Cauldron Assembly DONE!

So it is the last week of the school year hear in Australia so as a teacher I am fully a) exhausted and b) run off my feet busy.

That being said I have had a lot of commuter time with my trusty laptop recently. I have been toying around with the idea of writing a ruleset for pulp action, rocketeer, cica 1930's and 40's adventure tabletop game. Soooo with all of my time I am about 70% or so done. What started as a ballpart nod to GW's skirmish games (mordheim, necro... etc) has taken on legs of its own and has gone an entirely new direction. I hope to get some help from you guys (and girls) to play test this and let me know what you think...

In the meantime....

I have finished assembling the Cauldron of Blood.


Should I leave the space at the front for the Death Hag to stand or do I put in slaves pulling this?

The Actual Cauldron Begins...

Weeeellll... The progress continues.

I thought the cart looked fairly bare so I have added some spear tips to jazz it up a little. I am thinking of mounting skulls on the side or rivets. I'll experiment. Anyway here are some work in progress shots including a picture from behind.




Tired of looking at the empty spot where the cauldron will live? I am... So I have green stuffed a cauldron around a styrofoam frame. I then cut a boarder around the top just below an upturned 25mm round base. Below that I used the tip of a click pen to print irregular circular patterns to break up the plain flat exterior of the pot. Then I quarter filled the pot with water effects to smooth the casting irregularities on the inside of the base. When I looked this morning it was clear now but still had the pattern of the casting circles. Grumble. I think I will stick a few skulls in the pot to mask this...




I have also been working on my corsair regiment. 16 out of 20 built and ready. I need more arms to finish the last 4 and the dark riders. I have bought two boxes of corsairs from a dude online that have all the bits but are missing their cloaks. That is fine as I need the other bitz more than anything else. Think they will be at the post office tonight. I hope so anyway.




I have been working arms and heads from the new plastic wyches into my dark riders, warriors and corsairs. If you look closely above you can see some different arms mixed in.

The Cauldron Continues

I had some time last night so using the same plasticard stacking technique that I used to make the main "deck" I made two support beams to connect the axles to. I then cut up three tomb king chariots for their axles and stuck them on at measured intervals. It was then a simple matter of attaching the wheels from the chariots to their original axles.

It ended up looking like this.




From here I attached the whole structure to a chariot base and added the Vect slave girls and a few trophies and decorations. I also cut the shape of the actual cauldron out of styrofoam. I plan to cover that with green stuff tonight if I get time.

The Beginnings of a Cauldron (adventures in Plasticard)

Well. I have another criteria for this project. Besides trying to get it done before Christmas I am also trying very hard not to spend any more money buying new miniatures for it. In some cases this will lead to adventures in bitz diving in others... We will have to see.

Anyway. I took a sheet of checkered pattern plasticard...



And I created a box with inlaid check pattern tiles. I then took an old avatar of Khaine model I had floating around and stuck him on the back. You might not be able to see but I gave him platform heels made out of plasticard so would be level with the edges of the platform and would stand flat. If that makes sense...



In other news... You can see my progress on my dark riders... I know they don;t look like much now but I have high hopes.

The Crossbowmen VS The Spacemen

Today's installment looks at my two units of ten repeater crossbow troops. One is rather boring and is straight from the box. The other is a kitbash using the new wyches, old dark eldar warriors, corsairs and actually repeater crossbow wielding warriors. They look a little strange right now but I am going to add a variety of pouches and other fantasy gear to make them far less "space man."





As always I am open to suggestions to make them less spacey...

The Next Thing From Land Of Misfit Toys (DE)

That is right kids I am cranking out another brand new army before Christmas. I don;t want to even see how much time that leaves me... Anyway... The idea is to make a Dark Elf army that looks a little different from the rest.

Step one ditch the witch elf models... I hates them like Golum hates the taters... I have a mostly assembled old wyche cult army for 40K and I adore these models... They are on rounds now but that is about to change. I am slightly concerned about ranks but I have long bases so I can cheat alittle bit on spacing. Here are some work in progress models... They are not done yet.




Next up basic warriors... Now I attended a GW store sale alittle while back and picked up a badly assembled dark elf army (most of one missing lots of bitz) for $75. It had warriors, crossbowmen, cold one knights, corsairs (only ten) and a pile of mismatched crap. From that mess I have created these... Most of the warriors are stock standard but I ran out of spear arms and I wanted to mix up the heads... Hence the guys in the back... They will eventually be mixed in the unit to give some variety...




Some of you might recognise that the almost finished wyches are not my usual painting style. Well I can crank out models if I only have to base coat and wash them. I can even crank out the 1st level of highlights but I have never quite mastered the technique of extreme highlighting. For this I have enlisted the help of my buddy Chris. He cranks out extreme highlighting like nobodies business. This entire project will be assembled, base coated, washed and highlighted by me. Chris will supply the final highlight to make the elves “pop.” Despite his Australian and English heritage he was a member of the Kiwi ETC team this year and is generally a fantasy battle bad ass. Stay tuned for more of Chris’s stuff.

And for the folks back home.... HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!