New Army Transport Case!

...so once a year at work, we're able to convert our unused sick time into pay (at a reduced rate).  While I usually use this money to pay for my Christmas shopping, I worked a TON of overtime in November & December, so this wasn't really necessary - I toyed with placing a large Forge World order, but, in the end, I used the money to pay off some bills.  (Bummer, huh?)  However, I did allow myself to splurge on one thing:

...it's a Sabol Designs "Division" case - it holds three stacks of figure foam side-by-side, 8-3/4" deep.  I also ordered some spare 4" deep trays, since I think each of my Battlewagons is going to need one dedicated to it - I think I might actually have to order another one of their cases, without foam, just for my Ork vehicles.

I also ordered a few of their "Paint Storage" trays - I need to do some test fitting, but I suspect I can fit these trays into the desktop drawers that I store my paints in, so I'll be able to just pop 'em into my case when I want to take them with me...

Deathwatch

...another very cool gift my wife got me for Christmas:

...I haven't had a chance to get into the nuts-and-bolts of it yet, but expect a full review when I do.  So far mostly I've just been checking out the fluff and the artwork, which is fantastic - although I'd expect no less from Fantasy Flight.

Scratchbuild: Deffrolla Mk. III

...since Battlewagon #3 has been completed, of course it needs its own Deffrolla.  (See the full-blown tutorial here, or version 2.0 here).  Construction was sped up considerably since I bought an assortment of Evergreen plastics.  Here's some pics of the construction:

Finished: Freeboota Bases

I got the Freeboota bases finished & sealed the other day:

As I mentioned before, the Iron Halo resin inserts were primed white and glued into "Dark Age" -style bases.  The bases were given a thick wash with a 50/50 mix of Formula P3 Brown & Yellow inks.  The lips of the bases were painted with Vallejo Model Color Brass, and the nailheads were dotted with GW Mithril Silver.  I then gave the bases a very light brushing with the ink wash again, just to knock down the brightness of the Mithril Silver a bit.

Now I've got a LOT of Orks to mount...

Battlewagon #3

I finished up the third Battlewagon the other day:

I didn't have as many fitment issues as I did with the last one, with one exception - I couldn't get the "interior wall" to line up quite right.  I wasn't that concerned about it, since it can hardly be seen once the model is finished.  But, it turns out that it makes a big difference in how the back of the roof fits.  I wrestled with it for quite a while and managed to get it pretty close, but in the end I wound up disguising the uglier gaps with some armor plates & rivets made of plasticard:

Another interesting development:  GW apparently felt inclined to include an extra sprue along with this model:

...I actually did a double-take when I finished building the model, and had to compare it to my other Battlewagons to be 100% sure that I hadn't lost my mind and forgot to build a large section.  Nope, it's just an extra... I guess I'll appreciate having some extra bitz for the future, but I feel bad if there's someone out there who got shorted a sprue in their box...

Loctite Superglue Trick

Like a lot of modelers, I use superglue more often than plastic glue.  While I like the durability that plastic glue provides to finished models, my free time is at a premium, and superglue just allows me to get more work done faster.

I'm a big fan of the Loctite Super Glue Control Gel, in the cool little "side-squeeze" dispenser:

The only bad thing about this bottle is that it's difficult to tell how much glue is left.  The other day I was building a model and was almost finished, but it seemed I was out of glue.  I figured out a neat little trick:

You can pry the bottom off of the bottle...

...which exposes the tube inside.  With a little manipulation, you can fold the tube over on itself a few times...

...which will give you a little bit more glue to work with:

...this was enough to finish the model I was working on.  One note of caution:  While I was squeezing the last remnants of glue out of the internal tube, it broke open, gluing my finger inside of the bottle!  Nothing a little gentle prying didn't resolve, and the skin on my hands is no stranger to being covered in glue - still, be careful.

Supplies!

I finally made it to a scale-model-centric hobby shop to pick up some supplies:

That's enough styrene bits to build a  LOT of Deffrollas!

I also picked up a tubing cutter:

...should make working with the round styrene stock much easier.

Killa Kans Completed

I finished some Killa Kans today:

...you'll probably notice that two of the models are plastic, and one is metal - the metal model came with the lot of Orks I bought off Craigslist.  After I built my list, I decided I wanted to field three Killa Kans, so I had a choice - did I want two buy the box of three Killa Kans that GW sells and have one extra?  Or buy two separately? After considering it for a bit, I decided to get two more separately - believe me, if I had any idea how much hassle the metal model was going to be, I would have just bit the bullet and bought the plastic ones (but more on that in a second).

After looking around I bit, I checked one of my favorite bitz sellers on eBay and found they were selling individual Killa Kans cut off the sprue:

I was able to get both of these for about 1/2 the price of the three-Kan box.  Thanks to GW having a pretty thorough assembly guide on their website, these went together pretty easily:

...the major exception was the back plate of the "canister" section - there is a tab that is molded along the bottom lip that needs to be trimmed off, or it throws off the angle at the top, and the "lid" can't be glued on.

Now, the metal one.  Sheesh.

As I've mentioned before, the first Orks I bought came from Craigslist - the guy gave them to me as a pile of bits in a shoebox.  It looked to all be there, but most of it was loose in the box or cut from the sprue, partially assembled, etc.  I dug out the Killa Kan model, did my best to clean it up, and glued it together - and came up with this:

That can't be right, can it?  The left arm looks like it's missing some major structure.  Regardless of whether or not it's supposed to look that way, I didn't like it.  (edit: after looking at page 78 of the Ork codex, it appears that is right.  Looks silly, though).  The first thing I did was to get out some styrene tubing and brass rod to mock up a structure for the left arm:

Then I glued it in place & trimmed it down:

Next, I drilled some holes at an angle in the "arm" & the side of the Kan:

(You can see in the above pic that I also added a bit of guitar string going from the power pack to the weapon as a little detail).

I was trying to find a way to mimic the look of the "strut" on the other arm - I accomplished this with a section of styrene tube & rod:

...then I trimmed it to length & inserted it in the holes I had drilled:

As with my previous projects, I added some rivets for the sake of appearance:

Next, I scavenged some shoulder pads from an 'Ard Boyz Armour Pack that I had no intention of using:

To clean up the bit of brass rod sticking out from the far side of the weapon, I trimmed another section of styrene tube and slid it over the rod:

...and I plugged the hole with one of my rivets:

...and I added some rivets to the outside:

After I broke the pole off the back three times, I got sick of it and decided to pin it:

I also added a Forge World brass-etched logo on the lid:

...it still needs a ton of filing to be ready for primer, but it's built, and I'm pretty happy with how it came out.  But man, what a hassle...