Dwarfs Part XIII: Final Product!

Well, it was a journey, but here's some pics of the finished Dwarf army:

...I'm happy to report that the Dwarfs have already been sold to new owner in Georgia, and are hopefully kicking butt all over the South!

Dwarfs Part XII: Movement Trays

One of the "final touches" that I thought would be a relatively cheap & easy way to give my army a little extra pizzazz was to build movement trays - although I've never played a game of Fantasy, these seem pretty useful when you're playing a game that uses ranked up models.  Games Workshop sells a kit to make your own movement trays, but I would have needed a couple of them, and didn't want to drop $30+ for them.  I decided to see what I could put together more cheaply.

I went buy the local big-box home improvement store and picked up a blank sign made of corrugated plastic (these will be located with the signs that say "Garage Sale", "Car for Sale", etc) for $3.98.  I also got four basswood square dowels for .93 each.  Total cost: under eight dollars.

I gathered up the models for a typical-sized unit:

I arranged them so I had the (#number of models) (width) x (depth) and marked it with a straight edge:

Then I cut it out with a utility knife:

Next I measured the wooden dowels, and cut them using my hobby saw & mitre box so the corners would be neat:

Then I glued down the dowel rods with PVA glue, setting them on some newspaper to dry to catch drips.  (Actually, I used some old glossy mailers in the hopes that the glue wouldn't stick so badly).  I "squeegeed" some glue into the cracks with a spare piece of wood to fill gaps:

Then I backed them with some scrap cardboard:

Then I made some for the artillery units, with cutouts for each model:

Then they all got a coat of primer:

For painting, I mixed up a somewhat close match using mostly craft paint, as it's much cheaper than hobby paints:

Then, the edges got the same basing treatment as the rest of the army:

Finished product:

Next: Final product!

Dwarfs Part XI: Basing

Now that the building, dipping & painting are done for the Dwarf army, its time to finish the bases.  Originally I just started painting the bases with Vomit Brown, but I soon realized that it took a ton of coats to completely cover the Gun Metal primer.  This mainly concerned me because my pot of Vomit Brown was almost empty, and it was bought before The Great Paint Reformulation of Ought-Thirteen - "Vomit Brown" is now called "Tau Light Ochre".  I had heard some forum folks complaining that some of the new colors didn't quite match, and I didn't want to run out of paint halfway through the army. I solved this by giving them a coat of Scorched Brown first, then a layer of Vomit Brown:

Next, the bases got a coat of PVA glue and were sprinkled with Woodland Scenics Medium Ballast:

...they were given a coat of Woodland Scenics Scenic Cement to "lock in" the ballast:

After that was dry, some small stones were glued to the bases as accents, and the whole thing was given a heavy coat of Devlan Mud wash:

When that had dried and the models had been clearcoated, static grass was added:

Dwarfs Part X: More Gyrocopter

The next part of rebuilding the heap of a Gyrocopter I bought is fabricating a new blade assembly.  I decided to make it in one piece for strength, and to magnetize it so it could be removed for easy packing in a transport case.  I started by grabbing some scrap cardboard out of the recycling bin and sketching a blade shape that I liked:

...then I cut it out and used it to transfer the pattern to a sheet of plasticard:

The middle was a bit wobbly, so I reinforced it with a bit of plasticard, then added some Green Stuff to mount the magnet to:

Next, I grabbed some styrene tubing and build a "frame" - the plan here is to paint these with a "wood grain" effect so they look like wooden poles:

I sculpted some ropes out of Green Stuff, to look like they're tying the frame together and to hide the gaps a bit:

Next, I used some scrap plasticard and a small hole punch to make some "rivets":

Primered:

I used black paint, P3 brown ink, & Vallejo Game Ink smokey brown for the wood effect:

I picked up a pack of flight bases at my FLGS and sculpted a mounting spot for one:

Finished model:

Overall, I'm pretty pleased (especially considering what I started with!)