Fugue State

Still waiting to launch

Previously I've tried to update at least once a week, but it's been a while since I posted regularly - my last post was almost three weeks ago.  For this I must apologise to my extensive readership of, ooooooh..... six people?  Maybe ten if I'm lucky?

The reason for this radio silence has been that I haven't been in a great way recently.  I've suffered on and off with depression for a while and various factors have seen me get a little worse recently - stress at work, the darker nights and the vaguaries of medication.  The end result is that I've been a bit absent from a lot of things.

However, I took a few hours painting today to try and clear my head.  When I can force myself into it, I do find painting a good activity to cheer me up - especially on a dark, cold and wet Glasgow winter night. Painting up some toy soldiers is an activity which does help keep me ticking over and  Sister Superior recommends I do it when I'm down to cheer me up.

I mean, look at him!  No-one was ever sad on Art Attack, were they?

Anyway, the point is, I sometimes go all quiet.... but not now!  Now I'm sharing my limited painting skills with you all once again!

The missile silo as it currently sits.

Last time round I'd only just assembled and sprayed the figure.  Now, however, the first layers of paint are getting applied.  An old GW colour, Beaten Copper, makes for the shiny floor tiles; with some Runefang Steel for the chimney-like structure on the sub-building and the floor of the missile launch area.  The missles themselves have been pained Vallejo Off-White for now.

Rear of the missile silo.

The barriacdes were painted Fenris Grey, a bluey grey colour GW used to make - albeit laid on ina  heavy drybrush to the original black would still echo through to give them depth and dirt.  The original colour of the walls, Elven Grey from Coat D'arms, is just too light and I'm not keeping it - I'm going to try something dirtier.  The Sister Superior thinks I should maybe paint Fenris Grey to the sides as well, though I'm not sure if that's a bit too much.

The doors have been painted Blood Red.  The large rear door has a control panel which uses Runefang Steel and Warpstone Green to give it a computer-y look.

This wasn't the only thing I worked on today, though.  I previously posted a picture of me holding a large polystyrene ball and asked if anyone could work out what possible use I could have for it.

All the templates that came with 2nd Ed Warhammer 40,000.

The answer was that I was going to make a Vortex template - after all I'm going to be launching a lot of vortex missiles if I have a silo full of 'em, right?  The plan was to cut the balls in half, base it on cardboard and paint it up like the black-lighting-esque template from back in 2nd Ed.

The first ball cut in half and based.

The ball was slightly too small - I wanted it to match a Large Blast template which is 5" or 125mm wide, but the ball was only 120mm wide.  Thankfully this difference is pretty minor - I cut a cardboard base the right size and stuck it on.  Filler smoother out the difference and was also used, along with PVA glue, to seal up the polystyrene so it would take paint better.  Some sanding to get it into a nice round shape and we're good to paint.

The holes in space painted up.

The painting went better than I expected.  The whole thing was painted black first, and then a mixture of Black and Necron Abyss (a very dark blue.)  The top half of the orb was then given pure Necron Abyss,  The blue, almost star-like blobs were made by mixing Necron Abyss with increasing amounts of Off-White, blending it into the middle of the last blob.

Something similar was down with the red lighting streaks - first a mixture of Rhinox Hide brown and Mephiston Red, then a thinner line of Mephison Red, then a thinner line again of Mephiston Red and Off-White.  The central connection point was given pure Off-White.

The end result is I managed to turn this...

...Into this...

And I can't stay depressed long when I've done that, can I?

Since that's one mystery solved, time to show another newly started project that I may expand on in a future post.