Terrain is everything - Vent Tower pt 5. RESOLUTION

Suggestions still welcome for a new name for the 'Vent Tower'. I've managed to resolve all my issues with this building and expand it way beyond my initial concept and the end result is much better than I could have hoped for. There's far more detailing than any of my other buildings and considerably more thought, blood, sweat and tears gone into it's construction.

Here's the studded front door. I finally got some pins to stud the door with and they've come out really well. Can't say I'm convinced those hinges are functional but what you gonna do...? You can also see the roofing detail on the door arch. This will be copper/verdigrised like the Honored Imperium Statue [I'm looking forward to that!]. These strips were all done in card. I'd thought to use some plasticard strips so they wouldn't warp horizontally but cutting card was easier and the PVA saturates the card so it moulded to the curve of the arch whereas the plasticard would have always wanted to spring back to being straight. In the end there was little horizontal warping so it's all good.

Here's the fire port in the roof, so you could 8 people shooting from this building! Some detail work on the spires, more strips of card for the masonry work.

Use of the Ravenwing upgrade sprue to just add a Dark Angel vibe to the structure and not leave the surface so flat. Also a close up of the inside of one spire to see how my card work covered up some of untidy bits. Probably not the exact bits to cut and I don't know how to put this in the future STC [that bit may be left 'corrupted' in the template ;) ] but you can try and gather what was done. 

The other spire and how it was tidied up, a bit neater than the first. Also a close-up of the door if it helps. I also possibly need to trim some of the reinforcements on the base, you can see there's quite a gap between the bottom and the floor so a quick trim will resolve that. Still to decide if I should mount it on MDF. It'd be more stable and robust but part of me thinks it'd be better without.

Some more views in it's original 'stunted' state. Last time you saw this the two bar railing was only a Photoshop fantasy. You can also see where the template papers spray mount has delaminated. Sometimes it's necessary to pull these off. The tearing can also add a bit of texture.

Here's the extension...

... and here are the three separate components and their modular 'plugs' to fit them together [all masked up to prevent aerosols melting the foam core].

Ice Magic baby

A while back I was discussing the awesome Ice Magic rules for use by Tzarina Katarina, the Ice Queen of Kislev. And of course I expanded that to include Ice Wizards of any level with my Heroquest Ice Wizard.

Anyway, I thought I'd finally upload the rules so you can see what I was on about. So, what's cool? 

Power 1. Freeze Water. Allows you to freeze any body of water. An easy way to get across that river or tempt your opponent to do so only to hit it with a Bright Wizard spell which automatically unfreezes the water.

Power 2. Bridge of Ice. Transport a friendly unit up to 18" in any direction, even into combat!

Pwer 3. Chill Blast. 2D6 S5 hits up to 24" with no armour saving throws!

There's still some other cool spells but sadly none of these include the ability to coat your opponent in liquid chocolatey goodnees and then set rock solid in a couple of minutes immobolising them so you can despatch at your pleasure, YUM, YUM!

Terrain is everything - mo' mo' mo' fences

Here, we have a couple of steps in the fences. Below is where I was at after putting all the pale blue 'reflective' metal effect in place, the second set of pics show it better. I appreciate it may not be realistic but there's something 'right' about it and I think the result is really effective.

These two shots show the two styles of metal I produced. A single reflection and a double. The double may be more realistic but there was something about the single in it's cartoon boldness that just worked so I think 10 or 12 of the 14 fence panels are single style.

The result is something I'm so happy with I'm not sure whether to continue with the weathering. I like the idea of doing and I've certainly got enough fences that I could weather just half of them and still not end up with a mix and match on the battlefield that ended up looking odd. On the other hand much like having an entire army painted in the same style it's incredibly satisfying to see all 14 panels, plus their damaged counterparts in a box lid together so I don't want to lose that mass appeal.

To end here's the inspiration from the train station. Not quite as blue looking in real life but you can see there's plenty of marks, stains, rust and weathering that I could achieve with a watered down Tin Bitz, sepia and Devlan Mud washes and some brown and orange rust effects...

P.S. some electrified fence warning signs to add and having observed some rust on Llandudno pier on my holiday recently and just how random it can form I think I could get away with a few fence panels being rusted up and the remainder being pristine. If I ever get the urge I'll test my skillz!

Ravenwing bikers

As promised here is my Ravenwing setup. I'd got a couple of bikes with vouchers and stuff and then needed that third to form a complete squad. I was really lucky and an ebay 'win' gave me another four 2nd hand for less than the price of one new one! Of course with my Ravenwing upgrade sprue [which was around £4 on ebay too] I could prep these three and sell the three spare making them practically free! But I thought  'sod it, I'll have six of the beggars' and eventually ordered another upgrade sprue! 

I'm painting the bikes and riders separate so I can get in all the nooks and crannies, so far I've only added the boltgun metal and silver to the black undercoat. Going to add some sepia heat scorching on the exhausts [or maybe use Tin Bitz in places].

Still to work out the colouring, I'm confident on the highlights for the black I'm just worried about too many colours getting involved with the Ravenwings. I mean the Code has them white and that looks cool and I've options to do them a cool white with my Anita's Pale Blue or a warm/dirty white that will tie in with the Deathwing if I use a sepia and Devlan Mud bonewhite base for the wing but part of me is wondering what raven has white wings?

Here are the other three bikers still to be 'Dark Angeled up'. Can't seem to see a way to remove their helmets so I can replace them with the ones from the upgrade sprue. I'm also looking to arm them with flamers as they could do a whole lot of damage to a nid horde as the burn past. So that's another purchase! However, as I am also on the look out for two missile launchers for my Devastator Squad and the new ones won't fit my 80's retro models and the 2nd gen ones were rubbish I may go all nu-school retro with this from Forgeworld. Although I don't like the old flamers but I may end up selling them to replace with the plastic ones... of course waiting to purchase these puts the painting on the back burner for now unless I work out a way to carry on without their guns in place, I mean it is only two of them.

WFB - Home made Empire War Wagon

Penguin: ... But a little patience - and a LOT of tape - make all the difference.

So here's my homemade Empire War Wagon. I took the flat views of the original model, traced them and then photo-copied by 150%. Used the photocopy on balsa wood. Then for all the armour scales I used 'chads' that's the name of th small circles of paper/card you get out of a hole punch. Hundreds of them positioned one after the other. Lollipop sticks were used as the axles, they've since broken through the balsa wood lower frame but I still think it's cool.

Extreme highlighting in mass effect once again. My Light Wizard Ninja Accolytes getting in on the action and matching the colours scheme once again

A close up of the 'Hot Wheels'.

Terrain is everything - mo' mo' fences

Through the magic of Photoshop I give you an image shot at night! Can't say I can always colour correct quite as well as this but for once it's turned out alright. So here's 6 feet of fencing [with another foot already based and undercoated]. At this stage I had to glue all the sharp sand and create some ripped fences but it was all coming along smoothly.

Fast forward a few days and here we are with the basing complete. Undercoated black and Early Learning Centre black poster paint basecoat [for a bit of texture] with a Red Oxide coat for the floor and Rockcrete pillars, followed by my Vermilion Art Acrylic drybrush [or more like a 'drybuff' the way that it polishes up the matt spray paint].  

What's missing from this set of pics was where I masked off the fence areas with some paper and clothes pegs to hold it in place. This was to ensure there was a nice black edge to the fence when I came to paint it pale blue. Of course I forgot about the 'spill' from the dry brushing process but I think perhaps having that mottled effect may well enhance the blue fences as it'll be going on areas of black and the red which is lighter so it should make a realistic effect [fingers crossed].

Of course I will still try and cut in some black at the edges but there's still a couple more highlights to add to the red planet basing scheme before I can do the fence. The ripped fences worked well n'all.

'nids part 21. Tyranid Prime Tutorial, part3

Here's the latest update to the new Tyranid Prime. He's had all his basecoats put on - Bonewhite, blue and liver. Gryphonne Sepia and Devlan Mud washes to follow.

Here you can see it with it's close assault brother, hopfully illustrating the slight variety in the pose due to his brother having two left legs and mounted on a proper GW base, with slate effects.

Tyranid Prime V2.0 | part 1. | part 2. | part 3. | part 4.

WFB - Kislev Winged Lancers and their Queen

There's an element of sadness to these pcitures because Kislev is no longer welcome in the World of Warhammer. It features in some of the books but you can no longer represent our comrades beset by the forces of chaos, holding back the tide before it reaches it's Empire cousins. Not that I play WFB but I think it's an odd decision especially when you consider the penchant for different types of Imperial Guard. I mean if you can have your Catachan Jungle fighters, Cadians, Death Korps, Vostroyans, Mordians and more surely there's room for a little room for our Russian-alikes [not to mention Cathay and Nippon]?

Anyway here's a mix of Kislev Winged Lancers and some horse archers to bulk out the unit. They were 25pts each, 14 pts cheaper than your Reiksguard and maybe not as heavily armed but a cheap alternative cavalry source.

A close up of some of the lancers, flat colours again to pick out bits and give it that 'cartoon' look. Note the Braveheart style tattoos on the standard bearer.

The three horse archers I used to bulk out the unit. Seems like an odd selection now, 4 lancers and 3 archers what blister packs/box sets was I buying at the time?

I liked the jade balls on the lances, they matched the Ice Wizards staff. Those lead [pb] lancers are very easily bent by the way, as you can see! The Lancer pelts are also quite cute, some little 'big cat' that looks like it's road kill!

A view of their backs so you can see the winged bits and the not ineffective highlights on the Lancer pelts

And lastly we have the Ice Queen herslef - Tzarina Katerina. I'm sure I mentioned my original plan was to have her on some shop bought Polar Bear as bears were an optional mount available from the 'Imperial Zoo'. It would have reduced her movement, and the Lancer unit to which she'd be attached, by a couple of inches but it would have been cool [don't know where those rules are though, think it was in the WFB 4th edition rulebook].

WFB - Ninjas, Light Wizard Acolytes

I believe I've talked about my brother's collection of GW ninjas a few times. Obviously these were originally painted black, although my favorite one, the ninja in the centre did have a 'stars and stripes' motif, a la 'The American Ninja' film [although I may be mistaken]. If you recall I thought I'd re-purpose these for use as my Light Wizard Acolytes so they all got a Humbrol Acrylic Matt white costume with elements of red, blue and yellow, much the same as the Light Wizard colours of the time.

Here's a few from behind, although when would anyone get the chance to sneak up on a ninja?

Here's the pyramid formation which makes the Light Wizard's spells more effective

So, some old school Ninjas, before the ancient and mysterious realm of 'Nippon' was exorcised from the Warhammer world!

I'm Back!

Well, I have been since last Friday. The wife decided to come back a day early because she was going to see Adam Ant in concert on the Saturday and didn't want to be driving back on the day when she had to 'tart herself up' for the Prince Charming his-self.

The holiday was OK and I did manage to get some 40k related goodness:

There was a discount bookstore in Llandudno that had a 3 books for £5 offer so I picked up these and to follow up my Clive Cussler obsession I also picked up these:

So I've plenty to read over the next few months. On my return I was also chuffed to find DoW: Dark Crusade - an ebay 'WIN' for the grand total of £1.99 [although I actually thought it was Soulstorm I'd bought?] a damn sight better value than any Fine Cast at the moment. As mentioned before my graphics card really isn't up to DoW2 so I thought if I went for a DoW supplement it'd play successfully and I could postpone DoW2 play until I could afford a card that would support it.

So I've pretty much been 'owned' by this, pulling in some 1:00 am and 1:30am sessions, which is odd as I was aching to paint while I was away, I didn't take the Prime in the end. The single player scenario is less defined as it tries to cover 6 races instead of just following the Blood Ravens. However, it's got an element of 'Risk' about it with a map to conquer and resources and upgrades similar to DoW2 [the bits I like about the sequel]. I've also got my son interested in it and he arbitrarily chose Necrons for his campaign, though it's painful watch his attempts

So with this so much an obsession at the moment I'm not sure where it puts the 'gaming/modelling/painting' side of things, and there's not much I can report back to you about this sort of gaming. I've a bucketload of pictures I took of some of my other bits and bobs - the remainder of my Epic stuff, Dwarves and some of my earliest figures ever. So there's still a fair amount of content to come, I'm just fearful that at some point I'll run out of steam, but I said that about five months ago and I'm still going...

WFB - 'Epic' home made Empire Steam Tank

'Blasphemy' may be the word coming to mind right now but at the time this made absolute sense to me. I wanted an Empire Steam Tank but didn't want to 'fess up the moolah'. I had a Capitol Imperialis knocking about that I was never going to use, I think they were just too darn slow, and too expensive for only 4 Void Shields, if I remember correctly. 

So with a new paint job, a couple of pen lids, some Milliput, some bits from an old World War 2 tank model and yes part of a head from my old friend the Blood Bowl human poking out of the 'turret' my 'Epic' home made Empire Steam Tank was born.

Here's a close-up the Blood Bowl human poking out of the 'turret'

Lastly, another shot of that glorious OTT highlighting, this is how you paint Eldar nowadays, or so the tutorials show me. Might be a little more subtle though...

Better off Dread - Dark Angel AoBR Dreadnought Update Update

Brother Cask. I've decided. His name is brother Cask. He wears a fez, like Tommy Cooper and Coopers made casks for ale. Anyway, just a  quick update in that he's had the Okhide Shade foundation put on. I'm liking it but I'm still feeling trepidation about the whole DA green [yes, still!]. I haven't quite fixed my 'painting solution' in my head, just where do I go from here? Badab Black wash, then highlights or highlights and then Badab Black. Do I look to add a green wash to try and fix any poor highlights? As I've said Marines are different to Nids there's more perfection in their man-made armour so poor painting is gonna burn me!

On the positive side I've decided to attempt battle damage on these to cover up any imperfections and I notice on some of the Dawn of War artwork that the Blood Ravens armour has a look of being hand painted [possibly by the marine] so there is room for variations just so long as it looks like it's done by the model and not some giant hand that's painted a miniature, if you follow. Still got to deal with the edges of the casket too, possibly gonna go gold as well on this...

And I'm still in love with the back view, it's like a little 'surprise' when you get behind it as it's all metal, no paintwork.