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Hi All, just thought that I'd finally get this new blog up and running else I'd never get round to it.

For those that might have stumbled across my pathetic attempt at starting a Blood Ravens battle company you might reconised some of the WIP pictures...thats because I decided to ditch the idea of Blood Ravens after costing up how much it would be to include enough librarian mini's within the company to make it true reflection of the BloodRavens and so have decided to change back to the first army I ever painted over 15 years ago, Salamanders.

I'm going to attempt to write this blog from a semi-newbie point of view as I've just retured to the hobby after a 12ish year break and I'm still finding my feet again. After trawling through the many thousands of posts on Dakka Dakka I've noticed a few other members in the same situation so fingers crossed some of my weird experimental approaches to conversions and painting might come in handy for others. Any and all comments most welcome on anything that pops up in this blog and of course on and images in the gallery once they're up.

I've started a WIP gallery which can be seen herer
http://www.dakkadakka.com/core/gallery-search.jsp?p=1&u=25322&g=11366&ll=6&auction=0&unapproved=0&coolnesslow=0&coolnesshigh=10&paintjoblow=0&paintjobhigh=10&sort1=7&sort2=0&skip=30&en=&st=&utype=&start=0

Nothing very impressive in there at the moment, just lots of boring grey plastic, but then I'm glad i made the decision to build everything needed for a battle company first then paint else I'd not have been able to change my mind

The company so far



I've recently purchased a couple of Salamander conversion kits from Forge World in an attempt to get the creative sculpting juices flowing again, not that I was ever any good with Green Stuff other than filling in the odd joint etc on a metal mini but this time round I'm determined to learn so that I can really push the boundaries of my conversions rather than sticking to simple kit bashing.

Particularly proud of the guy below that I've bashed together to act as my company captain, planning on having a green stuff session on the cloak to add some scales at some point in the near future. You might be able to see the microscopic ammounts of GS in the leg joints, thats about the best of my ability so far so if anyone knows of any great tutorials for an inept newbiw like me please feel free to post.


Another mini I'm quite proud of...although it doesn't look like it from this pic the dread is actually on a standard base, I've just used some foamboard and Fimo to raise it up higher to help make the status of the mini stand out


In an attempt to get round my shoddy sculpting abilities I've ordered some 2 part plastic and a couple of tubs of Siligum from good old amazon in an attempt to take a few moulds of some Lizardmen sheilds I've had lying around for years to get a bit of a quick collection of scales going ready to be moulded round shoulder pads etc.

I'll attempt to post a short article on how I use in soon in the hope that it might inspire other newbies to jump in with both feet and have a go.

More soon...thanks for reading my ramblings if you've got this far, again any and all comments or advice welcome.

Very nice! One question is what is the thing sticking into the dread? You should look at Chapter House Studios for their Salamander bits.

It's a Guant head, with gribblits!

ToxicsLayer wrote:Very nice! One question is what is the thing sticking into the dread? You should look at Chapter House Studios for their Salamander bits.

Cheers for the tip, i'll have a nosey...the thing in the dread's hand is the head and a few entrails from a termagant lying next to it that i happily decapitated ...saw the move the dread makes on Dawn of War II and wanted to incorporate something similar into the mini.


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Tek wrote:It's a Guant head, with gribblits!

Spot on, was literally just typing my reply ...love the profile pic btw!

I see now. I thought the rod was something being shot.

Hi again all, well not quite the speedy start to the blog that I'd had in mind. The night of my previous post my young daughter broke out in Chicken Pox so its been Disney films and Chamomile lotion none stop for a few days to try and stop the itching...the wonders of children, nothing better in the world!

Anyways, having a few days off work and inbetween itch stopping patrol did give me the opportunity to get a bit more planning sorted for some interesting bases. After searching for some articles or tutorials on basing techniques I came across http://www.darkartstore.darkartminiatures.com/categories/THEMED-BASING/Rocky/ (As luck would have it I've just noticed their banner while typing this

After a good think over a tea or two...or three or four and many biscuits I decided to go for a pack of the rock themed bases, figuring that I could add my own lava effect in the future if needed to reflect the surface of Nocturn or Prometheus, and a few of the desert theme bases to play with. I'm still undecided if I'd like the company to reflect the battle's in Armageddons deserts or stick with the traditional image of lava underfoot...any thoughts either way most welcome!!!

Over the past weekend I've been playing with the best ways to get a good mould with Siligum using the rock bases above as a benchmark and have had some fairly good results. The Easyflow 60 2 part palstic resin that I found on Amazon is well worth a look if anyone is interested in replicating some of their own work in large numbers. I've made a start finally last night on the sculpting of some template bases to use across my company, a few pictures of which I've included below.

As soon as I have time I'll get round to writing a little newbie's guide article on using Siligum and EasyFlow. Any tips or tricks that anyone has are always most welcome.


Enough rambling for now...back soon!


Pics as mentioned...its a little difficult to see the contours on the cast base as the Easy flow sets to a brilliant white finish but you'll get the idea

The Mould


The Cast In Progress


The End Result

love the chapter master, nice work so far!

Nice stuff, Brother. One of my armies are Salamanders too. And they´re also 4th Company
My Captain and his Command squad



In the Fires of Battle! Onto the Anvil of War!

Thanks for the comments, it seems like there's a mountain of grey ready to be painted. Managed to get a few test mini's finished this evening ready to test some painting schemes. Does anyone have any suggestions on the best way to get a nice clean green without it looking too 'Orky'?

Dark Bjoern - fantastic mods! I really like the command squad paint scheme, what did you use to get the really clean greens? Can't wait to see more pics if you have them!

Nice job. Salamanders are really popular on this website.

Morning morning!

I think I've officially hit that horrible stage in a project where you can't remember when you started it and can't really see any light at the end of the tunnel last night. After working out how many mini's they'll be in the comapny on various standard 25 or 50mm bases I reached a grand old total of 148! After seeing this I began to wonder if its going to be worth trying to make ever base a feature-full base :( - no worry, after a stonkingly good curry the enthusiasm returned with force so I broke out the Siligum and 'Got me t'moulding!'

After a good couple of hours I ended up with the below mountain of base moulds ready to start some casting work. Each of the original bases simply started out as a normal 25mm or 50mm base with a few layers of slate or shaped foam board as a base and ordinary household filler to cover.

Will post more pics of the finished results once the plastic dries

You have been busy! Keep up the great work.

Hey just caught the thread and at first glance it looks great. This is a thread I give to every Sallie player I come across because it is super simple and better yet super effective.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/267539.page

Here is my attempt at it.


Great stuff so far, looking forward to some more updates.

Wow ncie one Lennysmash! The old green stuff will be coming out tonight!

I managed to find a Lizardmen Stegadon in one of my local model shops yesterday in a clearance he was having so snaffled it up to take some moulds of the larger scaly body ready to get some Fimo on the go to make some skins big enough to drape across a landraider. Took some pics of the process last night and working on a short newbie how-to article, will post it up asap.

Time to step up the base casting!

..only 3/4 of the way left to go

Good start on the modelling front, could I suggest if you have a tutorial you also post a copy of it to Blackhand's General Casting Tutorial, a fair few of us that are interested in or do cast have contributed a great deal to this thread. The idea being that we create a super thread full of ideas, problems and solutions for Casting in general.

Also I looked up the resin you have from Amazon, if you are really going to be getting into casting then maybe giving Tomps.com a quick look may be worth your while. They really helped to find some products that fitted what I was looking for. They also have a Tomps value range that is reportedly a very good product. Oh and they're cheaper than Amazon .

Hey all, quick progress update...today i have been mostly sanding...and sanding a bit more, and sanding even more!


Making each of my bases as a featured base seemed like a good idea at the time, but at the half way point its getting very dusty as the pic above
I think I'm going to have to find some way to make the bottom of the base casts nice and level while the plastic is still wet to remove the need for sanding after verything has dried.

Lennysmash - I'll have a nosey through the post you mentioned and add a little contribution in if I can get it up to any kind of semi readable standard...thanks for the pointer!


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Hey all, looking for some rough advice. As I've never played a game of 40k in my life, up until now I've only ever painted mini's for display, I've had a stab at working out the points value for a space marine 4th company which has come to around the 6500 mark...really have no idea if the list I've come up with is acurate so just wondering if anyone with more experience can give me a yay or nay?

Listed the squads below...there's a fair few upgrades that I've gone for but as the most expensive I can see is only around 25pts I've left them out of the list to keep things simple...fingers crossed!

1no Captain + command squad with landraider transport
1no librarian in termi' armour
10no terminators (on loan from 1st company of course just needed an excuse to use my termi's from space hulk with lots of GS)
6no tactical squads with rhino transports
2no scout squads
2no assult squads
1no vet' assult squad
2no devastator squads
2no ironclad dreads
2no venerable dreads
3no razorbacks


Any help is most welcome...the more I read through the rule book the more I can't wait to get onto painting some mini's and getting the gameboard out!

Epic fail for the weekend!

Quick tip to anyone fresh to using Fimo like myself..., after spending a good solid few hours lovingly sculpting a Fimo cloak onto one of my sergents and paying particular attention to the Fimo cooking instructions although you have to bake it to harden, its not a good idea to put it in the oven with the plastic piece you've just sculpted onto as the plastic will shrink leaving you with a messy blob on a baking sheet

Back to the drawing board!!!

Oh dear, get you hands on some milliputt instead its air drying and only around 2.50 for a pack.

Lennysmash wrote:Oh dear, get you hands on some milliputt instead its air drying and only around 2.50 for a pack.

I did try some Milliputt and even have the remains of a box on my 'build-it' station, (also have a paint-it station ) next to the half empty packet of Fimo. I found that I couldn't really get on with the milliputt too well as it seemed to leave a horrible white film over everything ...perhaps its time to try it again

Good job i made a quick siligum mould of the plastic components i melted first

Yes it does leave a fim, but after its hardened completely you can wash the model/parts with some soapy water and it takes a bit of it off, also I tend to use miliput cause its cheaper than GS but you can mix a little gs with milliput to add some flexibility to it before it dries. (try 2 very small balls together, and see if you like it)

That's exactly what I do Icelord, the GS combats the grittyness of the Milliput I find.

On the topic of GS though best way to get it is through ebay I find, type in Kneadite and you should get some good results.

It's £0.40 an inch on Wayland, which is pretty reasonable.

Nice tip on adding some GS into the Milliputt, i'll give that a try later on this evening.

It's £0.40 an inch on Wayland, which is pretty reasonable.

If only i could remember how much I've spent with them over the years...i'm probably telling how to suck eggs here but came across www.giftsforgeeks.org.uk a while back who offer a stonking discount on GW products.

They offer an 8" strip of GS for £0.44 an inch so comparable to Tek's find but not quite as good...no sure how it works out after postage.

Against £0.23 an inch on ebay.

Lennysmash wrote:Against £0.23 an inch on ebay.

Jebus! Just goes to show you what you can find if you know where to look nice find!!!

Hi all, sorry for the 'long time no post' I'm blaming my brother for introducing me to Call of Duty Black Ops and other trivial things that get in the way, aka work!

Anywho, all has not been a boring working few weeks. I've managed to complete a little side project still related to my current uba salamanders build but just different enough to give me a break from the same legs and torso sets etc.


I'm currently reading the Salamander book from the Black Library and one scene that seemed to stand out in my mind was the description of the native people of Nocturn all gathering together into the hive cities of the planet ready for the massive earthquakes etc during the time of trial. In my minds eye I'd got a view of these less technological people using the natural resources of the planet as best they could along with the off bit of SM equipment they may have salvaged or been granted to use. With this in mind I set about convering a lizardmen stegadon, a packet or air drying clay and greenstuff, a catachan command squad and a few lengths of tiny chain into the semi-finished items below. I wanted to incorporate the stegadon as its a great source of scales for inspiration for salamanders cloaks etc and as my sculpting abilities are noob'ish at best needed a good starting point for the scene. Using a cast of the botton of a land speeder and some air drying clay I roughed out the shape of a floating forge and a couple of figures from the catachan command squad for native Nocturns. Results are below. Any and all comments most welcome.


The stegadon representing a Nocturn Sh'ark - minus the skinks and howda


The basic shape of the floating forge with balcksmith and apprentice - more work needed tonight to sculpt an anvil and hammer and re-position the figures


Rough positioning

Will upload more finished pics in the morning.

fantastic work sir!

Does that mean i get my kitchen work surface back now

Oh and you owe me a chain necklace......though it does make good reins for a stegadon.

azekio wrote:fantastic work sir!

Holy pants azekio! Just looked through your gallery pics, there's some seriously amazing conversions in there, love the defiler...apart from the fact that its chaos of course What do you use for your conversion sculpting work?

Love the gs work keep it up!