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AKA: How I learned to stop worrying and love the drybrush AKA: Ambitious but rubbish AKA: Lore is more what you call guidelines than actual rules AKA: Paint it any colour as long as it's black AKA: An idea isn't a project log Disclaimer: This is a General 40k log. I can't see myself sticking with one project for too long at the moment. This will be strange. I'll try and stay visually friendly to the 40k universe, but I will bend the lore as required for my projects. After 15-16 years in the hobby I think I'm entitled to! Think surreal stuff and mixed IP, mostly using GW models. I favour tabletop standard models with a weathered style, no pro painted eye candy here, sorry! I'm currently working on a Space Hulk Genestealer Kill Team and (non Space Hulk!) Kill Team Board/Terrain. I've been busy over the last couple of months. I wanted to start Kill Team with a friend in time for the UK COVID re-opening this week. Dithering with colour schemes and hay-fever fatigue has made me miss the deadline. I'm nearly there though! Test model and test base: I have to find every way not to paint something before I can decide on a colour scheme. After trying a few things with the unused half of the Genestealers I circled back to my original idea of Xenomorph style Genestealers in a very under highlighted style. It's just Chaos Black liberally sprayed on with an all over dry brush of Scavenblight Dinge followed by an all over wash of Seraphim Sepia, which is my new favourite magic wash (Move over Agrax!) I've never been a big nids fan, but I was worried I would never finish my kill team if I went for my usual default of elaborately kitbashed guard regiments or Inqusition warbands. It also seemed fun to play non Imperial with my 40k newbie friend picking Wolves... I've had the 2014 Space Hulk box for a while (Since 2014) and the Hive Mind Started calling to me. Even I could manage to paint 9 monopose Genstealers right? Being monopose models the main challenge during the build was the basing. A good number of the Space Hulk Genies have amazing bits of er, space hulk moulded onto them. I wanted to retain that, but also make the starship parts seem like a plausible part of the base rather than just stuck on. I have some necromunda/industrial bases but It was hard to make the Space Hulk bits blend in. The largest ones didn't quite fit on 40mm bases so I've obtained some 50mm bases, probably the only innovation from Centurions I approve of . In my day you had 25mm slot bases for troops, 40mm for terminators and 60mm for dreadnoughts (and your kid brother with his WFB had square bases). Now days every man and his dog has a custom base size... In the end I used a mix of sand and chopped up sprue to make fine rubble. After becoming more environmentally concious this year I've decided to stop throwing away used sprues (with no option for recycling them in the UK), and use them for basing or scratch builds. I'm planning to top it with an Ice and Snow wash from precision Ice and Snow. So why haven't I finished 9 models in 2 months? The truth? I spent over a month doing a little bit of de mould lining each evening and not much else. I then decided to start the Kill Team terrain as a parallel project, which is a terrible idea! A great secret I learned from a WHC podcast was that the Kill Team battlefield is a similar size to a standard noticeboard size available in the UK. I already had a cork notice board with only 1cm larger dimensions so I used it to create: Crossroads! I chose to make the road a central feature because thought it would be versatile. Add buildings by the road and you have a small city of death. Add some low rise terrain and the same board becomes a rural battlefield. I got the cork sheet from a cork map of the world I no longer needed and used DIY sharp sand. The areas outside the road are deliberately under detailed so the board is more modular with removable terrain and easier to store. WIP and rather good value laser cut buildings from TC combat: I wanted some more ancient ruins rather than the usual bombed out wasteland, so it was always going to be grass or desert on the board rather than the usual grey or scrapyard vibes you see for 40k. In a bit of a marmite decision I chose a 'Summer Flowers' static grass blend from a model railway provider. My first thought was to use dead grass blends, but to do that realistically would have increased the complexity and time budget. In the end I wanted something that wouldn't depress me to look at in these challenging times and something that's certainly different. The road was painted with art shop greys to save money (which I then wasted by using about