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Ja, MT, I finally found a use for it.

Thanks MCat. Yep, really want to fill this with story to set it apart from a "simple" barricade LoS blocker.

And a few more little details;
A scroll for the shrine,
Some mugs,
A box (tea making things...?)
An ammo box,
Kill markings on the statue's shoulder,
Hung the gun up,
Grenades, knife and spare magazine,
Imperial eagle,
And ... Battle damage.



Most of the ideas I have left are to be done during or after painting, so I'll have a look at this for a bit and then it may be on to painting...

Oh yeah, I've also got to make the flag...

He is coming along nicely Doc, I do get a chuckle when I see all the debris. Reminds me of old chewed up gum someone left on the ground. My guess is that it wont look that way once finished.

Always excited to see the progress of your builds Dr H, love the detail on it

Not been on in a little while and WOW you have been busy! I love the storytelling in the diorama piece, and the fact that it's still going to be functional for gameplay. Looking forward to seeing all the tiny details develop. Also loved seeing it in it's current state and only then finding out that it's made from a 20 year old Terminator playset

Thanks York'. My usual basing mixture, dried paint, plaster and scraps from the modelling desk. I find it works well for mud 'n' rocks.

Thanks Joe.

Thanks Scarper. Yeah, nice to get some more use out of the old playset.

Flag done.
Started from some spare paper I had laying about of the right width.
Cut to length (double what is required) and a rectangle removed from the middle.
Glued up and wrapped around the pole to glue to itself.

Played about getting the folds how I liked, then decided that I wanted it to have some texture.

Found some of that cloth that I used for the tarps earlier and soaked it in PVA/water, then laid that over the paper, poking it to keep the folds.

Then trimmed and used more PVA/water to soften and tweak the position.

Then added a ring for fastening the flag on the pole, a top to the pole (just had to be a skull), and tattered the flag a little.

Oh yeah, and it's still removable.


Will have to come up with some nice freehand for that in the end...

The flag is excellent. Great job.

Yup. that's looking very cool so far.

Hey Dr H. Finally got through your blog. Better part of 29 pages full of lots of pictures.

I enjoy your diorama work. Not super familiar with the scale railway stuff, so it was interesting to see some size comparisons against 40k models.
The broken down statue is also excellent. (I want a terminator head on a table!)

Lots more stuff I could comment on, but I'll stick to the current stuff. . I say current (but that railway stuff is from a year ago... )

Loving that busted statue!

Thanks Graven'.

Thanks Insaniak.

Lo Snrub. Good job working your way through it all. And this is the smaller of my two blogs.
Lots of variety in here, in subject and scale.
Always good to hear comments on any of my work, at any time.

Thanks Shas'.

Statue piece is now primed and blacked. And only just got that done before we had a full power cut late last night, that wasn't fixed until late afternoon today (they had to dig up the path/road outside to do what needed to be done).

Hopefully that all makes sense now it's all one colour; the beauty of painting.

And with that moved on to the painting desk, a hole has appeared on the modelling desk...

Next group out of the Dark Imperium box is the Hellblasters (who's 12yo did that ask for that name?!).

and they come with a problem...
As we've seen with some of the previous squads, there are some multiples; 2 pairs of twin poses.
And those 2 poses are not greatly removed from each other either.
From left to right below, we have 1 to 5 (with 5 being the squad leader).


1 and 2 are identical, but I've modified #2 to be reloading.
This took removal of the hand from the gun (along with what is now a green section), to do that you also need to remove one of the ammunition pod things as it's connected to the gun and hand. Hence making him reloading.
Fine, I can live with that.

3 and 4 are also identical, but I've hit a brick wall with what I can do with 4 to make him in any way unique.
The usual things are just a lot of work or are useless:
Rotate about the waist = he'd look more like 1 and 2 then, even the 2 unique poses you are given look almost identical.
Re-pose the legs = with all the bits moulded on it's a lot of cutting / damage to make a minor change at the thigh. Not a lot can be done by only cutting the knees.
Re-pose the arms = I just tried to glue them on at a different angle and the body gets in the way of any angle that isn't identical.

Plus, with both hands on the gun and the gun tucked into the elbow/shoulder of one arm you can't easily move that.

As they are not chaos I can't even add tentacles.

So, if anyone's has any ideas, I'm open to thoughts.
Although I may go in one of two ways:
He stays the same and I'll do something in the painting.
Or I chop him up completely and re-build him. It's a lot of work to sink into him for little gain... considering that #5, the squad leader, is going to be chopped.

They are just so boring though!!!

Maybe I could give them some hats to make them more interesting...

No spare marine arms to re-purpose?

Could you repose one leg at the knee and adjust both feet to get a slightly different stance once on a modelled base?

This one looks like possibly a lot for a little, but removing the support hand (and the weapon rebuilding that will lead to), then slicing off right hand complete with rifle to repose at an angle not across the body....So either pointing out in a ramboesque one handed firing, or rotate the arm to bring the barrel straight up in a ready position.

As they are not chaos I can't even add tentacles.

Not with that attitude you can't!

chop him up completely and re-build him

This is the only correct answer.

Thanks for the thoughts.

I do have spare arms, but not a spare gun, and the gun will get damaged if I attempt removal, even sacrificing the arm totally; it's moulded to the whole forearm and onto the shoulder pad.
I could sacrifice the gun's stock to rotate the gun outwards, but that still requires shaving off the left hand (I do have spare hands to replace that one).

I did have a long look at re-posing the lower legs to have him stand on something, there's not much height he could gain to look significantly different. It may help with the changed arms above.

I'll see how the squad leader's gun re-position goes and see if I can face chopping this one up for a minor change.

While I consider this, I've been painting the statue:
I thought I'd go a bit special, rather than basic stone...

Can't quite decide if I'm entirely sold, the photos look better than my first impressions of when I did it...
I'll go with it for now, with a bit of dirt and grime it should look more natural by the end.

Statue is looking great Doc, totally agree about the hellblasters name. A bit lazy on GWs part IMHO.

I have to admit I didn't clock the full length of the stock there. But that leads me to wonder on whether one of the squad might have removed the shoulder stock from his weapon? That looks like an easier option for removing the weapon and hand for use on another arm?

Marble looks nice, you're right, he deserves more than a lump of grey stone.

The marble on the statue is really well done, H.

Regarding the offending Hellblaster, if they arms/gun aren't so much a viable conversion option, what about reposing the legs? Maybe have him kneeling.

Really nice work on the statue so far.

Well done on the marble, maybe its the colour choice but it very much makes me think of fallout 3 (less green). I love the flag it looks quite natural.

With the Hellblaster, depends on how much you rotate the waist. I thought they were more varied in appearance than that.

The marble is stunning. Great work.

Lovely marble.

Yorkright wrote: Statue is looking great Doc, totally agree about the hellblasters name. A bit lazy on GWs part IMHO.

Thanks York'. Yeah, it's pretty standard for present GW really (and probably past GW as well, I didn't pay that much attention back then, I was building Airfix kits). It gets kids excited about things, and doesn't really put any of the older crowd off. Doesn't mean we can't take the mickey though.

Thanks MT. For the other sculpt the stock is not in contact with the shoulder pad, so re-posing that one is not so difficult. However, progress has been made, see below.

Thanks Snrub (I'm currently lurking in your new blog btw). I did think about making him kneel. but with the things already attached about his waist it makes it more difficult to move the upper legs.
It's not impossible, it's just more work, which is more time, for a minimal gain in what I can sell 'em for. Something I don't consider for my personal projects.

Thanks OMN. Been a while since I've wandered the capital wasteland... I've not done much about Boston either recently, come to think about it. Just not enough time in the day for all my hobbies...
The problem with rotating the Hellblaster waists is with the minor difference between the arms for the "at rest" guys, and the "aiming" guys.
#1 (and #2 before the change) is standing in the classic GW kick-me-in-the-crown-jewels pose, with the gun across his chest.
#3 (and #4 before his operation) is stepping forward and "aiming" across his chest.

There's only so far you can rotate the body to the right before it looks like his back is broken, and it won't look much different from stock.
And if you rotate the other way he begins to look more like #1; legs apart, gun across chest.

I didn't think these were going to be so limited until I pulled out the pieces and looked at putting them together.
For a squad of 10 (or 20 in the pox walker's case), pairs of identical models are not so easy to spot. but for a squad of 5, all with identical guns, it really stands out that they all basically look the same.

Thanks Graven'.

Thanks Gits'.

Good to hear you all recognise and like the marble effect (I deliberately didn't mention it being marble to see if people would notice).

Plodding along with painting bits on the statue piece, so no update there yet.

The Hellblasters though, have an update.
While waiting to see what came about for the #4 problem, I set about chopping the squad leader, #5.
And actually there was little chopping, the gun arm was glued on at a different angle and the hole filled with putty.
The gun is resting on his knee, which I think we'd all do with such a large weapon while not in use.
The left hand was carved off the gun and I used a spare hand to give him an auspex to look at in all his squad leader-y important-ness.


And as you can see from the group photo, #4 did get his operation.

I chopped along the bottom of the shoulder pad and then down the back of the gun, sacrificing the stock.
The arm was then rotated outwards to point forwards.
The left hand was, again, shaved off the gun and I made him a new left hand...
...this was a 2-part press-mould of the tactical marine missile launcher support hand (the one often used for the joke plasma gunner shielding his face, apt for these chaps). As I wanted the hand to hang naturally and not stick out, I moulded it and then used the excess to build the thumb against the hand, rather than in the position it is in to support the missile launcher. I could easily chop the wrist to fit on to the arm. Much simpler than chopping the original hand, and fitting with putty to the new arm.
I then positioned the arm to be by the side.


That should do, I think.

I think the operation was a success Doctor......

Elegant and convincing. Good job dude.

Thanks MT.
Thanks Graven'.

Progress on the statue piece continues with the plinth in a kind of sandstone (I'm remembering the bell tower, but this is not quite as extreme in it's contrast), the wood, and the concrete / paving slabs.


Mud to do next, and then it's all the little bits before final details...

Looks really good Doc, the marble effect is spot on !

Thanks Big H.

And now with most of the metals done (there's a few small pieces that still need doing), together with the mud n' rocks (some of which will be made whiter to be marble rubble).


Old rusty metal plate, and I had to get some hazard stripes in somewhere.
The mechanicus cog piece is painted to be a concrete slab with steel and then brass around it.

Weathering, and therefore streaking on things like the bullet holes, still to do after all the little bits...

Top notch stuff, H. The weathering on the plinth is as about as natural looking as is possible I think. And the "scene" as a whole is put together fantastically.

Looking good. I think it needs another strong colour spot though. Maybe with graffiti?

Looking good! love every detail.

Thanks Snrub. Realism is what I go for. Good to hear.

Thanks Graven'. Colours are incoming (see below), there will be posters/signs and maybe some graffiti.

Thanks Shas'.

Went for red candles as the Imperium likes their red wax.
and a bit of OSL, which is why the majority of candles are on one side.


Smaller and smaller details are being painted, must mean the end is near... except for the flag, and the weathering, and the aforementioned posters...

Progress...
Getting near, I feel.
Good thing too, as the deadline is looming.



Just the flag to finish; adding details, we'll see how transfers react to that surface and/or I'll be freehanding something.
and some grass to add.
Then the weathering.

In other news;
I now have a Twitter account. It's not much at the moment, but I hope to have it as small, regular, updates. To contrast with the irregular FB finished project showcase.
Feel free to follow, like, share, comment, etc. either or both.
Links:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheMiniDetailsOfDrH
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Dr_Steve_H

and while I'm here, my Etsy shop too: https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/TheMiniDetailsOfDrH

Or just continue to read along here on DDakka, as this is where all the details will be for the modelling work.