In the Emperor's Name

Proper photos will follow at the weekend when I have decent light but it got finished at last. 

I'm happy as it turned out almost exactly as envisaged it - with the added advantage that this was three weeks of hobby time for a total cost of £0.00. 

As proof, here's the original sketch I did all those weeks ago:

The biggest change is that CD bases are always smaller than I think once I start work so I had to drop the other bodies as they cluttered the diorama up too much and wrecked the composition. This now, of course, means I'm stuck with an Ork. 

The only real modelling challenge was converting the Ork. I had to reposition the  body and legs as well as the head and this required quite a lot of sculpting - including an entire new neck which probably makes this the only GW Ork in history to actually have a neck. 

There was also the entry and exit wounds along with various entrails. 

A shout out at this point to Mr Awdrey whose blood recipe has been liberally applied. 

As always, thanks for reading along and your supportive comments. 

Advance warning: the next project won't actually be wargaming related - it's going to be another modelling one. All

I will say is - all of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again. 

Using My Powers For Good

A decent update on current modelling work will drop tomorrow but I got a little distracted this week...

My eldest son, all of 3 and a half, really likes the CBeebies programme Andy's Dinosaur Adventures. Indeed, our house has pretty much every surface covered in trains or dinosaurs. 

One of his favourite games is to go out into the garden and have a dinosaur adventure wearing a hat, jacket and gizmo just like Andy.

What's a gizmo you ask? It's the thing that Andy wears on his wrist that gives him information about dinosaurs. It looks like this: 

The Eldest took to wearing a watch when he goes out on his adventures. 

Enter daddy. At the car Boot sale I bought a nice black leather watch strap. Then I cracked out the plasticard.

A bit if measuring, cutting and a slap of paint and an hour or so later we have this:

Which goes into the strap like so:

And so our wee adventurer is ready to go off to the Lost World:

I told my wife that all this time faffing about with modelling stuff wasn't wasted. 

Another Brick In The Wall

So today I took the bricks I salvaged when I cannibalised the Bloodbowl dugout in order to complete the main structure of the base. 

As Michael - fellow history teacher that he is - had more or less recognised the general vibe it seems pointless to maintain an air of mystery. We're going for an SF rendition of General Gordon's last stand - hence the stepped structure of the base which should lead the eye to the main figure standing at the top of the steps. 

The purpose of this bit of terrain is to provide a frame for the main figure. There's still some detailing to do but this is where we're at. 

And here is Bridadier Alistair Gordon Leighbridge-Stewart standing in for his ancestor to show scale:

More to come Monday. 

Current cost: £0. 

Can we build it?

Yes we can.

So currently all we've used is some of the slate, some leftover polyfilla and some weird bits of plastic strut I had in my bits box. There's also the stone steps which came from... Well, somewhere.

Total cost so far: £0