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Nice dirty work. Looks really nice and weathered. My only gripe would be compared to the van now that windscreen looks clean. Maybe there is some little person running about with a bucket and sponge. Just a dusting with something. Anyway I am being daft, it all is looking brilliant, and full of ideas to steal. I know you have a bit more to do yet.

dsteingass wrote:Absolutely lovely filth!

Thanks Dave. [peasant woman voice]There's some lovely filth over 'ere[/pwv]

Camkierhi wrote:Nice dirty work. Looks really nice and weathered. My only gripe would be compared to the van now that windscreen looks clean. Maybe there is some little person running about with a bucket and sponge. Just a dusting with something. Anyway I am being daft, it all is looking brilliant, and full of ideas to steal. I know you have a bit more to do yet.

Thanks Cam'. Yes, the windscreen is waiting until I get around to the plant colours; there's going to be some mould growing on it.

I have been rusting up "Shield" and this is where it's at:

A lot of work for a very subtle change from last time... Oh well.
Greenery up next.

And this is how the windscreen is looking now...

Omg that looks like crap. In the best possible way, of course! The light edging of the rust works particularly well.

Ha. Thanks Graven'. Yeah that comes from my typical chipping method; with the reasonably dark green I decided on a light grey "undercoat" to edge the chips in the paint. The following couple of metal layers are pretty much covered by the 4 or 5 layers of rust though.

And they're done. I can't see any more bits that need attention so calling it before I get more carried away; time to move on.

Crash.




and for scale, number 2:


Shield.




and scale:


Thanks.

There might well be some more terrain coming soon...

Wonderful, wonderful work! I just love them! The variety of shapes, colors and textures really come together on both pieces so nicely. Awesome job man...

Jeebus. That's some beautiful work.

Well they are awesome. I've got a couple of crashed vehicles to try that on...

Both pieces are magnificent, the story telling and the vibrance of the colours, really makes them stand out.

Nice one! Should make for some fun games.

Thanks Gits'. Yeah, it's important that if you have a load of items thrown together and you want them to look like a load of separate items (as opposed to using random items to build something, e.g. the van) they are painted to contrast with each other. But weather them all together as they share the same environment (not everything weathers the same though).
So when I build barricades like this, or the junk pile I built a while ago, neighbouring things contrast with each other once painted.
But when I make something like the UFO for that crash (am I seeing a trend here?) the random items are fused together and then painted as a whole. Then they no longer look like separate pieces.

That's a long winded way of saying "yes".

Thanks Cleatus.

Thanks Graven'. Give me a shout if you want any tips for your crashes (although I'll likely give my opinion while you make them anyway).

Thanks Cam'. Good to hear.

Thanks Casey. Hopefully they'll also make some money.

Soon, I'll be digging in some boxes for things to build with... Quick tidy first.

And back to building.

Terrain again as my model queue has lined up with the LoER terrain contest (which rarely happens, it seems).
If you are interested in the contest, or terrain, pop over to https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/720769.page#9254118 and join in, in whatever way suits you; building, sharing ideas, or just cheerleading. Everyone is welcome.

As for what I'm doing, I had a rifle through my boxes of larger "things that might be useful one day" and picked out a piece of cheese packaging, an aerial splitter / booster box and the cover of a burnt-out plug transformer.

And due to the theme of the contest being "tubes", I fished out my boxes of tubes.
Necron number 1 for scale:


Taking my own advice, I have reinforced the cheese box with a sprue frame and a combination of polystyrene foam and cardboard. It can now stand to be handled without buckling significantly.
Then I affixed that and the splitter box (after gluing flat pieces to the rear of the holes to help attaching tubes etc.) to a base made from 4 CDs. You should be able to see their shape from the bottom shot. Where they "overlap" I've removed parts so that they don't overlap and give a flat base.
This was then covered with tissue/PVA.


A couple of structural (gap filling) jobs to do next and then pipes, many many pipes...

Thats shaping up nicely doc, great to see you entering the fray.

Hidey hole and crash came out very sweet looking! Can't wait to see the refinery

Cheese shop last round from Guildenstern. Now Cheese packaging from you! Whatever next?

Thanks Cam'. Being that it currently consists of 3 things that are interestingly shaped, I should say so.
The stars aligned this time; I was about to start the next model and the round opened. And being "tubes" I could still build whatever and just add tubes... No excuse not to join in.

Thanks Shas'. I too, am interested to see how this turns out, and I'm building it.

Ha, Graven'. I don't even like cheese. But you can't argue with a shape like that. It even has built-in rivets (that will only become apparent upon painting... I didn't notice them until it was on the base).

Basic shape complete; in record time for me. As I often build things completely from scratch it's nice to plop down a shape that's ready to go.
Details begun...



I'm going to try and incorporate as many different pipe/tube connections as possible, as well as many diameters of pipe/tubes.
Other than that, I don't have much of a plan where it's going, just many many snaking, intertwined pipes.

I've found that a combination of hot-glue and superglue is good for joining tubes together (that aren't polystyrene); the hot-glue can extend into the tube and give a larger surface area to hold the two halves together. Superglue helps keep the joint rigid.

Nice progress! At this rate you'll be done before the month is out!

Loving this. I was thinking refinery also. Now I'm glad I'm just judging

Man, that is the BEST thing about 40k. You can create ANYTHING industrial-looking, and no one remembers what it was originally used for in the first place, so it looks right, no matter what you do.

Thanks Casey. While I know that the contest runs for 10-11 weeks, and I do tend to take my time with my models, I am trying to focus on producing work quicker to up the pay-rate for the things I make to sell.

Thanks Graven'. Well it's only a refinery as far as that's the inspiration for the pipe layout.

dsteingass wrote:Man, that is the BEST thing about 40k. You can create ANYTHING industrial-looking, and no one remembers what it was originally used for in the first place, so it looks right, no matter what you do.

Ja, that it is. It does still need to look like it did/does something though, no details for details sake.

Speaking of pipes, thought for the day.
Mutual support: While each individual pipe made like this is quite weak and easily broken on the battlefield (table), make sure there are many cross-links; snake a pipe from one set to another set of pipes, run many pipes along the same line and glue them along their length.
This way, you build up a 3D structure that's rigid in all directions, not a set of individual pipes that can flex and bend and break.

This is what I've been doing today:

It's not going to be easy to paint once it's done, but when have I ever let that stop me...

Looking brilliant and good advice about adding strength. You will have fun painting though.

Thanks Cam'.

More pipes...



More to add...

Looking great!
I might have glossed over it, but what are you using for the pipe joins and brackets? Milliput? Light-GS? ( Milliput+GS?) Something else?

Thanks Cleatus.
The yellow that you see is standard, yellow/grey milliput. My go-to sculpting / gap-filling putty.
I do have some GS that I use (by itself or mixed with milliput) when some flexibility is needed. At the moment, I want solid joins.

Happy Mother's day to all the Mums out there, and if you're not a Mum go and show your Mum some love.

Here's a pair of earrings I made for mine.
Based on the Greenfinch they are easy on the modelling front, but more involved on the painting front.

They are brilliant bud, bet she likes them.

And the piece is moving along nicely. Yup standard milliput should be on every modelling bench.

Apologies for the absence. While I gave my mother some nice earrings, she gave me a cold.
I was unable to model without the threat of dripping on my work, so took a couple of days off.

But it's been nearly a week? I hear you cry.
Work did continue, there is more to see below. But I kept getting to a point where I thought "I'll just add this before taking photos", and that has meant a few more days have passed.

I've also been busy preparing things for uploading to my Etsy shop.
3 new additions today:
The poor, unloved, Tau Ethereal. https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/508431056/tau-ethereal-character-miniature?ref=shop_home_active_3
"Crash" https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/522218045/scratch-built-scale-model-crash-tabletop?ref=shop_home_active_2
and the newly renamed "Hide" (previously "Shield"). https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/522230923/scratch-built-scale-model-hide-tabletop?ref=shop_home_active_1

Check them out, and the rest of my shop, if you are interested in giving me money for pretty things.

 Camkierhi wrote:
They are brilliant bud, bet she likes them.

Thanks Cam'. Yep, she did. So much so, she gave me a cold in return...

And the piece is moving along nicely. Yup standard milliput should be on every modelling bench.

Thanks. Ja, milliput is infinitely useful.

And so, progress.

More tubes and pipes, and some detail pieces.

Still much more to do.

A few more tubes, and we can't have those large pipes without supports...



As my unique use of sprue I went for unique sprue rather than a unique use; I've used sprue for so many things it's almost impossible to come up with a really new thought. But I realised that I've usually used straight bits of sprue, discarding the bent bits and corners (for later use as greebles... come to think about it, I may add a few here...), therefore I pulled out some of the most oddly shaped bits of sprue and combined them into a support structure for the large pipes.

I then made use of the various lumpy bits by attaching guide wires to help the support / pipe structure in strong winds.

I feel as though I'm reaching the final stretch for this build. A few rivets here and there, some other small details, the usual mud n' rocks, some plant-life, and it's on to painting.

In other news:
I've now added my wooden hut kit to the Etsy shop, along with the example hut. Check them out if you want some unique terrain.
https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/508854442/scale-model-wooden-hut-kit-28mm-156?ref=shop_home_active_2
https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/522795441/scale-model-terrain-the-chemists-den?ref=listing-shop-header-0

This is an inspiring piece of terrain, for sure! So many cool ideas and details. But it looks like it will be tough to paint so I am looking forward to seeing it painted so I can see how to best copy some of these ideas.

Thanks RoSteel. Always nice to hear that I'm inspiring someone somewhere.
Steal away on ideas, and if there's something you need help with you only need to ask (or read back over my thread as I try to include all my steps for this purpose).

As for painting, I have practice with difficult-looking models: I do it a lot.
The main trick I use is to paint the whole model black (after primer and before basecoats). Then when I come to painting individual parts, if it's difficult to reach somewhere I leave it black to look like shadow. Don't be lazy about it and leave large areas black, but if it can't be reached it's not going to be seen easily either; therefore it doesn't need details or even colour in the extreme.

Also, my airbrush has proven that it's possible to cover the whole model in paint.

Primed:


Sanding next, then black...