The State of Things

I'm sorry I don't have any real content for you all today, just an update on some things going on in my world...

THE COMIC AND PROFANITY
Thanks to all of you for your input on the whole profanity issue; it meant a lot to me not only that you all contributed to the discussion, but that the discussion for the most part was kept amicable.
I've seen good points on both sides of the issue here, as well as a surge in requests for more comic (leading me to believe that the vulgarity is not scaring away audience...). However, things will not remain exactly as they were. There will be two changes. First, I will be relying less on vulgarity in the comics in general. I don't believe the level of humor will falter. Secondly, I will not shy from using vulgarity if I feel it is relevant and adds to the humor. When these comics come about, I will post a Warning: Comic contains mature content! above the comic's thumbnail, so those who wish to avoid it can.

THE COMIC AND THE POLL
"Another Comic!" has won in the Coming Up Next poll by a staggering amount. Due to this, I'm going to make the Comic a more regular occurrence. You will not see it listed in the poll anymore, because I will just be posting them as filler in-between articles on hobby topics. Thanks for the show of support.

THE WORLD OF MASTERDARKSOL
There's been a lot of craziness going on in my personal world, and this is the main reason why I haven't had any real content up since the last comic. On one hand, I'm in the negotiation process for a much higher-paying job in the field I currently work in ... on the other hand, the wife and I received some very bad news in the family. I've had a lot on my mind, both promising and depressing ... and it's made me a bit unstable of late. I hope to get my personal life back into a sense of normality soon and with that, All Things 40K.

I'm almost done painting up a unit of Eldar Guardians. I'm so close to finishing them, I can taste the Victory Circle ... and it tastes blue with yellow accent.

After the Guardians are finished, I will be painting up my already converted/assembled/primered Autarch in order to get it finished in time for Fritz's Competition. Seriously, take a look yourself if you haven't already.

Also, I just got in a boxed Assault Brood. Do you know what's in that? Let me break it down for you...
3 Carnifexes
6 Tyranid Warriors
16 Genestealers
16 Hormagaunts
16 Termagaunts

Who wants to see not one but THREE fully magnetized Carnifexes??? Any takers?

NEW SPACE MARINES CODEX
I got one sitting on pre-order, so I'm expecting it in a week or so. I have already dropped into a GW store to peruse the copy they had there, and I have to admit it looks way awesome. Relic Blades? Yes, please.
Because of how great this codex is, I will be posting articles on the units and their uses of the NEW codex when I mention space marines. My personal army is Dark Angels, however I will be using the new SM codex. So, most of the articles will be showing you examples on how to keep the unique fluffy feel of your specific chapter, yet still represent all the new C:SM goodies. Also in the works is a whole new SM Commander model that I'm designing from the ground up. He will be fully magnetized with all the options present in the new book. We'll get to that later, though ;P

Never Interrupt a Chaplain When He's Ranting...

Warning: Comic contains mature content.

Edit: So Picasa (Blogger's image hosting site) automatically resizes large pictures to 1600 pixels tall. Photobucket's even worse. Rather than pay a site to get the "pro" account for a few extra pixels, I resized the comic image and redid the text/word bubbles so that they're readable. Sorry 'bout all that =/

Custom Objectives: Eldar

While I love the green plastic counters that GW offers, I couldn't help but feel a bit strange fighting some other army over what looks like a holographic banner midfield. So, the thought occurred to me to make my own Objective Markers to make things look more cinematic.

First up, a boulder covered with runes:




I had one of my trusty Warlocks stand in for scale. It's one of the smaller objectives, made out of a chunk of styrofoam that I chopped up with a hot wire cutter. It's on a large flying base with some small rocks around the base, and finally flocked to match the Eldar Terrain Set.

What is the significance of the Rune-Rock? I don't know, I can't read Eldar ;P
I did add the spirit rune on the side that you usually see on the Wraithguard and Wraithlords... so perhaps it's a conduit to the planet's spirit? You decide.




Next up, a Wounded Autarch. I had this model leftover because I wanted the best of both blister packs for my own. I liked the Scorpion helmeted one, but wanted the Power Weapon. Silly me. So I bent this model a bit, so he'd be barely sitting up, and bent his feet forward so they look a bit more natural for someone laying down. I gave him the Shuriken pistol arm, and positioned it to look like he's propping himself up on his elbow. I then filed off the Soul Stone and belt normally around his chest. Why? Because I green-stuffed a soul-stone on a belt for him to hold out in his hand (arm was the Autarch Chainsword arm). He's on a Large Flying Base with some Greenstuff piled up into a mound for him to lay on. The small bit of Eldar terrain you see sticking out of the ground near his mound is off of the Wraithlord sprue.

In his last moments of life, his only desire is for someone to recover his Soul Stone to further help his people. Will you retrieve it for the good of the Eldar? ...or deny the Stone's power to his dying and desperate people?



A statue of the Avatar. The model is standing on top of a chunk of Styrofoam glued on top of a Monstrous Creature base. The smaller statues come from the Dire Avengers sprue. This guy was real easy to make. Foundation paint Astronomicon Grey, Badab Black wash, Skull White drybrush. There are a few splotches of Devlan Mud around the statue as well.

Frighteningly detailed and displayed prominently, why do the Eldar protect the statue so? It is said each of the Eldar worlds has a shard of their Bloody-Handed God, could this statue have some vital role in the revival of this world's Avatar?




On to the larger objectives. A crashed Eldar Falcon. Now before a bunch of you rail on me for destroying $35 on an objective, lemme explain. A while back I ordered a single Warp Spider mini from a bits site (not telling who), who promply lost record of my order (yet was happy to take my money immediately) for a good 3-4 months. After a couple of emails, they eventually found the order, and sent me not only the Warp Spider, but most of an Eldar Falcon "for my troubles." There were several bits missing from the Falcon Sprue to the point that I couldn't come up with a way to salvage it (missing windshields, for example) ... and so I sacrificed the complimentary Falcon to the Hobby Gods.

The raised bits of land were formed mainly of styrofoam with a bit of greenstuff. A glued layer of rock covers it all. The Falcon's wing was chopped off so that it would protrude from the rock at a wrong angle. The rear door was glued on askew. the bits of glass are made by clipping up the clear plastic sprue that holds the Flying Stands.

Are there survivors trapped in the Passenger Bay? Do the Eldar fear the repercussions of their enemies getting ahold of some mostly-in-tact technology? Precious cargo?




And lastly, the Warp Gate. This one's real big; breaking up the terrain a bit by slapping down a wall. This is made of poster-board, and was cut out using the print-out instructions on GW's site (look for German Warp Gate). The large stone is a $1 bit of costume jewelry.

I made 5 Objectives due to the current rules requiring d3+2 Objective Markers to be placed. One of which (The Warp Gate) doesn't have a base matching the terrain so it can be used as an HQ in the Capture and Control mission. Basically, no matter the terrain set, the Eldar army can use the Warp Gate as their objective.

A Word on Artwork

After this last comic, I recieved a request for more quality in the comics.
Happy to get any kind of response from anyone reading the blog, my reply was that I'd work on getting out a higher-quality color version.

Well, after spending a lot of time on it, and getting a feel for how much time it would take to churn out a comic at that standard, I'm no longer so sanguine about it.

Given enough time, I could pump out some professional grade artwork. I've done it before on some other projects (mostly Dungeons&Dragons related, don't judge!!! ;P ) , but I couldn't get over the feeling that all this time spent on one comic should have been spent finishing the paint-job on the Guardians, and magnetizing my Chaos Terminator Lord (oh, you'll see), etc. While I can make comics at that level, I think at that point the comics would dominate the blog. Because I'm rather eclectic and whimsical with what kind of things I do, I'd rather stick to the comics how they are. This would allow me to give you more comics as well as posts/articles on other 40-hobby things within the same time-span, rather than becoming a blog that posts only comics, and only once every other week or so...

The comics I've done so far are 5-10 minute sketches, max. They're thrown into Photoshop, resized and given word-bubbles. The process is rather short. There's a lot more required in making a color version. I will continue to play with it to see if repeated practice makes it more feasable ... but at the moment, the only increase in quality that I'm prepared to do is to spend more time in the drawing stage to get you cleaner lines and such. First Round Lascannon got rather messy in those last two panels.

The comics weren't really meant to become anything more grandiose than a simple and quick laugh; a humorous view into the quirky world of 40K.

Also, the suggestion was made that I get the comic up on Golden Throne. If they want it there, that's totally cool with me. If any of you would like the comics on your own site, that is also totally cool with me. My url is down at the bottom of the image, and as long as that's still intact, you are all completely free to use them as you like. I made them for you anyways.

Ok, hopefully most of you are still reading, because I got a special treat for you :) Check this guy out. His artwork and attention to detail are phenomenal. Browse through his site; there is some seriously amazing work there. I've added him to the Community Feed on the right. His blog is called Rajabersiong.

First Round Lascannon

Don't you hate it when your big bad IC gets insta-killed in the first round by some lucky Lascannon shot? This is generally how I imagine that kind of thing happening:

Seriously, attach your IC's to a squad, people. The Emperor only protects on a 4+

Magnetizing Your Models

Alternate title: "Why the Hell Didn't I Do This Years Ago?"

Dilemma: I bought a box of Assault Marines. I can only have one Sergeant. There are a ton of options to equip him with. What should I give him? What if I change my mind after I make him?

Answer: Magnets.



What you see above is the final product. An assembled and painted Assault Marine with all of his arm options laid out around him. He is fitted with magnets.

Space Marines are a great thing to try your hand on with this technique. Everyone's got some lying around somewhere, and their arms are bulky enough to actually hold a magnet. Add to that, the shoulderpads seriously hide that there is a magnet in the armpit.

Here's what you need:



Magcraft makes a line of magnets that are a 0.125 inch diameter disc. (You can buy them on Amazon) That's the smallest they make, so we'll be using those for now. (note: there are smaller on other sites, but they're very hard to work with, and I'll cover them later with more advanced conversions. For now, let's stick with these.) They come in a pack of 100 magnetic discs for about $9. Next, get yourself a 1/8" drill bit (1/8" = 0.125", see where I'm going here?) and a pin vise. Make sure the pin vise can hold 1/8", as not many can. That size bit is generally too large for a pin vise, but they do make them. The large one in that link is the one I use for the 1/8" bit. The second largest is what I use for the 1/16" drill bit.

Now, once you have the materials the rest is rather simple. After gluing together the torso, use the drill bit+vise to make holes where the magnets will go. Also, drill a hole in the shoulder part of the arm you want to attach. Try a "dry fit" to make sure the hole is deep enough that the magnet sits flush in the piece.

NOTE: The torso was tricky for me, as it was hollow. When I attached the second magnet to the other shoulder, it shot through the torso bit to the other arm (they're that strong). I would suggest reinforcing the middle of the torso with a bit of greenstuff first. Also, before you super-glue the "mate" magnet, double-check that you have the correct side facing out (they should attract each other.) You don't want to finish gluing your model's arm together just to find out that it is violently propelled away from the model's torso when you try to put it on.

Let everything dry before you try them out.

At this point, feel free to enjoy your model:





Now that you have the basics, you are only limited by your imagination and creativity.

Another example of what you can do with magnets?



Oh yeah. BOTH turrets.

Click here for Part 2

Moving Some Things Around...

So, I've made a drastic change to the look of the place, you'll notice a third column over on the left.

That one column of widgets got mighty long with the Community Blogroll, and rather than make that shorter, I had another column installed. The Community Blogroll's only going to get longer, so I'll leave the right column as it is. Most of my widgets were wiped during the change, I think I got everyone's link back into the Blogroll. If you see that yours isn't, let me know; it wasn't intentional.

The Left Column, however, will be changing. First and foremost, a poll. YOU will be deciding what's up next. Ignore the close date. Basically, I'll be working on whatever's the most popular choice. When that post is made, I'll reset the poll with new options.

Also, I'll be installing Army sections on the left with 5th edition tactics/units articles. These will be updated regularly, and will have a notice for when an article is NEW! or UPDATED!

Feel free to sound off and let me know what you think of these changes. Good? Bad? What would you like to see?

Can a Howling Ban-He Get Some Respect?

I'm not sure he can. I present my case above.

Eldar like puns