The Beard Bunker

A Space Marine Battle Pile is a bit like a sumo wrestler in a room full of cats. He's big, and he's dangerous, but he's not going to control the room. Since I have spent the last year and a half lovingly creating just such a battle pile, I felt perhaps it was time to branch out into the mystical world of things that can move more than ten inches a turn. To that end: an Impulsor. Besides offering some pictures of said floating pickup truck, today's post will offer some notes on the simple methods I used to do the scratched leather seating and the display screens. Why no gun on top? I find painting this consistent level of detail quite arduous, so the way I've kept myself sane without compromising on paint quality is to paint the minimum amount of stuff needed to put a new unit down on the tabletop. I can always paint alternate weapon options later. To give myself maximum options further down the line, I actually purchased the Gladiator kit and used it to build an Imp

It's always the same, in every action movie with soldiers there will be one squad who are the baddest asses around. Everyone's cool, they're cooler. They're the ones who end up fighting Predator or trying to kill Hitler or something. Well, 40k is no exception. Chaos Space Marines are hardcore. Chosen Chaos Space Marines are harder.  I really liked the idea of having some veterans around, the men who literally fought in the Heresy and are still around. Plus they are insanely unpleasant in close combat, not least because they can have near enough their pick of the good gear. Before we get in to their painting and modelling lets get their lore locked down by paying a visit to Narrator-in-Chief Orcus Kairon: "Ah, there they are, my brothers. Certainly all Word Bearers are my brothers, but these men feel like my blood. Together we cut a swathe across the galaxy on the Great Crusade. We knelt in the ashes of Monarchia together. We set the Galaxy ablaze together. Over t

  There have been a lot of heretics, xenos, and pretenders floating around the blog recently. Something needs to be done about that. The best way to do that is to bring back the First Legion. The true Angels of Death.  The Dark Angels. This is not my first Dark Angel project. It is in fact my third. Deep in the mists of time, in the savage days before the Beard Bunker's existence, I had a Guardians of the Covenant army. Most of those models got repainted into Dark Angels when I restarted in 2012. Now in 2021 it's time for the Primaris. The Firstborn Dark Angels are still safe and well. They will get used if needed. However my painting has improved a little since then and the Primaris stuff is looking good. Especially now that there are bikes and Land Speeders available for the Raven Wing. As well as Blade Guard Veterans for the Death Wing. Before any of that can happen I need a solid core of marines. Naturally starting with the bare minimum, a couple of squads and a character.

Greetings my friends! Yes, it is time to stir sacrificial blood into the lubricating oil, carve runes of desecration into gear trains and generally get up to no good with mechanisms. Because it's time to introduce the Warpsmith of the Graven Star. Bathusa Gallek, Magos of the Dark Mechanicum: "Um, Jeff?" You might be thinking, "That isn't a Chaos Marine buddy, you alright?". Well, ok, yes, it isn't technically a Chaos Marine, but he's standing in for one. I've loved this Tech-priest Manipulus since he first rocked up in Kill Team. Always wanted to find a use for him, and frankly, he's always looked a bit... dodgey to me. Not entirely a good guy. So when I was starting to muse about Warpsmiths and not feeling that the GDub's official one was terribly Word Bearers friendly, the Manipulus reared his weird looking head again and asked "what about me boss?". Couldn't say no really. For the lore reasons for his inclusion we shal

Greetings fellow seekers after forbidden knowledge! It's Word Bearer O'Clock once again on the ol' Beard Bunker (no rest for the wicked and all that). I've been painting more lads - yes I need more, shush you - steadily over the past few months but haven't been doing much in the way of photography. Well that changes today. We open our account with another fine mob of very dedicated lads and lasses: It is a well documented truth that I have something of a Necromunda fixation. I adore the game and the world and to be perfectly honest want to paint literally everything produced for it. That having been said... as I already own an Imperial Guard Platoon's worth of Orlocks, 20 Goliaths and have designs on more... I am looking for other ways to use the models so my collection doesn't become ridiculous. To this end I recruited the ever-so-devout Cawdor cultists, ahem, gangers, to be my seventh cultist unit. The irony that the style of the very devoted in the Imp

This is going to be one of those posts which is really four separate posts too small to exist on their own: How to quickly add a background image to your mini photos without having to have a physical background. Hint: it's technically similar to how they shot The Mandalorian  but infinitely cheaper and with almost no skill. Things I learned while kitbashing regular Intercessors with Assault Intercessors. Some notes on my latest attempt at a middle eastern skin tone. A short story about how Sergeant Oreas Cassander earned his thunder hammer. Adding background images to your photos This is comically simple: load a suitable image on your PC's monitor, put some scenery and your dudes in front of your PC monitor, and take a photo. Bonus points if you do a better job than me of matching the lighting levels of the minis versus the monitor. This essentially gives you infinite backgrounds, and in retrospect I've no idea why I didn't think of this sooner. Particularly given that

I did it, I totally finished these buildings before getting distracted by Dark Angels (Honest). I'm still waiting for the vehicles to arrive, once they do I'll do a proper 15mm photo shoot with the infantry and tanks etc, but for now here is the scenery.  Step One: Undercoat. This was done with some cheap brown Plasticoat. I picked brown as it provides a good base colour for most of the following steps and means I can skip a step. Step Two: Basecoat/Dry Brush Walls. Before slapping paint on to the exterior walls I did a little bit of research and found a wall paint colour chart, in French, from 1930. Basically struck research gold. I can't share it as I don't know who the image belongs to but a little dig around on should bring it up. The walls got a heavy drybrush. Neatness not required.  Step Three: Dry Brush Walls. Again, this time with a mix of the base colour and white. This was applied with downward strokes only over the top half/third of the building. This should