Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

An uncommented little preview of what I've been up to today:

How the feth are you cutting expanded foam without making a mess?

? It's the cleanest stuff you can work with. No dust, no dirt, no noise, no sweat...

just using some to visualise stuff now actually good for blocking in areas.. and adding height

looking good Baiyuan .

So it's not the little ball stuff? It looks like it. What is it exactly?

I can't believe you seem to not know the stuff, it's elementary, I'm sure it's a missunderstanding.

In Germany we mostly call it Styrodur (which is BASF's brandname for it), it's the more advanced brother of the "ball stuff" (Styropor), which is almost completely useless, because it's quite annoying to get rid of the structure and it crumbles easily.

While both materials have the same chemical formula (it's both polystyrene), there is a huge difference between EPS (expanded polystyrene) and XPS (extruded polystyrene).

XPS is the good stuff, it is incredibly lightweight and quite sturdy, especially if you temper it further with pva glue or acrylic paste.

Working with either material you'll want a proper hot wire cutter, a table mounted one, not the handheld crap.

Is that not what they use as insulation in floor and floating ceilings if it is I have a load in the garage

Those hot wire cutter tables are expensive mind

I can see a cool futuristic landscape arising here like the shapes so far has a Anime feel to it

If its the high density polystyrene stuff, its almost impossible to find in the UK, insulation is a suitable replacement though. I know its pretty common in the US though. Is it the same as the pink/blue foam stuff?

 Vitruvian XVII wrote:
If its the high density polystyrene stuff, its almost impossible to find in the UK, insulation is a suitable replacement though. I know its pretty common in the US though. Is it the same as the pink/blue foam stuff?

UK not so hard to find go to BQ and they stock it but its orange I have a load of it in the garage it was on sale

Yes it's being used for insulation mainly, which is why you should get it in every DIY store. But the hard part is finding the type that doesn't have a structured surface or at least one with a nice structure that can be incorporated into your project. After running out of supplies (which I had bought like a year ago) I had to check out three different stores just to realize none of them had unstructured XPS, so I settled with one that had a nice pattern and actually turned out to be a worthy addition to the project.
Oh and it really comes in all colors, so far I've seen light pink, light blue, light green, light yellow, which leads to the assumption the color doesn't matter... that sounded almost political.

I think I heard somewhere the colour has something to do with the density but could be wrong

At least as far as I can tell it does not, but that could just as well be a national tag system.

Update:
Glued together the components that constitute the foundation of the gatehouses, which means I'm done with all of the basic cutting and glueing.
The next step will be detailing, like adding ledges, treadplates, ladders, parapets, vents, hatches and so on. This will take a while as I still have to figure out what exactly to use.

On the paint front I've put down the last touchups on the base colors of the remote. The next step will be adding details (freehand mostly, but maybe I also find some suitable decals to make my life easier). After that the actual painting begins, when I can start the shading and highlighting.

Ours is pink or blue, I've never seen it white before..I though t it was the ball stuff.

Making really good progress on painting my Aleph.
After deciding that starting with a remote was a little stupid, because it doesn't have the typical material distribution (I mean the high amount of armour and mechanical parts and the lack of organic materials like mesh or cloth), I put my work on the Zayin on hold.
I switched over to painting a Naga, which again is not exactly typical for Aleph if you ask me, because he got that "light armor navy seal" thing going on. But at least it is infantry and even though I go for something more along the dark infiltrator lines, it should work as an example.
And the last two days I've been painting it and it's starting to take shape now. All base colors are done, the basic shading on the is done and now I'm highlighting the body suit.
Still a lot of work left, but I'm positive I'll get it done before the weekend.

lol..you work really hard to creatively justify back-burnering a project It's ok if you just say "I'll finish it later"

Hehe, nono, that's actually what happened. And I'm still crazy about the Zayin, I want to field that "4shot, full response, 360°, climbing plus" monster, so it won't stay unfinished for long.

LOL..I believe you man!..And you'll perfect it too!

Hey guys, had an apicoectomy yesterday so no progress that day, but I'm still painting the naga and it's slowly getting better.
The body suit, which constitutes most of the miniatures surface, is almost done.
After that I'll do the highlighting and filtering on the harness, straps and pouches, which have been shaded already.
And then It's highlighting and shading the body armor and gun.
I'm still not sure what color to use on the face. I don't want a skin tone, at least not on the naga. Devas ok, they are meant to ease humans into the direct interaction with Aleph, they are supposed to look like they were human themselves. But nagas are infiltrators from the jungle and have segmented a face plates, why would they paint them skinlike.
So my options are limited to something technical. Same color as the armor? Completely different color, since the face is the only place where he's not covered by his suit? White face? I'm not sure yet.
Any suggestions?
As a reminder: body suit=dark blueish/greenish grey, straps and pouches=almost black grey, armor=astronomican grey, later to be shaded with dark military green and greenish black/blue

Face same colour as the armor for my money...if its not important for him to have a humanoid appearance and he's a combat model then it stands to reason that his head would also be armored/made from same material to protect whatever tech is inside that tin can...I think we both suffer from cronic over-thinking B Just paint him up so he looks bad-@ss! Haha

P.s. I got my hacker acetates done at the printers, would you like to see them?

R

 Ghostflame wrote:
Face same colour as the armor for my money...if its not important for him to have a humanoid appearance and he's a combat model then it stands to reason that his head would also be armored/made from same material to protect whatever tech is inside that tin can...

My thoughts exactly, just the endorsement I needed, I'll go for it and save the fancy ideas for another model.

I think we both suffer from cronic over-thinking B Just paint him up so he looks bad-@ss! Haha

Yeah, it's boon and bane!

P.s. I got my hacker acetates done at the printers, would you like to see them?

Sure thing, check out your pm, I had an idea.

Update:
I didn't like posting my Infinity stuff on this blog to begin with, but decided it's better than not posting anything. From now on though there will be no more Infinity talk in here!
Ghostflame and I have decided to start a mutual blog just for our Aleph forces, that you can find here.
So if you're interested in that part of our hobby endeavors, just head over and have a look. And the next time you're checking out this blog, you can be assured that "unread posts" are related to the actual topic of the blog.