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.