing station bounties and providing guard duty for secure holds. He was waiting around to spend his slush on a trip to somewhere away from the endless war of The Eye.

The man had been hive scum, one of a gang recruited to put off agents in pursuit of Inquisitor Renne. Unfortunately for the wayward magos, the hiver had ended up with a bounty hanging over him for trying to run some racket or another. On the fringes of The Eye, that sort of nonsense wasn't tolerated. Grift was kept to the established channels on the station, and Genadiyevich had tracked the gang scum to their ambush. Inquisitor Heiloran and his interrogator made a quick finish of the close-in work, and by the Emperor's serendipity the Mercenary foiled the gang's attack. Inquisitor-Magos Heiloran negotiated the mercenary to a place on his team shortly after, before departing the station in pursuit of Lord Renne. Their departure coincided with a rash of deaths among the dregs of the station population.

The mercenary is armed with the 40k equivalent of the dirty love child of Sam Fisher's FN-2000 and Jean Starwind's Caster gun; it shoots all kinda cool shit. Genadiyevich is also armed with a hellgun. Both weaponns he picked up on his adventures in the Calixis Sector. I painted them both red in homage to GW's red era. both my first SM and IG codex heavily featured red gun casings... not to mention the original How to Paint Citadel Miniatures book. The rest of his colouring is inspired from the colours that used to be on the cap of one of the all time shittiest beers ever, Corona. One caught my eye in 2005 and I have wanted to use the colour combination on a model ever since.

The palette got a bit dry, so I topped it up and the paints came right back.

I did use the wet palette in painting this model, and the base. I learned that if you're gonna drybrush, just drib out the paint onto the dry palette since the wet palette thins it just a bit too much for effective drybrishing... go figure. I thought this might be the case but oh well, now I know for sure. I have heard ominous warnings about putting metallics on the wet palette so I haven't bothered to try. When it comes to washes I can't imagine putting any ink on the wet palette. It does seem like a useful tool so far. I can't wait to try it out batch painting.

Cheers!

CJ

Tempestus Scions 003

Still here.

Been working on more Tempestus Scions proxies, this time for my not-Inquisitor's henchmen.

Turns out Space Marine Scouts make for pretty good Tempestus Scions with a minimal amount of conversion. I added a head from the new(ish) Tempestus Scions kit, a couple lasgun barrels from the Cadian troopers box.

Three to go.

Cheers,

CJ

Suppressor: Building a better Taurox 002

I'm back with more on how I'm building myself a better looking Taurox (in my opinion). For anyone who plans to do any sort of scratchbuilding I cannot stress enough the usefulness of having a good steel ruler on hand. I also keep a 12" adjustable square on hand. Together they are awesome.

Using my nice steel ruler and a mechanical pencil, I carefully marked out most of the parts I will need for this next step of construction. Before going too crazy with the cutting I made sure to mark any guide lines I might need later.

A steel ruler helps get all these guide lines right, too

After all the cutting I ended up with a couple piles of identical parts and a pile of offcuts. These can be used as braces for the project, or just added to my bucket of scraps. Either way they will find use later.

Watch me turn this pile of parts into a third hull

First I score the sides of the LEGO bricks with a stencil knife. This will help the superglue adhere to the surface better. The attach point between LEGO and sheet styrene will be the only place I use superglue on this model.

Once both sides are in place, I drill out holes for the LEGO axles to fit into

Examples of the braces I mentioned before

Here they are, three Suppressor pattern Taurox hulls ready for the next stage of assembly. The bits on the top of the forward and middle hulls are the forward view ports. I'll leave them separate from the hull until I am ready to start adding details.

Next step: finish the armour.

Cheers,

CJ

Suppressor: Building a better Taurox 001

Last week I showed off my mac & cheese taurox proxy prototype. This week I am excited to tell you that my order from Plankystone via Bricklink.com came in, and I was able to begin construction of my variant pattern as my continued commitment to the 6MMRPC..

Supply drop!

Here is roughly what I'm looking for from my Suppressor pattern Taurox. I did up a bunch of 1:1 drawings, then built the card version to see what it looks like, and I was happy then. Now that the wheels are here, I'm very happy.

Before I started cutting into the plasticard shown above, I built a jig out of the LEGO bricks I had on hand.

This piece of plasticard is the base I'll build on. Using the jig allows the placement of all bricks to be the same across all three builds.

I repeated this process for all three models. It was rather easy with the jig to help keep everything in line.

Three Suppressor pattern chassis ready for continued construction.

Cheers,

CJ

Cadian Flame Troopers 003: Complete!

Six models closer to done! Seven, if you count the odd Tempestus Scion that I added to my painting queue as the rest of the flame troops drew to completion.

As mentioned previously, the line troops are a little shy of the adornment seen on the Special Weapon Squad. I want these guys to be noticeable on the table and in a potential infantry blob, but not out shine the rest of their respective squads.

Flamer toting Tempestus Scion...

...and another purity seal. That is probably how he made it into the queue, now that I think about it. Extra GS...hmmm...Stormtrooper with Flamer?...Sure, why not?- is the most likely explanation.

I'm a sucker for purity seals, what can I say?

Next on my bench are these final three models for 1st Platoon's command section.

Cheers,

CJ

Tempestus Scions Completed

Last week I had mostly finished up the Tempestus Scions platoon command squad, except for the bases. Today I finally got those done, too, and the models attached.

I cast three bases, and then built up the other two I needed from blanks I had. Using sand, brick bits, cork, and corrugated card I was able to quickly craft a pair of unique bases for this squad that still fit the basing theme of my army on the whole.

Once they were painted, I assigned figures to the completed bases and set about attaching them. I carefully removed the Scions from their painting bases, one at a time. I set the model on the base in the best position offered by the base. I drilled all the pin holes in the bases by eye, then held the model in place and marked the bottom of the boot with a dress makers pin. Once marked, I used my pin vice to drill the holes in the boots. It seems like a bit of work, but as usual in my opinion it is worth the end result.

Completed Squad

The sergeant's arms are magnetized to allow more options in list building

Have I mentioned how much I like these models? They really strike a balance in paying homage to the original Stormtroopers and their replacements (which are some of my favorite models in 40k). I think I'll be picking up more boxes of Scions in the future.

Speaking of the future for my Scions, I have found the vehicle to replace the Taurox for me:

I found this bad boy over on Admiral Drax's blog. If you haven't been before, I suggest giving him a look. He runs an awesome IG blog, complete with the original Wyvern conversion (completely serious) and the painting chart.

Cheers til next time,

CJ

Paint Table Saturday (on Sunday)

My sincere apologies for this latest late installation of Paint Table Saturday. You would think that having weekends off would make it easier to get a blog post up, but not so.

This week brings the completion of my Tempestus Scions platoon command unit. Next up in my painting queue is not-quite-Creed. After that, I think its assembly time again. My counts-as Mechanicus force needs some attention.

Cheers,

CJ