Scratchbuild - The Land Raider MkI part 4

Just a quickie to keep you entertained with the progress:
After finishing the tread bay details (OK, 80-90% GW bits not attached yet, weapons neither) the hull is shaping up slowly. Some pictures:

See also:

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 1.

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 2.

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 3

Scratchbuild - The Land Raider MkI part 3

Time for an update. The outer sides (not the ones mentioned in the last post but the other two) of the tread bays are shaping up slowly, I reckon I'm at 50%.

And some details:

After I finish the side doors and some more riveting, plus a little more detailing I will move on to the hull. I'm still not sure how I want to deal with the sponsons and the lascannons. One painful question is solved unfortunately; the side doors will be permanently closed. I'm afraid it would be too risky to cut an opening now, should have thought about it earlier. It is a bit lame but I will live with it.

See also:

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 1.

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 2.

Scratchbuild - The Land Raider MkI part 2

Hi Folks,
time for a minor update. Detailing this beauty proves rather time consuming, but I'm still quite satisfied with the outcome, if not the progress. I have just finished the inner parts of the tread bays:

 a little more detail:

To tell you the truth I started this phase with a huge mistake, I glued on the outer walls of the tread bay, and I had to find out a complete different approach to the detailing. I was quite angry at the time, but I'm okay with the way it came out. It is not 100% finished, there are minor details missing  depending how I finish the hull.

See also:

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 1

Scratchbuild - The Land Raider MkI part 1

I have always had a soft spot for the old MkIs. Lately it struck me that the Sentinels just cannot live without one. There must be an ancient, venerable MkI serving as the chapter master's personal command vehicle, spit and polish but deadly. Pimped up with superdetail and modern weaponry.
This is the plan, and I almost succeeded, when I was the leader on the latest eBay auction, up until the last 10 seconds when someone sniped me. C'est la guerre, one might say, but I took it as a sign.
Though my last effort with the Mate pattern whirlwind turret was not met with great applause, I enjoyed building it greatly. This is the reason why I decided to put together my own Land Raider. I acquired the necessary plans from here (the BWC-Archive is also a good place to start -join if you are not a member already) and started to work. It was clear from the beginning, that the plans are not  detailed enough for my taste, and truth to be told these early models are not very high detail in the first place. I'll need to spice things up a bit with extra stuff and a bit of kitbashing. I will love it.
First I started working on the tread well and bays:

Cutting 150+ plasticard circles for wheels make your fingers sore, but I'm happy with the results so far

This is the detailed tread bay before attaching the outer wall

Here I am now, after day two, hope you like it. More to come

See also:

Scratchbuild - Whirlwind turret - Mate pattern

Coolest birthday present

I just turned 36 and see what I got from my stepdaughter Viki:

Cool, ain't it? I was wandering why she borrowed one of the little guys...

Scratchbuild - Whirlwind turret - Mate pattern

First a little explanation for the relative silence: I started a few projects simultaneously that come slowly into fruition.
Giving away a bit of spoiler information, I developed an urgent need for a few Land Raider and Predator bits, so I started to ask around in the local gaming community for spares.
Máté came for the rescue and showing him my gratitude I spent a few hours on this Whirlwind turret. Máté is preparing for a tournament this coming Saturday and all he needed for his killer list was a Whirlwind. Since he has a spare Rhino and I happened to come by the missile part of an oldschool  turret, I decided to help him out. It sounded like fun; and it really was. By the way this is my first ever scratchbuild attempt. There is plenty of room for improvement, but for now I'm pretty satisfied with it.

Stay tuned for more!

Painting - Final decision

All right, you know I've been undecided on the final colour scheme, time to decide once and for all.
Now I'm down to two options:

The light option

Shade: VGC Dark Prussian Blue
Midtone: Royal Blue
Highlight: Enchanted blue
Extreme highlight: VGC Pastel Blue

The darker option

Shade: Black primer
Base colour: VGC Dark Prussian Blue
Highlight: 33% Enchanted Blue, 66% Royal Blue
Extreme highlight: Enchanted Blue

I love both versions but it is time for the right choice. Please spare a minute to comment!

See them face to face:

Painting - First go on the Sentinels

Tonight I managed to finish my first test paint of the Sentinels. It is a five marine combat squad and a lone assault marine. They are still wearing the original paint scheme, I'm still not decided weather to go for the darker scheme or stick to this one. I fear that this is a bit ultramarie-ish, but apart from that I'm pretty satisfied. The guys are purists, no extra purity seals, tabards, squad numbers, the regular ones will have all of this, but modestly.
Instead the new converted backpacks they are wearing old style ones, because I'm running low on backpacks and I'm going to give these first ones to friends anyway.
For the bases I had some arid, rocky steppe in mind.
So here you go:

Earlier:
Painting - Quest for the perfect highlights

Subject for tutorial wanted

Hi Folks,

I promised you to make a new tutorial on two piece mould resin casting. And I ask for your help to make it happen.

Since I don't want to mess with GW, or promote the unproper use of intellectual property, to make a tutorial with a GW model as a subject is out of question. This leaves me without a proper master.

I built a mini or two before, but they were all given away when I switched to different armies. It would take me weeks to put together something decent, but I don't really have the time and motivation for that. 

Now this is where you can help. 

If you have a scratch built mini, a small vehicle, a special bit, a weapon or something interesting that you would donate for  educational purposes, I'd be happy to use it as a subject of the tutorial.

The subject 

• Should not contain any copyrighted device or material, or should not be derivative of anything that is somebody else's intellectual property
• Should be relatively small, fit in a 5cm side cube
• Can be multipart, but ideally no more than 3 pieces
• Should not be extremely 3d. You all saw GW sprues or metal minies; the more complex ones must be cast multipart. Working with green stuff is one thing, but casting it is something different.

In exchange for the master I can offer a few copies of the original or perhaps the finished mould if that is more desirable. I will never sell copies of the subject of course

If you are interested, drop me an email and send a picture of the proposed master.

Of course all credit and gratitude is granted :-)

Earlier on resin casting:

Designing a chapter Part 4. - Resin cast custom shoulderpads

Designing a chapter Part 3. - Resin casting your insignia

Designing a chapter Part 5. - Custom backpacks

Last time I manufactured my own chapter shoulderpads, hope you liked it. This time I continue working on the special flavour I wish to create for the Sentinels. Custom backpacks will give a small, but smart enhancement to the brew.
This is quite an easy conversion. I chose symbols of the right size from the resin cast pieces of insignia I made in an earlier post, sanded their backs to make them thinner and glued them on standard GW backpacks. Of course  the plain ones are the best, but also the other types once you get rid of the original symbol with a sharp knife. Depending on your insignia you may have to remove rivet heads or trim the upper part.
Anyway, here is what I achieved

Primer and paint them the usual way:

Slowly the visual chapter design is taking shape and I'm quite happy with it. Of course not all of the marines will have these converted backpacks, I keep the standard ones too for variety. Hopefully these little things will help to make my boys unique and professional looking (after I learned to paint properly of course).

See also

Designing a chapter Part 4. - Resin cast custom shoulderpads