A hell of a tank...

At long last, I have painted that conversion bit for the Secret Weapon RAV 6 x 6 which you saw in earlier posts.

In this case, it would be the equivalent of a Hellhound, Devil Dog, etc.

If you recall, all I had to do was razor saw the rear section from the turret and magnetize the container bit.  It fit perfectly!  Of course, you could use scale barrels (which Secret Weapon makes!) or make you own from polystyrene tubing.

When you combine this bit with the heavy flamer option, it certainly gives the impression of the flame and chem spitting tanks of Imperial Guard fame.  Yes, I am still refusing to use the 'new' name. :-)

Another nice view of that bit.  I have some freehand that I will apply to it, but I want to get me numbering scheme more locked in before that happens.

This shows you how easy it is to switch out!

And voila!  A whole new tank.  It could be a Chimera, even a Leman Russ if you want (especially if you make something like the side skirts that I made for the Exorcist).

I love how easy it is to change the hull weapon, as well as the turret.

You don't have to add something like this to the back of the turret, but it was pretty simple, and it added so much!

I still do not call the beloved Highlanders by the new name...

Should you be displeased by a certain new vehicle that begins with the letter "T", you could certainly think about using the RAV 6 x 6 from Secret Weapon.

Next, I will show the Immolator version!  Hot stuff coming from the Sisters!

The original conscripts

I snapped a few series of pictures of the conversions that I used as conscripts for the Adepticon army.  I can't remember if these are from Wargames Factory or Warord Games... but the original minis were the Ancient Celts.

By adding a few spare Imperial Guard bits (not calling them by the 'new' name), they instantly became more of a 40k creation.

I gave them the striped pants to create the impression that they were not quite worthy of the tartans of their loftier battle brothers.

They still had their battle woad, however!

Leaping ahead...

I realize that this is leaping out of sequence, but the camera that has the images of the roof construction is in the parking lot right now!

So, you get treated to the first images of the army and completed board together!

Actually, this was my first view of it as well, since I had to paint one of the squads from 2:30 this morning until 6:30 am... that was very rough, and very frantic!  There was a point where I really thought it was not going to work out...

Somehow I was able to stick with it, and keep pressing ahead no matter what.  I am on hour 53 with just 2 hours sleep, so this post will be mostly just pictures :-)

I was so rewarding to see it all together!  This project in particular was very daunting, given all the other mayhem going on around it.

I was also nice for Victoria to see it just before the first round was to begin.  Many thanks to her and Mr. Justin for helping make it all possible!

Thanks to Cathy, Ray, Rich, Jon, Caius, Domus, Marty, Dennis and many others for giving me so much help in so many ways.  This was the one project that had to succeed, regardless of physical and mental costs :-)

Thanks to everyone for stopping by with kind words... and votes as well!!!

Yes, I love my new cart!  It made it incredibly easy to move everything around!

The windows had just the blue glow I was looking for with the LED lights!  Yes!!!!

Let there be light!

OK!  On to the windows... the key element to the entire structure.  Originally, I was going to paint them all with a special paint on acetate, but time would not allow for that.

Plan B was the only thing I could think of, and that was printing them out on inkjet transparencies.

Fortunately Ray (of Offworld Designs fame) had some sheets, and he sent them home with Cathy

I manipulated as many as I could in Photoshop to make more unique windows.  I didn't want to repeat the same one over and over again!

Here's one of the printed sheets.  I have to say, the old Epson 1280 did a decent job with them!

The the hard part of attaching the 40+ windows began!!

I was lucky that a small amount of wood glue was enough to hold them in place.  I didn't want to risk super glue fogging up the plastic sheets, as happens with canopy windows.

I was also glad that I had done all the walls in sections.  It would have been brutal to glue them in reaching through the columns, etc.

Working on the upper level pieces!

Shiny!

The blue glow of Chartres was just what I was after!!!!

It got a little tedious after so many windows, but it was worth it in the end.

The upper levels rise!

Now some interior shots...

A few of the columns in place!

Just when you thought you saw the last of the marble...

Not true!  Much more marble to come!  Now you shall see why all the Sisters have been mounted on the green marble bases.

I used that same approach as I did on those pedestals I showed you over the weekend.  Once it got to a certain point, I started to place the icon in the center of the knave.

Still just general outlines at this point.

I found a few container lids of various sizes, and marked off the areas that needed to be more precise.

I started to fill in a bit of the colors...

I wanted to match a few elements from that big base you have seen in a number of posts!

Just about ready to go!  I have even started working on a few cracks through the lettering and such.

Cracks are now highlighted, and it's ready to go!!!

The Sisters approve!

Here's the platoon standard bearer... flag looks a tad bit familiar, doesn't it?

You can really see how the breakdown of all the individual parts made this so much easier.  It would have been a true nightmare trying to reach in there to do all this!!

I didn't forget the columns!  Again, same technique with the filbert brush creating those veins.

I had a few advantages as I was doing the marble on the floor and the columns.  The floor was covered in magnetic primer, which meant that my paint stayed wetter for longer.  

The same for the foam on my columns.  This not only meant wet into wet blending, but I could use my fingers to wipe away bits where needed.

Painting the board: part one!

Actually, there were numerous things that had to be added before I could even start to think about painting the board.

I had a ton of little details that I wanted to add, in the form of very thin pink foam strips.  Time considerations meant less, which was a bit of a bummer.

More of the strips will be added to some of the roof sections, however...

Remember how I said that this was made in a modular fashion?  Here you go!  Breaking it down for ease of painting (and attaching the windows, but that is a later post).

It was a little scary to break it all down, but kind of neat as well!  I just had to make sure I kept all the parts at least somewhat organized.

Everything laid out for painting the interior surfaces!

Before I could paint the ground level, I wanted to add at least a little texture.  Normally, I would use Oxide Paste, but that was running very low, and I didn't think I would have enough of it.

So, I mixed Flex Paste in with various rocks and gravel.

Here's what it looked like.  You can see that I have left some gaps for the Aegis Defense Line.

Magic primer time!  Those of you familiar with all my other terrain projects know how I love to use this magnetic primer.  It is very heavy, but it means that lighter magnetized miniatures will stick to it relatively well.

You can barely see the outlines of a metal plate in this shot.  The metal is designed to hold metal miniatures that are using rare earth magnets.

As that dried, I painted the interior surfaces of the walls.  These would be a little lighter than the outer walls.

And now for the outer walls.  A little less brown, and more black mixed in.  Not too dark, since I wanted other details to be included.

In this picture, you can see that I have been doing a bit of weathering on the panels.  It is much easier to to do when they are not glued in place!

That proved to be very critical...  This modular form made painting so much easier, as well as the putting in the windows.

Stay tuned for painting the inner floor of the Cathedral of the Raven!