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MT's Project Log (currently: Deathwatch)

Started by Masked Thespian, September 03, 2016, 03:53:28 PM

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Masked Thespian

No modelling updates of late.  I can't find my pin vice and my local store is out of them for the moment, so my progress has ground to a halt; I need to drill out bolters and pin some arms before I can continue further.

I have, however, completed the first version of my army's background.  It can be found here.
Regards,
MT.
Quote from: Ravager Zero
Freaking mod-ninja. :P

Although, given that you're in Japan now, I suppose that's entirely legit. :shifty:

Masked Thespian

#16
I've been puttering on, though I took the weekend off to go to a number of Magic prereleases at my local gaming store.  Had a jolly good time there, too.

So far, out of my 15 initial models, I've managed to assembled 8 of them: 4 Bikers and 4 Veterans.  I'm a little disappointed at that number, as I'd hoped to have all 15 done by now so I could get started on painting them, but I'm okay with them as they are.  My local store is still out of pin vices, so I've not been able to drill any Bolter barrels out yet, nor drill holes for magnets.



Here are my four Bikers.  Let's take a look at them up close.



This guy's just a regular Biker.







This guy's a member of the Dark Angels Ravenwing.  I used as many Dark Angels bits on him to make him stand out, even customising the shoulder pad with a small Ravenwing emblem (since the existing Ravenwing shoulder pads have the emblem facing the other direction).  That pad's since had a little green stuff used so there aren't any gaps underneath the emblem.





This guy's a White Scar and is modelled as if he's in the process of riding through the enemy ranks and is swinging his Chainsword through them.  I'm going to see about modelling an arc of blood trailing from the front edge of the Chainsword and using Blood for the Blood God technical paint to make it look pretty gory.









This guy...  he's something of a mystery.  He's a Black Shield, a Space Marine whose Chapter we don't know and whose Chapter Badge has been removed from his armour and the shoulder pad painted black.  He rides an ancient type of Space Marine bike, one rarely seen in the 41st Millennium (it's a 1st Edition bike, in the old Lead compound, that I bought alongside 7 others and 2 Attack Bikes back in 2nd Edition, well before the plastic Biker kit was released) and wears an older mark of Power Armour.  He currently doesn't have a left arm because I'm going to put a magnet in his shoulder socket and magnetise various close combat weapon arms (a Power Sword, a Power Axe, a Power Maul, and I'm going to try and convert up a Power Lance) for both him to use as well as for the final member of the Biker squad to use.

Bikers can't take Black Shields in the Codex, so he's there for background and flavour, and the model won't benefit from the Black Shield's usual rules or improved stat line.  This is subtly shown by the fact that he's wearing a helmet (albeit under a hood) as I intend to only give my models with the Character rule (Watch Masters, Watch Captains, Chaplains, Librarians, Watch Sergeants, and actual (in rules terms) Black Shields) bare heads.

As an aside, in a previous post I mentioned that I'd managed to find everything that I wanted, other than a single item; the 1st Edition bike was the one item I didn't manage to find, but I did find it on a later search, as I'd been planning this conversion for a little while.



He carries a mysterious sword across his back.  I haven't yet decided whether, in his background, he's never drawn it or whether he has (the former sounding a little too much like Cypher for my liking).  In actuality, the sword is there because I messed up melting his cloak with heat and it's bent in the wrong place, so the sword is there to make it look like the cloak is straining against the sword's weight in the wind.  I intend to paint a little golden chain up the cloak to behind the backpack, so it looks like it's secured.





I constructed the legs for this Biker from the crouching legs in the Command Squad box.  The groin and right leg are pretty much used as they came, but the left leg needed repositioning, a new foot constructing, and a little green stuffing (such as the ribbing at the thigh and filling in gaps where the foot meets the greave).

I kind of like the position of his legs as it's very different to those of the plastic Biker kits.  The pose makes it look almost like he's riding a Harley Davidson.



Here are my Veterans.





The Heavy Thunder Hammer Veteran is made up entirely from the regular Deathwatch Veterans kit, with the exception of the legs which are from the Vanguard Veteran sprue.  I think it's a really cool pose and I definitely wouldn't like to see him charging right at me on the battlefield.



Just a regular Deathwatch Veteran, with Bolter and Chainsword.



Likewise, though this one's a little more active in his pose.  In both cases I've taken a Power Sword arm and chopped it off at the wrist, attaching a Chainsword and hand from the Assault Marine sprue so that I keep the nice little "elbow shield" that Deathwatch left arms come with.



This guy was tricky to do.  He's got a pair of matched arms from the Tactical Marine sprue but I chopped the right arm off after the elbow guard and replaced it with a forearm from the Deathwatch sprue (including the bio-monitor and nice-looking Bolter).  I had to add some green stuff (which you can't see here) as it was a little shorter than I'd have liked.  I also had to remove the cable in the process but will be replacing it with a green stuff one once my pin vice comes in.  I also want to add one of the Deathwatch "elbow shields" to the left arm, as well as obviously drill out the Bolter.

That's all I've got for the moment.  Hopefully I'll have this lot done by the weekend (including all the drilling I need to do) so will probably update with more pictures then.
Regards,
MT.
Quote from: Ravager Zero
Freaking mod-ninja. :P

Although, given that you're in Japan now, I suppose that's entirely legit. :shifty:

Narric

Some excellent conversions! I especially like the "Black Shield" Biker :D

Do your Vets only need four members or have you not finished the Sergeant character yet?

Mabbz

Very nice. My personal favourite would probably be the thunder hammer vet, but they are all very well done.

Masked Thespian

Quote from: Narric on September 27, 2016, 05:28:12 AM
Some excellent conversions! I especially like the "Black Shield" Biker :D

Do your Vets only need four members or have you not finished the Sergeant character yet?

Thank you   :)

The Veterans do need 5 minimum, though I've got 10 in total on the work bench (in the little plastic trays you can see in the background of the first photo).  I've yet to finish one more with a Boltgun, two with Combi-Bolter and Chainsword, two with Frag Cannon/Infernus Heavy Bolter (magnetised), and the Watch Sergeant with a Storm Shield and a magnetised left arm like the Biker Black Shield.

Quote from: Mabbz on September 27, 2016, 07:08:06 AM
Very nice. My personal favourite would probably be the thunder hammer vet, but they are all very well done.

I was extremely happy with how the Thunder Hammer Vet came out.  At this point he's probably my favourite too   ;D
Regards,
MT.
Quote from: Ravager Zero
Freaking mod-ninja. :P

Although, given that you're in Japan now, I suppose that's entirely legit. :shifty:

Masked Thespian

Things really got away from me last month.  I didn't manage to get any models painted, but I accepted that and continued.  I didn't continue very fast as I've taken the first half of this month off (partially due to attending a Magic the Gathering Grand Prix last weekend, which took up a significant amount of time, but I've been catching up for my absence).

I've finished modelling my first 15 models and will be undercoating them today with the intention of starting to paint them from tomorrow.



You've seen most of these before in this thread, but I do have some new things.  I've used some of my old GW basing kit that I purchased many years ago.  I intend to use the technical paints for my bases (specifically Blackfire Earth) but I've used the slate pieces and resin pieces from the basing kit for a little extra detail and have glued the gravel to the bases already to hide the plasticard I've used to boost the models higher on the base so they don't appear to "sink" into the basing material.



These are the magnetised arms and weapons.  My two Combi-weapon-armed Veterans can have either Plasma Guns or Meltaguns, my two Bikers can have any two Power Weapons out of a Power Sword, a Power Maul, and a Power Axe, my "heavy" weapon Veterans can each have either a Frag Cannon or an Infernus Heavy Bolter, and my Watch Sergeant can have any of the aforementioned Power Weapons or a Power Fist or a Boltgun.

I've deliberately chosen to model my Bikers and Watch Sergeant with the magnet in the left shoulder so that I can swap weapons easily enough (plus I have plenty of Deathwatch "Chapter" shoulder pads so I can spare them for the extra arms).  I intend to model a left-handed Power Lance, Auspex, and Xenophase Blade at some point, but this is all I've gotten done so far.



Here are my five Bikers all together.  They're mostly as you've seen before but the "Black Shield" has had a lot of green stuff work done, mostly filling gaps but also sculpting two Purity Seals on the right shoulder pad since the plastic ones broke off when I tried to bend them backwards so they looked like they were flapping in the wind.



Here are the two "weapon" Bikers, each holding a weapon they can be armed with.



Here are the ten Veterans, all together for the first time.  It took me a while because I had to wait for my local store to finally get a pin vice in so that I could drill the holes to magnetise the Watch Sergeant, the Combi-Weapons, and the "heavy weapon" Veterans.



This guy was originally going to have a Boltgun and Chainsword, but I was starting to run out of time last month so I decided to drop the Chainsword and just have him reloading, using the "Stalker Bolter" left arm and removing the clip from the Bolter.





I trimmed a piece of plasticard into a square "C" shape before gluing it to where I trimmed the clip off of the Bolter.







Here are the two Combi-weapon-armed Veterans and, as can be seen, they can each have Combi-Meltas or Combi-Plasmas.







And here are the two "heavy weapon" Veterans, who can each have a Frag Cannon or an Infernus Heavy Bolter.



Finally, here's my Watch Sergeant with all of his possible, current, weapon options.  The Boltgun is the current, default option as I don't expect to arm my Watch Sergeants with much equipment outside of specialised squads, but having the option is nice.

So, from here I'm going to try and paint these models over the course of the next two weeks.  I reckon that I should be able to do that.
Regards,
MT.
Quote from: Ravager Zero
Freaking mod-ninja. :P

Although, given that you're in Japan now, I suppose that's entirely legit. :shifty:

Masked Thespian

#21
I've not really done anything over the last two months.  Missing my target deadlines really demoralised me and I've not had the heart to pick up my paintbrushes since the end of October.  I'll try and get more done, and especially to try and finish off the 15 models I've already gotten half-painted.

I have, however, written a little extra for the background.  I've added the following three paragraphs to my Index Astartes article, fleshing out the three named characters a little more, including incorporating information from October's White Dwarf battle report into Arcturus's background.




He (Arcturus) succeeded his predecessor, Watch Master Feron, when the latter was slaughtered by a dozen Genestealers on the planet of Cagalian IX in retaliation for slaying their Patriarch in single combat, his death buying time to allow the troops under his command to be extracted safely.  Upon receiving word of these events, Arcturis immediately led his Watch Company of Deathwatch Marines to cleanse the planet of alien filth before receiving his new title and responsibilities.


In battle Magnus often wears an ancient suit of MkIII "Iron Armour".  Originally designed for the brutal close-ranged firefights found in boarding actions, it is all but proof against attacks that could otherwise penetrate the vulnerable spots of inferior types of armour.


Ambrosius is constantly surrounded by a cloud of exotically-scented smoke, which he claims aids his concentration when manifesting his psychic powers.  In actuality, he is surrounded by the leavings of the fat, stubby lho-sticks that he chain-smokes constantly.
Regards,
MT.
Quote from: Ravager Zero
Freaking mod-ninja. :P

Although, given that you're in Japan now, I suppose that's entirely legit. :shifty: