The Rhino of Rottenness

"Honour the wargear of the dead" - thus it is written in the Codex Astartes. And so the ruinious powers will take every opportunity to do the opposite.

The Rhino Of Rottenness represents a fallen mechanical beast of the Grey Knights, turned now to the production of noisome and nocent plagues by the followers of Nurgle.

The motor in the drive compartment now pumps liquids in and out of the brew tank (the crew compartment). The still outside brews the secret ingredient that has to be handled with copper buckets on account of it being so dangerous.

The sandbags were added late in the project as the piece was looking a little sparse. They will justify giving anyone inside the area terrain a cover save.

• The rhino is made from cardboard. 
• The base is a piece of expanded polystyrene covered with white glue and then sand. 
• The barrels, buckets and jerry cans are from a Tamiya set. 
• The wooden bucket is scratch built, as is the still (from a Guiness widget). 
• All piping are flexi straws. 
• The valve control wheels are press studs. 
• The sandbags are Milliput.  

The original version

The updated version

I got some feedback on the original version from friends on Terragenesis and so decided to make this a tad more nurgly

Here you can see the extra goo that has been added:

• top left... added resin inside the bucket on the top
• top right... added overflow from both sides of the barrel
• bottom left... tipped over barrel creating a new puddle
• bottom right... spilled bucket creating other puddle

WIP shots

I started with a cardboard rhino that I had never finished and had lost interest in finishing.

I found an old sheet of expanded polystyrene  and hacked an oval into it. I also dug out a shallow hole for the rhino to sit in so that it would look like it had been there for ages.

I then covered the whole piece with watered down white glue and sprinkled it with fine sand and potting soil.

While this was drying I did a Google image search for portable whisky stills and found this image over at

http://www.whisky-pages.com/stories/sma-still.htm

I made my own version from some thin strips of balsa glued to the plastic tub that comes with an aerosol can and wrapped insulation tape around it to represent the copper binding. The still itself was the widget from inside a can of Guiness, plus a drinking straw.

I made a cross brace from some card that I had lying around.

After that, the whole thing was assembled. I used the Tamiya kit for barrels, buckets and jerrycans. All the piping was made from drinking straws.

For detailing, I added rivets made from plastic rod and rust made from superglue and baking soda.

The still was painted up separately as it will not be attached to the model (it will make it easier to store)

The sandbags were made from Milliput. The seams were made with a craft knife and the texture added by pressing a piece of cotton onto it once it was starting to harden.

I think my Nurgle table is just about finished :)

Nurgle Maggot Mounds

Well, I hope everyone got what they wanted from under the Newtonmass tree?

The Maggot Mounds are some pieces of scenery done for my Nurgle table.

The overall construction is very simple: some disks of expanded polystyrene covered in sand, some pillars made from wedding cake columns, some maggots made from painted grains of rice and some bitz.

There are three mounds (normally placed in the shape of the symbol of Nurgle) and each mound has three pits that are disgorging maggots (also in the shape of Nurgle).

I've made these as strong as I can so each piece has been given several coats of matt varnish. The maggots and entrails were also given a final coat of gloss varnish.

In games of 40k, they either provide 5+ cover to models that are on them  (the wussy version) or they provide 4+ cover save but  each model has to take a dangerous terrain test every turn (whether they move or not).

Chaos Forest Of Pain

This was a project I started ages ago and never finished. The idea was to use this as a "mysterious forest" on a chaos table.

The rusted wheels are cardboard, the trunks are dowel and the rest is odds and sods from the bitz box.

The barbed wire used here is hand made using my "real barbed wire" technique

My contribution to the End Of The World.

Happy Newtonmass, everyone

Barbed Wire

This method produces the most attractive, cheapest barbed wire possible but is not the fastest way. Still, we all have to suffer for our art :)

This barbed wire is attractive because it is made from real wire, and this lets it fold, drape and stretch like real wire.

As I say, this is a little time consuming... it will take an hour or so per meter of length but I urge you to try and make a short length... maybe 10cm... just to feel it and see how cool it is.

As an added bonus, the little barbs are capable of drawing blood just like the real thing.

Making it is really simple too. All you need is wire and a craft knife.

Start with some normal wire from the hardware store. Strip out the thin strands of copper wire from inside.

Grab three of these strands and tie a basic knot in them.

Pull the knot tight.

Carry in doing this. How close you get the knots really depends on your patience. Aim for no more than 1cm between them to get the best effect.

Once you have got a length you want, tease out one of the strands from the three and cut it close to the knot. The little pieces left over will form the barbs.

Necron Apocalypse Obelisk

I have always wanted a Necron Pylon from Forgeworld but to be frank, I can't justify the cost. So this is going to be my next best thing.

I took the template for my normal obelisks and enlarged it until the top was the same size as my cyborg monolith. Then I changed the file so that the top of the apocalypse obelisk was flat.

Now I have a model that I can either use as a terrain piece for normal games or as a Pylon if I ever play a game of Apocalypse.

There are a few bugs in the big model but once I have worked them out I will move it to the lasercutcard.co.za web store. This will probably be early next year.

C'Tan Shard

This blog was supposed to be about how I was going to try and paint everything I had that was unpainted. 

It as been hijacked a little by LaserCutCard but that is not to say that I am not doing any "normal" painting.

I always had this model but I did not like the paint job. 

I was painting up some new obelisks and I thought that I would give the C'Tan the same parabronze treatment so that it looks like it is formed from the same material as all the other buildings on my Necron table.

Ammo Dumps and Tarpaulin

Awhile ago I mentioned I had found some cheap little plastic stoppers at the hardware store that looked like ammunition crates.

I finished these off last night and since they are so cheap and easy to make I thought I would share how I did them.

To make them all you need are your crates, white glue, some tissue (for blowing your nose, not wrapping paper) and maybe some string.

Start  by doubling over the tissue and then cutting a piece big enough to mostly cover your scenery. So if the tissue is double-ply then this will give you four layers.

Next, take some slightly watered down white glue and, starting at one end, dab it on to the tissue, pushing it on to any surface detail and trying to get it to hang naturally (tarpaulin is quite heavy)

Near the end, fold back some of it so that you don't cover up all your hard work.

Finally add some string to represent tie downs. The best stuff I have found is this wax cord that you buy at beading places.... anyone who makes necklaces will know where to get it. I glued it down with superglue.

After that, it was just about painting. I painted mine olive drab and then drybrushed up by adding tan.

Simple, fast and cheap.