Showing posts with label Converting. Show all posts

Right, about time for some tutorial! Dark Eldar Razorwings. Everyone loves the model. However it comes with a real ton of armament options and being a DE model it's all very flimsy thin and hard to drill in, so I had to come up with some way to magnetise those, especially the missiles, which are probably the thing that will get changed the most. If you ran into some problems I hope this little article will help you out!

So here we have our fighter. I have magnetised everything that is interchangable, as laid out in front of him, although I haven't magnetised all missiles yet. I am using cylindrical 3x1 mm neodymium magnets for this, small would be handy, but can't be even 1 mm bigger than that.

Let's start with the fighter's underbelly. First the two missile holders that are in the middle - the ones moulded onto the hull. Drill two smal holes in the red spots marked below. Easy enough.


Next the more tricky part, the outstanding missile holders. It's probably best done beore you glue them onto the hull. You have to cut them down a little bit, following the red line as shown in the picture below. Remove everything marked red and glue the magnet roughly in the same position as in the photo. Make sure all magnets you attach are polarized in the same direction - that way any missile will fit any spot, else it might get very annoying.


Now for the missile. Not as hard as one might expect. Drill (carefully), a hole in the spot marked by red roughly in the middle between the holes, a bit more to the front. The red lines show the distance from both of them

And that's it for the missiles, you can do that easily with each missile variant. Now for the rest - the hull guns. They're really easy to magnetise. First put a magnet inside the square hole in the fighter. The 3mm magnet should fit perfectly in. However push it in, so that you have space for two magnets inside. That way you won't have to drill into the gun. (So there should be a 1 mm gap between the end of magnet and the flat area within the gun "hatch")


Then simply cut off the square peg and glue a magnet into its place


The last part - the forward splinter weapons. You have to do that before you glue the hull together! First cut down the splinter weapon block thing, as shown below. Cut out as much as you can from the top. Below you can see a Splinter Cannon that is uncut and the rifles that have been adjusted. Then simply put a magnet at the backside.


On the Razorwing itself it's a bit more tricky. There is a "bar" inside that prevents the prow gun to be pushed too far in. Place a magnet flat on top of it. It will be powerful enough to hold the weapon, but careful with polarization there. The cutting down of the top of the block makes it possible for the weapont ob e taken out and put back in after you glue the hull together.


And that's it, I hope you find it useful. I'm slowly runnning out of things to post, will have to get working more, but Skyrim just had its release and I'm kinda stuck into it now. But still, see you on Thursday!

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Female Cadian Snipers! Now that I got your attention - Something that probably most of you have been looking mostly to. I have checked the statistics that Blogger started providing with the redesign and the first post on it is the 4th most viewed post on this blog of all time. Wow! I hope I will not let anyone down. Without further ado, the 304th Sniper Squad!

The all-female sniper squad that is count-as Ratlings. If you are interested in the modelling process and parts used I will just refer you to the main post on the subject. And now, on with the pictures! Many, many pictures, starting with an obligatory group shot!

The first sniper, one with the neat hair. Also the only one using original plastic sniper rifle.


Aaand the back. The camo cloaks aren't perfect, I was considering adding some static grass to get something similar to this, but in the end, dropped the idea.


The "sergeant". I really like how she turned out! Of course Ratlings don't have snipers in the codex, but this is the 304th vet squad pretty much!


And her... backside...


The very characterful "I don't give a damn my hair looks like a pot".


Casually smoking a lho-stick and waiting for the target to come into the field of view.


Another blonde, they also seemed to have turned out the best! This one is aiming at something coming close. This also shows that those gs sniper rifles aren't really too perfect.


Although they did turn out much better than I had anticipated at first. You cannot tell the difference from a distance and even up close they don't look particularly bad!


The hooded one. With a strange face too.


As I said in the modelling post, the hood feels a bit off, but overall the model is nice.


And the helmetted one! Unfortunately turned out to be my least favourite of the bunch, but she still looks quite good!


Also she's the only runner in the squad!


And that's it. That was the final update for the Guard for quite a while to come. There's other things I want to add, but mostly the Guard is done. I dropped the idea of a third platoon for now, since the ammount of cash needed is a bit too much for me now. Instead I am finishing up the Space Wolves and need to start painting those damned Dark Eldar as well!

Anyway, I hoped you liked them as much as I did! Let me know!

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Another thing that has sat on the shelf for quite a while. While perhaps not the most noteworthy unit on the tabletop, it's definitely one of he more characterful ones. As I mentioned, it was inspired by one on Excommunicate Traitoris blog. What am I talking about? Iacton Thauss, the Holy Preacher and a Missionary of the God Emperor himself!

I really enjoyed building him (also gave me something to do with those excess flagellants...) but painting him was quite a lot of fun too! I decided to give him a little different colour, so that he stands out a little, although it is still a colour present in the army so he ties in visually.

At first his robes were supposed to be red, but then I thought he'll be too similar to my Psykers. So I went with green. Although I decided that his flak vest and weapons are more tied to the 42nd. Perhaps the regimental quartermasters decided to grant him these as a favor or as thanks for something he has performed?

The name of the character, is actually Iacton Leman Thauss, and he is a character I used to play in Dark Heresy. He was meant to be this crazy flamer/shotgun-totting crazy priest with a chainsword. At least on the outside as inside he is actually quite a smart and calculating man. However this is Iacton flash forward quite a few years.

Suddenly he is blinded, although he still sems to be quite capable of hitting enemies instead of allies, as he claims the Emperor grants him sight, so he does not need his eyes. It also seems that whatever blinded him has also made him forget the smart and calculating part and only made him more crazy. Although he still is quite an orator. And what of his ties to the Inquistion? After all, he used to be part of an Inquisitor's cell...

Perhaps the mystery won't be solved, especially since nobody really knows about those things! However he turned out to be quite a nice model and I really had fun painting somethinga little different. I especially like how the wood turned out. Hope you like him too, let me know what you think in the comments!

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More evil space elves! This time, the guy behind it all, the Archon - Ecthos, I called him.

I really liked the original metal model for the Archon, but I decided it needs at least a little bit personification. And I'd rather have him have different wargear. Thus, a little (Not too complex though. I hate Dark Eldar for that, I really want to do some heavily converted army but the original models are just so awesome I can't think of a way to improve them..) conversion work and here we go!

To add some more awesomness to the most important Eldar around, I put him on a much more elaborate base.

There are of course more shots.


He is equipped with an Agonizer, Splinter Pistol, Phantasm Grenade Launcher (although I probably should've magnetised that in case he doesn't go with Incubi as previously planned) and a Shadow Field. I wonder if I could do some fancy painting trick to represent the last one.

I used the pike from the Raider to add something in the background, so that the base isn't as flat. Then I though it would look much better if I sculpted some foliage on it, in line with that on the ground.

Originally I intended for the entire model to be magnetised, but those arms are small. Almost impossible. Unfortunately I almost ruined the entire model drilling the hole for the Agoniser arm, thus it is there to stuf. Splinter Pistol can be exchanged, for something else just in case.

And a little closeup on the skulls for the thro.. er, nevermind

Anyway, I have been readng Horus Heresy again. And I feel a huge craving to do another Marine army, curse you GW! But since there's still some Wolves left to paint, hopefuly I'll sate that Marine-hunger. Although Pre-Heresy Thousand Sons would be quite awesome, perhaps one day...


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The moment I saw them I knew they had to be mine. Even though the Emperor resides firmly in my heart I broke. The first Xenos in my hands. But how many of us failed to resist those excellent models? Introducing... the Kabal of Last Hatred.


The Kabal has a pretty strong theme of necromancy going, although I am unsure how best to represent it. I would've done some conversions but.. the models are so exccelt without any modifications I find it hard to do. But the Kabal has a nice backstory I could expand on, while it also has my favourite paint style for the DE - purple! Some painting methods will be applied to reinforce the tone and I had a funny idea for the Beasts... Of course Wracks are perfect opportunity for those as well, but again, I love those models. Damnit.

Anyway, enough idle talk, the Kabalites!

Want more? There is more!

The Kabalites are armed with a Blater and a Splinter Cannon. Probably the best loadout they could have. I tried Dark Lance equipped ones in some battles and they failed miserably. Blaster and SC give them mobility which the DE are all about. Of course they should probably ride around in Raiders which unfortunately I did not have enough of at that point.

Anyway, the models are just models, you've probably seen hundreds of unpainted DE on the internet. Let's look at more interesting points, the bases for instance.



I got inspired by resin bases I found on the internet. I actually planned to fit this army on some, from MicroArt, but none really fit the army as I imagined it. I found bases elsewhere but then I though I need not pay so much, I can do it myself! With careful application of a compass (Seriously, that's an english name for that tool? Really?) I scratched into the surface of epoxide mass and made patterns and runes. I added some skulls (I bought 80 skulls for around 3 pounds, nothing like recieving a letter full of skulls!), some green stuff leaves, and soil, an idea I've taken from MASSIVE VOODOO. I love those bases, but making them is so time consuming..



And the Sybarite. I thought he deserved something more than just the fancy... back.. pole.. thing. So a small conversion. Alas, poor Yorick!

And another squad. I only have two for the moment. I should have three, but I really spent way too much money on those thus far...



You can see metal things in the back. More on those in future post!

Here is the other Subarite. Also slightly converted.

A sample squad of Wyches. Great models, awesome dynamism, horribly fragile weapons... The entire army is actually quite hard to transport, without suffering losses. Even before the battle! Especially the Raiders with various hanging parts...

Now a couple of more interesting closeups.

A skull. Those are made out of gypsum, by the way.

Plant! Making them is actually fun, I though it would be more tedious, but it's fast and easy. It's attaching them to the base that annoys me to no end, as they don't want to stick nicely sometimes...

I like the pose of that guy, although I think I took that picture (it was a while ago), to show the circular pattern on the tile...

So sample miniatures again.

And the Hekatrix. I swapped the Agonizers around a little so each has a different!

And since this post has been started long ago, but I never wrote the content, a lot changed since then, and this is the chart of the army as it is now. It grew quite huge, clocking at around 2500 points now. As I said, spent way more money on it in a short period of time, that I should have since now I have a lot to paint... Reminds me of when I was starting the Guard...

Anyway I hope you liked those. I will be showing more interesting parts from time to time, but the painted models are still a while off. I only have a few models left to paint for the Wolves and I thought I'll finish those first.

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And here... we... go..! Starting off a new hundred of posts with another Rune Priest. This one is a fully custom conversion, made from spare Wolf Pack parts and some green stuff to boot.

His name is Radulf Wisewolf and he usually runs around with Living Lightning and Jaws of the World Wolf. He also lost an eye. Somewhere.

That's not all, obviously!


As you can see his second shoulder pad clearly bears the mark of the Great Wolf's company, to which all the Priesthood belongs and is only assigned to companies as needed.

The weapon he carries is the original metal Rune Priest weapon. Since the previous one got a little weapon swap, I thought it'd be nice to actually use this one anyway. It also helps him stand out a little.

The other thing, to make him stand out in the squads was to use nmm all over, as with all the other HQ/Elites. Since the model is made out of regular Wolf Pack bits it had to have something!

Here you have a closeup on the face, and the sculpted runic shoulder pad! You might also notice.. I have no idea what exactly it is, other than it is a part of the Psychic Hood, the metal Rune Priest has.

And the weapon, with the "glow" effect. It isn't as good as some out there, but I think it looks quite okay, since I did want a very faint effect.

And lastly, his Chooser of the Slain, which I would show more of except that... I only got him recently. Yep, a cheap idea, I will use one of the DE Razorwings. I cut off some of those shard claw parts and will paint him as a raven.

And that's it for today, thanks for reading!


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Here he is, the WIP Commander of the 3rd Company, Lieutenant Colonel Mordechai Emmet, who is my count-as Straken.


He is quite finished, but I think he is still lacking something, but I have no idea what else could I do. Perhaps you could help me, dear readers?

Emmet has quite a backstory to him, which I think I'll share once he is painted up. For now I'll say he used to be a mere Veteran Sergeant, but won his way into the wearing the officer cap through his deeds and "friendship" with (then) General Havelock Hals.

A battlefield experience has left him scarred for life, but due to his skills, commitment and service record he was deemed well worthy of recieving extensive bionics, which allow him to continue his duty to the Emperor.



Thanks to this twist, I was able to give him all the wargear he used when I still fielded him as a Vet Sergeant, back in the 4th Ed. - a Power Weapon and a Plasma Pistol - which also match Straken's loadout!



The Standard behind him is supposed to make him stand out on the battlefield, considering he is a Special Character. Besides, I was itching to use that standard for a while.

But he still looks somewhat generic. And I'm all dry on ideas. If you have something on your mind, say it!



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