Tuesday 28 July 2020

Model Review: Destructotron 3000


Today we take a look at Destructotron 3000 who is a Gunner hero in Riot Quest and a Convergence of Cyriss solo in Warmachine. It comes in five metal parts.


Unfortunately the main body is quite badly miscast. I would have submitted a parts request to Privateer Press, but as I was gifted this model I decided to see if I could clean it up well enough as it was.




Lucky for me the highly detailed parts of the coils towards the back of the torso were not effected by the miscasting.


The lower part of the model is a hip assembly with a mono-wheel. This can be fitted into the torso at a variety of angles, though I recommend pinning it personally to ensure it doesn't come apart as there will be a lot of weight on this join.





The gun arms are essentially mirrored copies of each other, which is great visually. Due to their weight and the cone style attachment point to the torso you can get away without pinning them with most poses. However if you want to pose it with an arm pointed upward for example I would recommend pinning it. (I pinned it regardless just to be sure it would stay together)


Great detail on the coils of the guns.


This part is the head and it reminds me of the Gate keeper droid from Jabba's palace in Return of the Jedi.
Nicely detailed and attaches easily with no issues.




And here it is fully cleaned up and assembled!






And the scale shot with Professor Pendrake, Destructotron is no small construct!

I was able to clean up the miscasting easily enough with a combination of cutting away the excess then filing it smooth. This was only really possible with this mini due to the curved armoured panels that make up the torso. If this had been any other model a missing/damaged parts ticket would have been my only way to go. 
That being said I still firmly believe that anyone receiving a miscast like this should contact Privateer Press via their missing parts portal and obtain a replacement. They are pretty good about getting these out to people, although I have heard the service has suffered slow downs due to covid which is understandable though frustrating.

I have seen a lot of people's Destructotron's which didn't suffer from this miscasting so its very likely I just got unlucky.

If you want to pick them up for yourself you can find them here at The Outpost (a UK webstore I'm affiliated with)


If you want to support my content consider taking a look at my Patreon which you can find here. I don't put any content behind a paywall but I do offer rewards to people who support me in ways like getting to vote on what content I work on in the future or outright just picking the next subject of an article.


See you all next time!

Monday 27 July 2020

Gubbin Painted



Gubbin is done! He was tricky to paint because of how small he is, but very enjoyable. So many small details which make the model interesting to look at even now once I've finished him.



His backpack is just full of so many different types of explosives, it was fun to paint them all different colours. But I wanted the TnT sticks to have that "Acme" feeling from the old Road runner cartoons I watched as a kid. 



Its hard for me to photograph close enough with the gear I have, but I tried to paint flames reflected in his goggles. It was a tough challenge but I'm glad I did it. Pushing the boundaries of what I feel I "can do" as a painter is one of the best ways to grow!



And here he is the Professor Pendrake for scale.
Overall I'm really pleased with how he turned out. I look forward to using him more in Riot Quest now he is painted.

If you want to support my content consider taking a look at my Patreon which you can find here. I don't put any content behind a paywall but I do offer rewards to people who support me in ways like getting to vote on what content I work on in the future or outright just picking the next subject of an article.


See you all next time!


Tuesday 21 July 2020

Destroyed Wold Wrath Terrain






So a little background for this terrain project. I obtained these Wold Wrath parts in a bits box I bought on ebay a while back with the intention of turning it into terrain at some point but it was fairly low priority. (especially given how many uncompleted projects I have... don't ask!!)

But then Rikers Iron is running a terrain making competition... (You can find the competition details here its running from the 15/7/20 to 30/8/20) and I can't resist getting involved in community events so yup... it got pushed up to the top of the list!


So the first thing I decided was that I wanted to have the wold wrath half buried in the ground as if it was destroyed a very long time ago. So I cut the torso and the one leg I have in half.
When cutting into resin especially with a saw WEAR A MASK!!! Its not good to breath in resin... do it outside as well if you can.


If you ever wondered what the inside of a Wold Wrath looks like... 


So I cut thin sheets of plasticard and one small peice of MDF I had which was the prefect size and beveled the edges to make the terrain have a smoother transition between its surface and the tabletop.
I did this with a heavy craft knife - always cutting away from myself!


I then had to decide if I wanted the Wold Wraths shoulder guns still attached or as separate parts, or even just broken off lying on the torso.


So what I tend to do in times like this is to dry fit and take a few pictures and get the opinions of my gaming group to get a wider point of view.



Most people liked it with the cannon attached so that's what I went with. 
It did also help me slightly, as I want to cover as many of the attachment points that on the normal completed model would be for various log parts or gems, which I don't have as I just got these few parts. I glued the parts down using PVA glue and left it over night to dry. (google PVA glue to find out what its called in your part of the world if you don't know what it is)


The next day I added filler to smooth the surface of the ground over the Wold Wrath parts. This will hide the areas which would have joined with other parts of the model such as the hips or the head.



I also covered up all the attachment points for the various log parts I am missing which I mentioned earlier.


I notice now that there is a small circle shape hole on the bottom of the gun part which I could have covered up... oh well mistakes happen!


It would have been nice to have the head here but I don't have that part so I just covered up the place where it would be.


The logs and rope will be interesting to paint and set a nice contrast between the stone and the mud.
There are also nice little vines which will add a nice green pop as well.

I left the filler to dry over night.


Next I covered the base and all the filler with a generous coating of PVA glue which I then covered with basing sand (the same kind I use for my minis bases to help the terrain and minis better match together on the tabletop.
I then left this to dry over night.






Next step was to undercoat the whole thing, I used a spray paint which I applied quite liberally to the sand in particular - this helps hold the sand onto the terrain.
After leaving the undercoat to dry for a few hours its ready to paint!


I knew I would be heavily drybrushing the stone so it made more sense to paint all the stone first otherwise the mud and wood would get some of the dry brush on them and I would have to re do them.


Dry brushing done!



Next step was to paint the log wood parts as they are the deepest parts of the waist.


Then the rope was next to paint.


Also then did a lighter highlight on the rope.


Painted all the vines and leaves green to add a splash of colour.


Next up was finally time to paint the mud. I did two coats with the paint quite watered down so that it would sink into the sand well.

Then I just did a few highlights on areas like the logs cross sections and the leaves also I painted the gems to look deactivated.



Then applied a wash all over


Once the wash was dry the whole thing felt a bit too dark so I went back and did a gentle drybrush to lighten the stone up a bit.


And finally add some static grass in clumps which both adds extra detail and matches it to my basing style of a patchy muddy battle field. 
























So what do you think of my destroyed Wold Wrath terrain?



I hope you found this interesting, if you make terrain for your own tables I would love to see it!

Finally astute readers will have noticed that by cutting it in half and doing it twice I have essentially created the remains of two Wold Wraths! This is cool and all but not especially realistic on the table to have two of the same thing destroyed in the exact same pose...
Well the reason is that I'm going to give away a set to one of the lovely people who support me either via Patreon or Twitch Subscribers. They really make a difference to me being able to carry on creating content for everyone and I want to say thank you to them!

You can find my Twitch channel here, I stream an IKRPG adventure every week and other random streams of Warmahordes and painting/converting hobby streams.

My Patreon which you can find here. I don't put any content behind a paywall but I do offer rewards to people who support me in ways like getting to vote on what content I work on in the future or outright just picking the next subject of an article.

I will be picking a winner after Rikers Terrain competition is judged on August 30th so anyone who subs before then will be entered. I will randomly draw from people who either support my Patreon or Twitch as a way of saying thank you. (If you support both you have double the chance) I will do a draw live on September 1st so there is plenty of time to enter should you want to win!


See you all next time!