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

[Bonehead]

Dr R, you commented at just the right time. And may I say, that land raider is cool as hell.

Thanks for the kind words. Mind you, better wait until I've actually fixed Nick Bayton's guitar- he's not been in touch yet. Or at least, I hope not. If he has that means Outlook's terrible filtering has put him in the spam folder. Matron? Feels like maybe that deserves a matron. Anyway, I've only done a guitar for the guy who passed my details to Bayton so far, not Bayton himself.

You're right about the guitar string situation, honestly- No idea why I've not been using them. Well, I do have a practically infinite supply just as you say so I'll get round to it at some point. Maybe on the Malcador, come to think of it.

Anyway, to the Malcador. I've been struggling a little with the conversion. The idea juice isn't flowing especially fast. This is where I am now:

So, not far away from stock, basically. I've mostly been too busy to do any work on it the last couple of weeks, so I've been limited to crowning it with rebar and green-stuffing and smoothing out the join lines in the plastic.

I've left the mould lines on the tracks, because track links are individually cast in moulds and probably turned out in sufficient numbers and with enough drive to hit production targets that they wouldn't get the attention. That's my justifcation for not doing a complete pain in the arse job anyway.

My real problem is with the wire chaos stars. I really don't want to place them in a position where they'd obscure the sponson guns; I like my dumb sci-fi tanks to look as if they have a hope in hell of working, and also I managed to not balls up gluing them enough that they still move and I don't want to obstruct them. But I don't want to place them to the rear, over the hatches, because they look like useful, functional hatches to me. And I think they'd not look very good there anyway.

So I'm mulling over the idea of doing smaller stars forward of the sponson guns, and perhaps especially small ones at the rear. But possibly doing especially large ones that sort of frame the sponson guns instead; making them read as chaos stars when they're a) oval and b) not going to have the crossed members in the middle could be a big challenge though.

I don't want to cut some plasticard to make a jagged star because I feel that sort of detailing is more a chaos marine-suited grandiose design. I want this to look human-scale and not at all artistic.

Thoughts would be appreciated.

I did at least manage to find some helmets at long last to make trophies to dangle from the rebar spikes, so there is that. It should really help.

In other news I successfully appealed to the FB marketplace for more heavy bolters, and with judicious application of money, four more turned up. I think I'll do two platoons of traitors with flamer command squads and two squads HB/melta each. Then another three-squad platoon with missile launchers and more meltas throughout, to keep up the flavour.

That'll leave me enough HBs for a support squad of those along with the lascannon squad.

I also just put in a frankly ridiculous order with VM. Enough for 65 more models, combined with the parts I have already, so it should keep me busy a while. The order included plenty of extras, like lots of different arm poses so I can get as much variation as I can in terms of posing the troops, and converting gunners for heavy weapons and that.

Just got paid for a lot of big guitar jobs, so it was finally time. Hopefully there'll be enough there to keep me busy for the rest of the year and beyond.

Might have to fetch out the defibrillator for my wallet though..

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

You're welcome, and thanks for your complements on my very, very heavy tank. 

 

Ah yes, sending a package to Mr. Bayton to give to his minion to give to you seems a step too far - I had better wait, then. 

 

Your Malcador looks nice so far - I like your rebar spikes and the stowage scattered on the "turret" top.

 

Interesting connundrum about the chaos stars.  I think its a good idea to keep with the industrial feel and not go with plasticard stars, for the reasons you have given.  I also agree with trying to keep the tank functional - they may be a bunch of degenerates, but I feel being able to kill stuff is still (or even more so) their main priority.

 

That said, I think you may be able to do the stars using the same material but in a different way that would work better with the restraints put on you by the model.  Your stars on your russes are essentially 5 components - the ring, then each cross piece which forms 2 spikes.  If you broke up the cross pieces so they didn't travel through the centre of the ring (so that each spike is its own piece, rather than 2 spikes to a piece) that might allow you to put the ring around either the side gun or the hatch, and then attach the "spikes" to the ring so that they protruded beyond it and a bit inside, but didn't interfere with the operation of the gun/hatch.  Much more fiddly, and probably harder to do, but if it works I think it would look good.

 

Another option is to break the ring in half(ish), and put one "half" on in front of the side gun, and one behind, and then do spikes in a similar fashion to the above,  This would likely permit longer spikes if that is what you are going for, at the expense of not having a full circle and having to work out how to make that not look weird.

 

Look forward to seeing what you do with all your new wallet damage. 

Edited Tuesday at 11:37 PM by Dr_Ruminahui

[Gnasher]

Smaller star (WITH red hand hand underneath) on side of turret?

[Bonehead]

Good points both. I read them earlier today- after I'd finally got the third HB team sorted.

It took bloody ages to work out what I was going to do, but once I had a plan, it was pretty simple. The main problem I had was what to do about the third loader- I'd run out of usefully posed robe arms from Anvil and I was struggling to think of a good conversion that would read as heavy weapon crew.

Then the epiphany hit: These aren't soldiers, they're fanatical idiots, suckered into being cannon fodder by even more fanatical bastards.

So instead of struggling to think of how I'd convert the drum bloke I picked up with the old '80s fanatic models, why not just put him on the base as he is? These people are cultists, after all. What could be more culty than one robed bloke firing a big machine gun while being egged on by another robed bloke chanting heretical nonsense and banging a drum?

Thus:

Happy coincidence that I had one cultist left who had no feet- so I put on bare ones I removed from a traitor guardsman, before I had my drum bloke moment, and now they match.

The plastic bit I made to link the gunner's hands to the gun is frankly not very good, but it is just about good enough. And the poses of the two guys really do go nicely together, so that's the final say in the matter. Rule of cool.

As for the Malcador, I like both of your ideas. The split-up chaos star around the sponson and the smaller one on the turret/casemate. So I'll do both. And definitely leave the turret one off so it can have a nice big red hand under it. Gnasher's dead right, that is going to look great.

So I'll try and model that up tomorrow. i think I'm also going to sculpt up some sandbags to go on the upper front hull: it's a pretty easy job and it should give the model a bit of a veteran feel.

I will also, I swear it, remember the damn trophy helmets!

Edited Wednesday at 09:18 PM by Bonehead

[Dr_Ruminahui]

I like what you've done with the newest heavy bolter crew - yeah, the connection at the back between the model and the gun is a bit clunky, but its serviceable and I doubt anyone will notice once its painted.  BTW, what happened to the poor man's feet?  In any case, his new ones look great.  I also kind of like how he seems to be recoiling backwards as if he doesn't have the gun properly braced - really plays into the "fanatical idiot" vibe.

 

I think your use of the drummer as the loader is inspired - on its own, I think the model might have been too "fantasy battles" but by placing him on the bigger base with the big gun, its a definite tie in to him being a sci fi model now.  I do think he would benefit from the addition of a rifle of some sort strapped across his back to both reinforce him being part of a sci fi army and that, no matter how much he might like his drum, he's there to fight if absolutely necessary.

 

Glad to hear Gnasher and I were able to help sort out your Malcador star problem - I look forward to seeing what you do, as well as your various other planned additions to the model.

 

Is that a candy tin in the background?  I think I have a similar one that I've used as a dice box since I was a teenager.

Edited Wednesday at 10:14 PM by Dr_Ruminahui

[Bonehead]

It is indeed a candy tin- Simpkins travel sweets. I keep 'em in the glove box. Great for a long journey when you're thirsty but can't stop. This one has all my robed cultist bits in it.

As for what happened to the cultists' feet, he was an ebay find. One of three, heavily damaged, but extremely cheap. Came without feet. Only a quid or so each, so bit of a no brainer.

You're right about the drummer- I think the easiest thing will be if I just give him a holster, maybe a grenade on the belt. Easily done.

Right, Malcador:

I found that I could get a big chaos star round the sponson gun without obstructing it pretty easily. So all that worrying was a waste of time. Oh well, at least it's done.

Only one side though. Imagine this: for the first time in my life, I used up an entire tube of superglue. The thing didn't dry up or get clogged, I actually used every drop. So I had to nip out to get more, and then someone asked me to go fetch Kreig parts from Warhammer World and mail it to them, so that's as far as I made it.

I hope you note, Gnasher, that the upper chaos star is merely leaning against the hull. I've drilled sockets for the mounting brackets, but it won't get glued down til there's a damn great red hand under it. Same on the other side.

One more side-mounted star to go, some sandbags, and dangling trophies, and it's ready for paint. Should be undercoated at the very least next week.