The Codewraith

I am in the signals. I am the hiss of static from an untuned radio. I am the flicker of snow on your screen. I am the blocky glitch in the video, the hitch in the music. I am the frequency on the edge of hearing, the colour you can't quite see, the ghost in the machine. 

And I am here for you. 

This was a simple little noodling about with a ghost. It wasn't started with any sort of a plan, just one of those nice evenings sat in front of the bits box and seeing where the muse takes you. In this case, it led me here. I took the opportunity to play with my new greenstuff cable maker which allows me to produce something a little more flexible than guitar strings.

Overall very happy with the final outcome and it's given me a couple more ideas to so with some ghosty chaps.

The Piper at the Gates of Down

They say that he comes out in the dead of night shift. When the forges are only just ticking over, when the Hive hums with the quiet lives of the darktimers, when the lights are low to conserve power. Then he can be heard, metal boots on metal floors. His sightless head swinging side to side, seeing without eyes. And if that blank face catches you, they say, his pipe will rise and a skirl of noise will reach out and wrap itself around you and they say you will follow him to the Gates that lead down, down below even the underhive and there.... there ehy do not say what will happen to you. But you will not come back. So they say. 

I've been waiting for inspiration to strike with the Delaque kit. The Dune Navigator is an obvious choice, but there seemed to be other possibilities in this rather Cliver Barker-esque style.

And so we have this guy.

A relatively simple conversion - a generstealer head fastened in the wrong way round and an arm from the escher kit for a slightyl spindly, out of proportion look and we were away.

The final result is pleasingly creepy, I think.

Knights of the Shroom

"SNOT FAIR!" the goblin staggered under the weight of the blows.

"Nuffink fair in dis life," growled the greenskin, prying the fungoid treat from the whimpering smaller creature. "I iz bigger, youse iz teeny. You gots it, I wants it, I gets it," the hulking brute mused philospophically before shrugging and casually smacking the goblin back to the ground.

"UNHAND HIM!" The voice, stern, commanding and noble, echoed round the cavern. The greenskin looked up, his rugose brow furrowed. "Who dat?" he said into the darkness, a hint of uncertainty entering his voice.

"You will step away from that innocent and return to him that which you took, or by the Holy Shroom, I will end you."

"Yeah?" the orc laughed. "End me? I can hear youse is a grot. I would be likin' to see you try."

"You can't say you weren't warned. Defend yourself, varlet!"

The orc pulled out a pitted cleaver, still laughing.

...boing.... boing.... boing...

The orc reading himself, chuckling.

....boing... Boing..... BOING

The orc stopped laughing.

BOING-BOING-BOING 

"CHHHAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGE!"

The Knights of the Shroom arrived.

*********************

This was a really simple job - I became enamoured of the idea of gobboes on squigs as chivalric knights, and so I painted them that way.

The only conversions were the flag and pennant made from tomato puree tube foil to allow posing. Other than that it was all in painting them in quarters. If I do more, I'll start adding checking and blazons and other heraldic markings.

Really enjoyed these but then any day where you're painting a gobbo is a day you enjoy. Here's all the squigs I've done so far; taste the rainbow!

March of the Ents

To go with my Treebread, I decided to get another Ent. This one built for my wife as the Ents are here favourite bit of Middle Earth. Given that she's a redhead, there was really only one colour scheme I could go for...

Interestingly, there's a spare head and two spare arms in the kit. I reckon I could use the same method I use for making trees to make a third ent, which is more or less a 500 point army for Middle Earth....

"All I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by..."

We have lost the beacons, and the shadows lengthen. The company and I have spoken, and we are agreed: profit will pay second fiddle to survival. We will return home. Someday, somehow, we willl return home.

I've had an idea for some Kharadron Overlords for a while - a single sky ship, lost and far away from their home port, trying to find a way out of the realm of Shadows. This is very simly a test piece to try and nail down the colour scheme and also a test for a realm of Metal basing scheme.

I was going for a utilitarian look on the uniforms of the dwarf, although I am considerignhaving a mix of uniforms to suggest this is end of a skyfleet.

The base was made with sprue and a purple metallic paint.

Undercover Nurglings

Klaxons blared. 

"Sector Five containment down--"

"Security breach in Third Quadrant--"

"Core cogitator shutting down, someone's rewired the--"

"Explosions in barracks Alpha--"

Magos Trismegistus span around, breath rasping from his augmentic lungs. +++How is this possible?+++ he demanded. The officers and skitarii around his looked panicked. +++This is supposed to be a secure installation!+++

The Magos span back to try and get a handle on the constant flow of catastrophic data from all areas. For a moment he paused - one of the skitarii had been shaking. Was it... laughing? He shook his head and tried to focus on the hellscape his life had suddenly become. 

This is one of those idle thoughts prompted by having some leftover bits. What would happen if....? In this case, what would happen if some nurglings found a way to pilot a skitarii round like a suit? The answer: something magical.

From a construction point of view, the coat had to be split open and be widened. I did this with plastic putty. I then had to trim off some the bits of the nurglings to make sure they fit - and end of a horn here, a pointy elbow there. Then a pole for them to operate the gun and we were all set.

I painted them the same as my existing Skitarii to allow for maximum infiltration fun. I imagine I can play these as a poxwalker in a nurgle kill team or as a skitarii in an admech kill team just for fun.

Oliphant!

"Grey as a mouse,
Big as a house,
Nose like a snake,
I make the earth shake,
As I tramp through the grass;
Trees crack as I pass.
With horns in my mouth
I walk in the South,
Flapping big ears.
Beyond count of years
I stump round and round,
Never lie on the ground,
Not even to die.
Oliphaunt am I,
Biggest of all,
Huge, old, and tall.
If ever you'd met me
You wouldn't forget me.
If you never do,
You won't think I'm true;
But old Oliphaunt am I,
And I never lie."

As I mentioned earlier, the boys and I spent the Christmas holidays watching the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings more or less on a loop. The youngest - age 4 - was very taken withe the Mumak. So very taken, in fact that he immediately started asking for one.

It's a fascinating model - for years, one of the biggest that GW made and almost an entire army in its own right. So I didn't mind using my hobby budget to buy one. The sculpt is showing its age - there was quite a lot of filling needed. Once constructed, I broke out the airbrush for the base colours and highlights and followed it up with some drybrushing for texture.

It was a relatively fun little project and led to a happy customer.

Next up, another project for my other son and then - finally! - something for me.