WarriorFish's Veteran's Chimera - Treads and Thrusters

[WarriorFish]

It's finally built! I rummaged through old boxes to find some of the old Guard vehicle sprues and found many treats. You should be able to spot them easily thanks to the lighter plastic:

Particularly pleased to find I had spares of the old winged symbols as I don't much like the new smaller ones. The kit is fully magnetised as you can see from the pictures The searchlight was a bit of a pain as it turns out it can only go on the right side and that's where I always put the Imperial aquila so I chopped it up so it could fit on the right.

It seems ok, but might need pinning. The track guards are from the old kit too and seem to fit alright as well so everything turned out great Looking forward to getting some paint on it over the next few weeks, can't finish Semper's Heroes and not have them riding in style can I? Hopefully with all the extra gubbins it should look like something they've made suitable for their needs

[scatmandoo]

Tank looks great and very fitting for Veterans sent out ahead knowing that they would need more kit.

 

Nice use of all the extra kit too.

 

You going to do any battle scars on the paint job?

[BFeeder]

Awesome stuff. I honestly think Chimeras don't look "complete" without a set of track guards, it's a shame they aren't part of the boxed set anymore.

[elmo]

Great work and nice to see the magnets worked out for you ;)

[WarriorFish]

Thanks guys, it was a lot of fun adding things :) Magnets are great, we'll have our very own Imperial Guard magnetising tutorial up very soon ;) I was a little surprised to find the guards, I've another spare set too somehow :D I agree that losing them was a poor decision by GW, just isn't quite the same without them. So much so that I keep forgetting it's one of the new Chimera kits I've built, surprising what a difference a few bits make.

 

This Chimera is going to get a good weathering treatment but I'm still pondering ideas at the moment. I've got a few I'm ruminating on but we'll see if I'm brave enough to try them out on this... maybe I'll experiment on a different model first :lol:

[Andhil]

Ah Track Guards. I've even gone so far as to keep those that came with my Basilisk, just to slap them onto a Leman Russ. I'm already happy that when I started 40K I got my hands on an old-school Leman Russ (I believe a couple of weeks before the new LRBT kits came out)

Looking forward to this Chimera, looks great already, but a nice coat of paint will do it some good!

[Kriegsmacht]

The Chimera looks good. Now it needs paint.

[Sviar]

It looks great with the trackguards and the extra details.

[CoffeeGrunt]

Very nice, looking forward to the weathering. I'm also a big fan of Track Guards myself, just makes the tank look a lot tougher!

[WarriorFish]

Fear not comrades, I will be applying the undercoat tonight :D I'm eager to get painting again, I've been so busy I've barely picked up a brush since finishing Semper's Heroes :(  I've got the FW track guard set somewhere too but I'm saving them for a command Chimera :)

 

I'll see if I can start on the vehicle write up too, got a couple ideas swirling around I need to play with.

[captain sox]

She's a beauty mate! Those track guards are sweet! Looking great with the extra kit too! Can't wait to see it painted!

[WarriorFish]

The track guards just look so right, don't they? I didn't realise how much I missed slapping them on :lol: I reckon I can have the green all but done by the end of the week :)

[elmo]

And the best thing is that it frees up track for other projects ;)

[WarriorFish]

I've got plenty spare from the old kits, don't know what to do with it :P

[ForlorneRaven]

Looking great!

[WarriorFish]

As planned I've reached the green stage:

Going to give it a break for the moment, I'm suffering from the first game of the season and a stag yesterday so I'd rather not risk buggering something up Plenty of time left to finish so I'm in no rush, maybe start work on the write up?

I've been giving weathering plenty of thought of late and I think I've finally cracked it. I never got a good "undercoat" colour before until a darker green was mentioned so I'm thinking Dark Angel's Green with some boltgun chipping? I reckon that could work nicely, I'd just need to get the hang on doing it right, as the somewhat random nature of it goes against my programmer ways

I'll find some pictures as reference material, I'll also look out for Typhus Corrosion uses - then I'll just need to sort out a nice mud method and I'm set Though I don't look forward to going back to the Emperor knows how many other tanks to upgrade their paint job If anyone has some useful weathering links or pictures they use please post them up so I can have a gander

[elmo]

Will this do you for mud? and it is DA green :)

 

http://th01.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/f/2014/031/7/0/4th_company_command_razorback__dark_angels_by_elmo9141-d74hrwq.jpg

[WarriorFish]

Yes, that looks like a good colour mud for a green tank - what paints and methods did you use?

[elmo]

Sponge - surprise

Scorched brown, Bestial Brown, Graveyard earth - each a little less than the one before, then you can use agrax or typhus in the recesses if you want.

[WarriorFish]

Aha, cool - my favourite brown paints no less! Is it so the Graveyard represents dried mud to the Scorched wet?

[elmo]

That`s it.

 

I use a similar method for my desert mud but take the colours a shade lighter using Bestial, graveyard and sand.

[WarriorFish]

Shouldn't it be the other way round, with the dried mud further up the tank and the wet mud closer to the tracks?

[elmo]

I have randomised the splatter all over the splash pattern.

 

In life fresh mud/water would be splashed up all the time so the driest would not necessarily be at the top of the splash, just where the fresh mud had not sprayed yet.

 

Make sense? :)

[WarriorFish]

I see, I'll have to nab some good source images to copy from :)

[WarriorFish]

I've done the boltgun and I decided to experiment with sponging for weathering before applying any washes in case of any touch ups that may be required. I've only font the front of the tank to get a feel for it:

It's not awful, but I need to decide on other colours to use after the Dark Angels Green. I'm not sure what colour to do inside, I can pick out the odd inside of that with metal so it isn't overpowering but the interior chipping colour needs to be right. Anyone got ideas? I'm scared of buggering the model up