A little fun: Imperial march with floppies

How to: Perfect Pinning

Greetings friends,
Today I'd like to share with you how I pin models to perfection.  I know many of you dread the idea of metal models and having to pin parts together, so what if I said you do this perfectly in four easy steps?

Here's how.

Step One

Drill your holes in half of your project, in my case I used a Marine that I would like to pin to a resin base.

Step Two

Take a blob of blue tack (sticky Tack) and place it on the other half of your project where you want to make the connection with your pins.

Step Three

Press Part A (my Marine) onto the blue tack on part B.  Before you do this apply saliva to Part A, Gross I know but this prevents Part A from sticking to the Blue Tack and its Free.

Note: Most super glues are formulated to crystallize on contact with saliva, make sure you clean part A before gluing.



 

Step four.

Now use your favorite pin vice and line the bit up with the raised points on your blue tack and drill away.  Blue tack is a resilient material so you can re use it for other projects, I use mine to block off glue points when I prime as well as guide my pinning like in this guide.

That's it, done right with a little practice you now have perfect pinning.  Its simple and fast, and best of all it drastically reduces your chance of messing up the pinning on those pricy metal models.

Enjoy and have fun.

Dragon Warrior Terminator

Hello All, quick post.


Here is my first Dragon Warrior Assault Terminator.  I realized today that I had a lot of salamanders bits and ordered some more that have not arrived so I will be making use of them in my Dragon warrior army along side my own custom icons.  Most of the bits are Dragon heads and scale plating so it should come together nicely.
I still need to make a custom Dragon warrior shoulder pad for my Terminators and pin them to their proper bases.  All in all I like how he looks and cant wait to start painting my army.  Who knows I may reach my goal and have it finished by November for the local FLGS tournament.

Experiment in Molding

Much like many of you out there I wish I had more of one specific bit or piece to use on my minis.  Be it a Terminator head or shoulder pad icon or weapon.  GW likes to build its kits in ways that require us to buy multiple ones, examples are blasters in dark Eldar, Missile launchers in Space wolves, and combi weapons.  So I decided to experiment with replication of bits I plan to use for my dragon warriors.

Here is the result of my first two part Mold, The terminator helm is 100% Greenstuff and for my own use only.  On a side note, I would appreciate any tips on making Green stuff stronger.

Edits from Comments.
I used a two part mold made from insta mold. I had to make the bottom mold first then do the top. I also designed my mold halves to fit in a pair of 25mm bases. Doing that let me press the two halves in a vice to press out extra green stuff and allow it to cure. This leaves some hellish flash but that was easily cut away with a knife and steady hand.

And WarFog was kind enough to post his guide on casting with Procreate which can be found Here @ Warfog's Blog.

Incoming Dragon Warriors and shoulder pad Sculpts

Hello all,

I admit I have fallen away from the Empire,  been seduced to rebellion and alliance with Khorne.  But does this really surprise most as my fantasy army is a 90% mono Khorne army?

But keeping in line with my love for Salamanders I decided to do their renegade chapter, the Dragon Warriors.  I also do not like nor agree with the Chaos Space marine codex.  Why leave behind all that equipment and munitions when you rebel?  So I decided to use the Space Marine Codex for a rebel chapter of Dragon warriors.  This allows me to do a few things.

First use Vulcan as Captain Terellus, The leader of the Dragon warriors.  Which also leads to me having to build a new model for him to represent him WYSIWYG.
Second I don't need to buy a new marine army, or loose any of the sculpting work I have done so far.

On the note of sculpting, I am not the best in the world, in fact I just started out.  We all need to start someplace however and here is my first real sculpt, followed by the press mold duplicate.

New tool: Hobby vice

Hello all,

I have been on the hunt for a hobby advice for a little while, they seem to be rare creatures up this way.  Well I finally found one, and it was the GW hobby vice that retails for $18.00, and here are my impressions of it after a few hours of use.

First lets look at the construction, a good solid frame consisting of a solid single molded plastic base and half of the jaw.  It may be plastic but its strong and should hold up to the stresses of the hobby.  The other half of the jaw is equally as strong, and the rubber grips that hold the models/parts seem well enough. 

The biggest issue I have with this product is its suction base.  It just sucks!  I cant get this thing to grip for more then five minutes at a time, iv even tried plasticard.  It requires a non porous surface to grip to, and those are hard to find around the home (at least my home).

For $18 you will get a good starter vice, but if you are looking for something that will stay put for more then five minute intervals I would keep looking.

Something wicked this way comes

A very Happy Birthday

Celebrated my 30th birthday today with the Family and was pleasantly surprised with a gift I received.  First I got the Space marine scouts with sniper rifles I was looking into getting, they will complete my current lists, and make me happy.  The real gem was a 2nd edition Warhammer 40000 box set still in its original plastic wrap.

While it is outdated, rules wise.  I'm just happy to own a hard to get piece of my hobbies history.  This gem now has a place in my display case still sealed.

Thank you again to my family that got me this bit of history.

A Salamanders Army List

My vacation was a good one, fish where caught and eaten.  I learned how to kayak and canoe, I however got no painting done and you know what, I'm good with that.

I have been working on my salamanders army list for some time, trying to tweak it and make it full of scaly goodness.

point limit 1850
HQ
Vulkan (As a Salamanders army list this goes without saying.)

Elite
Assault terminators with TH/SS mounted in LR Crusader with MM and Extra armor.
Terminators With Cyclone Missile
Dreadnaught with Assault Cannon and Missile Launcher

Troops

10 man Tactical squad with Melta and Multi-Melta, Sargent power fist, combi-flamer, Melta bombs
Mounted in razorback

10 man Tactical squad with Melta and Multi-Melta, Sargent power fist, combi-flamer, Melta bombsMounted in razorback

4 Scouts 3 with Sniper rifles, one with Missile Launcher and Sargent Talion..

Heavy
Predator tank with auto-cannon and heavy bolters
Predator tank with auto-cannon and heavy bolters

This is a very shooty army, the idea behind the scouts is to stick them on an objective behind my lines, use the long range to dissuade anyone from approaching.  Perhaps use one of the heavy weapon combat squads to help fortify.  The assault terminators and Vulkan get rammed into the biggest CC threat you can see while the rest of the army moves to take objectives and harass your opponent with medium range fire fights.

I am by no means a master of list building and I know this one can be improved, I am open to any suggestions.