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Cheers for reminding me of the Old Crow stuff. Have you seen any full scale shots compared to a Chimera about? The dipped guard look great and the pig iron heads really are well executed. The assembly line would drive me crazy...er. For the psyker battle squad some Neromunda Wyrds and Redemptionists or Cawdor may just be what the doctor ordered!

Ok! Getting rolling on the Hydra/Medusa hot swappable model. Using a standard basilisk kit and a couple fine kits from http://www.maxmini.eu/store/index.php I will be making a kit that I can swap out when I want to change my artillery loadout.
I will be doing a bit of a step by step on these and going in to more detail than I usually do in my assembly so that you can see the quality of these kits and see for yourself if you might want to go this route.


First things first, resin kits need to be cleaned and any mold lines and flash needs to be removed. Washing them is important because any mold release chemicals can interfere with the painting process.




But WHAT IS THIS! MY GUNS ARE BENT! oh noes... Oh wait. This happens all the time with resin and is easy to fix.





What you need is a sink full of hot water and an ice bath. Dip the gun in the hot water and hold it for about a minute and then carefully bend it into shape. When it is fixed, dunk it in the ice bath to set and...





VOILA! Back on track and good to go!





First step of the assembly process is to assemble the basilisk chassis but do not attach the gun carriage. The gun carriage will be used later on as the base for the Maxmini AA Turret.





Then I trim the carriage flat to accept the round base for the AA Turret.





Ready to attach...





and there it is!





Here you can see what it should look like assembled. I am not gluing it down yet as I want to be able to reach everywhere with my airbrush. The top pair of guns is unglued as well for the same reasons.





Another angle.





I also am cleaning the Medusa. This piece has many more parts as it also includes the carriage. This one I have cleaned and I will paint before assembly to allow me to access the underside of the gun and the parts in the carriage.





Resin is somewhat fragile... Nothing a little Zap a Gap cannot fix but it is still irritating.



I am happy with these kits so far. If I really feel the need to field all of these pieces at once I can get a pair of chimeras and use the hulls. I don't foresee fielding 2x Hydras and 2x Medusas soon unless I really want to whip out the For now 2x Hydras along with my FW Armageddon pattern Medusa should be plenty.

More to come soon. I will be airbrushing and finishing this piece shortly. /cheers

that turret looks to big compared to the rest of the hydra

I think its a pretty good conversion

General Ian wrote:that turret looks to big compared to the rest of the hydra

TBH I think it is a little large too. It would have looked smaller if I could recess it into the chassis more. This is the price I am willing to pay for a Hydra I can convert into a Medusa however.

I have to agree, it does look a bit large. But it's so cool! Scale is always an issue in this hobby. I can think of... 6 different scales for Autocannons that I own.

Update! Woo hoo

After a bristling weekend full of eating newbies for breakfast... (It was Free Call of Duty: Black Ops weekend on steam! Oh yes my K/D went up a LOT this weekend!)

It is time to get back to the Alcatran Guard. We would not like them to go without artillery support now would we? So I brought out the old Airbrush.



I use an Iwata Revolution CR airbrush http://www.iwata-medea.com/index.php/products/cr and the smallest and quietest air compressor I could find (1/6 hp).

And I got to spraying. Same style as before. First the base coat. (I take care not to color over all the black as the darker blue adds some natural shading.)



Then I do the second color of the camo pattern. I just freehand this as I like the faded organic edges it produces.



The colors are much more vivid then they will be in the end. The final result after all the steps will be similar to my other tanks.



The difference here is I will show each step of the process. It makes for a very nice look and it is relatively quick. I apologize again for my poor photography. I think I need to research photography a bit.
Next I will do some pre-final assembly painting, put it all together and then get on to weathering. Until next time! /cheers

EDIT: My apologies for the crap quality of my i-phone pics...

Sorry for no updates in a while... camera is broken!

Here is the culprit


My 5 month old Siberian Husky pup Mishka.



She thought that chasing the cat all over my office would be a fun thing to do. The cat trying to get to the high ground, knocked the camera off the desk and now it is kaput. I will need to wait a week to replace it. Any recommendations on a good digital camera for macro photography? (IE for minis)

Gaaahhh! Sorry to hear about your camera. It is still so bizarre to me why we keep what were once wild animals in the same dwelling we use for shelter and security. How did this madness start?

Back on topic (ha) I use a Canon PowerShot A480. You've seen my pics and I openly admit I have no idea what I am doing, I just turn on the macro, adjust lighting a bit, and click a few pictures.

Out of interest, how do you upload iPhone pics to dakka? Just for quick wips it would be quite handy.

inmygravenimage wrote:Out of interest, how do you upload iPhone pics to dakka? Just for quick wips it would be quite handy.

I copy them to my PC and then upload to my photobucket account and then link from there.

UPDATE: My in-laws are loaning us a camera to use until I get my replacement. Its a Canon Powershot G9. Looks promising. I will try it out tomorrow I think.

Your dog is so cute!......what? I love dogs.

Btw your guard army is amazing, I can't believe you painted all of them that fast....I've had my guard since 2003 and only have 40 guardsmen 1 CCS, 1 Russ, 1 basilisk, 1 sentinel and half a valkyrie painted....to damn lazy.

Wow... this Canon Powershot G9 is amazing.

So here is the progress. Some paint chipping and the majority of the basecoat is complete. So far I have:

The FW Medusa

The Maxmini Medusas

Closeup of the Maxmini Medusa gun. You can see the simple chainmail over black chipping that I have been using here.

and the Maxmini Hydras.

Next step is an application of rust with a watered down Tin Bitz and detailing. Then I will wash and weather with Tamiya Weathering Powder. Stay tuned!

A little progress here. I added the rust layer to the artillery pieces. This is a simple watered down wash of Beaten Copper that I dab around the edges of the rivets and any chipped paint. I pull the brush downward after this to simulate the rust running down the vehicle and staining it from the rain. There are still details to complete and 3 more steps to the weathering process to complete but these are almost done.







Hopefully I will crank these out in the next few days. Then I have my Vendettas to work on and another LR.

looking good, those maximini medusi turned out really really well. Where do you get beaten copper from, that looks great.

Imperial Monkey wrote:looking good, those maximini medusi turned out really really well. Where do you get beaten copper from, that looks great.

It is a discontinued GW paint. You can get an equivalent Coat d'arms Beaten Copper and it is just about the same though.

http://www.blackhat.co.uk/coat_darms/

Rabid its equivalent because the coat d'arms paints are the old GW paints, lol.

Great to see the medusa painted, and the quality of the maxmini guns looks awesome. Did you have any issues with them at all, warped, miscast, anything like that?

From my experiences there were less casting problems than Forgeworld. The resin seemed tougher though and took more heat to bend the barrels than FW resin has in my time with it. The guns are a joy and really fit well with the chimera base. One complaint i had was the mounting for the AA gun. This was more loose than I would want and it is a bit top heavy and so it falls over. Fixed this with a bit of drilling and the introduction of a metal rod into the model. Still rotates fine but stays on now.

I would buy from Maxmini again.

Thanks for the info on Coat d'arms. I did not know that it was the actual same friggin paint!

TY for watching!

I decided to throw together a quick video as a test for the future. Its just a quick bit I recorded to show how the modular artillery works. It was a bit of a learning process but I like the result and I think I can work with this. If you guys like it I will make some more.

Anyways here is the link:



And a few photos of the progress on the artillery





90% done now. Need some detail work... port glass, text on the nameplates etc. but you see where they are going. I built a bit if a light box so I hope this gives you some indication of improvement in my photography skills I hope to finish these this weekend and get going on my Vendetta conversions.

/Cheers

All I would say is it ended a bit abruptly

The intro was good, showed some good work and not too long which is important, sound and clarity again good work. I would say be careful about the dakkadakka.com text at the beginning, the youtube guys are a little funny when it comes to things like that sometimes, check with some of the youtube stalwarts for a definite yes/no on that one though.

All in all nice vid Rabid, I look forward to more.

Yeah I agree that it stopped quickly. It was really a test run for figuring out the video software, youtube editor, my new camera etc. I need to close up videos better with a brief outro or wrap-up.

Next up: Vendetta conversions with nose art!

Ideas for the art:








Thoughts? I am leaning towards the Sister and the Bug Hunter one, although I may use different art for the bug hunter. May ask an artist friend of mine to do a gas masked girl for the nose art. Thinking it through.

Bughunter is pretty cool and with a few tweeks could easily be made to fit the 40k-verse, I don't think the Sister image would be very fluffy, though it is funny.

I'd have to say the third image is the closest if you are going for an homage to the nose art of WW2 bombers.

HTH

Hmm... thanks for the input. I will dwell on this while I paint the cockpit and pilots. Perhaps inspiration will strike me in the meantime. Something that fits the prison theme or the gasmasked industrial theme will fit too. Time to surf for ideas.

Here is the interior detail for the cockpit of my Vendettas. Still deciding on a paint scheme and nose art for them. As far as the pilot and copilot I decided to stick to the unified scheme I have used throughout the army thus far.






I will be masking off the cockpit and using the airbrush for the Vendettas. I plan on trying some new techniques on them. Wish me luck!

I am using that Hydra conversion for certain!

Aside from a couple missed mold lines on the gunner's arms, looking pretty snazzy.

Imperial Monkey wrote:I am using that Hydra conversion for certain!

Yeah its pretty sweet to have these hot-swapable. Maxmini does great things. I love some of their conversion parts. I hope they avoid getting into any legal brawls with GW. Have you seen their rapid response Chimera conversion kit?

Rabid Ferret wrote:Yeah its pretty sweet to have these hot-swapable. Maxmini does great things. I love some of their conversion parts. I hope they avoid getting into any legal brawls with GW. Have you seen their rapid response Chimera conversion kit?

Could be wrong but isn't it Chapterhouse that produce the Chimera conversion kit?

Oops! Yep Lenny you are right. Its Chapterhouse... who IS in a legal battle with GW. So if anyone wants these they should get them while they can! I am thinking about picking up a few for Arbites! (Counts as shottie vets)

http://www.chapterhousestudios.com/webshop/component/virtuemart/?page=shop.product_details&category_id=4&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=118

Vendetta progress is going steady. I have airbrushed the Vendettas and am moving forward.





I went with a blue with a grey underbelly scheme to fit in with my army color scheme. I am really loving my airbrush. Large models like this just scream for it.

Twin-linked lascannons will be attached to the hardpoints and a simple conversion...

makes the hull mounted twin-linked lascannons. I want to do scenic bases for these two models. Any ideas there?

Sleep is calling me. Until next time!