Some touching ups on my Xwing ships

I have been doing small touch ups here and there on my ships, mostly to make them more personal, the most recent batch is my Z-95 squadron, so here they are:

the first one I painted was done for a friend that wanted that schema but the transaction never managed to complete

 Next I just weathered my second z-95

Turning my XV81 into a full TAU HQ enabled one

This year I got a XV81 unit from Forge World, it is  a nice model that is not as different from the standard models and blends perfectly with the rest of the crisis units. Its only drawback is the fact that it doesn't mix as perfectly with the Air burst fragmentation launcher or the Cyclic Ion Blaster, more if you like have the metal ones. I struggled on how to implement it into my XV81 since I want it to be my HQ unit, in the end I decided to clip my weapons and attached magnets to the end so my model can be armed properly.  what do you think?

My Basing method step by step part One

Today I was in the mood to do some basing, so I grabbed some basic materials and documented everything, I started by getting some sand mixed with small pebbles:

 Then a bit of volcanic ash from the last Pacaya volcano eruption that covered most of our city in ash.

 some bases (any will do, I use the same approach on all kind of bases), GW slate and wh40k basing kit parts

 plastic netting to do razor wire

 and of course the bit bag, glue and something to apply it.

 

  

with all that my first step was to glue with super glue the big parts like the ash and parts  as you see fit then after they are placed you put the glue like a cup cake top, here there is a little bit of info that you must me aware; if your base has a hole like the one in the flying bases I used here you should put  a peg to keep the hole unobstructed by the glue and sand.

 

it should be smooth but it will work if not. While the glue is wet you submerge the base on the sand, like you can see next:

you can see that a good bath of sand is necessary, when finally done you take it facing down the sand ant tap  to drop the  loose sand.

after that you might want to sprinkle a bit of sand  on the uncovered glue. 

then you remove the peg and uncover the hole if the base have one, that must be done fairly quickly or you wont be able to remove the peg and that would mean that it would get dirty if you let it glue and haven't primed the base.  At this point you will have collection of good looking bases.

 In the next installment I will add the bitz and start the painting, so stay tuned.

Doing some work on a XV81 part 3

Recently I got my hands on a Forge World Tau xv81 Crisis Suit, after looking all the parts I couldn’t resist and decided That some magnets should be used because to me the arms screamed for them.
But first when working with resin you got to be really careful with the dust that can be released, here you will see that even when I just used a hobby knife the dust appears in various pictures. THIS DUST IS DANGEROUS, use a mask to avoid breathing it.
After the last post we should be with something like the following picture that has been around since the first post on the series.


Today we well cover the arms and start by getting a magnet and we make sure there is a big enough hole for the magnet


when it is big enough I put the magnet  with some glue
next there is the turn of the weapons by drilling a magnetically aligned small magnet as you can see here  

after that  there is jut s matter of finishing the model.

and you have something like that:

I just scrapped a hole  where I could mount the mini in a flying base, what do you think?

After completing the model I can say you that the Forge World arms are so much easier to magnetize and swap weapons, I’m still struggling to have strong attachment on the regular models and here is easy cake.
I hope you liked the series and I want to hear from you.

Day 3 STC showcase week

 

I keep on showing my STC vehicles for the third day on a row on more day and the week is done, today is the turn for my Whirlwind  taken from tabletop quality

To this

The heavy support symbols needs a bit retouching but overall I like what I see and you?

Day two STC showcase week

This week I will post about the little painting retouching I did during holy week on my STC.

This day is the turn for my Razorback

once more it has been on a tabletop painted level for about a year as you can see

nothing to write home about, but now I'm more proud of it, I did more freehand effects, the same mud effect and the exhaust effect.

the Ultramarines symbol is totally freehand following Sthaly’s advice, more easy said than done but good enough

I hope you like it and stay tuned for the whirlwind.

Resuming work on the long lost Ork Fighta

 

After more than a year after committing to the challenge I finally resumed work on my Ork Fighta, What I did this week was to add some guitar strings  a cockpit and reimagined the wings.

 

As you can see time  has taken its toll since one of the rear wings is missing

the missing vertical control surface will see a serious revamping once I decided on the general shape, for the cockpit I went simple and just glued an space marine console and a Ork torso with arms, posed everything together  and glued the cockpit to the main fuselage.

 

here is the work I did on the wings, so far is just 3 plastic sheets sandwiched to get a more robust surface that sadly it still needs some pieces to make it work.

here is the underside where you can see the area I reserved for the landing gear

one last overview picture

What do you think?