Sector Mechanicus Pt.1

I've finally managed to get working on my Necromunda and 40k terrain. Here is a short video showing the first of many buildings I'll be working on over the coming weeks. I've a campaign coming up, well a few actually, and I need terrain for them. With that in mind I've been beavering away trying to get a prototype done.

I don't know much about videos so this one might be a little poor in quality. I don't seem to be able to get it to display correctly but I'll persevere and make improvements as I keep making these.

Casting 40k Terrain: Initial Tests

With the New 40k coming out and the imminent release of Necromunda, I've found myself needing some terrain. I bought a Ferratonic Incinerator but I quickly realised that this wasn't going to go far in covering a 4x4 table, never mind a 6x4. I can't really justify spending the amount of money I'd need to buy all the sets. So instead I had planned on making my own terrain. I bought a few builts to scratch build panels I could cast but to be honest they just weren't coming out as well as I'd hoped. After wondering what to do I thought that maybe I'd try casting some of the pieces from the sets I had. In the picture you can see where I made a few holes in the casts. This was as a result of not having mixed the Stewalin plaster at the right ratio and probably demoulding it too quickly.

I bought some silicone and Stewalin plaster. I have used the plaster and the silicone before while maing some scatter terrain for the Old West. You can expect a post on that at a later point. To make the mould I just followed one of the plethora of videos online. It was really simple and worked a charm, though next time I might break them into single pieces as that way I can judge what I need to cast them better and also I don't have a huge amount of working time with the Stewalin and it taes a lot of time to work it into a mould this highly detailed. Anyway I have to approach this project as a learning process. I haven't moulded or cast anything like this before.

This is a picture of the mould. As you can hopefully make out its pretty detailed. It is 100% bubble free which is impressive. The crevices are deep and tight yet the silicone was able to flow into them. I used an electric toothbrush as a vibration device which wasn't very effective. It seems I didn't need it or it was far more effective than I thought it was. The plan for this project is to make a few low structures with walkways connecting them. I'm going to keep them fairly modular for storage purposes. I'm going to concentrate on getting a  single structure done and then I'll know better how to get these mass produced quickly. Just as a note to the curious: I won't be selling, trading or otherwise giving away the moulds or the casts I make from them, please don't ask. The purpose of this blog post is to show whats possible and to track my progress.

 

Sanctifier Test Squad

I've been painting some Warhammer 40k recently and these are the result, my first combat squad of marines. I've painted a few Space Marines over the years, individual models here and there. I have never however managed to get a squad, albeit a small one, done. I had started these as Ultramarines but I got a little bored with them and as I thin I said a friend of mine has just brought his Ultramarines out to play. I therefore switched the scheme slightly and went with white arms. It does serve to make them look distinct from their primogenitors but I think I would have gone for a completely different scheme if I was to start these models from scratch. Its not that I dislike the scheme, I just think I could have done something more striking.

40k Campaign - Malleus

My map making for 40K continues apace. I love the background provided in the Forgeworld supplements, especially the cut aways to various planetary descriptions and such. They provide a lot of flavour and atmosphere without it being too dense. I decided that I would make out some similar descriptions for planets that we would fight over. As we have been discussing and actually writing background for the campaign it turns out that we are fighting elsewhere but this description of Malleus isn't wasted. Eventually the war might arrive here and if not at least there is some nice bacground to other planets in the Viator System.

Warboss Grimrak

I recently finished my Orruk Megaboss, Grimrak. He came out surprisingly well for the amount of time I put into him. I've slowly been collecting Ironjawz over the last few months and painting them up. As a lazy blogger I haven't been posting shots up but I hoping to get a few more regular ones up here. Anyway this is just a taster of whats to come with my Ironjawz.