Canis Wolfborn, magnetizing the arms and pinning the legs

In this post, I will be going over how I magnetized the model's arms, and attached it to the base over cork board. 

One of my Christmas presents this year was Canis Wolfborn. I wasn't too impressed with the model when it was released; however, after seeing it in person, I love it.

My original plan was to just assemble him as Canis. Then when it came time to glue on his arms, I decided that I also wanted to be able to use him as a wolf lord and give him a thunder hammer. Up to this point I hadn't been interested in using a thunderwolf, but the model is too cool! I make no claim that any of the following is the right way to do this. Its just how I went about it. If you know of an easier/better way, feel free to post a link!

Magnetizing the arms

The main problem I had was figuring out how to glue the magnets to the torso and arms, and have the arms fit flush to the model, as they are supposed to. 

First, I clipped off the part of the arm that was supposed to insert into the torso. Then, I drilled into the model to make a space for both magnets (the one for the torso and the one for the arm) to fit into, with the outer magnet being flush with the torso. Then I put a dab of glue into the hole, placed the magnet, and waited for the glue to dry. Then, I put in the outer magnet (with no glue). This way, I could just put a dab of glue on the outer magnet, place the arm as it is supposed to fit, and then quickly spray the joint with an accelerating agent to make the super glue set before it spread to the rest of the model and glued the arm to the torso. 

Below you can see the drilled out space with the inner magnet glued in place. The space was initially square, but a drill bit the exact size of the magnet and a drill changed that quickly enough.

And here is the model with the magnetized arms 

And the arms with the magnets. The arm on the left did take two attempts when it came to glueing the arm to the outer magnet.

Securing the model to the base. 

It was fairly apparent that simply glueing a giant metal model to cork board would not suffice. 

First, I placed the cork board on the base, and then put Canis on top.

Then, I traced the paws of the wolf on the cork board. These spaces were then cut out.

Then, I glued the cork to the base (with PVA glue).

Next, I drilled holes into the left front and right rear paw.

Holes were then drilled into the base for the metal pins that would be coming out of the paws. The pins were bent at a 90 degree angle and inserted up through the bottom of the base. The wolf was then placed on the base, with the pins in the paws. Satisfied that everything looked right, I glued the pins to the underside of the base, and hit the glue with the accelerating agent. Then, I pulled the wolf off, and filled the holes in the corkboad with green stuff, to both better secure the cork board and the pins. The hole in the cork board for the left rear paw didn't have a pin, but gave a more secure anchor to glue that paw too. Once the greenstuff had hardened, I glued Canis to the base. 

Greenstuff was later pushed onto the underside of the base, over the pins, to further secure them. 

Next up:

I''ll be starting the painting of my space wolves shortly. I'll finish the additional arms for Canis later on. I plan on giving him a thunder hammer and maybe a storm shield arm. 

Space Marine Battles Novels- short post

I finished reading Angels of Darkness a while back. Really liked it. Short novel that's light on combat and heavy with background.  The author, Gav Thorpe, proved that he doesn't need to use battle scenes as a crutch like some of the other members of the Black Library writing staff. Nice little ending, too.

Currently, I'm reading The Hunt for Voldorius, one of the Space Marine Battles Novels. The novel started well and hasn't let up. I don't like spoilers, so don't want to give away much. Obviously Kor'sarro Khan and the Raven Guard are in it. Well, actually, maybe that's not obvious at all after Titanicus. (Those who have read Titanicus will know that the cover art on a Black Library novel might be extremely misleading. Why would someone put the Salamanders on the cover of a book that doesn't even feature Space Marines?).

Anyway, I'll just say that Kor'sarro isn't the only character with a tabletop model.

The Hunt for Voldorius is, so far,  a much more entertaining read than Rynn's World (the other Space Marine Battles Novel that I have read), which was average.

Miniatures wise, my Space Wolf army now consists of a wolf lord in terminator armour, a wolf lord in power armour, one rune priest, one terminator squad, 3 rhinos/razorbacks, one land raider, two squads of grey hunters and one squad of blood claws. I also have 5 power armoured wolf guard to lead the troop squads. I plan on painting as much as I can between the end of this term and the beginning of the next.

The two wolf lords can also easily count as battle leaders or regular wolf guard, so aside from a long fang squad and a scout squad, I don't need to assemble too much more to have a nice sized army with some variety. Of course, though, I do plan on adding much more! However, once an 1850 sized army is assembled and painted, my attention will be turning back to my Imperial Fists. Or possibly something else. Something non Mon Keigh...

Happy Halloween!.. Nemesis was good.

On Friday my friends and I got together for a fun night of pumpkin carving and Halloween themed cupcakes and cookies. And non Halloween themed beer!

The two pumpkins I carved are below.



Boba Fett:

And this guy:

Finished reading Nemesis a few nights ago. I liked it. Learning about the traits of the different clades, appearances by important figures (including a certain primarch of a certain favourite legion/chapter of mine)... all good stuff. For a Black Library book, it was very well written.

 I've started reading Angels of Darkness by Gav Thorpe. Two chapters in, and the book seems pretty good.

Space Wolves Land Raider Redeemer WIP

Fairly basic Redeemer. No magnets or significant conversions. I used spare bits from infantry kits to add some Space Wolf character to it.

Quick painting update for my Imperial Fists

Here is where the vehicles are paint wise.

There are two more Land Speeders at the same stage of painting, Doing a whole army at once is rather daunting.  My next armies will be painted unit by unit.


p.s. If any readers have the time, I would be interested to hear a bit of feedback on my Ragnar conversion. I know it isn't finished, but am curious about what people think of the shoulder guard. Does it look plausible, or need some work?

Ragnar Conversion- WIP

For this conversion, I used the Space Wolf Pack kit, and the Wolf Guard kit, as well as one sword arm from another kit; probably the Space Marine Commander or Command Squad box. I am waiting on the Space Wolves accessory sprue from GW to arrive in the mail. It has the commander back pack that a Ragnar model should have.

Here is how Ragnar's sword arm started. The GW model and the art in the new Codex both show Ragnar with a chain sword. None of the chain swords in the Wolf Pack kit had a pose I liked, so I dug the power sword arm out of my bits box and did some cutting and glueing.

Ragnar is supposed to have fancy shoulder guards. I wasn't too keen on sculpting a laughable imitation with green stuff, and started looking around for suitable bits. While looking over the sprues from the Wolf Guard kit, I noticed this bit:

Perfect! I even had a spare that I had ordered from a bits seller on ebay a while back (thinking ahead/buying stuff I probably wouldn't need). The rest of the cloak has the fur from a wolf's leg that looked like a possible addition to my conversion. It, and the wolf head bit are shown below, trimmed and ready to be attached.

Edit: pictures of the model mostly finished.

Excuse the tissue box with the flowers.

Space Wolves

Courtesy of Maelstrom Games, I picked up a Space Wolves army for myself a while back for a very good price. My original intention was to leave everything sitting in boxes until the summer. I made the purchase when I did because of the exchange rate at the time. So far, my choice remains a good one. Relative value of the British Pound to the Canadian dollar hasn't been that low since.

As it turns out, I enjoy modelling more than painting, and so when I needed a break from studying and felt like doing something hobby wise, boxes of Space Wolves and not yellow paint pots were opened.

My rune priest conversion. Everything I used came from a Wolf Pack box. The staff is a frost axe with the bottom and top removed.

His runic weapon is a bit unusual with the sword at the bottom, but I don't think it looks too goofy.

Next up, my Ragnar conversion and then some vehicles. The Wolf Guard in terminator armour will bemaking an appearance eventually. I need to get some cork board for the basing. The rune priest and Ragnar will get the same treatment. There is only the smallest dab of super glue keeping them on their bases at the moment.