[Archive] Why Not Blog Similarly? (Mar. 20 Facelift!)

Archive [Archive] Showcase & Army Blogs
21

WhyNotCrashDifferently?:

so on your slaver units are you going to add chains and leg irons hanging from there belt too??

Kera foehunter
That's actually a great idea I hadn't thought of and I'd like to do it, but I seriously doubt I could sculpt chains. Armour and beards are one thing, but I can't scratch-sculpt worth a damn. I did think of maybe attaching a rope made of thread to the harpoons and have it trail off to a little spool type thing, sort of like a fishing harpoon, to control whatever gets hit with the arrow. Lot of fiddly little work, though.
There's some very nice work here. Very nice work on the banner! Very clever, and I might use that idea. Plus the shields are looking good and have some flavor to them.

swissdictator
Thanks, I'm going to stick with the classic big hat iconography by using a lot of lightning bolts, arrows, and skulls spewing lightning bolts and arrows.
Again....Looks Awesome! Have you considered using thumb tacks for the hats. It's quick and easy.

Tarrakk Blackhand
Thanks, and aye, that was the first thing I looked into but the thumbtacks I bought are too tall and skinny, they look odd. Plus, I wanted something shorter and thicker to make the Dwarfs look compact. I shortened the weapon hafts on the Warriors for the same reason.
awesome looking stuff so far.i like your blunderbuses,exspecially their backs.thats a great idea to let them carry axes...

Hazkar
Thanks, although they're actually Dwarf Quarrellers. Haven't started on my Blunderbussiers yet.
22

Tarrakk Blackhand:

You COULD saw the thumbtack down. Remove the rounded part at the base. ~ just an idea.

23

Kera foehunter:

well you could always buy small chains ! there really cheep at a art and craft store

btw cool avatar!!

24

Xander:

Your blog is excellent! I shall be watching it with great interest. :slight_smile:

I love your sculpting work!

25

GRNDL:

Chains are tough, but ropes can be pretty easy, depending on what you want to do with them. Roll out some GS sausages until they’re pretty thin, then leave them for about an hour or so, then place two of them side by side and twist the ends - they’ll wrap into some nice fine rope very quickly. Keep twisting and the pleats in the rope will get smaller. Don’t overdo it though, as they’ll eventually snap or tear.

26

Hazkar:

@whynot…: oh,thought this is a "count as"unit

27

Tarrakk Blackhand:

Can’t you use some chains from other Warhammer mini’s, like ones found in The Giant, or something?

28

Swissdictator:

You can always get chains from local jewelers. I asked for broken or unusable chains that have been returned and I got mine for free. Might require a tiny bit of work, but it also saves a lot of work more work then you’ll need to do.

29

Kera foehunter:

no swiss where talking about mini!! not you pimping your self out!!

do you go to a dentist to get gold teeth for your grill to!!

just kidding *hug *

30

Tarrakk Blackhand:

Ok…this calls for a video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FFrCZNNCeU

31

wallacer:

That bolt thrower conversion is great. It has a real Lovecrafty vibe to it.

32

Willmark:

There are some good concepts here keep it up!

33

Tarrakk Blackhand:

Last update on feb 19? Like to know how much further you got on this.

34

WhyNotCrashDifferently?:

Thanks all. Been a little preoccupied lately and haven’t much been in the hobbying mood but I did get some things done over the last couple weeks.

I ordered some bits from http://www.bitzbox.co.uk/ including some plastic Marauder chains as I’m going to take Kera up on her idea of giving the Slavers manacles/chains (thanks!).

Firstly, since I didn’t make it into the Golden Hat VIII top 10 (not that I expected to) here are some more shots of my Flame Cannon:



The idea was some kind of napalm-spewing daemon imprisoned in a big metal cart, with various mechanical gizmos hanging off the thing. And, because the Grudge Pony is the best model Games Workshop has produced in a long time, I had to paint up a Slave Pony to pull my machine. Seriously, who doesn’t love a pony? The horns are just decorations on his blinders, he’s not supposed to be some weedy-looking bull.

I also painted up my Bolt Thrower:



I decided not to re-model it, and I’m glad as I like how it turned out.

And I painted up the first rank of my Warrior unit:



Their colouring is indicative of what most of the army is going to look like: grey, red and orange implemented differently on a model-by-model basis. I keep telling myself these guys are done but I’ll probably go back and highlight some more. I need to brush up on my photography, maybe stop taking pictures at 3 A.M. under artificial light, as I keep noticing that subtle highlights disappear in my pictures. They’re five strong now because I changed my 1000 point list a bit, dropping the Deathrocket (Cannon) and boosting the Warriors from 16 to 20.

I must say, although I’ve fallen in love with these new (to me) foundation paints and washes, the Solar Macharius Orange colour is just as thin and insipid as Blazing Orange. Pain in the ass to paint with it but I like the result. I think I’ll steer clear of the foundation yellow colour in the future.

Aside from all that stuff I started work on a unit filler for my Warriors and thought up a good idea for a Master Engineer hero. I don’t actually expect to use a Master Engineer much but I couldn’t resist the idea. Might be he’ll end up as a Thane instead. More on those later.

So, now that I have five Warriors I’m going to move on to doing a rank from my other three units: Slavers (Quarrellers), Oppressors (Longbeards w/ great weapons) and Blunderbussiers (Thunderers). I’m also going to finish up the Taskmaster (Thane) that I posted earlier and get to work on my Earthshaker (Grudge Thrower). I’ll do the Slavers next as I’ve finally solved their hat dilemma, just need to get sculpting.

I’ll leave you with a (somewhat disheartening) shot of the 1000 point army so far:

35

Swissdictator:

You said one of my favorite words: Napalm.

I really like this model and it is rather clever. I love the flamethrowers too!

The bolt thrower is looking nice. I get a real kick out of the squid carrying it. That puts a grin on my face. It’s sick, evil, and smacks of using other species as labor. Chaos Dwarf indeed! :slight_smile:

As for the warriors I really like the hats. Not overly big, not overly small. Just right. Plus you got the Rune of Hashut down, and the arrows down which are two things that give me endless headaches when trying to convert. How did you do them?

36

Kera foehunter:

i still like the bolthower!! arrrgggg! but the whole army looks great !!

37

CheTralfara:

I love your color scheme and the bases are looking fantastic. This army is really going to be something wonderful to look at. Love your interpretations of the war machines.

38

tjub:

Really like your hats, what have you used? A small pin with a buckler? Looks cool anyway, and the rest too even if I aint a fan of posessed things. :slight_smile:

39

WhyNotCrashDifferently?:

Plus you got the Rune of Hashut down, and the arrows down which are two things that give me endless headaches when trying to convert. How did you do them?

Swissdictator
A sharp, wet knife? Just smush out a big expanse of green stuff and cut carefully. For smaller arrows it's sometimes easier to make the shaft and arrowhead bits separate, the first before the second.
Really like your hats, what have you used? A small pin with a buckler?

tjub
A buckler and wooden dowelling for the war machine crew. A piece of push pin and wooden dowelling for the warriors (pics in the first post).

I can't be arsed to take any pictures right now, not that I have a whole lot to take pictures of. Made a swivel gun to add some character to my Blunderbussier unit, started converting up an Engineer for my Bolt Thrower inspired by Captain Nemo from The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (the excellent book, not the atrocious film), prepped a few more Warriors for paint and started painting the prototype Slaver, but all this is irrelevant because I'm not happy with either the paint scheme on the Warriors or the converting. They don't look Chaosy or evil enough, and while this army is admittedly a compromise between Dwarfs and Chaos Dwarfs as I like them both but wouldn't collect them separately, to me they look like regular Dwarfs with top hats.

Although I've been distracted from modelling the past month or so and will be for probably a few more weeks, I'm committed to upping the quality of my models at the risk of making the modelling/painting process even longer. In a nutshell, better and more and more appropriate greenstuffing, specifically the armour as I'm wanting it to mimic the scalemail of the GW big hats more. The platemail-looking crap I've done so far is frankly lazy, and also the hats too look bland and devoid of interest. The weapons will be redone, at least the axe blades, cut from plasticard in the style of 4th/5th editions. Lastly, I'm going to try to sculpt tusks and big noses but I dunno yet how well I can churn those fiddly details out.

The paint scheme too is going to change and I've already sorted it out in my head. The old adage, "bad guys wear black", has begun to make a lot of sense to me. I'm not satisfied with the orange or the red as primary colours. Grey and black will predominate, while metal and Tin Bitz (favourite GW colour) will provide contrast, perhaps with some dark red. The skin tone too needs to be darker.

Finally, I've been reading up a bit on Dwarf tactics and army lists and revised my 1000 point target army list to its (probably) final form. It's a tad generic as far as 1000 point Dwarf lists go, but whatever, it's just a stepping stone to 2000 points:

Taskmaster (Thane) w/ great weapon, shield, pistol, Rune of Stone

19 Warriors w/ hand weapons, shields, full command
15 Oppressors (Longbeards) w/ hand weapons, shields, musician and standard bearer, Runes of Stoicism and Battle
10 Blunderbussiers (Thunderers) w/ shields
10 Slavers (Quarrellers) w/ great weapons, shields

Bolt Thrower w/ engineer

Orgun Gun

The Warriors and Oppressors will both feature unit fillers, the troll from earlier in the thread and a slave wagon type thing. I'm gonna do the whole decorate-them-with-trophies-appropriate-to-armies-I-defeat-on-the-field-of-battle thing, assuming I ever start playing again. Kinda starting to bug me that I don't have an evil proxy name for the Organ Gun and Flame Cannon yet. Any suggestions?

Well, if any of you actually read all that mess, no, you can't have your 10 minutes back. They're mine. And now I'm off to sculpt, I'll get some pictures of my new vision up tomorrow.

Cheers.
40

Ubertechie:

All looks fantastic - the bolt thrower is great if we get a new rule book and can demoniacally possess/ add runes to our bolt throwers yours will look just the job. I like the colour scheme nice to see a lighter red and some oranges being used instead of the more traditional red and black.