BCK's Thread of Stuff: Maybe not eldar...

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

At first, it was just a tank itch but the way my thoughts have been going the last few days it's likely going to be a whole project. I think the combination of me moving and sorting my models to get ready to pack them up has brought me to the realization that I now seem to prefer primaris over the old marines. They're just proportioned so much better and don't need the corrective things I would normally do to make the old marines more to my liking. In fact, after the move, I might see about selling off most of my old marine stuff. I also might have picked up a squad of infiltrators from Shadowspear off of eBay last night. 

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

I was digging through my paints to see if I had an greens that could work for the Raptors and found 8 possibilities. I painted each color onto some white card stock, scanned it, and then took it into Photoshop and blurred the image to remove the brush strokes. A little cut and paste and here we are.

 

 

Some of them came out a little different than I was expecting from seeing the color through the plastic jar, like Greyed Olive being lighter and Thornwood Green being more brown. I think I like numbers 7 and 8 the best for a base color. 

[Mechanist]

I probably go 6 for shading, 8 for main and 2 for edge highlights. 

Will be interesting to see the land raider in Raptor colours.

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

Cryx Bane Base, #6, has a built in highlight color with Cryx Bane Highlight, but I'm right there with you using it as a shade. However, I remembered something last night from one of my scale model magazines about companies making color modulation paint sets for specific paint schemes for WWII vehicles like Panzer Grey, US Olive Drab, and Russian Green. 

 

Color modulation is kind of like zenithal highlighting and shading for tanks and such, trying to simulate how light would fall on the real vehicles by spraying different armor plates in various light and dark tones. Usually, the end results looks very exaggerate because this is all done before any weathering which will reduce that sharp contrast for a more realistic look in the end (although Adam Wilder can take it too far and even a ton of weathering isn't enough to cover up the crazy modulation job). It's become popular enough that companies are making sets of 4 to 6 colors for specific paint schemes and here's the US Olive Drab and Russian 4BO Green examples. 

 

 

 

 

Maybe I'll look into one of these once I get moved and get my airbrush going again. 

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

Tracks on, top on, and beginning to fill in the awful gaps on this thing. 

 

 

And yes, I know I'm filling in one of those goofy cutouts on the back end of the LR, but I don't really care. 

 

Also, while continuing to go through my shocking amount of models still on sprue, I found a Defiler I had forgotten about with a lot of the body pieces missing for what was, no doubt, a conversion now long lost in the mists of memory. The autocannon "arm" was still on the sprue and its base looked like it was pretty close in size to the heavy bolter turret... 

 

 

http://dothehotpants.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/2zxtvs4.gif

 

Surely I'm not the only person to try that, right? I mean, I'd be sorely disappointed in the hordes of chaos players out there if so. 

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

Gap filling is pretty much done, but there's some areas I won't be able to get to and here's why:

 

 

Even as careful as I was in assembling this nightmare vehicle, the back plate of the engine wall/exhaust stacks is just a tiny bit off-set which threw off the alignment of the top part, as you can tell by the giant gap. I didn't notice it when I glued the top on. Now, that giant gap on the inner side of the track section means that the outer side of the left track section has a huge gap and it took a lot more effort to fill. Problem is that I have very little room to reach the gaps on the inside area. 

 

 

I hate it, but I don't want to pull this whole thing apart to fix the problem. 

 

 

For more positive updates, I recolored the Shadowspear figures I bought off eBay in Raptors colors to get an idea of they might look. 

 

 

I may use this guy to make a Lias Issodon. 

 

 

Love the mask, but too bad it's not a full helmet. 

 

 

Kinda hope the sarge has a helmeted head option. 

[Oshikai]

Yeah, that Raptors Color Scheme has allways been amazing, do it!. Is that Vallejo Plastic Putty you are using for Gap filling? Are you wet sanding after that? What strength of sanding Paper? It looks so much smoother than I have ever been able to do. How long do you give it to settle? (PS: This Plog is the Bomb  )

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

I use Tamiya white putty and how long I let it cure before sanding depends on how thick I put it on. If I thin it down with lacquer thinner and use a brush to put it in thin gaps, maybe 10 minutes. If I squeeze it straight out of the tube to cover a huge gap like the left side of the top section pictures above, I give it at least an hour to set up.

 

I always wet sand everything to keep dust down. For this putty, I use a file first to knock down the high spots then switch to a 380 grit sandpaper to level it out, then 600 to finish it up.

 

Glad you like the thread and thanks for looking. :)

[Oshikai]

My Thanks BCK for the detailed Breakdown, will look for that Tamiya Filler ASAP . Not sure what Lacquer Thinner is exactly but Google will help. 

Edited August 4, 2019 by Oshikai

[rednekkboss]

Love the idea of an autocannon Land Raider!!

  I just sold off my Raptors, but the no nonsense/realistic approach to warfare was one of the big attractions for me. (if you need extra decals drop me a PM)  That and no problem using camoflage. I had planned a camo expansion for my force, but got sidetracked by Chaos. The Forgerworld chapter rules at the time were pretty awesome too, but the Raven Guard rules in 8th are good too. What is kind of neat about the olive/drab green scheme (if you stay one color) is you can make it as complicated as you want it and it has the possibility of being pretty expressive with highlights or faded colors, plus weathering.  WW2 armor models were a great resource for me.

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

My Thanks BCK for the detailed Breakdown, will look for that Tamiya Filler ASAP . Not sure what Lacquer Thinner is exactly but Google will help. 

 

Lacquer Thinner is a solvent and one you should use in a well ventilated area because the fumes are no joke. I've read you can also thin down the putty with plastic cement, but I've never tried it. 

 

Love the idea of an autocannon Land Raider!!

 

  I just sold off my Raptors, but the no nonsense/realistic approach to warfare was one of the big attractions for me. (if you need extra decals drop me a PM)  That and no problem using camoflage. I had planned a camo expansion for my force, but got sidetracked by Chaos. The Forgerworld chapter rules at the time were pretty awesome too, but the Raven Guard rules in 8th are good too. What is kind of neat about the olive/drab green scheme (if you stay one color) is you can make it as complicated as you want it and it has the possibility of being pretty expressive with highlights or faded colors, plus weathering.  WW2 armor models were a great resource for me.

 

I'm half tempted to make the assault cannon turret on the front of the LR into autocannons like that Defiler arm just for giggles. I agree with you on the green being very flexible, and weathering shows up very well on a dark color like that. 

[Chaplain Raeven]

Those are some nice 'antique' cannons on the front.




Might be a bit too ornate for the Raptors, but i'm sure you'll pull it of. The idea of an all auto-cannon tank of destruction sounds as awesome as it looks.
Regarding the article Nomus Sardauk mentioned, I included in the spoilers below. Your photoshopped pictures look pretty awesome though, I'm not sure if camo would make them better. Might be great for their camocloaks

Edited August 5, 2019 by GreyRavenC

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

My Thanks BCK for the detailed Breakdown, will look for that Tamiya Filler ASAP .

 

I realized tonight I told you the wrong grits for the sandpaper I use! The 360 is something I rarely use on figures unless I'm really trying to remove some material because it's strong and can leave some deep scratches. 600 is what I use for regular sanding, and 800 if it needs polishing up. 

 

I had a go at a slight conversion today for a Primaris Lieutenant - the one with the auto bolter (or whatever it's called) held up in the air and the bolt pistol in the other hand - by removing the helmet from his waist so I could put a helmeted head on him. Reasonable marines do not go into combat without a brain bucket on, after all. Especially the commanding officers! The helmet came off pretty easily and it wasn't too much trouble to sculpt in some duplicates of the pouches that can be found all over these guys - I think I got pretty close to how the real ones look. 

 

 

I know the right arm is supposed to be higher, but I didn't want to glue it yet and the blutac wouldn't hold it straight up. I'm not crazy about that pose anyway because it's a gun safety thing (guns always pointed down, never up) and it just seems odd to me to be hold your monstrous bolt rifle with box mag straight up in the air while you're drawing a pistol. Most likely, I will swivel it down so it's closer to his side and pointed at the ground. 

 

Since the Raptors are known to not be bling lords like most chapters, I've been trying to think of some ideas to dress up the squad leaders, lieutenants, etc, a little bit aside from the paint job like grinding down one or more shoulder pads and use some old marine pads (probably Mk III) in their place. Maybe a loincloth? Not a fan of doing a balteus on these guys (the Roman/Ultramarines thing with the leather strips) but a loincloth could still conform to their color scheme. 

 

If anyone has some other ideas, I'm all ears. :)

 

And more Raptors army inspiration via Photoshop for me. 

 

[Reyner]

Awesome stuff BCK the Raptors have always been an interesting chapter - check out the Forge World Badab books if you have them for some examples of how Raptors marked out their leaders and stuff. If you don't have them they should be on the google and I can always PM you some pics if you need.

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

The Badab book 1 shows a vet sgt with a black helmet and a yellow stripe, while another illustration shows another vet sgt beaky with a standard green helmet with no yellow stripe, but a black stripe on the chest piece. If there's more than that, let me know. 

[jaxom]

Modeling ideas: The beaky sarge has one of those targeter eye-pieces. Maybe add more command-and-control bits to the sergeants, like small aerials, built in auspex (some of the Primaris sergeants have that already), or instead of a loincloth you could do a camo-half-cloak around the gorget and off one shoulder.

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

I can't believe I didn't think of some kind of cloak last night.  I'll see if I can come up with something for more tech gubbins on the commanders. 

 

A few minutes with a Dremel and the LT gets a shoulder pad upgrade. 

 

 

I didn't notice how much the chewed up lower arm showed until I was in Photoshop, and a quick buzz with the Dremel has the shoulder pad sitting lower and covering it up now. :)

[Blissful Brushes]

How to differentiate ‘soldier marines’ is a problem I’ve been pondering for a while before I can begin my own more special forces styled marine army.

- paint marks of rank

- more communication magic bunged into the headgear

- veteran colouring on armour

- if you’re numbering them differentiate his by with a different coloured squad number.

[Chaplain Raeven]

 

I know the right arm is supposed to be higher, but I didn't want to glue it yet and the blutac wouldn't hold it straight up. I'm not crazy about that pose anyway because it's a gun safety thing (guns always pointed down, never up) and it just seems odd to me to be hold your monstrous bolt rifle with box mag straight up in the air while you're drawing a pistol. Most likely, I will swivel it down so it's closer to his side and pointed at the ground. 

 

 

Pointing upwards is acceptable, in the military they taught us that either is safe enough. I even had the habit of carrying my minimi with the muzzle upwards (like they do in parades) when we weren't in tactical scenarios,  since the ammobelt kept snagging on my vest.

 

 

 

Since the Raptors are known to not be bling lords like most chapters, I've been trying to think of some ideas to dress up the squad leaders, lieutenants, etc, a little bit aside from the paint job like grinding down one or more shoulder pads and use some old marine pads (probably Mk III) in their place. Maybe a loincloth? Not a fan of doing a balteus on these guys (the Roman/Ultramarines thing with the leather strips) but a loincloth could still conform to their color scheme. 

 

 

You could give them some dangly bits like your Lt. has on his belt and paint them in different metals to show their value (silver, gold, copper, bronze,...). You could reflect this in the metal colour of your pauldrons as well. I usually go metal for regualr dudes, but make it copper of gold if they're of higher rank.

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

Yeah, decorative bits is a good idea. Might try to sculpt some eye bionic or some such. 

 

Now because I'm an organizational slob, I haven't found all the parts yet but it's like they knew me. 

 

 

*soon*

 

[CaptainStabby]

YEsssss, I have a small Raptors force that Im itching to go back to with this new rules drop. Super hyped to see what you do with them.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

 

*soon*

 

Iron Hands (smiling): "Finally, Corax's sons see sense. Had they done so before the Drop Site Massacre, our Primarch would live to crush the life out of the Arch-Traitor Horus, and their Primarch would be spared the shame of being condemned as a coward for fleeing before the enemy's firepower- what Corax's misguided 'mercy' allowed to become superior.

 

"Do not stop there, Raptors. Add an Earthshaker cannon battery- preferably self-propelled- to each of your Companies, so their thunder may drown out the enemies' cries for mercy."

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

YEsssss, I have a small Raptors force that Im itching to go back to with this new rules drop. Super hyped to see what you do with them.

 

They're almost all going to be primaris, so I'll have to come up with some steps to differentiate some of the models. 

 

 

"Do not stop there, Raptors. Add an Earthshaker cannon battery-."

 

I don't have anything with an Earthshaker on it, but I do have a Typhon. 

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

And tonight I finished something I started a while back: filling the insets in the chest that house... I dunno what. Lights? Smoke launchers? Is it ever explained?

 

[Jukkiz]

Most likely smoke launchers since the different grenade box straps ontop.