Artist of the Week: Spikey Bits' MBG!

Artist of the Week is back by popular demand and in a new home here on Saturdays. It kind of got lost for a couple weeks with all the "Snomeggedon" and Computers crashing, but the readers have spoken and It is back and there is no better artist in my mind to start this back up than one from the Blogosphere: Of course I am talking about MBG at Spikey Bitz!

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Check out these conversions and the paintjobs that accompany them! If any of these photos peeked your interest, check out his blog at: http://blog.spikeybits.com/

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You can find some great stuff there, from Water-born Slithering Tyranid conversions, to Orky vehicular madness and plenty more. My hat is off to you Rob! Please check out his work and leave him the feedback he deserves!

New Ork and IG FW kits, tons of pics!

Old School here with a few extra pics from the new Ork and IG Forge World kits! First is the Valk Sky talon! The next four pics are of the Ork Kilbursta.

... and last but not least, the remaining photos are of the Kilblasta kit! Looks like they did a hell of a job painting these and using their FW weathering powders!

Tutorial: Making a Tower of Skulls Part 1: Materials

Old School here,

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With my Tower of Skulls conversion commission done and over with, I can now talk tutorial, because what is the point of being able to make something this ridiculous without sharing how it was done so that some other guy can build one and improve on the method! This first article will cover the materials I used and how I got started. The reason I am doing this is so you can see what is involved and what kind of costs might be involved in taking on this project.

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Here is the material list:

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Weapons:

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I used a 1/4" diameter PVC pipe for the cannon (this is the largest size that will still fit through the basillica window). Available at your local Hardware Store!

The top guns in the tower are Twin-Linked Lascannons from the Land Raider kit, available from Horde O' Bitz on Ebay, Battle Wagon Bits (little pricey) or the Land Raider Terminus Upgrade kit from GW's site ... or, in your bitzbox if you are like me!

The Large missile launchers seen in the photo are the Multiple Missile Launcher available for about $9 from Armorcast's Sci-Fi line on their web site (google it). You could use Thunderfire Cannons like in the Apoc Book, but I chose to keep it cost-effective.

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The little heavy bolters already attached to the Bane Blade Chassis work very well for the Tower's small Skull Ripper guns, so I left them there.

Finally, for the guns you will need to dress them up so they fit in with your Chaos Army - this means evil gargoyle heads! I used the evil gargoyle heads from the Chaos Land Raider kit to fix the guns; The longer Dragon-type heads for the big guns in the tower and the small dog-faced ones for the HBs.
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That takes care of the weapons, let's talk Chassis:

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Obviously, you want to pick up a Bane Blade for the main Body of the Tank!

Next, you will need some parts to make it fit the Chaos Theme, this is where I used more parts from the Chaos Land Raider kit to suit my needs. Used two of the skull-panels and the nice (land-raider exclusive) spiked ram for the front of the tank and added 4 of the gargoyle headed vox units under the lights - Once again, all of these could be in your bitzbox, but if not, then order them peice-meal from Horde O' Bitz or somebody like that to get what you need at a reasonable price.

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The curved spikes I have used as wheel guards and for the front of the tower to hold back the skulls comes from about two boxes of Corpse carts from the Warhammer Fantasy Line.

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Now let's talk Tower:

For the tower, the client wanted it to look like it was FILLED with Skulls, so the I HAD to get my hands on some Basica Administratum Skull Walls - the only problem is that only two of those wall panels come with each Basillica and this job calls for 8 of them! Once again, bitz ordering them via Ebay with Horde O' bitz or another bitz seller is the way to go! If not, you would be looking at nearly $100 in Basillicas alone!

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Next, I used the denomic faces and skulls from the Warhammer Fantasy Battle Arcane Ruins kit for the demons above the guns on the tower and for the skulls above the regular panels (some skulls will need horns cut off of them. Once again, this is something I could pull from the bitz box or you could order from a bitz seller or could get by buying the kit directly.

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Another Evil face I used front and center, on top of the tower was the Big Round Demon face vomiting skulls from the Ogre Kingdoms range. It really made the whole project for me as it has so much character - once again, this is a piece I ordered from Horde O' Bitz.

On the top of the tower, I used various spiked racks from the Chaos Vehicle kits along with some random impaled helmets from the Chaos Champion Sprue found in the regular Chaos Space Marine box sets.

Additional Needs:

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This project rquires a ton of skulls and skulls do not run cheap in this kind of volume if you are trying to buy them from GW or even from an Ebay Seller, but if you have $10 and a dremel or a skill saw, then you can easily side step the need for AS MANY individual skulls. I got the bulk of the skull surfacing done on top of the tower and on the chassis by using the Skull Road kit from the terrain section on Armorcast's web site. The panel they send you is over a foot long, about 6 inches wide and is made of resin, the skulls have a decent amount of deep detail and are scaled to fit in with the 25mm-28mm range we have in 40k - so this is a key buy if you want to make this look good AND keep the price down!

Next is both Green Stuff AND Grey Stuff. The reason you need both of these is because there are parts of this project that require a more pliable and softer drying sculpt like green stuff and times where you will need more hardy and rigid-drying sculpting materials like Grey Stuff and I will cover all of that as I get to those areas in the tutorial.

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Even more skulls! That is right, there are going to be gaps in the skull road pieces once you get cutting and you will miss the 40k feel without some skulls and helmets from the 40k range, so get your hands on about 8-12 Space Marine Helmets, about 20+ skulls from fantasy (or from the chains found in chaos vehicle kits)

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Plastic card - You will need plastic card or any other thicker plastic material to base the tower on the BaneBlade Chassis and to create the skull broth effect at the back of the tower. It is also good for fixing gaps and any other spot-repair during the project.

The tools to do the job of course! I used a power Dremel (not battery, but plug), a pin vice, Brass Rod, a hobby knife (about 5 blades), a set of sculpting tools (noth rubber tiped and metal), Brush-on Super Glue (I just prefer brush-on, but you will need multiple tubes), a flush cutter and plenty of caffiene!

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So to recap, that is:

Dremel

Hobby Knife

Super Glue

Sculpting tools

Pin Vice

Brass Rod

Plastic card

Green stuff

Grey Stuff

Flush Cutters

1/4" inch Diameter PVC pipe

2 Multiple Missile Launchers from Armorcast

1 Skull Road from Armorcast

2 Twin linked Land Raider Lascannon Sponsons

Gargyole heads , spike racks, spike ram and panels from Chaos vehicle box

Ogre Kingdoms Daemon Face

Fantasy Arcane Ruins Skulls and Daemon faces

about 50 extra skulls and helmets

4 Curved Spike racks from 2 corpse cart boxes from warhammer fantasy

8 skull walls from the basillca administratum box from cities of death

3 window walls from the basillica administratum box from cities of death

A BANEBLADE

... and some caffiene ... check that ... I think a pony-keg of Rockstar or Monster may be in order ... and I think that is it. This has been the most badass conversion I have ever done and I am very happy with how it turned out and I think my client is stoked too. Thsi took me a total of about 16 hours to build (man-hours, not actual hours) and I would rate it as an expert kit, so if you are new to Green Stuff or large scale conversions, I would recommend smaller projects first like converting existing tank kits or a brass scorpion from defilers to get you up to speed with some of the stuff you will need to do - or you can follow along and try it out anyway! Feedback, as always, is welcome!

Troll Forged Minis - Nids, Greatcoats, zombies and more!

While scrolling through the old blog roll and checking out some of the on-line retailers and sculptors I haven't visited in a while, I came across Troll Forged Miniatures. They have grown quite a bit since the last time I checked them out and now boast a fine line of Imerial Guard-like minis with great coats or trench helmets, an evil-looking bug that may make a great DoM, some possible Lost and the Damned stand-ins and much more.

Great Coat general

Trenchers

Zombie trenchers and great coats

Mutants (I like them for lost and damned)

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Now, for asome people, minis from outside the GW range will always be unacceptable and that is fine, but if you want to check out what they have to see if there is something that you can use as a stand-in model or if there are any models in their line you just "have" to paint, check them out. They also sell some moulds and have a great line of fantasy minis. Here is the link: http://trollforged.com/index.html I ordered their little brain bug to serve as a DoM in my Hive Fleet. As always, feedback and comments are welcome.

Battle-testing Hive Fleet Kraken - DS fury!

Old School here,

I just wanted to share some of my experience with the new Nids and throw out a list I have been trying. I wanted to make a list that used an almost alpha strike theme in which I come in turn 2 and really mess up my opponent's target priority and hopefully, his tanks and squads.

The first list I ran, I called Shock and Awe, it goes something like this at 1750

Tyrant - Scything Talons, Heavy Venom Cannon, Hive Commander, Paroxysm, leech essence

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Tyrant - Wings, Dual Devourers, Hive Commander, Paroxysm, leech essence

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2 Hive Guard

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1 Doom of Malan'tai with spore pod (with spine clusters)

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2 Zoeys in Spore Pod

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10 termagants

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10 more termagants

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1 tervigon with catalyst and cluster spines

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1 tervigon with cluster spines

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Trygon Prime

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Mawloc

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The idea here is that I can DS or burrow all the pods and big snakes into the enemy turn 1 and have the option to outflank 2 troops on turn 2. I played a CSM Death Guard army and tabled it by turn 4. The Trygon Prime and the Flyrant managed to gun down a DP, the doom did nothing on the turn it came in due to the high LD of Chaos. The Zoeys killed an oblit, the Hive Guard popped a rhino and the Tervigons killed a squad of Chosen all on turn two.

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Turn three saw the Doom come into his own as the opponent ignored him, thinking he would remain ineffective - that is when he rolled a 16 for leadership on the remaining DP and a 15 on his havocs. This not only killed both of those units outright, but eneabled the doom to insta-kill a squad of Oblits. The Prime then managed to drag down a squad of termies, the mawloc popped up under a squad of plaguers and AP2'd most of them to death. My Zoeys got killed and so did the flyrant, but by turn 4 that was all I lost, while my opponent had lost 9 of his 11 possible kill points. Oh yeah, turn 4, the Doom also killed a squad of terminators racking it's KP to 4 and the number of points it killed in models to 640!

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I liked how this list performed but there is a lot of fine tuning to do. I think I will switch the doom's pod's spines to the zoey pod. I will also give the foot tyrant a strangler cannon as the venom cannon did nothing for me. I am still up in the air about the flyrant, I like his dakka power, but don't like the points-cost of the wings.

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I have also looked at using 4 squads of warriors with a Barbed strangler in each squad and either devourers or deathspitters, but have not decided. I think they will probably go ignored in much the way my gants were due to all the crazy stuff in the opponent's midst and all the damage that stuff is doing. They would replace the tervis and gants.

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I will continue playtesting and will soon be converting my tervigons and painting one of my tyrants and both of the big snake bugs. Any and all comments and feedback are appreciated, so let me know what you think.

Tower of Skulls Progress! Skulls for the Skull Throne!

Old School here with some updates on the Tower of Skulls. The tower is structurally done and while it will require some superficial work to make the conversion whole, it is looking good so far!
On the other hand, my secondary camera is not doing so well.


Minus the incredibly washed out flash, this is how the inside was constructed. I used the lascannon sponsons I had in my bitz box to create the guns in the upper tower, then used a combination system of grey stuff and pinning materials to firmly anchor them into the bottom of the window sill of the tower. The seems on the inside of the tower were all re-enforced with grey stuff and super-glue to both fill and seal the cracks.

With that all done the last three wall sections were glued and pinned into place, leaving me with a solid tower only missing it's top. By the way the skull-spewing daemon face on the front is from the Ogre Kingdoms line and can be bitz ordered from Horde O Bitz on Ebay!

Finally, I used Grey Stuff, Superglue, Yes a couple posicle sticks and more superglue to get a hard core section of plastic card into place to hold the roof in place and to act as a platform for the section of resin skull road I am using (from armour cast). Believe it or not, the uneven shape is intentional and you will have to trust me for now because I am far from finished!

This project will be finished on Saturday for my client, who plans to paint this himself. Once I am done, I will take all of my progress shots including many that you have not seen here, properly photoshop them and put together a comprehensive How To Guide for building a Tower of Skulls under the least favorable conditions! Feedback is appreciated and it is not too late for good ideas!

Green Stuff Sandbags!

Just a quick little tutorial on making some easy sandbags. I'm getting my army around for the paint and play at the local hobby shop and I have to finally paint my weapon teams since the point cost is so low AND there is no armor 14 allowed. Time for bullets!

Fix off, just as a warning, these eats up your green stuff. I did three teams and went through about a half to a quart of each color. A friend from the store pointed out that there are world war II kits of sand bags but they don't get the dynamic look I like. Plus, if green stuff is 20$ and that kit is 10$ish then its not really too much more. I'm ok with the more expensive yet more customized method. Here we go!

First off, mix your green stuff. Its not too important for this to let it sit since you're not doing much, if any, fine detail. Just mix and glob. Secondly, gloves, wear your gloves for this because you'll end up leaving big finger prints that you'll have to smooth out and remember our focus; Quick!

I grabbed up enough to roll it into a ball about half the size of a dime. Roll it up into a ball then squish it down into a rectangular pancake. This is going to be your basic form. To get a good idea of what scale you should come out to mine up up about the size of a guardsmen torso. I've never built a sandbag wall to hide behind while shooting lasguns at people, but I feel like that's a good size.

Next you'll select your location of your model to put the base of the wall and lay it down.

Side note: For my bases I use floor tiles from lowes. You can buy 12"x12" squares for .66$ I just break it up with a pair of pliers into random chunks then just glue it down. If you saw my bikes the effect comes out like that. After that I use a product that I found from when I first bought my Bearded Dragon called 'Lizard Liter." It's crushed walnut shells and looks really great as a rocky/sandy/fine rubble.

So, after you place your rounded rectangular chunk down press it into any rubble or any other sandbags you might have down and make it look sort of droopy like its been there for a while and the sand has settled in to make it look more realisting. After that, run your needle tool around the end to create a crease all the way around to look like a seem. Once you're done there go back to the top and push the droops back down that the seem might have pushed back up. This does two things: makes the seem irregular and thinner in areas and makes the top look evenly effected by gravity.

Then make tiny lines int he top portion to make it look like folds in the material. Over exaggerate them, it'll look good when you paint it and give some great dark/light contrast areas when you use washes or dry brush. I start out by making using the needle tool. Keep in mind that material bunches at where its being pulled so it'll form little V's with the point at the edge and the creases spidering towards the center.

After using the needle tool I then push the droops down with the larger silcon smoothing tool. Remember to go back through afterward, repeating your steps until you get it to look like its been hanging there. If you get any sharp edges in the the GS don't worry too much because it has a tendency to 'settle' out and smooth out the edges naturally.

After you get one just rinse and repeat, stuffing them into each other, over weird edges, ect. Heres this team, one bag at a time:




Ok, so there is the first layer. Pretty easy. I stopped here and add an all new technique for this tutorial as an experiment.
I was sitting around in class, day dreaming about 40k instead of focusing on how not to kill people via mixing certain IV meds and thought, how can I make my sand bags look even more real? Texture. To get it I decided the best thing to use was a cloth bandaid.

After you make your first row of bags, just wrap it around your finger and press the texture randomly into the bags. the GS doesn't generally stick to the bandaid but you can still get it wet just to make sure.

Continue stacking your bags until you get the look, stopping each row to texture them then continuing.
More stacking:



There's the first team finished and here are the other two. Too bad I don't get to have cover saves for the terrain on my base! I'd put sandbags on my whole army's bases its so easy!!


Thanks! As always, message me with any questions.