The Devil Rides Out

 This weekend, Chickenhawk made his debut appearance in a game of Apocalypse of all things, with Alistair, Jordan and Rhys.

I think we played 300 power level, Imperium vs. Chaos (ahh the classics!) but not entirely sure.

Since I haven't bought the game or read the rules and I don't have a Chaos army, this presented a bit of a problem.

Fortunately Jordan brought the 14th Black Crusade with him and flanked my newly painted model with two Warhound Titans, a brace of Chaos Knights, supporting Armigers and assorted Nurgly goodness.

This did not prevent Chickenhawk from being brutally violated in the end but he managed to give a fairly decent account of himself.  It was quite enjoyable and nothing like the all-day marathons of yesteryear.  I may even pick up the rules!

What are rules, really?

Still love my scenery

Grand Melee

Orbital Scan

Newly painted model syndrome strikes!

Infantry did not play a significant role in proceedings

Managed to get a side-by-side with a real Chaos Knight

This reminded me of William Blake's 'Red Dragon' for some reason

Hold the line! (Every single one of those missiles is individually magnetised.  All is right with the world)

No Chaos Knights were made during the harming of this model

Fresh from the fires of Forgeworld Monkeychuka, a new knight is summ... erm.. forged! (Helforge you say?  Goodness me, no!  That would be heresy!)

I finally got all the lights working by blu-taccing the wires and battery in place.  Turns out the battery was resting on top of two large neodymium magnets which attach the torso to the legs.  This had an adverse effect on the battery's machine spirit.  I stuck it further up the side of the main body and uttered a short prayer to The Omnissiah which must have worked because the lights came on.

I continued building and gluing stuff right up to the end.  Three cables were added between the legs where the pennant thing normally goes on a night.  I had no intention of hanging a flag off his balls but some dangly bits were perfectly acceptable.

A bit of oil splatter was added to the marble to symbolise the stain of chaos.

I've included a couple of pictures with the pauldrons in place but this was just to prove that I finished them really.  This bad boy wants to go bare shouldered and show off his muscles.

I have no intention of...  ..in game.. ..strangely..  .. butt it turned out ok...

Carefully dipped in Chaos

monk

Together we will conquer
Together we will conquer

Wipe that cheeky grin and come on down.

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...eychu 
..ka...

Oh well, the Devil makes us sin
But we like it when we're spinning in his grip.

++purge++

I'm yours, I'm yours
Why does the blood never stick to your teeth
Mama stop giving me grief

++devotional psalm A237F1 inneffective++

The cradle is soft and warm
Couldn't do me no harm

++choral psalms 1 thru 6928 inneffective++

Why does the blood always stick to your teeth

Mama stop giving me grief

++cleansing prayer !Omnissiah! inneffective++

Cleanse me deep in the fire
I have become pure water
I wear my sword at my side

I wear my sword at my side

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++scrapcode detected - multiple heresies++
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System compromised...  

Cease all communication immediately...  

Punitive detachment inbound...  


May The Holy Emperor blot out your transgressions.

Clockwork Beast

 I'm nearing the finish line on this.  I got impatient though and started playing with the lights again.  The blue mega light just wasn't doing it for Tzeentch strangely.

I preferred the green but I only had one and it was a chip, and therefore too small.  I had a cool white mega light and figured I could try to make it look green.

So I pulled a decorative green crystal off one of my Necron bases and chopped it up.  I was able to superglue it on the end of the LED and I like this better.

Not sure about the safety implications.  I'll probably set fire to the model before it's finished at this rate.

c

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east

Beast

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ork

wock

clockwork

ClockworkBeast

ClockworkBeastClockworkBeastClockworkBeastClockworkBeastClockworkBeastClockworkBeastClockworkBeastClockworkBeastClockworkBeastClockworkBeastClockworkBeastClockworkBeastClockworkBeastClockworkBeast
buffer purge
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++flee++

All about that bass

I had to break the knight down into 53 sub assemblies and that's just masochism.   I belatedly remembered that the piping/door handles were still on the sprue had to add them.  I can't believe I forgot during the build but it was deliberate, at first.  Once you release a tiny piece of model from the safety of its little sprue prison, it becomes a ticking time bomb.  Just waiting for that perfect opportunity to disappear discreetly down the back of the sofa.  Something you don't notice for days, even weeks and end up howling in despair and frustration because you know, for certain, that you will never see the cursed thing again and now the model is ruined.

All cut up and finding the negative spaces very interesting

So the handles stayed on the sprue till the last possible moment. However, right at this very moment I am convinced that I'm going to ruin it with paint.  I spent so much time and money on this folly, it is probably a stupid idea to be going all 'experimental'.  Nevertheless, I have committed to colorshift metal paint.  And copper and bone effects.  And gloss black paint.  And door handles.  As a daemonic entity, you never know when a convenient handhold is going to save your bacon.

I used plasticard, sprues, blu tac, green stuff and lashings of glue

Then of course, there was the base which I had no idea what to do with.  It all began to seem like too much effort and I started watching shite on Netflix instead of painting.  Inspiration finally arrived in the form of plasticard.

Tidied up with milliput

The half painted knight was a bit monochrome so I added some bone effects to the head and missile lanuchers.  It seemed ok but I needed more of the same colour to set it off.

Primed and recess shaded

I thought it might be good to contrast the dark themed model with a clean base and started mucking around with a sheet of thick plasticard.  If I chopped it up, maybe I could make it look like marble.  A cream coloured marble base would pick out the bone colours nicely, I thought.  Admittedly, I'd never tried to paint marble before so this could easily end in disaster but there are a surprising number of tutorials out there.

Ok I may have gotten a bit carried away with the veins.  And you can't tell that I used Brass Scorpion.  Oh well. 

After watching them and downloading a batch of marble pictures from shutterstock I reckoned I would try my hand at a brownish, cream marble with metallic veins.  I'm not going to post the inspirational pictures because mine looks nothing like them.  It is however very acceptable and may have gotten me back into the painting mood.   I definitely enjoy building models more than painting them and the whole base only took 3 evenings from concept to paint drying.

Glazing medium is fucking magic in a bottle

Renegade

I did practically nothing on the knight for 2 weeks then had a marathon session with it today.  I think I might be a manic depressive.  Anyway, its still not done but I'm going to get some pictures out there before GW releases a proper Chaos knight and I realise that all those fiddly bits are already modeled in the new kit.

I think I like him better with the pauldrons off.  I've tarted the shoulder mountings up with some magnets and bits so that it doesn't look like I lost part of the model.

I added some mechadendrites at the back made using Tyranid and Necron tech.  There's a few bits and pieces on the model now, forbidden technology gleaned from illicit research into Xenos heresy.

Of course the main whiff of corruption comes from Chaos.  I bottled it when it came time to sculpt/plasticard the carapace.  I just dremeled off the fleur-de-lys decoration and turned a few armor pieces upside down.   I did pare down the front to make it more curvy and painstakingly cut out the maulerfiend carapace before mounting it on the door.  I'm not sure how the pilot is going to get in.  There probably isn't a pilot anyway and this is more daemon engine than mech-warrior.

I ended up sculpting much of his innards which can be viewed through the missile rack doors and exhaust ports. Hopefully I can get the red light (well, all the lights) to work better.

I estimate that I'm going break it down into 33 sub-assemblies for painting.  I might have to have a video-game binge to prepare me for this.

Light 'em up

 Serendipity!  I was busy wiring up Chickenhawk's head using plasticard rods.  The original intention was to make cables out of green stuff for this job.  I'd already used some wire-reinforced green stuff tentacles/cables to affix the head in a secure position.  This was great for getting the posing right but made it almost impossible to fit more tentacles in the gaps.  So I bought two different thicknesses of plasticard rod and drilled holes to anchor them before bending the other end and gluing it into the head. 

This was fiddly as fuck and still didn't seem right so I added some Canoptek Wraith claws for even more variety.  An image of an old Magic the Gathering card kept surfacing in the back of my mind.  I've always liked the Clockwork Beast artifact monster but can't understand why this Knight keeps making me think of it.

Anyhoo, whilst dicking around and generally not making any real progress, the LED which is supposed to light up the face plate accidentally flipped out of the head and into the neck.  I started to curse roundly and call my sanity into question, but then I noticed that the effect was awesome.  I'd left the neck hollow in order to fit the wires through.  The light in this space was much more interesting but left the face unlit.  The problem was easily remedied by adding another one.  So now he has green eyes.  I rushed to get a picture because there is no way in hell I'll manage to get the sodding things to stay in this position for the end product.  Looks pretty damn sweet for now though!