More progress on Ma.k in the USSR

Some more progess pics of the Russian SAFS i'm working on.


His lid is on properly now and i've put on some of his armour plates. had intended to do more armour but will limit it as i dont wont to go overboard with them.
The two rings behind his knees will have power cable entering them and going back in just under the butt plate :)

Some more plates for the front but these will be flat overlapping plates. I will try to add texture to them as if they have been cast like the T34's.

I took some great pics of the T34 at Duxford on Sunday plus lots of detail shots of tanks and planes that i'm sure will come in handy. I will try to post the best shots on here in the near future.

Next job is his power plant on the back, i've found some intresting tanks from a chopper kit and will try to use one as a side fule tank again echoing the design styles you see on the T34.

More on this soon as it's my pick up build when i'm waiting for bit on the Castellan to go off.

Any comments here or on SFM or the yahoo scratch builders list very welcome, i'm still a bit undecided about the feet on this. Size wise they work given the very heavy look of the upper torso but should i try to make them look more rounded as if they have been cast?

Laterz

Rich

Space Hulk

Have been up in the loft and dug out my old and very dusty issues of White Dwarf for some of teh original xtra stuff they did for Space Hulk. I'll start scanning them up and posting them here. They may be of intrest to those that where still glints in there dads eye when this first came round lol. Got the rules for using traitor terminators and also the pit fall scenario also some rules for using bog standerd Marines. Couple of other intresting bits also.

Stay Tooned

Rich

Ideas for ma.k figuers

Just a quicky about Ma.k figuers as the subject has come up again on a forum and remembered i did these quick doodles for uniform ideas when i was in full sculpt mode. Officer and Grunt ideas, very airborn looking as i see them as modile troops rather than large formations so nothing bigger than battalion size units. With flyers being a populer choise in the Ma.k universe, air mobile troops for the Mercs would make sence.

A radio op would cool looking giving hand signals to a Falke pilot. This idea comes from the detail that Kow Yokoyama sees the Falke as an ambush raider deployed from hidden makeshift forward bases a bit like the harrier jump jet was intended for if the cold war ever got hot.

Some one to fix the bloody things lol Every high tech fliyer needs a greese monkey tho Hasagawa have put out a very nice box of 4 mechanics for the Falke now.

More Grunts again looking like airborne with short weopons and close fitting helmets.

I may sit down and refine these rough sketches and some others that are floating about now that the ideas for my group are down on paper (see below)

Rich

Option 2

I've finaly scanned my sketches of option 2 for the Alternative armour group build challange.

This is going to be a light infantry support tank, a more heavily armed option to the Sentinal and more able to cross rough and broken terrain. I think a couple of Cadians riding it and some more using it's bulk as protection could look good as a dio.

The base of the tank will probably be the lower half of a shwimmwagon and the upper sections will be scratch built and i'm looking at Frence WW2 tanks like the Char B1 Bis and Renault tanks as inspriration for this.

No solid idea for a name yet i'm toying with Castellan to stay in line with naming convention for IG walkers all one of them lol.

Going to make a start as soon as i'm finised this and changed a nappy :)

Rich

New Banner at last

Well contacted a mate and asked to use a pic of his model for my banner and here it is, thanks Phil it looks pretty decent and lots better than the old type only job i did in a hurry when i started this blog back in May.
I will get around to building my own version of Seth one day and think i've found a nice pieced of art work him to base my build on. But that's a long way off at the moment with lots of other builds to do first like Mongol from ABC Warriors and the Corsarius.

Rich

Whilst i'm thinking about it!

I'm going into town tommorow and plan on buying Space Hulk and was thinking about the 13th mission random mission generator download thing thats available of the web somewhere. Anyway i'm rambling as this aint the i was thinking about directly. Reading White Dwarfs covarage of the new game and what ya get in the box got me thinking about the very cool dead Blood Angel as an objective marker and i remember i've got space crusade on a shelf above my desk and there's a rather nice classic Dreadnourt / robot model in that game.Not as Bulky as the new dreadys and would be something that could turn up on a nice big derelict. So i'm going to paint this up as an objective fro a mission maybe call in "restart the war machine" or "wake the dreadnourt". This is just to remind me why it's sitting on my bence waiting to be tarted up :) and not used in a kitbash, I really hope i havn't used it in a kitbash. Ohh just remembered my mate eddi gave me a very early sanctiond psyker, again he would be good as a rescue piece.

Sorry about these Space Hulk musings but it's getting quite exciting, just hope i can get my hands on a copy soon-ish and the way is clear as the wife just spent £75 on Guitar hero 5 and world tour with free t shirt so no complaints about getting Space Hulk from that area lol.

Rich

Alternative Armour

Well lots of members are having a bash at this challange and some pretty impresive ideas and concepts have been posted.

Meanwhile i've got no bloody idea what i'm going to do lol. Above are a couple of sketches i did last year "i think" of something i spotted on the web. This is option one for my entry for the group build. and some sketches of option two will be along shortly.

This will "if it wins out" be in 1/20 scale and probably wont look anything like this initial sketch as i will have to work some found objects to get the shape of the main body. I'm calling it the APE suit or urban pasification unit a police unit deployed to the roughest districts and slums to quell riots and restore order using minimal officers and resorces. It will carry stun and puke gas plus an electrified grid will stop rioters from overpowering the suit. It's main purpose would be for spearheading police assults units and ripping barracades apart and generally intimidating the unwashed masses.

Option 2 will be along when i've managed to sketch some thing i'm happy with "may be a long wait lol.

Rich

Ma.K in the USSR 2

Well it started of life as a Votom and at just shy of £4 quid each i bought 3 of the m on my recent trip to London. There the same size as the AFS, maybe a bit taller but i wouldn't know as the original head never made it of the sprue :)
I've made a new top hatch from yep you guessed it a ping pong ball and lots of extra armour on the body also from ping pongs. Poo colored Aves for the nee joints after much umming and arring over the lower bodys pose. I considered scratching up some new feet but as these are twice the size of an AFS's feet but decided that being a Russian suit a certain clunkyness could be expected.

Then there is the arms, I've scratched them up from Cheepo fishing floats a bit from the tamy pit crew and the original hand that came with the kit.

One more shot from the front. I will try to grab some pics tonight of all the armour plate on him and i've done lots more to the top hatch.

It's my sons 9th birthday today so this may not happen as planned and as a side note he was born at 9 mins to 9 on the 9th of the 9th and this year he is 9 and it's 9 years since he was born.

And we got him an electric guitar oh dear gods save me :)

Rich

Alternative Armour

I'm currently running a group build on SFM:UK called Alternative Armour and a buddy has pointed me at some great pics so i thought i'd shere them here also. First up is the impossible looking Submarine_Land Dreadnaught. Looks liek something a mad Chaos warlord would come up with. And next up we have what i can only assume way the inspiration behind Dan Abnetts Bloodpack Stummble Gun from (i think) the book Only in Death, a Gaunts Ghosts novel.

These would be considered in anyones book as alternative armour :) and hopefully we will get some outstanding builds from the forum members joining in with this. I will post my own feeble attempts here and as the guys finish there builds i'll post them here also but that will be closer to december (the finish date is last week of December btw) so i stand a resonable chance of finishing mine.

Cheers for now

Rich

Ma.k in the USSR

Well i've had a week or so away from my bence which is a good and bad thing as i come back refreshed to finish of a build but a Baaaaaaad thing as i have a huge stak of new ideas that i would like to have a stab at. Losing momentum on a build is a right bugger and it's happend twice this last month or so and it makes it a right sod finishing of a project. That said i also have the problem of limited space and have to ether be set up for construction or painting, not both . This bears no relation to the titel of this post must be this uber shitty cold i've got at the moment lol.
I posted before about the little side build i have going on and thought i'd write some more about the idea. More as a referance for me than anything else really.
So the idea is to create a russian ma.k SAFS, now before you all start howling that there aint no russians in the ma.k universe ( It's staited that the USSR didn't suvive as a political entity in the future setting for the ma.k universe) my idea is for a group of industrialists decended from Russian colonists decide that the time is right to reclaim the mother country and start a new russian nation. To this end they have developed a line of fighting suits of the battle and have occupied a region of the former russian empire. If they can hold of both the SDR and the mercs for long enough they can begin to exspand on there claims and build there new nation on the home planet. I may work all that into a background stroy eventully if the gods would give me a bloody minuets peace and i suddenly learn how to use grammer properly ;)

Pics and mpre background ideas coming soooooooooon-ish

Rich