First up, apologies for the lack of posts recently. I’ve been dealing with some minor health issues that have been getting in the way, and so haven’t really done any work the last week or so. Things are looking up though, so I’ll be trying to bring updates a bit more regularly.

The Actual Scale bike is temporarily on hold. I have plans for it, but they will have to wait for the time being.

Most recently I put together this charming little guy, who will be a Pedro Kantor character, painted up in Salamanders chapter colours.

The client asked for a rotary stormbolter on a sort of underslung set up attached to his forearm (like a mini assault cannon), but after playing around with components for a while I couldn’t see a way to do it and not have the model look ridiculously out of proportion. As an alternative I settled for a quad barreled heavy looking storm bolter which fits the “Assault 4″ stats of Pedro’s weapon rather well.
The main body is from one of the standard Space Marine veteran models (one of my faves from the range in fact) with a head swap from the veterans sergeant. The cloak is one of the nicest I’ve done yet. I made an original from a soft clay, and then made a mold (destroying the original after because the mold wasn’t flexible. After applying GS to the inside of the mold (silicon putty) and letting it cure I then had to break the mold to get the GS one out. Came together quite nicely without too many imperfections, although the cloak is a little narrow at the top.

There’s a bit more to do, gaps to fill, iconography to go on the storm bolter, and details to add to the fist as it’s a bit plain at the moment. I’ve got to admit converting Space Marines at this scale has become more difficult for me, now that I’ve gotten comfortable with bigger marines.

Also managed this week to take a few steps backward with the scaled up Land Raider I’ve had for at least 6 months. I ended up literally ripping it in two so I could replace the main doors on the front with wider versions. I’m a bit annoyed with it but the finished thing will be better in the long run. All I know is that I’m not planning on making any more of these. I’ve got my fingers crossed that the new Blood Angels flyer either won’t need scaling up or will be easy to do so.

Gonna try and have some painted stuff to post in the next couple of days.

Work in Progress Pedro Kantor, Quad Storm Bolter, Salamanders

I gotta admit I’ve never been a big fan of the plastic Space Marine bikes. Not sure what it is about them, maybe they’re too “blocky” or something they’ve just never appealed. Now I’m not saying this to blow my own trumpet but I’m genuinely surprised by how much I like this bike conversion I’ve been working on. When I started it I had no real idea or plan on how to do it, just a pile of assorted SM and Ork bike bits. It’s come together very nicely so far (note the rider is temporarily tacked together, but he’ll probably end up with the sword), I may add 2 or 3 to my own collection much later on.

Work in Progress Actual Scale, Bike, Salamanders

Hi all. It’s been a while. The last week has been a major pain, trying to clear out about 20 years worth of junk from my home (I’m a terrible horder), and so I’ve not had a chance to get much done. On top of that I ran out of greenstuff today and my latest order of the stuff seems to have gotten lost in the post (aaarrggh!!!). I’ve got a bit of an update here, but until I can get some fresh GS I’m gonna be flexing my paintbrush for a change.

First up today, SIlicone Putty!

I’ve mentioned this a few times over the last few months so I figured I’d give an example. As I’m working on a Grey Knights army, I decided to make a mold of a special purity seal for them. In some of the GK artwork they can be seen with really long flowing purity seals, which I think not only look really cool but are especially useful for hiding less than perfect sculpting.
So here I sculpted a long flowing seal onto a piece of plasticard.

The silicone putty comes in two parts, both of which are of, well a putty consistency (obviously).

Take two small equal sized amounts. They are very easily mixed just using fingertips and takes probably no more than 20-30 seconds. It’s not exactly messy, but you’ll want to wash your hands afterwards.

It hardens very quickly, so as soon as it’s mixed into one colour, press it onto whatever it is you are molding, being careful to sort of spread it over the piece so as not to capture air bubbles.

Give it a minute to set, and pull it off. It captures details very nicely (you can see my fingerprints on the putty in the photo above). Whilst normally on larger objects the mold has some flexibility, on small pieces like this there really is none. It’s very easy to cut and will break if you use too much force, but the beauty of this material is that Greenstuff will not stick to it at all, so there’s no need for any kind of release agent.

When making the cast a soft mix is highly recommended (ie: at least twice as much yellow as blue) and you’ll need to press it into the mold with a wet tool, otherwise it’ll stick to the tool and be pulled right out of the mold.

I’ll be using this particular mold to add flowing purity seals to all my Grey Knights, which will certainly add a sense of movement to a fairly static pose that most will have.

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Actual Scale bike.

This is the bike for an Actual Scale Salamanders character (will count as Khan). The rider is currently in bits, but the main structure of the bike is built as you can see. The exhausts might be a little bit flared. The whole thing is about half as long again as a regular bike, hence the need for a custom base. The front of the bike is a little rough but I’ll be sculpting a large imperial eagle on it as soon as I can get some more GS. The plastics are a combination of Ork and Space Marine bikes and I think the exhausts may have come from a Baneblade (I’m not too sure).

Work in Progress Actual Scale, Grey Knights, Purity Seal, Salamanders, Silicone Putty, Space Marine Bike

So I’ve not had any updates for a little while, mostly because of the digital release of Blood Bowl (best game ever). Anyhow I made some progress on the Vulkan model. Re-based him as suggested, added shoulder pads and began work on the cloak.

I was going to sculpt the cloak with super sculpey and attach after, but my oven’s broken and won’t reach the heat necessary to treat it. Instead I’ve used greenstuff, slowly building it up. The basic shape is there now but I need to smooth out the inside and add the scales to the outside. I’ve tried to convey a sense of the wind blowing from behind him in the direction of his aim, hence the shape of the collar.

The spear still needs some work too. I’ll probably shorten it a bit and add some extra details. Also the plasticard is too thin but I don’t have any thicker stuff on hand right now. I think I’ll be be leaving off the icon on the back pack, as it’s one of the elements of the official model I dislike.

Work in Progress Artificer Armour, Cloak, Salamanders, Vulkan He'stan