Crisis Suit Conversion: Part One

I actually bought all the parts for this guy well over a year ago (it might be closer to two years, actually), and I'm finally getting around to him. Shas'o R'Myr has his own crisis suit...

...so I wanted to convert one for my Shas'o.

During the Viridis campaign, Shas’el Da’Eldi managed to lead the Tau to victory over the Imperial PDF, minimizing losses to the Fire Warriors under his command by making use of large numbers of drones. While the loss in drones was in some cases severe, Shas’O Da’Eldi countered criticism to this by pointing out that every lost drone was equivalent to a Fire Warrior’s life saved. After the Viridis Campaign, Shas'el Da'Eldi was elevated to Shas'o, and designed a custom battlesuit, the XV-100, suited to his combat style.

"Our brave fire warriors are all willing to sacrifice themselves for the Greater Good when it is necessary.  But it does not serve the Greater Good for our warriors to die when their lives might be saved by our technology.  Using our technology in this way does not dishonor our courage; not using it dishonors our intelligence."

-Shas'o Da'Eldi

The XV-100 Battlesuit is modeled off the standard XV-8 Crisis Suit, but is taller, with longer limbs.  It has extra armor, an upgraded sensor and communications suite, and an integrated drone controller system.  Its primary weapons system is a Railgun, with a secondary Airburst Fragmentation Projector for close-in defense.  The suit is powered by a much larger jetpack in order to handle the extra weight.

In order to assemble the XV-100 I needed parts from various models, including the standard Crisis Suit, the Tau Commander's Suit, some vehicle upgrades, Shas'o R'Myr, and the XV-88-2 Broadside suit.  (many the extra bits from these kits have other intended uses in future projects...)

After laying out all the pieces (or at least, the first cut at them...), I was faced with the actual task of starting the conversion. Forgeworld models aren't cheap, and so I approached the job with a bit of trepidation. But, nothing ventured, nothing gained, so I whipped out my jeweler's saw and went to work. Step one was sawing both the upper and lower sections of the legs in half, so I could then lengthen them. The cuts weren't the best, but I hoped that green stuff could fix all that.

Next step is to chop up a Crisis Suit's backpack to provide the extra engines.

At this point I called it a day. The next step would involve lots of green-stuffing, and I needed an uninterrupted block of time to work on all that...

Painting with a little one...

A little over a year ago I became a father when the latest servant of the Emperor entered the world.

Now, she's getting close to walking, and this has had an effect on my ability to paint undisturbed...

Clearly, she's interested in what Daddy's up to.  As you can see, she's already reading up on the rules.

I think we have a budding general in the works. The only question is, which army is she going to want to play?

So I decided to let her choose.  I set up some minis from a selection of armies, and lined them up.  The choices were, left to right:  Ultramarines, Orks, Blood Angels, Raven Guard, Imperial Guard, Brazen Claw, Tau, Chaos Space Marines, Salamanders, Tyranids.  I presented her the selection and turned her loose...

As she got close, she took a moment to ponder her choices.  I'm sure that paint scheme, army background, and tournament army lists factored heavily into her decision making...

And then she made her first choice--a common one for newly starting players:  Space Marines.  In this case,  the Brazen Claw.

But of course, like nearly all players, she wasn't satisfied with just one army, so her second choice was Imperial Guard.

I wasn't fast enough with the camera, but her third choice turned out to be Blood Angels.  Clearly she's been paying attention to the rumors about the new Codex.


The winning choices:

Project Overload

My Miniatures Queue has dipped below the 400 mark, which is a good sign. How long it will stay there, especially now that the new Blood Angels are coming out, is another matter.

The past few weeks have been absolutely insane at work, but (I think), the worst is over, and I can get back to painting miniatures. The problem is, I've got tons of different things to work on.

• Space Marines...including Raven Guard, Brazen Claw, Salamanders, and eventually some Blood Angels.
  
• Orks...lots of 'em! Mainly a few Deff Koptas and some infantry.
  
• Ork Mystery Project
  
• Tau Crisis Suit Conversion
  
• Complete my LotR Orc Army (I'm very close...)
  

I think the key to finishing this is to work on whatever project I feel like, switching between them as the notion strikes me. If instead I just line them all up and try to power through them, I'll just get bogged down and start to lose enthusiasm. By not giving myself a specific deadline and working on whatever miniature interests me at the time will ensure that I'll get it all done eventually, and have fun doing it.

To Varnish or not to Varnish...

Back in the day I experimented with varnishing my miniatures. After seeing gloss finishes on some miniatures, I knew that was something to avoid, so I decided to try a matte polyurethane finish. I sprayed it on an old genestealer, and it came out ok. The miniature definitely felt like it was well protected, but I wasn't entirely happy with the satin-like finish. So I decided not to varnish anything else. Since thing I haven't varnished anything, and the result is that every so often I have to go and touch up a miniature or two--after every game there's a couple "casualties" that I put in a repair box to touch up the paint that's rubbed off, or reattach the piece that broke off when I dropped it.

If I've worked particularly hard on a miniature, I want to protect it so I don't lose the work, but I don't want to ruin it in the act of protecting it! I've heard lots of opinions on varnishing. And lots of horror stories...like this one from Admiral Drax.

I haven't had to deal with miniatures frosting, or turning white or what not, and I never want to.

I've heard lots of people recommend various sprays (Krylon Matte Varnish seems to get good marks), while others stay away from sprays like the plague. Also Testors Dullcote (brush on) seems to have some fans as well.

Basically the effect that I'd like to achieve is a varnish that will protect the miniature, but also be completely flat, and essentially invisible. In short, I really dislike "glossy" miniatures, as I think it makes them look more like toys or game pieces. Yes, I know that they are both toys and game pieces, but in my pride I like to think of them as little works of art and "models" rather than merely toys/game pieces.

So what are other people's opinions?

Comments Update

Unfortunately for the past few weeks my blog has been spammed with...well, spam, so I've been forced to disable anonymous comments from my blog. Hopefully commenting by registered users still works... In the meantime, sorry for the inconvenience.