Great Unclean One - progress

Here he is assembled, primed, basecoated, washed and drybrushed. Been a bit of a rethink as to his colour scheme, as seen in the vid:

Hutt Pod Racer = Plump Ship

After a good three or four attempts, i've come to the realisation that i can't sculpt Hutt's... So, scrap that idea then and i'm going to my second choice for my Pod Racer species. Expect an update just as soon as i've found donor shapes for the engines and cockpit. In the meantime, the failed Hutt racer will now be a rather plump spaceship. I'm thinking a plastic plate will cover the hole at the front where the air intake was going to be and, in the middle of that will be the cockpit.

Great Unlclean One - assembled

Well, that was easy - after a good wash, the antlers were stuck on, the tendril stuck in, the centre horn glued and then it was a simple matter of sliding the tongue over the sword blade. Apart from a wee bit of flashing, there was no clean-up at all. The only things that needed addressing was that i lost one of his teeny tiny eyebrow horns, so had to replace it with the end of a cocktail stick, and quite a gap between wrist and right hand, which i've sorted with Green Stuff here. Just got to blend that in and then its Prime Time again.

RIP Harry Harrison

So, another link to my past goes. Harry's "Stainless Steel Rat" series of novies were a HUGE influence on me growing up, along with a myraid of his other novels, mixing pulp SF, epic SF and a massive amount of humour in there too. His imagination was unlimited and i was glad to get a peek in to his worlds when i did.

Great Unclean One

He landed today, gave him a wash right away, but not before having a waffle about him on Youtube:

Spielberg WOTW Tripod - what a nightmare...

... part fit for the mandibles being rubbish, glue not working well with the plastic and everything too delicate to handle. Glad i've passed the primer stage. Here's the two sub-assemblies. I've base-coated them with Moonlight Sand, a colour i've had since i did my Blade Runner blaster years and years ago. Over that i've drybrushed Boltgun Metal and, more sparingly, Mithril Silver. Next up - add the lenses:

Also started on the base. I went with a Tamiya greeny colour for it, as i didn't want anything similar to the Tripod and you can see all i've done since is to heavily wash it with black:

The Devourer - almost done

VERY unfairly been overlooking this chap, but here he is: skin done, teeth & gums done with his bracelets covered with bling. Next up is to paint the bracelets as is then add a few sticky jewels for added detail, then add drool then he's done.

Speilberg Tripod - legs

Here's the lower half then. The legs are VERY thin and the join areas VERY small, so the whole assembly was left to set for a good two days before moving.

Plague Bearers

Two things that are great about turning 50: A fantastic holiday, and folk being VERY generous with money gifts. I'm getting through the dosh quite quickly right now, but the only model-related things i've spent it on is is the WOTW Tripod and, as of yesterday, i've ordered the whacking great Great Unclean One form Forge World:

I'm really out of practice with painting all things Nurglly so, thought i'd pick up the new Plague Bearers plastic set to get me into the swing of things:

Open the box up and, wow:

Two sprues of lovely crisp detailed parts. They're pretty much interchangeable, so that'll be fun to do. Also, i'll be painting each with its own colour scheme - partly because i can't stand seeing whole regiments of such types all with exactly the same skin tones when they're pox ridden, diseased zombies and therefore should each be rotting individually. Also, the one i like best i'll duplicate on the Great Unclean One.

Batman chess set - board and new figures

Two big boxes were waiting when we got back from our hols. The biggest held the colossal chess board for the figures, along with four new pieces:

The Ra's Al Ghul and Poisen Ivy are pretty good, what with having hardly any of the crappy metallics paint job on them, so i'm leaving then as is. Ridller and Gordon are going to need work though:

We're back

Yes indeed. And rather unexpectedly all fired up to scratchbuild from it, after seeing these lovely quirky designs at the tank museum at Bovington.

BYEEEEEE!!!!!

Off now for two weeks of adventures - see you soon.

Gonk Droid - Part 2 now up

Speilberg Tripod - a rethink and progress

Okay, nixed the idea of lighting the fella - that's too darn fiddly to gouge out holes for the LED's, dunno if those legs will be able to support the weight of the battery pack conclealed in the hood over a long time, and i never turn on my models that i've lit previously. So, i'm cracking on. BIG surprise straight away is the poor fit on the hip section. You can see here that the "skirt" things that go round the hips are secured by two lugs in to two holes - but the lugs are too big and, if you thin one down and put it into a hole, the other one doesn't line up at all:

No way round it but to ignore that second hole and glue straight on to the hull. Should be okay as there's not much weight to it. I'll be filling in the unused hole. You can also see here the other two sub-assemblies i've finished:

They were a much better fit, the only pain being the four spine stripes that go on the back. The spines are SO thin and delicate that cutting the strips from the sprue was real tricky without snapping them. And then it was a pain to get them all lined up so they'd go into their holes on the hull, not helped by the hull being clear plastic in case i did want to light it, making it almsot impossible to see what i was doing. Got there without mishaps though:

The Devourer - real progress now.

Okay, this is him all done:

Next up, after priming in Grey, is to choose the colour choices as the prelim i'm working from is B&W:

Who better than to go to for advice than his creator, Leigh Gallgaher? Leigh suggested standard crocodile skin for his body - fair enough - but his mouth and tongue is expelling bright light. How to do that then? Had a good think and in the end deided to go: white, washed with light blue, drybrushed with white, a coat of Gloss Varnish, and while that was still wet, a sprinkling of very fine glitter material from the art shop. Think it came out ok-ish:

And here he is this morning, with a base coat of dark green blocked in on his skin:

Spielberg Tripod - what to do?

Am a massive, MASSIVE fan of War Of The Worlds so, really, i should've snapped up this kit long ago. But was kinda skint when it was available for pre-order and certainly can't afford it now. But i got a lot of dosh for my birthday, so thought i'd splash out. Now its here though, what do i do with it? Light it? That's an idea. But a lighting kit is only available in the States - and i don't want to wait long for it. But, looking at it, all i need is 3 LED's and a lighting strip, things readily available from Maplins for way under half the price. But do i want to light it? My other Tripod kits aren't lighted, so why should this one be? But its got clear parts ready for lighting, so i should do so. But how many of my lighted kits do i actually switch on? What to do? Also, do i make it as the Spielberg film version, or do i try and adapt it more into Wells' version? My brain hurts.

Gonk Power Droid

Yet another BIG project, this one too big to really get across in pictures only, so i'll be detailing it just on Youtube:

Under The Influence - 9

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. Picture the scene: Its about 1972, you're 10 years-old and you and a few of your friends have cottoned on to the fact that the paper mill down the road has deliveries of old magazines that are piled up outside, ready to be pulped. And that fence isn't that hard to climb over. And on Sundays there's no-one in there at all. Which is how come we ended up rifling through stacks of magazines, some like Womens Realm and such which held no appeal, some *ahem* "adult" one's, which we found strange and unsettling. But, what we were after were the likes of these - horror magazines, filled with info on past creature flicks. Don't think we actually read the text - it was the glorious B&W stills of monsters from films we didn't have a chance of seeing that held all the appeal, morbidly gross and fascinating at the same time. And the ads. Rubber masks and Aurora kits, things i longed for like you wouldn't believe. Very pleased to pick up this issue in my comic shop yesterday - the owner had bought a job lot of 60's and 70's comics and this gem was buried deep down and i got for only a quid!

The Devourer - back again.

VERY unfairly been overlooking this guy. You may have seen the last post, where i'd realised that he was far, far too wide and had hacked a lot of the inner area out. Since then, as you can see, i've covered up the hack-job and i've made a start of the strange, flowery things that are in his gullet. I've also put in his gum area with Green Stuff and the two halves of his original face. They're pretty basic, and i'll be adding detail to them. And i've pushed the teeth into the still soft Green Stuff, counting on its notorious stickiness to hold them in place. You can see i've used cocktail sticks for them and i've found if you buy the cheapest, crappiest one's you can find, they work a lot better as each one is a slighly different shape.

Carnifex - all done

Here he is then, all parts finished and the mouth area glossed - wepaons too, just to distinguish them from the rest of him. And i've included a shot of the other Tyrandis i have to show how i'm keeping the colour scheme sort of seperate. There's a bit of variation, as each time i have to relearn what i did last. Also, figure far left is the original "Screamer-Killer" from the 80's - the distant ancestor of the Carnifex.