Monday, August 24, 2009

Building a Blood Pact Tank

The basic outline of the Blood Pact's AT70 Reaver is finished!

Showing off the Forgeworld Turret and modified driver's compartment.


I tried to match the outline of the Macharius and the Mort tanks. (Yes I know there's only one track guard in place.)


Aft section shows off the forgeworld engine filters to match it to my Mort style AT83 Brigand.


Close up. I'm thinking of creating horizontal slats on either side of the engine and an access door below the rear filter. This would approximate the Mort style AT83. I'd love to add some external fuel tanks but the one from the IG sprue seems too large.


To do: add rivets, hatches and front barbette armor, replace main guns with plastic tubing for battle cannon, add magnets for side sponsons, main gun and barbette weapons, add engine details, get married.

Real live encroaches on the blogging and gaming world: I'm getting married this week! Please excuse any lapse in posting. :)

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Infantry, psykers and a tank, oh my

Well it's been a confusing couple of weeks. Record high temperatures made for no-paint days last week. I've also been feeling a little scattered and I think that's because I well and truly violated my BBP (buy-build-paint) method. I was given and purchased about 5 boxes of models beyond what I have done. As a result, this blog post is scattered, but a little bit of everything is better than a lot of nothing eh? The four models with paint are in their ugly stage of washes, they'll be cleaned up to the same standard as the rest, fear not.


Meltagunner signaling his squad forward. His right arm is from the IG tank sprue with a heavy weapon sprue pointing finger. The left arm is a slung lasgun arm from the new command squad box with a meltagun grafted on.


Catachan legs make for a dynamic pose. Meltagun is grafted to cadian lasgun arms.


Meltagunner stepping up onto an unpainted rock. Catachan body, meltagun grafted to flamer right arm.


Plasmagunner takes aim. I'm trying out painting his entire face as part of the grotesk, where before I've painted the nose and area around the eyes as a mask with the lower face in pale caucasian fleshtone. (ref Mr Bad Teeth from an earlier blog.)



This is the start of my AT70 tank. I've turned the leman russ chassis around, chopped off the engine casing and moved it to the side to act as the driver's compartment. A large road wheel acts as the foundation for a front sponson. Still a work in progress, but finally taking shape.


I cut away the bottom of the chimera track guards to expose road wheels and give the illusion of a suspension. To to this I simply used a metal rular and a sharp blade to score the inside of the track-sides just below the point where the road wheel plugs in. I then took my flat edged clippers and clipped along the scored path. Much quicker than scoring repeatedly, or trying to cut deeply enough to go straight through. Cleanup with the side of the blade or a file and they're ready to go. The area with the rectangular hole may hold a side sponson, or may be magnitized for swapping out depending on how easy that turns out to be.

On to the Forgeworld love:

Counts as Primaris Psyker.


Counts as Astropath. Note the added knife on his belt so he's WYSIWYG.


Counts as Naval Officer. Hand swapped for a laspistol and a marauder axe is plugged in to the other. He still needs a press-mold grotesk, but he seems to be missing something else. Any ideas?