Helsreach Mercenaries - Arrabella; Peugeot 203

"Don't fuck this up", threatened Adelei Niska, his large presence adding considerable weight to the threat. "If she comes back with any damage on her, I'll do the same to y'all, one at a time, slow and steady like, and I'll enjoy it, clear?"

Adelei Niska took the crew to his garage and unveiled his pride and joy, "Arrabella", an old Peugeot 203 with raised suspension and over-powered v12 engine. She'd done a lot of missions and helped create a lot of stories with Adelei Niska as he built his reputation and eventual leadership of this province of Logan's World. But she was being brought out of retirement for this new mission; a crew of Ork Slavers had taken some human captives at the far side of Niska's patch, caused some damage and disrespected his sovereignty. He wasn't going to let it go, so he turned to his mercenaries, offered them plenty of incentive and the opportunity to take the car with them. His Maria would accompany them though, just for insurance and because he trusted her to bring Arrabella back in good condition..

You can see the construction of the car here if you missed it, so I'll start this post with the painting processes. I tried out a few new techniques on this badboy. I started with a grey primer which acted as a dull metallic undercoat. I then used some red/brown aerosol applied over this, leaving some of the grey exposed. This created a perfect base layer for my rusting techniques. For this I used a range of browns/reds/oranges mixtures all applied by dabbing a brush, I actually let the brush fall out of my grip onto the car to create a slightly random application of paint and I kept on jumping from one colour to another so there was a range of light and dark colours in any one area. It took a while and quite a few successive layers, but I found that this technique also allowed me to build up a slight texture to the finish too (none of the paints were watered down):

The above two WIP pictures are taken in daylight and show the true colours of the car, the first photo and subsequent ones are with my daylight bulb and actually increase the orange value slightly. Just goes to show that you can't beat real daylight for colour accuracy in photography..

Here you can see one of the images I researched, which helped me explore the rust colours/palette that I eventually went for. However some further research showed me that a lot of rusted out old cars still retained their shiny, chrome fixings, which provided a nice contrast to the rust colour but also a focal point. My model at this point was looking rather bland and needed some additional detail. You can see what I mean below;

So I introduced some Bare-Metal foil, which I had read about being used by serious car modellers on the net. It is incredibly easy to use and really jazzes up the finish of the car, perhaps better than paint can (unless I was to have gone down the nmm route perhaps..). Quite simply you cut a piece of foil slightly bigger than the area to which it is to be applied, use a cocktail stick to apply and push into any crevices and the material sticks to the model and retains all the detail/texture that was originally there. I used a cotton bud to burnish it into place and then a sharp scalpel to trim it back to the correct size:

I applied it to the rims of the headlights, the front grille, rear bumper and the side trim (very thin strips). I feel this really broke the model up and provided some much needed contrast. Some of the chrome then received a very fine wash of dry pigment in matt varnish, just so it wasn't so super shiny. The final stage was too add the last elements of weathering, more red oxide dry pigment, creating additional texture as to where the worst rust would occur (I assumed this would be mainly over the wheel arches from experience of my previous rust bucket cars - I 'm thinking of you Toyota Celica!) and then some oil stains around the moving parts and exhaust with Nuln Oil and finally my dusty dry pigment, applied heavily to the wheels and undercarriage to tie the vehicle into the desert landscape setting I've created for my Rogue Trader mercenary warband:

Oh and of course I added a Copplestone figure in the back, wearing fatigues and looking mean as she keeps watch with her rifle. I then actually went back to the model and added the logo on the doors, I felt the model needed something else to look at and to break up the shape. I was initially going to go for a scorpion (I wanted a desert creature) but after practising found it very hard to get an accurate shape of such a detailed critter, so instead plumped for a coiled snake. I definitely painted it too small on the whitewashed background, so had to improvise by adding the squared sign on a whim to fill a bit more space and add something extra. Snake squared I guess?

I think the only downside of using 1:43 scale cars is that they are quite narrow. I think the length is pretty much in scale, but they could do with being a touch wider for 28mm. I can't imagine two 28mm sitting side-by-side in the front...

The car kinda gets lost in my usual photo set up, with all the rusty structure in the background, so I've also taken some using a plain background, or at least my white kitchen table:

And to finish, a couple of shots of the whole gang, now with vehicle but just awaiting the last member and arch-leader of this mercenary group:

Helsreach Mercenaries - Doc Shivers and Stoksie

Stoksie is a hard bastard. He's got those eyes that penetrate you and search out your weaknesses as well as a physical presence and bulging bulk that intimidates the shit out of you. You only get to see those eyes close-up though and not many have lived to tell that tale, because Stoksie likes nothing more than to get you from a distance. By nature a loner, Stoksie teamed up with Doc Shivers because of his one fear, the fear of being hurt. He's hurt others many, many times, often in quite barbaric circumstances; the red haze descends and the innermost fears pour out in a full beserker's frenzy, so he has seen pain, caused pain, but it scares him shitless, having it done to him. He's trained his body, honed his reactions so that he will always make the first move, fire the first shot, down his man before any response is forthcoming. There's been some close-shaves on his health, but he's survived, relatively unscathed.

He took a bullet to his right bicep in the last gunfight. It hurt like fuck. He wasn't careful enough, didn't see the fourth man until it was a split second too late and took the bullet. The initial response was one of pure fury, bullets spraying with unerring accuracy and ferocity; one of his battle lusts that make him seemingly transcend his own body and operate on a different time scale to his adversaries. They didn't survive; the man who shot his arm, died looking into those eyes.

Then, the shock of mortality, the pain, the blood. He could just about deal with those, although he hated the sight of his own blood, but what scared him, really scared him, was that this wound could be the one that debilitated him, made him microscopically slower or fractionally less flexible. Worsten his performance, make him a less effective killer.

So he teamed up with Doc Shivers, a fugitive found hiding in a warehouse, on the run. He offered the Doc unshakeable protection from the Slavers who he had escaped from (and all the others that wanted their revenge upon him) in return for medical support and reassurance. Doc Shivers was more than happy to team up, especially with someone who asked for so little in return, rarely spoke and had already been brutally efficient in keeping the Doc alive.

That's all Doc Shiver's wanted, to survive. He'd swindled so, so many, charging astronomical sums for surgical work that needn't have been so complex. Performing operations that deliberately enfeebled the patient - paid for by rich clients and bounty hunters - conducted deliberately unsuccessful identity face swaps and even adding bizarre mutations on unsuspecting patients. Doc Shivers was not a man of morals, but he was a bloody good surgeon who's skills were renowned and much sought. But he had made too many enemies and needed to re-group, survive and eventually flee to a safer, location, away from his assailants. Stoksie may well be that ticket, but was certainly that protection...

These two are both from the Copplestone range of miniatures and are really nice, clean and crisp sculpts, as you'd expect from such a talented sculptor. The clean lines and crisp details make the painting experience nice and easy and there's a good amount of character and dynamism in the faces and poses.

I like the ripped clothing and the little bits of flesh poking through, break up the larger areas of fabric whilst there's always some detail to keep you interested as a painter; whether it's the sunglasses, the knee pads or the bandana. With Doc Shivers, I went for a slightly medical looking pale blue/white suit that I hoped would help make him stand out from the rest of the crew as less of a hard warrior and more of a supporting/civilian type who still knows how to look after himself with a gun.

You can see how they line up with their new mercenary chums, all dirty and dusty:

I've started work on the Mad Max style car for them (although I'm now thinking of also making some sort of camping van for the group to help transport them all around) and I'll post up some Wip photos in due course. Thanks for reading!

Adventures into 40k: Mercenaries for Helsreach

Aside from a few bolters and my scratchbuilt Freeway Fighter model, I've always steered clear of 40k. Partly because my mind is only capable of being immersed in one fantasy world and partly because I quite simply prefer swords and chainmail to Lasguns and Exo-Armour (I'm not sure if that's even a 40k thing). But inspiration found in the blogging sphere and also my new-found love of sci-fi/post apocalyptic films (in particular Firefly and Mad Max), I've slowly been seduced and convinced myself it's time to embrace Rogue Trader and all it's possibilities. Well initially some if it's possibilities as I explore the setting.


To make this be more than a hollow promise to myself, I've signed up for Whiskey Priest's: Logan's World - Helreach at BOYL 2016. So I now have a specific deadline and outline for which to work towards. So here's what I'm going to do; a band of Mercanaries with a Mad Max-esque car:

From left to right, Copplestone, Foundry, Copplestone BOYL2015 mini, Hasslefree with Citadel dragon (very much inspired by illustrations from the Rogue Trader rulebook and JB's wonderful version), Hasslefree, Foundry and Copplestone.

I don't have any 40k figures lying around, so the idea was to quite simply choose some of my favourite sculpts from a range of online retailers, focusing on characterful and dynamic sculpts. It feels satisfying to buy from small independent companies and I didn't want to scour Ebay for old Rogue Trader models, mostly because I don't have any nostalgic attachment to the old sculpts.


I'll be painting these up with a dusty, worn and battle-hardened appearance.


But this crew need a vehicle, or at least I have the itch to kitbash and modify a model car into something dark and futuristic:

1:43 scale works best I've found and I got hold of this Heller Peugeot really cheap. I'll use the chasis and futurise it with some wheels and exhausts from the plastic Ork Warbikes. Amongst this lot you can also see some guitar wire (perfect for tubing), some old computer components (perfect for raised engines), some platicard, plastic rods, my tiny collection of 40k guns, some gauze and some Zinge Industry bits to help modify the car.

 For inspiration I've been looking at the following inspiration from Google Images (apologies for giving no credit to the original owners):

 

So my version will be loosely based upon these, but generally made up as I go along with what "feels" right within the limitation of the bits I have gathered. The biggest modifications will be raising up the vehicle, cutting away the back to create a gunning platform and adding a roof rack.

My very first obstacle was that the plastic Ork bikes come with 4 different wheels and only one of them seemed suitable for making the car more of an off-road, raised buggy. Initially I was exploring just buying the bitz separately, but then I remembered I had some InstaMold lying around. Perfect opportunity to use it again (last time was to mold some plaguebearer stomachs for my beastmen):



Hot water to soften the Instamold, the bitz embedded in the mold and some tweezers.

The impression left by the wheel is pretty sharp. A little bit of detail is lost but these wheels will be weathered and muddied when painted, so no biggie.

And with the cured greenstuff removed from the molds, crisp enough for me. All I need to do now is smooth down the backs, join them together and fill any gaps. Another couple of sets to do, enough so I have  spare wheel to add to the baggage.

 

Next up I'm going to paint a few of the figures and cut and build the shit out of that car!