Dreadtober Thanatar WIP 3

This weekend I finished the green armour and started with the markings. I use masking tejp not only to mark lines etc but also to create areas where the paint have peeled of. This can be used on large areas or just as small infringements in otherwise hole areas. Once masked I drybrush on a bone white colour. Then I use bronze to paint in chevrons, checkers ets going all the way up onto the tejp. Then I fill in the appropriate areas with blue and drybrush each filed in three stages. Once dry I remove the tejp which then literally crates a border where there is an edge between the chevrons and the underlying green base.

I also decided to do some free hand bone workings on the "head" to tie it in with the rest of my mechanicum forces and titans. But since the head is much larger than on the other automata models I decided to add a proper face to the model, however it turned out to cartoonish in my opinion so I toned it down by removing the mouth and nose part, just keeping the "eyes".

In parallell to this I also started the base painting in the arms and plasma mortar. Here I am just following the same recipe as described in the previous past so I will not repeat the description.

Once I hade all the chevrons and checkers done I sponge chipped the model. I use black and dark brown for this as it creates more dynamic chipping with new and older damage (that has started to rust). This is followed by a gentle dry brush of bolt gun metal on the edges where the shipping marks are. Then I go over the model with an orange ink, adding an orange tone to areas that have rusted, i.e. around the sponge chipping and in corners and angels in the armour.

Once all this was done I assembled the legs, making sure that they fit to the anchoring holes in the base. It turned out that the ankel shields on the feet needed to come of and get re-glued to get the pose right.

That is about as far I got over the weekend. During the coming week I hope to get the arms and weapons done, at least up to the stage where I can start with the weathering process. I will also need to go back and paint in some details. Then I will have to start working on the base. 

Initially I thought that I would have a lot of time for this model but I am starting to think it might be a bit tight to get everything done to the proper level.

Dreadtober Thanatar WIP 2

After assembling the Thanatar and getting the pose sort of locked in I broke it apart into the subassemblies in which it was to be painted. I also took the opportunity to drill out the barrels of the plasma mortar and the mauler bolters so that the bottoms of the barrels are not as visible. Before spraying the parts I used maskin tejp on the surfaces where I will glue things together, just to make sure that the glue get a good contact with the resin later on.

Once base sprayed black I started the painting process. My previous mechanicum automata has been a solid green with just the pistons picked out in metal, but as this model is so much larger and has so much detail I needed to break it up a bit and use some different colours. For my titans and knights I have recently been doing this by painting the substructure in a pale green/yellow and then adding the dark green armour plates on top (giving them a negative look in low light) which I think go well together with their ghost name. But, since the other automata does not have "ghost" look I thought that I would try something that would not stick out as much compared to the other models. 

I have previously played around with heavily rusted metal for my Knight "Entropy" and for my fledgling Necron force. This gives them a brown/golden look and I think this could tie in nicely with the "dark green" as it has a very strong brown tone. So I decided to try making a rusted subframe with my usual green armour.

The way I paint the rusted metal is quite fast, the first step only took about an hour. This consists of base painting the parts black (over the spray as it does not take drybrushing well), den adding patches of brown and two tones of orange to the model. This is just slapped on and is very quick. Once dry I drybrush the model with cupper and three tones of white metal. This gives the model a rusted look and could probably be used for rank and file to some medium table top standard. But I could not leave it at that so I washed everting black and then I went in with a detailed brush and some watered down browns and oranges, applying this more carefully to the model in areas where rust would appear. The watered down colours will work as washes and go into recesses and into coroners etc without having to actually paint in all the details. Adding the second layer also give more depth the colours as well as a better blend and smoothness to the layers. Then it was a repeat of the drybrush. Sadly the photo of this stage is not very good as the now much brighter metals (two passes of drybrushing) cause some sort of problem with the camera ship and how it records the other colours.

Once the subframe was done it was on to the panels, and now I remembered how painful it is to paint Forgeworld models compared to the modern plastics. As the torso, legs etc are cast as singel pieces, I can not paint the armour separately as I normally do for my knights (or any other smaller parts which makes it very fiddley to get to all the parts and places). So I hope that I do not spill over onto the already painted parts with the green. After base painting the armour panels green they where washed with brown ink and drybrushed with three tones of green. After the drybrushing the parts are rinsed under a water tap at full pressure to wash away any lose paint dust. This prevents icing in my experience, which is a serious problem considering the many layers of drybrushing I use.

Once dry I will ink everything again and do another run of green drybrushing but that will be another day. Hopefully I will manage that tomorrow so that I will have the main body and legs done for the Friday summary of the first week. Second week will be painting chevrons etc onto the armour and chipping. I will also probably start the base work on the arms and weapons which will pretty much be the same as for the body, i.e. a rusted under structure and green armour. At some point I will also need to start the base, but that will probably be more toward the end of the month...

Dreadtober Thanatar WIP1

It is time for Dreadtober again!!! 

This time I thought I would finally get my Thanatar siege-automata done. I have had this model for a long long time. It was ordered on my birthday in 2015 so it has been collecting dust for a little over 7 years now. It was one of those models that I instantly knew I wanted when I say it. But once I had it, it sort of became a holy relic that I did not want to touch until I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it. So time when by and I never really got the right idea. Then a coupple of weeks ago when I was browsing the internet for inspiration I came across a model that really got my attention. I do not remember if it was a Thanatar or a Domitar, but it was standing in a ruin and it was grabbing one of the walls with one arm while the other was held up, firing forward. And I thought to my self "That looks cool, I should do something similar". Well I had already been playing around with some basing ideas for my Warbringer titan, Surtr, with a very much similar idea, i.e. the titan standing in a ruin. Well this would be the perfect time to test this out on a smaller scale.

So I rummaged through the to do bin and found the model, still on the "sprues" in the plastic forge world bag. Of to the washing-up bath it went. After a day or so in hot water and two encounters with a toothbrush it was laid out to dry. The next day I started to cut the parts from the casting vents and cleaned up the most critical casting lines. Then I dry fitted the model with blue tack and tried to find a pose I liked. It was not easy as the model consists of a lot of small parts that make up the legs, arms and torso. Once I figured out what I could to with the model pose wise I started to look through the bits boxes to see if I could find something to build the base from.

I found parts of an old scenery set from which I could build a ruined corner as well as some tiles to make up a floor that fit snuggly onto the base of the model. I did however not like the look of the ruin just sitting directly on the base as it almost looked like to bases on top of each other as the sizes where so similar. So I decided to att some distance between the two and make it into sort of plint. I cut up some plastic sprues and glued the pieces to the base in two layers, matching the outline of the ruin. Then I cut up even more sprue into small parts that I glued down to cover the distance between the base and the ruin and act as rubble. I also added a few plasticard pipes to resemble plumbing. Finally I used some filler to fill out the gaps.

Once I go this done I once again dry fitted the model onto the base and marked the feet positions. Then I drilled a hole in the bottom of each foot and added a thin metal rod. Similar holes where then added to the base where the feet should go so that I can position the model correctly later on when it is all painted.

One other major thing to tackel was (and might still be) the ammo feed for the main gun. This is normally intended to go from the back of the model onto the arm when the arm is in a down ward position. I, however wanted it to be pointing forward, i.e. a 90 deg change. One can reshape the resin using heat, but changing something this much is tricky. I first I tried using a hair dryer, this is normally enough to straighten smaller warps etc, but it turned out that I could not get the resin flexible enough to get the arm into position. So I when to the big guns, boiling water. Now this is sort of dangerous as this will bring the resin above its plasticity point and it becomes very malleable, but it is also easy to break tings this way as it will not move in a controlled way. To make things easier I clued the two ammo belts together and added them to the arm so I could fix the arm in the arm socket and then run the slinky belt upp to the back. Since they were a bit to soft They had a tendency to hang in towards the boy while cooling. This cause some problems with the legs, so I might have to go back to this and see if I can fine adjust them with the hairdryer before starting to paint.

Well that is as far as I got in the first week end of the challenge.

Dominus knight sort of done

This week I have sort of finished my Dominus knight, at least as far as I had things to paint. Now I need to finish the arm weapons to really finish it but I do not know how long that will take as I need to sculpt some alien skulls on to them and that requires inspiration and that I really can't control. 

I hope that it will look more balanced once the arms are on. Now I think it is to front heavy. Don't know if it is because I changed the legs or if it is just the way the upper body is built. It could also be the way the carapace is now with the wider front and shields... 

Well it is what it is and it is nice that it is almost done.

Now I am gearing up for the Dreadtober challenge...

WIP, Dominus knight and Opus

I keep splitting my attention between my Dominus knight and Opus. This time I have finished most of the upper body and legs for the Dominus knight. Now it is on to the weapons. The shoulder mounted siege canons are constructed and are ready for paint as well as the the AA autocannons. The arms are how ever not done yet. I need to finish of the GS sculpting, so it might be that the knight will be missing his arms for some time after the rest is done.

When it comes to Opus I am slowly working on the island. Now I have added some plattforms for some AA batteries. So far it is only the two at the top back that are done. When working on these I can up with a fantastic idea of how to do rivets. I am sure someone else has already figured this out but it was a first for me and I am really happy with how it turned out. So what is the magic? It is sculpting tools, a mouse mat and some thin plasticard. So I cut some 5 mm strips of thin plasticard and made markings every 5 mm along the centre line. I then put the stripp on a mouse mat that has some flexibility to it. I then used some sculpting tools with a ball point and presses small dimples into the strip along the markings. On the reversed side there is a small round bulge. I then glued these stripps on the the structure I build so that it looks like rows of rivets as can be seen on the icarus lasscannon platform. This is a really fast way of making these and I will use this extensively on the model.

WIP, Dominus knight and Opus Magna

I thought that I would blog a bit last weekend but somehow that did not happen, so once again it has been some time since the last update. But I have not been completely idle in this time. On the painting front I am chipping away at my Dominus Knight. The upper body and the legs have been finished and I have started on the armour plating for the legs and torso. The paint scheme is the same as on all my knight so there is not much to say about it. But the top carapace, that has been heavily modified from the original, is now starting to look its part. Before it was a bit hard to judge how it would fit with the model since there was so much plasticard and green stuff on it that it was very obvious that it had been modified. Now that it got some paint is starting to blend in and I think it looks quite in line with the aesthetics of the questoris knights.

Once the armour is done I really need to get cracking with finishing of the weapons and the base so that I can close this book, and my first super heavy knight detachment. After that there is just another five ghost pattern war glaives to to to finish of the second super heavy detachment. 

On the building side I managed to finish of the basic shape of the two gun turrets for the opus magna island. So far it is just the basics that has been assembled and I need to go back with green stuff and plasticard to finish them of, as well as mounting the cupolas etc from the original kit. Initially I had thought to have the long barrelled turret on the top, but once built I realised that the island got better balance with the longer barrels at the bottom and the shorter at the top. In this way the island maintain a staggered look instead of just being a box. I also added a wedge to the back of the observation deck to hold the radar disc. All in all I am very happy with the over all look. Now I just need to add some platforms for the anti-air batteries that will also go onto the island, five icaros lascannons and a quad auto gun (if I remember my inventory correctly).

On the outside of the island I also added som of the tower parts from the communication tower set and some other industrial parts from other GW sets to make a smoke stack and give the iland an industrial quarter. I still have some ventilation fans etc to add to the flat panels.

Once I get all the major components in place I need to go over the whole thing and close up all the gaps with GS and Plasticard.

Well that is all I have for now. I hope that one fall gets here and I there is less things I can do outside I will retreat into the hobby room and make some progress on these projects. I am so curious about how the Opus Magna will look with some paint on so that all the platicard, GS and original parts gets the same color, but that is still some way of, but perhaps not another nine years...

Div WIP, Dominus and Opus

I still have not found my mojo and so I struggle to make any progress with my Dominus knight. So far I have only managed to paint the out side of the the chest and started the legs, but it is mostly routine jobs and have not captured my enthusiasm for the model. Hope fully I will start to get something going once I get to the armour panels.

To combat my lack of hobby mojo I have tried to restart the Opus Magna build which has been sitting around for a very long time. There are a number of smaller project here, ranging from assembling standard GW kit parts to pure scratch builds, that I just need to move forward and there really is no pressure of finishing anything at this stage. So one of the things that has stalled is the Island build. Some time ago I started this by adding external floors to a GW bunker to act as the main control centre areas. Now I have added the windows and some other parts and sealed it up. Just need to go back and fill in some gaps etc with more plasticard and greens stuff. On the top I also built an observation platform that is sitting on a small tower, abit like what can be found on some WWI and WWII battle ships. And to keep with the whole 40k stuff I added two gun turrets to the top of the Island. One on the roof of the main building and one on top of the observation platform. These turrets are based on the baneblade turrets but has been widened to hold more barrels. One is a short barrelled version with three Leam russ battle cannons and the other will use two longer barrel versions from the baneblade. The observation platform will also get an extension at the back to hold a communication/radar disc. There will also be seats for some Icaros defence lasers and other AA weapons.

The size of the Island has however shown that I need to fill in the gaps in the crenulations of the landing platforms that make up the sides of the flight deck to give it a bit more width to balance the Island.