40K-ishness along the Tartarus Rim

symphonicpoet

Moderator
A lot of the cool kids seem to have their modeling endeavors condensed into one thread. That's probably a better way to do it than my little each project gets its own thread thing, so . . . in honor of that I'll put the new stuff here and maybe add links to the old threads as time allows.

I'm finally shaking off my fourth long annual summer funk. (Long story. If you really want to know ask in a PM, but there's no need to go into the details here.) But to end it I painted up a couple of miniatures. One of them is the hybrid that follows . . .

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The "familiar" (whom I regard as more of a first instar adult genestealer) came before the summer. I think I got him done in mid May and he's sat lonely on the shelf since. Actually even started the hybrid in May or so. But I've got some new starts nearing completion, and I finished one commission that's not germane to this thread, so I think I can say I'm back painting again. (It's become enough of an annual tradition that I ought to be able to predict it now. I feel a little more empathy for Frodo at the end of Lord of the Rings. Sort of similar in some ways.)

Not completely pleased with him. It's . . . not my best paint. It's an awkward miniature. It's kind of a failure all around, really, but he'll do. And I can put him on the table.

The commissions came out better, thankfully.

More on the blog of course, in a post called The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
 

symphonicpoet

Moderator
Okay. Time for an update. Overdue, actually:

First, some more genestealers. I'm not sure I ever posted my magus. He's from . . . May? April? But possibly new to here. New pictures, anyway. I owe some inspiration to the Windy City Wizard on that, as I used his splatter technique for the cloak. But the ork hybrid is newly painted. Had him sitting in a box with no paint for . . . oh . . . twenty years.

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Following those we have a Bolt-Thrower space pirate by the legendary Bob Olley that I've named Maxim Wilder.

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Lastly we have . . . a giant snail. (Also Bolt-Thrower)

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With some friends for comparison.

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symphonicpoet

Moderator
The ork hybrid was an exceptionally simple conversion, but it was a long time he sat without paint. I think I actually carved his face down in the early 90s. Mostly it amounted to cutting off his ears, shaving his nose and brow ridge, and filing in a couple of channels. Early days. Not sure why it took twenty years to paint him. Anyway, thank you Count von Bruno.
 

Suber

Member
Wow, delightful indeed, everything out there looks great. The snail looks disturbingly natural!
 

symphonicpoet

Moderator
First, thank you Suber. :) My wife asked me if the snail was real when it was sitting in front of her on the kitchen table half painted. I suspect she wondered if I'd used a real snail shell. I had a little trouble with a mold line that I could never get completely cleaned off, so it pleases me greatly to hear the two of you make that particular comment.

Next, an update:

I speedpainted myself a little bit of lovely yesterday. (Need to post this to the Speed Painting thread so I can claim my prize, as it were.) Total time invested: just a shade under an hour and fifteen minutes. With the addition of drying time, dinner, phone calls, and the interwebz actual start to finish was probably about eight hours. Bolt Thrower calls him the "Spitebringer Consumed" but I call him death . . . or the great blue tarasque, whichever takes longer. (I do like to talk.)

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The Scorpicaudems magnificens fairlambi, or great blue tarasque, is the apex predator of the distant world of Hecate. An obligate predator, it hunts primarily at night using sonar and scent. While its vision is keen, the particularly dim nights of Hecate, whose two moons, Perses and Asteria, are both rather dark and somewhat small. The exact cause of the blue coloring is as yet unknown, but it is thought certain it is connected with mating or dominance.

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A great blue tarasque gets ready to pounce on an unsuspecting wolf. While the tarasque is quite dagerous, the non-native wolf is much faster, making it difficult prey of only slight nutritional value. Their preferred prey are the large molluscs and amphibians of their native world.

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Maxim Wilder and his wolf observe a tarasque outside a walled settlement on Anesidora.

There's a little more about it in a post called The Thrown Bolt, but that's pretty much the size.

As a small aside, I'm trying to tell a more cohesive visual story. Finding a good place to host in a way that best displays both the visual and the literary publicly and cleanly is something of a challenge. I could put it on Symphonic Poet if I don't mind coding the darn thing, but for present the best version is probably the one on Google. That link should take you to the beginning of it. If you don't see the story press the "i" button.
 

symphonicpoet

Moderator
A bite more: Enquiring Minds

Inquisitors have long been a fact of life in the human Imperium a long long time. And while they don't get out to the rim often, even here they are known.

In fact, Inquisitors were among the first oddballs I collected in large numbers. But these are the three in newest paint, one of whom is a relatively recent addition to the cast of characters.

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I've had the Ordo Maleus and Grey Knight since the 80s. I stripped the two of them a year or so back and there they sat. Acquiring the early RT gent got me going again.

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Here's the whole anti Scooby Gang:

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There is, of course, more art on the blog post linked above. And again, I had the flat enamel drying somewhat gloss problem. That seems to pop up every now and then unpredictably. Could be that the humidity is too high. That seems to do it. Should have waited for a dryer day, but I sprayed indoors in my air conditioned house, so I'd have thought it would be fine. Maybe it just wasn't air conditioned enough. Hmm. Touchy stuff.
 

symphonicpoet

Moderator
A few new arrivals on the Rim:

Olympia Sable Rex-Avis . . .

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Being something of a music lover, Olympia was rather taken with a certain itinerant banjo picking frog named Robin who happened through while chasing prismatic dreams.

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and Jasper Dysdeimos Rex-Avis . . .

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Together at last . . . here's the whole gang out for a picnic posing in front of aunt Nepenthia's ride:

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Left to right that's Jasper, Olympia, Arthur Zanzibar, and Livinia January "Colorado" Rex-Avis with Sir Stanley Ursaline-Drakemore, and aunt Nepenthia Rex-Avis Wadsworth behind them.

The majority of the clan members are from Curtis Fell's Ramshackle range. Colorado and Sir Stanley are Spacelords civilians. The frog is a conversion of a Mirliton fantasy frog. I might try to post more on him later. He was to be my submission for the 2015 warband, but he missed his shuttle. Spaceport security was such a bear about the banjo. The bolter? No problem. This is the Rim, after all. But banjos in space? That's quite irregular. More in a post called Ramshackle Space Lords.
 

symphonicpoet

Moderator
Next we have some new vehicles.

First up is a little orange wagon from one of the local Wrent-a-Wreck services: El Burro Grande, sometimes mockingly called the big burrito.

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The donkey truck gets around. Spacers love the cargo capacity . . . and the no questions asked policy on bullet-holes that don't break major mechanical parts.

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The crew of a Proserpine registered starsloop were in Logansport making an exchange with a local agent, and the burrito proved just about perfect.

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The burrito is (obviously I expect) a GorkaMorka truk. "Bummer", of course, is a die-cast HumVee H3 that's been chopped down to improve payload capacity.

The prose on the blog in Civil Transportation for an Uncivil World is ever so slightly different, but you know the drill. The juicy stuff is all here.
 

symphonicpoet

Moderator
Some further new projects: critters and more vehicles . . .

Here's some Alien Zoology:

I call this first fellow a "Fell Worm"

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"The blind Fell Worm is a particularly adaptable species. Juvenile worms in early instars are quite small and often go undetected in spoiled meat and protein rich vegetable material. As a result, they have spread undetected on tramps and freighters throughout virtually all of human space. Any system with a sufficiently dry silicate rich environment is likely infested with these enormous scavengers."

Next we have the Donald's Monkey:

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"Humans are but one variety of simianoid life found in the known galaxy. Many other intelligent (or at least marginally intelligent) species have evolved along similar lines. The alpha males of the Donald's Monkey can often be recognized by its distinctive blonde fringe, frequently combed over an otherwise bald head. While some believe these creatures distant relatives of the Jokaero they are much more aggressive and rather less analytical. So defensive are they of their territory that many believed that their faces always bore the rictus smile seen on these three individuals."

And finally the Khepri:

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"The khepri are rather unusual aliens. Their intelligence is the subject of some dispute. They appear to have complex language and craft great art, but they make no known tools and are not innately spacefaring, though they have befriended many other species and by this device spread far and wide, even thought their numbers are small. They are believed to be native to the second planet Neith system, since their numbers are greatest there, though their presence in Khnum is nearly as great and they can be found throughout the Memphian and neighboring Tartarus sectors."

In a second post, Enter the Rồng, I added some new vehicles.

"Among the many sports found on the Tartarus Rim is the ancient game of Street Racing. Private parties maintain select roads especially for the purpose, though given the remoteness of the sites the tracks often serve several ends, simultaneously providing access to factories, mining compounds, or the private citadels of executives and government officials.

"The car to beat in recent years has been Rồng-1, or 'Dragon 1.' Like all the vehicles of such races Rồng-1 is a restored and heavily modified twen-cen hydrocarbon burner. Replicas are legal, of course, so long as they follow the basic pattern, but the Dragon is an original (if any millennia old car with so many replacement parts can rightly be called original.) Her pedigree is beyond peer: a 1996 Shelby Viper with a McCullough 1710 flex-stage e-charger providing nearly optimal boost, coupled with a Christman supercooler that reduces thermal bleed and boost heat, even in hot conditions. The Dragon is currently in the stable of a Blake Walker, who makes his home near Lace Rock on Moab III."

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"Rồng 1 gained it's enigmatic name from an early owner, a gentleman of Asian ancestry in the ancient Earth state of Usa, where the car was built. In his native tongue rồng means dragon, and it was he that gave the car the first of it's many distinctive liveries. When absolutely correct, the name is pronounced approximately 'raum', though opposing drivers generally prefer 'wrong.'"

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"At the opposite end of todays lists can be seen Logansport A-1, often called 'PTA' or 'Smarty.'"

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"This vehicle belongs to a Logansport mining boss named Marcus Camber who has been collecting twen-cen guzzlers for many years. He has earned a rather unsavory reputation as a ruthless and remorseless competitor. Just what modifications Camber has made to his mount haven't been disclosed, but given his disregard for either courtesy or custom he is likely to be give Walker a real challenge, especially as he has had his sights on the Dragon for several years now."

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symphonicpoet

Moderator
Some folks have doubtless already seen this elsewhere. (Well, at least one specific person who provided advice. Maybe more. But . . . )

I've recently come into some Shock Force models from Demonblade Games. Wish I could find more of these. They were quite lovely.

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The shock force miniatures are the fellow in the Italian suit, the shirtless gent, and the giant rat. They are alongside some Citadel and Spacelords miniatures for size comparison.

There is, of course, a little more on the blog in a post called Shocking Forces. Thanks for looking.
 

Mason

Member
There is some wonderful stuff going on in this thread.
Those Bolt Thrower figures look great.
If mine come out half as well I will be well chuffed.
:grin:


I am at a bit of a impasse at the moment, project wise.
I have just finished sorting out my Old West town for a forum get together and am now inspired to utilise that t get some RT action going with a lot less effort than would be otherwise.
Thanks for the inspiration.
:)
 

symphonicpoet

Moderator
^Axiom,

Thank you. I must admit, that was a neat find. I hope I can get my hands on more from that range.

^Mason,

I wish my putty pushing were half what yours is. I'm getting better, but I've a long way to go. Thank you for the compliment on my painting, but yours is far from shabby.

^Curtis,

My hat is off to you for bringing us such cool models. I'm glad I can put some in paint and spread the word in my own small way.
 

symphonicpoet

Moderator
40K-ishness along the Tartarus Rim: Now With More Zoat!!!

So, I bought some Space Riders from a certain oldhamerer on this here forum. The first one to see paint? The reptyle centaur:

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Here we see him with some earlier reptiliads whose brotherhood he has decided to join . . .

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There's a little more on the blog in a post called Reptiliad Revolution, but that's the art, plain and simple.

OC, you freaking rock! Thank you.

And as one bonus . . . there's also this lady that saw paint a while back . . .

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