Scratchbuilding Craters out of CDs!

I'm working on terrain lately, and any good battlefield has to have plenty of shell craters around... Right? I've decided to start small, so the first few craters I've made actually use old CDs for bases. Why CDs? As anyone who lived in 90's, I've got plenty of these around, many of which are not even working anymore, so they make a really cheap alternative if you live in flat and can't go crazy with cutting MDF planks. And if done correctly, the resulting crater is big enough to make cover for 5-6 models.

Materials used for these are as cheap as possible: CDs, paper, sand, decoration stones and Creall Do & Dry modelling material. First, paper was glued over the CD to cover the obvious hole in middle and to work as a more adhesive surface for the Creall. After that, deco stones were glued onto the surface; while this is not required, it gives the terrain more character and more support for the modelling material.

Last step is the most fun one - using the modelling putty to make your own unique crater. I've made two so far, both not exactly beautiful or eye-catching, but they work!

My girlfriend took the idea bit further, and actually made her crater look good. In fact, she hasn't made a shell crater, but a small volcano - and she did a pretty good job with both the modelling and painting part!

The lava was made with PVA glue - first it was poured into the crater to make level of certain height, then (after waiting a few days), the bubbles were made on top of it using more glue. I'm using the volcano as a mysterious lake in game, though the size is limiting. But it looks great on the tabletop!

Simple Combi-Flamer Conversion

Hello! You might have noticed my love for combi-weapons before in my tutorial for combi-plasma conversions. I'm fond of flamethrowers too, so this post will be about converting a combi-flamer using as basic bits and techniques as possible.

1. Basic materials

Yes, for this conversion you'll need not much more than a regular bolter and an orkish slugga pistol! You can find this particular slugga in Boy Mob kits, as well as in the Assault on Black Reach box.

2. Merging it together

I think the pictures are self-explanatory here. First, carefully cut off the boltgun's muzzle. Then, cut off the slugga's frontal part and glue it onto the boltgun. File the surfaces first so the new muzzle is exactly in line with the boltgun - you don't want to leave the gun with a bent barrel!

3. Adding a fuel tank

As an optional decoration, you can take krak grenades, split them up, file them and glue them onto the weapon. They'll make good fuel tanks for the flamer.

And that's all! The final product actually looks quite similar to the "Vulcan pattern" combi-flamer, which can be seen at Lexicanum. You can even try to put the krak grenade part under the barrel, to make it nearly identical.

Here you can see the finished weapon on a commander:


And here you can see the weapon again, with some paint:


Anyways, I hope you found this tutorial helpful! As always, comments and criticism is most welcome.

Simple Combi-Plasma Conversion

Hi!

I have been recently working on converting Sternguard Veterans and I needed combi weapons so... I decided to convert some as well. I used a very simple technique and the result looks pretty decent so I decided to share :)

Stuff needed: 1 Bolter, 1 Plasma Pistol, Tools (hobby knife, files, plastic glue)

1) Take a regular bolter and a plasma pistol. Cut off the hand holding the p-pistol.



2) Bolter: Cut off the part marines usually hold in their hand, as seen on the picture below. Be careful when cutting as you may easily damage the clip, which we don't want to remove. Cut off the gun barrel as well, but don't throw it away - we will need it laters!

Plasma pistol: Split the pistol in two parts, as seen in the picture. Basically you want to get rid of the cooler-like looking part and its surrounding area.



3) Again we are going to cut the plasma pistol in half, or what has left of it. This time we need the part with the larger gun-barrel. Ever noticed those little cooling holes on the front of the pistol? You want to cut it in such a way that the piece will have three of these holes on each side - see the picture.



4) File the cutted areas and glue the pieces together. Don't forget on the bolter barrel! Be careful when glueing as any excess glue may damage the detail of the model!

Here's the final result (sorry, I forgot to take a final unpainted picture, but this should be good enough):


Size comparison to the combi-plasma from the commander box:


As you can see, the weapon is pretty compact, so it should work with most of those classical marine poses you can do with the generic marine arms.

Thanks for reading! Comments and criticism is most welcome, as always!

Edit 02/03/2012: If you are interested in more combi-weapons tutorials, here is another one: Simple Combi-Flamer Conversion