Building a Better Homer

Just a quick update today but one I am pretty excited to make... I've finished assembling Captain Homer! No fancy conversion work was involved so I know this isn't too big of deal, but it nonetheless feels significant to me as I had not previously done anything specific to 40k since finishing that Dark Angels dreadnought last January. It may be just a single model built but it's still nice to finally have some real progress to report. There's no denying it now, the Stonecutters are underway. Woo-hoo!

I want Captain Homer to be largely unadorned as befits a man of action, and therefore I used mostly parts from the standard tactical sprue. I'm going to rely primarily on his unique color scheme to make Homer stand out from the rest of the army and so used only the legs from the Space Marine commander box. I did however add some ammo pouches and grenades which was fun as I normally leave off those extra bits, but this time around I intend to make better use of them. I want as many of the Stonecutters as possible to have at least one extra piece of kit or gear with the aim of making each individual just a bit more personalized and characterful. After ignoring all those little doodads included on the sprues for so many years, I'm curious to see how I can go about adding them to my marines rather than simply throwing them into my bits box to never be seen again.

Also you can see in the photo that I'm now using cork so that I can paint my minis separately from their bases. I've noticed some of the bloggers that I follow doing this and decided to give it a try myself. This seemed reasonable to me considering the style of bases I've chosen for this army and I really don't mind taking the extra time it will require. It's not like I would otherwise finish this project quickly, so why not? My first experience with it was still frustrating however as I seemed to have broken yet another pin vice drill, this time within minutes of taking it out of its packaging.

Maybe I'm pressing down too hard or something but I can't ever get the squeezie part of the drill to hold onto the bit without slipping. It therefore took me most of Thursday evening to pin two pairs of feet and one marine head to their cork stoppers as I had to spin the little drill bit manually between finger and thumb. I did most of the actual assembly work on Friday but was then too tired to do anything more last night after a day spent chasing my daughter around the yard. Fortunately I am now ready to start painting my army's commander, though I still plan on first doing a test mini to give me some practice painting yellow and white. Plus I'll soon reveal what's up with the extra set of feet for this HQ unit that had to be pinned. Ooooooh... how's that for suspense?

Sorry, that was dumb. More WIP shots will hopefully come soon as I should be able to do some painting tonight.