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.

 bossfearless wrote:
Actually Brother Payne, when I get back to Saudi and start working on the pilots, the rectangular area is going to be more of a drop top cockpit with a couple girls flashing their goods to passersby. And maybe the Doctor if I can find a way to work with these incredibly unposeable minis from Heresy. I might be able to just chop his arms off and find replacements down the line. Honestly, who sculpts a miniature with both hands in his pockets?

Ah! Sounds good me likey

Merry Christmas to everyone, and also Happy Everything Else that happens to fall on the same part of the year. I'm back from bahrain and I got to start working on the pilots for the Hammerhead.





Not much character to them just yet, but I need to go through and do some sculpting, adding a little to one and a lot to the other. The second one doesn't look like much right now because she's missing the props that make her make sense. That arm up in front is going to be holding her shirt front, which is going to be a bit of a sculpting experiment for me so that I can pose her with her shirt flipped up, panties dangling at mid thigh, and a bottle of vodka in her free hand. A lot of the details in both of these builds are going to be painted on, in much the same way as all the muscular definition on Shas'Vre Snowflake.

This is an all too common scene within this tau cadre. In normal tau culture, alcohol consumption was never a thing and so tau physiology is about as susceptible to it as a human toddler. The Water caste have some rudimentary familiarity with amasec and its like, since so many human dignitaries insist on negotiating over a glass of cold poison. But when the Fire caste get their first taste of the stuff? Pure madness. The males tend to devolve into alternating fits of violent bravado and sobbing brotherly love, and the females tend to resort to anything that will garner them attention.

While it is generally frowned upon, members of the Rynnish 41st PDF and even some of the more mischievously inclined of the Crimson Fists 4th have been known to slip alcohol to the Fire caste contingents simply to break up the boredom of long void journeys or to help the normally stoic xenos "unwind" after a battle. Unfortunately, this has led to an alarming lack of battlefield discipline, but a strangely heightened level of coordination among the chronic imbibers. Between the rampant alcohol abuse and the so-called "party drugs" supplied by the eldar corsairs, the Dubstep Cadre has become increasingly erratic since joining with the expeditionary force.

 bossfearless wrote:
While it is generally frowned upon, members of the Rynnish 41st PDF and even some of the more mischievously inclined of the Crimson Fists 4th have been known to slip alcohol to the Fire caste contingents simply to break up the boredom of long void journeys or to help the normally stoic xenos "unwind" after a battle. Unfortunately, this has led to an alarming lack of battlefield discipline, but a strangely heightened level of coordination among the chronic imbibers. Between the rampant alcohol abuse and the so-called "party drugs" supplied by the eldar corsairs, the Dubstep Cadre has become increasingly erratic since joining with the expeditionary force.

Ahahahahaha! This is brilliant. Love chicks too!
It hadn't clicked that you were going to Bahrain now (thought you were going for new year).... So I thought you'd died or something! Good hear from you. Keep the updates coming

Oh, in case anyone is wondering, the female body I'm using on the second pic is from some random game that I can't recall, but if you went on Hoard o Bits and searched for Amazons there's a whole kit. It's not from Mantic...I honestly forget and don't care enough to go find it. The female torso in the first pic is the Basicks Amazon torso, similar to the one used on Snowflake.

My digital photo frame arrived today. It has its ups and down, though. For example, it's clearly going to be too large to function as a normal infantry standard. Now, that does not preclude it from winding up on an infantry model somehow, but the base would likely need to be upsized, and it would be worked into the scenery, rather than the model itself. If I were rolling with more than one Hammerhead, I might see about putting it there, but it's more likely at this point that it will wind up on one of the future Riptides. Some other goodies were in the box, mostly just little option parts from Gundam kits like I keep buying. I swear, I'm like a crack addict when it comes to bits.

Let's see, as far as actual progress I'vesculpted the dangling panties and vodka bottle on the second tank crew member, and I'm working on modeling a third member of the crew up on the rim of the top hatch. I dipped into the parts from the Tetra kit, which provided some seated fire warrior legs. I did some alteration to the mini I have for the 10th Doctor, and there's still some potential there.

The quad-legged crisis suit is not working out so far. The legs are looking more equine than arachnid, which isn't the look I was going for. I have a few ideas still to try and work around this using the bits I already mangled for the job, and I'm looking into the D-style armored core models to see if I can find a quad variant that will hopefully scale to a crisis suit.

Edit: After browsing a lot of pics of Armored Core quad mechs, I figured out what I was doing wrong with the quad Crisis. I basically skipped a joint in the legs, and that extra segment is crucial to the aesthetic I was looking for. I almost certainly need to upsize the base for this suit, but I'll leave that until I at least have a prototype mocked up.

I've been stuck at work with VIP types coming and going all week, which is why I haven't been posting more progress on my models. That, and I discovered the amazing time waster that is Civilization 5, and spent several hours dropping nukes on the Mayans. Stupid Mayans, never mess with Zulus who have split the atom. And of course it being Xmas and all, the Saudis have all thrown a giant collective temper tantrum and kept me extremely busy. Freaking saudis, man.

"never mess with Zulus who have split the atom."

Words to live by for all walks of life.

I thought of a really cool idea today. How about an allied contingent of Slaanesh marines?
Bit weird I know but just think... Noise marines that make noise!?

 Brother Payne wrote:
I thought of a really cool idea today. How about an allied contingent of Slaanesh marines?
Bit weird I know but just think... Noise marines that make noise!?

I may do something to that effect down the line, but I don't have any big aspirations to do a CSM army at this very moment. ALthough, it's always a great source of conversion projects. Maybe in a year or two when this and all my existing stuff is completely done with.



So, I'm a bit pissed off tonight. I spent like 4 hours trying to set up the digital photo frame that I bought. Unfortunately it's defective, and it spent so long in transit that the return policy is now expired. So, that's a bust. I did take the time to gut it, however, just to see how it looked inside. On the plus side, I think that I could work the circuit board into something roughly Rhino sized with little problem, but I doubt it will work for an infantry standard. On the downside, my flush cutters broke when I was cutting the thing open and it took a chunk of my thump with it. Yup. It's that kind of a night. Needless to say, I'm not feeling the kind of precise manual dexterity that accompanies sculpting tonight. Grrr.....

 bossfearless wrote:

 Brother Payne wrote:
I thought of a really cool idea today. How about an allied contingent of Slaanesh marines?
Bit weird I know but just think... Noise marines that make noise!?

I may do something to that effect down the line, but I don't have any big aspirations to do a CSM army at this very moment. ALthough, it's always a great source of conversion projects. Maybe in a year or two when this and all my existing stuff is completely done with.

Yeah, fair enough.

Sucks about the digiframe

 bossfearless wrote:

 Brother Payne wrote:
I thought of a really cool idea today. How about an allied contingent of Slaanesh marines?
Bit weird I know but just think... Noise marines that make noise!?

I may do something to that effect down the line, but I don't have any big aspirations to do a CSM army at this very moment. ALthough, it's always a great source of conversion projects. Maybe in a year or two when this and all my existing stuff is completely done with.



So, I'm a bit pissed off tonight. I spent like 4 hours trying to set up the digital photo frame that I bought. Unfortunately it's defective, and it spent so long in transit that the return policy is now expired. So, that's a bust. I did take the time to gut it, however, just to see how it looked inside. On the plus side, I think that I could work the circuit board into something roughly Rhino sized with little problem, but I doubt it will work for an infantry standard. On the downside, my flush cutters broke when I was cutting the thing open and it took a chunk of my thump with it. Yup. It's that kind of a night. Needless to say, I'm not feeling the kind of precise manual dexterity that accompanies sculpting tonight. Grrr.....

Man that sucks. Go nuke some Frenchmen. Civ V is one of my favorite games. It's great to just pop in an audio book, and let the workers build.

Hooray for new internet provider! My modem from Mobily finally crapped out on me, and I switched to STC, which so far has been significantly faster and less prone to dropping my connection. The practical result is that I can now do simple things like uploading my videos to Youtube without spending five hours cursing at my screen. So! Before I get ahead of myself, here is the much promised but rarely seen video of my Hammerhead build in action.




Apparently DMX runs a delivery service of unparalleled quality and expedience.

Omg it lives up to everything this thread made it out to be and more!

Ah man, now I'm just gonna keep wondering if it would have been possible for you to fit Hydraulics (or whatever a gravitationally hovering vehicle would use) on that, so it'd drop when it drops.

That is a real homerun! The lights and sound are awesome, and I like the "unintentional" blue glow inside, too. The whole package works great!

Anvildude wrote:
Ah man, now I'm just gonna keep wondering if it would have been possible for you to fit Hydraulics (or whatever a gravitationally hovering vehicle would use) on that, so it'd drop when it drops.

Let me help you: No. With the lack of space in this chassis, it would be impossible to add hydraulics. Now, if I were making a Baneblade or any of its variants (see my idea for a hedgehog-bearing war altar in P&M general a while back), then I could go a little crazier. With a large ground tank chassis, it would be a fairly simple matter to find an appropriately sized RC car with a hydraulics function and put those guts inside the tank. There probably will be an insane Baneblade at some point in my future, but for now that's just a project I don't need to start. My thumb is healed up now, so I'm going to try to tear myself away from Civ 5 long enough to actually do some sculpting tomorrow.

I don't know how to put this, but you're kinda a big deal.

I just realized that there is something that absolutely needs to be in the playlist for the dubstep cannon. Something I can't believe I haven't thought of until now.

Wait for it.

Wait for it.







THE HILLS ARE ALIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE WITH THE SOUND OF MUUUUUUUSIIIIIIIIC!!!!



I'm going to burn in hell for that. But can you imagine it? After all the bass drops, laser cannons, et cetera, you get some straight up Disney nonsense. Winning!


So, I mentioned before that I got a new internet provider. The brand? STC. I'll let you guys snicker at that for a moment.


Go on.


Anyway, it lets me negotiate Youtube and Photobucket much easier, so it looks like I won't get stalled out by that problem for at least a little while. Speaking of Photobucket, here's a little of what I sculpted a minute ago. It's very rough at the moment, so don't judge it too harshly.




And the oft mentioned Time Lord:


As soon as I realized there were Doctor Who minis out there, I knew this army needed some Gallifreyan auxiliaries. Those arm stumps are just there to give me something to build on, so don't pay much attention to them. I really had to mangle the figure to get his hands out of his damned pockets. There is one more tank crew member I plan to build, and the Doctor's left arm is going to be around her waist (hopefully). These sculpts are incredibly ambitious for me. I'm better than the average novice, but I can't hold a candle to some of the sculptors on Dakka. So just like the LEDs and such, the point of all sculpting projects in this army is to force me to try something new and untested, to force myself to get better. As I mentioned before, these are all very rough WIPs. There will be more layers of GS, along with some attempts at smoothing out all the little wrinkles and divots with a pot of liquid GS technical paint that I've had laying around for a while. I should learn to use it eventually, right?

I had a bunch of green stuff left over, so I went and did a little preliminary work on some other figs, added hair extensions to this one model (don't ask) and then took the remaining wad and went to work on the ass of the quad Crisis, trying to repair the damage I did to it with my initial attempt. On the plus side, I think this is going to work very well. I've got these ball and socket joint kits from Kotobukiya (seriously, any and all serious modellers should be haunting www.HLJ.com and browsing the Kotobukiya option parts section like an addiction).

In between bouts of modelling and fighting ninjas, I made some chicken jalfreezi curry with mango chutney and coconut milk, served over seasoned onion couscous. Totally unrelated to the project log, but I just wanted to make everyone's mouths water. Trolololol!

Looking good! I'm a little confused about the second tau chicks arms though...
Are they getting trimmed down or did I miss an explanation earlier in the thread?

Actually the other one's arms are going to get bulked up a bit to match. I'm going for kind of Samus Aran look with them, very arm and shoulder heavy. The idea is not that they're buck ass naked, but that they're pulling off a couple bits of their combat armor while leaving most of it on. Such are the hazards of binge-drinking while in an active combat zone. That, and acute pancreatitis, but that's a whole 'nother story. The end result *should* look good, unless I'm just going full plebeian with the whole concept.


Edit: I just realized that my Crisis pimp must be named Shas'Vre Upgrayedd, with two D's for his double dose of plasma pleasure. Just a friendly reminder that the other builds have not been entirely forgotten.

Ah cool, that makes more sense.
Pimp'vre Upgrayedd. I like it

Here's a wip of my first spider leg prototype for my quad Crisis suit:



A couple pieces are held on with tack so I can change them around for the final product and oh my gawd I just realized as I was typing this sentence that I have the legs from an old metal tomb spyder in my bits box somewhere and I could have used those just as easily. Oh well, these are awesome.

These are truely awesome

Tachikoma time!

Did a test fit of a few of the various components for the quad suit. I'm having second thoughts about the torso. It's one of those things that looked like a great idea on its own, but when you put it together with all the other parts, it doesn't seem to come together. Or it might be the shoulder guns I was working on. Regardless, something's a bit off and I'll have to work on that. The GS cured completely for the parts of the tank crew that I've done so far, so I can take it a step further tomorrow. One of the hardest parts about doing any kind of extensive sculpting is having the willpower to actually put it down and walk away for a whole day to let the project set up for the next step.


I don't know if I've ever told the story on Dakka of the Land Raider party barge. A couple years ago, my Crimson Fists army was supposed to have a giant centerpiece unit in the same vein as the Hammerhead I'm building now. I got pretty far along on the build, but it was overly ambitious and it stalled out because I didn't have the skills required to finish various parts. The thing was an open-topped land raider variant with a party deck built onto the roof. In the troop compartment I had built a bar with serving wenches, and one of the doors functioned as a drive-thru window. The other windows were supposed to be lit up with red LEDs and screened off with clear plastic (deck protector sleeves), turning them into window brothels like you see in Amsterdam. That was where the project died, because I had no idea how to do LEds at the time and I couldn't go much further because that all had to be done before the tank was fully built. But there were structurally-integrated space marine bouncers, a barbecue grill with an epecially violent chef, a pimp throne for my commander. And then there was the stuff that was supposed to be added on later, like the tech priest working a set of turn tables and an apothecary tending a patch of magic mushrooms. It was to be epic in every way.

Now, that tank is still in my collection back home, and it's one of several unfinished pieces that I'll have my friend ship out to me when he goes home on leave in March. So I'll get these unfinished projects around late April or early May, after I get back from Japan. Oooh, you know, I hadn't thought about this but I want to get a Gundam model kit in Japan as a souvenir. I know you can order them online but it would be cool to have the one I physically bought in Japan. Anyway, train of thought derailed there for a second. Back on topic.

Wait, no. I think I was done rambling for now. Was there something else? Lemme check. Nope.

Edit: I just realized that I need to change the articulation of the first joint on those spider legs.

DON'T TRY TO CALM ME DOWN, FOOL!!!

*waves arms frantically all over the place growling like an agitated badger*


I have drunk SO MUCH COFFEE. I think I can see the future. Okay. Try to focus on alien space boobs. Right, I got this.


So I did a bit more sculpting earlier today, adding little bits of detail to the girls and making some really big strides on the shape of the quad's torso. I think I'll keep that one under wraps until it's ready for the big reveal. But here, have a drunken party tau:



Her 'soft armor' is really coming together. It's still VERY rough, lots of nicks and divots in the surface that I'll have to clean up towards the end. If you've watched my other projects come together, it's following the same trend of looking terrible right up to the cleanup step, and then coming together. The same thing was true of the quad torso, in the last post.

I gave this girl a boob job. The torso I was using for her wasn't very well endowed, and after some of the comments I got on Shas'vre Snowflake, I realized that I needed to make my girls' boobs bigger, lest they be called 'the shirtless tau dude.' Still not quite sure how I'm going to model/paint tau vagina. The third girl s coming together with much less sculpting involved and (gasp) all her clothes still on! Though I am using one of the Zenith torsos that has a bare midriff.

There are at least two more Desert Pimps that need to be modeled at some point, characters from (seriously) a 40k romantic comedy that I've been writing. Shas'saal Krom and Shas'la Psycho. Both are going to have a lot of sculpting required, so I'll save them for later when I don't have so much on my plate already.

Holy crap have you got a thread in dakkadakka fiction? I want to read this romantic comedy of yours!

Seconded.

Hopefully, complete with Tau Quad walker cameos...

 liquidjoshi wrote:
Seconded.

Hopefully, complete with Tau Quad walker cameos...

No quad in the story just yet, but the titan does make an appearance at the start. It's mostly about the Desert Pimps and Shas'la Psycho. I wrote a new chapter in it tonight, as well as a new chapter in my novel, and some great revisions to existing work. And then I sculpted, built, and rebuilt some models. Tonight was one of those nights where inspiration met with execution, and then the two of them bumped uglies and spawned some awesomeness.

Here are the two party girls with their giant Samus shoulders attached:


Yes, I sculpted the one girl with genitalia. Yes, I plan to paint it fun alien colors. Because that's just how I roll sometimes. They are most of the way done at this point, I think just a little bit more work on the arms of the one on the right to get them appropriately covered, and then these will be ready to install in the tank, though I might paint them separately to get more detail on them. Yeah, that's the best way to do it now that I think of it. EDIT: I think I'm going to go back on the one on the left and change her face up so she's doing a WAZAAAAAAAAAAAP with her tongue hanging out.

So with that out of the way, I fiddled with some more stuff, I built the first joints of a second quad crisis leg and got the basic idea of the pose for all four, finished bulking out the hips, drilled a hole in the bottom for the eventual wire, but that's all boring stuff. This, on the other hand, is what I put together for the torso so far. Don't be too quick to judge it harshly, it still needs to have arms attached to really sell it:






The first thing is obvious: There's no head. At least, not in the normal sense. In building this, I was inspired by the Mad Cat battlemech, and there will be arms that come down to the side with PPCs just like the original. Of course, this one will have spider legs. Probably. I say probably because I might just test-fit it onto the next reverse-joint legs I make and see if I want to go full Mad Cat. Anyway, the 'face' is meant to be reminiscent of the titan, a two part "beak" that scissors open and shut, acting as a cockpit and shielded sensor array. Now, for the gun arms, I'm thinking that they need to be some kind of energy projector, but larger and beefier than a plasma rifle. The model will almost always be run as a double plasma crisis, but because this model is getting bulked out so much with the quad legs and everything, I want to arm it with weapons that will allow me to plausibly proxy it as a Broadside with rails and missiles if I should choose to run one. Sometimes I fiddle with the list and end up putting in a single railside as kind of a wildcard unit, so that's this guy when I feel the need. Unfortunately, with the quad legs, the rail rifles from the broadside kit are too big to fit. Current candidates are the Plasma Cannons from the Storm Raven with some extra add ons, but feel free to suggest a different gun if you can think of one.

Hokay, that's all for right now. I should really have gone to sleep like an hour ago, but you know how it is when you get inspired. It keeps you awake and distracted better than coke and hookers.

Really awesome mate. Happy new year to you too.

... Not really related, but have you ever played Blacklight: Retribution? I ask, because there's some Dubstep themeing going on in that game- most specifically, Augmented Reality visors are a big thing, so many of the taunts have these sort of see-through lit-up plexiglass/HUD faces and stuff that appear in front of the face- and I think that's something that would be awesome for this guy or others in your army. Lessee...


Darn. Can't find it. Well, it's the "Roar" taunt- the digital version, that I'm thinking of specifically. You should be able to see what I mean about the holographic projections, and the Roar makes your head look like a Mouser from TMNT. That. Could probably do it with proper usage of LEDs and thin clear plastic card.