Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Evening all,
I've been away for a little while as I've been playing around with my ad mech for a bit but I've also been working on a devastator squad that needed finishing. Not much to show yet but here are the bases as they stand with no paint. Pretty happy with them!

It took me far too long to finish off this devastator squad but they are finally allowed access to the display cabinet! Most of the models are just repaints that are several years old by now but it was nice to give them a fresh base to match the rest of the army and apply some of the new transfers.

The images may be a little funky as I have a new phone but I'm sure I will get used to it soon!

I'm liking the little conversion and kitbashes everywhere. Good stuff.

Thanks Meph! My favourite conversion is the maximus armour marine as I built him well before the plastic kits came out for them so I had to scrounge through dozens of kits to get all the right parts.

I took a week off work to get some painting done and so far I have gotten a couple of dreadnoughts done with the exception of finding some bases for them.

This guy was pretty much done already but I touched up some of the paint and added some decals, much happier with him now!





I also got this fella all painted up. Loving the variety that is available in the old dreadnought kits, I gave this one as many of the gothic parts as I could.







Looking at my collection it seems like I am almost exactly halfway through painting my (space marine) collection. I shall have to take a group picture to celebrate!

Hello all,

It seems I have been neglecting my blogging duties for some while again! In actual fact I have been up to quite a bit in the last few months I just need the time to snap a few decent pictures of what I have been up to.

For now though I have been working on a razorback that I picked up in town despite only wanting a tub of paint (that I forgot) and I have also started work on making a member of each TSons sorcerer cult. Hope you like em!

The front plate for the tank was from Kromlech I think but I got it years ago, looks great though



The sorcerer coven is coming along really well but there will probably be another 3 or 4 in the group before I consider them finished...



According to the wiki there are 5 different cults, all with very unique powers such as shapeshifting, telekinesis, lightning, etc so it is quite fun designing them with these things in mind.

Anyway, I will try and get some more pics up soonish, there may or may not be a large, red skinned individual on the table at the moment...

 Commander Cain wrote:
I have been working on a razorback that I picked up in town despite only wanting a tub of paint (that I forgot)

Every modeler ever can relate to that statement in some way. That cracked me up.

Yeah I think it's a problem most of us have!

I've been working on a few more sorcerers and have a squad almost painted so here's a guy who got a little overenthusiastic with his shapeshifting abilities, hope you like him!

The joys of having a very extensive bitz box mean I have made so many random characters out of a few loose torsos and arms...

That is a really neat summoner pose on that last one. The model will end up gorgeous !

That's a great build. The posing is aggressive and powerful, looks like he's summoning the cosmos. Looking forward to paint.

Thanks fellas! He should be getting a splash of paint sooner rather than later as I am trying my best to get some squads finished off after a bit of a painting break.

As proof here is the latest group I have been working on, a specialist Pyrae squad armed with some funky flamers. Unfortunately the pictures have washed out most of the detail but this will do until I get round to basing them and adding some final details..







In other news, I spotted a blog post on the GW site with some great looking TSons, very tempted to follow this paint scheme for my next tank..

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/02/09/eddie-agent-of-change-part-4-my-armygw-homepage-post-4/



Next up, some more sorcerers and painted termies. I may also have a little FW shipment on the way

Evening all, not a very exciting update but I thought it worth mentioning that I am changing my paint supplier. After almost 10 years of buying GW paints I have made the switch over to Vallejo Game Colour and I am very happy that I did!

The company seem to have come a long way from the last time I bought paints from them, previously they were very thin and did not cover surfaces very well. Now however I would argue that they are superior to GW's stuff in terms of how thick and immune to separation or clumping they are. Dropper bottles are also a far superior way to contain paints, you can give yourself the perfect amount of paint for what you need and don't suffer from having the cap left off (nothing worse than going up to your desk only to discover you didn't close a brand new paint and it has now been reduced to one hard lump).

I am particularly impressed by the metallic paint which covers beautifully and is very vibrant, very handy for someone who has a tough time painting gold. The fact that these paints are cheaper and contain more paint is just an added bonus!

Thought I would share my thoughts as I know there are many people out there who just automatically use GW stuff and don't experiment with other brands as I did for a very long time.

As for progress on the termies, I've only started the basecoat stage but they should be done in the next several days hopefully...

Long time no post again but I am currently working on something totally new, a diorama of the city of Tizca, capital of the Thousand Sons home planet of Prospero in super miniature scale!


I have never tried anything remotely like this before so it is going to be quite an interesting experience. I am going to have to teach myself how to sculpt, hand craft terrain, and also be an architect in the process.

It's probably easiest if I let the pictures do the talking for the moment though, this is the image I am basing the diorama on and it can be found in HH: Inferno if anyone is wondering. It is beautifully detailed as I shall go into later.




First off I scanned and printed off a copy so that I could split it into sections to make it easier to understand, section C6 is gonna be the trickiest for sure... (I'm gonna spoiler the less interesting images as they're all quite large)




Next up I had to trace the outline of the city so that I could get a nice template for the diorama and more schematics.




Having made a few copies of the outline I prepared a topographical map as there is a large mountain range, a massive hill and what looks to be a shallow area around Central Tizca (in blue)




For the next schematic I picked out all the interesting looking building that I could spot with my eyes, this should make placing such items on the board much easier in the future. It also made me realize that there is a lot of symmetry to the city which I heartily approve of!




Finally I did some quick sketches of what I assumed the most iconic locations would look like in 3D. For the standard pyramids I simply took inspiration from the other artwork in the book and simplified them down as the models will be miniscule by the time I get round to creating them.

For the Great Library I couldn't make it out very well but assumed that as it would likely be one of the more older buildings, would follow an older method of pyramid building, the mastaba which was one or several "slices" of a pyramid stacked on top of each other. Pretty happy with the concept if I do say so myself.

The Great Seostrian Canal was a tricky one as I don't really see how it would function, in the end I decided it must be some sort of aqueduct that funnelled water into the main city, add some arches underneath and it looks pretty good!

The Pyramid of Photep is the central pyamid and home of Magnus so it had to look suitably impressive, After a lot of squinting I decided that it appeared to be two mastabas stacked on each other with four tiny pyramids in the corners. A really nice design that I hope I can replicate.

Finally the Acropolis Magna, a fortress hiding out in the top of the map made me very impressed with the FW artist who designed it. Clearly inspired from star shaped citadels from the late 1700's, this is going to be the hardest thing to construct on the whole board if I want to do it justice but should be worth it in the end. (Google Halifax Citadel if want to see an awesome looking gunpowder era fortress)




I would also like to take a little liberty with the map and add a massive lighthouse near the bay to echo the mighty city of Alexandria as I think that would be a really nice addition.

Lastly a quick shot of everything all together. In front of the laptop is the base I am considering using to give you an idea of scale, I may end up going a little larger in the end but it is a good approximation for now. And for those wondering why I am not doing it 40k scale, I did the math and it works out to be roughly 145 feet in length so I had to downsize




I will probably not make much progress on this project in the month of September as I am trying to get my Rogue Trader army finished ( One Army, One Month: Alternate Future Rogue Traders ) but once they are all done I am going to throw myself at this new task with a lot of gusto. Very excited to get started on it!

Awesome project, I am really looking forward to following this. Plus, it will be a nice preparation for when you buy a field and actually build it outdoors, in 40k scale ^^.

Haha don't tempt me! There's a plot of land across from my house that would do just nicely

Glad you're back! Can't wait to see how this project turns out.

That is less than an acre and I have 28 acres. But then again just doing the pyramid life sized for cosplay....

Ambitious. Looking forward to seeing this grow!

EmberlordofFire8 wrote:Glad you're back! Can't wait to see how this project turns out.

Thanks! Pretty interested to see how I manage it myself

robertlee wrote:That is less than an acre and I have 28 acres. But then again just doing the pyramid life sized for cosplay....

With 28 acres you could probably do the whole planet, now that would be a good thing to play a campaign on!

I had to drop off Dakka for a while to deal with some school stuff and finishing up my Ultramarines, but I just wanted to pop in long enough to say that your 1k Sons are looking as amazing as always. My own little alt history Emperor's Children army would be proud to fight alongside their (totally loyal) brothers in Red!

Thanks War Kitten! Always nice to see you drop by. We need pictures of all your stuff though! I hear promises of loyalist World Eaters, some Ultramarines, and now loyalist EC, you have almost as many different projects on the go as me.

Alas the World Eaters fell through, as I couldn't get the bits I wanted for it from a buddy. The EC are a small little project, and I'm in the midst of looking at picking up some FW stuff for them in the next few months. My Ultramarines are finished actually believe it or not (with a whopping 5k points after all is said and done).

If you're on the hunt for EC bits I would check Kromlech out as well, they do some great head, backpacks, and sonic cannons that you might be interested in!

https://bitsofwar.com/

These ones are also quite fun

https://maxmini.eu/conversion-bits/ballistic-weapons/sonic-guns-bits

Making a good bit of progress on the board so far. I drew out the outline on a good sized piece of wood and then proceeded to sculpt a layer of clay over the top. As it is air-dry clay I have to get the basic shape done fairly fast but I am happy with the progress so far.

Over the top of this layer I will cover it with some sculpey so that I can carve in the fine details such as buildings and smooth out any areas if needed. I think that the end result will be a little thick with these multiple layers, especially around the coastline so my plan it to pick up some water effects and use that to raise the sea level (and also make it look super cool) meaning that everything should be the appropriate height.

I am expecting some chunks of the clay will end up breaking off as it is rather thin and my test piece ended up rather flimsy but seeing as it is essentially just a base it should be an easy fix when I am adding further layers to the diorama.

Up next is smoothing out some areas and then the opposite side of the city which consists of many mountains which should be very fun to work on, I'll update later in the day once it's done!






Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mountains are complete! As you can see the clay has started to dry so there is a little warping and cracking in some areas but this isn't really a problem as it will be covered over later. In fact it has shrunk a little around the edges which is good as it means I can better tackle those areas in sculpey.





Very happy with how the mountains turned out, I had a bit more freedom when working with them due to the fact that the image from the FW book covers up that area with a info map so I simply created it the way I thought it would look, some large mountain ranges and a path for the river to flow into the ocean.

Next up is to wait for it to fully dry and then begin the hardest part, sculpting the details of the Azure District and Southern Tizca which consist of thousands of buildings that will be absolutely minuscule. For reference, the largest structure on this diorama will be the Pyramid of Photep in the center which will be thumbnail sized and the roads in between buildings are going to be about the width of a very fine detail paintbrush!

I take back suggesting you post this in your other blog, idk how I didn't know about this one before but now I'm checking it out.

Hope you like it all, it's quite a long read by now

I have started the second layer of the city which will consist of roads and houses. As this quite the learning curve for me having never done something like this before my first attempt at sculpting the houses was pretty bad, even making a nice square press out of a staple didn't really work as it didn't have a very 3 dimensional feel. It was then that I realized I could do the small homes in the same way I am planning on doing the larger structures, plasticard! As you can see the size I am dealing with is barely visible but it should result in a fantastic looking end product. Now just to make another thousand or so of these things...

With this new technique the sculpey layer will now just be to refine the shorelines, depress some areas for streets and mark out where any notable landmarks will be placed. Everything else can be added after it has been baked such as the houses and trees.

That's tiny indeed .

Wow, making those houses sounds exhausting, but you will make the League of Extraordinary Riveters proud

CommissarKhaine wrote:That's tiny indeed .

I'm gonna need glasses by the end of this project I think

Syro_ wrote:Wow, making those houses sounds exhausting, but you will make the League of Extraordinary Riveters proud

It's actually much more efficient than sculpting each one by hand hehe. And I could really do with the whole League to drop by my house and get to work on building these pyramids for me as I have no idea how to go about it!

I have managed to sculpt all the roads and shallow areas for the first half of Tizca as well as sketching out where the large buildings will be placed. It is still looking very rough at the moment but it will start to take shape once I start adding some more objects and refine the edges.

As the sculpey is white the detail doesn't really show up very well but you can get an impression of what it will look like. Can you spot the first house??



Next up is the second half of the city consisting of Old Tizca, the Silver District, and the mountain ranges. I will then be able to put them together and then start to work on the central part of the city which has all the pyramids as well as any other buildings and docks that need to be made out of plasticard.

I have a thought that will help you shape the smaller buildings.

Instead of cutting out a piece of plasticard and then shaping it, use a length of plastic-rod or (better yet) a piece of sprue:

Carve / sand / shave the sides of the rod of plastic to give the x and y of your building; a square cross-section for a square house etc.
Then shape the end of the rod to the roof profile of the house with a file or sandpaper.
Cut this tip of the rod off to give the z dimension of your building.

Repeat for each building.
Use different thicknesses of rod/sprue to give different building dimensions.
You can even glue the resulting bits together to make more complex building shapes.

Keep up the good work.
I'll go back to lurking.

Also, check out my CD city build. It's on a similar scale and I used pen tips / lids for more outlandish shapes of buildings.
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/1380/549077.page#8894886 Full build before this point.