Back to Black

[Sception]

A family thing, followed by several days of illness, completely swollowed this past week for any sort of progress, be it painting, modeling, or writing. Still, the week before I did get some painting done that I never posted pictures of.

 

Unfortunately, my camera remains terrible, with images either totally washed out or in complete darkness depending on whether I hold the light 12 or 12.5 inches away from the models. That and it distorts the color. I messed with these as best I could in the gimp, but I'm really going to have to see about getting a new camera soon....

 

 

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z142/Malisteen/Black%20Legion/Chosen26_zpsqiw0qa2x.jpg

 

Gustav (the champion) and Victor (his second and the squad's icon bearer)

 

 

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z142/Malisteen/Black%20Legion/Chosen27_zpsj2ry0lpq.jpg

 

Levi the impatient and Konrad the cranky

 

 

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z142/Malisteen/Black%20Legion/Chosen28_zpsujwoxdg9.jpg

 

Dominik the cruel and Gregor the bloody handed. Good friends, great dinner companions.

 

 

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z142/Malisteen/Black%20Legion/Chosen29_zpsfumtyacg.jpg

 

Reeve, ever sarcastic, and Kristof, just barely staving off spawndom.

 

 

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z142/Malisteen/Black%20Legion/Chosen30_zpsomzmkzht.jpg

 

The reclusive twins Marcellus and Marius.

[Augustus b'Raass]

Damn, are they all orthodox christians or something, with those names? Lol

 

Looking great mal, very characterful all of them. Also, your bases... Wow.

 

See about the ISO setting, the light modus on your camera, and perhaps the lighting itself. Fool around a bit. Might save you the cost of a new camera. :tu:

[Thousand Eyes]

(Came in via your ETL post)

 

Those are looking very good. Lots of little blends and some nice bases on them. Looking forward to seeing them all gunned up and all in a group picture.

[Forté]

Changing the background to something more neutral would help too ;)

[Sception]

Setting aside our feud for just a moment, for the sake of ART, I'm heading to the fabric store later today to pick up, among other things, some felt to use as a new backdrop.  Is there a particular color or shade you would recommend?
 

Damn, are they all orthodox christians or something, with those names? Lol

Some of them may have been practitioners of certain pre-Imperial faiths that lingered in the hidden corners of feral human worlds like Cthonia before the Emperor welcomed them back into his newly expanding Imperium during the Great Crusade. Some of them might even have heard of the miraculous and gifted child Horus who was delivered from the sky, and wondered if he was their heretical god, returned to the mortal world to bring his long promised salvation. If so, such naive thoughts have been long forgotten, childish superstitions burned away by the Emperor's blinding light, or consumed by the warp's bottomless darkness, or simply buried under millennia of constant warfare.

[Forté]

I wouldn't usually recommend felt to use. Though if that's the case you likely want a neutral colour.

 

Personally I use the same sort as Semper and Augustus which is a sort of cloudy background but I have three options. Warm, neutral, or cold. Depends on the colours on the model on which I use but neutral is a go to most of the time. All were downloaded from Massive Voodoo.

[Augustus b'Raass]

I'm also a little sceptical of using any kind of cloth, although KrautScientist uses his weird Octoberfest sweater to great effect (). You can download the backgrounds that Forte and I use here (creds to Forte for finding these).

Also, I found this tutorial on miniature photography to be extremely helpful. :tu:

Some of them may have been practitioners of certain pre-Imperial faiths that lingered in the hidden corners of feral human worlds like Cthonia before the Emperor welcomed them back into his newly expanding Imperium during the Great Crusade. Some of them might even have heard of the miraculous and gifted child Horus who was delivered from the sky, and wondered if he was their heretical god, returned to the mortal world to bring his long promised salvation. If so, such naive thoughts have been long forgotten, childish superstitions burned away by the Emperor's blinding light, or consumed the warp's bottomless darkness, or simply buried under millennia of constant warfare.

Write more. Please?

[Midnightmare]

These are excellent, Mal :)

[Sception]

Write more. Please?

I'm trying, but man is it slow going, even moreso than painting. And the in-character narrative stuff in particular that I've been trying to challenge myself with lately is especially painful and difficult for me, but something I really want to do more of and get better at. If not for this hobby, than for other forbidden hobbies that shall go unnamed.

[Augustus b'Raass]

*deleted* ...If not for this hobby, than for other forbidden hobbies that shall go unnamed.

Dude! STD follows this thread! Are you insane! ;)

 

edited..and you know why!

[Sception]

STD can't stop me from shipping.

 

Not even I can stop me from shipping.  Believe me, I've tried.  Oh, how I've tried.

 

But the images in my head, they just won't stop.  They build and they build, piling up upon one another until my wretched mind is strained to bursting.  The only relief is through fanfiction, that harrowing exorcism wherein the filth within me is vomited forth, splattered across the digital page and hung up for all to see like fine art, a monument to my own moral degeneracy and perverted sexual lusts.  Horrified onlookers gather to stare, disgusted at my effluence yet sickeningly curious, unable to help but wonder how another human, another member of their own species, could harbor such vile fantasies.

 

"No," they say to themselves, cheeks flushing with anger yet unable to tear their protesting eyes away as they read line after blasphemous line.  "No," they say, pleading now, as their brain betrays them, sculpting vivid images of the indecencies described by my words.  Images of innocent Fulgrim's perfectly sculpted torso writhing under mighty Horus's gentle ministrations, the raw passion of a god channeled into a generous lover's delicate touch.  Images of fierce Angron's powerful arms pinned down, muscles like cables of living steel rippling against Horus's iron grip, the Warmaster conquering his brother's defiant lips as a merciless army might conquer a rebellious world.  "No," they say, quietly, weakly, as they feel something stirring within themselves, as thoughts they never wanted penetrate their shuddering minds, and plant the seeds... of Heresy.

[Res Ipsa Loquitur]

So... Black Legion have STD issues? Weird. I would have thought that was more of a Slaaneshi problem.

 

She Who Itches...

[Sception]

Actually, it's more of a Nurgle thing.  But, you know, that's the price one pays for 'persuading' Mortarion to join your heretical rebellion.

[Forté]

Now you know why I call him Slave

[Aspiringchaoschampion]

Mal it's not a nurgle problem the Knights of necrosis will have you know we do not have any stds thank you very much!

 

Now let me go find my hand bag full of blight grenades made out of captured black legionaires

[Forté]

Wakey, wakey. Isn't there an update due Mal?

[Sception]

Hm hu wha?

 

But I just posted an update earlier today???

 

That's not the kind of update you meant?  Oh, you meant my hobby-game progress.  Here you go:

 

 

 

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z142/Malisteen/pokedex_progress_zpst2hrtwba.jpg

 

630!  The 'ole pokedex is really coming along!

 

A couple leftover boxes of prankster sableyes from my previous IV breeding have been getting me most of what I needed on the GTS.  Honestly, though, I'm considering restarting Sapphire soon to get spare legendaries that I can trade for the...

 

What?  That's not what you meant, either?

 

 

 

 

..

 

...

 

....

 

All joking aside, progress has been extremely limited.  There's been some, but the local GW store closed (they're moving, but haven't re-opened or even announced where they're going yet), and that's where I did most of my painting.  Painting at home really just... it hasn't been a thing, to be honest.  I've tried, and it's not happening.

 

And Lobac's starting up her Liveblog again!  She's going to be really pushing progress for the next two days, and I can't let her down by falling further behind!  So the next few days are dedicated to homestuck and tumblr.  But then she goes on vacation.

 

 

I'm going to spend the weekend finding an alternative gameshop in my area where I can hopefully start painting again, then progress will start again next week, which should be the last week of painting for the chosen.  Then I'll have three weeks to do something... I don't know, dramatic.

 

Don't worry Nokob, I would not deny you your annual dose of shameful defeat.

[Soldier of Dorn]

Hey, Mal. Check your pm sometime.

[Sception]

Painting isn't quite done on the chosen.  Should be finishing up tomorrow or monday, pictures now planned for tuesday.

 

In the mean time, I have taken a crack at those rhino conversion bits I ordered from Subtle Discord:

 

 

First I assembled the sides and center hull of the rhino.  I'm not planning on painting the interior, so I just glued the main body together as such:

 

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z142/Malisteen/Black%20Legion/rhino01_zps5ektnwva.png

 

A quick word of warning: if you've got Discord's havoc launcher kit, assemble that first.  There's a round bit that it uses that you might otherwise be tempted to use next to the round pintle hatch, because that's where it usually goes.  Instead, you want to take one of the spare pintle hatch doors - the one piece or the two piece, whichever you're not using, remove the hinges, and use that instead.  I'll call it out again later on.

 

 

Next up is the treads:

 

 

 

 

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z142/Malisteen/Black%20Legion/rhino02_zpslw5felun.png

 

Looking good.  As I mentioned in a previous post, they've been shipped attached to some firm hunks of excess resin, presumably to keep them in one piece and unbent.  Seems to have worked well for shipping, though it caused me a bit of a problem later on.

 

Before going any further, I matched Discord's tread bits to the regular bits, and checked with the instructions to make sure I put the right bit in the right place:

 

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z142/Malisteen/Black%20Legion/rhino03_zpsygfrmhal.png

 

 

Unfortunately, as I started cutting the long tread off of its hunk of resin, it snapped at the end!

 

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z142/Malisteen/Black%20Legion/rhino04_zpszskadkmi.png

 

 

Unless your clippers are super flat, I'd recommend starting from the middle instead of the end to avoid this problem.  Alternatively, try using a sharp hobby knife.  After the break I clipped from the middle and had no further problems with breakage, and it was easy enough to fix.

 

The resin is nice enough to work with - a little bit brittle as described above, but not so breakage-prone as finecast, and a good bit stiffer.  A little bit of flash and mold line trimming, but nothing serious.  However, while there were no visible external bubbles, there were some internal bubbles that appeared when clipping and cleaning bits:

 

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z142/Malisteen/Black%20Legion/rhino06_zpsefeejy4n.png

 

Nothing serious, just a little extra cleanup work, and some dabs of glue to fill.

 

 

As always, I recommend test fitting dry before applying any glue, especially since these bits are resin so you have to use super glue.  Much less margin of error, as you don't have much time before it sets.

 

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z142/Malisteen/Black%20Legion/rhino05_zps5ze5xdie.png

 

 

Test fitting looked good, didn't have any further prublems.

 

 

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z142/Malisteen/Black%20Legion/rhino07_zpsdtsuvavm.png

 

So there you go, one set of very nice looking chaos themed rhino treads.

 

 

 

Apart from that slight, avoidable, and easily fixed breakage problem, the tread kit came together with hardly any hassle.  I'd recommend this kit to anyone, and wouldn't consider building any rhino-chassis chaos kits without these treads in the future.

 

.............

 

Treads done, I assembled the top of the hull (not pictured), and got ready for some more serious work with the trim kit

 

 

 

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z142/Malisteen/Black%20Legion/rhino08_zpse8xxaqhk.png

 

This is Discord's 'rhino trim 1', and it comes on a few small sprues.  The pieces are very thin, so be careful, though I didn't have any breakage issues.  Removing them from the blocky sprue bits is a bit of a pain.  Definitely use a sharp hobby knife - get a new blade if you have to - and not skippers for these.

 

It can get a bit confusing to tell what bits go where, so I kept the display images open from Discord's shop while I worked.

 

 

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z142/Malisteen/Black%20Legion/rhino09_zpshsrsmtll.png

 

As I mentioned in the previous post, the packing material is very tight, and that does cause some bending of the trim kits around their blocky sprues.  I did not find this to be a problem though, as I was able to gently bend them back into shape after removing the individual pieces.  Heating wasn't necessary.

 

 

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z142/Malisteen/Black%20Legion/rhino10_zpsmgnlb3e6.png

 

As always, dry fitting is essential.  Especially with the trim kit, as you will need to remove several of the rivets to make room for the trim.  Also, be sure to clean the trim so the edges are nice and smooth before assembly.

 

For the longer trim pieces, I find it's best to start with gluing one small area, then when that's set pull back the piece to apply more glue and press it back down, working a chunk at a time instead of all at once so that you can hold the part that's setting flat.

 

 

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z142/Malisteen/Black%20Legion/rhino11_zpscd6atbky.png

 

Like so.  It may help to have a smaller glue applicator.

 

 

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z142/Malisteen/Black%20Legion/rhino12_zpszicacoxx.png

 

This piece of trim is done.  As you can see, it all lays nice and flat due to doing a bit at a time.  The piece fits remarkably well.  Just a bit of shaving here and there to be flush with the top of the hull.

 

 

Now, one thing I'm not a fan of with Subtle Discord's rhino trim is that he moves the headlights down to a lower armor panel. I prefer the headlights up towards the top of the tank as is usual for the rhino.  In Discord's kit, there's an 'L-shaped' bit of trim that goes on the panel where the headlight normally goes, and I still wanted to use that trim.  I was able to do so by first shaving down the inside of that trim a bit, and removing the point where it bends, and then shaving the back of the headlight bit slightly so it would sit flush against the trim.

 

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z142/Malisteen/Black%20Legion/rhino13_zpskwc8mdek.png

 

This picture shows the modified bits on the left, and the unmodified bits on the right.

 

Note that the headlight will still be slightly forward from its usual position, so you still need to remove the little pegs on the hull that normally anchor the headlight bit.

 

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z142/Malisteen/Black%20Legion/rhino14_zpsgthr096w.png

 

Like so.

 

 

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z142/Malisteen/Black%20Legion/rhino15_zpssobkwr8p.png

 

And there you go, trim applied, but the headlights still more or less in the usual place.

 

 

Other than that, keep applying all the trim as already described, keeping Discord's pics open as a reference.  Honestly, while everything fit pretty good, only need to shave a bit here or there, this kit was a bit of a hassle to work with.  No significant problems, it just took quite a while.

 

The results, though, were totally worth it:

 

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z142/Malisteen/Black%20Legion/rhino16_zpsj3jmdf1u.png

 

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z142/Malisteen/Black%20Legion/rhino17_zpsp0xo6ply.png

 

Note that, next to the round pintle hatch sticking up, that I uses the other pintle hatch lid in the smaller indentation.  I had to remove the hinges from the door bit to fit it there, but after that it fits fine.  This is important because the usual bit that goes there is used in Discord's missile launcher kit, which I'll get to later on.

 

Also note that while the top hatch doors are glued to each other, they are not glued to the rhino hull.  This is so I can swap between the doors and the turret bit, again for the missile launcher kit.  Because the top hatch doors fit, if anything too flush together, I first used a file to add a bevel to the inside edges, so that it will be easy to pick them out during painting.

 

In addition to looking fantastic, this kit also does an excellent job concealing the seams where the top part of the hull fits to the rest of the tank.  I didn't even consider that when purchasing the kit, and it is a very nice bonus

 

 

 

 

This kit is a lot of work, and I do not recommend it for inexperienced modelers.  The results, though, are absolutely worth the effort.  It really marks the vehicle out as a 'chaos' rhino in a way that those terrible, breakage-prone fences simply can't.  Again, I cannot imagine adding any rhinos to my army in the future without the use of these trim kits.  As a matter of fact, I just gave away my old rhinos to another player at the new local store.  With the bits already glued to them, there was no way to add Discords trim kits to them, and without the trim I just couldn't imagine ever using them again.

[Sception]

Next up is the little chaos vehicle accessory pack:

 

 

 

 

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z142/Malisteen/Black%20Legion/rhino18_zpsnr9qmokc.png

 

The pack comes with two chaos trim smoke launchers, an ammo drum for the pintle combi bolter, and two mountings that fit eaither search lights or dirge casters, and the magnets to switch between them.

 

Now, honestly, this is the kit I'm least excited about.  I mean, the smoke launchers look good, but then again the regular GW chaos smoke launchers do, too.  And honestly, I kind of prefer the big daemonic face of the GW dirge caster to Discord's more plain looking double-speaker (or is that a searchlight with a single speaker sticking off of it?) arrangement.  The chaos star searchlight is nice, but again, not a huge step up from the searchlight on the GW accessory sprue.

 

The only bit I'm actually excited about is the ammo drums for the combi bolter, and I won't even be using that since I think the pintle gun looks too big on the rhino chassis.  Doh!  Definitely something I'll be holding onto for whenever GW gets around to putting out non-terrible chaos land raider rules.

 

 

That said, it was very nice of Subtle Discord to include a couple of these packs for free with my order (see my prior post on the subject), so I will be happily using the magnetized search light / dirge casters and chaos smoke launchers on my new rhinos.  I decided to go with a single searchlight / dirge caster mount and a single smoke launcher on my rhino, each mounted over one of the headlights.  

 

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z142/Malisteen/Black%20Legion/rhino19_zps03phfp0s.png

 

Here you see the dirge caster bit

 

 

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z142/Malisteen/Black%20Legion/rhino20_zpszfjqrgjz.png

 

And here it is with the searchlight

 

 

Nothing too tricky to the assembly other than deciding where to put it, and being careful to glue the magnets in the right way.  I will say that the smoke launcher does not have much support where it glues to the tank - just a very thin surface there.

 

 

 

 

So yeah, it's not at all a bad kit, and I'm certainly glad to have it.  That said, the default GW options for these bits are pretty decent to start with, imo, so I wouldn't consider this one a 'must have' like the other kits I'm looking at in this post.

 

 

The last kit I got from Subtle Discord (apart from the variant rhino trim which I'll be trying on a future rhino) is his havoc launcher:

 

 

 

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z142/Malisteen/Black%20Legion/rhino21_zpsgywqaspb.png

 

Here the kit is out of the bag and dry fitting to the rhino's turret bit.  Note that, much as with the trim kit where some rivets and studs on the hull had to be shaved off, there was some detail on the turret bit that had to be shaved down to make room.

 

Also note, that the trim for the small hatch doors is a different design than that shown in the images for this kit on Discord's web page.

 

The launcher itself is pretty simple to assemble, just be aware that there IS a correct orientation to the front and back bits - the top of the launcher bevels in a bit more that the bottom, which is more square, so the bits only fit a particular way.

 

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z142/Malisteen/Black%20Legion/rhino22_zpsxqaudgyw.png

 

Discord's launcher still uses the same mounting as the regular havoc launcher, including that round bit I've been banging on about.  Note that the bottom of the round bit has to be shaved down a good bit, but not to the point of being quite flush with the lip  You want it to be shaved such that it will be even with the magnet.  Test fit frequently as you shave down until it seems right.

 

Once it's shaved to the right depth, glue the square magnet into  place, put the round magnet on it, put a drop of glue on top of the round magnet, then put the launcher on top, and let it set.  Once it does, you may want to turn the bit upside down, as shown above, and put more glue in there to make sure the magnet stays in place.

 

 

So here it is altogether, with all four of the Subtle Discord kits I'm using on this tank - the treads, the trim, the accessories, and the missile launcher:

 

 

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z142/Malisteen/Black%20Legion/rhino23_zps85m257os.png

 

 

I can't decide whether I like the missile launcher better in the back or the middle:

 

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z142/Malisteen/Black%20Legion/rhino24_zps6jnwax0a.png

 

 

It doesn't matter either way since I won't be glueing it into place, so I can just put it how I like it in a given game.  Honestly, in actual play I probably won't be using the havoc launcher much anyway, as I'd rather save the points, so most of the time I'll be using the normal top hatch doors.

 

 

 

 

This kit was relatively straight forward, apart from shaving the bottom of the round bit to match the magnet depth.  That was a bit of a hassle,  Not too bad, though, certainly easier that assembling the trim, and again totally worth the effort, as this kit looks fantastic.  As with the trim and treads, I'd consider this kit a must have, at least if you ever intend to give your rhinos havoc launchers, which admittedly is a slightly iffy upgrade.

 

Still, it looks great.

 

In general, Subtle Discords kit's are fantastic.  They can be a little bit of work - the trim in particular, but the pieces fit well, the quality is top notch, and the results speak for themselves.

 

 

That said, even with all that bling, this rhino didn't look great enough, so in addition to subtle discords bits, I also added some forgeworld bits from their Sons of Horus and Chaos Renegade brass etching sprues:

 

 

 

 

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z142/Malisteen/Black%20Legion/rhino25_zpsk5jfd9w4.png

 

 

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z142/Malisteen/Black%20Legion/rhino26_zpsreuovohv.png

 

 

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z142/Malisteen/Black%20Legion/rhino27_zpscoducwzp.png

 

 

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z142/Malisteen/Black%20Legion/rhino28_zpsxjklfv7f.png

 

Love that big eye!

 

 

 

 

The brass etching bits are a little bit of a pain to work with, especially the smaller or skinnier bits.  Definitely have a good pair of clippers handy, and a file to clean the bits with.

 

 

 

So here we are, one chaos rhino with ALL the fixings:

 

 

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z142/Malisteen/Black%20Legion/rhino29_zpst9bwrfa2.png

 

 

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z142/Malisteen/Black%20Legion/rhino30_zpszrfuwdsc.png

 

 

Looks pretty good, if I do say so myself.  I mean, there's a bit more work to do - drill out the smoke stacks, a touch of green stuff here or there where I shaved something  too close and ended up leaving a gap in the trim - but it's very nearly ready for primer at this point.

 

Sadly, I don't know when I'll get around to painting it.  I still have to finish those Chosen, and then I've got a lot more points to get done yet for ETL if I'm going to meet my Soul Vow, let alone catch up to hated Forté.  As pretty as this tank is, and as much as I want to paint it right away, a rhino isn't exactly the best return on points for time spent painting it.  If I hadn't lost a week to my favorite painting stop closing....

 

I don't know.  We'll see.

[Midnightmare]

Looking awesome Mal, they are really great kits. I have just finished two less the tracks, and like you, I am really impressed. Still got the tracks to do, but I expect them to be equally high quality :)

Nice work

[Forté]

Funny but I was wondering what was going on.

 

Don't drill out the smoke launchers though. They're only like that when empty.

 

And yes, I am very envious that you have the Subtle Discord tank bits. One day. Seems I'll just have to console myself by painting a large Tooth Fairy bust after the ETL ;)

[Olis]

Lovely work - I like seeing you run through what you're doing (especially with Discord's marvellous creations). ;)

[Sception]

Not the smoke launchers, the smoke stacks.  The exhausty bits, what for on toppo the tank.  There's probably words for those, but I'm blanking.

[Forté]

Exhausts. Yes, those you drill. Though it's easier doing the small holes before assembly. Still reckon you shouldn't drill the smoke launchers though.

And it's missing a combi-bolter.