Dismember December .........By Bluddtoof

So I finally got my entry completed after a long period of having no mojo for painting. I'm pleased with the finished model and love the palette I went with. Oddly enough it's very similar to my Imperial Knight! I only realised as I was nearing completion. I obviously have an attraction to cream and red.
So here's some pics.....

Hope you like it, c & c welcome and I look forward to seeing the other entries.

Bluddtoof

Swamp Thing! A new Terrain set for The Code 40k

Hi All

Bluddtoof here with my latest project (with help from Doc!).
For quite a while now the Code boys have been bemoaning the inevitable wear and tear on our scenery brought on by the quite heavy use it's been getting in recent years, what with running several events as well as our own regular games.
So we've started to invest in a few new sets, (hopefully there'll be many future posts about the other sets in progress), I'd suggested the idea of a tank graveyard and had originally envisioned it in a desert theme. However I couldn't decide on a way to easily make realistic sand dunes that would not only look good but also be hard wearing and usable; models would need to balance on them. So I went back to the drawing board and had the idea of a swamp theme; I've been wanting to have another go at water effects since my disastrous attempt on the Eldar Hornet base; see here .
The plan was to make a series of swampy pools with the wrecks of various tanks partially submerged and crashed in them, that way I could cut up whatever vehicles I ended up using and get multiple pieces from each kit.
Doc found the ideal solution to what vehicles to use in the form of a box full of broken old Space Marine tanks covered in lots of paint and with all their bits ripped off; all unusable as gaming miniatures even with the best will in the world. These came from Andy at Worcester Wargames, a big thanks to him!
So I set about stripping the years of paint from these bad boys; and what a task that was! One landraider had no less than 6 layers of different colour paint on it. Several bottles of Dettol and a very smelly house (Thankfully my better half is very understanding) later, I had 4 landraiders, 6 rhinos and 4 landspeeders ready for the hacksaw!!
I ended up with 12 pieces of terrain.....

The base is cut from 6mm Dutch Grey Board and the rim built up with the off cuts and plaster skim (a really useful ready mixed plaster designed for repairing plastered walls), the tank parts and random bodies and bits glued to the base. Then they were given a solid spray undercoat of grey (Tamiya).

Next step was a mega paint session with Doc in which we got all the pieces to a point where we were happy to just have the addition of weeds and plantlife and some extra weathering and detailing left, and of course the all important water effects.

So I set about this over the next couple of weeks, the plants are modelling Lichen, I put all these in place and then poured the water effects (Woodland Scenics Realistic Water). This took about 2 days to cure fully however there was some almost random reaction between the Lichen and the resin which left some areas slightly cloudy even after another day. I seem to be a little cursed with water effects! Unperturbed I decided to camouflage these areas with a muddy swampy effect, achieved by gluing green flock, washing with Athonian Camoshade, adding Nurgles Rot and a variety of rust effect liquids and powders whilst still wet and then once it was fully dry (with a very matte finish) applying a coat of gloss varnish to the areas to bring back the wet look.

Here's lots of piccies......

Overall I'm happy with the look, slightly annoyed with the clouding of the water effects, it was a brand new bottle. It hasn't come out as I'd originally intended or as I anticipated as it went along. It's definitely evolved as it's progressed. I'm pleased with how close the edges matche the cloth, we have a pre printed swamp mat on order for use with this set, so that should look even better.
Hope you all like this, as ever c and c are very welcome.
Do you think it's enough scenery for a game? How would you define the pools in a game?

Bluddtoof

Forgemas 14; Eldar Corsair Hornet, Update. Disaster Averted!

Hi All

Bluddtoof here with a much delayed update on my progress on the Eldar Corsair Hornet.
My previous post on this showed the build, including the scenic base, find it here. Unfortunately I had something of a disaster during the next step which I will now explain....

So I started the process of painting the base, this needed to be done in a few steps as the plan was to use water effects to simulate a water filled trench. I started by painting the concrete trench wall,

I had painted the slimy water beneath the walkway during the build so at this point I painted the rusted metal walkway. I took the second photo with flash so the colour of the water shows up better.
Next I moved onto the pipes and painted the base in the green slimy colours which would show through the water effects...

I also added some weathering and moss effects across the concrete, as well as a freehand peeling poster by the valves.
Once I was happy with all that it was time to tackle the water effects; I built a mould around the base using a piece of thin plasticard wrapped tightly around the base, this was lined with a sheet of greased cling film to stop the water effects resin sticking to the mould...

It all went incredibly well to this point, first time I'd tried this and well happy so far, I then proceeded to pour the thin layer, about 1 1/2 mm deep into the mould..... no seepage! Huzzah!
I left the model in nice warmish room to set, a day later no change, nor the next day or the 2 after. At this point I was a little concerned as the resin was showing a marked dip in the centre, I checked for leaks but all was good there. Next day some of the resin was starting to clear but only in the middle of the 2 sections, so 4 days in and it was barely setting, I decided to check the bottle to see if there was a best before date; no such thing, however I did spot the GW copyright text which was dated 2000-2005, implying that the bottle was as much as 10 years old! I had a little think and realised that yes this was the very bottle I used nearly 10 years ago when I built a series of water filled craters for a scenery project! Now I don't know for sure if age was the primary cause of the failure to set but I suspect it played a major role. 6 days later the resin had still not set but had in fact taken on the consistency of cottage cheese!
At this point I decided to carry out a little exploratory surgery; removing the mould which pulled a mass of gloopy, cloudy resin with it. I then spent a pleasant couple of hours scraping and cleaning to remove the residue, in the process I had to remove the mesh walkway completely and some of the pipework too.
This was the weekend before Christmas so finishing in time for the judging was unlikely, I was now nearly 2 weeks behind schedule. So I had a few days off and then set to work redesigning the base and building the new bits. I've gone for a more pipe filled dry trench now, here's some pics of the newly rebuilt base, some of the paintwork was unaffected as you can see...

I'm now in the process of repainting this and I actually quite like the new look, I will be buying some new water effects resin for use on other models in this army, I have a plan for a large base depicting guardsmen crawling through sewer pipes to evade a prowling grav tank

So to close, if you're planning on doing something similar, check that your resin is still in good condition before committing it to your models!

Stay tuned for more updates as this progresses.

Bluddtoof

Forgemas 14; Eldar Corsair Hornet; The Build.

Hello All,

Bluddtoof here with my first Forgemas 14 post, the build of my first Eldar Hornet for my new Corsairs army. I'm using the, slightly out of date, lists from the Doom Of Mymaera book from Imperial Armour and in a new style for me I won't be just buying all the cool toys I can get my grubby mitts on and then leaving half of them sat on shelves for 6 years awaiting some paint! No! This army will be built and painted unit by unit to a series of lists I've written! Will wonders never cease!
So Forgemas has worked out quite well for me as it gives me an opportunity to make a start on the army and paint one of the units from my initial 750pt list. The list contains a Corsair Prince with Bladesworn retinue on a Corsair Venom, 10 Corsairs with jetpacks, 3 Corsair jetbikes, a Hornet with Pulse Lasers (the subject of this post) and a Corsair Wasp Assault Walker with scatter lasers. The bigger lists each add more units to this base list and also add points to existing units here and there. More on those over the course of 2015.
Back to the Hornet and the style of the army in general; you may have seen some of my older posts on the trial build and paint of my first Corsair, they can be found here here here and here, the idea is that the army represents a Corsair raid on an Imperial facility and as such all the bases will be cut away sections of the facility floor, each infantry and bike squad will be distinguished from the others by the type of flooring material they are stood on rather than use squad markings, which don't fit the army in my mind.
All the vehicles will be on large scenic bases, I'm going to go to town on these and make each one into a little diorama with Imperial soldiers and techs hiding or fighting or dying etc, they'll include lots of ducting and pipework both under the floors and above them.

So onto the Hornet, it took me about 8 hours to build this, the base and model combined, and also several hours of drying time for the balsa and plaster sections, all told I built in 2 days and I really enjoyed it. The kit is decent quality, a fair bit of flash to remove but no warping which can be common with resin.

To start here's a picture of the completed build, I'll follow up with some step by step notes and piccies...

Fist step was to start on the base; I wanted to depict the Hornet zipping at breakneck speed down a pipe and conduit lined trench, hunting Imperial troops, the pilot relying on his unnatural reflexes to avoid the perilous structures. To achieve this I decided to pose the Hornet at a quite steep angle with one wing down in the trench, just skimming over pipes on top of the trench wall. The trench wall was the first bit to build and is made from a frame of 10mm cross section balsa pillars, 4 in total, with 2mm balsa sheet shaped around it to form the curved surface which mimics the bases edge and the flat surfaces. I used elastic bands to hold all this in place whilst the PVA set. If you try this ensure that the curved panel has the grain running perpendicular to the direction of curve, otherwise it won't bend! Pics...

Whilst that was drying I started on the Hornet itself, all the bits washed to remove that nasty mould lubricant (the bane of paint!)...

I started on the next new technique for me; magnetising weapons. I have to say it wasn't anywhere near as hard as I'd expected and it will give me huge tactical choice at almost no cost. The magnets are inset into the joints in holes I drilled, carved and filed out very carefully. I used a total of 8 little magnets on the model, the weapon cowling magnetises to the outside of the gun so the gun has 2 magnets, that's 4 on each side. I also ensured that I used the same polarity all round so that any weapon can fit to either side of each vehicle. I'll just have to remember that when I start the next vehicle! Pics of the magnetisation...

Next step was to build the pipework sections to fit onto the base, these plastic pipes are from Nightwing International and are part of their model railway scenery range. They're injection moulded plastic on sprues, each set contains loads of bits and poly cement works a treat. It's a nice modular system allowing almost infinite variation. Pics of the pipe sections and the base with the balsa section dried and coated with a thin skim of plaster to give a nice concrete finish...

Then it was back to Hornet to fit the engine intake and thrusters to the main body...

Once the plaster was dry I did dry runs with all the elements to get the positions right, I built the hiding guardsman, who's lost his helmet, lasgun and canteen in his dash for safety and is left with just a frag grenade and a trenching tool to fight off the raiders!
He's stood on mesh walkway (The mesh is the aluminium mesh sheet used for repairing car bodywork and suchlike, dirt cheep from my local hardware store) supported on plastruct girder. Before fitting the mesh I painted the base below in deep greens and swirls of Nurgles Rot; the black base will all be painted in this way and will have a coat of a couple of mm of water effects applied at the end (This will entail me making a snug polythene mould around the base edge to hold the liquid whilst it sets).
Here's the finished build from a few angles, the Hornet, pilot, canopy, guardsman and his loose gear are all un-glued so I can paint all the bits separately.....

That's it, I'm really pleased with it and can't wait to see it painted. More posts to come as that progresses, as ever C and C welcome.

Bluddtoof.