Monday 31 March 2014

Jagoroth Spaceship - legs on.

Quite a few steps since last time, and they've been pretty nervous steps too - had had bad experiences in the past where pinned resin parts start to give over tiem and thought i'd be having the same sort of trouble here, what with the body being held up by those spindly legs.
So, have taken great care to pin the upper legs to the body, then the lower legs to the uppers.
Time will tell whether i did it ok.
Next up, another adjustment - fix the feet. The kit has the feet as just hemispheres, while the original has them true, but also a flat tear-drop shape to them as well, so have to make them from Plasticard.

Friday 28 March 2014

Imperial Knight - all done

No updates on this as i was having a ball making the fella, but here he is now.
Introducing Artus, The Green Knight:





Thursday 27 March 2014

40K into WW1 - done

That was a nice, fast, easy project and it was fun to try and match the markings and colours of the real tank. Shame there was no space for the numbers though.



Thursday 20 March 2014

40K into WW1

Nice little commission this - convert a Warhammer 40K tank into a match for the real WW1 tank that we've got here in town, complete with colour scheme.
Its only meant to be an "inspired by" thing rather than a recreation, so first step after building is to attack where the turret would've been with the snips and make it look like battle damage:

Jagoroth Spaceship - getting started

Looking at my "Doctor Who Technical Manual" and the "BBC VFX" books, its clear that the supplied two rings when put togther are just far too deep making the ship far too elongated. So i've ditched one for a new ring made from Plasticard.
You can also see a small strip of black striping in the second photos - that's because i figure its crucial to get the three upper parts of the legs in excatly the same place if i'm to have a hope of getting the legs to stand up evenly.
So i've put them there and i'll be offering the three legs up to each and then mark off where they should go.



Thursday 13 March 2014

Jagaroth Spaceship



There's been some great spacecraft designs on Doctor Who, great one's and okay one's and downright duff one's.
My favourite as always been Scaroth's craft from "City Of Death" - a truly memorable (maybe even iconic?) deisgn in arguably possibly the shows best ever effects sequence.
Thanks to the latest issue of Drone, i was put onto the fact that Larson designs now do one, and it gets a good Out Of The Box review by Stuart McCarthy.
Even better news is that it was not only available from the site, but they had an eBay shop too - which sped thing things up nicely.
Anyway, it arrived today and i'm very impressed - much bigger than i thought it'd be, the same sort of resin as previous kits i've had from them were in, details nice and there's quite a bit of assembly to be done.
Not too clear here is that there's a couple of clear pieces to the kit - one for a dome up top and one for the angular window affair Scaroth of Jagoroth sits inside. Not looking forward to doing the window bars on that.
Not going to start this until my Imperial Knight is done, but may have a play around to see if scratchbuilding an interior might be an option.

Ghazghkull Thraka

Even though i'm busy on the big Knight, i had a hankering for a small figure so i got this charming chap, even though he's not exactly small compared to a regular human or even Ork, with that huge body suit.
Take him out of the box and, yup, its the usual Games Workshop thing:
It being Finecast resin, there's tons of unnecessary pouring lugs,
the overly painted one on the box totally disguises the excellent detail:




There's tons of it, and i really like the beautifully realised ripped cables exposing the smaller cables inside - just like the real thing.
Anyway, flashing was a minimum and sticking things together was pretty much instant (a nice surprise to usual - must keep with this brand of superglue) and the whole thing was assembled and ready for primer in less than 15 mins.
I've kept the head off for ease of painting and the lower jaw to the suit is just Blu Tac'd in at the moment, as i'm umming and ahhing as whether to use it or not:

Monday 10 March 2014

Imperial Knight - main parts done

Here we are with the main body parts done. I've departed from my usual gunmetal/black wash/drybrush gunmetal route for the metallics and instead went with Games Workshops suggested way on their excellent Youtube tutorial on the Big Guy.
Sure it meant buying three additional paints to what i had, but the end result was sure worth it - and much better than this photo suggests.
Colour-wise, even though the paintjobs in White Dwarf are brilliantly done, and i get what they're doing with suggesting medieval knights heraldry, the colours they use are just SO bright with the blues and reds they look like Transformers to me.
Luckily, there's the option of building a "Freeblade" - a mercenary Knight who owes allegiance to no particular hose, meaning its up to the builder to choose colours and heraldic symbols.
So i'm going with greens and yellows and using Vallejo paints as they give a much more real word colour shades and here i've added a couple of panels.
Again, the lights so bright today that they're appearing much brighter than they actually are:

Saturday 8 March 2014

Imperial Titan



Just got this fella and had to have him as i loved playing the Epic (read tiny) Adeptus Titanicus way back when, with all those nifty Titan walking machines.
Now Games Workshop have ressurected the Imperial Knight for its regular scale armies and what a great job they've done - inside the whcking great back there's 147 parts and a very comprehnsive decal sheets to enable you to paint and decorate your Titan in the livery of a whole bunch of Houses.
Its a one-man Titan, so quite small compared to the Big Boys, so it stands about 7 inches tall but is VERY wide.
Really keen to get started on this and i'm looking to lighting it - not only its eyes, but some under armour lights too.




Here we are then with the legs and hips all done - looking really good, and could almost be a figure by itself:



Next up was to start on the upper body and straight away i had a let-down. The plan was to drill out the eyes here and put in LED's, along with LED lighting under the shoulder pads for downwards lighting effects.
But, while i do have a drill small enough to drill out the eyes, there's just no space at all inside the head to take the prongs of each LED. And, if i'm not lighting the head, there's no point in doing the rest of it:



And i was also going to drill out this upper hatch window, put in some clear plastic and have a light come out of that too. Oh well.



Anyway, here we are with the top just plopped onto the bottom ready for priming. I'll take them off after that for ease of painting, ditto the upper section:


Tyranid Haruspex - all done

Here's the big brute all done then. Had a total blast building and painting the fella - especially the very different challenge of the insides out

Thursday 6 March 2014

Big Gun

Some of you may have seen over on my Mr E Models Facebook page how i adapted a Nerf gun into something a bit meaner and "realistic", heavily influenced by 40K Ork and Steampunk technology.
Thought i'd have another go, but this time go much bigger. So, this here gun is going to be extended to about double its current length using that sheet of Plasticard its sat on.
Its also going to be adorned by all manner os stuff, including this here skull, which i got for 99p when a new "build a human body in 300 monthly parts" magazine started.
Planning on having that at the very front of the gun, up top just above where the bullets come out.

Wednesday 5 March 2014

Herald Of Nurgle

Needed a quick modelling fix when i was in my local store, o got this fella that'd i'd been after for some time.
Lovely sculpt and a pretty innovative design, with the guts coming through the back right up into and out of the front.
Assembly was a breeze, so the basing of the skin colours didn't take any time at all. And you can see i've highlighted in white the poxy bits for the next stage:





Saturday 1 March 2014

Meeting the Judge

Thought you might like to see how me and our youngest met an East Meg Judge at a recent con.
Great outfit it was. Stunned when he took the helmet off to see how young he was - brilliant to see teenagers knowing such characters from when i was one too.

Steampunk Walker now an Ork Walker

There's been no progress on this build as i was after a WW1 pilot in 1/32nd to man the thing - but that's proved to be a tricky job if i don't want to spend much money.
So have changed tack and make him an Ork Walker from the Warhammer 40K universe as (A) i knew i could get a driver figure no probs, (B) i can make it nice and clunky, (C) thought i'd have more chance of selling it on.
So, here we go with the cockpit area.
Figuring i'd have more chance of selling if i left it in grey primer so a buyer can paint it however they like i',m this area as is.
Its also been tricky detailing this area as i made the pilot removable for ease of painting (him, his seat, and rear of seat are glued together but only Blu Tac'd in place) but that's meant the detail has been kept away from him too much for him to come out.