Pure Paper

Okay, the Doom Scythe is dead.

I’m shelving it indefinitely.  And when I say “indefinitely,” it’s like when you asked your parents if you could go to Disneyworld and they said “We’ll see.”  Everyone knew what they really meant.

Let’s be honest.  It was moving at a crawl, and with the extra stuff we all have to do around the holidays that meant it was insanely slow.  In another two months the real model will be out and a bunch of very talented engineers will put out spectacular paperhammer models that my scratchbuild won’t come anywhere near.

Plus, to be honest, I didn’t have a lot of enthusiasm for the project.  It was just something I started to capitalize on the current Necron popularity.  And there’s just too many other ideas that I really want to be working on for me to be mustering up fake excitement in the hopes of getting one or two more followers here on my geeky blog.

So next time I’m going big with another Apocalypse-level unit.  Inspiration came to me while building the Baneblade/ Plaguereaper.  More on that later.

For now... a detail tip.

I don’t know why, but purity seals have always sort of embodied Warhammer 40,000 for me.  Maybe it’s the idea of prayers and devotions being bound up as physical things.  Maybe it’s the stark contrast between science and faith.  Or maybe it’s just the fluttery ends.

Regardless, purity seals are a great piece of detail that make any model look better.  Even paperhammer models.  So when it struck me how easy it was to make them... well, I had to share.

I took my 1/16” punch and make a few holes in a piece of card, leaving a bit of space around them.  Then I took the 1/8” punch, lined it up over the 1/16” hole, and punched.  End result—a 1/8” disk with a 1/16” hole in it.  If the hole’s not perfectly centered, don’t worry about it.  As long as it doesn’t look drastically off it’ll be fine.

Helpful Hint- You need to do it in this order.  If you try to punch 1/16” holes in 1/8” disks, you’re just going to end up with disks impaled on the punch.  And you’ll shred them trying to get the off.  Start small and work out, not the other way around.

I made up about half a dozen of those and then made half a dozen straight 1/8” disks.  These got paired up with the “donuts” so I had a disk with a depression in the middle.  If there’s a little extra glue on this, that’s okay.

Next, I got some plain paper.  If you’ve got any scraps of typing paper from templates it’d be great.  If you’ve got something a bit heavier with a bit of  a grain (some junk mail comes on really nice paper), that’d be perfect.  I cut out a thin strip (under 1/8”) about an inch long.  If you want to be clever, you can cut a piece like a tall, thin hourglass, but make sure the narrow bit at the center is under 1/8” wide.

I crumpled the paper and carefully smoothed it back out.  This gives it a little more texture.  Then I folded it in half, but not perfectly.  I want the crease at a bit of an angle so the two “legs” hang a bit apart, like an upside-down V.  I put a very tiny bit of glue inside the crease, too, to keep it folded.

Then I just glued the paper to the flat side of the donut and voila.  Purity seal!

If you want larger seals for dreadnaughts, tanks, or scenery pieces, use the 1/8” punch to make the initial hole and a 1/4” punch to make the donut around it.  You could also make the paper longer (for either size) and try twisting it or putting waves in it.  There’s a good chance such things will show up next year when I try making a few Imperial vehicles again.

If you’ve been playing with the card “flats” that have had a run of popularity lately, this is also a cheap and easy way to bring those 2-D models a little more into the third dimension.  Cover the purity seals printed on them, or add extras.

All for now.  Next time... something big and very classic.  And probably following my usual leanings.