The Spark of Heresy - Guest post by Deano

Good evening all,

Today we have a special guest post from a long time friend, Deano, who has done up a book review of the very first of the HH novels, Horus Rising. Although this novel has been out for a while, it ages well and this review still serves good for those looking to get into the heresy world - it will certainly leave a hook in and leave you for want of more. 

Enjoy!

~Keepy

The Spark of Heresy

G'day all,

By way of introduction, my name is Deano and I share the uncontrollably rampant resin addiction that infects my fellow friends in the AGIF crew. I've been in the hobby on and off for 15 years now, my brother and I first going halves in a third edition 40k starter set a few weeks before the Sydney Olympics at the turn of the millennium. When you compare this to the preserved Space Crusade box sitting in Keepy's hobby cupboard and Spraggy's war stories of "genestealer cults" in the "Rogue Trader days," it goes without saying that I am betraying my age (mostly the sheer lack of it) in comparison to these long fanged (and tea addicted!) veterans.

However, my enthusiasm for the hobby was massively revived at the tail end of 5th edition. Throughout the process of moving to the far north in 2011 and integrating into the local hobby community, I individually met what would later become the AGIF crew, both past and present

AGIF Viewer Mailbag: Who is the biggest Primarch?

Hey guys, Macca here and today I'm answer some viewer questions.... such as how big certain Primarchs are, and who is the biggest so far?

I will preface this with a disclaimer *I don't have all the Primarchs*. I have seen them all, and compared them, but on hand, I only have 5 in my personal collection, so those are the ones I will show you.

Primarch vs Marine size:

To start with, here is the MK III armoured Ultramarine Commander we are giving away soon, and he is our scale model, a nice 32mm marble base is beneath his feet.

Lorgar and Angron, Shadow Crusading their way to Terra....

Ferrus Manus and Horus Lupercal, modelling this years Summer and Winter Cataphractii range respectively.

Perturabo, modelling Cataphractii Plus-Size.

Primarch vs Primarch size:

Perturabo is of course, the largest. Vulkan is huge himself, in fact, he is Horus' size and only wearing power armour. However, for total size, it's the guy riding part of a Knight Titan into battle. There is an optical illusion however....

The Illusion?

Perturabo hunches forward on his base, in much the way Angron is sprinting and hunched, so is Perturabo. When I lay him down at the right angle, his scale becomes very apparent.

Yes, Perturabo is about a head taller than Ferrus Manus, comfortably, and that's not including the little cogitators and such on top of his giant suit of Plus-Size armour.

For more on Perturabo, or Horus, our videos can be found here.

So who do you think should be the biggest? My money is on Magnus the Red, who is the biggest and the best Primarch. Space Wolves players, your opinions aren't valid on that one....

~Macca

A New Video & A New Logo!

G'day folks, Macca here with some announcements! First up, we have a new logo! I think it's pretty sweet, but I had a hand in designing it, so of course I'd think that. Not only this, but we have a new video format, which is similar but different to our old one, with the new intro showing the galaxy dissolving into chaos and flames. Perfect!

Here is the video for today, in case you were wondering ;)

Also, for Australian and New Zealand (New Zillund Bro), don't forget that we are organising a hobby Masterclass in Sydney featuring ex-Forge World painter Matthew Kane, the details are on Facebook, and can be found on this event page here.

So that about wraps up today, I hope you all enjoy the changes and all the exciting things going on in 30k in Australia right now. Lastly, a quick shout out to our mates over at the Eye of Horus podcast, I will definitely be your Mac at Inferno III!

~Macca

Lorgar Aurelian: Part 3

So I finally finished Lorgar. With one big exception: his cloak. Upon starting to assemble the model, the cloak wouldn't even come close to fitting. Short of hacking away at it madly, I have decided to leave it off until I can figure out what to do. Anyway, I am very pleased overall, however I think I will slightly darken the area around Lorgar's eyes as they don't stand out enough for my tastes.

So three Primarchs (including the repainted Angron) in a week or so. Very pleased. Funny enough, Lorgar is the first Edgar Skomorowski (I think that's how you spell his name, apologies if I'm wrong Edgar!) Primarch I have worked on, and it was quite a bit different to Horus and Angron. His armour is more simplistic in regards to trim, but the textures are very organic, unlike Horus and Angron who are very smooth and mechanical sculpts by the great Simon Egan.

Smash face Warmaster, smash face.

~Macca

Horus The Warmaster: Part 3

Ok, here it is, part 3. You can find Part 1 and Part 2 here respectively. This was a long and painful process, but in the good way like going for a run, you hate it during, but after you feel good/fat/slow. All up it took me about 10 hours to do the entire model, which is saying something as I am known around my friends as a bit of a speed painter. I also have been told I take shortcuts, and I suppose I do, however my shortcuts come from years of painting experience, where I pre-plan a miniature for ages before I commit paint to mini. An example of this is Lorgar. I haven't touched him yet, but I already have 90% of the paints picked out to use, and I know the colours I want for each area already. This will save me a lot of time and experimenting later.

Well, that's enough from me I suppose, I guess I had best crack on with what everyone came to see, Horus, The Warmaster.

So that's it, Horus Lupercal, The Warmaster. If you have any questions, or you want to soul-suckingly tear down my techniques, feel free to comment below.

~Macca

Horus The Warmaster: Part 2

Ok, part 2, lets get straight into it. You will have to bare with me, as this post jumps around a little, I could have edited it, but you might gains some insight from my madness when you see the order I paint in. Or go mad yourself. Either way.

I have a few paints here from Minitaire. These are nice paints to work with, and are advertised as good to use straight from the bottle. They actually need a slight bit of thinning in my experience, but, otherwise, they are very friendly. Anyhow, I primed the base components in the same way as Horus himself, a spatter with the primer can to give me that nice surface texture.

 First up, I used this beautiful colour called Rugged Skin. This colour also worked as my basecoat for the face, so win win. I then mixed a little Tamiya brown into the airbrush in order to create some darker patches. After the darker areas, I emptied and cleaned the airbrush, before moving to a pale pink tone, which I liberally applied. The aim here is that I want a nice pink marble, as I felt white would contrast too much with Horus himself. As marble is a collage of colour tones, this worked well.

Putting aside the base for the moment, I moved onto the cloak whilst the base dried. I did just two colours here, both Minitaire reds. The high points were coated brightly, whilst the low points were coated just enough to give them some colour. This automatically added depth to the cloak and saved on a lot of freehand work later.

Cloak aside, I jumped back into the base. I now mixed Tamiya XF-1 Flat Black with a tiny bit of Fenris Grey in order to paint the marble veins. The blue ever so softly dilutes the black and contrasts well with the pink marble. The important things to remember are a) don't over-vein, and b) on single pieces of marble, all veins go the same rough direction. After this stage, a thin wash made of Devlan Mud was applied all over. (not shown)

I now attached the cloak, and tidied up the metal work on Horus. At this stage, I could start to see my iffy choices in colours coming together. I also took this opportunity to do the small lens and viewfinder on the upper left of the torso armour.

After the first wash, I then picked out all the shoulder pads and steel girders on the base. I then applied some Secret Weapon weathering powder mixed with water, and used it to rust up the girders and blend them into the base, as silver stuck out like Justin Beiber at a  Slayer concert. I then washed then entire base twice with very thin Reikland Fleshshade. I had to go very thin, as GW washes have a nasty habit now of drying in a kind of milky or frosted way. This has to do with the pigment sinking to the lowest part of the wash, and frankly, it's fucking shit. Avoid avoid avoid heavy coats.

Ok, now back to Horus. I used just two colours to paint the wolf fur. I mixed Army Painter Wolf Grey (ironically) and Tamiya XF-1 Flat Black together, continuously adding more grey and very patiently working on the fur.

I also painted the face at this time, however, as I was wet-blending I had to move really fast, lest my paint dried, so I didn't take any WIP shots. I used only Elf Flesh and Ceramite White to do the face, in case you were wondering.

Ok, whilst you weren't looking, I attached Horus to his base. I mixed up a small amount of oil paint and No.1 medium, as you can see, this wouldn't even fill the underside of a 25mm round base. You can also see the small particles of oil in the mix as I was still mixing the oil at the time of taking this photo. The mix isn't strong, and you can tell by the speed of the colour fade. I simply then used an old fine detail brush to apply the wash all over. Now, when I say all over, I mean not like a dip or a kid with a tank brush, I mean I sat there for 45 minutes gently teasing the oil exactly into the locations I wanted it, namely all around the brasswork, the Pturges, and any exposed metal.

That's all, I have to give him 24 hours for the oils to dry, which means that the day after you see this, you'll get to see the finished model. Thanks as always for having a look, Macca