Homemade decals - Astartes numerals

My first homemade decals are finished, in the last two weeks (apart from a small holiday) they were my primary project.

First I started with the drawing board and Adobe AI. Thanks to my earlier designs, the first draft was created rather quickly. After this the proper sizes for the individual designs were determined and checked against actual minis and shoulder pads. There are multiple sizes, different for scouts and terminators and vehicles.
Once I was satisfied with the result I printed the vector design on decal paper.
Please understand that these are not real decals, and therefore they have limitations. Firstly I cannot print white without access to an ALPS printer. ALPS printers are no longer in production, so buying one - even if buying one second hand is possible -combined with the increasing accessory prices do not make the business case viable. (other possibility could be screen printing, but for such small insignia, and so few copies it doesn't worth it.) So, since I cannot print white, I have to print on white. This means that to avoid a halo of white on the edge you have to print a halo with a colour matching the base colour of the mini or vehicle - in my case VMC Dark Prussian Blue.

For the best results after applying the decals the traditional way overpaint the edges with the base colour. This will crate a smooth gradient. By the way I almost always overpaint decals a little, so that they would look less uniform.

Secondly, professional decals come pre-cut. As I have no idea how it is done, so one have to cut out the decals usig a very sharp blade.

You know by now, that I'm a shameless promoter of my very own Sentinels, you can freely download the decal sheet in .pdf format. Please note that it is in letter format.

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Since you never seem to get enough numerals on GW transfers, I also created my own number sets. As I previewed in my previous post, the numbers are fully vectorized. As making these astartes numerals was very time consuming, I won't give them away that easily... but they are of course available for all followers of this blog. Please e-mail me if you'd like the file.
Later, upon individual request I plan to produce custom decals, numerals in other colours, and even sell them in printed form, though it may take a little time.
I'm quite happy with the way the transfers turned out, but I was less satisfied with the Holi decal papers I was using. It was rather too thick to my taste. I have to find a different manufacturer for better results. Any suggestions?

Little teaser

Recently I spent some time with Adobe's Illustrator, and made fair progress on some custom decals for the Sentinels.
I also made some cool stuff:

Yes. Real, proper vectorized Astartes numerals...
Decals are soon to follow.

Land Speeder Redux

Some old time followers might remember one of my first posts back from January; it was about a Land Speeder, full of details that later turned out to be unnecessary. The paint scheme changed too, and as I became involved With my Land Raider Mk1 the work on this little one has stalled. Until last week, when I finished it :-)
Actually it is not finished, as the magnetized parts may get some transfers and freehand, and still need to be weathered.
The model is fully magnetized, all the doors/accessories/weapons can be removed. I'm a big fan of magnetization, both for versatility and portability.
The base is made of a standard AOBR base and a piece of carbon fibre rod, as I dislike GW flying bases.
The junk on the ground are made of plasticard (heated up and bent over fire) pieces of tin sheet and resin parts.
The scratches on the bumper and the hull are the weakest part of the paintjob, hell, next time they will turn pout better. The speeder was given a little coat of dust pigment (dust, dusty green and sand) as I felt that as a flying machine stronger weathering would be out of place.
As always, feedback is welcome.

Typhoon variant with multi melta (some sooth will be applied)

Tornado variant with heavy bolter

Engine glow

Things from the past - My absolute worst

Going through junk in the basement at my parents' house I found some remarkable items. 

These are 1:72 Revell Normans I painted in 1989. This is my second ever paintjob. This crime against humanity was committed with some very poor quality glossy enamel paint. Miniatures were impossible to get in Hungary back then, as far as I'm concerned. I had no idea how to paint minis, and it shows.

Those days I was - as so many of us - obsessed with AD@D, and I was given a copy of the Battlesystem rules. I was very excited but found no suitable minies. I even considered making my own of pewter, but at the end of the day these 1:72 ones were the only ones I could put my hands on, apart from some brass knights from Kinder Eggs.

My very first time -I mean with paints and toy soldiers - was somewhere around the mid eighties, when I abused some crude plastic soldiers, and painted them with gouache colours and applied a very heavy glossy enamel coat. At the time I was quite influenced by the "Dirty Dozen", that I was allowed to watch on TV for the first time. This set luckily seems to be lost saving me the embarrassment. 

Man, it was a long time ago... I was about ten then.

My Celestine

This is my version of the Living Saint. She serves no purpose in my would-be army, I just happened to come into the possession of the model and painted her just for fun. I won't keep her though, but I'll give her to my wife as present. I hope she'll like her.

Riveting - a mini tutorial

There were multiple requests lately to write a mini tutorial on my recipee for riveting, so I therefore comply:

Tools you’ll need (well, including optional ones):

•  Superglue
• A pin or something similar (in my case a sculpting tool)
• Pin vice with a thin dril
• Ruler and compasses with pin in both ends (optional)
• A scapel or an engraver tool (optional)
• Something like a metal rod with a blunt end
• Micro beads for nail art

 And the way it is done step by step:

Step 1.

Drill small holes in he surface you work with. Optionally you can draw a line and mark the rivets with compasses with pins in both ends. Sometimes I skip this and just drill the holes using eyeball Mk1.

Step 2.

Widen the topmost parts of the holes with a scapel or an engraver’s tool.

Step 3.

Pour a drop of superglue on someting, and using a pin or something similar, put some glue in the holes

Step 4.

Using the glued pin, find a suitable piece of bead and place it into the hole

Step 5.

Using the handle of the scapel (or something similar, this case the bottom end of a file) apply a little pressure ont he bead. Pushing them into the hole a bit makes the bond much sturdier. At this point you might want to sand the excess soperglue from the plasticard

This is the end result

Some remarks on micro beads

Micro beads are used in nail art and are available over the internet (eBay) or –like in my case – around the corner in the local nail art shop. Small pleasures of living downtown. Anyway they come in different colours and sizes. Unfortunately the beads –especially the small ones - are not perfectly uniform in size or shape, so you have to select them all the time. They are made of glass I think, so they are quite hard. One more thing: and the colouring is diluted by superglue – don’t worry they will not melt.

The biggest advantage is that they are dirt cheap, a small vial sells for about €0,8, and that amout will last you for about 50 years if you rivet Baneblades every day.

Good luck riveting!

Scratchbuild - The Land Raider MkI part 8.

It is complete. It took me two and a half months and about 150 hours to get this far. Thanks for all the support and the inspiring comments I received all along. This was my first ever attempt at scratch building, so while there are tons of things I'd do differently if I started today I'm quite happy with the result.

While the vehicle is meant to be plain old school Land Raider, I allowed myself a little freedom for further developments; therefore I magnetized quite frequently. The driver options are magnetized (please note that arms, heads etc. are missing as that is my painting method), so are sponsons, the hunter-killer missile/ cosed hatch options and the bush cutter. The antenna with the small flag can be removed too. These not only enable me to elect to make a crusader/redeemer variant later if I so wish, but make transporting the model so much easier.

So that is it folks; I think I stop here and stick to painting for a while, but I'm positive that this may be my first, but not last project.

Stay tuned for the primered pictures soon, and the painting project later this year when I buy an airbrush.

See also:

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 1.

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 2.

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 3.

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 4.

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 5.

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 6.

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 7.

Scratchbuild - The Land Raider MkI part 7.

Tonight I proudly present you the newest addition to the project, the side sponsons. This is how they look like:

The lascannons are made in similar manner as as John from Santa Cruz Warhammer made them on his marvelous Death Guard Land Raider. Perhaps this beauty and Ron's gorgeous Deathwing Land Raider gave me the greatest inspiration during the project. 

Back to the cannons, I cut the upper one to make it longer and added extra plating to the guns. I think they came out quite good.

  

The guns are attached to a mount by a joint. Both the joint and the gun mount is affixed by magnets, so they can move freely though they seem to be quite sturdy at the same time.

Unfortunately this last picture is not very good. Anyway I made a prototype of the gun mount and then I cast it in resin using the plain and simple open mould technique to have exact copies. Please note that the mounts are actually two piece each as the center part is separate. On the mount I used (it cannot be seen unfortunately) a new microdetailing technique, that I believe is my genuine idea. I'm quite happy with it, so I will write you a tutorial later.

I see the end of the tunnel now.

See also:

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 1.

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 2.

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 3.

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 4.

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 5.

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 6.

Scratchbuild - The Land Raider MkI part 6.

My little one is on track. Literaly :-)

It took me a week to finish the tracks, but now that I'm done, I'm getting close to the finishline. This is how I made it:
First I made the master links from plasticard. I needed two naturally, one for ordinary links an one for the 12th links.

Once they were ready I made a one piece mould as I explained earlier, (ok it is a simplification, I made two, first one for an ordinary single link, and I used the resin casts as ingredients for mould two, that has one single link, one three-link piece and one with an aquila on.) and cast enough for the whole track on both sides.. Around 60 links, unfortunately not 36 links per side. I was sloppy and did not plan properly and therefore on the bottom the 12s don't match, but I don't really care. All right, I may be a perfectionist, but not that much.

Attaching the bits to the chassis was pretty straightforward, as you would imagine, though I had to trick a little to get the perfect fit. Where it was needed - in angles - I applied a bit of green stuff to get the joint correct.

What is left is to make the gun mounts (I will remove the 25mm bases) and some minor detailing, and the finishing touches with GW bits.

See also:

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 1.

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 2.

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 3.

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 4.

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 5.

Quick update and a question

Hi, I'm almost finished with the tracks, but the 12th link - the ones with the aquila on - is quite a hard nut to crack. I'm ready with the aquilas themselves and decided that the letters E T (Eperor of Terra) will be added to fill out the empty space under the wings.
And here comes the dilemma: what do you think, should the letters be positive or negative on the tracks? If they are positive they read correct on the vehicle, if they are negative, they look correct in the dirt. While I'm tempted to chose the later alternative, as the purpose of the 12th link is to mark the soil in the name of the emperor, I'm open to your opinion on the matter.
Anyway, stay tuned for a tracked update in a day or two!