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2015/01/09 08:25:07
Subject: Terrain project: Imperial Cathedral - what a (k)night...
Incredible.... The modelling and composition of the whole piece was great.. and then came the paint.... and it has raised it right up to the top level! Really inspiring work!
SisterSydney wrote:What amazing work. Exalted. Now just put the cathedral on tank tracks...
thanks for the feedback SisterSydney (although tbh I've never worked out what exalting actually does... As for tracks, I think that'd be a step too far, even for me!!
wolfmerc wrote:Now reading this thread Is certainly a good reason to not go to bed until after reading it at three in the morning!
lol - the rate at which things are progressing wolfmerc you'll gave plenty of time for sleep before I'm even a quarter finished :(
MagosBiff90 wrote: Incredible.... The modelling and composition of the whole piece was great.. and then came the paint.... and it has raised it right up to the top level! Really inspiring work!
cheers MagosBiff90, although, while ok my painting skills are reasonable, compared with lots of others out there they aren't what I'd call top level - more a case of quantity over top quality!
Kelly502 wrote:Really great work!!! Would love to see the table it will adorn!
thankfully Kelly502 there is no table as its a display piece only really. Maybe if I quit my job I could think about a table... I have plenty of other building ideas bubbling away, but the 2 and a bit builds already on the go are waaaaaay more than enough to be going on with!
Anyhoo, enough preamble. Although it's been a while since my last post I've been busy behind the scenes, mostly working away on little details. Details details details, so many ruddy details!! Although I have made a start on the ruined roof:
In order not to make the post too long in one go I'll spoiler the next bits:
1) the (almost completed) rear ruin:
Spoiler:
"Just" need to do the green scroll bit, and then work on the exterior wall metals. And interior wall. Etc etc etc!
2: the evolution of "'Sam' the American Eagle" from test piece through to pride of place:
Spoiler:
The original test head
Basic whites completed as per previous descriptions
Metallics re-undercoated
Base metals
agraxed
Highlights stage one
Highlights stage two
In place
And started work on the weathering...
While I STILL have to finish painting the Manufactorum bits below, I've also finished putting together the 'chimney' that leads to Sam:
Debating whether to look into getting a smoke generator to actually blow smoke out his eyes though!! Oh, and btw, it took bloody AGES to paint/highlight the dratted ladder too...
Finally for today, this little lot turned up in the post yesterday:
Just waiting for some wire to turn up from a different source and then I can really get going on lighting things up!!
I think that'll do for now - there'll be more when I get the chance....!
2015/01/11 23:25:03
Subject: Re:Terrain project: Imperial Cathedral - 11/01/15 - say hi to Sam
Psienesis wrote: Well, if you check out Sister Sydney's homebrew/expansion rules, you'll find all kinds of units the Sisters could have, that fit with the theme of the Sisters (as a tabletop army) perfectly well, and are damn-near-perfectly balanced.
Oh great. Now I have LED's, wire, bits for mounting them - and the resistors I've got won't let me do more than two in series. I'm going to have to do Maths!! and then wait for new ones to turn up, once I source them!
angelofvengeance wrote:Really liking how this Cathedral is coming! The green tiles have come up really nicely!
thanks angel - they do, don't they?
Well, following on from my outburst earlier... Just frustrating when I thought I had everything in place to sort out the lighting that I'm back to logistics again - that comes from being an electrical novice. Still, I've done some work on how I'm planning on mounting the LED's in the main tower - basically there will be four LEDs in a series in the 'crosshairs' of the roof tiles:
Hopefully this will provide more than enough light to see the interior detail plus any minis therein. The actual custom mounts consist of a couple of concentric plasticard tubes, cut (very carefully) to size:
The inner ring fits pretty snugly round the neck of the 3mm LED:
And the inner ring is a perfect fit for the outer ring, with groves cut for the plastic covering for the wires:
Although I've not yet quite worked out how I'm going to solder the LEDs to the wire and cover it - but I'll work on that once I've got the right resistors and figured out the whole wiring logistics.... Oh, the 'error' was a quick doodle I'm thinking of using on the small display screen on the ruined section at the rear of the building - see previous pics for details
Although I want to get the wiring sorted out so I can then get cracking on painting more of the main body of the build, thee are still plenty of bits left to finish on the ruined section. So a progress shot of the roof/doorway I've been working on:
I'll obviously need to paint at least part of the actual door to be used as debris too - what fun....
... and the sun will have swollen into a red giant, consuming the Earth? Yeah, I have projects that feel like that too -- mostly stuff my wife wants me to do, though.
BURN IT DOWN BURN IT DOWN BABY BURN IT DOWN
Psienesis wrote: Well, if you check out Sister Sydney's homebrew/expansion rules, you'll find all kinds of units the Sisters could have, that fit with the theme of the Sisters (as a tabletop army) perfectly well, and are damn-near-perfectly balanced.
Urgh. Maths aside (and I'm now tepmpted to try and run everything in parallel rather than series just to make my life easier) the logistics of physically wiring up the lighting rig for this model is becoming a real headache. Unlike most LED's in models that I've seen, virtually evey mounting/wire will be visable - i.e. I can't just hide away the wiring loose "behind the scenes". This is making the placing of the wires, not to mention how to actually solder them up in situ, difficult to say the least....
Parallel would be better anyway because then when an LED burns out you can just replace it instead of checking every single one to see which is out, right?
In theory yeah - however,in practice I doubt I'll ever be able to replace anything as I'll pretty much have to glue holders etc in situ - I'd have to break the building apart to get to anything.... Parallel means I won't have to worry about whole circuits failing if one LED goes, but does mean having to snake additional wires, and find ways to hide them... Argh!!
Honestly though, having seen the wires you're using, they're quite thin.
In my mind it's not something to necessarily hide- it's actually adding more detail and more realism to the model!
(A bit more annoying to paint though )
Lol there'll only be a bright side if I can get the damned LEDs to work!
(And I bet Blackadder would laugh in the face of my lighting woes.... Just look at his freaking awesome projects!!!)
Automatically Appended Next Post: Ok, minor update - more background detail painting this evening, so won't bore you with that, but have finished my first proper buttress piece (please excuse the poor pics):
I don't even want to think about how many more of these I need to clean up and paint...
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/01/19 22:57:22
Psienesis wrote: Well, if you check out Sister Sydney's homebrew/expansion rules, you'll find all kinds of units the Sisters could have, that fit with the theme of the Sisters (as a tabletop army) perfectly well, and are damn-near-perfectly balanced.
Well, it's a slow day at work (don't tell the boss!) so I've been allowing my brain some work resource to think about my lighting issues. Turns out my voltage isn't high enough to run 4 LEDs in series, but having done additional research looks like parallel would be better anyway, at least for this project. But that would mean additional wires... Where to house them...? Well, here's what I've come up with: I can run two LEDs off one of the current resistors, so that means only two circuits on the basis of 4 LEDs per 9 tile ceiling in the main tower. As I need to do three floors, that's just 6 circuits - which I think I could, with some judicious hole making and boxing in, work like this:
(excuse the not to scale scribble..)
"All" I'd need to do then is run the wires to the battery store - I'm thinking that will be under the floor plates in dedicated grooves in the base.
This element of the project is turning out to me more time consuming thsn I'd like. Anyone see any issues with this 'solution'?
Well, I think I'm finally figuring out this whole electrics thing:
Obviously this is just a test mock up (dur) but at least it works in principle. Also below is a revised plan of the tower wiring loom, on the basis that my inital concept sketch just doesn't work, as hiding the wiring under that idea was impossile, due to the physical layout of the build - ill go more into that at a later stage once construction of the rig has actually begun.
In the meantime, a couple of other WIPs (nb - please let me know if I'm boring you with all these):
Rear doors on the ruined section (still need to finish the green bits, obviously):
and a bit more progres on the main ruined section:
Thanks Angel. Maybe, one day, if I ever get it finished, I might let people use it. Yeah, right!
Anyway, another quick update - prototype of the ceiling for each of the floors - thank goodness for Plastruct! Although it does take ages to cut all the pieces to size... and needs additional rivets glued on...
and a really bad angle shot, to try and show what it looks like in situ:
The main issue (aside from actual construction) that I'm facing is that I want, as much as possible, to be able to take the whole of the front off the main tower so that I can get mini's inside (and secondarily so that I can try and connect all the wiring together, eventually). However, because I've destroyed half of the side, which looks really cool and all, it has buggered up where I can run cabling - so getting the circuits I want/need in place is proving an absolute logistical headache
Pegs / plugs? or just metal contacts would do the job, if you could incorperate it into corners or something might help make it moveable... or am I completely miss-understanding?
the underside looks good, adding the plastistruct pieces makes a bit improvment over the stock look actually.
OneManNoodles wrote: Pegs / plugs? or just metal contacts would do the job, if you could incorperate it into corners or something might help make it moveable... or am I completely miss-understanding?
the underside looks good, adding the plastistruct pieces makes a bit improvment over the stock look actually.
Nope, you're not misunderstanding OneManNoodles. It's really all down to where I can incorporate the trunking, that is accessible in order to put the building together AND allow me complete the lighting circuits I need. I may have mentioned boards line (it would seem) OCD once or twice... Maybe the following will help:
The latest version of the circuit "map" - I THINK, having done some mock ups, this will work:
As for the connections between floors, here was my initial idea - using terminal blocks to connect wires BETWEEN floors, so I won't have to solder, as actually fitting and soldering in such confined spaces would be virtually impossible:
And what it would look like after painting:
Which, given mostly it won't be visible anyway, doesn't look all that bad...anyhow, this particular configuration won't work as a) its on the wrong wall and b) the block needs to be at the bottom of the floor rather than the top. Will look worse, but it will be easier to build.
And then I need to decide - stark white light, as on the left, or warm white light, as on the right?
The left makes the interior slightly brighter, but the right feels more 'right' for a cathedral...
Or alternatively I can the whole bloody lot and just NOT light the damned thing.
AAAARRRGGGHHHH!!!!!
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/01/27 22:07:49
The Black Hand
Incredible.... The modelling and composition of the whole piece was great.. and then came the paint.... and it has raised it right up to the top level! Really inspiring work! 
"This is why I hate the novels. They squash our imagination and creativity and create way to many fluff lawyers. To many "you can't do that because Fluffy Kitty novel says Captain Ichypants lost his pointer finger in the battle of Dogtown"." 
and then wait for new ones to turn up, once I source them! 
Legion: Dark Angels 
