Painting a Jungle themed Imperial Guard

By endurance we conquer.

Two years back, I went through a lengthy process of converting more realistic Imperial Guard from Elysian Drop Troops and making molds for them. I was really fortunate to have the talented Polysmith create some female heads to go with the models, due to a relative lack of good options from Games Workshop at the time. Unfortunately, I never had the opportunity to properly paint one of these completed Imperial Guard models. With the increased hobby time I have had due to the current pandemic, I decided to rectify this!

Building a MS-07B Gouf (1/144 scale)

Zeon!

A few years after the three of us started playing Warhammer 40,000, the Japanese animated series Gundam Wing started airing on television in the USA. This was our first exposure to an animated show with a mature storyline, one with a long-form narrative that evolved over nearly 50 episodes. It was also our first real exposure to giant mechs (outside of a precursory knowledge of them in Warhammer 40,000 in the form of Titans). Gundam Wing is a science fiction war drama that sought to humanize the horrors of war, which is something that Games Workshop often misses with its focus on grimdark spectacle. Despite being very involved in building plastic models from Games Workshop, we never really got deep into assembling Gundam models (Gunpla), partially because the kits were not readily available where we lived. Our recent interview with the Polysmith, a master of creating cool mechs, got me to start thinking about trying my hand at building one of the Gundam kits, along with discovering a Gunpla-themed podcast called the Cutting Mat. A few years back I experimented with integrating scale model tanks into Warhammer 40k. These model kits are a lot different from Games Workshop kits, containing substantially more pieces, all rendered in very thin plastic, a feature that Gundam kits share. I ended up building a HG 1/144 scale MS-07B Gouf, a mobile suit I always liked from its appearance in the 08th MS Team.

Assembling an Inquisitorial Arvus Lighter

“We're in the pipe, 5 by 5”

It is not secret that we at Between the Bolter and Me are not overly fond of resin miniatures. Unless all the stars align perfectly, resin models tend to be defined by mold shifts and bubbles. This is certainly the case when talking about Forge World models. And while this has gotten better over the years, assembling any large resin model from Forge World can be a frustrating experience, particularly if it was designed before the advent of digital sculpting. We have purchased quite a few Forge World models over the years, but have assembled very few of them due to the aforementioned challenges. When searching through my backlog of models, I found one such Forge World model, an Imperial Arvus Lighter that I purchased during the excitement of the Pilgrym and Curse of the Alabaster collaborative games. Pulling out the partially assembled model, seeing many of the pieces were warped, I remembered why it was never finished. I have grown a lot as a hobbyist since that time, and thought now was a good opportunity to finish assembling the diminutive craft, and then paint it!

Dragged into Turbolasers Episode 71: Chatting with the Polysmith

Shaman - the Polysmith

In this episode, we had the good fortune of chatting with the incredibly talented Polysmith! We begin by talking about how he got involved in the hobby, before talking about his design process and how he is able to utilize his digital sculpting experience from the video game industry when he creates miniatures. We discuss digital sculpting and how to get started with it, as well as his experience with 3D printing. Finally, we talk about his current projects, including an imaginative cosmic horror for the upcoming 28 magazine challenge.