Crashed Aquilla Lander Completed

Good afternoon and thank you for joining us again at Nurgle favored cupboard. Now firstly I will apologise for being away for some time now, but some as you know I have had an entire house to decorate and let me tell you it is not fun. Most of that has now been done and the time I have had I have finished my crashed Aquilla lander.

I purchased  some Vallejo gloss varnish to paint over the glass sections once I had finished protect coating the piece with Army Painter's Matt Varnish spray. I think the end result has turned out rather well and I am pleased with the 'glass' effect I achieved  The only thing I don't like is the 'smiling faces' you will see in image below. It almost as if a lone guardsmen survived the crash and is beaming a smile outwards from the glass. 'Haha! You didn't kill me. The emperor is watching over me!'. Also as you can see below I ended up going for a golden Aquilla rather then the white one I was deliberating over.

On another note I picked up my new shiny Chaos codex today. The sultry voices from the warp are already calling me to read it entirely and decide what to buy from the new stuff, which will be hard because it all looks amazing! The new style of codex is awesome though and it well worth the extra cost. I have one of the new fantasy hardback books and they feel more sturdy.

Until the next time you grace Nurgle's favored cupboard, may Nurgles blessings fall on you.

Crashed Aquila Lander Almost Complete

Hello and good afternoon fellow travelers of the warp and worshipers of Nurgle. I thought I would update you all on my crashed Aquila lander. I should have it finished by the end of this weekend. All I have left to do is the Aquila, which I am torn between doing in white or gold and a scanner next to the cockpit. Other then that I just have to touch up a few bits here and there, protect spray it and then gloss varnish the glass.

I have never painted glass before so I spent a few hours browsing the webt and found a simple tutorial over at Dave Taylor Miniatures. I think it has turned out rather nicely. Once I have my lander done I have just finished priming 10 cultists fro mthe new Dark Vengence box set and I can't wait to get stuck into them.

Unfortunately that is all I have for you all this week, may Nurgle's blessing forever be in your favor.

Crashed Aquila Lander WIP

 

 Good afternoon everyone and thank you for joining us again at Nurgle's favoured Cupboard. I apologise for the lack of updates from myself. I have been extremely busy sorting out my house the last few weeks. Any way I have been doing some work on my Crashed Aquila Lander while I can and I am not far off from having it finished. The picture isn't as good as I hoped as I didn't have anywhere nice to take it so I had to cram it into my light box. Once it is I will make sure I have another picture for you all.

 

On a side note I picked up my limited edition copy of Dark Vengence, I have to say that the miniatures are amazing. The next thing I am going to paint is 10 of the cultists for the box set. I just have to decide on whether to do the ones with the Autoguns or the ones with the ones with close combat weapons and Auto pistols. If anyone has any preferences let me know.

And that's all for today from the lusciously deceased garden of our beloved Plague Father.

Aegis Defence Line Work In Progress

Good evening children of the Plague Father and thank you for joining us once again in our pestilent paradise found deep within his garden of decay. Today I would like to present to you my progress on an Aegis Defence line I picked up before the latest price increase and with a 20% discount to boot so was a steal.

I planned to do a simple scheme on this and knock it out fairly swiftly as a test model for my airbursh. I started by priming it black then giving it a coat of Burnt Umber. Next I applied Yellow Ochre as when thinned down ( possibly too much ) it took on the colour of Desert Yellow however straight from the bottle it is much brighter.

From here I intended to hit it with a wash and then pick out the Aquila and I would be done but then disaster struck and I search for pictures of other Aegis Defence Lines for "inspiration" and found among the hordes done in the Games Workshop method I had intended to use I saw a beautiful example where the painter had picked out the reinforced sections and graffiti painted on.

Now this got me raiding the paint chest for a metallic colour to work against the flat panels and decided that copper would do the job nicely with it being such a warm looking metal for my desert board. After picking out the detail front and back then using Dhenab Stone for the Aquila I applied a Sepia wash.

Now this is where I have got to so far but real life has gotten in the way recently and posting and hobby time took a big hit. Hopefully I will be able to get back on track as this still needs the bullet holes darkening and possibly a soot effect adding to them and the panels giving a bit more depth  (not to mention the small matter of the autocannon that is sat waiting to be sprayed ).

Until next time keep spreading his noxious touch to all you meet.

O'Shashar

Crashed Aquilla Lander WIP

Hello and good day to you all. Welcome back to Nurgle's favoured cupboard. I apologise for the lack of posts by myself I have not been captured by the Inquisition I been lurking in the shadows. All my spare time is currently being pumped into my new home. I am on my way over later for round two of wall paper stripping. I can tell you for those that have never done this that it is one of the most pain the ass things you can do. Maybe I have upset Papa Nurgle and it is punishment. If it is I hope this offering to him will reduce my suffering.

In the time I have had for my beloved hobby I decided instead of painting something small I would go for a larger piece. This is because I am unsure when I will be moving stuff over to my new domain and I wanted some easy to pick up as I often find that if I take large breaks in painting models I either misplace them or I forget what I was doing last or what colour I was highlighting.

The piece I am currently working on is Crashed Aquilla Lander from the Battle For Macragge. I picked this beauty up from eBay for about £7 a long time ago already sprayed and with a basecoat of Machrite Red. I have just finished going over the Machrite Red with Orkhide Shade as I wanted the Aquilla Lander to look like it was used for military purposes in an Imperial Guard regiment for a high commander or something.

So it's not much this week but I will give you another work in progress when I get some more done on it. Until next time I hope Father Nurgle is kinder with his blessings to you all.

Once more unto the breach

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility;
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger:
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood.

 

  "King Henry V", Act 3 scene 1 

 

Good afternoon and thank you for stopping at our dark corner of the warp. It has been a long dark winter and finally I am starting to see some more favourable weather to coerce me back to the hobby table and I do need all the help I can get at the minute.

 

Beware the spare time stealer in all his guises

 

As some of you may know Starwars: The Old Republic came out in late December and being a fan of Starwars and MMOs this was a bad combination and grabbed my spare time by the throat. However after just over a month playing I now have my main two at the level cap so won't need to play quiet so much to keep up with my guild ( though the all voice acting story really does make you want to play from start to finish in one session ). Now I hear you screaming at your monitor "What does this have to do with my beloved hobby? You rambling old fool get on with it!" 

 

Who doesn't love a rambling old man though

 

What this means is that I can now get back into the swing of things and this year I plan to work on many of my projects from the hobby corner. Especially as it has got to the point now where it has escaped from the corner by the sheer weight of unfinished projects. This combined with the sizeable box of Necron reinforcements, who have been waiting decent weather to be built and primed is causing my wife to question if I really need any more boxes of unbuilt toys.

Now the main focus of this will be split between my Necrons,  Tomb Kings ( the ones on my desk shake their bows in anger every time I play SWTOR ) and my terrain. Also with Blog Wars 3 in June I may take my Necrons out for a stroll as they haven't had nearly as much love as they deserve and the first Blog Wars was a good day.

 

Now I do have plenty of terrain built and painted and can field a nice variety ranging from some small home made stone walls up to my possibly too big shrine I built. However this doesn't stop me buying any terrain I see at a reasonable price and the latest purchase is one I have looked forward to owning ever since I saw it released but couldn't justify the price, but first you get to hear the tale of how it became ours you lucky devils.

 

As Mighty Simo said in his last post I spotted a box of terrain at our LFGS, truth be told I spotted this at the start of December but it was saved for a mystery customer However this month while having my almost daily peruse I noticed the box was still there. After unpacking it all I was told it had another two boxes with it I was impressed with what I saw ( why they didn't say "Woah O'Shashar that is saved for someone, get your mittens off it" is beyond me). 

The only trouble was it was still reserved but after a little convincing from myself and Dalinair the owner agreed that nearly two months was long enough and would let me know within the week if he longer wanted it. Later the same day it was ours at 40% off retail and was mostly built.

 

So what did I get? Well I got three GW pieces. The crashed Aquila lander, the Arcane ruins set and a Fortress of Redemption all for less than the Fortress costs on its own. I have already started on this but nothing major as mostly cleaning up the build, removing the Dark Angels symbols as this is for my Black Templars and I already have a paint scheme in mind and all being well February should be a busy month for me hobby wise and can treat all you Nurglings to.

 

This isn't mine but hopefully in the not too distant future mine will be just as painted

 

 

In the end we got £250 worth of assorted terrain from Games Workshop and Pegasus for £150 and split it three ways based on what people wanted to take ( it took an amazing display of willpower to not just keep it all). If you haven't seen the Pegasus terrain I recommend checking it out as it is priced similar to Games Workshop but the ones I have seen come prepainted & are cast as as one piece so is very sturdy.

 

Until next time remember, you're never along when you're the host to Papa Nurgle's concoctions.

 

O'Shashar

Works in Progress

Salutations fellow followers of the spreader of plagues. As I mentioned last week I have a variety of Projects on the go at the moment. In the last week I have been concentrating on some terrain, which I managed to get finished last night and thought I would share them with you all. I know it's not special, but I thought it was better then nothing.

My Fuel Dump/Command Post is currently on hold as I am contemplating building it so it can be duplicated in resin or some other light weight material. This is because over the last month I've considered getting some bases done in the same way. I have yet to research how easy and costly this will be yet.

In the meantime I have a few small bits and pieces of scenery that I go cheaply of eBay and I thought as a change I would get these out of the way. I have assembled and painted 10 barrels, 4 barricades, 3 tank traps and an ammo dump. I was going to mount the ammo dump itself onto some MDF board, but I thought the way that I did would mean it could be used on any type of board.

Now that I have this bits out of the way I am going to paint my command for my Orcs and Night Gobbos. Until then farewell and may Nurgle's blessings fall upon you.

How To Make Urban Barricades

Hello again and we have another treat for your visit to Father Nurgle's cupboard, another terrain tutorial. This week I will be telling you how to make some urban barricades from left over bits. For this terrain you will need to gather:

• Masonite or thick card for the base
• Sandpaper
  
• Scrap pieces of polystyrene or high density Styrofoam
• Straws or any other type of plastic tubing
• Corrugated card (I got mine from the 'sleeve' of a Starbucks coffee, but it can be bought in craft shops)
  
• Left overs from your bitz box or anything else you can scrounge
  
• Green stuff
• Mesh
• Crafts knife
  
• PVA glue

OK, step number one is to cut some Masonite to your desired length and width. An important tip here is to cut curving shape, so it is not too straight and rectangular, this makes the edges of the Masonite stick out less. Once you have cut it out sand the edges so that they are rounded.

Now the next step really allows a lot of freedom on your part because basically you will stick random stuff onto the base, try an imagine the defenders have hastily constructed the barricades from whatever is at hand. For example rubble, scrap pieces of metal and tubing, parts of vehicles, sandbags, barrels, etc. Do a 'dry run' first placing the items the best you can before gluing them to make you are happy with the layout. I used a model to make sure the wall was the right height. Once you are happy with the layout start to glue your bits along one of the long edges of the Masonite using the PVA glue.

In my urban barricades I used some left over barrels from some stuff I bought off eBay, straws for the pipes, polystyrene and Polyfill for the wall sections, corrugated card and some left over tank bits from my bitz box. I had two little rubble sets from one of Games Workshops old corner ruins set and some barrels and half a barricade from GW's Battlefield Accessories set that I got cheap off of eBay. Once the glue is dry your barricades should look something like this.

Once the glue was dry I decided to add some sandbags to the barricades, further enforcing how they had been hastily thrown together. I followed a tutorial I found on Miniwargaming on how to make a sandbag barricade and strongly suggest you watch it for this next step as I cannot describe it any better. I have attached the video below.

Once the sandbags are in place, the next step will be to base them. I just based them with sand. Just before it time to base coat them your urban barricades should now look like this.

I did not use a spray primer to base coat the barricades as this would melt the polystyrene. I used a tin of matt black paint i got off eBay that I have used before. At this point I have a bit of a confession to make. You may notice on my finished barricade pictures that the rubble walls look different. The paint I had used before, I had not used on polystyrene and guess what happened. It only went and ate my polystyrene! I had to pick off and clean the sandbags and then use Polyfiller to build up the walls. This took 3 lots and then carved it and sanded it. Put in some bullet holes. I think it looks OK but some areas do not look very good at all.

Now obviously I will be giving you a tip here. Always and I mean always test your paint before using it on some scrap piece of the material you are about to use the paint on. This will avoid the frustration of your models or terrain getting eaten up like a virus only Papa Nurgle can be pleased about.

Anyway, once you have finished paint your barricades, they should look like mine below. I took the photo's with the barricades in my light box (the same one O'Shashar uses) with a spare Chaos Space Marine model I had lying around for scale.

And so there you have some lovely looking Urban barricades for your game board for any type of 40K game, especially for Planetstrike or Cities of Death. Until next time my fellow plague bringers.

How to make smoke/wreckage markers

Good day minions of the Plague Father. Today you get a little treat for your continued visits, if you remember from my last post you may recall that I mentioned about the wreckage markers on the board. Today I am going to tell you how to make them. If I do say so myself they look pretty amazing and take little effort. I remember seeing a tutorial on these about a year ago, but I can't remember where. In case you have forgotten or you are new to this corner of Nurgle's garden here is a reminder of what the markers look like.


As mentioned this project is really easy and really cheap. The materials you are going to need are:

• A pillow or cushion with polyester hollow fibre filling (try and use an old one or you can use cotton wool as an alternative)
• PVA glue and an old brush
• Elastic bands (optional)
• Scissors
• Matt black primer spray (or any other colour you fancy)

Now I have seen people paint on the flames over the top, but I have also seen people use LED tea lights inside the polyester, this is the method I opted for. I got mine from my nearest Poundland and got 4 in a pack for £1 including batteries, bargain! There's some images below of them in the packet and when they are assembled and turned on.

OK, the first step is pull off or cut off with your scissors a general amount of the polyester pillow filling. Enough to wrap around the width of the tea light, making is thick or tall as you want your marker. Once you have done this assemble your tea light and turn it on to test it to make sure it is working. Then generously cover it with PVA glue using the old brush. Wrap the polyester around the tea light. For the polyester that is not in contact with the tea light (the part 'above the tea light), use the brush to apply PVA and then glue it to the polyester sealing up the entire seam. Once this is done apply an elastic band around the base of the tea light and another around the top on the polyester that hangs above the tea light. Then leave for the glue to dry.

Once the glue is dry remove the elastic bands. It is now time to trim and shape the 'smoke'. Using your scissors trim the base of the tea light so that the polyester level off with the bottom of the base. Then using your scissors trim the top to the designed length. Shaping the 'smoke is quite easy just pull, twist and tease with your fingers until you get the desired shape.

Once you have shaped your 'smoke' the final step is to spray it using your primer spray. The trick to this is spray from a further distance than you would when spraying your miniatures. You only want it to lightly coat the polyester. By changing the distance between the can and the polyester you will have varying amount of blackness to the 'smoke'. You could even try out your technique on some left over from your pillow or cushion beforehand. Once the paint is dry your markers are done and when turned on should look like this
 .

And there you have it my loyal followers of Nurgle a simple yet very effective marker to use on wrecked vehicles. When the tea light is turned off you can also use them as counters on your vehicles to say that you have 'popped smoke'. Until next time my friends.

Nice an' easy terrain tips

Salutations plaguelings. As promised a few weeks back I have been working on some terrain and thought I would delay it slightly to allow my colleagues to update the blog for a change of pace. I have delayed this somewhat for a variety of reasons. One of the reason being that when I originally wrote this article, just before I was going to post it I saw a very similar post on Miniature Tim's blog on modelling tools here.

Now I think I will start off by giving some tips for those of you out there have no idea where to start and don't have a budget to buy terrain. Home terrain can be effective and cheap. It allows you to turn everyday items into whatever you can imagine. Don't get me wrong the Games Workshop terrain is brilliant, but not everyone can afford to pay the prices they ask for.

I thoroughly enjoy all aspects of the hobby, especially modelling. Whether its the latest release from Games Workshop or some terrain I'm all over it. Now the best advice I can give you if you're thinking of starting terrain building is to gather materials and some tools. Now I got a lot of my tools from Poundland or other pound shops. For some things I shop on eBay. These will be your friends, if I'm ever near one I always go in and see what I can use.

For the tools I would suggest...

• Bread knife or hot foam cutter (for cutting high density Styrofoam)
  
• Xacto Blade/Hobby Knife / Stanley Knife (every war gamer should already have one for cleaning their models from the sprue)
• Modelling clips or Wire Cutters (again as above you should already have one of these)
  
• Sandpaper and files (I would suggest getting a sanding block to save getting cramp in your hands!)
  
• Scissors
• Ruler (preferably metal and 1 metre in length)
• Hand drill / pin vice (most hobbyists should have one of these)
• Clamps or vices (handy to hold things together as the glue dries)
  
• Various sizes of paint brushes (you definately should have these but I suggest decorating brushes)
  

Optional Tools include...

• Hot Glue gun (optional, I find this is useful sometimes)
• Saw for cutting masonite (optional, only if you want to base your terrain on hardboard)
• Goggles and face mask (I only use goggles when I'm sanding or cleaning models with Dettol)
  
• A multi tool (if your lazy like me these come in real handy)
• Jigsaw Cutter Power Tool (I picked mine up for £10 from Argos!)

Now the bottom two options I would only suggest if you are either over the age of 18 or if you have a grown up to it for you. If anyone has any further suggestions drop them in the comments below and I will add them on.

Once you have a workplace sorted and all of the tools you require your going to need some materials.

• Polystyrene or better yet high density Styrofoam
  
• Sand (try and get a mix of grades)
• Gravel/small stones (I managed to get some on my street outside my house)
  
• Wire (I suggest getting some garden wire)
• Corregated card (try and save some of this from boxes, I use the stuff that goes around your coffee at Starbucks)
• Plasticard or if your really on a budget card (basically the stuff cereals come or even Games Workshop miniatures!)
• Masonite (used for basing your terrain pieces, but you can use card, but its more prone to warping)
  
• Sprue (you should definately have some of this ;) )
• Straws
• Plaster / Polyfill (ready mixed if your lazy)
• Green Stuff / Kneadite
• Foamboard (I suggest 5mm thick) or if you are really budgeting Cardboard
• Lollipop sticks and coffee stirrers
  
• Toilet/Kitchen rolls
• Recyclables such as empty cans and bottles. Try and keep the lids as well!
• 'Granny grating' (the stuff people use for needlework)
• Toothpicks / Bamboo skewers (can be used as spiky bits or to hold sections of Styrofoam / polystyrene together)
• Ear buds (snip off the wooly ends and you get nice and thin tubes!)
  
• Random bits from your bitz box (you need to start one of these if you do not have one)
  

Now onto some terrain I have made. I've had this sat in the garage for weeks. It's really easy and quick, however long it take for the glue to dry plus painting it and most importantly it is rediculously cheap! The tutorial I followed can be found at miniwargaming.com and I am sure some of you may already be aware of this site :)

All I did was use a Starbucks mug and then for the 'roof' I used a very thin piece of plasticard cut to shape. Once this was glued on I added something from my bitz box, along with a lid from some shampoo bottle or something and tubing I collect from ear buds with the ends snipped off. Sprayed it black and then painted it. And tadaaaaaa...


It can also be seen in action in a picture of a game we had few weeks back (See below). You may notice some flaming, smoking wrecked vehicles. Well they will be on my next tutorial update on making more cheap terrain.

Sanctum of the Aquila Part II

Good afternoon children I am glad to see you once again wandering through Father Nurgle's garden to harvest his bounty. Today I bring you part two of my Shrine of the Aquila & Sanctum Imperialis mix which I am referring to as the Sanctum of the Aquila ( unless someone can come up with a better name which shouldn't be hard ).

The eagle did get some Fenris grey on it but one coat covered nicely.

Thanks to the raging sun which keeps sneaking through between the torrential down pours I managed to get this sprayed black using the last of my citadel primer. I noticed it randomly spat out spots of paint which might be due to its age as I haven't used citadel primer for a while but spotted it on my shelf. Over all it came out nice and flat without any problems. Next up I gave it a base coat of Fenris grey foundation paint as to let it stand out nicely on my desert board.

After two coats of Vallejo Brass

Following on from this I added two watered down coats of Vallejo Brass which has covered it for the most part though up close it looks like a third layer may be required just to tidy it up. The base coat could do with a little cleaning up from my messy painting though was worth it to use a larger brush.

Nice but doesn't fit on this model sadly

I plan to have the lower steps, balcony doors and cathedral windows painted the same colour and thought the Vallejo Gun Metal Blue might do the trick after looking through the paint stand at my FLGS ( I consider it a good day if I make it out without at least one pot of paint, it's my Kryptonite ). While I do like the colour ( a nice metallic blue which with some silver highlights could make a quick effective power weapon ) I think the metallic blue doesn't compliment the flat base coat so I plan to redo this with a combination of greys and a brown wash which I have done before on my landing pad platform or possibly going for a Tin Bitz base so I can rust it up with some orange.

My amateur photography sadly washing out the blue

The next step I plan to take is to bring out the detail of the model, either using a dry brush with a lighter blue / grey, an orange wash to depict rust in the corners ( the orange may stand out too much on the blue though ) or a combination of the two. While on the eagle I am going to try a green glaze to try and give the impression of the brass tarnishing with age ( this could either go really well or need another coat to fix it ).

Until next time thank you for reading and if you have ideas on making the main colour appear aged please comment and hopefully the results should be ready for next Sunday ( unless the Templar Rhino that is hiding behind this behemoth decides it wants the paint I promised it ).

O'Shashar