Tag Archives: Modelling

Artscale Movie Space Marines

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I did these ages ago, but I kept forgetting that I had pictures of them to post up. So, finally, here are my artscale Space Marines, which I modelled to use as Movie Space Marines (where one tactical squad in a rhino is 1500pts!).

Big Marines!

Big Marines!

Inspired by various other modellers, but most notably Lamenter and Apologist (with his Praetors of Calth, Imperial Fists, and Sons of Horus), I decided to give the Artscale/Truescale/Big Space Marine craze a go. These have long since been finished and painted as Salamanders, but here are the unpainted shots of my 10 “biggerised” space marines.

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Model Trees from Christmas Trees

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From this...

From this…

So I’ve been making model trees out of an old plastic christmas tree for my gaming club (the ANU Wargaming Society), and I think they’ve turned out quite well!

To this

To this

Since the plastic christmas tree was so old, most of the branches have been flattened so they’re nearly 2D (the bristles point in only two directions on some of them!). To hide this problem, instead of doing individual trees I’d done clumps of 4-5 on 60mm round bases (MDF, which I spraypainted green). The individual clumps can be used as scatter terrain or – as shown in the photos here – on larger bases to indicate area terrain.

Trees for the Tree God!

Trees for the Tree God!

I think they do the trick, and look pretty good (bonus: they actually block LOS for true-line-of-sight games too!)

On the Workbench: AdMech CSM Cultists and Heldrake

Posted on by Luke
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AdMech Cultists

I built these before Christmas and haven’t done any work on them since, but here are my newest additions to my AdMech Cultists.

I had 18 lesser deamons in my old AdMech CSM list, but now that deamons are allies only I’ve changed them to be cultists. I built some extra guys with flamers, autoguns, and a heavy stubber. The cultists with the vox backpacks are the leaders, just so I can actually pick them out on the tabletop.

Leaders and Flamers

They’re built from Warhammer Fantasy zombie legs, bodies, and (where they exist) arms, with Imperial Guard Cadian flamers, autoguns (converted from lasguns by adding plasticard barrels), heavy stubber, and vox backpacks. The heads are Pig Iron rebel heads (hooded and unhooded).

Heldrake!

I’m also working on what currently looks like a cuttlefish but is in fact a heldrake. I’m (very painstakingly) removing most of the filigree and spikes on the wings and body, to give it a cleaner appearance as befits an AdMech arcane combat engine (similar to what I did with my defiler). I still haven’t worked out exactly what I’m going to do with the head – current ideas are either to leave it as the dragon head or graft a servitor or techpriest onto the hull instead of the head and neck.

Once I finish modifying all the wings and everything, I’ll do a couple of mock ups to see what people think. Any other suggestions are welcome!

Varnish for down under – Wattyl Interior Estapol

Posted on by Luke
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One is varnished, the other isn’t…

So I keep getting asked periodically at my gaming club about what varnish I use – mainly because I have lots of metal Valhallan models which don’t chip very much (or at all, really).

I use this stuff:

Wattyl Estapol Interior (Matt)

It’s Wattyl’s Matt Interior Estapol, ostensibly for wood surfaces but works fine on acrylic paints as well. Since it’s a matt varnish (it also comes in Gloss and Satin, but I haven’t used the Gloss so I don’t know what it’s like), you have to do at least two coats to get sufficient protection (a single coat gives you the finish, but doesn’t really stop the paint chipping off miniatures.

This prevents the paint from rubbing off from fingers or foam transports. You can still chip the paint off, but it requires quite a bit of effort – fingernails probably won’t manage it provided you did a decent undercoat.

Technically, people recommend that you do one gloss coat to protect the miniature, then a matt coat to provide the finish you want. I haven’t tried this myself, coz I’m too lazy, so I don’t know what the finish looks like.

This can was $18 or so from Magnet Mart (unfortunately, Bunnings stopped selling these a while back, because I think they stopped stocking Wattyl products).

Which one is varnished?

As for these two – who were the only remotely (no pun intended) similar miniatures I have where one is varnished and the other isn’t – the one on the left is not varnished, and the one on the right is. If you look closely, you can spot the shine from the wash and glaze layers on the left (unvarnished) one – for example, on its left foot (our right). The matt varnish dulls these down and removes the shine.

Right, now I can just point people to my blog when they ask about what varnish I use!

Terrain: Highlighting the Warhammer Fantasy Village

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Highlights!

So I gave up and went and highlighted all the buildings I built for my local club, and I have to admit that yes, they do look much better now.

Some bigger pics:

I’m putting together a few more terrain pieces (some aquarium plant trees and some PSU box sci-fi buildings), but I haven’t done any actual miniatures modeling or painting recently…

I’ll update again soon – I’m having my first game of Warhammer 40k 6th Ed tomorrow night so I’ll probably post up during the week with an update.

Papercraft: The Chickenhawk is airborne at last!

Posted on by Luke
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Ready to fly

So the Chickenhawk-based gunship is finally all done and ready to fly! I’ve done a quick paintjob on the thing, mostly grey with a rough black wash, to make it spaceworthy for the Dark Heresy game I ran on Friday (which ended up not using the model, although they did fly it in a brief pseudo-combat).

Anyway, here’s a small gallery of the finished dropship.

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Magnetising a Leman Russ

Posted on by Luke
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All loaded up and ready to roll

So for a while now I’ve had three leman russes sitting in my “to undercoat” box. What makes them special (apart from the three month wait for paint) is that they’re fully magnetised – both sponsons and all the guns. Although this has been done by many other people before me, I haven’t done anything new this past week and I haven’t taken any new photos of my old finished stuff, so instead you get a quick rundown on how I magnetised my russes.

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Not Just Papercraft Anymore: Chickenhawk gets detailing

Posted on by Luke
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http://www.toposolitario.com/workshop/chickenhawk.html

So here’s the latest update for the Chickenhawk Gunship:

Armed and Armoured

As you can see it’s progressed quite a bit, with quite a bit of detailing and most of the guns added.

I’ve used Liquid Green Stuff to provide a smooth finish to each of the panels, hence the green. It’s very solid – I’ve already dropped it once and it survived fine, although the putty work did get a dent in it, so it should handle gameplay rigours fine.

I settled on the as-Marauder-Destroyer armament, which makes it very overarmed but as an Inquisitorial gunship, I don’t have a problem with it.

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