Wednesday, January 28, 2004
01/28/04: Basecoating Mutants and Traitors
 Fifty some odd models, basecoated with two coats of Vallejo Desert Sand, in a combined total of about 40 minutes. Man, I love my airbrush. 
Here's a close-up example of a single model. It would have taken me hours to basecoat them all by brush. Did I mention that I love my airbrush?
This paint shaker (bought from Micromark) is a necessity when working with Vallejo paints -- they need soooo much shaking to mix the pigment and binder properly, doing it by hand'll get you a serious case of Tennis Elbow. I kid thee not!
To shade the Desert Sand, I planned to use Vallejo Smoke thinned with Vallejo thinner. I'm using Vallejo Thinner exclusively for paint thinning now (except for the odd time I use Future Wash, mostly for inks). The Smoke is really a weird texture, kinda gritty (you want to be sure to shake the hell out of it to mix it right) but it goes on nice and smooth.
I wasn't sure how much to thin the Smoke. I wanted something that would go on in a single coat and not need additional highlighting. The model on the left got a wash with 10:1 Thinner to Smoke, the model on the right got a 5:1 wash. The 10:1 looked a lot better, so that was the winner. Man, you can really thin Vallejo paint down.
# posted by Andy : 11:03 PM
Sunday, January 25, 2004
01/25/04: Heavy Weapon Traitors
Here are a few pics of my Heavy Weapon Traitors. I'm pretty much done with conversions, I just have to make the Icon Bearers and finish the Arch-Heretic. I'm actually a bit bummed about it, I enjoy doing the conversions much more than painting. Oh well.
# posted by Andy : 1:13 AM
Friday, January 23, 2004
01/23/04: Leman Russ
Things are really starting to come together, I just hope I'll have the time to get things painted. This time, the Leman Russ.  It is hard to tell in this photo, but the sprue was really pretty badly twisted. It wasn't just bent in one direction, but kinda corkscrewed. 
I followed the flow of the instructions (I've never built a Leman Russ before) and put together the tread assemblies first.
Once I had the rollers glued down to the bottom piece, I put a drop of glue onto the top axle of each roller. I had to work pretty quickly, I didn't want the glue to set before I got everything into place. I can't imagine doing this with CA... plastic glue was tough enough.
Tread assembly #1. No pics of it's twin, #2.
On to the hull of the tank. Here, you can get a better idea of the twist to the big parts.
The back of the hull ended up fitting pretty well, in spite of the twist.
The front, however... not so good.
I ended up taping the back part securely...
...and then holding the front part of the hull securely by hand. I decided to use the Tenax glue I kinda disrespected in an earlier posting. I can now see why plastic modelers think so hightly of it -- it is very easy to use in this kind of situation. I got everything lined up just right, then painted the Tenax onto the back side of the joint. It wicked in perfectly and set up fast.
I decided that I wanted to have one Russ with a Hull Lascannon and the other with a Hull Heavy Bolter. See the instructions? See what's missing? If you guessed "The Hull Heavy Bolter" I owe you a beer. GW apparently doesn't provide the bitz to model a Russ with that option. Bastiches.
Okay, since GW didn't provide the bitz I had to hit the bitzbox. Luckily, I had a couple of Heavy Bolters from my Land Raider Crusader (the LRC uses a TL Assault Cannon in place of the TL Heavy Bolter). It looked to be about the right size.
Could work...
I carefully cut away the obviously Lascannon parts from the cylindrical mount.
The LRC Heavy Bolter was too long though. Russ' aren't *that* well endowed.
I trimmed some plastic off the back of the Heavy Bolter, and it worked okay.
I carefully glued it together with Plastic glue. I covered up the TL mount with a bit from the Vehicle Accesories Sprue (I think it was the mount for a pintle-mounted weapon). I thinned the bit down by shaving off the back side.
Here's an out-of-sequence shot that show how I applied the Tenax -- painted it on from the back side.
I stopped taking pictures while I glued all the boring miscellaneous stuff on. Here's the (almost) finished model. I still have to add a few cool bitz off the Accessory Sprue, and shave off the Imperial Eagles.
# posted by Andy : 4:20 PM
01/23/04: Hellhound, Part Two
 On the Hellhound, the Inferno Cannon accessories take the place of the top hatch and the lasgun turret-lets. First, I glued the hatch-cover on. 
The Promethium tanks were terrible casts. They really didn't fit together at all; the bottom section was too long to fit into the top section.
Here's the top section. There is very little room here for making the bottom fit. If I widened the "gutters" at all, I could have buggered it up badly.
Instead, I used a flat file to shorten the bottom part so it would fit properly into the top. I had to remove a pretty large amount of metal to make it fit.
I had to do the same process on the second tank as well, but they came out okay.
Done. Kinda. I'll add the treads after painting the tank itself. Treads are *so* much easier to paint on the sprue (thanks to Mad Edric for that tip).
The other side.
# posted by Andy : 3:30 PM
01/23/04: Arch-Heretic Redux
I was increasingly unhappy with how the Arch-Heretic looked. That whole "Karate Chop" arm really didn't work for me, and since I'd have to work on him again anyways (to add the Combat Drugs) I decided to fix him up right.  The top arm is the original one from the Stern mini. Notice how the Storm Bolter is overlapping the edge of the shoulderpad a LOT. I considered trimming it down, but finally decided that would be too much work, with a high potential for a crappy-looking result. Instead, I decided to grab a Psycannon arm off of a standard GK Terminator. The deliniation between the separate segments of the arm was much better, thus it was much more convertable. 
If you are going to be doing much converting of metal miniatures, you'll definitely want one of these guys (a Jeweler's Saw)
I made a single straight cut directly down through the elbow joint, being very careful to not damage the shoulderpad. The tub of brush soap made a nice little support.
There, nice clean cut.
Unfortunately, there was a lot more arm-material left behind; more than I'd need. I ended up nibbling it off with my cutters. Since the joint would be concealed, I didn't need to worry about making it pretty -- I just needed to make it flat.
For the Arch-Heretic's second close Combat Weapon I used a Chaos Power Sword. It worked out nicely, the posing of the arm, elbow and wrist was pretty much perfect so it didn't need any further converting. However, there is a noticeable gap between his torso and the new arm. I'll sculpt that in with greenstuff next time I mix some up.
Here's a view from the other side.
# posted by Andy : 3:21 PM
Friday, January 16, 2004
01/16/04: I'm Dumb as a Post
I converted a Pintle Mounted Heavy Stubber (blogged yesterday) for my Hellhound -- as it turns out, there's one on the Vehicle Accessory sprue. Not the end of the world, I still like my conversion (it matches my Traitor with Heavy Stubber better than the new style one would) but I do feel just a wee bit lame. Oh well, bitz for the bitzbox...
# posted by Andy : 1:36 PM
Thursday, January 15, 2004
01/15/04: Hellhound Turret
 Ever wonder what it takes to change a Chimera into a Hellhound? Now you know... 
This guy is from the Cadian Vehicle Accessory sprue. I was hoping I'd get one with the Hellhound, but I didn't. Fortunately, I got one with a Leman Russ.
This main turret bit is copyrighted 1995. It looked like GW is still using the original mold. At least that mold line was on a flat area, so it was easy to file off.
I want a pintle-mounter Heavy Stubber on the turret. Unfortunately, I didn't have another Heavy Stubber like I used on the Traitor Conversion, so I had to make one. First, I took the Heavy Bolter off the Chimera sprue, and trimmed off the barrel.
The heavy Stubber needed a ventilated barrel, so this Shoota worked fine. I could have groped around the bitzbox looking for a Big Shoota barrel, but I like the stubby look of this barrel.
Chop.. glue... hey, not bad.
I held the Inferno Cannon barrel in place on the turret, and drilled a single pin hole into both -- that way they'd line up when I glued it.
Pinned, clipped and filed.
The top of the turret went on okay, though it didn't match the metal bottom bit perfectly. Fortunately, the next step camouflaged the mismatch.
Extra turret armor covered the overlap nicely.
Mutant tank commander.
Not bad at all...
# posted by Andy : 11:56 PM
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
01/13/04: Possessed Wings
Time to work on more Possessed. They all need wings... 
I'm using two different methods to mount the wings to the Marine backpacks. The first, shown here, is as a replacement for the spherical vents. I cut off the vents with a sharp hobby knife.
Chaos Fury wings are just about the perfect size. I considered using Tyranid Gargoyle wings, but they are a bit bigger and I worried they'd get in the way during play. Also, they're a lot more expensive.
I used my pin vice and a small drill bit to make the initial hole, then I routed it out with a hobby knife to make large enough recesses to fit the wing "shoulder"
Next, I pinned the wings
Glue with CA, and it looks good.
Here's the other method for attaching the wings -- directly pinned to the backpack. It looks unfinished just pinned and glued on there; it needs some "fur" to cover the joints.
The real-deal. Kneadatite "greenstuff" from Polymeric Systems. Much better that the GW stuff (Thanks, Accursed One!); it is smoother, softer and easier to work with.
A marble sized ball, mixed evenly and ready to use. I let it sit and harden for about 10 minutes before using -- this lets it get to a better texture, easier to use.
Here are my favorite sculpting tools. The second from the top is the GW sculpting too, which is very useful. The bottom 3 are dental instruments I picked up at a Christmas Show (I'm told they're often available at Gun Shows too)
First, I applied a ball of greenstuff on top of the joints and formed it into the approximate shape I wanted the fur to take.
I took care to be sure that I got greenstuff into the nooks and crannies on the sides of the model.
Using my hobby knife, I worked in horizontal rows, cutting small slices into the greenstuff. I turned the blade slightly now and then to make small triangles, mixing up the pattern into a more organic look.
By repeating the process a couple of times, again working in small rows I was able to get a good looking fur effect. I repeated the process on the top and sides of the backpack.
In some cases, the angle of the wings didn't look quite right -- often, the wings were slanted too far "backwards." To fix this, I first held the base of the wing with pliers (gripping through a couple of layers of tissue so I wouldn't scratch the wings)
Then, being very careful to only apply pressure on the wing (and not to the joint between the backback and the Marine torso), I bent the wing into the correct shape and angle. I used the same technique to bend the wing in a radial direction to get rid of the two-dimensional look that comes from an overly flat wing.
Might as well take a second or two to build up this Mutant's arm while I'm working with the greenstuff...
Better. Not great, but better.
# posted by Andy : 1:52 PM
Monday, January 12, 2004
01/12/04: Good News
I heard back from Jeff Hall (GW US Event Manager); he said that the Grey Knight Storm Bolters are fine as Bolt Pistols, so I don't have to convert the arms on my Possessed, Aspiring Champions and Arch-Heretic. I'm very, very happy about this; converting those arms would have been a major pain in the ass. A pain-in-the-ass I just don't have the time to deal with.
# posted by Andy : 11:18 AM
Friday, January 09, 2004
01/09/04: John Woo Akimbo Hand-Flamer Cadian Slaaneshi Mutant!
I need Flamers for my Mutants. Here they are, in much need of final prep & cleanup...  
This guy is my favorite. My John Woo Akimbo Hand-Flamer Cadian Slaaneshi Mutant!
# posted by Andy : 11:44 PM
Tuesday, January 06, 2004
01/06/04: Traitor with Heavy Stubber
To go along with the Heavy Bolter, I'd like my Traitors to have a Heavy Stubber. Deep in the bowels of my bitzbox, I have some old Necromunda metals -- and the Heavy Stubber off of the Goliath Heavy model fits the bill perfectly. Goliaths may be able to haul around a Heavy Stubber and shoot it from the hip, but my poor Traitor Cadians certainly can't! Time for another conversion.  I decided I wanted the Traitor to be prone, and firing the Stubber while on his belly. I grabbed a big base and just layed out the parts to see how everything would fit. Looked okay, so on to the next step. 
The Stubber would need to be resting on something. I considered adding a bipod to the barrel, or maybe making more sandbags but finally decided that a Space Marine casualty would make fine battlefield cover.
Blue-tac is great for mocking things up.
The feet on the Space Marine would need to be changed, they're too "stand-uppy" to make a convincing casualty.
I started by poking a sharp hobby knife up the greave, parallel to the leg. I repeated poked it up, making a row of holes all the way around the ankle.
Once I had gone around each ankle a couple of times, I was able to just twist the feet right off the leg.
Much better.
Pinning the shoulder made positioning the arm much easier. I had to cut the wrist to give it a realistic twist. Pinning that helped too.
I couldn't get the Bolter to look right. I think the Auspex looks better anyways.
The other arm went on easily, though I had to shave the hidden surface of the shoulder pad to make it all fit.
Added a Bolt Pistol, too.
Reverse angle.
I started with the Heavy Stubber Barrel. Note that I (accidentally) glued it on horizontally, instead of with a slight upward firing angle. This would cause problems later on in the process.
Then the ammo bin. I positioned the belt feed to cover up some shabby filing work where I removed one of the Goliath's hands for the Heavy Stubber.
Then I glued on the Cadian firing arms. Actually, Zina had to help me out by accellerating the CA glue while I held the arms in place. I need a third hand.
Torso next. Now, you can see the problem that came from the incorrect barrel angle. The Traitor's chest and elbows are way too far off of the ground. Serious abs on that Traitor...
A better view of the oops.
Looked okay from the front though, and I really didn't want to detach the barrel from the Marine casualty; if I screwed it up I'd have to start all over.
Instead, I added a second casualty. I had to shave down the second torso to fit it in the space available under the Traitor. I also had to cut the arm up to make it fit. I planned on covering up the really obvious chops with basing later on.
On one side, the Traitor rests on the second casualty's torso and on the other his arm/bolter.
I clipped off legs and one and, and scored them up so they look like the Marine got shot up pretty badly. I also added the entrails off of the Zombie sprue though it is hard to see in this pic.
After basing, looks good.
Yup, I'm pleased.
# posted by Andy : 7:32 PM
01/06/04: Heavy Bolter Emplacement
 This Heavy Bolter looks a bit bland. Since my LatD army are Traitor Cadians, I'd like to spice things up with an infantry-appropriate theme. What screams INFANTRY louder than anything else? Sandbags! 
Greenstuff is too pricey and precious for this kind of thing. I picked up a box of Sculpy at Fred Meyer a few months ago, and have been looking for a project to try it out on. Sculpy is a modelling clay that you bake in your oven to cure. It is a bit softer than plasticine or Play-Doh, and is pretty easy to work with.
First, I made a ball about the size of a gumball.
Then I flattened the ball out and squared off the corners a little bit. I tried not to make it too Chicklet-like, I wanted it to look like a bag of sand not a stone.
I built a bunch of the little buggers, then stacked them around the Heavy Bolter. Once I
was satisfied with their position, I gently pushed their edges down trying to simulate the sag of a sandbag.
Then, I took my hobby knife and score shallow "seams" around the edges of the bags.
Here's a view from the other side.
I carefully ran my hobby knife blade under the bottom row of sandbags to separate them from the base. Once that was done, I transferred them to some aluminum foil and baked them as the Sculpy box instructed. Very fast and easy, yielding great result. I think my Obstacles will use Sculpy sandbags, at least some will.
After baking, I noticed I had left some fingerprints in the Sculpy. Fortunately, Sculpy sands down just fine, so a few touchups with a very fine grit sandpaper cleaned things up nicely.
# posted by Andy : 6:57 PM
01/06/04: CCW Traitors
 My Traitors with CCW and Laspistols (plus the Meltagun guy) are assembled and ready for priming. Hopefully it warms up enough so I can prime them soon. The Agitator is the bearded guy with the Power Sword.
# posted by Andy : 5:51 PM
Thursday, January 01, 2004
01/01/04: Heavy Weapons
What are Traitors without their precious Heavy Weapons? If you guessed "worthless!" you win a prize ;-) So, with that in mind, I took a shot at some Cadian Heavy Weapons: 
Cadian Lascannon - note the mold lines. I read a tip at Michael Casavant's web site about using Tenax glue to remove flash. I played around with this technique about a year ago, but really didn't grow an opinion about it. I figured I'd give it another go.
Here's Tenax. I got it at Bridgetown Hobby, but Ultimate Hobby at Jantzen Beach often has it in stock. It's pretty expensive (like maybe $7 a bottle) and very volatile, so you lose as much to evaporation as you do to use.
I used a Testors el-cheapo brush to paint the Tenax across the mold lines. The idea is that the Tenax will melt the thin mold line and not bother the surrounding plastic too much.
I paid particular attention to the manifold at the rear of the Lascannon. Getting the mold lines off of the detailed accordian-like bit is a pain with knife and file.
Here's a shot of the end of the first try. It worked okay on the manifold, not so well on the flat surfaces; it gave them a weird morph-y look.
I think I applied the Tenax a little too liberally on the flash supressor -- it took the edge off of the edges, making the whole thing look over-inflated.
Overall, I think I'll stick to knife and file for mold line removal. The Tenax worked okay on the manifold on the bottom of the Lascannon, and on the ribbed rubber boot thing on the top but didn't work so well anywhere else. I supposed if I had a large textured area, I'd use the Tenax again but overall I give it a "meh..."
On to the Heavy Bolter. Looks okay (aside from yet-to-be-removed Imperial symbols), but it'd look better with a drilled out barrel.
First, I marked the center of the barrell with a sharp x-acto. It's much easier to drill the center with a pinhole to start from.
After drilling out the barrell and vent holes (I drilled it out twice, once with a very thin bit and a second time with a larger drill bit for the final bore), I took my x-acto and widened the hole just at the tip of the barrell, like a countersunk hole. This makes the large caliber barrell look a bit more realistic to my eye.
Done. Well, almost done. Done once I remove the Imperial icons.
# posted by Andy : 12:58 AM
| 
