Producing 4 - Nurgle Probe

Okay, still on a Nurgle theme, this next project was inspired by the following: the Training Remote from Star Wars A New Hope, strange jellyfish creatures i seem to recall from 2000AD's Rogue Trooper and the "face" is a complete homage to the monster in Space 1999's "Dragons Domain" episode.
Out of the above, its the Rogue Trooper creatures that i'm imagining this fella to be like - a barely sentinent biomass encased in armour that hovers above the battlefield, moving ahead of the troops, spying out the enemy lines and reporting back.
Anyway, on with the building. Above you can see i've finished that part with the addition of the tendrils. I'd made each one out of Green Stuff and, when they'd gone hard, i removed the small piece of clear rod and superglued each in place.
When that was done i inserted a length of sprue held in place with Blu Tac into where the rod had been and primed in grey.
Then a basecoat of GW "Catchan Green".
Then a good stipple of GW "Gretchin Green". I didn't use the Mr Surfacer before any of the painting stages as i knew i was almost out of the "Gretchin Green" and figured it'd go on thick and gloopy and add texture. Which it did.

Nurgle Drone - done.

All finished and, as he's one of my "build something, sell something, buy something" projects to actually fund money to buy kits, is on sale now.
Type "Nurgle Drone" on eBay and you should find it if you're interested.

Keeper Of Secrets - done

Here she is. Kind of pleased how she's turned out - but didn't think it would be as much of a slog with such an expensive kit.

Producing 4 - can you tell what it is yet?

Okay, another "build, sell, buy stuff" project and its a real quick one.
First up, cut a hole in a pingpong ball, fill with plaster of paris then bung a small length of rod in it while it sets.
When set, cut a circle in the ball, gouge out some of the hard plaster of paris to make a recess, fill the recess with Green Stuff and detail it, cover the outside of the ball with tiny sticky gems and tiny kit parts.

Cursed Earth Land Raider

Talk turned recently on the 2000AD Forum to the Land Raider that was used in the Judge Dredd "Cursed Earth" epic. Its rather infamous for being a blatent merchandise tie-in with Matchbox's Adventure 2001 toy range.
I really rather liked it, especially how you had two craft joined together that could split when needed.
I've had it in mind to buy them and repaint them to make them more miniatues and this talk was the spur that i needed.
Managed to buy this here front one very cheaply and, after prising it open, i had these pieces.
Looking at the tale, it looks like the exterior is pretty much exactly right on the toy, so that's not a prob to match.
Interiors a bit of mystery but i'm thinking i've got to stick with light greys as i'm keeping the orange windows and want the detail to be seen.

Nurgle Submarine - nearly there

Had a real long shift at work by meself so took the chap along with me. Tow pretty crappy pics here, but it gives you an idea where i'm going with this.

Nurgle Submarine.

Yep, its a submarine now. What i love about scratchbuilding is how things can change mid-build and you end up with a colour scheme or even a purpose completely different to how you'd envisiged it.
Case in point here - i put on the other Febreeze pieces as armour plating, bunged a couple of Star Wars toy guns cut down as side weapons, then put on two 1/44th funnels as wings, still thinking of it as a flying machine.
Soon as i did that though, the whole thing changed.
They weren't wings, they're fins and the whole thing looks like a fish.
Thought it even more after i'd put the tail on and applied Mr Surfacer to tie everything together and give the smooth areas a nice dimpled effect.
And even more once i'd primed it.
Dunno if Nurgle use submarines but i'm going to paint it as one. If they don't then i've got a very rusty flying fish.

Cruise Martian - head section.

As i'm going my own way with the colour scheme, i had to decide what to do with the lovely underside of the cowl area. So this is what i've done.

Daemon Prince - all done

Here he is, all poxed up and grungy as hell. Love him.

SHAKARA! - starting the painting

I've turned to the co-creator of this fella, artist Henry Flint, as to jst what colours he'd see things being if the strip was in colour - if you've not read it (and why not?) its all black and white except for Shakara's red eyes.
Henry's been great and given me a breakdown on just how he see's things.
So here's the start: all metal areas to be battleship grey with rust and oil in places. So i've primed in black then lightly sprayed grey primer for the basecoat.
Next step is to hand paint all the detail around the eyes to match it.

Keeper Of Secrets - nearly done

Here i am washing a bit here, drybrushing a bit there, tidying things up all over. You can see i've blocked in the ringlet things on here head tendrils in dark brown. That was with a view to then putting on gold to match her other adornments - but i really like how they are, a sort of a porcupine look, so they're staying as is.

Cruise Martian - base

Base is all done and i've picked out the Red Weed in white as red is notorious for being translucent so i need the base for it as bright as possible if i want them to stand out.
I've also picked out the title in white and had a view to doing them in either red or green but (A) both colours would clash to much on those that will already be there, (B) i quite like the patchy way its gone on, so its staying as is.

Building 3 - another Nurgle Drone

I'm knocking Building 2 on the head for now as i've taken on board what Andrew here and others elsewhere have advised - if i want to sell, aim it at the gaming market.
Which is a really good idea.
Biggest of that of course is Games Workshop - but the hardware for each race has a very distintive style, and i don't fancy slavishly emulating that.
The exception is Chaos as they're, er, chaotic and that offers up all kinds of possibilties for builds.
Favourite of the four Chaos types is, as i'm sure you've figured by now, Nurgle and i had real fun a while back making my own take on their "Blight Drone".
So, thought i'd have another go.
Here we are with the basis for it - the black section is the torso from an old Gundam kit of mine, the white bit is an engine block from a truck kit, the black wing is from the same robot the torso came from and the long blue piece is the arm and hand from another Gundam kit. I'll be taking the fingers off that and having the whole piece as a tail for the craft.
On to the top of the black piece i've stuck a cut-down part of a Febreeze spray head. These are great - lovely compound curves made from an easily cuttable plastic that sticks real well with Superglue.
I'll be adding more of these shapes top and bottom as armour covering up the workings.
Oh, and i've filled holes in the black part with Green Stuff for the living mass that will be inhabiting the craft.

Killer Screamer - done

Blimey, that was a good way of showing me that colour schemes and techniques that work on modern sculpts on the likes of the Malanthrope and Lictor sure don't work on the open, featureless areas of older one's...

Keeper Of Secrets - more done

Okay, slowly getting there with her face and i'm starting to block in colurs on other areas.
What i hadn't realised until now is that her bra cup is attached by piercing it through skin in that area - so will have to go back and fix that.

SHAKARA! - assembled

Been a long dealy on this as i'd used up my B&Q's stock of "1mm Curb Chain" and two other stores just didn't stock it.
Suprised this morning to see my local one had some more back in so bought another 5 metres to finish him off.
Get it home and - bugger - they've slightly changed the shape of the links. Oh well, nothing i can do about that so on it went and so did the Clout Nails for his spikes.
Switched him on and, hurrah!, the lights still work.
Next up is priming in black, which hopefully will pull everything together and stop it looking so dorky.

Squig

Making room in the cabinet for that Herald, i came across this cute little scene. Still like it so thought i'd show it.

Nurgle Herald finished

This chappies all done and he's been great fun to do - wish all figures were as much of a joy.

Cruise Martian - progress

Okay, skins nearly done, floorboards are, and just starting to pick out the debris

Screamer Killer - halfway

Here's the chap with his lighter sections, mouth and eyes done

Keeper Of Secrets - skin done

Here she is based in Bleached Bone and then pastelled. Been thinking since i bought her just what to do colour-wise. The point of Slaanesh is that they're beautiful but in a disturbing way, bright but dark at the same time.
Usually, that means regular skin tones with pastel or vibrant appendages. But what works in 25mm scale i'm thinking won't work on a bigger figure.
So, am leaving the skin pale like this, with minimal shading and for the tentacles and claws i'm going the purply route i went with this far earlier Keeper Of Secrets. Just got to try and remember what i did...

Screamer Killer

Really loved this figure back in the 80's, what with its crab-like body and odd face. Never got one because (A) the paintjobs in White Dwarf always put me off (B) back in those days waaay before the Net or even Games Workshop stores, the only way i had of buying figures was picking up any that appeared in (oddly thinking about it now) Boots The Chemists.
Anyway, checking the GW Site for reference pics for my Keeper of Secrets, i've stumbled onto the Tyranid section, which has given me a hankering to have another go at them. Rather than a current model though, thought i'd finally pick up this ancestor of them.
So, four quid spent got me this built and painted one:


First up was to put him in a bag, spray Mr Muscle oven cleaner in, close the bag and leave overnight.
Opening it up the next day i was surprised to see the paint still on him - usually its turned to soup by then. Think its because the previous owner had put a LOT of coats of paint on, followed by multiple varnishes. That was ok though as it did come off, peeling away from the metal like latex.
That's when i realised there was a heck of a lot of paint on there - what i thought were smooth areas suddenly had detail when i took the paint off, especially that rib area under the chin.
Anyway, after a lot of peeling, i had him clean and in pieces as the oven cleaner had dissolved the glue:


Here he is this morning, re-assembled and primed in white. Colour-wise, i'm going the flesh/green scheme i've started for all my Tyranids:

Keeper Of Secrets - white

Here she is all done, base covered and primed with grey then white. Must say, she's been a right pig to build and that's a real suprise, what with the prices Forgeworld command.