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.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
How did you render concrete that good?

It is basically just sand glued with pva glue over the surface of the plastic cup. Depending on the grain size for the sand you can get different textures.
Then I just sprayed with a can over it and brushed over any areas where I might have missed a bit with the spray.
The sand in this case was "stolen" from the pile of sand we have been using for the construction work on the farm.

Over the past few days I managed to finish the second set of trench lines, which is mostly similar to the first with just a few different details here and there.





I also had time to build another bunker using a slightly smaller box than the previous one and with a smaller cannon as well.



Last but not the least, I have painted the last batch of stargrave crew conversions, bringing me slightly closer to having all of my infantry painted.






This week the focus should be on painting a few vehicles and buildings while I wait for the delivery of the things I will need for the bikers. I should also make some progress on getting the copies of the bikes themselves, so I can make a few bikers once the rest of the parts are available.

Matches are back, nice work

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
Matches are back, nice work

Thank you


This week had a few unforeseen circumstances so things didn't exactly go according to plan, but I did manage to paint a few of the vehicles that I was planning to get done.














The light shiny blue on the roof of the vehicles with the antennas is meant to represent a rough solar panel to power the antennas.


I did end up getting the package with the parts I need for the bikers earlier than expected which was good in between all of the confusion this week.
I got both Stargrave Scavenger kits, the two Frostgrave Barbarian boxes and the two Frostgrave Cultist boxes to be used as source of parts for the bikers, so I have enough arms and heads for quite a few male and female bikers.
I also got the Rampart City Defenders kit from Archon in the same order and something else that I will be painting up as a gift for my mother.
Yesterday I managed to start making some progress on building the city defenders and while they are pretty much monopose models they are quite easy to build and have lots of details and character.
So far I built the snipers and the ogryn equivalents (the human models seem similar to escher in terms of proportions, not sure about the ogres as I have no ogryns to serve as reference), but I am planning to build the rest of the box before the weekend if everything goes well.



I also had a moment of inspiration when I was unwrapping some rope from its packaging and made a small defensive position. The sniper is there for size reference and to indicate why I tend to go with 3 rows of sandbags in most things I build in this manner.



That is all for today, hopefully more progress soon.

Nice to follow along, like those minis, the mini ogryns are catching my eye...

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
Nice to follow along, like those minis, the mini ogryns are catching my eye...

Thank you, the ogryn equivalents are quite nice, even though they are monopose and wouldn't look great in large numbers. One of them is using a bulkhead door as a shield


Since my last update I managed to finish building the contents of the Rampart Defenders box. Overall they look great and are relatively easy to assemble, with Archon Studio providing a pdf for the instructions on their website. There are some minor mistakes on the instructions and I think on one case the images are mirrored compared to the real thing, but overall they are quite professional and well made. I think what the Defenders are missing are customizable variants that would allow making a larger force without repetition by adding some modularity to the heads and arms at least (stargrave/frostgrave do a good job at having modularity while keeping the body as a single piece or 2 pieces in case of some cloth additions). The Shock Troopers have already went partially in that direction with some weapon choices and heads that would fit different bodies with just a bit of work, but Archon could certainly build upon this kit and release several dedicated modular kits. The HWT are amazing and a more general kit with that design would be amazing.






I also managed to paint most of the small buildings I have on the farm.










Back home I painted 10 HWT based on spare parts from Africa Korps and Desert Rats from Perry Miniatures, as well as 2 more converted vehicles.











That is it for today. Tomorrow I should paint a couple more converted vehicles and then I have 10 small buildings to paint which should help reduce the paint queue for buildings which was getting quite big (not as big as the infantry queue but that is around 3k models so that would be difficult to match).

Three thousand infantry models?!? I thought I had a lot in my queue, but now 900 models does not seem like all that much. Wow, well it's good to see you making steady progress, my friend. Keep up the good work.

 Warboss_Waaazag wrote:
Three thousand infantry models?!? I thought I had a lot in my queue, but now 900 models does not seem like all that much. Wow, well it's good to see you making steady progress, my friend. Keep up the good work.

I made a lot of conversions to spend spare bits from the boxes so it all piles up quite fast. I was getting closer to 2 thousand unpainted infantry when I got the kits that I will use for the bikers conversions so the potential extra stuff for the queue despite the bikers going into the cavalry category will still bring it closer to 3k again, even if not for that long.
Current infantry status for reference:


And the overall status across the 6 six categories I defined to track down things:


Most of the stuff that I am painting was built roughly around 2 years ago or closer to the present, so it is not exactly a very long waiting queue compared to what it once was.
As of today I have painted 295 models in 2025. My current record was 1504 painted models in 2023, so my expectation is that in 2 or 3 years I should have everything painted, provided I don't add stuff in the meantime (which is unlikely as I currently unemployed and can't spend too much on hobby stuff that wasn't already budgeted).

Over the past few days I have managed to paint a few more things, including a few more converted vehicles, some mini bunkers and also a giant model from Archon Studios.
The face of the giant isn't how I would like it to be but after the 4th or 5th at the eyes and other features I decided to do something simple and get it done.






















If all goes according to plan I should build the first 5 male bikers today and the first 5 female bikers tomorrow (torsos and bikes are made for at least 5 of each just need to build them and add the other parts).

I managed to build 10 bikers over the weekend, 5 male and 5 female bikers.
Both sets were made using the Stargrave Scavenger kits (1 and 2), but as mentioned earlier some of the other bikers will likely use arms/heads from the barbarian and cultist kits.




I have tidied up things around the farm in terms of storage for the buildings and terrain, so I am hoping to paint a few more things this week, or at least make some progress with adding sand and other stuff.

Are the bike milliput?

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
Are the bike milliput?

The bikes and torsos are made with milliput yes. I use milliput mostly for the parts I create using moulds as it is sturdy and keeps most details from the originals.
Resin would likely be better if I was doing things in a more professional way, but for that I would also have to source other materials for the moulds in liquid form rather than what I get from GreenStuff World.

tried milluput, never made it work well, bravo to you lol. Used it with GSW's blue stuff

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
tried milluput, never made it work well, bravo to you lol. Used it with GSW's blue stuff

The silicone putty for moulds from GSW works better with milliput in my opinion than the blue stuff. I tried blue stuff initially, but it was harder to remove things from the moulds than with the silicone ones and overall the process for mould creation is easier as I don't have to heat anything.

I found it useful in that they are almost infinite use. but i only managed to make smaller, insignificant pieces for terrains. Replicated tyranids nods.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
I found it useful in that they are almost infinite use. but i only managed to make smaller, insignificant pieces for terrains. Replicated tyranids nods.

Bluestuff is likely the best thing for pieces you only need a couple copies based on my experiments, especially things you can cast with a one sided mould.
That way you don't waste the material for a couple copies, like what happens with the silicon moulds I have been using, which once given shape you cannot reuse the material, so if the mould "breaks" you can't use it any longer.
For larger amounts of stuff the silicon putty works better as it is flexible enough to make it easier to remove things from the moulds and works well with 2 sided moulds.
Obviously with the silicon putty you only have a chance to get the mould right, especially because it is only workable for a couple minutes before it starts to cure and it stops adapting to any details you want to copy.

What I retain from your post is that silicon.moulds should really be reserved for actual sculpting, then?

I didn't even pay attention to them existing before seeing your blog actually!

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
What I retain from your post is that silicon.moulds should really be reserved for actual sculpting, then?

I didn't even pay attention to them existing before seeing your blog actually!

For copies of things you sculpted or modified, like I did with the bike, which was a toy bike that I added some legs out of greenstuff before making the mould.
Blue Stuff and their new lemon scented reusable putty are better for quick copies of other things that you don't want to copy over and over.
I have seen people doing 2 part moulds with a liquid version of the silicon putty, but I am not sure where I can find that sort of thing locally, as it would work better for some stuff with more details as I could use liquid resin and pour it into the mould rather than use milliput.

Thanks for sharing the experience pal!

Although I haven't posted in a few days, I have been keeping myself busy with lots of painting and other hobby activities.

I have made some modular trenches which are meant to be combined with each other to make longer structures. I am planning to do other kinds of sections, beyond the current straight line sections I have made. They are not perfect but once painted they should look really nice.



I have also painted several fortified buildings, small barriers, 2 small bridges and a couple of bunkers with cannons over the past 2 weeks.














Last but not the least, I have finished painting a garden with a small fountain in the middle, which allowed me to try some transparent resin for water effects. I didn't use any dyes so it is completely transparent.







That is pretty much it for today, hopefully more things to show in the coming days.

nice! love that little bridge! Is the garde n for a diaporama already or a one off?

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
nice! love that little bridge! Is the garde n for a diaporama already or a one off?

Thank you!
The garden is mostly a one off thing to experiment with a few different things, like the clear epoxy resin.

Although I have a been busy lately to post around here, things have been progressing quite nicely in terms of painting.
I managed to finish a tree with corpses today (first of 3 similar concepts):






Over the past week I finished a few more buildings and some of the modular trench sections:







Depending on how things go this week I might finish painting the other 2 trees with corpses (both are primed and one already has a secondary colour).

Lol, that tree though! Keep up the good work

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
Lol, that tree though! Keep up the good work

Thanks! That tree and the other 2 with a similar concept were inspired by things like Reaper's Tree of Despair: https://www.reapermini.com/search/tree/latest/44131

I have been quite busy with painting over the past few days and managed get quite a few things painted, including the other 2 macabre trees, 5 small dioramas with dead bodies and 4 scratch built heavy artillery positions with cyborg crews.































Next on the paint queue should be some of the heavy weapons I have shown earlier in this thread and potentially some buildings (depending on how things go).

is that an evil basilisk lol?

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
is that an evil basilisk lol?

Well, not exactly evil basilisks, but they are meant to be similarly huge pieces of artillery. Since the barrels were big I decided the shells had to be big as well and so rather than give them regular human crews with some sort of mechanism to lift the shells into place I decided to go with powerful cyborgs with spider limbs from Wargames Atlantic giant spiders.

Precisely the spiders give it an eerie chaos look to be fair but i like it!