Monday, August 27, 2012

Imperial Guard - Chimeras painted, and the Motor Pool

Oof! Finally getting back into the swing of things after a little vacation out to GenCon and a mess of work projects eating up my time. Gencon was a blast, and though I completely failed to bring my camera with me, my buddy Dave took a mess of pictures and is getting them up on his blog. Highlights of the con included a lovely chat with Mike McVey about Sedition Wars and reminiscing about 'the good old days' of 40k, and an interesting discussion with Mister Justin from Secret Weapon Miniatures about weathering powders and other modeling tips and techniques - great guy!. Played some West End Games D6 Star Wars ('an elegant system from a more civilized age'), as well as some Rogue Trader, Black Crusade, and an absolutely hysterical Ork miniatures racing event called "Formula Waaagh" that had us all rolling with laughter. Suffice it to say the most commonly heard comment from the announcer's booth was "Tumbling end over end"... Hah!


I spent far too much money in the Dealer Hall this year - after the first pass I felt like I'd been mugged! The Fantasy Flight Games booth got me the worst, there were seven 40K:RPG books of various varieties that I had never seen and apparently couldn't live without. The Secret Weapon Miniatures booth got me as well, including a rather cool Generatorium that I had to put together and paint as soon as I got home...


Since I've been home I haven't done a whole lot of painting, though I have definitely been doing a fair bit of building! I dug out the big ol' box o' Chimeras that have been lurking in the Closet of Doom and set about building all the tanks that the Mordian 7th so desperately needed!


I have to say that when it comes right down to it, I'm a tread-head. I love tanks, and the guard really does give one the greatest variation of choices. That, coupled with my love of conversions means that virtually every tank for the glorious 7th is modified in one way or another. Granted, at the moment the majority of them are just primered black which means it's hard to make out details, but there will be more and better pics in the near future! While there are a couple more Leman Russ variants yet to build, the motor pool currently stands at 4 Chimeras (using Blood and Skulls Industries alternate kit), a Medusa (using the MaxMini cannon), a pair of Charybdis Assault Launchers (proxy Griffons, similar to what I've built in the past), a Devil Dog, a Manticore, a Vanquisher, and a slightly alternate build on a Vendetta. That's a mess of armor!


Over the past weekend I did manage to batch paint up a trio of Chimeras for 1st Platoon, though the pictures turned out fairly poor. Of eight I took, only this one turned out. More pics to follow once I figure out what I did to the camera's machine spirit to make it so angry!

Still a long way to go before the motor pool is finished, but I'm looking forward to painting more tanks!


13 comments:

  1. It never ceases to amaze me how much stuff can come out of that Closet of Doom! The three Chimeras look sweet. simple but striking. The really work for me.good luck on the whole motor pool!

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  2. Nice Chimeras! The Dozer Blades and spotlights look top notch.

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  3. Ditto for the dozer blades and spotlights, as ever a big win with the bold colours, I love it!

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  4. As better posters above have said, it all looks rather dashing.

    Your closet of doom seems to be more of a Handy Haversack in my mind. :)

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  5. Thanks very much, folks!

    The Closet of Doom is a room in the hobby loft approximately 18'x6' that's about 2/3rds full of shelves covered in boxes of hobby stuff. It really has gotten out of hand!

    I'm finally getting through the drifting piles of accumulated plastic crack, though there's still many boxes to go through. In fact I've started the laborious process of clipping bits off of sprues to try and condense the mayhem a little... Talk about a tedious process though!

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  6. Great Chimeras. Like the cut back turret. Aim to do that myself sometime

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  7. I appreciate it!

    I'm a big fan of the set-back style Chimeras as well. Got the idea originally from Admiral Drax who has a pretty cool how-to on making them from existing kits. I'd done a few of that style in my previous guard army, but cheated a bit with these, by virtue of an add-on kit from Tom McBride aka Machinator. While he doesn't sell them on his ebay store any more(Blood and Skulls industry), he's very responsive if you contact him and I'd be willing to bet he's still got some to sell!

    Here's a pic of what the kit came with: http://www.cold-moon.com/40k/Miniatures/Mordian7th/Chimeras/NewChimeraTestBuild%20%283%29.JPG

    Cheers!

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  8. what gets me is the simple speed with which you work! puts me to shame... and at least gets me to TRY and keep up!

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  9. Excellent stuff. I really like the crisp bold colours you use, especially the dozarblades as people have mentioned :)

    I also really like the generator you picked up from secret weapon. I may have to pick up a few for my club!

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  10. Good stuff, I really like the classy balck scheme. I just painted my Generator too, very nice model.

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  11. Glad to see the Mordians getting some more attention. Looking really nice, I'm a big fan of the black colour scheme with the hazard stripes. Great work!

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  12. I really appreciate the kind words, folks! It definitely keeps me motivated to keep churning 'em out!

    I'll admit the 'speed painting' on these tanks feels like a bit of a cheat. The black armor is done via a Krylon 'Fusion' black satin primer (which is a really deep black and is ever so slightly shiny) followed by some light drybrushing of shadow grey to pick out the edges and rivets. Once that's finished, 85% of the tank is done! A few bold colors in yellow and blue for the lights/dozers/windows, a little red on various body panels, some boltgun metal here and there and the Dark Flesh/Leather Brown on the tracks and they're good to go. I'd say all three tanks only took about three hours from beginning to end.

    Simples!

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  13. That is a nice assemblage of armor! You make the painting sound so easy but to do three tanks in only three hours and have them look so great is a real feat. looking forward to seeing the whole motor pool painted in a group shot

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