Little Stampy: finished!

February 13, 2023January 29, 2023 DebbieForster5 Comments

Something else I promised to myself that I would do this year, was finish off some of the project that got set aside for one reason or another. The first one I have finished is Little Stampy. This diorama was supposed to be a Golden Demon entry, but got set aside when the contest coincided with my 40th birthday.

S, I picked it back up again with the intention of just getting it finished. I had done most of the work, and so finishing off the metallic paint and gluing it together were really the only bits left to do. Here he is:

The hardest part of this mini was the repose. There was a lot of swearing, cursing and some blood that went into getting the leg in the right position and the pipes too. I learned a great deal though, which was point of doing this project.

I also spent a good deal of time looking at water effects on bases. Although I am not convinced this river is the best I will ever do, it was good fun playing around with the different materials.

Most importantly, I learned a lot for the future. I am sure there will be many more dioramas to come.

miniatures.

Little Stampy

June 8, 2022June 8, 2022 DebbieForster1 Comment

For a while now, I have had the idea of adjusting the poses of one of the Titanicus Reaver’s so it looks as though it is doing to squash something beneath it’s mighty foot. The other day, I had some time to actually make a start!

It took longer than I thought.

The hardest part was trying to repose the foot because it is all a single piece. I had to break the toes and reglue them so they had a proper angle on them. The mini did not look right with the toes flat.

I also had to do a fair bit of pinning in order to make sure the Titan stood properly and that the joints were strong enough to hold the rest of the miniature upright.

As you can see, I have not yet finished. The Titan still needs guns, and then painting of course, but I am pleased with the outcome so far.

miniatures.

Adeptus Titanicus – Game 2

June 20, 2020June 13, 2020 DebbieForster1 Comment

This week, we decided to add in some of the more advanced rules for the game. The weapon properties were added, as well as reactor dice and orders. It was a lot to remember, and I am not entirely sure I managed to retain it all as we went along, but it was fun none the less.

We used the same Titans as last week – A Reaver and a Warlord, but we swapped weapons around to have a go with some different ones.

It was all going so well, until I got punched to death…

I did not fare so well in this game. I decided before hand that I was going to try and destroy the Reaver and then focus on the Warlord – I was so close as well, but the dice betrayed me this week and just when I was about to blow the Reaver to smithereens, the dice went against me!

My Warlord had already taken a beating and the reactor overheated, meaning that it blew up. Less than helpful. My Reaver then tried to destroy its counterpart but alas, by this point, its shields had repaired and it was safe once again.

Things I learned this game:

A better mix of weaponry would be good – some with low strength and high number of hits mixed with the high strength/low number of hits would be better.
Dice betrayals are real.
Orders are fun but can be a real bummer if they are ignored.
The reactor dice is fun, especially when the machine spirit gets all uppity and does its own thing.
spinning around wildly shooting when you’re about to die is also funny.

I may not have won this game, but I mostly remembered how to play and the new additions were not overly complex. I did not feel as though my mind was blown. I do tend to vocalise what I am doing at the moment – talking myself through it. I find it helps.

Next time, we are consolidating what we have already learned. I plan to think a bit more about weapon choices and try once again to focus fire and actually blow something up!!

miniatures.

Adeptus Titanicus – Game 1

June 12, 2020June 8, 2020 DebbieForster1 Comment

I don’t actually play many games, as most of you know. I find them difficult to get my head around and actually focusing on larger games, such as 40K, challenges my concentration.

However, this weekend, I played my first game of Adeptus Titanicus and found it to be thoroughly enjoyable. I played with the basic rules only, so we could both get our heads around how the game worked, and with two machines each – a Warlord and a Reaver.

Continue reading →

miniatures.

Titan Tuesday – Part 2

December 18, 2019December 18, 2019 DebbieForster2 Comments

I have been waiting for pipes so I can resume my construction of the Reaver Titan for some time, so I thought it was about time to chase them up. The original email suggested that it might take three weeks for the parts to be made, so I gave Forgeworld some time but after a month I decided I would chase it. Imagine my surprise when I was told that they had been delivered and signed for already.

I checked the UPS website to discover that the person who had signed for the part was not a name I recognised. I often get packages delivered to neighbours on either side and neither of them have the name who had signed for the part.

An email back to Forgeworld and a bit more investigating on their part informed me that UPS had accidentally delivered my Titan Pipes to Rexel in another part of town. A quick phone call and Rexel were able to locate my package. I then drove over and picked them up.

I am not upset with the people at Forgeworld, they were great and helped me locate the missing package. Nor am I upset with Rexel, it is hardly their fault. I am annoyed at UPS for delivering my package to an address with no relation to the one on the actual box. How stupid do you have to be to get that wrong. Rexel is a business, with a business address. The one on the box was clearly residential!

Either way, I am now looking forward to working on the Titan again and getting that project up and running! And then stomping on people with it!!

40K · miniatures. · warhammer · Warhammer 40000 · Warhammer 40k · Wh40K

Titan Tuesday – Week 1

November 5, 2019November 10, 2019 DebbieForster4 Comments

As some of you know, I have had a Reaver Titan sitting here for over a year. I love Reavers. I don’t know what it is about them, but I just think they are amazing. The shape, the aspect, imagining how noisy they are; they’re just brilliant. I bought this one for that reason. However, I looked at the box when I got home, saw how many bits it had in it and then balked.

Today, I faced the fear and got on with it. I opened the box again…

The envelope is a really cool thing, inside it contains the certificate of Authenticity. I am going to have mine framed.

Of course, mine is a Chaos Reaver, I am a heretic after all, and so the machine is excommunicated or whatever passes for ‘baddy’ in Imperial Speech. Under the certificate is a big pile of grey resin. And when I say big, I really do mean it:

The body is in the box, the weapons are outside!

First task then – use the instructions to check off all the parts. This took an hour. I spread them all out and then used the lists from the box to see if everything was there!

Can you believe it? I am short one pipe. I have already sent an email to the lovely people at Forgeworld who should hopefully be able to send me another one. However, I wasn’t about to stop because I was one pipe short. My next task was to wash the resin. I’ve already been advised to do this twice, so will have to do so again next week, but that’s fine. I want this to look amazing after all and it is worth spending the time on.

Interesting part of the week:

It is going to be a while until I am able to stomp on people in games with the Reaver, but that’s ok. I have something to look forward to at the end, as well as having an amazing miniature too!

I shall leave you with the final shot of all the drying resin!

40K · fine detail · miniatures. · Painting Tutorial

Tutorial: Freehand Skulls

June 19, 2019 DebbieForsterLeave a comment

So, building on what I wrote about painting bone, I thought I would share how I paint freehand skulls next. This is just my thoughts on the subject, and I am sure there are countless others out there. This is what works for me.

First off, you’re going to need the following:

As well as a wet pallette, brushes, paint thinner and clean water. You will also need a picture to follow. I used the Legio Mortis one I used the other day for the freehand on the top of the Reaver, but there are plenty of good pictures out there on Google too.

Step 1:

Use the pencil to sketch the outline of the image on the panel you’re going to be painting on:

The shape does not have to be perfect, so long as it is a guide.

Step 3: Shade the skull shape in with thinned Rakarth flesh

Don’t worry about the thinner parts, they will be covered up as we layer the paint!

Step 4: Mix Ushabti bone with Rakarth flesh 50/50 and start picking out the bits that are going to be highlighted.

Step 5: Add extra highlights to the lighter spaces with Ushabti Bone – wet blending comes in handy here.

Step 6: Mix Ushabti bone and Screaming Skull 50/50 and continue to add lighter patches, they should be getting smaller each time. You might want to add some white in as well, depending on how light you want the skull to be. I only added a tiny bit to this stage, but neglected to take a picture.

Step 7: Mix 75/25 Rakarth flesh and XV-88 and start shading down the darker parts of the skull.

Some of the blends here look a little harsh, that will be fixed next stage.

Step 8: Add a little more XV-88 to the mix and keep shading down those key areas in the design – refer to the picture as a guide as well, it is what it is there for after all.

Step 9: The final stage is to use black to define the eye sockets, the nose and to tidy up around the edges as well, seeing how this is on a near black backing.

My main points when doing freehand would be: don’t rush it, thin layers are always better, and have a picture to refer to as well!

Like my tutorials? Consider funding my terrible coffee addiction: Ko-fi.com/hereticdeb

40K · hobby · miniatures.

Freehand Friday

June 14, 2019 DebbieForsterLeave a comment

The title is a lie, I spent most of this week looking at freehand work. I wanted to share them all in one place however and ‘show off’ what I have done. Freehand was not something I had ever really considered before, however I was prompted to try things other than another galaxy cape. I have a full sized Chaos Reaver Titan here and I want to do the (not so) miniature justice. I want to have amazing looking frescoes painted on it as it stomps its way over the battle field. In order to achieve this, I need to get good at freehand work.

Here are the results from this week’s painting:

Ahriman’s cloak of stars is always a good starting point!

There are plenty of ares for improvement with these pieces of freehand. Blending could be a bit mroe subtle in places, the skull shape needs working on, but for first attempts on something a little less forgiving than a galaxy, I can say I am proud of what I have done so far.

Items for sale:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/heretic_deb?_trksid=p2047675.l2559

Most of the miniatures I have painted lately are up for sale here, including Eisenhorn and Slambo. I am also open to reasonable offers.

As always, commissions are open, don’t hesitate to get in touch!

40K · fine detail · miniatures. · painting

Mini Reaver and the Freehand Venture

June 7, 2019 DebbieForsterLeave a comment

The only thing I have freehanded in the last couple of years is the galaxy cloaks a lot of people know me for. I wanted to try my hand at it and seeing how I decided to put the flat panels on the Adeptus Titanicus Reaver, I thought I would give it a go.

Now, the Legio that Twitter voted on was Legio Mortis, so I had a look at the heraldry, cursed at the complexity of it and rolled up my sleeves.

I started by sketching the image out on the panel with a pencil very lighty. At this point, the princeps of the Reaver was asking, ‘Why can I see graphite.’

I then took a deep breath and got stuck in. I started off by filling in the black for the eyes and nose, as this seemed a good base. Next came the skull. I have been asked about painting bone and so shall be doing a tutorial on that next week. It is a combination of five colours and a lot of wet blending to make sure there are no glaring blend lines.

Next came the bars around the skull. I used Eshin grey as the base and then added black or white depending on which tone I was after. I then blended them together to create shadows and light and this is the result.

So, what do I think.

The cranium of the skull is a little too big, I think the teeth on the skull are a bit too stark and I know some of the grey rods are wonky.

Otherwise, I think I did alright in the end. Not bad for a first attempt in a couple of years. I will be doing similar again in the near future, got to keep practicing!

miniatures. · Painting Tutorial · Warhammer 40k · Wh40K

Resin Wash 101

May 22, 2019 DebbieForster2 Comments

I make a daily to do list on twitter so I can keep myself focused and know I am achieving things. On my list today was wash and assemble the NL guy, and I was asked about how to clean resin. I decided to do so in a blog post in case there are other people out there who don’t know how to do this but don’t want to ask. Here we go, a step by step guide to cleaning up resin:

1 – Equipment: You need the following – A bowl of luke-warm water, an old toothbrush, some washing up liquid and a tea-towel or other type of towel and the mini you want to clean up:

2 – Put a small drop of the detergent into the water.

3 – Add the mini to be cleaned up.

4 – Use the toothbrush to scrub over all parts of the mini. Try not to be too vigorous else you’ll end up with breakages and that would be a disaster. There are no pictures of this as using a phone with wet hands is going to be troublesome.

5 – Place clean parts on tea-towel to dry.

6 – Throw away the water and wash your hands. Resin tasting water is gross and leaves a weird taste in your mouth as well.

I hope this helps. I may well write one on bending miniatures back into shape. Resin is pretty easy to reform and it is oddly satisfying as well.

I also realise that my Reaver Titan is made of resin… it has many, many parts, some large… I need a bigger bowl.