Showing posts with label Tutorial. Show all posts

Here is the promised first Wolf-oriented tutorial! The exam sessions is giving me a little break, just enough to squeeze it in. The weapons I make are for my Wolves, but of course, the same idea can be used to make combi-weapons for pretty much every army (Imperial that is, not the Ork ones) that uses them! Hope you'll enjoy it.


First of all, what a list of needed things. First, a bolter, any will do (the one I used is actually a bit harder to work with).


In this case I am making a combi-melta, but the same idea can be easily translated to a combi-plasma and a flamer. Generally you will need the other weapon you're attaching. In case of plasma, a pistol would suffice. You don't need the entire weapon just a muzzle and some sort of ammo container. For melta it's the barrel shown below. For a flamer it would be a small tank. For plasma, the cooling system would work great, though it would require a bit of additional work.


Lastly a bit of plasticard. Some green stuff will help a lot too!


Now what? Click below to find out!


First of all, cut the bolter into pieces shown below. Yes, it is not cut into a straight line, but rather has a sort of a "step" there. Do not lose the tiny muzzle, you will need it!


File both halves of the bolter to make sure they're even. Then glue a small plasticard piece onto the "stair". My green stuff was exactly the thickness I needed, yours might need a bit of filing/green stuffing.


Now glue another plasticard bit onto the upper part, this time it should have the length equal to the one between the front of the weapon and that small wheel-thing on the bolter. Also glue a small plasticard piece onto the other half, just like before.


Now glue the two halves back together. Before you do that however, you might want to make a small hole in the lower-half plasticard to represent the shell exit hole(however you call that in military terms).


File the sides if they are uneven. The next thing is to cut off the protracted parts of the shell exit holes on both sides.


Now glue the melta/flamer bits onto their spots. The new muzzle takes the place of the old one, while the bolter one goes below it. The melta container could go a bit more into the middle, but in this case the skull got a bit into the way.
If you're doing plasma, attaching the radiator to the side might not be the best idea. Try cutting off the top of the bolter and attaching it there instead. Make sure it doesn't stand out too much


You're almost done! Now just cover the plasticard bit in green stuff to even it out further. But most importandly, fill in the shell exit.. ports?


And here are some examples of models with those weapons.




And well that's it. Hope you liked that little tutorial. Let me know what you think and if you know how is that shell exit thing called do tell, I will fix it in the post.

Also the end of my exams is drawing near, hopefuly there will be a lot of painted stuff to show soon.
Thanks for reading!


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What is this? A new post?! Cannot be! Yes, it can! I found my camera, found its charger and finally found some time to post something. There's an exam session going on here right now, but once it's over, expect a flow of posts, both about Guard and the Wolves (And not just regular SW models, you'll see...). But first, the tutorial I promised a while back!

Truth to be said, this one is quite simple and short, however I think someone might find it useful. It is part of IHRH series as it's focusing on IG veterans, once more! This time, how to make your very own strapped weapons, just like the single lasgun available both in FW upgrade pack and the Cadian CS. Without further ado, let's begin!

You're going to need:

• A lasgun arm (even if you're not doing a lasgun!), one of those "wide" ones, like below

• The weapon itself
• A little bit of green stuff

The first step is to cut out the lasgun, like shown below. It's easier to first cut out the weapon leaving the butt and cut it out later.

Be careful not to damage the trigger finger! Now, take the weapon you want to fit. The picture shows a lasgun, and I'll go through with it, being the most popular weapon people will attach. My veteran however, is getting a shotgun.


Now you need to cut off a little bit of the back of the shoulder. The picture perhaps doesn't show exactly how, but it'll be clearer with the next.


Now attach the lasgun to the gap you've made. It is important to have the lasgun at the same level, or below, as the part of the arm that's attached to the model, else you will have problems attaching the arm. Make sure the lasgun "sinks" a little bit into the shoulder.


That's how it looks, with a shotgun, glued to the model. Glue yours too, it's very hard to do the next step without that!


Now roll a single strap from the green stuff and cut it in half.


Take one half and attach it first to the butt of the weapon (or wherever you feel it's best, but that's how FW has done it). You can make a small cut on it there, which, when painted metal, will server as a sort of a clasp. Then attach the other end just below the extended finger. That's why it was important not to damage it! Be extra careful now, we want a smooth strap there, no cuts!

Do the same with the other half, but instead attach it above. If you are having problems attaching a smooth strap to the hand, use a little bit of superglue to make it stick, rather then pressing hard with your knife, tool, whatever.

And that's it! Simple, eh? This is how a finished and almost-painted model looks like:

And that's it! I hope you liked it and will find it useful. The IHRH column on the right will be updated for easy navigation to the article.

What will the future bring? First it's going to be the Numerical Methods test and Assembler Languages exam. Wish me luck!

But afterwards, there's one tutorial for Space Wolf players, a lot of new HQs for that, some tactical rambling... For the Guard there's Psyker Chimera, the 303rd and myself considering getting one of those new Leman Russ kits. See you soon!

And here is the final or semi-final post about the gaming board! This time painting commences, a disaster strikes and the day is saved! Sounds exciting, almost as though it wasn't just piece of board and a brush!


But to the point, the final stage of getting the gaming board done was to, of course, paint it. So I went to a hardware store and bought two pots of paint. One as a basecoat would be dark brown and had to be made on the spot (mixed specifically to what I chose). The other was ready-made, a colour resembling Bleached Bone. All with the purpose of the board matching the basing of the 42nd.


Perhaps it wasn't the best idea, but let's not rush the facts.


Here's the brown, it actually darkened quite a bit after drying, which I consider a good thing.


And the painting begun. After approximately half of table done I looked into the paint pot... and began to worry.


And I was right. I ran out of paint, when there was just a corner left. Luckily though, the remains in the pot could have been watered down and the paitning could continue. If you look here and the far right corner, you can see the paint being slightly lighter. It actually did darken to the same colour after drying out, I was quite concerned with that! Unfortunately tehre wasn't enough paint to get the edges... I might have to pick up another pot later, it will come in handy for terran as well, so that the hills and whatnot can match in colour.

In hindsight, I could've probably watered down the entire pot. Would make for easier paitning and perhaps it wouldn't obscure the fine sand, which it did, even though I did my best to prevent it.


And now the time for highlight, here's the inconspiciously looking pot of the "Bleached Bone".


Disaster strikes! The attempt to drybursh is wasted and goes totally wrong. Just look at that.


I'm not sure I can describe what I felt then. Definitely not on the blog, I mean, there might be children reading. Only later I came to conclusion the culprit was wet brush. Be careful with that!
Luckily later on I manage to get the drybrushing done right... mostly.. Excludng the attempt with a painting roll. Don't do that! Here's a shot of the board with the "drybrushing" done. I sure can't leave it like that, huh?

Luckily I've had means to cover for those mistakes to some extent. Since the idea was to get a flat board with terrain layn on it, I couldn't really cover it up with hills, which I surely would. But even before I planned ot using something else - static grass!

Using the same grass that I utilise on my bases I managed to cover up most of these areas in patches of not-really-green-and-not-lush grasslands. Phew! Looks quite good, though it surely could've been way better. I was actualyl surprised that the packed I've used for entire army so far still was enough to cover such vast areas AND have a lot left, meaning I could make another 100 guardsmen without buying another. Nice!


And here's the almost finished board, with some models on it for demonstration purposes. I think you can see that the bases of the models match it quite well.


I said almost finished as there's still a few things to do, like painting the crevises and perhaps adding more details there... I have some ideas lying in my bits box. Also the edges still could use painting as well. And then... terrain! Lots of terrain is to be made! Some time at the end of this year we'll probably buy the CoD Imperial Sector and make the rest ourselves. Got a few hills here that would need detailing and painting, great looking trees my cousin made for a wood and there's also a lot of styrofoam left for more! I'll surely keep on posting as the terrain progresses and give you more shots as it develops. Also expect a battle report played on that table some time in the near future, though I'll have to smack my cousin to actually paint more of his models and stop using Grey Knights as Boyz and =I= Stormtroopers as Lootas!

I'll gladly hear your opinions, suggestions and hints on the board and future terrain!

Oooh and one more thing. The squad on the left on the last shot? It's the 302nd Veteran Squad fully finished. Expect a post within the next 24 hours. And now back to the flying thingy...


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And the project of the gaming table continues. Here's a recap of yesterday's progress. The sanding is completed and some steps in linking the quarters are made. After this the table is more or less ready to play - but that doesn't mean it's finished!

Here's a shot of all four quarters with sand on them.


But all the parts are still separate and there's now way to link them into something stable. Of course you can lay them next to each other, but it would be better if some sort of linking was possible to strengthen the construction and prevent accidents with onepart slipping and falling down with whatever it was on it..

This little thing should help out...




Of course, hinges cannot link all the parts together, it's physically impossible. But as one edge is made with the L-shapes connecting it goes together quite nicely. Thus the quarters will be put together by the longer edges using these hinges.

The quarters have to be put together as close as they're supposed to be to make exact measures as to where to put the hinges. Also if you'll be doing something like that remember the hinges have to be parallely to the edges of the board, if they're slightly off something might break!



A problem arises however. The board is made of thin plywood and styrofoam. As such it is impossible to actually use screws to attach it. At least not regular screws. What's needed are screws with nuts, but that needs access from both sides of the plywood. And thus, knife goes into play again.


Once the hole is made it's easy to attach the hinge to one side.

I'm also considering doing something to that "maintenance hole", possible just sinking it all in PVA glue.

The proble was attaching it to the other half later. It sure took an agility of an eldar to hold it all together straight while attempting to get that silly screw through the nut evenly! But after much cursing and taking strange positions to hold t in place with legs the work is done!

This is how the quarters are connected, making the table composed of two halves now.



And here is the entire board as it is now.

The picture doesn't show slight uneven areas. The bottom right quarter as you look at it now has deformed slightly. The issue however can be fixed. I'll have to put something heavy on it and leave it for all day and it should go back to shape. There are also slight interspaces between the quarters, but it cannot really be avoided. I'll try to aybe fix them up later with sand and such. Though even the GW board seems to have the borders of its tiles visible!

Anyway, what remains to do is pretty much only painting. I'll probably do that in the afternoon today, if it won't be too hot and the sun won't be too annoying.

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Another day brightens outside and another day of work begins, but first a recap of yesterdays progress!


The first thing was to sculpt some terrain into the board itself, not too much but to make it appear a bit better than just empty flat surface. The styrofoam isn't that easy to carve in and sculpt, though the extruded one has it way better than the regular one. In the comments under the last post David warned me about carving into it, thanks! Too bad I read that comment after I actually started to do it.. In the end however nothing wrong happened, aside from me getting my finger cut which is annoying me as I type now, groan , and the crevasses (how do you spell that..) look good. The most important thing to remember is that you have a really sharp knife. The alternative is to have a very hot knife. Both of these things make styrofoam cutting really easy. Here's a shot of the table as it looked after the sculpting.


And the projects continues


Here are some closeup shots of the terrain.




Once that was done it was time for next step - sanding. Things needed at this stage are as follows:

Woodworking glue, I prefer it to PVA glue when gluing sand, simply because it's easier to apply and much thinner. It's also way easier to clean off. The other things include a brush. That piece of cardboard was there to act as a brush as well, since the brush was actually dirty with glue, but it ended up working fine, so the cardboard wasn't used at all.
Price: 13 zł = £2,68 (for the glue)


Obviously to apply sand to the table you will need sand itself! My estimations say about 4 medium-sized jars of sand should be enough for the entire surface.

There was a problem with the sand however. It isn't modelling sand, it's construction sand and as such its mixed with a lot of small rocks and similar and too large grains. A riddle was neccessary but there was none about (other than a kitchen one and that was out of question). But I found a way around it with a jar, a screw and a hammer!

Once the tools were prepped the work could begin. Sand is applied to the table just as it is to bases of the minis. Drop the glue onto the surface and then brush it around making an even coa that covers the area completely. It was actually quite hard not to leave brush marks but I am unsure wether its a fault of the brush or the glue being too thick. Woodworking glue can be thinned down by water, you may try that, but don't add too much of it and it takes a lot of mixing as well. On the other hand those brush marks might work as terrain,a fter all land isn't totally flat, right? Here's the surface covered with glue:


Then I applied the sand. Using the jar was just like shaking a huge salt cellar. It was actually quite fun. It also allowed to dose the sand somewhat and minimised the losses, not a bad thing.

Remember you don' want to cover the entire table with glue at once. Before you're done and start applying sand the starting area might dry out a little, especially if you're doing that outdoors in warm weather. As such it is better to work gradually, apply the glue, the sand, then brush the glue onto next area and so on.
Here a table quarter with the sanding completed:


I managed to sand one more quarter and then the glue bottle ran out. Thing to remember, the 4'x6' area needs to big glue bottles to cover it entirely. As such, before I start working today again, I'll need to go pick up more glue. Once I get it though, I should be able to finish sanding today and maybe even start painting!




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