Bunkers

I saw this idea online so decided to try it.  I got some hexagonal craft boxes made from balsa wood I think, although it feels a lot tougher than balsa. They are usually used for crafting projects where people paint or decorate them for use as trinket / gift boxes and that kind of thing.
Not for me though, these were going to be WW2 Hardpoints :-)

Original box with standard 28mm fig

Opened, showing original little mag closure and hinge

Hinge removed. Slots for gun ports being marked and cut out with a little modelling saw. I tried a knife, but it was very hard work.

Cleaning up and smoothing the fire points

Ready for some paint

Basecoast of olive brown colour. I believe black or most browns / olives would work. Perhaps even yellow for a desert bunker.

 

Light layer of a decent stone fleck effect model paint. This was obviously the easy route but gives a brilliant fast easy finish. Otherwise, a few layers of various greys and / or browns could create a great colour. Googling "ww2 bunkers" gives LOADS of inspiration :-)

Adding a couple of rare earth magnets at opposite corners gave me the option of using them open or placing troops inside.

Added some Moss Green weathering liquid from Model Mates, then a little sepia wash around the edges and a line around the base.

The finished bunkers

More Chaos Spawn - Eyes

I had this idea a while ago, but as usual its taken me ages to finish, but here they are. Five chaos spawn on the theme of eyes, each with an animal flavour.  Cat, Dragon, Goat, Fly, Human.
I added some spikes to the cat, and blades to the goat to add some mutations and interest.
The Human is in fact an ancient corrupted Space Marine, so hes got some long service studs, the remnants of his power armour pack and shoulder pads fused to his body, slowly rusting away. (bonus points if you can spot which chapter he was!)

Some silly ideas, based on some ping pong balls, lots of green stuff and spawn box parts....

Start of modelling

Getting the green stuff done. Base coated. Deciding on Pupils

Getting some texture on.

Start of the painting

Some drybrushing

Nearly there!

Object Source Lighting. Good or bad?

Here's some examples of what I understand "Object Source Lighting" to be.

From the blog - 'From the Warp'

From the blog - Dees Paint Filled Hell Hole

I cant deny it looks very impressive, and having had a go at it I reckon its a very skilled person who can do it, (which is why I couldn't !)  however,  I just cant decide if I actually like it on models.
For some reason, despite its accurate reflection of what a light source would be doing, it kinda strikes me as looking sort of messy. Perhaps I'm just not very artistic or I probably don't have a very good eye for these things.
Perhaps its one of those things that is very black and white in its execution, that unless its done absolutely bang on, its just wrong - do it right or not at all.   I'm not sure.  I'm still rather on the fence about it.

Chaos Spawn

I got my unit of Chaos Spawn done now. Its got one from the box in a fairly standard layout (the green skinned one), and the other 4 are made from lots of bits from the box modelled into a lot of greenstuff  that I tried my hand at sculpting with. I wanted some to be very different from the standard box layouts to show how varie and odd spawn can be. I learned a lot from the sculpting, but its clearly not something I'm very good at :-)
I'm happy enough with them to use them, but I think I'm better at just 'coloring in' bought or converted models rather than sculpting from scratch.  I always found converting fun, so will stick to that for the time being.

Disc of Tzeentch

 

As daft as it sounds, I really needed a Disc of Tzeentch at short notice. I had a million more important jobs to do, but somehow I managed to squeeze in actually making one from scratch.

A basic Plasticard disc, cut slightly oval to give me an idea of which way was the front, mounted on a flying stand. Then I used Lots of greenstuff cut with some Milliput modelling clay to make the contours and 'meat' of the disc.

At this point I seemed to stop taking photos for some reason. Probably as I was frantically modelling in between more important things like the school run and job hunting!

 

I added some horns from the chaos Spawn boxset, then after some fiddling about with blue layers, and finally a coating of glossy 'Ardcoat to protect it, then Lhamian Medium to make it matte again, it seemed to come out 'ok'. 

Hopefully you guys think so too :-)

Lahmian Medium

I bought some of this Lahmian Medium the other day, and got round to using it recently on my Maulerfiend.

Its interesting stuff, and described to me as the actual 'base' of Citadel paints.

The new Citadel range can be thinned with water easily enough, but that actually has a very different effect on it than this stuff. This made it far nicer to work with when I added a few drops 50/50 with the Gehenna's gold that I always seem to have trouble with. It made it smooth and a pleasure to work with. 2 coats of my mix gave a far better finish then 2 coats of Gehenna's with water.

I was also told that its basically a matt varnish. And is the opposite number to the 'Ardcoat clear gloss they also do. I think these 2 are hidden gems in the paint set. (I often use Ardcoat over the painted lenses of eyes, lights etc to make them reflective like glass.)  The matt Lhamian can also be used to put Decals on, and this is great, as it 'glues' them down better, and seals them on, far superior to water, and gives the decal the same reflective qualities as the paint underneath and around it, making it look like the decal is painted on, rather than plastic stuck on.

I'll still use water for a lot of work, or larger areas, but for medium to small details, this stuff just made the paint 'feel' so much nicer.

Very happy to have found this stuff, and I think its something I'll use a fair bit, like 'Ardcoat, liquid green stuff, and Nuln Oil wash :-)

Chaos Maulerfiend

This one took a while, but happy with the result, even if I got a little despondant half way through!

Based in black. Heavily Drybrushed in silver.

Purple Layer 1. And some of the different metals on body and exhaust Stacks.

Purple Layer 2

Purple Layer 3

Half way through adding the gold trim

Purple wash done to tie all the layers together.

Black wash done on all gold and silver.

Started Playing with base ideas. Planned out some dried mud puddles.

Glued on and painted the bits. Added the Crackle Paint to make the dried mud.

Finished base.

Crackle paint close up.

Finally Glued togther!