Terrain is everything - Honoured Imperium pt4.

Back to our Space Marine Statue of Matt Black: Former hero of the Imperium, noted for his valiant efforts against the Orks on Taurshaln (I don't know any of the actual worlds where Orks invaded). Eventually succumbed to spore poisoning, and is now believed to be known as Dok Graftbitz. Thanks C'nor (Outermost_Toe) for that history lesson.

So, having finished off his Red Planet based plinth I used my new found friend Tin Bitz as a metallic basecoat. Whatever level of verdigris I'm going to put on there will be some level of transparency which will show through this metallic colour.

Now I may have missed a few steps here [you don't say] but I think I did quite a thin mix of my Anita's Acrylic Turquoise and some black then some light overbrushing with the Turquoise and then mixing a bit of white into it for a second set of streaks. This paint has a very matt finish, it tends to have good opacity but if 'worked' a little bit with the brush can have areas of transparency and areas of opacity. It's why it worked so well on the 'nids in that you are never going to get areas of 'flat' colour in the natural patination of the 'nids.

The verdigris is also natural in that it weathers over time so this mix of transparency levels works and the great thing is that as it naturally streaks you can get away with all sorts of levels of brushwork. Once I added in some stain streaks using Devlan Mud it started to really come alive. The whole model is incredibly matt and dry to the touch, not sure if that has anything to do with the black poster paint basecoat but it really has the feel of some of the heavily corroded verdigris I've had the chance to observe recently.

All that's left now is to paint the skull on the plinth, add some more highlights to Matt Black and touch up the Devlan Mud stains but I'm really pleased with it. It may not be perfect and it may not quite follow the tutorial that I used as reference but I reached a point I'm happy with using the skills I have to do something different but not a million miles away from my what I usually do.

Belial and the Deathwing

I mentioned a while back that I'd noticed I'd forgotten to showcase my option for Belial. This is an original Librarian model and when I looked in my Codex I was going to run him as such and suggest his 'force weapons' just looked like Lightning Claws. Then I read that Belial didn't have a model and could have LCs so I thought I gad the solutions. There's still some work to go but this is how he was left, incomplete, many moons ago. You'll notice the Humbrol Acrylic Gloss that was wet blended into the orange

Below you can see how I naïvely wanted to accentuate the reinforced with green. Too much Bilious Green I think.

Another shot of his pose, the bledning looks a little better on the claws [if a bit chipped] can't decide whether to paint over it completely or use it as a base and do any highlights from this point. One other missing element is his base, Yep, he's on a base but it's the 'old-school' size. I have a new one but because the old terminators are slightly smaller I need to add in a sheet of slate to make Belial that little bit taller than the rest of the squad. He'll look great when he's done. Ideally a banner on his back would be good but I don't think I'd be able to secure it properly without snapping off constantly. 

Below are my AoBR Terminators in their Bonewhite first coat. Sadly I don't have a comparrison short with my Belial model so you can see the slightly larger scale. These guys will follow the Tyranid Bonewhite painting scheme I've adopted so next up will be some Gryphonne Sepia...

More from my mate Liam - Flyers

My mate Liam, he of the scratch built Warhound and Warlord fame has kindly sent through a number of new photographs to share with you all. Here's 4 scratch built landspeeder hibreed (fully inclosed). Now I'm going to have a chat with him about if he has plans for these so we can all get our own pseudo-Ravenwings up and running on the cheap-cheap

Coming up next is his scratch built thunderbolt fighter

And lastly 3 scratch built lightnings

Hope you enjoy, I've got another beast of a shot of his Warlord and I'll ask him for some WiPs so you can see his moddeling mastery in all it's raw detail. Please leave any comments so I can pass on what you think. Stay frosty!

'nids part 18 - Hive Tyrant

It's been a while since I showed off some my son's tyranids. I've actually got quite a lot of group shots to showcase the whole hive but thought I'd just fill you in on some of the individuals. This here hive tyrant was another impulse purchase on ebay last year. Itt was another bargain, I won it for £10 with £3 p&p which is less than half price! He originally came with Mechrite Red Chitin and the body was a much darker base than I would usually start with for my bonewhite but I persevered. Armament wise this setup may be a mistake. Lash Whip and Bonesword yes, but a Heavy Venom Cannon. I've read some bad reports [see below] on it and given the -1 to the vehicle penetration chart it isn't quite the anti-mech we need but we really have very few options anyway so we'll take what we can get.

There's still a bit more painting to do on the Lash Whip and Bonesword and Heavy Venom Cannon. Some extra highlights need to be in place. Of course if I were to follow Ghoulios advice at legiominimus: 

"The Venom Cannon is the worst gun in the game period. In 14 games with this book I have stunned a very small handful of tanks and on the 14 game I did my first bit of damage to a vehicle and that was blow off the battle cannon from a defiler. The worst part about it is you think you MIGHT be able to do something with it instead of running the big man up to get into combat where he will actually do something. Right after my last game I actually pulled both venom cannon arms off both tyrants right there."

I may well reconsider his armament, here I see the advantage of magnetizing...

A view of his back armour plate sand more spots and stripes.

The other side view.

Better off Dread - Dark Angel AoBR Dreadnought

Once again my evening photos leave a lot to be desired but waiting for daylight is the difference between having content or not. Anyhoo, here's my AoBR Dreadnought. So far it's an undercoat, Boltgun Silver and a Badab Black wash but I also did a little kit-bashing which you should just be able to make out. The Multi-Melta has been bored out, and not with one of those namby-pamby 1mm drill bits, this thing looks meaty now, which is how it should, in my book! I also used some of that plastic strip you get loads of in kids toys, usually attached to wire that holds the toy to the packaging. Here it's a girder which should look cool poking out of the re planet dust.

You should also be able to make out the Dark Angel chapter badge on his right leg. This is from the Ravenwing set. I got a really good deal on a complete set of upgrade parts for the two bikers I'd got. Although I needed a third bike to complete the squad and was able to get a set of four on ebay for the same price as a brand new one from GW so now I need a new Ravenwing upgrade sprue! Anyway, the wings were bent a bit and it was glued in place a little too much glue but at least there's no gaps.

As I am still suffering the fear of Dark Angels green I thought I'd go mainly metallic on the back, with only the front armour green. Still not sure, can't decide if I should make the exhaust manifolds also green or gold. Lastly I put another Dark Angel chapter badge on the corner of his left arm. I split the wing so it wraps round. It'd have been nicer to have the sword actually wrap the corner but nye on impossible so this is a decent compromise.

Think he may need a banner though so I may invest in the Dark Angels Chapter Upgrade Frame now it's gone up in price, which would actually allow me to make use of the two metal Terminators I have that are short of a few weapons...

Terrain is everything - Honoured Imperium pt3.

Back to the old Honoured Imperium terrain. I'd be remiss if I didn't point out I actually got to this stage in around 24-48 hours, I'm not sure. I pretty much got carried away with it, really enjoying the process, again, because I knew what I was doing. This was because it's all just Red Planet basing up to here, click on the link if you want the full details.

As you can see the Aquila has also benefited from a Leather Brown base coat which I'm going to build up to Bonewhite.

The ruin is pretty much done, I'm not sure whether I want to pick out too much detail. I like the GW buildings but most of my buildings are scratch built and I don't want this to draw attention to the fact it's clearly not of the same design aesthetic. So long as I just stick to the same colours I should be able to let it blend in seamlessly with my other building/ruins.

Oh Lordy, that Red Planet effect is 'sweeeeet'! It's come out so well I can't believe it. Additionally I've added a thin coat of Black poster paint to the Statute. The Matt Black was a bit too smooth and I wanted to add a bit of texture for the verdigris to cling too. I think I also glued him together at this stage. Everything is looking rosey.

Meanwhile today is the day of the Kendo Seminar I've organised and tomorrow is the day of the British Kendo Association Kyu Grade [beginners] competition [although I'm too experienced to enter, I'll be refereeing]. So I'm gonna have sore feet and a sore throat and probably all sorts of other sore things!

Terrain is everything - 40k Hex tower 2.

Here's one of my oft delayed terrain pieces. You can probably tell reading through it that there was a lot of improvisation going on and as the piece developed ideas about how to make this even more versatile cropped up, hence the delay because I never got round to creating the STC. I'll get there in the end don't worry but meanwhile you'll just have to enjoy the process and the inspiration.

After I made the 40k outpost, that got bigger and it's attendant tower the next addition to my scenery collection [way back when] was inspired by 'found materials. We get large scale plotter paper at work and these rolls have plastic endcaps as shown below

So I wanted to build a platform based around this end cap, here's the sketch:

A hexagonal base was made and stuck to a CD [no warping card this time]

Then, foamcard was used for the walls and granny grating for the base. A hole was cut in the centre to allow a lift to come up from the base [still to do]

In the process I realised if I split one of the walls I can create walkways to connect more of these babies together. Here's the removable section

 

I have some different sized end caps which will add some variety and I may add some variety in height so I could potentially stack some of the platforms [if they come without CD bases]. Alternatively the hex tower can fit in the centre, but it'd look kind of odd.

I've still to prepare the walkways but I will be using foamcard and granny grating for the base of those and walls with the same pattern.
Here's the slightly smaller one

A view from above which shows that the smaller printer end cap is not closed, so you get a nice see-thru effect through the granny grating.

A possible layout using the removable wall plates. Still need to complete some walkways but it's quite versatile already, although probably too much for my small table.

Here's a figures eye view showing the completed doors.

Quite a lot of pics there, so I'll post the painted ones another time. As I mentioned before the STCs for these are still in development. I wanted to add an internal hexagonal column that would be the same height as the corner pieces. This would allow the stacking of the platforms. Additionally I have the advantage of the printer end caps, providing extra bits for you to make your own floorplate within the template is another thing to consider. I'll get there though.