Forgemas 14, Eldar Corsair Hornet, Painting the redesigned base.

Hi All

Bluddtoof here with an update on my Hornet base. My previous post was about the disaster I'd had with some ageing water effects; I'd rebuilt the base without any watery areas and it's now painted....

Next step will be to paint the guardsman who's hiding on the walkway and some final weathering touches, including a little sponge weathering on the pipes and glossing up the damp areas.

More to come soon...

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

Hobby Objectives 2014/2015

Hi all,

Doc here to set out my hobby objectives for the year and finalise my painting points for 2014.  Last year I didn't set any objectives but got 4 months into the year and realised my rate of buying was significantly outweighing my painting progress.  At this point I decided to introduce painting points from 1st April 2014 and finally blogged about it on the 10th May.  The original post can be seen here.

In a nutshell the introduction of painting points worked in terms of slowing down my spending! However, I still haven't been that productive imo on the painting side and I will explain why in more detail later.

From the 1st April 2014 to the end of the year I achieved the following:

27 X 25mm round base models ( 11 enforcers, 2 pts for 6 objective markers, 14 death guard marines)
1 X 40mm round base model painted ( Enforcer leader)
1 X 60mm round base model painted ( Thunderwolf Space Wolf Lord)
2 X Character models painted ( Inquisitor and Rune Priest)
3 X Tanks or bigger (Imperial Knight, Eldar flyer, Contemptor Dreadnought)

I note I have not showcased all the death guard stuff I've done something I will sort in the first few weeks of 2015.  All in all not a bad list you may say however, I started all of the following and not finished them:

Land speeder storm
5 scouts
5 sniper scouts
Defiler
Forge fiend
Warp talons
Sternguard
SM bikes
2 X Drop pods
1 X manufactorum tile
2 X realm of battle tiles
Calas typhon

This list might not be exhaustive but it illustrates a clear problem no focus!  I blogged about this earlier in 2014.  So objectives for 2015 are to get some of the above finished!  I can rack a lot of painting points by finishing started projects.  This should then allow me to play some games with my death guard as space marines in 40K.

I also have a list of not started but purchased for 2015:

15 iron armour death guard marines.
Legion devastator squad
2 x storm talons
1 x tesseract ark
1 x storm wolf

I have two big things I would like to purchase in 2015 a spartan assault tank and a cerastus knight Acheron.  These will both require a significant number of painting points but I am aiming high.

Blog objectives are simple for me a minimum of 1 post a month from me I have worked out 5 blog posts based on upcoming projects and events.

Lastly gaming objectives for 2015:

2 more games in the return to code40k campaign
15 games of 40k
4 games of warhammer fantasy

I start 2015 with a -£23.50 hobby fund but I am confident this will turn round in short order.  I'm interested in particular what projects other code members intend to get after this year and in general how other hobbiests go about planning a hobby year.

That's all for now folks please comment with your thoughts?

Cheers

DOC

Forgemas 2014 - Pre Heresy Death Guard Mortis Pattern Contemptor Dreadnought Showcase

Hi All and Happy New Year,

My forgemas entry was completed a couple of weeks ago but with family time and other commitments I have not got round to putting it up here.  I feel this model is my first model where all of the techniques for weathering I've been learning in the last few months have been put to use on one model.  I use sponge weathering first attempted on my Imperial Knight. Weathering powders both wet and dry.  I also used weathering liquids for the first time to apply a rust affect to rivets.  The idea with the weathering liquid is to show where the water would run and create a rust streak.   I'm really happy with the finish and glad the forgemas event came along to get this model finally finished!

Anyway on to the pictures:

As always comments and constructive criticism is most welcome.  This model has added a further 10pts to my painting points total (shown on the right hand side of the blog)

I have lots of projects up and running so will be looking at a high number of posts from me in the coming weeks.

Thats all Folks

Doc out

Forgemas 14: Sevrin Loth and Honour Guard Part 2

I have completed the base coats of the main colour areas and done some of the shading on the yellow. Unfortunately I thought I had taken more photos throughout the painting process, but I can only find these 3.

Here is Loth.

I am happy with the way the armour is going. I may need to but a thin blue glaze over it to tone it down. I am always worried that my highlights look too much so I normally ER on the side of caution. This time I am going a bit brighter to see how it works.

The honour guard are also going well. My only criticism of the kit is that the legs are a bit plain. Maybe GW will upgrade the command squad kit or release a specific honour guard kit which has a bit more blingy models. I know the current standard kit is available but that is specifically Ultramarines.

Finally I have started the banner.