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Yeah this cathedral is looking awesome It would be an awesome place to play a small scale skirmish game! Deathguard are also awesome. I saw the dread and was like cool is that a techmarine contemptor or something? Then I read a comment about the scythe, looked back and BOOM, very very cool. Looks like he could cleave tanks in half! It was blending into the background

Thanks for the comments guys - defo some musings to be done on the lighting front - very useful links, thanks Ruglud. Oh, and -Shrike- : even I'm not that obsessed with detail!

Anyway, week off virtually over so have had a quiet day on the project in favour of loafing a bit, as such only a small amount of progress, thus time on the neglected front upper balcony. Where I left off:



Needed a floor for starters:


Now I've seen a few balconies on COD buildings where the floor is like this (sans hole in the middle admittedly!) but they just look wrong to me: how is the floor being supported?! So in order to get round that decided to disguise mine - welcome back movement tray surrounds . Now, the easy thing would be to use them as they are but me being me thought I'd do things the hard way and use them upside down to create a gutter effect, which of course meant more cutting and trimming:




The trouble with gutters is they tend to run their full length without obstructions, so needed to cut to size and carefully file out the central section - great fun...


But once in place was worth the effort IMHO:


Handily, the strip cut off the main section was just the right width to plug the gap between the two floor plates:


And now back in situ with one of my minis giving it a test run - (proper old school metal, no "Finecast" crap here!)


Even on this loads to do to join it up with the main tower - need to finish the guttering on the sides, work out how to fill the gap between the rear of the balcony and the front of the tower, probably lower the door to meet rather than having a huge step etc etc etc - will get there in the end, one day. One day.....

BTW - feedback appreciated on whether I'm giving too much detail - lots of viewings but only a few comments to date. Would you prefer I just shut the hell up and get on with it?! Lol...

Your are an obsessed madman with those gutters, real dedication to go that far... Then again most of us on here are also obsessed madmen (& women) so you fit right in

omg this is brilliant , love the steps very clever.. been wondering myself how to do them .. also the giant dreadnought is rather impressive.

That's the sort of attention to detail that I really like to see in modelling. Good job.

Gutters? Faith in the Emperor will protect our buildings from the heretical effects of water!

Nice job, anyway.

This continues to keep me in awe!

Wow this is an epic thread, You have far more patience for kit bashing than I do sir!

Soooo feakin awesooooooome! Wooooooooooooooooooh!



I must admit, I was trying to convince myself that your epic skills were not matched in your painting abilities. But they are. Excuse me, I need to go and cry...
Seriously though, I love this thread. How much has it cost you?
(Monies, not blood or tears, even if that's a bigger figure)

Again, the sheer size of that building is incredible. It almost hurts my stomach to think about painting somehting like that. All the pieces I've been doing lately have been built on 40mm bases.

Ah, the joys of being back at work... :(. Means little time to do any updates on the Cathedral. Thanks for the comments though

LCplAwful wrote:
Soooo feakin awesooooooome! Wooooooooooooooooooh!



I must admit, I was trying to convince myself that your epic skills were not matched in your painting abilities. But they are. Excuse me, I need to go and cry...
Seriously though, I love this thread. How much has it cost you?
(Monies, not blood or tears, even if that's a bigger figure)

Lol thanks L CplAwful - cost wise - I kinda gave up once I passed the 'could have bought another Forgeworld Reaver Titan' mark, mostly so I could pretend to myself I hadn't spent that much....

And as for my painting skills - well, I wouldn't say they were that good. A couple of my more finished mini's below (my own as yet un-named chapter that I'm planning on using for my Armies on Parade entry), plus a wip of a jetbike:







Given the length of time it takes me to paint these size models, the cathedral might not get finished this side of 2020....

Seriously? You don't think you're good? They're awesome! Something quite beetle-y about them, to my mind.

Well, now I know what to expect when you start painting the cathedral. Give yourself a lot of credit for your skill and application (I know, I know.... you can find 17 things 'wrong' with it). Your style and technique are excellent. Execution is solid. End result is an amazing piece.

I was looking forward to seeing what you did w/ the cathedral. Now I really (really) am.

Awesome build wish I could build Terrain like that

 inmygravenimage wrote:
Seriously? You don't think you're good? They're awesome! Something quite beetle-y about them, to my mind.

Thanks happygolucky - ok, I'm not bad but certainly not going to win any Golden Demons! And well picked up on the insectoid feeling - the main inspiration for the colour scheme is actually the Japanese Hornet:


Anyway, some progress on the build tonight - more work on the balcony. Decided not to join the balcony to the Eagle as such, as finding pieces to do so, plus the amount of work needed was frankly too much. So decided to extend the guttering fully around:

(Nb - anyone else stupid enough to try making these gutters - cutting the tiny piece to size to fit on the side between the two corners was pain in the !)

but invert the movement tray piece at the rear in order that there is a lip which will handily fit onto the top of the wall, keeping it in place!



The only (only!) problem then is the stupid amount of wall between the interior and exterior floor plates - I've toyed with the idea of a small flight of stairs but that will spoil the look and take up too much room, so figure I'll need to cut the doorway lower - just need to cut out extra and insert some additional door frame supports using the base of the buttress pieces:


But that's definitely a job for another day when I've got more time....

Parting shot: an interior view of the private chapel - a pity no one will see it once the build is finished, but I'll still have to paint the bugger!

I may have missed the reasoning, but could you not position the guttered balcony higher, so that it is either in line with the interior floor or near enough for only a couple of steps?

 Dr H wrote:
I may have missed the reasoning, but could you not position the guttered balcony higher, so that it is either in line with the interior floor or near enough for only a couple of steps?

Sadly, the balcony IS in line with the interior floor, it's just the the doorway on the Shrine Wall is positioned higher. The kit comes with its own set of steps but they are huge and would take up over half of the balcony floor space, so a no go I'm afraid... (You can see them on the bottom left of the last picture in fact)

One of the few design 'flaws' with the kit as it is :(

Oh, I see. Bigger door it is then. Good luck. Look forward to it.

Hi folks - back to the slow burn on the project, what with work etc. anyway, I'm getting there on the building frontage. Now I know I said a few posts back that I wanted to use as much of the actual COD parts as possible rather than sculpting my own, but there are two areas that I just had to: the lower balcony triangle floor plate sections. So here's my attempt.... (With apologies for the poor pics but lighting is a bugger!)

Started with some 5mm plasticard cut to shape, and then some 1mm as a smaller triangle to match the footprint of the 'real' tiles:


Then cut out the central section and filed this down slightly so there was a small gap surround:


Glued everything together and scored out the 'mini' tiles on the central section:


And then glued these to the side windows and front entrance:


Still need to finish filing out the notches so that everything sits flush but running out of patience tonight

Also made a start on opening up the doorway to the upper balcony and fitting the extra support pillar sections:




Going to have to use some greenstuff on this to get it looking good in the end methinks... Right that's if for now

Too fancy for me, I still enjoy watching your work progress however. Keep it goin

This is great, looking forward to more progress!

Ok, it's been a busy couple of weeks so not been able to make much headway on the build until today.. And as I can never finish anything thought I'd do some work on the ruined section for a change..

So having glued a few of the wall sections together, thought I'd fill in a two tile floor section. Easy huh? Nooooooooooooo.... Turns out that the way I've constructed everything, the narrow sections leading from the main tower to the interior are just that bit narrower than ever, requiring some major cutting to get things to size:

Original size tile on left, severely cut down versions on the right.

To add misery, this also means the wall section require additional trimming, namely the 'lip' at the bottom. Now on certain tiles this is easy, but on these sections cutting them back to the flat if the 'wall' is a right bugger:

Original on the right, shaved to flush in the middle, reduced to wall on the left. Of course, doesn't help that I'd already glued the wall sections together as it's a hell of a lot easier to do when they're on their own...

Anyway, finally got everything trimmed, shaved and filed to size (I won't bore you with what I had to do to the undersides if the tiles )


And how the interior lower walkway will abut (on this side)


And how it looks ATM from the front:


Still sooooooooooooooo much to do though, even on this section: more floors, walls, damage.... Sigh

Still, even work in progress, this is stunning! Keep it up, I absolutely can not wait to see this come together (and perhaps, get paint?)

Wow, and I thought my building was big. Damn! Yeah, the floor sections are a real b**ch to fit, especially when you try to get creative with the architecture. I REALLY like your staircase and will likely loot your idea for future projects of my own. Really impressive stuff; looks great so far.

You are tallented Sir! Humble and tallented!

 GrimDork wrote:
Still, even work in progress, this is stunning! Keep it up, I absolutely can not wait to see this come together (and perhaps, get paint?)

Paint? PAINT?!? You'll be lucky sunshine - this build will be going on for years I recon before paint....

Anyway, it's finally the weekend again so hopefully some more progress. I did do some last weekend but haven't had time to post, but before I do I need some feedback.. So here's the current state of play with the front of the building:


Now this is all well and good, but the top of the main tower is level with the roof of the main building, aside from the surround. My question to anyone looking at this thread is this: do you think I should build and extra level on top to give it that little bit more height and visual impact? I'm currently torn - here are a couple of VERY rough mock ups using whatever pieces I had left to hand to give some sort of indication - I figure it would be a kind of "lookout/observation deck" affair:



Or is this a step too far? Thoughts and feedback gratefully received!

I think it would be acceptable, but not necessary.

Add some more height, make it look more traditional.

I would definitely add the extra level, maybe recessed one floor panel length behind the imperial eagle.

 Warboss_Waaazag wrote:
I would definitely add the extra level, maybe recessed one floor panel length behind the imperial eagle.

I was going to say no, but maybe this? Take it in a bit and then up again?... Hey, do cathedrals in the 41st have bell towers?