vehicle – Twitchy Bristles

Eldar Fire Prism

A long time ago I saw Spikey Bits’ LED-lit Eldar Fire Prism and decided I was going to do that someday. Now, with more or less my whole Eldar army assembled, I decided this was going to be the time, and that this was going to be the model with which I call my Eldar “done.” Feeling like this army is done is bittersweet, but also a thrill – and I’m looking forward tremendously to running this Fire Prism with the rest of my space elves on the tabletop.

Pictured: The lighting on the Star Engines, which I must pay 10 points for in perpetuity.

Putting this together was definitely the trickiest build I’ve ever done. Having to drill holes into the frame of the model and run wires between the power supply in the base and to each of the model’s assemblies took planning, elbow grease, and a little luck, but when it came to rigging up the lights themselves Evan Designs and their LEDs were fantastic. Even without having worked with electronics at much length before I was able to figure it out, patch it together, and bring this boat to life.

Pictured: The bare Fire Prism without heavy weapons or canopies. Hello, pilots!

The final tank ended up being built in a number of subassemblies, either pressure fit or magnetized together so that I can fix it later if any of the lights shut down. I used a take on the “sponge” method I’ve used to do grav tank hulls before and that I used prominently on my Death Guard (and Spekd has my eternal gratitude for introducing me to that.) The hull design is a cross between the “eye” motif Ulthwe uses generally, but is also a callback to the game Fire Emblem: Awakening. Because I’m hot trash.

Pictured: My “Falcon”, like everything else in my army, geared to support Howling Banshees.

In addition to the color-changing rainbow cannon and the flickering engine lights, the Fire Prism is also multipurpose – for a while now, my existing Falcon has been in Biel-Tan colors and since I’m going full-Ulthwe I wanted my Howling Banshees to have a party bus that would fit in with the rest of my army. As KinpatsuSamurai has pointed out, I have picked a lane, and I’m owning that!

As tricky as the build was, and as much as I might have been able to give it more love if I’d waited until after my Masters’ was done, I’m extremely happy with the results on this. This is the best model that I have ever built and painted, and the difference between this and my older work (before Twitchy Bristles) is night and day. I don’t think I could hope to end the construction and painting of my Eldar army on a better note.

Preview: Taste the Rainbow Cannon!

This is a model I’ve poured a lot of effort into over the last month – originally I was going to build it after I finished writing my Masters’ research project as a reward, but then a local painting contest came up and I thought it would be a great chance to get some local exposure for my work. The contest is part of the Sci-Fi @ Home convention, based out of St. John’s. I’ll have a proper gallery done up soon, but in the meantime, here’s the video that I sent in as a demo of the lighting system!

Pictured: The lighting demo for my Eldar Fire Prism, in Craftworld Ulthwe colors.

(www.youtube.com/watch?v=67FDkVV4CgY if you can’t see the embed.)

Thrilled to get my name out there as a painter, and I’m excited to run this in my Eldar army soon! Full gallery on this coming next week!

It lives! Lighting test for my Fire Prism

Just a short, sweet update for today. I’m still hard at work on my thesis and won’t have the chance to do any major hobbying for a while. But I did have time to do this: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67FDkVV4CgY if you can’t access the embed)

Pictured: Left to right, the engine, prism cannon, and cockpit lights.

The lights and the battery pack and other accessories were all bought via https://evandesigns.com/, and they were relatively easy to put together (even for someone with no real knowledge of electronics, wiring, circuits, etc.) The shipping was relatively quick and to be honest I might pick up more lighting sets from them in the future if I light other 40K vehicles.

My plan is to use the blue lights for the engines, the four white lights for the two cockpits, and the color-changing LED to give my Fire Prism a bright, shiny rainbow cannon. There’s a local convention doing a miniature painting contest this month, so if I can work a little more efficiently on my thesis and free up some spare time this might be the right time to bring this to life.

Crusade Upgrades!

Pictured: My “Crusade” Howling Banshees with updated runes, bases and power swords.

Recently with my ninth edition handbook I picked up one of the Crusade journal; a narrative-style campaign in 40K has been on my to-do list for a long time, and since I’m lucky enough to have a few friends locally interested in the same thing I’m giving it a whirl. I hope to post and chat about different games that I’ve played and show a few battle reports on the site, but before getting too carried away I also decided that some of my existing models needed a little more love before hitting the tabletop.

Pictured, my old Farseer model vs. Eldrad Ulthran, playing the part of my Crusade Farseer.

Not that I always play favorites, but if I did they’d be Jain Zar, my Banshees, my Wave Serpent, and my psykers, so those are some of the models I either redid from scratch or refitted. Guy from Midwinter Minis has an awesome tutorial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gNfrCS263s) for using nail flakes and I tried to apply this to all of my power swords, which gave them a really nice new glimmering effect under natural light.

Pictured, my Wave Serpent post-upgrades with a higher base. Vanes make a big difference!

All in all I think I’m ready for this campaign now and ready for my Eldar to make a splash on the tabletop. Eldrad’s going to be getting a gallery of his own in the next while, too, and I have some other galleries (and battle reports) planned over the next while too. Still going to be slow going till the thesis is done but I’m pretty excited with where painting and playing are going from here!

Myphitic Blight-Haulers

Pictured, 100 points’ worth of teeth and heavy weapons.

These are probably one of my favorite Death Guard models, and these demonic little roombas have carried the team so far in test games I’ve done with my Death Guard army for 9th. I got one of these from a friend as a gift a while back and picked up two more to complete the set. Really looking forward to busting these out for the Crusade games that me and local friends are going to be doing soon.

Pictured, the whole squad – since running them in threes gets a juicy BS and WS bonus.

I did these up in the same style as all of my other Death Guard, with magnets for transport and for securing them to the bases. I’m really happy with how the rust effects turned out on the copper, and how the colors blend together!

Powering into battle on a trio of articulated track units, the Myphitic Blight-hauler is a light Daemon Engine that provides the Death Guard with heavy firepower wherever it is needed. Resembling a Bloat-drone that has been stripped of its turbines, this strange machine has heavy weapons mounted on its carapace, and its rusting armoured plates can absorb impressive punishment – as can its blubbery exposed flesh-parts, which soak up appalling trauma.

Chaos Rhino (Kitbashed)

Pictured: A Very Useful Daemon Engine of Nurgle.

This one is a kitbash that came to me as soon as I started working on my first few Death Guard. I built my Eldar army to be very refined, serious, lore-heavy, and my best-foot-forward into the hobby, but with Death Guard I wanted to be able to give myself a little more wiggle room and have a little more fun. The result was this crime against nature. And I think this is some of the most fun with miniatures I’ve ever had.

*Thomas had never seen such bullsh*t before.*

Thomas is equipped with a Combi-Plasma and Combi-Bolter, and usually also equipped with a “Strolling Through Ultramar”-style saxophone marine for good measure. The weathered, grimy and textured-looking paint scheme was heavily inspired by Spekd at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLsaW52-xDnFL2WsLhe0bmQ, who I can’t recommend highly enough. He does awesome tutorials, reviews, and has built a great community.

*It was time for Thomas to leave. He had seen everything.*

Wave Serpent

The Wave Serpent “Jorel’s Ancient” is one of the hardest and most rewarding rescues I’ve worked on to date. When I got a hold of this it was second-hand, and many of the parts had been haphazardly glued to each other in the wrong order. I took it apart, put it back together, gave it plenty of love and a few extra plastic bits, and I’m very happy with the end result.

*Asuryani missile launchers are also superior to the Imperium’s own, using complex chambered pods that contain several different types of ammunition, all but eliminating the need to reload.*

The only thing I’d change on this if I were to do it over is using a lighter base color than black – I’d been hoping to make a design like a tree with autumn leaves, but on a stark black background it looks a little more like fire, which has caused it to be dubbed by at least one art friend “THE HELL TREE.”