Graham Gilchrist | Dark Stars Blog
Butch: You know, when I was a kid, I always thought I'd grow up to be a hero. - Sundance Kid: Well, it's too late now.
- Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid
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Dark Stars Pictures and Video Diary
23-May-2006 10:11:16
Hi everybody. A final update to this blog today with the addition of the photos and videos I took over the weekend.
I have compiled all the photos and the videos into a (hopefully) comedy video diary of the weekend (and was pleasantly surprised at the power and simplicity of windows movie maker). You can view this below in a flash movie from I uploaded to youtube. The photos can be seen in larger versions on my Flickr feed and if anyone wants to bring me a CD, I can do you high res copies of both the photos and video
And now, our main feature...
Cheers again guys for a great weekend
Post Weekend Thoughts
22-May-2006 09:47:07
Well I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed myself this weekend. One of the best gaming events I've been to. Kudos to the guys I went with (Dave, Edd, Sam, Chris, Lee), not only did they all pull out extremely great looking armies on a tight schedule, but I don't think it would have been anywhere near so much fun without such good mates to share it with.
I also played against some really ace armies, including a great Howling Griffons army by the guy (I forgot his name - there were so many new people to meet!) from howlinggriffon.co.uk, the insane mordian army with a 50-man conscript platoon whose commander made a 'fix bayonets' speech when I charged him (glee!), and an ace witch-hunters army which totally thrashed my tyranids with exorcist and flamer death!.
I also managed to not completely shame myself by coming out with a 3 win - 2 Draw - 2 Loss score which puts me slightly above average which considering my track record with 'nids (and indeed any type of 40k) I am pretty pleased with.
All in all, a great weekend and I'd love to do another when I can raise the finances!
Stay tuned to this space for more. I will try to upload the pictures and videos this evening. Until then, be excellent to each other.
Edd's Dark Stars Army
15-May-2006 12:17:38
Another guest army today. This time we have WIP pictures of the Imperial Guard army Edd is taking to Dark Stars.
At last, it is complete!
15-May-2006 12:10:06
At last, after weeks of blood and toil, he is complete. My finished Hive Tyrant, shown here with accompanying guardsman for scale
Sam Furiously Painting
15-May-2006 12:05:02
Today we have some guest pictures of Sam in super-crazy-ninja-painting mode and some pictures of some of his creations which will be attending dark stars.
Final painted Carnifex
07-May-2006 21:49:14
The final of my updates over the weekend is my finished carnifex. I'm really happy how this guy turned out with the shading on his carapace. I was originally going for a different effect but I decided to go with the flow and came up with this. I am hoping ot replicate the effect on the new hive tyrant as well.
Finished Painted Tyrant Guard
07-May-2006 21:42:45
Another lot of updates over the weekend. Here is the first. My finished Tyrant Guard:
Hive Tyrant head Update
28-Apr-2006 15:44:01
Another quick update today on the final sculpts for the hive tyrant head. On Sam's advice I have bulked out the neck somewhat which looks a lot better I think and moulded some armour plates on the top. After I took this photo I did a bit of cleanup on some of the sculpt lines and the head ridges but he is now undercoated and ready to paint. I'll hopefully have some in-progress paint pictures up sometime next week. I'm starting to get worried about the timescales now. It's 3 weeks 'til dark stars and I've still got a lot to paint. I can see where my evenings are going for the next two weeks!
Anyway, onto the piccies:
Custom Tyrant Guard
26-Apr-2006 15:04:55
Ok, well its no secret I think all GW's versions of the tyrant guard are completely useless. Solution: make my own. I actually started making these when the 3rd ed. Codex 'nids came out but never got around to finsihing them. With the pressures of dark stars I was forced into doing something with them. Basically they are made from stock tyranid warriors with cut down heads and extra armour. The front of the heads was reworked with greenstuff to give them more armour and make them blind (they are psychically controlled by the tyrant) and the fused back carapace was inspired by the implications they are derived from space marine DNA. I also liked the spineshield idea from 3rd ed. so they are equipped with spinefists and a custom shield arm made from the scything talons.
The lashwhips were originally done like chaos tentacles but looked a bit dodgy (phallic is the word Sam used), so I reworked them into octopus suckers which I think came out ok.
I also beefed up the armour plating on the arms and legs. After all, they are supposed to be toughness 6 and taking all those lascannon hits meant for the tyrant :)
So I have a set of unique tyrant guard. Are they better than the GW ones? I'm not sure, but at least they are unique and personal.
Older news:
- Carnifex -> Tyrant Conversion on 26-04-06 at 14:45:11
- Magnetized Carnifex on 26-04-06 at 14:02:40
- Unpainted Lictor on 26-04-06 at 13:33:30
- Hello and Army Fluff on 17-03-06 at 19:53:25