The Painting Bunkerc y

Finished! – Iron Hands Storm Eagle

Posted: July 11, 2013 in Iron Hands
Tags: 40k, forge world, Iron Hands, Space Marines, Storm Eagle

Just another very quick post of a recently finished project that I’ve not had the time to photograph properly. I really like this model, and its also great in the game too, however it has been taken down by a few very lucky shots in the few games that I have used it….

This model is often criticised for being difficult to assemble. I didn’t really have any dramas putting it together personally it just takes a little patience and a heat gun on hand as you are gluing it together. I’ve now assembled two of these and I’m very happy with how they’ve both turned out.

I’m anxiously awaiting the release of the next book from Forge World detailing the Istvaan V Massacre…

Finished! Blood Letters of Khorne

Posted: July 10, 2013 in Daemons
Tags: 40k, Blood Letter, Daemons, Khorne

This is just a quick post of the Blood Letters of Khorne I finished some time ago but because of a few things (crappy weather mostly) I haven’t had the opportunity to photograph them properly. I did these to accompany my Blood Thirster, Greater Daemon of Khorne for when I feel like running my 30k World Eaters as Chaos Space Marines. Over all I’m very pleased with how these models have turned out. What I like most about them, apart from being plastic, is that they hark back to the original Slaves to Darkness Blood Letters from 1st edition 40k. I never liked the pump up gym junkie looking Blood Letters that came out circa 3rd ed. Its astonishing to think these are plastic as the detail and “organic” look to them is very impressive.

Thanks for dropping in. Comments welcome

John

Finished! – World Eaters Spartan Assault Tank

Posted: July 9, 2013 in World Eaters
Tags: 30k, Forgeworld, games workshop, Horus heresy, spartan, World Eaters

So… this has been a long time coming and now that I’m finished with it, I can say with certainty that it was worth the wait. Its a great kit by Forge World. I think I’ll just let the pictures do the talking on this one… These are the track links that I made for this kit as I wanted to add a little more detail to them than what comes stock. If there is enough interest, I may actually produce them for sale similar to what I did with the Storm Shield. Just a quick point about them, is that I’ve run very coarse sand paper over them to give them a used look, they are quite detailed if thats not your thing. So flick me an email or leave a comment if its something you think you’d be interesting in seeing available for purchase.

If you look in the progress shot gallery you’ll se clearer images of what they look like fresh

Thanks for dropping in

John Sutton, Brisbane, Qld

Next project announced – The XII Legion – World Eaters

Posted: July 1, 2013 in World Eaters
Tags: 30k, Contemptor Dreadnought, Forgeworld, Horus heresy, Space Marines, World Eaters, XII Legion

Well, its been a long time coming but I finally got around to it. I’ve started painting my 30k World Eaters army. Bit late maybe, but who cares, they’re going to be bad ass. I’ve actually been quite busy this last week or two with painting and modelling however I’ve been so focused on painting and modelling I’ve neglected to do any posts. Plus the weather has been seriously crap here in Brisbane this last week so the light hasn’t been very conducive to taking good quality photos. I did manage to get some pictures of my finished squad of 10 Blood Letters of Khorne and my Iron Hands Storm Eagle, however I had the wrong exposure setting on my camera and the pics turned out seriously crap. So once the light improves here I’ll do up a post each for those two completed projects.

Anyway… Back to the XII Legion. So this is a pretty ambitious project for me, however instead of tackling it all in one hit, I’ve broken it down into smaller pieces to make it a bit more manageable. I’ve actually gone and purchased over 5000pts worth of resin crack for the army, however I’m not going to attempt to paint them all at once…. I did think about it though… Plus, I’d like to enter Armies on Parade (September 28 in Australia) this year too and I figured having another Horus Heresy era army in the competition wouldn’t hurt…

Moving right along, the first lot of units on the painting table for the World Eaters are:

1. Angron (of course),

2. Terminator Squad,

3. Rampager Squad,

4. Legion Heavy Support Squad,

5. Spartan Assault Tank (pimp mobile for the Terminators),

6. Storm Eagle Gunship, and

7. Contemptor Dreadnought

Heres what all that looks like in a box after I cut off all the tabs, pour point etc incase you’re wondering….

So lets take a look at these units shall we… By the way, the pics are pretty poor quality so please bear with me

Angron

Can I just say this model is amazing. I know its been done to death on the interwebs but I just have to have a chop at it too (pardon the pun). The detail is astonishing and Simon Egan well and truly exceeded everyones expectations with this model. I won’t bang on too much about it but I’m seriously looking forward to painting this model.

Terminator Squad

I knew very early on I wanted the squad sergeant to be based on the Tyberos model of Carcharodon fame. This was for several reasons, the first is I really like the stance of this mini, and secondly, it has no Imperial Eagle on the breast plate. As you may know, only the Emperors Children were allowed to have the Aquila on their breast plate, and the final reason is I like the studs on the armour and its baroque look, and well… its just a cool model and its character really suits that of the World Eaters.

This opened up an interesting can of worms for me as the terminator models I wanted to use for the actual squad are the Tartaros pattern terminator squad. When I purchased these models, the Legion Tartaros pattern squad were not available so I had the armour I wanted, but the torsos were festooned with Aquila’s and the legs had no studs on them. I also had a bunch of left over Tyberos models from when I did my Carcharodon army a year or two ago. So I decided to go and make the torso from the Tyberos model the torso for the Tartaros squad. This required a fair bit of cutting, drilling and chopping but I got their in the end. I also added studs to the legs and power fists of the models. I’m pretty happy with the overall result. Here are some pics, and also I’ll included a thumb nail gallery of the progress shots I take with my phone as I’m going along. As I’ve mentioned previously I do these mostly for myself so I can remember how to I did something if I need to go back to it at some point in the future so they are not the most wonderfully framed shots.

I really like the squad sergeant (the whole squad will have the same should pads too)

The squad preped and ready for undercoating

Rampager Squad

These bad boys are the blood thirsty crazy psychopaths that have had the Butchers Nails implants. I guess they eventually went on to become Khorne Berzerkers… seems to fit. I tried to have as many Chain Axe variants as I could for this squad and I made the squad leader out of an actual Rampager with a massive two handed Chain Axe. I actually see these guys more as a Legion Tactical Squad that have just swapped their Bolters for Chain Weapons and Bolt pistols as opposed to a real Rampager squad, but for the sake of this post, lets just call them Rampagers. I made sure they are all shod in MKII armour, which the XII Legion favoured.

Legion Heavy support squad

The army needs someone to do the heavy lifting, so I thought some heavy weapons would be a good idea at this point. So I threw in some plasma cannons.

Spartan

This is one seriously bad ass tank. If you haven’t read the Betrayal rule book yet, you may not know that in 30k these tanks were hard hitting, teeth pulling mo fo’s. With a few upgrades they are practically indestructible, easily capable of delivering up to 12 Terminators to the enemies door step to wreak havoc whist along the way delivering hammer blows to the enemy. So I decided to go balls out with this bad boy and stick practically every upgrade you can put on a Spartan on this model. One in particular that I’ve wanted to do on a Landraider for some time is a dozer blade so this was a good opportunity to give it a shot. This is perhaps what I am most proud of on this model, I hope it turns out ok once its all painted. I intend on painting the interior of this model so the hull isn’t assembled yet. A few other obvious upgrades I’ve added to this model are a remote weapons platform for the multi melta and HK missile, frag assault launchers and track upgrades. Behold

The dozer blade

Track upgrade

Storm Eagle Gunship

Just cos they’re cool (that gap in the hulls been filled by the way)

Assembling this kit is a real punish…

Finally… The Contemptor Dreadnought

So I’ve had this idea for a Contemptor for some time now that involves said Contempotor back handing a marine across the battlefield with a massive iron bar. Yep, brutal. It was sort of inspired by the cover of the Black Library Book Betrayer. I wanted the base to tell a small story too… So basically the dreadnought has been swatting marines with a random I beam that he’s found somewhere along the way. A marine is behind some make-shift battlefield barricade frantically trying to hold off the assaulting force, and this dreadnought has just rocked up under fire and smacked this marine with massive I beam out from behind his cover. You can see on the base spent bolter casings and an unloaded bolter on one of the drums.

Thats it for now. Thanks for dropping in, hope you’ve gotten something from this post. As usual, comments welcome.

Until next time

John

Forge World Blood Thirster of Khorne – Finished!

Posted: June 17, 2013 in Daemons
Tags: 40k, Forgeworld, Greater Daemon, Khorne

So yesterday I went on a bit of a painting bender and finished this bad boy off, the Forge World Greater Daemon of Khorne. I am very pleased with the final results. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, its an amazing miniature and was a real pleasure to paint. It also stretched me as a painter which I enjoyed. Painting Space Marines all the time can become a little tedious and cause your style to stagnate somewhat. So anyway, enough yakidy yak

Behold!

An’Ggrath the Unbound
Was that as good for you as it was for me?

Thanks for dropping in…

Next up something for my Iron Hands I think…

Comments always welcome

John

Review – Figure Painter Magazine, Issue # 1

Posted: June 3, 2013 in Reviews
Tags: Figure Painter Magazine

So a few days ago I stumbled across a new publisher called Pigeon Publishing. They have just started what appears to be their first publication called “Figure Painter Magazine” From their website they describe themselves as…

“Figure Painter Magazine is a new independent magazine dedicated to sculpting, painting, displaying, collecting and gaming with miniature figures from all genre’s. The magazine will have details on new releases, reviews, interviews with the industries top painters and sculptors, show reports, tutorials and a user gallery so feel free to upload you miniature images for submission and the best new image each month will receive a free resin plinth courtesy of Model Display Products.”

I have to say, I’m extremely impressed with this magazine. Not only is its production standard very high, but the content is first class too. What I like about it the most is that it offers a very unbiased perspective on our hobby and thoroughly covers many of the aspects associated with the hobby too, from painting, to sculpting and also has ads from suppliers that you may not hear about unless you are a hardcore painter yourself.

I often find myself looking for interesting publications that will help me become a better quality painter and grow my skill set. When I saw this one I immediately recognised its value. So lets take a quick look at this 56 page maiden publication from Pigeon Publishing.

This is the cover art work which features a model painted by Polish painter Karol Rudyk, Golden Daemon & Slayer Sword winner amongst many other places at prestigious painting competitions. There is also a very interesting interview with him as their feature article. As the name of their interview series suggest, it offers some very interesting insights into how elite painters approach their subjects and some fascinating points of view on the hobby.

The contents page. As you can see, the topics covered are diverse and stimulating. Something for everyone.

The first issue also features a comprehensive 4 page review of the Star Wars X-Wing miniatures game. Although I have not played it myself, I know plenty of friends that are quite into it and this review certainly highlights why its become such a popular game so quickly. Another interesting article is a review of various modelling shows in the UK such as Salute, Forgeworld open day and various IPMS events. I really like this as it offers readers the ability to see how other modelling enthusiasts do business. I’m a really big believer in looking outside your chosen corner of modelling and seeing how others apply technics and achieve effects to give you a more rounded and balanced approach to modelling. Articles like these give readers who may only paint figurines the opportunity to explore how say, WWI Bi-Plane modellers detail their planes wing rigging to achieve a realistic effect. This technique may then be applied to figurines bringing a new technique and take the hobby to a new level. It also exposes readers to events that they may never have heard of before that they can visit.

So to wrap up, this is a great ePub (its only available for digital download) and the first issue is 1 British Pound ($1.66 AUD), its 56 pages of high quality content and deserves your support, so rock over to www.figurepaintermagazine.co.uk and grab a copy and head over to their Facebook page and throw them a like

Thanks for dropping in

John

Forge World Bloodthirster Greater Daemon of Khorne WIP #2

Posted: May 27, 2013 in Daemons
Tags: 40k, bloodthirster, Daemon, Forgeworld, Greater Daemon

Hey there, been a while between posts these days however I keep forging ahead spending what spare time I have at the moment on chipping away at my current project, the Forge World Bloodthirster Greater Daemon of Khorne. What a magnificent miniature it is too, I don’t know about you but I find that my appreciation of a mini deepens when I begin to paint it, I find that I really start to look at a mini properly as I’m painting it and the more time I spend painting this mini, the more I really recognise just what an amazing figure this is.

Daniel Cockersell, in the unlikely event you are reading this post, thank you for giving us such an amazing model. This Bloodthirster Greater Daemon really captures the violence, blind rage, power and brutality of this Chaos Power.

So the WIP pictures. First up is the base.

I’m very pleased with how the base has turned out. This base is really a test pilot for how I intend on doing the bases for my up coming 30k World Eaters army. Indeed, this Greater Daemon of Khorne along with about 20 plastic Blood Letters are going to be an allied contingent for when I use the 30k World Eaters for games of 40k, when they of course will be Chaos Space Marines.

The mangled up Ultra Marine. I sort of saw this guy as having been flicked aside by the Bloodthirster and then crushed beneath a massive piece of masonry or something as the Bloodthirster advances.

A better shot. I was a bit reluctant to put blood on the model, as I’ve often felt that it cheapens the look of a mini because its such a hard effect to reproduce in scale. However I gave it a shot using various oil paints and I’m pretty happy with the final effect. Who’s that handsome devil? The skin is going to take a long time on this model to get looking right. I spent probably 3hrs on this face yesterday and its still going. Overall I’m happy with how it looks but there are still some small areas that I want to revisit. For those interested I’ve used oils, acrylics, inks and washes on this guy so far. Also, the finish hasn’t been sealed yet either, so thats why it looks a little shiny.

The wings have also been finished too however they are not that interesting so I didn’t bother photographing them, suffice to say though they are massive and when this model is complete its going to be gigantic.

Ok, thats it for me now. I’ve got a bit of time off coming up in a few weeks where I intend on hitting this pretty hard, then moving on to the World Eaters. I’m going to be doing a separate post on the World Eaters shortly, I actually had the 5000pt army rock up on my door step a week or two ago. I wanted to take a photo of me swimming in all the resin crack for you all, however my good sense got the better of me. So you’ll be seeing a far more measured diary starting up for my World Eaters shortly.

As usual comments are always welcome and thanks for dropping in.

Until next time,

John

Forge World Greater Daemon of Khorne WIP #1

Posted: May 4, 2013 in Daemons
Tags: 40k, Forgeworld, Greater Daemon, Khorne, Warhammer 40000, World Eaters

I haven’t really done that many posts on this blog that are actually a work in progress post. Since moving from forums to my own blog I’ve mostly just brought you either finished projects or tutorials. So I thought I’d mix things up a bit and bring you a series of posts around my new Forge World Greater Daemon of Khorne. If you read my previous post you’d know that a good friend of mine actually gave me this model after he’d had if for a year or two and didn’t think he’d ever get to painting it. Obviously I accepted his extreme generosity and ever since have been thinking through various ways I might approach painting this epic bad guy. And a bad ass he is, make no mistake. This is one seriously amazing sculpt and its a real pleasure studying the detail on it. I really admire the talent and years of honing skill that it would take to produce something like this.

So lets get into it shall we?

As with any model this size (or indeed any model for that matter) preparation and having a plan are essential. In terms of preparation ensure that the model is going to fit together properly, be sturdy and have no gaps etc. In terms of a plan, how is it going to be painted?, whats the base going to look like?, are you going to paint it in pieces or as an assembled model? Many of these questions need to be considered and answered clearly before you embark on a project.

For this model, I actually plan on using it in my upcoming World Eaters army for when I feel like running them as CSM, so it seems appropriate to have a Greater Daemon and also a few Blood Letters for good measure.

Apart from that, preparation is the next aspect to be considered. Being such a massive model (its huge) I want to ensure that I’m not relying on simply super glue to keep the model together nor the simple joints that Forge World have created for the model. Having strong bonds along key stress points is an important consideration with models like this.

So for all of the main joints on this kit, which are the left hip, both wrist joints, hips and wings, I have used 2mm spring steel to add that extra degree of support that I know I’ll be grateful for after I’ve used that bad ass in a few games.

No to rely totally on the strength of the steel, I also like to drill additional “key” holes. What this does is allows the epoxy resin that I use to bond the pieces together to seep into the holes and assist with strengthening the mechanical bond of the pieces.

For this model I’m actually magnetising it to its base. Why you ask? Well its for two reasons, the first is to facilitate with painting and the second is a secret that you’ll just have to wait and see. One aspect of this model that I’m not entirely happy with is the models attention to something thats in its immediate foreground. Its so stooped over that its almost looking at its feet. As I’ve mentioned before, I suspect but don’t know for certain that this model was sculpted to be posed with Hector Rex. Hence why its appears to have its attention focused on something about man sized more or less at its feet. I wanted to overcome this to a degree so that someone looking at the model can get a better look at the detail of the models front. So I used cork floor tiles to “jack up” the front left foot, while keeping the back foot at normal base level. It’s just a subtle thing, but as you’ll see it makes a massive difference in how the model now interacts with its audience.

Just getting the pose right.

So detail of the base. I want it to look like a hellish battle field. Only the most nightmarish of battle fields would enable a daemon of this stature be summoned. Note the crushed Space Marine

A better view of the base. I used a lot of different materials on this base, cork floor tiles, train set ballast, skulls and ceramic bricks from Secret Weapon Miniatures and as you’ll see in other pictures, Forge World brass etched barbed wire and an Imperial Eagle.

When it comes to glueing this pieces together I like to use small cramps to ensure that a strong bond it made. Its a bit of an involved process but the results speak for themselves.

Yeah, complicated.

Some of the base detail, almost complete.

Just another detail shot.

The base now with added barbed wire and the Greater Daemon stepping on a damaged Imperial Eagle

A clearing image of the finished base

This shot was taken just prior to undercoating. As I mentioned there were a few pieces missing from the model so I had to make a few molds of those pieces today and then cast them up, if you look very closely you can see where they are as they’re white resin. Ok, thats me for the time being. Hope you enjoyed this WIP post. I think I might make it a bit more of a habit in the future.

Comments always welcome, and thanks for dropping in

John

How to strip paint off resin models

Posted: April 23, 2013 in Tutorials

A few weeks ago over Easter I had a few of my Wargaming mates over for a couple of days of hardcore man dollie action, drinking beer and BBQ’s. For those of you who follow my FB page you may remember me commenting on what a superb miniature Inquisitor Hector Rex is. I’ve had this guy in my collection for some time as I’ve always wanted to paint him simply because its an amazing sculpt. If you haven’t seen it close up, do yourself a favour and find one, he’s pretty amazing.

Well, while I had some of my friends over we were taking about models we’d like to paint etc and I mentioned how I’d really like to do a diorama that features Inquisitor Rex fighting the FW greater Daemon of Khorne. I can’t say for certain, but it actually looks like the minis were sculpted to be positioned with one another.

This is the model incase you are not familiar with it

Anyway, amazingly one of my friends mentions to me that he has one, that’s been assembled and under coated but he doesn’t intend on ever painting it so he asked me if I’d like to have it, for FREE! I was pretty overwhelmed by his generosity and after being assured by him that he didn’t want anything for it other than me doing a kick ass paint job in it, I accepted. So he brought it round the next day and I could see that I had a big job ahead if me getting it disassembled and cleaned up ready to be painted.

Now, the model wasn’t particularly well put together and never having had seen one before unassembled I wasn’t sure where it came apart. It had also lots and lots of green stuff in the joints too that was going to have to be removed.

Not having removed paint from resin models ever I had to do some research on what methods to use etc, as I didn’t want to damage the resin. There seemed to be two schools of thought on the subject.

1. Simply green commercial floor cleaner
2. Dettol

Now being a fairly practical guy that’s prone to taking the path of least resistance I took the dettol option. I brought the biggest one I could find in the super market, for 750ml it cost me $10. I later found out that simply green is $20 for the smallest quantity I could find which was 5L.

Here’s the stuff.

So I rushed it home, got a 10L bucket poured my Dettol in along with some water 20/80 dropped the blood thirster in and sat back….

I came back about 3 hrs later and pulled out a random part and with my trusty tooth brush began scrubbing. Much to my surprise the paint had turned into this oily solution that was extremely hard to get off not only my brush, but my hands and worst of all, the model. I could see that it was working but it was not coming off at all. I even tried using a detergent and warm water, but still no dice. So far Blood Thirster 1. John 0.

So I put my thinking cap on and did some research. Found out some interesting things. Firstly, the main ingredient in Dettol is a substance called chloroxylenol and that several of the other ingredients in Dettol are not insoluble in water. This is why when you add water to Dettol it goes a white coloured and milky. The other thing I found is that Dettol contains isopropanol. To cut a very long story short, isopropanol will actually dissolve many forms of plastic, but I suspect that because its in such a small quantity it only removes the paint, not dissolve the resin. But I’m not a chemist so I can’t say conclusively. I also can not say conclusively if it is the active ingredient in Dettol that actually stripped the paint, but do know after doing my research that if I use alcohol I’ll be able to remove the oily residue.

Enter diggers metholated spirits

This stuff worked a treat on getting the oily residue off and had the greater daemon clean in no time. I couldn’t believe how clean it all came up. All I used the metho for was simply rinsing off the model. I didn’t actually soak the parts in metho, just used it to “wash” the parts. Overall I’m pretty pleased with the results. As an added benefit the green stuff weakened after being soaked in the Dettol and the model came apart very easily. I still hand to do a fair bit of gentle scraping etc to get the last fragments off, but everything came apart really easily and it now looks like this

Great success!

So it turns out there were one or two pieces missing but nothing too dramatic. I plan on remaking these then begin reassembling the blood thirster and get him ready to paint. It’s going to look amazing.

Got a few interesting projects in the pipe line ATM and I can’t wait to get them started but unfortunately I’ve got Uni so that’s where my focus had to be for most of the time. I’ve also had a few people ask me about the battle report I promised. Well, the battle did happen, but due to having my judgement impaired from a little too much alcohol no photos got taken. However come June/July the bunker will be back open for business and I’m sure you’ll see plenty of hardcore man dollie action coming at you!

Until then,

Thanks for dropping in

John Sutton, Brisbane, Qld

Forge World Realm of Battle Cityscape Board on Display at Anzac Cup this weekend

Posted: April 5, 2013 in Competitions
Tags: 40k, realm of battle cityscape, Tournaments, Warhammer 40000, WW40K

This weekend at RAAF Base Amberly will see the annual Anzac Cup hosted by WW40k being held. Its a 1950pt Warhammer 40,000 6th Ed tournament, more details can be found here. I’m playing with my Carcharodons and I’m looking forward to participating as the team who ran the ADFWGA Championships are behind this event, and if their last tournament was anything to go by it should be an awesome weekend.

The organiser of the event has asked me to bring along my Forge World Realm of Battle Cityscape board to have set up for display as well as some of my other models, including my Titans and a few others pieces from my collection. So if you are able to drop in on the Saturday or Sunday and have a look it would be great to have your company. As usual there will be a strong fund raising focus for Legacy over the weekend so if you can a small donation would be greatly appreciated by families of serving and past Defence Force Personnel.

Entry is free and there will surly be some amazingly painted armies battling it out over arguably the best tournament scenery in Australia for the Anzac Cup. I’m sure its going to be a great weekend.

If you click on this LINK it will take you to the Google map for RAAF Base Amberly’s location if you are not familiar with the area. Also below is a picture of where the event is being held on the Base. The good thing is that you won’t need a Military ID to get in as the tournament isn’t being held in the secure area, so there will be no hassles for you coming along. The only stipulation is that you cant wear thongs (flip flops for my American readers, incase you think Aussies walk around wearing G-Strings everywhere)

So it’d be great to see you along over the weekend and I’m sure you’ll be impressed with what you’ll see. If you are not able to make it along, you’ll be able to live vicariously through my post tournament review that will surly follow next week sometime.

Hope to see you then, thanks for dropping in

John

The Painting Bunkerc y