Cadian 127th Regiment

Sunday, 18 April 2010

613 "Tundo ab Redemptio" (Anvil of Redemption) - EFTC

Well the third tank is complete for the EFTC. When I say complete I really mean it just needs a spray coat of matt varnish, but I've run out and can't be bothered to order any more at the moment, but I don't think it'll make much difference in how the tank appears in the pictures. Although hopefully when it is sealed the turret numbers won't be so shiny. I've also got a new camera phone which is what these photos have been taken with so apologies if they suck.

"Tundo ab Redemptio" (Anvil of Redemption) is the third tank in the first squadron in my EFTC, and so completes this squadron. She is also the sister tank to "Marcus ab Morsus" (Hammer of Pain), so I know have "Hammer" and "Anvil" :). I again painted the name and designation on freehand on the underside of the hull. I think that my freehand is starting to come along quite nicely, practice is helping.

Some more shots of the side and front of the tank. I got a bit lazy when it came to some parts of this tank. For example the sponson weapons, I just couldn't be bothered putting multiple layers of Goblin Green on followed by Camo Green highlights. So they just got a Knarloc Green coat and then the same Bleached Bone drybrush as the rest of the tank.

A pic of the back of the tank and a top down view. The two backpacks on the left tracks are from the Cadian Heavy Weapon sprue. Had lots of them lying around so figured why not put them to good use. I also added a ForgeWorld piece onto the right of the tank in the storage section. They are labelled as Heavy Bolter ammo boxes, I just had to add some bits of sprue to the bottom of them to stop it falling into the storage bin.

These final shots are just some close up detail ones. The picture on the left shows the crewman gunner, or should I say dead crewman gunner. I didn't want all the crew looking like similar copies of each other, so had an attempt at modelling this dead guy. I just used the standing legs from the tank accessory sprue, with the body and then a set of arms. The head is from the Cadian troops box. For the bullet wounds, I just used my knife and dug out some crude holes. Then I painted Tallarn Flesh into the wounds, followed by Mechrite Red. Small amounts of Red Gore and then Blood Red were lightly brushed on. I tried to put a little more detail into his face and actually painted his mouth and teeth, then added a little dribble of blood down his face. The sceond picture is just of the backpacks, showing how Devlan Mud can make even my paintjobs look good.

I'm not expecting to have any of the other tanks finished soon as I'm currently finishing off my Regimental Command Squad, so stay tuned for some infantry! Cheers for reading.

612 "Marcus ab Morsus" (Hammer of Pain) - EFTC

As promised here is the next completed tank for my EFTC. This tank is designated as 612, 2nd tank of 1st squadron of 6th company, and has been named "Marcus ab Morsus" by her crew. This translates to "Hammer of Pain".

Once again I put my freehand skills to the test on the bottom of the model, to get more practice and for ease of identification.

I'm going to go into a bit more detail about this tank as it hasn't really been covered in any previous posts, other than it's turret. As with the previous tank, 612 got a heavy drybrush all over the model with Bleached Bone. However, I wanted to experiment with mud a little. Now I've read a few articles on doing mud, and I didn't feel ready to jump into using the PVA mixed with static grass mixed with something else method (maybe on another project). So instead I just went with drybrushing a muddy colour onto the lower section of the tank. The left picture shows the tank before this drybrush was applied and the right picture (as well as some of the following pics) show it after the drybrush. I started off with a heavy brush of Calthan Brown to get the initial level of grime, then a lighter drybrush of Graveyard Earth and then a very light brush of Snakebite Leather were applied. Overall I'm very happy with the results so on to the next pics.

As you can see from the picture above on the left, I also applied the mud drybrush over the tracks and tried to apply a heavy amount on the track guards where the tracks pass under. The tracks themselves received a bit more treatment than normal. I started by giving them an undercoat of Chaos Black. This was followed by a drybrush of Boltgun Metal, then Mithril Silver and then Burnished Bronze. The "mud" coat was then I applied. I also used this method for the grills under the sponsons and also the engine cover on the back of the tank. The end of the battle cannon barrel also got some extra treatment, with a heavy drybrush of Chaos Black and a light wash of both Devlan Mud and Badab Black to simulate firing powder burns.

A few more pictues, which show off the extra equipment I placed on the tank a bit better. On the left side of the tank I added a pick axe and shovel to the track guards. The right side got a compact lasgun on the back of the sponson and also a ForgeWorld piece, the tube thing on the back. No idea what this is actually for. Several fuel cans were added in the stowage rack, altough they look a bit too neat. I also aded the fuel drum to bulk the back out a bit. More can be seen of the "mud" effect on the tracks etc. I used the same method for the exhausts that I'd used on the battle cannon. Things were looking a bit too clean on the engine.

These last two pictures are just close ups to show some of the extra detailing I did. The crewman popping out the turret is made up of FW Cadian crew body and the head from the Cadian sentinel kit. I'm really happy with how his goggles turned out and it's probably the best representation of a reflective surface I've done. A bit like the fuel cans in the storage rack, I'm not entirely happy with my placement of the compact lasgun. Although it looks good overall, unless the crewman jumps from the hatch quickly, someone is likely to steal it as the tank is driving along. Oh well.

So that is "Marcus ab Morsus" completed. Hopefully I'll have this squadron finished very soon, only one more tank to do! And then it'll be onto the next three. Thanks for reading and as always comments are welcome.

611 "Auctorita" Take 2 - EFTC Squadron Command Tank

Sorry for the long winded title to this post, but it's the only way of describing what is to follow. A long time ago I posted some WIP shots of one of the squadron command tanks for my EFTC. Those of you who haven't seen it can take a look here. Now this tank has been listed under my "Recently Completed" title on the right of my blog, which is technically a mistake as it was still a WIP. I am however now pleased to bring you the fully completed model (it's even been varnished!). Tada!

First of all I'm sure you are all amazed at my freehand brilliance. In case you can't tell freehand is not my strongpoint, but everyone has to start somewhere, so I started where nobody will ever look - on the bottom of the tank. Having 12 Leman Russ variants provides some problems when transporting them anywhere, surprisingly enough. With all those turrets and main body's packed away I wanted to be able to quickly match up the right sections. So I took out a brush and some Codex Grey and carefully painted the name of the tank and also the tank ID number on the bottom. Even I was amazed at how crummy my first attempt was, but it has taught me a couple of things regarding planning of text etc. About the only good point would be that the skull doesn't look to bad. Anyway on to the tank itself.

I'm not going to go into too much detail of how I painted this tank as I've covered it in previous posts. All I've done to finish this tank off is to apply the turret transfers to identifiy the tank and the Cadian gate transfers to the sponsons. I also finally got around to protecting the tank with two light spray coats of matt varnish.

I've tried to add extra bits of equipment without making the tank look overcrowded. The compact lasgun on the rear section makes me think that someone was quickly grabbing something from the storage locker and placed their gun on the top while they found what they were looking for. The HK missile received a wash of Badab Black to dull it down, as the Boltgun Metal drubrush was a bit bright.

The weapons all got highlighted with Camo Green and then a pretty heavy wash with Devlan Mud like all the one's I built recently (sort of). The crewman also got the Devlan Mud treatment, unfortunately he's out of focus but at least you can see the hatch behind him clearly. I'll be working on my photography skills as well as those freehand ones. And that is "Auctorita" 100% completely finished! Now that I've got one of these tanks fully done the next one does not seem as daunting. To be honest it's already finished, but I'll post the pics of 612 "Marcus ab Morsus" (Hammer of Pain) tomorrow. So until then, thanks for reading everyone.

EFTC Cont. Part 8

The transfer fun continues at pace now, and it's time to do the turret markings. I followed the same approach as normal when I'm doing transfers - couple of layers of 'Ardcoat on the surface I'll be applying the transfer to. Once I had all of the transfers cut out (there were a lot!) I began to carefully apply them to the turrets. I only applied one transfer to each turret at a time so that I wouldn't mess up the previous transfer. This also meant that I got them done quite quickly, thankfully.

So set of pictures above and below show me adding the transfers in order to one of the turrets. The first number denotes the company, the second number is the squadron and the third number is the tank number. For the squadron command tanks, I used a skull just for something different.

Once all of the transfers had been applied and left for a few hours, I put another layer of 'Ardcoat over them for added protection. The picture above is the company command tank's turret and I decided to use a random transfer for the command designation. And now pictures of every turret in the company. Enjoy!

Squadron 1:
Command Tank 611
MBT 612 and MBT 613

Squadron 2:
Command Tank 621
MBT 622 and MBT 623

Squadron 3:
Command Tank 631
MBT 632 and MBT 633

So now that I've got all of those transfers done I can finally get around to damaging and weathering. I'll be doing each tank individually so I'll try and keep them different. Oh I have decided that the next time I use transfers I'll get some MicroSol/Set. Please leave comments and suggestions if you want. Thanks.

EFTC Cont. Part 7

Work on the EFTC is continuing at a slow, but steady, pace. Having finished up the sponson and hull weapons, I now had to break the small glue bonds that I'd used to attach the weapon housings onto the tanks while they were being sprayed. I did try using large amounts of BluTack, but for the side sponsons it just wouldnt hold properly. For the hull sponson, I didn't have to use any glue as they fit snuggly enough not to move during spraying.

The majority of the housings came off easy enough, but a few of them caused some trouble and consequently got damaged. This annoyed me a bit as now the paintwork has suffered for it. However I'll just have to try and incorporate some battle damage on the affected areas, oh well, live and learn. Next time I'll use even more BluTack.

Once all of the weapons housing were glued on, an example of which can be seen above, I started carefully cutting out all of the transfers that I am going to apply to these tanks. The transfers laid out above are going to be placed on the side sponson housings. First of all I made sure that the areas I would be applying them to were clean of dust etc (big problem where I do my painting). Then I applied two coats of 'Ardcoat Gloss Varnish to give the transfers a nice smooth (ish) surface to go onto. Following the usual methods for applying transfers I got all of them in position with the minimum of fuss and aggravation.

And here are a couple of pictures showing the transfers on a few of the tanks. Before I start to damage and weather the tanks, I'm going to put another layer of 'Ardcoat over the transfers just to protect them a bit more.

My next task is to cut out all the transfers for the turret markings, which shouldnt take too long - 9 tanks with 3 digits each. Once thats done I'll start the fiddly process of getting them to line up on the turrets. I'm still trying to decide if I want to put extra transfers on denoting kills etc. I don't want the them to look overly done. Anyway, thanks for reading and feel free to leave any comments, questions or suggestiongs. Cheers.

EFTC Cont. Part 6

Once again I take ages to follow up on a post, but never mind. Work continues on the EFTC, some of it successfully some of it not so. On the good side of things, I finally managed to get all of the sponson and hull weapons completely finished.

I decided that I would put Camo Green highlights on the Goblin Green sections of the weapons, as after testing the idea on the heavy bolter above, I thought that it looked good enough to do on all of them. I was picturing it after putting a Devlan Mud wash over the gun, so you'll have to use your imagination for the minute on that.

Twelve heavy bolters and six lascannons later and my left hand was shaped to the size of the back of the weapons. But all of the highlighting was done. Now I added the Devlan Mud wash to the Goblin Green sections to tone them down a little bit. I put a light wash over the metal areas at the bottom of the heavy bolters. I then took the oppurtunity to experiment with the washes and added a light wash of Asurmen Blue to the heavy bolter barrel. For the lascannons, I used Baal Red over the barrel and barrel end. Once these washes had dried I used Badab Black to take the rest of the shine off the metal.

The picture above on the left shows the lascannons after they'd had their washes. When the light hits the barrels right it makes them look like they are glowing slightly from firing. The final thing I did with these weapons was put a very heavy wash of Devlan Mud over the back of the weapons on the bit that sits in the sponson. I figured that these sections would get very dirty and once the wash had dried it looked very much like oil/grease deposits which turned out quite nice :) (and was unexpected)

I have managed to do more, but I havent got round to taking the photos of what I've done. In the mean time I'd like some opinions on an idea for the turret for one of the Leman Russ':
I have a ForgeWorld Cadian tank crew member, the one that is holding the laspistol like he is waiting for a target. Basically I was going to try and get hold of a Genestealer and place it onto the back of said Leman Russ like it was sneaking up on the unsuspecting crewman who'd popped open the turret to find out what was going on.

Thanks for reading and as always comments etc are appreciated.

EFTC Cont. Part 5

Ok just a quick update, but with lots of pictures. I finished doing all the masking on the turrets so that the four tanks could finally have their coat of Knarloc Green sprayed over them. So here are some pictures of the tanks with their appropriate turret added to them. Now I couldn't actually put the turrets in place properly because of the masking tape, but you get the idea.

So looking good and ready for spraying. I've had to spray the tanks in batches, so I've only managed to get two fully done so far. I have also done the other turrets but have no pics, sorry. I think that the camo has come out really well on these tanks and they already look a million times better than they did before. I am however going to have to do some touch up work with the brush where there was some paint bleeding. Oh and the final photo is without the flash on so as to get an idea of the colours in more natural light.