Sukigod's Ork Waaagh! Log

[sukigod]

You can leave more paint on for larger areas of wear, take some time to experiment on how much you need to achieve the effect you want. TIP: If you're unsure as to how the first dab or two are going to look and are afraid of "ruining" something, test it in a spot lower on the vehicle and in the back, somewhere out of the way of normal viewing angles.

Here's the vehicle all dabbed up...

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/skullhammas/skullhammas32.jpg

And here's a close up of the area I started at...

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/skullhammas/skullhammas33.jpg

Coming Up: Part II

Part II

I did the base color for both tanks at hte same time and I'll show the second step on the turret of the second tank.Here it is all dabbed up.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/skullhammas/skullhammas34.jpg

I used a 20/00 brush for this part - no particular reason, it's just what I happened to grab. It does happen to help when touching small pinpoints as you'll notice in the final step.I applied a thinned down Boltgun Metal to any part of the sponged paint from the last step where it goes over and edge. I also fill in some of thelarger areas that are basically solid fills and then feather off the edges. I also dab the tip of the brush in some, but not all, of the smaller spots. Put the silver closer to the main area or starting point of the wear and let it fall off as you get further away.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/skullhammas/skullhammas35.jpg

[sukigod]

Here's the turret when finished. Note that as I get farther away from an edge (say the front crest of the turret), there's less metal color and eventually only the brown/black spots? You can increase the amount of wear by adding more brown but not have to add any more metal as the metal that's already there tells you it's chipped paint and your eye fills in the rest of the story. This means you don't have to be absolutely literal in you application of the Boltgun Metal.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/skullhammas/skullhammas36.jpg

The turret put back on the tank...

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/skullhammas/skullhammas37.jpg

And both tanks as they are now.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/skullhammas/skullhammas38.jpg

I've only done the metal parts on one so far. I spent about 2 hours doing the base chip color anddoing the metal on one tank. I figure it'll be about another hour to finish up the metals on the second tank. The next step will be to dirty it up with a coating of Badab Black and some Devlin Mud for variation.Then the final details and sealing.

Later!

[sukigod]

Washed...

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/skullhammas/skullhammas39.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/skullhammas/skullhammas40.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/skullhammas/skullhammas41.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/skullhammas/skullhammas42.jpg

Badab Black applied with a brush. Nothing tricky, it does tie everything together nicely now.

Later!

[sukigod]

Started my second set up Apocalypse units tonight - two pulsa rokkits. I'm far enough along and have enough paint on the skullhammas that I won't be embarrassed to deploy them as is if I don't finish painting the details before Oct. 2nd. I'm more concerned about having enough time to finish the construction and base painting on these next two units before then so off I went.

My trusty furred assistants Punchy (at left) and Rowdy (hidden at right, he's hard to see when he's hiding!) are checking out the base model I'm using for my pulsas.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/pulsas/pulsas1.jpg

The booster rockets will be both parts of on I'll be kalling "Sneeky Git" and the main fule tank will be named "Fat Bob". Here's the base pieces with a burna Barry boy.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/pulsas/pulsas2.jpg

I got some masonite (thanks Chris!) and cut out some appropriate sized bases for the models and glued the main pieces together. I'm using a heavy duty piece of cardboard tubing of the same diameter of the big fuel tank for the "shot" version since I don't need to worry about a pointed noise on it.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/pulsas/pulsas4.jpg

I've got the "after firing" pieces cut and hot glued down to the bases and a hut made for Sneeky Git. Here's a Barry shot and a Skullhamma shot for scale.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/pulsas/pulsas5.jpg

Thanks all for tonight, we'll see where I get tomorrow. I expect the progress on these to go rather quickly as they're not as detailed or busy as the skullhammas were.

Later!

[sukigod]

Spent a couple hours sifting through my bitz boxes and bins and pulled a bunch of interesting stuff out for consideration. I think I've got Fat Boy pretty much figured out Rokkit-wise, I'll work on the launchpad after I get the rokkit finished. Here's the basic parts layout and I've started with the detailing and assembly...

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/pulsas/pulsas6.jpg

It's almost like an Eye Spy game . Lets try to figure out what parts are what - or Find the...

Toy truck wheels
Monitor riser spacers
Cheap superglue bottle caps
Space shuttle model rocket nozzles
Medical grade filtration modules.

Ther will be a test!

Later!

[sukigod]

Got the engines/rokkits assembled and attached. so the basic structure is finished.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/pulsas/pulsas7.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/pulsas/pulsas8.jpg

They are a bit reminiscent of a Chris Foss or Syd Mead spacecraft at the moment Wouldn't have anything to do with me collecting thier art for almost 30 years and subliminal impressionism, hmm?

Need to do the detailing like armor patches, straps for the engines and a couple of fuel/wiring lines and off to next pulsa!

[b]Later![b]

[Force21]

Awesome... the Skullhammas look great.


& the pulsa rokkits are very orkish... great work.

[sukigod]

OK, got some work done - did the strapping that attaches the engines to the rokkit and started work on one of the launch platforms.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/pulsas/pulsas9.jpg

Been busy with work and getting ready to go on a 2 1/2 week vacation! My wife won a vacation trip in a local raffle ($5,000 worth!!!!) so we're taking two and a half weeks to take the Amtrak along the northern trail to Seattle and stay there for a couple of days, then get on a Celebrity cruise ship and sail up and down the Alaskan coast for 7 days. Then a little more time in Seattle before training it back to Minnesota. It's been almost 25 years since I've had more than 10 days off in a row - I hope I remember my job when I get back!

That also means no work on the rokkits (or the skullhammas) til we get back. I think there's only three weeks until the in-store Apoc demo after that so I'll have to work fast to wrap them all up in time.

Thanks for watching and I'll try post some pics of the trip somewhere.

{b}Later![/b]

[Eddoo]

I am absolutely loving the colour scheme with these orks! They looks great! And they look like they'll pack a damned hard punch on the battlefield...WAAAGH!

[Tynskel]

Got the mask (arg, haven't finished the lenses..) done on one of the burnas today. Figured I've got enough time, it'll try to do them really nice.


http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/burnas/burnas13.jpg

Yeah - I thought so too. Someone, somewhere cast them and used them here, on a $10 Target toy tank. Nice!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good Waaagh!!!

Funny thing--- looks like the most detailed part of the tank plastic are the stolen pieces!

[sukigod]

Well, getting back on the squig after three weeks off. For those who care, this is where I went...

Trip to Seattle and Alaska Cruise (http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=4827961&fbid=430447757935&id=820702935#!/album.php?aid=208241&id=820702935)

I would do it again in a heartbeat!

Back to the real reason everyone is here, orks and pictures!

Spent a little time last night putting the rivets on the 1st pulsa and primed the starter base making it officially completing the construction phase. The base still needs the groundwork finished and I need to pick up a tub of joint compound for both crash bases, just didn't get around to it today.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/pulsas/pulsas10.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/pulsas/pulsas11.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/pulsas/pulsas13.jpg

Started the base to the second rokkit, not too far yet.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/pulsas/pulsas12.jpg

Hoping to finish the build be the weekend so I can put the base paint down and do metals and wash next weekend. We'll see how it goes.

Later!

[sukigod]

All right, got some work done last night. No, I didn't do any work, I got some done last night...

http://www.bigshoota.com/cmon/glyph1.jpg

I've been threatening to get this done for about two years and finally pulled the trigger. Turned out better than I could have hoped for. Here's a scale pick so you know where it went. It's lower half of my left upper arm.

http://www.bigshoota.com/cmon/glyph2.jpg

Took about 2 hours and didn't hurt anymore than any of the others and of course, I'll do more tattoos but no more 40K related ones in the idea cue.

Later!

[sukigod]

Ok, enough chit chat, back to the Big Mekkin'!

Started the base work on the second pulsa over the last couple of days. I'm taking a different approach to this one. The first pulsa was all about this rokkit, this one is all about the base. Since the rokkit on this one is soooo skinny, it's hard to come up with details for it - especially ones that won't shear off during launch! The "detail" for this rokkit will be in the painting and most of the modeling details will be focused on the launch platform and shed.

Without further ado, here's the base nearly finished.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/pulsas/pulsas14.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/pulsas/pulsas15.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/pulsas/pulsas16.jpg

I just need to finish up the upper rails and do rivets and I'm calling it done. I've got a week left to wrap these boyz up so painting will be FAST! There's a bunch of small things that I want to do but will have to come back to them after the Apoc game next Sat.

Later!

[sukigod]

Thanks for the ideas 4ton. I'm starting to panic for time so I'll just have to live without the superdetails.

An hour of masking and about 30 min. of spray painting some of the base colors. From here it's metals, some checks/dags and chipped paint, then wash, seal and base. Hope I can get it done in time!

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/pulsas/pulsas17.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/pulsas/pulsas18.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/pulsas/pulsas19.jpg

Later!

[Duke]

Gret stuff! You could almost decorate an entire table with this stuff... What fin a game would be fighting around an ork launching platform!

Duke

[sukigod]

I can easily see that happening in the future, Duke.

OK - got a bit of a break. The guy I was building the other skullhammer and pulsa rokkit for can't make the Apoc game this weekend so I only need to finish one of them. I could try and take both but because of the way the points are structured, it doesn't make any sense. Besides, I'd rather take the other SKullhammer that;s finished already instead!

I hauled *** to get this thing where it is now - about 85% done. The whatever they are on the top aren't painted, I can live with that. Not my best work, but as I stated at the beginning of these, how many times a year am I going to use these? On to the final pic...

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/pulsas/pulsas20.jpg
I'll take some pics tomorrow of what I'm bringing to the game - nearly everything is painted so I'm pretty pleased about that.

Later!

[sukigod]

Quick shot of the 5K I'm bringing to the Apoc battle this weekend.

http://www.bigshoota.com/cmon/5kwaaagh.jpg

Astute orks might notice two skullhammers when my recent list only calls for one. I couldn't help posting this with both since they were both painted. So technically, this would be 5.4K not 5K even. I'll only be using one this weekend.

Later!

[Force21]

Man that Ork army is so badass. :D


it just almost makes me want to start one...



& that tattoo is awesome.


Great work!

[sukigod]

This weekend was our Apocalypse Demo at our lfgs, Baker's Hobby and Framing. There were 5 people per side, each bringing 5,000 points with for a total of 50,000 points brought out for the big scrum.

There were three Tyranid players, three Space Marines, one IG, one Dark Eldar, one Tau, a couple of Eldar, and me with Orks. The sides eneded up being like this...

Side A: Ork, two Tyranid, Space Marines (w/Inquisitorial aspects), Blood Angels

vs.

Side B: Imperial Guard, Tau, Eldar, Space Wolves, Tyranid and Dark Eldar

I'm not really all that great at writing up battle reps so I'll just gloss over what I remember and the generalities of the game.

Apocalypse definitely favors the aggressive armies over defensive, castle'm up types. Although, to be honest, our opponents made deployment choices that ended up being their greatest undoing - even worse than the super assassin formation unleashed before the game started.

Our side (side A) deployed first and took first turn. We laid out all the fast stuff along an evenly bisected no-mans-land. One of our Tyranid players who brought a home made Hierophant (in the pics) held his big beast off the table to come in round two which was a smart move.. It kept the enemy from focusing fire on it until we could get more smaller units to be more of a threat. That Hierophant didn't take a single wound this game because of that.

Side B deployed nearly everything they had as far away as possible which ended up being against the short edge of the table. This seriously constricted their movement and ability to spread out quickly when most our second wave of Tyranids invaded their rear lines. This was the beginning of their downfall.

Some notes and impressions off the top of my head:
The Pulsa Rokkit is very cool. If I would have remembered it was meant more against infantry that vehicles (dang 2nd Ed in my head...) I would have dropped it into a different spot. As it was, it kept most of the tanks in the area firing at BS1, which was nice.

The stompa is a very resilient machine! In our Apoc games, the stompa rarely travels over 24" since everyone is soooo scared of it they shoot it into immobility the first chance they get. They will fire everything they can until it's deaed, that keeps a lot of other stuff alive!

People are very afraid of the Skullhammer as well - especially when it's pointed out how full of nobs and meganobs w/Gazzy it is!

I pretty much used my army as a diversionary force to distract everyone and keep them busy so the rest of our armies could take objectives and kill the enemy units. I didn't really kill all that much, a bunch of Dark Eldar skimmers, a couple squads of Kroot, some genestealers and various IG gun emplacements - nothing fancy or explodey but it let everyone else take out big stuff.

In the end, they enemy castled themselves up in a defensive position they couldn't get out of as we ran all over the board securing objectives while they tried to fight themselves free.

There's talk of another game in Dec at a friends house - 3to5K each, six of us. I'll let you know if it's gonna happen and post here again.

Here's a few random pics and links to the full gallery. If you cruise around the site you'll find a couple more galleries going up by other members.


http://www.stcloudwargaming.com/index.php/galleries/sukigod/wh40k-apoc-oct-2010

[sukigod]

5 more...

[sukigod]

The Last Two.

[FastEd]

What is the construction of the awesome explosion marker like? All I can tell is that most if it seems to be cotton.

Man these pictures make me want to play an Apoc game right now.

[sukigod]

The blast marker was made with a masonite board for a base, a big heavy-duty cardboard tube for the stem and a big styrofoam ball cut in half for the top of the mushroom. Then upholstry batting was glued in place and spray painted to taste. Pretty easy, you could knock out at least four in an afternoon if you've got the parts on hand.

[FastEd]

Ah, upholstery batting. I was wondering if it was just cotton balls and a lot of work. Good to know.

I think I may have to crank a few of those out, even just for terrain...oddly static explosive terrain, but terrain none the less.

Thanks a bunch!

[bb-dawg]

Hi there! I'm the guy who created the fireball template.

Okay, after flipping through the rules I realize I've got to post several more times before I can blog with attachments. That's what I get for being a lurker and not actively commenting on anything.

The tutorial is done, so bear with me. I'm kinda new to this... :-)

[sukigod]

I'm slowly working my way back to the workbench (it doesn't help I promised to convert a websites content management system on my own time...). Gotta pay da bills ya know.

On the modeling front, I've finished the details on one Skullhamma and for a change of pace I started to assemble some Stormboyz. I will eventually replace (well, add to but use the newer ones more often...) the wobbly boyz with these. I'll build/prime and paint them in short bursts, two at a time, as they detail is every bit as good as all the new orks models - way too detailed!

I also picked up something recently at a local thrift store for $1. I'll just post a pick and see where this goes...


????????????????????

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/misc/cart1.jpg
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/misc/cart2.jpg


Yeah, if anyone knows the source of this model, I'd be VERY interested in turning these into rokket/skorcha buggies...

[b]Later![/b}

[sukigod]

OK, back in the saddle again...

Finished up the Apoc models I was working on, wrapping up the paintjob on the second Pulsa Rokkit. Nice to have them finished.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/pulsas/apoc-units1.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/pulsas/apoc-units2.jpg

Too big to fit all of them on my workbench at the same time so took over the kitchen table for a group shot. Fun to use a warboss as a Barry for the shot, to give you a sense of scale.

Over the Thanksgiving holidays I'll be bringing the good work camera home and settin up another {Year's End) shot of the entire (painted) Waaagh! and I'll post'em of course.

Now I need to see if I feel like painting (finishing up some models) or building new things (more Stormboys of Killer Kans).

Later!

[FaultyVoodoo]

That is the Orkiest shopping cart i've ever seen.

[sukigod]

Thanks Doc! The grass is a bit green - it's GW's flock so tends to be a bit bright. I can live with it.

Things have been a bit on the slow side for me in the hobby world as Real Life has gotten very, very busy as of late. I’ve got some very exciting things going on and want to take two lines to let you know about them.

One: My wife and I, along with another coworker, are buying the advertising agency we’ve both worked for for over 10 years. The owner is ready to retire and we’re taking over. That means a lot of time spent doing other things like buying a business! Makes me feel a bit old and all “responsible” like. Weird, I guess I’ve always considered my self as I have when I was 15 years old. Never would have thought I would be a business owner.

Two: I’m organizing/hosting a Warhammer40K Pub Tournament in the vein of The Kalm Before the Waaagh! (http://thekalm.com/) in Huntsville, Alabama. As much as I’d like to just waltz on down there and partake, it probably wont happen so I’m hosting my own in central Minnesota. I’ve been in touch with Da Reddaneks who run the Kalm and they’ve been extremely helpful and encouraging and they’re a bunch of great guys. It doesn’t happen until June of 2011 but there’s a lot to get ready.

So - short term, we’re buying a business - long term, I’m organizing a 30 person bar tournament. Doesn’t leave much for modeling but that doesn’t mean I won’t be doing any...

I decided after the Apoc units I’d finish off the stock GW battlewagon I was working on. I’ve gone back over the metals and finished off the tracks and wheels. Not hugely different but it is another step towards completion. On to the pics!

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/sbw/sbw18.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/sbw/sbw19.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/sbw/sbw20.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/sbw/sbw21.jpg

I do have a 5K Apocalypse battle to get prepared for (15,000 per side) so I’m not completely out of the gaming side either, just not as much as usual. And, as promised, I’ll be doing the full on End of the Year Army Shot next week over Thanksgiving weekend so that should be fun as well.

Later!

[sukigod]

On to the next one.....

Getting a little short attention span here and just feel like jumping around right now. I'm expanding my army to be able to field a full on dread bash and I need to add two squads of kans and another KFF Big Mek. The kans are the immediate need as I've got a KFF and a shokk mek so I can field my 11 walkers, I just need the walkers right now.

I know the pics are a bit boring and mostly form the box so I'm posting these to show the Kustom Mega Blastas I did up for'em.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/kkans/kk1.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/kkans/kk3.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/kkans/kk4.jpg

For a very reasonable price I won an ebay auction for an extra set of ccw for the killa kans and a pair of kmb's from the new deff dread kits. I also had a modified kmb from a mekboy model I originally converted for the Wazzdakka battle but never used. These were mashed together and the left sockets magnetized for swap-ability. Tiny glyph plates from the battlewagon kit were used to cover the rough ends on the two dread kmbs attachment points.

In review of the kits, they're really really good - much like everything else coming out of GW in the last year and a half, especially orks. The details and variety are exceptional, just like the new stormboys kits. I have one big kudos and one big gripe though. Kudos to the engineers/designers/architects for finding better ways to include stable glue points to reduce/eliminate glue seeping out seams. Great job! Gripe? Could you make the connecting points to the sprue lines a little bigger? I mean, really. You're doing a better job at where the sprue attachment points are going and how they show or don't show on the finished models but some of them are kinda ridiculous. I spent more time than expected being really careful to not overcut and nick something else on the sprue and more time cleaning up LARGE spots of sprue excess.

Other than that (and not including the kmb in the kit... ) I think these are very fun and solid models. Every warboss should have at least a couple.

Later!

[sukigod]

Nice one Maddamek!

OK, as with every Thanksgiving weekend, I took a full army shot as well as assessed my army in total, painted and unpainted. Here's the entire painted portion of my army...

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/waaagh/waaagh2010-1.jpg

This is roughly 6,800 points - without pushing wargear and of course not including possible formations.

Here's everything I have that's assembled/field-able (meaning not in pieces or unfinished assembling)

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/waaagh/waaagh2010-2.jpg

This is a total of 10,190 points. I was kinda surprised to see I had broken the 10K mark this year but as seeing there's 4 new Apocalypse units and and addition of two more Killa Kan mobs I suppose it shouldn't have.

Here's a close up shot.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/waaagh/waaagh2010-3-th.jpg

Larger one here... (http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/waaagh/waaagh2010-3.jpg)

If anyone wants to see any closeups, I did take a bunch of shots and can post more if you all want. Just let me know.

So at Thanksgiving end of 2010, here's the stats for Red Jack's Waaagh!

Painted: 6797 points
Unpainted: 3393 points

Total Army Points: 10,190

Not too shabby. I'm hoping to keep the amount of unpainted work at 1/3rd or less of my total army, I guess that means more painting now and less building ;)

Later!

[Force21]

That is alot of Orks you have there...


I rarly see a fully painted Ork army at regular point levels...(2k, 2.5k, etc.)

that is quite impressive.

*sigh*

I feel sad for my poor gray platoons of Guardsmen...


I applaud your dedication.

Great work!

[sukigod]

On to the details!

Got to work this weekend finishing up the details for the stock GW battlewagon, mainly the crew and also the Runtherder from the box set I finished a while ago. Got the skin and straps done - shirts and pants are next.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/sbw/sbw22.jpg

Later!

[HarlekissofDeath]

Hey I just started reading your blog, and am completely amazed at the great work you have done, both with customizing, creating and painting your minatures.
I was reading about when you broke out zagstruk I think and you were starting to paint him for an apocalypse game, and I remember you saying that you were happy because you got some new brushes that you were going to use on him.
My question is, especially when you are doing HQ guys or special characters, what type (brand) of brushes do you use (size also)?

Thanks, and keep up the good work.

[Tynskel]

On to the details!

Got to work this weekend finishing up the details for the stock GW battlewagon, mainly the crew and also the Runtherder from the box set I finished a while ago. Got the skin and straps done - shirts and pants are next.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/sbw/sbw22.jpg

Later!



Hah HA!! I now know your secret to painting awesome models: Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrr!

[Big mek]

Hah HA!! I now know your secret to painting awesome models: Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrr!

Looks more like coca cola to me... :D

[sukigod]

Hah HA!! I now know your secret to painting awesome models: Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrr!

Always has been :)

(and it's the end of a Guiness btw)

[sukigod]

Ok, quick update - I'm not dead, just really busy.

Did manage in the last three weeks to warp up the crew for the stock battlewagon and started the runtherder for the grot mob I did a while back. The runtherder is a really nice model with lots of detail and character, much like the rest of the new ork sculpts. Very well done GW. I'm doing him in small parts as to not go crazy trying to figure everything out at once. I'm also trying to practice a little with some NNM (non-metallics metal) and still have a long way to go.

I also need to paint the deff rolla before I can call the stock battlewagon completely finished. Again, not a huge rush as I've got very little hobby time at the moment.

Here's the pics!

Runtherder WIPS
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/misc/runtherder1.jpg
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/misc/runtherder2.jpg

And the Battlewagon Crew
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/sbw/sbw23.jpg
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/sbw/sbw24.jpg

Later!

[sukigod]

OK, this is to prove I'm not dead yet... just extremely busy in the real world with real world crap.

I've spent some time over the last week painting the squighound for fun and the grabbin klaw for testing. I want to play around with doing NMM (non-metallics metals) so the runtherder is my first real test piece. So far, ... eh, it's alright in my book. I've spent a lot of time looking around and watching vids and such and there's a real truth in this hobby to "you don't really learn anything until you do it your self - whether it's works or not."

I'm learning that my blending skills still have a long way to go and I need to push the edges of my contrast a little more. What ever though, here's the unfinished slaver about 90% done.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/grots/runtherder1.jpg

See, I'm not dead, just outta time for the time being.

Later!

[sukigod]

Done!

The runtherder is finished and rejoined by his grotty minions (which were finished in March of last year I might add...).

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/grots/grots4.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/grots/grots5.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/grots/grots6.jpg

Not sure what's on my plate next. I've got a lot of stuff to build and a lot of stuff to paint. Real life is keeping me pretty busy so it's not a priority to get anything in particular finished. I might just putter away at Gazghkull here and there for a while... (I know I;m a tease!)

Later!

[newtoncain]

Beautiful paint job as always. These were only primed back in Dec were they not?:D

[sukigod]

Yeah, the runtherder was primed recently but the grots were painted a while ago as a break from building/painting something else.

I've got another box of these littel guys to work on, they're pretty fun.

[sukigod]

I've been on a bit of a break from active modeling/gaming lately as other aspects of my life become priorities. Buying an advertising agency, getting ready for a 50 hour trivia marathon (which we host a 20 person team from our house), and planning a 32 man bar tournament - they've all pretty much kept me away from the bench. I kinda welcome the break to be honest. I've got about a dozen projects started know and it bothers me to have so many "open" at once.

Since I don't know when, or how much time I'll have available to me at any one moment, I decided to grab three miscellaneous models from my unpainted stock and figured I'd putter away at them piecemeal until they're done. I've chosen two slavers and a Mekboy with a KMB. All models I will be fielding more often so figured I'd gettem up to par.

Skin done.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/misc-slavers/slavers1.jpg

This won't last for long though. after the trivia contest next week my meks work/paint shop will be relocating to it's own room downstairs (finally!). My wife is taking over the office upstairs and I'll be taking over the "rumpus/sewing" room. It'll be nice to spread out again and have everything I need at easy reach without having to dig through multiple closets and various storage spaces hidden around the house. This will take about a week or two so the shop will be closed till I get everything in place in the new room. I can't wait!

Later!

[sukigod]

OK dokey. 50 Hour Trivia Marathon is over. The house is back to normal and I've got the lions share of the modeling stuff setup in the new hobby room. Here's the situation before. One small hutch and a large computer desk (at left, out of frame) that I shared with my wife. Most everything that didn't fit inside the cabinet was stashed/hidden in different closets all over the house.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/misc/station1.jpg

Aaaaand the after.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/misc/station2.jpg
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/misc/station3.jpg
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/misc/station4.jpg

Starting from the left. Cutting/building station. Anything dealing with actual building is done here. I'll be replacing this small artists table son with a metal table that's a little larger. I have yet to unload all the boxes and tools that will be set up here. There'll also be power strips up either side of the table so I can plug in small powertools/hairdryers/drills. etc. easily and hang them over the edge of the table.

Display case #1

Computer desk. $25 on Craigslist. I love Craigslist. Computer and gaming books are here.

Display case #2

Painting Hutch: This is the original one from upstairs only this time it houses only stuff for painting.

Airbrush Station. This is a multifunctional space. I will use this as a small photo studio for taking pics when I'm not using it for an airbrush stand. I've got an old range hood from a kitchen remodel my wife and I did years ago that will be placed on top with some filters placed around and on top. This will allow me to airbrush indoors as it'll be vented and filtered. I am very, very excited about this portion of the expansion.

Now that I've got a dedicated work area where I can leave unfinished projects out I can start focusing on my blasta bomber project.

I'll be finishing the painting on the two slavers and Mek Boy in the next week. I'm kinda looking forward to getting back into the swing of things 40K related.

Later!

[sukigod]

Feeling better (been sick the last week) so decided to break out the brushes today and slap some paint. Did the robes on the two slavers - one in red, the other in a dirty tan/off white. I'll be painting the leather hoods in appropriately contrasting colors.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/misc-slavers/slaver3.jpg

Progress will be slow(er) as I get the new hobby room sorted out and things hammered down for the Waaagh!Fest Pub Tournament coming up in July. I know, it seems like it's a long ways away but there's a lot to do I don't want to wait til the last minute for anything dealing with this tournament. The trophies are in and only need them to be etched, now on to some prizes and getting the print stuff (rules, posters, etc.) generated for more publicity.

Later!

[MATPHAT]

Been following your work for a while Suki.
Have learned a lot from your posts as a new player.
But this is the first time I have been moved to post.
Your hobby room makes me crazy with envy!
Being in a flat with two other people, all my hobbying is done on
a single fold out table.
That I have to clean up every night!
I cannot wait to have a hobby room like that!
ARG!

[sukigod]

Thanks MATPHAT. I'v ewaited a LOOONG time for the situation to arrive where it's at now. I'm pretty happy now and can finally "spread out" a bit and leave stuff out more than an hour!

Just to tease the living crap outta ya all. I've started work on the Blasta Bommer tonight. I've done my initial digging through my bitz boxes and did some preliminary studying of the Forgeworld Aeronautica models and re-combed through what can be found of Pox's insane build. I've sketched out the general scale and I'm not making it nearly as big as Pox's. His was nearly two feet long, mine will be a more modest 16"-18" long with a wingspan somewhere around 20"-22". To prove I'm not kidding, here's the initial stage...

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer1.jpg

I'll be making mine a combination of the features I like amongst all the options available on Forgeworld. I like the banded engines much like pox did but I like the double stacked tail fin with twin engines. I'll be using a similar design for the nose that pox did as well. I won't be modeling each side door gunner though for a couple reasons. One, you don't see them that much as pox found out - and I don't have enough of the BW gunners and really don't feel like modeling all of them. Easier to make portholes with big shootas sticking out.

I'm actually hoping to be fairly consistent with the build on this and not let long gaps in updates. I'll do some more preliminary scale drawings to shore up more details so I know what to build into hte main structure and I need to find a small tabletop tripod and make sure this thing is supportable.

Later!

[sukigod]

Took some time during lunch to sketch out and do a scale drawing of the bommer today.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer2.jpg

I've blocked out the basics - enough so I can confidently start transferring it to some full size graphed paper and making patterns for the interior ribbing. I went back through both of pox's threads on this beasts and have made a few technical decisions ahead of time. I've ordered a tabletop tripod (great idea pox) and I plan on making the wings removable for transport/storage. I have a plan... :)

Off to the hardware store for pvc pipe!

Later!

[Force21]

That is going to look awesome...


& I am with MATPHAT... A whole room for hobby goodness...

not fair..lol.


oh btw has the cat eaten any of your greenskins? I would hope not...

[sukigod]

Scaled up the bommer plans today. This is a full size drawing/outline.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer5.jpg

I've included a Barry shot using a few other models for scale. Skullhammer, standard battlewagon, trukk and a few boyz.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer6.jpg

And I went through my bitz boxes to see what I could use so I wouldn't have to scratch build. I got lucky by having enough/more engine parts so this one will have a little more power! Yeah!

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer7.jpg

Now to do a front scale for making templates. Woohoo!

[sukigod]

Spent some time today on the bommer. Got the interior ribbing done. Took a long time and was tedious work to make sure everything went together right the first time. Here are the templates/parts initially cut put.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer8.jpg

The ribs were made from the same templatw and I wasn't too worried about them being absolutely, perfectly, exactly the same...

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer9.jpg

I then sliced a wedge shape out of the middle. I'm not detailing the interior so I wasn't interested in leaving a large inside space and I angled it to be wider at the top to make room for recessing the pilot and adding the top turret gunner. The piece on top of the left and right rib stacks will be glued on the front edge of the floor/top structure to add some rigidity. It will also be where the nose gets glued onto the fuselage of the plane. I'm leaving it off until I can add the superstructure for the wings and tripod mount - easier access.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer10.jpg

More to come!

[sukigod]

I then used a Dremel to cut slots in the top and bottom supports The depth of the cut determined the angle so cutting them all the same made it easy to align all the rib sections when I was ready. Here's the glued together interior frame from the front...

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer11.jpg

The rear...

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer12.jpg

The underside.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer13.jpg

And a Barry shot.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer14.jpg

I need to change out the crappy CFL bulb that came with my new angle lamp - color correcting these pics absolutely suck! Taking the Barry shot made me realize how big this thing really is - it's gonna be pretty huge! Oh well.

Later!

[sukigod]

Stopped off at the hardware store at lunch today and picked up some pvc and epoxy putty. I picked up 1x4-way connector, 1xT connector, a male/female threaded connector, a 2' piece of pvc pipe (all in 1.2" dia.) and two tubes of plumbers epoxy putty for around $12. Nice and cheap!

I get home and lay the pieces out for test fitting…

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer15.jpg

GASP! I had always intended to us 1/2 pvc as my main internal structure so I based my ribbing spacing at 3/4". Way more than enough room, right? Uhhh… As you can see, the connectors are wider than 3/4". Me being the non-genius that I am, didn't take into account that the connectors (which have to fit inside the ribbing too) would be much wider than the 1/2 pipes them selves since they fit OVER/OUTSIDE the actual 1/2' tubing. If I ever do a second blasta boomer, I know to base my spacers on the dimensions of the CONNECTORS! not the pvc pipe I'm using.

This will mean i have to cut out one spacer to let me get the connectors inside - the angles I cut them at hinders this a swell so the Dremel gets a good workout and cutting away some of the interior ribbing to get everything in there - more of this can be seen in the last photo of the post.

Here's rough placement (outside the ribbing) to see where I plan on placing the connector points.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer16.jpg

Now, the placement of both the 4-way and the T connector are completely guesswork. I have no idea of how heavy this thing will be in the end, where the actual center of balance will be so I I'm doing a "best guess/cross my fingers" placement. I know pox's build had the center of the wing/fuselage cross point as the center of balance where the tripod connected to the plane. I've decided to change that a little - we'll see if it bites my in the *** later. Because of the estimate weight of the tail I don't think this would work in my case.

If things turn out to be way off balance I'm assuming it'll be in favor of the nose. The way I'm building this (nose to tail), I'll be able to easily hide extra weight in the tail section as I fill it in to counter that. Again, I'm hoping that's how it'll work.

Here's the putty I purchased. I couldn't find the brand pox suggested but I'm pretty sure this is reasonably close - and it's really cheap. It's around $5-$6 a tube. You can see some of the carnage I had to inflict on the internals to get the connectors in there..

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer17.jpg

Here's the "backbone" showing the final placement. There will be a short piece coming out of the front side that will be glued to the nose plate and a longer piece extending through the tail to give maximum support across the entire length of the plane. I've decided to leave the side wing connectors open and have a short piece of pvc coming out of the wing to make them removable. PVC fits together pretty snuggly so I'm not to worried about connection strength - the wings won't be that heavy.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer18.jpg

I'm hoping to have the rest of the "backbone" finished and puttied down by the end of tonight and maybe started on the main central structure of the wings sometime this weekend.

A note on the putty… I read the instructions inside the tube and they mentioned something about wearing rubber gloves of some sort. I kinda blew this off as being "over protective in this litigious society". Nope, for two reasons. One, not only does it get sticky when you're kneading it, the stuff will get embedded into the pores of your skin and be hell to get off. Remember, this stuff sets up like concrete steel - imagine that in your pores. Second, it gets hot! I was surprised by how much heat is generated by the chemical process while mixing. This does make it a little trick when trying to apply this in tight spaces (as I did) but the latex/rubber gloves were worth it in the long run.

(yes, I spent 15 minutes trying to remove the compound from my skin after the first application).

Later!

[MATPHAT]

Monumental (Emphasis on the mental) Undertaking.
This looks like your biggest project yet.
I'm already overwhelmed and I'm just watching you do it.
I cannot wait to see the essential frame complete.
That in it's self will be a great success.
Mad respect for tackling it Suki.
You are indeed da masta.
All I have to say is, I'm glad you are Ork.

[sukigod]

Thanks MATPHAT.

My tripod came in yesterday and got the chance to get it ready late last night. Here now, in excruciating. boring detail, is how I modified the tripod for my bommer.

Here's the original tripod, maybe $20 tops online (Amazon.com I think). It's rated to hold up to 2 pounds but after getting it in the mail and wrenching around with it for a bit I think that is determined by the swiveling head and not the actual tripod support legs themselves.

The stand itself is pretty sturdy. When I was finished I "stress" tested the hold by putting the plane as it is so far on it for normal use, then stacked my two skullhammers on top (as best I could) with different weight distributions and not only did the connection hold fine, the balance stayed pretty stable as well. I'm not worried about this thing falling over one bit.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer19.jpg

I disassembled the multi-axis head down to it's component parts. I wanted to see if I could keep the swiveling aspect of the pan head since this will give me more placement options on the table with the skinny legs, then simply turn the plane in the direction I need. The part I'm most interested in is the center pivot/swivel joint. I need this (the black part) to fit inside the threaded pvc connector.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer20.jpg

Ten minutes with the bench grinder and viola! The head part fits snugly inside the pvc connector. I drilled a matching hole in the pvc connector so I could pass the lock down screw through it. Because of the way the lock screw was designed, I had to cut the edges of that down so the threads could meet the original swivel head part inside the pvc connector.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer21.jpg

I applied a pit of plumbers putty inside the pvc connector and made sure I spread a thin coating around the inside barrel portion of the connector, then shoved the pan head part into it, centered it on the lock screw hole and added some more putty around the bottom for good measure. After curing I put the whole thing together for testing.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer22.jpg

As I mentioned earlier, My biggest concern was "is this gonna hold? Did I cheap out too much and not get a sturdy enough tripod?" My fears were quickly put to rest. Because I changed the way the tripod connection system worked, the listed weight limit for the pod was pretty much nullified. I put some pretty good pressure on that thing, to point where I was going to break something, and it held just fine.

[sukigod]

Here's scale shot of the finished support system with a little Barry boy for fun.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer23.jpg

I've started cutting parts for the main engines (as seen in the last pic) and will be starting work on them today. I might switch to the nose for some variety - besides, I'm excited to see all the weapons I can cram into the Deff Arsenal!

Later!

[Lerra]

Brilliant idea to use a tripod. I'll probably end up borrowing that idea for my own flyers.

I'm looking forward to seeing this build progress - always interesting to see your scratchbuilds sukigod.

[sukigod]

Spent 2 hours last night making the primary engine intakes. Fiddly work but it' s got to be done! Here's how I did it.

There's a couple of different ways to do turbine blades. Some of them include math and geometry. Mine include neither! I completely guessed (as any good mek does) on the number of blades and how to make them even. I choose 12 fan blades.

I started by cutting out 5 similar sized disks. Two for behind the fan blades to glue to and three for cutting the fan blades from. I didn't do any magic measuring of fancy stuff to come up with cutting 8 pie shapes from each. I just wanted to make sure they overlapped a bit and I figured if I squished four more slices into a circle originally dissected by 8, there should be some overlap. If you understood that well enough, here's your degree!

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer24.jpg

I cut the three disks into pie shapes and then cut the tips of each off. Things get really tight at the center of the turbine if you don't do this. Trying to stack 12 layers of plastic in the middle of the circle will only cause problems so away they go. We'll be covering this part with bullety shaped part anyway.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer25.jpg

I made a time-wasting mistake with my first turbine blade by laying the first blade down, the the next - and on and on - until I reached the first one and tried to slide the last blade under the first one. Didn't work. It was nearly impossible to align the blades evenly this way and the glue had a tendency to set more than I would have liked by the time I got all the way around, causing sticky problems. Then i hit on this idea…

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer26.jpg

1. Draw out the radians so I know where to line up the fan blades.
2. Glue all the fan blades in place with them all standing up. This was much quicker as I didn't need to worry about jostling the other blades and it was easier to see the markings. (the original wreck of a turbine is upper right)
3. I used the back end of my exacto knife to push the blades down on one another a little at a time. Since the glue was still soft-ish, but still sticky enough to keep t from sliding, the fans kinda hinged down against each other. This kept the blades in place and they automatically went down to the farthest angle possible n their own without any measuring.
4. Leaving me with this. These are both, finished turbines. Not perfect (I've seen much better) but will work for me.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer27.jpg

Here's the turbines now glued in place. I just hotglued them in place, they didn't need anything more complicated. I'll be making a rounded edge using putty just like pox did in his build. No need to remake the wheel. Depending on how well this masks the gap between the fan blades and the housing wall, I might try to find a gubbin that will ring the housing to cover it a little - we'll see what the bitz box has.

Later!

[sukigod]

Nice idea marcineczek0! I might try this on the outside engines to see how it looks, might be better when doing smaller turbines too. Thanks!

Ya gotta work on what inspires you when it inspires you, right? Well I was inspired in the middle of the night. I've been playing with some new units and Skorcha Trakks are one of them. I really like how they've been working for me so I set my brain into Hey, work on this in the background" mode about how to build some.

Two things came together at once. I've been using deff koptas without blades and stands to proxy them in the last few games. I then remembered one of our gaming pals bought a bunch of Hot Wheels Batman Tumbler kit things and converted them to Tauros' for his 'umie force. I was the final recipient of the left over track parts. They've been sitting in my bitz boxes for almost a year with nothing to do - until now. My only concern was how well it would fit with the deff kopta bodies.

Here's the two main parts.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/trakks/trakks1.jpg

Here's the one on the other for size comparison. Admittedly the tracks are a little wider than I'd like but I think I can make them work.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/trakks/trakks2.jpg

An hour later (and an online shopping trip to purchase two more...) the deff koptas fit snuggly in the middle of them tracks part.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/trakks/trakks3.jpg

Barry shot with trukk for scale. I'll be adding a platform around the back for a gunner to stand on with the skorcha pintle mounted where the blades were. A bit of armor and spikes to fill out the front and some armor plating to orkify the rest. Thanks to Jason for the tumbler parts!

Later!

[sukigod]

More bommer work done after the initial spaz about the warbuggies...

Here's some parts in subassembly stage.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer28.jpg

I've gotten the putty rounding the engine cowlings done, although not the best. I should have done a one extra engine that I tested everything out on first. Could have been helpful with the bad shaping job on the first engine (you'll know it when you look at it. I'm hoping the paint will mask some of that.

Engines!

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer29.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer30.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer31.jpg

I'm going to figure out the wing attachment method next, then i can move on to the second engines that will be strapped to these. I'll be building the general internal structure and everything that needs to be really strong first. Then I'll go back and add all the detailing and pretty things up so most of the work at the beginning won't be too exciting or beautiful to look at.

p.s. the internal fins at the back are from paint roller end caps. You'll recognize these if you ever painted the inside of houses with rollers

Later!

[sukigod]

Spent an hour working on getting the wing/engine connector worked out. Nothing too complex really. Carefully drilled out a hole big enough to just fit the 1/2 PVC into in each engine housing. Cut some pvc and temporarily hot-glued it in place. I then used a snake of plumbers putty and sealed it up good. Let it cure for 1/2 an hour and test fit the parts.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer32.jpg

This is a closeup of the interior of the connection to the 4-way piece inside.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer33.jpg

It's only getting bigger. Now that I've got the majority of the weight of the wings attached I find the balance is just fine. Not a wobble to it.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer34.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer35.jpg

The missus is out for a couple of days with our daughter in Chicago so I'll have a lot of alone time the next four days to get a bunch of work done. I'm hoping to have both wings worked out by Tues./Wed. Then I can start on the tail frame and then start thinking about the smaller details like the deff arsenal in the nose and the cockpit.

Later!

[sukigod]

(in my worst/best Monty Python and the Holy Grail impression)

I'm not dead yet!

Just extremely busy with a ton of other things. Just returned from driving 1,000 miles (and back) to play 40K with some of the coolest people in the game. Me and three friends drove to Huntsville, Alabama from Minnesota to take part in the Kalm Before the Waaagh! bar tournament. Things didn't quite turn out as planned as Mother Nature trounced the snot outta the South here in the states. Long story short - 178 tornadoes in a week and massive flooding - both across multiple states - couldn't keep us from playing.

Now that I've returned, this leaves only six weeks (GAH!) to get ready for our own tribute to The kALM, The Granite City Waaagh!Fest coming June 18th. Prizes and trophies are taken care of (I'll post the trophies when I get them back - they're sweet), we're now in the process of finalizing/playtesting the missions and making sure we have enough terrain to layout 16 sweet tables. This leads me to our first pic of the day...

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/misc/platfrom.jpg

I've had a couple of Pegasus kits sitting in my closet for a few years and decided to put them together for Waaagh!Fest as we need more buildings. Pretty simple. Multilevel building terrain with a few strategically placed walls that could give smaller units some line-of-site blocking from certain directions. I'm not going to kill myself in the painting department with these so they'll get a pretty standard metallic drybrush and wash treatment after glueing to hardboard.

The blasta bomma is on hold most likely until after Waaagh!Fest but that won't stop me from picking up incredible deals while increasing my Orky Airforce. While picking up survival supplies on the way to Alabama's National Disaster Area, I spotted these beauties in the toy aisle. Reasonably prices between $10 and $17, these practically leaped at me from the shelves. Perfect for slapping a few orky details, painting up and calling them good.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/misc/planes1.jpg

Shown by mu blasta bomma for scale. From left - floatplane, mini-fighter and twin-tailed fighter/bommer. Here are some closeups and what I'

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/misc/planes2.jpg
This one will make a fantastic fighta bommer. This one has a giant set of grabba claws that pop out from the nose and a pop-up cannon that comes up over the cockpit.

[sukigod]

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/misc/planes3.jpg

I'll use this little fella as a fighter. It's got a wierd wing flapping function that really doesn't add anything I could use game wise. BTW each of these planes fires little missiles from somewhere on the plane. THis one is from the center of the propeller.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/misc/planes4.jpg
This one seems to be styled after the P-38 Lighting. I's got a ton of little actions. The engine nacelles pop out into a different position (second part of photo), the upper wings are positionable and there's a tailhook that is attached to a pull string that spins a flaming exhaust - all in all, pretty sweet.

These, along with the two fighta bommers and the blast bommer (when finished) should net me somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,500 points in fliers alone. Not a bad skwadron if I do say so myself!

Later!

[sukigod]

//////creeeeeeeaaaaaakkkkkkKK!!!!!!/////

>>hello? anyone in here??? <<

Time to open this vault and resurrect a slightly must thread here. I've been away doing really cool things, like this!

http://www.bigshoota.com/xtras/fest1.jpg

We've spent the last three months cranking out terrain and writing missions for a WH40K bar tournament that took place this last weekend. It was a resounding success and we'll be doing it again next year. If you want full coverage and photos you can check things out here…

http://www.waaaghfest.com/waaaghfest-2011/

Now that it's over, I can return to the Big Mek Bench start working on some things I've been inspired to make because of the tournament. One of them being a Big Mek Yard board especially for next years event. As a motivator, I think I'm going to propose a competition between all of is Waaagh!Fest staff members to create a special themed board and put them up to a vote. The best one becomes the "Cage Match" table at the end of the tournament next year. I'm liking that!

I should start cranking out modeling related material by the end of the week - it's good to be back!

Later!

[Rafe_131]

Checked out the page for WaaaghFest........That looked like a blast. I'd love to be able to pull off something like that in my area of Illinois. BTW, I noticed some really cool looking nuke blast-things. What are they? How did they make them? I've never seen anything like that before. And they look great.

[sukigod]

Thanks Rafe 131. A friend of mine makes the nuke blast templates from pvc tubing and pillow/furniture batting. Pretty simple stuff once you do it a few times.

Alright fans, another picture filled post with a ridiculous level of mundane detail. I know you all like it that way ;)

Ahhhh the workbench - I missed you so! Has it really been three months?!

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer36.jpg


I promised to start working on the bommer again so here it is. Tonights goal was to get the forward wings engines in place and that's exactly what I did. The second engine is actually screwed into the first engine for maximum stability. Not much glues well to pvc so I've decided to use screwes where ever I can.

The key to doing this is in the first pic, showing a small pilot hole in the outside engine nacelle with a larger hole on the other side. This is so I can actually fit the screw head into the pipe and physically screw it through the interior engine shell. AS shown later, this just happened to be the same diameter as the tubing I'm using to attach the outer engines so they fit fairly snug before epoxying.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer37.jpg

[sukigod]

I used a large piece of I-beam as a spacer between the two engines and it handily hides the screws

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer38.jpg
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer39.jpg
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer40.jpg

Now the second engine is attached.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer41.jpg


Later!

[sukigod]

I had some rigid, thicker plastic tubing laying around that will work perfect for support struts between the second and outer engines. I drilled a few holes and epoxied everything together. Here's the bommer after tonights work...

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer42.jpg
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer43.jpg
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer44.jpg

OK - I know the starboard wing tilts up at the moment. It has to do with the angles of the screws and holes and how I laid them down on the template for fitting. I'm going to just sleep on a solution that won't force me to do something drastic.

Feels good to be back in design/engineer/Big Mek mode again.

[Duncndisorderly]

Done reading this whole thread WOW

Gotta say this is some of the coolest stuff I have seen in a long time and you have definitely inspired me to get my Orky groove on which means my grey knights will have to wait for a while so I can make a Welsh warghhhh. I may have to borrow/steal many of your ideas, keep up the good work

[bloodangel 83]

Wow great work on the building. Your work is looking great. Keep up the great work and i cannot wait to see this bad boy finished. Great work again. BA83

[sukigod]

Thanks everyone!

Thanks det! Didn't actually do much work after the pulsa though, to be honest. Been pretty busy with other stuff!

Small progress last night on the bommer. Would have gotten more finished but I stumbled a few times, silly mistakes, all recoverable with a little time and grousing.

My last few large Apocalypse projects have taught me a little about "overbuilding and over engineering" these types of models. The problem comes with them usually being mixed-material things. Metals, many types of plastics, wires, rubber. The problem comes from getting some things to stick to others. PVC is a great, strong building material and it comes in tubes which is very handy for rokkets, engines, silos, aircraft bodies, etc. The problem with pvc is almost nothing sticks to it very well, hence one of the reasons it's used on the plumbing industry.

PVC to PVC with PVC glue sticks like they've been welded together, but I'm not attaching pvc to pvc. Polystyrene glues don't adhere well to pvc - super glues are only slightly better than that. Epoxies work reasonably well but are still prone to shearing effects. This leaves us with sheet screws as our absolute best methods for attaching things to pvc. Things aren't going anywhere without a lot of force. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't plan on throwing this thing from across the room to come crashing down on the table (cool image though) but I do want it to be stable and durable enough to play with and move/transport without having to build in special compartments to hold it's own glue tubes for repairs every game.

So that long winded distraction brings me around to my point/rule for building large items w/pvc. I try to attach polystyrene to the pvc with screws where ever I can and try to hide the screws afterward.Plumbers putty and two-part epoxies are my second tier adhesives. After that it's super glues (very rarely though) and I try to use polystyrene glues only on styrene. Once I can wrap everything that's not styrene with styrene, then I can start all the details and work with the plasticard normally.

Ramble over.....

Here's what I did get done last night. I removed the outer engines, after a little cursing, and fixed the angle on the starboard wing. Then I glues large square channel to the wing panels. This channel perfectly fit over the stabilizing tubes (thank Mork), well, at least one from each side (dang Gork). The channels simply slide onto the tubes and I'll glue everything thing down when they're finished.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer45.jpg
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer46.jpg
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer47.jpg

Most of the actual stress will be on the tubes between the second and outer engines so I'm not worried about the panels having to be super strong. When I'm done building the outer wing sections they're get epoxied to the inner set of engines to make the best connection. The panels will add to some rigidity to the whole construction when done.

Almost done with the main wing super structure!

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer48.jpg


I just have to finish the outer wing tips, then I'll move on to the back end of the fuselage and fill that out and start the tail section. Once all the main structures are finished I'll start from the nose and work my way back adding in all the details (like flying deff aresenals!)

Later!

[sukigod]

Made a little progress on the bommer yesterday. Finished the wing tips and made the rear exit compartment. It's difficult (not being a ship/aircraft builder) to wrap my head around how the center ribbing down the rest of the tail is going to look like. I've only got 6 more sections to plan/cut out and it's taking me a long time to figure it out. I'm sure it'll work out in the end.

Here's the outside edges of the outer engines. I've screwed (see my last post) large H-beam channels to the engines and will be glueing the wingtip plates to these as everything out the the end of the wings will be all plasticard.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer49.jpg

Here are the outer wing sections…

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer51.jpg

…and the wings fully assembled.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer52.jpg

Here's the bommer with wings attached to the fuselage. The final wingtip to wingtip measurement is 21.25". And yes, that's a stock GW battlewagon at the bottom as a Barry shot. It's gonna be a beastie!

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer53.jpg

Later!

[Lerra]

That . . . is terrifying. I do NOT want to see that thing coming towards me on the battlefield.

Thanks for the tips about PVC. I have a long-abandoned project to scratch build drop pods using PVC pipes as the core of the pod, but could never get the wings to attach properly. I'll try the screw-plus-H-beam method.

[sukigod]

Got a little work done tonight - won't look like much but it's a bit further along than last night.

Did the rolled portion of the wings leading edges. I sliced a styrene tube lengthwise and trimmed it to fit and glued it to the open edges.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer54.jpg

Then I went after the rear engine assembly. I received these engines from a friend - they're Forgeworld fighter engines, just made from a different material ( ;) ), drilled through and slotted with two metal bars cut from the cross members from those stupid political signs you see in the front yards around election time. I finally found a good use for them.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer55.jpg

[sukigod]

I also finished the interior ribbing for the tail of the plane. Then next couple of shots show the bird put together with the tail engines in place. The metal bars will also give me a very solid and structurally sound frame to attached the rest of the polystyrene wings to.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer56.jpg
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer57.jpg
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer58.jpg
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer59.jpg

The last couple show the rear turret temporarily attached with poster tack for placement. And before anyone asks, it's the nose from a toy from Disneys Atlantis movie. I picked up couple over the years at garage sales and the like for probably a buck or less. Worked perfectly!

Later!

[sukigod]

Got some time tonight to work on the blasta bommer. I knocked out the base shapes for the tail - this should clear up a couple of questions floating around. Badfangs suggestion about raising the tail engines up so they're not directly in line with the front engines was a good one. I accomplished it in a slightly different manner though.

The lower tail tips are only poster tacked in place as I don't have enough of the right size channel to assemble them the way I want to - sandwich technique much like the front wings. This shows the general shape and position of everything now.

I'm on vacation now for a week so there will be no more progress for the next 8 days as I'll be kicking it lakeside with beer, books and food. Once I get the framework on the tail done I'll start paneling the beast, then the detail work beginning with the Deff Arsenal in the nose. That's gonna be a lot of fun.

Enough of my rambling, here's the pics.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer60.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer61.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer62.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer63.jpg

Later!

[Psyberwolfe]

Ok combed the entire thread and can't find the answer to my question. What thicknesses of polystyrene sheet are you using (primarily with the bomber) and where are you getting it at?

[sukigod]

Hi Psyberwolfe. The plastic I've used for most of the interior ribbing is 1.5mm thick. The skinning plastic will be aboiut half that thickness.

I got my current supply from a wholesaler in the Minneapolis area. I can't remember the name off the top of my head but me and a friend go in on a bulk order about once a year.This company supplies to industrial type places so they carry a lot and offer really good prices. The sheets come in 4x6 or 4x8 sheets and we'll get one sheet of three different thicknesses and split them up (cut each in half) I think I pay $45 for the sholw lot so around $90 gets you three large sheets that will last a while.

That also means.... updates!

I wanted to get the vertical stabilizers done today and that meant doing some of the detailing/paneling on the rear wing section to accomplish this. Here's how I put it together.

I superglued the engines in place and sanded all the edges on the wing panels. Then I used H-Beams to create the slot the metal bars will slide into for support...

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer64.jpg

Then I used the same thickness of channel to create a sandwich for support.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer64a.jpg

Then I glued the top piece to the wing and used tubing to create the leading edge like I did on the forward wings. I then cut panels into smaller pieces adn glued them to the vertical stabilizer wings, then glued them in place using angle iron.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer65.jpg

...

[sukigod]

Then I used two-part epoxy to glue the wing tips onto the metal bars. And a shot of the wing placed on the frame.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer66.jpg
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer67.jpg

I still need to shore up the space between the engines and do a similar plating to the upper wing section. Once that's glued into place I can move on to the wheels. After that, deff arsenal! Whooo hooo!

Later

[sukigod]

I'm working my tail off here!

I've now paneled up the entire tail wings. I created smaller plates using the original struts and wing panels as templates. Then I trimmed them a bit smaller and cut them into interesting shapes, sanded them a little and glued them in place. Here's a support and the upper wings underside panels.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer68.jpg

The finished upper tail section...

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer69.jpg

And the upper tail piece glued to the engine supports.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer70.jpg
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer71.jpg

I'm finished with the tail for the moment, I probably won't come back to it until I'm ready to incorporate it into the fuselage.

Up next - tires, then the nose!

Later!

[Duncndisorderly]

I stand as always in awe, keep it going dude

[sukigod]

Putzin' around with a few small things over the last few days. Built the front nose intake. The top/bottom plate and vertical posts/vanes are glued together but poster tacked into place to hold them until the glue dries. I did this so I can remove it from the main nose plate and have access to put in all the little rokkit inside, then I'll glue it down.

I also figured out how the wheels were going to go. They seem to be balanced enough to stay level and I'm hoping they'll support he final weight, although I'll rarely ever use it without the tripod. I also puttied the front plate onto the fuselage - this is what the front nose plate will be glued to.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer72.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer73.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer74.jpg

Snotling steps!

Later!

[Meph]

Well, as they say; many Snotlings a big Ork make. :D

[sukigod]

I guess the grots were let loose tonight so we got a bunch of little stuff done tonight!

I fumbled around in my head all day during work, trying to figure out how I was going to do the rokkets in the nose. I wanted them to kinda stair step, creating an angle that matched the vertical vanes to compliment the different angles going on in the shape of the nose. It all came down to biting the bullets and making "stairs" upon which the ends of the rokket tubes will project out of.

The outward ends of the tubes were to be the same length for consistency (?) so that meant the supports behind the tube mounts were going to have to change. This first pick shows how I achieved that.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer75.jpg

Yes, tonight was about cutting lots and lots of tubing with tons of clean up. My grots fingers will be sore for a day or two after this... (and these aren't the half of it!)

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer76.jpg

and all of the stair step platforms in place.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer77.jpg

Then cutting more tubing to make the rokket tubes and mounting rings...

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer78.jpg

[sukigod]

...and viola! The rokket tubes in the nose are done.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer79.jpg
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer80.jpg

There were a bunch of different things going on in my head while trying to figure out what I wanted it to look like, and of course, this was the most time consuming and fiddly one. Now that it's done I'm glad I went this route. It adds a lot of depth to this part of the model, and besides, it was a lot easier doing the rokkets while the front plate wasn't mounted to the rest of the fuselage.

I still need to put some rokkets in a majority of the tubes and I might finish off the top center rib over the nose (it'll split up the deff arsenal weapons) before gluing the whole shebang to the fuselage.

Whew! Long night of work and off to bed.

Later!

[Meph]

Good job! That really add to the model. Treat those painful fingers well, mate!

[sukigod]

Tiny update tonight. Model-wise I did the bridge of the nose and glued it to the rest of the fuselage. Dat's about it. I spent the rest of the time celaning up my work area and sorting through bits for details for the wings, cockpit and engines. That means the main body and shape is finished, now the detailing starts. The cockpit will be first, then I'll move to the engines and wings. Just because I'm like that though I have to post some pics.

Beauty shots! Here's two of the plane assembled. One on it's wheels and one in flight on the tripod. There's a Barry-wagon in there for scale :) I'm surprised this thing balances out as well as it is. I was really worried I was going to have spend some considerable time balancing this thing back and forth to get it to sit right. (thank Gork - or Mork - I don't have too!)

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer81.jpg
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer82.jpg

I might get a change to start on filling out the cockpit tomorrow night, who knows. I'm leaving Friday for an 8 day anniversary vacation with the missus to Duluth, we love it up there. Lots of used bookstores, plenty of great food and lots of places to drink really, really good beer.

Later!

[Emerald Rose Widow]

Wow, this is all just frakking amazing, i mean i have not seen work like this in a long time. you are frelling amazing at this and your work is just stunning, just amazing. cant wait to see the frelling bomber done.

[sukigod]

Thanks Emerald Rose Widow. Glad to see ya like it. There's a lot better work around the net, you just gotta look hard enough for it!

I'm back from vacation and started it off right by whipping those parts grots inta shape!

Started work on the cockpit today. Put some gubbins in the back, a pilot, a control yoke and a commo-grot. Various plates, planks and rivets round out the detail.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer83.jpg

Here's the parts pulled out so I can prime and paint.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer85.jpg

The big radio gubbin' thing is a part from an old space ship model I've had lying around for about 25 years.The pilot, of course, is from the trukk kit and the grot's from the stompa kit.

Here's the detail of the interior plating...

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer86.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer87.jpg

The black marked areas are where the other cockpit parts are going to sit. I marked them out so I didn't rivet any areas I didn't have to.

I'm out of primer so there'll be a little bit of running to do today before I can move on.

Later!

[sukigod]

Paint!

Spent some time slapping paint inside the cockpit of the blasta bommer tonight. Figure I'm about half finished. I'm not going to rush things and want to make sure I spent enough time to make each part of this thing right.

The pilot and comm-grot is nearly finished and some of the reds have been blocked out and the metal decking the once over.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer88.jpg
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer89.jpg
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer90.jpg

Some people had questions about some of the details - or lack thereof. I won't be making a separate bombadier - he'd be stuck in the belly of the beast. The cockpit canopy will be open so you can see inside, most likely slid back or something. I just want to be careful that it doesn't obscure too much of the interior details toward the back that I'm taking the time to make and paint.


In other news: Some of you know Big Shoota.com as a an out of date place for my ork pics and such. Well, it's been updated recently and is continuing to be updated with new material. It was also originally intended to be a site that would grow into a resource on building and painting miniature models. BigShoota is almost 7 years old now and I'm finally getting around to adding this new section to the web.

The Big Mek Manual is a collection of things I've learned about modeling and miniatures over the last 30+ years. It's going to be the site I wished I could have found in one place when I started really "painting miniatures" way back when. Basically a book about miniature modeling painting for the beginner who can use it to learn the basics and advanced techniques all in one place. It's going to be as comprehensive as I can make it and easy to find the things you want to know - whether you've just picked up your first box of plastics or been painting metal models since there was lead in them.

I know, big ideas, big talk. I've got tons of stuff already written and it's mostly now about getting things organized and formatted for the web (it was originally going to be a PDF book). I've started the process already and welcome you to take a spin around and let me know what you think. I'm going to start with only the basics, and once the basics are finished, I'll add the intermediate techniques. When that's done I'll do advanced stuff and continue to update and add as time goes on.

This has been a pet project of mine for about five years now as a way to give back to everyone who has given me the inspiration to dive into this hobby and give to those who were once in my shoes the guidance they may be looking for.

http://www.bigshoota.com/the-big-mek-manual/

Thanks!

Later!

[JxKxR]

I can't wait to see the mini painting! Bookmarked.:D

[Emerald Rose Widow]

Thank you for the link, i look forward to learning from it.

[sukigod]

Cockpit is done for now.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer91.jpg

I almost put this aside earlier this week as I ran out of steam. Painting the cockpit made me want to do more painting and not more building. Thankfully for all of you ( ;) ) I pushed through and started dabbling with the Deff Arsenal. I wasn't too enthused about this as I had no real idea as to how I was going to get everything to fit, at least everything I had pulled out of my bitz that I thought should have gone into it.

I was glueing the weapons together and randomly placing guns and rockets, trying to get a feel for what should go where and what it should look liek in general when I placed the battlewagon upgrade kill kannon on the the upper nose. It really gave the feel of an eye so I played around with various tubes and realised the kannons looked too big (gasp?!) and somewhat out of place. They were really big but tended to look like two big kannons instead many barrels of smaller calibre guns slapped together. Then it struck me...

"Scratch build yourself some silly, mulit-barreled, water cooled looking machine guns with various ginourmous barrel diameters? While you're at it, do two - one for either side! Yeah!"

So I've decided to scratchbuild a set of guns that look like oversized big shootas with cylinder ammo feeds with smaller, similar big shootas attached to the sides. I think this will give the deff arsenal a better "more dakka" look rather than the "more blasta" look the kill kannons would have given it. This also frees the kannons to be used on something else - something ground based. This doesn't mean it'll be the only gun, I'll still be loading more weapons around the missile bays as well.

So now I'm off to the research phase on what this should look like. I'll try to draw up some plans before going straight to the knife and p'card.

Later!

[sukigod]

I forgot to mention something I am really excited about in relation to the bommer.....

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer92.jpg

I purchased this on ebay for a princely sum of $5. Two bucks for the auction and $3 for shipping. It's a giant bag of bombs from many, many assorted aircraft kits. There were a few model stands in there too but I won't find an immediate use for those. The bombs on the other hand... I should have no problem filling out a full bomb loadout. Now to purchase more magnets!

Later!

[sukigod]

OK, did some research and found a gun that gives me the look I want in the nose.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/gunn.jpg

It's a short barreled, drum fed M2 .50 machine gun. I did some sketching to see how it would fit within the space of the nose and decided against the drum feed and go with a belt feed that goes into the center space between the guns. I can include a couple of hatches down the nose for access to the ammo hoppers.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer93.jpg

The barrels won't be as long as what's in the sketch or as short in the photograph, it's just enough to give me the right idea. I'll add a couple of big shoota/dakka gun type weapons on either side to fill out the space with more dacha.

Whew! Now I can't wait to get home tonight and start cutting'

Later!

[sukigod]

Three hours and two large barrels - it's all I got tonight, but it's a start.

I didn't have the room I thought I did when I was sketching things out away from the model so I don't thing I'll have room for the belt feed, oh well.

Here's the pics!

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer94.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer95.jpg

Later!

[Emerald Rose Widow]

The guns look just frelling awesome, love it.

[sukigod]

Doesn't look like much but spent some time working on the deff arsenal tonight. I detailed up the interior space in the nose tonight and finished off the gun receivers that "should" extend back into the fuselage of the plane.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer96.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer97.jpg

Things seem a bit open and unfinished in this space and that's because it is. Now that the main two kannons are finished I'll be adding some big shootas to the sides and then moving to the rokkets in the nose and the rest of the weapons that will be attached to the sides of the nose. Lots and lots of fun!

Later!

[Corvus-Master-of-The-4th]

Oh My Freaking God... Thats insane man, thats probably the best scratch built I've ever seen (and thats it, in it's preliminary stages) :O

[sukigod]

Oh My Freaking God... Thats insane man, thats probably the best scratch built I've ever seen (and thats it, in it's preliminary stages) :O

Thanks, but you should do a search for Tommygun on Warseer (super smiley here)

More Deff Arsenal work today. Not 100% there but close. Got the nose guns and rokkets finished, now working on filling in the sides with various armaments. Just pics, not a lot of words. Dakka dakka dakka.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer98.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer99.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer100.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer101.jpg

Later!

[bloodangel 83]

sukigod, nice looking gun platfrom and i cannot wait to see it finished. 1 question, do you need more missles for your rockets on the front because i have some from my acft models that i'm not using that i can send to you if you want them. Great work again. BA83

[sukigod]

Thanks for the offer, bloofangel83! It's ok though, I'm intentionally leaving a number of tubes empty to show they've been fired already. You'll see later in the build, I'm at no loss for rokkets! :)

Thanks for the kudos and thanks for checking out my thread.

Sukigod

[sukigod]

Finished the Deff Arsenal. Pics.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer102.jpg
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer103.jpg
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer104.jpg
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer105.jpg

It may look a little sparse yet but don't worry, all "plain" areas will receive due treatment before it's over.

I'll do some of the plating around the nose and do whatever it is I decide to do with the chin (not sure yet - maybe more guns...) Then I'll move on to the big shootas down the side and then the landing gear bay covers.

Later!

[sukigod]

OK, I did it, I added more guns. Wasn't sure how I was going to finish off the chin so I decided to add more dakka! Too much? Naw...

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer106.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer107.jpg

And Thanks to Harkon Greywolf for his patented lascannon barrel conversion - looted with pride!

So now I get to finish off the plating on the nose and move on to the big shootas down the flanks. Moar dakka!

Later!

[Force21]

Wow dude that is awesome... but you can never have too much Dakka.

I can't wait to see in painted.

[SotonShades]

Deffinitely NOT enough dakka... I can still see white space :P

[Lexington]

That much firepower jutting out of the nose of a fast-moving aircraft shouldn't make me giggle, but what're you gonna do, eh?

Amazing work, Suki. You're an inspiration to ork players everywhere. Well, except the bad ones. But even they think this stuff is pretty cool, while they're kicking squig-puppies and spitting on grots.

[sukigod]

Thanks everyone.

On another note: work on the bommer will be temporarily halted.



Now that you're all done shouting... An exceptional opportunity for the missus and I to buy a different house has come up and things need to move quickly so the hobby room is getting packed up so the house shows better, which usually equates to a quicker sell. We've done this before so it's nothing new for us, just a lot of work in a short time. Getting into the new house should be a relatively short process too. We're figuring somewhere between Halloween and Thanksgiving we should be in the new house. Christmas at the latest but we hope not 'cause I HATE moving in the winter in Minnesota.

The paint hutch will still be in the house so I'll be painting on occasion but don't expect much in the way of updates for a while.

Later!

[bloodangel 83]

Thanks for the heads up and good luck on the new house. BA83

[sukigod]

Well. just about everything in the house is packed and it's all staged and ready for showing at any time. Let's hope it sells sooner rather than later!

I was smart enough to leave myself something to do if I got a chance. Ten stormboyz and two mekboyz are all I've got to work on until either this house sells or someone buys the other house first and we all unpack. Took some time to start the skin and wrapped that up tonight. Nothing big but something to keep the Waaagh! growing in the meantime.

http://www.bigshoota.com//blog-photos/stormboyz/storm1.jpg

Later!

[HarlekissofDeath]

Would you by chance be able to show a step by step on how you paint the skin on your orcs? I like the color and detail and would like to know, thanks

[sukigod]

Sure thing, HarleykissofDeath

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2970148&postcount=17

[Meph]

Those orks look nice indeed, good job man! :D

[HarlekissofDeath]

Thanks Sukigod, that is nice to have a template on how to paint them. I have used something similar to that template but nothing really concrete. I love painting green, it is such a great color to paint with.

[sukigod]

Selling a house (selling it well, anyway) is hard work! Whew! Anyone know of anyone in the central Minnesota area in need of a nice 5 bedroom rambler with a lot of party space?

Anyway, I still have some painting I can do while everything else is packed. A neat bonus is if I finish the stormboyz before the house sells, I've got a Forgeworld Bikerboss coming that should help fill in the time til then. On to what I am working on though - stormboyz!

I've spent a bit of time over the last week or so (more than usual because of the house selling thing) and really didn't post anything because they were short sessions that really didn't show much difference. Now the new pics actually look a bit advanced from the old ones.

I've completed the clothing (blue to match Zagstruk, not because he's a Deffskull), the leather straps and the fur trim on the ones that have it. A problem with taking pics of this work is most of it is only seen from the underneath so showing a regular front-on shot of the mob doesn't really show much. I've picked a couple to show the general level of work I'm doing here.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/stormboyz/storm2.jpg
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/stormboyz/storm3.jpg
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/stormboyz/storm4.jpg
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/stormboyz/storm5.jpg

They're a little better than my standard boyz as I'm using these guys to kill time - I might as well spend a little of it doing a slightly better job. I'm at the point now where I can't really assembly line paint the same things on all of the models so it's 'pick one and finish it' and repeat. Then off to the rokket packs!

Later!

[Meph]

Looks neat and crisp, mate. Welcome back after the hiatus. :D

[sukigod]

Slow progressd on the stormboyz, but progress none the less. I decided since I was using these to waste time until we move into the new house (which we got - probably another 30+ days before move in) I was going to use these to test and push myself. I want to try using a totally NNM technique - no metallic paints. We'll see how it goes.

The only thing I got done this week was the boots. As with all of the new ork models, the details are incredible and finely done. Since it's hard to shoot these due to angle and lighting, I'll just post a few of them...

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/stormboyz/storm6.jpg


http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/stormboyz/storm7.jpg

And I picked up a little bit of usefulness at the local thrift store today...

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/stormboyz/squiggoth.jpg

It's a bit larger than the Forgeworld Gargantuan Squiggoth but I'm going to make this guy work. Much cheaper!!!

Later!

[Dominic]

Your orks are pretty amazing, they were the inspiration for me starting up my own project log :)

[sukigod]

Your orks are pretty amazing, they were the inspiration for me starting up my own project log :)

Thanks Dominic. I just caught your thread over on Warseer and you've got a nice start there. The battlewagon especially. :)

[sukigod]

Slow and steady wins the race, right? I must be winning something!

I've put in about 5 hours over the last two weeks with a bunch of piddly stuff on the stormboyz. straps and buckles, control boxes, and a couple of weapons. I find that I'v egot the NMM for small and round things down pretty good. The larger, flat open spaces need a bit of work. Here's some detail shots before I did the reds and hoses for the weapons on four of them - the ones with the under-slung sluggas.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/stormboyz/storm8.jpg
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/stormboyz/storm9.jpg

Getting a little better at where to put the white highlights and how much - hands are still a little shakey though.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/stormboyz/storm10.jpg

And at the end of the night, a little conga line left and right. I still have the bolt on spike/blades on the one to finish and I'll call these four done for now. I'll move on to the other six stormboyz and do their weapons as they're all pretty much the same combos of knives and sluggas. Then I'll go through and do all the shoulderpads. After all that I get to figure out what to do with all the rokket packs!

I also wanted to introduce you to my painting buddy. His name is Rowdy and he lives up to every letter in his name. When he's not raising hell around the house, he's the cutest damn thing. Whenever I do my modeling, whether painting or creating stuff, he always parks himself within a couple of feet of me and sleeps. Never in my lap, always a short step away. He gives me a good excuse to wake him up every once in a while to take a break from whatever I'm doing. I know, he looks a bit strange here but he does this all the time. Not just lying on his back all stretched out but craning only his neck up and looking at you weird like this. I see it every morning while I'm ironing my clothes for work.

Rowdy's wierd too.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/stormboyz/rowdy.jpg

It will probably be while before my next post again as my wife and I close on our new house (yay!) on Monday. Two weeks, at least. Under three if I can get enough stuff done and my painting hutch unpacked sooner rather than later. We'll see.

Later!

[sukigod]

Had to dig a bit to find my thread.... Moved last weekend during a huge snowstorm. It sucked, big time. Glad that parts over though. What that does mean is I finally got the rest of the house in a state that I could set up my workbench without guilt.

We moved to an older house (1953) and it's an absolute wonder. I get a spot in the basement for doing my messy construction work and the painting hutch will be in a fourth bedroom upstairs. Here's the basic setup in the corner of the unfinished part of the basement.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer108.jpg

The wall closets to the right contain all the boxes and large tubs of bits and terrain. It's all pretty handy - especially with a nice roller chair. The cabinet on the left will become my airbrush station (as before) and I'll be adding a pegboard backing above the desk for tools and I'll be trying to build a way to store all the plasticard channel, strips and tubes to make them easier to see and get to.

Here's a shot of the work bench. As I get more settled in and a bit more time, the lighting will get better as well. Eventually there will be power strips up each side of the desk and long gooseneck lamps to free up more work surface.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer109.jpg

Not sure how much work will actually get done though. Right around the corner (and I don't mean down the block - I mean right around the next corner of my basement) is Club D.O.A. Hole. Heheheheh.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bar1.jpg
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bar2.jpg

An absolutely 1950's, vintage basement wet bar. We're looking around for an actual glass-doored beverage fridge and a keg fridge (like the Kegerator) to round it out. The neon under the bar is actually red and not pink as the pictures seem. We have some neon bar signs and a few more decorations at the other house but it's pretty much set up. This should be fun for the 40K days and Apocalypse battles in the basement.

I did leave one box of supplies I need at the storage place, I'll be picking it up this week. Soooo, this does mean the bommer is back in production! Yay!!!

Later!

[bloodangel 83]

Nice looking work station, and the wet bar is looking good. The house looks good and welcome back. BA83

[Emerald Rose Widow]

one way i did for my lighting at my painting station was rather creative use of a shower bar and shop lights. I put daytime bulbs in a few shop lamps which clamp on the shower bar, and produce a great amou8nt of ight for my painting area and it was fairly inexpensive to setup. Only think I need now is a magnifier with lights on a boom arm so that i can move it around, and i will be set for lighting in my painting area.

[sukigod]

Nice to be back in the Big Meks chair. Made the big shootas for the side gunners tonight. I know they're a little long and "twin linked" but I thought they'd look cooler like that. Here's the barrels, then glued in place in the fuselage and a show with the wings attached.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer110.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer111.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer112.jpg

I never planned on showing the orks behind the guns - too much work. I'll be building doors that will somewhat cover the internals anyway. Now that I have the side guns done I'll be starting the skinning process. I'm still working on getting settled in the new house so time is a bit sparse yet. I'll pick at it here and there.

Later!

[Sandrat]

Dayum. And have I mentioned that I hate you lately? Either here or on CMON?:p

[sukigod]

Ahhhh, haters gotta hate :)

Nice to see ya back and that Osprey you're working on is doin' just fine too. Just keep things coming!

[Sandrat]

Actually the hull is assembled and masked for priming here in a few minutes when I finish firing back some tamales. Then tonight the cats second least favorite device comes out - the airbrush, and a whole lot of things get paint applied.

[bloodangel 83]

Looks good and I will continue to see how much your Mastermind can add to the details on your flying Ork gun platform. BA83

[Hotsauceman]

Im Uber jelous of your work area. All i have is a small area i usually have right infront of my laptop.
My desk is extremely scarred from all the nice makrs an my laptop has greenstuff it in :( Oh well no room for a workplace.
I also love your Orks. Well done.

[sukigod]

Thanks guys!

I need your help folks. This is a repost from a thread I made in the Oubliette and since I don't think that is going to get nearly as much traffic as this thread I'm duping it here...

OK, this will be entered in to the annals of cool/smart/silly/stupid social media ploys but it does mean an extra afternoon off for me if I win!

The short: If I get the most likes on Facebook for the company I work at, I win an afternoon of my choice off. Simple as that. Go here, like them, and tell them Randy sent ya!

http://www.facebook.com/ThelenAdvertising

The long: I'm competing against a cat. Not any cat mind you, but my own cat (and the other employees). In an attempt to raise our likes, one of the owners - who is also my wife :) - has been using her other Facebook page for our cat Punchy, to garner more likes. Punchy has added 12 likes to our company page in two days. Becky (my wife) has thrown the gauntlet down and decided to pit the employees against Punchy.

To win the afternoon off the employee must meet two criteria. 1. Have the most new Likes brought to the site with "Randy Sent me" (or whoever the employee is) and 2. Brought more Likes than Punchy. The deadline is Monday morning so we have the entire weekend to try and best that darn sneaky cat.

The company: We're a small advertising agency in central Minnesota. A bunch of hard working but easy going folks who love to create and help people make the most of their company. We do just about anything: from writing copy to billboards to websites to full on multiple angle ad campaigns. Full service and all that.

Thanks ahead of time for anyone who helps out!

http://www.facebook.com/ThelenAdvertising

Remember - tell'em Randy sent ya or it won't count for me!:)

THANKS!

[sukigod]

OK guys. There's a couple hours left in our silly contest and I'm neck and neck with our office admin. If I can get just a few more Likes in the next two hours that would be awesome! (you can even send your friends, family and pets over to Like them ;) )

A huge thanks to everyone who has already Like them. I will make sure I personally thanks each and every one on their post. It's so very much appreciated.

Randy

[sukigod]

Ok, a quick update on the day off contest. Myself and another were tied with 30 Likes each after the weekend. Our owners have decided to give us both the win and both half days. Yay! Thanks to everyone who Like us!

Randy

[sukigod]

Finally crawling back to the bommer tonight. Spent a couple hours working on the base plating on the fuselage, nothing too spectacular or detailed, just plates. I wasn't too picky or worried of things didn't perfect here as I'll be going back over with detail plates and patchwork metals.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer113.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer114.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer115.jpg


And since I haven't seen it all together in such a long time, the big parts all together.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer116.jpg

As I get closer to wrapping up the main body I realize I have no idea how I'm going to integrate the wings in to the fuselage yet. Something to think about while I work on the cockpit canopy and topside turret gunner.

Later!

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

Wow, that bomma is seriously impressive, you're quite good with the ol' plasticard!

On the note of integrating the wings, maybe have them be on a rotating/swivel mount instead? (Kinda like their existing connection point). The Mek deciding that if the wings are extra-agile, the Bomma must be too, seems nice and orky!

[bloodangel 83]

Looks great. BA83

[sukigod]

Been a while, I know. Real life pretty much squashed any hobby work for the last month or so. I did manage to start my terrain board for Waaag!Fest but it isn't anything orgy (I know, sad) so I won't post it here. I have started on some logo work for Waaagh!Fest though and that's very orky so I'll post updates on it here.

The idea is an orkified beer mug. Something big and proppa so I'm starting with a beer mug with a base made from the aft-cap from a big cannon round. There'll be checks on top, teef bolted/riveted on the aft-cap and a grinning glyph bolted to the mug as well - of course, all with a foamy head. Not sure exactly what to do with the handle yet, still concepting.

I'm building this in layers using a lightbox to trace over my previous layers so I can see different options as I go before committing anything to sharpie.

Here's pics for proof…

http://www.bigshoota.com/xtras/mugone.jpg
http://www.bigshoota.com/xtras/mugtwo.jpg

I'm giving myself a deadline of two weeks to get the line art done and coloring within a week of that. This will eventually be produced on posters, t-shirts, mugs, glasses and large variety of printed material, and of course, the web (which is most forgiving).

I'm also hoping to restart a few other projects soon. Rumor has it I've got a giant plane sitting around here that needs some work ;)

Later!

[sukigod]

I know it's not orky but I think this is worth putting here

I'm considering this a lesson learned and don't mind passing this along

When I started painting the large aquilla on the top deck I was originally going to mask it out and airbrush it in layers. After looking at it for a few minutes I decided to use a brush instead thinking how difficult masking this off would be and how long it would take. Stoopid me.

I started with a brush and tried my hardest to make the layers even and without brush marks. The foundation color, Deneb Stone, went on ok. A little sloppy but figured the next two colors would compensate for this. I put down two layers of Deneb Stone, then two layers of Bleached Bone. Because of the lighter colors over black primer, it was nearly impossible to achieve a smooth finish before hitting the Skull White. I had almost four hours into just the aquilla.

This started me thinking about how long would it really have taken to mask off the intricate aquilla. Well, I found out tonight. A little over an hour to do both. It took me another 10 minutes to put down two layers of Skull White and 15 minutes to thoroughly clean my airbrush, another 5 to remove the masking tape. I'm assuming with two more colors to apply and dry, those would have taken about another 30 minutes. This would have been a total of around two hours. I had already wasted 4 hours on brush work (grrr) so I'm assuming if I would have started masking instead of painting, I would have saved around 3+ hours on it.

So, what do I do? Turn it into a tutorial! Detail masking for airbrushing.

Here's about halfway through the first aquilla, pretty intricate - and a little daunting.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/board/board10.jpg

I'm using lo-tac blue painters tape. I stick it down lightly to my self-healing cutting mat. I use a steel rule to cut the skinny channel sized pieces of tape. I cut angled pieces and apply them to the edges and push them into place using a rounded end dental sculpting tool. This is really easy, pushing the tape into place and making sure it fits snuggly against the edges of the raised aquilla.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/board/board11.jpg
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/board/board12.jpg

The next tip I want to show is how to apply the tape around the curves - the most difficult part. Cut a piece of tape larger than the area you're going to mask off and gently stick it in place. Use the dental tool to push the tape into the corner. This is similar to copper tooling (do they still do that in schools?). The tape it flexible enough and should form itself fairly well to the shape. Use a sharp exacto to trim out the shape, erring on the higher side of the lip. Take care to move slowly as the blade can slip and cut into other areas (I did it a few times too)

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/board/board13.jpg

[sukigod]

Here's the detail masked aquillas.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/board/board14.jpg

Then the rest of the landing pad is taped/papered off to prevent overspray.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/board/board16.jpg


I re-coated the squilla in Bleached Bone to smooth out the surface before applying the white.
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/board/board15.jpg

Then applied two layers of Skull White.
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/board/board17.jpg

[sukigod]

Here's the skyshield with the masking tape removed and a closeup.
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/board/board18.jpg
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/board/board19.jpg

A nice, even, and solid white. A few small spots that will need touchup but these are actually from when I was using a brush.:)

The next step will be the chevroned panels, then I'll do the weathering.

Later!

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

Those aquilas looks really striking!

One suggestion though - when masking small spaces, like in between the feathers, I find sticky putty, like poster tac, is a godsend, might be a bit faster/easier than cutting tape to shape.

[sukigod]

Those aquilas looks really striking!

One suggestion though - when masking small spaces, like in between the feathers, I find sticky putty, like poster tac, is a godsend, might be a bit faster/easier than cutting tape to shape.

That's a great idea Tiberius. I did this when priming plastics to keep the gluing surfaces free, should be the same thing. I'll give it a go on my next project. :)

[KrewL RaiN]

Going to have to say hi here to, due to lurking your thread for a while haha. Man, your Ork army makes my Ork's sulk that they aren't as epic as yours. Also, your plasticard-fu is godlike :O

Also, dat wet bar :O

[dulesjoe]

incredible scratch build, can't wait to see it finished

[sukigod]

Thanks guys - much appreciate the comments (even if they make your orks sad ;) )

I want to take a minute to pimp the little tournament that's taking most of my hobby time away lately.

It's called the Granite City Waaagh!Fest (http://www.waaaghfest.com), it's a 2K Warhammer 40K tournament and it takes place in a bar. We basically take over the entire basement (it's HUGE) and eat, drink, chat, and play games all day. Yeah, there's trophies and prizes but it's much more about the comraderie and having fun with friends. I'm the main tournament organizer and have been getting swag together for everyone who attends (which there is some cool stuff his year). I'm also the designer and webmaster so there's a lot to coral for this thing. I'll be putting up t-shirts for order soon so keep er eyes peeled for that.

I want to take a quick minute as well to thank Taytonclait (http://taytonclait.deviantart.com/). He's graciously allowed us to use one of his fantastic pieces on our poster to promote the event. If you haven't already, you should go over to his Deviant Art gallery (http://taytonclait.deviantart.com/) and get an eyeful of all that coolness. (he did twist my arm for some bitz though, like any good big mek should :) )

Any questions, send me a message. We'd love to see ya show up and want make sure everyone is welcome at this event.

Sukigod

[Skari]

Looking good. Cheers!

[sukigod]

OK, the orky mug above, which was originally going to be a design for the t-shirt, has been put on hold. I got a much better deal with graphics in the form of taytonclait allowing us to use some of his great work - I am so stoked to see all the stuff produced. It's gonna be awesome! Some people asked if I was going to have those mugs produced based on my early design work... Maybe. Me and my friend who does resin casting have been throwing ideas around and it might actually just happen.

That said, I'm beginning the production of this years trophies. I've been sitting on this idea for almost four months and I suppose I need to get them rolling to be done in time. Here's the quick mockup for placement and sizing.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/board/trophy1.jpg

A defective 1 liter mug from last year, a wood base, a garage mounting peg for shovels and a Nerf Enforcer pistol. I have a friend who has a wood shop and he'll be turning out a set of custom bases for the mug and gun to sit in, I've got metal tags for designations on order and I'll be sending the mugs out for etching/sandblasting next week. The guns will be orkified into Sluggas.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/board/trophy2.jpg

Pretty, aren't they? This came about after finding the Nerf guns on clearance before Christmas last year for $5 each - couldn't pass that up. I'll be working on bulking them up a little and making sure all the Nerf text is obliterated then find a paint scheme that would befit an ork pistol.

That's all the orky stuff I got finished tonight. Between this and the board I'm making for Waaagh!Fest (along with all the setup and administration for that!) I think I'll have a pretty full plate until June.


Made some small progress on the Skypad over the last few days. I spent about 3 hours masking off the chevron areas and painting them yellow. Masking can be a tough and tricky deal. This photo shows the worst part of the job after removing the tape.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/board/board20.jpg

The tape wasn't stuck down well enough and some of the paint seeped under it. Mot too hard to clean up afterwards with come Chaos Black. I also went and blacked out all of the small beacon lights surrounding the platform. There's almost as many of those as skulls on this thing!

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/board/board21.jpg

Here's where it sits after chevrons, cleanup and lights. I wanted to have the lights blacked out before I start the weathering process as I'll be doing those last so they have a bit of fresh pop when it's done.

Later!

[splnes]

The one thing I hate about big projects is how long it takes for people to finish and start on something new! Finish the plane I want more small projects! Great work!

[sukigod]

I'm with ya splnes. I'm getting tired of moving that bommer around my workbench to make room for my other projects! ;)

Seriously though, real life has thrown me a couple of time-intensive curve balls in the last year and now I'm in the midst of getting ready for the Waaagh!Fest tournament which includes custom making 4 trophies by hand (nothing like being over ambitious ! ). I'm hoping that I can get a fresh return to the bommer mid June (after the tourny) and have it finished by Halloween, including painting. There's another big project hidden in there but I can't talk about it right now - my best friend would 'ave me chopped up! ;)

[bigheaddan]

Lovin the conversions. they really blend with the models

[sukigod]

From nice and shiny new landing pad to something with little age and wear - something used!

Spent a little free time weathering the skypad over the last week or so. Started with a sponge treatment for the chipped paint, airbrushed on a layer of badab black and devlin mud. This was followed by re-drybrush of the rotting flesh to bring back the highlights and details back in the areas where the paint wasn't chipped, then a fine brush treatment of the metal edges and larger paint chips down to the metal.

I think I just need to retouch the skulls a little (the badab really muted them) and then the landing lights - which is almost as many as the skulls!

Later!

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/board/board22.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/board/board23.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/board/board24.jpg

[sukigod]

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/board/board25.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/board/board26.jpg

[Hokiecow]

Awesome job!
By the way, great log too!

[Cartographer]

First off, this thread is an amazing project log, really impressive work. Secondly, you have renewed my faith in MN, I recently moved to the cities and have been a little bummed over the lack of GW love in my immediate area and now I find out there is a tournament ramping up, and its at a bar no less.

Keep up the jaw dropping work, I look forward to maybe even being lucky enough to see it in person one day.

[raybans]

Some interesting conversions, really nice

[sukigod]

First off, this thread is an amazing project log, really impressive work. Secondly, you have renewed my faith in MN, I recently moved to the cities and have been a little bummed over the lack of GW love in my immediate area and now I find out there is a tournament ramping up, and its at a bar no less.

Keep up the jaw dropping work, I look forward to maybe even being lucky enough to see it in person one day.

Hmmm, Cartographer: Where in the Cities are you located? There's:
Tower Games in St. Paul
Misty Mountain in Burnsville
Village Games in Anoka,
Phoenix Games in Deephaven
Famtasy Flight in Roseville
The Source in Falcon Heights

And quite a few have monthly tournaments (Phoenix and Misty Mountain) and Tower usually does something well organized every three months - tourny or Apoc.

There's a lot going on in MN, especially with no formal GW store in the state. Ya just gotta look around!

[Spartiatis]

Your orks are fantastic and very inspirational.

[splnes]

This doesn't look very orky... What's going on here!

[Cartographer]

Hmmm, Cartographer: Where in the Cities are you located? There's:
Tower Games in St. Paul
Misty Mountain in Burnsville
Village Games in Anoka,
Phoenix Games in Deephaven
Famtasy Flight in Roseville
The Source in Falcon Heights

And quite a few have monthly tournaments (Phoenix and Misty Mountain) and Tower usually does something well organized every three months - tourny or Apoc.

There's a lot going on in MN, especially with no formal GW store in the state. Ya just gotta look around!

Haven't heard too much about most of those. I'm in Savage so Misty is the closest. I love Fantasy Flight but that's a trek for the limited hours I get to play, but their store is by far the best I have been to. Misty just seems so heavy in TCGs and now Warmahordes. I did talk to someone recently about Tower, but haven't visited yet, next on the list.

Are you in the cities often or just the occasional weekend tournament?

[sukigod]

Are you in the cities often or just the occasional weekend tournament?

This. I'm in St. Cloud (hour-ish north), that's why I've decided to run a pub tourny once a year up here, brings some of the cities people up here ;)

[DeffHeadDice]

Your bomba looks HUGE! How big will it end up being?

[weeble1000]

Very nice as always Suki. Your project log is always an excellent source of inspiration.

[sukigod]

Thanks folks!


Your bomba looks HUGE! How big will it end up being?

The overall dimensions are about 22" long and 20" wide. It's a biggie! It's just a hair larger than a Thunderhawk ;)

[sukigod]

Whoops! Wot's dis? An update?! Crickey!

Real life has been either extremely busy lately, or extrememly sick. I'm wrapping up day 10 of being run down and finally on the mend. Sucks. But at least now I've got enough energy to get something done - and boy do I have things to get done!

Granite City Waaagh!Fest is less than two months away and I've got a 'uge laundry list of things to get done by then, net the least of is building the Slugga pistol trophies. I finally got to work on those this last weekend.

The trickiest part was changing the shape from "Hey, that's a Nerf Maverick!" to "Hey, that looks like an ork slugga!" I started by mocking up some changes and additions using foamcore to get an idea of shapes and sizes. The next was building out those additions. I started by creating under-boxes. These were made out of acrylic sheet from some recycled display stands we had lying around at work. All of the Nerf identifiers were covered in rough cut acrylic sheet panels and glued over where it said Nerf and Maverick, etc. Working with acrylic sheet sucks. It's brittle, the glue is some of the worst to work with and, of course, I'm extremely inexperienced with working with it. It's also very, very sharp so almost every edge where someones hands might run over it had top be sanded down a smoothed out so as not to cut the recipients.

All in all, I did get the major construction wrapped up today. It's a little difficult to see the actual shape with the acrylic being transparent but I don't want to prime it until after I get the glyphs on. That's all I need to do build-wise. The barrels were extended about an inch as well using a bit of pvc pipe connector. I'm thinking of adding some kind of long screw to the top as a sight of sorts, I'll have to dig around the scrap bins and see what I can find.

I'll stop yapping now, here's the pics...

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/board/trophy-guns1.jpg
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/board/trophy-guns2.jpg

Later!

[sukigod]

Quick update - finished the glyph on the left side. I primed just the front section so I could actually see where everything is.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/board/trophy-guns3.jpg

I'll be putting a skull glyph on the other side then more rivets (of course) to add a little more detail, then on to paint!

Later!

[Meph]

Nice one! That glyph looks great. :D

[KrewL RaiN]

I am guessing you will be able to keep the nerf gun functioning. Whats more fun then an awesome trophy that you can actually shoot (nerf stuff, not owie stuff haha) people with!

[sukigod]

Quick post, nothing too major, just some metallics. Started with a dry brush of Tin Bitz, then a Boltgun Metal followed by a highlighting of Mithril. The Tin Bitz doesn't show through in the photos but it's there. Yay -Paint!

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/board/trophy-guns4.jpg
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/board/trophy-guns5.jpg
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/board/trophy-guns6.jpg
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/board/trophy-guns7.jpg

Later!

[SotonShades]

Grand job. Gives my plasma pistol more than a run for it's money! Keep up the good work!

[sukigod]

Thanks Soton! You should post your plasma here for reference :)

Quick update. Masked off the metallics and based with an airbrush using Mephiston Red Base. Darker than I had anticipated but it worked well.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/board/trophy-guns8.jpg

Then a coat of Tamiya X7 flat red and topped off with Blood Red.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/board/trophy-guns9.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/board/trophy-guns10.jpg

I snapped a panel off during painting so I'll need to reattach it of course. I ran out of Blood Red after the first gun so a trip to the local hobby shop for one of the new reds is in order to continue.

Later!

[SotonShades]

Thanks Soton! You should post your plasma here for reference :)


Will do mate. After a couple of touch ups, maybe a fresh set of batteries lil.

Grand job in the red. It's really coming along now.

[SotonShades]

At your request Sukigod;

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7087/7282111666_4ffd14820f_c.jpg
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7086/7282116088_5c1998d742_c.jpg

I'm in a lazy mood so I haven't repaied it or touched up the paint job at all. Above the muzzle there was a sculpted eagle (think like the hood ornament from a Rolls-Royce car) as well which really made it look quite special. All made with too much free time (kinda... also known as not sleeping between working!) and extruded polystyrene insulation sheets.

But wait, there's more;

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7244/7282105930_22505460be_c.jpg
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7092/7282100310_9e84190400_c.jpg

Glowy! You can clearly see it in daylight, but my camera doesn't pick it up too well, so I had to turn the lights off. You even get light coming out of the heat vents around the muzzle. The torch I mutilated to achieve this even has a flashing mode, which I imagine is what happens when it is getting hot. Gets people's attention more too lol.

Compared to your Sluggas, its a bit rough to say the least. I think you are also taking a ton more care with your paintjob. That said, as yours are going to be prizes as opposed to a costume prop like mine, that is only right and proper.

[sukigod]

Holy crap! - it glows! That's a sweet gun Soton. I wouldn't be knockin' yours, it's the first plasma gun I've ever seen. Was this based on the Maverick or a different model?

Long weekend gives me some time to work on the guns!

I finished up airbrushing the other guns with Evil Sunz Red and I think this is a better top-end red than Blood Red was, not so orange. I also cleaned up the overspray with black and marked out the areas that will get metallic treatment, mainly where the gouges in the metal are.

I don't think I can say this enough either.... CERAMITE WHITE IS THE BEST PAINT IN THE NEW RANGE - PERIOD.

I wish they had come out with this years ago. Granted, I did do two coats but that was because I thinned it down a bit for outlining the white areas first. This covers so well it's ridiculous. Anyway, on to the paint :)

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/board/trophy-guns11.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/board/trophy-guns12.jpg

Next is the chipping, followed by metallics, a dirt wash and final dry brush highlights and I can seal them and call them done! Woohooo!

Later!

[SotonShades]

Cheers very much. When I was making it I downloaded every picture of every plasma gun and pistol from GW that I could find. Then I just kind of coalated them and took inspiration rather than copying any of them exactly. Although, to be honest, a lot of the size and shape was dictated by the handle (left over from making my culexus assassin helmet) and the torch/plasma tube.

Thos sluggas are looking truely fantastic. Really looking forward to see the weathered etc!

[sukigod]

Did get the chipping and metallics done today. The primer level is a sponged on mix of Chaos Black and Scorched Brown. The metals are only Boltgun Metal at this point, also sponged on. I've also gone back through and filled the deep scratched and large crush areas with a brush as the sponge doesn't cover those spaces well.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/board/trophy-guns13.jpg
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/board/trophy-guns14.jpg


Here's a closer look at the chipping.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/board/trophy-guns15.jpg

Next is a wash with airbrush, highlights with a dry brush of a Blaze-y Orange color for the reds, Mithril for the metals, seal with Dulcote and them wrap the grips with hockey tape and I can call them done!

Later!

[sukigod]

Fini!

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/board/trophy-guns16.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/board/trophy-guns17.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/board/trophy-guns18.jpg

And for everyone attending Waaagh!Fest...

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/board/glasses.jpg

Later!

[SotonShades]

Manifique!

I am far too tempted to have a go at this myself...

[miteyheroes]

Great stuff!

[b-man]

I can't wait to drink out of one of the glasses!

[sukigod]

Aaaaaaand back from the edge of space..... (there's a good reason for the lack of posts for the last six months - I was busy!)

Sheeze, three days back on the bench and it shows me what for... Did something today I haven't done in nearly 20 years - drove an exacto deep into my finger. One of those stupid things where two seconds before it happens you're thinking... "YA know, if that slips it's gonna go deep and hurt a lot..." SLIP! And in the 1/10th of a second it takes to go in and come back out, you're already thinking, "Yep, that's gonna bleed like a sonofa*****. Probably hurt too." Well, it did both. Pre-drilling pilot holes in gun barrels with the exacto to make sure it's nice and centered. The hole was a little off so I tried to push the blade to the side to correct and WHOOP... off the precariously balanced barrel tip and deep into my finger.

Welcome back to the bench! :)

Oh well, direct pressure and three band-aides later I'm ok. Typing is a little awkward but I'll handle. So if I'm making a post like this that means there's updates and pics. I've got both for ya all. It's amazing how much you can fit on a workbench when there isn't a Thunderhawk on it! There are four main projects I'm working on, all of them are green of a sort but not all are orks. First up is a kit my wife wanted me to make and paint for her. From Moebius it's the Bride of Frankenstein 1/8 scale model kit. This is a great model, well done. Also my first large format model with human(oid) figures. I've assembled, cleaned, puttied, sanded and primed the sub assemblies. Here's where it's at with all the parts in place. It's about 10" across and 9" high.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/frank-bride/frank1.jpg


He's green, right? Yeah, that's my story and I'm stickin' to it. I've brought the blasta bommer back out and staged it so I can think about things while I'm working on other things. Working on my new dakka jet (below) I came up with some solutions that will allow me to move forward with this beasty. I'm starting to feel excited by this project again instead of the creative block I've had for some time.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer117.jpg

[sukigod]

This will segue nicely into the next portion of the new Red Jack Air Farce. I needed to create two rokkit paks for my new stormboyz mob as I sacrificed a number of important parts bashing my Wazzdakka model last year against Uberdark. Here's the new packs made from the bitz box scraps and some styrene tubing and channel.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/stormboyz/storm11.jpg
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/stormboyz/storm12.jpg

This leads to the expansion of the original new-model stormboyz squad I started about a year and a half ago. I've added 10 more to the squadron and assembled a dakkajet today to go with'em.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/dakkajet/dakkajet1.jpg

So, this should give me (when completed) and aerial force of 1 blasta bomma, 1 dakkajet, 2 fighta bommas and two 20 strong stormboyz squad, 1 lead by a PK nob and the other by Zagstruk. There are four toy plane fighter bommas and some grot egg-plane fightas in the long range plans but nothing to show yet...

And for my last bit of green project.... (I'm bracing for screams of "traitor!....")


http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/umie-tease.jpg

Yes, they will be green. I'll be starting small alliance force if 'umie. I've already got a skyshield landing pad and a bastion. I'll be adding just the standerd HQ Command Squad and two regular troop slots to start. Yes, I plan to add more, probably in the 7-9K points range when I'm all done so I can add super heavy tanks and the like. Expect lots of tanks.

Later!

[sukigod]

Progress!

Did some work on the Bride and IG trooper tonight. You can't see it from the photo but I airbrushed a coating of Bleached Bone over the entire gown, then do a white zenithal highlight from the top to let the Bleached Bone be my shadowing. It's very subtle so nearly impossible to see in the pic. I've also done the bandaged arms.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/frank-bride/bride2.jpg

I'm looking for a color scheme for my new guard army too so trying something on a trooper. The idea is a medium green cloth with black carapace armor and brown boots. Nothing too fancy, they're army, errr, guard! I think I've got too much highlight area as the medium green is disappearing. This is also the first time I've every done human faces so it's gonna take a little time to master that.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/trooper-test1.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/trooper-test2.jpg

Now I'm off to research painting these guys eyes, they're even smaller than orks!
Later!

[energongoodie]

Mate! Your Ork guns are brilliant! Just brilliant! Well done!
I'd love to be able to do that.
I want one. Fact.

[sukigod]

Thank, energongoodie!

So I sliced my finger good (or bad, depending on how you look at it) the other day. It's still thumping sore but works gotta go on, right? Here's the cut...

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/deep.jpg

Doesn't look like much in the photo at left, a small cut. What you can't see very well in the photo is the deep slice and blood bruising in the perfect shape of a #11 Exacto blade, outlined in light blue. Going to be interesting to see how long this takes to come all the way to the surface.

In other news, I purchased a new tool. A 1 ton aircraft steel punch! I got this for making rivets since my old punch all of a sudden went bendy-wendy on me, not sure why/how. This has various plug/punch dies that fit into it so I can make a few different sizes I'll be using this soon on the bomma and I'll let you know how it works.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/punch.jpg

On the modeling front I did get some of that worked on today. First up, my test scheme for the new 'umie force I'm starting as an alliance. I like how he turned out except the green uniform is a little light in my opinion, I want something a little more towards an olive drab green. I know how to fix that, just didn't go back to change this whole thing. I also tried the decals from the box and was sorely disappointed. I think I'll just go with some freehand of some sort. I might also play with the gun color, changing it to black as I think there might be a bit too much green going on and a little more black should balance that out.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/trooper-test3.jpg

(cont)

[sukigod]

I also dragged the blasta bomma out of mothballs finally and started work on that. After putting the dakkajet together I figured out how I was going to do the turret gunners on top - grot gunners from the burna bomma parts! I just need another dakkajet and I'm good to go there. I started by wrapping up the detailing on the nose/deff arsenal section. Added the banding to "strengthen" the look and bolts/rivets to the bridge of the nose and new banding.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer118.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer119.jpg

Felt good to start cutting and gluing again. I'm hoping to keep working at a steady pace and completing this by the end of next summer. We'll see!

Later

[DrLove42]

Needs more Dakka

[SotonShades]

I've done that to my finger as well in the past! Don't worry, it is only a few weeks of it being really annoying and continually scratching at the root of your conscious mind...

The models are looking good though. Maybe try a couple of angled stripes across the gun rather than repainting it completely? A very brownish red would break up the green, bring the gun out as more of a focus of the model and could be used as a way of denoting rank or marksman ability, for example.

[sukigod]

Thanks for the ideas, SotunShades. I've been having a chat with some others and I think I'm going a slightly different route. (two tone greens).

A little bit finished tonight. If I keep this up It might be done by 2013!

Worked on the side gun hatches last night and tonight. Not much but something. :)

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer120.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer121.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer122.jpg

Later!

[bloodangel 83]

Looks good keep up the great work and cannot wait to see it finished

[KrewL RaiN]

All that Dakka, and yet the Orks would still want more :O

Also with those anoying finger cuts, liquid band-aid gunk works like a charm.

[Dlatrex]

All that Dakka, and yet the Orks would still want more :O

Also with those anoying finger cuts, liquid band-aid gunk works like a charm.

Just to add-on to that, make sure that you're up on your tetanus and it doesn't start to look infected! I'm all for field-dressing but don't lose a fingertip due to bacteria =P

[sukigod]

Howdy folks! I've been putzing all week on the wings of the bommer but nothing worth posting. Would be pretty boring seeing one tiny thing each day...

"Put hoses on today"
"Put the engine brackets on today"
"Put panels down but no rivets yet..."

So I figured I'd save them up to show you something substantial in one post

I've completed the topsides of both wings - yay! I still need to do the space where the wings will connect to the fuselage but in general, the wing tops are finished. There are some areas that may seem a little devoid of detail but this was done on purposes to leave room for some cool paint job stuff. Nothing like super detailing and area and then putting a snazzy paintjob over it to obscure the details.

Here's the work so far...

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer123.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer124.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer125.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer126.jpg

[sukigod]

I took some pics to show the scale alongside the new dakkajet model. For apocalypse games I plan on running two fighta-bommers, two dakka jets and this bommer as my Red Skwadron.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer127.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer128.jpg

Next up will be the attachment points on the wings, then finishing the panels on the tail section. This will be followed by detailing the fuselage, finishing up the grot turret gunners, and completing the underside of the wings. If you think the deff arsenal looks dakka dakk, wait til you see what I've got in store for the wings.

Later!

[SotonShades]

This is making my Orky bits go all Tingly! Keep up the stunning work mate. Love the inclusion of the dakka jet exhausts and wing panels. Really hows how well the rest of your model holds up compared to the GW bitz (i.e. far too well :P)

[sukigod]

Thanks Solun!

Small spurts of progress, doesn't look like much but wrapping plastic around a fuselage with compound curves is tough!

I've got more of the transition between body and tail. It needs multiple layers of pcard to get it where I need it so I can put a proppa plating on it for skinning. It's still a bit rough at this stage.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer131.jpg


I finished up the grot gunner turrets on top.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer129.jpg

Then I did the wheel guards.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer130.jpg

Pretty soon I'll be permanently attaching the tail as I need to plate over the seam, this will make painting a bit tricky (PiTA really). Sure, Icould have thought of many different ways to have attached the tail but I didn't think far enough in advance. Thankfully this is a once in a looong while type of project!

Later!

[sukigod]

I've been doing little bits here and there again, tonight I started addressing the connection between the wings and fuselage. I've got some supports and the top panel glued in place, they'll need to cure overnight before I move to the underside. I've added some more paneling in the rear and started doing a few details like bolt on panels and glyphs - small stuff I can be doing without moving the plane.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer133.jpg

That's about all for tonight. By the weekend I hope to have the wing attachments finished, tail wings attached, fuselage panels done (in the tail) and ready to do the "superdetailing" of the fuselage. Then the underwings!

Later!

[sukigod]

Put some time in on the bommer this week. Spent three hours doing rivets on the tail before doing the final attachment. With this in place, it's time to finish the tail section, blend in the tail wing and start finishing off the detailing. This marks the finish of the base shaping. I'll need to finish paneling sometime. Here's where it sits now...

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer134.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer135.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer136.jpg

[sukigod]

Here's the assortment of bombs I've chosen for under the wings...

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer137.jpg

I've decided to do three sections of 6 bombs on three pylons for each wing. This will total 36 bombs. I'm going to magnetize them so I can just remove one bunch for each of the six sets of bombs I can drop per the stat sheet.

And a final "Barry", or "Randy" shot. This is similar to pox's original scale shot he did with his friend holding it. This shows how large this ended up being. (and yes, that's me).

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer138.jpg

I'm really shooting for having the build finished by the 1st of the year so I can prime it and use it in our local gamestore Apoc match on the 5th. Should be close.

Later!

[Fizzybubela]

Holy moly that's huge!

[bloodangel 83]

Your bomber looks good cannot wait to see it finished, keep up the great work. BA83

[SotonShades]

That is epic! Really coming together nicely (like we'd expect anything else from you by now sukigod!)

If Da Buzzmork ends up looking even a fraction as good as that i will be chuffed to bits. Something about that tail gun really makes me smile :)

[sukigod]

Thanks all!

Got some time last night and forced my self to do what I've been putting off for while, the final paneling of the tail section. Because of the amount of compound curves I was at a loss as to how to do it so it looked "proppa" but not too ramshackle as I've already established a certain aesthetic with the front half of the fuselage. I pretty much just started cutting, heating and bending plastic until it fit and glued them in place calling it good.

Port
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer139.jpg


And starboard.
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer140.jpg

Here's the finishing on the tailgunner station. I was going in one direction with how to integrate this but through a lucky accident, came up with this solution.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer141.jpg

Here's the bottom side where the back hatch is. This is a bit messy, I agree. I'm torn with spending a lot more time making it smoother or sitting back and using the excuse that "no one will ever see it (much) so screw it." I will do a snazzy hatch cover with glyphs but not sure about the rest.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer142.jpg

Now I get to do real fun stuff with detailing the fuselage and rivets -woohoo! For reference, it took me three hours to rivet the tail alone. Thankfully there's a fully stocked bar on the other side of my hobby space!

Later!

[sukigod]

2,400+ rivets, and a couple hundred more left to do.

Wrapped up the tail section underside and all of the secondary plating and riveting. About 4 hours worth. I wasn't drinking this time though, I'm on cold medication instead :)

Here's where the beastie stands.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer143.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer144.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer147.jpg

[sukigod]

THe only things left to do is the canopy:

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer145.jpg


and the underside of the main wings with the clusters of bombs.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer146.jpg

Nearly finished with the build - it's been a long trip! I'll most likely be priming this the night before the apoc game on Sat. Goal met!

Later!

[sukigod]

Grrrrr. So close. I would be were I wanted to be if I hadn't had to spend 4 hours in the ER waiting to be seen for my back. (injured it helping my brother move last weekend).

Finished all bomb mounts and panels for the underside of the wings. I've got them sticky tacked on since I'm impatient and want to see what it looks like with bombs on :)

I still need to rivet the underside of the wings, glue to bomb pylons on and then I can do the canopy. That should be it for build. The canopy may have to wait til after the apoc game, we'll see how things go. On to the pics!

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer148.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer149.jpg

[sukigod]

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer150.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer151.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer152.jpg


Later!

[SotonShades]

Incredible! Those bomm pylons look... well, the bomb! (sorry for the really bad pun)

I know how soul destroying adding rivets to a big project like this can be, so very very well done for having done so very very many! They look fantastic. Why not magnatise the pylons so you can immediately see how many you have dropped during the course of the game?

Unless of course you play in the very orky style of "drop them all on the first bomming run, regardless of the target"

[sukigod]

Thanks Soton! The pylons eventually got magnetized. I want to be able to run grot boms in the future so it was pretty much mandatory :) Of course, I'll still drop everything in the first run since I know everyone and their allies will be gunning for this thing just to be able to claim they were the first to shoot down the might "Moar Dakka!". Heck, I'm hoping to be able to fire the deff arsenal more than once!

And in all reality, I don't mind doing rivets. It's "work" that doesn't take any mental gymnastics to do. I can just put my mind in automatic mode and listen to the music on my iPod while I go about the business of attaching 2,600+ tiny bits of plastic.


Finished everything except the canopy tonight. Because of my schedule I know I won't be able to finish it before Saturdays game. Oh well, not like they need a windscreen anyway, right? :)

I did magnetize the bombs so I can always swap them out later with Grot bombs or other fun ordnance. I've got the cockpit taped off as I'm in the process of priming now.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer153.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer154.jpg

[sukigod]

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer155.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer156.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer157.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer158.jpg

Playing this thing in the next Apoc game should be a lot of fun. Hopefully it'll last more that one turn.

Later!

[sukigod]

Here's the newly primed "Maor Dakka!!!" being refitted with a new payload of bombs while parked on the tarmac awaiting it's next sortee.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer160.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer162.jpg

I can't wait to deploy this thing for the first time - should be epic. Tomorrows Apoc game is going to be something to be seen, I'm expecting a 40K scale version of Aeronautica. I've got 6 flyers, I know there's nearly 20+ 'umies flyers (Lightnings, Vendettas, etc) and one of our locals has been gathering a Chaos Navy as well. I'll post some pics if I remember to take them ;)

btw: this thing makes my stompa look like a toy...

Later!

[jugger]

That thing is BADASS! Great work!

[sukigod]

Hi folks!

Got to field the blast bomber this weekend at a local Apoc game. It was fun but didn't really do much except wow the other players. Apoc has definitely changed with the adoption of 6th Edition.

In our local gaming group, there was a trend towards aerial navies since they were so fast and nearly impossible to take down. It's one of the reasons I started the blast bomber and added three Dakka Jets before this game. The only real flyer rules to go by were the Forgeworld ones. Must move 36" or more per turn, pretty much giving you infinite movement. You could turn any which way you wanted so this made it really easy to choose your next target for things like bombing runs and the like.

Now with 6th Edition having very clearly defined rules (and very different) for flyers, they aren't quite the super badass units they used to be. Granted they're pretty tough to take down (Massed fire will still help) and most other aircraft having Skyfire rules helps when there's a lot of flyers on both sides. What changed the most is they only move 18"-36" per turn and then only allowed one 90 degree facing change. These two changes really brought flyers down a notch and will make me rethink for my next Apoc matchup.

That being said, I'm a huge fan of the Dakka Jets! It's gonna be a while though before I play again and probably as long before I get to paint anything. Next week school starts up again and not only am I still doing my regular agency job at 3/4 time, I'm teaching 7 credits worth at the tech college AND taking 10 more credits in an attempt to pick up 16 credits to obtain my AAS degree in Advertising, Communication and Design by the end of fall semester so I can continue teaching. Needless to say, I will be very, very busy for the next four months!

I won't be starting any new projects for probably a year so the time I do have will be aimed at painting. I've got the bomber, 20 stormboyz to finish, three dakkajets and I've promised myself I would have the stomp painted before I started any other large project. I know what it's gonna be but I'll keep it a secret until I can start on it.

Until then, I'll be lurking around and to posting much, but still here. Here are some game pics to keep you interested until then!

Later!


http://bigshoota.com/blog-photos/apoc/apoc2.jpg
http://bigshoota.com/blog-photos/apoc/apoc3.jpg
http://bigshoota.com/blog-photos/apoc/apoc4.jpg
http://bigshoota.com/blog-photos/apoc/apoc5.jpg



(and yes, that's a Capitol Imperialis in process...)

[guitarangry]

Had a good read through all this over that past few days and must say your work is eally nice and inspiring me to get my finger out on a project ive been meaning to start for a while.

[sukigod]

Ancient hinges, rusted from eons of neglect, moan their complaints. Sharp screeches of pain puncture the deep rumble as the massive workshop door slowly grinds open, daylight ruining the darkened calm of sleep beyond.

Huge, translucent storage containers stacked imperiously high, reaching to the ceiling of the vast factory above. The remains of ruined vehicles and buildings peeking through the clear units. Things of devastation waiting their turn to once again be committed to acts of war.

A small aerial navy mothballed in the corner. A mockery of jets, uncompleted, surround a monstrosity of mad genius. Something that surely would never fly, it's just too big, too cumbersome… too wrong.

The smell of old grease, glue and paint permeate the gloom, harkening to a more productive era, when things rolled off the work benches in a continuous, churning stream for battle. Long undisturbed dust motes stir up at the disruption of a long sleep, marking shafts of light through the newly opened door. A series of hazy, glowing arrows pointing at the occupant at the doorway.

A figure stands expressionless. Impassioned. Alone. Silhouetted in the murky light cast through the door. A deep rumble emits from the beast, a heavy weight of voice, like that of a lumbering tank rounding the bend.

"Soon. Very soon. Hur hur."

[Lexington]

Good. Good...

[sukigod]

Need to slowly work back up to speed. I missed my workbench!

These are three dakkajets I purchased and built for the local Apoc back in January, haven't touched anything since then. I wanted to start painting the blasta bomma but I'm using these three fellas as a test bed since most of the paint range for GW has changed since I painted anything. Based with Khornate Red, a layer of Tamiya X-7 and topped with Evil Sunz Red. I'm now blocking back out all the metallic areas. It'll be slow, tedious work but a must to keep my style up. I've got the blocking out done on one of them.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/dakkajet/dakkajet2.jpg
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/dakkajet/dakkajet3.jpg

Now that school is winding down and summer is here, I can devote some bench time and get back into this crazy hobby thing again - Gork I missed it!

Later!

[sukigod]

Murrdox: I have two pots of Mithril left, used very sparingly now ;)

Worked on the metallics today. I remembered a long time ago, Tamiya made a Gun Metal Blue that was really good looking for gun barrels. I figured I'd try to duplicate that on the many, many barrels these dakkajets have.

The base metal color is a 70/30 Boltgun Metal/ Abbadon Black (I miss Chaos Black). I find starting at Boltgun doesn't give me the depth I want in my metallics so I darken it down to start.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/dakkajet/dakkajet4.jpg

I then washed just he gun barrels in Asuraman Blue Wash (form the semi-old line)

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/dakkajet/dakkajet5.jpg

A "wet" brushing of Boltgun to start the highlighting process. Wet brushing is similar to dry brushing but he brush is wet and the paint is thinned. It tends to eliminate the chalkiness that can happen from too dry a paint. I followed this with a wet brushing of with Chainmail (I've got quite a few old pots sitting around).


http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/dakkajet/dakkajet6.jpg

[sukigod]

A generous coating of Nuln Oil.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/dakkajet/dakkajet7.jpg

Followed by a wet brushing of Mithril Silver.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/dakkajet/dakkajet8.jpg

Leaving me with a rich, blu-ish (hard to tell from the photos though, it's metallics) with a layer of dirty grim and bright highlights. The highlights will be knocked down with the Testors Dulcote sealer. Here's a close up side by side for each of the above steps.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/dakkajet/dakkajet9.jpg

I think I'll be starting the individualization of each plane next. Specific patterns and markings to more easily differentiate them and give each a little more character.

Later!

[CBChris]

Here's some more unbelievable Ork work. At this link (http://www.cigarboxbattle.com/unbelievable-40k-ork-conversions/)

[TheGreatFireDrake]

Really nice army, inspirational work man.

[sukigod]

Wow, almost 8 months since I touched this thing. Sad really, I miss it a lot. That's what getting a second job and going back to school will do for ya ;)

With the break in school over the holidays (I'm teaching part time AND going to school as a student), I'll have time to devote to HOBBIES! YAY! What that really means is I'll be trying to do as much as possible, posting in a mad flurry of random, scattered stuff then quickly fade off as classes start in mid-January. First up: Da Blasta Bomma!

I know it's bad form to not post something without pics, but I wanted to take some time to basically "unarchive" my dormant threads so when I do have pics, they're easier to find. That said, I spent last night working out the patterns for the canopy - that last part I need to build before I can start painting the beast. I have my paper templates and built a first round test and learned a few things. Building canopies is HARD! I'll take a step by step (as usual) with me droning on about things I screwed up and how you can do it better than I did.

I'm also working on building an Imperial Guard army (very slowly) and lots of cool new terrain (some to hopefully house a SoB army down the road) so I might feature some of that as well, who knows?

It's good to be back, even if for a short time, I'll try to be as productive as possible!

Sukigod

[sukigod]

Sometimes you get stuck, you come to a roadblock that you can't blow through with ease, something that stymies you for a good long time. That was the canopy for the blasta bommer for me. I've had time since I primed this beast and each time I looked at the canopy and was just blind as to how I was going to pull it off. Now, almost a year later later, I've got some precious time to devote to my hobby and damned if I was going to let it get away again!

I threw a bunch of ideas at the wall the last four or five days and finally decided upon a path to finish the build. Here's the overly explained steps in creating my canopy. Sure, there might have been easier ways to do it but I'm a fan of beating myself up until I figure something out on my own.

I used file card paper to construct a template (after many tries) and used it to make my canopy frames. Canopies are typically spindly, fragile pieces of metal held together by glass. Because of this fragility, I choose to lay each peice out flat and cut the window pieces out seperately, then score them where they should angle down. This gave the entire piece more rigidity while cutting out the windows.


http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer163.jpg

Here is each frame all cut out ready for scoring and bending.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer164.jpg

I cut little angled supports to add some structural support and to help keep the correct angle.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer165.jpg

I added some channel to the edges for support and looks, which also adds detail - a place to put RIVITS!

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer166.jpg

[sukigod]

I've already glued the front windshield into place as I can reach the interior of it to add the glass after painting. Here's the other assembled pieces.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer167.jpg

And the pieces in place on the fuselage.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer168.jpg
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer169.jpg

I'll be painting these parts by hand and when I'm finished, I'll be adding glass panes using white glue (it dries transparent without crazing) to finish up.

At this point, I can actually call the build on this pig done! On to some other color than primer black. :)

Later!

Sukigod

[SotonShades]

Great to see you getting back on the horse... or Bomma in this case! My hobby time disappeared with taking on a second job as well :( Still, excellent work so far. Looking forward to a productive holiday period from you :)

[sukigod]

Thanks Sotun, it's great to BE back :)

Paint. Paint. Paint!

Sadly, only enough for the little grotty gunners :)

Finished up the grot big shoota gunner turrets and realized I've run out of Evil Sunz Red so the main painting of the bomma will have to wait until I have a chance to get to the hobby shop (hopefully tomorrow).

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer170.jpg
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer171.jpg

[sukigod]

Not that I don't have other things I can paint - wait, I do! Three dakkajets I started ages ago are sitting there waiting to be finished. I've reached a point where I'm individually detail painting each jet to make them unique. There are two rites of passage for any ork player worth his/her salt when it comes to modeling and painting. Rivets and checks. I started the checks a while back but finished cleaning them up and did the base weathering tonight.

Cleaned up and ready for weathering.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/dakkajet/dakkajet10.jpg

Black sponged wear areas...

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/dakkajet/dakkajet11.jpg

Metallics picked out out on wear edges...

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/dakkajet/dakkajet12.jpg

An application of watered down Gryphone Sepia over the checks - the brownish wash looks better over the white than the black og Nuln Oil, which was washed over the rest of the plane.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/dakkajet/dakkajet13.jpg


While waiting for the washes to dry, I started the pilots for each plane - easier since they'll be painted primarily the same. Pics to come when I've got more than three coats of green on them.

Later!

[sukigod]

Wrapped up the pilots for each of my three dakkajets last night, presented here:

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/dakkajet/dakkajet14.jpg

And he doesn't look too bad nestled in the cockpit. Just need to finish the windscreen and base it.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/dakkajet/dakkajet15.jpg

In other news, the blasta bomma, "Moar Dakka!!!" is no longer black and appropriately fasta!

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer172.jpg

And a "Barry" shot for scale, it's s little wider than two dakkajets

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer173.jpg

Not sure how quick this will proceed but I know the next step is blocking out all the black/metallics as I didn't do a perfect masking job and there's lots of smaller details thatneed to be picked out.

Later!

[SotonShades]

That's put a grin on my face like a speed freak who discovered Nitro!

[Skullchewer]

My WAAAGH! weeps with happiness at such a thing of beauty. Fine work!

[Pauly Addams]

I love HUGE Ork projects, this reminds me of a stompa I was following some years ago, also all scratch built. WWAAAGGGGHHHHH!!!*

*(Superb and truly excellent)

Also very thankful for your painting walk-throughs

Keep it up!

~Pauly

[sukigod]

Thanks all.

Just proving I'm not sittin' on my haunches this break...

Blocking out the metals by going over them with Badab black first - always base your metals with black, there's a very good and scientific/optical reason why they look better that way. If you're curious, let me know and I'll do a tutorial! ;)

This takes a long time to block everything out so be patient. I'm hoping to be doing stenciling and checks by weeks end.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer174.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer175.jpg

Later!

[sukigod]

Ahem.

I'm back (for now ;) )

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer176.jpg

Painted checks on the engine cowlings the other night. Now that schools over, I can devote a little time to Moar Dakka, and i look forward to every minute of it :)

Later!

[Christopher Valera]

Thanks all.

Just proving I'm not sittin' on my haunches this break...

Blocking out the metals by going over them with Badab black first - always base your metals with black, there's a very good and scientific/optical reason why they look better that way. If you're curious, let me know and I'll do a tutorial! ;)

This takes a long time to block everything out so be patient. I'm hoping to be doing stenciling and checks by weeks end.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer174.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer175.jpg

Later!

Came here from the BoLS facebook to say this is awesome.

--Chris
www.chrisvalera.com

[Moriar52]

definitely an orky design. not sure if anyone has noticed but the trajectory of the primary engine exhaust would obliterate the tail planes and booms as soon as they were started. still that's orks for you. cool build never the less.

[sukigod]

Busy. So very busy!

Life is a cruel mistress, especially where hobbies are concerned. Between work, school, teaching and preppign for Waaagh!Fest!, I don't get much free time, but with what little i do, Itry to make it orky ;)

Wanted to do a little showing off now that they are finished :)

Each year we host a pub tournament called Granite City Waaagh!Fest! in honor of Redd's own Kalm Before the Storm. Beer, pretzels, food, friends and 40K. It happens that every other year I attempt to make something specials for the top placers. Along with their already handsomely etched 1 ltr. beer mugs, two years ago I made custom ork boy slugga pistols using Nerf Mavericks as a base.

This years creation was actually two years in the making. I had the idea for last year's event and the poster even had it incorporated into it (#1 Squig!) but it just wasn't working out creatively (wrong artist) and price wise (too expensive). This year, the warp aligned and I found someone who could (would) do what I was looking for. Behold the Stuffed Squigs!

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/squigs-final.jpg


Adorable! There are actually four but I still need to attach a miscast toof to the last one. Their about the size of a basketball and a very bright, deep flame-colored, brilliant red (which is hard to photograph). I've got them slavering over a stock GW battlewagon as a Barry shot for scale.

I am really excited at how well they turned out and can't' wait to give these little buggers out in two weeks (1 1/2?).

[Shaughnn]

How can I buy one for myself? These look great!

[Hokiecow]

How can I buy one for myself? These look great!

^^ This!!

Great job!

[Dave Fothergill]

Must have a cuddly squig !! They are amazing !

[Yaum]

You need to make more of these...

[Meph]

Kickstarter it and be rich!

[sukigod]

Kickstarter it and be rich!

Hmmm. Hadn't thought of the Kickstarter approach. :) We did price these out to see if they would be worth producing for sale but we were looking at nearly $120 a piece to make them worthwhile. We'd never make them in batches large enough to bring the price down below $100 each. Of the three people involved, all of the labor was either worked for in trade or donated. It helps to have friends with skills :)

[Wolfshade]

Wow, just read through the entire thread and wowsers that is some great stuff in there. I cannot help but feel jealous of your talent :)

[SirTainly]

those Squigs are totally awesome! More events need to have prizes like those!

[sukigod]

Thanks all for the kind words on the plushie squigs! They were a big hit and competition was fierce.

Got some precious time on the bench lately and didn't want to dig into the monotony of the blasta bomma and wanted something a little mrope detail oriented. Since Mekboyz are the new orky priests, I figured I'd finish off the two I've had hangning around my bench for the last year.

Here's some KMB Mekboyz to throw into the odd mob :)

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/mekboyz/mekboyz1.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/mekboyz/mekboyz2.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/mekboyz/mekboyz3.jpg

Just gettting back in to the swing of things so the edging is a little rough - it's been a while! Still working on improving a sort of NMM, and I admit, I'll be chickening out when it comes to the brass sections - I'm just not ready to tackle returning and learning a new color progression. Lots of little details that are fun to work on with these boys, a great distraction.

Later!

[Krefey]

Just had a skim trhough some of the older posts. My hat goes off to you sir. Some fantastic work in this thread!

[Meph]

Yeah, gorgeous Orks as usual, mate.

[sukigod]

Thanks all! :)

So, I've been chipping away (hehe) at the paint job on the blasta bommer. I was almost finished with the initial outlining of the metallics when I realized I hadn't added any larger painting details like the checks or glyphs so I decided to knock that out. And guess what? I made a tutorial for ya all!

This technique is pretty much identical to the Skyshield Landing pad demo I did a while back but not as complicated or clean. I make a large format stencil out of rows of masking tape for the larger area. I could have used frisking paper/plastic but I don't have any on hand so when with what I did have.

I printed the glyph to scale, leaving a little bit of paper to keep the two parts together for tracing, easily filled in when penning the outline on the tape.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer177.jpg

(sorry for the blur) Here I've trimmed out what will be the painted areas.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer178.jpg

I CAREFULL lifted the tape stencil from the self-healing cutting mat. Take your time with this as masking tape tears easily, especially in thin areas. I use the original template to help align/place the interior mask parts.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer179.jpg

Since I've already blacked out the metallics, I want to keep them from being painted so I went back and taped over the black areas with small cutout pieces of tape.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer180.jpg

My first color is GW Rakarth Flesh, this simulates multiple layers of wear (from white). I'll play things pretty loose around the outside edges to help push home the look of weathered paint. This is applied with a sponge, dabbed straight up and down to the model.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer181.jpg

Next up is Ceramtie White, again, sponged on. This time I concentrated the paint in the middle areas so the Rakarth Flesh shows at the edges, underneath the white.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer182.jpg

After the paint has dried, carefully peel off the masking tape.It's not perfect and I'll have to touch up some of the black areas before doing the metallics, but this is the nearly end result.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer183.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer184.jpg

[sukigod]

.CONT


Now I've got some extra detail painted on to help break up the wide expanse of red. There's going to be quite a bit of metallics when I'm done and I don't want it to be tooo busy to the eye. I know ork's is usually that way but I like people to be able to focus on it ;)

I've cleaned up the black basing areas and just need to put down a one or two metallics before wishing this beastie.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer185.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer186.jpg

Later!

[sukigod]

So I'm back in the saddle for a time, we'll see how long it goes ;)

I've actually been working on and off on this monster for about three weeks and the only thing I've accomplished has been the metallic weathering. I know, not much to weathering, right? Egggad, I wish. For anyone who saw the tutorial a few years ago about my weathering using the Skullhamma's, you'll know it's a long and tedious process. Sponged base/primer layer, then all hand done (with various size brushes) metals so they all stay nicely within (or trying to) the boundaries of the worn primer.

I'm done with the weathered metallics and done the brassy pieces and the main guns in the Deff Arsenal. I put it together for show since I haven't seen it in one piece in about a year. It is coming together now and I can finally see some sort of light at the end of the tunnel. Lots of smaller details like the exhausts, canopy, rear engine nacelles (black/white checks), bombs, and the Deff Arsenal. Then it's back to washes for grime, an airbrush for smoke/exhaust smoke stains - a brief touch up on details to bring them back out from washing - then sealing. I'm really hoping to have this giant wrapped up by Halloween. We'll see how that goes ;)

ps. I know there's some shots without the main Deff Arsenal kannons - they were in the process of being painted when I took these. That also accounts for some barrel droop in some photos as well, they're only blue-tac'd on at the moment.

Later!
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer187.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer188.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer189.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer190.jpg

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer191.jpg

And a couple of Barry shots - one shown against a dakka jet.....

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer192.jpg


And a different kinda Barry shot ;)

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/bommer/bommer193.jpg

[Meph]

Dude... it looks jaw-dropping awesome! It's an amazing sight to see.

[sukigod]

Boom!

We'll see how long this lasts ;)

A long time ago in a house about 5 miles away, I started a green project, but of a different kind. It's a Bride of Frankenstein and The Monster kit that my wife wanted me to do up (she's a huge Bride fan). Looking for something to while the time away and brush up on my painting skills before returning the mighty green horde, I revisited this awesome kit to test myself.

Earlier I worked on the clothing for both as it was pretty easy. I was hesitant to work on the faces for a few reasons. One, the scale is MUCH larger than our standard 28mm figures. Second, I knew I'd need to do some larger area blending and wasn't sure how to go about it. In the interest of pushing myself, I dove in last night and figured I could always strip and reprime if I screwed it up too badly.

So, in my usual fashion of step by step (when I remembered to take photos, that is), here's how I did Frankie's head and hands.

The head and hands were primed white, then I applied a base coat of Bleached Bone and a thin covering of Rotting Flesh - (first two photos). I wanted a light, almost ghostly pallor to his skin, I wasn't looking to go all super-green, comic style monster. The green should almost be a rotting, under the skin appearance so I didn't mind of the lighter Bleached Bone showed on the high points as I was planing on wet brushing back up to create highlights later.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/frank-bride/bride10.jpg
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/frank-bride/bride11.jpg

To achieve a bit of a sore, bruising effect around the stitching/attachment points for the various body parts (you would think they'd be a bit sore), I used Baal Red wash from GW. This was built up in a multiple layers, each one adding more color closer to the gaps and the deepest recesses under the eyes and around the rope/metal bar holding the left wrist together. (looks a little painful, doesn't it?) Yes, the application is a little sloppy at this point but I know I was going back over with the Rotting Green and Bleached Bone to blend it back in. This also achieves a bit of an underpainting technique, tinting the skin form underneath.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/frank-bride/bride12.jpg

I now moved onto the blues. This was applied around some of the veins in the hands, under the chin, mouth, nostrils, and under the brow. The blue creates a much more subtle shadowing under the brows that simply using black. There's a small touch of Baddab Black wash in the deepest recesses of the mouth, nostrils, and underbrow/eyesockets. Things are a little rough, bit the wet brushing stage helps bring it all together.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/frank-bride/bride13.jpg

So, here's where I got dug in and was so in the flow I didn't take many pics. Here's what's happened since: I wet brushed Rotting Flesh, then a wet brushing of Bleached Bone to bring back the highlights and blend the bruising effects together. I also did a very light wet brushing of Skull White to the very highest points (brow, nose, cheekbones, knuckles, etc). This gives a little extra pop and adds depth without having to darken the recesses excessively. I also did the fingernails, rope and bar, hear, and leather stitching holding his skullcap on.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/frank-bride/bride14.jpg

Here's the completed Frank figure with his head and hands in the right place :)

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/frank-bride/bride15.jpg
http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/frank-bride/bride16.jpg

And a quick shot with his honey - Her dress and arms are done, still waiting for the courage to start her face. There's also a settee, floor, stone wall background and assorted lab equipment to paint up but those will be fairly easy and quick. I'm excited to work on the settee and stone as I've read up on some new techniques I want to try on them.

http://www.bigshoota.com/blog-photos/frank-bride/bride17.jpg

Till next time!

Later!

and yes, I'll be returning soon to the bomma - just need to finish the Bride and Frank first.