Thursday 20 January 2022

Wendy, I'm home


 Well that was a bit of a hiatus.  Nearly a year since my last post and I didn't do any hobby at all until the Christmas break.  I suppose I could put it down to Covid blues but I've got nothing to whinge about really.  I don't even know anyone who has tested positive apart from friends and relations in the UK.  I've had more or less unrestricted movement (domestically) for months.  New Zealand has weathered this storm pretty well but at the end of the day we've only stemmed the tide, not stopped it.  The spectre of plague looms over my head.  I can't quite put my finger on it, its just a vague feeling of impending doom (Climate change? Tongan volcanoes? Northland tsunamis? Listening to too much Creedence Clearwater Revival?).  I quit my lucrative contract job before the break and landed a permanent, salaried position with a bank, which offered free life insurance, a discount on my mortgage and pension contributions in the package.  If I didn't know myself better, I'd say I was running scared.  Or getting old.  Who knows, I might become a doom prepper.

Anyhoo, this was a Christmas present from my son, a 'WizKids D&D Beholder'.  He knows I've always liked these beasties and it was a subtle reminder to get back to the hobby station.  Even my ex-wife asked why I'd stopped painting. 

It is a cool model.  Nothing says D&D quite like a Beholder.  Well, apart from a Dragon I suppose.  Or a Gelatinous Cube.  Or a Hobgoblin.  Or an Umber Hulk.  Come to think of it, trying to pigeon hole D&D like that flies in the face of all that it stands for.  But it's a very familiar monster in the manual.  The kit comes with several alternative options; different eye stalks firing various bolts of nightmarish magic.  I didn't use them in the end, preferring the unsettling gaze of eleven floating eyeballs. The plastic isn't the sort you can use polystyrene cement on and there were some hideous mold lines.  Who puts a mold line directly through the surface of an eye ball, for God's sake?  But it cleaned up really well and has some lovely detail. I'm such a bloody GW fanboy, I rarely look at other products, which is a shame.

The iris and pupil are sculpted in an inverted way, which I found fascinating.  At first I wasn't sure why the sculptor did it like this.  But it models the parts of the eye much better this way.  It certainly makes the pupil look more realistic since it properly mimics the shape, which is to say, a hole.  The kit comes with a translucent 'cornea' which slots over the whole eye socket.  I experimented but found that I preferred it uncovered.  I could have merged it more seamlessly around the edges than in the photo but I didn't want to wreck the paint job, so I just got rid in the end.

The stem which connects it to the stand is translucent plastic too and I don't think you are supposed to paint it.  I got a bit lazy and couldn't be bothered basing so I tried to make it a 'pouf' of smoke.  Sort of like a magician's flourish, or an ungodly fart.  It turned out alright.  You've got to keep experimenting.

Now that I'm (sort of) in the mood, the spectre of my painting backlog looms over me.  I started on the Fusilave which was only half finished for the Maelstrom tournament back in 2020.  Man, I've really gotten out of the hobby habit.  As soon as I started painting, I decided that I didn't like it.  But instead of drifting back to the Playstation for another 2 months, I hacked its nose off and replaced it with those Mechanicus crane-block, crab-claw things that came with the Galvanic Magnavent terrain kit.


I think the spider skull block-and-tackle looks awesome and was very reluctant to cut it up when I opened the box and got a good look at it.  I was really careful with the surgery however and I can still use the rest of the parts for some pure folly project in the future.  I'll just roll up some greenstuff mechadendrites to patch it up.  Maybe even a bit of Necron tech.


13 comments:

  1. But Grandmother! What big eyes you have! -- Great to have you back!

    Love a Beholder, myself. The Wizkids one is certainly one of the best sculpts out there. But I agree, working with the material is a bit tricky. I also really like your colourscheme! Red is a classic but the maw and teeth do look especially menacing.

    Seeing a bird with such a beak descend down upon you would be frightening. I'd say it's a great improvement!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah I wanted it to be red to match that 'Eye of the Beholder' video game I played years ago. A search online reveals that they weren't actually red. Oh well, another false memory!

      Delete
  2. It's been another bizarre year so it's good to see that you're still kicking.
    The Beholder looks great, the smoke works for me. Like you, it's rare that I paint anything non-GW, although I do have a Ratskin scout from Artel W waiting for some paint.
    I'm not sure about the flyer's new mandibles though. I can't help thinking they need to be horizontal rather than vertical...maybe it'll grow on me.

    Glad you're back my friend and keep kicking!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dammit, that might just work (horizontal mandibles). Would definitely look less like a parrot. Oh maaan, I'm going to have to procrastinate for several more hours now.

      Delete
  3. Welcome to 2022 and welcome back to the hobby. Your paint job on the beholder is beautiful. It's a glistening, toothy, levitating nightmare. The eyes are excellent (I particularly like the tiny blood vessels around the edges). The Fusilave is a great concept for the archeocopter. I can hear the tinny screech of the beast as it lands to survey the battlefield for its next victim.

    The pandemic has been a strange, emotional time. It looms constantly here in the US with our fevered blend of hopeful ignorance and stubborn stupidity. It has pulled back the facade of casual assumptions our culture chooses usually to live behind and highlighted the full gamut of social and economic issues that we typically try to ignore and do nothing about. There is great tension in being reminded that civilization requires civility and that's in short supply wherever you look. Combined with looming illness it's made for a strange time.

    I hope the hobby helps brings you part of whatever you need in the coming months and years - creativity, connection, community, a careful consideration of beholder farts and their possible magical uses possibly as an ingredient in a mass levitation spell perhaps (It's been decades since I played D&D)?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yep, the world's gone mad! We should never give up hope however, and I will never get tired of fart jokes. I should probably use that in a game.

      Delete
  4. Glad to see you back, nothing has really changed in the blogosphere. Your hobby is still immense though, even while you've been doing chuff all. ;P

    ReplyDelete
  5. Well I just recently survived the 'rona, so you can add me to your list of plague victims if you'd like, lol.

    THRILLED to see your blog pop up on my feed! We've missed you!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Considering how productive you've been lately, you should get the plague more often!

      Delete
  6. Glad to see your back in it. Beholder is looking great, I struggle to paint eyes yet you just painted 10 amazingly.

    Let me know if you want a small game to ease you back into the gaming side of things.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks man. Still not feeling it on the gaming side (haven't played 40k for nearly 2 years now!). I'm just happy I've started hobbying again. For now!

      Delete