Zombie Dragon - making changes

Okay, as i say, i much prefer the bat head over the dragon skull option. Again, a lovely bit of casting and its made up of a central tongue/neck piece, with the two halves of the head attached each side, and the top of the head plopped on:

Looking at the instructions, it became apparent that i'd need to make a couple of changes to get the fella the way i'd want him.
Change 1.
The bat head option has the beastie's body quite low to the ground with him looking up, maybe about to roar. Nice, and kinda reminiscent of what the T Rex did when you first see him in "Jurrasic Park", but with the body that low you'd not see much in the way of rib detail. So i decided to follow the instructions for the much more upright Dragon option, and i'd put the bat head on to that.
Change 2.
Both options have the wings folded up against the body, which again obscures the rib detail, along with all the luvverly detail on the legs as well. I found that, by swapping the wings over and turning them upside-down, i could put them into a much better pose, which allows all the detail to be seen.
It also hides the shocking bad alignment of the spine pieces that were part of the hideous rib cage stage.

Zombie Dragon

Well now, hope you're all well and enjoying the festivities.
We are, though its incredibly hectic here.
Still finding time though to start on one of my presents.
Its a beastie from GW's Vampire army and i'd seen this top pic of it but dismissed it straight away.
But then i was walking past one of their shops a while back and there was one of the fellas in the window, built and just in primer.
It was jaw-droppingly awesome and, after popping in to check that they're not really selling Forge World now are they, that i realised that, oh dear once again, the company are doing themselves no favours at all with their box illustrations.
Look at any pic on the box and you see a cutesy monster with bright white bones peeking through all too clearly defined wounds.
Take a look at the sprues though and you've got a nightmare creature, easily able to fit into a Resident Evil world or whatnot.
Had to have one, so he went straight on to Santa's list.
As i say, i was well impressed by the amount of detail and the casting for an IP kit and was even more so when i reached this stage:

after sticking just three pieces together. The multi-layered, fine detail is amazing and, incredibly, most of this will be covered up by the next stage of putting the rib cage on.
I've just done that and it was truely a nightmare monster as it was chuffin' nightmare to get the two halves to line up and stick where they're meant to...

Merry Christmas to y'all

Okay folks, up at an unearthly hour in the morning to travel to France to see family, then back again Christmas Eve eve.
So, very best wishes to you all and i'll see you back here soon.

Blade Runner Spinner - interior finished

Had a bit of luck when i was having a rummage though the paint draw looking for something suitable for Boba Fett's boots on my Bounty Hunter project, and stumbled across a tube of "Neutral Gray" that i'd totally forgotten i had.
That worked fine for the boots but it really wouldn't have worked for the cockpit here as its far, far too light.
But thought i'd use it to highlight the details with it using drybrushing. Which i did:

Here we have the dashboard just prior to putting in. You can see there's a real nice decal for the display, but what i'm surprised about and bit let down by is that the "paddle" controls so clearly seen in the film are nothing but a flat plate here. I've painted where the recesses for the hands should go black to try and hide it, but its still a rather lazy oversight:

And here's the side of the dashboard. The instructions would have it that you paint the two raised lines yellow, which i did, as its clear from the film that they're actually yellow neon. Why a police car would have that in there isn't clear, but it looks great in the film so what the hey:

What is another surprise is that the instructions correctly tell you to replicate the yellow neon there - but fail to mention that you have to pick out a similar raised line for the blue neon in the very centre raised section.
So i did that, which you can see here in the finished cockpit, with lights picked out - including the rather bizarre but great looking blue lights imbedded in the rear wall:

Star Wars Bounty Hunters - Fett ready for the metal

Looking a tad cartoony, but hopefully beating him up and putting in all the paint chips will stop all that.
Really looking forward to that bit.

Zuckuss - all done

He we are with him/her all done.
This was the biggest challenge and the biggest surprise, what with the Giger-esque piping and tubing that i'd never noticed before this project.
Still a mystery as to just what it is in that cannister thingy, all i've found out is that the actress (so that makes Zuckess a her?) had a pipe to blow bubbles into the liquid that was in it.
I've decided to stay with the paler skin tone, which isn't strictly accurate, but i feel is a nice contrast to the rest of the browns.

Star Wars Bounty Hunters - Bossk finished

Well he was a lot of fun, what with all the different colour schemes and details to do.

Blade Runner Spinner - on to the cockpit

The cockpit is lovely and detailed, despite having only a few pieces to put in there.
Here it is in White Primer:

It was a bit of a head scratcher for the colour of the interior as the instructions would have it that its "Neutral Gray", which i took to be a mid to light grey. But looking at the Blu Ray, and this shot here:

it appears to be a dark gray or even gun metal.
Once the primer was dry, i prised out the dashboard, which i'd just plopped in there, as i want to paint it seperatly:

Again, there's a conflict in that the sheet says same colour as the rest of it, but some studio model shots have it the same blue as the outside. Hmmm...
While talking about the dashboard, you can see from this shot that a pilot is out of the question - there's barely any space between the bottom of the dashboard and the seat and, even if there was more, the footwell is pretty much non-existant. Which means, if i do have one in there, i'd have to cut his legs off and just have a torso sat there...
Or i could put in a passenger i suppose - but who does a car with a passenger and no pilot?

Anyway, i prised out the dashboard and seats for seperate painting and put on a coat of GW "Adeptus Battle Grey" from their excellent "Foundation" range, which i thought was a nice match. You can see i've left an odd shape still in the White Primer, which i'll be painting White. Gawd knows what it is or why its painted like that, but that's how it is on the models used:

Lastly, thought you might like to take a look at this clip, which shows off a lot of the interior, at the same time as giving you out-takes not very often seen/heard:

Star Wars Bounty Hunters - nearly there now

Yeah, bit of progress:

Bossk: Eyes and mouth are all done. Just got to tidy up spots on the flesh. Clothes are nearly done. Gun still to do. His eyes were a bit of a challenge, being very cat-like pupils, but done horizontally rather than vertical.

Fett: Still dunno whether that green for the armour is right. And i don't want to chance it till after i've beat it up. Starting to block in the cape.

Zuckuss: Picked out details, including the eyes and whatever the hell that mouth thing is being based in Gunmetal. That "bib" affair appears in turns both metallic and slimy, so i've gone with a compromise.

Slaine & the 2000AD Advent Calender

Thought you might like to see my contribution to the annual Advent Calender event over on the 2000AD site, where folk choose a day to put up a festive image or text or something as we tick down towards the Big Day.
And today's my turn.

Under The Influence - 6

Being an occasional series while the paint is drying, the glue is hardening or waiting for enthusiasm to come back, where i have a waffle on the things, films, books and whatnot that had a direct influence on me, getting me into this hobby or the whole SF/fantasy malarky.
Anyone here who's British and grew up during the 70's must surely fondly recall school holidays always being a chance to get a fix of things that, usually, would just not be possible to see.
Case in point here, a movie serial from waaaay before we were born.
Didn't matter that it was black and white - that just added to the allure of the thing.
Didn't matter that it was serious - and you can't get more earnest than Buster Crabbe here.
Didn't matter that the wires showed.
Or the sparks from the ships fell straight down.
Here we had pure science fiction, with no pretentions, long before the first Star Wars arrived.
And we loved it for it.

Blade Runner Spinner - starting

Right, i've decided to go as far as i can with the build before stopping at the point where i could possibly add lighting to it.
We start with the underside and you can see i've only done the left side here before taking the pic to show you how involved the build is.
There's a bunch of small boxes that had to be glued on top and bottom and, next to each, another shape that will hold the underside lights.
That's made my mind up there: no lights for below - they're tiny lenses and it'd be a right pain to get the wiring down there and not have them visible in the cockpit.
You can also see i've put in the floor window, which was a surprise as i didn't know they had them.
And i've just pushed the wheel on for now. Will remove it for filling and seperate painting. What's a surprise there is that they've no tread detail at all.

AB36 Wrecker Droid - change of identity

With the Spinner landing, its driven homw again how low spare funds are. Looking round for a way to raise more, its occured to me that this fella, with its outlandish limbs and chunky claws, could be an Ork-type device for Warhammer 40K.
So, decided to change him to just that, finishing him in just White Primer as there's so many distinctive colour schemes for Orky stuff that'll i'll leave it to the buyer.
All i'm doing extra is to add river detail that you can start to see here and i'm off to the shops to get some cord that holds up net curtains to add lots of cabling.