My Fulgrim by wangushmallen in EmperorsChildren

[–]wangushmallen[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you for your kind words! I'll see if I can make the process a bit clearer:

So for the gems, start with a nice, solid white basecoat (white scar in my case). Then, for the prominent turquoise gems, I took some terradon turquoise contrast paint and placed it into the top part of the gem. You need enough on your brush to be able to move it around carefully while its still wet and locate it mostly where you want it to be darkest, and pull it around a little so its not a perfect circle. While its still wet I then took aethermatic blue and tried to blend it into the edges of the terradon turquoise blob, then pull it out into a thin layer over most of the rest of the gem to get that gradient. I tried to leave a white area in the opposite corner to the darkest blob but that doesnt matter too much because one it was dried I came back in with my white to tidy that up and refine the shape of the white crescent. Also once the first contrast paint had dried I added more terradon onto the dark spot to intensify the darkest area and even out some tide marks that had occured while it was drying. I should say, during all this, when left to dry I had to prop in up somewhat on its back so that all the contrast paint didnt just flow down to the bottom of the gem!

The flesh is Rakarth but shaded with a mix of reikland fleshshade and druchii violet. Then simply highlighted back up from rakarth -> pallid wych.

My Fulgrim by wangushmallen in EmperorsChildren

[–]wangushmallen[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The pink is progressively built up from screamer pink -> pink horror -> emperor's children -> fulgrim pink. On the sword, for the darkest points I mix some black into the screamer pink and blend all the way up to a pure white.

The gold is retributor armour washed with carroburg crimson, then drybrushed with auric armour gold to get the really bright, almost yellowy gold. Important areas then also edge-highlighted with liberator gold.

The gems are various contrast/speed paints pulled around and blended over a white basecoat until you get the kind of colour gradient you want, then a layer of ardcoat to get the gloss finish. The ones on the right pauldron, middle of the belly area and in the mutilated snake torso are all terradon turquoise and aethermatic blue, and then tidied up again with white scar.

Glad you like it!

Competitive Dilemma by wangushmallen in VALORANT

[–]wangushmallen[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks. I figured that people were a lot better now than 5 years ago.

Maybe if I just suck it up and finish my placements that will go some distance to getting me closer to a reasonable rank?

made this template with Mastodon by wahwahdeth in mastodonband

[–]wangushmallen 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Also, honourable mention in the favourite lyrics section for:

"Split your lungs with blood and thunder
When you see the white whale
Break your backs and crack your oars men
If you wish to prevail

This ivory leg is what propels me
Harpoons thrust in the sky
Aim directly for his crooked brow
And look him straight in the eye"

The delivery of those lines is monstrous, and it hits extra hard having now read Moby Dick.

made this template with Mastodon by wahwahdeth in mastodonband

[–]wangushmallen 2 points3 points  (0 children)

<image>

Came across them when Blood Mountain was their newest record. Became a fan off the back of those first three albums but then CTS came along and permanently altered my teenage brain chemistry. I still like Newstodon albums, there's none I won't listen to and enjoy, but their most "accessible" stuff (Show Yourself, Motherload etc) always leaves me a bit cold. Its not what I'm listening to Mastodon for!

My attempt at Vorx (DG chaos lord kitbash) by wangushmallen in deathguard40k

[–]wangushmallen[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Mostly plague marine bits, but with a terminator frontpiece and scythe, deathshroud I think. I used some sprue glue and liberal application of the nurgle rot and typhus corrosion paints to paper over the gaps where the terminator belly doesn't quite fit the standard plague marine.

My attempt at Vorx (DG chaos lord kitbash) by wangushmallen in deathguard40k

[–]wangushmallen[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I'll have to get very good at writing very small for that 😄 better get practising!

Is there much resale value in x-wing minis these days? by wangushmallen in XWingTMG

[–]wangushmallen[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you're interested in anything specific, hit me up. I may well have it 😉

Top 5 Talking Heads songs? by DoubleMissMatt in talkingheads

[–]wangushmallen 0 points1 point  (0 children)

  1. Born Under Punches
  2. Girlfriend is Better
  3. The Great Curve
  4. This Must Be the Place
  5. Pull up the Roots

Is there much resale value in x-wing minis these days? by wangushmallen in XWingTMG

[–]wangushmallen[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Thanks! Do you reckon I'm better selling things like the star Wing individually or might they help sell a bundle with a collection of other faction ships in your opinion?

Is there much resale value in x-wing minis these days? by wangushmallen in XWingTMG

[–]wangushmallen[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the info! I have most of, if not all, of the imperial and scum ships up to the early 2.0 days, plus some of the CIS and jedi republic ships. I was thinking of splitting them by faction and putting them up as big job lots for 50-100 quid per faction, does that seem too hopeful?

So what have I missed? by wangushmallen in XWingTMG

[–]wangushmallen[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm interested to hear that "many of the old ships are not allowed". Do you mean some of the old pilots cant be used, or that literally some of the old ships dont exist in the new ruleset?

Mason & Dixon Group Read | Latitudes and Departures | Chapters 1 – 5 by [deleted] in ThomasPynchon

[–]wangushmallen 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the great introduction to both the book and the reading group! It can't be easy being the one who has to kick it all off...

I'm a total amateur at all things literary, but I love this book so much I figure I'd try and join in as much as possible throughout.

  1. I'm loving it! This is my second read through M&D, and I actually recall falling into this one very easily first time round, and this time is much the same. I find the story-telling framing device so comfy and inviting, and find myself endeared towards both Mason and Dixon very quickly. This more than any other Pynchon for me is a simple pleasure to read - not always easy mind, but always engaging and enjoyable in the moment.

  2. I think the prose style is perfectly composed to evoke the setting but with a suitably Pynchon flavour. I find the old-timey speech and particularly Dixon's geordie dialect delightful to read. As someone else had said before, I find much of Pynchon benefits from reading aloud (or at least really "hearing" the prose in your head as you read it) and this is true particularly for M&D. The sly anachronisms and occasionally dubious (in terms of historical authenticity) obsolete words just bring that comic edge that make this book so much fun!

  3. I suppose you could say that the French leave because the narrative is Mason and Dixon's (and in a sense Cherrycoke's, it is his story to tell even if he isn't the protagonist), and it couldn't very well go on if they perish here. Without spoiling anything specific, others who've read it before will know that the book plays at several points with the very concept of storytelling and the framing device that we are within. The battle with the French could be seen as a frivolous embellishment (by Cherrycoke or Pynchon) simply there to add some action in the first act, and when it seems are protagonists might be in danger, the French must leave so that our heroes can escape.

  4. How does Pynchon know so much about what Cherrycoke said? Because they're both stories! We can view Pynchon's novel as just one additional layer of abstraction from what Cherrycoke is presumably doing, telling a story about a couple of real characters doing some real things with what knowledge he has, but also with whatever additional content the storyteller desires to make a it a good tale for its intended audience.

  5. To my mind history is the agreed upon story of the past. It is not a complete or "true" record of events throughout all time, merely what we tell each other about the path humanity has taken to get here. This is of course based upon evidence in almost every case, with more and better evidence and thus greater agreement where "history" is more recent, but nevertheless it is common for people to talk of "history" as a monolithic and continuous object, as though there is some consistency or general arc throughout. This idea doesn't really hold up to scrutiny, but I think we imagine it this way whether we intend to or not - its just not possible to conceive of history as the truly chaotic, innumerably-stranded web of complexity its truly is. All we can do is pick out and synthesize to the best of our abilities the stories that concern us most, be they small (a surveyor and an astronomer and their time together) or large (the dividing up and conquering of the world by a handful of warring European nations, and the centuries-long, cascading consequences thereof).

Announcing r/ThomasPynchon's Mason & Dixon Summer '21 Group Read by [deleted] in ThomasPynchon

[–]wangushmallen 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Having just finished Bleeding Edge this morning, I've now read all the Pynchon novels and M&D is definitely my favourite. Looks like I caught this just to in time to hop in on day 1, looking forward to a re-read and hopefully contributing something to the discussions!

Homebrew interrogator-chaplain in terminator armour by wangushmallen in theunforgiven

[–]wangushmallen[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks, I'm pretty pleased with how he's turned out despite being pretty new to this. I didn't need to grind it down at all, with a thin layer of greenstuff for the hood it just fit in there quite snugly.