Sildani's Yme-Loc Craftworld thread

[Sildani]

Hi all,

I've been working on a Yme-Loc Eldar army for a while now, and while I've not been perfectly happy with some of it, other things have turned out well. I'm posting here what I'm happiest with so far - my first War Walker.

Please let me know what you think of it, in particular the stippling, which is my first attempt at doing it.

Note that the base isn't done at all. I'm envisioning a snow-covered ruined Maiden World kinda look, but basing isn't one of my strengths. Any help with that would be great!

[Melchiah]

How about a pic of that shuriken cannon i sent you.

[Malakai]

I think the stippling looks great. It's cool too see a Yme-Loc army.

[Sildani]

An update.

Finished the last two Walkers, one is missing a canopy which I've ordered. The one with its leg resting on a rock I'm kinda proud of - it was a little difficult to get the legs/hooves/hips aligined straight. Its leg lacks stippling because it's going to take a decal - probably a lightning bolt from the old Jetbike decal sheet. Enjoy the pics... or at least control your gut reaction!

[Sildani]

And here's the stuff I said I wasn't too proud of. Dire Avengers. The Exarch came out decently - I spent quite a bit of time on him. The rest of the squad is passable, I suppose. Ye gods, do you only see all your mistakes when you take pics and post them for all to see?!

Malakai: thanks for the kind words.

Melchiah: as you wish. Thanks again!

Any ideas or tips on basing? Please?

[Melchiah]

Warwalkers looks really nice, and the dires are coming along nicely.
The "sand" from a Brita filter makes great stuff for basing. Just dry it out first. Then grab some cork; either from a wine bottle or a cork board. You can get then in "tiles" but im not sure where. Mixing them all in to a container makes for a nice sandy-rocky base.

[Math Mathonwy]

Ooh, nice War Walkers! As for the Dire Avengers, the stripes on the horse hair crest of the Exarch makes him really pop - have you considered striping the others too? Then maybe add a third colour (white?) to the stripes of the Exarch to make him stand out again. Also, an Ogryn Flesh was would be nice there (IME it shades orange nicely).

You can get then in "tiles" but im not sure where.

Coasters from the local pub (or IKEA)?

[Bartali]

Try a wash and dry brush on the helmet crests, they look a bit flat at the moment. They'll look better after they've been based too, it's surprising what a difference it makes

[Sildani]

Hello all, it's been a while since I updated this. It's amazing what life does to you when you're not looking, but I have made some progress!

First, we have Warp Spiders. I stripped them with Simple Green, then repainted with Adeptus Battlegrey, which was washed with Badab Black. The white bits were undercoated with Astronomican Grey, then given about four very thin coats of Skull White. Eyes were done with Tamiya Clear Blue. Orange bits were undercoated with Macharius Solar Orange, then give a few thin coats of Blazing Orange. Guns and their support armatures were left black (did I mention I was a bit lazy?)

Spirit stones and other jewels were done by basecoating with Mithril Silver, then when completely dry given a couple coats of either Clear Red or Clear Blue, depending on my desire. Metal bits like the Spider symbol jewelry and the Exarch's powerblades were undercoated with Chainmail and then drybrushed carefully with Mithril Silver. I then washed with a thinned-out Black to bring back the recesses.

Anyway. Pics!

Exarch first, then a couple Spiders picked out of the squad, then the squad as a whole. The Exarch puzzled me, since I didn't know what to do with the "webbing" he has all over him. I wound up painting it Enchanted Blue, since I had it on me at the time. I'd like advice as to what to do next, though.

C&C welcome!

[Sildani]

And here I have a squad of Storm Guardians. I'm rather proud of these, since these incorporate the first conversions I've ever done, extremely simple though they are.

I searched through my unused Army Transport and my tiny bitz container until I had found seven Guardian bodies, one second edition Dire Avenger with a sword (squad leader), and various swords and pistols. This gave me eight bodies, but I needed two more to form a minimum squad. Fortunately, GW actually provided a somewhat cheap and ready fix in the form of the four-pack of snap-fit Guardians. They come on a single sprue, with three different poses (all variations on standing around). They consist of a complete body with head, backpack, and shuriken catapult to which is attached the complete right arm and left hand.

This was perfect. Since one of the main reasons to field Stormies is to have two flamers in the squad, these guys were volunteered for that duty. I ordered a pair of Wraithlord flamers from Apocabitz Now, and when they arrived I used my sprue cutter to snip away the shuriken catapult's barrel adn ammo clip. I then snipped away the flamer's barrel and fuel canister from its "action". When I brought all the pieces together... magic. Everything was identically sized, so that it looked like it was designed that way. No GSing needed, and the end result looked great!

I used arm-mounted shuriken pistols from the DA Exarch, a sword from a High Elf Mage (whose body was used for a Farseer conversion), three swords from Third Edition DA Exarchs I had lying around, one sword from an old Marine, a snipped catapult used as a pistol, and the power weapon arm from a Shining Spear Exarch I'd held onto for years for no reason. The end result? Eight swords, eight pistols (or close enough), and two flamers, all for about $12 US. A far better deal than buying the Storm Guardian Set!

They aren't finished yet, you'll see silver patches on some which will be given a couple coats of Clear Blue and become spirit stones. The female with the Spear Exarch's sword needs to have silver highlighting put on, but I like the way it looks currently - it looks quite wicked black, I think.

My next update will have Fire Dragons and Rangers! Now, pics, and thanks for looking. C&C welcome!

[self biased]

so nice to see Yme-Loc propagating. Check mine out if you need some more inspiration.

[Sildani]

Hello all,

Well, after finally grabbing life by the throat and wrestling it into submission for a day, I finally got some modelling done. No, I didn't do anything I actually needed to do, like basing the minis I've already painted. No, I instead decided to start work on a Scorpion Type I I grabbed off eBay. It was primed green and white, and was unassembled. I threw it into a tub of Simple Green for about five days, and when it came out, it looked like pic 2. The paint pretty much peeled off!

Thus to all the parts except for the pulsars and three of the four engine exhausts. The paint has remained firmly attached to these parts, so I had to use a very stiff brush intended to clean one's fingernails. I got most off of the pulsars, then decided to leave the engine intakes and other exhausts in the Green for another day... just to see if the paint would cooperate and wrinkle up. That's going on now.

I went outside with my new Dremel and set about attacking the worst of the mold lines - the pulsars had none on their tops, but bad ones on the bottoms (wonder why). I went at them with a green (fine) pointed sanding stone and the lines were mostly removed with no fuss. Files were used to remove the remainder.

The massive turret is a solid resin block. There is a piece consisting of four fins that gets attached to the rear of it (see pic 3). I had a rough time dry-fitting those because of a couple blobs of resin that were smack in the corner where the fins needed to be set. Again with the grinding stone, and the blobs (and a bit more than that) were gone. The fins' piece was then trimmed down a fraction to better fit in its place. You may have noticed a green flat part in between the hull and turret in pic 1. This is purely to give some kind of detail to the rear of the turret, and it fits under the fins... sort of. Again, this required filing in order to fit at all.

The targeters you see sitting atop the pulsars' rears were encrusted with mold lines and huge blobs of resin were found on their smooth undersides. Those undersides are supposed to mate smoothly with the curves of the turret. They didn't, and still don't, but they're better then they were. More work is needed.

Let's see... the hull comes in a massive upper half and a smaller lower plate. The fit of the front of those parts is fantastic, but will leave a massive gap in the rear. Putty will have to be used to fill this. I'm inclined to simply lay a bead of putty where they join, attach the two, and let the putty ooze out. Scrape off most of the excess, let dry, and sand the rest. The underside of the upper hull has a massive blob near the cockpit area... which has someone's partial fingerprint in it! It's like someone noticed that the hull was dangerously thin in that area right after casting, so he grabbed some uncured resin that was sitting in a pot and pushed it into place. It's amazing, in a way.

Moral of that story: never think that FW have only recently gotten shoddy... they've been this way for at least six years!

All for now. More pics and progress to follow!

[spekkiebig]

I have both a MKI Scorpion (in my blog) and a MKI Cobra. Both were a pain in the ass to get assembled right and have the gaps filled. Good luck with yours though. I'm looking forward to seeing it painted up.

[Sildani]

More progress made.

I took the pulsars and engines out of the Simple Green and saw no further progress. So I did the American thing: said "screw it" and went after them with the brush, running water and The Prodigy ringing in my ears. Okay, not quite so American. After twenty minutes, they were as good as they were going to get.

I finished sanding off mold lines - phew! The front left prow's giant gemstone had a casting imperfection which I carefully filed off. The turret's cockpit fairing had a block of resin underneath which was cut away. The rear of the faring was slightly filed down as well. Now it fits perfectly.

What else... there are eight secondary air intakes. Four of them had damaged intake lips. I have placed rough blobs of Squadron white putty into place, when I've let them dry for a few hour I'll gingerly try sanding them. Hopefully I'll make a decent facsimile of what was there before.

Spekkiebig: Thanks for letting me know about your Scorpion. It looks great! The gaps will be a problem to fix, I accept. May the putty gods be with me.

[Sildani]

Hello, some of you (most of you?) are probably wondering if I ever actually finish anything.

Yes, yes I do. It took a while, but here's my new Night Spinner, painted up in my old Craftworld Iarstillian scheme. I'm pretty proud of the doom weavers. I really like how they turned out.

More Yme-Loc to come, promise!

[ChrisMurray]

That is very impressive! I agree with you that the doom weavers are done particularly well. Will you be doing anything else in this colour scheme or are you going to be sticking to your Yme-Loc scheme (which is also nice)?

[Sildani]

Tough to say. My other Falcon/Fire Prism is also black and green, and I've incorporated green into some of my Yme-Loc infantry to represent them being absorbed into the Craftworld, yet retaining memories of their lost Maiden World/Corsair fleet.

The Spinner turned out so well (and was so fun) I'm mighty tempted to paint the Scorpion in such a way... thoughts?

[self biased]

nice and crisp, but the black and green on the tank look a little flat to me.

[Sildani]

Really? What do you suggest?

[self biased]

it appears to me that you've only got one color for your highlight. maybe add another, lighter highlight that's a little shorter and smaller to increase the sensation of depth?