Loki's Dark Angels: Scratchbuilt Thunderhawk, ETL V + more!

[Stoic Raptor]

Amazing stuff - nice work on the tactical squad, the Deathwing look great, and I am super impressed by the scratch built Land Raider!  It looks as good as store-bought.

 

I will be following this thread with great interest - it's good that you're back at it.

[LokisSword]

Made some more progress on the Land Raider!

Pretty pleased with how these have turned out, especially considering it's the first time that I've use plasticard or attempted to model something of this detail.

These were built according to the plans provided with the original papermodel, they are not a 100% like-ness to the GW model, I'm ok with this for a first attempt - but I might make an attempt to engineer a better likeness on my second run. (Considering how long they took to make I was debating with myself if I should have just shelled out for a set of sprues!! But that would defeat the purpose of this project.... Or so I keep telling myself).

 

To the pics batman:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pretty chuffed, not too much more to do now!

[Chandrian]

That landraider is looking gorgeous !!!! keep up the good work

[LokisSword]

Short intermission in prep for the ETL, I will of course be painting for the Dark Angel subforum.

So far for my first vow I've decided I'll do the Land Raider and Belial. Later vows will also likely be characters, unless I convince myself to try airbrushing my DV tactical squad Or my pile of ravenwing bikes.

Anyway I digress, for Belial I'd posted an earlier WIP, here he is after a bit more work (shoulder pads and banner pole are just tacked in place):

 

 

 

 

Let me know what you think, especially:-

 

Does he look DA enough?

Is there enough GW stuff to make him look like he "fits in"?

Does he need more purity seals? If so where do you think I should add them?

 

I'm aware some might not like the bionic eye, unfortunately I had to add it to hide a bad mis-cast in his eye where the detail had been obliterated.

[LokisSword]

Just a quick addendum to ask what other peoples experience of Scibor Miniatures casts are?

The resin seemed very brittle, it discoloured badly when left in the sun (this is why I posted the above pictures in B&W to hide the weird off-yellow colour) and there was quite a rough finish to it in places.

 

It's very possible that these were recasts - they were bought from ebay after all, but they did come in individual blister packs with a little Scibor label.

 

Either way, I'm pretty happy with the above - and I still have another two Scibor Knight models to hack up, might have a go at a TH+SS version as well. 

[Captain Semper]

I think you've made the right touches to 40k-fy this model. Unfortunately GW Belial is so blunt that begs to be ignored...

 

I've never had a Scribor mini but that's because I'm not a great fan of the style. They are certainly impressive standalone but do not belong in the 40k aesthetics imo. Having said that small adjustments go a long way - and you're certainly have made the correct ones - avoid overdoing it right now he looks ok to me.

 

I look forward to see a completed version of it. 

[Grotsmasha]

Looks great :tu:

 

My only suggestion would be to look into swapping out the sword's grip and pommel for a more 40k one.

 

Cheers,

Jono

[Grand Master Belial]

I'll second the Good Captain. I have only two minor comments.

1. I see a couple of areas that can help make him more DA by painting on some Iconography. The right knee just screams it as does the cloak. I would not add anything more to him.

2. The sword blade seems small compared to the two-hand hilt. The blade itself is a good size for the model so if I felt my skills were up to it. I'd try to trim the handle down to make it a single-hand sword. But it is minor and you can ignore this comment as it is a nitpick.

[CaptainStabby]

I'd thicken up or lengthen the blade of the sword over changing the handle personally. It's TDA, it's got the servos and such to allow him to swing something proper beefy around and be good with it.

[JGeils81]

Son of a.... Well at least it's not identical to mine... Different base... Different body.. But I even used the same bolter and the full sword and the same dang banne! I'm working on my "counts as" too', was going to ask for CC before ETL. Now if I could get pics to work from my iPad I'd be able to do that..

 

Good work m8

[LokisSword]

Excellent feedback, thank you everyone!

 

Captain Semper: You are very correct, to me the Belial GW model is among the top 5 worst models they've made in the last few years!

I also agree with you about Scibor in general, a lot of their stuff would look very out of place in 40k as 'stock'. Do quite like their jetbike model however.

Yup, was concerned about over doing it - otherwise he might risk getting too busy.. However I'm still concerned that he doesn't have a single purity seal on  him. Glad you think I've gone the right way.

 

Grotsmasha: Thank you! You pointed out the one thing that was really niggling me so it made me go back and do something about it.

 

Grand Master Belial: The idea of free hand scares me like nothing else, not sure I've got my steady hand thing going just yet. On the other hand I'm looking at investing in some print-you-own decal paper - which might be a solution. Either way I agree there are a few places where I scrapped off Templar-y looking crosses, which would now make home to some good DA iconography / heraldry.

As per Grotsmasha, you drew attention to the one thing that wasn't sitting right with me... guess I just wanted someone else to tell me it needed doing.

 

CaptainStabby: If I was confident enough I'd probably have taken a shot at making it maybe 10-15% bigger. The problem is with getting a steady bevel around the blade and engraving the ferule down the middle... not easy with the limited tools I've got.

 

JGeils81: Um?... great minds think alike :) I used this storm bolter as I think its the only one to have the added detail on this side and the banner was the only DA one I had left kicking about. Would really like to see your take on Belial - get those pictures up.

 

 

Based on all the above I went back and pulled his arm off so I could get to the sword hilt.

I've trimmed it down by about 2mm and added a more fitting 40k-style pommel. If I was better equiped I'd have tried to drill out the existing and replace it with a full grip - unfortunately I'm lacking a pin-vice and a donor handle.. maybe next time.

 

 

Not a huge difference I know, but feels better to me.

Thanks all for your feedback - it all helps (especially when I'm lazy and need a poke to do what I've put off!)

[JGeils81]

 

there we are

[Grand Master Belial]

The sword does look more evenly balanced now.

[deathspectersgt7]

That is IMPRESSIVE!!!.

[LokisSword]

 JGeils81: They could have been Brothers separated at birth (oh hang on, that's another story! ;) )

 

deathspectresgt7: Many thanks :) He's definitely growing on me. Looking forward to painting him for the ETL.

[LokisSword]

Yeah baby, so the Land Raider is ready for the paintshop just in time for ETL :)  Happy times!

Pretty pleased with how its turned out - still got the Hurri-bolter and Assault Cannon alt weapons to finish building, but have enough for my ETL stage 1 vow.

 

 

 

More WIP pics to come as ETL begins!

[LokisSword]

|+++++ WARNING - PICT HEAVY DATA BURST INCOMING +++++|

I'm back, ETL always lures me out of hiding at this time of year!

So here's an update.

Landraider - Completed well enough for last years ETL. It is currently awaiting custom decals (bought the paper - just need to design and print them!). Paint is probably 90% of the way to final, just need to decide how heavily to weather it. Overall I'm slightly less than 50% pleased with it, there is just too much slop / imbalance. I hope to correct this in future projects.

ETL V - I've started off with a small vow, 1 x 10 man tactical squad. This is an opportunity to break in my new airbrush and try out a whole new paint scheme. All my previous Green Marines went in the Biostrip and came out like this...

Here's the first 10 I've vowed, note they've been ripped off their old bases in prep for new size bases.

And here is where we are up to now:

And compared to my DW scheme:

All coming along OK so far! Hoping to get through a good few Tacticals during ETL V.

Resin(ish) Bases - Prior to the announcement of the new GW scenic bases I decided to take a crack at building my own generic 40K Imperial / Mechanicum style bases. Interestingly some of the them have quite similar designs to GW's!

I've built 10 different bases so far with the intention being to make another 10 to break up the repetition. With the addition of scatter materials / shell casings, etc I think it should be enough variety for my Marine foot sloggers.

So far I've been 'casting' - using a mix of Instamold, Liquid Blustuff and Homemade Silicon Putty moulds and differing mixes of Car Body Filler and Fibreglass Resin. This is due to me being a cheap git and not splashing on real casting resin. So far the results have been reasonable but I can definitely improve with better materials.

Master models:

Mix of mouds and casts:

Test painting a few:

Project Thunderhawk - After the moderate success I had with the Landraider I was spurred on to try something bigger. Initially I was drawn to the Warhound Titan, but I'd rather build the Mars variant and that's a little beyond my skill level right now

I've always wanted to Thunderhawk, all the way back to the White Metal version - seemed like an ideal candidate.

I have no real experience of constructing a model this size (even from templates) so it's a great learning experience, if a little scary at times.

I have *NO* illusion or expectation of competing with Mr. Blackadder[s beast of a Thunderhawk - this is more a learning project for me than anything else. If I end up with a cool model at the end of it, all the better.

So there we go, that's whats been keeping me occupied.

Now is the time to start bashing out some ETL V progress.

Thanks all!