Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Ork Pilot Bust - Kromlech

I wanted to tackle something new and Kromlech's Ork Pilot Bust seemed just the thing. I love the model. It arrived relatively quickly at a reasonable price. The model was well cast will almost no visible mold lines or flashing.


The plinth is the top from a cologne bottle and the ork pilot wings were made from a chopped up gift card.

Monday, December 28, 2015

Dune Crawler

I purchased this Adeptus Mechanicus Dune Crawler earlier this year for entry into the Modelzona competition. I never did get it done in time for the competition. In fact I painted it twice and stripped the paint twice before settling on a blue paint scheme.

I used a combination of Army Painter, Vallejo, and Tamiya acrylics along with Secret Weapon Miniatures weathering powders and Citadel Technical paints.











Thursday, December 24, 2015

Looting the Beauty Aisle

Hobby tools, materials, and subject matter can be found in a variety of places. Your local hobby and game stores, big box arts and crafts stores, dollar stores, and believe it or not beauty supply stores! While I find my hobby supplies in a number of locations today I'm going to focus on what you can find in the beauty supply section of your local store.


Nail files are always a great buy. They come in various grits and sizes. These are far cheaper than those you would purchase at a model hobby store. The files are also better than loose sheets of sandpaper because the stiff board makes using it effectively far more easy. I would recommend supplementing your supply with some quality ultra fine grit sandpaper from a hobby store, but the bulk of your sanding can be satisfied with nail files.

The nail section is full of great finds, nail files, clippers, and even nail polish. That's right nail polish can be thinned down with laquer thinner and run through an air brush. Granted most of the colors you'll find are better suited for painting model cars over war game models but the option is always there.


Okay so cotton swabs aren't exactly new to the model hobbiest but I do suggest purchasing the ones from the beauty section. The cotton tends to be tighter bound and they even come in shaped pointed tips. I like to use my cotton swabs for cleaning up oil washes. 


Makeup applicators are a cheap effective way to apply weathering powders. They can be purchased in small disposable versions like the ones that come in compacts or even longer handled versions allowing for better control and help getting into those hard to reach places. You may have even seen Tamiya's line of weathering powders which are essential eyeshadow compacts.


Makeup sponges can be used to apply weathering powders or tore into pieces and used to stipple colors for weathering or texture effects.

These are just a few of the great hobby supplies you can find the in the beauty section. Take a look around and you'll also find a wide selection of tweezers, and cuticle pushers are great for sculpting. Just remember to buy your own supplies and don't go raiding the beauty supplies of the ladies in your life, they may not be too pleased to find resin dust in their nail files.


Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Harald Deathwolf

I have to say that I was quite productive over my Thanksgiving vacation. I worked on a few different models and even completed Harald Deathwolf from start to finish. I'm also quite pleased with him and getting much more comfortable in my miniature painting. I think if I can get my mini painting up to my general model and armour skill level I'll be much happier with my models overall. This Harald Deathwolf was definitely a step in the right direction.




The wolf was painted by airbrush with Tamiya acrylics. I then followed up with Army Painter 'Dark Tone' ink and a dry brush of the lighter Tamiya tan. The details were picked up using a detail brush and a variety of Army Painter, Vallejo, and generic craft paints.


I did a lot of green stuff work to the wolf to clear up the joints where the model pieces come together. I used my standard method for painting the brass details. Using all Army Painter paints I base the details in 'leather brown', then lay down a coat of 'weapon bronze' followed by 'soft tone' ink.


The skin cloak was painted with a base of 'army green' followed by Vallejo Game Color 'green wash' and a dry brushing of 'army green' and 'necrotic flesh'.


I used Army Painter 'Wolf Grey' spray primer for the Wolf Lord. His armour was then washed with 'Blue Tone' ink and highlighted with 'wolf grey' and a light blue/grey craft paint.


I was especially happy with how well the frost axe came out. I painted the blade in the same light blue/grey craft paint I used for highlights on his armour and then applied a wash of the Army Painter 'blue tone' ink over it. A quick dry brush of the light blue/grey was then applied to the forward edge of the blade.


I have many more Space Wolves to go and I hope they all come out as good as Harald did.

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Ork Dakkajet Conversion



A little while ago I picked up three Hasegawa Egg planes with plans to convert them into Ork Dakkajets. I thought that the comedic shape of the planes would be a perfect complement to the Ork aesthetic. I've seen a couple of other Dakkajets created from egg planes online and I loved the look. I picked the Hasegawa F4U Corsair for my conversions.

I used styrene and a few items from my bits box to convert the corsair into my dakkajet. Additional details on the work in progress can be found on my previous blog post.






Weathering effects were created using the salt technique, sponge technique as well as oil washes.

MIG 'Fuel Stains' was used to give the look of fuel overflow leaking from the fuel tank.




The details on the base were created using part of a grot tank model I'm creating and some rhino tread. I also used the GW technical paints 'Agrellan earth' to get the cracked earth texture.






Fenrisian Wolves

I picked up a set of five Fenrisian Wolves at a local gamer's swap meet a couple of weeks ago. They came in a bag with many other models for a meager $2! They are the older model type so they're not much to work with but I think they came out well. Two were missing tails so I had to sculpt a couple out of green stuff.





Monday, November 23, 2015

Ministorum Priest Conversion


This conversion was accomplished using a Chaos Cultist. The head is from Maxmini. I created the staff using some styrene rod, the tip of a glue applicator, and a the Forgeworld icon shown below.


The head of the staff was created by molding and casting two copies of the Forgeworld Inquisition icon. They were then trimmed down to the icon only and glued back to back. The purity seals are also green stuff.


The book is green stuff sandwiched between styrene. The strap around the book is more green stuff and the skull was scraped off another model with a razor blade then applied to the book.

The censor, robes, and a good portion of the right arm are green stuff.

The original model used was the cultist pictured in the lower left of the box artwork shown below.



Monday, November 16, 2015

Sgt. Harker Revisited

While Sgt. Harker may have been nerfed in the most recent Astra Militarum Codex he's still a badass and I always run him with my veteran squad. Today's post is a republishing of a very old page I made dedicated to my custom Sgt. Harker project.

Why buy a character figure when you can make your own?  I'm sure there are plenty of good reasons out there but for the sake of this project let's just pretend there aren't.  Yeah Games Workshop makes a Sgt. Harker figure, but I wasn't in the mood for that.  You see I had lot of extra Catachan Infantry lying around and a whole lot of bits to play with so I went about making my own. 

I started with a standard Catachan Infantryman.  I chose the bare chested torso with legs which were in a bracing position.  Since Sgt. Harker is carrying a Heavy Bolter he was going to have to brace himself for both the weight and recoil.  One arm was a standard Catachan trigger arm and the other was a Catachan arm extending a sword.

Using a hobby knife I trimmed off the rifle butt from the trigger arm, the sword from the extending arm and carved away the ammo pouches and straps from the torso.

Next using Apoxie Sculpt I began bulking up the muscles.  In order to get a good shape for the neck and shoulders the head was glued in place.


For Sgt. Harker's heavy bolter I salvaged one from a Catachan Heavy Weapons Team.  It was a little long so I trimmed it down using my miter box.  I then smoothed out some spots with the hobby knife and added an aquila to the front facing side using apoxie sculpt.  I also drilled out the barrel and vents.  This is an important part which a lot of people overlook.  Simply painting black dots where holes should be is just tacky!

At first the ammo belt stumped me.  After looking at some different examples of heavy bolters I decided I'd make mine in the style of the Space Marines.  I measured the width of the chamber on the heavy bolter and trimmed numerous pieces of 3/32" styrene tubing to fit.  I then affixed these tube sections to a long thin strip of masking tape I had cut to be roughly 1/3 the width of the tubes.  This allowed the belt to remain flexible until glued into place.  After the tube sections had been wrapped down the middle with masking tape, the lengths were a little nonuniform.  I evened them out with a few passes over an emery board.  If I had it to do again I would have created the bolter before I did my sculpting.  Because the sculpting was already finished I was limited in how I could position the bolter and drape the ammo belt.  I ended up with layout seen here.



The shoulder strap with ammo pouches was created using Apoxie Sculpt for the belt, salvaged bits for the ammo pouches and sheet styrene for the buckle.  A sword and sheath were positioned in the middle of the back

You can also see here the addition of the forward arm.  A little more Apoxie Sculpt was used to create a forward handle for the bolter.

I finished bulking up the muscles and repositioned the head.  It had been buried in his neck.  I think now he looks like Sgt. Harker, not just a Catachan Infantryman with extra muscle.

Additional ammo pouches were added to his waist.  These were carved from scrap sprues.



I'd have to say for my first major sculpt I'm pretty satisfied. Due to the difficulty in obtaining accurate detail in Apoxie Sculpt I would choose Kneadatite in the future, but Apoxie Sculpt has served me well for small applications as well as adding bulk. The tape and tube styrene worked like a charm for the ammo belt and I will definitely be using that technique again.

A close up of the heavy bolter. The aquila was sculpted with Apoxie Sculpt using a dental pick.
A close up of where the shoulder strap meets the heavy bolter. It was sculpted using Apoxie Sculpt. The bracket was made using sheet styrene.
These ammo pouches were carved from scrap sprues.