29 replies to this topic

[RedemptionNL]

Here's my first entry's WIP, a small squad of Purifiers:





The shading layers for the silver and white are down and already did the layering of silver on the 4 of 'em. The Purifier Justicar lurking in the shadows in the top left is already finished.

Edited by RedemptionNL, 23 August 2012 - 09:12 AM.

[RedemptionNL]

And first vow complete! Here it is:





Now for my next vow, I'm going to finish a Phobos pattern Land Raider I've been working on, currently in the modelling phase. In true +++E Tenebrae Lux+++ fashion, I'm going to bring light to the darkness by giving it LED interior and headlights! This is going to be my first experience in both soldering and led-lighting, so I hope everything will work out all right.

Edited by RedemptionNL, 16 June 2012 - 08:40 AM.

[Chaplain Dosjetka]

Not the best set of pictures, but from what I can see, they look good

Ludovic

[RedemptionNL]

Thanks Ludovic!

On to the next project, the LED-Lighted Lascannon Land Raider!

The first problem I had to tackle with lighting up the headlights, was drilling out the headlight bits. Most converted Landraiders I see just drill out a giant hole in the headlight bitz, but I liked the look of the wired mesh in front of the lightsm so I attempted to keep that, by drilling out the lights from the back and using a dremel to make little holes in the front for the light to shine through.

Well... that didn't work out so good:



As you can see, the grill is so tiny I basically destroyed it in the process. So I had to work on a different solution. With the advent of 3d printing, I thought, heck, why not give that a try? There's a company based in the Netherlands called Shapeways, where you can send a 3d model and they print it out for you for a reasonable price. I've dabbled in 3d modelling in the past, so I had some experience using the tools.

I measured up the original bit with a digital marking gauge to get reasonably accurate dimensions, and recreated the original bit as best I could, but with the headlights 'pre-drilled' to fit a duo of 3mm LEDs:



And send the model to Shapeways to print out a couple in their 'Frosted Ultra Detail' material. As it's somewhat transparent it's hard to take decent pictures of it, but here goes:



Lessons learned for the next bit I create: carve the details deeper! Here's a test fitting:



Still needs some fine sandpaper to smooth it out a little and make it fit better, but all in all I'm quite happy about the result!

As for the rest of the Land Raider, I couldn't just leave that stock either, so here's some other modifications I've done:



I combined the multi-melta gunner out of a PAGK's helmet, left shoulder pad and torso front with the legs, arms, right shoulder pad and rear torso of the techmarine included in the tank kits.



And I added the twin-linked lascannon barrels with the laurel wreaths from the Venerable Dreadnought kit to fancy those up a bit.



Of course some Forge World doors are always nice to spuce up a Land Raider.

I've already got some work done on the interior:







I've left it pretty basic, as in the Grim Darkness of the Land Raider interior, you can't see that much detail anyway, especially when peeking through the front assault ramp. If you're wondering where all the holes are for: the battery compartment is going to be housed behind the engine, so I've made the rear engine panel removable with magnets to be able to exchange empty batteries for fresh ones. The smaller holes are for the wiring.

Now to get everything together, solder/glue all the leds, wiring and switches in place and get it ready for painting the exterior!

[Brother Chaplain Kage]

Great idea with the 3d printing. Can't wait to see that lit up.

[Chaplain Dosjetka]

I'm looking forward to seeing the finished Land Raider

Ludovic

[RedemptionNL]

Got a little more progress on it done. I've finished up all the wiring and soldering, and installed a nice little gizmo: a reed switch. This is a switch that toggles based on the proximity of a magnetic field. I jury-rigged the Land Raider's door mechanism so that when the door opens, a magnet comes close to it and...



...lights up the interior!



And a picture from the front end. The light looks a little purple on the picture, but it's a blue led.



No I can glue it all together and start on the exterior paint job!

[Captain Semper]

This is amazing RedemptionNL! The reed switch is pure class! You're putting enormous effort here and it shows! Bravo!

[RedemptionNL]

Thanks Semper!

And also hooked up the highlights! The green reflection is from the camera lens, but you can see the wire mesh in it.

[RedemptionNL]

Hey guys! Finally managed to finish this thing.

First, two WIP pictures I forgot to post:



Picture of the main whole after I airbrushed the base coat, the heraldry and the shading.



Sadly I somewhat ruined the headlights a bit: I tried to use liquid mask to avoid spraying the leds, but it got all goocked up between the wire mesh. By removing it I damaged it a bit, removing some spokes from the wire mesh and filling up the detail of the 'blinker' lights next to the headlights. But as everything was glued together already, I couldn't replace the headlight bits anymore. So I had to settle on fixing it with some greenstuff. And in the end I could have easily masked it with some tape. That just teaches you to keep it simple... Ah well, live and learn, I'll certainly not repeat that mistake on my second Land Raider!



And here it is, all finished up! I quite like how the square lenses turned out, but I still need to practise the round ones and gems a bit more.











The assault ramp opened to show the nice blue glow coming from inside.



And in true 'E tenebrae lux' fashion, I bring light to the darkness.



This shot nicely shows the small conversion of the Venerable Dreadnought's lascannon barrels, I quite like these.



Even Grey Knights use bumber stickers.





And the assault ramp's door, showing the tank's name: 'Deux Ex'. I wanted to go for 'Deus Malleus', but that didn't fit.


All in all, I'm quite happy with the result, considering this is my first tank ever, even with the small blemish of the damaged headlights.

[SpecialIssue]

Good God-Emperor that is looking mighty fine. And not just the lighting effects - the paint job is fantastic!

[Inquisitor Fox]

Wow...

That is all, just wow. Very well done!

[Lachdannan]

That is one cool Land Raider. You've taken a lot of effort to wire that thing up, and it shows. Glad you took the plunge and did the 3D printing, and it worked really well. That inside light just adds to the effect, and is a really cool idea.

And am I right in thinking your going to do another one? Looking forward to it.

[RedemptionNL]

Yes, I have a FW Grey Knight Redeemer pattern Land Raider, a Stormraven and a trio of Rhinos/Razorbacks waiting to be assembled. Due to time constaints not going to do them as part of the E Tenebrae Lux challenge, but I'll get to them eventually!

I'm probably going to skip on doing the interiors on those though, as it takes a lot of extra time and I can always just show the interior on the Phobos pattern. That and replacing the batteries on this one is a bit of a chore because of the limited space in the engine compartment, so I'll probably just put the battery compartment behind the assault ramp/top hatch.

[painkiller]

Hi Redemption,

Great looking Land Raider.

May I ask which coulurs you used for the basecoat (grey?) and for the silver aswell as a description of the process of the painting of the hull colour. It is fantastically dull, but still metal. A great look for the vehicle insted of shiny silver all over.

Thank you in advance.

Brgds,

Painkiller

[Kierdale]

Outstanding work on that LR!
When I get round to making some tanks i really must put lights in them. Was the circuit simple?

[WarriorFish]

The painting alone makes this model very good but the addition of the extra bits and lights really gives it that extra touch of class. Very nice work indeed... you should send pictures in to the GW blog and show it off to the whole World! It's been a little too chaos heavy of late so it is time the Grey Knights turned up to rectify this

[RedemptionNL]

Great looking Land Raider.

May I ask which coulurs you used for the basecoat (grey?) and for the silver aswell as a description of the process of the painting of the hull colour. It is fantastically dull, but still metal. A great look for the vehicle insted of shiny silver all over.

Thanks Painkiller! Yeah, I was going for a dull metal look; you see some GK Land Raiders on the web that are way too shiny, which makes them look like a cheap toy. The steps I use to paint the hull are:

- Primed and basecoated with Vallejo German Panzer Grey primer
- Airbrushed Boltgun Metal. To make it suitable for airbrushing, I thinned it with Vallejo Glaze Medium.
- Airbrushed a little Vallejo Blue Metalic on the bottom end of surfaces to give it that steely blue hue. Not completely happy how it looks on the side of the tank, I found it works best on the smaller surfaces, such as the power plant and the sponsons.
- Airbrushed a little black into any large recessed corners; top of the headlights, heavy bolter turret recess, the sides of any raised armour panels, etc. This increases contract and definition.
- With a small brush, put a little Nuln Oil in the smaller recesses, such as the small armour lines. Also used Nuln Oil on things like the top of the engine.
- Edge highlight with Chainmail.

Outstanding work on that LR!
When I get round to making some tanks i really must put lights in them. Was the circuit simple?

Thanks! Yeah, just a battery, 2 switches, a couple of LEDs and a lot of wire. This was my first experience with soldering and LEDs. If I can do it, anyone can.

The painting alone makes this model very good but the addition of the extra bits and lights really gives it that extra touch of class. Very nice work indeed... you should send pictures in to the GW blog and show it off to the whole World! It's been a little too chaos heavy of late so it is time the Grey Knights turned up to rectify this

I may just do that when I finish my other Grey Knight models, perhaps they'll even do a small feature on their blog. The models are already in the GW Flickr pool btw.

[Circus Nurgling]

Solid work. I'm loving the olde english on the parchment you have there, among (many) other things.

[fivepointedstar]

awesome with the LED lights. And brilliant idea to use the venerable dread las muzzles to jazz up the raider.

[painkiller]

Thanks for your reply.

I keep coming back to look at this land raider. It's just... jawdropping.

Another question, how did you do the sword in the heraldry? Hand painted, or cut out in masking tape and airbrushed on?

Brgds,

Painkiller

[RedemptionNL]

Thanks painkiller, I'm flattered.

The sword in the heraldry is from the Vraks Space Marine transfer sheet from Forge World:
http://www.forgeworl...SFER-SHEET.html

[RedemptionNL]

Time to enter another round of E Tenebrae Lux, this time finally painting up my Stormraven Gunship for my Grey Knights:

Primed Vallejo German Grey:


Airbrushed a base of Boltgun Metal, then shaded with a hint of blue (doesn't show up well in the picture) and highlighted with Chainmail:

[RedemptionNL]

Nnnggghhh....



And kids, that's what happens when you prime a model you've used unpainted for like a year without properly cleaning it first...

Well, I don't feel like starting all over again, so I'll just have to fix it as best as possible and mask it with some weathering. It's just...battle damage...yeah.

[RedemptionNL]

Well, at least the other side looks fine when all the masking tape is removed.



Time to get the brushes out!