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yeah... must get some o' those...

no response from john regarding the fighters btw... :(

threnchrunnerz looks fun. I know of okb14 from shapeways.
he's the guy that made the orbital platforms that I based my designs on. As well as those, rather acquired taste, explosion blast-markers that I think look like tropical cactus... LOL very true to the artwork on the card blast-markers though, I'll say that...

Have you considered doing a Titan carrying craft, either some sort of coffin ship or a craft with a Titan hanging underneath it?

well, in truth, I hadn't but I will consider it now!

you thinking epic marine as titan?

Ooh, that could be a possibility. Another option would perhaps be a converted 3mm scale Novan Elite?

decided to repaint that xeno ship to be a bit lighter, after all:


Ive also converted and painted up another javelin into a truer representation of the splorkon systems XJ-37:

really happy with this one...

Woah, very cool stuff!

I'm kinda tempted to send you the STL's of some rejected designs. Dunno if you'd have access to a printer or anything like that, but then you'd have a new source of conversion bits.

thanks but it'd be no good to me. not a 3d printer aficionado. :(
my only experience with printers is shapeways and they've sometimes been a disaster.(especially of late)
mind you, have you considered using SW to host your designs? with your experience you might be able to make a design that actually will print well in fud (or equivalent) LOL!

Oh, how I wish you would!
more ordnance that actually looks good!
I've only one javelin left now. suppose you cant really do that one as is it not the IP of vanguard as you have 3mm and 6mm ones on there?

regardinfg SW, put it this way, the best stuff I've got from shapeways is the ordnace scale stuff, the thunderhawks from gdb (and some rt era looking bolters, chainaxes and backpacks which, when you think about it are +/- ordnance sized). it seems the smaller it is the less corruption occurs or gets overlooked.
perhaps its time in the machine that leads to corruption, the larger models taking longer?
or perhaps just because the small stuff is so small it is scrutinized more, leading to better quality control on small items...

as I say, no expert on printers...

I have a shop on Shapeways, check it out here. I've kinda given up on it at a certain point because they kept changing their pricing policy. So at one moment it was cheaper to have stuff as a single component, later on it was cheaper to do it as separate pieces, and then they'd switch that around every once in a while. What that means is that the prices of my products would fluctuate greatly. I've kinda grown tired of having to either sprue up or remove the sprues from STL files every couple of weeks/months.

But I might give it a shot again, just to release some special items here and there.

emperors tits! those prices are mental!
no wonder you discontinued there... sheesh...

its enough to give you a bad name! that's one of the things that annoys me, when people lambaste the designers about the price. like you decree it?
what percentage/royalty do you get from sw sales anyhow

Man...my royalties were based on when these items were cheaper. This item for example nowadays costs about €200, I would make about €4 if I'd sell a single file of that.

I might have to redo the store soon, will try to have to include some 'exotic' units. Think of stuff like ordnance, bits, etc.

2% !?
wow. that's just shameful. what waste of your time!
your'e just making them money and getting all the flack if the quality ends up poor.
I thought it would be small but at least like 10% or something.
but that's ridiculous...
I like them even less now.

 osjclatchford wrote:
2% !?
wow. that's just shameful. what waste of your time!
your'e just making them money and getting all the flack if the quality ends up poor.
I thought it would be small but at least like 10% or something.
but that's ridiculous...
I like them even less now.

Thing is that I can change it. If I'd sprue the item up, the cost would of course become way lower, and then my percentage could probably also be higher. The Martinet Light Cruiser for example is about €20, I make little less than €2,50 per sale. My mark up kinda sucks, it would become more interesting if I'd upscale it but it's not something I have the time and interest in.

So I might put up these items, not so much to make money, but more to see some cool stuff released in the community.

most generous!

zaxxon ship conversion:

made from the flipped ass-end of an imperial bomber mated back onto its cockpit, with the front wings removed and the rear wings trimmed to size/shape...
the colours were intended to represent the ship from the original arcade version:

(Colours are different depending on the ported version)
but it came out a bit off... still its obvious what it is eh?

It's close, but needs a taller tail methinks.

--Brian

Yeah, I'm not really that bothered.
It was a request over at specialist arms forum so I gave it a shot and just posted it here too...
It's merely an approximation of the ship using existing components... The intention was that the colour showed what it was... none of these are spot on


Well maybe the splorkon is close but thats more about color than form too... It just happened to be the right shape in the first place....

Think I'm done with these videogame little do-ers for now...

anyway, I've revisited my torpedoes:

adding highlights that were sorely lacking afore and changing batch two to happy little red and white jobbies...
also took the opportunity to re-base them on some appropriately cut/filed epic bases as this makes them a better size match for the original card markers... and its a bit neater than my cut-and-shut whf bases...
don't get me wrong, I still like the whf bases for the bombers and fighters (as the they are the right size) and although having all the bases match across the ordnance fulfills my ocds they just looked messy, so although they differ from the other ordnance they'll work better in-game... must get more of these, if john ever restocks them...

So anyone know what the hell this is made out of?
https://images.app.goo.gl/EFaThXJA3JpJFRNB7
Found it on an images search...

Uff...tons of different plastic kits! Did you ever see that BFG scaled hive city Neil did?

I think the wheel section is the Dropfleet Commander space station kit, and there's definitely some plasma guns and autocannons in there. Otherwise, yeah, full kitbash.

This might inspire you as well!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BuwL2y2Ht4E/?igshid=rhk8m6zvcy5p

Yeah sorry wasn't clear there. I recognize the bits on it, what I don't recognise I'd the base circle structure... Is it tau scenery?

I think that's the "wheel" bit I was talking about that might be the DropFleet Commander stuff. Not sure the scale is right though. Edit: no, never mind, the Dropfleet stuff is far too thin and small. No idea.

looking at some old bfg models today and relised I'd never got a shot of my 'imperial' repulsive class conversion I did a while back for the 'battlegroup classico' fleet:

the Dio.
as you can see its had its rear fin orientation swapped, the chaosisation removed and aquilla-wings and a dome added to further push the fact that this is a grand cruiser in imperial hands...
an oldy but a goody. don't know why I forgot to photograph this until now...

also my wife's been playing round with art on canvas and paint pouring, etc... and she decided to turn one into this:

get an umbrella, the tyranids are coming...

some vanguard eagle dropships in shark colours...
due to the absurdly huge size of these (14mm!) against the 8mm thunderhawks I currently have (from grimdarkbitz) I'm saying these are stormbird proxies...
Seeing that stormbird is a catch-all term that refers to a series of various super-heavy dedicated attack landers that are used by the Legiones Astartes as their primary means of deploying forces into combat, I figure these fit the bill and fit into the mythos of the spacesharks, being an older chapter and all that jazz...


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had fun with those so I did a pair in the nurgle fleet colours too...

Sweeeeeet!

I'm back!

He's back with a bang!! Great looking little ship!

I do wonder what spurred this on

Good chat with an old friend who pointed me in the right direction as far as my negligence to the cause is concerned.

But I've more on the way so watch this space (pun intended)

So now I am back, I'm now awaiting new ships and bits to arrive before I can really get stuck in.
However, the test vessel I showed you shows off the new colourscheme nicely, clearly based on my crimson fist beakies from my other thread its fun to try these new schemes on very different minis.
I deliberated back and forth for what seems like an age about what colour to do my new battlegroup. in the the end my mrs said, "just to the crimson fists!"
"but I'm not doing astartes ships" says I
"Its just colourscheme, who cares?" , she retorted.
Right again, as usual.
As with my spaceshark fleet, these are not just drybrushed but also edge highlighted and weathered making for a much more detailed mini IMHO.
It's true I have gone a bit overboard (punintended) with the running lights and domes, doing gem effects and all, but its either all or nothing, right?
may come to regret this after I do a particularly big ship though...

Anyway, whilst awaiting the arrival of new ships to work on I figured I'd have a go at recreating a blast from bfg's past in the form of the classic 'MK1 fury interceptor' fighter minis.

For those not in the know, these were a very different design, featuring H-pattern Wings and missing the fore-wing stabilisers.

I never got these when they first came out but saw them in warpstorm (and wd before it) and always wondered if they were pre-release beta minis.
In fact, this is why all my interceptors have all the fore-wings removed!

As I don't own any of these, I figured I'd take my hand at making my own from plasticard:
1.6mm x 3.2mm I-beam, 2mm and 1mm square rod, and 2mm and 1mm round rod, a stanleyknife and some polycement and this was the result:

as you can see I made two, one to paint straight up and one to attempt casting. get the bluestuff out!

While the greenstuff cured I had a go at my old bfg bitzbox and cobbled together some bits to better represent the clasic gothic cathedral designed bridges you always see in the artwork:



Spot all the bits? These may or may not end up on future ships but were fun to make nonetheless
Please ignore the unfinished guardsmen, they'll arrive in the other thread soon

So how'd the ship paint up?

Here it is against a brace of malika's thunderhawk proxies from vanguard minis. God, that background does nothing for these ships, the blue of the background completely desaturates the blue of the mini, but the red is so oversaturated you cant even see the shading...
Anyway, as you can see (the TH's are 15mm) it sizes up to about 8mm.
Which is pretty big for a fighter, I'll grant you.
But as I tend to use the induvidual bases to represent the fighter squadron's token, its no real problem, espescially when used against such big 'ol Thunderhawks!
Talking of which I must say I prefer the simplicity of the ship I've made. call it plain old nostalgia if you will but the simple low-poly geometric shapes stuck together is much closer in design aspects to the gw original ordnance minis. Overdetailed minis can end up looking rather cluttered at this scale, the details and deepest/darkes recesses become the only thing visable.
The simple lines of the more basic shapes allows more surface area for the midtones of the colourscheme to shine through the highlighting.
I found this to be true of GrimDarkBits's Thunderhawks that I've used before too; nice simple blocky shapes (allbeit perfectly rendered and crisp due to their printed nature) made them a dream to paint!
But then, that could be down to my aging eyes struggling these days...

So, you're probably wondering how the Bluestuff/Greenstuff pressmold went:

yeah, pretty rough! LOL
you obviously loose the H-wing of the I-beam, the nature of the pressmold turning it into an L instead and its pretty soft detail all over, when compared to the plasticard original but no more than the blobbiness of gw's original metal ordnance minis, I'd say.
As was recently pointed out to me, paint can hide a multitude of sins too.
more soon...