Using the Interwebs for Hobby Purposes - Mechanicum

 

Hi All,

Doc here with the start of a semi regular series called 'using the interwebs'.  Whats that all about I hope you ask?  Well like most hobby modelers I use the internet to pick up tips, see great paint jobs, understand battle tactics, watch video bat reps and video tutorials.  In honesty just about anything. Over the years of doing this I have bookmarked, followed  and linked to a number of quality sites which I go back to time and time again.

This series aim is to create a mini resource for a theme of my choosing providing you guys the reader with a ton of links which will be helpful to the chosen topic area.  I hope by doing this I can direct people to some of the internet's hidden gems.

For the first theme I have deliberately chosen something I have no personal involvement in but have just watched from afar the Mechanicum.

Mechanicum - Thanatar Siege Automata Showcase

Mechanicum - Thanatar Siege Automata

After building the first of my Mechanicum force I thought it was about time I worked out a paint scheme. The Thanatar Siege Automata is an absolutely cracking miniature to paint. I really enjoyed this guy, especially some of the techniques. I'd not painted yellow armour before so I quite fancied giving it a go to see how difficult it was. To be honest its not the easiest and isn't very forgiving if you make any slips but it does let you get some great contrast of colours.

Thanatar Siege Automata

I've kept the colours really simple to try and give it a specific style. I airbrushed a Vallejo Black primer to start and then working up in gradual light coats from Charred Brown to Heavy Brown and finally with Golden Yellow. The Black Primer results in a muted flat yellow which is what I was after. Shading was done with Charred Brown airbrushed from underneath and I Pin washed all the cracks with Sepia Wash. I added some weathering/chipping to the armour which I was pleased with, it seems to show up nicely on yellow armour. I added the edge highlights with Lemon yellow. The only thing I'm a tad disappointed with was the metal parts which I found difficult to bring out more, other than drybrushing various steel/silver shades and washing with Nuln Oil, there wasn't much more I could think to do. I didn't want a heavily weathered metal look so kind of kept it simple. Having done Blue OSL before I fancied a change and thought the purple/pink plasma would compliment the yellow fairly well. I'm reasonably pleased with the outcome. All I need to do now is decide on a house for my mechanicum and get some transfers which I think would finish it off properly.

Anyway, hope you like, Any questions or C&C always welcome 

Luko Dakka

Cerastus Knight Acheron Showcase - House Makabius

Hi all,

Doc here back with the finished knight as promised.  The weathering process was just a load of real fun and very dirty!  So on to some pictures and few salient points. Firstly also to thank Innermech for the loan of the light box.

All the previous posts on this project can be found here, here and finally here.

So the obligatory front on shot first.  The imperial knight helmet has been painted to match Boss Bludtoof's knight (just had to be! and for info his knight can be found here).  A couple of minor things remain to be done the symbol of allegiance and a coat of varnish to seal the powders down.

This view shows the knight crunching a barrel I envisage the barrel would literally be as flat as pancake after a knight stood on it but thought it broke up the base in a different way.  There are also bits of metal, grave stone, rocks, skulls and bushes dotted around the base.  On the shoulder pad the transfer has also been highlighted as I noted not all the transfers were highlighted,  I thought about blood on the reaper chainsword and then decided against it, although I might go back and add it.  What do you guys think?

On to the other side and certainly the hardest part to put together a whole load of patience to get the feeder tube in the right place and a lot of use and my wife's hairdryer.  Painting wise I went for the scorched look on the gun and then slowly reduced the burnt affect the further away from the barrel.

The back not so exciting but still lots of work.  This shot shows the spot colour of red I used on the pipes and shows a lot of the weathering off particularly on the tank and vents at the top of back.

Overall really happy with him let me have your thoughts people of blogosphere!

Cheers

DOC out..........

Cerastus Knight Acheron - WIP #2

Hi All,

Wowsers I have been away from the blog and hobby for a while, apologies for that and now it is time to get my mojo back! It is also bad timing as traditionally code40k members tail back the hobby work over the summer months meaning blog posts have been a little thin on the ground.  Anyway trying to get back going again now...

So I have gone back my Knight Acheron and for those of you who need reminding or missed it the original build post is here and the first WIP is here.

In order to go any further I need to get all the waterslide transfers in place or decals depending on where you are in the world.  I have bought the House Makabius set from forgeworld.  This is mainly because I intend to paint 4 knights in this colour scheme.   Over the years transfers have been a bane and I still dont like them but since switching to the Micro -Set and Micro Sol method it has become easier.  I would recommend the following youtube video for an explanation:

And the following video as a tutorial:

Here are some photos of the transfers in place before weathering:

My main top tip for this post is to always apply the transfers before weathering which is a mistake I made a while back. To not do so means they look out of place and pristine with the rest of the model looking weathered.  As you can see from the pictures above I have successfully applied all the transfers.  The most difficult transfer which is not pictured is the banner transfer which hangs between the legs.  The banner is curved and the micro sol came in particularly handy for the banner piece.

So with transfers applied the next stage will be to complete the base and then finish weathering followed by completed assembly.  I hope to show you a completed knight in the next two weeks.

So nice to be back in the saddle 

Cheers

DOC out

Warhammer Fest 2016

Good evening all, sorry, it feels like an age since I last posted anything! I've been mooching through some of my recent pictures and I've got so much to update you all with I'm going to break what would be one humongous post post into 3 or 4 posts over the next week or so. 

Basically so I don't bore you all to death. 

Or wear my fingers out typing forever.

Win win really :)

Anyway, first up shall be a (very) brief review of Warhammer Fest 2016 which I atttended with my good friend Ian last month. 

Neither of use were massively enthused to attend this year following a somewhat lack lustre effort on GW's behalf the year prior, but seeing as we were both free on the date and my friend was passing the venue on his way back from a family visit we decided to go along and see what had changed.

We didn't regret the decision at all.

In what appears to be massive change of direction from the GW of old, the entire event seemed to be packed with exactly what was missing from the year before. There were game boards to play on (should you have brought an army..), silver tower trial games being ran, fun 'create a base' timed challenges, many many third party video games being displayed and shown off along with games workshop key staff show casing everything about the hobby and more than happy to spend the time to talk to you about what have been doing or what interested them etc. We must have spent a good 20 minutes chatting with one of the team members responsible for creating all the AWESOME dioramas in the exhibition hall, thoroughly enjoyable talk and a really nice guy who seemed passionate about his job. (Although it must be easy to be passionate about making awesome set ups when the hardest thing you have to do is try and reason to your boss exactly why you want to smash a drop pod into a war lord Titans head....)

Due to some poor information from one of the door staff we missed where exactly we were meant to sign up for the seminars so missed out on the forge world event BUT having opted to view the black library's effort think we actually came away better off for it....great seeing and hearing some of the writers who's works I've been buried in over the last few years and hearing what they are planning next!

Anyway - on a whim I decided to take along 2 minis of mine to try my luck in the golden demon painting competition. I decided to enter Garro, hand of the sigilite (as I though he was probably one of my best) but he was placed in the cabinet alongside a simply much much better Garro haha so that was a bit of a pointless venture and (almost as an after thought) I decided to try my Onagar Dune Walker out as it attracted some nice attention on Facebook. 

Yup....not sure how exactly, but when I went to collect Garro and the Walker the guy handed me Garro but said 

" Sorry buddy, I can't let you have the other model just yet - you've made the finals, congratulations" 

Wow, TOTALY stunned that I managed to come away with a Golden Demon finalists pin.....rather a happy boy with that result! Especially to even be considered along side some of the other finalists was an honour, as ever the standard was incredibly high. 

Anyway, Warhammer Fest was a triumphant return to form and I'll be 100% in attendance next year (all things wiling ofc) and on that note I'll bid you good night for now - next time I'll get some pics down of my latest little board game purchase 'Kingdom Death' that some of us from the Code managed to sit down and play a few rounds of. 

Thanks for reading :) until next time. 

Tom

Showcase - Pre Heresy Dark Angels Leviathan Dreadnought

Hi All,

Heres my first post on my own without the watchful eye of doc, showcased here is my newly finished 30k pre heresy Dark Angels Leviathan Dreadnought with storm cannon and grav flux bombard, to start I thought I would pose him a bit differently by mounting his foot on a 30k marine, I airbrushed the body in a mix of black and grey, painted all the ancillary colours (silver and red) then highlighted the model. And added a few washes , the grav flux I have used a bit of OSL in a jade green did not want it to bright, I weathered the model with a mix of weathering powders and sponge not tried that before result came out OK as for the base I carried on my theme of Mars using forge world runs weathering powders , I painted the mk3 marine world eater Colours . Hope you all like not done this before a lot more things to learn.
Here are a few pics:

I have a lot more to showcase on here but as with me all this new stuff takes me a little time to figure out what I'm doing. C and C are very welcome to point me in the right direction.

That's all for the moment

Innermech signing off.....

Showcase; Deimos Pattern Relic Predator Executioner, Thunderbolts Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes.

Hi All

Finished my new predator executioner and very pleased with it too. I've swapped to Vallejo foundation white instead of Citadel ceramite white, it's not as opaque but it flows better off the brush and along with a new thinners; Tamiya X-20A, it's much easier to use. The final result is less solid white and allows the Fenris grey base coat to show ever so slightly giving the white a very nice blueish tint. I likes it! works nicely with the ice blue spot colour.

some piccies...

With the transfers and iconography I've stayed with the V for my chapters "5th forging"; the equivalent of a codex company, the Thunderbolts use a more flexible organisation than the rigid codex system due to their long affiliation with the adeptus mechanicus based on the forge world they established their fortress monastery on. This affiliation has led to their predilection for vehicles and a larger than usual number of tech marines. The chapters organisation is largely formed around the many forges they maintain and it is a rare force of Thunderbolts that does not contain a tech marine and his mechanical charges.

Next up for the Thunderbolts will be a Typhon heavy siege tank but first I'll be concentrating on my newly delivered Deadzone 2 goodies in the shape of some plague reinforcements and a new industrial scenery set which will probably see action in future instalments of our narrative campaign; The Cypra Incident.

Hope you like the new tank, C & C as ever welcome.

Bluddtoof.

Video Battle Report for the Cypra Incident Game 1 Scavengers

Good Morning All,

So we have finally kicked off our Cypra Incident Campaign and I get to share with you the first video battle report.  I have certainly learnt a lot doing this process and I had some sound issues which I didn't realise until I came to the editing phase.  Still I have done my best to put together this short report of Game 1.

I also took a few photos of the game:

So not to steal the thunder from the video I will not explain what happens in the battle.  We certainly had good fun and it was nice to use all the newly painted models and scenery.

  Please enjoy comments are most welcome on our first attempt!

 Doc Out.

W.I.P. Relic Predator Executioner; nearly there.

Hi All

Another quick update on my progress on this Relic Predator for my Space Marine Chapter; The Thunderbolts.
Everything's done now except for the White panelling on the turret, sponsons, hatches and exhaust guards. I always leave the white til last as it's a pig to paint in the first place and if I do it before any other colours and make a mistake that effects the white finish then it's even worse to do over.
Once the white's done I'll finish with the transfers.

Some pics of it currently...

I didn't like the weathering effects I'd done on the main body so I re painted the silver where necessary to cover it up. After much thought I just don't like weathering on this army, don't know why but I just don't so I'm not gonna waste my time on it.

I am however a fan of the rusty sponge weathering I did on my recent scenery project; see here  for the final showcase post, and I'll be using that on my recently delivered Mantic Kickstarter Veer Myn for Deadzone along with another rusty wasteland scenery set I'll be making later this year.

But first more to come soon on the Predator.

C & C as ever please.

Bluddtoof.

Deimos Relic Predator Executioner, a bit more WIP.

Hi All

Just a quick one today, an update on my progress with the predator..

Some pics...

Getting there, brass done and even weathered a bit, which is a first for me and my marines. I'm going to try doing this model weathered to see if I like it. Then depending on the outcome I may well go back over my marine collection and apply some subtle weathering effects. Maybe...

C & C welcome.

Bluddtoof.

W.I.P. Deimos Pattern Relic Predator Executioner

Hi All

Just a quick post to show the current WIP on my new Predator.
Here's some pics

I will recommend that if you build one of these then paint the sponsons as sub assemblies, they're very awkward to paint once fitted!

Enjoy. C & C welcome as ever.

Bluddtoof.

Showcase - Aegis Defence Line and Quadd Gun - Arming for the Cypra Incident

Hi All,

Short post today to showcase my completed Aegis Defence Line ahead of our first two games scheduled for Monday 9th May.  A few months in the making but it has definitely been worth it I have achieved so much painting as a result of this story campaign.

We are hoping to produce a video battle report of at least 1 of the two games if not both.  So the last thing I needed to paint was my Aegis.  I have been putting it off as it didn't float my boat and  well lets be honest the knight is far tastier.

On the knight I should be in receipt of the transfers this weekend which will be cool and allow me some more progression on that in the near future.

Back to the Aegis (Doc!) It has been painted to match my ever expanding 19th Dicers IG regiment. If you look in the side bar there are a couple of videos which showcase some of the work on this regiment.  I am hoping in the near future to borrow Innermech's light box and take some more photos of the wider army and other things in my collection.

A few shots of the completed line are below:

Comments and tips are welcome as always,

Cheers

DOC out

Showcase; The Cypra Incident, Watchtowers and Fencing.

Hi All

I've now completed the Watchtower and Fencing project for our upcoming campaign; The Cypra Incident, which will see Space Orks and Imperial Guard battling it out in a swamp initially. I'll go back at a later date and add a few more pieces to the set, such as 2 more intact towers, a ruined tower and some barbed wire once my order arrives.

I'm pleased with the finish, very rusty and aged, just what I'd aimed for. Also tried sponge weathering for the first time and I'm very pleased with that, I'll be using it again for sure.

Here's some pics...

As you can see the set is a decent size (that's a 4 x 4 board) and has plenty of scope for variation of lay-out. Overall I'm very happy, the project turned out better than I'd hoped and the modular system is ideal.

As ever c & c welcome. Hope you like it. Next up I'm going to build and paint something for my Marine army, the Thunderbolts, more to come on that soon.

Bluddtoof.