Thursday 28 May 2015

Post 400! And a Golden Daemon!

Good grief, somehow this is the 400th post. These things creep up on you don't they? First of all, thank you to all who read the mad ramblings of a bloke in Cardiff painting little plastic mans. Second of all, I thought I'd treat myself to an otherwise pointless but enjoyable model:


Yep, it's the only Golden Daemon I'm ever likely to see! This was the - can you believe - 2006 Golden Daemon model (I worked that one as well), the severed head is the Golden Daemon that decorated the lovely paint sets that were the first I ever owned:


To my delight he's on the modern ones too! My nostalgia circuitry was well and truly tickled. Anyway, I am using this as part of Project RPG as a Dwarf Barbarian, an apparently rather successful one. Oddly enough, this model has one brilliant element and one slightly dodgy one so lets focus on the good bit first:


The extremely nifty severed Golden Daemon head. the puddle of blood comes sculpted on so subtlety is right out the window on this one. There was only one colour that I could possibly paint this daemon: Gold, of course. I used the pseudo-NMM method I usually use on cloth in order to avoid him looking like a Simpson's character. I was especially taken by the black eye, it hasn't photographed terribly well but the sculpt is lovely.


Sadly the Dwarf wasn't quite as well sculpted (sadly at the time limited edition models were often ones that had either failed "gold testing" - i.e. they just ate moulds - or were training models and the like. These days things are much better) so I just did a fairly basic job on him and allowed the eye to find the daemon head instead. There isn't a huge amount to say about him that hasn't been said on other slayer models so I'll talk briefly about blood. The axe was layers of thin streaks of Blood For The Blood God with increasing amounts of black ink mixed in. For the base I also added a glaze of my older red & chestnut ink mix to the groundwork.

And there you go! Something fun for the 400th post. Here's to many, many more. Next time it will be more thunderbolt progress (they're really coming on now).

TTFN

Sunday 24 May 2015

We are 5 today!

When I was posting yesterday's blog entry I was thinking "23rd May... isn't that around the time of year that I forget that it was PVP's birthday?". So I checked and yes, yes it is, today in fact. So happy birthday PVP! Somehow it's been five years (and 399 posts including this one. Have to think of something for post 400). I usually do a little Dress-a-Mulder image to celebrate these things and today is no exception:


In Britain five years old is when you start school so off Mulder goes. Just William cap and all. I've got nothing profound to say. Just somehow five years went by.
Whoosh.
"What was that?"
"Five years mate"
"Jeez, going a bit fast wasn't it? Kill someone at that speed"

So until next time with shiny models, treat yourself to some cake to celebrate with us.

TTFN

Saturday 23 May 2015

Operation Thunderbolt - Build Log Part Two

Hi folks, this update is a smidgeon later and shorter than I had intended, there is a short angry saga to explain this:


The above picture is of the undercoated Thunderbolts, note the white will be where the yellow is going to be. Eagle-eyed readers might spot some yellow on there already... yeah... that is how a crap paint can cost you four clear days of productive work and cause no little fury. Some of you might remember me being excited about Minitaire paints by Badger turning up. This was because the colours were not the usual drab military colours but instead the bright, saturated ones suitable for a lot of 40k stuff. I picked some up as it was literally the only pre-mixed option at the time. I was new to airbrushing and didn't want to mess up the mixes. I also assumed the problems I had were my fault rather than the paints.

I know better now.

Minitaire yellow joins all of the other Minitaire paints I have tried in the bin. No matter what I tried it would not cover properly. They shrank from edges. They pebbled so badly on a second thin coat that it looked like cellulite. I assumed there was a problem with the resin release showing through the primer. I stripped the paint, cleaned the "problem areas" - so I thought - and left them to dry. This takes some time. Then I tried again. The exact same problem. Rage, paints hit bin, strip models again, leave to dry. Buy some Vallejo Game Air Sun Yellow. Which was perfect.


So finally I had the yellow areas coloured. Now to carefully mask them off (almost certainly I'll get some bleed under but it's easier to fix than getting clean yellow over darker tones).


I've burnished the nice flexible Tamiya masking tape over the bits I want to stay yellow and packed the nose. This allows me to put colours on top and keep that nice clean yellow.


Next colour along is Dark Bluegrey a surprisingly agreeable colour and when this settles I'll mask off the camo patterns and get the Basalt Grey on and then the light underside. Honestly thought I'd be there by now. Curse you Minitaire! Curse you!!!!


That's enough of my griping though, we're back on track now. More fun next week!

TTFN

Thursday 14 May 2015

Operation Thunderbolt - Build Log Part One

Greetings one and all, I'm trying a new approach for this next project. As it'll be a fairly long one I'm breaking up the reporting of it and spreading it over a series of articles as a kind of build log. "What project?" I hear you ask. Well, it's a cool one, a brace of my very favourite 40k aircraft. The Imperial Navy Thunderbolt:


These two have come ready assembled (thank the gods as my tempestuous relationship with Forgeworld's instructions is well documented) but they still need a little work. Mostly cleaning casting plug remnants, mould lines and the main thing the client wants. Bombs. Lots of bombs. Missiles too:


We're using a box of Academy's 1:48 WWII ordnance for the job. 1:48 is perfect for 40k's slightly exaggerated scales - indeed, I think it is the right scale for any "chunky" 28mm figure as the Bolt Action stuff I'm doing indicates. These need to be interchangeable, so the only practical way to go is magnets. However, magnets over such a variety of sizes of hard points and ordnance will lead to problems with fiddly making-sure-everything-is-exactly-the-same-size-and-polarity-itis. I eventually realised that it would be a bit too fiddly. Never mind the inevitable mistake when a magnet gets put in upside down. No. A better way needed to be found and one presented itself in the form of movement trays. You see, lots of people (Maisey of the Beard Bunker included) use magnets in their bases to stick their models down to movement trays to prevent that "we're in a pile at the bottom of the hill boss" formation so popular when gravity gets involved. What do the magnets stick to? Sheets of very thin, self adhesive flexible steel. Essentially plastic impregnated with fine steel filings which leaves it both magnetic and very, very soft. You can cut it with scissors. Or...


If like me you've got one, a guillotine (really useful bit of kit) which will give you perfectly straight cuts no muss, no fuss. I cut 5mm wide strips of the flex-steel - measured to fit the rectangular mounting points on the underneath of the wings. These were then cut to one inch lengths and moved on to the sticking.


The self-adhesion will stick 'em in place just fine but I feared for it's longevity. So after they were all in place (note the extra centre-line mounting for really large bombs) I ran some superglue around the edges. Capillary action will draw it in and seal the edges up nicely. Ought to be bomb proof now (badum-tish). These 0.5mm thick flex-steel pieces will vanish nicely beneath the primer coat and will just look like extra sculpted panels. The idea is that if the client just wants to use them as interceptors the wings will simply look painted. No obvious points of attachment. The magnetised hard points for the bombs and missiles will just snap into place and - hopefully - not leave a mark.


Speaking of paint, the scheme we're going for is an "Imperial-esque" variant of a neat WWII luftwaffe scheme the client found. Looking forward to playing with it. Handily, the transfer sheet came with a colour guide complete with RLM colour values. Five minutes on Vallejo's website found me their equivalences pdf and the correct colours for the greys are found. But that will wait for next time gadget. Next time!

TTFN

p.s. like the idea of seeing more workbench articles? Seeing the process instead of the finished result? Let me know in the comments.

Sunday 10 May 2015

Imperial Guard! Flags! People Holding Them!

Yes, I'm running short of titles for DKK posts.


Today we've got some shiny, shiny banners and some very normal DKK dudes holding them. These are all part of the mopping up project finishing off the client's DKK collection. The dudes are pretty much normal as per previous posts:

Perfectly normal dudes for reference
I've done some minor modifications as per client instructions, mostly small posing changes, goggles on helmet etc.


The banners are mishmashes of Imperial Guard flags, Empire finials and "dangley bits", one of them is a straight up Empire banner. The one above is just the army colours and my faux NMM gold.Getting happier with it as I go. Still not a fan of NMM in general but on cloth, it works really well.


The next two have more work involved in them. The flag on the left had a Cadian Gate on it. Client asked for it to be removed and replaced with an Armageddon style fist. Twenty minutes with a Dremel and a couple of hours with ProCreate and a new flag is born. The one on the right is totally freehand. The horses tail is less stubby than it looks in the picture. The black shows through the yellow with the lighting.

So, all done! There'll be more DKK before we're done (again) but for now

TTFN