Defiant Workshop's Project Log! Thrills! Chills! Explosions?

[defiantworkshop]

Haighus, its the best solution for tight seams. Major gaps still need putty, but you have to let the cement and styrene work for you when the option is there! Way less sloppy than putty, far less sanding time as well.

[Haighus]

It certainly looks neat. Will get a nice welded look on Imperial vehicles too I would imagine if done right

[defiantworkshop]

Definitely. If you use a brush on cement, you can actually use a tad less, and create a "carved" look with the brush while its drying. Just swirl the brush around the seam while its still a bit wet, and there you go.

One other trick is you can glue the halves together with too much glue (usually has to be done with thicker cement), then pull them apart quickly, and push them back together. You end up squeezing the excess glue and plastic out of the seam. It a "mistake" that can look like a weld line if done right, but tough to control, and might shouldn't be done around heavy detail.

You can read a bit about some of my gap methods here, I haven't finished the series with larger gaps yet, but some decent tricks to be had:

[URL="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://defiantworkshop.blogspot.com/2014/10/tutorial-gap-filling-part-1-using.html&sa=U&ei=oSkwVZWHG8SlyATmjoDYBw&ved=0CAg QFjAB&client=internal-uds-cse&usg=AFQjCNFCH5iwrbMsI3tE1mKUk9ki5wclzg"]Gap Filling[/URL]

[URL="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://defiantworkshop.blogspot.com/2014/10/tutorial-gap-filling-part-2-largers.html&sa=U&ei=oSkwVZWHG8SlyATmjoDYBw&ved=0C AUQFjAA&client=internal-uds-cse&usg=AFQjCNEx9OXfymxebRSTm_4hamUy3vdWlw"]Gap Filling part 2[/URL]

[Haighus]

They look like useful threads, thanks

[defiantworkshop]

So I was not happy whatsoever with the built in weaponry of the Devilfish. The gun in the middle that comes with the kit is a gatling-style, four-barreled weapon with serious seam lines, and due to its construction, makes it tough to clean and look nice. So I decided to take matters into my own hands.

I sliced off the barrels at the base and sanded it down, then got a few parts from my bits bin and got to work mixing and matching, seeing what worked together. I ended up with the barrel from what I believe is the Ork Bommer, housed in an old AMT/ERTL X-Wing thruster, with a gas cap on the end of the barrel to make it a little more visually interesting:



After that, I primed the individual pieces in white (its assembled but not totally glued together here):

[defiantworkshop]

Finally got all the stars aligned to continue on this...a clean airbrush, some new paint and new thinner, and all the family birthday parties and field trips out of the way. Had a free day, so it was time to get everything based up on the Eldar Crimson Hunter.



Not much has really changed, other than I got a good smooth coat on the vehicle. After the original coat and the eventual sanding to even the orange peel out, I mixed up some enamel paint (Humbrol this time) 1:1 with some dedicated enamel thinner and sprayed at just below 20 psi. Got a nice smooth coat this time. As enamel paints have a longer than normal dry time, I didn't want any lint, dust, or kids' sneeze to get on the base coat, so I placed it in an upside-down plastic container, where it will stay for a few days while it dries and gases out.

Thanks, as always, for stopping by!

[defiantworkshop]

Time to make some polygons!

After finally spraying the entire works base black (after a change in direction for the color scheme...I would've primed in black had I known I'd wind up here), I started laying the polygonal masks down. Not much here, but its progress while I wait for the Crimson Hunter enamel base coat to finish drying.

[defiantworkshop]

Just a quick post showing where its at in the process. Finished the spraying and mask removal last night. Next up is accent colors, then washes, then final shots!

[defiantworkshop]

So my next step, after finishing the camo, was to work on an accent color to give it a bit more visual interest. I looked through my paint inventory and decided a crimson red would look best. So I started off by masking the areas that would need to be protected from the spray:



Pretty basic stuff....just used Tamiya masking tape around the crucial areas and then plain old hardware store masking tape for the rest since its cheaper. The Tamiya stuff is lower tack and thinner, so its a lot easier to not only position it in the right spot. but also easier to trim with an Xacto blade in the correct spots than the cheapo stuff. From there, I mixed up a batch of Tamiya Red and a dash of Hull Red (more of a brown than red) to knock the color down a bit. I sprayed it all mixed 2:1 with thinner and around 20 psi.



After giving it all a good bit to dry appropriately, I peeled the tape off. I didn't want to do a very large amount of red, since the color change is so stark (going from literally no color [blacks and grays] to a vibrant color [crimson]), so I left the body mostly free except a few pieces up front. Didn't want to do any red on the back of the actual vehicle, since the bulk of the red would be on the turbines themselves.



As always, thanks for looking!

[defiantworkshop]

Just about done with this. Spent another day picking out the details and washing the panel lines on the Devilfish. Doesn't look phenomenally different than the last shot, but that's the price of being close to complete. Decided against doing any major weathering. I did a test piece on the underside and wasn't real happy with it. The camo scheme is so "busy" that added weathering, to me, detracted from it more than added to it. I wasn't going to go wild with the weathering anyway, as to me the Tau were a "cleaner-burning" species than humanity's diesel counterparts.



So, its time to base the thing. I originally was going to do some cool stuff and use clear styrene rod to support it from the thrusters, until I realized how large that was going to make the base. So, I scrapped that idea and just decided to use the original base that came with it. I started by priming the whole thing in black, then decided to try out my pumice paint, as I'd never used it before. Worth a shot, as the base is kind of swallowed by the footprint of this thing anyway. I just got a paint spreader tool and went to town:



Then, not really knowing the properties of this "paint," I added some debris from various other kits and just stuck it in there. I'm hoping it dries hard, but I'm ready to glue it down just in case. And here we are, 24 hours later and this stuff is drying very slowly. The edges have dried up, but the center is still pretty much oatmeal. Its fun to experiment and see what this stuff can do at least. Once its done, I'm just going to prime it all up, and do some really quick paint work on it to finish this piece up. At least I was able to get the underside of the Crimson Hunter sprayed and re-enclosed for a week's worth of dry time: