Blood Ravens Rhino: Getting Together

So, more works in progress shots of the Rhino. I can't help but feel I may be over-complicating what is essentially a large red box, but this is in many ways a dry run for picking up a Landraider at some point, and that really would be a project I don't want to screw up. Anyway, pictures!

Final Assembly done. The tracks were painting and washed separately before going on, and then the lid was stuck down. There isn't anything special about the tracks - just Boltgun Metal followed by a Black Wash (Nuln Oil in the new GW parlance) then the Dark Brown Wash (whose name I can never remember) to give it a rusty oil quality different from the metal on the exhausts and weapon mounts.

Here the red has had a thin coat of Vallejo Blood Red to brighten it up a bit, and then a thinned black wash it the recesses and along the joints just to define them a little better to the eye. You can also see I've added the black base to the side doors and eagle. 

And more base-coating on the to-be-cream areas, which finally break up the red and stop it looking like a Blood Angels Box. I've also painted the doors, and for reasons that escape me the rim of the top hatch which will be totally covered up by the Storm Bolter mounting.

And finally, a shot of the one of the side hatches. The doors fit snuggly enough that I can leave them unglued and display the Rhino with them open and the hatch revealed, and then if I end up playing with it then it can be un-doored or just with them pushed into the recesses. 

Blood Ravens Rhino: New Adventures in Interior Design

So, I picked up a Rhino to use as a test bed for using more spray cans in painting, before deciding finally if I want to invest in an airgun. But because Rhinos are pretty dull, plain boxes, I decided I wanted to paint the interior, and build it with the doors open, just for interest. This causes some problems, as you need to part-assemble and paint, then do some more assembly and more painting and so on, But, the story so far...

Part Assembly (mainly the side panels) and spray-basecoating. The red is Army Painter Dragon Red, which is a lovely colour and should "warm up" nicely with a thin coat of Blood Red later on.

So these are the interior parts.  I've just pulled them together and re-based the interior zones black, so that i don't get any "pink" bleeding through.

Actual Colour! Gone for a basic, military grey for the interior, which is a little functional but I don't see the marines being the type for pin-up calenders and dado rails. My speeders have had the "interior" sections done the same bone colour as the doors and shoulder pads, but on reflection I think thats wrong, so future speeders will be done more in line with this.

Quick wash and high-light pass.  I've also done the detailing on the control panel.

And assembly! I've sponged some boltgun metal, and then dark brown, around the door frames, and the rear hatch, to simulate wear and mud, and then used powders to granularise it further where I think troops would, well, troop around.

Next job; get the tracks painted up and on, so I can add the roof. 

What do you mean, no-one brought a TechMarine?

Normal Service Resumed after my exams! 

Getting out the Terraining Wheels

As someone who is mostly on the "Painting" side of the hobby, my main outlet for actually playing 40k at the moment is against Ewan, my eldest son, who is pretty fond it as a way of wasting a wet afternoon. The big problem we've had though, is terrain, which has left us fighting over battlefields made of shoe boxes, bits of racetrack, and action-figure statuary. And to be honest I'm not forking out for "proper" scenery for sporadic, knock-about games. 

So, one solution that was suggested was paper-craft terrain. Oho! I thought. So, following a recommendation I ended up at World Works Games, which makes loads of them, and bought the Mars Station set. 

Now I remember how dreadful I am at Papercrafting. Thankfully, as pdfs, I can reprint the damn things. So, a couple of hours of pritt-stik-ing my fingers together and I've got some base tiles and a difficult terrain tile, and a little crawler unit thing: 

The set also comes with modular wall pieces so I can make a couple buildings to go with them, so thats the next job, whilst I'm waiting for my Storm Talon order to turn up. 

Blood Raven Tactical Squad COMPLETED

So, finally finished, done, based, weathered and ready to fight and die for the Emperor!

More after the cut. 

Gosh I'm starting to get tired of painting red!

My Tactical Squad is nearly finished, thankfully, and I'm feeling a little bit over-familiar with Marine armour and red paint after a run thats included Devastators, a Command Squad and now the Tacs. Enough Already! And I think it's beginning to show, as I'm not feeling as engaged as perhaps I should be. Still, Should get them finished this week and then it's onto the next project.

The next big project is likely to be from the Judge Dredd: Block Wars kickstarter that I backed and just finished over the weekend. Probably won't get the stuff till November, so will need a stop-gap, although that is likely to be some shade of red! 

WIP: Tactical Squad

So with the reference model done and dusted, I've been working "batched" on the rest of my Tacs. I mean, lets face it, full squads can get a tiresome quite quickly. But, 5 down, 5 to go, and whilst I've no posh shots, here's the group. 

I do love the "Womble Nose" Helmets, which is why he got the Meltagun.