Slimnoid

The problem seems to stem from not securing the bit tightly enough. You really, really gotta twist the top there, or else it will do exactly as you said--sink right into the chuck. Mako's suggestion may work well if you are indeed twisting it harder than Chubby Checker, though you may want to check the drill bit or chuck if that's the case; something is wrong and you might have malformed parts there. When it comes to pinning, you can't really be very gentle. Remember, you are shoving a corkscrew-shaped hunk of steel into pewter, this ain't a knife-through-butter situation here. Gotta really jam that sucker in there and twist hard, because otherwise you're going nowhere fast. Press in with your palm and twist with thumb and forefinger clockwise, and push into the miniature. Assuming it doesn't slide the bit into the chunk (how dirty-sounding) or slide into soft tender skin, you should see results immediately. Be sure to clean the bit off of the strands of pewter that come out. Try it with some spare hunk of pewter or a "trash" mini, or even some thick plastic to get a good idea on how much force you need to use. This is a better way to practice than mangling the good mini's you plan to actually play. On another note, I personally use sturdy paperclips when I eventually join two pinned pieces. Easy to get anywhere, and usually comes in large amounts for dirt cheap. If you kinda struggle to bend the clip, you've got the good ones.

Got to paint my own stuff for once. What a change!

The best use I've seen for Snow Storm is a big block of Not-Die. Spirit, coupled with Middle of the Storm, Bulletproof 3, and Eat Your Fill makes for one of the more durable non-undead models. Spells certainly will mess their day up (as well as the Ortega's and their concentrated shooting), but against a lot of crews they simply won't drop. Granted, at 11 SS, they're an expensive meat shield, but they can generally take the punishment and come out none the worse for wear. Viable in larger games where they can park on an objective and keep it, or as a means to block off an area you don't want the opponent to go to. Snow Storm won't do much damage on their own, but Flurry, To the Bone, and Grip of Winter means they have a decent chance to bust out a Severe. I wouldn't rely on that, however.

Another commission under the belt. This time, the Hooded Rider.

A wild Nekima appears. I should note that I pinned everything on her. Everything. In under 3 hours because someone bet me I couldn't do it. I sure showed them! HA ha...ahaha...ha...I am never doing that again.

Finished some D&D models for a game I'm in. Minharath the Kalashtar Cleric of Ioun Balazar the Dragonborn Paladin Dathria, the Human Rogue Knall Ture, the Embersoul Genasi Wizard

I'm reminded of those damnable explosive floating mines from Metroid Prime.

You must show me this masterpiece.

I can't really get upset over a polite and well-thought out disagreement, now can I?

In every experience with accelerant, it's practically ruined plastic models and made cleaning metal ones a huge pain in the rear. Pinning is a better, stronger alternative.

I'd love to see it when it's done! I would probably suggest http://www.rare-earth-magnets.com/ for your magnet-buying needs, since the prices are reasonable for the amount they give. The pack I showed, I purchased at my LGS (with a discount!) but even at full price, $15 for 100 magnets isn't too bad. I'm sure if you search around on Amazon or Ebay you can get them for cheaper and possibly in larger numbers, so dig around for deals.

For my Arachnid Swarms, I measured out small circles in sheet metal, ones large enough for the arachnid to sit on. From there, I punched a hole in the middle for the magnet to sit in and glued it there; then, I glued the arachnid on (after styling the metal to match the base and give his legs support). The middle one has a drinking problem For the large 40mm base, I glued more of the same sheet metal down, equally spaced so they don't overlap or hang off the edge of the base. For when I split them apart or summon them, I just put a bit of metal down on the 30mm base and that was that. Not actually scratch n' sniff It's really just planning ahead and trying to figure out exactly how you want to do it.

A metal Eldar Wraithguard. That I used Testor paint on. Yeah that didn't end well.

Like with any Avatar, you have to built a list around her that will function not only to get her to manifest, but to take advantage of her new suite of powers. If you don't use her to her full advantage, well, you've done wasted 2SS and now have a model you can't use as effectively. It's something you have to consider heavily if she is necessary or not.

So, I've been experimenting with magnets for a couple months now, and I've found it to be an invaluable item in the miniatures hobby. First and foremost it can make some models much easier to transport, especially large or unwieldy creations like say, any big Warhammer model. They can also let you switch out weapons, hold rank and file models together on a movement tray, and generally let you play around with spinning limbs and making woop-woop-woop sounds. The possibilities are practically endless! "But Slimnoid, you handsome man you," You ask, "how do you go about magnetizing things?" Well that's what this quick n' dirty tutorial is going to fix! By the end of my informative and totally not last-minute lesson, you'll go from this to this! In just thirty days. Step 1: Tools The most important part of this is having the necessary tools of the trade. If you're reading this, it's assumed you have the basics: a hobby knife, super glue, and a pin vice with large drill bits. aka the things that make other things In this instance we'll be using 3.00mm rare earth magnets; you will need smaller magnets for smaller models. You want to use rare earth magnets and not say, the ones your mom puts your school drawings on and calls them a masterpiece; those don't have the strength to hold up to anything. Missing: my progress report, and for good reason Of course, we can't do anything without models, now can we? Step 2: Victims 3.00mm is pretty big for most 28mm scale models, which is why we're using the Imperium's finest in our little experiment. Give'em a hand, ladies and gentlemen Meet Bob and Steve. They're best pals but have a crippling case of No Arms. Like their arch-nemesis Abaddon, they simply don't have arms to strike their foes with, or tie their boots, or give high-fives with an explosion in the background and a rockin' guitar riff playing. You know, essential manly actions. We're going to fix that. Step 3: Drilling Determine the point of contact for your magnets to meet. This is very important, as simply drilling willy-nilly will result in lopsided limbs and funny gestures from your tiny plastic men. Once you do that, grab the ol' pin vice and begin! BY THE EMPEROR THE PAIN! You will need to eyeball this a bit, and drill just far enough for the magnet to be flush with the outside; you don't want the magnet to be sticking out, as that would look silly and remove the illusion of a complete model. If you're like me, you'll forget and use the wrong drill bit and have to widen it just a tad. Just...let me die... He's such a good sport. Step 4: Gluing Once you have the hole carved out, glue that sucker in there. The...the pain has stopped...? The exact polarity facing out doesn't really matter much here, but if you want to be particular that's fine. My solution to it is to simply let another magnet fly towards it like a speeding bullet and sort itself out, then mark the bottom to where I want to glue it later. Ow! We're gluing a magnet on each side where we want his arms to go. While we let the glue dry, we do the same to the arms he'll be using, following the same steps as above. Wolverine stripes sold separately Once the glue dries, we grab the marked magnet and glue the marked edge towards the inside of the arm; this is very important, as if you glue the wrong polarized side facing out, the arm will fling itself away in disgust and curse you for all eternity. Not seen: my startled cat after limb recovery Set all parts aside to fully dry, and be sure to keep them away from each other or else they will very likely attract each other. And we don't want that, unless you like unexpected results in bio-engineering. What has science done?! Step 5: Profit! This is pretty self-explanatory. Once everything is dry, everything should fit together perfectly, or as close to it anyhow. You may need to grab a file and shave things down a bit to keep it nice and flush--you want full contact here for maximum strength. If you do it right, they should come out like this! We're gonna cut ya, sucka! And that's really about it! These are the bare-bone basics of magnetizing models, using common tools just about any modeller would have on hand, and works equally well on plastic, pewter, and resin models. You can get fancy with a dremel tool, which I recommend if you happen to have one as it can speed up the process a bit and make the holes much neater and more exact, but it isn't strictly necessary. Have fun and good luck!

http://www.reapermini.com/OnlineStore/hockey%20mask/sku-down/50037 He's the right scale for Malifaux, so it would fit. On the plus side he can also make a rockin' Flesh Construct with little work; replace the chainsaw with I dunno, picnic basket full of body parts or something.

Yes. http://wyrd-games.net/forum/showthread.php?t=23810 Just remember, each damage is a separate flip, not TOTAL damage, so a model would have to spend SS on each damage flip to prevent damage as well as any damage negation from Armor, etc. In addition, Hard to Wound does not apply since it's just a straight flip, not a damage flip (wording is important in Malifaux!)

Hoffman's "Maintain Machines" ability does not target a specific model. Ergo, he can Machine Puppet, Heal, Dance, etc. with Ryle at his leisure. http://wyrd-games.net/forum/showthread.php?t=20394&highlight=maintain+machines

I started with Dark Angels Green, with a wash of Thraka Green to get in any recesses I missed. After that, I mixed a small amount of Goblin Green in with DA green, adding more and more with each successive highlight until I hit goblin green hue; thereafter, I mixed in some Scorpion Green for another two layers, then mixed in Frostbite (Privateer Press, basically an off-white color with a faint touch of blue to it) for highlights, followed by thin lines of Frostbite in selective areas for a final highlight. Afterwards, I went into the deeper crevices with thin lines of Asurmen Blue wash to darken them a little. If you don't have Frostbite, white will work just fine, but you have to use slightly smaller amounts; depending on the white you have, it may be too strong.

So I got a new camera. Avatar Kirai. The tombstone says "Here Lies Francis" but I couldn't get a good angle to take a clear picture of. Pale Rider. I finished him a while ago but never got around to taking pics of. Snow Storm. Finished a couple weeks ago. The throne is from Reaper (drow sorceress), and it took quite a while to cut the old model out and fit Snow in there. Storm's mask is from the Chaos Defiler kit. Alternate Rasputina. Also finished a while ago (beginning to see a trend here?) Hand is from the Dark Age ice elemental, which was a left-over from when I did her Avatar; the book is a copy of the one from the Skaven Plague Monk set.

You're worried about his boots when his face looks like an old Chinese woman?

On the one hand, I like your repose of Nekima. No-nonsense "I am not going to bother with that crap" solution to an oft-lamented problem with that model. Makes me wish I'd thought of that. On the other, you need to thin your paints. Badly. It seems like you used the paint straight out of the pot which is a BAD thing; you need to water it down on a pallet until it's the consistency of milk and then start layering. Several thin ones, mixing in with lighter colors. Failing that, you can put on a layer or two of the base color and give it a wash of GW's Devlan Mud, since that's basically skill in a can (not a bad thing!)

I'll second the ice elemental as a solid choice for an Avatar Rasputina. Picked one up for just such a purpose. Fairly easy to convert too; the limbs are separate, as is the tail. The head is all one solid piece, and I'd probably recommend picking up something different unless you like bird faces. You'll really need to pin it too, since it's solid pewter and doesn't really sit well without it. But hey, slap a female torso in the middle and you're pretty much good to go.

Plaster of Paris will break pretty quickly if handled for any amount of time. You can mount it to baseboard or other sturdy material to extend the life of it, but eventually it WILL crack and crumble. Dental plaster isn't too hard to find if you look on Ebay or Amazon, and there's usually a local supplier or two who you can buy from; after all, what town or city doesn't have a few dentists around? It's worth spending a little bit more on material that will last a long time, since it saves you hassle in the long run.

I really, really hate painting Space Marines. Especially Blood Angels, since it's just a mass amount of RED which is both the easiest and dullest color to paint. Red marines, blue marines, all the same generic bald male empowerment fantasy. Might have pics up tomorrow, progress shots of a BA army I'm painting for a commission, and probably the Pale Rider which I finished weeks ago but never got around to taking shots of.