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Hi all. Thought I'd put from the very start my WIP on a squadron of Dark Angels.



So far I'm cutting them off the sprue, removing mold lines and preparing them for a black primer.



They have a lot of mold lines, this is going to take me a while lol.

Got the thread started to keep me moving so I don't slack off. Hope to have them primed soon and then start work on them.

I'm also working on a couple of bike squads and can understand the urge to slack off! Each bike and rider feels like the equivalent of making half a Tactical Squad - there's so much cleaning and gluing and MORE cleaning... Keep at it a little bit everyday - I look forward to seeing your progress!

good luck and stay on course

Good luck with staying the course. A bit a day works well for me, don't take anything in too big of a chunk. You can do it!

You should have gotten Dark Vengeance. Those bikers are east to put together and don't have many moldlines

^ Plus all the models are modelled to look awesome!

But you do lose the creativity of having unique poses and models

 Decio wrote:
^ Plus all the models are modelled to look awesome!

But you do lose the creativity of having unique poses and models

You also lose out on not buying an entire box for one specific squad...

May be worth checking ebay to see if anyone is selling the bikes from DV on the cheap.

Thanks for the encouragement. I'm down to the last sprue so should hopefully have them glued and primed by tomorrow to show.

Regarding using DV bikes or going to ebay - these are from the backlog of unpainted mini's I've got. The story behind them is they were actually a wedding present given to my wife 5 years ago by a mate of mine. I was supposed to do a diorama of them for display in her office.

It was our wedding anniversary on September the 1st, and I dug these out after I finished what I was working on last week. I decided to finally make good on my promise!!

Totally know the feeling! For what is basically a piece of cavalry... Marine Bikers involve so much work, I've just built and part painted a Ravenwing Battleforce with another one still to go, and now yet more bikes in my Dark Vengeance box... Now I love the bikers! but progress has been painfully slow on them!

Keep at it and you will get there in the end

I haven't made as much progress on this as I would like, I attended my best mates wedding which chewed up the last 5 days but am home now and getting back into it. On the plus side I have had heaps of time to plan my diorama which I can't wait to get into.

Each sprue has been cleaned up and bagged:



Checking fit of pieces and trying to work out what to glue before priming / what order to paint. It's been raining today so will just glue tonight and hopefully can prime tomorrow afternoon.



You can see marks from the sprue on the back of the bike but I assure you they have been filed flat

As for the diorama, this is what I have planned. Basically the rear of the scene will be a gothic style arch with trees on both sides arching in to cover a path that heads to the front of the diorama. The path will be made of large pieces of flat shale to perhaps resemble broken pavement or just shale, either way really. Underbrush on both sides with perhaps some mostly hidden ruined columns. The first bike will be on the start of the trail just in front of the arch.

The path will split in two just after the first bike, with the original road going straight to a ruined bridge (fallen down into a stream which forms the front of the diorama) the second trail being dirt and going down to water on the right hand side. The Sargent will be on the edge of the bridge with his back wheel pinned down and his front up like he was going to make the jump to the other side.

The last bike will be on the downhill slope headed into the stream to cross it the other side. It's an action scene so will tilt bike slightly to represent him taking the turn at speed.

The very front of the diorama will have two posts in the middle (the edge of the other side of the bridge) with the creek as the main feature. I will do water effects for the creek and have vines / roots all across the front of the crumbling embankment. Some ruins in the water to represent the fallen bridge.

So hopefully I'm getting that across, wish I could draw as it would help not only my planning but testing out the idea for feedback!

Components I will need:

Modelling clay to create the arch, bridge parts (posts, ruins) and misc columns.
Bark to create the shale road and broken pavement pieces (or more clay)
High density foam (about 2-3 inches thick) to create the raised rear portion. (Will sand down the righthand side to make the slope to water)
Water effect substance for the creek
Misc rocks and gravel
Trees - haven't decided if going to try and make myself or just use some Woodland Scenics or equivalent.
Shrubbery (probably mix of tufts and flock etc)
Texture medium to coat various surfaces (create mud, rough ground etc - or sand and PVA glue if I go over budget)
Something to edge the whole base in - currently thinking I'll paint black some thin wooden cornice. Has to be around 1cm tall to create facing for creek.
Gloss and Matt varnishes to seal heaps of surfaces before / after (depending on surface).
Green stuff to create roots, vines etc.
Something to base the whole thing on (board, sheeting etc?)

So there you go. If I'm forgetting anything please point it out as I really don't have much experience with a job of this scale, this is going to be my most ambitious piece yet and I've hardly started. I'm really hoping to have it done by Christmas being realistic, but hopefully sooner.

I've been waiting on shipments to arrive of stuff I'm going to need for the diorama, so there hasn't been much progress. In the interests however of putting up the entire process from start to finish, I've primed the bikes!

Here they are prepped for priming. I've used the Bluetack method as it makes everything so much easier to manage. Takes longer to setup, but things don't get stuck to the surfaces as the paint dries, and you can cover areas that you don't want painted to help with glueing later.



And here they are primed. This is the first time I've primed with black. I usually prefer white but for these bikes I've gone with black. They actually turned out suprisingly well.



Since this shot, I've cleaned them up, bagged them and will move on to Glueing what I can. As above, I've been waiting on an order from America to show up - I bought new brushes and some mediums as I'm going to try some new techniques when painting these such as glazing and adding matt mediums etc as I go.

I also bought some "mixing" white, so I can get some proper shades when moving between areas of colour. So as soon that order shows, I'll finally be able to start painting.

In the meantime, I picked up some cheap Fimo brand Polymer Clay to start testing my sculpting skills. I'm going to start on making the Arch for the back of the Diorama, and the bridge components for the front. Once I'm happy with it, I'll pickup some better quality sculpey or similar to make detailed versions.