Blood Angels Army Project (pic carpet bombing)

[Meph]

Thanks guys! That was exactly the look I was going for on his armour and apron (s******). I imagined him to focus on his battle brother during the battle/campaign, only taking care of his own armour when all the rest is spic & span.

Meanwhile, in Marine Land.

The techie's done. Currently his first phase of basing is drying, but here he is just after the details have been finished. Not too happy with the varnish coat though. I'm using a spray can from Army Painter, satin varnish, and it seems just a tad too glossy compared to the other cans I've used for them. I gave him a satin coat, was unhappy with the shininess (would I get a punch in the mouth for saying albedo?), gave him a matte coat to tray and soften it up. Was not please with the 100% dull look that matte varnish gives, so gave him another satin coat. He should be able to withstand a small tactical nuclear blast now.

I didn't do the normal three-colour highlight I normally do on the eyes as they're so frickin' tiny, and recessed so deeply that applying these green dots almost gave me a heart attack. They're literally two minuscule droplets suspended between three brush hairs, applied with the steady hand of a surgeon playing 'Operation' on a subatomic scale. Took years of my life and I won't even try to add a highlight or a white dot.




And yesterday went a bit on a rampage through the bits box and cobbled together this guy. I must say I'm quite happy with the way he came out. Equipped with a jump pack, he'll be coming to your rescue when your vehicle breaks down in the middle of a firefight. And with the remote bolt pistol, he's got both hands free to use his Astartes Mutlitool. Whatever can't be fixed with a hammer (seriously, precious little), can be fixed with a spanner, and vice versa.

The metal and dark plastic piping is from Zinge Industries and I must say I'm amazed by their quality for the price. I'd be damned if I'd coil that much tiny copper wire by hand myself, and their flexible resin (the dark tubes) come in all shapes and sizes and is easily bendable, immediately holding its shape and feels like it has the right smoothness and feel to hold paint without any trouble. Good stuff for someone of my mediocre manufacturing skills. And they also have resin cable endings/plugs which will go on the end of those cables once the little greenstuff blob holding them together has cured. For those of you with some conversions in the future, check out their website, they've got tons of goodies for good prices.





Oh, don't mind the right arm that seems a bit droopy, the white poster putty I'm using for the temp posing isn't all that solid.

[Meph]

Little side project with a little order from Shapeways has been done.



"This is Major Tom to Ground Control. I'm stepping through the door, and I see something floating in a most peculiar waaa-a-a-ay."




Merry Christmas everyone!

[Meph]

Alrighty, picture time

The basing on the techie is practically done. Maybe a wee bit more power here and there, but I don't know.
Also tried both the black and the white background I have for my little lighting tent.
Personally I'm a much bigger fan of the black one as it seems to handle the colour contrast better. Also, on the black background I shoot the photos at 1/250 shutter speed. On the white background, I'm forced to go to 1/15 or 1/20, because the white background makes the model almost appear black on faster shutter settings.

Then again, the white does seem more cleaner for WIP shots, but for finished models I think I'll stick to black.



Track time! Since Friulmodel is no longer responding to what I thought to be a very simple question, (To me it seems self-evident to have specs for manufactured model parts, but apparently asking the width of a track in millimeters seems like a strange concept to them.) I went and bought some 'Easy Metal Links' 1/35 PanzerII tracks from Dersockelshop.de. Some research on the web gave me enough information to guesstimate their 1/35 width in mm. They are about a mm thinner than the plastic Rhino tracks but that also gives them 1mm space in the track housing. the plastic GW tracks are actually touching the sides.

The metal tracks look less beefy than the plastic ones, at first I even thought they looked too flimsy, but they're growing on me. What do you guys think?

[Brakkart]

I'm liking those tracks though I'll admit after putting together a dozen+ Rhino chassis now the tracks that come with them have grown on me, hated them the first time I built one. Big thanks for the mention of Zinge Industries, after looking at their site I can see me getting a load of bits from them for my industrial wastes shanty town scenery project.

[Psychosplodge]

IDK whether I like them or not. I don't dislike them. But I'm not sure I like them enough to bother swapping the standard ones.

[Blackadder]

They look too delicate for tank treads.

[bloodangel 83]

I like the look of the individual tracks as they look like tracks are supposed to look, not blocky like GW to where they don't flow with the road wheels

[Meph]

Sorry for the lack of updates and responses, guys. Work got the better of me.

Hiatus finished! Man, it felt good to get out the brushes again, and to spray paint to the tunes of a compressor, airbrush booth, and Shylmagoghnar.

Just some rough work done to flex the muscles again and get the projects going again.
I took some quick pics of the work done.

The Rhinos:
Ditched the track swap. The guide teeth are just too off-center to use on a Rhino chassis without reconstructing the running wheels. In a fit of McGuyverness I even bought some Panzer MKII 1/35 running wheels but they are just too large, and I didn't want to order any more. And frankly, the Rhino tracks are not as bad as the standard Spartan ones I replaced on, well, the Spartan.

So, Glued on the standard ones and basecoated the lot. Next up is to come up with a good masking scheme to tie them in the rest of the vehicles. Probably some racing stripes for the Rhino, maybe even perpendicular ones. And for the Vindicator, I'm probably going for a black chevron on the top.

The tactical squad: Got two brushed highlights, a wash, and a glaze

The techmarine, first drybrushed highlights and a wash and a glaze as well.

Onwards!

[Blackadder]

Lordy; Meph is back. Sorry the reads didn't work out; I hope it wasn't something I said. ;-)

The one large tread [url]http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7716.JPG[/url] looks intriguing, what is the source for that and do you think it would fit a Baneblade tank?

[Meph]

They're 1/35 T-55 tracks from Friulmodel.

[url]http://www.friulmodel.hu/en/metal-tracks-m5/metal-tracks-1-35-p5.6/[/url]

I've noticed they're quite easy to find in hobby shops in Europe, dunno across the pond. Hmmm, I'm not sure if they're just wide enough for a Baneblade. Oh, I've got an unassembled superheavy lying around somewhere. I can take a look tomorrow and measure them up.

Some better pics of the Techmarine. I have him another highlight and a few red glazes.