Decompressing

I thought I was more or less done with this conversion and decided to celebrate by taking a few snaps and maybe a video.  This is the problem with blogging (and also one of the advantages).  When I post my work and look at it objectively, I immediately notice all the bits I missed or did wrong. And it's out there, warts and all for the whole world to see.  So I decided to make a checklist of remaining tasks which turned out to be both depressing and demotivating. I'm not going to do it again:

1. R. hip plate, 2. R.hip spikes, 3.Base,  4. Adjust R.tail piston, 5 Ankle greaves, 6. Khorne thigh plates?!?, 7 Khorne dorsal plate, 8. Plug ventral hole, 9. Lower jaw struts, 10. Adjust claw spikes, 11, Tail armour fix, 12, Reposition exhausts, 13. Grey stuff gaps, 14. Tidy up

I still think its about 90% done but realistically, I've got about another 5 hours work to do.  And thats just the build, never mind painting the bloody thing. Does that mean I spent 45 hours on it already!?  Checking the dates of previous blog entries, I probably have. Of course, much of that time was spent navel gazing or prevaricating but I've come to realise that this is my rate of throughput and there's nothing I can do about it.  Nor would I want to.  Deadlines and schedules are for tournaments, work and family commitments.  When I'm hobbying, its all about 'decompressing'.

I thought it would be interesting to post some work-in-progress shots too.  I purchased a Skull Cannon of Khorne with the express intention of cannibalising it for the Marks/Symbols.  But the Skull Throne on the top just looked too awesome to ignore, so I had a brainwave to turn it into a sort of dog collar.  Forcing it to fit on the front of the torso was a complete pain in the arse and its got ruddy great holes in it, exposing the inner workings.

I had to kitbash all sorts of bits around the neck to pad it out.  I lost about 2 hours rummaging around and carefully cutting and dry fitting bits of chain and pipe to glue in there.  Which it turns out, you can't really see anyway.  Looking back on it, this was enormously enjoyable and I shouldn't berate myself for time wasting.  It's not a race and I'm not being paid by the hour.

Attaching the legs using the posable arm joints was pretty handy.  I can tilt the model at different angles to get more poses.  I've also been playing around with video editing software.  I settled on 'Blender' because I though it would be pleasing to Khorne.  Also it was free, open source software.  It's not primarily used for video editing however and the user interface was utterly incomprehensible.  I'm slowly picking it up with tutorial videos and have managed to add a soundtrack to my latest attempt.  I want to be able to crop the video to get rid of unwanted borders, just like a photo, but haven't figured it out yet.

The music from 'The Magic Roundabout' children's television series always reminds of spiralling down into madness.  I'm not sure Khorne would approve of that, but there will be blood.