Hey ho, here they are! =)
Saturday 25 August 2012
Dire Avengers
Just a quick post of some Eldar Dire Avengers I've been taking bloody ages to finish. I was all about to start an Eldar army - bought loads of plastic, then good old GW start churning out new Daemons and Chaos Marines models... with the promise of a new Codex later this year... Looks like these guys are going to join their Guardian brethren in a box under the bed for a bit.
Hey ho, here they are! =)
Hey ho, here they are! =)
Tuesday 14 August 2012
Monday 13 August 2012
40K Chaos Marine NERF Bolter - Part 5
Paaaaaint!
So, you know how if you're running Space Wolves, and everyone says to you "Hey, why are you even painting them, they're grey! Just leave the original plastic, stick a wash on it and you're done!"? Well, guess what? I found myself in the same situation here. Painting aluminium a nice even silver colour! I did wonder at myself as I did it, but then I was also covering up all the filler, the black of the barrel and whatnot... Plus I knew I was going to weather it pretty heavily, so it would come good in the end. "Good job it's Chaos" as they say...
The outer casing I wanted to do with the classic yellow on black hazard stripes, a nod to the Iron Warriors or Alpha Legion (who are one of my fave chapters). So here is the base-coated model before weathering.
Mmmmm shiny! But not for long! Note also the front grip in this photo - it's been painted with rubberised paint (as has the trigger grip). I used Plasti-Dip for this, which worked pretty well but took a few coats. You can also see the slider over the bullet casing exhaust slot. This side slides back to allow access to the Nerf's own inspection chamber. The one on the other side is fixed in place.
Before painting I gave the whole model a coat of "special metals" primer. Aluminium is a funny old beast, and I didn't want any paint flaking off afterwards. The yellow paint took a couple of coats to get even, but the black stripes went on with just one coat - something that would prove to be a bit of a gift during the weathering process...
So - I've painted a fair few miniatures, but never anything this size. I have to say I was a bit daunted about the whole process. Usually the way I'd go about it is whacking a wash over the whole thing, then adding some weathering powders in pertinent nooks and crannies etc. Problem is there's loooooots of big flat surfaces here so it could get a bit tricky.
Anyway I did a bit of reading up in the old Forge World Model Masterclass book, and decided to bite the bullet. I found some old coffee-coloured gloss paint at the back of the workshop cupboard (I dunno where that came from! Who paints something gloss brown?!) and darkened it up a bit by spraying some black paint into it. Then I chucked in a load of white spirit until it was a nice wash consistency. Then I got an old paintbrush and slapped it on, hoping for the best.
The first thing that happened was that it was a bit thin, and a lot of it ran off before it could dry - being used to acrylic drying times through me a bit of a curve ball there. So I thickened it up a bit and splodged it on again in a few areas. The second thing that happened was that the white spirit thinned down the black stripes so much that they started to come away - they'd only had the one coat after all. Fortunately the yellow stayed true as it had had a few coats. Now you might think that it might be a bit upsetting, but it gives such an awesome aged effect on the stripes that I was well pleased! Bit lucky, but I'll definitely remember that for next time... (Yes, already thinking 3 projects in the future - isn't everyone?)
So next, a bit of rusting. I dug out my Burnt Umber oil paint and rust-coloured weathering powders. Plus added in a bit of Yellow Ocre for good measure. I made up a suitably rusty coloured mix - I can't give you the exact recipe because I fiddled with it until it looked right, plus everyone has their own idea of what a good rust pattern is, don't they? If you're going to try this, just keep fiddling until it feels right. There's an actress and bishop joke in there somewhere... ; )
When I was happy with the mix, I got the trusty old toothbrush out, got a brushful and flicked it onto the model with a bit of aluminium off-cut. This gave me a nice random pattern that I could adjust as I went along, building it up in layers. Finally I thinned the mix down with white spirit and added it here and there in places that looked like they needed dirtying up a bit.
Here's the final effect.
The only problem is that all that white spirit has made the Plasti-dip a bit sticky. I'm hoping it's going to dry again in a few hours, or that it will take a coat of varnish and harden up a bit. At this point I'm not that fussed if it's rubbery in texture, just as long as it doesn't give me sticky fingers!
The red-dot sight was a cheap plastic gem I picked up in Hobbycraft for a couple of quid. It does a pretty good job of catching the light considering it cost next-to-nothing. The white line of glue around it is still drying - it dries clear.
So there ya go - it's all over bar the varnishing. When it's applied and dried I'll try to get a vid sorted of it shooting at stuff and upload it here.
Hope you guys like it - feel free to post comments, ask away with any questions - always happy to chat about hobby!
Cheers
A$H
So, you know how if you're running Space Wolves, and everyone says to you "Hey, why are you even painting them, they're grey! Just leave the original plastic, stick a wash on it and you're done!"? Well, guess what? I found myself in the same situation here. Painting aluminium a nice even silver colour! I did wonder at myself as I did it, but then I was also covering up all the filler, the black of the barrel and whatnot... Plus I knew I was going to weather it pretty heavily, so it would come good in the end. "Good job it's Chaos" as they say...
The outer casing I wanted to do with the classic yellow on black hazard stripes, a nod to the Iron Warriors or Alpha Legion (who are one of my fave chapters). So here is the base-coated model before weathering.
Before painting I gave the whole model a coat of "special metals" primer. Aluminium is a funny old beast, and I didn't want any paint flaking off afterwards. The yellow paint took a couple of coats to get even, but the black stripes went on with just one coat - something that would prove to be a bit of a gift during the weathering process...
So - I've painted a fair few miniatures, but never anything this size. I have to say I was a bit daunted about the whole process. Usually the way I'd go about it is whacking a wash over the whole thing, then adding some weathering powders in pertinent nooks and crannies etc. Problem is there's loooooots of big flat surfaces here so it could get a bit tricky.
Anyway I did a bit of reading up in the old Forge World Model Masterclass book, and decided to bite the bullet. I found some old coffee-coloured gloss paint at the back of the workshop cupboard (I dunno where that came from! Who paints something gloss brown?!) and darkened it up a bit by spraying some black paint into it. Then I chucked in a load of white spirit until it was a nice wash consistency. Then I got an old paintbrush and slapped it on, hoping for the best.
The first thing that happened was that it was a bit thin, and a lot of it ran off before it could dry - being used to acrylic drying times through me a bit of a curve ball there. So I thickened it up a bit and splodged it on again in a few areas. The second thing that happened was that the white spirit thinned down the black stripes so much that they started to come away - they'd only had the one coat after all. Fortunately the yellow stayed true as it had had a few coats. Now you might think that it might be a bit upsetting, but it gives such an awesome aged effect on the stripes that I was well pleased! Bit lucky, but I'll definitely remember that for next time... (Yes, already thinking 3 projects in the future - isn't everyone?)
So next, a bit of rusting. I dug out my Burnt Umber oil paint and rust-coloured weathering powders. Plus added in a bit of Yellow Ocre for good measure. I made up a suitably rusty coloured mix - I can't give you the exact recipe because I fiddled with it until it looked right, plus everyone has their own idea of what a good rust pattern is, don't they? If you're going to try this, just keep fiddling until it feels right. There's an actress and bishop joke in there somewhere... ; )
When I was happy with the mix, I got the trusty old toothbrush out, got a brushful and flicked it onto the model with a bit of aluminium off-cut. This gave me a nice random pattern that I could adjust as I went along, building it up in layers. Finally I thinned the mix down with white spirit and added it here and there in places that looked like they needed dirtying up a bit.
Here's the final effect.
The only problem is that all that white spirit has made the Plasti-dip a bit sticky. I'm hoping it's going to dry again in a few hours, or that it will take a coat of varnish and harden up a bit. At this point I'm not that fussed if it's rubbery in texture, just as long as it doesn't give me sticky fingers!
The red-dot sight was a cheap plastic gem I picked up in Hobbycraft for a couple of quid. It does a pretty good job of catching the light considering it cost next-to-nothing. The white line of glue around it is still drying - it dries clear.
So there ya go - it's all over bar the varnishing. When it's applied and dried I'll try to get a vid sorted of it shooting at stuff and upload it here.
Hope you guys like it - feel free to post comments, ask away with any questions - always happy to chat about hobby!
Cheers
A$H
40K Chaos Marine NERF Bolter - Part 4
Okay. It's time to use your imagination!
Imagine if you will, Ash in his workshop, his brow furrowed in concentration, scribbling wildly on a pad of paper, sharpening his pencil with a craft knife. He is diligently working on the plans for the Nerf Bolter - reverse-engineering the shape of the front grip, working out it's dimensions, then tracing out the plan onto aluminium sheet and bending it into shape.
Then, he turns his attentions to the outer shell of the bolter - working out how to build the inner curve to fit around the circular dummy switch above the trigger, once more returning to the pad to plan and plan again. Next, he creates the sight rail on the top of the outer casing, sketching blueprints, cutting metal, bending, drilling, riveting, filling, sanding! His mind and hands are a blur of motion, working together with purpose as never before! The sweat beads on his brow! The fire of passion burns in his eyes! And then...!
He sits back in his chair... his energy spent, his creative urges sated, a tired smile of satisfaction on his face....
I ask you to imagine this scene, dear reader, as I made the mistake of leaving my neighbour alone with my laptop. I returned to find it innocently asking me for the admin password, something it's never needed before, asking for information that I just don't have.... <hangs head, sighs, nurses temples with pointed fingers>
BUT a light bit of laptop rebuilding later I'm back up and running, but sadly the intervening step-by-step images have been lost to the warp. So - here is the finished product before it went to paint:-
As you can see - the grip and the outer casing were another case of box-building. They are bolted (not riveted) to the body casing using the same bolt locations as on the original model. That way I can unbolt them and fix any internal problems if need be, and also replace the batteries that are now housed in the front grip.
Once you get the hang of this box-building lark it's pretty straightforward, but the sight rail was a bit of a challenge. The rail itself was pretty easy, being just an oblong, and the rear end cap was okay too. The three spikes weren't too bad, but needed a couple of attempts at test mock-ups in cardboard beforehand. Testing in cardboard is a good way of getting the hang of this as it's a lot easier (and cheaper) than getting it wrong over and over again in aluminium. Once I'd got something I was happy with I used it as a template to make the three identical spikes.
The front end of the rail, with the raised sighting point was really tricky. What threw me out a bit was getting the curves right. The twin curves from the front that go up to the flat square top, and then the swooping curve down the back of the piece to join the main oblong of the rail. I'm sure it could have all been worked out using maths, but I'm much more of a "crack on with it and see what happens" kind of bloke, so there was a certain amount of trimming bits off, swearing, riveting, filling, etc. etc. until it looked right. Another case of "Good job it's Chaos..."!
You might have noticed that the front grip is a bit deeper than on the original template - that's because there's just not enough space in there to put 6 x size D batteries in a row, so they had to go in a box-shape, which pushed the bottom of the box down a bit to accommodate them. Another minor compromise...
Fortunately the length of the original Nerf clip wasn't a problem. I initially thought I was going to have to somehow engineer a new magazine that was curved to fit with the style of the gun, but as it turned out there is so much space between the bottom of the Nerf gun and the bottom of the body casing that it only stuck out a couple of inches. This meant that I could mock up that curved magazine out of ally sheet, leaving it hollow, so it just slots over the existing clip and into the bottom of the body casing.
So yeah - ready for paint! =)
Imagine if you will, Ash in his workshop, his brow furrowed in concentration, scribbling wildly on a pad of paper, sharpening his pencil with a craft knife. He is diligently working on the plans for the Nerf Bolter - reverse-engineering the shape of the front grip, working out it's dimensions, then tracing out the plan onto aluminium sheet and bending it into shape.
Then, he turns his attentions to the outer shell of the bolter - working out how to build the inner curve to fit around the circular dummy switch above the trigger, once more returning to the pad to plan and plan again. Next, he creates the sight rail on the top of the outer casing, sketching blueprints, cutting metal, bending, drilling, riveting, filling, sanding! His mind and hands are a blur of motion, working together with purpose as never before! The sweat beads on his brow! The fire of passion burns in his eyes! And then...!
He sits back in his chair... his energy spent, his creative urges sated, a tired smile of satisfaction on his face....
I ask you to imagine this scene, dear reader, as I made the mistake of leaving my neighbour alone with my laptop. I returned to find it innocently asking me for the admin password, something it's never needed before, asking for information that I just don't have.... <hangs head, sighs, nurses temples with pointed fingers>
BUT a light bit of laptop rebuilding later I'm back up and running, but sadly the intervening step-by-step images have been lost to the warp. So - here is the finished product before it went to paint:-
As you can see - the grip and the outer casing were another case of box-building. They are bolted (not riveted) to the body casing using the same bolt locations as on the original model. That way I can unbolt them and fix any internal problems if need be, and also replace the batteries that are now housed in the front grip.
Once you get the hang of this box-building lark it's pretty straightforward, but the sight rail was a bit of a challenge. The rail itself was pretty easy, being just an oblong, and the rear end cap was okay too. The three spikes weren't too bad, but needed a couple of attempts at test mock-ups in cardboard beforehand. Testing in cardboard is a good way of getting the hang of this as it's a lot easier (and cheaper) than getting it wrong over and over again in aluminium. Once I'd got something I was happy with I used it as a template to make the three identical spikes.
The front end of the rail, with the raised sighting point was really tricky. What threw me out a bit was getting the curves right. The twin curves from the front that go up to the flat square top, and then the swooping curve down the back of the piece to join the main oblong of the rail. I'm sure it could have all been worked out using maths, but I'm much more of a "crack on with it and see what happens" kind of bloke, so there was a certain amount of trimming bits off, swearing, riveting, filling, etc. etc. until it looked right. Another case of "Good job it's Chaos..."!
You might have noticed that the front grip is a bit deeper than on the original template - that's because there's just not enough space in there to put 6 x size D batteries in a row, so they had to go in a box-shape, which pushed the bottom of the box down a bit to accommodate them. Another minor compromise...
Fortunately the length of the original Nerf clip wasn't a problem. I initially thought I was going to have to somehow engineer a new magazine that was curved to fit with the style of the gun, but as it turned out there is so much space between the bottom of the Nerf gun and the bottom of the body casing that it only stuck out a couple of inches. This meant that I could mock up that curved magazine out of ally sheet, leaving it hollow, so it just slots over the existing clip and into the bottom of the body casing.
So yeah - ready for paint! =)
40K Chaos Marine NERF Bolter - Part 3
Righty - time to chop up some metal!
So the first thing I did was cut out the two side panels as we worked out in Part 2. Then I took a hacksaw to my shiny new Nerf gun and hoped for the best. This is was the chopped-up Stampede looks like inside the body casing.
You can see the wiring I extracted from inside the gun - the battery terminals hanging down behind the grip and the switch sitting just above it. Here's the outside strip of ally clipped in place around the casing.
As you can see I left a small lip around the outside I was intending to weld these bits to the strips that would run around the top and bottom of the casing. While I've got some experience in welding (Gas and Mig) I've never welded ally before, and let me tell you folks - it's a bitch. Don't do it! It's too hard! Certainly was for me anyway... I wasted a LOT of time trying to get it to hang together.
In the end I said "Sod it!" and pop-riveted the whole thing together, then hid the rivet heads with some filler and a bit of sanding. Good job I left that lip there or I'd have had nothing to rivet to and it would have been back to the drawing board. This was probably the first time I said "Hey ho it's supposed to be a Chaos Bolter so it's not supposed to be immaculate!".... but definitely not the last!
Next, I had to source some tubing to make the barrel and red-dot sight. The red-dot thing was pretty straight froward as I had just the right size tube lying around (this happens surprisingly often in my workshop - all those years of hoarding everything "just in case" finally paid off! Husbands! Run and tell your wives! It's okay to have a shed full of crap!).
It took me ages to decide on the width of the barrel - some tubing was the right width, but the interior thickness was way off, other stuff was thick enough but wasn't wide enough. Eventually I settled on a bit of old drainpipe I has lying around - it's not as thick as I'd like it to be, but I managed to use a joint section and slot another tube inside to make it double it's original width. I didn't want this project to break the bank and looking at the cost of tubing (and the materials it's made from) I decided it wasn't worth the hassle and cost of sourcing something else.
Then I set about making a couple of switches - one for the power, just above the grip, and the other for the clip release. When I was at school we did a project that involved taking cardboard boxes apart and working out how they look when flattened out. It must have been over 30 years ago but let me tell you it paid off! I worked out the final shape I was looking for then reverse-engineered it using pencil and paper until I was pretty sure I'd got a final plan, then traced it out onto the ally and went at it with the clippers. Somehow it all came together and I was able to create a couple of half-decent switches. phew!
Here's how the final-fit of the body panels look.
You can see the power switch above the grip, but the clip release hasn't been fitted yet. You can also see the drainpipe barrel (yes I am embarrassed to type that - how cheap am I!?) and also a hole I cut to get at the jam-clearing panel on the gun itself. I'm going to use one of the bullet-casing exhaust ports on the outer casing of the bolter as an inspection panel so I can get to this - no point having the whole thing jam and not being able to clear it cos it's all riveted up!
You can also see the battery pack from the original Nerf gun that I was using to do some test firings with. This will get replaced in the final version as it's just too big to fit into the front grip.
And yes, you can also see the round knob on the back is supplied by a "well-known brand of mustard manufacturer"!! ; ) Every time I see this picture my mind wanders and I start craving pork pie.... *sigh*
Next time - the finished article!
So the first thing I did was cut out the two side panels as we worked out in Part 2. Then I took a hacksaw to my shiny new Nerf gun and hoped for the best. This is was the chopped-up Stampede looks like inside the body casing.
You can see the wiring I extracted from inside the gun - the battery terminals hanging down behind the grip and the switch sitting just above it. Here's the outside strip of ally clipped in place around the casing.
As you can see I left a small lip around the outside I was intending to weld these bits to the strips that would run around the top and bottom of the casing. While I've got some experience in welding (Gas and Mig) I've never welded ally before, and let me tell you folks - it's a bitch. Don't do it! It's too hard! Certainly was for me anyway... I wasted a LOT of time trying to get it to hang together.
In the end I said "Sod it!" and pop-riveted the whole thing together, then hid the rivet heads with some filler and a bit of sanding. Good job I left that lip there or I'd have had nothing to rivet to and it would have been back to the drawing board. This was probably the first time I said "Hey ho it's supposed to be a Chaos Bolter so it's not supposed to be immaculate!".... but definitely not the last!
Next, I had to source some tubing to make the barrel and red-dot sight. The red-dot thing was pretty straight froward as I had just the right size tube lying around (this happens surprisingly often in my workshop - all those years of hoarding everything "just in case" finally paid off! Husbands! Run and tell your wives! It's okay to have a shed full of crap!).
It took me ages to decide on the width of the barrel - some tubing was the right width, but the interior thickness was way off, other stuff was thick enough but wasn't wide enough. Eventually I settled on a bit of old drainpipe I has lying around - it's not as thick as I'd like it to be, but I managed to use a joint section and slot another tube inside to make it double it's original width. I didn't want this project to break the bank and looking at the cost of tubing (and the materials it's made from) I decided it wasn't worth the hassle and cost of sourcing something else.
Then I set about making a couple of switches - one for the power, just above the grip, and the other for the clip release. When I was at school we did a project that involved taking cardboard boxes apart and working out how they look when flattened out. It must have been over 30 years ago but let me tell you it paid off! I worked out the final shape I was looking for then reverse-engineered it using pencil and paper until I was pretty sure I'd got a final plan, then traced it out onto the ally and went at it with the clippers. Somehow it all came together and I was able to create a couple of half-decent switches. phew!
Here's how the final-fit of the body panels look.
You can see the power switch above the grip, but the clip release hasn't been fitted yet. You can also see the drainpipe barrel (yes I am embarrassed to type that - how cheap am I!?) and also a hole I cut to get at the jam-clearing panel on the gun itself. I'm going to use one of the bullet-casing exhaust ports on the outer casing of the bolter as an inspection panel so I can get to this - no point having the whole thing jam and not being able to clear it cos it's all riveted up!
You can also see the battery pack from the original Nerf gun that I was using to do some test firings with. This will get replaced in the final version as it's just too big to fit into the front grip.
And yes, you can also see the round knob on the back is supplied by a "well-known brand of mustard manufacturer"!! ; ) Every time I see this picture my mind wanders and I start craving pork pie.... *sigh*
Next time - the finished article!
40K Chaos Marine NERF Bolter - Part 2
Okay so in the last post I found out that making a 40k Bolter out of aluminium sheet and mounting a Nerf gun inside, to give us a fully shooty Bolter would probably work. All I then had to do was to find a suitable gun that would meet the following requirements:-
- It had to be battery powered - you don't have to pump a Bolter!
- It had to be able to fit inside the casing made to the dimensions of a full-size Bolter
- Preferably it would be able to fire on full-auto, and carry a lot of ammo (more that 6 shots!)
After a fair amount of trawling, I came upon the Nerf N-Strike Stampede ECS.
A pretty awesome piece of kit. It certainly met the first and last requirements - it takes 6 x D sized batteries, and has a clip for 18 darts. In fact it comes with 3 x 18 clips and 1 x 6 clip. The only unknown was whether it would fit inside the dimensions allowed for the Bolter. I did a few image searches and hit Youtube a few times, and from what I could gather it would be fine. Only one way to know for sure though, so I took a deep breath and reached for my wallet. Actually it was only about 30 quid from Amazon, but when you know you're essentially buying something to chop into little pieces it's always a bit nerve-wracking!
So, a few days later the new toy arrives on the doorstep, and up to the workshop we go. The plan was to make two side panels out of ally to look like this:-
And then plop the gun in the middle, join the two sides together with another strip of ally, hey presto, add the grip and the pretty bits and away you go. The top section with the spikes, arrows, clip exhaust etc. I'd make as a removable outer casing that fits over the top. That way I can hide and inside gubbins, and if there's a problem at some point I'd have some kind of access to see if I could fix it.
BUT as you can see there are a few issues with this!
I could re-route the battery location without too much trouble - there would be space in the front hand-grip for them, so it's a simple rewiring issue. Nothing I could do about the firing pin though, so in the end I had to extend the gun behind the trigger grip to allow for it. I was a bit gutted about it, but I was pretty sure it wouldn't be that obvious in the final version if I also extended to top outer casing...
For those of you interested in this kind of stuff, the inside of the Stampede looks like this:-
I've lifted this image from the guys at modworks.blogspot.com, who do some truly awesome things to tinker with Nerf guns. This article tells you all you need to know about the insides of the Stampede, and believe me I wish I'd read it before taking the thing apart myself! =)
So the final plan looks like this:-
In the next exciting episode we'll start chopping up bits of metal and working out how to fit them back together in new and interesting ways.
40K Chaos Marine NERF Bolter - Part 1
So,
What's probably the most iconic weapon of the whole of the 40k franchise? The one that the Emperor's elite armed forces, the Space Marines, use to mete out His justice and ensure compliance across a million worlds?
That would be the Boltgun then.
I've often toyed with the idea of building one, and looking around t'internet it appears I'm not the only one. A quick Google brings back loads of people who've built them as props out of MDF and resin and whatnot. All very nice, but standing there with a lump of wood going "Pew! Pew!" might be great for some people, but wouldn't it be nice if you could actually, well, shoot people with it?!
Enter NERF. Now when I was a kid, if you wanted to shoot somebody, the options available were:-
What's probably the most iconic weapon of the whole of the 40k franchise? The one that the Emperor's elite armed forces, the Space Marines, use to mete out His justice and ensure compliance across a million worlds?
That would be the Boltgun then.
I've often toyed with the idea of building one, and looking around t'internet it appears I'm not the only one. A quick Google brings back loads of people who've built them as props out of MDF and resin and whatnot. All very nice, but standing there with a lump of wood going "Pew! Pew!" might be great for some people, but wouldn't it be nice if you could actually, well, shoot people with it?!
Enter NERF. Now when I was a kid, if you wanted to shoot somebody, the options available were:-
- A catapult
- A Spud Gun (ask your parents)
- A crappy spring-loaded plastic gun that fires sucker darts about 2 feet
- Tin Can Alley (again, ask you parents)
In any case - none of these particularly lend themselves to building a bolter you can actually shoot somebody with.
So somewhere in the intervening 20 years or so, Nerf stepped up and made running around the garden shooting at each other a whole lot more fun. I've been looking for a reason to get my hands on one of these for a few years, so the idea of combining my love of 40k with my childish desire to own one made making a Nerf Bolter sounded pretty awesome to me!
BUT - would it work? And how would I go about doing it?
Well - for random reasons, I had four old sheets of aluminium kicking around in the workshop, waiting for just such a project. I figured that if I could find the right gun, I could build an outer skin of plate aluminium to look like a bolter and mount it inside. Sounds a bit tricky, so I decided to do a mock-up first to see if it was a goer.
SO - it all started with this picture:-
Of course - being a Nurgle player, I'm not about to do a loyalist bolter am I?! I mean, come on! "Death to the false emperor" and all that! ; )
Next step was to scale it up to "actual size". I did a few calculations based on the usually assumed height of a marine being 2 metres tall. Then I found an old bit of cardboard and sketched out the template below.
As soon as I picked up that template, felt the size of it in my hands, and yes, stood in front of a mirror going "Pew! Pew!" I knew that this project was a definite goer!
Next, all I had to do was find a suitable donor Nerf gun....
Wotcha
Hi,
My names Ash and I'm a gamer in my late 30s who's massively into the Games Workshop tabletop wargame - Warhammer 40,000. This is my occasional blog, which won't be updated all that often, just somewhere that I can post up some painting projects and my favourite part of the hobby: conversions.
I first started playing 40k back in the late 80s early 90s with the 1st Edition, then had a break for a few years (for beer and girls) then picked it up again with 5th Ed, and I'm now getting stuck into 6th Ed.
I'm probably not an amazing painter, but I have minimum standards that I set for myself - usually a base coat, wash, reapply base coat then two highlights. Sometimes If I'm feeling like it I'll stick a superhighlight on top. I only play with fully painted minis - it all goes back to some old GW edict that your army has to be painted before you can play. That's always stuck with me, and it far better to play a painted army than a sea of grey plastic... plus, I know that if I built it then started playing with it I'd never get round to painting it! Problem is I paint very slowly so it takes me ages to get new stuff ready to play!
My main army is Chaos Space Marines - specifically Death Guard. I really love the background to Nurgle and didn't want to field yet another Black Legion. I have mixed it up with some Chosen Marines that I painted as Alpha Legion - I always Outflank with them, and it seemed to fit Alpha Legion's sneaky ethos more than Death Guard. I've got 2 units of 5 Chosen Marines that Outflank in a Rhino each, and each unit comprises 4 Meltas and 1 Champion with Melta Bombs, so any Heavy Vehicles in the left or right side of the table have better watch their backs. I’m loving the new allies rules in 6th Ed, which I’m going to use to bring Epidemius and possibly Ku’Gath to the table… Awesome stuff!
The best thing I've ever painted has to be my Daemon Prince of Nurgle - converted to sport wings (the WHFB Griffon Wings set) to make it jump infantry.
I managed to make it look like it's flying with some judicious use of some heavy supporting wire hidden by chains. It got me a finalist pin at Games Day 2010, and yes - it is the old metal model, before anyone had heard of Finecast!
So there you go - that's me. Next project will be posted up soon, so stay tuned.
A$H
My names Ash and I'm a gamer in my late 30s who's massively into the Games Workshop tabletop wargame - Warhammer 40,000. This is my occasional blog, which won't be updated all that often, just somewhere that I can post up some painting projects and my favourite part of the hobby: conversions.
I first started playing 40k back in the late 80s early 90s with the 1st Edition, then had a break for a few years (for beer and girls) then picked it up again with 5th Ed, and I'm now getting stuck into 6th Ed.
I'm probably not an amazing painter, but I have minimum standards that I set for myself - usually a base coat, wash, reapply base coat then two highlights. Sometimes If I'm feeling like it I'll stick a superhighlight on top. I only play with fully painted minis - it all goes back to some old GW edict that your army has to be painted before you can play. That's always stuck with me, and it far better to play a painted army than a sea of grey plastic... plus, I know that if I built it then started playing with it I'd never get round to painting it! Problem is I paint very slowly so it takes me ages to get new stuff ready to play!
My main army is Chaos Space Marines - specifically Death Guard. I really love the background to Nurgle and didn't want to field yet another Black Legion. I have mixed it up with some Chosen Marines that I painted as Alpha Legion - I always Outflank with them, and it seemed to fit Alpha Legion's sneaky ethos more than Death Guard. I've got 2 units of 5 Chosen Marines that Outflank in a Rhino each, and each unit comprises 4 Meltas and 1 Champion with Melta Bombs, so any Heavy Vehicles in the left or right side of the table have better watch their backs. I’m loving the new allies rules in 6th Ed, which I’m going to use to bring Epidemius and possibly Ku’Gath to the table… Awesome stuff!
The best thing I've ever painted has to be my Daemon Prince of Nurgle - converted to sport wings (the WHFB Griffon Wings set) to make it jump infantry.
I managed to make it look like it's flying with some judicious use of some heavy supporting wire hidden by chains. It got me a finalist pin at Games Day 2010, and yes - it is the old metal model, before anyone had heard of Finecast!
So there you go - that's me. Next project will be posted up soon, so stay tuned.
A$H
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