Bits Box Raid – For The Greater Good – Spring Clean Challenge (Irony is there is no Tau)

I have decided to build a mini diorama with what ever I can find in my bits box.

Trying my hand at underpainting and glazing as inspiried by Dana Howl on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A13JfFJxtIg&t=691s
Impressed with the results the grot took about 20 mins to paint once the undercoat/underpainting was done.

Never painted eldar before which was fun.

First pic shows a mock up using some really rough models – I have found that i am making more mock-ups of my more complicated builds. i find this really helps with posing and composition.

Base is made from foamex whichis one of my new favourite building materials.

Large bark chips for the rocky out crop are really easy to work with and cut with a razor saw no problem. As for the basing material sculptamould is fantastic for creating a an unlevel surface. Shell hole created by pushing a small ball into the mix – required some dressing before being left to dry.

This is probably the hardest build I have ever attempted – so many parts and interactions between the various parts.

quick run down of how too:

• cut all the hands off that hold the pole
• drill all the hands and thread them in order on to the rod
• attach the back model (Ork) with poster tack and then pick an angle for the pole
• attach all the other models with poster tack
• adjust to fit
• adjust some more
• start replacing poster tack with glue
• done ish 😛

Painting the rocks was super easy using Lukes APS method shown here:

Painting the rocks white first was the only challenge but a quick coat of thinned down pva on the bark chips stopped the white spray sinking into the bark.

Was a little worried I had made a mistake here.

Covered the base in Forgeworld weathering powders and sealed with MIG wet effects. First time using them for real and I am pretty happy with the results

Flocking:

• Clump foam in recesses
• Tufts in the corners
• Dark green flock around the edges and high points
• Light green to give it variation
• Dead static grass to mute the colour and make it look unkempt
• Sealed with thinned PVA after “wetting” with IPA

I think my PVA was too thick and I was worried for a while til I saw it the following moring.

Enjoyed painting the Grot, Ork, necron & eldar using the underpainting method but I am finding the apothecary a bit of a challege – I forgot how many bells & whistles these guys have.

The united protagonists of the 40k univesrse are teaming up to combat a common enemy.

The virus were made from green stuff and were suprising easy.

• Ball of green stuff textured with the Green Stuff world tentacle maker.
• Drill holes in a regular pattern around the ball.
• Stems are made from rolling out small balls into suasages then cutting them in half once cured.
• The suckers were made from small balls squashed with a round pokey thing.
• Assemble with super glue

Final assembly was rather more stressful than I was expecting

But plead that they are all fixed in place now – lots of finishing touches to do.

Taking pics of minis is hard – here are my best efforts – I have a lot to learn regarding fstops etc.

If anyone has any good tutorials they could share it would awesome

Cheers

kit