Two very different WIPs

First up, here's my still-early Tankbusta Nob. The rest of the squad is a bunch of rookies, but the Nob is a veteran, with several wrecked vehicles in his past. One of his proudest achievements was ripping open a Leman Russ of a Cadian tank regiment. In commemoration of this destructive event, he fashioned himself a cape made from the tracks of the tank and wears it to this very day. And with every successive tank kill, he adds another link or two to the cape. Here's Sef and his Coat of Many Tank-kills:

Here's a better look at the cape, which should be sufficient to count as heavy armor. As you can see from the weak attempt at fashioning an arm, my greenstuff-fu is still not strong. Still to come: an acceptable boss pole.

And here's a different WIP. This is perhaps the most well-painted ork I have ever seen, even though the pink pants are not a choice I would have made. I'm guessing that this is as far as Harlie will take her painting career, but please allow a proud papa to beam for a bit before crushing his spirits. :)

Toy Story 3

This should be the shortest post of all time. OF COURSE TOY STORY 3 IS AWESOME. I'm not sure it tops Toy Story 2 at this point, but then again I haven't watched it dozens of times like I have its predecessor.

I wouldn't dream of spoiling a thing about the plot. What I will say is that I was pleasantly surprised at some of the places this movie goes and how DARK some of those places are.

Big shock: I had tears streaming down my face a couple of times and at the end I came away satisfied and impressed that somehow the best streak in moviemaking improbably continues unabated. I'm beginning to think that Pixar couldn't make a bad movie if they tried.

Scrap

Here's the newest memba of the 'Bustas, named after (and slightly resembling) one of my favorite G.I. Joe figures of all time.

Tankbustas a-go-go

Another Tankbusta down. That makes five. Hmmm, might be time to find someone to lead this merry little band of misfits...

A "Special" Tankbusta?

Finished up this guy tonight. I tried to get a pic that would capture the "oi, where duz dis fing go" look on his face.

A Trio of Tankbustas

Built three more Tankbustas because the humidity has been a little high for spraypainting. Enjoy!

Bombo Squigos

I've been messing around with fixing some of my old models instead of making new ones this week, but I painted up my last bomb squig. I used Dheneb Stone for a basecoat, added Iyanden Darksun spots, then washed liberally with Azure Blue. I hoped the spots would turn green (yellow + blue = green), but it didn't quite work all that well. No biggee.

So, you can take three Bomb Squigs in one squad of Tankbustas. I wonder what the other one is for....hmmm....

Weekend Update

Busy weekend. Saturday consisted of going to the 'Ard Boyz semis in Green Bay (but not participating). It's always good to be reminded that you aren't the biggest geek in the world. It was also nice to see some Ork players for a change. Tau and Sally aficionado Vulkan gave it the old college try but came up short in the tourney.

Also saw The A-Team on Saturday. It is decidedly "meh." What could have been a good execution of an awesome concept falls on it's face with repeated lapses in ridiculousness that even George Peppard would have spit his stogie at. The characters are decent and there is fun to be had, but I have to chalk up this flick as a pretty big disappointment.

Thankfully, a less-than-stellar movie was followed up by a solid and entertaining UFC PPV. The main event between Rich Franklin and Chuck Lidell was bittersweet in a lot of ways. Sweet with Franklin showing his toughness once again by knocking out Chuck after breaking his arm earlier in the fight and bitter with witnessing what could be (and definitely should be) Lidell's last fight. The Cro Cop/Pat Barry, Carlos Condit/Rory MacDonald, and Kampmann/Thaigo fights were all top tier.

I didn't get any more painting/assembling done on my Orks, but after adding steel washers to the base of my Rokkit Hamma guy, I decided it was a good idea to do that to the rest of the army as well. I spent the better part of Sunday afternoon with that small detail. The Lootas and Stormboyz in particular should benefit from that little extra stability in their bases.

New 'Busta

YOU tell him that missile launcher is for Panzees...

 

Ok so the landing lights.
Simple...one battery to power three LED's. As long as its the same color shouldnt be an issue
Drill three holes where ever you like. Then glue them down and greenstuff them down in place.
Now for one battery to power all three you have to wire them in a PARRELL pattern.
Meaning all postive goes to the same wire and all negative goes to the same wire.

As you can see by the pictures its a tight spot and I had to get creative. with a little bending of the wires and a epic use of green stuff to kill the flow of an over cross positive and negative I was able to create one circuit with one battery.


TAU INCOMING!
Bask in the glow of soft electric LED Tau goodness.

Well phase 2 is on its way. LED TESTING.
Lets get to the nitty gritty shall we.
Step one, rip apart model thats been painted over more times then a hooker has seen truckers on a friday night.
Step two get small 3v battery for 5mm LED's Dont have to worry about voltage as the 3v wont burn out the LED...so no resister needed. Step three DRILL OUT HOLE in view port and smooth out the best you can. Attack batter to battery holder (radio shack) and then start to solder. I hate Soldering...takes to long, I burn myself, and ended up burning some of the model...but I did make the needed connections.
Step 4 Green stuff down the positive and negative wire when you have your led where you want it.
Turn on LED to test it
Nice

Step 6 Now I added some liquid water effect material for the view port and smoothed it out. It helps if you have ever hungup sheetrock and had to mud and smooth out the drill holes. :P

Moving on to the next phase...LANDING LIGHTS!!

Tonight's progress

Second Tankbusta done.

 

 

 

Tuesday Update

I did absolutely nothing 40K-related yesterday. Today, I did some painting. Below are a couple of Tankbusta heads and another of them thar Bomb Squigs (with what appears to be a human hair between his legs; no jokes please).

The Tau Rebooted

So its on...for better or worse....the Tau are getting redone.
First things first....the boys are a mess....broken pieces arms missing...whole guys missing (somewhere in the house) never been finished. 

Step one was scrapping off all the glue and trying to sand down all the vehicles.
2 devil fish and one hammer head (which could always be another devil fish).
I put a black primer coat on them tonight (the vehicles), but I am afraid that the can I used might have been old.  The curse of the Tau strike again.  It seems its more of a boltgun metal black...or the can is just old.  In any event the vehicles are primed...will take a look in the morning to see the damage.

The paint job will be a desert camo scheme with some sort of mask hexigon shape built into it....yeah nothing like going small.

Once I figure out the colors I want to use, I need to purchase an airbrush that does a little finer detail then my basic one I have now.  These guys have been primed, painted, primed again, and now painted for a second time...so I know they quality of them wont be the best, but its more of a general apperance that I will be going for.

More to come.

A New Look at Gump

On Saturday night, I was feeling quite pleased with myself at cranking out the Bomb Squigs so I sat down and finally watched the Blu-ray of Forrest Gump that I bought ages ago. Gump is one of my favorite movies of all time. I haven’t watched it in probably five or six years, but it’s always been dear to me. But I have always disliked the sequence where Forrest “goes for a run” and doesn’t stop for three plus years. It happens right after Jenny leaves him (again), and the problem I’ve always had with it is that it felt like a cheap way to advance time and I also didn’t like that it really has no resolution. He eventually just gets tired of running and decides to go home. That never sat right with me.

Turns out I was just missing the point. Considering some of the crap that’s been going on in my life the last year or so I TOTALLY GET IT NOW. I completely understand the need to in Forrest’s own words, “for no particular reason” just start running (or baking, or hobbying or whatever). I especially like the little bit where people start following him and expect him to be some sort of messiah (the Jesus beard and hair don’t help to dissuade them LOL), and are then disappointed and lost when he just quits.

Yeah, it’s still the same movie and it still ends the same way every time (with tears streaming down my face and a big dopey grin shining between those tears), but what was once the low point of the film for me has become one of its strengths and has enhanced an already tremendous movie experience for me.

A great film can sustain me for days. It’s my drug of choice. And being able to find something new in a movie that I thought had revealed all its secrets years ago is rare indeed.

AHHHHH!!!! Headless Tankbustas!!!

I think I'm done with 40K for the weekend. Time to get some Red Dead Redemption in before the Brewers game/Hockey game.

Here's a guy who prefers the Panzee weapons (not that there's anything wrong with that):

And here's one that ripped the arm off of a Deff Dread:

More to come....

Another Bomb Squig

 

Bomb Squig!

 

First TankBusta Done!

I decided to keep the color scheme simple. I used Charadon Granite for the armor (it's a grey that's close to olive drab), and it turned out well I think. The yellow shoulder pads tie him to the rest of the army and also stand out from the darker armor. And I love the way the hammer turned out, even if I had to attach two washers to the base to get him to stand up straight. The blue face paint and emblem on the hammer makes him a DeathSkull (DeffSkull). Yeah, I like this guy a ton.