Tau Hammerhead Step by Step part 6

So, work begins in this step on the base. In my mind, I imagined the hammerhead emerging from the wreckage of a building that had been destroyed. One thing that i always find with 40K scenes is that there is never enough wreckage! In general WW2 models get it right - lots of rubble and wreckage - for example, just consider how much plascrete and other materials would be in even a simple small building.

Step one was to cut a piece of thick blue foam to the right shape. I wanted the front left to be a shell hole, with the wall / sidewalk and road and a slightly open area towards the back. The highest point was going to be the hammerhead hovering just above the ground. This gives a nice 3 level effect, which, again, is a technique I've learned from the WW2 modellers. The aim is to get three progressive levels of height moving backwards as the eye moves.

Once the blue foam was cut to shape, I then moved on to marking out the back of the building that had been destroyed. This was added with pre printed plasticard. The sidewalk was then added using a piece of scribed plasticard. Dont worry about the fact that there is a gap in the sidewalk, this area is going to be covered in debris!

Next the main wall sides were added. These were made from some off-cuts of plaster that i had left over from when i last tried casting. See here for more on that failure! Once they were stuck in place i stuck on some off-cuts of blue foam to bulk up the areas of rubble.

Finally I started to add the rubble. This is made from again the same plaster as the wall. In this case, I spent an evening in front of the TV breaking up blocks of plaster! Once i had a big box full of broken plaster I started to apply it to the base. Woodland scenics spray PVA was used to fix the plaster in place. I added the plaster in multiple layers spraying the area first, then applying plaster parts, and then spraying again. So far its had about 3 coats, I think it will need five or maybe six.

Tau Hammerhead Step by Step part 5

So, lots has been done for this posting, mainly because I got ill this last weekend and couldn't manage anything more than gently painting!

So, finally the oil washes were dry, so I moved on to doing the black lining - each recess line was fine lined using black oil paint. I find that acrylics are terrible for lining; They dry far too quickly and it means that if you make a mistake, you either have to over paint it, or you are stuck with it. With oil paints this isn't a problem, as the working time is so long. My normal working procedure is to very roughly put the black on the lines - being neat, but not worrying if i slip in the odd place. Then using a cotton bud and some clean turpentine i then run along the lines. If you are careful and have only a small amount of turpentine on the the cotton bud, you can generally get the line perfectly crisp - See the photo to the right for an example.

The main problem with Oil paints (and I urge everyone to go out and get some oil paints and have a play, they are truly wonderful materials to work with) is the drying time. Oils need to be left to dry for 48 hours once painted on (unless you use a drying accelerator, although i can't recommend this method, having never tried it).

So, returning to the hammerhead a day and a bit later (yeah okay, I'm impatient!) the next stage was the application of ink washes to the metallic parts. I use Dr. Ph. Martins Inks - I believe they are meant for calligraphy, but i find they work really nicely on models, especially for the effect i was trying to achieve, as they "crack" slightly giving metal a nicely worn appearance, see photo to the left for an example - here the aim was to make the metal look old, worn and pitted - almost as if the top layer of the metal was wearing away. Generally I mix these inks with Kleer to give a very high reflection finish. Sometimes I find i need to add a very small drop of washing up liquid to get a smoother finish.

Another short amount of time for the model to dry again and it was out with the pigments. As people probably know by now, I'm a big fan of Mig pigments, and they were used liberally for this project. First i dusted all the metal areas with a dark rust, and once that was blended in, I then hit them again with a lighter rust colour.

All the metal areas then had a graphite pencil (2B) rubbed along any prominent surfaces to give the impression of the metals wearing through the rust. Finally I gave them a gentle rub with my finger to bring it all together

The underside was treated with four or five shades our earth pigments, to give a dusty feel - this was carried over the edge and slightly up the sides, as well as the tops of the door hatches (because they fold down and would end up in the mud!). I made sure that the "mud" was firmly embedded inside any seams or hatch edges - these exposed openings just live to collect dirt! The flight feet were included in the mud application and then again had graphite added to them.

Lastly for this stage I painted in the rear lights and the front view port. Again this was done using P3 heart fire. They were painted the same way that i paint gems, shading on the bottom right and lit from the top left

So, at this stage I'm gonna put the hammerhead aside and start to work on the scenic base, which is gonna involve me learning how to create a mold and cast it in plaster! But that's a story for another day!

Tau Hammerhead Step by Step part 5

Small update this time. Once the model had dried thoroughly from the last stage (I always like to give Kleer a long time to dry), I start to apply the "flashes" and colour blocks. Any "light" areas were painted using P3 Menoth White Base in the normal way with a brush. Then i masked off the nose cone and painted the stripes using P3 Heart Fire.

Once these sections were dry, I used a sponge to apply chips in Chardon Granite. There were applied lightly, and once dry, I corrected some parts by using either more granite (where the effect was too light), or the base coat (where the effect was too much). Finally the granite marks were highlighted with white.

For the next stage, I then washed the entire vehicle with various oil colours, but starting from a base of Burnt Umber. These washes were very thin - Basically they were coloured Turpentine. This kind of wash is often called a "Filter" in AFV modelling. The next thing to be applied (once the washes had been left to dry for a couple of hours) was "spotting" - this makes the final surface much less even, and gives nice graduation to the colours (I'm planning on doing a longer post about these techniques in the near future).

All metal parts were then drybrushed with Tin Bitz (or whatever the vallejo equivalent is called), followed by a dry brush with Chainmail. Once those layers were dry, the metal areas then got a dry brush of neat Burnt Umber and Black oil paints, to bring the metallic effect down a bit and to give them a "harder" look. Finally i recoated any areas that wold be solid black on the final model - The intakes for the boosters as the under carriage / landing gear.

The model was then set aside to dry for at least 48 hours before the next stage of weathering could take place

Tau Hammerhead Step by Step part 4

Lots of progress for this step... First, I fully finished the assembly of the model. The Tau vehicles never seem to go together easily for me, but with a lot of sanding it started to approach an acceptable level. I then mounted each of the separate parts on to styrene rods, for easier handling.

The next stage was to spray all the parts in Citadel black undercoat. I only have one hard and fast rule when painting - White undercoats for soldiers, Black undercoats for tanks! I find that by using black as the undercoat you can get great effects easily when using the airbrush.

I was aiming for a look of a Bull shark with this model , lighter grey underneath, getting darker on the top, and with a black "spike" on the "nose". Unfortunately the photos of this part didn't come out particularly well. In Real Life (tm) the blending is much smoother between the light under belly and the darker top. The darkest section is Tamiya German Grey and the lighter part is Tamiya Neutral Grey. These were airbrushed on in many light coats. Finally the black spikes were added. To finish the airbrushing stage the entire model was given a coat of Johnsons Kleer, to give a nice satin finish for the next stages - the weathering...

Tau Hammerhead Step by Step part 3

Not a vast amount of progress over the last couple of days, unfortunately. If I'm honest, its the part of modelling that I really hate - cleaning up and filling the gaps! I end up getting distracted and painting other models in the meantime!

Anyway, over the last couple of days, i managed to fill and sand the two side pods, quite a bit of the back and the nose. You can see this in the images included. For filling on vehicles i find that green stuff / pro create doesn't do a very good job, it doesn't sand very well. For tanks, i usually use Polyfilla Fine Surface filler, because it sands down well and becomes very smooth when sanded down.

In the image to the left you can see the contrast between the areas that have been filled and sanded - it is circled in red. The unfilled area still has an ugly misalignment, which will eventually be smooth. Just below that is a small area that still has a slight line in it. Although this looks in the photo as if it will cause problems, when the undercoat is on this should disappear.

The final image shows the side pod that in a previous post i pointed out still had scrape marks from the harsh sand paper i had used. In the new photo, it should be obvious that this roughness is now gone. Only about another 10 hours of sanding to go, at this rate!

On the rest of the vehicle I've put together and sanded down the turret and Rail gun, and the "boosters" are now glued together. The fit is really not great on the "boosters", which seems to be the same as every other Tau vehicle I've made. Is there some secret to putting this together that I've missed?

Tau Hammerhead Step by Step part 2

So continuing the Hammerhead walk-though. Not a vast amount of progress today, but a very important stage - Part one of the cleanup process.

Now that the hammer head had dried over night i visually inspected the body for where mould lines were very visible. Often i find that these only become truly visible once construction has started (as they end up being disconnected in odd ways, making the effect even worse!

In the two photos shown here i have circled the main areas of mould lines that needed to be removed. I never use a knife to remove mould lines on vehicles, the scratching leaves a very telltale mark! So its back to our friendly 800 grade wet'n'dry, and an hour or so of slowly buffing away the lines. I find that it helps to do this whilst watching TV, or chatting to the wife etc! Take your time, moving slowly through the affected areas.

The aim is to achieve a smooth effect, without damaging any major surface detail. I normally dont worry if there are a few lines showing where the sand paper has been (as generally these areas will be re-sanded later, once any gaps have been filled, but I always try to move the paper in the same direction if at all possible.

Here you can see the result across the nose of the Hammer head - notice that the major lines are now gone, and that the sanded section is fairly smooth. On the side "fins" it was much harder to get a smooth finish to the plastic, because of the difficult shape.

However, there is a large gap in this area that will need to be filled in later, so I'm not too worried. (As mentioned this will be filled and then re-sanded).

More progress reports soon. For the moment I'm off to prepare the Bad Bay Hackers for another defeat on the Blood Bowl field!

Tau Hammerhead Step by Step part 1

So after my last post, i wanted to start a new post with something 40K related - i opened my cupboard and what did i spy - The hammerhead that I've been meaning to paint for a while!

I'm going to present it as a series of linked posts, each detailing a small part of the project. Hopefully that way you guys can give me suggestions along the way, and so that i can have something to write about on the blog!

So today, im covering the basics of construction...

The first thing that i did was to remove all the parts from the sprues and ditched them all in to the box lid. Do not do this unless you have built a tau vehicle before! Its sad that ive made so many devil fish now that i dont need the instructions any more!

Once i had all the pieces i started to clean up the major components. This is quite a long winded process. First each piece has the moulding lugs trimmed down carefully using a sharp craft knife - making sure not to mark or "dig-in" to the plastic. The aim is a smooth finish, but if there are some small marks there, dont worry...

Then 800 - 1600 grade wet'n'dry sand paper is used to smooth off any bumps. When doing the sanding, you will never get all of the injection points completely smooth, usually I find that I get down to a small indentation. These are taken care of later with the help of some model filler.

One of the big problems i have with the Citadel flyers is the pitiful bases they supply them with, especially given the tiny lug they expect to hold the weight of a large plastic model.

For this model i wanted there to be a large stand for them to be mounted on - the final aim for this model is to place it on a small cityscape terrain base, so something solid would be welcome. In the end i decided to use a piece of Evergreen strip styrene. A hole was drilled in the base piece of the Hammerhead and the strip was then glued to the inside of the chassis (is that the right word?)

From the photo, you can see quite how far in to the model the stand extends - hopefully this will give extra sturdiness to the model. I have a feeling that more support may be needed in the future... but for the moment it at least makes it easier to work with!

So at the end of the first day, i have a partially constructed hammerhead. Next stage is the gap filling, which will be tackled on a future date...

On a slight aside, im testing a new blogging client, so if anyone notices anything wrong with this post (beside my usual awful spelling!) please let me know.

Tolk'fre Tau

It occurred to me this morning whilst doing some hoovering (gets you good brownie points with the wife!) that i hadnt actually put up any pictures of my Tau army. So here we go - the entire army in one post!

The original idea behind my Tau was to put together a 1000 point army as quickly and simply as possible. With previous armies i had always fallen in to the trap of trying to paint every model up to a display standard - this just doesnt work, mainly because its not unknown for me to spend upwards of 15 hours on a single model! Multiply that up and it means that you never finish a squad!
So for Tau, i chose a very simple paint scheme - Each model was undercoated with Citadel White Primer, then airbrushed with white Vallejo acrylic for a flat base coat. Each model then had certain key areas blocked in with Vallejo Cold Grey and finally the piping and edges were given a thinned coat of Stonewall grey. Tints were blocked in with Vallejo Scab Red. Each unit took about 6 hours of work, including sticking together and basing.

Now that the army is painted, and i've had some time to let it grow on me, i think the paint scheme looks good - although individual models are not even close to even my worst single miniatures, as a whole the army looks good. At some point in the future i'm gonna do a longer post on this subject (Painting vs. Army Building), but for the moment, enjoy the pictures..

HQ

 

Elites 

 

Troops 1

 

Troops 2

 

Heavy

Miniature Photography

So after my last post about miniature photography, i figured that i would try out some of what i had read, and try and improve the quality of the photography on the site.
The first thing that i did was to setup a sheet of white paper, underneath my OTT-Lite. OTT-Lites give out "daylight" (that is, light of the same frequency as daylight), so it gives a very natural look to the models. You can see this setup in the picture below

I decided to use the HQ from my Tau as these were the impetus for learning more about miniature photography - I really like my small Tau army and wanted to put it online for a few people to take a look at. Unfortunately the only photos i have of the Tau are low res phone cam pictures, not really suitable for a blog!
Once i had the miniatures setup, i placed the camera approximately 3-4 inches from them (on the picture above its about where the edge of the green cutting matt is). I then found the first problem - the OTT-Lite was casting very bad shadows, which you can see in the image below:

So i used another angle poise light that i had lying around and taped a piece of toilet tissue over it. I moved this around trying out various shots, which you can see below, in their "raw" state:

Once i had taken a couple of dozen shots, i pulled them all in to photoshop, and after consideration chose these two images to work with:

Ive only performed basic operations on these files - I've altered the size, cropping and adjusted some colour balance...

So, my first proper attempt at miniature photography is done, and i have to say, it went "kinda" well - On the plus side, the images i have captured are a lot better than the previous attempts. But the colour is still a little too blue for my liking (the greys are too blue in the images - in reality they are a much more neutral grey). Oh well! Practice makes perfect!