Fast forward 12 months

It's been almost exactly a year since my last post. That's a huge gap, but the good news (at least for me) is that, although this blog has been dormant, my hobby activity has not, and I have plenty of bits and pieces to share over the next few posts.

But firstly, let's start with why. Why have I been quiet for so long? Well, the main reason is that this time last year, my wife and I began to undertake some fairly extensive work on our family home. Work that saw us completely pack away all my models, tools and paint, that saw us remove most of the top section of our house, that saw at least one ceiling fall in, and two people fall through them (neither were injured), that had rain water pouring down internal walls, a bedroom completely open to the elements for several days, and that ended up taking more than twice as long as originally estimated. But after everything was over, and finally complete, work that gave us a whole new floor on our house. I'm talking, of course, about a loft conversion, but after the painful, drawn-out process that we went through, it feels like so much more than just those simple words.

When we first started the work, I had no idea that I'd be putting this blog into such a long slumber, even though the building work had been planned many months in advance. I just never put two and two together and realised quite how disruptive it would be. I hadn't accounted for some of the intense mental anguish that would occur, while watching one's home being quite literally torn apart.

But it's done now and the upshot of the process, as far as this blog is concerned, is that instead of a dingy space, in among the rafters of a dusty roof, I now have a properly appointed office for all my work and hobby pursuits.

When fitting out the room we ensured there was plenty of shelf, desk and storage space. Me so that I could fit everything in and it would still be neat and functional, and my wife so that she could guarantee there wouldn't be any of my toys elsewhere in the house.

One of the biggest boons of this, and of being forced to organise everything from scratch, is that when placing finished models on shelves, I was able to set them up as little displays – almost like dioramas. 

Chaos troops man the ramparts of a town they have taken...

... in defence against the approaching Undead horde

Dredd style Arbites Enforcers bring riot suppression weaponry to bear

An Ork armoured brigade starts to amass in preparation for their next Waaagh.

The streets of Kruenta are alive with all manner of Imperial citizenry

There was a lot more to the last 12 months than just the moments I've touched on above, and there's a fair bit more to my office than just these images, but I think it's probably best to leave it here for now, to ward against the dreaded approach of boring and excruciating detail.

What's that? Too late?

End of the line, creep

Engage smug mode. The project that prompted me to create this blog has been completed. The final four Dredd style Arbites Enforcers are below. I was meant to be working on my fantasy Chaos dudes, but once I picked up one of these guys a few weeks ago I just couldn't stop. And it's always good to harness a bit of hobby energy. Never look a gift horse in the mouth, right?*

I added weathering powder to each of these characters in an attempt to emulate that dusty look the Judges have in the 2012 Dredd film (you can see the reference picture I was aiming for in this post), but when I then gave them a light spray of Munitorum Varnish, all the powders subsequently disappeared. In the end, after varying my process three times, I got worried that the powders were subtly dampening all the rest of the painting and gave up. In fairness it's still visible in the odd location, and these guys don't exactly look pristine, so I'm happy to draw this project to a close...

... for now.

Here's a quick shot of the gang altogether.

To celebrate the fact that I'm getting close to the end of my Addiction Challenge, in my next post I'm going to try something a little different. There will be words, and there will be photos, but quite unlike anything I've done on here before.

ADDICTION CHALLENGE

REMAINING: 4

*Unless you live in Troy

Riot suppression

A few more Dredd style Arbites Enforcers today. These next three models include the areas that needed the most freehand work – namely the lettering on the riot shields and the illuminated number 3 on the side of the Sentinel. Freehand isn't my strong-point, so needless to say the results are passable at best.

But any finished miniature is a win in my book, and I always knew I'd struggle with the lettering, so on balance I'm pretty pleased with how this project is turning out. Below are a couple more shots of the Sentinel.

And the good news is that this takes me below the remaining 10 mark on my painting challenge, so not long now before my house is totally overrun by an influx of new, tiny, plastic toys.

ADDICTION CHALLENGE

REMAINING: 8

Dread reckoning

These last few days I've been taking a short break from the Chaos Wastes to pop back to Kru*, my WH40K hive city, in order to visit my Judge Dredd inspired Arbites Enforcers.

The Arbites project was the reason I started this blog, way back in 2015, and was my attempt to create a small unit of Enforcers or Judges for Necromunda/WH40K, based on the design aesthetic from the 2012 Dredd film.

I was never a huge fan of the converted Suzukis ridden by the Judges in that movie, so I decided to look to the comics for inspiration. It's taken me a while to paint them, but here are the first two of my Judicial Enforcer Squad – the LexDominum urban patrol bikes that I built back here.

Once these guys were finished I took the level of weathering on the riders, let's call them Yosef Phargo and Dolman Rico, and finally went back and finished the Enforcer below. It's only really a bit of powder on his leathers, and some rust on the metal areas of his boots, but I think it adds the level of detail that was previously stopping me from calling him finished.

So these three models are now complete, and my Addiction Challenge score inches ever closer to the end.

ADDICTION CHALLENGE

REMAINING: 11

*Kruenta Karoliina Arx Rotunda

Whether to weather?

If you follow me on Twitter, or you caught my previous post, you may have noticed that I've started dabbling with my Warhammer 40,000 Enforcers again. My Adeptus Arbites sanctioned, Judge Dredd inspired Enforcers who police the mean streets of the hive city, Kruenta Karoliina Arx Rotunda.

I've started painting them, and have found myself tweaking the colour scheme in ways I didn't expect.

In the Judge Dredd comic, along with their red-rimmed helmets and gold shoulder pads, the Judges of Mega-City One sport several green items on their uniform – boots, gloves, knee pads, elbow pads and pouches. In the 2012 Carl Urban film they clearly felt this approach wasn't going to be gritty enough, so although they kept some of the green details, the colour was made so much darker that it was hardly noticeable in the final grade of the movie.

When I started on my troopers, I wanted them to look like the darker, almost entirely black-uniformed movie version, but decided to switch out the dark green altogether in favour of a dark tan leather colour that would probably make for a more easily identifiable texture in miniature form.

And with that I eventually got to the above stage where the test model is just about complete.

Or is he?

Originally, several years ago, when I first envisioned this project, my plan was to make my Enforcers look more worn. A little beaten up. Dusty, battered and generally in-use.

Like these guys

But now I've got this far, I'm not sure the model will really benefit from a lot of weathering. The dust might blur the already difficult to detect line between the harder body armour and the slightly softer black leather jacket and trousers. So I'm faced with a bit of a dilemma. Do I push ahead, sticking to the original plan, and run the risk of making an irreversible mistake, or just stick with what I've got, and let the weathering go the way of the green boots?

The answer is I'm just not sure yet.

ADDICTION CHALLENGE
REMAINING: 44 or 45?

Wheels of judgement

One hundred years ago, I pledged, on this blog, to build a couple of unique models. Ones that would combine a character from a film, with a vehicle from a comic, and infuse them both with a hint of WH40K flavour.

But only a mere few days into the project, I got to a stage that had me stumped. I put the fledgling models to one side, promising myself that I'd return to them soon, once I'd mulled over how to go about finishing them.

Fast forward those hundred years, and I was finally struck by the urge to complete them. In reality I was less driven by the desire to finish them that I was by the guilt of having abandoned them.

And today I think I'm finally at a place where I can share them.

Perps, jimps, futsies and stookie runners*, may I present to you the LexDominum urban patrol bike.

Although they don't look all that complicated, these bikes were a real headache to construct. I worked on them, on and off, for about two and half years, doing tiny, incremental stages every few weeks, then abandoning them for months on end. But I took a few photos along the way, so I can share some of the major leaps forward. 

Before I do that, I'll just share a quick reminder of my original brief. You can see it in full here, but quite simply it was as follows.

Start with this bike as the major ingredient...

... but add the lights from this design...

... to create something a little like this...

... then sprinkle in a hint of the armoured feel of these bikes...

... but base the whole thing on this model

This meant I was starting with two of the Space Marine Scout Bikes, which I cut at the join between the front forks and the main body of the bike.

I started by rearranging the angle and length of the front forks, using plasticard and putty...

... before smoothing off the putty and adding more plasticard to create the basic shape of the front fairing

I then added some simple detail to the reverse of the front section

The guns, rims, rivets, baggage and lights, came next, while I also brought the rider in line with the earlier troops

I bought the lights from Zinge Industries, who have an incredible range of tiny detailed parts for exactly this kind of conversion work (I think it was these ones). However, even though they seem to come in sets of five, and from looking at the photo below I clearly had at least six, I somehow didn't end up with enough to complete the job. So rather than risk interrupting my flow while I waited for a new order to arrive, I decided to cast the missing two with Instant Mold and green stuff. (I talked a bit more about that process when I created the Judges' shoulderpads here.)

Next up: repeat the previous stage on the other bike, but go for a different overall pose

Add the basic shape of a badge in plasticard

Then cut some details from Forge World brass etched eagles...

... to be glued to the front of the badge

Sculpt in the hint of some wings on the eagle badge

Then add final detail to the reverse of the bike

These two bikes finally complete the construction of my entire Judicial Enforcer Squad, a process I started back in the first post of this blog, nearly four years ago. That's slow, but its not my slowest project ever. Not by a long shot**. 

Besides, the real challenge is to see if I can get them painted a little bit quicker. So here's to hoping I can finish them before April 2023.

*For more information see over 40 years of Judge Dredd comics.
**Remind me to tell you about my converted Scout Titan at some point.

Bringing law to the lawless, one swing at a time

If you've been following my 'Dredd' style Abites project, and you've been paying an inordinate amount of attention, plus you've got an excellent memory for obscure details, you may remember there were two remaining footsloggers I was yet to arm up. And when I say 'arm' I don't just mean weapons, but quite literally their upper set of limbs as well. 

I was going to attempt a 'not-so-armless-now' gag, but I think, even by my own low standards, that's scraping the bottom of an already-well-scraped barrel.

A few weeks ago I started work on the two bike cops that will round out this Arbites squad. A few hours later I had switched my efforts to the two guys shown here. Basically once I realised how difficult it was going to be to build the two identical Lawmaster motorcycles, with their distinctive front fairing, lights, badge and weapons, creating the riot shields from scratch, and converting the mauls felt like it could be a comparitively quick win.

It wasn't. 

I'll come back to that. Here's the pic.

Building the mauls was actually a little simpler than I expected. I merely shaved off all the unnecessary bits from the Space Marine Terminator hammers (that I showed at the bottom of this article) and smoothed over any unsightly areas with either liquid poly or green stuff.

It only got complicated when I came to the hands. The Terminator fists looked too big to attach to the Space Marine Scout arms. It made the Judges look like tiny children wearing comedy Hulk gloves. I toyed with the idea of completely cutting them off, but decided I would never get the grip on the replacements to look as convincing. Instead I slowly carved tiny slivers off the existing mitts until I'd made them as small as I could, without them looking silly. Then I pinned them in place with bits of paperclip, and tried to create a perfect seal with more liquid poly.

The shields were more involved. I wanted them to look like slightly modernised versions of the Enforcer shields released by Games Workshop's Specialist Games division, Fanatic, back in the late nineties (or perhaps early noughties). I knew what I had in mind, so started by looking at other manufacturers for proxy models. I can't remember them all now, but some of the contenders were as follows:

• Victoria Miniatures Riot Shields
• MaxMini Anti-Riot Gear
• Anvil Industry Ballistic Shields
• Anvil Industry Riot Shield
• Zinge Industries Riot Shield

I also looked through the existing Games Workshop and Forge World stuff, plus the Kromlech, Puppets War, Spellcrow, Fox Box, Ramshackle Games, Pig Iron Productions and Scibor ranges, not to mention brief dalliances with the shields from the Mantic Enforcer Defenders and After Glow Shield Warriors.

But it was all to no avail. Most of the shields I found had something about them I liked, but didn't quite fit what I had in mind. In the end I decided it would be easier (and cheaper) to make them from scratch. 

I wanted a slight curve on the shield so I started with a discarded shampoo bottle. (You can see it in the same article I mentioned above.) I cut a section out of the bottle, washed it thoroughly and lightly scored its surface with a scalpel to give the glue something to hold onto.

I then used plasticard, green stuff, some no-longer-available modelling rivets from Antenocitis Workshop and a Forge World etched brass imperial eagle to build all the details. 

During construction I decided they looked a little plain, so borrowed an idea from the Mantic Enforcer Defender shield, to reinforce the vision slit, as it added just enough extra detail to break up all those flat surfaces without deviating from the original design too much.

Anyway, after many evenings of fiddly work, glued fingers, and some far-from-inventive cursing, the two Arbites are finally ready to join their fellows on the parade ground.

So this completes the beat cops, leaving me with only the two bikes to finish. After that I can finally start painting. With a little luck I won't have grown old and developed arthritis by then. Fingers crossed. While I can still cross them.

Motorcycle justice

You thought I'd forgotten about my 'Judge Dredd' style Arbites Enforcers project, right? I know. I get it. It's totally understandable. But to tell you the truth that's just not the case. I haven't forgotten about them. Quite the opposite. The project has been on my mind for months. Eating away at me, when I should be focussing on other things. I think about it when I'm trying to get off to sleep. I think about it when I'm at work. I think about it when I'm playing with the kids. I'm thinking about it now.

So I've done a lot of thinking.

But sadly, I haven't made much progress. Two things have blocked my flow. The riot gear Judges and the two motorcycle Judges. The riot shields and batons have been sitting on my desk looking a lot less fun to build than pretty much every other unconstructed toy in the vicinity, and the bikes have simply had me stumped, not sure how to proceed.

But after all that thinking there are, at least, a few thoughts I can share.

My Arbites/Judges take their look from the Karl Urban film, but I wasn't in love with its version of the Lawmasters (or, for that matter, the ones from the old Stallone movie). So I had to look elsewhere, and the comic was the obvious place to start.

Over the last couple of years a new mark of Lawmaster has appeared in the Judge Dredd strip, and I've gotta say I'm rather taken with it.

Because it's full of badassery

Artist Ben Willsher seems to be the man behind the new design. In this page from the Day of Chaos saga he compares it to one of the original Lawmasters

I struggled to find any different angles of this machine, but fortunately, Mezco Toys have a model based on it, due for release next month, as part of their One:12 Collective range.

Exactly the design I'll never be able to achieve

But let's not stop just yet. There are a few other designs that have also caught my eye. The next two share similarities with the above, and the third is the old school original Lawmaster in all its glory. I'll probably try to draw some inspiration from all of them, so at this point I'm imagining that my finished bikes will be based mainly on the Lawmaster above, but will also incorporate influences from the three directly below.

Fan art from Dan Cornwell (find him on Deviant Art here)

Jon Davis-Hunt's excellent new style Lawmaster with the old style lights 

Mike McMahon's take on the classic Lawmaster

Now, I have absolutely zero intention of completely scratch-building two identical bikes, so the next thing I need to know is which existing model kit to base them on. There were three that sprung out at me.

Forge World's Heresy era Legion Outrider bike

Titan Forge's Terra bikes

Games Workshop's Space Marine Scout bike

The final choice was made easy, not just by way of price, flexibility and availability, but also by the simple fact that it comes with rider's legs from the same range I've been using for the rest of my Arbites. So, although the bike will probably require more work than the others, it's the bottom one, the Space Marine Scout.

But that's not to say the other two images are useless. On the contrary they both offer a tonne of inspiration for this project. There's a lot of tough, riveted armour and sleek, dangerous curves on those bikes, all of which feels very in keeping with how I envisage Lawmasters to look in the Warhammer 40,000 universe.

So there's the thinking. Now I just need to do the difficult bit. Can I replicate any of these ideas, twice, on the model bikes I promised to build? Only some serious work will tell. A little less conversation a little more action.

Judgement day

There's cause for celebration in my house today. Or at least in the corner of my house where I play with tiny bits of plastic. It's because I've finally finished building the first five of my 'Judge Dredd' style Arbites Enforcers. It's been a long slog, but generally I've enjoyed working on this project. If, for some reason you are remotely interested you can find all the earlier stages here. Although, to be fair, there's still plenty more work to be done until it's completely finished. I guess the reality is I'm only about half way through, but hush now child, let's not ruin the moment.

'Judge Dredd' style Arbites Enforcers. Not what I'd call instant justice

Also, if you've been following any of this, or if you just clicked on the link above, you may be wondering what happened to the other two troopers. 

In my last related entry I mentioned some other weapons that I was going to have to build from scratch. Here's a photo showing the tiny amount of progress I've made since then. If you couldn't before, you should now be able to tell what it's all going to be.

That's right, it's more tiny bits of plastic

Once I've finished these last two guys, then I've only got to build that bike I promised (way back here). Just a few arms and a simple little bike standing between me and the painting stage. Or maybe two bikes. Shall we say two? Okay, two.

I predict a weapons fit

The last time I posted about my 'Dredd' style Arbites Enforcers project, I talked about creating replica shoulder pads for the whole team. Since then I've been trying to integrate the pads and continue to add arms and weapons. Needless to say progress has been its usual slow self.

There's going to be a mix of equipment throughout the squad, taking a vague lead from the various official Arbites and Enforcer releases of days gone by (some of which can be seen here and here). Therefore most of my weapons will be quite standard: shotguns, bolters and a grenade launcher. However there's one other weapon fit that's causing me some problems. I want two of my characters to be holding equipment that I just can't find decent proxies of. I've looked through plenty of sprues, and at other manufacturers, but I can't find anything that quite matches what I have in mind. So I've decided to try to make my own.

For the first of the two items I started with an old bottle of shampoo. I cut the top off to get a better understanding of how thick the plastic is and check that it's what I'm after, then cut out a strip to work with.

For the other item I scoured existing kits, looking for something I could work with. I eventually found these hammers on Bitzbox, so I bought three different ones to give myself some choice. They aren't the weapon I want, but I'm hoping they'll be a good place to start. Any idea where I'm going with this?

Incidentally, on the subject of Bitzbox, their website has recently undergone a redesign. The navigation is easy, their stock levels are up, and from order to delivery was only a matter of days. If you're in the UK, I can strongly recommend these guys. And I don't even have shares in their company.

Shouldering on

About a week ago I posted an entry about looking for a shortcut in the mass production of the shoulder pads for my 'Dredd' style Arbites Enforcers. I had a vague plan, but it involved a product I had never used and a process I had never tried. And let's face it, that's a weak kind of plan, even on a good day. So I was somewhat apprehensive about tackling it and didn't really know how to rate my chances. 

Well, I had a go, and the good news is, it's only gone and worked! 

Not just that, but the whole process turned out to be quite straightforward. Basically I made a simple mould, by pressing Instant Mold up against the test model, then let it set and pushed Green Stuff into it. 

Before starting I bought the Instant Mold online from Element Games here, and watched Brian Hassan's tutorial video, Greenstuff 101: Instant Mold on his TemplarCrusade01 YouTube channel here. It's an easy, straightforward process, but for anyone thinking of trying it, I would still recommend they watch Brian's video a couple of times first.

Get some of this (obviously)

Soak it in hot water and push it against the area to be cast

Push Green Stuff into the resulting moulds

Let Green Stuff dry overnight, then pop out the pads in the morning

Carefully trim off the excess Green Stuff

When I realised how simple this was, I decided to make a whole bunch of moulds in one go. This would give me a greater chance of getting a really good one, and, if I got more than one decent mould, speed up the time it would take to cast enough pads for my entire squad.

Once the pads are cast they need to be inspected, sorted, then trimmed into shape. On my first batch of  6, I got a grand total of two that I was happy with. With my exceptionally low lifetime goals and attainment targets I'm claiming the 33% success rate as a pass. And anyway, after another couple of sessions, and the replacement of a few of the weaker moulds, I soon got most of the pads I need. Which theoretically means I'm on the home straight for my Arbites, with just the arms, elbow pads and weapons to go. What could possibly go wrong?

I'm sure I'll find something.