Passing Nadir Point

 April has been a Nadir Month in our household's present trajectory. The good thing about elliptical orbits is that we have to eventually come back.

This titan project in particular was bound to hit a rough patch right around here. Leg #1 was fun. It was difficult-going, but everything was new, exciting.

That was March though. April was Leg #2. No craziness, just repetition. Lots of repetition. Often my camera fails to capture the day's progress. Words leave me. Things aren't fun anymore. Basic Nadir Stuff.

However. We are almost through all that. We're getting to the point where any day now I can say "Look, it's half a titan." Very soon.

So checklist of things that need to happen before we move on to the upper body:

• Titan toes
• More insulation foam to cover bald spots on the base.
• Glue and construction sand all over the base.
• A knee cap for leg #2.
• Spikes on upper leg #2.
• Plasticard detail work on same.
• Pelvis needs several layers of detail treatment.
• Rivets on upper legs and pelvis
• Final installation of hidden tripod support system inside lower leg #2
• Final detail inspection and resolving any areas that ended up being too bare.
• Decide whether to glue everything together or keep sections modular.

Things are looking up. Thanks for the support!

Get Happy!

What's my purpose here again? To inform you that progress proceeds? Mostly to exorcise the mental refuse that disrupts the purity of manufacture. I am disconnected from proper happiness and contentment until I can upload these pictures and type some stuff. Then it all clicks and I am filled with enough contentment to accept the present circumstances.

So I've been working on this for a little over a month now. Feeling pretty good overall about the direction. Finding outlets for feedback has been a chore. All my old internet watering holes for projects like this seem to have mostly dried up, and I'm not really interested in posting on places like FB.

Who needs feedback anyway. Ah, I do. But what's the cost those so-inclined have to pay for community? Well, depending on the community you are opening yourself up to all manner of problems. The internet's broken. There's too much aggression and bile. You open yourself up to ridicule and willful misrepresentation any time you choose to transmit an idea here.

So for now I post here in the old quiet places, devoid of life. For my sanity. Something I can go back and check on in the future maybe.

Backside view.

Much work on the base.

Get happy!

New/Old Signal Detected

Something I'm working on. More on this in a minute.

Truth be told, I remember very little of 2013 through 2017. Some parts of it blaze bright in my memory's eye, but as I look through my last series of posts I feel like I'm looking at someone else's life. There's a sense of alarm now, like I've misplaced house keys. The root of this confusion is chronic physical pain from a work accident, and a sluice of medications that helped me get through each day.

I have survived. I'm back to work for over a year now, restored to the point where I can function and contribute to my family's well-being. Moving forward, it's not merely enough to survive. I am back to looking for that struggle for purpose that drives us all.

I make stuff. I don't know if you can call it art. I used to do that. You can trace the chimeric history of this blog and see there was a point where I used to do Art with a capital A. Fine art for art galleries that people could buy and hang on their walls. There were realities associated with that as a career that I was not really equipped to handle, then or now. I'm not sure I was ever really wired for that life.

So now the lion's share of my day goes to working at a job that pays (some?) of the bills, raising kids, and being a husband. There are particles of free time that fall through these various nets. 15 minutes here or there, an hour after the kids go to bed, or blissful Saturday mornings, where I get to reconnect with the core of my being and make things.

None of this is new. Writing about my adventures was an old thing. Trying to be honest with myself, accountable. Sometimes lying to myself. I think it's all been done. I keep forgetting though. So right now this is new! Join me for what comes. Or don't.

I'm better now. Self-actualized, which is a term I made up and will happily apply to myself on good days. I want to be even better than this though.

Project update.... Well, right now there's too much to sift. It's a moving stream. I lack the aptitude to lay it all out at this time. Maybe later I'll do a retrospective to get us all caught up. This project is new. Or sort of old when you get down to the foundation. It's a model based off my buddy's model. We can be cool and call them sculptures. It's just a label.

Here:

Lower half so far

Two lower halves meet up for a walk

Death Guard Hell Blade

Week 5 of the Fate of Konor campaign was set on a water world, and as such, the theme emphasized flyers and fast attack units. My Death Guard had struggled much in the campaign scenarios that required the attacker to move swiftly across the board. Because of this I realized something more was needed to capture this ocean planet for Chaos. 

I decided to scratch-build a chaos hell blade to get myself a fast harrier. It seemed simple enough to get together, and most of the construction was accomplished over a weekend. 

Ironically, me, my wife, and kids all got sick that week, and I missed the entire round. So even though the model was built and spray-primed black, it was somewhat lost in the bustle of taking care of the family. 

So something like a month has gone by and I decided to get back to finishing it up.

I've got the basic color scheme down, with a couple washes done to dirty it up.

I'm going to go in and bring out the details next. Definitely want to spend time getting the cockpit glass looking nice since it's such a focal point.

Renegade Rough Rider Reboot

Years ago I got laid off my job, my wife was starting law school, and we could no longer afford to pay rent. We ended up having to move into my in-laws' house. It was a tough time. Money was short. I remember kitbashing some cavalry for my renegade guard army at the time. I never really got the opportunity to finish them. I just didn't have the budget to get the bits I needed. This month, after a very long hiatus, I am happy to revisit this project.

It's been a crazy ride. These models take me back.

Today I picked up some 60x35mm oval bases, and I think these are the best fit. They were originally mounted on 40mm circles, but were spilling off the edges pretty bad.

Plasma guy arm courtesy of the Tempestus Scions kit.

Can't remember where the lasgun with strap came from. Maybe Catachan Infanty kit.

This is my favorite guy. Head is from a Warhammer Age of Sigmar Ogres kit.

I still need to do some tidying up work. Probably need to sculpt some straps and a few more bits to tie it all together. The spears are all different, so I need to sort out some suitable explosive tips that look the part. 

Heretic Jones

I built a non-combat vehicle a few weeks back as a sort of exercise. Inspired largely by the galvanic servohaulers kit, I wanted something that looked industrial for my chaos renegades force. I opted for simple and mostly harmless, and thus was born Heretic Jones, and his mildly daemon-possessed light carrier.

Heretic Jones is dedicated to the chaos god of slacking-off off and not getting horribly obliterated. Because of this disposition he manages to get by without anyone else really noticing him. 

Once, Heretic Jones' supervisor tried to press him into combat as a counts-as Centaur, but during deployment he was suddenly nowhere to be found.

I want to make more of these.

Keep on truckin'

Macharius Vulcan Camo Netting

I decided to try something new over the weekend. Inspired by the Forgeworld Masterclass piece on how to make camo netting, I decided to give it a shot. My Macharius Vulcan seemed like a good candidate for the experiment since it's larger than the standard 40k vehicle, and there are plenty of large, flat surfaces to muck around with.

Since the wife went out for a ladies' night, and the kids were in bed I was free to queue up some youtube tutorials and take over the family room for the evening.

I distressed some medical gauze and soaked it in a mix of water, PVA glue and paint. After that I hung the gauze to drip dry for a few minutes. I added some wire hooks on the Macharius to hold the netting. Next I rolled up the gauze and stretched it onto the hooks. That was the fun part. It was a mess, but I didn't mind. Painting will come later.