INSPIRED !

Recently Dai posted up his finished space marine statue on his blog lostdamnedstunted which inspired me to dust mine off and finally get it painted. While looking at it deciding on how to paint it, I realised why I had left it for so long, the smoothness of the plastic was saying paint in metal colours, but the fracture lines was saying it should be stone, then I thought what about marble, as that is smooth with the same fracture lines as stone, and so I came up with this

While I was doing this I decided to paint the ruined Aquilla at the same time with the same technique.

I have also finished a squadron of flyers for my marines as well, two just needing finishing and one was a complete paint.

Now with people being stuck at home, and keeping their distance, I've been thinking on what can I do to help my fellow bloggers ? The answer is help in any way I can, so if there is a sculpting technique, or painting technique, you would like me to do a step by step guide to just ask, you can ask on here or if you want you can email at the business address and I'll answer any questions you have, the same goes for scenery making happy to help with any and all.
Until next time stay strong and have fun !

RETURN OF THE FORCE

Hope all are well and safe from harm.
While clearing old projects has been great for making my shelves look pretty I really wanted to get back on with some more of my Star Wars project, first off today is Darth Maul, I got the model for Xmas from my In-Laws. The model comes bare chested, but I wanted more of the Crimson Dawn feel to him, so green stuffed the relevant clothing, I also added my normal clear sabre rods as well.

Next a simple paint job and I now have Lando to lead my Bespin contingent when visiting Tatooine.

Fancied having a Bantha herd roaming the desert but the FFG one obviously comes with a Tusken Raider and baggage on it, so built this one to take a mould of, and have left the horns off so can add some variation, may also make some with two raiders sat on like in the films. The head will be cast separately to allow some variation.

Have made a little progress with the Rebel Transporter, the first picture shows the basic shaping at the front and rear.

The next picture shows the rough lines sketched in ready to grind them with the Dremel.

That's all for this post apart from to say has anyone heard from Wouter ? have spotted posts or comments from everyone else on this or other blogs. In these strange times keeping  an eye out on each other is very important, so let's all try to stay safe and check in on people where possible.
Until next time stay safe and have fun !
Cheers Dave

NEED A LIFT ?

Firstly I hope all visitors to the blog are safe and well in these awkward times.
Today's post is mainly about dropships but I have a couple of other marine bits snuck in as well.
First up is the Stormraven, it's a bit of an ugly ship but as it's a flyer I wanted to have one in my army. I haven't done any conversion on it other than to make the pilot a normal matine rather than a tech marine

Next up is the Corvus Blackstar, these are meant for the Inquisition, but I really liked the shape so had to have some. The first thing I noticed were how small the model was that matines would really struggle fitting in, so changed my plan and made them a dropship for my scouts. I wasn't keen on the lack of cockpit so fitted a spare one from a Stormtalon and pilot into the front.

For the second one I went completely mad and added a full interior with seating and a scout exiting one of the ramps.

I have also finished building the first of my Landspeeder Tsunami, this is a dedicated tank or large creature hunter with it's twin linked heavy weapon, this one being armed with lascannons, would like to do some with other weapons and like the Tempest is a single man ship.

Lastly today I have finished my first assault Dreadnought complete with custom panel work and scratch built jump pack, going back to the days of Rogue Trader with this one. While painting I was searching the normal places for a name ( latin for birds or areas of the moon) but decided to name him after Bryan, as a fallen hero being entombed into a dreadnought to continue on seemed fitting.

That's all for today, so until next time stay safe and have fun !
Cheers Dave

WHO'S IN CHARGE

The other week while in hiding from the internet, I managed to get a fair bit done on a really abandoned project, my command set of Land Speeders for my Night Hawks chapter, these are for the Fourth Company which all ride Land Speeders.
First is the company captain, which started off as a Master of the Ravenwing model for the Dark Angels, most of the model is standard apart from the captain, this was a Gamesday model, which I adapted to fit, but changed his power fist to a power sword instead as it looked more dynamic in my opinion.

Next is the company chaplain, first I changed the speeder to one  of my configuration speeders then changed the crew to an old sidecar torso with scanner and the pilot into a chaplain, I used a lot of chaos parts for this as they are more ornate, you may notice his Crozius Arcanum is missing in the picture but I have since found it and will add it to the finished piece.

For the standard bearer of the company I wanted to turn the speeder itself into the standard rather than adding pennants, so made some ornate vertical fins, the co pilot will be the company champion, but still trying to make him fit and look right at the moment.

A command squad can also have an apothecary in it, so I built him a special speeder with two patient cradles that could be lowered down to retrieve the wounded, and I gave the speeder a third enginge to help with the extra weight. May have to call this one Brother Nash !

Last speeder today is my favourite the AA recovery vehicle for my Tech Marines, the large wings were off of a tail from a space marine dropship, there is a techmarine to add when I find him to work the electromagnet that's retrieving the crashed speeder.

And just before I close for today, here is a picture for Simon of my home built paint racks that I made out of left over wood from the extension, yes it would have been easier to buy a pre made set, but these do the job and only cost me some time.

That's all for this post, so until next time, be safe and healthy and have fun if you can !
Cheers Dave