Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!

Samurai!!

2006-07-02T20:59:00.000+01:00

Wotcher blog fans!

Today i thought i'd take a brief break from 40K and instead have a quick look at a few historical miniatures, namely Perry Miniatures Samurai range. These are beautiful miniatures and the range is excellent! Bellow are the miniatures i currently have painted. First up is the boss man, the samurai Sakai Tadastugu. This is an actual historical character from the warring states period in 15th century japan. He was identified by the deaths head motif on his sashimono. I took the design i used from an example in one of the Osprey series of books (an invaluable resource for any historical modeller looking at any period!) as seen below.

The rest of Sakai Tadatsugu's troops were identified by a red circle on a white backing (not to be confused with the origin of the current japanese flag! Though its the same really...). Below are the models i have painted, a samurai with his retainers along with Sakai Tadatsugu himself with a couple more retainers.

I hope to eventually (read at some point in the next 20 years...) to have a full army of these samurai fellas to battle with! One day... Anyway! I'll be back with a few more pictures for you soon... hopefully quicker than this lot took... Laters blog buddies!

Ooooh...Naahsty...

2006-06-09T14:01:00.000+01:00

Wotcher blog fans!

Seems yonks since i put anything up so i thought i'd treat you to a couple of little conversions i have done in the past. The first is just a mix and match using the Warhammer 40K Cadian Shock Troop Imperial Guard plastic kit and the Warhammer Zombie plastic kit in order to produce ZOMBIES!! Brains....

Alex and I had great fun gettingt the shadow right...

Next up is a poor imperial guards man being scissored by a tyranid guant (why is it always the guardsmen!). I've always wanted to do a really gory model and the starting a tyranid army seemed like the perfect oppotunity to try a few things out!

The top half of the torso was pinned to the bottom with a small piece of paper clip (these make perfect pins for pinning purposes...nice alliteration eh?) and blended in with a bit of green stuff so it looks like some trailing gore... The intestines etc were just small sausages of green stuff.

The swampy base idea was taken from examples in a how to paint tyranids section in a White Dwarf (probably around issue 305). Just leave some of the base untextured and paint it the swampy colour of your choice and varnish it! The Blood on the claws was made by putting a thin layer of PVA on a plasic surface (e.g. old blister pack, also good as paint palletes) arranged in the shape of flowing blood. When it was dry it was gently peeled off and glued to the model and painted! You have to be careful to paint both sides of the PVA though or it warps as it dries...

Anyway! Thats all for today so i bid you farewell! Next time i think i'll showw you some of my historical perry miniatures so keep an eye out blog following fellows! Byeeee....

Tau Battlesuits!!

2006-05-28T19:39:00.000+01:00

Awlright folks!

I hope to give an update on the pre-heresy marines soonish. The forgeworld red scorpion parts have finally come and i'm having a play with them at the moment. Photos soon...

In the meantime i have a few pictures of my Tau commander and his retinue for you! The commander himself is a forgeworld XV-89 battlesuit. These are mostly resin ( i seem to remember that only the torso and feet are plastic components...) and very posable. Really nice kit.

The commander himself has had two sashimono added (I like Akira Kurosawa films...) made from bent pieces of brass rod and sheets of paper. Heres a handy hint. For tricky writing on banners like this, cheat! Use a fineliner pen. Its so much easier than painting it on, but be careful because they smudge! Make sure they're dry before touching!

The little drone is made from a plastic battlesuit shield generator, target lock and I think it was half a pair of Imperial Guard binoculars from the tank extras sprue (possibly) cut in half and stuck on the side.looks pretty cool though! He used to have no use, but in the new rules he could count as a marker drone! Ah, what forward thinking!

Anyway! As I said, I hope to have an update on the pre-heresy marines project (i'm thinking of using them as a kill team now!) so watch out for that one my blog following fellows! Till then...

Ultramarines!!

2006-05-26T19:41:00.000+01:00

Yo ho me hartys!

I bring you gifts my faithful blog following friends!! A few pictures depicting the space marine veterans mentioned in my last post and an Ultramarine tactical squad! Below is the tactical squad. They are pretty much as you buy them with the addition of a few purity seals and the sergeant has had a helmet filed down to fit into the armour with the raised neck guard. (I love this! It looks really cool!)

The Veterans (shown below) are part of my 40K Ultramarines army and have been converted from the current plastic marine kit. The addition of components from the plastic space marine commander boxed set and a pair of bionic legs from the iron hands miniatures gave a bit of individuality. The tabards are made from green stuff and the purity seals (which I use on all my marine models) are just small strips of paper stuck onto the model. The seal itself is a small ball of green stuff placed on the model and pushed in at the centre using a blunt pin or cocktail stick. The vet. with the power fist is a good example of the finished studded shoulder pad mentioned in my last post.

And heres a dramatic close up! Oooh... I had great fun doing the ace of clubs on the shoulder pads! So much less common than that mundane, run of the mill ace of spades... ;)

I like my marines to look battle worn and as if they'd been in the field for a few months (years?...). This is easily done by adding some bullet holes, scratches and a nice spattering of mud on the lower legs. (The mud was made by a mixture of weathering dust, availlable from model shops, PVA and a little water. Maybe a little static grass chucked in for a bit of extra texture...) Bullet holes are easily done by drilling holes in the model with a pin vice (aka. very small drill) and enlarging them with a modelling knife (watch yourself there, kinder). Try it yourself at home!

Now i must say a big thank you to Alex Hyde who kindly donated his time and awesome camera to take a few pictures of my toy soldiers. Thank you Alex!! When he's finally a famous photographer i can say i was the first to publish his work!

Well of I must go to see X-men 3 (Soooo excited!) so i'll say cheerio bye tata for now, but check back soon for more pics from the talented Alex Hyde!!

Pre-Heresy Marines 1

2006-05-24T11:44:00.000+01:00

Ahoy there!

I have recently read the first in the new series of books from the black library documenting the course of the Horus Heresy. Now, of course, I want to make a few pre-heresy marines to sit on my shelf looking sweet (and maybe eventually get a few battles? Who knows where this will lead!). Reading through the book for inspiration it seems that the armour used nearer the end of the emperors great crusade was that of the Mark IV or "Maximus" armour. Looking through the rage of GWs old marines there is one example of mark IV armour (see picture, right). Bummer. As such I have decided to go it alone and convert a squad myself!

Right! First up! Helmets! Gawd bless Forgeworld. Their Red Scorpions Veteran conversion pack just so happens to have, you guessed it, mark IV helmets! Sweet. None of the fiddly messing around with green stuff there then! Their torsos also look like they'll be ideal, after a bit of fiddling about filing off scorpion iconography etc. Legs from the modern kit'll be fine, maybe with a few rivets added? For back packs I'm thinking going a bit more old school with the older style backpacks (pictured left) and maybe the bolters as well?... Well i'll at least do something to the modern bolters if I do use them. Maybe a magazine swap or something like that. As for shoulder pads, well i have already started on them so i can give you a work in progress here!

I have converted a squad of Ultramarine Veterans in the past (picture to come in a future post when I can get some decent ones!) the sergeant of which has a studded shoulder pad which I made myself. So I thought I'd do the same for the pre-heresy fellas as well! First I took the standard shoulder pads and shaved off the raised outer rims using a sharp modelling knife (careful kids!) and filed them so they were flush with the main surface of the pad. The studs were made by rolling small balls of green stuff (GW's own brand of modelling putty) of just over 1mm in diameter and leaving them for a few hours to harden (Tips and links on how to use green stuff can be found here). Then using a sharp modelling knife (watch yourself here children!) cut the balls in two giving you two heispherical studs. The studs can then be glued to the prepared shoulder pad using tweezers and superglue (hold an adults hand while you do this, enfants!). I found that using tweezers to dip the stud into some glue already out of its bottle gave nice clean(ish) results. Below is a picture of what they look like when done, (along with some blank ones for insignia to be painted on) and an old style powerfist i also wanna use.

Right! Well thats all I have for you at the moment, but i'll keep you up dated on any progress. Should be some pictures of some models i have already completed going up soon, just waiting for good photos, so keep an eye out! Till then...

My first blog! (Sounds like an advert for nappies...)

2006-05-22T15:23:00.000+01:00

Hello all!

Thought I'd use my first post as a bit of an intro. Let you know a little bit about what wargaming and modelling areas I'm into, and what kind of thing I hope to get in to this blog!

Righto! Well my I guess my major modelling and wargaming focus for many years has been that of the Warhammer 40,000 universe, based on one of the games systems developed by Games Workshop. The imagery and wealth of background information available make this an increadibly evocative setting for gaming and modelling. You never have to look far for modelling or gaming ideas! (And lets face it, they may be expensive but the miniatures are sweet!). Now i have armies of Orks, Imperial Guard, Tau and, most recently, Space Marines and the beginnings of a Tyranid swarm. Though when I was younger I played a lot more Warhammer (Chaos Dwarfs all the way!), recently it's taken a back seat (though I still have a Dwarf army ready just in case...). Probably due to, what I percieve to be, the comparative lack of depth of Warhammer to that of 40K. However, I was well chuffed with the GW The Lord of the Rings (Now theres a setting with depth) and soon knocked up a force of Gondorians and am currently working on some Mordor Orcs.

While we're on the subject of The Lord of the Rings, I should really plug the board game War of the Ring by Fantasy Flight games. Any fan of the books will love this game. It brings a warmth to my heart usually reserved only for large plates of steak. Mmmm... steak.... Ahem! Anyway! Yes. Buy this game now! On top of this, the expansion, Battles of the Third Age, has just been released which makes the game even better if thats possible, and introduces a whole new game too! Wowee! We played it until 5am... So, so tired... Buy it now! (I should ask for commision.)

As well as the sci-fi/fantasy core of my modelling, I also enjoy aspects of historical gaming too. Par example (thats french for "for example" ;) ) I have a small force of Perry Miniatures Sudanese War British on the go at the moment. These are lovely models (i'd say some of the best you'll find anywhere), and they have other ranges from other periods available so are well worth a look if you haven't already. I also dabble in a little WWII modelling with a few 1:35 figures knocking about the place, and an airbourne force for Flames of War.

Well i think thats about it for now. I'll try and get a few pictures of some models and conversions up as soon as posible, but now, having just finished finals, i have some serious dossing about to be getting on with!

Laters fellas and whatever the girl version of fellas may be... (suggestions on a postcard)