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I'm not as big a fan of the 'floating turret' idea. I was thinking more a bolted down turret system. If you are to use the cellar/sewer hiding in the fortress (which is a total Skaven thing) I was thinking a more bolted down turret style would also be more Skaven. Well, those are just my thoughts, it's all up to you though, mate!

It may end up being both, a turret bolted to a piece of floating masonry..or just a mix of both..I will have to but my thinking cap on.

@Wolfshadow - I like the look of the barbettes, but not so much the 18th century style naval carriage. Funny thing was as I googled the naval carriage I found pics of a "dissapearing" cannon i kind of like the idea of those..not very skaven though. They would just keep loading under fire, none of this "cannon retracting into safety for reloading" crap!

You could always do some sort of feild gun mounting, chianed/roped to a section of wall. like they would have done in a fort...

I have been thinking that mounting the battle cannon on a free floating chunk of stone that is encircled by the main body of the "tank" would mean the turret didn't need to rotate, the whole chunk of stone could!

I am still liking the thought of having the driver and seat from the doomwheel as the gunner mounted to the side of the loading mechanism for the battle cannon. I have a couple of shells from a baneblade kit and I might be able to rig up a loader for the battle cannon..I think...will have to do some sketches tonight

Scan and post please. :-)

QFT ^

I probably have some bb shells if you need. I can also do you some other heavy weapons too, lmk.

Lol, I'm not sure If I wnat my sub-par artwork on the net for anyone to see but I will see...

@Graven - I have PMd you, but one of the ideas I had last night is some form of revolving shell chamber for the battle cannon complete with shells or maybe a "chain" feed coming up from underneath the cannon's carriage..not sure yet.

K, so over the last couple of days I realized I am spending a HUGE amount of time carving polystyrene, covering it in plaster and carving and sanding it to look like rock when i could do something one hell of a lot simpler....

....use actual rocks!

So I picked up a couple of handfuls gravel of various sizes on the way home yesterday and went to town

It needs a unifying paint job but what do you think?





Now, while they are glued on pretty tight they will need a bit of plaster to fill in the spaces and cracks between the rocks....or I will leave them and paint the inside of the cracks to simulate a green glow....

There is of course a minor weight issue but its not much heavier then all the plaster I had on there and happily I have built a lot of redundancy into the frame of the ruins so it should hold up...hopefully..

C&C welcome

Cheers

BLACKHAND

O.O

...
Yes.

Looks awesome, can't wait to see what they look like finished.

Yes. Good job, looks like a 'pimp mobile' all it needs is flames.

Looking Good BLACKHAND, lets see them finsihed and painted, how big do you plan to go with the army

BLACKHAND wrote:Now, while they are glued on pretty tight they will need a bit of plaster to fill in the spaces and cracks between the rocks....or I will leave them and paint the inside of the cracks to simulate a green glow....

THIS, This, A thousand times this!

Seriously, the green glow idea seems seems like a very cool way to do it, and I'd love to see it.

Agreed

Blackhand, I think "Beyond awesomeness" could be used talking about your flying castle.

I think that once finished it would be GD material.

Sweet zombie jeebus...

CodGod wrote:

BLACKHAND wrote:Now, while they are glued on pretty tight they will need a bit of plaster to fill in the spaces and cracks between the rocks....or I will leave them and paint the inside of the cracks to simulate a green glow....

THIS, This, A thousand times this!

Seriously, the green glow idea seems seems like a very cool way to do it, and I'd love to see it.

I cast my vote for this. If you can pull off a nice, creepy glow then it will look amazing.

Ok , creepy glow it is!

As for painting I am getting pretty close to the point where I can begin mounting weapons, as this is a Chimera I will be adding a heavy bolter to the front, probably in a sponson that sits under the overhang of the broken floor tiles. I will be able to paint at that point as the multi laser will be a bolt on job ( I am saving the floating weapon platforms for the Leman Russ')

Here's an issue, I have a can of flat grey to lay down the groundwork on the stone but I plan to was the crap out of it after that to pick out the cracks and texture of the rock...thing is I would end up using an entire pot of GW wash every vehicle! I just read on another blog that Vallejo does a big pot o' wash that might be useful, has anyone tried it?

Oh and young logan, I intend to build three chimera, 3 leman russ variants and a Vendetta....every now and then I consider how cool a massive counts as Stormlord would be though...So big!!

Cheers

BLACKHAND

And then you had to go and say what I wasnt going to. Now you HAVE to do a superheavy! I was trying to spare you the plaster, but NNNOOOOOO

Haha, its ok WM...the visions of a mulitlevel floating castle with floating weapon sponsons orbiting it and 40 (40!) Skaven swarming all over it ready to bring chittering doom to its enemies has been haunting my dreams for a couple of weeks now, I just have to put it on the back bruner for a few months as I have a LOT of thing on at the moment ... a LOT!

I'd like to see a Fortress of Arrogance in skaven terms. Though you'd have to come up with a Yarrik first.

I've been thinking about commisars in my army, they are really a very skaven unit, a big nasty rat that kills the rats around him to "inspire" the other rats around him

Plus I wonder what a Skaven power claw would look like.........

Ask and you shall receive: http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440084a&prodId=prod1140219

SoG

Hey Blackhand, been thinking about the floating turret thing. Love the idea but I think it's the kind of that you wouldn't want to overdo to keep the visual impact. What if the side sponsons or "body mounts" were built into the castles.. either stone enclosures housing the guns or perhaps upturned sewer pipe sections with the gun inside... and the main (turreted) gun was the one that was floating? Gaming mechanics wise it would make more sense that way.

I wish i had stumbled apon this neat thread earlier (would have saved me several minutes of reading through the thread). 40k skaven is a great idea! (I may have to start a 40k Lizardmen/Slann army because of this).

Superb sculpts and conversions BLACKHAND. Looking forwards to seeing those floating castles (you have to have a tank-commander Howl ) painted up.

Loving the rocks.

looking good as always! want to see them finished

@son of guilliam - Thanks for the link I may have to track down that model for Yarrick conversion now...my wallet howls in pain!

@Lord of Change - I would love to see a 40k lizardman army! they have some great models just wating for high tech guns and armour

Thanks everyone for the words of encouragement! They have helped me keep going back to the painting desk this week in the face of total exhaustion...and all your ideas have really contributed to a firmer idea of what the vehicles will look like, thanks again!

Cheers

BLACKHAND

Stormlord... don't you mean VerminStormLord? I was wondering the same actually - as in, whether you were going to tackle this! Also, have you tried Army Painter's Dark Quickshade? That might be your solution to terrain magic washing.

The skaven power claw idea has been something I've been tossing round in my head. I think I'll go simple and just use a tyranid warroir/ravager rending claw and paint it that nice green I use, it'll match the color of the power weapons I have. Since there is Chaos symbols on my Skaven the mark of tzeench can be put on the ones useing the power claw/fist.