Having provided a teaser pic a few weeks ago, now its time to actually show some more WIP shots of the Shadowsword/Stormlord (/Doomhammer/Banehammer/Banesword/Stormsword - that's a lot of /'s).

In order to be able to make all the variants, some degree of magnetisation would be needed - which really means magnetising everything! Surprisingly so far that has been quite easy, as can be seen in the following pictures.

I started off by gluing the front and rear sections of the side armour together and let that set. As the magnets won't be visible, I went for a larger size, 4mm x 1mm, to help them grip the magnets on the outer panels.

To make sure that the magnets lined up properly, and had the same correct polarity, I used an applicator magnet (magnet with some greenstuff for a handle) on the outer side. Then I applied a drop of super glue on the panel and using the opposite polarity applicator, carefully placed the magnet onto the panel. Using this process means that the removable panels can be swapped over to any slot without worry.

With the side section turned over, no magnets can be seen, in case I ever wanted to use the tank without any side armour, or sponsons.

Next up were the side armour panels. As the rectangular guide pieces are slightly larger than 4mm, I had to use a smaller magnet, only 2mm wide. I started off by drilling a 1mm hole, roughly in the centre of the raised piece. Then I widened the hole using a 2mm drill bit. A lot of time was then spent getting the hole just deep enough for the magnet to sit flush. Trying not to drill through the whole piece was the main worry here.

With the hole the correct width and depth, I used the same magnet applicator process as before to glue the magnet in place. Again, quite a bit of time was spent double checking the magnet polarity's to avoid any mistakes.

Here you can see that I managed to avoid drilling all the way through the armour panels, and there is no sign that these have been magnetised.

Next up was the top section. This was pretty much a repeat of the process for the side section. Once again the magnet applicator was used to get the magnets in the correct position. One thing to note, these magnets will be close to the one's on the side section once the whole thing is glued together. I thought this may cause problems with the magnets trying to attract or repel each other, but after dry fitting it doesn't seem to be an issue. If larger/different size/shape magnets were used instead then this may be a problem.

Once again the magnets aren't visible on the top side of the section.

With the top section finished, next to be magnetised were the top armour panels, and the top of the sponson. This was a fairly simple job. My 4mm magnets wouldn't sit inside the guide pieces again, but after removing 2 opposite edge's, the magnets fit perfectly. This was done for all three pieces. Using the applicators (I can't stress how useful these are!), and with several minutes of double checking, I super glued the magnets in place. Once the glue was dry, I checked that the panels fit correctly onto the top piece, and once satisfied, I glued the magnets on to the other pieces.

Here you can see the top armour panels for the other side of the super heavy. These were magnetised in exactly the same way as those above.

With the magnetisation of the top and side sections complete, I had some time to glue the inside section together, and add the running wheels to the front and back.

Having let the inside section to dry for some time, I was ready to glue the inside and outside sections together. This is a little bit fiddly as the pieces want to move apart at the top and bottom. To get around this I used the front and rear armour pieces, with some elastic bands, to keep the top in line. Then I used the long track section, with an elastic band, to keep the bottom correctly aligned.

And here is a pic showing the track in place on the bottom of the completed side section.

Next up I'll be magnetising the other side section and getting the rest of the tracks glued on to this one. Thanks for taking the time to read through all of this.

At the beginning of the year Mike over at Santa Cruz Warhammer ran a competition giving away a Penal Guard conversion set, courtesy of Victoria Lamb who runs Victoria Miniatures. The draw for the winner was made, and to my surprise it was my name pulled out of the hat.

When I got home from work on Friday I had a package waiting for me, and inside was the conversion set. And here are some pics of what I received.

 The conversion set in its bag.

And the set laid out.

Now this means that I can make up a Penal Legion squad. I hope to get this started sooner rather than later as I can't let this set languish on a shelf. WIP pics will be a must and I'll keep everyone updated on how I get on.

Finally I'd just like to say thanks to Mike at SCW and also Victoria Lamb for donating the set. Thanks guys.

Once again I've been distracted from hobbying by video games. Christmas was kind and now I dont have enough spare time to play all of them.

Also, as can be seen, I've got myself a new desktop PC and have started going through Dawn of War 2 as well. Many sleepless nights have followed.

Dont despair though, as I am still trying to build and paint something. In fact my current project is rather a large one.

For now I shall leave you with just the one pic, but there will be more. Thanks for reading. 

The tanks just seem to keep rolling off the production line at the moment. This Basilisk is another model that has been waiting to have minor touches added before it can be called finished - and now those are done, here are some pics:


This is Basilisk is "Tonitrus", meaning "Thunder", and has the designation B23 (B for Basilisk, and 23 is the vehicle number). Like I said above, "Tonitrus" has been waiting to be finished, and at the moment I actually feel like I want to complete some of these older projects before starting on anything new after Christmas.



I wanted to give the Basilisk a different colour marking to my Leman Russ', so instead of Mechrite Red, I used Iyanden Darksun. The yellow looks really sharp on the model, even after being dulled with two washes with Gryphonne Sepia. On the front of the tank I used gloss varnish for the lenses, the same as on my other vehicles, for the shiny "glass" effect.



The shells on the rear platform have been taken from the Baneblade kit, and just about seem right for the Earthshaker cannon. The crew are just plastic Cadians, with the commander shouting orders at the crewman with the firing button.



I like adding a top down view so that the layout of extras can be seen (which there aren't many in this case). For some reason I took an angled photo as well, which I may decide to do for any future vehicles.



With the crew being visible, I took some close up shots. The crew are painted in the same colour armour and fatigues as the rest of my infantry.



The tank name, "Tonitrus", has been painted on both sides. The scroll was painted using Bleached Bone and the lettering is Adeptus Battlegrey. Any little mistakes were touched up before the Gryphonne Sepia washes were applied.



And to finish off is a clsoe up of the winged skull motif on the gun shield, along with the skull transfers. I didn't realise how of centre the Earthshaker cannon was until I saw this photo, that's Imperial engineering for you :-).

Thanks for reading, and I hope that everyone has a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!

Any week (or two), and another tank for the Emperor's Fist tank company.



This week's finished tank is 621 "Veneratio" (Honour). Veneratio is 2nd squadrons command tank.



Being a command tank, I wanted there to be some defining feature. The comms aerial's are straight from the accessory sprue, but the turret device is not meant for the Guard. It has in fact been converted from the Apocalypse upgrade sprue, using the pieces for the Chaos vehicles. Whether the Emperor would approve is another question, but once I'd trimmed off the heretical markings and given it a fitting paint scheme, it fits quite well with the tank (and the melta-bolter combi weapon will come in handy!).



I decided not to try modelling "mud" again, as seen on the previous tank. I think I need some ready mix filler to give some bulk before I try again. Instead I stippled and drybrushed on Graveyard Earth and Calthan Brown, with a very light drybrush of Snakebite Leather to simulate muddy dust. The colour tone is slightly different to another of my tanks, but variety helps to add to realism, or at least that's what I'll say if anyone notices :-).



And to finish up, the arial view of the tank, and also a close up of the turret detail. I need to put another coat of gloss varnish on the lenses just to make them extra shiny. Thanks for reading.

I'll admit this at the beginning, but I thought that I had actually finished this tank. In fact it had been sitting on the shelf pretending to be finished. So I grabbed my drybrush and got to work.



So here is the company command tank - 601 "Imperator Furor" (Emperor's Fury). As with the rest of the tank company, the tank name and designation is painted on the underneath.



Above can be seen the right side and the front view of the tank. Having used a skull to represent the number 1, I wanted something different to show the number 0, so ended up digging out a different transfer from somewhere.

I added the comms upgrade from ForgeWorld and also the upgrade from the Apocalypse sprue to help make this tank stand out as the company commander. I also used the Hellhammer cannon from the Baneblade kit to turn the tank into an Eradicator variant.



Onto the left side and the rear view of the tank. Trying to keep the tank looking used I added extra stowage, boxes and fuel cans. With "Imperator Furor" I had a go at modelling mud/grass onto the vehicle.

Using an old tupperware container, I added together water, PVA glue, sand and static grass. I mixed it all up with an old stiff brush and then spread the "mud" onto the tracks, armour panels and mine plough. Overall the result wasn't quite what I was after. I'm happy with the result, just might try doing it differently in the future, maybe adding some ready mix plaster to give some bulk, but never mind. Once the "mud" mix had dried I gave the lower area of the tank a heavy drybrush of Graveyard Earth.



And finally a shot of the company commander, popping out to fire off a few shots at anyone his crew hasn't finished off.

Thanks for looking.

.... and I ask my fellow bloggers for their help with this decision.

As many of you know, one of the best things about blogs is being able to see pictures of other peoples work, whether its a photo of a finished model or a series of WIP pics.

My current problem is that I don't know what style of picture to use for my completed model's.

The choice is between two styles, which can be seen below.


A or B

A: As you can see is just a nice simple group shot of the models in their squad

B: Is a bit more complicated and involves taking individual photos of each model and then using Photoshop to make them into a single picture

So, please vote on the right hand side of the page for which photo syle you would prefer me to use on future posts for completed models. Thanks.

Sqaud 4-1-4 is finally finished! And I actually mean finished, not my half arsed job when I still need to seal them with varnish.

All of the shoulder pad squad markings have been painted on and the Cadian symbol transfers applied. They've all had their Devlan Mud washes, and then got sealed with Purity Seal.



Here is the squad shot, nothing more to say here.



Leading squad 4-1-4 is our blonde sergeant, equipped with bolt pistol and close combat weapon. The bolt pistol's barrel has been drilled out as well.



Providing comm's is the injured guardsman. No wounded arm is going to stop this guy from carrying the vox set. The aerials aren't quite as bright as they appear in the photo, the flash really brightened them up.



And finally the meltagunner. I've posted a pic of this guy before but here are some more.

Thanks for looking through the squad, but before you go please check out the poll on the right. I'm trying to find out what stye of squad photo I should use. The choice is between:
a) the style used on this post, the squad set out and taken as one shot
or
b) the style used on previous posts, where I take individual photos of the front and back of each model and then use Photoshop to mold them into one picture

Please vote on the right. Thanks again!