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Hi everybody! I'm starting this plog to show the stuff me and my friend are working on and to keep me motivated through those evenings when it feels like you've just been banging your head against a wall for a few hours.

So about 6 months ago after a couple of years out of the hobby after University got hard I bought a Valkyrie kit in a moment of splurgy-ness. The kit got shoved to the back of the spare room as me and my girlfriend were looking for a house to buy, but once that little nightmare was over I decided to dig it out. Back at Uni I got quite into the CAD side of things and, since we had a CNC machine just lying around (as you do) and Avatar had been out that summer I thought the Valk would look pretty hot with a set of rotors rather than wings. This led to getting reacquainted with Rhino (the 3D modelling package not the tank) and fast forward a couple of months me and my friend figure "hey let's go nuts and make some stuff". Once we've managed to nail the valk, we're gonna look at maybe some Rhino and Guard tank bits, maybe an armoured Sentinel conversion, who knows.

So the basic idea for the valkyrie is obviously the Scorpion gunship from Avatar, after all it was about the only thing watchable about that film ;P at first I was just going to do a set of rotors but it soon turned into a set of rotors, skids, wings and a rotating chin turret. We're both CAD nerds, so thought yeah why not 3D model and manufacture the whole thing ourselves at home and in my little garden workshop. We both have degrees in modelmaking and are massive geeks so at least it should keep us busy.

Whoops realised I posted the wrong pic of the rotors. That's what you get for ogling models way past your bedtime

The pic under the rotors shows the axle that would allow the valk full 3D movement in the air. The big axle pivots on one axis and then the fan pivots on the perpendicular (is that right?) axis. So the valk could strafe and fly forwards or backwards, or diagonally, etc. I plan to make it so the practical kit moves properly.

Really should go to bed now, up for work in 5 1/2 hours

The fingers on the hand looks to glossy are you going to fix that? It is bugging me so much right now, but all and all everything looks very nice.

I'm loving the idea so far! I shall be watching this very eagerly!
btw, what is your day job? you make realistic arms....? or props?

Your day job looks to me to be some sort of backyard limb butchery... most awesome!

Whoo there goes my forum cherry lol!

my day job is making silicone covers for prosthetic limbs the shinyness is due to the naphtha we use to smooth the silicone like you'd use water to smooth greenstuff. We cover them in baking powder and they come out of the oven with a matte finish. I quite fancy trying to sculpt a warhammer giant out of it at some point as it would have a squishy feel to it but thats a project for another day.

I will post lots of pics this weekend of the valk as these are from about a month ago but wanted to start from the start if you know what i mean.

Okay good I was getting a little worried about the glossiness.

Very interested to see where this is going...



So which is it, do you dismember bodies for the mafia, or do you manufacture male Real Dolls?

I love the idea and the initial test for the wings and skids look great. I can't wait to see the rest of this in action

Hi all, since I posted a few valkyrie bits I figured we should some of the 'other assorted bitz'.

So alongside the valkyrie we've been working on some bits that we can make with our nerdy CAD skills. After playing around with engraving on the CNC we thought how cool it would be to have an army mounted on bases with 3D scrolls on top to paint squad names on. This snowballed into a whole bunch of ideas, including engraving squad names directly into the bases, squad numbers on the bases, and even scrolls around the bevel of the base with all sorts of fancy stuff on it. We've been working on them for about a month now, once we realised that you could only really buy bases with rocks, paving slabs or sci-fi mesh on.

We've been using a combination of laser engraving and CNCing, the laser ones are quicker and easier, the CNCed ones have been a bit more of a headache but here's some of the progress we've made.

Very nice. I'm looking forward to more CAD stuff

Thanks I'm cutting some designs for space wolf bases right now so hopefully you'll like them

I wonder how much these cost to make. If you ever decide to sell them then you might see a lawsuit from GW, but GW doesn't make any custom bases. So I do not know how they would lose any sales unless they want a part of your action. :/

These are all our own designs so their wouldn't be any IP issues. A lot of GW stuff is generic anyway, particularly the templar stuff. When we first had the idea we did a couple of testers with GW images just to see how it would work, as we wanted a really sexy base for the valk, but they were strictly for our own use. I've always had the hots for inquisitorial stormies in Rhinos, and the image of a bunch of them jumping out a valkyrie was just too good ;P

Wow, your work is getting better and better! I love the bases! so unique!

Hey!

Thanks for all the kind comment guys!

We have a few more tricks up our sleeves, but we'll have to make / paint them before we can get them on the forums! I just managed to get a base on eBay UK - can I post links to there without getting in trouble with the mods?!!

If you have any requests for your own bases, I'm sure we can get something sorted

Ed - Warmill

Wow, those are great! The intricacy of the text is something you just don't see on any other 40K models/bases/whatever, beyond a few very skilled freehand painters.

Another place that you might apply this is custom-etched extra armor plates for vehicles (both text and pictorial).

If you need to make a bit of extra cash, consider tossing a few of these onto a sales site. I bet the text bases you go like hotcakes.

I like Savnock's idea, I would definitely be up to buy a few custom Rhino plates or similar!
As for bases, IF you decide to take requests I would be massively interested in one, just for my master of the forge (since my whole army is techmarine based) so anything heavily based on gears or machinery/the like

Poly

I would love some of those bases.
And thats some awesome work overall

Thanks again guys, the reaction is great!

I'll draft up some Rhino doors / extra armour plates - I think we would stuggle to distrobute them though, as the doors / armour would be so specific that GW's laywers would be right on our back!

As i mentioned, I managed to get one base on ebay, but i'm such a noob that it took me ages to sort it out! I'll add some more listings over the next couple of weeks, only thing is though, I am limited to 10 listings a month as a new ebay user! :(

more as it happens,

Ed - Warmill.

What's your ebay page?

If you have a Paypal, we could just send you monies, and you can do us the bases.

I have some ideas about custom bases, and would be willing to pay for them.

Ditto on Lorna's post, I wouldnt worry about copyright stuffs on my end cos the bases are for personal display models, not for competitions or gaming (:

Very active thread!

Our single ebay page!

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270732071261&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT

The ebay page is or our 'platnum' bases - these take time to make hence the cost!

Our regular 25 / 40 mm bases will retail around a fiver a set - 5 bases at 25mm and 3 bases for 40 mm but these are not yet final.

Will add more tonight I guess! PM us the ideas / drwaings you have and we can check the feasability of running them off for you!

I'll definately work on the 'generic sci fi apc door' [Rhino] doors / armour also

Ed - warmill




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Hi everybody!

Regarding doing custom basesfor people we've got a few ideas on how to reduce costs to make it economical to do unique bits like bases with a different name on each base if you wanted to have a really personalised squad without adding too much to the cost. Once we've had a chance to develop it a bit and rough out a few prototypes we'll post some pics.

Thanks for the interest everyone!
Harry - warmill

Wow fantastic bases!!!!

OMG, Brilliant

Hi all

So it's been another busy evening for us, we cut a couple more sexy laser bases and carried on with the CNCed ones from last night. The basic idea to reduce the cost is to CNC bases with pockets cut out to pop small lasered panels in, that way if someone wanted their personal space marine chapter's logo on one we would only have to laser a small piece and we could keep a stockpile of blanks ready for them. We're cutting a couple of rough prototypes for the CNCed bits now so once we've got some lasered bits done we'll post some pics.

Cheers

Harry - Warmill

Love ittttt!

Woah... These are disturbingly cool.

Disturbingly Cool is the name of my Simon and Garfunkel cover band.

the bases are awesome, and woooo custom bases.