Looted Wagons 17

Update on the Looted Wagons, this is the second Destroya type Wagon with a hull mounted Boomgun.

I decided to use the mounting plate from the Demolisher Cannon for the Boomgun. Unfortunately this meant fiddling around doing angled plates on the front of the Russ as the Demolisher Cannon is mounted at an angle and I wanted the Boomgun to be parallel with the ground.

The Demolisher bits (i.e. the metal pieces) will be glued to the hull, the styrene tube however slots in place and will stay removeable for weapon destroyed results.

Started looking at the rear, but the plate isn't glued in place yet. This piece of styrene is just the base of the rear, I will break up the flat area.

Will get more done on it tomorrow so there should (should) be another update. I am out all Friday evening and night so I want to make good progress on the Wagon tomorrow so I can spend some time Saturday doing more casting...

Defensive Walls & 3D Printing 8 (...and Gun Emplacement Mk II - 3)

So today I had my casting hat on.

First up the plinths...

Will definately have to do a second set of moulds otherwise it'll take me all year to cast enough pieces. Alas I had to scrape out the tin to get enough rubber to do all these moulds. So need to order more rubber, again.

The plinths set up with the other walls pieces. Shows the two line system where the troops behind the second line can fire over the first line.

Will need to give the staight plinths a light sand at the ends, the small tolerance build up means I have some small gaps - in principle I don't mind this as I like the rough and ready look but would be nice to get it down slightly.

Militiaman Bob for scale.

Above shows the idea of the firing step. Planking slotted into the plinths with a support on the other side. Still need to sort the support out, at the moment one of the mounting plate moulds stands in.

At the same time as casting the plinths in plaster I also cast some mounting plates and rebar in resin.

Rebar - turned out nicely I think. The attempt to do a one piece mould worked, though I had to modify the mould by cutting a slit down it. While casting the rebar was fine I simply couldn't get it out, the ends simply snapped off when I tried to pull it out. The slit allows me to get it out easily enough but does mean I have a mould line. As you can see in the picture above I managed to get a piece of bent rebar by taking out the cast early and bending it while still soft, some masking tape held it in place while it hardened.

Mounting Plates - I estimate 1 in 4 will be chucked due to air bubbles, they are simply to small to mess around filling holes in. I did two moulds for these as I have a lot of them to knock out...

Some mounting plates in place (though not glued).

And to finish...

I also started casting the gun emplacement wall pieces, still need a few more to get the full length of wall required.

It was while casting the last piece I suddenly realised I hadn't actually used any of the rebar to see how it turned out so I pushed a bit into this wall panel.

Looted Wagons 16

Well the first Looted Wagon is basically done. There is one obvious job left to do but I will build the second Wagon and then do the tracks on both of them together.

Will need to go back to this at the end and touch up the odd thing probably (noticed one thing while doing the pictures in fact). But for now I will move on to the second Wagon, the Destroya with a mini turret.

The weapons are removeable for Weapon Destroyed results while the hatch is unglued so an Ork or Grot can be added if desired later.

Tomorrow will be a casting day so expect an update on that while an update on the second Wagon should be on the cards in a couple of days.

Looted Wagons 15

The first of the three Looted Wagons has progressed this evening.

As you can see there is still plenty left to do. The gap at the rear will have exhausts.

I decided the best thing to do is try and do one at a time as working on all three at the same time will just get confusing. I did do a little on the second wagon (as you can see in the last update) but for now I will get the first one finished before carrying on with the next one.

Looted Wagons 14

Finally been able to start properly working on the three Looted Wagons.

I spent some more time stripping the remaining paint off two of the Russes (I couldn't face doing all three at once, i'll have a go at finishing the stripping of the other one in a day or two) and tonight I was able to start cutting and adding styrene.

Looted Wagon One:

The will be a classic 'Destroya' build - namely hull mounted Boomgun and a co-axial Big Shoota (made from an Assault Cannon to tie in with the Looted Chimera it will be fighting alongside).

Looted Wagon Two:

Also a 'Destroya' build with a hull mounted Boomgun as the first Wagon, but this one will have the additional weapons (Rokkit Launchas) in a small turret.

The first two will have similar hull designs, especially at the rear but the details will be different. The one having the small turret will obviously set them apart the most.

The third wagon will now have a turret mounted Boomgun, rather than being another Destroya.

I also stripped the paint off a battlecannon cut from one of the Russ turrets and added the tubing to it.

I will be working on the Defensive Wall bits tomorrow - namely doing the moulds. But the next update on here will probably on the Looted Wagons again as I won't do an update on the walls till the moulds are done and the first casts are made.

Defensive Walls & 3D Printing 7

Still no real model time available but I had to make some time to get some pictures of what arrived today, namely the latest batch of 3D prints.

Defensive Wall Plinths

First up we have the corner and straight Defensive Wall plinths:

Rather pleased how they turned out. Hopefully the upper panels will fit as nicely as this when the bottom piece is also a cast copy.

Quick shot to show the holes allowing the
excess powder to drain out of the hollow pieces.

Mounting Plates

Next up are the mounting plates. Due to the material used (Fine Ultra Detail) it isn't easy to make them out, but from what I can see they look sharp and pretty good. Only once I have cast them in resin will I know for certain how good they are.

Rebar

For the rebar I had two pieces cast, one in 'alumide' and one in 'white detail'.

The white detail rebar certainly looks to have a better finish so I will be trying to cast rebar from that piece. In hindsight I might of made the coil tighter slightly but I'm not too worried.

Left - Alumide
Right - White Detail

Emplacement Walls

The last things I had printed were the Gun Emplacement walls. Slightly jumped the gun getting them done this early but nevermind...

The emplacement walls are also hollow, drastically reducing the cost without any noticeable drawback.


I can't see me being able to start doing the moulds for these untill Sunday at the earliest, however I have set Sunday aside to work on the Looted Wagons so I may only get the plinths and mounting bracket moulds sorted.

So all being well i'll be casting the first pieces Monday or Tuesday.

Recalcitrant Daze - Been a bit quiet & MWC

Recently life has been somewhat devoid of models, instead it has been full of building furniture, moving stuff from one place to another, sorting, chucking crap and so on.

I'm knackered.

However the three Looted Wagons are almost stripped so this sunday I will be starting on them properly, update to follow that night or Monday.


Miniature Wargame Conversion...

My first article is up on MWC. For a change it has no Orks in it, instead it is regarding some techniques in converting Nurgle vehicles.

It can be found here.

While you are there check out the competition the guys have running currently, it might give you some inspiration or motivation with a project.



Normal service should be resumed shortly...

Looted Wagons 13

I know.

'No more Looted Wagons for a while...'

'Will work on my own Ork/Militia projects...'

So anyway i've been commissioned to build three Looted Wagons which I have now started work on.

I managed to get hold of three Leman Russ tanks off eBay which were in a good state and for a decent price.

Leman Russ, Leman Russ Demolisher & a new kit Leman Russ

The request was for three 'Destroya' type along the lines of these two Looted Wagons I did previously:

This will be a new thing for me as normally I would only build one vehicle at a time and I just don't do multiples. The only reason I did two Destroya's was because due to the second one being for the Bell of Lost Souls article.

However by giving each one something different and varying the look within the Destroya' style I hope the project will be enjoyable as building three vehicles which are completely different.

The basic pre-loot work has now started, this covers breaking the vehicle down and stripping paint. Only once this is done will I start to add to what is left.

I hoped to have them stripped today, but due to real life issues (including the repercusions of a leaking roof) and running out of Fairy Power Spray I couldn't get the paint off them. I hope tomorrow will see that done so that I can start cutting a gluing styrene next week.

Not a huge post I know, but I thought it would be nice to get the ball rolling on this one. Once styrene starts to go on i'll do another update.

City Fight 2 - Concept Work Continued

I'm not doing Cityfight.

I just wanted to make that clear before I got into this second post with concept work for Cityfight (which i'm not doing, let's be absolutely clear about this).

After the comments on Part One I thought I would do a little more more on the concept and to help clarify the ideas.

To be absolutely clear these ARE NOT designs I am thinking of doing. Any finished designs would not look like this. They are not even WIP designs. These are purely shapes and quick sketches to show the basic principles I am thinking of (one day) doing.

Now that is out of the way...

First up the edging (and the roof lining/edging would also follow the same principle). Basically the edging would not be a continuous strip, it would be a small length (25-30mm long) printed then cast. This allows the building to be of a range of heights.

The edging pieces will be styled, though I will not be going down the GW route. So there will not be hundreds of skulls or random bits of machinery stuck on etc. The pieces would be embossed, engraved, shaped etc which suit being printed far more than being scratchbuilt.

I know they look ugly.
They are just here to help explain why I will be printing them.

The edging pieces lined up in situ.

Just a random detail shot of the wing. Just because.

In the one picture above you can see the corner pieces. These will not be plain pieces but designs something like (something like, not identical to) the model below. The general idea is fine, but the final piece would probably have wings of somekind either side of the eagles head, underneath the head I was thinking something like a mounting point for a light to hang down on a chain and also a hole for guttering to run through up to the roof.

Again, it is just a sketch, not the actual design.

Models eye view on left.

And here is the concept (yes concept, not design. These are ugly, bulky, too big and a whole host of other things, they do however make it clear what the idea for the windows would be) of the window frames - the door frame would be similar.

Each frame is built out of smaller pieces with which will allow a range of window sizes to be done. A door would be similar in principle though the bottom would lead into steps.

In the pictures you can see the external and internal frames. The external frame would be larger and more decorative, the internal would be little more than a thin frame. What you can see in the section view is that the two frames do not meet. The gap is so that you can slot something in place...

I know it looks horrible.

And here you see what would be slotted into the frame, namely clear acylic broken up to look like broken windows.

And the last thing to show is one of the detail pieces I would look at doing, namely floor support/brackets. I butchered the roof corner piece shown above to come up with a quick model which would sit over the roof beams.

That is it for today, and probably a while as I really have too much on to get distracted.