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.

Phutarf, your "levels of stupidity" aka "attention to minute details" are what keep us coming back. If you didn't prioritize making this thing look perfect it would just be another really big building. Instead, your devotion makes this an Epic Build, worthy of memory and praise. Ages after you are done, we the veterans will still be talking about this cathedral and we will reference newcomers to this blog to serve as inspiration and awe. In short, we appreciate all the effort you are putting into this thing and we'll stand with you until it is done.

You say the kindest things WW..

The bit I'm REALLY looking forward to is cutting up the movement trays around the crater and then gluing them back over the top. That's going to be fun....!

Very nice to have this blog up and running again.

good work. The damage is looking nice.

Thanks Dr H - getting to let rip with the sprue cutters is rather cathartic after trying to make everything else perfect (or as close as I can get....)

Just a quick update today as have been busy doing other things - a big more progress on the bombed section:


How it sits in relation to the crater, final position now photographed for accuracy later on;


and how I'm attempting to make the damage done to the building look "realistic" in terms of the blast radius, direction of force etc etc. OK, I'm not an expert in this sort of thing, but attempting to bend the broken windows outward has been... Painful... But worth it, I hope.

Still to do: add the remains of a window (skeleton base, of course!) to the tower bit, some more ruined floor plate just below it, the ladder to the wall and plenty more damage to the back of the walls nearest to the crater - toying with the idea of implanting shrapnel as well as gouges etc.

Might get this done (bar painting, obviously!) tomorrow with luck


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ok, I need to stop having ideas late in the evenings...

So, looking for bits earlier, I stumbled across one the Cities of Death street lamps I'd taken the base off (god knows why...) anyway, having been thinking about the 'real world' issue of lighting the cathedral (by real world I mean how it would be done in the actual 40k universe, of course ) I struck me that in addition to the chandelier I'm planing on doing, why not go for some more wall hanging lamps?! Hence the following prototype:



(Stuck on a random wall for now, along side an original)

I recon a few of these hanging from the upper balcony floor over the main cathedral section would solve that issue. However, creates a whole new one for me - do you have any idea how bleeding fiddly it is to cut off and reposition the damned skulls on these things?! Arggghhhh! Why do I do this to myself?!?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Woo! Over 11k views! Never I'm my wildest dreams (which can be pretty wild) did I ever think I'd have that many viewers when I started this prioject...! Mind you, at this rate I'll probably have reached the magical 40K before it's done

Nice work on the damage.

Hanging lamps will work a treat.....but I do feel for you re-positioning all those skulls.

Cheers monkeytroll. I could leave them as they are but.. No..

Anyway, this mornings progress- work on more damaged walls and fitting the blast door to the cathedral power generator, the latter of which needed a fair bit of filing in order to fit a bastion door into (thankfully the inside will never be seen and so normal neatness not required!):



I have to hold my hands up to some slight over filling on the bottom of the door supports - but I figure that once in place and debris added etc no one (except me) will know (or for that matter care )

So here's a shot of the damaged side now with most of the major elements completed:


More later, probably...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Right, on a roll today. Shame the bloody auto edit will bury this but for those sub'd I don't suppose it'll matter...

Anyway, for those with good eyesight and an enquiring mind, you might have wondered what was going on with the intact sloping roof section, as there have been... Bits..... White-tac'd to it for months now. Well, wonder no more. Here's a pic of the 'naked' roof to remind you:

(Don't you love that this beast still comes apart?! I know I do...)

What's wrong with that I hear you cry? Well, nothing, really. Except you can see the joins between the floor tiles, including the massive additional bit Ritch in the middle, needed to extend the length to make up for the reduction between tiles where they had to be cut apart off the sprues and then glued together. So I wanted to hide this fact. Step forward 'drainpipes' - sort of.

Using some 'spare' window sections from the Shrine of the Aquila, I've cut away the individual window supports:


Then because, as we all know, I'm insane this way, spent ages this afternoon carefully scrapping and filing them down:

(Before on the left; after on the right, front and back respectively)

Then all cut to the same length (again, before and after):


And then finally carefully glued to the roof. I forgot to take a pic of this bit but they weren't actually long enough to reach the gutter, so some additional bits were cut to size (hence the previous point of making them all the same length - made this easier). However, after a good 4 hours or so, I'm well chuffed with the results:


Achieves the desired result of covering up the joins in the roof plates, and should, once painted, look good. I hope. Cos it's too late to change them now!!

Right, I've set myself a target to get most if not all the internal walkways completed by the end of this weekend, mostly in an (probably) in vain attempt to get this thing finished sometime this century...

Anyway, in order to help do this, tonight I have been working on some of the internal arch-supports. Oh, these are fun. Not. Created out of Shrine of the Aquila window sections, I'd already cut them roughly to size, but need to trim and file them to their final shapes. So below are front and reverse pics of the various stages: far right an original window, far left a rough cut, centre the final carved, filed and scraped version...

Front:


Reverse:


The trickiest parts to get into shape are behind the skulls mid way up the arch - gouging out the additional plastic on both the front and back is a right pain. Closely followed by removing the upper supporting 'ledge' (where the big bolts are) at the top of the piece - had to do this in order to fit in the gap on the walkway it's supporting.

As with most things on this build no one will really see the results once everything is in position, but I'd know and I want it as close to perfect as I can get...

More tomorrow. Probably.

You're a freak, in the best possible way fab work!

Haha thanks IMGI - I'll take that as a compliment..

Good work. I like the drainpipes.
Keep at it.

subbed for epicness!

Still looking good, Phutarf. The struts on the roof panels are brilliant. May have to borrow that.

Cheers guys - all feedback great fully received as gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling that people give a monkeys (oh, and borrow away Warboss, others may as well make use of my nerdishness!!)

Sadly no real progress today as real life has got in the way. Well, that and an evening of Eurovision - go Austria!!

Right, after a late, alcohol fuelled celebration of camp kitchery (aka Eurovision), a slightly hungover gym session this morning and the joys of a weeks ironing while watching the Spanish Grand Prix (well done Lewis) an update - have finally finished shaping the supporting arches:



Obviously I still need to work out what to do to fill the gaps where the main archways have been extended (probably using my favourite thing; movement tray bits) and some additional pieces to bulk out the rather spindly looking single girder at the base (I'm thinking a couple more cut down to size each side), but overall pleased with the results so far.

The worst one to shape was the 'intact' arch on the right hand side which partly supports the rear tower - needed to keep this archway intact, but meant gouging out the required bits a right pain. Oh, and to maintain symmetry, if you look closely you can see where I had to cut off and glue back on all the bloody rivets from the side where the right angle is formed with the arch next to it:


Annoyingly there's just a tad too much taken out of the arch here for my liking, but I figure I can claim battle damage as the reason

Next stage will be the lower walkway, and the joy of cutting tiles to fit the 'sticky out bits' of the exterior walls. Not looking forward to that...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So a quick last update for today - working on the lower walkway this evening and realised that in order to accommodate the tile in the side tower, I have to break apart parts of the walls in order to curt away some of the wall supports. Sigh - just when I thought I'd finished having to do this.. As such it's going to be slow going. That aside, came up with what I think is a great solution for a hand rail



No prizes for guessing where this comes from, but I wonder if anyone can...?

Nice arches.
What are you going to do about the points (or lack thereof) of the arch pieces where they meet the roof?

Nice hand rail too. Not seen any particular piece of plastic that looks like that, but kind of makes me think of a tidied up piece of round sprue (that may just be me and my sprue use though).

The handrail looks familiar, but I can't quite place it.

It might be from the spure from the Pegasus Hobbies line of terrain. you know the Hexagon, Platformer, and Chem Plant. I think it the piece that holds the clips.

It's a slow work morning (databases and such being offline atm) so thought I'd check in...

Dr H wrote:Nice arches.
What are you going to do about the points (or lack thereof) of the arch pieces where they meet the roof?

Nice hand rail too. Not seen any particular piece of plastic that looks like that, but kind of makes me think of a tidied up piece of round sprue (that may just be me and my sprue use though).

Still not sure (yet) how I'll cap the arches - might cut down a spare girder and use that - will experiement later.

Warboss_Waaazag wrote:The handrail looks familiar, but I can't quite place it.

Damn - a better line would have been"can't put my finger on in it" and then I could have said "no, it's a HAND rail, not a finger rail" and I would have laughed... I need to get out more...

deadmeat85 wrote:It might be from the spure from the Pegasus Hobbies line of terrain. you know the Hexagon, Platformer, and Chem Plant. I think it the piece that holds the clips.

Good guess deadmeat, but all the bits used are either plasticard (where absolutely necessary) or from the GW COD kits. Combine your thoughts with what DrH said and you're on the right lines...

Wait a minute, is that hand rail made from one of the window frame pieces?

These but with the sides and skulls carved away?

Awesome project!

 Warboss_Waaazag wrote:
Wait a minute, is that hand rail made from one of the window frame pieces?

These but with the sides and skulls carved away?

Nope! Nice try though!

A further hint - if you look trhough my previous postings, you'll find I've refered to, used and raved about a particular bit of GW kit for a multitude of different purposes - it's related to that...

(and thanks Lord_Mortis )

I feel this was worthy procrastination from revising lol



the length of the sprue holding the curbstones in

Are those movement tray sprue?

the ones ive posted are

 optometris wrote:
I feel this was worthy procrastination from revising lol



the length of the sprue holding the curbstones in

Congratulations optometrist! We have a winner Sadly no prize other than knowing you got it right first. Of all the kits I've used I can't help but love the movement trays (and sprues!) - without these I wouldn't have my grand staircase, gutters, walkway edges, additional widths to insert in gaps, and now handrails - not to forget floors of course! And I'm pretty sure these will end up filing in my archway gaps too...

(NB - as a university administrator, I feel it is my professional duty to encourage all students to stop procrastinating and knuckle down to serious revision. However, as a human being, stuff that )

Haha I promise I did lots of work before i started looking....

I love movement trays for adding to bases, the 20mm squares (or whatever the smallest size is) make great paving, and the edges once trimmed down make good curbstones.

Are you going to be displaying this anywhere when its done, I shall be making the grand pilgrimage back to the forest of dean in a few weeks when I'm done with my degree, brizzle is a stones throw away really.

Glad to hear that optometrist

The original plan was to use this as a base for an Armies on Parade entry, but from what I've been reading on the rumours forum and other places, looks like Games Day is off this year (not that it'd ever be ready for that!) and goodness only knows if there will be one next year. On that basis, I have no idea if it will ever get displayed properly... My local GW store is at Cribbs Causeway, so that's where it would be entered into the competition - it may end up living there one day (it takes up a load of space after all!)

If it does go to cribbs im sure a shopping trip for my missus could arranged

 optometris wrote:
If it does go to cribbs im sure a shopping trip for my missus could arranged

Yes.... For the missus, of course....

well if I happen to wander into GW, I cant really be blamed.... because of reasons