Siege Dreadnought Mk.VI.....more kitbashing.

Welcome to fantasy island.

At the end of my last post I'd finished assembling the model, but hadn't glued it in its final pose. The Las-cannon's had been mounted though and little Billy was well pleased with the progress to date.

This post will cover the fixing of the model in it's final position, mounting it to one of my "custom" bases, constructing the cockpit, making a smashy fist thingy and finally adding all the other little bell's & whistles to it. So let's begin;

Glued all the joint's together in a (hopefully) aggressive stance, like he's gunna punch something.

You can see that the top of the back needs some "filling in" with details too.

Ready for some punchy punchy time :)

Cockpit made from thick cardboard. It looks rough (and it is), but it will be smoothed out.

The only logical reason to have children....so you can steal their toys mmmwwwahahaha!

The "hammerfist" made from a shower bracket thing and sprue off cuts. Looks crap I know.

Test fitting the fist where I thought it would look like he's readying himself for a punch.

Here you can see the green toy part I used to connect its fist to its forearm with.

The position was ok, but the sprue bits were too "crisp" for my liking. Didn't look like it'd
been hammering on fortifications all of its life...which was the look I was aiming for.

So, I broke out the cigarette lighter and melted some plastic...oh what fun I had :)

Here you can see the hydraulic ram & hose work used to operate the fist. It's all in my
 imagination you understand....none of this actually works ok. It's just a toy!
Oh, and I'd covered/detailed the back area too.

If you look closely you can see the black things on top of & underneath of the "elbow". It's
 supposed to represent the pivot shaft.

Poised to give someone a huge reconstruction bill.

Billy, sitting in his new home. All smoothed out, filled in and sexed up, holding a gear lever.
I forgot to take photo's of a few little extras I later added to the cockpit, but you'll see them
in the next post. I added some "smoke stacks" too, stolen from our Xmas tree lights :)

So, this is the build part done. Next you'll see the colours start to go on and I'll describe the method (if you can call it that) of how I went about painting it up.

Oh, and a special shout out to any Canadian followers I may have out there....Until next time, keep your dick in the vice. What a lovely turn of phrase it is too :D

Siege Dreadnought Mk.VI......the next bit.

Hello all,

Here ist thou second instalment of my Siege Dreadnought construction, for you immense viewing pleasure I'm sure :p

In the last post you would have seen that I'd only gotten as far as modifying the cockpit, making up a Space Marine pilot and removing the missile pod covers. Here I'll cover the way I went about fitting the Las-cannons to the body & the complete construction of the rest of the body. So, sit back and enjoy the show;

I selecter two Las-cannons from an old Land raider kit for its armament.

I then assembled the rest of the body (joints not yet glued) and test fit the Las-cannons.

Now I just had to figure out how I was going to make them look sexy in their position.

I needed something that would fill the rest of the slot where the Las-cannon's were positioned. Something that would follow the arc prescribed by the shoulder rotation. After a rummage through my bits box I found two old office chair castor wheels.

Who needs all those wheels on a chair anyway. They'd be much better served
being used on a Kitbashing project!

So, after chopping them up, and adding some cardboard to the sides they were ready.

Looks ok to me.

The idea is that the Las-cannons look like they can rotate up & down in an arc...I hope :)

The rear of the Las-cannons were then scalloped out & mounted in position.

Here's little billy making "vroom vroom" noises, dreaming of when it'll be finished.

So, the shooty bits are done. Now all that's left (modelling wise) is the smashy bits.

Can you guess where that's gunna go?

Ok, that's enough typing for today. In the next post the build will be completed, ready for paint.

Oh, and I just noticed a few days ago that GW have released (or are just about too) their own Siege Dreadnought. They must be jealous of my work :DDD

Cheers guys

Siege Dreadnought Mk.VI

I've come to the realisation, that I'm a very good starter, but not a consistent finisher. So, In an attempt to shake this persistent stumbling block I've decided to start yet another build! "Fantastic!" I hear you shout in overjoyed excitement, "this one's never gunna get finished either....were still waiting for that other Siege Dreadnought & the Hovertank to be completed too remember?" But...but, prepare yourself to be shocked & amazed. Are you sitting down? Holding firmly onto your armrests? Gnawing at the ends of your paintbrushes in excited anticipation?....probably not, but anyway, here goes....this little project has been completed. As I type this "riveting" blog post, he's now sitting in my display cabinet, finished, alongside my Walker. Yahoo!!!!

Ok, enough with the hyperbole. I can waffle on can't I :( On with the show;

I decided to have another go at building myself a Siege Dreadnought. My other Siege dread is still on the cards, but this one piqued my interest so he's been pushed to the back of the queue for a bit. This time I'm using an old Macross/Robotech Mech for the base model. This anime series aired in the mid 80's and it inspired at least a few of the artists who illustrated for Rogue trader to use some of the design elements of these Mechs within their illustrations,. The contributors and writers of the book also used the model kits to game with too. So you can see that the design aesthetic of these Mechs was really in line with the game world setting. There's a quote in Rogue Trader too, that mentions how they wanted to include some of these models in the book. Imagine how ace that would have been hey? They had photos of the models that they had made themselves, ready to include within the book, but at the last minute had to withdraw them for legal concerns. Drats!

But I've digressed again haven't I? Bugger it! I'll just show you some pics of the build progress so I can stop annoying you with boring chit chat. Here, look a this;

The Donor:

Seeing as there's no STC available for Siege Dreads I had to find a donor model to build one from.

There were only two issues with this guy that I could see in adapting him for wrecking duty in the Rogue Trader setting. One, was that it didn't come with a facility for an operator to sit in....all Siege Dreads have to be piloted. And second, it didn't have any "Siege" weaponry. I mean, apart from it's hands and the rockets in its shoulders, it just didn't scream "Smasher of well fortified Sci-fi emplacements" to me. So I decided to add some Las-cannons and to replace one of its hands with a masher as well.

Ok, here is were I set to work remedying the first problem, creating a cockpit:

Let the butchery begin!

RBT01 looks on as I ready the parts of the main body for a dry test fit.

With the missile pods/shoulders fitted to the body it looked a little too narrow :(

"Right you are sonny!" he remarks, while pointing a gun at my face!

I roughly estimated how much I would need to widen the body to allow room for the pilot.

Then tacked in a few sprue offcuts with Super Glue to hold it to the desired width.

I then continued to add sprues to the entire internal perimeter of the body. Then, to make
sure it was really well and truly secure, I caked it in hot glue :)

"Looks comfy enough. Now get that damn camera outta my face!"

Plastic phallus (which connects the waist to the body) fixed to the underside of the body.

I filled in the sprue surfaces with body filler and sanded it back level with the original body.

Now that the upper body had been modified to allow for a pilot to fit into it, it was then time to make up this said pilot (sucker) who'd be guiding this thing across the battlefield.

Enter the Dummy:

The pilot was made up of spares i.e. not good enough to use for a "proper" mini.

I stole the seat from a car model kit & modified it so that his scrawny arse could fit in it.

Poised to be holding some sort of joystick/control handle....fitted at a later date.

I repositioned his legs and feet & cut away the missile bay doors. The purpose of which
 will become clearer in later posts :p

So, this is obviously at the beginning stages of the construction. For the astute observers among you you may have noticed something in the background of a few of the photos? That's right, my Hovertank is lurking in there. Which means that I started this thing ages ago! I get bored easy you see, one project on the go is never enough :) I just had an urge to build this guy up while there was a spare moment, waiting for the glue to dry on a bit of the Hovertank. Wandering mind and all that.

Over the coming weeks/months I'll write up a few progress blog posts to document the rest of the construction.


And am a....I love yoos all. 

In your face Orctober!

I finished them, seriously! Here, take a look for yourself if you don't believe me:

Sixteen of the ugly buggers done.

Now, here's some gratuitous, individually posed shots for you to fawn over:

I think this guy was named "Hatman" when I originally posted him
up....all those many moons ago.

Here's two of the same mini, painted in a different colour scheme.

Yes, it does say "kik me" on his helmet.

I was trying for a Denim look for this guy, but I don't think I
managed to pull it off.

He still came out OK though I reckon.

Hence why there's three pics of him :)

Three more of the same guy, all sporting different model sunnies. 

And they can tell the time too! Bravo gents.

Five of the same mini with varying body paint fetishes. There's a standard dude skulking in the background too.

Rusty and painted shoulder pads. I think the B&W striped one looks a little too much like a footy jumper :(

Smiling while he shoots you in the face. An Ork who enjoys
what he does for a living.

Comes equipped with arse armour.

I'm pretty chuffed with how this guys blade turned out.

Denim boots, for the discerning Ork mercenary

Only realised that this guy had a Bionic arm while I was painting him.

Now the group shot. Don't forget to shoot at the photographer boyz!!!

Thrugg with his crew of 40 Orks.

"Who's da boss? I is, datz who!!!"

So, that's that then. I have painted up all of my half done Space Orks for Orctober, before October ended! I've actually got three other Orks primed up and ready to go, but they were late comers to this party so they'll be saved up for another day.

Ok fellow leadheads, that's a nice short and sweet blog post from me.

See ya round :)

Orks, orks bloody ork's!!!

"I choose to finish my remaining Space Orks!.... I choose to paint them in this month and do the other things (not bloody likely!), not because they are easy, but because they are hard!".....or in my case nigh impossible.

Hello dear follower's,

Welcome to another episode of "let's try and complete something that I've started". Today I present to you my unfinished Space Ork's that I'm entering in for this month of Orctober.

Here they be,

My "left over's" :)

"IF" I manage to get these guys all done before the end of Orctober then I'll have over 40 of them done, ready to blast figurative boltgun shells at my enemies with.

Last year's Orctober entry for me was completed & submitted a tad late, December if I recall correctly. Hopefully this year's effort won't be a repeat.

So, wish me a metric tonne of luck for success.....or curse me if you would love to see me fail you evil bastards!

Space Pirate.....done & dusted.

Hello, how are you? Fairing well? No aches or pains? Neighbour's not shitting you too much? Good...all is as it should be then.

Today I present to you something of an oddity here on this blog, a finished project. "Hurrah!!!" I here you cry. But it's only a single mini, so don't get too excited ok :)

This is my entry for the Space pirate warband competition that's been taking place over on the Oldhammer forum for the past six months? Entries close in about a months time, so I could have waited a bit longer until lodging it, but I received a threatening messages from a pirate recently. More or less telling me to haul arse with me entry! Thinking it best not to keep a sailing vagabond waiting, l decided to finish him off this weekend just past.

Here, look at him!!!

The only restriction on the comp was that the mini had to have some turquoise on him/her. Anywhere & any amount. I chose to make "Bill's" fuel tank contain a turquoise liquid.  I wanted to try painting a liquid effect as well, so it was a good excuse to try it out on the tank. Oh, and you had to leave the base bare. The lucky sod who ends up with all of these guys gets to base them how they want.

I gave him the name Bill because.

I tried painting some darker ink into the nook's & crannies, but this didn't survive the gloss coat application process. I've had a few failures with brushing on gloss coat. From now on I'm just gunna spray it on. Even though I cringe at the amount of extra work required to use the airbrush, it still yields better and more even results.


Ok, that's it from me. I've got a little bit going on (hobby wise) ATM, so it won't be long until you see some more from me.

Cheerio chums :)