Thursday, April 24, 2014

CoC - Heavy Infantry

Okay, so up next is the heavy infantry... I've had these bad boys for quite a while now and have been itching to write about them, though, I also wanted to unveil the painted models in the same article so had to wait until I got some pictures done of them.  Well guess what??  The long wait is finally over and I got some shiny new pics of the models Ive painted in the meantime.  First however, lets start from the beginning...

As with most Convergence models the heavy infantry box is packed with tons of separate pieces that will make up a single model.  Each model is made up of about 12 pieces!!  Though sometimes even more depending on the type of model we are talking about.  Lets just see a breakdown of this...



So, as you can see there are quite a lot of pieces!  Though even with the loads of pieces that you get it is fairly straight forward to assemble the figures.  The legs and arms have special key lock designs that can only be put together with their correct counterparts.  So the arm piece will only attach to the correct forearm piece and so on.  Which, is very nice.  HOWEVER, and there is a big however... the fists that go into the forearms are not labelled or matched whatsoever.  Which, can cause issues when you put the wrong weapon into the correct arm... like I did with my models even though I read somebody Else's warning on the forums about this exact thing.  Though to save a little face, I will mention here that I am magnetizing the arms to cut down on painting and the number of models that will need to be assembled/stored/transported.


As you can see in the picture, the magnet will completely remove all traces of the label that you use to differentiate the arms.  This is how I accidentally put a B and C arm together (whoops).  So if you wish to go about and put the magnets into the arms all at the same time then I suggest storing the different arms separately or marking them somehow because it will be hard to differentiate them once the letters are gone.  The left hand is easy to differentiate seeing as the fist is part of the forearm however the right arm has no telling sign and with all the right arms missing the fist portion, which fits each arm regardless if its a two-handed spear or single handed halberd.  So, watch out for this.  This is probably the biggest thing that could have probably been molded a bit better like the rest of the arms/legs that can only be put together with its specific counter-part.

A quick note here about putting magnets into your models... make sure you have the polarities right before gluing.  So far I haven't had the misfortune of putting the magnet in with the reversed polarity (knock on wood) but I image it would be annoying to remove.  As for the magnets themselves.  I think I'm using 3mmx2mm sized ones with the polarities reversed on each arm.  Meaning that the left arm being only attachable to the left socket while being repulsed on the right socket.

Though don't fret too much if you mix up one of the arms because boiling water is your friend.  Okay not really so do watch out and don't burn yourself!  Though using boiling water is a very good way of fixing any mistakes you may make during assembly.  Or to just straighten out those spears that that may be a little bit bendy and out of shape when you first unpack the figures.  The plastic itself reacts fairly well to boiling water so you can do slight pose altercations if you so desire, which, I found to be great due to a couple of the wide stances the models have.  Which, is a problem for me because my custom carrying case doesn't really allow the models hanging off their bases too much with their feet.  So dipping them into boiling water for a couple seconds is a great way to make the plastic pliable and bendy.  The plastic re-hardens quickly and remains strong from what Ive seen so far.  So even if you don't intend to repose your models, this method is a great way to fix arms that got the wrong weapon attached to it.

All in all, I'm very pleased with the models themselves and that you can customize them a little bit.  Okay, so lets see some of those painted models now...



So here are the 3 Ive painted so far.  After painting one Reciprocator I decided to only paint the bodies minus the arms for the rest of the models.  I decided to do this because I prefer to paint my models un-assembled, so this way I could assemble my finished models more quickly, while keeping the arms for a later date.  Seeing as the arms stay together due to the key locks and that I'm able to attach them to the model with the magnet, the models will be ready for the table top at a quicker date (with unpainted arms).

























For the most part I stuck to my original concept that I had for these guys when I first saw their concept art, which was a Thamar Black body with some Solid Gold detail work on the bigger empty spaces that I could find.  At first I was planning on doing identical designs on the models but quickly gave up on the idea once I realized that I won't be able to pull it off with a fabricated template that I could just use on each model.  So in the end I went with simple yet different designs on each model that I could just eyeball and paint on free hand.  I'm definitely no pro and its not as symmetrical as I would have liked but I'm pleased with the results.  I'm also quite pleased with how I marked the model to know what health track I will need to mark on the card.  Unfortunately, its only visible on one of the models in the pictures so I'll give you a hint that the marking is on the model's head and the 3rd infantry's markings are visible.  On top of this extra little design work I continued with the pre-planned paint scheme that envisioned the cogs/hydraulics as Molten Bronze, the energy highlights as Beaten Purple, the "eyes"/energy coils as Genestealer Purple and the weapon blade as Pig Iron.

 For today's finally... a fully painted and assembled Reciprocator with C + B arm combination...



 




Thursday, April 10, 2014

CoC - Iron Maid


Here is the unpacked model of what I have come to call as the Iron Maid...  though do note that there is a metal tab that connects the legs and, which, inserts into the base.  I have however, already cut this off since those tabs interfere with my basing.  The model itself is nice and shouldn't be overly difficult to assemble even though its holding a two handed weapon.  I plan to first pin both arms while aligning up the fist portions and then pinning the fists into the arms.  I'm more than likely going to be leaving out the hip guards since I find that they give the model a maid/nanny look which is a bit ridiculous for me.  This is partly due to the head reminding me of the robot nanny from the Jetsons cartoon while, the hip guards give me the impression of really old dresses were the bottom half was widened out with wire frame.  The combination of the two provides the before mentioned serving girl image... though this might just be me imagining things.

Even though the model has some nice detail on it, I will be sticking with my simple paint theme for it.  Meaning that it will more than likely be pretty much black with few points of interest like the cogs/eyes/weapon.  I'm not sure if I will keep the face plate black like the rest of the body or if I will paint it something else like I did with the Angels of Death (Clockwork Angels)... time will tell.

Unfortunately, I'm not really sure when I'm going to get around to painting the model since I'm finding it difficult to find room for them in my lists even though the model itself is a steal for its point cost.  Perhaps I will try to move some things around in my lists to squeeze some in since I really do think it has good abilities and is quite cheap for what it can do.  In any event, I will of course post a picture of the finished model whenever I do get around to slapping some paint on it.