Manly Knitting II: The Return

I've spent some time experimenting with different ideas, and I've figured out a way to solve the problem I had with my watch strap, namely that it was very difficult to push the watch buckle's prong through the strap to close the buckle. Basically, I've come up with a similar weave, but with "holes" for the belt buckle. I haven't seen this pattern in my internet searches, so I'm calling it the "Derweesh Belt" or "Derweesh Weave". Because what the hell, why not.

Here's the basic pattern. I used the buckle from a women's belt (this was originally meant as a gift) and a cheap carbiner to help keep the cords lined up. This is actually a slightly tricky pattern if you're new to weaving (not that I'm some sort of expert or anything), I would recommend starting with something simpler, like a regular sinnet or cobra stitch.

1. Getting Started
Start by anchoring the cord to the belt.

Measure off the desired length and loop the cord back. I like to loop the other end to a carbiner, as it can easily be slipped off later, and fix it with an elastic band or a knot.

Bring the two strands back to the buckle. Note that one strand comes out from under the buckle and the other goes in from above, this is very important. Just to be clear, I shall refer to the four strands that extend straight between the buckle and the carbiner as the spine or spine strands, and the two free strands as the weaving strands.

2. Loop Back
I call this step looping back. Weave each weaving strand around the two spine strands on it's side, then back out, as in the photo.

Now tighten: hold or anchor the spine strands and pull the woven loops towards the buckle while pulling the weaving strands to remove the slack. In general I think it's a good idea to pull the weaving strands tight in this step to help pull the two central spine strands apart.

3. The Crossover
Now comes the crossover. Take one of the weaving strands and weave it through the four spine strands, treating the two central strands as if they were one strand. Don't pull tight yet.

Now do the same with the other weaving strand, but cross the first weaving strand while passing the two central spine strands, as in the photo.

As you can see the weaving strands have now crossed sides. Pull the woven loops down to the belt again, but don't pull too tight on the weaving strands this time or else the 'holes' in the belt will be too tight and closing the buckle will be difficult.

4. Rinse and Repeat
Keep repeating the crossover and loop back steps until you reach the end of the belt. As you can see in the photo you have gaps in the center of the belt where it's possible to push through the prong of the buckle. You don't have to weave one-to-one; you could use two crossover rows for each loop back row, or two loop back rows to make a larger hole that's easier to push the prong through, whatever works for you.

5. Finish
When you reach the loops at the end of the spine, slide off the elastic band and carbiner, keep weaving until you pass the weaving strands through the cord for the final time, then cut the ends off, melt the tips, and... do something with them. I didn't actually finish this belt as I soon realised that the belt was too wide to fit through the buckle. I'll need to get a slightly larger buckle and try again, then I'll figure out the best way to handle the ends of the cord.


This pattern has a few advantages. The holes for the buckle are the obvious one; there's other patterns that can work with a regular belt buckle but this is slightly smaller than some of them, making it just small enough for a use as a watch strap or women's belt. It's faster to make than a Slatt Rescue belt, even though you have to pull a lot of cord with each row you weave (though less than a simpler sinnet pattern as each strand has half the length - I recommend wrapping the cords around small spools the make it easier to pass them through the spine when weaving). It's thinner and arguable neater or more elegant than a Slatt's belt. Finally, you only need to deal with cords ends at one side, making it a bit neater to finish off.

The're some disadvantages too. It's a little tricky to weave; I've been having trouble getting the tightness consistant which can make it look a little messy. The holes are still a little hard to get a buckle prong through; you might have to sharpen it a little with a metal file to make it easier (I imagine they will stretch a little with use though). It's wider that a four strand sinnet (which is why I misjudged the thickness and found the buckle was too small). Unravelling it is also slower than some weaves, although that's not really an issue for most people.


Hopefully I'll use the pattern to make a watch strap soon, in which case I will of course post pictures.

Manly knitting

I've finally found the time to experiment a bit with weaving paracord. I've found it quite fun to do; experimenting with new patterns is interesting, and weaving while watching TV is strangely satisfying - it feels more productive than just sitting and staring, but it's still relaxing. I'm painfully aware of how close the whole activity is to knitting though, so I'm calling it "manly knitting". Because it's all for the sake of manly survival in case I ever get into a spot of trouble while doing all the manly activities I read about but never actually get around to doing... I'm not really helping my case here, am I?

I recently lost my watch. It wasn't particularly expensive or anything, but it was pretty much the first watch I actually found comfortable to wear. The reason why it was comfortable was because the single-piece leather strap wrapped naturally around the wrist, in contrast to a typical leather strap that bends primarily at the pins where it attaches to the watch, thus pinching the wrist. Yes, leather isn't the only option, but unfortunately metal and plastic straps irritate me. I reasoned that a paracord strap might fit in a similar way to the one-piece leather strap, I figured it was worth a try anyway. I considered buying one, but I decided it would be more fun to try to make one. So I did:

I followed some instructions from the internet, but instead of the usual snap buckle I tried to make an adjustable strap that worked the same way as a normal watch strap. It was too thick and wide to fit through most watch buckles I could find. Luckily, a guy in a local watch repair shop had one that was big enough, in fact he was so nice that he refused to take any payment for it:

Unfortunately it turned out that the weave I was using was not terribly suitable for pushing a prong through. However, by filing the prong to a point it became do-able, though not convenient:

Of course, a belt stores a hell of a lot more rope than a watch strap. I found out about something called the "Slatt's Rescue Belt". I liked the fact that you didn't have to pre-measure it, you just weave until you run out of cord, and that you didn't need to pull the entire length of cord through every weave. It was actually MUCH slower going than the watch, partly because it had a natural tendency to twist the cord (strangely paracord doesn't handle twisting very well), so I had to continually work out the twists. The results were pretty good though:

As you can see the belt grows at an angle, meaning it doesn't extend straight from the buckle. I left the first few rows a little loose and tied a knot in the base of the first loop to try to alleviate the problem. It helped but didn't completely solve the issue. I think it's good enough to wear, but I'm not really sure because it wasn't long enough.

I started out with a 100 foot length of paracord. I cut about 3-4 feet off the end to act as the spine for the watch, so I should have had about 95+ feet of paracord. I have about a 34" inch waist, and the resulting belt fit with just about two rows spare. That's not enough to tuck it into a belt loop, meaning that it looks silly for me. Instead I gave it to someone slimmer than me, it seemed to be just long enough for him to use. Hope he doesn't gain any weight.

I need to try the belt again with a longer piece of paracord - I have a couple of ideas for how to solve the angle issue. I'm also planning to try a few things to solve the problem with the watch strap without sacrificing adjustability. Stay tuned.

Seraphim

I helped a friend paint this model. She picked the model and the colour-scheme, I helped her with the painting. Nothing too special going on, some basecoats and a bit of drybrushing followed by Army Painter quickshade, then a matt varnish over the skin and cloth.

Back from the dead

I mentioned ages ago that I had snapped part of a model in half and thrown away the pieces in a fit of rage. More specifically I snapped the largest piece of the model in half. Eventually I purchased the model again, and after a couple of false starts managed to cast a usable replica of the broken piece. It's severely inferior to the original, but since the original was mainly ragged cloth the cast was passable (with a little work) - had the broken piece been something less forgiving, like a piece of armor, the poor quality would have been more visible.

 Let me clarify I'm not making replicas of models, I'm certainly not selling copied bits, I just repaired one part of a model that I had legitimately purchased. Hell, I had to buy another one that I would not otherwise have bought just to repair the first, so it worked out quite well for GW.

In the photo below you will see several different colours of material used. The original grey plastic parts, the greenstuff/milliput mix I cast the replacement part from (in theory it should be less brittle than pure milliput but stronger than pure greenstuff), some bits of the original greenstuff mold that were imbedded in the cast piece, and pure milliput I used for gap filling. There's also some white grains from a water filter I used to replace the studs on his cowl that didn't get cast clearly, and some pure milliput I used to fill the annoying dimple on the base and generally give it a smoother finish.

You can see in those photos where I had to fix the cowl with pure milliput after it broke just above the base. I installed a pin inside first in order to strengthen it.


After finally putting it all together again, I primed it white then used a very quick simple paint scheme that luckily turned out decent.

The cape is just dark green with drybrushes of lighter greens up to a very light drybrush of white, then given a generous green wash. The hood is dark brown with snakebite leather edge highlighting (in general I don't like edge highlighting for non-solid materials, but it just seems to look better with it than without it). The scythe was basecoated in brown, then stippled orange, then a careful boltgun drybrush along the edges was complemented with some boltgun stippling, then some boltgun feathering along the cutting edge (this came out less fine than I had intended but I couldn't be bothered to try to fix it). All studs were just dwarf bronze.

The staff was initially painted grey then streaked with graveyard earth, but the results were too light so I used darker streaks of brown, then there was far too much difference between the grey and brown, so I tried to colour it with washes. In the end it turned out far too dark, I had been aiming for an "old bleached wood" look and just couldn't get it. Still, it doesn't look too bad.

The bones were just built up to a reasonably pure white then shaded with the rest of the model using Army Painter Strong Shade. It was painted on rather than dipped so I could control where it went. I've found this gives good results on flesh and can work on other surfaces as long as care is taken - if you're not carefully it will pool in unwanted places and it ends up looking awful - even painting on I had to remove some pools a few minutes after I applied it.

In this case, it worked surprisingly well on the bone, the natural brownish colour offsetting the pure white somewhat to give a decent bone colour. It didn't work as well on the robes, with the brownish shade overpowering the underlying green. Next time I use it on cloth I'll apply it first then apply the washes so the colour is more consistent. It didn't do very much anywhere else, mainly because I applied it rather thinly.

The model actually turned out somewhat poorly balanced; the resin side is much heavier than the plastic side, and most of that weight is quite high up (and, due to the way I positioned it, hanging just about right over the edge of the base). Obviously this wouldn't be a problem with the original model, and the problem is negated slightly here as I filled the base, thus weighing it down a little, but still it's a good thing I made this model purely for display.


So overall it turned out well enough, and I learned a bit about rust and quickshade. I see it as a kind of a practice model; when I get around to painting the unbroken one, it should come out a little better (fingers crossed).

The Dark is rising

I bought these guys at the same times as the Grey Knights I spoke of before; on the first day I decided to actually get into warhammer. I bought them because they looked cool and were relatively cheap - in fact these are some of my favorite GW fantasy models. I've basically decided they count as inquisitorial paladins.

I started painting them a few months ago then got busy and forgot about them, so I've forgotten a couple of details of how I painted them. Basically, I wanted them to be very dark - I know I've been saying this a lot lately but it's especially true of these guys. I wanted to try a bit of weathering, mainly the stippling on the cloaks and the worn paint over metal on the shields. I also tried some feathering on the blades. Finally, I was experimenting a little with a unified palette.

First I cut off some horns and spikes where possible to make them less chaos-y. Of course this involved filing the star off their shields. Then I filled in the gap in the fur over their shoulders with greenstuff and tried to sculpt it to match. The results were not great, but I think I got better as I worked, in the end it didn't look too bad. I also filled in the cut-outs in one model's sword.

I painted the armour tin bitz to make it dark, and edge highlighted dwarf bronze. Steel was boltgun washed black and highlighted chainmail. Wooden axe-handles were painted in grey then lined with snakebite leather to make a more colourless , "bleached" wood.

Leather was just scorched brown drybrushed or edge highlighted with snakebite leather. I decided to paint the wraps around the weapon handles as cloth rather than leather, so painted them grey and edge highlighted white. I believe the bone was done in calthan brown then bleached bone, possible with some white highlights and/or a gryphone sepia wash, I'm not really sure.

The fur was painted brown and the cloak red, then both were given a drybrush of snakebite leather. This was one of the experiments I was trying; highlights in a different colour. I hoped it would make the cloth look more worn while simultaneously better tying it together with the fur. I may have also used a red wash on the cloak, though I don't believe I did. The cloak was then stippled black at the base, as were the boots.

The shield was just painted black with the hourglass design in white. Again an adaptation of the Sentinels Eternal logo: no need for the shield since it is already painted on one. I painted boltgun metal unevenly around the edges to make it look as if the shield was steel underneath black paint. I also tried to apply a few fine scratches across the surface.

Ihad initially planned to use army painter quickshade, but eventually settled on washing the entire model in devlan mud, with the exception of the shield which I wanted to stand out. After that I decided the fur needed more definition, so I applied another drybrush of bleached bone. Finally I feathered the edges of the blades with chainmail - I usually paint slim lines, but I wanted a more worn appearance, the idea being that the edge is brighter from sharpening and use.

I had a problem with the matt varnish, for some reason it was very inconsistant. I had to apply a second layer with a different varnish to fix it.

Gloss varnish

The matt varnish did not come out well

A different matt varnish mostly fixed the problem

Unless viewed in bright light they look a little too dark and homogeneous. In contrast the feathering on the blades contrasts too much with the surface, I suppose next time I'll need to avoid washing the blade with the rest of the model. The highlights on the cloak were darkened more than I expected by the wash, and the fur is also too flat, I should have brushed both up to a lighter colour. The armour and the leather are a surprisingly hard to distinguish, perhaps brighter highlighting would maintain the 'dark' look while introducing a bit more definition? Despite all that, I think they look pretty cool.

War is hell

I had a game against a guard army. I forgot to bring my assault marines so I played my old list:

Sentinels Eternal:
Captain with bolt pistol, power weapon, melta bomb.
Tac squad with power fist, plasma cannon, flamer.
Scout squad with sniper rifles.
Dreadnought.

As usual my opponent was not ready for such a small points game and had to write a list on the spot. For some reason he decided to go all-infantry. I believe he had two squads of veterans, some sort of commander who could give orders in a small squad with a banner, and a squad of stormtroopers with hellrifles (I think that's what they were called, they were 18" S3 AP3 rapid fire), who he gave infiltrate and pinning on the first round. He also had three lascannons.

We rolled annihilation. He gave me first turn so I combat squad the tac marines with the flamer and fist together and the cannon in the other team with the captain, then deployed them in the open in order to charge forwards. The dread hugged cover (THREE lascannons?), aiming to walk through a building. After he deployed I put my scouts as far forwards as I could to get at the lascannons, but even with the scout move I needed their first turn to get them in position.

I started by moving everything forwards. My tac marines and captain ran forwards while my dread took a pot shot at the limit of his range, surprisingly killing a couple of storm troopers. He responded by using orders and firing en masse at my marines, but he forgot that he was using vets with ballistic skill 4 and only killed a few models from my plasma gunner squad.

Just before the dying started

Some pretty cool looking Imperial Guard

Next turn my captain split off the depleted squad and joined the fist squad moving forwards. The snipers fired at his lascannons and actually managed to kill one! I was stunned! I then fired my plasma cannon squad at his commander, and scored a hit! Five 2+ rolls later and the entire squad was vaporised in a single blast of superheated plasma, and with them went his orders.

Now that's just incredibly unlucky

Now bereft of both orders and luck, he was unable to do much damage to my army, with even his hellguns failing to take down more than a couple of marines. My snipers managed to kill another lascannon, then my plasma cannon rolled a 4 on the scatter dice to bullseye the last one. He concentrated most of his firepower on the plasma cannon squad, but a succession of unlucky rolls saw the canoneer himself survive right up to the end. With most of the rest of his army running after losing spectacularly in assault to my captain and fist, and with the store was closing in five minutes, we called it. I had two killpoints (four if you count the two guys retreating), he had none.


It's worth mentioning that I had forgotten my dice so I had to roll with his, and those traitorous little backstabbers betrayed him just about every chance they got. I actually felt bad about winning, his luck was so rotten and mine was so good. My plasma cannon took only two shots but both were on target and killed everything they touched. My captain only had one round of combat, in which his five attacks counted for five dead guardsmen. Even my snipers took out a lascannon on every turn they got to shoot. In fact, even my power-fist sergeant, who in all my games has never managed a kill, took down two guys. His first ever kills, I'm so proud. Could this be the end of his losing streak?

The fact is my win was not down to skill. Had my opponent decided to include some tanks in his hastily written army list, things might have been very different, seeing as I had very few models which were quite bunched up at times. My opponent was a great guy who didn't seem too bothered by his bad luck, I suspect if we play again he'll be better prepared for such a small points game.

Finally finished one

It's been over two years now since I decided to take the plunge and get into Warhammer. Amongst my purchases on that first day was a box of metal Grey Knight Terminators. This was a while back, over a year before I even heard rumours of a new codex. After reading the rules and codex, I picked up a few more terminators and some Grey Knights in power armour, with the intention of taking them as allies in a Space Marine army (I didn't see the point of painting more than a handful of the same models, and to be honest the idea still doesn't appeal to me).

I did some experiments with the models, like magnetising arms, installing bulbs, and using glow-in-the dark paint, but I never got around to actually painting them. This was initially because they were quite daunting with all the detail, and being some of my very favourite miniatures bar none I wanted them to be perfect. Later it was because I was busy, then because the new codex completely turned me off (Kaldor Draigo has the stupidest fluff I have ever read in a GW publication, though I do have a soft spot for Mordak's rules and fluff).

But, as I believe I have mentioned before, I've decided to paint the models that I like rather than worry about army lists, and I still like the GK terminator models. Plus, I don't think I'm going to get much better at painting anytime soon, so I finally decided to paint one.


This started off as an experiment in quick painting, the idea being to use Army Painter metallic spray and quickshade for fast results. I also wanted to paint this one to be relatively dark, and then a Grand Master to be brighter. It ended up taking a lot longer than I expected though.

First of all, I'm not getting good results with the metallic primer. Paint doesn't seem to stick to it very well, so I ended up thinning down some boltgun metal and using it as a wash, combined with a boltgun drybrush, to try to get a better base. The armour was later washed badab black then drybrushed boltgun again. Next time I think I'll I'll just put on a black primer coat and drybrush with boltgun, that should give good contrast and a 'pitted' surface as well as being much faster. I might try edge highlighting with mithril next time, just to see what difference it makes (I didn't bother this time because I normally find edge highlighting on boltgun or chainmail has very little effect, perhaps because they are already quite shiny).

I then painted the details dwarf bronze (I may have used a layer of tin bitz as a basecoat, I don't actually remember), and a few things in tin bitz (like the storm bolter housing and sword handle), but I applied it in very thin layers to try to stop it from clogging the detail, so it took many coats to get a strong colour. Plus I kept missing hidden bits of detail and needing to go back. It was washed black at the same time as the armour. In all the White Dwarf articles they always highlight gold with mithril silver, so I thought drybrushing them boltgun at the same time as the armour should work reasonably well and save time. It didn't. The drybrush robbed all the colour, and they ended up looking too close to the rest of the armour. Fortunately a wash of gryphone sepia brought the colour back, and the end result was not too bad - though next time I'll paint them after the armour and just leave them bronze with a watered down wash.

The eyes were simply white with a blue wash to create a very weak glowing effect (it's much easier than painting lenses, which look better when they're done well but worse when they're not). The paper was done the same as usual; bleached bone with white edges followed by a gryphone sepia wash (or maybe it was ogryn flesh). The purity seals were just mechrite red with a devlan mud wash ( I wanted them daker than usual). The book on his right hip was just calthan brown then scorched brown, then given the same wash as the paper.

I decided that the symbols on his shoulders and the book hanging from his waist were not actual paper and leather, just painted to look like it, so I used skull white and tin bitz, and washed them black with the rest of the armour. I also painted the sword symbols mithril afterwards to make them brighter than the rest of the armour. The freehand on the books is of course the two elements of the Sentinels Eternal symbol, just split up for a change.

The sword itself was slightly modified by removing the 'power weapon mechanism' normally found at the base of the blade to give it a much more traditional look. I hate that bit, it makes the sword look less sturdy. The blade was painted chainmail, washed black, the drybrushed up to mithril to make it brighter than the rest of the model, so it would stand out and serve as a focal point. I'm not partial to the power weapon effect on the current 'official' paint scheme, in fact I'm not completely sold on power weapon effects in general, so I'm just keeping it simple for now. Plus of course the whole look of the Grey Knights is very old fashioned, so an old fashioned sword looks the part to me.

I decided to leave this one glossy, as it makes the metal look more shiny. I agonised a bit over this decision since I was supposed to be going for a 'dark' look, and when I look at him I'm not sure I like it (it doesn't help that I applied the varnish rather thickly so it fills up the detail a bit, making it look almost laminated), so I'll try a matt varnish on the next one to see which I prefer.


As you can see his name is "Tighten". It's a reference to Megamind, if you've seen the movie - and you know about Grey Knights - you'll get it. I hope. I might be using him as a ghost Knight - not in actual gaming, but just in terms of the unit I'm painting. I've been experimenting with glowing spray paint and getting somewhat usable results so a part of me is tempted to use it on 'ghost knights', but I don't think I'll use it on him. Maybe the next one, we'll see.