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He looks fantastic, well worn and beaten, but still solid, good job.

I am completely with you guys on the armour chipping thing, always think of off white when I think of ceramic, and to think we all rust it up!! if anything I can imagine it would get that white crystalline build up, not rust. But it is tantamount to heresy to suggest anything but iron rust on anything. makes me laugh the most is we strive towards NMM on a non metallic materiel!

 Meph wrote:
"...nano-crystalline steel used in Leopard 2 Revolution..." - from the first article.

Pretty damn sci-fi sounding, innit? But then again, we're living in the era where we have nerve- and mind controlled prostethics, can make the blind see (albeit low res), the deaf hear again, and our computer chips pathways are measured in nanometers.

So true and in many ways so scary.

Awesome work on the techmarine. Really like the wing icon on his chest. Nice touch.

EDC

Very gritty... appropriate for a battle mechanic. Nicely done Meph.

Thanks guys! That was exactly the look I was going for on his armour and apron (snigger). I imagined him to focus on his battle brother during the battle/campaign, only taking care of his own armour when he's back on the battle barge, all the rest is [see forum posting rules] & span.

Meanwhile, in Marine Land.

The techie's done. Currently his first phase of basing is drying, but here he is just after the details have been finished. Not too happy with the varnish coat though. I'm using a spray can from Army Painter, satin varnish, and it seems just a tad too glossy compared to the other cans I've used for them. I gave him a satin coat, was unhappy with the shininess (would I get a punch in the mouth for saying albedo?), gave him a matte coat to tray and soften it up. Was not please with the 100% dull look that matte varnish gives, so gave him another satin coat. He should be able to withstand a small tactical nuclear blast now.

I didn't do the normal three-colour highlight I normally do on the eyes as they're so frickin' tiny, and recessed so deeply that applying these green dots almost gave me a heart attack. They're literally two minuscule droplets suspended between three brush hairs, applied with the steady hand of a surgeon playing 'Operation' on a subatomic scale. Took years of my life and I won't even try to add a highlight or a white dot.




And yesterday went a bit on a rampage through the bits box and cobbled together this guy. I must say I'm quite happy with the way he came out. Equipped with a jump pack, he'll be coming to your rescue when your vehicle breaks down in the middle of a firefight. And with the remote bolt pistol, he's got both hands free to use his Astartes Mutlitool. Whatever can't be fixed with a hammer (seriously, precious little), can be fixed with a spanner, and vice versa.

The metal and dark plastic piping is from Zinge Industries and I must say I'm amazed by their quality for the price. I'd be damned if I'd coil that much tiny copper wire by hand myself, and their flexible resin (the dark tubes) come in all shapes and sizes and is easily bendable, immediately holding its shape and feels like it has the right smoothness and feel to hold paint without any trouble. Good stuff for someone of my mediocre manufacturing skills. And they also have resin cable endings/plugs which will go on the end of those cables once the little greenstuff blob holding them together has cured. For those of you with some conversions in the future, check out their website, they've got tons of goodies for good prices.





Oh, don't mind the right arm that seems a bit droopy, the white poster putty I'm using for the temp posing isn't all that solid.

Nice conversion.. Isn't there some vehicles in the works.. say a vindi?

Love the new conversion. He's going to be fantastic!

Solar_lion wrote:Nice conversion.. Isn't there some vehicles in the works.. say a vindi?

Yeah, the Vindi and Rhino are still sitting, waiting for tracks. I actually ordered and received 1/35 T-55 metal tracks from Friulmodel but they were way too wide. So I sent 'm a mail asking if they could tell me which of their 1/35 tracks are 10mm wide (I'm presuming some WW2 Panzer tracks), but got an email back saying he didn't understand my question. So I gave some more explanation and even clear photographs of their T-55 track together with a plastic Rhino track right next to a ruler slowing their width, but I'm still waiting for a reply from them and it's been over a week, even with a reminder. I'm fearing they just gave up on trying to understand...

Gitsplitta wrote:Love the new conversion. He's going to be fantastic!

Cheers!

That first guy looks fantastic, but I think you outdid him with the second guy. Looking forward to seeing him with some paint.

Cheers, mate!

For today there will be a little side project, seeing as Shapeways delivered something.

In the toilet there is a shelf that should have two screws on the bottom to secure the hidden mount inside the plank. But one of the screw holes didn't take the screw, it just keeps turning without fastening.
So that gaping 6mm hole needs to be put to good use...




Tiny astronauts are tiny
See where I'm going with this?

These astronauts are screwed! Houston we have a problem.. Too funny!

"This is Major Tom to Ground Control. I'm stepping through the door, and I see something floating in a most peculiar waaa-a-a-ay."




Merry Christmas everyone!

Too funny!
" I'm feeling like someone is watching me"

Hehehe, it's to test the mental strength of visitors. Those two birds are staring you right in the eyes and judging you. °_°

Alrighty, picture time

The basing on the techie is practically done. Maybe a wee bit more power here and there, but I don't know.
Also tried both the black and the white background I have for my little lighting tent.
Personally I'm a much bigger fan of the black one as it seems to handle the colour contrast better. Also, on the black background I shoot the photos at 1/250 shutter speed. On the white background, I'm forced to go to 1/15 or 1/20, because the white background makes the model almost appear black on faster shutter settings.

Then again, the white does seem more cleaner for WIP shots, but for finished models I think I'll stick to black.



Track time! Since Friulmodel is no longer responding to what I thought to be a very simple question, (To me it seems self-evident to have specs for manufactured model parts, but apparently asking the width of a track in millimeters seems like a strange concept to them.) I went and bought some 'Easy Metal Links' 1/35 PanzerII tracks from Dersockelshop.de. Some research on the web gave me enough information to guesstimate their 1/35 width in mm. They are about a mm thinner than the plastic Rhino tracks but that also gives them 1mm space in the track housing. the plastic GW tracks are actually touching the sides.

The metal tracks look less beefy than the plastic ones, at first I even thought they looked too flimsy, but they're growing on me. What do you guys think?

Techy is looking amazing, really nice work, great finish. Only thing that is a tiny bit distracting for me is the Plasma pistol green, not sure if it is the pics, but just seems flat, especially compared to the amazing rest of the model right now.

Tracks look fantastic, prefer them to the GW ones, look much more practical.

Tech marine looks cool.

I think I prefer the plastic tracks to be completely honest.

EDC

The glow of that plasma pistol really knocks me out...

Nice techmarine! Nobody wears red quite like the blood angels do. Also, I think the metal tracks look fine, but also like assembling them would drive one over the edge of madness...

Cheers, guys!

Yeah, I'm not too über-excited about the tracks but I think they'll look good enough when complete and in place.
It's indeed a hassle to assemble although it will be easier and faster to assemble these Easy-Metal-Links tracks than the ones from Friulmodel. EML has these little tiny metal tabs that you fold around the previosu track. Friulmodel's ones have to be induvidually attached with wire cut to length.

Hiatus finished! Man, it felt good to get out the brushes again, and to spray paint to the tunes of a compressor, airbrush booth, and Shylmagoghnar.

Just some rough work done to flex the muscles again and get the projects going again.
I took some quick pics of the work done.

The Rhinos:
Ditched the track swap. The guide teeth are just too off-center to use on a Rhino chassis without reconstructing the running wheels. In a fit of McGuyverness I even bought some Panzer MKII 1/35 running wheels but they are just too large, and I didn't want to order any more. And frankly, the Rhino tracks are not as bad as the standard Spartan ones I replaced on, well, the Spartan.

So, Glued on the standard ones and basecoated the lot. Next up is to come up with a good masking scheme to tie them in the rest of the vehicles. Probably some racing stripes for the Rhino, maybe even perpendicular ones. And for the Vindicator, I'm probably going for a black chevron on the top.

The tactical squad: Got two brushed highlights, a wash, and a glaze

The techmarine, first drybrushed highlights and a wash and a glaze as well.

Onwards!





Some better pics of the Techmarine. I have him another highlight and a few red glazes.

Yayyy! bloody good to see you back on board Meph! your pics are broken for me but if I close my eyes and imagine............ Ooooh yes that's looking good!

Hmmm, odd, what's the error you're getting?
In any case I double-checked the rights of the pics, should be OK.

Luckily there is ze powah of imagination as a backup! To infinity und beyond, yah!

Pics work fine for me.

HMmm, must be an aussie thing then... >:-)

Good to see you back at it, good start.

Cheers, mate! I'm hoping to get some more stuff done during the week. But so far Work-work has been the Eater-of-Time...

Welcome back Meph, always good to see you working on the glorious BA!

EDC

From those pics I see a lot more in the Que!

Cheers guys!

Well the queue is:
-Deimos Vindicator
-Deimos Command Rhino, but with all the parts for a regular rhino and razorback as well.
-Tac Squad with missile launcher & grav gun
-Techmarine.

And after that, there's a whole other school of fish to fry... more termies, A Storm Talon that needs to be transformed into something that looks like it can actually fly. A dreadnought drop pod, A dreadnought that I don't know yet how to assemble (death company or psyker). And then there's yet another treasure trove of non BA or GW models.
Although I am itching to assemble and paint that Eisenkern APC into a Blood Angels vehicle.

More goodness. Will be watching for sure.

ok, so not thàt much progress...

Another wash, another glaze, another light highlight, and sealed it in with some Klear. Damn, that bottle is almost empty, I'l guessing 15cl left. Say, does anyone know the exàct replacement one can find in Western Europe? I bought some Klir recently, a French brand that was supposed to be the replacement that can be used as varnish/thinner, but it's milky as hell so I'm not even going to try using that... I've been googling like crazy for it and can only find contradicting information. So any first-hand advice would be great...

Oh, and the details have been blacked out, and I did some experimenting with the white and background again.