Space Wolves Rhino - WIP Interior

Picked up a rhino kit a little while back and broke it out this last weekend.  I've finished the interior and added the base coat to the exterior.

Custom Coteaz WIP

So in light of the recent Codex: Inquisition I was having a hard time getting my hands on a Coteaz model.  But, as I often do, I thought to myself... self, why buy a model when you can make your own?  Using a bit of green stuff, a tad bit of apoxie sculpt, a space marine captain, and a lot of patience I began sculpting my own Coteaz.  Here is the current work in progress:

I still have a lot of detail work to do but I'm happy so far.  My list of details to add are as follows:

• Psyber-Eagle
• Skulls on knee pads
• Inquisitor symbol on shin guards
• Inquisitor symbol on shoulder pads
• Fur
• Front cloak
• ribbons

Kabuki Models - Napoleon-X

Sat down to paint some Imperial Guard and ended up starting and finishing the Napoleon-X model from Kabuki Models instead.  I'm thinking about using him for the Astropath or Master of the Fleet in my IG army.  Fun model to paint, well detailed.  Note that if you plan on using the Kabuki Models in your IG army the scale is a little off.  The Kabuki miniatures run true to scale whereas the GW miniatures are a bit bulky.

Space Wolves Drop Pod - Another look

Here's another look at my recently completed Space Wolves Drop Pod

Space Wolves Drop Pod Completed

First of all I have to say that I loved working on this model.  For the price it was by far the best GW model I have had the pleasure of building.

It took several steps to get right but having quality products like Secret Weapon Miniatures pigments and The Army Painter spray and bottle paints made a big difference in the overall outcome.  As mentioned in my previous post I used The Army Painter Wolf Grey spray base/primer followed up by a coat of their Daemonic Yellow spray applied to carefully masked areas.  Those areas were again masked off for a coat of black.

At the time of my last post I had left off with my first layer of weathering.  In the first picture below I have applied the second layer of weathering.  I used a blend of Secret Weapon Miniatures rust tones mixed in water.  Using the same technique I used for The Army Painter Dark Ink, I applied a line of this rust mix to the underside of all overhanging edges and then dragged that downwards with a dry brush.  For the bronze areas I applied some aqua color paint to the areas and then wiped away the excess with a sponge.  After applying this technique to all sides I went over it all again with the Dark Ink.  The idea here was that by applying layers of weathering it would look more natural than a single application.

After finishing my weathering it was time to add the "burn" effect caused by orbital insertion.  I started by lightly sanding the hard edges around the base.  I then dry brushed some Citadel Chainmail to these rough edges.

Using some black craft paint I mixed up a dark wash and sponged it onto the lower portions of the model around the door hinges.  I rested the model on it's top and dragged the wash down the model.  I then went back and using a dry sponge wiped away some of the excess.  I repeated this process again with the black wash and once more with The Army Painter Dark Tone.  This process was also applied to the upper ailerons as well.  After I was happy with it all I applied multiple coats of clear matte varnish to seal it all in place for tabletop play.

Custom Space Wolves Stormraven Landing Gears

Tonight I finished the landing gears for my Space Wolves Stormraven.  This wasn't so much because I wanted a custom look but because I don't have the originals.  I purchased the bulk of the model off of ebay for around $13 and have been piecing together the rest of it out of scratch.

I wanted the landing gears retracted because, let's face it, deployed landing gears don't convey a sense of forward movement.

The rear landing gears were the easy part.  I cut 1mm thick blank sheet styrene to fit the void left by the original model parts and followed that up with some corrugated metal sheet styrene.

The forward landing gears took a little more work.  I created a box of styrene based off of the shape of the rear landing gears.  I made these a little shorter as I imagined the gears would get tucked up into the fuselage.   In addition to the 1mm thick styrene I added .5mm thick styrene with small details cut in to add some texture to keep in style with the rest of the model's details. This was all topped off again with the corrugated metal styrene I used on the rear landing gears.

With this completed I moved on to working on the main engines.  I am using the intake ports on the F-35 and other similar fighters as my point of reference.  So far it is proving a bit frustrating so it may be a while before I make some real progress in this area.

Custom Space Wolf Stormraven - Update

I've finished my scratch built vertical thrusters and I have to say I'm quite happy with them.  The problem I had with the originals is that they looked more like intakes than vertical thrusters.  So I took a bit of styrene tubing and corrugated cable protector to create these.

Once installed they looked a good, but a little unfinished.  I thought they were a little too simple.

So I added a little bit of guitar wire and some heavy cable I made by wrapping wire around some styrene tube stock.

Now I think they looked finished.  Next step? Main engines.