Hogwarts, Hogwarts, hoggy warty Hogwarts

Hello again. Its time to update this with my meager progress. I was hired by my sister to make Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry for her for her wedding in October 2013. Take note that I have never really made any sort of terrain before. So I started this at the end of September, and I've finally achieved some mark of progress which I'd like to share with you all.

I was watching a fella on Youtube who puts out fantastic scenery and he showed some cliffs using the rock molds that Woodland Scenics makes. I had to have them. $20 later and I have two molds and 25lbs of wall plaster. They'll be pressed into the board with toothpicks to stabilize a bit. The first bit I made I had run out of plaster so it crumbled and fell apart, but the second stuck nicely! I've gone about and finished making the cliffs, or at least have them mostly completed. There are a couple gaps that need filling but those will be done in time, I needed to move on past the powder and move on with the resin. The cliffs are nice, but they don't look anything like the studio scale models like seen on therpf.com but I think thats what sets my project apart from the masters over there.
The larger tower to the left is a 4" diameter PVC pipe from Home Depot and is 2' tall. It will be further detailed later. Mess! That was all finished sometime in the last week of November. Now, its on to the buildings. Heres parts 1 and 2 of the vblog series I started for it. It basically reiterates everything here, and doesn't even cover the segment about the brick texture!
Hah, well enjoy that update, I have a long slog ahead of me.

Happy Holidays,
-Shortsonfire79

Nids Again

I haven't done any work on 40k at all this week pretty much, its been busy, but next week, I have no school, so I'll probably get SOMETHING done..I hope.
I finally came up with a carapace scheme that I like for my Tyranids. I'm not too sure about the fleshy parts, but I can work that out tomorrow or something.
Expect more in this thread soon. I think I'm slowly getting tired of the Black Fists...I'll go back to them shortly.

Waste of Space

Okay, so I need this post because I need Horatios and Squirrel_Fish and anyone else who reads my blog 's ideas and opinions.

I finished Green Stuffing the Warriors' legs, but I don't think they're good enough to get another bunch of pictures. So now I need to know what the next 5 strong brood should be. They won't be flying, that'll be the 3 man, but I just can't put my finger on what it should be! Help?

I've decided to next start on my Broodlord while I wait. I wanted to have an Implant Attack put on its tong, like the Genestealer one, so I added some Green Stuff....fail. While searching for more Carnifex conversions with Google a few minutes ago, I found a cool conversion for a head that I will be using for it.

I had also started a Tyranid project a while ago, but I never took any Work in Progress pictures, so I couldn't share. The Laiuss Horror is about double the size of a Carnifex I believe. I had to widen the torso out quite a bit, and the last time I held it, it was about the size of a Dreadnought I'd have to say...and thats just the torso! I was back logging my pictures, and I found a couple that I had taken, pre-green stuff. Unfortunately, I only found 3 pictures from very early stages. =-(



I finished the torso and head on my own, but I rrrreeaaalllyyy didn't want to do the tail, so I sent it to Matt Bonder to have him finish that for me. Its been quite a while, and I'm almost certain its done now! I'm excited. This is what the Laiuss Horror is supposed to look like.

Brood 1 Done

iBack.

So I'm back a day early. When we got up to where we were hiking (Kings Canyon if you may know where that is (California)) and there was a huge fire 10 miles outside of the campsite where we were to be staying that night. So the adults talked with the Forest Rangers, and we ended up staying in a camp about 30 miles south. The next day, we contacted the Ranger Station, to find that the fire was only contained 20%, and that we wouldn't be able to hike yet...so the adults decided that we'd go somewhere else. So we packed our backpacks, and hiked some 30 mile lake loop. That was 5 days. Then we drove north to Yosemite, and hiked Half Dome, which was about 16 miles, so we almost made 50 on our trip, which isn't too bad.

I just finished the 5th of the brood. The brood leader.



He will be holding a head of a Catachan. =-D

Just the green stuffing left, and some Catachans.
And since I used the steroid arms, I had an extra arm for that other Nid! Huzzah!

Horatio: How big a brood? I figure. I have this 5 strong one, I can make another 5 strong, and a 3 strong that will be flying. And if I can sell them all, I should be able to make a pretty penny =-D

Last Civilization

I'm going hiking for 9 days, so...live long and prosper.

So this last one for the brood, I was stumped for SO long trying to figure out what to position him as... I finally had to just do something, because I'll be hiking for 9 days starting in 3 hours, so I needed to be able to finish the brood before I lost total train of thought.



And the brood together.



The next brood..I'm thinking...flying. The Chaos Demented (or something..I only have the bitz now) wings w/ backpack fit perfectly on a Warrior.


I only have 2 pairs, so I need to find possibly 2-3 more. Peace out. See ya'll in 9 days.

Its a Brood!

I finished another. I'm starting to get on a roll with these things...spend the day thinking of what the pose should be, then finish it in about an hour at the latest out in the day.

This one, his talons will be dug into the Catachan's shoulders when I base them. It'll look great I hope.

Silence is Golden

What a GREAT welcome back!! I love you guys! Let me start by saying its 3 AM, and I just finished the new Harry Potter...it was good, but the ending sucked X-P. No spoilers. I spent the entire day hanging with my friends, watching Harry Potter, and playing wit LEGOs. =-D So I didn't do any modeling.
haha! I'll spoil something now, I spent about 10 minutes trying to figure out how to color text for Blogger...Thank you Google!!

Horatio first: First: Yeah! I think that when I don't feel like 40k-ing, I'll just make tons of army lists, and it'll get me back into the mood. I think I just overwhelm myself with them, and it gets me wanting to do stuff!
Second: I know right?! Good call X-D I just hoped you'd come back and see what it was!
Third: For the Flamestorms, I kinda liked the design of one barrel longer, and one shorter. I saw it in the How to Paint Space Marines book (that should be italicized, but all my typing is italics) with the Predator on page 91 (if you want a pic, I can supply one next post). I just loved the look. I did it with my old Predator, and it turned out pretty well, so I thought I'd just share the awesomeness... I know, that theoretically, if these Flamestorms worked, one would singe the other, yadda yadda...but its 40k X-D
Fourth: When I first posted it up, I got a lot of comments along the lines of "over compensating" and the like =-D
Fifth: Yeah I know!! Its awesome! I'm surprised with myself... but if I do pursue the Nids again, I'll be needing more ideas for the rest of the brood X-D
Sixth: Dude! Awesome welcome back! The last two posts were quite..demoralizing..This one TOTALLY made up for it! Thanks!!

Squirrel_Fish: Aye, pictures will be up, when Photobucket comes back up X-( I've posted so many size comparisons on forums and stuff, everyone's annoyed! But this is MY blog... =-D
I explained the longer Flamestorm part, and it will be mounted right in front! Where the Heavy Bolters or Assault Cannons would normally go. (Provided in picture)
The roof IS so flat! I'm not done yet, but...I don't know what to do with it X-( I've had it being placed on there for months, and I have not yet found something else to put on there besides the Whirlwind Battery. (which was part of the original plan, like the Helios Land Raider)
Ha, now that you put it like that, it IS like Mario! "sorry, the princess is in another castle"
Thanks

Mitch: Thanks for the tank dude! I've posted up my Work In Progress datasheet..and I got SOOOOOOOO much flak for it. The "head admin" at Ammobunker had "heated discussions" about it...yet, he failed to read what I had put AROUND the datasheet...which explained how I didn't know WHAT TO DO!!!....Pissed me off so bad.. Then there were others there that expressed a slightly less anger to it...

Heres the datasheet. THIS is what I had posted around my sheet...but no one noticed..so I got flakked....BULL $±¡†!!!!

Under "Venerable Presence" there are multiple options for the attributes that the models gain. I will be choosing one, but I want your input on which one. Your input now, would be helpful, but I don't really want it discussed on my blog..thank you.

I just noticed I wrote "techamarines"...disregard that X-D

And heres the size comparisons. The LRE is bigger than the Stormlord, but slightly shorter (in height) I think.



I'm putting these pictures here for my sister...
But this shirt, is my Hufflepuff shirt. And since I'm an Asian guy, my friend and I thought it'd be funny to make it have to do with Cho Chang (the only Asian in Harry Potter)... so it was either "My sister is Cho Chang" (which is what it'll be next movie, for my next shirt) or this...
Front

Back

A little bit...weird..but its okay..its Harry Potter...

And for English Class this year, we had to rap "Changes" by Tupac. So my same friend (who was in my rap group) made us all shirts. And this is my Rapper name!
Front

Back

New Post!

So the LRE is almost done.

I had to make the Flamestorm cannon front out of plasticard, because the detail to not detail was bad. (on the tubing)


I was skimming through my mind (yeah, I do that sometimes X-D) And I thought I'd make a Tyranid. I didn't want to cut anything off the sprue, because I'm planning on selling all of that, so I dived into my bitz boxes... Thankfully..I found a full Tyranid Warrior body! (and half of another) in sprue! So excited. So I got out the putty, and started seeing what I could do. I just stuck stuff places, and definitely liked what I was doing...so I cleaned up most of the flash, and started gluing! I'm almost completely happy with this conversion. He's missing a left scything talon, because fatefully...I don't have one (weird..I know) and I don't want to cut one out of the sprue, because that would take away from its sellability...
The conversion is supposed to represent leaping I think...I dunno..it just looks really neat X-D leaping over the current target, to get to the thing on the other side!



What do you think?

Finally.

So I finally decided to glue the top plate onto my LRE!! yaayyy...The way I had to do it though, that was a pain. I loaded as much plastic glue onto the lattice work super structure that I could. Then I put the plate on, and put lots of pressure on it. The sides were still able to be pulled up, so I lined it up as best I could and glued it in small segments. I think it worked up pretty well. Its attached very well, and VERY sturdy!
Problem number two...LOTS of gaps around the entire thing. Oh boy! Green stuffing for me! So I rolled a large glob of green stuff, and worked in small sections around the chassis. I pre-smoothed it by taking my knife-like tool, and dragging it across the clumped green stuff, a new technique I discovered just now, which is FANTASTIC! I'll sand it all down after it all dries.




Then I get to do MORE detailing tonight! Its pretty early, 11, so expect another update. Or an edit or something.

Heres the update.
I added the track cover on the outer tracks, and I think it came out quite nicely. I didn't want to do the arches like the Maximus has, because thats not very Dark Angely at all. So I went with some sort of sword design, which I thought was quite genius. The hilt will be detail.

Unfortunately, the wings wouldn't fit on the track guard, so I just had to do one wing, which is okay I guess.



None of the icons have been glued on yet.

Sad day...

Well gents..On Saturday morning, I'm off to my State Capitol for a week, to 'run' the state. (mock legislature). Then, I get to come home, do laundry for about 3 hours, then I'm off to more camping! =-D For a week.

So..you won't be seeing much of me for 2 weeks. But don't loose faith! I'll be writing some stories and seeing if I can doodle some stuff... I figure I'll be writing a whole lot of army lists while I'm up there, either that or texting and playing tons of iPod games. (Thank God for iTouch Apps)
That dreadnought that Ion Raptor made is finally on its way, and I haven't paid for the Terminators yet...I can't even remember who offered them to me!! ARRGGG!!! I might not be able to get the numbers I thought I was =*-( so sad..but hopefully...

The only thing I can show you..are the bases that I started for my terminators.

I tried to theme each set of 5. Working from the back, you have piping, bitz n' giggles, walling, and floor tiles. The "walling" theme isn't glued on yet, as I have to work them down, so they're not so high up. I just used my Leatherman to tear at the plastic, and I think the effect is awesome. Little scratch marks, and bent plastic.

I attached the Ork head to the arm for Belial, added a neck for it and stuff, but it isn't worthy of a picture yet. Not much to really say huh?

One of these days, I'll get something done. And you'll all say "wow, he got a lot done today" And I'll say "yeaaahhhhh" It'll be a gloriously awesome day.

Horatio: Thanks for believing in me X-D

Squad Morale Restored

I pulled the last warrior out of the simple green last week. But I figured I wouldn't post that, as it wasn't too...important.


And the themed bases.


And I got an Assault on Black Reach Warboss today.


I used the snap fit to hold him together, I just pulled him off the sprue so I could check him out. I'm getting another one from Matt Bond (RedStarOne)soon. Once he finishes my Laiuss Horror (you don't get pictures yet (I don't have any)) I started the project, but I didn't feel like doing the tail, so he did it. He'll be sending me another AoBR boss! =-D Conversions Conversions!!!!

Chris: Yeah, he does look funky with only guns (especially since he has another one in his pack). But I cut up some chain saw weapons, and they just didn't fit too well...so I'm just going to leave him as is. Think of it this way, what he can't shoot, he can bash over the head with his big gun =-D

Horatio: I attempted to add a bayonet chainsaw thing, it just didn't look right.. so I'm going to leave him as is.

Happy Birthday!

To meee!!!

In order to legally update...I have some concepts for my Nobz.





And the lot...of 4.


And I may have to recommission Matt Bond to make my Deathwing Banner..I'm not pleased at ALL!!

Updatio!

So my Emperor Battleship, and 10 Chaos Possesed marine bitz came in the mail today.
Its all in my bitz box now though...



The metal is kinda tarnished too...quite old..the box was OLDD...=-D

Uhm. Heres the plan. I was going to use 3 battleships. 2 of one design (Retribution or Emperor) and 1 of the other. (so 2 Emperors and 1 Retribution, or 2 Retributions and 1 Emperor), and 6-8 Cruisers (I've upped the count) seeing the size of this thing, I can assume the size of the Cruisers..
Heres the original design plan (saw something like it in Firebase Mag #1)


I'm also going to do a True Scale tutorial, because all the ones I've seen either suck, or never finish. Its not going to be a video tutorial, as that would take forever, but I won't post it until I finish the whole thing.
Guys like this.

Thats my Marneus Calgar count as, he has a magnetized left arm, so he can switch out to power sword..but you've seen him before. I'll be making a Command Squad, so I can cast them, and make squads!