Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

OK, I got a Forge World Tomb Stalker, and I'm pretty stoked about it.




Grape juice not optional

The first thing I did after it arrived was to snip out the main bits from the sprue, and then file down the flash and attachment points. The model itself was in slightly better then normal FW condition - on many elements, the flash and pitting were nonexistant. On the legs, the situation was a little worse with some pitting and very heavy flash. I decided to file before washing, since I'd also get the dust off when I washed. So, I filed, sanded, patched pits, and then washed in warm soapy water.



I then decided to drill out a hole in each main body segment, and then wire them all together, like pearls on a string. I figure this way, I'll have good support, and will have some good poseability before gluing the segments. I'm hoping to use epoxy rather then superglue for the main body segments since it's going to be kind of a lot of weight on a relatively small joint.

I decided to don my surgical mask before doing the drilling, since I don't know what this new resin is made of, but I'm sure it's not, you know, vitamins and stuff.


Pictured: not vitamins


and on that, rather truncated note, it's getting busy at work so more soon.

What do you mean it's not vitamins!? Next you'll tell me that I shouldn't be licking the paint off my brushes...

Lint wrote:What do you mean it's not vitamins!? Next you'll tell me that I shouldn't be licking the paint off my brushes...

The vitamins are only in the green bits...

Can't wait to see this finished, shame there isn't more necron stuff at FW.

I'ld love one of these, shame I'm a poor student and can't afford one. Second i get a job though, I'm gettin' me one of these badboys! Would love to see one of these tear apart some of my friend's Tyranid's and Tau!

Glad to see one of these posted up, as I was wondering if they were as posable as I had hoped. Can't wait to see the final product.

Good god, how many parts does that thing have?

You have a very entertaining posting style. I shall be following this.

OK, I have about an hour in the salt mines left, and it's pretty quiet here, so here is another update.

Here is the tomb spider/Mealworm of Doom on the base, showing the basic body shape.


If this is in the bottom of a bottle of liquor, don't drink it..


Now that it's washed, it's time to prime it. But before that, it's time to do the base.

I have to apologize here. I didn't take a single pic of the work in progress. The reason for this was partially that I didn't expect it to be awesome - I was going to slice up a rhino door, and then glue down some sand, and then prime black, then dark grey, then light grey, done, just like the rest of my necrons. The real reason was that my camera was downstairs and my modeling is now upstairs and I have +1 to laziness. So, here is the semi-finished base.



Technically, the tracks are from a Land Raider and it's a Rhino door, but hey, who knows how big of a fight was here, I guess. The auspex and the right-side-up helmet are from the basing kit. The rest are spares, and the hand had wires drilled into it to be the bones.

I also drilled a 3/32 pig to mount the Stalker on. I painted it black. You can see it here:



Brothers, we know no fear, for we are the Ultra... what is that thing? Agghhh! Urk.

The intestines were done with procreate\grey stuff. I rolled it up, and then twisted it to try and make ropy intestines. Behond my moderate success.


It's true, Space Marines are full of guts. This guy less so now.

And here is the underside of the brass peg, where I used superglue to lock it in place.


More soon, I hope.

Wow awesome scenic base, can't wait to see it finished

Very cool base dude.

I agree awesome base with lots of character! I saw this on Forgeworld and was hoping someone would post their progress on it!

If only I had the mula to get this sigh....

Great looking base! Can't wait to see the stalker all finished. What colour will that monster be painted in? The one on FW is silver but I have no idea how they achieved such a stunning paint job. Keep it up!

How many parts are there?! I'm scared at the thought of putting this beast together.

The base is amazing, really shows alot of character, and will look even better with the Stalker lurking over the carnage.

I didn't actually count the parts, but looking at the first pic, it looks like 94-96. That's not so bad. Some of them are extras - it comes with 24 legs, and you only need 20. Technically, they're not "extra" since you'll need them to replace some of the more poorly cast/pitted/warped/forgeworld'd legs but in any event, you won't need them all.


OK, back at the salt mines and it's again quiet, so here's some more updates.

It occurs to me, as I write this, that some of you may be reading this and thinking, hey, if I get one of these Tomb Stalkers, I can follow this worklog as a tutorial. You may not want to do this, as I've never built one of these before, and I might be coming across and dangerously competent - nothing is further from the truth. Who knows how far I might get into bungling this? You're going to want to wait until I finish this before either following my sage advice or avoiding my foolish mistakes, depending which happens.

Here are the body segments primed.



I have the top parts of the segments covered with blue painters tape. I then stuck a small piece of blu-tac in each segment and then sat them atop the triangular shaped pieces of excess resin they were clipped off of, which made for handy free stands, as below:


These little "free" resin stands probably cost me a dollar apiece considering the price of the model

I strung together the segments to get another test fit; you can see the wire in the middle.


You may note that I do an awful lot of test fittings: Many many previous models have left me sadder and wiser.

Here's the wire for the head segment:



And here is where I actually drilled the hole for the wire. Note that you want to be careful where you position your thumb when drilling out the hole with a dremel too, of there will be blood for the blood god:


resin for the resin throne!

OK. I decided I wanted to give my guys kind of a racing stripe, as my other larger necrons have a black strip with some transfers. So, I used some tamiya masking tape to create a stripon the left side. I then painted each segment by hand with boltgun metal and gave them a wash of devlan mud, just like the rest of my Necrons. If I could do this over again, I would have used the airbrush instead - this was very tedious.


totes tedious

And here they are with the transfers in place.



You may have noticed that bottle with the blue label prominently in the last 2 pics - it's a japanese product called Mr. Mark Setter, which is similar to Micro-Sol. The Mr. Mark Setter is used to stick the decals done - they really set well with it even around curves, bumps, etc. After they dry, they get a wash of a different product called Mr. Mark Softer, which partially dissolves the clear film of the transfer, making it appear painted on. I can't recommend these products highly enough. They can be a little hard to find in regular hobby shops - I wound up getting mine on Ebay, from an ebayer in Brooklyn, NY. I was born in the Bronx and lived there until I was 23, and then moved to Iowa. It's always felt like a little of my heart stayed behind, and so when these came, wrapped up in the NY Daily News, it was an unexpected little glimpse of the happenings of the city I left behind.



I decided to try a thin blue glaze of asurmen blue, and hated how it looked. I wound up up washing it off and then applying a second thin wash of devlan mud.

Time to mount them on the base.



Here is where I used my dremel to sand down one of the glyphed surfaces. I then used the pin vise to drill a pilot hole, and then the dremel to drill a 3/32 hole for the peg. I then did the exact same process, but this time on the correct segment; you may wish to position your Stalker first before drilling. It's pretty hard to see this far back anyway, and I put the worst-executed glypged segments at the rear so it's hard to see.

Here is a pic of where I had put the base's mounting peg in the original, second to last segment. You can see from the wire that the model would have been hanging off the from at least 2 inches no matter how I positioned it (that's what she said). Whoops. That's the kind of mistake I was mentioning earlier.


That's the kind of mistake found in the rulebook under "Modeling for Advantage"

Here it is, moved back a segment. It's still going to hang over some, but it won't be as front-heavy and is more centered on the base. I stil wish I had gone with 2 pegs instead of one, now.



And here's a side angle.



In these pics, I haven't yet applied the Mr. Mark Setter, so the transfers look very shiny. After it's applied, the clear layer of the transfers is nearly gone. Once the dullcote is on, they appear completely integrated. That's assuming that I use Dullcote, I'm tempted to use Gloss to varnish this with. I did my monolith with several coats of gloss, right up to a high polish, to emphasize how different it was from my Necrons. As this is a construct and not a Necron, I may do the same here.

That's it for now.

Don't play necrons, but realy like the model. I'll stay tuned!

You have no idea how much i want that grape drink. Oh yeah, and cool tomb stalker.

Coming together very nicely!

This is too cool not to keep watching.

Looking great, can't wait to see the finished product.

Liking this, I'll keep watching.

its coming along quite nicley.

Ace base! Putting such effort into the surroundings always improves the model no end. Can't wait to see your progress!

Man that is awesome! I really like the paint scheme. Simple but very very effective.


I really want a tomb stalker for my necrons, but they are on hold ATM until they are re-released (I know I'm going to wait a while

The only jp wrote:I really want a tomb stalker for my necrons, but they are on hold ATM until they are re-released (I know I'm going to wait a while

That's the smart play, really. Who knows if they will be in the codex, and more importantly, what their rules will be?

Watching this with amusement and interest, since my Necrons need some lurve.

Briancj wrote:Watching this with amusement and interest, since my Necrons need some lurve.

All our Necrons need some "lurve"

The only jp wrote:

I really want a tomb stalker for my necrons, but they are on hold ATM until they are re-released (I know I'm going to wait a while

Dont feel bad, Im in the same boat. Ive got a Lord and a squad of warriors. Might add another warrior squad, as they are likely to change little if at all. However, I wont add anything else until the new stuff comes out.


OP, love the work so far.

The base makes the Stalker look even more menacing than the model itself manages to get across (and it wasn't doing bad to start with!).

Love the entrails, too.

Updates? Please!