Procrastination by Numbers

[cunningmatt]

 

[maelzch]

Funk! You young uns are making me sound like I'm gonna be old at 25 at the end of the month!

[noahtonkin]

I got asked how old I was the other day and I actually forgot! Really is the best way to cope!

[DarkStalker]

Its so hard being 22...

Heh,  I decided at the time 22 was starting to get 'properly' old..... and have grumbled about it for nearly a decade since :p

[Meals]

Oh to be 22 again! When I could party until the sun came up and then keep going...

[cunningmatt]

Update 56 – 21st March 2012: The Ladybird Book of Finecast

Given I appear to be seriously losing the "Who is Youngest Competition?" it's time to move on...

This week I'm primarily going to be delving into the world of Citadel Finecast, in a blog entry about as topical as if I started a discussion on repealing the slavery laws. Yes of course Citadel Finecast isn't new anymore but I have yet to be introduced to its delights. Why is this you ask? (Ok so you probably haven't asked this, but it helps the story on if we presume you have, so please indulge me).



Well at the time of the launch of Citadel Finecast my two primary concerns painting wise were Beastmen and High Elves, who for some reason coincidentally were also the two least well served armies at the launch (I know even worse than the Bretonnians and Wood Elves!!). High Elves just got Caradryan, and the Beastmen just got Malagor both of which I painted up within the six months prior to launch so wasn't really that excited by the prospect of repainting them. Admittedly there were some Warriors of Chaos characters that did interest me, but with a drawer full of unassembled plastic and metal Warriors characters I passed up the opportunity.



Fast forward to now and both armies have had a smattering of new Finecast releases (not many but some), for the Beastmen the Doombull and a new Jabberslythe (don't judge) have both arrived in Finecast. And for the High Elves, Caradryan (who I've also painted) and Tyrion have made it out in resin form. So I finally thought it was time to try out this Finecast malarkey and see what all the fuss is about.



You may be wondering how Games Workshop came up with the name Finecast, I know I am, here are my theories. Theory one, during a session of pumping out models in the Games Workshop forges, one worker (will call him Fred), shouts "Oi Tim, how's the last cast come out?", the other worker (who will call Tim, because that is how Fred has introduced him), replies "The Cast? Fine." To which Fred clarifies "so it's a fine cast?" – And that is how the name came about. Alternatively perhaps during a doubles battle at the Warhammer headquarters an argument breaks out over what to do in the magic phase. One player is adamant he will cast Flock of Doom after a lengthy row the other one stropily replies "Fine. Cast. See if I care." What do you reckon? I think they're good theories. Sadly the truth is probably even more boring than my suggestions, which is saying something.

To get me in the mood for Finecasting I decided to go on Google and see what the gaming community have to say on the subject. Perhaps surprisingly gamers seem not to have sat on the fence with this issue, and have actually ranted and raved a lot –shocking I know, usually they are such a quiet group. In fact I suspect I'd have got less vitriolic responses had I started a thread on
Mumsnet entitled "I think paedophilia should be made legal" – for the avoidance of doubt I don't think paedophilia should be made legal, I was just making a joke (you'll be surprised how easy it is for something you say on the internet to be taken out of context! And I don't want to find myself in court. Again.). A common comment has been to rename Citadel Finecast, Citadel Failcast – you see what they've done, they've replaced the word "Fine" with the word "Fail" because they're both four letters and both begin with "F". Hahahahahahaha. How clever are they?! Really that puts the level of my High Elf jokes last month in context doesn't it?! "What's  a High Elf's favourite type of tree?." "A Silver Elm." See by comparison that is now hilarious.

Although I was amused by this find I made during the internet search, when I found Games Workshop Nuneaton's Facebook page. Yes it's got that exciting that I've mentioned Nuneaton –  the most exciting thing I can say about Nuneaton is that I know someone from Nuneaton, and someone else on the forum also knows this same person. A fact that phrased this way makes the whole issue sound about 9,000% more mysterious and intriguing than it actually is (particularly if you met said person). Anyway sorry I got distracted, over on Games Workshop Nuneaton's Facebook page they had a series of Frequently Asked Questions about the new Finecast range – one of which was "Will the Citadel Tools Range (Pin vice, hobby knife, razorsaw, etc) be available in Citadel Finecast?".



Bear in mind it wasn't just one person who asked this retarded question, no enough people asked it so as it became a Frequently Asked Question:

"Will the Citadel Tools Range (Pin vice, hobby knife, razorsaw, etc) be available in Citadel Finecast?"

"Yes, they will. All the Citadel Tools will be made of the brittle, highly malleable resin hybrid of Citadel Finecast. In addition they will only be available in Games Workshop stores made entirely from Finecast staffed by animatronic resin Games Workshop staff."

Although on the plus side animatronic resin staff might be slightly less annoying than some of the current staff. Don't get me wrong most of them are utterly pleasant, and it's nice that they are interested enough to ask about your latest hobby project and seem genuinely pleased when you tell them about it. But some of them, god they don't shut up, they don't seem to realise I don't have an entire day to discuss the latest nuances of my army list with them. I write this line thinking specifically of a member of staff in Games Workshop Brighton I met a few years back, some of you may have also met them, some of you may still be chatting to them at this moment having accidentally begun a conversation with them back in the 1980s that you're unable to leave without beating them over the head with a copy of the Warhammer rulebook until their brain is mushed out all over the floor of the store and they finally shut the **** up. Some of you at this point will have correctly spotted the irony in me moaning about people who spend an awful long time talking about Warhammer, so I'll move on.

So I can only experience Finecast building, by undertaking some Finecast building, who knew. Which means I will need some models. So far this paragraph has proved utterly pointless, sorry about that. What I'm trying to say is that I will be building Tyrion and my Crimson Fists captain I ordered to get myself excited about Warhammer 40,000's 25th anniversary:



First step is to get all the pieces out of the box – in fairness this step hasn't changed much from what to do with the old plastic and metal models.



At this point I examined the models, even little old me in my "Warhammer is lovely" bubble can't failed to have noticed a few comments on the quality of the casts – the kind of comments that could be made more subtlety if they'd been strapped to a brick and hurled through an orphanage window. So I gave the models a good inspection, to be honest they all look pretty good to me, a few odd air bubbles that might need a fill – though a lot less than an Aero chocolate bar. Seriously, have you seen the imperfections in casting that? Nestlé should be ashamed to put that on the shelves. I did notice as well that the newer Crimson Fists captain, has a lot less bubbles than Tyrion, so fingers crossed the casting process is getting better. On Tyrion I did notice a tiny imperfection on of Malhandir's leg, and on the Dark Elf body's hand – in fairness they're pretty small so I should be able to repair them with a bit of green stuff, or at least attempt to repair them, fail, and then stick a bit of static grass over the hole to hide it.



Apologies you're not drunk, this photo is hideously out of focus!

It's about this time in my blogs that I refer to a hobby guide from a back issue of the White Dwarf, because as you will have noticed I am completely incapable of doing anything without some guide to help me. Fortunately I found a guide to getting dressed back in White Dwarf 174, so now I'm able to leave the house without the neighbours calling the police. This blog entry is no different so I'm going to use the Assembling Azhag the Slaughterer Guide from White Dwarf 382 (October 2011), which is now exceptionally well-thumbed as it also includes the Dreadfleet painting guide:





First up I removed all the pieces from their sprues using my usual trusty clippers, and then cleaned up using my moulding tool (which I love – don't care what you say I think it's brilliant) – the pieces were easily cleaned without me splicing off my fingers or damaging the model any more.



A few pieces were slightly out of shape, now there's no way of explaining this without using the words bent and straight – so no laughing at the back. Tyrion's helm needed straightening, one of Malhandir's legs made her look gammy (Malhandir is Tyrion's horse by the way in case you think I've started talking about a small variety of orange) and needed reshapping and the base pieces on both models needed straightening out so they would be flat and flush with the traditional plastic base.

There's many ways of doing this, Games Workshop recommend a hair dryer, but I don't have a hairdryer – those who have met will know my hair is actually stuck on my head much like a LEGO minifigure. So I decided to use the water technique, note I have simply named it the "water technique" it is not normally called this, nor does it have any connection with water torture – or being forced to watch Olympic Sailing as it's usually named. For this technique, I will head into the kitchen ala Ready Steady Cook style! Oooohhhh I've come over all Antony Warrell-Thompson. Ewww sticky beard! Yes I'm sorry about this joke, particularly as I told you off about the bent/straight thing, but hey it's nearly my birthday let me tell it as a present.



You'll be pleased to know that is the closest this blog will come to featuring Antony Warrell-Thompson, primarily because I don't want to lose any cheese from my fridge. At this point I should probably apologies for the state of my kitchen, I blame the flatmate (even though I live, like most things in life, alone):



I placed the pieces that were bent into warm water (not too hot to burn you – be safe people) for a few minutes.



Once warmed up I removed the models, and then easily bent the pieces into the desired shape, the resin goes all bendy at this point. So for the base piece of Tyrion (the fallen Dark Elf) I bent him up against the plastic base to ensure a flush fit.



Once I was happy with the new shape of the pieces they were plunged in some very cold water. I used a bag of frozen sweetcorn to help keep the water super cold! This then locks the pieces in the desired shape once they return to normal temperature.



Another option you can use is placing the pieces on the radiator (though be sure not to forget about them, resin melted in your radiator is not nice) and then place them in the freezer. Remember don't place models immersed in warm water in the freezer as any drops of water left will freeze and potentially break the resin, which would be sad and make you cry, and that would make me cry too.

With that done I went about filling in all the holes (again no sniggering at the back). I used normal green stuff to fill the largest holes – mainly on Malhandir, initially she had so many holes she looked like a colander! And then liquid green stuff to fill the smaller holes, particularly the little air bubbles which form on the surface of the material. And I also used a bit of green stuff to shamblise a hand together for the Dark Elf body.



Then I used the Citadel Emery Boards to a) file down any rough bits of green stuff/small bobbles that are too small for the modelling tool, and to b) file my nails – don't they look lovely:





So with all that done I have my two Finecast models constructed, Tyrion will be in three separate parts, the base, horse and rider. And I'm not quite sure whether to glue the banner onto the Crimson Fist yet or not, answers on a postcard as usual!



For those of you interested to Tyrion and Malhandir are balanced in place not glued. Also the base is finished off with slate from the Warhammer Basing Kit and a Lion head piece of statue – I have four spare from my White Lions unit!

I have to say I'm pretty impressed with the Finecast – the detail is impressive, the minor casting issues were easily solved (in fairness I think I have benefitted from an enforced wait of a few months before getting my first Finecast pieces). Ok so it's not perfect, but then plastic, metal and even my good self are flawed to buggery, unless I've been  given rohypnol in which case I am floored to buggery – but that's all a bit grim and we won't go though.

I was tempted to throw Tyrion on the floor, or off my balcony in a true Which Finecast? magazine style to see if it would survive, but to be honest I was too scared. So sorry about that, you'll have to imagine what would have happened!!

With the Beastmen having a new Doombull in Finecast and a lot of Warriors bits and pieces I'm sure this won't be my last Finecast purchase. Particularly as this very month saw the release of the Hellcannon in Finecast – a model I had simply been too scared to assemble in metal!



So there we are, soon Tyrion will hopefully be gracing my painted High Elf shelf very soon, and who knows one day I'll get round to painting the Crimsons Fists captain... one day. Maybe. I hope you enjoyed this very topical discussion of the latest modelling advances, next week I'll be looking at the introduction of the plastic slottabase – good for the hobby or not?

[Undead Dan]

Looking good! I wouldn't glue Tyrion into place, I'd make a separate cavalry base to plug him into as well, that way you can use him as a very impressive Prince on a normal sized base as well. But, looking good. Did you also give the fincecast models a scrubbing with a toothbrush or something?

[Dave]

Nice guide to cooking finecast in an al dente style.

[cunningmatt]

Looking good! I wouldn't glue Tyrion into place, I'd make a separate cavalry base to plug him into as well, that way you can use him as a very impressive Prince on a normal sized base as well.

Nice idea, I may well try that - though sometimes with these things I find the effort of having a partially assembled model that falls apart everytime you try and use him in two ways more effort than just buying two of them!!! Definitely having that feeling towards making my Manticore multi-purpose!

But, looking good. Did you also give the fincecast models a scrubbing with a toothbrush or something?

Nope, should I have? Or is this a cooking based joke and I'm being blond?!! I gave them a light dustdown with a brush to remove debris from filing assembley, but not a scrub!

[fatolaf]

They seem to be slowly getting better in quality, the Draigo model I just got for my Grey Knights was awesome in detail (apart from his bendy power sword)