Next Project: Retro Rhinos and Razorback (WIP)

This next project will take a bit: I had 3 sealed original vehicles - 2 retro Rhinos and a retro Razorback that I obtained from a friend's collection.

Everything is original and was still on the sprues and of course the original transfers and instructions.

I even found a bonus sprue in the Razorback box that I'm having troubles identifying.

I've heard that the grip bar that runs along the top of the rhino is very fragile, and I can tell looking at how thin they are.  My plan is to get some brass rods and shape/solder them into the same form.  I also want to magnetize the turret and add some internal filler (thinking wood blocks) to the main hull to add some weight and structure. Since the turret addon for the Razorback is metal, I think the internal structure will be important for supporting and balancing it as well.

Vanguard Veterans (WIP) Update 3

Vanguard Vets are magnetized and primed and painting is in progress!

The base coat priming didn't go on exactly as I'd like.  It's such an important step and it seems like there is a lot in the hands of the humidity and temperature gods.  I think this time I sprayed when it was too dry and windy and a bit too far away so there is a very minor fuzz in a few patches.  

Some of the tricks online are to use glass wine bottles with the miniature tacked to the cap.  This provides a heavy, stable base that wont get blown around in the wind and allows you to hold the miniature so you can get a good angle on the underside and also spin to get 360.  The video I watched also seemed to have them spray closer than I have been which might help with the spray drying too much before contact.

Another Dive into Green Stuff: Seams and Such

I have moved on from sculpting rocks.  The original reason for the dive into green stuff was to be able to mount the space marine jump packs with enough of a gap to allow for the shoulder pauldrons to fit when the character is lifting the weapon up. I found that to support the raised arms, the jump packs had to be tilted back a bit and there wouldn't be enough surface contact to create a strong bond.  This is exactly what green stuff is supposed to fix.

I also wanted to learn how to use the stuff for smaller seams as well, such as the gaps between the two halves of the torso for the veteran sergeant, and the two halves of 2 plastic jump packs.

I think I did a pretty good job with the interface between the jump pack and torso for the veteran sergeant.  I even added some texture to simulate connection cables/joints.  I didn't get pictures of the metal miniatures but there I just went a bit more basic and kinda just extended the block from the back of the torso.

Using the sculpting tools I feel I was able to get the green stuff into the recesses and flattened and smoothed on the various surfaces of the jet pack pretty well.  

On the torso, which was actually the first thing I tried, I think the visible areas were pretty good, but I could have done a bit better job around the gorget.  Luckily, with the head in place, all of this area should be well hidden.

Finally, to add a bit more 'bling' to the sergeant, I used another bit from the Ultramarines upgrade sprue and attached an ultima to the jump pack.  I think they intend for it to mount on top like the final on a flag, but I prefer to avoid things like that where possible (already enough things that can break off) so instead I wanted to mount it flush.

Next Dive into Green Stuff: Tactical Rocks

Using green stuff for fixing gaps and such was a fairly easy way to get started and learn how to work with it.  Next I used it for creating 'tactical rocks.'  This required a bit more skill in sculping rocks, but since rocks are usually blobs, it didn't take much skill.  Obviously real rocks of different types have different properties - river rocks are generally smooth, shale or similar sedimentary rock are rough and have 'fissile' characteristics (splitting flat), and so on.  So I didn't achieve any particular uniform rock-like characteristics - I just made blobs, but I think with some mud, paint, and ballast I can make them a bit more rock like.

This tactical rock didn't quite get centered under the foot, but I felt it was all right since maybe sometimes these transhumans have more things to worry about on the battlefield than posting with the foot squarely on the rock, you know, gotta make sure that hammer is just so for the warcry.  Pretty much all of the other minis in this squad needed a similar rock and got most of those centered, so this guy has character, maybe he's earned the name 'Shifty' or something.

Here we had some extra so I made some tactical mud to go with the tactical rock, which is of course hiding the bit of pewter supporting the foot and connecting it to the base slot tab.  I think this rock looks fine and its got a split in the front.  Using the silicone sculpting tools I was able to add texture and think it looked good enough. The 'mud' will probably get covered by paint-mud or ballast, but at least it will add a bit of dimension.

First Dive into Green Stuff

So far I have managed to avoid using green stuff.  I think I was able to get by owing to the design of Space Marine models - the armor naturally hides the arm joints under the shoulders pretty well, and I wasn't doing anything spectacular with poses.  Also the quality of the metal miniatures is pretty good.

But for the Vanguard Veterans it was time to learn for a few reasons.  1) First just to learn and improve my skills. 2) Also, I wanted to magnetize the arms to allow for different weapon loadouts and 3) In order to support some arm poses the backpacks had to come out away from the body a bit to fit the shoulders.

So I started with the arms.  In drilling out the space for the magnets, the plastic was pretty soft for the Foredom drill, and so some of the holes were oversized.

I found working with green stuff was fine for the most part for this type of work where I am not sculpting anything in particular except flat joints.  Nevertheless, I picked up a set of 5 "ColourShaper" brand size 0 Clay/Wax/polymer clay silicone tipped sculpting tools.  Silicone is really important because the stuff doesn't stick to it.  While mixing it with my hands I just dipped my finger tips in a bit of water to keep it from sticking - that worked ok.

The results were pretty good - it seems the magnets are in there and fit for the most part.  Definitely there is room for improvement in the future as some magnets were a bit too deep (and so I should have put green stuff behind them) while others stick out a bit.  I tried to pair up arms with bodies such that protruding magnets would be paired with sunken ones.

Vanguard Veterans (WIP) Update 2

Blue tac-ed the sergeant into the final pose.  While most of the unit will be classic metal miniatures - I wanted to use modern weapons, arms, and veteran pauldrons.  For the sergeant I'm using a completely modern set of plastic to get a bit more dynamic of a pose - first so he stands out a bit, and second because I wanted to use the ultramarine helm and it required the body.

Vanguard Veterans (WIP)

As already previewed in a prior post: I’ve started working on some (retro of course) Vanguard Veterans with jump packs.

These came from a friend’s collection that I inherited.  Some were in progress with paint, others were still in blister packs.

Stripping Paint the 'Easy Way'

Stay tuned for updates on Appy & Techie... they're nearly done and just looking for a warm day to seal and complete final touches.

So, in the background, I have moved onto the next project.  For the next project I have a number of metal models that I inherited.  Some of them were in various incomplete stages of painting, or had old primer.  At first I considered preserving the paint, but after looking closer I decided there were too many problems.  I wasn't exactly looking forward to the alternative - stripping the paint off, but it became clear that there was no other option - the paint jobs were not in good condition and were not at the level I wanted.

I looked for advice from the helpful 40k reddit folks and it seemed acetone was the way to go.  The basic advice was to soak the miniature in acetone for 5 minutes, then scrub with a soft toothbrush, and then finally rinse with warm water.

Here's the after and before:

I think it worked really well.  The adventure was a learning experience: I found a few tricks that made things even easier.

To start with I got some acetone and in the same trip out to my dad's workshop to drill some holes for pins and magnets, I also got out the sonic cleaner and dumped them in.

The first problem was that working with acetone isn't fun.  You want to be outside because of the fumes.  Also, it can really irritate your hands.  So here's what I found:

1. Latex/Non-latex gloves don't work, the acetone melted straight through almost immediately.  Instead we had some heavy PVC type gloves that worked, but it limited dexterity.  These gloves also helped with another problem - the rapid evaporation will suck the heat straight out of your fingers very quick, and so if you're outside in early spring it hurts a lot.

2. Dunking the toothbrush into the acetone and then immediately scrubbing is SUPER effective.  Just scrubbing after taking the miniature out of the tank, or applying acetone to the miniature wasn't nearly as effective and would require a lot more effort.  But by either dunking the brush, or using an eyedropper to wet the brush and then scrubbing immediately would pull the paint and primer off after just a few seconds of vigorous scrubbing.

3. I also held the miniature in a paper towel so that it would absorb the acetone particles/spray from the brushing and trap a lot of it from going everywhere.  It was also a good way to see how effective the brushing was.  By using the brush dunk technique the paper towel would immediately turn very dark gray/blue, while when not using the technique a clean towel would slowly turn light gray at a much slower rate.

(The other picture kinda looked like I just changed it to black and white, so with this one I wanted to get my hand in there to prove it heh)

Pewter is Hard (to pin)

 I love my retro 40k army, an army that I mostly collected ~25 years ago but only was able to paint to my standards in recent years.  I love the classic beakie armor and the bit of wimsy some of the sculpts bring to the grimdark.  I love the Rogue Trader era.  I love that almost every model in my army is entirely or largely metal, and I got them back when they still made them that way.  I like the heft, they feel sturdy.  (They say that people tend to associate weight with value.)

I HATE trying to drill into pewter though.  Its super hard and takes forever.  I was dreading it and dreading it, and sure enough, it was a pain.

I got through it, but not without problems.

This is another drill bit that was ruined.  The other end is still stuck in Chappy's armpit, probably to remain there for a long, long time.  To be honest, these drill bits have always had problems (maybe they were made for wood or plastic?)  And they also seem too long for their diameter.  I'd really like to improve this skill and gain the right info/tools, especially since I have a bunch of classic Grey Knight Terminators with a bunch of tiny metal weapons/arms to assemble.  I think the bit was only 0.5 or 0.6mm.

So anyway, the hole I was drilling probably didnt need to be so deep, and even after I broke off the drill bit, there was still some hole depth that I could use to pin the arm with.  I do worry that it is much weaker now, but not sure how to fix it.

Then on the other side I went with a bit that was much larger, and that came with the Army Painter kit that the pins came from.  Seems at the larger diameter it would be less likely to break, and I was also hoping that maybe also it was for sure designed to be able to drill metal miniatures.  I think I went with the 1.2mm bit.  Anyway, it worked, but it seemed like I was drilling a crater by comparison.  And it was really, really, really hard.  Pewter is hard, and I was trying to be as gentle as possible to be careful with the paint etc.   The real lesson is to drill everything before painting.  I guess that didn't occur to me because I wanted to paint disassembled, but of course I could have at least drilled and maybe even prepped and saved off the pin somewhere to glue later.  Welp thats why I'm here right?  Write down these lessons so that I do it right next time.

Anyway, Chappy here is almost done, and since he is all about reciting litanies of hate, it seems appropriate that I recited some too while putting him together, ha!

Late 1st Edition Devastators & MkVs

Didn't accomplish a lot of painting in 2020 and my Chappy n' Cappy project was on hold for awhile, but here in 2021 I'm getting back into it!  After finishing up some minis for D&D, I decided to finish off these late 1st Edition Devastators and MkVs that have been sitting around primed and ready for probably decades.

First, the MkVs are the classic Jes Goodwin sculpt #070197/3 from the 1992 Green Citadel Catalogue.  I mixed in some slightly more modern arms and weapons a bit (just bits I could find).  Its really cool to see whole armies in modern Warhammer 30k that use a bunch of new poses in the 'retro' patterns - but this is the original!

The sergeant also features my first serious attempt to do 'object source lighting' (OSL) from the glow from the overcharged plasma pistol.  It turned out really well, I focused on being very subtle.  I should have read up and refreshed myself on the technique first - I had to redo it a bit because I forgot that the deepest areas were the brightest and you start basically in reverse.

Overall I'm really happy that I'm continuing to progress in finer lines and thinner paints.  I'm seeing steady improvement as I go along.

The devastators are #070099/2 and #070099/3 from the 1992 Green Catalogue.  All of these are technically 1st edition RT models, but very late since they aren't in the '91 catalogue and 2nd edition was released in '93.  I know I bought the MkVs first hand, but not exactly sure when I acquired these two.

I continued with my classic scheme with red for most weapons.  This was my first time working with Khorne Red and Mephiston Red from either Vallejo or older Citadel paints.  Overall they are still thin and tricky, but I felt they were a bit better.  I had a lot of fun with the magboots too.

These models were always a bit wonky and top heavy (the weapons are pewter) - attaching the weapon on top of the shoulder and nesting the backpack was not straightforward.  I really should have pinned them, but I didn't.  But, if they fall off then I'll pin them.  Mainly, there's no guides for getting the arm/shoulder pad in the right spot, so I didn't want to drill into the wrong spot and have the arm end up having to be too low/high.  But if they fall off then I think I'll be better able to see where to pin/repair.

These additions really were to add more options to my army, so I don't have to play these two unless I need a 2nd heavy bolter or lascannon (and I dont play often), so it should be fine, but it really does complete the classic look.

The new sergeant with 5 earlier ones painted ~2012

With the other Devastators

The special weapons

Bulkheads for Kill Team

Totally admit I haven't been working on 40k much so far this year between all the other things.  But, I've been meaning to play some Kill Team and I was able to spend a few weekends to get some Prometheus Forge MDF painted up well enough that I would be happy with it.

Assembly was ok, just PVA glue and some sanding down.  Seems like the connectors can be a bit weak though.  And also the bee's wax or candle wax is really important.  Most difficult part was putting together the stairwells.  Rubber-bands held em together while the glue dried.

I followed the "Luke Aps" video for basic spray painting technique with a base of flat black, a zenithal lighting gray, and a under-side spray of rust.

You can see the light gray on the deck here, and then the box (or inverted bunker) you can see the rust color along the edges.

For a color scheme I went with the Sector Mechanicus scheme shown in the basic Sonic Sledgehammer Studio video.  Dry brushing worked really well for the starter ruins I have from the moon base kit and seen in the background in one of the pictures below, but not so well for the flat panels in the MDF.  So, I improvised and came up with some cool rust effects pulling down the paint to create effects that look like either water running down the side, or wind blowing water across the decking plates.

For the hazard stripes, I used the hairspray & salt paint chipping effect which turned out alright.  The paint I was using at my folks house is cheap because they live out away from good hobby stores and we had it for just making terrain, so even layering yellow over orange was difficult since it was so thin.  It had a yellow-orange-green look which in the end actually worked out because it looks badly weathered by acid rain or something.

Finally, with the salt I discovered it looked really good on the decking, like salt was applied to keep people from slipping (you know workers comp must still be a thing in the 41st millennium) and gave that final touch to make the thing look really weathered and worn.  It either looks like broken glass or salt.  I have to admit in the pictures now its a bit much, but I brushed off all the big crystals before putting it all away and since the dust stayed on it looked a lot less ridiculous and more realistic.  If I ever get tired of it it washes right off so no problem there.  It was funny how salt finished off the scenery just like food - voila!