I am still getting to grips with filming with this new camera and, particularly, editing the resulting footage (640Mb files FTW!), but in the meantime here is an edited video of me converting the Belial in the last post.  You probably need to click through to Youtube in order to access the 720p version.

Yes, the alarmingly large hands and soothing, horse-whispering voice of Sholto have finally arrived on the Internet   Hopefully, this will be the first of many HD videos, batreps and so on, so I can really add some different content to the posts here.

I love the Peacekeeper model, but I am not so keen on the ‘menacing hands’ pose that the model defaults to:-

I wanted to try and bring out the Arachnid characteristic a bit more, as well as trying to pose it as dynamically and threateningly as possible. That meant a sizeable base, so that the model would be looking down on all the other models in the game. It would also allow me to have the model gripping the base rather than waving its arms around in the air. Here is what I found:-

The base is a 50mm resin base, costing £4.17 from Micro Arts in Poland. There was some clean up to do, and some bubbles to fill. There was also a couple of rivets/ bolts missing, and I fixed those by adding sections snipped from a 1mm diameter plastic rod.

The model is now assembled ready for painting. Although all the joints are pinned, they are not all glued yet. The only glued joints are the hip joints – the rest can be pulled apart to make painting this monster easier. Here are some photos of the WIP so far (the Convict is just there for scale):-

The hips joints were pinned with 1.2mm pins (large paper clips), while all the other joints were pinned with 0.8mm pins (small paper clips).  The hip joint for the right leg started badly when my drill-bit broke off.  The part in question was too thin to properly drill another hole in, so I fudged it as best I could and added some greenstuff to stiffen the joint.  With the two arms on that side also being pinned to the base, I don’t expect any undue stresses on the right leg, so the hip joint should be fine.

I strongly recommend this method of pinning-but-not-gluing, since as you can see, if I had glued everything in place, painting this model would be a task and a half.  As it is, I can work on all the parts (including that awesome base) separately. 

I hope to get this model painted next week.

Review

I might as well review the model itself while I am here.

The model comes in many separate pieces – I will stick up a photo showing them all laid out, but three of the four arms come in two parts and the body itself comes in three parts (smoke stack, main body and a small section underneath to which the legs attach).  All the parts of this model bar the main body required clean up and filing of mold lines.  This took a while, due simply to the size and number of parts.

I assembled the body first.  The smoke stack (and, to a lesser extent, the lower body part) fit snugly but do leave a gap which needs filled with greenstuff.  The arms and legs fit on by way of ball and socket joints.  There is no way you can pose the model like it appears in the box art (see above) without pinning the arms and legs, so some careful thinking is needed about how you will pose it before you start drilling holes.  I used blutac to try various looks before I found one I was happy with.

The harpoon gun needs the two halves pinned, and that joint is easily the most fragile in the whole model, as well as being the limb most likely to snag on something and pull apart.  Take care.

The Peacekeeper is really the sort of model that gamers blessed GW for doing in plastic, once GW started going down that road.  The only comparable metal GW model that is this tricky to assemble is the Penitent Engine, but even that has much meatier joints with much more room for pinning.

Not one for beginner modellers, then, but a terrific model once you get it built.

Just a couple of pics of my WIP – the Guild Executioner.  He’s not quite finished – a few highlights and some stripes on his trousers, then the varnish and he’ll be done.

Just a quick pic of tonight’s work.  The models are primed white, and the first (test) building is coming along pretty well.  The flat roof is removable to place models inside, and there will be an external flight of steps at the back to access the roof, as well as roofed goods storage area.

If it works, I will put up a tutorial on how I did it.  All comments at this stage gratefully received.

Just a quick look at my Bastion, made with the remains of the two Bastion kits and some Cities of Death pieces. I will be attaching a Landing Pad (scratchbuilt) to the back, and might make them separable for storage purposes.

Just to the right, you can see I finally finishing assembling my drop pod for my Spectral Tigers Marines (allies for my Witchhunters).

And the terrain piece behind that is another WIP you can see here.

As you might have guessed by now, I love making terrain, mainly because I love playing games with lots of terrain in it. See my batreps for details! Despite the fact I play Tau (who are supposed to love planet Bowling Ball), I enjoy (and remember) the games with loads of terrain far more than I do the games with a few pieces scattered here and there with little thought to what they are doing there and why.

I can feel a lengthy terrain post coming on, but I’ll stop there for now

A quick look at the kitbashed Shrine of the Aquila I am working on. This one uses some bits from the Bastion kit to fortify the base. The platform at the front is scratchbuilt from foamcore and other bits and pieces. I have some Basilica sets to do the ruined interior of the Shrine with.

I also have everything in duplicate, so this will be one of a pair. They will join up to make a single, enormous terrain piece, or can be used separately.

The other models are just there for scale.

Some pics of my Hounds of Xaphan (resin models from Forgeworld, from their Renegade Militia range). A lot of the shading has been done with inks, and I will be keeping the glossy finish, and probably give it a gloss varnish rather than a matt one.

The other two are not at this stage yet. The base is from Dark Arts Miniatures.