Yellow Submarine Display Board WIP

I will be playing in Orktoberfest this weekend and whilst my Crimson Fists are not ready (because they only arrived a week ago), I am going to enjoy taking my Iyanden Eldar.  After seeing that I have received the third highest comp score, I decided to do something a little bit out there.....

Yellow Iyanden

+

Third softest list at the event

=

Yellow Submarine Display Board!

Eltnot

Heavy Weapon Team Bases

I built these about a month ago and was planing to finish off some wrecked vehicle markers that I started at the same time, but have yet to finish.  Rather than delay the post longer, I figured I'd put it up now.


Firstly I grabbed three 60mm bases that I had lying around.  For this style of base you ideally want the thin bases rather than the standard ones.

You'll also want some putty to build up the base, I use a product called Milliput which is relatively cheap and ideal for non detailed work like this.  It costs $10 to $12 Australian and can be picked up from most hobby shops.

Lastly you'll want some pieces to add detail, since my army is based in a ruined city, I cut up a bunch of plasticard so that I had it all ready to go for when I needed it.  You should do this before any other steps so that you can detail the bases whilst the milliput is still curing and soft.  You can see I have a lot more than I need because I also cut up the stuff for the wrecked vehicle markers at the same time.  I used a variety of pieces from rod, to I beams, corrugated iron and tiles.

I was almost ready to go, but I had one more step.  To make things easier when building up the bases, I grabbed some spare 25mm round bases and blu-taked the underside of them.  I then stuck them onto my 60mm bases so that I had the perfect reference for where my model's bases would go.

Now onto the fun stuff, I started by rolling out lengths of milliput and placing them roughly around the bases to define the edges.  I then built up the milliput around the rest of the base into the rough shape of how I wanted it to turn out.

I then used my modelling tool to make a clean edge around the bases so that the infantry would fit in snugly but could still be easily removed for storage and representing wounds taken.

After that I added the plasticard and smoothed out the rest of the milliput.

Once it was dry, I painted on slightly watered down PVA glue, careful not to get any into where the infantry bases would go and then covered the entire thing in sand for that gravely texture.

 

 They have since been painted but I haven't taken photos of those yet.  I'll get some photos when I finish off the wrecked vehicle markers, hopefully in time for Cowcon this coming weekend.

Eltnot.

Inducted Guard Platoon WIP

I'm trying to get my I platoon which have languished in their base coated state for about two years now, up to scratch.  I need to get them to at least the same kind of level as my sisters which is painted to at least three colours with shading/highlighting, etc.  I've touched up some of the base coats and have all 25 of them washed with devlan mud, ready for the highlight/dry brush of skull white.

Thankfully I have Thursday off due to working the public holiday on May Day so I should have them smashed out for Quartermaster 2 this coming weekend and hopefully a few other bits and bobs done.  I also have a university assignment due on Friday that is calling my name so we shall see how it all goes.

In other news, I managed to get my arse handed to me by a local player at the club the other weekend.  I went down hard to his Blood Angels and was wiped off the board by about turn 6.  I made one tactical mistake bunching up several units that let him pull off a multi charge with his Death Company and also made the error of not discussing the terrain properly before the match.  This second mistake led to my guard platoon going down due to not being in cover.  It was a good game and Nick is a great opponent, so I shall look forward to further thrashings in the future.

Eltnot.

Father Tenison Woods - Conversion

 

This guy will be my second "Canoness", a recent addition to the list after Orktoberfest.  I found that my list just doesn't have enough ummph since I dropped the IG platoon, so I'm looking for other ways to make it better.

He started life as an Empire Warrior Priest.  To make him more suitable, I removed as many of the twin comet tail symbols as I could, leaving only the set on his right shoulder pad (because I can make them look like parchment) and removed the "SIGMAR" from his left shoulder.  I then turned his hammer pendant into an I with greenstuff, filled his book to cover the other hammer symbol there, and the greenstuffed a Fleur de Lys onto his now empty shoulder pad to help tie him in with the rest of the force.  This was my first time greenstuffing something like that as opposed to the filling and joining jobs that I've done in the past.  Plenty more to learn, but I enjoyed the work.

 

Astute readers, particularly Australian Catholics will probably recognise the name from the heading, and if you're wondering, yes my other Canoness is Mary.  I've just recently changed my lists to list her as Saint Mary instead of the previous Blessed Mary in line with her recent Sainthood.  For those who are wondering what that hell I'm going on about, you can find out more HERE and HERE.

Comments, suggestions, and criticisms welcome.

Eltnot.

Summoned Greater Daemon of Tzeentch - WIP

The above is a model that I'm working on for a friend.  He put together the metal and plastic sections and I'm bulking up the rest and filling in with greenstuff as required.  This is by far the largest conversion and greenstuff job that I have ever done and really pushed my greenstuffing skills.  I'm certainly not very good (at least in my mind), but I have learnt a bit from doing this job and hopefully he likes it.  As far as further greenstuffing goes, I'm thinking about adding a small line of greenstuff around the bottom robe as a bit of a hem, but it will be tricky and time consuming (for my skills at least), and I want his input before I go ahead.  I would like to do further work on the back, but am not exactly sure how to approach it, so it'll probably stay how it is.

 A shot of the back of the model.  note the large amounts of sanding and filing because I suck.

A shot from the side, showing off the arrangement I cam up with for continuing the "belt" a little better.  I'm not entirely unhappy with that part of the model.

Eltnot.

Chimera WIP Part 3

Well the Chimera is now about as finished as it's going to get before QM3, at least in the building department.  I may add some extra details like stowage and stuff later though.  I'll undercoat it tomorrow in the morning.

I've used plasticard to make the hatches.  I thought about adding rivets but after spending 3 minutes trying to cut plastic rod to size and then also realising that I don't have tweezers handy, I decided to give them a miss at least for the time being.  I added an Imperial Eagle to spice up the blank front plate and have added a groove to the rear hatch.  I may glue some handles on there before I spray it tomorrow.

Eltnot.

Prince Yriel's Raiders

Well I received a package today at work that I had been expecting with a couple of jetbikes inside.  These are for what is to be my next big army that I have been collecting.  I won't go into to many details now, excpet that I have spent a long time collecting these guys, hunting on Ebay and various buy and sell forums.  Enough of the boring stuff, here's the pic:

As you can see, a lot of stuff needs to be stripped, so they'll be getting the simple Green treatment over the coming months.  I quickly wrote down everything that I have to for future reference when working out what I do and don't need.

1x Farseer
2x Warlocks with Singing Spears
19x Storm Guardians
31x Defender Guardians
17x Generic Guardians (without arms)
9x Heavy Weapon Guardians
2x D Cannons with crew
6x Rangers
9x Swooping Hawks
1x Swooping Hawk Exarch
1x Banshee Exarch
3x Fire Dragons
1x Fire Dragon Exarch
5x Assassin Drones
4x Executioner Drones
11x Dire Avengers
1x Dire Avenger Exarch
13x Jetbikes (-1 Handlebars, -3 rider torsos, -1 rider legs)
4x Shrieker Jetbikes
6x War Walkers (-1 Power Plant)
1x Vampire Dreadnought (-1 Power Plant)
2x 3rd Ed Dreadnoughts (probably won't be used)
2x Wave Serpents
1x Falcon
10x Arm Sprues +1 incomplete
9x Weapon Sprues +2 incomplete
8x Scatter Lasers
4x Lascannons
3x Heavy Plasma Guns
2x Missile Launchers
2x Small Tripods
2x Large Tripods
2x Hover Platforms
6x Gun Shields
2x Weapon Mounts

Eldar.

Storm Trooper Strip Tease

Well I used Simple Green for the first time yesterday/today.  I took these Storm Troopers which badly needed stripping in preparation for being painted by QM3.  I bought a bottle of Simple Green from Bunnings, 650ml for just under $10.  I poured about half of this into a 2 litre ice cream container and placed the models in so they were fully submerged.  I then put the lid on and left it in the garage for 24 hours, here's what they looked like at the beginning:

I took them out one by one and gave them a quick scrub under running water.  It took me about 15-20 minutes to clean the lot of them with an old toothbrush.  I must say I was very impressed and even without the toothbrush, you could see the layers of paint just washing away.  Apparently it is a good idea to give them a good scrub under water though as any residue simple green will cause problems when it comes time to undercoat them again.

Once I was done, I laid them out on a piece of paper towel to finish drying.  There's now an Eldar Jetbike resting in the ice cream container for tomorrow night.

Eltnot.

Chimera WIP Part 2

I continued work by cleaning out the old lasgun ports as these weren't going to be used.  I had tried filing them off without much success until I tried my scalpel with its new blade.  This made short work of the ports and I soon had that area level after also clipping off the necessary rivets.

I then started on the side plates.  I tried a test fit but didn't like the fatboy look it gave the tank, so that had to be rectified.  I used my saw to cut them down to around 3mm wide.  It was a bit fiddly with all of the edges but it worked out alright and only required a small amount of filing to make them level at the end.

Once they were done, I attached them and started adding on the extra bits.  The panels were glued into place along with the tracks and track guards.  I played around with different ways to mount the guards, but ended up preferring them at the rear of the tank.  I filed down the smoke launchers to give them a sharper angle and mounted them to the side of the turret in the same fashion as my other tanks.

I'm in the process of filing down what was the hatches that normally go on the rear to place them over the empty lasgun ports.  This way if the rules change in the future and I get back my firepoints then I have a reasonable way of representing them.  I'm also trying to work out how best to mount a spotlight.  I'd prefer not to use the big clunky IG version that currently exists.  I've looked at a SM version but am having difficulties finding a suitable method for attaching it to the turret as it's still to big to place anywhere else.  I am toying with the idea of placing it at the rear of the tank and doing the same with the ones that need to be attached to my rhinos.  I'll leave the dozer blade off for now to make it easier to paint the vehicle.

Eltnot.

Chimera WIP Part 1

Going on from my previous post, I've started work on my Chimera.  I've been taking photos and will try to lay this out as a guide for others wishing to do the same.  I started out by assembling the track sections as normal (I decided not to go with the alternate track style).  I've left off the tracks for the time being, as I can easily add them on later.  I got out all the other major parts and cleaned them all up ready for assembly.

I then started to work out my measurements.  I concluded that to get the look that I wanted, I could remove between 18mm and 22mm from the top section.  Any less than that and I would partially cover some of the hatches that I wanted to keep.  Any longer than that and I would have to add extensions to the lower hull and that would be painful.  I worked out that I could cut out from just in front of the first lasgun port to just in front of the second lasgun port.  This worked out to be about 18-19mm of hull.  I put together the front part of the hull to help me with guessing and fitting of parts.  I took my new hobby saw and proceeded to cut the section out of the hull.  Unfortunately I let the blade slip at one stage and put a nick in the hull that I will have to cover up later on.

I then cleaned up the cut a little with a file and glued the two halves together.

For extra strength, I cut off two legths of sprue and glued them to the underside of the hull.

Once that was done, I glued the lower section of the hull to the two track sections.  This was a little tricky as the parts all need to be squeezed tightly together to get them to glue straight.  I also lined up my top hull with the lower hull and clipped off the rear rivets and one of the sets of hinges to allow a flush finish.  I'll have to make up the hinge parts that I've removed latter on out of greenstuff or small bits of plasticard.

 Once that was done, I've test fitted all of the parts and am assembling each of the other sections.  I haven't glued on any of the hatches yet as I'll leave them until I've got all of the parts built that need to be.  I've already had to fish one of the small hatches out of the hull as I try dry fitting them in place and filing.

You can see the tank starting to take shape.  I'll keep this updated as I continue working on it.

P.S. The new version of the blog composer is bloody annoying.  Especially the fact that if I'm uploading pictures, I can't write at the same time like I used to.

Eltnot.

Sisters of Battle WIP

So I'm committed to going down to play at Quarter Master III in August. I also don't want to take the Iyanden Eldar again. So that leaves me with painting my Tau, or my Sisters. The sisters are probably a bit further on then my Tau (and don't require me to buy an airbrush to get all of the tanks finished), so I'll be fielding the girls. The army is mostly basecoated to a minimum of three colours but there's a few conversion that I need to do to bring the army up to date, due to the change of points in my Inducted Imperial Guard Platoon. Here's how the army currently looks.


And here's the list I intend to run:
Armylist

I had to save the file to a pdf as blogger wasn't displaying the spreadsheet properly.

Eltnot.

Gepanzerte Panzergrenadierkompanie WiP

Got the bases based with spackle tonight. It's the first time I've used it and it was certainly different. It was a bit tricky to apply since it's so soft until it hardens. Perhaps if I'd scored the bases might have made it easier.

Here's the list I intend to run on Sunday:

Company HQ 80 points
2 Command Panzerknacker SMG

Gepanzerte Panzergrenadier Platoon 235 points
3 Squads
Command Panzerknacker SMG

Gepanzerte Panzergrenadier Platoon 235 points
3 Squads
Command Panzerknacker SMG

Mittlere Panzer Platoon 360 points
3 Panzer III L with shurzen

Heavy Panzerspah Patrol 85 points
2 Sd Kfz 231

Total 995 points

Eltnot

Gepanzerte Panzergrenadierkompanie WiP

I received my second platoon in the mail about a week ago so I've been putting them together ready for this Sunday. Wonna and I are planning to escalate our games to 1000 points and play on a full board. I'm hoping to get the putty onto the bases before the weekend and undercoat everything on Saturday. I'll also have to knock up a few more building, roads and a stream before the day so that we can have a decent table. I have some blue cardboard that I bought when I picked up the stuff for my roads so I'll use that for now.

We hope to do a batrep from our game too so look out for that.

Eltnot.

Gepanzerte Panzergrenadierkompanie WiP

Just a quick update on the modelling front.


I've been busy trying to get my Germans together. So far I've assembled all of the vehicles out of my current collection of models. They still need their machine gunners which will be added after painting. I've magnetised the guns on my Panzer III's so that I can use them as either L or N variants. Unfortunately I somehow got the polarity wrong on the turret off my command tank so I need to fix that.

I also got to play my first games of Flames today. Wonna and I basically sat down and threw our armies at each other, mainly in an attempt to try things out and learn the rules. Once I get some better scenery and paint my models I'll start doing some AAR's for them.

Whilst I try to find the time to make some decent terrain for our games, I've decided to throw together some paper buildings. Unfortunately I can't find any for 15mm, so if anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to know.

Eltnot.

In the works

Now that things have quietened down a little, I've started sorting out things to do to finish off existing projects and letting myself enjoy a few small projects also. On my plate at the moment, I have a unit of Chaos Warriors to put together and paint for my fantasy army. I've also started on a bloodbowl team.

This is also the first time ever that I've tried using a white undercoat. I'll have to use washes a fair bit which is also something fairly new to recreate the blacklining effects that I've started to use when painting models from a black undercoat. It's certainly proving to be a good learning experience and if it takes me longer, it doesn't matter so much with only 16 figures in total to paint.

Eltnot.