Friday 30 September 2011

Imperial Forces

Ok, I thought after the mad spending of the weekend I ought to list my army. Simply for my own reference. I think I probably have enough for a fair Krieg Army now...
Hash symbol denotes painted/partially painted or built...

  • HQ
    Death Korps Command HQ
    Death Korps Quartermaster and Retinue
    Death Korps Commissars x2 #
  • Elites
    Grenadier Squad
    Grenadier Special Weapons
    Grenadier Centaur
    Heavy Mortar and Crew
  • Troops
    Death Korps Engineer Squad and Mole Launcher #
    Hades #
    Death Korps Platoon Command
    Death Korps Infantry Firing, Advancing and At Ease
  • Fast Attack
    Death Rider Squad #
    Valkyrie
    Sentinel with Rockets #
    Sentinel Support
  • Heavy Support
    Minotaur
    Macharius
    Malcador
    Heavy Earthshaker, Crew and Trojan
    Shadowsword
    Manticore
Steve

Monday 26 September 2011

Games Day 2011

Well, after travelling to Birmingham yesterday and spending an enjoyable afternoon with Maelstrom - you may know him from TheRisingSign I went and stayed at the hotel, woke up late for GD, much to the dismay of,
Rictus, Maelstrom and LavaDave. Aaanyway, we arrived before 10am still, and I spent the day travelling around with Rictus, taking photographs.

The FW Display Area!


Here are some of my favourites.
Imperial Empalcement - hollow (light) display-terrain piece. Looks good, despite being very square...

 Dark Eldar somethingius.
 Another Dark Eldar somethingius.
 Crassus, not seen one in person so got a photo. Would be awesome to paint I think.
 New Rapier - an old style GW piece being remade. There's a little plate at the back so maybe they're going to do crewmen for it... Oooh, a Krieg Engineer crewman would be good!
Strange Warhammer Forge model, very not Warhammer actually, got other gaming system look to it, very creepy and as I say looks like something brand new in Warhammer.
Elysian concept art (Stormtroopers?).
Nurgle toads. These are MINT.
Rictus showed me this a few weeks ago and I loved it, one of my favourite GW models of the year (I don't rate Dark Eldar much). This is the oversize model (something to do with casting or something) it's like 4-5 times the size of the original. I got ahold of my copy of the model yesterday from Rictus so I'll get to painting it in a week or two. Whilst taking a photo of this, a fella in a GW shirt started talking to me, and I said how much I liked the model and "Who sculpted it", "me" was the reply. 

Some of my favourite Golden Demon entries - if you see yours please say! And remember these pictures are taken through glass with competing light sources so they're not always the best.
Golden Contemptor
Dreadnought smashing Tau backdoors in.

Not a clue.

GK Dreadnought I think. With Biffy Clyro lyrics on.

At the end of the day. Madness had set in.
Maelstrom, LavaDave and Mr. Feral




Anyway, good day had by all.
How was your experience?

Sunday 18 September 2011

Minor Update

Well, all I have left to do on the engineers is:

Aquillas, lenses, bases, weathering, transfers. I'm going to try and have them done before Tuesday. I started building my Hades today but there's a few faults with it so gonna take a bit of time to fix it up.

In other news, a few awesome blogs I found today.

Haekel and Jaekel.  Check out the step by steps. The squat one is good.
Mathieu Fontaine. These are incredible! Macharius, Russ, speeder, venator. Awesome stuff.

These are in French, but if you run them in Google Chrome it auto-translates.

In other news... 6 days!! :D

Steve

Friday 9 September 2011

PIP Engineers #1

Firstly 16 days to go!

Right, Engineers are Paint in Progress. I'm doing 2 at a time, coat/armour/webbing then I'll do all 8 metallics and lenses, bases etc at the end (help tie them together).

I've gone for a reduced scale oakleaf camouflage, with fieldgrey armour. I'm very happy with the look as it is, and think it's definitely better than the initial black grey theme. I also think that these will tie with the troopers much better.

Squad of 7 men.
Converted Hades driver. (Arms brought closer together and lower) with backpack made from bits. Including a Thermite grenade!

Off for a pint now, hopefully do the next 2 this afternoon.

Steve

Wednesday 31 August 2011

Props-aganda.

Well, a couple of years back Rictus did some terrain - before Cities of Death - constructing a beast of a building out of foamboard.

Well, that wasn't that interesting... But, then actually painted it and added some awesome stuff, like propaganda posters. He/she (maintain the mystery*) posted a sheet of 40k'ified propaganda posters. Which can be found here: http://recalcitrantdaze.blogspot.com/2011/08/propaganda-and-information-posters.html

And I had a go at making one for myself. Need to ask what size they need to be for accurate size printed but nevermind.



One he hasn't done yet -

NOT MINE:
Another I made:
Original:


* - Rictus may or may not be female.

Wednesday 17 August 2011

Apologies

Apologies for the lack of updates everyone, I'm currently collecting data for my undergraduate dissertation which is taking a lot of time.
I quit smoking last week so there should be a lot more money going towards my hobby in the near future. After Games Day I hope to have a good bit of hobby time alongside my uni work.

I guess I need to retain people's attention, which is difficult, but in the near future I intend to do a lot of things. Not least, my big project for after GD which is the construction of a display board (and gaming though not oriented at that) table in trench patterns, with artillery and bunkers (including my own modular trench systems).

Apologies again, and I hope to update soon.

Steve

Saturday 13 August 2011

Krieg Pattern Sentinel

Well, finally here's something.

Not to keen on the highlighting, as it's not deep enough. Next time I'll do another stage. As far as this one is concerned think of it as a test subject.




Steve

Monday 8 August 2011

Blast from the Past Vol.8

Evening, as I said I left my camera up North, but I am travelling home this Wednesday so should be able to shoot some pictures when I get there.

So here are some older pictures of my stuff.

Was never too happy with these, the idea was whitewash, using hairspray.



Anyway, coming up soon, apologies for the lax updates, a few things been going on this end.


  1. Will post up pictures of the Krieg Pattern rocket Sentinel this week, already painted. 
  2. Pictures of Krieg Engineers which are in progress now.
  3. Eventual conversion work of Hades Drill.
Take Care!

Steve

Wednesday 3 August 2011

Planet Planning

G'day all,

Unfortunately I've left my camera oop North. So a bit of a wordy update I'm afraid.

I ordered this;
From Sylmasta.com. I intend to create and cast some stowage for my tanks.

The things that GW/FW don't make are sand channels. I am making some of this;
It's called Marston/Marsden matting. It was designed in WWII as a way of quickly creating airfields (particularly helpful on the advance to Japan, and the Pacific Islands). Essentially, strips of pierced steel which is longitudinally hooked together.
My design takes the pierced steel look but the hooks on the sides will be more 40k style by being more simple. I'm hoping to cast the product so I won't worry about the combination of materials I use.

Hopefully I should have some pictures up within the week.

Steve

Friday 29 July 2011

Blast from the Past Vol.7

Evening all.

This is a model I built around the time I made the Atlas (scroll down). This was a scratchbuilt tank hunter based on a russ chassis.

The only GW part used is the hull sides and the tow chain ends. Quite enjoyable to make.

The initial aim was to make a sleek, low slung destroyer. I made the barrel quite long (made it firing solid ammunition, not laser quaser) and attached it and the mantle quite low down.

Favourite features - GS'd teddy bear (ode to dustbin men everywhere) and the tow style hunter killer proxy. Essentially designed as a remote device with a disposable munition.


I sold this to someone in Australia - so I never painted it. Here's a shot of the bits which are removeable (HK, cupola and aerial).

Friday 22 July 2011

Blast from the Past Vol.6

Well, I've spent the evening sorting out things for my semi-backpacking trip to the Alps - leave on Saturday.
I decided I'd post some WIP pictures of some models I made. I have a terrible condition, a disease no less, that I'm never happy. Consider the Queen from Blackadder II. That's me, but about things I make.

Here is a Command Chimera. There was a time when nobody thought of adding a Predator turret to a chimera. Then I came along and copied the idea.
Right so, basic rundown. Take a chimera chassis. And a predator turret (remarkably hard to come by nowadays) I think eBay may be the way to go.
The lasguns on the back of the Chimera model always made me think of rowing. I attend a university where many people think that going rowing means that they are more suited to being there. Consider false social mobility. Personally I like the local, where I can get a pint for £1.40 and telling the lecturers stories (can be remarkably fun...). No point pretending to be a Posh lad.
So, in essence, I don't add the lasguns on the back.Shave away the the lasgun ports (don't worry too much about making a mess) Then I used some thin sheet styrene (0.25mm) to cover the area, (for some real inspiration using sheet styrene check out this blog (http://recalcitrantdaze.blogspot.com/) the OP is used to me bugging him 24/7 about how to use sheet styrene and in all honesty has taught me what I know.
This makes the vehicle look better in my opinion, in terms of those lasguns, they can't fire downwards, so unless they shoot fireworks there's not a lot of point, it also makes the vehicle more sleek at the rear.
You'll notice the turret has some little squares on it. This was to reduce the shape of the Predator turret by making ERA (explosive reactive armour). I think it looks fantastic, quite a few modern armies use it. I ripped the ones from the mantle off in the end as you will see next:

I replaced the mantle area (I think there's a skull there?) with a plate of 0.5mm styrene, with a rivet in each corner (rivets can be easily made by using a sharp knife, and cutting a thin section from a 0.75mm round rod). I then added a brass etch eagle to it. I think that one was from the old Games Workshop basing set.
I replaced the cupola with one from the Imperial Guard Accessories Sprue.
I added sandbags. Sandbags can be a very nice addition to tanks, they can easily be made by rolling a sausage of greenstuff (use a new plastic freezer bag with a pool of water on) roll the green stuff sausage by moving your hand back and forth over it, but apply some lateral pressure to prevent getting marks in it.


The idea was basically to hide the plain shape of the Predator turret. Though I left the Autocannon on because I felt it looked very good. There are a few Space Marine weapons I'd give to the Guard, and vice versa.

The side skirts were made quite simply.
1) choose the size of skirt you want. Cut an equilateral shape to match this.
2) remove the sharp edges on the top.
3) cut the skirt into three, at the point the slope ends.
4) gently sand the internal join of the skirt, then match them together again (so you have a gentle recess where they meet).
5) if you want them removeable, more work will be required but I attached them with a hook system. Made by creating a recess the size of the matching piece on the skirt. So it fitted together. It may help to paint these parts seperately.

Stowage!
People have started adding stowage to Imperial Guard tanks in the past couple of years. It really does add some extra texture to the model as well as interesting detail.
I use a Tamiya 1/35 scale kit called "Allied Vehicle Accessories" as well as some scratch built stuff. As I mentioned previously, the missile tubes and launcher were scratchbuilt from Elysian design. I made one to look like an AT-4.
The strap was made with a strip of thin plasticard. Glue one side, let it dry (hour or two) then add to the other side, you can pull it taught then without it breaking.
The bangalore tubes were made copying a tutorial posted by Rictus. I shall ask him to repeat the tutorial on his blog.

After speaking to another blogger yesterday, Maelstrom (his blog is a fantastic foray into what's cool about GW models). Find it here: http://maelstrom-therisingsign.blogspot.com/ (Scroll down a bit for some scratchbuilt Valhallans) I decided I would post up some camouflage tutorials.

German Camouflage Autumn Oakleaf.
Colours required:
Vallejo Model colours:
German Camouflage Black Brown
Chaos Black
German Camouflage Light Brown
German Camouflage Pale Brown

Basecoat the area with Black Brown.

Wash with chaos black (water down heavily, ~1/5) with a glazing medium (dish soap, glaze medium, varnish) whatever. I use Vallejo glaze medium for the matte finish.
Highlight by adding Pale Brown. Giving a desaturated look to the area. Repeat this step once or twice to get a nice finish.

Add patches of Black Brown (consult a German Autumn Oakleaf picture for shapes).

Gently dot in Light Brown to fill the patches with a nice border around.

Add some smaller dots of Black Brown then add the light brown again.


That's all folks!

Steve