The Oppo: Bonehead's Lost, Damned and in all likelihood Disappointed

[Bonehead]

I have indeed, mate- there's a few of them mixed in with the redemptionists. They turned out to be a little too tall to sit well with the old gw metals, so I never got any more. At this stage I'm kind of glad to be done with the robed models; now I'm looking for stuff that looks good along with scavvies. Mostly going to be doing traitor guard for the next little while though.

[Bonehead]

Talking of traitor guard, I got a little something today.

Is this kit out everywhere now? I picked it up at WW so sometimes I get the wrong idea about what's on full release.

I got a tin of mechanicus grey spray to go with it too. Only one question: Annihilator or standard?

[Gnasher]

Whatever you feel like, but not with the demolisher cannon for the hull, that looks plause imo.

 

Looking forward to seeing how you chaosify it.

[Bonehead]

Plause?

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Personally, I think the variant on the box (with both battle and demolisher cannons) looks best, but I'm just a guy on the internet so go with whatever you think looks best and/or will work best for you on the table.

 

Also looking forward to your chaosification - that's always the most exciting parts of these projects.

[Gnasher]

15 hours ago, Bonehead said:

Plause?

 

Sub optimal

 

[Bonehead]

Oh, I getcha. Doesn't bother me cos I don't play the latest versions- can't stand the sheer number of special rules. I've actually gone and built it as an annihilator as can be found in the vraks books and Imperial armour 5e books- twin lascannon and demolisher cannon. I'll get another one sometime and do it as a vanilla one with a battle cannon in the top casemate.

To be completely honest the entire tank's sub-optimal in the old versions too. I just got it because it's 'the' traitor guard tank from the forgeworld books and list. It's got bags of character, which is just going to have to make up for its pretty silly design and terrible rules.

As far as chaosification goes, it's mostly going to be cosmetic. My traitors are mid-stage as opposed to late-stage chaos worship, so it won't be filled with tentacles or anything like that. Certain members of this forum are more than a little bit more skilled than I am at that sort of thing. i'm thinking lashed-together chaos symbols made of barbed wire and copious dirt and rust, coupled with maybe the odd grisly trophy. I built it with hatches closed; although I did stick a heavy stubber on top. I'm having a good think about what kind of stowage should be on it. Packs with suspicious stains, trophy helmets, used shell casings. Ideas would be really welcome. I'm not going full edgelord chaos, so no loyalist carcasses strapped to the front, but a head on a spike....maybe. Anyway, there's time to brainstorm an idea or two: I want to test the paint scheme on an old russ first, and I'm waiting for a turret to be posted before I can do that.

Edited in a couple of photos- didn't have time for any yesterday. Thus:

Tauroses for scale; pretty useless but there you go

Oh, and I just saw that northstar brought out a set of Stargrave Scavengers the other day. Definitely intrigued; I think they might look pretty decent next to the necromunda scavvies. Any of you seen them?

As I said, suggestions for stowage/debris/trophies will be welcome lads.

Edited April 18 by Bonehead

[Bonehead]

Got my turret sorted. Somone on FB got fobbed off with a recast. So I picked it up cheap from him: Detail is lacking, but I'm not terribly picky. I can get rid of the dodgy aquilas and repoint some of the other stuff. It'll do. Now I have to decide if I want to use the og demolisher turret or get something newer...

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Your Macharius looks sweet - as do your 2 painted elesian buggies.

 

Not sure what your intent with the faux-FW turret is, though - do you have a Russ potentially in the works, or is for an alternate load out on the Macharius?

[Bonehead]

Thanks- pleased to report the buggies now look substantially improved even from that point; weathering powders are pretty great.

I've got a russ with no turret- or had one until this thing arrived. Needed a tank to practise the paint scheme on before moving on to the big one. Got distracted again by finishing the tauroses, but they're done now. I think the next project is scrubbing the several layers of paint off the russ, or rather both russes as I have a pair, both of which have quite a texture to them. One more layer is definitely going too far.

I'm also seriously thinking about how to get another FW turret too, if I'm honest: the og one is pretty crap looking.

I don't really think it looks good enough next to the vanquisher. I don't think it looks good enough full stop, honestly.

This one though:

That one works plenty good. Sadly, even though I have two of those, they're reserved for my Rogue trader loyalist guard. They're getting converted russ/chimera hybrid hulls, because I honestly just don't like the russ very much anymore. But stick a bunch more armour and a big hat on a chimera and I don't mind it at all:

The revised chimera hull is a kit from Blood and Skulls industry and wasn't cheap to get sent over from the us, so I bought two at once. Still not sure if I like the side armour. it's suitably tough looking for a counts-as russ but kind of clunky. I do much prefer the overall look though: the turret just looks much more at home on this hull. To me, at least.

Anyway, the two russes are the next sub-project. Scrub off the paint, then two chances to finalise the paint scheme. Seriously though I think I might just have to cut up the one og turret and make it bigger. It's just really bothering me.

 

[Bonehead]

Alright. Spent some of the afternoon sorting out the ugly demolisher turret. Didn't spend the whole afternoon because I had to spend the first part of it fixing up a grille cloth frame for a speaker cabinet I've been making:

I chucked one of the russes in a methylated spirit bath in an old takeaway box. I hope it works- it has done wonders on metal models for me. Maybe I'll just melt my tank. Not terribly bothered, you can buy them on eBay for roughly all these days. Here's another terrible photo of what that looks like:

Super helpful, I'm sure you'll agree.

Anyway, first I hacked up the old turret, then I made a new baseplate to it and glued the two front corners to that:

With that done, I just cut a load of pieces of plasticard to roughly the right shapes and then trimmed them down until they fit nicely in the gaps that were left as a result of enlargenificating the turret. It tooka while, but it was pretty relaxing.

Having the one it needed to look right next to ....right next to it was a big help. The detail you can see on the side of the resin turret, that little vent, I think came from the old HK missile mounting. And fortunately for me I'm pretty confident I've got the parts from tons of those knocking around in a bits stash somewhere. On the other side there's a loading hatch that's from the same thing, so detailing on the sides of the turret should be taken care of.

Also fortunately for me, as you can see in the picture above the FW turret has a top plate detail added that means I can just ignore all the detailing of the irregular-shaped hole in my new frankenstein's turret and stick a copy top plate on. Lifesaver. I chose to keep the periscope feature on the front of the turret rather than delete it like the FW turret, so I had to extend it for the new width. I reckon I'll try and remember to add some greebles to it that will do a good lens impression for me.

Finally, I chopped down the front of the new big turret so that I can make the old metal demo cannon hopefully sit nicely flush with the sides as they are now: it'll hang a little lower than the rest of the turret, but crucially it's on the bottom so I can and indeed have, file it down safe in the knowledge that the detail that gets damaged when I do that is going to be invisible anyway. It's a heavy bugger of a piece, so I'm going to add a bunch of plastic to the inside of the aperture on the front of the turret, in order to be able to drill for a lot of pins.

This is where it ended up today:

I'll get out some old sprues and shave rivets from the pieces and add them to the turret in due course. I need a couple more details for the top. Fortunately I'm a guitar tech so I always have dozens of old guitar strings in the bin: these will make excellent cables. I'll dig in the bits box for a few more gubbins to join with the cables, and bish bosh, it'll be done.

Bit of putty, lick of paint, job done.

What do you think? Not approaching Dr Ruminahui's level of conversion-fu, but definitely good enough to do me.

 

Edited May 10 by Bonehead

[Bonehead]

Ok, Methylated spirit, I apologise for ever doubting you. Truly you are my saviour.

Look at this:

Half of it wasn't even covered. But after about a half hour with a toothbrush and a mug of water, we end up here:

Pretty amazing result. I'm blown away by it.

It did leave a lot of mess: I'm not sure if I should be surprised or not by how much congealed paint there is on this newspaper. It had been painted three times, I guess.

Anyway, that was what I did in between generally not doing very much today. I wish I was rich and could be on holiday evey day.

Oh, and I finished up detailing out the turret:

I found the fuel tank in an old bits box and it just fit nicely in the available space. Once I cut it in half, anyway. The little camera/targeter greeble is from the helmet of a 2nd edition boxed set missile launcher marine. The other optic thing on the other side is a 2nd ed autopistol cut in half with the muzzle removed.

At this stage I pretty much just felt it looked ready to roll, honestly. The rear sides have the parts to match the FW turret, and the rivets complete the job. Just got to wait for all the poly cement to thoroughly cure, so I can pin the gun to the front and then green stuff it in.

Should I add some stowage, or maybe a camo blanket? This one will have a tank commander, so I'm thinking it should probably have a pintle gun, but can you think of anything else I should add?

I also got round to pinning the gun on the vanquisher turret, so I can pose it. Found a couple of hatch lids too:

And I actually found an angle where I think the russ looks pretty cool, as well. There had to be one, right?

Makes me think of a sherman firefly. Looks like an actual tank as opposed to a bad impression of one.

Anyway, thoughts very much appreciated on this regarding stowage. The main hull will get as much as I can manage until it looks right, and chaos symbols, but I really would appreciate some advice regarding the turret. Stowage, blanket, either, neither?

Cheers lads

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Nice to see you got it clean with minimal effort - it does look much better now.  Also great use of old bits to detail up the rather lacking demolisher turret, as well as in bulking it up - fits in much better with your forgeworld one now.

 

Personally, I don't think you need much in the way of turret stowage, provided you put stuff elsewhere - the turret is the most likely place for the tank to get shot (other than the front) so it makes sense not to have much stuff up there.  So maybe a pick or a shovel or some coiled cable, but I wouldn't go much more than that.

 

One place it does need something is that flat area on the back of the engine behind the smoke stacks - it would be a great place to put a fuel barrel.

[Bonehead]

I can't believe I didin't think of that. Fuel barrels are so obvious! I'll get stuck into the old bits boxes and see what I can turn up.

in the meanwhile, the turret's structurally finished, and I've moved onto detailing. I took a leaf out of your book and made a chaos star for the retrofitted extra front armour to break up the flat lines:

I also made a chaos star out of coiled wire, and attached it to the side:

It was a total pain, honestly. I seem to have accidentally bought gel superglue and it takes way too long to cure, but really my fundamental cock-up was just not building it completely before attaching it.

For other detailing, I have some crates from Anvil and I think they should really do it, combined with the chaos star detailing and the fuel tanks. Do you agree?

 

[Gnasher]

I really like the chaos star, but I feel it needs a little something ... Maybe some press mold arrow heads on the ends?

 

Crates - Check

Fuel Tanks - Check

Maybe a grisley trophy or two?

[Bonehead]

Good point Gnasher. Or rather, points. I think probably I'm going to leave the skulls on spikes for the big machine, but some helmets, and maybe a lasgun dangling on cords around the turrets of these two russes should do the job. Maybe some modest spikes- but I think I'll probably just use more wire and make it (hopefully) look like they've just welded some rebar around the edges rather than stolen a wrought iron fence from somewhere. I do have some of the old spikes that came with the ork battlewagon kit back in the day, but again, I think I'm going to save the really gothic details for the malcador.

The chaos stars do need some kind of point though, you're right. I think I'll probably just cut some small ones out of plasticard and then drill them and glue them on. That'll make them all uneven, which should help with the chaosy feel. I'll do bigger ones for the cardinal points and smaller ones for the other four.

Meanwhile I have been addressing the unexpected difficulty of the build, which is finding replacement doors for the holes in the sides. I figured it would be relatively easy to dig them out of a bits box somewhere- after all, I built the tanks all those years ago. But no, I found one, with no hinges on it. Bollocks. I appealed online, briefly, but no dice.

Then I had a bit of a think and decided I had a simpler option, which was to just build more. They're going to be covered by the wire stars, so who cares if I don't model handles on?

Thus:

That little engineer's square is useful for just about every job I do. Best few quid I ever spent. Anyway, you can see the crates from Anvil as well as the door under construction and wire coils. I used a couple of those crates to detail up the cultist weapon teams, so this style of crate has been given a side already, I now realise. I had intended them for my green VM army, but Anvil do a few styles so I'll just use a different one. I find a consistency in detailing like this across an otherwise varied collection can really help homogenise them all.

Here they are on the tank:

I'm debating whether to add straps to the crates, because they already have straps modelled on the way they come and I like to save time. Also, definitely going to put a fuel barrel on there as well. I'll probably do another plasticard chaos star for the side of the turret, and that, plus the rebar spikes and trophies, ought to do for extra detail.

I'm going to do the same for the Vanquisher in due course, although obviously with different placement and detail etc, but for the moment here's the wire stars on the sides as they sit now:

This whole tank project has made me come to a new attitude to the russ. I really didn't like them all that much, which is how these two came to languish two decades in a box, but with the mods I've done to the demolisher turret, and the ripoff vanquisher turret, I've come round on them. Who'd a thought messing a bunch with some models could make you like them more? Oh yeah, pretty much anyone. Never mind...

 

[Gnasher]

For the grisley trophies, maybe some skulls & heads on chains at the back of the turret?

[Bonehead]

Quick update: exam time at one job, and a busy gig schedule in the other has drastically limited progress for the last few days. Regardless, there's been some progress both in concepting and actual physical models.

I've opted for a more restrained spike situation for two reasons. You'll be able to guess which is more significant, I should think.

First, let me show you how they look:

I'm aiming for the appearance of more sharpened rebar simply welded onto the sides of the turrets. These are not chaos space marines with a gothic sense of grandeur. These are ordinary men who've gone very bad so it made more sense to me to have a down to earth sort of spike solution. I'm pretty confident I can paint them up to be very nasty and brutal looking; I'm good at weathered metal. They also have the extremely pleasing-to-me effect of making it look almost like a particularly nasty crown is adorning each turret.

The vanquisher has it's hatches on and chaos stars in position. I'm pretty pleased with it. I'm going to add more rebar spikes to the fronts, and trophy helmets/heads dangling from the turret crown spikes and then call them done. The stars on the sides will also get a liquid green stuff coating which adds a nice texture that's much more suited to rusted metal.

The main reason I've gone with the restrained, plain metal spikes is that I tried making up a bunch of spikes to add to them, and they looked terrible. Just clumsy, too big, and really goofy. I reckon I can add a lot of brutality and attitude with the right paint, so I'd rather not have a bunch of crap modelling ruining the look.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

I like the idea of low industrial spikes - it will be interesting to see how they come out.  At them moment they just look a bit odd as it doesn't really come across what they are... though, as you said, I'm sure painting will make them more convincing.  Look forward to seeing how they work out.

[Bonehead]

Well, here we go. Painting begins.

This is after an undercoat of black, then masking the tracks and spraying mostly from above with standard grey:

I honestly thought they looked pretty decent at this stage, but there really wasn't a lot to link them to the infantry, colour-wise, so I had to keep going. I'm pleased with how well my custom demolisher turret looks with a coat of paint to homogenise it. No longer looking like a load of parts all slapped together.

Ok, next the most annoying stage: masking up a load of random shapes and then painting in the supplementary colours. This took waaaaay too long.

And then after the first stage of brown:

It was even more annoying masking them up yet again in a different random pattern, but at least I could reuse a lot of the masking triangles.

Then, we reach this stage, which is basic colours done on the armour:

It's quite bright, and not very neat, but I'm just getting started. Next, they get a thorough washing, first with the same green that the troops' fatigues get, and then with blacks, and browns, as I feel appropriate. Then I'll dab in the light grey spots and wash those. After that, I'll drybrush all of the colours to highlight them, first with the original shade, and then with some bone mixed in to push them all towards a similar dirty tone. Then I'll do some numbers. Small ones. I'll also paint in the track in a dark rust-brown, which is what real tank tracks look like. i'll do the chaos stars and spikes like that too.

Then it'll be time for a matt varnish, and after that, weathering. Lots of weathering.

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Your tanks look great - personally, I find the camo a bit busy (I probably would have stopped with just the red (well, it looks brown with the yellow next to it, but red with just the grey), which I think looks great) but I'm sure yoru washes and weathering will tone the business down quite a bit.

 

That said, you did an excellent job getting the lines of the camo super crisp and clean.

Edited May 30 by Dr_Ruminahui

[Gnasher]

Are you able to temporarily detach the chaos stars so you can paint a red hand underneath? I think that would look really cool.

[Bonehead]

15 hours ago, Dr_Ruminahui said:

Your tanks look great - personally, I find the camo a bit busy (I probably would have stopped with just the red (well, it looks brown with the yellow next to it, but red with just the grey), which I think looks great) but I'm sure yoru washes and weathering will tone the business down quite a bit.

 

That said, you did an excellent job getting the lines of the camo super crisp and clean.

Thanks man- the lines are a little messy here and there but the overall impression is good enough to let me get away with it.

And I have to agree, I did have a serious think about leaving it once I had the red-brown camo on; it's definitely a look that I would have stuck with if I didn't have to bring the tanks closer to the infantry. But I do, so the ochre went on. And I don't mind it. It's not as good now, but I think by the time I've got the drybrushing and weathering done it should blend together more effectively.

13 hours ago, Gnasher said:

Are you able to temporarily detach the chaos stars so you can paint a red hand underneath? I think that would look really cool.

Oh, Gnasher. If only I thought of that when I was putting them together. I had the same exact thought and then I cursed it because they're glued on rock solid. I did at least remember to avoid adding extra detail to every flat surface in order to leave room for red hand detailing, but under the stars would have been perfect. I'll save that for the malcador.

Anyway, the first washes are on.

You can see, I think, that in this image they look quite a bit more coherent, with the green wash on and an agrax wash on the lower part of the body.

The wash is somewhat blotchy, which the drybrushing and weathering will mostly fix; same applies to the sort of tide-mark of brown wash. I've left a sort of shoulder-height threshold past which the dirt wash doesn't reach, just the shade wash (the green, that is). The tanks are going to be pretty dirty looking when finished, but that's mostly going to be achieved with chipping effects and weathering powders. The agrax wash is more a sort of undercoat for the coming dirt powders; it's a height guide really. The Russ is a tall tank and just like if you look at historical tanks like a sherman or an M36 that are also tall, you tend to see the upper part is dusty and rusty, while the lower part is dusty, rusty, chipped to buggery, but mostly very muddy.

Here's a shot of the russes with some smaller, finished vehicles:

You can see the dirt reaches just about to the top quarter of the smaller vehicles' hulls. Above that it's mostly just worn paint and a little chipping where people climb over the vehicle to get into it. The front of the vehicle usually takes a total battering, so that's where the worst wear is going to go. If you could see the front of the centaur, especially the battering ram, you'd see that it's mostly bare or rusty metal, dirt and primer on the lower sections. The russes will match that. Tank doctrine for pretty much every real army includes normalising the tank's ability to make its own new routes by simply battering down whatever's in front of it. At low speeds most tanks have truly preposterous amounts of torque to spare and going straight through a house is an entirely viable option. It's also a very effective terror weapon. Typically, tanks on a long deployment will need a lot of repainting on the front.

Anyway, next up will be drybrushing the camo. They scheme is busy enough already, so the light grey spotting the infantry have won't go on. Everything past this point will homogenise and bring all the colours together. After the drybrushing, it'll be paint chipping with a sponge. First a light grey, to suggest primer showing through, then metal on the harder edges and around protrusions. Forgot to mention that in the last post.

 

[Gnasher]

"I had the same exact thought and then I cursed it because they're glued on rock solid."

 

Maybe you could still paint the hand as long as you paint over the stars afterward which you'll need to do anyway?

 

Looking good btw! The Malcador needs a nice red hand with one of your rebar stars over it, it'd look effing great!

Edited June 2 by Gnasher

[Bonehead]

Your wish, Gnasher, will be granted.  I'll do that on both sides; I'm only moderately annoyed that there's no good space to put one on the front of it.

As for on the russes, I could do the hands under the stars, but it looks like a pain so I'm going to be lazy and just do some little ones instead. I will do plenty elsewhere on them though, and larger ones.

On which subject, the hands are the next part of the recipe.

I go the drybrushing knocked out. As I said I highlighted all three colours with the same cream/bone paint the citadel 'dry' specialist skin tone whatever it's called. That, combined with the blurring effect on the hard edges of the colour areas that drybrushing has, brought all the colours a little closer together. It has the effect of making the models look a little more like something large seen at a distance as opposed to the snappier, cleaner lines of something small up close. Hopefully. It also suggests dirtiness a little.

Then I moved on to paint chipping:

I included paint chips on the vanquisher barrel because basically it's that big and unwieldy someone would have caught it on something sooner or later. Similarly for the bow (front facing) guns.

The chipping is mostly concentrated on the front, the corners, and the lower sides, basically areas that would grind against rubble and debris- and obviously the areas that would be used as battering rams to create the debris in the first place. The free hatches are the obvious crew access points, so they saw some heavy wear as well.

I also added some wear on the top of the turrets and above the bow gunners' hatches:

They look a little extreme, which is kind of annoying. I'd used the sponge a lot by that point. Should have done them first. I don't mind the extremeness of the rest of the chipping: that is deliberate because I'm going to put a lot of weathering powders on these tanks, and rust effects, so I need the chipping to read through underneath. I'll probably also dab in just a little bare metal at edges over the top of the powders too.

Next, I added in the metal chipping and painted the rebar details:

Not going to lie, I love how the rust paint I mixed up looks over the basecoat already, and I've not done the merest hint of weathering yet. I had to mix up a little extra, so there's two different shades of rust already, which is quite realistic. Patches of rust are always a colour grade from old to new rust. Before I varnish the models, I'll do some random metal chips on the rebar, and also colour all the points to look like sharpened bare metal.

I did forget to paint in the tracks: That's going to take more paint than I had left of the mix, even if I had remembered. It also wants a darker shade of brown, to be honest. Tracks tend to have a very dark, old-rust shade to them. Apart from the black rubber pads that are there for grip, that is.

Anyway, next I used some vinyl scale-modelling letter/number sheets to mask up for dabbing in some basic identifier numbers. The vinyl sheets have the letters cut out and glue applied; you're intended to remove the letters and stick them to your model railway directly. I usually use them for labelling knobs on custome effects pedals, but that leaves me with the sheet that has a negative impression in it. Cut out the letter surround, stick it on the tank, daub paint through the hole, move it and repeat, bish bosh.

They need a lot of red hand detailing now. I was wondering if I should do that under the chipping, but I decided the crew would have re-painted the red hand symbols. Friendly identifiers are pretty important in 40k gaurd-level tech situations. The weathering powder will still go over the top of them.

The light kind of exaggerated the chipping in those last two photos, but you get the idea. Weathering powders will cover up a lot of it. I'll use a lot of mud and rust powders, obviously. I'm also going to try mixing up a little rust powder in white spirit, then streaking it with a clean brush. Never done that before, but it'll be over the varnish so I can just keep trying til I like it. Obviously a lot of it will be around the stars and rebar. I'm also going to try and suggest welding spatter and burns with some black powder where the rebar's attached on the turrets and stars; and also use it to simulate a lot of soot around the exhausts and the ends of the big gun barrels.

Fine detail after that, then done.

Then I guess It'll be making up a tank commander and maybe a couple of hitching troopers. I think I might have a couple of the DK-style heavy stubbers from another kit that could go on as well.