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I miss the long face of the model with the completely enclosed helmet. I wonder of you could carve away the faceplate part and add a clear visor so we could still see that head get used?

I'm also in favor of the clear resin dome. If you were to go with a tinted, translucent look, it might actually look even more enigmatic than the reflective one would. The gold foil could instead be used on the globe in his hand if you'd still like to include it somewhere.

Or cut a piece out and use some clear plastic or resin in there.
More unsettling conversions please!

I'd hate to see the face go. It just drips with aristocratic disdain.

Resin Dome or opaque.

It is probably silly to ask but, knowing the quality of your work and how odd (that is a compliment,) and how unique it is, perhaps you could squeeze in a David bowie refrence somewhere?

I think the (gold) dome looks good, and the head will of course find another home - depends how good you think you can make the resin option look. Could you have swirls of 'smoke' inside with a little carefully poked-in ink?

Thanks so much for all the help! The feedback is so helpful.

The face will definitely stay! It would be a shame to lose the long face, and an opaque mask would rob the Beaconites of their uniqueness. Speaking of Beaconites, I'm making good progress on them and I'm very happy with how they're looking. Pics over the weekend most likely.

I'm going to give the resin dome a try — with casted copies of the head for sure. If it works it could be amazing. Maybe I'll even be able to tint the resin an amber so that it looks like he is in a melange rich atmosphere . I'll have to do lots of tests with different ways of tinting the resin, different ways to paint the head, etc.

Also, if anyone has a Mars Attacks fig I'd be very interested in exactly how big the plastic helmet is, and perhaps in buying one off of you if it's the right size.

I've got a source for dome helmets! A kind reader sent me this link:
http://store.bombshellminis.com/36026-plastic-dome-sprue-t8/

Bombshell minis make a range of different bubble helmets, if anyone else wants to make spacemen. I just put an order in for a few different sizes and I'll see how they work out. I think they could also be useful as molds for my resin pouring if the size is right ...

In the meantime, the tech gang! I've been painting them in little spurts but finally made some progress last night, and I'm finally starting to like them.



Still lots more to do, including fun stuff like picking out details and adding metals and weathering. The yellows will probably be desaturated a bit, and the pink clothing made lighter and more of a salmon color. The red/orange armor will be partially worn away to bare metal, and everything filtered with a with a rusty glaze to tie it together. We'll see ...

Oooh yeah those are really coming along nicely

Wow, I'm loving those reds! Not too garish.

I was wondering if you could quickly explain your process for making those bases? I'm in the process of upsizing my SM bases from the 25mm to 32mm and I'm sick of the sand+patch of grass look. Yours look so much better!

You really take conversion work to a whole new level, awesome work .

Really a beautiful red.

The guy with the servo arm is a new favourite, he looks like a completely new Van Saar sculpt or something, there is not a single bit of him that I recognise. The others are all excellent too, but I can detect the occasional part and so they are merely amazing conversions, rather than some fantastical model from the future.

Servo arm guy is ace.

Love the crisp red. Sweet squad overall. Thanks for linking that website btw!

They make me think of GW's Confrontation. Solid work.

Tech gang looks amazing. I think either the clear resin dome or gold dome would look awesome. I like the idea of glam-dark.

EDC

Thanks so much everyone!

The guy with the servo arm is a new favourite, he looks like a completely new Van Saar sculpt or something, there is not a single bit of him that I recognise. The others are all excellent too, but I can detect the occasional part and so they are merely amazing conversions, rather than some fantastical model from the future.

Nice, he's definitely one of my favorites too. If I remember correctly he is made from: Sicarian ruststalker torso, skitarri pelvis and legs down to the knees, cadian boots (spaced out away from the sktiarii knees), sicarian bionic arm, flagellant muscled arm, kataphron backpack, and Onager dunestalker servo-arm. Oh and the gun is a modified skitarri gun and I *think* the head is a very cut-down WHFB empire archer, after floppy-hat removal surgery.

The red is beautiful... no complaints but a helpful tip might be go for some Bluish violet and blue green? Especially in the metal parts and shadowy areas. Or different parts for instance of the suits like the trim, metallic parts can be done in a verdigris, etc. But you are also probably already doing that Also i think i see a purple shoulder pad.

Thematically, I'm thinking that the salmon color pants and stuff are just like scavenged parts of the standardized space suits of the vessel their on... that would be mixed in with various scavenged elements

Thanks guys!

@Meade: my original plan was to avoid my normal cool/warm pallete and not bring in turqoises, except maybe in eye-lenses, but I played around with it some and added some turquoisey grey accents, and it actually looks pretty cool. I'll also try some cool shadows on the warm colors (I generally like warm shadows on cool colors and vice versa). Overall I see these guys as relatively practical and cyberpunky so the metals won't be very rusted or tarnished, except I think leader's ornamental shoulder gear piece, which will be tottaly verdigris.

I was wondering if you could quickly explain your process for making those bases? I'm in the process of upsizing my SM bases from the 25mm to 32mm and I'm sick of the sand+patch of grass look. Yours look so much better!

@PiPaPo: I save all the trimmings and off-cuts from my conversions, especially the tiny little plastic bits. I started building up the bases by gluing on a mix of larger random plastic off-cuts, thin plastic-card sheets, and little chunks of cork. I also included a few other industrial style bits (press-mould from a Taurox's hood, gears from inside a fire-alarm I took apart etc). Then a few random blobs of scraped on gap filler putty to build up some height. Then I "flocked" the whole base with my smallest plastic shavings, followed by selective sprinkles of course coffee grounds, and a more overall covering of baking soda / bicarbonite of soda, which is really fine and gives a nice dusty texture and fills in gaps.

I keep comming back to this, a goddamn you never dissapoint me! Great stuff.

Thanks tarnish!

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Praecho IV is a blasted, semi-derelict hive moon. Once home to thriving ore mining, mass manufacturing, and towering spire-ports*, much of its surface is now choked with lifeless dust and rubble, punctuated by the occasional shanty-town or abandoned hab-shelter. Below the dust lie miles of forgotten and compressed hive rubble and infrastructure. Grav-tectonic forces will sometimes thrust whole chunks of this techno-strata to the surface, exposing ancient forgotten technologies and the promise of secrets from ages past. Surface-dwelling techno gangs and scavengers lay claim to these fault-zones, and can occasionally be seen working as guides for off-world visitors with their own inscrutable goals.

*the foremost of which is thought to have been under the control of Navigatorii House Alcatani.

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This will be my display-base for Adepticon as well as being a usable terrain feature. I don't have much time to spend so am working fast and rough, but having a lot of fun.

I heard adepticon and was a bit concerned, isn't that technically in March this year? Good luck to your efforts, looking forward to the results. Just seeing all of that scrap and it's interesting shapes and sizes...very excited to see what you do.

And now I realize that the shape is already assembled, but I'm sure there will be more gubbins and paint, very much looking forward to seeing the base and its denizens.

@grimdork: 40k friendly is April 1st so I don't have much time! I may not finish a lot of my favorite models in time, but I'll see what i can do.

So I think I should explain this big pile of junk a bit more. I wanted to make a display board for my Adepticon army, and my first thought was to use some of the hive terrain I started a few months ago. But after much deliberation I decided that the terrain would probably distract from my army, especially when crammed on a surface that is small enough to easily carry. And especially when I realized how huge my Lander had grown! It's basically a huge terrain feature in it's own right, so I decided to make a display base that can take a back-seat to the army and frame it in the best light.

But I also wanted to make more fun hive-world terrain, particularly something that looks much more ruined and ancient than a lot of typical Hive scenery, hence this layered slab idea. The plan is to continue bulking up the layered sides of this slab with more bits and bobs, and then cover the top of the slab with a fairly unadorned, mostly flat surface. That top surface will get textured to match my army's bases (ie small plastic trimmings, tiny cork bits, coffee grounds, baking soda), and include a few step-like levels with more underhive rubble sticking out here and there, but save most of the detailing for the edges of the slab:





That piece of foamcore on top is just to get the idea across; when I do it for real I'll cut it to match the shape of the slab, and break it into a few layers to get some different heights; the right side of the board in particular will be lower and more eroded away, revealing more hive strata beneath the dust surface.

--

I've also been busy detailing the Lander. It's hard to know when to stop but I think I can't add any more detail without going insane, and I've managed to leave a few relatively open spaces for freehand paint detail. Excuse the grainy photos, taken at the living coffee table where I've been adding rivets while watching tv.

The"Do not Eat" signs are something else, you should leave one of those unpainted !

The sedimentary rock made of ages of the hive's waste is an awesome idea to propperly frame, for lack of a better word, the display!

Agreed. "Do Not Eat" needs to somehow be a feature somewhere on the lander.

The background of your army is as cool as the terrain and models you make for it. I really love the idea of compressed, pancake layers of techno-rubble. It's like you've created future history of a far away place's post apocalypse. And then strove to create models and terrain to evoke that distant impossibility. Really awesome project.

I love this thread. Equally disturbing and fantastic. Your imagery takes me back to the origins of 40K, and the John Blanche art from Rogue Trader. Very Frank Herbert, and a even little H. R. Giger. Awesome.

Oh, and you're a fellow Peter Watts fan too!

That board looks like it'll come out nicely! I'm looking forward to seeing it complete!

Thanks so much everyone!

Maybe I can work some "nolite manducare" text into the paint job

That ship is looking beautiful.

EDC

 weirdingway wrote:
Thanks so much everyone!

Maybe I can work some "nolite manducare" text into the paint job

I assumed that meant "do not eat" in Latin, so I did an online translation which came back as "deer". I assume because only the King was allowed to hunt and eat deer.