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Finally more progress...

My Commander with an Officer of the Fleet and a little (giant) wiener dog (a Bob Olley Mini). They still need Dullcote but it's not easy to find here. I may have to settle for GW's satin varnish or Army Painter Mattlack.





And Pask, the Magnificent Bastard, in his beat up Leman Russ Exterminator. The tank still needs decals and tactical markings. Fortunately, I finally received some Micro Set and Micro Sol by mail from the manufacturer. I couldn't find anyone in Germany that would sell it.






Now I'm thinking about what to take to Washington DC to work on while I'm stuck there for five days. I'll probably take no more than five paints, seven Cadians, and two brushes. That shouldn't take up much space.

Truly great work man! I'm inspired! I want to paint all of my half-done guardsmen right now!

I might have to steal one or two ideas, if you don't mind that is

danesk wrote:Truly great work man! I'm inspired! I want to paint all of my half-done guardsmen right now!

I might have to steal one or two ideas, if you don't mind that is

Danesk, use any idea you like. That's why I keep a plog and belong to the Dakka Community. Some of the ideas started with other Dakkanauts anyway.

Damn, another year has flown by and I didn't get much finished this year. The move to Germany in the middle of the year didn't help but I should place the real blame squarely on myself for spending too much time on the Internet and too little time at my painting table.

I decided to make finishing my Cadians part of my gaming resolutions for 2012, and not to buy any new Cadian models unless GW surprises me with plastic stormtrooper models or a Colossus kit.

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Today I finally put together my Forge World Cadian Special Weapons. Pics below with descriptions. The kits are nice but have a few bugs.

Another resolution for 2012 is to collect the components I need for an Urban Terrain table (4'x8'). I included a few pics of my current 4'x4' table that is expandable to 4'x8'. I'll update progress here as I acquire, build, sculpt, and paint more components. Once you get a huge army, you really have no choice but to either start more armies (not desirable for me), start a new game system (similarly undesirable), or get some cool terrain for your army to hunker down in.

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Here at the pics of the WIP Cadian Special Weapon kits:

The first pic is the stock kit from Forge World. The pieces are well cast with little flash. One of the legs did have an air bubble on the tip of the right foot which I will have to fix with putty. The plasma gunner has his left arm as a separate piece. The legs are exact replicas of two of the legs from the plastic Cadian Infantry kit, which is a shame. The Cadians can use more variety in leg poses (4 in the Infantry kit, 2 in the Heavy Weapons kit, and 3 different poses in the Command Squad kit).



The pics below show you how I built my two FW kits. I substituted plastic kneeling legs for two models and plastic heads for all four. The FW respirator heads are fantastic but do not fit in with my IG squads. I'll save the heads for another project.



I made sure to pin the models. I used GF9 brass rod. Thin pins for the heads to the torsos. Thick pins for the torsos to the legs, legs to the bases, and the plasma gunner's left arms to their torsos. The latter is a must because the left arms don't fit very well and required much sanding and trimming. You will end up with a less than perfect fit that will require some putty work where the arm joins the hand under the plasma gun barrel.



The detail on these models is very crisp and the cost (10.50 UK Pounds) is reasonable compared to the GW blister pack for Cadian Special Weapons (8.70 UK Pounds). Forge World also recently added sets of three hostile environment plasma guns or melta guns with heads and torsos for an additional three riflemen figures in each set. This is great so you don't have to buy melta guns if you only want plasma guns or vice versa.



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And here are pics of my starting point for my 4'x8' Urban Terrain table.



There is a long way to go but I'm thinking that I'll add mats, sidewalks, streetlights, rubble piles, some chainlink fence, pipes, and maybe a monorail track. What would you add?



I'm looking forward to 2012. I hope you had a great 2011 and best wishes for the future.

:flamed

Looking good so far.
If I was building the table I'd put in a central 2 or 3 story building that's large and mostly intact.
Great for blocking LOS and it can spawn some really harsh CQB fighting inside it.

Disjointed Entity wrote:Looking good so far.
If I was building the table I'd put in a central 2 or 3 story building that's large and mostly intact.
Great for blocking LOS and it can spawn some really harsh CQB fighting inside it.

Were you thinking of something like a GW Administratum building, a Pegasus Hobbies' Gothic building, or something more unique? Foamcore doesn't seem to exist in Germany.

Anything that takes your fancy.
I'd personally build it myself, can't stand those GW kits.

Loving the work here! I thought of using a dog in my army as well. I looked at stealing the scottie dog from my monopoly set, yet have held off.

For buildings have you looked at industrial sets for plants/refineries that are used in train terrain sets?

I've also seen some great terrain pieces at pet stores, look in the reptile/aquarium section. Cheap plastic plants, buildings, skulls all for aquariums which can be used for 40K 28-30mm wargames. Tear up the plastic plants for forests/terrain even use it on basing ( check out Bebops P&M blog for examples ).

You can also use aquarium sand as basing and it comes in multiple colors.

Hope this helps!

Hmelrose,

I decided to try a few of the Pegasus Hobbies terrain sets which include a power plant, chemical plant, and gothic city ruins.

I have shopped for aquarium and train supplies before. You're right. There are lots of useful goodies there. It's a bit more difficult to find the same supplies here in Germany so I tend to mail order. I haven't started looking at vegetation for the table yet but plastic aquarium plants will be one of the sources when I begin that search.

Thanks!

JB

JB wrote:

Hmelrose,

I decided to try a few of the Pegasus Hobbies terrain sets which include a power plant, chemical plant, and gothic city ruins.

I have shopped for aquarium and train supplies before. You're right. There are lots of useful goodies there. It's a bit more difficult to find the same supplies here in Germany so I tend to mail order. I haven't started looking at vegetation for the table yet but plastic aquarium plants will be one of the sources when I begin that search.

Thanks!

JB

I'm glad I was able to help with some ideas.

Pegasus looks to have some nice sets, I think I've seen the Hexagon set at Aero Hobbies in Santa Monica, Ca. The plastic it was made from didn't seem to be the same durable plastic that the 40K stuff is made out of, hopefully this is my memory being foggy. Looking at the pic it may be the same as the RoboGear kits that are only available in Russia or through importers.
http://pegasushobbies.net/catalog/Peg.-Gaming-Accessories/c2/index.html

That chemical plant could be used for a variety of conversions, or just get a soup can, turn it upside down on some cardboard add the pipes and spray paint.

foamcore is to be found in germany too...after much hunting around...that is...it is mostly used for picture framing... one needs to find out the major use of a material most of the times...

and yeah, terrain pieces in the pet shops...a great place to look for...and then the fishtank plants...plastic ones of course^^ some evil schemers even sell those on ebay for that exact purpose...

Somehow I can't seem to get away from painting Imperial Guard. Oh well, I am bowing to the unavoidable since the only thing I feel like painting or building is more IG.

Since I am as slow as molasses, I will just try to work on one squad every two weeks. First up in this process is one of my company command squads since I want to work down the FOC for my 2000 point list (and stay away from all of my crazy variant lists for now).




As you can see the squad includes three advisors, a lascannon, the commander, and two riflemen as well as their obligatory Chimera transport. Click on the photos if you want to zoom in.

Ifalna painted the Astropath for me and I want the rest of the squad to use that ruined city-esque basing scheme. I also need to paint the Master of Ordnance, finish the ordinary guardsmen, weather the Chimera, and add a few small other details. If you see other things that need a bit of work, feel free to comment.

Future work will include the second company command squad (a smaller one) and the Elite choices of Marbo and two stormtrooper squads. Yes, I know that they are not optimal but I'm a curmudgeon and I don't care. I play what I like and I get used to using certain units over and over again.

Just looked at those pics in the first post on this page, and in the 2nd of the Exterminator and the Command Squad memebers, the MoF actually has the expression (looking at the tank) of "I say old bean, you need to give that brute a good hose down, don't you!"

Imperial Monkey wrote:Just looked at those pics in the first post on this page, and in the 2nd of the Exterminator and the Command Squad memebers, the MoF actually has the expression (looking at the tank) of "I say old bean, you need to give that brute a good hose down, don't you!"

Heh. That mini does have a great facial expression.

He might also be thinking that the smallest vessel in the Imperial Navy has ten times the firepower of that tank.

I'm still slaving away to update the command squad with advisors but I wanted to share my latest Swap Shop acquisition. Thanks to Iboshi2, I am now the proud owner of a painted Lord Castellan Creed and Colour Sergeant Kell. According to Iboshi2, they were painted by Andy Smith as commission work.



I'm really happy with them since I wanted these minis in metal but I didn't have time to paint them. I like the basing and paint but Andy uses a much darker palette than I use and his faces are much darker with black lined crevices. It looks great in photos and sort of weird in normal light. Iboshi's price was $60 USD shipped and that seemed very reasonable given the base cost of these minis is around $39 USD (before GW raises their prices again this month).

I already have an unpainted metal Creed from a trade so I suppose that one is now available for trade unless I decide to turn him into Creed's evil twin.

Since I already have Yarrick, I just need to get a Lord Commissar and a Primaris Psyker to round out my headquarters choices. I'm just not sure if I want to paint them or if I will commission the work out.

Now that Sixth Edition 40K will be out in less than two weeks (June 30, 2012), I am really getting motivated to do some more painting. I finally redid my primary Cadian Company Command Squad (CCS). I still have to finish the final advisor, the Master of Ordnance. I am working on him tonight.

Here is my revised CCS. You've already seen the Commander, Astropath (painted by Ifalna), and the Officer of the Fleet before. I just redid the bases to match the Astropath. Pelikan Fountain Pen ink works wonders followed by a light drybrush of Codex Grey and then Fortress Grey.



Most of my time went into repainting the lascannon heavy weapon team and then painting the two riflemen. My new scheme uses Khemri Brown for the fatigues, Catachan Green for the pouches/bayonet strap/canteen cover, and a much plainer lasgun. There are a few other minor changes. The regimental numbers on the left shoulder pads are another major addition.




I hope you like the new look as much as I do. It just gives the troops a grittier appearance. See the old look below for comparison.




Now I'll finish the MoO and then weather the CCS's Chimera. After that I'm not sure whether I will start repainting the secondary CCS or maybe finish my Marbo for the fun of it.

Salut!

I love this thread. I especially like your resin mold, it's awesome, I really want to try it!

DemetriDominov wrote:I love this thread. I especially like your resin mold, it's awesome, I really want to try it!

Thanks! It's a simple project but you will need to be meticulous.

Here is the tutorial that I did as a Dakka article: http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Simple_Two-Piece_Mold_for_Casting_with_Resin

At the bottom of the article are links to other threads on Dakka that offer a lot more education on resin casting. Many use far more complicated methods and materials to get even better results.

I think you've given yourself a major upgrade on the appearance of your army. Congrats!

Briancj wrote:I think you've given yourself a major upgrade on the appearance of your army. Congrats!

Thanks Brian! It's still very workmanlike compared to the stuff that you've done with your IG, but I'm happy to take this new turn after working on the army for seven years. I'm slow.

...and the Euro Cup isn't helping. Off to watch some football while trying to paint my MoO.

I have decided to root for Germany in the Euro cup.

Briancj wrote:I have decided to root for Germany in the Euro cup.

Germany has a strong team. I'm pulling for them as well but that's because all of my neighbors are crazy for the team. There are a lot of firecrackers that go off around here every time the team scores a goal.

The French, Spanish, English, and Italians also have teams that are a lot of fun to watch.


I didn't get far on my MoO. He is pictured below in his WIP state. Don't fret about the colors. Only his boots and pants are anywhere close to their real colors.



Hopefully I'll be able to pick my paint brushes back up and get to work again tomorrow evening.

Another day of work on my Master of Ordnance. He's starting to look right. I have mostly finished his boots, pants, and jacket. The armor has its base coat and a rough highlight. His vox caster is almost finished except for detailing. The MoO and his friends in the IG Advisors set are fantastic sculpts; so much detail that it makes you almost scared to paint it up.




Lots of work still remains though, especially flesh tones, the aquilas and shinies on his armor, and the buttons all over the vox.

The servo skulls and servitors are older creations that still need final paint. They have been waiting patiently.

REINFORCEMENTS!

Time to put in a plug for Lycaeus Wrex and the the awesome fully finished Cadian army that he is selling.

His Dakka Swap Shop thread is here. He is basically selling all of his units individually for GW MSRP (in UK pounds). That is a heck of a deal.

I bought his Vendetta, Valkyrie, and Manticore. They arrived quickly with superb packaging. No damage whatsoever. Royal Mail International postage is worth the price. I got them on a Friday after he mailed them that Monday.

Pics of the models that he is selling are in his Dakka Gallery.

The models I bought are shown below (using his pics). They make a nice addition to my Cadian 11th.





Now I want to finish converting that Valyrie into another Vendetta (he had started but not finished this process) and do some modelling and painting of my Vendetta and Manticore to make the group of models more similiar but not exactly alike. A bit of individuality is desirable.

I finally had some time to do a bit more work on my Master of Ordnance. Now he is almost finished.

He is the last of my three advisors so my Company Command Squad is almost complete. Now I just have to be patient and wait for the putty and washes to dry. It's hard to wait so I snapped some photos and folded laundry to kill time.

Here's what he looks like so far:




His name is Kurakowa because he reminds me of a former RATELO. That also explains why he has red hair. I had a lot of fun experimenting with reds on this mini. It was also cool to make his vox caster look well used.

I hope to finish him up completely tomorrow.

Woo hoo! Let's put your air force and my air force together, and crank up "Ride of the Valkyries"!

Briancj wrote:

Spoiler:

I thought you had Grand Admiral Thrawn there for a second.

Briancj wrote:Woo hoo! Let's put your air force and my air force together, and crank up "Ride of the Valkyries"!

Heh. Out there somewhere is a guy with 18+ Vendettas/Valkyries that will laugh at us, but I'll do just about anything nuts if "Ride of the Valkyries' is the theme music.

Fosner1703 wrote:

Briancj wrote:

Spoiler:

I thought you had Grand Admiral Thrawn there for a second.

You know...maybe if I had another MoO figure...

I'm still finishing up this MoO. The base still needs to dry and be drybrushed, his "gems" need small white dots, and then a rim of Chaos Black around the edges of his base.

That will be enough for him. He wasn't supposed to take this long since I only finished him to round out my set of advisors. I went off plan when I realized that he looked like someone I knew...and the rest is history.



Now maybe I can weather and detail that command squad Chimera?? Or should I finish up my One-Hour Yarrick?

Now that my Master of Ordnance is finished, I should be working on my Chimera...with emphasis on the word "should".

In reality, I've dived into another project to craft models that I'll probably never use in a game of WH40K. After finishing all three advisors, the commander, and his veterans, there are not many CCS options left except for Straken, Nork Deddog, and a pair of bodyguards.

Nothing gets me more motivated, apparently, than useless figures so here is my first WIP bodyguard.

The figure uses the Valkyrie door gunner body as well as bits from the Cadian Command Squad and grenades from the Cadian Infantry Squad. The pants side pocket on the model's right side was clipped to allow the pistol holster to be mounted flush in a position typical of current combat hip holsters (and vaguely Han Solo-ish).





His left arm is not attached yet so that I can paint him more easily.

I picture this guy pointing at a new flyer zooming onto the battlefield. He's just finished shouting either "WTF" or "FLYER!" or "BOSS, DA PLANE, DA PLANE!". You make the call.

I should get the other bodyguard put together tomorrow. He'll be similar but different.

I like the Valkyrie door gunner uniforms quite a bit. I may have to get some more of them to modify into plastic IG storm troopers. Oops, that would be another project full of (almost) useless minis.

Convert a Primaris Psyker. There are a lot of figures out there that would make brilliant Psykers:
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat720001a&prodId=prod1250029a&rootCatGameStyle=
I used this one for my conversion:

Model that I have had the most fun making....ever!