[BFG] Battle Fleet Maelstrom

[Brother Argos]

Well unfortunately I seem to get the same cold / sneezing / coughing that the rest of my family and friends had, so today I spend at home taking it easy in bed.

So most of today's stuff was done yesterday or in about a 1hour window where I did some modelling this morning.

First up I added the top edge to the wing on both sides of the prow so it is now officially completed. I will be moulding it tomorrow along with the superstructure, a turret and a sphere, which will let me use one mould to do the complete prow and all options for that prow. Now this prow (the master) is completed I will move back into the weapons area of the battleship, which will be a LOT less sculpting and a lot more plasticard work (and therefore much faster). I will continue to work on the other prows alongside the main parts of the Battleship, but they are not cruicial..

You will also notice an odd purple ship next to the Prow, this is an out of production Nicassar Dhow for the Tau fleet. I had planned to complete my imperial fleet and then invest in a FW tau fleet as I LOVE the look of their ships and noticed that the Dhow was in the proposed 2010 rules for the Tau and in the Armada book also. When I looked at the cost of buying my fleet I noticed the Dhow was no longer made and could not find them anywhere. Eventually someone on eBay had them so I bought them at the ludicrous price of 7 for £68, which should be more than enough for my needs, I might even sell some of them.

Lastly, have you ever doodled with a pen and paper while thinking ... well last night I was doodling with green stuff while watching Fringe and found that I had come up with something vaguely resembling a cherub, then I had an interesting idea about cherubs! ... so I set about finishing off the cherub, he still isn't done yet but I am getting the feeling of the shape, so will complete him and cast him up for a side project that is also 40k related. Oddly with an unfinished face he almost feels menacing.

[Deathwing70]

a really inspirational thread. It's a shame theres so little love for this game.

Loving the results you're displaying.

 

I might have missed it in one of the replies but do you have any plans for escort ships?

[Brother Argos]

Thanks Deathwing70 ... and yes possibly after the battleship I will indeed do some escorts

Well I got distracted with yesterdays cherub ... significantly distracted. I started envisioning a busy command deck ... in typical anachronistic Imperial style there would be a large table with servitors moving ornate models of ships around using long poles to represent the current battle. Like you see in WWII movies showing air battles take place.

Once the idea had gotten into my head I had to try and make an ornate base for my models something very different from what I had normally seen. Using some rolled thin greenstuff I sculpted a banner waving in the wind and used ultrathin superglue to coat it (hardening it and creating a gloss surface). Here is the banner ..

You can see a number of cracks in the banner, where it was put under pressure for moulding.

Once I had the banner ... and the cherub(s) (I made another one) ... I set about casting them so I could make these two shots ... obviously they need painting as does the banner. but I can already see the name of the ship in my minds eye ... being held aloft by small cherubs as the "Ship" is moved using a long pole on the "battlefield" by a servitor.

With a ship

There is still more to do on the bases ... but I am getting there .. slowly!

I must admit when I first saw it all assembled it had a definate 40k feeling about it ...

[Captain Idaho]

Nice little touch there. When you are finished you should write an article for White Dwarf regarding how you built the fleet (possibly leaving out resin built ships, as GW might get funny?) and showcase the list, with perhaps a battle report at the end?

[Grey Mage]

Ummm... perhaps to little, to late- but the bird+wings on there, IIRC, is a bent shield boss from the old High Elves range- Im not sure if theyve changed what currently comes with the spearmen, but you might take a peak.

[atin]

this is looking good,

your idea of the whole ( see below )

Well I got distracted with yesterdays cherub ... significantly distracted. I started envisioning a busy command deck ... in typical anachronistic Imperial style there would be a large table with servitors moving ornate models of ships around using long poles to represent the current battle. Like you see in WWII movies showing air battles take place.

is just great, do you have designation for your battle ships?

looking forward for more.

 

atin

[Brother Argos]

A quiet Saturday trying to recover led to nothing getting done modelling-wise ... and I had a friend coming down on Sunday for a day of playing the Horus Heresy Boardgame. Which I must admit much to my surprise was excellent!

 

Lets take stock of the project and its aims shall we: -

 

Stage 1. Finish completely 7 cruisers (3 Light, 4 Normal). This involved creating the light cruiser using a mixture of kitbashing and scratchbuilding.

Stage 2. Scratchbuild a Battleship in the same style as the Cruisers.

Stage 3. Build Escorts in a similar style to the others.

 

Stage 1 & 2 have overlapped slightly as I was waiting for necessary components for the basing, which have now arrived!! although the intent was to keep each stage very clearly separated.

 

My current list of tasks for Stage 1 are: -

 

1. Finish work on bases (I have one more idea to test for my bases and I am waiting for a purchase I just got the stuff I was waiting for this morning)

2. Produce banners for bases (run the mould another 6 times at least)

3. Magnetise all bases with the Ninja Magic Adapters

4. Assemble all Cruisers and finalise.

 

My current list of tasks for Stage 2 are: -

 

1. Mould the Battleship Prow

2. Reproduce 3-4 Battleship prow for experimentation

3. Start work on the battleship weapon area and keel (lots of plasticard)

4. Work on the Engine section and wings.

5. Work on the Bridge Section.

 

As all my components have now arrived for Stage 1, I think I will cease work on Stage 2 till all the Cruisers are based and finished.

[Brother Argos]

Before I played around with Cherubs (and boy does that sound wrong when I reread it) ... I had planned to do some self produced water slide decals for my bases. Now water slide decals come in two flavours, either a clear or white backing depending on your whether your decal has bright or white colours in it. I went for white as I wanted stars and nebulae on my decals and to work they need to be quite bright.

Using photoshop I prepared a number of different examples to test, printed them to normal paper first (to check the orientation etc) and then printed them onto the £1.85 a sheet decal paper. At that price I didn't want any mistakes, wasting sheet after sheet of mistakes could get very expensive. I was using Laser decal sheets, but they do Inkjet sheets too (which are a bit more complex to use), once the sheet was printed I cut around the decal and put it into a tray of water as one normally does. After about 45 seconds the decal was movable and so I transferred it to the plastic base and slid it around till it was centred.

Now the one big problem was the base was not flat ... its rounded nature (rather like marine shoulderpads) can cause nightmares for decals and indeed whole areas of the decal lifted up from the base and refused to lie flat. I had met this problem before however and own a product called Micro-Sol ... I had liberally covered the base in Micro-sol before applying the decal and once centred I then applied a layer of Micro-Sol to the top as well. I then left it for 30 seconds to partially "melt" the decal and deform it so it would follow the contours of the base. I then looked for trouble spots and re-applied more micro-sol till in the end every raised area was flat and adhering nicely to the surface.

I then let it dry naturally and painted the rim and stalk black to match. I repeated this for all three of my tests/examples so I could compare them on the bases and here they are: -

As you can see the technique works nicely and I can think of a number of tweaks and redesigns for the decals to enhance them further ... here you can see a shot on the base lying flat under a ship, its normal position: -

I think it looks nice and quite professional, almost like a printed counter in a game, but it does as a friend of mine pointed out lack a certain artistic warmth.

Here are two similar views showing the Cherub name banner and the base decal for your comparison ... Bearing in mind the banner isn't painted but imagine it was ..

Which would you use for your fleet?

[Gillyfish]

I like them both for different reasons. The first is more practical, incorporating helpful gaming aids and also gives the impression of the ship actually flying in space (although with the name and gaming aids, maybe it's a data overlay on a ship viewscreen).

 

The second one I like because of the sheer '40kness' of it - the mix of old style ornate cherubs with something futuristic like a spaceship is wonderful and pure 40k. It also adds a three-dimensional aspect to the base, rather than the flatter approach of the first.

 

Do you think a combination of the two might work?

[Hemal]

Maybe modle the bases as radar pings with teh cherubs slightly further up on teh base? That way you can easily get in the markings to cover quadrants and as BFG is targetted at the centre of teh base, having guiding lines to /from that centre will evoke a nice image I am sure on a tabletop...

[Brother Argos]

The quadrant markings are on already ... the red shading on the sides ... not sure I like radar pings ... in the vacuum of space <grins>

[Brother Argos]

What about this change to the Decal ...

Minor improvements .. the white circle is the cut line for the scissors and no trace of it should remain when cut

[SCC]

Lidar pings then? ^_^

 

Make it one more vote for the decal, I like the cherubs but the simpler starfield decal ensures the focus stays on the models you've spent all that time on.

 

That said I do still want to see clear resin cherubs painted phosphorescent green to represent holo-images as we've discussed before, so until I see that I'll reserve final judgement ;)

[Kurgan the Lurker]

I like the concept of the Cherubs and Banner but I'd vote for the decals in this case.

[Viray]

Why not both? Perhaps using the plain starfield base and then the cherubs for the ship name. It would certainly seem wasteful of such fine work otherwise.

[Brother Argos]

Wasteful is not a problem, I might well try and come up with a solution that uses both if I can!

 

No progress tonight, I actually managed to have a game of BFG for the first time in two years! ... I will have a clear night tomorrow so I can get to work again :cuss

[KhorneHunter57x]

I would go with the Cherubs, as with 40k the basing is a huge part of the flavor of the mini. You have put so much effort into the warships so far, and the ornate bases would just be a great bit to tie the whole thing together. However, the Cherubs do remove the illusion that you are actually viewing a fleet in space, while the decals preserve that illusion better.

 

A compromise could be to use the Cherubs with Banner on your flagship only, to add a bit of uniqueness and awesome to your flag.

 

I do like the decal changes. I would consider removing the two white markings in the middle of the red though, as you already have fore and aft markings (yellow) as well as fire arc designators, and as such they seem somewhat unnecessary. However, that is just my thought.

[Brother Argos]

Some days go really well (making Cherubs etc) ... some days just FAIL

Last nights task was to make 4 bases for my ships and solve the banner / decal issue, I worked out a way to do the banner decal thing using magnets .. so it was a good start.

Then I hopped into Photoshop and started making a master decal from my previous work ... and decided to remove the ship class description (its stupid as I magnetise all my ships they can be any class) ... I fiddled ... tidied .. and got what I wanted. I duplicated four of them and gave them names with a central theme and printed them on the Laser Decal sheet.

All was going well ... little did I know ... I kept going and painstakingly removing bubbles and flattening the decal to the curve of the base I proceeded to spend a couple of hours getting my bases done. There they sat all looking good if I say so myself.

My test base had gotten scratched when my daughter had picked it up (risking my wrath <grins>) ... so I was aware the decals were thin. I decided to put a couple of layers of Varnish on them to protect and give a little gloss / satin finish (looks good starfields).

So over eager (bad move at 10pm when your tired) ... I grabbed a couple and popped them into my spray booth and went for it ... the coating was smooth all looked good ... I let them dry off while I was getting ready for an early night.

Upon my return ... I saw large areas of the decal going all crinkly and weird ... DAMN ... I should have only done one not two .. and should have put a thin layer of hand painted varnish down first. So two down ... two to go.

I hand coated a single one next ... and tried again, only to discover one coat was not enough and it still crinkled ... just less.

Finally I ditched purity seal and moved to Vallejo Silk Varnish in a can. I worked perfectly and did not crinkle at all ... all was good and at least one was ok :wacko:

Then as I carefully picked it up to put under my lamp to dry off quicker ... I fumbled badly and dropped the damn thing onto my floor where it got covered with cat hair and other detritus.

So about 4hrs work ... all for NOTHING.

Here are results ...

Bulwark of Faith looks ok .. but that's after I got hair etc. off ... and then I noticed the decal was offset <sighs>

So it was one of those epic FAIL nights!

But I needed to show you guys so you can see I did actually do the work <grins> .. and if you can mentally remove the bad stuff I think they would have looked really good.

[Hemal]

How about some space debris/meteorites modeled on aroud the bits...

[Brother_Fatiswon]

imho, i like the name tagged bases over the banner and babies. but i would think that the banner would work better with a more static model within BFG. i'm thinking like on an orbital gun platform, or star base/space dock type model. for my own efforts, i've got all these banners, that i would love to use all over my Rhinos. Some work really well but the ones that are utter fails are the ones that contain "motion" within the model itself, the easy example are the triangle flags that come with the scout bike, or the Capt banner from the Aobr set.

[Deathwing70]

just one of those days :(

I think the decals look really good though, hard to tell the booboo's from those pictures (light reflection) but once you get it perfected it should look really impressive on the entire fleet/table.

 

 

I must say seeing all the conversion work and reading about it has made me search the web for more converted/scratchbuild ships the last few days...

Which led to finding my old BFG box with rulebook, 8 cruisers etc. which then led to searching my bits/sprue boxes for the old cruiser sprue's to find any unused parts... which led to ...

 

basically there's 2 lumps of sprue/glue and plasticard sitting on my desk now representing the skeletons of 2 strike cruisers. Cutting up plasticard into those tiny pieces and making sure its all straight/square is really hard though :D

Figured with their bulkyness they would be pretty easy to scratchbuild. Ofcourse Orcs could/would be easier as i suppose you could just cut up sprue's and drop a bottle of glue in it :)

[Viray]

Ouch. It was just one of those days, huh? Where taking a chainsword to your models seems like a more appealing idea than pressing on.

 

Good luck, though; I'm sure they'll turn out spectacularly in the end. :)

[kharn_the_betrayer]

Awesome ships! I really like them. I'm afraid of painting my BFG ships just because they are so much different they typical miniatures. You did an awesome job, thanks for the inspiration.

[Brother Argos]

Thank you for your support guys, I did manage to file down the Golden Targe and Bulwark of Faith bases using an extremely fine sand paper. I removed the crinkles, touched up with black paint and then re-varnished using Vallejo Silk. I left them to sit for 2 hrs. till they were thoroughly dry before moving them (hindsight is a wonderful thing). The remaining two crinkled bases were un-recoverable sadly.

 

Tonight I will get another 5 done with no mistakes this time, that should give me all the bases I need for my 7 ships!

 

Once that is done I can get back to working on the battleship.

[Brother Argos]

Well it was a good weekend all round, got all the bases completed and varnished properly on Friday night and if you look closely at the stalk on Bulwark of Faith you will see a small embedded magnet for the cherub banner, which will eventually be added to all the others. However I stopped working over the rest of the weekend and spent the time with my daughter Hannah who had her 12th birthday over the weekend :tu:

Please excuse the hastily snapped photo from this morning, I was just heading out of the door and wanted to get a shot to show the progress made!

As you can see the magnetic adaptors have been fitted to the bases, and now the corresponding adaptor end must be put on each ship. I am also painting up a test cherub banner to see what colours to use. I am hoping for completion by the end of the week (minus cherub banners which I have now relegated to "decoration" rather than essential).