Despite the wet weather we’ve been having I haven’t made much modelling progress this weekend. What I have done is begin finalising the pelvis armour. The mounting points for it have been added onto the back (along with my favourite new cast iron texture) and I hit the piece with a layer of Tamiya surface primer from a rattle can to check consistency. It’s amazingly symmetric! Some banding (using my scan – Inkscape – CNC router trick) is next on the agenda, along with some other details.

The pelvis is slowly receiving more cleanup but it’s pretty much done now. I’ll be testing out my new brass etch system in the coming week which will produce the icons I will fit to pieces like the groin armour.

Once the pelvis is done I’ll start work on the torso, the first step of which will be coming up with a basic shape. I’ll probably start with the back and design the reactor first as that will setup the proportions. Early on I’ll have to design the pilot too, although at this stage I’m probably going to spring for a decent figure sculptor to do it for me. With the pilot done the cockpit can be made and then the rest of the torso built up around that. I think I’m going to finally have to start sketching some stuff in planning for these elements…

So a little over a year ago I decided to start building a 28mm mecha model that was part dieselpunk, part 40k, with the intention of releasing it as a resin kit. It was a style I wanted to have a go at (as opposed to the clean ultra-futuristic Tau mecha stuff I had worked on in the past) and I figured a few people would want to use it as a Knight Titan stand-in.

The project got off to a nice start but a couple of months in it got shelved. I don’t quite remember why, although the influx of BFG commissions didn’t help. Oh and work got really busy. And having a girlfriend sucks away hobby time (single again – woohoo!). Anyway after getting the last in a line of BFG scratchbuild projects finished I decided I’d had enough of stupidly small details and turning up 1mm diameter gun barrels on my lathe and would get back to some 28mm modelling. Ahh what a breath of fresh air!

Now I consider myself pretty good at scratchbuilding, however I know what my talents are and drawing is not one of them. At the outset of the project I did have a couple of attempts at sketching up designs but let’s just say they were worse than atrocious. I mean they kind of conveyed basic forms but really there wasn’t enough information to reference for the build so I scrapped them. I figured I’ve had enough experience at this stuff I’ll just wing it and design as I go. That’s not to say I didn’t have basic mental ideas for the design; general proportions, configurations, etc. I looked at a lot of Warmachine Warjack models and concept art as inspiration, along with the awesome work of Luca Zampriolo (Kallamity)

Before the project got shelved I had the leg designs 75% done. All that was left was detailing and finishing. At the end of this post I’m going to dump a bunch of randomly selected pictures of the progress to that point without any explanations. Feel free to ask questions

Last year I bought myself a small Chinese CNC router so my model making process is now a combination of 3D modelling, vector drawing, CNC machining, turning shapes on my lathe and good old traditional pushing putty around (Milliput is still the putty of choice). The CNC routing I generally use in just a 2.5D mode, drawing parts in Inkscape and then cutting them out in styrene sheet. It facilitates beautiful geometric shapes that would simply take far too much time to cut/file/sand manually. For example the tread on the sole of the foot was all cut on the router:

The lathe has become an indispensable piece of equipment in my scratchbuilding quiver, to the point that I don’t know how anybody else does without it! I could never turn something up by sticking it in a dremel again! It’s an old Sherline miniature lathe that I scored for AU$90 a couple of years back. You can read more about it and some of the mods/attachments I’ve done here. The CNC machining of many pieces meant that some degree of the model has been drawn up digitally, either before or after it was physically built. So I guess I did do some pre-design/concept work…

Once the parts are nearing completion I hit them all with a coat of Mr Surfacer 500. It’s a fine putty/primer that’s great for both filling small gaps/nicks/flaws in the master parts, but the primary objective is to get all of the parts a uniform colour (rather than the random mix of white styrene, green-y Milliput and grey Tamiya putty, plus pencil lines, grey Kotobukiya parts, etc.), which help immensely in getting an overall feel for how the parts are actually looking. If being real hard core one would do this a couple of times for each part, but I’m too lazy for that – it takes a lot of stuffing around setting up the airbrush (and more so cleaning it afterwards). Here’s a shot of the primed parts:

Actually, a lot of that primer gets sanded back as all of the little flaws are repaired. Oh also note the yellow tape around the large cylindrical hip joints of the upper legs. It’s just Tamiya masking tape and it’s there to prevent damage to the nice crisp edges as I muck around carving and sanding the thigh armour plates.

The thigh armour plate banding as seen in one of the earlier WIP shots was deemed too thick and thus replaced with some beautiful CNC cut pieces in 0.5mm styrene. I simply laid the parts on a scanner, scanned and scaled the parts to 100% in Inkscape and then drew up the new banding. 5 Minutes with the CNC router and I have perfectly formed new banding ready to be glued on

So last weekend’s distinct lack of lack of social or other engagements meant that I had a wonderful weekend of modelling and have now got something serious to show for it. All of the leg components (excluding the knee armour plate) have been moulded and duplicated in resin and the hips/pelvis are well under way.

Next we have the photographic proof of an assembled set of resin components. They assemble very easily with a few drops of super glue. Some of the moulds have a couple of small bubble air issues so I’m cutting wider/extra air channels into them, but these test parts are still a little bubbly. And have some more-than-slight mould slip in areas. None of this will be an issue for production moulds.

Note that the left leg isn’t attached to the pelvis – the hip piece will be a duplicate of the right leg hip piece (so I only need to master the one).

The next shot shows what the leg looks like side on – pretty much the same as it always has, I know, but everything looks better in monotone grey resin. Also included is a shot of the foot showing the resulting tread pattern – very happy with how this turned out!

The pelvis piece has been coming along nicely also. It’s kind of hard to see in the WIP state, especially with the ball joint sections made from clear perspex (my fuzzy photography didn’t help either). The ribbed hoses are a great product from Dragon Forge Design. Although I assume they are just casts of regular wound guitar strings, being pewter they are so easy to bend into the desired shape and they stay there! Seriously anybody doing any kind of scratchbuilding or even just conversions should get some!

Oh and hex styrene rod is awesome too. Perfect for making bolt heads and nuts (rivets get boring). Pro tip: look for Plastruct stockists, as they will let you buy single rods rather than a pack of them. Such specialists materials like that you’re better off with large variety over volume.

The hip piece turned out very nicely with its recessed bolt heads:

With the pelvis and hip nearing completion it was time to go at it with the Mr Surfacer again. It’s always a mixed emotion afterwards: it’s very cool to see the parts in a uniform grey colour to get a sense of what they really look like, but it also shows up very single tiny little flaw (such as the tiny bits of leftover Milliput and stuff like that). So the next step is simply running around with some fine grit sandpaper to clean it all up once the primer has cured nicely.

I also decided that the knee armour was too boring so before I cast it up I designed and added a tie down shackle setup:

 
And that brings us up to date pretty much to the minute. The knee armour and hip pieces have all been finished so the next milestone will be completing the pelvis. The pelvis itself is 90% done – I’m now working on the groin armour plate which forms the front of the pelvis. It will be mounted via some beefy looking cylinders. It took me a while to come up with a shape but I’ve got something I’m happy with now and will build it up over the weekend. Then do the scanner and router trick to make up the banding for it!

I would like to place some iconography about the model so I’ll be trying out some brass etch in the coming week. I did have some failed attempts at it a year ago (the beginning of the project), but armed with the laminator I’ve modified from this article I’m expecting better results!

I have to say, any reservations I have had about this project have well and truly evaporated following the assembly of the resin parts like this! I’m really excited about where it’s going! Once the pelvis is completed and cast I’ll be able to start playing with torso mockups made of clay – I’ve got some cool ideas for that too!

If you’re a mecha model fan and haven’t at least seen the work of Luca Zampriolo (even if you didn’t know who it was done by) then you must have been living under a rock! His website - Kallamity.com – showcases both the resin kits he has produced over the years and, more importantly in my opinion, presents a lot of work in progress shots of his projects. Luca’s mechanical design style is instantly recognisable and I’m a big fan.

In late 2011 Luca’s first book became available: Abakan 2288: Kallamity’s world of mecha design. I was aware of it at the time of release but for some reason I didn’t pre-order it. I think because it was relatively expensive and I couldn’t find any page previews. Well fast forward to last week and I stumbled across a mention of the book again. I saw a couple of page previews which looked promising, and checking Fishpond.com.au revealed that it was only AU$31.54 with free shipping! So I placed an order and was pleasantly surprised to have it arrive a couple of days later.

Let me say that this book lived up to the expectation.

Abakan 2288 begins describing the backdrop that Luca has created for his fictional universe. It chronicles major points in mankind’s history up until the year 2288. The traditional economy has long since collapsed and a special, extremely high energy content gas mined from Jupiter and returned in a crystalline form has become the primary fuel in use. Metal is now the dominant commodity and its trade and use the best analogue to a currency. This bleak future has paved the way for massive anthropomorphic machines to become a valuable resource and several generations of continual improvement have now produced extremely hard wearing designs.

Through the rest of the book the fiction is interspersed with design and construction notes of the actual model, for several of Luca’s designs. It’s this “non-fiction” content that I bought the book for and was far from disappointed! Already I have learned several little advanced modelling tricks. Throughout the book are many pages that contain a grid of many small photos showing small details and construction phases. The following is a photo of one such page. My only complaint is that I wish many of these detail pictures were bigger!

Overall I found the book very enjoyable and it’s a great addition to the scratch builder/modeller’s library. Highly recommended!

I trust everybody had a Merry Christmas! Accompanying the festive break for me is a fortnight of holidays, which has given me some time to get stuck in and finish some projects! The first task is to knock over my pending BFG projects so that I can get back to some 28mm modelling (which I’m really starting to miss).

This is a project I’ve had on the workbench for far too long. It’s something that Vaaish approached me with early this year. The premise was that he wasn’t a big fan of the GW Space Marine Strike Cruiser design. He much preferred the FW Grey Knights Strike Cruiser, not to mention that oddly enough the FW model is half the price of the GW one! The problem with the GK SC is that it has the GK style curved prow and side fins, preventing it from fitting in to the rest of the Space Marine naval aesthetic.

So the plan was to make a new prow and side fins that could be used with either the FW or the GW Strike Cruiser models. Easy huh?

Much of the build process was chronicled in the Resin Addict Forum and yesterday I finally moulded up and cast the finished pieces. It has turned out quite nicely and in an amusing twist it turns out that Vaaish prefers the look of the conversion kit on the GW model rather than the FW one like he had originally planned to outfit his fleet with. Fortunately for him he stumbled across a glut of GW strike cruiser models for a very keen price somewhere online!

As always feedback is welcome. Enjoy!

Hi blog readers, I know updates have been a little scarce of late but I’ve been pretty busy with real life stuff. I have been scratchbuilding in my limited spare time though and hope to get a couple more space ship projects finished over the next couple of weeks (read about it in the RA Forum).

Anyway the reason for this post is to mention a development with one of my little side projects. Earlier in the year I mastered a set of infantry parts to use in my SAW kit diorama. I sculpted them because I simply couldn’t find any sets of high tech futuristic infantry gear to use with my Tau snipers. So like most other things I mouled and cast them up and since I had a few spares I sent a couple of sets to my mate Seb (of Advanced Tau Tactica fame). Here’s some shots of the parts:

In a flurry of pre-Christmas modelling activity Seb has finally done something with some of the pouches, as posted on his blog: Eastern Empire.

Seb tells me that he’s been getting a few enquiries about the bits so I decided I’d best let everyone know what’s going on. I am intending to make them available for sale through a Resin Addict associate. The parts are on their way to him currently so I would expect them to be available early January.

Watch this space for more information!

Well it’s all done! The master model was completed and moulded this morning, and I’m already pumping out the bunch of copies required for the commission. For best results casting (and to prevent having any gates damaging details) I decided to break the model into two pieces, with the prow and hull separate. Add the two turrets and that makes it a four piece model. I went with the usual single part split mould for this one, with all of the parts together on one tiny sprue. There’s actually more resin used up in the sprue block than there is in the model itself!

Overall the project has turned out fantastically, and certainly gives me the motivation I’ll need to do a Frigate sized variant for the same client later…

Hey guys,

I’m about 75% through a commission build and thought I’d share. It’s a torpedo destroyer in the same style as the other Zeus prows and ships I have done, as a commission for a client in the UK. He’s wanting quite a few of them so I’ll be casting them up. The model itself is quite tiny at only 30mm long, but has a very high level of detailing.

The photo quality is really ordinary, simply because it’s so hard to photograph styrene, and confounded by the fact that the camera is struggling to do macro shots this close. Note also that the prow is stuck on with blu-tack for the photos – once I finish this post I’ll start work sculpting the eagle figure head.

I at first had planned to have the side fins oriented horizontally, however both the client and I agreed that vertical looked cooler

Enjoy!

Hi guys, been busy with Real Life stuff, but wanted to post a quick update on a project I’ve been slowly working on in between other projects. It’s my take on an Imperial Exorcist Grand Cruiser. I don’t like the official Imperial GC model so I felt compelled to make my own from a Chaos cruiser I had, mashed up with some Imperial launch bays and a custom prow.

I’ve just got the one pic for now, and don’t hold your breath for fast progress!

Oh, and ignore the fin underneath the prow. It’s just a placeholder for a more aptly shaped fin…

Well it’s all done – the Spear Prows are complete and I started fitting the casts to some cruisers:

They turned out quite nicely and I feel give a bit more of a regal feel to the Admech cruiser design. As you can see the Admech cruiser has been primed grey so the next step is to do some painting – I’ll likely go for a grey and red scheme along similar lines as the official GW pics…

With this project out of the way it’s time to move on to the next one; and of course it’s another BFG related project!

You see I go through a lot of small flying bases. I should clarify that by a lot I mean I went through a bag of 32 over a couple of years. I must have bought that bag in 2009 and recently I discovered that I had run out, so I went onto the GW online store to buy some more. Surprise surprise they have changed things. You now buy them in a pack of 5 for AU$7.00. That’s $1.40 a pop. Not exactly cheap and more than I would expect to pay for two uncomplicated clear styrene shapes, but in the scheme of things it’s not going to break the bank.

But hang on, I paid AU$13.00 for a bag of 32 just two years ago. That’s a much more sensible $0.4062 each.

Now it doesn’t take an engineering degree to do the maths and calculate that there has been a 344% increase in the price of a single flying base. That is just insane. It annoys me even more that GW still list the pack of 32 on their website as out of stock.

Based on that I refuse to pay their stupid $7.00 for a pack of 5 and instead will design and cast my own flying bases. I’m certain it won’t be any more economical (but hell it won’t be any less economical either!) but it lets me make a stand (no pun intended), however insignificant it may be. Stay tuned for progress as I design it!