Picture this!

The Flesh Tearer marines are ambushed from the shadows by Death Skull Ork boyz!

It's been a while since I've updated this blog but I plan to change that soon. Very soon.

I decided a few months ago that I was going to box up my armies and only focus on painting and playing my Orks. While I didn't really box very much up, I did get some paint on a big hand full of boyz and lootas.

Then the new Space Marines codex dropped.

Wow! I was to dig my White Scars out of cold storage and begin painting and re-painting them for my updated list. Then I saw a cool batrep from Skardecast and painted on a few of my Dark Eldar. Then I found some Hellblasters I started months ago for my Salamanders and I thought their new codex will drop soon so I better finish those off... Now my desk is a big ol' pile of minis from various armies and I don't feel like I'm completing anything.

Focus dropped. Enthusiasm waned. I needed some motivation and while looking up some painting and modeling ideas on Instragram and Pintrest, I found a hashtag that was new to me... #blanchitsu.

Blanchitsu is the art of painting minis to resemble the fantastic artwork of John Blanche, who nearly single-handedly shaped the aesthetic of Warhammer and Warhammer 40k into the "grimdark." I've been following and devouring as much #blanchitsu as I can find. I've also decided that instead of repainting my White Scars, I'm going to blanchitsu-ize that army into a custom Space Marine chapter idea that I've been kicking around for a while - the Mechanical Angels.

A cohort of Marines, Ad Mech, and Imperial Guard were lost in the warp and have been fighting for decades in a far-flung corner of the galaxy, valiantly battling their way home. Things have not gone well for this army who is short on supplies, short on troops, and short on hope. These stalwart soldiers must adapt to overcome to continue to serve the Emperor but fortune has abandoned these forsaken souls. After years of prolonged warfare, the force is eventually whittled down to a single man, a lone tech marine. This broken hero goes to drastic measures to continue their mission and reanimates his brothers and comrades using technology gleaned during his training as an adept on Mars. 

The army he now leads is a scrapped together force of unliving, bio-mechanical soldiers, cannibalized from his brothers and the troopers of the Imperial Guard and Adeptus Mechanicus. These clockwork troopers are capable of facing any foe with the resilience of Imperium's finest who know no fear but can adapt to any other Space Marine chapter's tactics through the speed of digital thought.

"In death, your duty does not end," the tech priest whispers to himself as he reanimates his brothers into a construct that serves, in much the same way the Emperor himself continues his purpose even in death on Holy Terra.

I plan on painting the army mostly red, but I'll convert as many bionic components as possible onto the individual troops and vehicles. Using lots of weathering techniques and bits from the AdMech, I think this will give me a unique chapter that can be used as any Adeptus Astartes army, fit within the Blanchitsu milieu, and hopefully allow me to spread my mechanical wings as a hobby modeler and gamer.

Since the name, "look out sir" is being used by a blog and podcast that is far more popular than mine, I'm considering changing the name of this blog and/or perhaps expanding it to Instagram. Under a new brand, I should be able to post a lot of build WIP photos as well as pics of finished models; there seems to be a strong community already established that might like to see what I'm up to with my Blanche inspired creations.

I've also been really impressed with some of the "storytelling" Instagram accounts who are creating dynamic and amazingly converted table tops to show off their minis and tell tales set in the grimdark and I'd like to be apart of that community someday.