Almost there! Arms and cape attached, bases based. Left to do is matte seal, highlight metallic areas, the OSL effect for the plasma pistol, and a bit of ‘ard coat to shine up the lenses and jewels.
But the weather outside is frightful, erm a bit too cold to spray the sealer so might have to wait a bit.
I love my retro 40k army, an army that I mostly collected ~25 years ago but only was able to paint to my standards in recent years. I love the classic beakie armor and the bit of wimsy some of the sculpts bring to the grimdark. I love the Rogue Trader era. I love that almost every model in my army is entirely or largely metal, and I got them back when they still made them that way. I like the heft, they feel sturdy. (They say that people tend to associate weight with value.)
I HATE trying to drill into pewter though. Its super hard and takes forever. I was dreading it and dreading it, and sure enough, it was a pain.
I got through it, but not without problems.
This is another drill bit that was ruined. The other end is still stuck in Chappy's armpit, probably to remain there for a long, long time. To be honest, these drill bits have always had problems (maybe they were made for wood or plastic?) And they also seem too long for their diameter. I'd really like to improve this skill and gain the right info/tools, especially since I have a bunch of classic Grey Knight Terminators with a bunch of tiny metal weapons/arms to assemble. I think the bit was only 0.5 or 0.6mm.
So anyway, the hole I was drilling probably didnt need to be so deep, and even after I broke off the drill bit, there was still some hole depth that I could use to pin the arm with. I do worry that it is much weaker now, but not sure how to fix it.
Then on the other side I went with a bit that was much larger, and that came with the Army Painter kit that the pins came from. Seems at the larger diameter it would be less likely to break, and I was also hoping that maybe also it was for sure designed to be able to drill metal miniatures. I think I went with the 1.2mm bit. Anyway, it worked, but it seemed like I was drilling a crater by comparison. And it was really, really, really hard. Pewter is hard, and I was trying to be as gentle as possible to be careful with the paint etc. The real lesson is to drill everything before painting. I guess that didn't occur to me because I wanted to paint disassembled, but of course I could have at least drilled and maybe even prepped and saved off the pin somewhere to glue later. Welp thats why I'm here right? Write down these lessons so that I do it right next time.
Anyway, Chappy here is almost done, and since he is all about reciting litanies of hate, it seems appropriate that I recited some too while putting him together, ha!
As I mentioned in the last Chappy 'n Cappy update, I realized that I had used cool tones Dark Reaper and Vallejo Gray Blue for the armor edge highlights. The recipe I blindly followed was Giovanni Di Lena's presumably famous guide for black power armor. It was funny because in the back of my mind I was thinking I was supposed to use a modified formula, but I thought I had already modified it in my plan.
Turned out I hadn't. So when I got looking at my miniature, it looked off. From Jeremie Teboul's book I knew exactly the problem - color tones. At first I thought that maybe the cool tones of the armor and the warmer tones of everything else would be an ok effect to emphasize the difference between materials.
But, it kept bugging me. It looked off and it kept me up at night. So finally I decided I'd do something, but I didn't want to redo the most difficult edge highlighting stages, so I wanted to try contrast paint. On a hidden area where the arms are to connect, I tried several colors to try and tint the existing highlights. Boy did that not work! I mean, if I wanted a sickly green effect, or muddy rust effect then it would have been great, but none of the tinting effects were anywhere near the look I was trying to achieve.
So rather than agonize further, I just re-did it all with warmer colors. Specifically Vallejo Olive Brown instead of Dark Reaper, and a 50/50 mix of Vallejo Sky Gray and Vallejo Basalt Gray (because I should have a perfect medium gray in my palette but I don't) instead of Vallejo Gray Blue. The Olive Brown is definitely warm, and the gray is neutral, but definitely warmer than Dark Reaper and Gray Blue which are both cool tones.
Even though I made some errors and had to fix a few spots, it was worth the extra 4 hours. I have some before and after pictures that I've tried my best to match lighting and you can see the difference (I think), though in person it is very striking.
So it was inadvertent, but a really good lesson on color tone theory. I kinda wish I didn't practice it on this miniature, but I'm glad it turned out well and it now looks great!
PS: I changed how I did the highlights on the 'toes' which aren't straightforward. I saw how the reference GW model was done so changed it to try to match and they look better too. I think overall I did about the same job, some areas ended up a bit better other areas ended up not as good.
For as long as I have been collecting my miniatures I have been writing my own data sheets and creating army lists, even though it took decades to actually play a game!
As cool as it is to have some modern tools to generate army lists, it seems that none of the tools do a good job of tracking custom information about your miniatures, such as photos, or their battle history, etc. The bad news is that some community generated tools might be forced out while 'official' tools have even less functionality! (I hope this trend is reversed.)
So, years ago I had the foresight to capture as much information as I could about each game I played so that some day I could come back and compile it into a tool, if it were to ever come about.
Some day is today!
It isn't a perfect solution, but a tool that is used for Crusade Narrative style games might have enough of the features. I discovered Crusade Manager and it allows you to enter custom names, descriptions, and even portraits of your units/characters. Additionally, while it was designed for Crusade games, its a bit of fun to use the built in experience points and rank trackers to 'estimate' what my characters overall experience would be (as if every game is part of my own 'personal' crusade). Obviously I can't apply any crusade type bonuses to the battle-forged matched play type games or anything, but it's just fun to add my own narration to any random game I play in the future.
Maybe someday a better tool will come along for this, but for now this seems really great. The tool is free, though you do have to plug in data from your own codices (so that they don't get in trouble), but it seems ok. I'm plugging them just so that maybe others reading this might benefit or tell me if they have better ideas. Maybe the creators will add more features if more people use it this way? I dunno, but its fun.
By the way, I had already created the "Battle of Sigmatus" personal campaign for myself (which I won! Sigmatus was Saved!) but maybe some day I'll play an actual real crusade. I could even imagine playing a single narrative style game set in my 'personal crusade' and just allow the other player to pick some matching bonuses to 'catch up'. The possibilities are endless, and the company under Leo Faustus of the Ultramarines is Legendary.
Things did not go as planned this weekend, so the 40k game I hinted about got postponed. The upside is that I had almost 4 hours of uninterrupted time to paint! So, I made a lot of progress on Chappy 'n Cappy.
First, I largely finished all of the base layers (the only exceptions are the special effect areas on the power sword and plasma pistol). I completed the base layers for mostly bone and scroll using Zandri Dust, and then moved on to metallics. Most of my army uses golden yellow should pauldron trim which works really nicely with the blue. For the captain, I wanted to go with a metallic gold instead, especially since the sculpt seems to feature areas that look like they are intended that way. I'm going to do Vallejo Brass and then Old Gold highlights and Shining Gold edges. Or maybe Silver edges, might even be better.
I also finished shading. Its a little hard to see in the pictures. I think because I don't have the edge highlights on the chaplain yet, the camera has to really over expose to pick up the details, which then washes out the colors a bit. I really need a better setup to take pictures, maybe some day. You can see a bit of the shading really well on the blue pauldron under the wing.
After two years of sitting on the shelf, I've finally gotten back to Chappy 'n Cappy!
Maybe part of the reason that they sat around (aside from pandemic related laziness) was the fact that Chappy lost his iron halo. He got bumped and took a fall, which had me a bit steamed and so it was hard to come back. But once I did, it was mostly a relief to find it just seems that the glue joints became unattached, and I don't think there was any actual damage.
So I will paint the halo separately as with the arms and glue it all later.
The arms are quite heavy (being all metal), so I'll probably want to pin these.
Not much actual progress yet, just a bit more base coats of brown and blue, but after the work on the D&D minis, the Devastators, and the Dreadnoughts, I've refined my processes and have mapped out everything nicely in excel. I'm going to try to provide more updates on these as they go along.
I have a game lined up this week and I'm excited to finally play the assault terminators I finished up in 2019 for the first time along with my recently completed dreadnoughts. It will be a smaller game though (~1000 points) so I'll only be able to play one dread.
I've put together a list:
++ Patrol Detachment 0CP (Imperium - Adeptus Astartes - Ultramarines) ++
**Chapter Selector**: Ultramarines
Battle Size [6CP]: 2. Incursion (51-100 Total PL / 501-1000 Points) [6CP]
Gametype: Matched
+ HQ +
Lieutenants
. Lieutenant Aurelius: Adept of the Codex, Bolt pistol, Frag & Krak grenades, Master-crafted boltgun, Power fist, Rites of War, Stratagem: Exemplar of the Chapter, The Primarch's Wrath, Warlord
+ Troops +
Tactical Squad Vitus
. 7x Space Marine: 7x Bolt pistol, 7x Boltgun, 7x Frag & Krak grenades
. Space Marine Sergeant Vitus: Frag & Krak grenades, Bolt pistol, chainsword
. Space Marine w/Heavy Weapon: Bolt pistol, Frag & Krak grenades, Heavy bolter
. Space Marine w/Special Weapon: Bolt pistol, Meltagun, Frag & Krak grenades
Tactical Squad Quinn
. 7x Space Marine: 7x Bolt pistol, 7x Boltgun, 7x Frag & Krak grenades
. Space Marine Sergeant Quinn: Astartes Chainsword, Bolt pistol, Frag & Krak grenades
. Space Marine w/Heavy Weapon: Bolt pistol, Frag & Krak grenades, Heavy bolter
. Space Marine w/Special Weapon: Bolt pistol, Frag & Krak grenades, Flamer
+ Elites +
Dreadnought Eddy [Legends]: Missile launcher, Dreadnought combat weapon w/ twin Storm Bolters: Storm bolter 2x [Legends]
*NOTE this isn't in Battlescribe - because my model is so old. The closest has twin heavy bolters, but I'm going to sub for what is actually on the model so instead of twin Heavy bolters I'll do twin storm bolters and a combat weapon which is another profile.
Terminator Assault Squad Nox
. Assault Terminator Sergeant Nox: Thunder Hammer & Storm Shield: Storm shield, Thunder hammer
. 4x Assault Terminator w/THSS: 4x Storm shield, 4x Thunder hammer
. 5x Assault Terminator w/x2LC: 5x Lightning Claw (Pair)
++++Transmission: Adeptus Astartes Ultra++++
ORK INCURSION IMMINENT
Date: 6930021.M42
Location: Ultima Segmentum
Sub Sector: <PENDING>
MISSION BRIEFING
LIEUTENANT AURELIUS: You will assemble a patrol to intercept a xeno incursion.
HONOUR the chapter.
DEFEND the sub sector once the xeno incursion is pin pointed. Coordinates to be transmitted.
You will take TWO tactical squads.
BLESSED be the blades and hammers of the NOX ASSAULT TERMINATOR SQUAD - this elite force will be available.
GLORY to the ancient fallen battle brother 'EDDY' - Deredeo Class Attack Support Dreadnought - He will serve again and assist in this mission.
DESTROY THE XENO
MISSION: A mission from Eternal War - INCURSION
REF: 08J/20186-51538-038577000187
THOUGHT: For every battle honour, a thousand heroes die alone, unsung, and unremembered. RT 72
++++Transmission End++++
It seems for October its traditional to either paint Orks (Orktober) or to paint a dreadnought sized model (Dreadtober). I got a bit of a late start so its "Dreadvember."
Of course my Rogue Trader era Ultramarines wouldn't be complete without the classic 'Fury' and 'Eddy' originals and they have been sitting in my collection assembled for decades. Actually the story is that I gave them to my dad for his army (about half of my reclaimed collection today). He was actually to get both Dreadnoughts. He would have made out like a bandit in the deal. Anyway, he actually used a torch and welded these together. Oh, by the way, if you aren't familiar they are completely metal, either pewter or lead (don't remember when they switched). He did a pretty good job, they're fairly solid and only lost a little definition in one spot. I think it was an incredible feat, but I wouldn't recommend trying it unless you really know what your doing. We didn't!
Rogue Trader Furibundus Class Destroyer Dreadnought 'Fury'
Original Deredeo Class Attack Support Dreadnought 'Eddy'
Back detail
Of course the traditional Rogue Trader paint job wouldn't be complete without shark teeth, and I made sure to have them. I looked to all the classics and other paint jobs I could find for inspiration, but to be honest I think I did a pretty great job compared to those old ones. My paint job is similar to page 173 of the RT rule book and the one below, but I wanted to add more gold to match a bit more to my army scheme, so I went with some shoulder markings. I might go and add "DANGER" warnings to the gold panels or hazard stripes. But I can do that later, I wanted to get these finished up because I'll be playing a game soon!
Here's some of the inspiration:
More examples, gotta have the teeth! (none of these are mine, used without permission, if its yours let me know and I'll give credit!) You can see the one just above was also inspired by the ones that came before. May my Dreadnoughts be added to the archives and be forever remembered to inspire relics for millennia to come ;)
(This one is a classic and was from a GW 'eavy Metal article in White Dwarf, but not sure which)
The other day on reddit there was a discussion about the 40k setting that stuck with me. The original poster (OP) felt that GW should not advance a storyline that would disrupt the setting, and then proceeded to rant that if they hadn't already, they were dangerously close. I agreed with many points the OP made, but I was curious to see for myself how the setting has evolved since 1st Edition Rogue Trader days, if it was true that the setting had changed in fundamental ways, and finally to see if it was in peril.
Also, maybe most annoyingly, it seemed some people that had replied with statements about Rogue Trader that I thought were untrue - that it was just light and humorous and that we didn't see the 'true grimdark' until a few editions later. Let me dispel that one right away - Rogue Trader 1987 was the original grimdark: from the haunting illustrations by Will Rees and others to the black ships gathering up psykers to feed to the Astronomican and to the Emperor to keep things running - it was all there and quite disturbing for my 8 yr old self to have been reading back then (note: I don't remember when I discovered it, but I want to say it was around 1988 so I would have been about 7 or 8). For sure there was a lot more fun and humor to balance it out and maybe also establish that the whole thing was satire - something that I worry has been lost over the years - but I think the humor makes the grimdark the darkest.
But to the main questions - it would be impossible for me to go over everything written of course, so I focused just on comparing the 1st and latest (9th) edition 40k rule books which anyway do a decent job of summarizing 'the setting' - What has changed over all? Has the setting ever changed fundamentally? And finally, is there something that looks like it might push it over the edge?
So first what is the setting fundamentally? I would argue that it is the following:
And so that's about it. And its also summarized nicely on the 2nd page of Rogue Trader:
So yeah, that is the setting. How has this evolved?
1. Chaos and the Horus Heresy - This change was introduced very early in the Slaves to Darkness book. It seems according to Rick Priestley, Chaos was basically described in RT without using the word, so when they introduced Slaves to Darkness they filled in more detail but it seems the fundamental setting didn't change. Additionally, when it was revealed that there were traitors 10,000 years ago (with Horus as the most infamous) and so there are traitors today - it added a lot more background and slightly altered the reason for the Emperor being incapacitated and entering the Golden Throne - but perhaps that again doesn't alter the setting much. What it did do is provide some cool gaming material for players who only had imperial armies (which was very common in the early days). Now they could 'accuse' the each other as being a traitor - and so someone could use the Chaos rules to add flavor. It does seem there is less emphasis on the Inquisition rooting out uncontrolled psykers (to 'protect humanity' or actually just send to the black ships) or finding general corruption/non-compliance. Now everything that isn't the will of the Imperium is just Chaos Traitors doing Chaos things. It does tend to over-simplify things for people that dont deeply read/follow all of the material, but I guess that happens when you have a thing that goes for almost 40 years. I like how RT really invites you to expand the setting with your own ideas though, so in my head everything that occurs in RT still happens, but GW just doesn't focus on it as much.
2. More Xenos - In the early days it was the Imperium vs the rest. But there wasn't much else, a few orks and some space elves. But don't get me wrong, RT described a vast galaxy of Xenos - genestealers, Slaan, various warp entities (which as in bullet one got elaborated to mean Chaos Demons) - but aside from mentions there wasn't a lot to build on, and you had to piece together army lists for yourself. So, over the years we've seen factions fleshed out, and some reimagined (Oldcrons -> Necrons), and some new ones added. Honestly it's great, I've met several 40k players that never play as Imperials, and so I would say it hasn't changed the setting, just expanded it.
3. The Founding Space Marine Chapters - This one is a bit minor, but in RT they give examples of many of the one thousand chapters and highlight 12: The Blood Angles, the Blood Drinkers, the Crimson Fists, the Dark Angels, the Flesh Eaters, the Flesh Tearers, the Iron Hands, the Rainbow Warriors, the Silver Skulls, the Spacewolves, the Ultramarines, and the White Scars. But when they imagined the Horus Heresy they added in Primarchs and established the First Founding. Its really cool that the II and XI legions are redacted to give room for players to create their own chapters still, but it did limit the space a bit. Still it filled in a lot of details and such, but I'm kind of annoyed that the Flesh Eaters, Flesh Tearers, and Rainbow Warriors didn't get established as part of the First Founding. So I always considered them to be in there as well, but the records were damaged. Its interesting though because the iconography for the Flesh Eaters and the Rainbow Warriors got modified and used for the World Eaters and the Emperor's Children. Its also sad that the Crimson Fists - who were featured on the RT cover got demoted to a later founding in place of the Imperial Fists - but I think it was to get more colors into the color schemes. On the Primarchs - lets cover that in another point, but establishing Founding chapters and retconning some of them didn't change the setting much, just added content.
4. The Primarchs - These were added with Horus early on. Since they were dead and gone for a long time it just established more history and lore without changing the setting much. But by brining back Roboute Guilliman in 999.M41 - has that disrupted the Setting? Well maybe we can explore that more, I will say that I think the High Lords of Terra would find Robby G a threat to their power and status quo and so I would argue that he would get labeled as a heretic and that he wouldn't be able to get anywhere near the Imperial Palace - unless the Emperor does still have some power left? So anyway he gets promoted to lead the High Lords of Terra (Lord Commander and Imperial Regent, first among equals on the Senatorum Imperialis). Does this change the setting? Well no, because the High Lords of Terra already were running the show, and despite my skepticism that they would have allowed him in, it doesn't really change the setting in a significant way. One might argue that it adds hope, and that Robby G is a stand up guy and will lead to a brighter (ie less grimdark) imperium. But unless he switches off the Astronomican and unplugs his dad, then he's still sending 1000s of psykers into 'meet their god' everyday - which still is super dark and terrible.
5. Cawl and the Primaris - Ok this one is tough. Forever GW has taken flak for the scale issues with some of the miniatures. Specifically, Space Marines were basically the same size as Imperial Guard troops, but yet they were supposed to be supermen. And so people loudly wanted 'truescale' marines. What GW did was basically the best they could - they introduced 'truescale' Space Marines in a way that did not cause old armies (such as mine) to suddenly become invalid. But in order to have the units appear in the game together (but not mixed in units) they came up with this whole convuluted story of the Primaris Space Marine. To be fair, I think it was a fine line and I appreciate that they didn't void out my army that I spent literal decades collecting and painting. So the story is that Archmagos Cawl spent 10,000 years making superduper men. Would these Super Space Marines truly stand next to plain old firstborn marines and be accepted? Much like my point above, I think Roboute, and therefore Cawl and the Primaris, would be seen by a stagnant Imperium as imposters, traitors or Chaos tricks from the warp, or at least branded as such because they would be a threat to the High Lords. But, I dunno, if the Emperor still is able to influence things maybe he gave the nudge? Personally I like to think of the Emperor as Schrodinger's Cat - and its ambiguous if he is really alive or whether the Astronomican and Throne are just running on technology alone now. Does this fundamentally change the setting? I mean it does make me question a bit how the High Lords and Inquisition work to maintain this stagnant, unchanging imperium for 10,000 if this changes overnight. Also, it is curious that in a dark time of no technological advancement for millennia, we have this, but at the same time - it seems that the original RT book opened the door to studying Xeno tech and some advancement in technology for the very highest elites. So I would say this one is a fine line. Probably it breaks from some of the more rigid rules established in later editions of the setting, but RT was perhaps a bit more lenient in this regard - I mean they did let you just whip up any sort of hover tank you wanted, even ones made out of deodorant!
6. The Fall of Cadia and Eye of Terror becomes the Great Rift - This one is simple to me - does not change the setting at all. Yes events have happened, right now the Warp has expanded more into real space and cut-off a big chunk of the Imperium - but this is bread and butter 'the setting.' RT establishes that parts and even vast swaths of the Imperium have to deal with bad warp storms all the time, even ones that last decades or centuries. So, here it's happening. And last I heard, there is only war, so sometimes the Imperium loses battles (Cadia had a good run). In my head cannon I think that the Imperium loses a lot more than it wins, and it just keeps expanding to offset the losses, and news otherwise is pure Imperial propaganda. Also that Space Marines are stoic and brave, but are still no match for most of the stuff out there and lose a lot more than is let on (at least thats my tabletop experience haha). To me, this keeps things from getting stale, but doesn't change the setting. We're still on a knife's edge, beset on all sides, from within and without, etc etc.
So what have I missed? I'm sure I've missed some differences, but on the whole it seems after looking at the first and latest rule books, the fundamentals are largely the same, just fleshed out. Of course there's always the risk with any franchise that the IP owners will send it off a cliff, but even if they do, I still have my minis and all the old rule books, and so I can return to MY grim dark 41st millennium any time I want.
Didn't accomplish a lot of painting in 2020 and my Chappy n' Cappy project was on hold for awhile, but here in 2021 I'm getting back into it! After finishing up some minis for D&D, I decided to finish off these late 1st Edition Devastators and MkVs that have been sitting around primed and ready for probably decades.
First, the MkVs are the classic Jes Goodwin sculpt #070197/3 from the 1992 Green Citadel Catalogue. I mixed in some slightly more modern arms and weapons a bit (just bits I could find). Its really cool to see whole armies in modern Warhammer 30k that use a bunch of new poses in the 'retro' patterns - but this is the original!
The sergeant also features my first serious attempt to do 'object source lighting' (OSL) from the glow from the overcharged plasma pistol. It turned out really well, I focused on being very subtle. I should have read up and refreshed myself on the technique first - I had to redo it a bit because I forgot that the deepest areas were the brightest and you start basically in reverse.
Overall I'm really happy that I'm continuing to progress in finer lines and thinner paints. I'm seeing steady improvement as I go along.
The devastators are #070099/2 and #070099/3 from the 1992 Green Catalogue. All of these are technically 1st edition RT models, but very late since they aren't in the '91 catalogue and 2nd edition was released in '93. I know I bought the MkVs first hand, but not exactly sure when I acquired these two.
I continued with my classic scheme with red for most weapons. This was my first time working with Khorne Red and Mephiston Red from either Vallejo or older Citadel paints. Overall they are still thin and tricky, but I felt they were a bit better. I had a lot of fun with the magboots too.
These models were always a bit wonky and top heavy (the weapons are pewter) - attaching the weapon on top of the shoulder and nesting the backpack was not straightforward. I really should have pinned them, but I didn't. But, if they fall off then I'll pin them. Mainly, there's no guides for getting the arm/shoulder pad in the right spot, so I didn't want to drill into the wrong spot and have the arm end up having to be too low/high. But if they fall off then I think I'll be better able to see where to pin/repair.
These additions really were to add more options to my army, so I don't have to play these two unless I need a 2nd heavy bolter or lascannon (and I dont play often), so it should be fine, but it really does complete the classic look.
Back again after another pause. I decided to work on some more D&D characters to resharpen the painting skills after the break.
This time the character is an animated suit of armor that is under the control of our wizard and is part of our little band. We decided her name is Tiffani and she is a gentle giant. I was commissioned to create a model for her, and so I decided that her plate would look incredibly fierce and intimidating to further the comedic juxtaposition to her personality (she also doesn't speak, so we only get a sense through actions).
I immediately thought of Chaos Chosen Warriors from Warhammer Fantasy (now called Age of Sigmar.. I dunno). I had fun with it.
I actually worked on 3 concepts. One with contrast paint, and the other two with different paint schemes. I was going off some of the examples from the box which looked really good.
I'm not sure which one will be picked as the finalist, but I think there are two strong contenders.
I think the red one is my favorite. The theme was red and brass and I was really happy with how it turned out, and I also liked the helm. The practice with red cloaks was a great learning experience. Red is still really tricky to work with, both Vallejo and Citadel paints are very thin and watery in the middle red hues.
The blue one also turned out pretty great, it kind of had a frost theme going. I started the armor edging with Vallejo Natural Steel which is quite dark and has a blue tint. It was a bit too dark and didn't pop visually at a distance, so I went over it again with Vallejo Silver. The lines are a bit thick on the shield, but it looks pretty good at table top distance.
The contrast model was neglected. I think contrast is amazing for cloaks, fir, and fabric, which I think is pretty well established. For the armor, it was tricky getting the black/gray the right shade uniformly, and I'm not sure how to go about highlighting and adding detail/matching color. So it only took a quarter of the time to do and still came out pretty good, but it doesn't have the same level of detail as the others. But the fir and cloak look great. This is definitely the way to go for a horde army of beasts/skin etc (orks, skaven, bugs, etc).
I also painted them disassembled and it worked really well.
