The Dragon's Den

[Dragon Lord]

Ok, apologies for the lame title, I couldn't help myself Anyway I decided to start a log for my various projects, in part to motivate me to get them done!

First up my current big project a Chaos Stormblade:



Very much a work in progress at the moment, the hull and blastgun haven't been glued yet, the hull still needs a bit of hot water treatment to bend it into shape before I can actually. As you can see so far what I've done is make a 'super-sponson' by taking two normal sponsons and connecting them with plasticard. This is going to be the command vehicle of a Word Bearer Dark Apostle and so eventually will be heavily converted, I'm going to add a pulpit/platform to the side of the turret structure from which the dark apostle can preach. I'm also going to extend the turret structure back over the engines and add some more bulk on top too that will later accomodate an organ and organist.
Here are some pics of cardboard mock-ups I've done of the turret extension and the template for the pulpit:




The smaller box on top of the turret in the last picture is very much just a temporary thing to check sizes, I'm not going to show a pic of it from the front because it is just so ugly, I think I need to bevel some of the edges to stop it looking too blockish. Anyway the reason I posted a pic of it from the back is because I'm not sure its big enough to take the organ and I'm not quite sure what to do about it. The front part of it is sized to fit into an existing recess in the turret and avoid covering up too many of the interesting details, obviously I can extend the rear part of it sideways out towards the edges of the turret extension but I'm not sure if that will be enough. One thought that occured to me is that where the sides of the extension go in to meet with the engine section I could slope that bit outwards so that the upper surface doesn't loose that corner out of it, allowing me to make the box on top quite a bit bigger out to the sides. What do people think? (If you could understand my description that is) Any other suggestions also welcome.

[only joking...]

Cool scratchbuilding so far, looking forward untill the next update.

[Dragon Lord]

Cool scratchbuilding so far, looking forward untill the next update.

Thanks Only Joking.

A small update on the stormblade, I've done the pulpit platform in plasticard and given it some supports and had another go at doing the upper section of the turret extension.




I think the upper turret extension looks quite a bit better than it did before, it looks big enough to take the organ now and the back being wider and the slight slope to the sides of the front part help break up the blockishness a little. I still think it looks a bit too blocky though, I think perhaps its a bit too tall, maybe shorten it by about 5mm?

And now for a small BFG interlude I entitle the wonders of sprue (and buttons), mostly for Jihad_Ragsta if he's reading.




The transport in the front of top pic was almost entirely made out of sprue as was the main structure of the large space station. The transport in the bottom pic and most of the structure of the small dock on the left of the same pic were not just made out of sprue they were in fact made out of the sprues from flying bases! The space station in the bottom pic was made out of a pile of buttons with some bits added. The converted cruiser is supposed to be an Explorator vessel, I'm thinking of gradually building up an Ad Mech fleet using converted Imperial cruisers (with maybe a couple of the GW Ad Mech ships thrown in, as they do look quite good).

[Jihad_Ragsta]

Hey hey! I like what I see, that transport ship in particular is giving me ideas! Your space dock reminds me of Gateway Station out of Aliens. I like

One suggestion for the Admech bessel- if you have an Epic techpriest or some kind of servo cog then slap that on somewhere for added character, done that to a couple of my own ships. Really like it tho!

In answer to your question- Fullthrust flying stands match up with GW ones pretty much fine- there are examples of both on my wee plog (the Imperial fleet pictures).

I agree that lowering the turret extension a hair is a good idea but I wanna see MORE before I really comment Now where did I leave those sprues...

[Dragon Lord]

Hey hey! I like what I see, that transport ship in particular is giving me ideas! Your space dock reminds me of Gateway Station out of Aliens. I like

Thanks Jihad_Ragsta, glad you like them.

One suggestion for the Admech bessel- if you have an Epic techpriest or some kind of servo cog then slap that on somewhere for added character, done that to a couple of my own ships. Really like it tho!

Unfortunately I don't (at least I don't think so, I'll have a look around in case) I might be able to manufacture something out of plasticard though. When I first built the explorator I hadn't actually decided whether I wanted it to be an Ad Mech explorator or not, but I'm getting more into the Ad Mech mood lately so it probably will be now.

Relatively small update for the Stormblade today. I've added some cities of death pieces around the pulpit to make a barrier. With these in place I'm not so sure how much the turret extension needs lowering, definitely still needs to be a bit less square though.


And now something a little different. I've been working on this guy for a while, he's supposed to represent my main Chaos Lord a bit earlier in his career. Still not quite finished, still have most of the red to do (the inside of the cloak will be red), but mostly done.

He does look rather like a genie with that blue-tack there...
And a picture of the back, hopefully you can see the highlighting and weathering on the cloak, which I'm fairly pleased with.


I'm really not sure what to do with his base though. I rather like the dark and forbidding black rock, but the rest of the army have grassy bases and I'm not sure how well the rock would go with grass, nor how well he'd fit in with the rest of the army without grass.

Finally for a complete bit of randomness, what do other people do with left over greenstuff? I always seem to have a small blob left over when I'm doing any greenstuff work and I can't help feeling that letting it go to waste is a shame, hence my collection of small greenstuff animals. Here's what I made with the byproducts of todays work on the stormblade:


Comments and criticism welcome.

[Magos Errant]

Great job on the Stormblade was it? The ships are pretty cool, too. The Termie lord is awesome. If you had made him a Sorcerer, you could have had the snail be a familiar.

[powa bear]

What other animals have you made?

[eltanko]

The lord does look good, the gold really stands out against the black, V nice.
And nice evil chaos snail!!

ElTanko

[Dragon Lord]

Thanks guys, glad you like the gold, it takes 4 or 5 coats of burnished gold to get it to look like that still needs a few mithril silver highlights on some of the sharp edges.

@powa bear: That I'm fairly certain I still have somewhere, a tortoise, a fish and a cobra. The cobra is actually the familiar of a sorcerer though I don't actually use that sorcerer and he's never been painted (other than just undercoated). I'll see if I can find them and post them up at some point. I have also made a few purpose built larger creatures, a snake, which I don't actually like all that much, I made it rather a long time ago and it looks too childish/cartoonish. I did also make a trifid, but I have no idea where that is at the moment, if I find it I'll post it though.

[powa bear]

That just sounds awesome!

[Dragon Lord]

Time for an update!
Apart from the base the chaos lord is now complete, here are some pics of his two halves, to better show off the inside of the cloak and the evil face on his leg.


And some pictures of him complete


The tyranid head turned into a bit of a test of my hivefleet kraken colour scheme as you can perhaps tell.
Finally a picture of the Dragon Lord (yes that's right my username is his honorific title, my avatar is actually a picture of an older model of him later on in his career) leading some of his troops.


You can perhaps also see my basing dilemma, I like the black rock, but I'm not sure how well it would work on a grassy base. However at the moment his base looks really out of place with the rest of the army. Maybe I'll try it grassy and see.

[Dragon Lord]

Sorry for the double post, necessary because of the picture limit.
A couple of pictures of some of my other greenstuffimals along with the new snail, not sure how well you can see the cobra on the sorcerer's base.



Also a close up of my icon bearer from the previous post, just because I want to show off my guard-head converted icon


Edit:Actually not a double post, ElTanko managed to get a post in before I got the second one up!

[eltanko]

They do look really good, nice evil leg face GRRRRR
Nice shading on the bottom of the cloak aswell.

ElTanko

[Jihad_Ragsta]

Would you like me to send you an Epic Techpriest for your Ad Mech? He would be an awesome addition!

That Chaos Lord looks cool, like there should be a Loyalist lackey's corpse slumped at his feet. Maybe you should try for some tufts of grass in the crevices and leave it at that. Might help merge with the other bases in ur force!

The banner bearer is nice but may I suggest a wash of either Devlan Mud or Gryphonne Sepia over the top part of the standard? That will make the scroll and goldwork pop I love the heads by the way!

Keep up the good work. I laughed out loud when I saw ur collection of greenstuff animals.

[Magos Errant]

Great minis! The animals are very cool.

[krauti]

Nice painting...I would add some depth by washing the miniatures with Devlan mud!!!

And do something with the bases

[gonzosbignose]

Less Chaos and Tanks...

More Green Stuff art!!!

;-)

Regards

My name is Daniel and I am a wargamer

[Dragon Lord]

Would you like me to send you an Epic Techpriest for your Ad Mech? He would be an awesome addition!

That would be very helpful, I'm also thinking of trying I think was the damned artificer's technique of making greenstuff press-moulds on the cog on the back of my IG techpriest. I would be quite happy trade you some bits (or a greenstuffimal), just let me know what you're in need of and I'll see if I have any.

Maybe you should try for some tufts of grass in the crevices and leave it at that. Might help merge with the other bases in ur force!

I might try that, a bit of sand/gravel and some tufts of grass.
The one other thing I'm thinking about is the lightning claws, in the past I've done some streaks of ice blue across power weapons to represent the energy crackling across it (you can probably see it on the aspiring champion in the group shot), but I quite like the drybrushed metal on the lightning claws, so what do you think, blue or no blue?

The metal on the top of the icon does look a bit flat I agree, I'll definitely try doing a wash of devlan mud. It may (or may not be?) difficult to believe but the chaos lord is actually the first mini I've done proper shading and highlighting on, that icon bearer and another 2 I did when the current CSM codex came out got a bit of highlighting on parts of their icons (in this case the heads and skulls), but that's it.

And do something with the bases

I realise now that that icon bearer seems to have missed the static grass, I'll put some on (I tend to apply it in clumps, along with some some occasional little rock piles). I must admit though that my bases are probably the least favourite part of my models so any suggestions are welcome.

Thanks very much for the compliments and suggestions guys!

[Daniel36]

I actually thought your topic title is really cool, considering your username. I do have to admit it gave me some false hope on seeing an army of Dragons... But you're forgiven, given the fact that this stuff looks awesome.

One tip, either use washes or drybrush a bit more to give your models more depth. They look a little flat, which is especially noticable on the Imperial Guard heads dangling from the banner (which is awesome by the way).

If you take some dark ink (Badab Black would do fine, though I prefer adding some Gryphonne Sepia to the mix), it will greatly enhance the look of your models.

Kepe up!

[GundamMecha]

Great work on the superheavy.

I like the expansion between the heavy bolter sponsons.

THeres just one thing that I'd suggest though, maybe lose the admech shrine thing from the back plate?

I have always hated that part anyway (much prefer the original FW design), but on a chaos vehicle I think it definately looks a little out of place. Purity seals especially.

I don't think demon's appreciate irony...