Black Library launches digital magazine

Continuing with their free eBook Fridays, the Black Library released the first issue of the Hammer and Bolter. I had quick 'page' through it, and looks like an interesting read. It's packed with short stories and excerpts of novels from both the Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 universes, plus there is an interview with Nick Kyme, author of the Tome of Fire Trilogy.

In the interview Kyme mentions being busy with Fall of Damnos, an Ultramarines novel to form part of the Space Marines Battle series. In addition he has plans to tie up the loose ends and finish his Salamander trilogy with Nocturne, and has ideas for a Horus Heresy novel.

Of the few Black Library authors whose work I have read (and need to write reviews about), Nick Kyme has got to be one of my favourite. I'm looking forward to the release of these titles in the near future.

Progress Report: Day 1

About two and a half hours of today were spent cutting and gluing together bits of 160gm card. Since this is my first attempt at papercraft I decided to start with the relatively easy looking backpack. The main portion, as well as the four vents were completed and set aside to dry. I then moved on to start the spaulders/ pauldrons. Here's a look at what I have so far:

Wire frame highlighting pieces completed to date.

In the next day or so I hope to finish the nozzles of the backpack and the trim of the pauldrons. I'll upload a picture or two of the actual model too.

What the paper marine will look like

Today I finally finished customising the texture file for my paper marine. All in all there there were only eleven modifications (see picture below). Despite these being only subtle differences, it still took quite a bit of time to get right. In the end, I used portions from other textures from several other chapters provided with the original download, and made a few 'free hand' modifications too.

Default Salamander texture (left) & my custom texture (right).

I've included pictures of the wire frames generated by Papakura Viewer so that you may see the differences between my texture and the one supplied, and so that I could show you what (I hope) the final model will look like. The only additional change I intend to make now, is to swap the shoulders around.

Guess it's time to find some paper and print my marine...