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.

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.

Drop Bunker: First Cuts

I worked on getting the key shapes for the base of the building figured out. I'm not very good at getting objects made by using math, I prefer to create some "beta" items using cardboard first. Once I get the general shape done, I move on to working on getting the folds and angles started. Once those are close, I move on to transferring the shapes, angles and folds to foamcore. That's where I am now. The next step will be to get my measurements and create a precise, reproduce-able template on the computer.

I'll go through those steps for all of the parts of the building. Somewhat time consuming, but makes the final product something that is easy to reproduce and very sturdy to play with.

The two pictures show the steps I went through on the main folds for the corners on the building and where I stand with the final folds on the bunker.

Drop Bunker: Initial Ideas

One of the good things about some corporate meetings is that they are really great opportunities to get some quality drawing time done. Think about it - no one can interrupt you, because you're "in a meeting." The presenter usually has a PowerPoint they provide after the meeting, so you don't have to focus 100% on what they are saying. And, in the case of my most recent meeting, the subject had practically nothing to do with me, so I zoned out right after the introductory sentence.

The things we do on vacation

So I took vacation time to get a lot of things done. Obviously, none of them included anything related to 40K. Haven't posted in two weeks because I've been clearing out some "real world" projects during my vacation. The biggie was to finally rebuild my 1971 Honda CB 750 engine. All the aluminum is buffed and chrome polished, new gaskets everywhere, and soon to be painted - just hope it will run. As far as the photo, that's not my entry in the "Tool Time" fastest lawnmower entry. That's the mobile workstation we put together. You try moving a 300+ pound engine around!

I arrived back at work Monday to find a huge item wrapped in brown paper in my office. They finally had taken down the org charts and someone had put them in my office. Seven 3x6 sheets of foam core!

Looking forward...

I have several projects I've wanted to do and with my cache of board, I'm ready to get going. Just a quick list and short description of some of my ideas.

Ruined Cathedral - I've seen several buildings created with massive cathedral facades and features (large windows, long stairs, flying buttresses, etc.). I want to create a centerpiece item with multiple levels. A great example of this FTW's Ron's cathedral.

Drop-Bunker - I had the idea for this during one of our games where we used our bunkers. We were about to set up bunkers on both sides when I thought how "not real" that set-up would be. In a battle, how would both sides be able to build bunkers that close to each other? I like the idea of a bunker dropped into battle much like a drop pod but done without passengers and put out when the terrain is put out.

Wrecked Titan - A couple of years ago I found LackOf's scratch built titan and various plans for titans. Instead of jumping in and creating an entire titan, I thought it would be cool to test the waters by creating a wrecked walker. That would give me a chance to try some variations on the plans and still have a functional piece when I finished.

Themed Terrain - I've found myself creating terrain that loosely fit into categories. Natural terrain, wrecked ships, ruined buildings, and complete buildings (mainly Mechanicum buildings). Not everything fits into these, but I think it helps the feel of a game if the terrain is coherent. As I work on some of my larger projects, I'm going to fit in as many small ones that build on these different themes.

That's just a few ideas. I've got plenty more that I now have the material to build them with.

Medicae Outpost Part III

The Door:
For mine, I cut out a frame in foamcore. This was glued centered on the side flush with the bottom. Before I glued it down, I used the inside cut (the archway) as the shape for the door. The door was cut out of the same cardboard as the side panels. The hinges and door handle are pieces cut from a sprue frame.
Another good idea for a door would be a  hatch from a tank. In the second picture below, I've used a pvc plumbing part.

Medicae Outpost Part II

Now that the glue has dried on the first side section, carefully remove the tape. Glue the second strip to the top and secure it with tape like you did the first section. Don't worry if you end up with small gaps (such as where the side strips meet). We'll look at cleaning up things like that when we finish.

Medicae Outpost Part I

As promised, I will spend the next few posts on the Medicae Outpost I built a while back. At the time, I kind of built it on the fly. So, I'm building another, this time with the goal of finishing with a reproducible process and template. As you read through this post, you can click on most the images to view a larger version. We'll start with the supplies. The list is:

Hello World.

Greetings everyone! I have finally decided to take the plunge and start my own blog.

For months I've lurked around several 40K related blogs. One of my favorite being FTW. I enjoyed the great articles and the great blogrolls. I would take breaks during work and check the site at least 3-4 times a day. When the author decided to cut back on his online activities, one of his projects that "got the ax" was the blog. I've found other blogs that are interesting, but just didn't have the breadth of FTW.