Movement Tray, Part 4 and Forest Litter Basing Tutorial

Finishing up my movement tray tutorial, onto the flocking of the trays and showing of my techniques for also obtaining a forest litter. So in reality this is a two for one tutorial.

Items needed:

· Bases and Movement Trays, ;)

· Sand or Model Railroad ballast

· Italian Seasoning, the type without any powders

· Glue: White Glue, Elmers Glue, Super Glue

· Thin or Fast Super Glue (Consistency of Water)

Pictured below is one of my new Red Box Games marauders, another gorgeous Tre Manor sculpt, with a blank base. For these examples I’m going to use Gorilla Superglue simply because it will cure quicker than White Glue or Elmer’s Glue. 

I applied the glue to the base and spread it using a toothpick, added a fake rock, and then applied an HO Scale Model Railroad Ballast as the flock. Then I simply tipped the base and cleaned off the excess.

Next I take the Italian Seasoning. Apply a pinch of it randomly here and there on the base. Then you use the Thin or Fast Super Glue and apply some drops of it over the Italian Seasoning.

< I RECOMMEND YOU WEAR EYE PROTECTION!!>> Definitely be aware of my warning, this glue has a lot of accelerant in it and if gets on exposed skin it will be warm to hot. It will almost instantly stick your eye lid to your eye ball if you get it in your eyes. I know someone this has happened to, wear glasses or goggles.   Also make sure as always with superglues that you have adequate ventilation. READ ALL OF THE WARNING LABELS.   Now that is out of the way, a drop here and there over the seasoning will do two things, stick it to the base and reinforce the seasonings herbs to where they can hold up to a drybrushing of paint later.

After that is done, tip the base and remove the excess, and you get what is shown below.

 

And with the movement tray it is just a bigger version of the base. So the final look is what is shown below.

After that is up to you to do the painting. Most of the time with the seasoning I will stipple and drybrush 3-5 colors on it for the Warriors of Chaos, to get the end product as shown in the pic below.

There you have it, how I do my movement trays and how I do a forest litter basing.

Horus Heresy All is Dust....

Finally picked this book by Graham McNeil back-up.  A story about the 1000 Sons and the witch hunt by the Emperor of Mankind.  The central character is Ahriman and his back is against the wall pretty much the whole time. 

I won't go into a lot of detail so as not to ruin the book for people.  I'm not a book reviewer, and I did sit this book down for a month or two as I was just too busy to sit and read a bit.  It was a good story like most of the Horus Heresy books that are written by Graham and Dan Abnett.  It definitely furthers the depth of the realm of Warhammer 40k.

It also gives me a very different impression of the 1000 Sons, not the traiterous type impression that I previously as them being a legion of chaos, but of a persecuted legion.  And the story also gives me a much more dislike of Leman Russ and the savagery of Space Wolves, they are definitely the Emperor's dogs and enforcers.  Don't get me wrong I like the idea of the wolves, but a story like this does give a different perspective.  And I still love the visual side of them, they are the Vikings of 40k.  And like that sort of thing.

This book, also, does the blur the lines, everything is not completely black and white in the 40k Mythology. 

New Crusaders... Conversions underway...

Adepticon is coming, so I need more crusaders for WAB.  Decided to add some Conquest Games's knights and few Perry's.

Below is a WIP of one of the riders. The Conquest mini's are cool, but like the Perry's too much chainmail.  Looking forward to the Fireforge minis that are coming out soon.

Below is some of the horse caparison work.  A ways to go yet along with some smoothing and fold work. 

Another shot.  The fronts are coming out pretty well.  Not sure if I will actually do the stitching yet.  It's a real pain and kind of fragile for gaming purposes.

So many projects, no time to get bored.

Warhammer Movement Tray Tutorial ... Part 3.1 Addendum

Our friend Mr. Bugman, NAVARRO (whose blog is in my blog list #2, check it out), reminded me of using a tooth brush to texture putty.  Something I do not do to often, and since my move I'm still looking for all my tools, but I still have the old soft bristled brush I use for removing paint.  So onto the second movement tray, similar method as the previous, but with adding an additional texture with the brush this time around the rock areas.

 One thing that is always difficult with spreading glue and sticking down the flock is control, often you get a small amount of glue somewhere you do not want it or when applying the flock and you press it in slightly it spreads in the wrong locations.

So I added the fake rocks and then commenced adding texture around the rocks in two ways.  One with the brush and the other with pressing a rock into the regular putty surface.   With the brush you can poke and sweep with it.

This is how it comes out, will add a bit more variety with the surface when I start adding the flock.  The flock I will be using is a HO Scale railroad ballast.  That will be in Part 4.

So there we are, another method that one can use.  Part 4 will be flocking and forest litter basing.

My new 40k Space Marine Army begins....

.....Slowly.  I'm so disenchanted with Warhammer Fantasy 8th edition, that I'm planning a return to 40k.  A game, I essentially, with the exception of playing a short team-up with Greg in Green Bay, last played just about 10 years ago.

So after my move I found all my loyalist space marine parts and began thinking about the army a bit.  It will certainly be a DIY Chapter, much in the vein of my Cerulean Templar army, except this time they will be red and not blue.  In my past experience, I never really had the firepower with that army as it was geared to close combat, overly so.  So this time there will be lots of marines with bolters.  So how do you make your army a bit different, dig through your bitz box.

In the digging I found an older boltgun like the one in the upper left, and I think a kill team bolter to the right of that (I have a bunch of those). 

Then I found some extra long bolters that I built long ago, and the metal one towards the bottom.  Still not enough diversity, so I will do some with drum magazines.  And then I found a bunch of flamers, so with a little bit of time today, I created the four boltgun you see in the center, using flamers, a bolt gun, and left over 40k ork bits from building my fantasy orc army. 

It's a start.  Its amazing how you forget what you have, as I found I had two Forgeworld Dreadnoughts in addition to a bunch of vehicles.  Much more to come on this army build. 

And no I'm not quiting fantasy as I still plan to build and paint the Chaos army and Orc army. 

Hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving.

Warhammer Movement Tray Tutorial ... Part 3 Apoxie Sculpt

The next installment of my movement tray tutorial.  In part 2 we constructed the basic tray and general shape.  Now we are going to bulk it out using Aves Apoxie sculpt.  Apoxie Sculpt is a two part modeling putty that takes many hours to cure, but cures very solid and hard.  Here I have mixed the two parts together and formed a long rope like piece.

As we also saw in the previous posts, I'm using a slate rock look on my Warriors of Chaos miniatures and movement trayes.  In the right hand corner of the picture below you see the fake slate rocks.  The rocks are, you guessed it, hardened Apoxie Sculpt that has been bust apart with a hammer.

The next picture I apply the rope to the tray.

Then I simply flatten out the rope, to get to the look below.  Nice and irregular, just the way I want it to look. 

Next up, I add the fake rocks.  These I simply push into the apoxie and I will allow it to cure overnight.

A close up of the one corner and the fake rocks.  I also pressed a rock into the corner and then placed layers in to that by using the blade end of my sculpting tool.

So now that is done, it will cure, and then you add the sand/flock/gravel whatever you are using.  In another post I'll detail how I add that and my trick at creating forest litter.  Until next time....

Beginnings of a Chaos Warshrine

I started this model a couple months ago before I moved, and have not made much progress with it since. 

The more it sits on my desk, the more I dislike it.  It started out as a sketch on napkin and has progressed to this point, but needs a lot more work.  I am a huge fan of spawns, but this one is not quite working out.

Below is the business end of the spawn.  Thinking about the model, wondering if I should not make it more like the two with the tyranid heads.





And yes the carriage portion of the model is not going to be empty.  There will be a champion riding that, using the nurgle champ model.  I'll dress him up a bit more.  I'm also thinking I need banners, those will need to go behind the pillar.  Can never have enough banners.