The Fastest Warjack In Khador*

I've always thought the Khador Devastator chassis resembled old 8-bit videogame characters. The Devastator itself reminded me of a certain hedgehog mid spin-dash. Four years later and here we are: Sonik the Demolisher is finally ready for the tabletop.

Normally I like to paint details such as bolts in different colours, and have a range of materials to add visual interest. However, with this guy my primary concern was matching the original colour scheme. Hence almost everything was blue, with the exception of the red "shoes" and white "gloves". I considered using more brass or copper on the arms where the original had skin, but I thought it might not translate properly and would look a bit "busier", possibly taking away from the blue colour scheme. So I stuck with white on the arms, also using it for the Khador logo which I figured was worth having stand out. I did use a little brass, but it's almost impossible to see in the final figure as it's hidden by the arms. You can see in the WIP shots though that I did paint the face:

I definitely wanted the cartoony Sonic eyes. It's just possible to see them through the gap if you find the right angle:

It was quite a simple modification... in theory. Nothing is ever quite as simple as you expect though. First it took some trial and error to get the spikes to look good when they are coming off different sized surfaces at different angles. My original plan was just to use the two flat surfaces of the hull, but after trying that I realized it didn't look very good and I would need a third spike coming out from between the smokestacks. I guess I could have gone for a fourth sitting on the boiler, but I thought that would be going too far and wouldn't look good.

The other complication was that, despite the fact that the big arm shields were going to cover most everything up, I still decided that I wanted to sculpt in some missing details on the torso. To be honest, I don't regret it.

Oh, and naturally I installed some flush magnets in order to be able to run him as a Demolisher. That's right, Sonik's packin' heat!

Overall I think he came out about as well as could be expected. I am kinda curious how he would have looked if I had gone for brass on the arms and shoulders, but I just don't think it would have said "Sonik" as effectively as he does now.

If I ever do another Demolisher (unlikely) he will be red(orange?) and have an extra armoured... mud flap(?) on the back; luckily I have a spare one from another conversion that I'm planning to paint up soon.


*Not really...


EDIT: for those who wonder why a Khador jack was painted blue:

Starting Additive Manufacturing

I finally pulled the trigger and bought myself a 3D printer. My first project was to print a replacement pen body for my Levenger L-Tech. The original (which I believe is made of brass) is fairly heavy, but more importantly it's poorly balanced (at least for my hand).

It's basically just a threaded tube, but it was still a little tricky to design; the hardest part was the section-body threading. In fact I never quite got it right; in the end I got it "close enough" that I was able to brute-force the section into the threads.

The cap-body threads were a lot easier since I designed them both and didn't need to match existing threads. It's actually a four-start thread; it only takes one and a quarter turns to cap and uncap (it should probably be one and a half, but the cap doesn't quite screw all the way down before it seals on the section).

It was printed in red PLA because that's what came with the printer. Layer hight was set to 0.06mm, and infill was 100%. I did not use supports or a raft. The body and cap were sanded to smooth them a little, but I couldn't get rid of some of the blemishes (not without more work than I wanted to put in).

I consider this a prototype; it was certainly a learning experience... by which I mean that I learned 3D printing might not be as simple as I was originally hoping it would be. That's hoping, not expecting. But hey, at least I was able to create something of my own in just a few days, which is more than I managed with the (probably cursed) CNC machine.

While I'd like to make some improvements to this design, I might just jump to trying to make my own section instead. Before that I think I need to muck about with the software; the printer comes with a built-in slicer, which is cool, but the results I'm getting from it don't look as good as the already-sliced models that it was pre-loaded with, making me think that I might get better results with a better slicer or by mucking about with the print settings a little more.

Breakfast Is The Most Important Meal Of The Day

I finally got around to finishing this guy. He was... surprisingly frustrating to paint. First the paint REFUSED to stick to the primer; I don't know if my primer is bad or if something went wrong when applying it? Seriously though the paint would stick to bare plastic but bead off the primer as though it was allergic or something. That's the EXACT OPPOSITE of what's supposed to happen!

After that my attempts at shading went quite poorly and it took some effort to recover from that. Trying to mix up appropriate browns for bread was... something new. Then it turned out that trying to paint tiny, tiny pieces of toast is actually quite hard; I can't say I'm too happy with how they turned out. But since they are actually so small and hard to see, it hardly seems to matter in the end. Yay?

All this for a model that I can't actually use in-game. Unless people don't mind me proxying him as a Greylord Forge Seer or something... I mean, axe, butterknife, what's the difference right?

This was my first actual painted MOW model. By some coincidence I was just finishing him up as the MOW CID was starting, which is nice timing.

Unfortunately I can no longer access the original conversation where the idea came from due to PP's shutting down the old Khador forum. It's a shame, because I believe this guy is funnier in context.

I decided to go for the classic Khador scheme for him, since I want the focus to be on the breakfast elements and not the colour. I think he looks pretty good, in a traditional sort of way.


EDIT: Thanks to Munindk for providing the original confirmation quote from the now-lost thread:

2017 End Of Year Report

Wow, that year flew past. I can't say that I got very much done. I blame my recent addictions to Overwatch and Manga.


Old Resolutions
Sadly I have more excuses than successes this year.

1. Sleep early
It took a while, but for the last couple of months I've been in bed at a decent time just about every night. I still need to be strict with myself or I'll start to slip, but overall I think I can give myself this one.

2. Waste less time in the morning
I'm... getting better at moving quickly in the morning if I'm motivated, but I'm finding it really hard to get motivated. So no.

3. Use time more efficiently
Nope.

4. Excercise
I was actually starting to do better, but then I injured my knee and couldn't really do anything for a while.

5. Follow single projects through to the end
Ugh, I actually found this to be really de-motivating. At least when it comes to hobbies, I seem to work better jumping back and forth between projects. Which is probably less efficient, plus it's kind of annoying to think about how long individual projects have been "in the works" without being completed, but somehow I just seem to be able to devote more time to stuff overall if I'm not trying too hard on just one thing.

6. Give more time to important projects even if they are difficult
See 5. Well... I guess I finished Nemo, that's something.


New Resolutions
Well, new-ish.

1. Develop a good routine
I'm kinda lumping together sleeping early, waking up early etc. here for simplicity.

2. Keep my cool
I've always had a bit of a temper, and lately I've been losing it more often (again, blame Overwatch... and other things...). So this year I want to work on staying calm in the face of adversity/stupidity.

3. Read more useful stuff
I've been reading a lot this year, but it was pretty much all forums and manga. I need to start reading useful books and articles.


I was thinking about adding a resolution about being more responsible with money (don't ask me how many pens I bought this year...), but I decided against it because spending a bit of money now and again on stuff I enjoy can help keep me happy and motivated, so for now I'll not stress myself too much about this. To be honest, I've got plenty of other stuff to get stressed about.

I might sound a bit negative right now, but that's partly just the end-of-year blues (that I think I'm starting to get every year). It's true that I didn't get too much done this year, but overall I feel like I'm in a slightly better place than I was this time last year, so it's not really all that bad. Anyway, I'm going to work to make 2018 a better year. I read a great quote by Martin Luthor King Jr. recently, which I think is a good note to end on:

"If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward."

The Missing Piece: Saving Custom Cards!

I just randomly realized today how to finally solve the biggest issue my Card Creator has had since day one: saving the created cards! Turns out it was actually pretty easy. So now the Warmachine (v2) and Batman card creators have new "open in new page" buttons under the card (and in the Warmachine card creator's menu). Clicking on this will open the final card in a new page.

Since this page was created with the final HTML code, it can be saved using the browser's save function. In theory at least; in practice it depends on the browser itself. I have been able to save cards this way using Firefox. Chrome however does not allow me to save the page. Safari does not work with my card creator at all.

I'm very happy about this because saving cards was a tremendous hassle before; being able to save the cards (in a form that can be edited easily later) is a huge improvement that finally brings the cards creators into what I believe is a usable state!

A New Helicopter Landing Pad

I just finished milling a new spoilboard for my CNC mill. This one has some extra features:

The central cutouts allow me to easily attach my 4th axis in proper alignment.

The slots allow me to clamp down smaller pieces of material without removing the board.

It's just simple piece of wood, but it still took a bit of effort measuring, planning, and scripting, since it needed to be very precise.

The next thing I want to work on is attaching an air jet (or whatever you call it). So far my every attempt to cut plastics (which I need for a number of projects) has ended up with a glob of plastic melted and bonded to the bit before I could get very far, even when I use single-flute bits. I'm hoping that having a jet of air blowing onto the bit will help disperse chips and keep the bit cool, allowing me to work with plastics.

The thing is, I might need to build myself a new controller box first, just to house all the components (things are a bit of a mess right now). I've been putting it off for a while, partly because I wanted to build a Beaglebone Black into the box but I couldn't get the BBBlack working properly. Seriously, if there's a trick to getting support with that thing, I don't know what it is. Every tutorial I tried to follow failed, and no-one answered me on the official forums.

Anyway, I've decided to put the BBBlack on hold, and build a controller box in such a way that I can run it directly off my laptop for now, but that I will be able to install another controller (like a Beaglebone or Raspberry Pi or whatever) later. It's a bit fiddly, but I think it should be doable.

A Good Place To Start A New Set

I painted this guy up real quick; I really just wanted to test the base to see if I liked it enough to use it for the entire range. What I realised as I was finishing him was that the Mousers are actually some of the Turtles' first enemies (after the Foot anyway), appearing in the second issue of the original comic series as part of the story line where the Turtles meet April for the first time.

OK, sure, by that logic it would have been more appropriate to paint up a Foot ninja first, but this looked easier. Look, you try coming up with interesting titles and introductions for every model you paint OK?

Anyway, the base was made using grey ProCreate and GreenStuffWorld's textured rolling pins. The bricks have a very layered texture which I assume is a result of CNC milling the pins. I thought the texture was excessive so I sanded most of it off the base, but there's enough left at the edges of the bricks to make them interesting.

The model is just Leadbelcher, washed with Nuln Oil, drybrushed with Leadbelcher, then edge-highlighted with Chainmail. He looks a little too rough; I'm thinking I should have used a more targeted wash rather than slathering undiluted Nuln Oil all over the model. The eye is Iyandan Darksun, with Sunburst Yellow on the dot (and blended towards the dot), then a spot of pure Skull White, followed by a Sunburst Yellow drybrush.

The base was painted Skrag Brown, drybrushed Blazing Orange, then washed with undiluted Devlan Mud (again, I might have applied it too heavily). I tried to use a bit of Ogryn Flesh to pick out individual bricks for variety, but it didn't make any difference. I applied a bit of heavily watered Camo Green between some of the bricks, then darkened it a bit with some Antonian Camoshade; the idea was to make it look more like a sewer and less like a sidewalk.

I named this model Bitey, after a pet cat. His full name was Bitey Whitey, because of his pure white fur and because he loved to bite and scratch me for fun.