Moving Along Nicely

I'm on my way to cataloging the excess items in my Marine collection. I pulled out a first batch of stuff, and have decided to give the local players at my FLGS first crack at each batch as I make it available, then progress to Bartertown, then eBay. This is mostly due to ease of transactions. An in person sale is easiest (though I have to take the price in store credit), followed by lump and flat price sales/trades on Bartertown, then the crapshoot and fee-murder of eBay.

It was interesting to sit down on the living room floor and open every box and bag I have, write down what was in each one, and then close it all back up and start making "keep" and "go" piles. There was a little less in the "go" pile than I wanted there to be, though. Try as I might, I couldn't bring myself to put the brand new Land Raider with all of the sponson options in the pile. However, I think I'll be performing the sort again after I've cleared out all of the stuff currently in the "go" pile. I figure with some time and effort, I'll be more willing to part with some things.

I did some painting this weekend as well. I finished off the painting for the body of my second Sternguard model. I need to seal him this evening, then paint the base while the sealer dries.
I also started working on my Hive Tyrant! Here is a quick shot of what the first two coats look like:

This is white primer (Rust-O-Leum sandable primer), then two coats of Reaper MSP Olive Green, and a heavy wash of MSP Muddy Green. The wash was straight flow improver and paint, no water. It pooled in some areas, but I'm going to do a 50/50 mix of Muddy to Olive to bring the surfaces back up, then progress upward in 25% ratio increments. The third color in this triad is Pale Olive. I'm thinking at the extreme ends of each carapace section, I'm going to go all the way up to an off-white, so I can then blend the very edges of the carapace sections to a reddish pink, like I've seen on some of the crab shells I was trying to emulate.
I'm not sure what I want to use for the armor plates, though. I have some alternative green colors, or I can try purple or red. I'm thinking a dark color will work best.
What do you think?

I also got my fifth Genestealer assembled, so I have to figure out a way to pin their feet in order to hold them while painting. I'm thinking I can just cut off the slotta tab, insert some thin wire in the feet (like I do for Marines), and then form that wire into a hook shape. I took a handful of picture framing eyelets and screwed them into a wooden paint stirrer. I laid that across the speakers for my computer, and have been hanging the Tyrant's talons and head from the eyelets. It keeps me from touching the wet paint to my desk. I was originally planning on making little vice blocks with scrap wood and butterfly nuts, but I don't feel like spending money on butterfly nuts, bolts, and washers. Although, those are pennies apiece...

I also sat down last night and did some more sculpting. I had found a Genestealer conversion over at Warp Shadow that replaced the stealer claws with Daemonette claws. it looked neat, and fit the crab theme of the army (Hive Fleet Karkinos, remember?). A local Daemons player gave me a bag of spare Daemonette claws, and I started working on trying to copy the conversion. I realized too late that the original conversion was done using the scything talon arms mated to the Daemon claws. I was trying to remove the humanoid claws and replace them with the Daemon pincers. The effect was not as nice as I wanted, so I had to do some sculpting to fix the arms up. Of course, I don't have pictures of this, so I'll talk about it more in a later post.

One thing I do have pics of is the sculpted Spore Mine I made. Every time I have Green Stuff left over after a joint patch or other use, I have been rolling it into little balls to cure. I keep adding to these, like a tinfoil or rubber band ball, each time. I stop when they're about the size of a Space Marine helmet. Once they're that big, I start adding details with the small GS leftovers. Here's one of the things I ended up with:

This little bugger started out as a ball of Brown Stuff that I had left over from something. I drilled a hole in one end, and put a length of steel paperclip in to hold it. Then I started taking little balls of GS and sticking them to the surface. I pressed into the center of a ball with the back of a paintbrush, and then again all around the donut this created. The result looks like some sort of fleshy plate over the gas bladder of the mine. I kept adding to the main ball of Brown Stuff until it was almost covered, leaving area around the wire for tentacles. Those I rolled out by hand using the side of my finger. I found that using the touching portion of my finger would leave fingerprints. The side does not. Hold the resulting tentacle next to the mine and wire to gauge length, and cut to proper size. The offcut goes back into the wad of spare GS. Pick up the tentacle with a wet XActo blade, press into place under the mine, and then use a sculpting tool to press the connection flat for stability. I used the tool to pose/twist the tentacles around the wire. Repeat that process until you've covered the wire as best you can, and filled the blank area under the mine head. I then rolled out one shorter tube of GS, and wrapped it around the tentacle root points. Snip the tube to size, and begin using the sculpting tool to press a furrow in the entire tube. Smooth the area that meets the mine head flat, and then fiddle with the lower edge to make it look like some sort of fleshy skirt. Done!
Does it look pretty good?

The plan now is to either snip the wire just below the tentacles, and drill through the base to allow the wire to fit, or simply bend the wire at a 90 degree angle and a switchback to make it so I can glue the wire directly to the base. Cover with some GS made to look like a rock flow, add sand, paint, and flock. One free spore mine!

I've also started working on the second one:

Not super happy with the tube vents on this one, but they're good enough for a first try. In the future i think I'll attach little lengths of plastic rod or tubing, and sculpt the GS around those instead of trying to press GS into vent shape.