Nurgle Flying Thing - assembled

Aplogies for the blurrines of the pics but the batteries in the camera are nearly dead, meaning not enough juice for Macro.
Anyway, here it is with all the meat put in. I've copied the original in that there's cabling inserted in a coupla places but you should also be able to see that i've added some cocktail sticks.
Figure these'll be metal spikes pointing down - a detterent for anyone thinking of jumping up to attack it as hovers by.
I've included a rear shot to show how i figure it moves - sucking in air through the vents of the motorbike thingies and expelling it through the 4 holes in its "arse".
Kinda fart power i guess.

Nurgle Greater Demon

Have spent all morning sorting my Den out, dusting, tidying and bunging stuff up in the attic that i don't care to see for quite a while.
In doing so, i came across this Big Boy - a vinyl kit of a baddie from the Guyver anime that i built and painted somewhere back in the late 80's i guess.
I've always loved the design, especially the pinhead face in such a huge body.
Anyway, that face and the rhino-like horn coming out of the head reminded me an awful lot of this Nurgle demon my friend Andy had sculpted and very kindly gave me a few years back.
Still not having any spare dosh, and still fired up on GW stuff, have decided to repaint him in a Nurgle colour scheme.
And here's where i am right now with it dusted down and a coat of primer on.

Tyranid Lictor - done

Here's both fellas all done.
Also included pics of the Lictor alongside the Malanthrope that inspired its colour scheme and it with some Genestealer Hybrids i bought and painted when they first came out in the 80's and didn't have the confidence to go my own way with colour schemes.

Nurgle Flying Thing

So its a go on this beastie then.
Top two pics are views of the basic hull shape glued together. The glue has taken well to the wheel assemblies to the egg as i've pinned them with cocktail sticks, less so with the egg to Harrier part.
But in the third pic you can see i've started with the fleshy bits.
First i put a layer of Green Stuff around the inside of the join between the two pices, bunged in the rough Bacofoil shape (which held fast thanks to the VERY stickiness of freshly blended Green Stuff), put in the armament (a Ker-Plunk straw, a bit of aluminium piping and the big barrel being a part from a pen) and some more Green Stuff to help attach the two parts and around the gun parts and clear acrylic rod that i'll be using to hold it aloft.

Maybe a Nurgle flying thing.

So, all fired up on Games Workshop 'cause of my little Tyranid project, i've been having a trawl through the GW Website.
Not too much to float me boat there.
But their Forge World offshot is a different matter...
And, as usual, the prices are WAY out of my range.
Was rather taken though by this flying thing though, especially by the combination of (rather old and rusty) technology with a living biomass, along with two out board hold-the-thing-aloft thingies.
No spare dosh right now - and i figure i will get one at some point - so, for now, thought it might be an idea to do a riff on the concept.
A quick trawl though me bits box got me the following:
A cowling from the engine of the Airfix 1/24th Harrier,
half a plastic egg that housed a toy,
and two wheel assemblies from a Macross kits.
Will glue them together and see what i come up with before deciding whether its worth it to continue.

Sov Judge - done

Slab Ship - pastelled

All pastelled and, as usual when i pastel white, looks crap. Far too, er, pastelly. Hopefully that'll change though once i start dirtying it down properly with washes.

Fergee - to paint or not to paint?

Came across this fella up in the attic. He's one of Judge Dredd's allies and comes from the early 80's when Forbidden Planet were selling a range of 70mm Dredd figures.
The quandry is: do i leave him in this colour scheme (all Humbrol paints, done back when i didn't know what i was doing) as an example of what i could do then - or strip it back to bare metal and make, hopefully, a better job of it.
By the way, i've put Fergee alongside a Foundry Minatures Dredd to show how much bigger they were. And the Foundry figures (at 28mm) are a bit bigger than standard 25mm minatures.
Don't know why the went bigger in both cases - maybe both didn't want folk to build/display/play/convert with other companies figures?

Tyranid Lictor - nailed it.

Yup, that's what i did alright - used watered down Tamiya Clear paints, mixing together Green and Red for a nice icky colour and varying the proportions to give different effects.
I've used more Green than Red on the Genestealer though just to make them a bit different.

Tyranid Lictor - going wrong

Well, i certainly didn't use inks on the Malanthrope then...
First pic is after i'd put on some watered down "Flesh Wash" ink. That showed up a lot of the detail and warmed up the basecoat - but wasn't anything like what i wanted. The Malanthrope has some fleshy tones in there but they're really icky. So, in this pic i've drybrushed with the Bleached Bone to take it back a bit.
Next pic is after using Green Ink. Again, it showed up the detail was was far TOO green and nothing like the shade i'd done before. And again, i've pulled it back with another drybrush.
Okay, if i didn't use inks there's only one other choice i'd have used - watered down Tamiya Clear Red and Green.
And that's what i'm gonna do after typing this.

Sov Judge - nearly done.

Okay, face all done, hair done, reds done, leather done, gun done. I've put a grey/blue on the inside of the cloak as if i'd just used black you'd never see the body.
Next up is the outside of the cloak which'll be black but am planning on different finishes on the panels to break it up a bit.

Tyranid Lictor

So, have braved the local Games Workshop store to have a look at that new plastic kit built up and in the flesh. Yep, its nice and big and i think worth the 30 quid. Trouble is, right now, if i had that amount of spare dosh i'd rather get 2 Blu Ray's from HMV or a new pair of combats.
Instead, to tide me over, i got this here Lictor which was a much more affordable £12.00.
Assembling was the usual bloody nightmare these days of sticking it together - no brand of superglue works on the stuff so its a case of using Araldite. But because of the pose and the weight of the limbs, each part had to be glued seperatly and allowed to set before moving on to the next one.
Anyway, finally got it done and it comes out real well. I've chosen to have the lower arms splayed out and the top spikey things away from the head to enable a clear view of that fantastic face and the luvverly chest detail.
Top pic is it assembled alongside a plastic Genestealer thats been sitting in my Space Hulk boardgame box for about the last 25 years.
Reason i'm going to paint him as well is i want to do the same colour scheme that i did for my Malanthrope but i made that so long ago i've forgotten what i did. So figure i can experiment on the 'Stealer first before applying it to the Lictor.
Second pic is them primed up in grey. Trouble is, i'll be using Bleached Bone for the basecoat and thats notoriously tranluscent and if i didn't apply this here drybrush of Skull White then it itd look kinda dull and muddy.
Last pic is the BB drybrushed over the White.

Slab Ship - ready for dirtying down

Here she is wityh details picked out, decals on and some red pin striping added. Needs a coat of matt varnish to get rid of the gloss and make a nice surface for the pastels next step.

Original Star Trek on Blu Ray

Got this just recently- and its been a revelation.
Not only because they've remastered the show by going back to the negatives, cleaning them up and doing a fautless transfer (although the frequents change of film stock and switching to soft focus is VERY obvious here and rather jarring).
Not only because they've replaced the somewhat ropey effects (seen now) with CGI equivilants - although you can thankfully choose between original or revamped versions of each episode.
But mainly its because, what with the endless movies and even more endless TV derivitives, i'd forgotten what a GREAT show it was.
Its been at least 20 years since i've watched any of Series 1 and its a real blast to re-discover them.
Best so far has been "What Are Little Girls Made of?", with the brilliant bad guy in Ruk, played by Lurtch off the Adams family, but also that indelible image of Kirk and a lump of clay on the ever rapidly spinning turntable, in order to make an android duplicate.
But next up is "The Corbomite Maneuver", my favourite ever episode.
Can't wait.

Maybe a Tyranid

Bought the latest White Dwarf as its a Tyranid special. Always liked the beasties, even though they're a blatent Giger rip-off.
Turns out there's a new bad guy in town - this here plastic kit. Its a bit pricey, at 30 quid, but you do get a load of parts enabling you to make it in tons of different ways.
And, as usual with Games Workshop figures, you have to look beyond the rather crappy colour schemes to the sculpting underneath.
No more so than with these guys. Some of the choices of pallette are downright Disney-like in apperance and you have to wonder what they heck they're playing at. You've an unstoppable Aliens-esque race and they're white, pink and purple????
Pffttt.
Anyway, if i do get one i'll be going with the colour scheme that i used here on my Tyranid Malanthrope.
I came up with this as its an incredibly detailed resin casting from Forge World and i used inks as i felt i wouldn't be able to drybrush in all the hard to reach places.

Dredd Badge

Just got one of these beauties - full scale, super shiny and dead heavy too. And a snip at under 20 quid.
Recommended.
Available from:

http://www.termight.co.uk/

Slab Ship - white.

Right, here she is coated in "Peugot Alpine White", a nice yellowy-tinted shade.
Over that i've picked some panels out in Skull White, then outlined all the panels with a 2B pencil.
That makes it look knida crap, but i've found that when using pastels for dirtying down - which i'll be doing - if i don't outline the panels first in a dark shade, everything looks very wishy-washy.

Slab Ship - all grey

Okay, wanted to see how things look so attached the ship to this box with some cocktail sticks and coated it with Halfords Grey Plastic Primer.
Its done the trick in that its pulled everything together and given it some "weight".
Also brought a few probs to light that i'll have to deal with before moving on - a few gaps and some panels which have buckled or raised up a bit.

Slab Ship - almost done

Sorry for not much in the way of an update on this for quite a while, but my Modelling Mojo has been absent of late, in favour of readin' and writin'.
But had a bit of time the last couple of days and we're nearly done now. I've been adding tons of panels and the odd widget here and there and i'm pretty pleased how its shaping up. Just need to focus on the engine area and i'm done.
You see here i've drawn lines in coloured pencil. This is where i plan to put on red stripes over the white basecoat and i've drawn them on so i don't put anything in the way of them.
You can also see i've drawn some circles on the front. These will be observation windows made from the bubble windows of WW2 bombers and i'm putting them on in an unordered pattern to maybe get a spider-eye effect. Maybe.