Monolith Project

So as I'd stated previously I'm going to wire up some Necron Monoliths with LED lights. The one shown above got abducted from a random website for reference Unfortunately the modles are already completely built. Luckily thats the practice I need to take on the next LED project. Luckily these models aren't actually mine.

Since they are already built I have to work with what I can get access to, or make access to. I'd probably go about this differently if I was starting from scratch but thats not an option. My intent is to place a bright white LED in each corner gun to illuminate the corner gun green plastic rods. Put a green LED on the top to illuminate the top crystal and a green LED in the interior to illuminate what will be a siwrling green portal where the large golden symbology is on the picture above. I'm intending to install a 9v battery on the bottom with a switch, then have all of the wires running up thhe center support column inside. From there wires will branch out a hole I'll drill near the top of the column to complete the circuit.

Should be interesting

First Shots of the Monolith Project

I've been spending the bulk of the time on this project so far planning things out. Looking closely at the Monoliths and seeing how I'm going to go about running all the wires, get the LEDs in place, and figure out the necessary resistors for it all while I'm at it. I recovered two monoliths from the Tyrant after he cried his eyes out about them being ruined and I set out to try and fix them up. The models were already mostly assembled excepting the corner guns and the clear green plastic tubing. I cleaned them up, and then set out to destroy them

As you can see I ripped off all of the arching structures above the pyramid structure, to give my self easier access to drill holes in the top and help me run the necessary wires on the inside.

















From here I drilled holes in the very bottom of the pyramid, Shown on the right. And drilled a hole in the very top, shown below.











As you can see this drilling expedition was not nearly as effective as the bottom hole. I need the hole to be in the center, but when I started the drill up I hadn't yet decided to rip off all the upper arches. I tried to get the hole done at an angle, and well you can see the results. I'll fill the hole with a bit of epoxy, cut a plasticard disc to size and put a new bottom layer, then I'll re-drill that hole.





Here I've drilled a hole into the side of the center collumn to allow a channel for the wires to the corner guns and the interior lighting.















Because the 9v battery is thicker than the available space I'll need to add a spacer ring. This adds a bit of height and facilitates hiding all of the wiring during game play.






Finally I've got the cuts showing how I opened up the Corner guns to get LEDs in there. Also I needed to drill out the interior to make sure there was a path for the light to get to the gun Barrels.

Next up Cybernetic Monoliths, now with extra wire!

New Project: Fun with Resistors?

So I've got this crazy Idea that when I pick up all of the upcoming ONI miniatures for AT-43 I need to to make all of thier flashing lights actually work. Yeah it's not a terribly original idea but for whatever reason this has sparked my need to play with solder and electricity. As I normally like to do I sucker some poor slob into getting me to try out new techniques on their figures first. So in preparation of working the ONI stuff I'll be wiring up 2 Necron monoliths with LED lights first.

Already have the wiring diagram all finished thanks to the marvelous LEDCALC website. I've identified all of my parts necessary and I'll be putting in an order for the LEDs, resistors, battery connections and switches. I'd like to use a 9v battery to power the whole she-bang but I need to figure out if there is a place I can HIDE the 9 volt battery first. Otherwise I'll need to use a 3 volt Li ion battery. And looking at the numbers that sucker won't even last a full game.

So my plan is to actually document how I go about this. Unfortunately both Monoliths are already pretty much built. But I think I can open them up just enough to run the wires and get the LEDs in place.

Plans plans and more plans

Writing things down on the blog doesn't really do much to help me follow through on any actual painting. But that doesn't mean I'll stop doing it!

Finally making some headway on the Tyrant's Gladiators. Dug myself I nice deep ditch of painting debt and I'm starting to see a bit of an end to it. Here's what I've got left to do on it

• 2x Secutors
• 2x Myrmillos
• 2x Amazonian Decurians
• 2x Junker Exo Suits
• 6x Junker Auxilla
• 3x Greater Pit Beasts
• 1x Pit Beast
• 4x CLAWS

Plus I've got two competition pieces i want to finish off for WYRD's Rotten Harvest painting comp.

Progress will be made, eventually

Final Brennus Pics

After about another 2 hours of honest work I'm calling Brennus done! There was about an hour more work put on Brennus himself and about an hour finishing off the Scenic base. I was damn close finishing off everything for the Uban Mammoth Painting Competition on the WAMP forums But there was no way I would have gotten the same results as I did a few days after the fact. Painting quality from 2400 - 0200 just wouldn't have been the same. Additionally there is a series of shots all around the figure. To give an up close view of him in all of his gladiatorial glory.

Brennus After Photoshoping

So I decided to try and run Brennus through photoshop again, and try yanking him off his base background onto a photoshoppped gradient. Just messing around really and wanted to see the difference side by side with the original.

Urban Mammoth Brennus

Well Summer is pretty much gone now and really I couldn't be happier. Not really a fan of heat and humidity. To top things off my entire summer mostly consisted of home renovation projects. I'm putting the final touches on those and sarting to move forward on some serious painting again.

I started thig guy while vacationing on the beach at the outer banks and finished him off at about midnight before the contest entry. As usual I'm only mostly pleased with him but didn't have any time to execute the changes photo and update before the contest closed. I'll re-post him when his custom scenic base is done and I think he's really finished. At any rate this was the picture used for the contest

I'm early, I swear!

Like the blog description says, I'm currently shooting for Monday. This week I'm actually shooting for Monday May 11th. Yeah that's the ticket, so I'm early. Presented in this edition of late blog arrival is Reaper's Duke Gerard from the Warlord line. I'm pretty darn pleased with this figure exccept for one aspect, that damn free hand on the shield. Yes the last time I too any lessons in drawing were back in Middle School, and well I still generate flat images just about as well as I did then. What the free hand on the shield does hide is alot of really good blending work on the shield face. I was exceptionally pleased with it once I fiinshed it, but knew I was going to have to put something on that giant flat surface.

Egreygore

Text eventually showed up, sure it was several days late, just deal with it. For somereason as payment for getting payment for doing painting work I've agreed to paint up the Tyrant's Egreygore. Yeah I'm not sure how that happened either. So far this is just an early WIP photo, which doesn't actually show much of anything off. So far I've assembled it , posted it on an elevated rod to add some more character to it, and added trails of hot glue to hide the rod and add in a drip effect from some pores on the model. I'm sure I'll get primed sometime in the next few weeks (months) and them possibly finish painting it.

Urban Mammoth Achilles Bio Mech

Still working on my photography. This time I stepped the light output from 2x 60w bulbs to 2x 100w bulbs. Not sure I've made any improvement of not. I think 60W provided sufficient light, in general, but Now I'm thinking I need to replace the back drop with something less glaring. I should probably document my actual photo set up at some point as well.

Overall I'm fairly happy with this as a table top quality piece. The transitions on the NMM need to be smoother, but all in all it's still solidly serviceable.

3 weeks and still no Painting

Well the title is a bit miss leading. I've actually been doing some painting just nothing ready to show yet. Mostly I've been working hard on assembling some new Syntha mniatures as well as some new Dark Age Minis. I've actually got a few pieces finished, just need to get the camera set up for a round of photos. Images at next week's scheduled update, if not earlier.

Blue Lotus from EricJ on Cool Mini Or Not

DISCLAIMER: This is not my work! Shouldn't be hard to tell that from the pictures below this one. This piece is entitled Blue Lotus. I highly recommend following that link and checking out the larger version. And Vote! This guy deserves credit for some fabulous painting.

Not only did he pull of a shimmering fabric really well on the model, not too mention the Sky Earth NMM armor plates. The skin tone work really well on this model, not sure what Dragyri skin tone should be, but this looks really good.

The killer here is the base work, it looks like the macro photography wasn't too kind on the perspective of the base work, giving a bit of forced perspective.

Unscheduled outage

Apparently Miniature Defacement observes MLK day as well as took the day off for Inaugural celebrations. Either that or I've been neck deep in foam core slivers and had all my fingers bound up with adhesive. As evidence from the last several updates my interest in Urban Mammoth's Urban War line of miniatures has been greatly rising. To go along with that the Gaming Mecca requires in influx of fresh urban terrain. Luckily for me the terrain will work wonderfully for Infinity as well as Urban War, and probably metropolis as well. Luckily for the acolytes of the Gaming Mecca it will probably also work exceptionally well for 40k games as well as any other modern to near sci-fi settings.

Over the weekend I took on the assembly of an Industrial building, out of Foam Core rather than the recommended Cork Board. Also assembled a three level office building using the great line from WoldworksGames Bits of Mayhem Downtown. Only I made the building out of Foam Core with access to each individual level. Just need to cut holes in the floors and build staircases on the inside.

Working up some ideas for a modular urban city terrain. Still finalizing how things will be made, but I've got a rather ambitious plan. More details will follow on the blog as they develop

Urban Mammoth Nyx Bio Mech

Following up from last Sunday's Post here is a Nyx Biomech. Sadly they don't seem to be readily available anymore. Like the Artemis Biomech from last week these were in the first 2-3 rounds of Urban War Sculpting, also like the artemis she has a bad case of fuzzy primer.. I'm working up more of the force now, hoping to have the Medusa Biomech finished in the next week or so and then hopefully knock out some of the Androsynths. I'll post pictures as I go along.

Urban Mammoth Artemis BioMech

So the miniature WarGame Urban War by Urban Mammoth has really been tickling my interest as of late and I worked this chica up over the extended weekend I took for New Years. All in all I'm pleased enough with the paint job. Particularly as all of my Syntha figures have the worse case of fuzzy primer I've experienced in a long time. Instead of stripping the lot of them and starting over I decided to work with them the best I could to see what I can manage. I also finished of a Nyx Biomech, and she will be featured next week.

New years resolutions?

Painting resolution time huh? Last year I rearranged my painting space 3-4 times, into three different rooms in the house. Not counting the numerous times I set up shop at the living room coffee table to do some work while my wife does her jewelry work and we both catch up on old TV shows and movies. Guess I'll keep mine vague and general, much easier to B.S. a success story at the end of next year, just like my performance reviews.

1) Paint more of my own stuff: This past year I have done more painting for others than I have for myself, knocking out one 40k Army and about a dozen units for a Warmachine army. Sadly I end up doing table top quality work to get the job done quickly, then have to relearn how to do the painting work I'd rather be doing. On the upside it feeds my pewter crack habit.

2) Enter pieces into the National Capital Model Soldier Society Show: Last year I went for the first time and saw the great work need to add my own exhibit this year.

3) Update this place at least once a week. Yes I know it states at the top of the page I'll update twice a week, but it's pretty apparent how well that works. Post below this one is sometime in late November I believe. I didn't want to turn this into a general crap about my life blog, and I'll still be avoiding doing so. But this may turn into more miniature PR0N of other work I'm impressed by, properly attributed to the companies and artists. So I'll need to look into the legalities and ethics of that.