A Head Start

My laptop hard drive suffered major trauma on Thursday. Hopefully the repair shop can clone it to a new drive without charging me a million bucks. Until then posts are coming from my tablet. I started cutting out the Warhound. The head was the first page I did. The only thing I think could be improved on with the template is the addition of tabs where sides are supposed to be put together. I ended up taping the sides on the outside and dripping glue on the seams on the inside. It works but I don't think it's the best way to put it together. WIP picture below...

Getting Some Orky Love

Still haven't had the time to get started on the wrecked titan. I did find the plans thanks to Timothy's comment. This page has a number of resources. Look at the list of vehicle templates for the Warhound. I printed of a couple of copies of the plans. I'm going to spray mount each page to some card stock, then cut if out. Might try on foamcore as well - not sure how that might affect the pieces fitting together though.

My youngest has gotten cabin fever (along with me), so we ventured out last night for a small game at our local hobby store. I'm slowly learning my Orks and got a chance to use them against his SM. We played a 550pt (that's all I've got so far) game. I'll let the pictures show where we were at the third turn and let you decide who won.

Warhound Wreck: Reboot

Image Grabbed from the interwebs

I didn't report back after the terrain contest. I lost. Oh well. Kind of disappointing - it was my two pieces and someone's airport looking piece built for Epic scale. It won. So life goes on.

I'm going to start on the wrecked titan this week. This was going to be my entry into the terrain contest  until I found out the contest had a "communications" theme. All I have of the template is a printout. If I can find it online again, I'll include the link in one of my posts. If anyone else knows where it can be found, please drop the address in the comments.

I've already decided on my next project after the titan. I really enjoyed doing the ork tower and the comms tower/short bastion. I want to continue with the ork theme and create an ork looted bastion. I'll start with the same bastion template I've used and almost complete the building. I want to leave at least one corner and most of its adjacent sides off - as if they have been blown off. Then build those sections up with orky construction. The finishing touch will be to paint the intact part of the bastion like an Imperial building and then come back and give it an ork make-over (some graffiti and other stuff). The ork constructed parts will be painted up similarly to my tower.

Imperial Comms Outpost: Complete

I ended up not adding the aquilla. Not enough time to do a good job of it. I added distressed lettering to the front and the roof of the building. I am very pleased with the result. I am about to run it up to the store for the contest. Pics below.

Goal Almost Reached

Despite my daughter's basketball game and helping my youngest son build his ridiculously detailed Lego Megatron (a one and a half hour project in itself), I was able to finish most of what I wanted to get done on the project tonight. I wasn't able to paint the aquilla or the comms lettering. I wil leave the aquilla as the very last thing I do just in case I don't have time to get it done. So tomorrow night will be getting the details on the control panel done, the comms lettering and the base.

The photos turned out really crappy. Before I start my next project, I'll do some reading on setting up for good picture-taking. The "concrete" areas on the top of the building look very washed out in the photos. Hopefully I can get some good pictures before I turn it over to the store for the contest.

Today's Color is Green

Actually, last night's color was green. I started getting some paint on the comms outpost. In between coats, I worked on my orks (nothing says green like orks). I added some battle damage to the building before the coat of black. Tonight my plan is to paint the black parts of the building to look like concrete. I'd also like to get the highlighting/shading done, along with the aquilla and lettering on the building. Friday night will hopefully be when I can finish up with details on the control panel and the door. The very last thing is painting on the battle damage and adding to a base.

This thing is due for the contest at noon on Saturday. Between this and the Ork Alert Tower, maybe I have a chance to win. I still have no idea what the prize is. A few more WIP picts below.

Filling in the Cracks

 Finished putting together all the panels for the building. The template is great, but my cutting wasn't the best on this time through. I had a few more gaps than I did when I built the full bastion. Once all the glue dried, I needed to go back and fill in the gaps. I used something I have used quite often when building terrain - spackling. I prefer the stuff that comes in a tube and is pink. Using the tube helps direct where I'm putting the spackling. Plus, the pink will turn white once the spackling is dry. The manufacturer's site is here: http://www.dap.com/product_details.aspx?product_id=217.

I had my son go through our bits box and pick out everything that could be used for a comms outpost. My original intention was to build a tall tower of some kind. He found a lot of great pieces, but none that really said "tower." I liked the idea of using the Rhino internal door section as a control panel, so I built a small external building for the roof with a small tower and dish on top.

Next steps: Sand down the spackling, add the door and start painting.

More on the Comms Building

Just a quick update with a couple of wip pictures. I have to let the glue dry on the sections I put on tonight before I can put the final panels on. I should have the building finished tomorrow. Hopefully I'll be able to get the comms tower done as well. That way I can spend the rest of the week painting.

Not sure why, but photos came out rather fuzzy.

Imperial Comms Outpost

Started on the building last night and spent a couple of hours on it tonight. As I said in an earlier post, I'm using a template I've used before, but changing it to create a different building. The template is for a bastion. It's the same bastion I have in my blog header image. The template is from "bugbait" and can be found here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/20191163/Bug-Bait-Mini-Fortress .

I've shortened the height and flattened one of the sides. The doorway will be on the flattened side. There will be a flat platform over the entrance. On the roof facing the flat side, I'm placing a comms tower of some kind (since the theme of the contest is communication).

I'm going to use a similar paint theme as I have with the bastion. I think on this one if I have time, I'm going to paint an aquilla across one side of the building along with "COMMS 04" on another side. Battle damage and chipping/distressed paint as well.

WIP photos below as well as another shot of the bastion for size comparison.

Workin' wit da orkz

This is my first post from my new Galaxy Tab tablet. Usually use my laptop, but thought i'd try something different.

I haven't posted since the tourney last weekend. I had fun but didn't do too well with my Grey Knights. The terrain contest wasn't that day like I thought. It's not due until the 17th of Nov! I still had plenty of time to work on it. Since I have at least another week, I'm going to try and do another item for the contest. Tomorrow night I'm going to start on a Imperial Guard outpost. I'm going to use the bastion template I have as a base for the building.

I wanted to paint tonight, so I'm tossing a couple of pics of one of my koptas. Not quite done - really just wanted to try out the camera on the tablet.

Completed Tower

Finished the tower late last night. I've included a few progressive shots of the paint job and the finished product. Contest was today, along with a 2,000 pt tourny. I played my Grey Knights for two rounds and had to leave early. I'm not sure who won the terrain contest, but it was worth the time spent just for the excuse to get started again with the blog and the fun of building stuff. Let me know what you all think.

This post is very pic heavy. Pictures after the jump...

Mick and the boys would be proud

It's all painted black - that is. Since I had a lot of foam from the foamcore showing, I had to brush on black paint first, then spray paint. If you use a rattle can on the exposed foam, said foam will melt. It can create a cool effect if you're trying for it. The brushed on craft paint gives a good seal and then the spray paint helps to hit all those hard to reach spots.

The building will get gradually lighter shades of grey until I get the effect I'm trying for. After the metal look is done, I'm going to back and add some color to a few panels to make them look like scrap grabbed form various Space Marine vehicles. Rust and corrosion will come after that.

Rivets, rivets and more rivets

I've spent the last few nights working on all the rivets for the tower. I bought a multisize hole punch a few years ago just for creating rivets. I used it a couple of times on plasticard sheets. That dulled the blade edges a bit too much. The pieces were also very difficult to get out of the cutting cylinders.

I'm using a cereal box for my material this time. The challenge now is that the blades are dull enough that sometimes that don't make a clean cut - may be time to buy another punch.

The amount of time to cut and glue all of these will definitely pay off. The detail will give this tower a realistic look.

Next steps are to base the base and mount the tower to the base. After that I'll start painting. The competition is on the 27th.

Up Go the Walls

Some update photos of the Ork Alert Tower. Put the solid walls on and then covered them with "sheet metal." Main construction is from foamcore and the sheet metal from card stock weight paper. Next steps are to cut and add rivets and build the alarm horns.

Ork Alert Tower

So I went back to check the details for the terrain competition and found that I forgot to read all the rules. The theme for the terrain should center around "communication." Plus, the size for the piece is 6x6x6. There goes my idea for the wrecked titan. I'll save that one for my next project.

One of the armies I have is orks. I decided to build an orky piece of terrain for the contest since I usually don't see much of it on the table. I didn't want to build a Waaagh tower, but did want to do some type of tower. I decided to go with a tower that has an alert horn mounted on its platform - kind of like the civil defense horns. I also want a large area all the way around the platform that the lookout crew can shoot from.

I've started on the construction. I've got the base cut from masonite, the support beams and floor from foamcore and the ladder rungs and skull from cereal box cardboard.I'll be working on the project this week and will post updates as I have them.

Back from the Warp

After a year and a half, I am back. We've had some major life events that have kept us very busy. We've been able to play every so often and even get some painting done on our models, but no terrain. I no longer have a basement with lots of room to work in. It's been real frustrating to not be able to do one of the things I enjoy the most.

Near the new house we're in, my youngest son and I have found a hobby shop that just recently became an authorized GW seller. The shop has a large area for table gaming of all kinds. The Battle Bunker is about 20 minutes from us now, but this store is about three blocks away. We are excited to now have a close location that we go to and play and paint without having to plan a trip.

I checked the store's facebook page  and found that they are having a tournament and a terrain contest on the 27th of this month. The second item has inspired me to make the most of our current situation and start working on terrain again, despite our lack of workspace. My boys harass me about my plans to scratch build a titan. I found a set of plans years ago, but never started doing it (just talked about it). Well, I'm not going to build the whole titan, just a part of it. I'm going to use a 12" square board as my base and build the wreckage of a warhound and a hill with trees.

I've sketched a few ideas and am ready to get started. I'll start on the feet tomorrow, which gives me 20 days to get the whole thing complete. I'm looking forward to creating and sharing along the way.