Pods to Drop Lands to Speed (Part 16)

And I have completed this model! But first let's go through the final steps that got me to this point:

"Which way to the fight?"

As I talked about in part-15 I put some focus onto the Typhoon Missile Launchers. Again, these are the plastics from the Dark Angel sprue, escaping their inglorious fate to be installed onto Space Wolf vehicles where they will carry out missions worthy of the Sagas.

Typhoon Launchers primed. 

Typhoon Missile Launchers basecoated.

As I put the final layers on the missiles I did another pass over the whole  vehicle making sure I got the highlights where I wanted them and that I didn't overlook any details.
Finally, I applied the decals. Always a tedious mission and I am always thankful for Micro-Set!

Decals!

Then came the mounting of the Typhoon Launchers. This act formally completed this model!

Front view.

All-in-all, I think it came out very well!

Passenger side view.

Again, this is Landspeeder Typhoon 2 of 3. However I am numbering them backwards. #1 is going to be completely built from the start as it is still on the sprue. I am thinking I might make that one magnetic  like I did the Celestial Lions Land Speeder back in the previous winter.

Rear 3/4 view of the icons.

Here is a hobby tip regarding the flight stands: petroleum jelly. Vasoline. I know you guys have this stuff on hand, but here is an application for it that I find works brilliantly for the ball joint that came with these old Landspeeders. Apply/smear some onto the ball and snap the ball into the joint. Rotate it around gently and slowly to coat the interior well. You will find that the model will hold up fine with it and that you can detach it from the flight stand without the ball joint snapping off inside of the well. (That was a hard lesson learned BTW).

A handy tip. 

Here is the glamor shoot. I had hoped to get a natural lighting pic from outside, but at this time it is snowing, cloudy and wet, and I would rather not mess this up. Shame, cause it has been awhile since I took any Space Wolf pics using a snowy background. So here is a "top of toolbox red" pic instead.

The glamor shot.

For those keeping count, I have another Landspeeder Typhoon in this series, another Landraider Crusader, about 3 more Drop Pods. I have not a glimmer of a time table on these things. But I will say it will likely be a whim when I do get back this series. Meanwhile, I have three other Space Wolf projects I am actively working on: Primaris Intercessors, a squad of Scouts, and the occasional Wolfguard Terminator. Until then,

Pods to Drop and Lands to Speed (Part 15)

All coming together.

Continuing on from last time, I kept on adding layers to the hull. Space Wolves Gray was thinned down to blend in with the Russ Grey mid-coat. A solid layer of Space Wolves Gray was applied to the edges to tighten it all up before the final highlight of White Scar was thinly painted onto the edges. The left shoulder pads were painted up from Fiery Orange to yellow using thin-to-thick layers of Sunburst Yellow. And the bronzey bits were painted using a base of Tin Bitz, followed by new color I recently got called Hashut Copper with a highlight of Shinning Gold.

Highlights added on the hull.

The Grey Hunter pack markings were sketched onto the side using a red micron. This was more like a guide line though...

Micron guide line.

...as I just free-handed over this with Scab red and Chaos Black. Mephiston Red was the final color applied to this.

Grey Hunters pack marking.

Up to this point I had not looked at the first Typhoon model I painted way long ago (not directly anyway) so I thought it was time to dig it out to compare it. All in all, it's pretty damn close! The biggest difference, paint scheme wise, is how I highlighted the front plate of these speeders. The older one is a tad bit darker, but it's not too contrasting I think.

Typhoons together again.

And yes, the real difference is the lack of Typhoon Missile Launders on the newer model. In fact there is a bit of a story here as to why that is. You see, ages ago I bought 3 blister packs from GW of the metal versions. However, these are very solid and heavy accessories and they bust off of the finished model a lot. You may notice the missiles are a bit crooked in the above pic because the last time they were glued on it was during a game; a battlefield repair if you will.

The original pewter Typhoon Missile Launchers.

So my set of missile launchers have been kicking around in the Portable Neverness Kit  for years now and I just couldn't bring myself to do a second one of these things that I would have to repair all the time. Enter the Dark Angels Accessory Sprue:

The plastic Dark Angel Typhoon Missile Launchers.

Light weight, multipart,  better detailed and fairly easy to build... it is the perfect solution! Added bonus: no lame Dark Angel nonsense that would need to be scrapped off! Now, let's see if I can get it painted in our next part.

Pods to Drop and Lands to Speed.(Part 14)

When I left to go out of town on a few recent trips for business, I took the Portable Neverness Kit with me. My intention was to work, once again, on my neglected drop pod  as well as the intercessors I started on back in October. However, while getting everything set up for a round of furious painting I discovered a basecoated Landspeeder Typhoon within my portable kit. For some reason I was more compelled to work on this than the intended Drop Pod. Go figure.

Base coat.

You might recall that I have always intended to produce three of these things. The first Typhoon was completed back in the early days of this blog. I guess I had always intended to work on this model while I was on the road for work, but usually I found that I was tired from traveling to get much accomplished. This is why that 2nd Drop Pod has been an exercise in tedium. Also, I rarely travel to the degree that I stay in hotels all that much anymore, so the chances to work on it are far less frequent.

Russ Grey layer.

Now, during one of my recent travels my phone, a Samsung Note 5, decided to brick itself. Just dropped dead and died. It happened a few hours before I was supposed to catch a flight home which made that trip quite challenging indeed. Luckily I had my tablet with me so I was able to communicate to some extent. I lost all of my photos, some of which were saved for future blog posts. They just were not backed up to Google Photos like I thought they were. No worries, now I have Samsung Note 9 which I am just loving. However the camera is far more advanced and I am having some adjustment struggles. You can see in these photos that, despite their clarity, they tend to be a bit washed out. I assure you that the model isn't this bright in reality.

Tin Bitz base. 

Following the steps I usually take for painting Space Wolves, the hull and armored areas are now pretty much done. Just need some final highlights. I have decided not to go with the orange-to-yellow scheme on the aquila chest plates of the crew, but instead go with a metallic scheme. I think all of my Space Wolves will go this way ultimately as I simply like this look better (as well as the fact that they are much easier to paint). I use Tin Bitz for the base coat of this scheme.

Space Wolf Grey layer. 

With time a precious and fleeting commodity as of late, and my struggling with getting anything done, I have persisted enough to be able to show off some progress here. All that said, I hope to get more done on this thing (and other things) soon.

Pods to Drop and Lands to Raid (and Speed) Pt. 10

It's been awhile since we got anywhere with this thread huh? With time pressed as it is, although I've been working on this project I wasn't to a point where I felt good about sharing anything. Well here it is the final step on the Land Speeder Typhoon:

Here we are, after what seems like 2 months worth of procrastination -yes, this has been done since January and I'm just today gluing the bloody missiles on!

And presto! -It's finally together!

So after a few minutes holding each rocket pod on, I was finally satisfied that the glue would hold! These are the original metal parts and they're solid and heavy! I was afraid that they would be too heavy and cause the speeder to tilt on the ball joint, but no, this has held together well so far.

Here's some outdoors shots in natural lighting:

I'm very pleased with the red rockets. So much so that I think I will go back to the 1st drop pod (not much progress on the 2nd one since the last time I brought it up BTW) and repaint the rockets red, as they contrast so much better than the white ones do.

 Bird's eye view. I notice in the pic that the passenger side rockets are slightly off a bit... considering that I just used super glue and the likelihood of if separating during transport I figured I would wait until the inevitable separation before worrying about it further.

Turned out well for a model I fished out of the trash about 10 years ago huh?

So, two more of these to go! And for this column (the Pods to Drop & Lands to Raid) I still have:

• Minor touch ups on the Land Raider Crusader
• A 2nd Land Raider Crusader  (Mhahaha!)
• 2 more Land Speeder Typhoons
• and about 3 more Drop Pods.

Not counting any Space Wolf foot troops.

Oh, and with recent developments in my Dark Heresy game, the Dark Eldar have all but been calling out to me for paint and assembly... :)

Pods to Drop and Lands to Raid (and Speed) pt.9

Here I am on the road for business, and I have my Portable Neverness kit with me. Today I found time to do something with these minis. I worked a bit on the Landspeeder Typhoons. The one in the rear in this pic I tightened up the base coat, but now I'm contemplating ripping the crew out of it like I did for the one in the foreground. In short, I added a thin Skull-White highlight on the Space Wolf Gray top-coat, finished the pack marking on on the rear support, highlighted the black on the on the Multi-melta, and applied some more decals.

Here you can see the highlight on the gunner, and the decals (the number on top of the pack marking, and the Chapter symbol). I really had to resist painting that field yellow, deciding to not go all 'retro-2nd edition'. Maybe on the next one...?

Here is a view of the main hull with the white highlight. I'm having difficulty liking the angle that the multi-melta will sit once it's mounted. A friend suggested I just clip off the 'U' shaped mount and let it lay a bit lower. So, the only things left to do to the model is drill a hole for the ball joint (the original owner filled it in! Gah! I JUST noticed this! and I don't have the pin-vice with me), and finish painting the flesh on the pilot. And probably touch up his chest plate. I could have glued on the missile launchers tonight, but I'm not sure how well they would survive the trip home (remember, these are the original metal ones!). There were a few other details I wanted to hit, but hotel lighting generally is not fitting for miniature painting, and even with moving lamps around (haha, roomservice might hate me tomorrow!) it just wasn't as good as being at home. I did like the hight of the table and it was nice on the back, which has me thinking about making some changes to the painting station at home.

Ok, now finally, after 9 posts, we have progress on the Drop Pod #2. I've been hauling the box around for months and dabbing paint on the sprues ever since my first blog showing off the 'Portable Neverness' kit.

This was how I did the 1st one (see the 1st post in this series) and the Land Raider Cruesader (BTW, I've been working on the sponson Las Cannons as well, but just didn't think they were picture worthy yet). I just paint the components on the sprue so as not to lose anything and for better handling. I just finished the base coat early, and will soon move on to the mid-coats.

That's it for now!

-Neverness

Pods to Drop and Lands to Raid (and Speed) part 8

It's been a long time since I was able to focus on some mini painting, but this weekend I made a bit of progress on the Land Speeder Typhoon (that I haven't touched since...late June?) In the pic above you can see where I have touched up the middle coat, and worked on the Aquila emblem on the front as well as the shoulder pads of the crew.

This pic is a focus on the gunner. The chest Aquila gave me a real challenge. Ideally I would like to paint these models in a disassembled state prior to building them, but the necessities of having a field able army that doesn't look like a pack of cripples sort of gets in the way of this practice. Typically for Space Wolves I base the Aquila on the chest with Fiery Orange, then mid-coat with varying degrees of Sunburst Yellow before topping it off with highlights of Bad Moon Yellow and a dash of Skull white. But, this rarely works as the Bad Moon yellow, it not thick enough, can give off a bizarre greenish cast or worse, run into the grooves. There for a few strategic applications of brown ink helps contrast the grooves, and a muted wash of orange ink will help mute the yellow a bit, before adding few additional highlights of the yellows. I feel this is not very rewarding work however, and since I'm liking the bronze/gold effect on the Aquila on the front of the Speeder (and the Drop Pod -see 1st entry in this series) I'm tempted to try this out on the next Wolf Pack that I paint.

Here are the collected parts of the Typhoon, I finally painted the launchers choosing to make the warheads red (I have made them white on past models, but ultimately feel that the red contrasts better).

As further proof of my old school cred:

When I did the original Land Speeder a few years back I opted to use these decals. Having used the classic 'Ragnar' style decals over the years, I found them to be a source of frustration, especially trying to apply them to the unforgiving curvature of the Space Marine shoulder pads. In an effort to be unique, and to bring my army around full circle, I've decided to use this style for my army's company markings. Also, I feel this mixes well with the newer style, and so my army will contain a mix (sometimes on the same model) of these emblems.

...and here they are, applied to the two crew members, Also note that the Landspeeder Typhoon now has it's final highlight of Skull White on the hull and the marines.

Just a few more steps and this will be done!

_Joel

Pods to drop and Lands to Raid (and Speed--Part 7)

Just when I thought I had left on a business trip with out my pics, I find them! So, here's an update. While last home, I found myself somewhat surprised to find that on e-bay the Land Raider Crusader bits I wanted to get extras of were going for more than the cost of just buying the sprue out-right from GW! Amazing! While pondering my next move I found myself working on the Landspeeder Typhoon that can be seen throughout these 'Pods to drop' articles (funny that I'm not currently working any Drop Pods, but I like the title!). So there I was working on the model, when I decided it was time to put the pack markings on their right shoulder pads. However I quickly discovered that trying to get a brush into those spaces, especially one dabbed in red paint, was far too messy and futile than I had suspected. If you've been following this series so far, you might have gauged that I like to build these models after I paint them to avoid having areas my paint can't reach. Therefore I was left with no choice but to get a bit crude and rip the gunner out!

Another thing that had bothered me about the gunner was that whoever the person was that assembled this model (I think I wrote before that I pulled this out of a garbage can at an old FLGS) was trying to get a more dynamic pose for the gunner, so their solution was to hack the bar that the gun is supposed to be mounted on, so that it rested lower. When I reassemble this, I will remount the gun back onto the bar, and just apply 'battle damage' to the area with the damaged bar. As you can see with this pic, the driver has a vast area where my paint was not able to reach, as well as the back side of the gunner and the area he sits at.

This other pic shows that the gunner's legs were difficult to reach too. I know that while being used in the game, the likelihood that anyone would spot this would be slim, but it would just bother me if anyone could.

Here is the detached gunner, and you see the very limits to where my paint could reach. Again, although the likelihood of the gunner's back being spotted is slim, the shoulder pad would definitely me an annoyance.

Here you can see that I did the base coat for the pack markings and touched up the Shadow Gray base coat.

Another thing that bothered me was the tail of the Land Speeder. In the top image, you can see that the previous owner put it on backwards. While liked this because it distinguished it from the other one I have built already, I always thought it was a bit fragile. Scrutinizing it while working on it, I decided that this was just fricking stupid, and tore it off. After all, the 'flaps' were backwards!

It's subtle, but you might be able to detect a slight 'bowing' in the center of this tail. Not sure how to fix that...

Here you can see that I have touched up those hard to reach spaces. The driver was secured a bit too firmly, but having the driver out was enough to enable me to get a brush into those tight areas. Having base coated those spots, I then applied the pack marking base coats. This picture really shows off the barren spot where the heavy bolter was, and where I'm going to have to apply battle-damage.

And this is pretty much were I left off! More updates on this, and the Land Raider, in about a week!

-Joel

Pods to Drop and Lands to Raid (part Six)

It's been a long week since I've been back and it doesn't feel like I've spent as much time on my painting projects as I would have liked. However, I did manage to get the bulk of the highlights done:

I have also added a base coat of 'Tin Bitz' paint to the frag defenders, the imperial eagle, and to the numerous skull icons that cover this tank. Not all of these icons will end up the same color in the end, the skull icons and imperial eagle will end up a goldish color in the end.

I also worked on the Storm Bolter gunner:

Applied the highlights to his armor, brought the orange on the shoulder pad up yellow and painted his head. I need to paint the 'cog-boy' symbol on his red shoulder and bring the flesh up to another level and this piece will be about done. I also the same to the Land Speeder:

However the land speeder and crew still need the Space Wolf Grey and Skull White highlights that the Land Raider now has. This is proving to be a challenge to properly paint the crew, and when I build the third Typhoon, it will be assembled like this and the Drop Pods, and painted while still on the sprue. The crew will definitely be painted before assembly. Detailing the right shoulder pads of both of the crew will be a real challenge...

++++BONUS UPDATE FROM THE FRONT+++

On Saturday night I led the Wolves to battle versus the treacherous Aurora Chapter and their fiendish overseer Da Masta Cheef, who sought to seize the spoils of war for their own. It was a fierce battle (fought mostly against my dice, whom I assume have been selling their allegiance to my foes for sometime now) but I focused on the two objectives by keeping my troops on the objective in my deployment zone, and focusing on riding the fiendish traitor from his. The comedy of my dice rolling saw about 8 terminators brought down in the 2nd turn (note, about 6 of these deaths were 2+ saves!!!) and my Runepriest Terminator gibbed by a treacherous scout team. My Lone Wolf was particularly heroic, wiping out a squad all by himself, and fending off the hail of fire by the Aurora snipers (he would find his glorious death only in the after match). It was a fun game, in spite of the wretched dice. Da Masta Cheef's dice started to crap out on him in the 2nd half of the battle, so clearly the dice gods were not pleased with us. Somehow, despite my grueling loses I managed to get a victory, technical though it was. We continued on even after victory was formally declared just to see how things would've worked out if we played to the death, and I clearly lost! Keep an eye on this blog http://www.dlwdg.blogspot.com/  to see if the Da Masta Cheef writes a blog about this fight.

That's all for now,
-Joel

Pods to Drop and Lands to Raid (part 3 -and speed)

Here we are at the Land Raider's current state. I've been working on it off an on for over a week now, but this week so far I've devoted very little time to it due to work. Over on the right side of the pic is a Landspeeder Typhoon.

I painted up and inserted the headlights into the track guards. These things are annoying to paint right as the metal bars that shield the lamps catch all the paint, yet are themselves so hard to paint. I tried to use some clever to toning techniques with them but I'm afraid they just look wretched. I saw some examples today using solid colors for these that work well, and will try that with the thing I do with lights like this.

The first of the Hurricane Bolter sponsons. I'm finding these frustrated. Having seen the metal one, which the parts move very smoothly, I'm frustrated that these plastic parts are so stiff. So much so that the damned guns popped off when I was playing around with it later on.

And here is the Land Speeder. This is currently painted up to the 'mid-coat' standard. I have a few more layers to apply before it's done. I decided to bring it out and paint it along side the Land Raider so I can get them to the same standard, and get them both done at the same time. This will be one of three Land Speeder Typhoons that I have. This particular land speeder was not built by me, and if you look closely you can see some horrible mistakes. I found this on the top of a trashcan at a (now closed) local gaming store. It was beat to hell and clearly unloved. I adopted it and decided to 'polish the turd' so to speak and restore it to a prominent glory. It has served in most of my Space Wolves armies ever since.

So what do you think of the new camera?

-Joel

BTW, if you know me but don't know Corey, check out his blog:
http://dlwdg.blogspot.com/
It was the inspiration for doing this one!