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Love the greenstuffing nice project keep it up!

Thanks!

I finished 2 jump packs for one of my assault squads. I originally bought these guys as a Space Wolves assault squad. I've had the base marines painted for many years now, but now that I'm back on the project, I just need to replace shoulder pads and add jump packs. So, here's the first two of this squad that I have done that to. I have 5 more that are ready for shoulders and jump packs (but I don't have the packs yet)... my two 'special weapons' marines from this squad just need to be replaced. I intend to set this squad up with 2 flamers, but the static pose plastic marines I have right now have GOT TO GO. Fortunately, I think I have plenty of extra parts from ebay to build a couple flamer assault marines.

Anyway, here's the two I just finished:



Thanks for reading!

Finally ready to paint stuff again.

I had to do a lot of modeling work on my current batch of stuff to do. Made many more jump packs; fully converted 5 bikes - 3 of which are magnetized on the bottom to accept attack bike sidecars; cleaned up, built, and magnetized the sidecar flanges, bases, and weapon options; built two new flamer marines to replace the (2nd ed?!?!?!) uni-pose plastic bozos I had for this squad.; and sliced up the shoulders on a metal vanguard vet and replaced them with my customs for the sergeant.

Here's what's on the plate, some stuff partially painted and you can see my finished guide models at the top of the image.

Just got a shipment of 100 15ml dropper bottles in... now I can transfer my 17 years worth of variously designed citadel paints pots into something where they won't get as crusty and drop particulates and chunks in the pots.

I wish they would make Deadly Nightshade again. And Chestnut ink.

I finished blocking out the base colors on all the rest of the bikes, sidecars, jump packs, weapon options, flamer marines and sergeant.

Next up is washing them all before I begin the highlights.

Progress on many fronts!

First, my first squad of assault marines is now done. This is mostly the squad that I built from a box of Longfangs many years ago and with the seven I decided to use were painted back then too. To this, I originally had 2 (2nd ed?) plastic mono-pose flamer guys, which I replaced with some ebay guys and added one of the vet. vanguard models as a sergeant. The flamer guys and sergeant were painted in the last week or so along with the jump packs of my own conversion/casting for the whole squad. Pics below:







Second, I ordered 100 15ml transparent dropper bottles from USPlastics. Once they came in I set about transferring years and years of citadel paints into the new bottles. In order to get any crusty stuff that had fallen into the pots, I strained them all through one half of a tea ball that I took apart. Yep. Took forever to do them all, had to wash the screen and funnel after each one...

And another project, if you notice what my paints are sitting on in the pic below... I bought one of those large styrene "For Sale" signs at a warehouse hardware store, sliced it up and put it back together in this format.

Finished up 2 more bikes yesterday and this now puts me with 3 squadrons of 3 bikes. I still have 3 more bikes (with magnetized bottoms to accept the magnetized sidecar flange) and the 3 sidecars to finish up.

Here's the two I just finished: (also working on improving my pictures... need to build a lightbox and get some clamp-on lights for it)



Here's a couple shots of the 3 bike squadrons:





And now a question for you guys... I've seen a LOT of bikes completed on these forums, but I can't say I've ever noticed if people drill out the exhaust pipes or not. So, take a look at this shot and tell me what you think. To me, looking at them with drilled pipes makes me wonder why I never did that before now. And also makes me want to paint the part around the pipes in black to really pull out the fact that they are pipes resting in a housing of sorts (obviously to improve the mold/cast).



Thoughts?

Outstanding work there!

Painting is done on the 3 detachable sidecars and one of the multimelta options. I've got base colors, primary wash, and the red 1st layer laid in on the rest of the multimelta/heavy bolter weapon options and the 3 magnetized bikes that will accept the sidecars. More to go, but I see the light at the end of the bike tunnel now... Pics soon!


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My brain is working on a weird level right now...

I was sitting here thinking about making my own combi weapons for the stern guard I'll get to one of these days and that led me to thinking about making a mold and being able to cast up lots of them, which led me to thinking about a cheap and effective centrifuge to reduce badly cast details at the extremities (something I have issues with on my jump packs)... And then I thought about just a simple hand cranked salad spinner. Yep salad spinner. One just like this. I really think that will work just fine, the hand crank gives pretty good force conversion through the gearing... Gonna have to get one and try that out now.

Well I finished everything I had laid out for April... and there's still 11 days to go.

Before I get into what's next.... Here's how the assault bikes turned out:




I honestly really rushed them and it shows in the line highlighting and some of the other details. Also, two of the bikes were ebay/trade pick-ups that had been painted such that no amount of simple green and scrubbing could get it all off - one even had a bumpy texture all over it that honestly felt like it was part of the model, though probably just bad primer... Enough excuses, I got lazy. Looking at the end of your twelfth bike, you just want to sprint to the finish.


Now I'm in the position of not knowing what to do next. Everything needs conversions and customizations. More assault marines will need to wait until I buy more resin. Tanks have to wait; the other dread needs heavy conversion; HQ needs to be completely converted; sternguard have to be converted; Terminators need to be all Doom Eagled up... Leaves me with Scouts and Land Speeders... so now I'll dig out all my land speeder parts and see where I am.

so this happened...





Somewhere along the way I picked up a Master of the Ravenwing box, must have been a clearance sale like 8 years ago. I'm not even sure if I have the models to run Doom Eagles as Ravenwing or if I even want to. I'll probably just use that speeder and maybe magnetize the driver's body if it ever happens that someday I want to run it as Ravenwing and use him... anywho... got the other two speeders from ebay and as you can see... they need some work. By some, I mean, a lot. I stripped them both, but the one still in white was clearly primed pretty well. The one that I got down to mostly bare plastic I almost completely tore apart and rebuilt. That one needs the least work. I have to build a new front antenna thing for the white one or might just ditch those all together as I'm not that fond of them.

Also from ebay I got two sets of the missle pod fronts and I guess backs from the storm talon set for a buck or so each with the idea of making my own typhoon pods that don't look so... just... there.

As to that, I've begun work making the new pod. Some styrene card and a lot of tweaking to get the angles the way I wanted them. It's hard to see how the angles are in the pics I've got, but the outer plates slope down toward the back end of the missle pod. Sadly, one end of it is longer than the other so I can't just mold/cast for exact replicas. I now have to make the matching one for the other side, and manage to get the angles and fit the same or similar enough that you can't tell.

Still WIP, I'll be adding some greenstuff, eagles and skulls and the like and maybe some plate lines or something so the plates don't look so plain. Hopefully more progress on these soon, I've got to get some more resin before I can cast any more of these anyway, so I'll probably just start working on modeling/painting the speeders and getting magnets in place

Here's the front:


Here's the back:


And here's where it will end up once I figure out and build a mounting mechanism for them.


Thanks for following along!

Woo! I finished up the first full custom typhoon pods for my land speeders! I plan to pretty much magnetize every weapon option for every land speeder, so this is step 1. I now have to make 2 more sets...lol, but at least I know how and where to magnetize the other two in preparation for receiving typhoon launchers.


Sorry I don't have step by step pics of the build, but here's how they're looking now.

Both built:


magnet attachment:


Front view:


Side View: I'm rebuilding this land speeder anyway, so don't mind the missing doors.


Back View:


They turned out much better than I expected, honestly. Not sure if I'm going to add chapter/company specific details or anything like that yet.

What do you guys think about taking them further with GS?

Thanks for reading!

Just some build progress to report.

I finished magnetizing the hull of all 3 landspeeders to accept the typhoon variant and the tornado variant weapons. Unfortunately since the last one I built is the Master of the Ravenwing land speeder, I have these gigantic TL assault cannons and a huge TL heavy bolter, both in metal, so I on't think I'll be using them.

Other than magnetizing, repairing, filing, scraping mold lines, etc... I had build some new gun rails for the two ebay land speeders. I've had these spools of steel wire in my tool box for years and it worked pretty well for this. I just cut some lengths, which I bent to as close to the arc of the in tact one that I had, added some green stuff to each end and let that cure. Then I trimmed the GS down to the right shape for the end caps (I don't have any styrene rods that I could cut/drill/glue on). I really like how stiff the steel wire is for pinning and making things like this. I'm not really worried about it getting bent through normal game play or transporting because of that. The only downside to it is that it doesn't take to filing on the tips very well being steel. I need to get some new blades for my jeweler's saw so I can alleviate that issue. A cheap hack saw would work for this as well I guess.

I still haven't made another set of typhoon launchers yet, but I might get around to that one of these days.

Anyway, here's how they're looking now, I took this shot mainly to show the scratch-build on the gun rails.



Thanks for having a look!


[EDIT]....Ut Oh... my lady bought me Angron for our anniversary and it just arrived... Can I resist it long enough to paint these speeders? Only time will tell.

Made some progress this week toward getting the land speeders painted.

I decided I didn't want to bother with sculpting any details. I might do some work with paint but otherwise, they'll just have my custom shoulderpads.

So far I've gotten the front weapon options, pilots and cockpits done:



I ended up tossing a magnet in the bottom part of the multimeltas and h.bolter, and then since I don't have magnets small enough, I glued some pieces of steel wire to the gunner's control piece. Here's how the 3 speeders look together.





Not sure what exactly I want to do with the paint. I've considered a few options like painting big red wings up the side... no clue what exactly to do. I want them to look special, but maybe normal is OK too. Thoughts?

Thanks for reading!

I need some opinions.

I've got a little bit of work left to finish up these land speeders. One thing left to do is the markings. I need something to designate Doom Eagles. I've got 2 things I've tried out and I need some opinions on which way to go.

The first is a Deathwing transfer that I altered and added a skull over. I'm not really thrilled with it, but since all of the speeders are magnetized for Typhoon launchers I had to move everything to the door.




The other option is a GS wing over the whole door section. I like this better, but I'm also wondering if I should do this on both sides.



What do you guys think?

Well, I think my Land Speeders are done for now. I'm not going to build any more typhoon launchers until some other time. I'm ready for something new.

As with everything in the company so far, final details, battle damage, etc. I think I'm going to wait till the end to do once I've figured out what kind and how much I want to do. Since I've been back at modeling and painting I haven't tried my hand at a lot of things. The typhoon launchers were my first 'plasticard' experience and I really enjoyed that. Magnetizing is something I never did before returning to the hobby and I've found that to be a fulfilling hassle, hah!

Anyway, here's how the speeders turned out.



and the other side:

So, I posted a To Do Board for April here last month and actually managed to finish everything on there PLUS 3 land speeders!

Here's what's on tap for May. I've got a lot of converting to do.

I've got Ezekiel and Azrael, an old Apothecary, Ultramarines Veterans and standard bearer from the honor guard box, Chief Librarian Tigurius, and the characters from the DV box.
And somehow I've got to get them all to look cohesive and Doom Eagle-y. Hurray for metal! I've got my jewelers saw ready to roll. I've got some extra 'character' models - Shrike, 4 AoBR captains, misc librarians and chaplains - and I need to convert something into a company champion. Honestly, I've been putting off the HQ mainly because I'm not that sure what to do with what I have.

So, I'll also be converting and painting the DV terminators. I've got some revised GS wings modeled onto a terminator, and once I get that spot the way I want it, I'll make a press mold for replication. Mostly I'll be just converting DA icons to DE icons.

The other thing I want to get done in May is to convert the tac squad from DV to Sternguard. I'll have to work out what loadout to run on them. Over in the tactics forum, most people seem to run with a mix of combi-meltas and combi-flamers, so I might just go 4/4 like that.

I don't get much feedback on this plog, but I would love to hear some different ideas. It's good to get out of your own head now and then. If anyone has converting suggestions or thoughts, they are welcome. Specifically as to the command squad conversions.

Anyway.

Here's the board for May!

I dropped down to the tactics forum and asked about command squad load-out because it's been so long since I played an actual game that I have no idea, and I really wanted to model up the command squad such that I could actually do something with it.

I got couple good suggestions - one for a jump pack command and one for a plasma spam shooty command. I like those two options. BUT... the gear load-outs are too dissimilar to use the same models and just modularize the wargear.

Here's the two I like - one if I run the Doom Eagles with the BA dex and one if I run Vanilla.

Codex: Blood Angels
Captain in Power Armour, 160 pts (Melta Bombs; Jump Pack; Lightning Claw x2)
Honour Guard, 320 pts (, Chapter Banner, Equip with Jump Packs)
1x Blood Champion (Combat Shield; Power Armour; Jump Pack; Bolt Pistol; Chainsword; Power Lance)
1x Sanguinary Novitiate (Blood Chalice; Jump Pack; Bolt Pistol; Chainsword)
3x Honour Guard (Jump Pack; Melta Bombs; Paired Lightning Claw x3)

Codex: Space Marines
Space Marine Captain in Power Armour, 195 pts (Auxiliary Grenade Launcher; Digital Weapons; Hellfire Rounds; Melta Bombs; Artificer Armour; Combi-Plasmagun x1; Relic Blade x1)
Command Squad, 210 pts (Company Standard)
1x Apothecary (Bolt Gun; Chainsword)
1x Company Champion (Combat Shield; Power Armour; Melta Bombs; Bolt Pistol; Power Sword)
3x Veteran (Melta Bombs; Bolt Pistol x3; Plasma Gun x3)

For the jump pack guys I think I'm going to start with the Shrike model I have and build a Chapter Master/Honor Guard, that in smaller games would just count as a captain. I only have the Shrike model for this and haven't thought much about what to go with him, though Sanguinary guard models would work. I'll be using too many Vet Vanguard models throughout my assault squads to use those.

Anyway, on to what I started working on.

For the Vanilla command, I was going to use Azrael. Looking at the wargear, he just needs a meltabomb and a grenade launcher. But he also needs to have his head cut off, his helmet cut off of his little person familiar guy, the right side of the helmet resculpted, the rebreather coils around his head would have to go, then the head would have to get attached to the body. Yeah, sorry Az, but they remade you in a better robe/cloak, stole Ezekiel's pose and made it into snap-fit plastic for the DV set. Oh, and same wargear. SO! 2 hanging DA icons need to become DE icons, and two embossed DA icons on his gloves need to become DE icons... figure out something for the grenade launcher and done. I resculpted the icon on his back first: left the wings; cut out the sword; filled where the sword was with some GS and smoothed it down to build the wings together and add a tail section; the sculpted the skull. I tried my hand at a Forge World skull this time and it turned out pretty good, though it's pretty small, so it's not the easiest thing to get a good representation on. The DA icon hanging around his front is kind of hanging a bit free at the bottom, so I shaved down the sword on this part but left some of the structure of it to help hold the GS for the tail section. That's curing tonight to give a solid base to work on tomorrow. The two on his wrists shouldn't be too bad as there's a fairly accessible foundation to work on.

I'm not sure what other modifications I want to make to this model. I filled the gap from where he went together on his cloak and I need to fill a tiny spot on one of his helmet wings where the sprue broke off in the box before I could clip him out. Other than a couple fixes like that the only thing I'm thinking about doing is a Chapter badge on his exposed shoulder. I'll really have to do it thin as the cloak overlays it and I don't feel like trying to sculpt cloak on top of an embossed design... though honestly now that though it growing on me.... This guy is like the DV chaplain for me. I REALLY dig the model the way it is and I just have to change the icons, then sit on my hands and not touch anything else.

I'll get a pic up tomorrow of the icon revamp.

This is a really nice thread mate I also heard at my local GW that just bring as many meltas as possible as all tanks/monsters will lose and you can insta kill other marines and really ruin Terminators days. Same would apply to other armies who have a good save. Plasma is also risky, a good few shots but a failure will resulting losing the model as it melts (which from my own experiance happens every...damn...time...
Also consider putting the Sternguard and other special weapon using units in Rhinos. Move to the opponent faster and you won't be killed by being shot at. Yes you might lose the Rhino but the guys will be OK and you would have moved them forward quicker than you could of by walking.

I will be persuming this will all be done for the Doom Eagles But thats just my 2-cents on your tactics opinions.

In regards to painting and modeling you have some great models and I am envious of your GS ability, also your painting is great really loving the look fo your army

Keep up the great work and consider me subbed and a regular contributor

Wo your guys are coming together nicely those landspeeders look great with a different color to the marines armor. Can't give you any advice on the build for an army since I haven't played since third edition.

Nashbashem wrote:This is a really nice thread mate I also heard at my local GW that just bring as many meltas as possible as all tanks/monsters will lose and you can insta kill other marines and really ruin Terminators days. Same would apply to other armies who have a good save. Plasma is also risky, a good few shots but a failure will resulting losing the model as it melts (which from my own experiance happens every...damn...time...
Also consider putting the Sternguard and other special weapon using units in Rhinos. Move to the opponent faster and you won't be killed by being shot at. Yes you might lose the Rhino but the guys will be OK and you would have moved them forward quicker than you could of by walking.

I will be persuming this will all be done for the Doom Eagles But thats just my 2-cents on your tactics opinions.

In regards to painting and modeling you have some great models and I am envious of your GS ability, also your painting is great really loving the look fo your army

Keep up the great work and consider me subbed and a regular contributor

Thanks for following Nashbashem. I could definitely see the plasmas having a bad game with 'Gets Hot!'. I guess the risk is worth the extra range, and if they can post up with some cover, the rapid fire. It makes me wonder if loading out the vets with a combi-melta or two would be better than all plasma. As for Rhinos, I'm buying pretty much all razorback kits and making them modular to go razor or rhino as needed. I haven't painted any yet. I got a hold of some ebay "gems" that must have been built - poorly - with plastic cement and then painted with gloss something. I've tried superclean, simple green, LATA, and even non-acetone nail polish remover... nothing works, but I think the LATA has gotten rid of some of the heavily painted areas. Anyway, at some point, I plan to have 9-10 rhinobacks for the company. I've got 4 now if the 2 "gems" can be salvaged. Also, probably going to get 1-3 more drop pods. Most of my decision making in these reguards has been, "well a company would probably have these assets, so I better get them". Much less strategic, lol.

Theophony wrote:Wo your guys are coming together nicely those landspeeders look great with a different color to the marines armor. Can't give you any advice on the build for an army since I haven't played since third edition.

Thanks Theophony, it's good to hear that my decision to go black with the vehicles and let the marines color scheme pop is appreciated.

Well the lady nixed my plan to get some modeling done on the captain today. I managed to get one more sword to skull sculpt done. The DA wing icon on his wrists isn't allowing for easy enough Doom Eagles conversion, so I'm going to slice them off entirely and cut some DE eagles icons out of thinly rolled out GS and glue those on, then sculpt the skulls on top of that. Pics soon, promise!

Haha the old woman stealing hobby time trick :p we've all been there

Well, I'm sneaking some work in on the captain.

I've got the wing icons cut out for the wrists... damn they're small. I've got one more DA wrist icon to shave off a wrist, then glue on the DE wing emblems and sculpt the skulls. Overall these are minor modifications, but I hope the little details help tie everything together and make this project better.

Here's the pics:

- back detail icon


- front detail icon locations. You can see the hanging icon has been modified and I've got the DA icon shaved off one wrist.


- here's the replacement DE wings that will go on the wrists... man I hope I've got the sizing right, it tough to dry fit these.



Thanks for following along guys!

Simply amazing. How/why are you a greenstuff god?

haha, I don't know if I qualify for that high of accolades, but thanks, Nash!

do you have any greenstuff tips/advice? I'd love to be able to do some crazy mods with the stuff

 Nashbashem wrote:
do you have any greenstuff tips/advice? I'd love to be able to do some crazy mods with the stuff

I really haven't done full model sculpting or anything, just detail work with it.

But here's a few tools I use and things I've learned.
Tools:
- hobby knife - fresh sharp blades help
- wax/clay carvers, I use this exact set
- clay shapers, I use: this exact set as far as I know this is the smallest head size
- I got a wooden handle clay sculpting set at Michael's I think, but I can't find a link on their site. All I really use out of that set is the very fine point needle point punches
- I just made my own tool with a toothpick and a strait pin, but I need to upgrade the handle to an old brush handle or something.
- honestly use whatever you've got laying around. I started with just a GW sculpting tool and a #11 blade hobby knife.
- water, wax paper

As to the medium, I only have ever used the kneadatite green stuff, but there are a bunch of others out there with different properties. Apoxiesculpt, for one, cures rock hard and is fileable and sandable. I want to try that one and a few others because I've heard they hold finer details better, plus you can file them to smooth them. With GS you almost have to get it perfectly smooth before it cures completely because it remains so flexible and doesn't take kindly to being filed once cured. If you're going to use green stuff, get this version of it. The tape strips cure in the middle and you waste some of it right there. The tubes, if you're like me and don't use that much at a time, will probably become unusable due to age before you use it up.

For tips and tricks...
1. Think in layers of what you want to do. Like with my wrist pieces, I made the wing icons, glued them on and now I will sculpt the skull on top of it.
2. Patience, do a layer and let it cure, don't try to sculpt too much at one time because if the putty isn't cure you could end up ruining the base part of what you're working on as you try to sort out the upper layers/details.
3. If something looks good, LEAVE IT ALONE! I've screwed up perfectly good stuff because I couldn't put the damn tools down and leave it alone.
4. If you're having trouble getting the GS blob to stick to the model, you can wash the model in case there's any oils on it from handling it, also, use a toothpick to put down a TINY drop of superglue in the center of where the GS will go and where it won't mess up any details you need to sculpt. GS in general, and uncured GS in particular, react VERY fast to set the superglue. You'll get a nice anchor to work from.
5. If the GS just won't hold ANY detail at all, let it sit for a while before you start working it. The working properties change as it cures. It starts really soft, mushy, and sticky - then loses some of each of those and starts to become a bit elastic as it cures. You just need to experiment with letting the GS sit for X number of minutes before you start working on it to see what feel you like working with. I like to do as much as I can while it's nice and soft, then after 30 minutes or so, I'll go back and try to do some more smoothing, re-establish any details that faded a bit, etc...
6. water/spit good for keeping the GS from sticking to you, your tools, your dog, your grandma's fine china, whatever. I've used olive oil for rolling out sheets of GS, but it's hard to work on with oil on it.
7. Say you've finished the detail you wanted to sculpt, and you still have 3/4 of the GS that you mixed up left over and it isn't cured yet. Make a shape. Roll it into a 'snake' like you used to do with playdough, only much thinner. Roll it into a sheet with whatever cylinder you've got handy. Whatever you can think of. If you've got enough left over put some olive oil or vasaline on a detail piece you made that you want to replicate (use a brush to get it in the nooks and crannies in a very thin layer, then mash that detail piece into the GS mound, or the other way around, and let it cure. The lubricant will keep the stuff from sticking together, but once cured you've got yourself a press-mold negative that you can lube up and press further leftover GS into to make more of that detail. I would use press molds for tiny details like those skulls I'm always sculpting... except I haven't gotten around to it.

I guess I had some stuff kicking around in my head afterall... lol

Let me know if there's a specific model you want to add a bit to or a specific type of modification. I'll help out however I can!




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good grief, it's harder to glue these onto a curve than you would think.... Now on to skull sculpting.

Looking good, lovely use of the storm talon pods on the land speeder orgiginal and they dont look oversized either which is a plus, keep up the good work

Young Logan

Got my supply drop from Blick...

- W&N 7's (1, 0, 00, and mini 0)
- 005 micron set with colors
- Liquitex matte, glaze, gloss, flow-aid, slow-dri
- Ooomoo 30
- smoothcast 300

time to get crackin!

Thanks for the tips! I've only currently got the GW tool which I've filed to make sharper and have a thinner point and ton of different scalpals with different blades. I will have to get me some of those clay shaping tools.
The Grand Master is coming along nicely