Tuesday, March 3, 2009

The rumble of heavy armor

Well, over the last week I've been working on tanks and trucks. In an interesting departure from the regular techniques and applications for my Blood Pact, I've explored a new idea (to me of course) on my trucks, but more of that later. 

First on deck is the might Malcador Defender. With 5 heavy bolters, 2 lascannons, and 1 demolisher cannon, it should be able to handle most problems on the battlefield. My Pacters will give praise to Khorne for the support.




The Malcador is closely followed by the Valdor, packing its mighty neutron laser and a lascannon. I'm not sure how this beast will perform on the tabletop, but I'm sure it'll attract a lot of firepower, which is not always a bad thing.



And some folks have been curious to see the trucks from my last post painted. Well here's one of them, resplendent in it's Departmento Munitorium livery, the N-6 Heavy Transport [Military]. As I mentioned in my last post, I wanted these to be useful for many of my IG armies (should mechanized armies be a good way to go with the new codex). I think the generic color works well with roughly half a dozen of my IG forces, so that works well for me.

As I said, I tried something new. 

Rather than paint my rusted/chipped armor back on after the main color (grey in this case) I decided to step into the long-hallowed halls of fine scale modeling. I used an Art Masking Fluid from Windsor & Newton to create the patches on this truck where the grey paint has peeled off.

To do this I simply drybrushed the truck with Tin Bitz and Boltgun Metal, then applied (using an old brush) patches of the masking fluid onto the body of the truck in places I knew the paint would naturally chip during service (on edges and places with high foot traffic). This was followed by a coat of Adeptus Battlegrey, a wash of Badab Black, and a drybrush of Codex Grey. Once the grey was all dry I went back over the areas I had masked, rubbing away with a pencil eraser. This lifts off the masking fluid and any of the paint on top of it, leaving whatever was under the mask in the first place. I hope you like the result. I might try the same technique when I paint my Stalk Tank, and do a step-by-step at the same time, if you'd like.

I'll work on getting the others painted up then I'll be well on the way to a dozen N-6 Heavy Transports for my supply column. More of that in the future.



16 comments:

  1. Those trucks are the sort of fluffy thing I would love to do but never find the time. A convoy of them will look simply fantastic.

    Please keep up the inspirational work!

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  2. Those trucks bring back the memory of many a hours of time i spent in the back of a 5 ton bieng bounced around with spine jaring results. But bieng a grunt it was welcome over the usual walking with a 90 pound pack on my back.

    All in all though these are some impressive models. One question what did you use for the roll cage on the troop compartment of the truck?

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  3. Your new weathering tip looks very well done. I enjoy a model done with light weathering and chipping, it add to the over all character and does not remove from the model. Wheels and treads packed with mud to the point you lose detail is a little overboard for me. I think MIG makes a decent masking product that I might have to try.

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  4. It's great to see the Malcador and a truck painted up, the look excellent. The masking effect on the trucks is really good, thanks for posting.

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  5. Really appreciate seeing the great work and knowing the background painting tips. Thanks for sharing. Looking forward to step-by-step.

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  6. Great stuff, I love the Chaos camo/symbol on the Valdor, and the truck idea is just awesome, I think the basic grey was a good choice, these remind me very much of the Gun Trucks being used by US forces these days.

    If you don't mind a bit of my $.02 read on.

    I will say that the plates on the tires would make for a ride that only an Ork would apreciate, and big and little tires is a hot rodders favorite tire choice, but no military truck would use different size tires front and rear as it would require more than one spare, and would not work for all wheel drive as the wheels would rotate at different speeds, but If you were to make new wheels you might as well scratch build the whole truck.

    Also wheels would be a great resin casting project, and simple as you could do them in half.

    Any way, as I said, very high quality work all around, and so quickly, bravo!

    John,
    Santa Cruz Warhammer

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  7. Lovely work the tanks and trucks there Dave, well done. Love the blog also, now that I have found it.

    Shawn

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  8. Hi guys

    Thanks very much for the comments. As you can tell, I really enjoy building and painting the off-beat stuff. To respond to some particulars:

    @ traitorer - the "ribs" of the cage around the transport section are cut from two layers of 1mm plasticard and the "spars" (I guess you'd call them) are from 2.4mm plastic tubing, although rod would work just as well.

    @ BigJon - I was going to ask you for a link, but Jeff Wilhelm from Dragon Forge has put me onto the MIG Productions forums at, surprisingly enough http://www.migproductionsforums.com
    I'll check out the ideas.

    @ scdarkangel - John, I must admit I never thought of the "two spares" problem. Too much time working in the fantasy worlds rather than actually paying attention to the real world ; ) How about we say they have run-flat technology really working well?
    Future versions with our own wheels and/or tracks should alleviate some of the valid points you raise. For the moment I'll have to live with these.

    Thanks again guys.

    Cheers
    Dave

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  9. Dave,

    Absolutely LOVE the chaos iconography on those Blood Pact tanks! I may have to steal that idea should I ever go traitor guard.

    The trucks are really well done, and I like the paint chipped weathering, but they seem to be missing something, and I can't for the life of me figure out what. Ah well. Looks great anyway!

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  10. DAVE! Great to see you are still modelling!
    Im back in town, and hope to see you soon.

    -tomtom

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  11. Hi Dave,

    Those trucks look great! I was wondering if you had plans of putting up the templates you mentioned in your last post and the possibility of doing a post on how you put them together.

    I'm currently working on my own Mordant 13th army and I would love to make trucks like that for them instead of using chimeras.

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  12. I've also played with liquid mask a bit. That stuff is super handy. I've not tried the Windsor and Newton brand though.

    I also just realized you have thus far escaped my blogroll, that will be fixed immediately.

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  13. It's fantastic! Next step should be to imperialize Ork Battlewagon and use it as one of these new crazy versions of Leman Russ. Oh, please... do it! ;-)

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  14. @ Magller

    stop stealing my ideas ;) thats what i am going to use for my AT-80 Brigands, well as a basis but i'm no-where near as good as Dave is :(

    really like what you have done, cant wait to see more Blood Pact when they come up, would love to see come Blood Pact STeG 4's i cant think how to make them...

    anyone want to check out my blog then go ahead, i've just updated it, but i need to get to momentum going...
    http://insanecreations.blogspot.com/

    feel free to have a look around, and sorry for advertising on your blog dave but this is, really your fault :P

    keep up the good work you are an inspiration

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  15. Just awesome quality on the super heavies. How do you keep that chaos star so consistent?

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