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Hello and welcome to the awesome show! today I am the proud recipient of the extravagant first prize from everyone's favorite Gitsplitta and his mantis Maker challenge! and I must first exclaim OMG! simply amazing Cookies and such a thoughtful and generous idea for them as a prize! each flavor is so tasty and I wish everyone could share the deliciousness that is the Craisin! and the ginger snaps...

I would like to sincerely thank Gits for hosting the comp and providing the prizes as we all know postage isn't cheap now days! my Terminator trophy is front and centre on my Nerd shelf and every time i glance at it it makes me smile this wonderful world that we have here on Dakka is truly a great place to be, amazing artists and in my experience honest and sincere friends who simply enjoy hanging out with each other, so thanks again Gits and thanks to everyone who entered and in doing so bought together people from around the globe to enjoy a good bit of friendly banter and heckling mixed with a whole load of AMAZING models and ideas! I cannot wait until next years to see who enters and what they come up with!

and on to some pics of the prize!




all the best! and thanks again Gits!

Aww man those biscuits look grouse. Those ones covered in sugar look the business. What are they?

Looks like the missus went above and beyond with the baking Gits.

She made chocolate chip, oatmeal craisin, key lime and ginger snaps.

Gits! I was going through your mantis warriors and saw some beautiful shoulder pads, how did you go about sculpting and casting them?

Those look awesome! mmmmm.... cookies....
Next time i need to enter.... Could really use some cookies
Grats again on the win nerd!


As to the pads, Azalle, I believe they're now avaliable from chapterhouse:
http://chapterhousestudios.com/index.php?route=product/category&path=85_86_106

That's awesome, Nerdy! Good job Mr and Mrs Gits!

Man, Dakka is like my favourite thing. You guys all rock.

Well done Nerdfest! Those cookies look great! (so does the mini)

@ Snrub - what does 'grouse' mean? I thought it was a bird that lives in the highland's of Scotland?

Shoulder pads were done by Chapterhouse based on some crude sketches by me. I wanted a mantis that actually looked like the real insect & not infringe on FW's IP. So the pads are based on actual photos of Preying Mantids.

who do they pray to???

Prey for the Mantis God?

 monkeyh wrote:
@ Snrub - what does 'grouse' mean? I thought it was a bird that lives in the highland's of Scotland?

It's an Aussie slang word from the 90's that generally meant something was excellent.
So you might say, I saw my favourite band last night, it was grouse.
By and large it's not used much anymore. I still say though because i grew up with my dad and older sister saying it all the time. So it's kind of ingrained in my head.


It can also mean that you are complaining about something.
Like, This guy is grousing about how hard is job is.

 Master Azalle wrote:
I may have missed it, but did you post a picture of the original MK 1 raider you were working on?

Before:


After:


Getting very close now. Just the treads (which need fixing again prior to painting), the medi-box (currently white) and details to add.

That's really nice looking Gits. The barrels on the lascannons, are they drilled or painted on?

drilled

@Gits Looking good brother, love the drilled cannons

Sweet revisioning, Gits. Almost a shame to muddy it up.

Started work on the treads today. It's very exciting! I'll have a pic for you when I get a bit further along.

Totally worth the effort you put in from my point of view, mate. It looks really nice now!

Congratulations Gitsplitta, both for your birthday (sorry to be late for the party ) and to make a nice tank out of the ugly mk1 Land Raider.
Keep up the good work.

@Gits thanks for posting up the Landraider! It looks epic, I can wait to see it finished brother!

I spent a good amount of time yesterday researching how to paint tank tracks... unfortunately the old LR tracks bear no functional relationship to actual tank tracks (they'd suck... they're completely flat and smooth and would just spin away without actually moving the tank) that most of the advice won't actually help very much. There's no simple way to fix this without embarking on a major modeling/casting campeign which I have no intention of doing at this point... so I'll just do my best with what I've got on hand.

Yeah, that's what I don't like about that style of track. It's actually riding on the hinges and would wear them out very quickly.

But a nice paint job Gits.

I wouldn't mud them up. I'd paint them with a distressed boltgun metal applique.

Boltgun metal appliqué?? What's that?

We actually have a tracked vehicle at my summer job that had relatively smooth metal tracks and it moves pretty well. The weight of the vehicle causes them to get enough grip to move it along. So, they're not totally useless.

Hmmm.... wouldn't have thought that given what I've seen from actual military vehicle tracks (that aren't modified for road use). Still, your point is well taken. Nothing like first-hand experience!



Automatically Appended Next Post:


Thought I'd post a quick shot of the LR on my messy, over-crowded painting desk.

I decided to follow the example of the majority of track photos I was able to find showing a nearly complete rusting of the tracks save the high areas where the rust would get rubbed off during operation. I needed to have some other color on the tank that was not boltgun metal or green... something to set all the colors off nicely and I think this will do. Think of them as brownish/orange racing stripes! In any case, this is just the beginning of the base coat and I've got a lot of work to do on them before they're done. From here they'll get some highlighting, a wash, then rust colored powders applied here and there to give some variation. Then a dry-brush of the hinge parts where the tracks would actually be contacting hard surfaces where the rust would get worn off.



As for weathering... I'll think I'll go for dust rather than caked on mud. Probably something lighter and closer in color to the tracks. I'll have to go through the selection of pigments at my FLGS as I don't think there's anything in my collection that fits the bill.

Boltgun metal, scratched seeply, with a deep black ink wash, and then some grit and grime in the hinges.

Ahhhhh... got it!

Great example Briancj!!

Ooooh key lime cookies! You lucky man...

The LR is coming along really nicely. You can tell I've been away for a while as you're steadily getting better and better with that airbrush and the gradients!