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Thread rollover. WOooo

Loving the wings gits.
Looking real nice.

Haha it work! And worked quite well too! Bubbles under the label weren't a problem?

No... like I said... this stuff is a dream to work with! Ink set instantly so no smears, Easy to cut with a scissors. Glue is tacky but you can easily set, remove, set, remove until you get the sticker in the right place and it does not damage the paint below. Considering how ephemeral air brush paint is (it comes off really easily) that was a real blessing.

I used a burnisher on the sticker after I placed it but that was just to give it a tighter fit. The material is much too stiff to form air bubbles, but for putting a design of a flat surface (like a door panel or side panel of a vehicle), it really worked well. I'll be making a sheet of Mantis Warrior badges on the next set of pages so I can add little chapter-specific bits to my vehicles. I've never been satisfied with my hand-painted mantis warrior symbols on the razorback doors. I may try to re-paint them and use this technology to get professional looking chapter badges on them.

Gitsplitta wrote:

Ah, that breaks it up nicely. Liking this version of the wings. Well done Gits. And...what's a burnisher?

Its this contraption that rolls over a surface to smooth out air bubbles and the like... google image only has good images of industrial ones

Heah Alf, do you have a Link?

Better! I have an image.

This is the style of burnisher that I'm used to.

Sweet!It's really beginng to come together now!

All a burnisher really is, is a tool for smoothing a surface. A pencil is used as a burnisher when used on dry transfers. My burnisher is a smooth, curved piece of stainless steel on a handle used for jewelry work (which is how I got it in the first place). It looks pretty much like the pic below.



In general... if you're looking for hand tools for hobby work, I recommend looking at jewelry supply companies like Rio Grande (in the 'States). Generally, the tools are prince competitively with those you find at hobby stores and of *much* higher quality as they are intended to be used full-time by professionals. The scale of jewelry work is pretty much the same as the models we work with... so it's a very natural reapplication of the tools to a differing set of circumstances.

Wow,May get it for sculpting!

Epic model Git... I'm glad you managed to find a solution for the veins, it would've been a waste to forfeit that awesomeness!!!

Have a nice weekend, btw...

looking great gits as usual haha

The wing veining looks great. It is nice that the technique was so workable.
A very cool mini.

Good solution Gits, I'm glad it was relatively hassle free too!

Awesome stuff mate, great idea too!

Excellent solution, well done indeed.

Those wings are very impressive

Wow Gits, sorry i didnt post earlier (been at Alton Towers )
He looks amazing, the veins came out great and really look insect-like, i even had to show my housemate who doesnt even play with minis, he says its amazing too

I want to thank everyone for all your kind comments and your support, I really appreciate it. Makes all the hard work even more worthwhile.

As a way of saying thank you, I have a little surprise for you.

Since deciding to rebuild my Mantis Warriors, I have always had it in my head to take my old RT era jet bikes and convert them into scout bikes. Given the remotness and independence of my chapter it did not seem unreasonable that they might have kept of few of the old jet bikes in good working order. Even the beakies these were produced with were really too big for the bikes, but I though that a scouts body might just be small enough to look more in balance with the machine.

This was no where near as easy a conversion as I anticipated. New handlebars and considerable changes to the legs and arms were necessary to get him to sit right. But... I like it. I think it balances reasonably well, and of all the jet bikes GW produced over the years, these are my favorites.



Why the sudden move??

Well, with 6 consecutive losses I started thinking about my army. The Adepticon build was a pretty good one for a fluff army, but not designed to stand on it's own, so I thought back to my original ideas about the force and what elements were missing from my original concept. So I worked the army up to 1850, added the devs, a scout bike squad and a small vanguard squad as well as a librarian, who I feel is the most effective marine commander for the points. The new elements are all designed to work together and compliment the old, as well as make up for some deficiencies in the earlier build. In order to begin practicing, I'm going to do something I've never done before... finish the builds of the new elements without painting them. Once all the elements are built (two squads and the libby who will eventually be sent to graven for his trade), I'll go back and start painting them... but in the mean time I'll be able to field them and practice my strategy.

So there you go... with luck I should have the 3 bikes built by the end of next week, then I'll move on. OH, and I'll finish vent's vanguard of course.

Well, time for bed. I want to go fishing early tomorrow morning before the camping ordeal begins...

Gits

Nice job! I like your strategy of building all of them before painting. However, I used that strategy with my guard. Seeing all those unpainted models was so discouraging that I found it very difficult to paint anything.

I'm sure yours will be a different situation, though. You always seem motivated, and that's good.

That is a wonderful surprise! And yeah, don't worry. As long as you love the army and it's background you can make it work...

This from the all foot slogging Death Guard player who endured the old Starcannon and Plasma-Plasma-Plasma hell.

Well, luckily there won't be that many models... just 3 scout bikes, 5 vanguard and a libby. But I'm used to painting one model at a time mostly so that's a big step for me!

I think even the fluff produced by Forge World in IA 10 indirectly supports this, and I'm modeling them so they're consistent with regular bikes (i.e. not on flying bases) so I can't see why anyone would object. This certainly falls in line with how I see the Mantis Warriors...

Nice, I agree the Scouts are the only SM figs that come close to fitting on those jetbikes, yours seems to fit well.

Have you thought about having the rider leaning forward more kinda like the way a racing bike rider sits? Would increase the illusion of speed and reduce the profile of the rider so he looks more in scale with the bike... sorry just spitballing

I like BLACKHAND's idea - but you will prove how awesome you are if you can pull it off - I can't see it without his legs dangling behind/over the rear thruster... Of course, if he was leaning slightly forward (about 30 degrees from vertical) with his foot rests below the bike where his butt is now - maybe... I think the issue with a proper racing bike pose is that there is too much space taken up by the front!

Gitsplitta wrote:Well, time for bed. I want to go fishing early tomorrow morning before the camping ordeal begins...

Gits

30 min later :

Gitsplitta wrote:Well, luckily there won't be that many models... just 3 scout bikes, 5 vanguard and a libby. But I'm used to painting one model at a time mostly so that's a big step for me!

I think even the fluff produced by Forge World in IA 10 indirectly supports this, and I'm modeling them so they're consistent with regular bikes (i.e. not on flying bases) so I can't see why anyone would object. This certainly falls in line with how I see the Mantis Warriors...

I thought you were going to bed!!! My bet is you wanted to see the reactions on the bike lol!!!
Really nice model, though I the arm with blade doesn't look... natural. But I think it's a problem from the kit, more than from you...
Good job!

Hi Gits! i'm bloody glad I checked in today! what a wonderful model you've created! he looks excellent and those wings....just amazingly good! I bet those nights where sleep wouldn't come as you were thinking about painting and modelling are gone now? but they were worth it? you are an inspiration to every painter modeller and gamer out there, not to mention the 'Yoda' to countless newbs starting out and looking for great stuff!

keep it up Gits :-)


Nerdfest09

Awesome conversion Gits! Those are some pretty jetbikes, wish I had a few laying around. And the final wings look very effective, really gets the 'bug' feel across.

Thanks all. Yep Yggs, needed one look to see the first couple o' comments. Feeling pretty under the weather this morning so I'm taking a pass on water sports.

I've already modified him so that he's leaning much farther forward than the model normally allows. Take a look at the seam between his butt and his body... that's the problem. As modeled he's leaning 20 degrees backwards That's where the custom handlebars and a removal of his abdominal area came into play. I might be able to trim a little bit off the top of the area above his groin & add a bit of GS to his lower back, but I probably couldn't get more than another 10 or 15 degrees out of it.

I figure he's cruising in for a power weapon attack and as such is having to plan his next move carefully. Hmmm... now that I look at it there may be one other possibility. Will have to 'speriment.

I have a further question. I've armed all 3 bikes with the grenade launchers... but have no idea what they're supposed to look like. Worse comes to worse I'll just claim that the flamers that are on the bikes are actually the grenade launchers (as they don't look much like modern GW flamers) but if I could see what one was supposed to look like I might try modeling them on somehow.

Since I really can't link photos or anything here Gits...

First question - have you see the plastic Cadian IG and their grenade launcher?

Cause the bike grenade launcher is basically one of those mounted in place of one of the twin bolters with iirc a targetter or ammo box in the place of the second.

Astartes GLs are a very boring tube, about the length and diameter of a bolter barrel.
http://www.bitsandkits.co.uk/scout-bike-grenade-launcheramp-ammo-and-hood-mount-p-2898.html
Great work on the scout bike though, spurring me unto action and answering questions (well, posing actually) on how to position riders.