My First Diorama, Gretchin Servitor breaks free.

[Neotericity]

Howdy folks, I've been back into the hobby for a couple years now and have slowly been putting more things into my arsenal for painting. Mostly just tricks to get things to a workable standard, I enjoy playing the game but appreciate the spectacle as well so try to balance the two. I churned out +70 guardsmen over the course of a week and needed a break from just painting infinite riflemen.

 

 

Is this staring into madness??

 

I still had quarantine levels of energy for painting and wanted to do something different. I decided to try my hand at my first diorama as an entry for Auspex Tactic's painting competition. The piece is completed so I will finish this log fairly quickly just going to split it up a bit.

I chose a Gretchin servitor from the techpriest Grombrindal kit. He became the Ordo Xenos escapee taking vengeance on his creators. The rule I made for myself was to not buy anything for this project and to use whatever I could find in the house. I wanted a forgotten room in an Inquisition facility with a viewing booth and medical ish lab.

I started pulling out bits that might work in a lab scene, power units, rebreather, brackets, etc.. I used an empty dropper bottle as the tank for the servitor , chopping off the top so it could sit flat. And unfortunately didn't have scrap wood in the house so went with a cardboard box to form a tri-wall using a conveniently sized metal plate I found in the basement and superglued it in as the floor to give the base weight. I really dislike working with cardboard, especially after putting some hours into this project. I'd definitely prefer to use something hardier next time that will last longer. The viewing window ended up being cut poorly and needing quite a lot of reinforcement to support the plastic container and the wall. But it was all part of the process and got done in the end.

The surgery table was cardstock from a warhammer box with the ends of four of my cheap synthetic beater brushes clipped off for table legs. I don't feel too bad as they come in packs of 50 and are still useable for the uses they have now as stir sticks or glue applicators. Then just three pieces of sprue cut into 3 metal slates to make a cold uninviting slab.

The helmet and rifle are going to be turned into part of a pile of ash. Bits of equipment that didn't quite melt under the promethium blaze of sweet Gretchin revenge. I tried not to think too hard about why these inquisitors kept their experimental xenos robot murder flamer in a tank that couldn't withstand the blaze of very same weapon they installed. I ended up just chalking it up to administrative failure, maybe the factory started cheaping out on materials to meet quotas or profit, or any multitude points of failure within the vast Imperium.

Anyways this was the beginning of the build and as with most things in the hobby, I was quite skeptical at the start and was ready to scrap the entire thing at multiple points, mostly involving that window and some of the scratch built props. But most of these were fairly minor in the end and could have been fixed with some minor adjustments. Which in the case of the structure was selecting cardboard as a material, limiting myself to what was available in the house being the main factor. I'll get in to some other lessons learned in the next post. Hopefully this posts alright not sure how the image upload works, been a while since I've used this forum and dont post often.

[Custom Hero]

Nice work so far. Very interested.

 

Also, maybe the inquisitors didn't skimp on materials, what if the little guy was supposed to stay inert and woke up at some point?

[Neotericity]

Thank you Hero. Who knows what goes on in these black sites??
 

The next part of the build was filling out of the details and organizing the scene enough to start priming. I found a first aid bag and some rebreathers that I could mount on a little wall unit. And took a flamethrower tank, shaving the skulls off to be used as a pair of fire extinguishers just as little bits of background.

I blocked out the scene where I wanted the props to go with bits of silly putty to prepare for priming and so the scientists in the viewing booth are looking in the general direction of the escaped xeno servitor. I also built a little workstation table for the lab, with plans to add a data slate and some scrolls to the desk. The top was cardstock and the legs were a piece of sprue cut in half to make skinnier legs. I put two tiny pieces of sprue on the back of the small worktable to have anchorpoints that I could glue to the wall. I finally took a piece of straight cardstock and reinforced the bottom of the window as well as hiding some of my lackluster cutting job.

The two scientists or just facility personnel were tank commander torsos. I had one with servo skull glued to his back and on his headset desperately trying to put the facility in lockdown. I wanted to find one of the guard arms that has a finger pointing but instead went with a heavy weapon arm and made it look like he was holding a remote, maybe to release nerve agents into the room or put the lab in lockdown. The other guy could be a visiting general looking at their experimental murder servitor, with an instinctual drawing of his sidearm while still holding his cane. Both their expressions do look like they're yelling or in shock, which worked for me.

 

I did a little bit of work on props for the lab and started diggin through my vehicle bits. I added a raised back to the surgery table with some more cardstock to fill it out a bit more. But what I was really happy with was the surgery unit I came up with. Didnot orignally plan to build it, was mostly looking for aquillas, and power cables. The bottom is a sentinel lascannon with the cone chopped off glued into a heavy weapon autocannon without the barrel. I had the chopped up autocannon from a previous build. That gave the unit height, nobs, cables and rivets. Then I attached the the sentinel flamethrower cables onto the unit as hydraulic hoses for the massively oversized sentinel chainsaw used in these gruesome procedures. It was over the top, over-engineered and grim. Perfect for 40k.

 

Finally the best part of the build was chopping off the servitors arm and replacing it with a flamethrower. I now had a perfectly sized bit for a future powerfist on a lord commissar :L I was way too excited to have this small piece of plastic... Anyways things were coming together and slowly being primed, it felt like a bit more was taking shape.

Lessons learned: Change your hobby blade, especially at the start of a new project. I fiddled with a dull hobby knife for the first portion of this build and just caused unnecessary frustration. It was an easy fix. I also could have used a pair of tweezers to help manipulate pieces for some of the scratch built furniture and that would have made my life easier. Anyways I'm being summoned by the kids so this the end of Log #2.

[Neotericity]

Alright been a little while since I've done an update. But have made some progress in spite of life's business.

 

 

I bought this aluminum primer for my new army, Alpha Legion and it's been working out great. I couldn't warrant driving 90 min just to pick up leadbelcher spray and couldn't order it online so this turned out to be a good surprise. It's easier to source this stuff and cheaper. It's just Rustoleum aluminum or something.
Here's two unrelated test models used with the primer. Still WIP but so far I'm happy with them.

 

 

Anyways back to the project. This type of priming was new to me, it required a lot of stages, different primers and lots of painters tape. I cut out a small rectangle piece of painters tape and attached it to the back of the capsule along with half of a mortar tube and some lascannon cables to be metal paneling later and cables, I also flipped the capsule right side up and went with a 28mm base as a lid adding a small tank bracket as well. Since this picture was taken I shaved the empty bottle more so the lid sat flush with the top. The ash pile is a slightly melted helmet and gun which I hit with a lighter quickly and a mix of super glue, snow flock and a small amount of scentless kitty litter.

 

 

You can also see a little cogitator laptop and a beat up chair in the back. The chair was just a gently folded piece of cardstock with sprue for legs. This was an annoying piece to glue together and really shouldve found my old beat up tweezers for this. I'll get right into my lessons learned for this project log. AND THAT IS PATIENCE. I never understood why hobbyists went out and bought products that made things dry quicker, whether it's glue, paint or whatever. There were multiple times where I handled something that wasn't dry from primer or the glue hadn't been set. This added unnecessary bits of trouble and really should've switched to other parts of the project or something else I'm working on while it's setting. Critical lesson to be learned for me. #$%#!!

Anyways, here's a more complete photo with a lot of priming done. If anyone has any questions, happy to answer them. Like I said this is a new project for me and any thoughts are definitely welcome. Hope everyone's staying safe out there, as my dad mode engages. I'll try to be quicker on the next update ;)

 

[Bjorn Firewalker]

The lab looks promising. Is its owner an AdMech Techpriest, or a Dark Mechanicum (Chaos worshiping) Techpriest?

[Neotericity]

The lab looks promising. Is its owner an AdMech Techpriest, or a Dark Mechanicum (Chaos worshiping) Techpriest?

Thanks bud, probably try and do another update this weekend. It's going to be an Ordo Xenos facility, just radical inquisitors going too far.

[Neotericity]

 

Possible new objective marker for later games? I've been getting distracted of late with my garden and chaos army but here's another update on my lab. Had fun painting this up and looks like something of a machine that could be used. I have to say messing with metallics is one of my favourite things to do
when it comes to painting. Still need some more robust techniques when it comes to glowing objects like shining lights or screens.

 

 

 

 

I weathered the concrete with a small piece of sponge, a beat up brush and random streaks of oil. To make the window even and give it a reinforced look while actually reinforcing the build itself I used strips of duct tape. It needs more work to make it look like metal sheeting and not tape.. So we'll see.

I free handed an Inquisition symbol in a notebook going off a google image. I dont have a printer so I couldn't trace it but it turned out as a pretty good stencil with my own lack of artistic skills in consideration. I kept the layer thin so the concrete weathering could still poke through behind the red. Finally I went back
and primed the floor a glossy white with a healthy amount of painters tape and it works as a clean antiseptic lab floor. The hole beneath the ash pile will be painted copper as a drain in the floor for fluids.

 

 

 

 

 

Finally did some work on this little guy. Didn't take too long to paint up since he's so small but I tried to slow down and take my time with him. I was pretty happy with the small white dot I managed to get in his red eye, but his purple bionic could use some more glowing. I tried to make the drool stand out using a satin varnish
mixed with white and blue. He's just standing on a random test base I had lying around for something else.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Good job on the gretchin servitor and the amputation servitor(?).

[Neotericity]

Good job on the gretchin servitor and the amputation servitor(?).

Thank you. I dont know if I should make the picture bigger. And your guess is as good as mine, it was fun to actually use a sentinel chainsaw as a bit though, haha.

[Custom Hero]

Nice job! This project is turning out very nicely!