What is it they say “The best laid plans…”.  It has transpired that we have some kind of blockage in the waste pipe at home, which resulted in a pretty substantial flood from our downstairs loo – the water from my sisters shower.  This has meant that we’ve currently got the plumber in, dismantling our fairly new downstairs toilet area.  We’re struggling to get some of the carpet tiles for my brothers new flat (that I have to fit) which means that I’m having to travel farther afield to get them.  Oh and Monday evening got almost completely obliterated with computer jobs.

On a plus point, I have Thursday afternoon, Friday and all of Monday off as holiday where I need to seriously crack on with things.  Last night I managed to squeeze in a bit of filling of the gun arm.  This can be sanded tonight (with luck) and a bit more filling/packing which should result in the shoulder mount for that arm being largely finished.  The Chaos Marine has had both feet repositioned and filled (fingers crossed it’ll look OK as I’m not that great at sculpting).  In order to stand a chance to getting this project done, I need to be in the position to sculpt the cloak on Thursday afternoon, to allow it to dry overnight – giving me Friday to begin spraying the whole thing.  Quite scarily, if I begin with a coat of grey primer, it could be Monday before I actually airbrush anything (ideally 24 hours drying time on the primer).  What this does however is to quite dramatically focus my attention on getting the torso finished.  So it’ll be a matter of adding the stud rivets around the edging tonight or tomorrow and drilling the holes for the wire that will hold the fur/cloak in place.  I also need to make a decision on the exhausts and power plant.

Now if things actually do go to plan (unlikely to be honest), I could potentially get the cloak shape knocked out in an hour or so.  I can then position it near a light in order to cure it more quickly.  If I can get it solid in time to prime it on Thursday, I could potentially grasp back half a day – and airbrush on Friday afternoon.

The weekend’s work wasn’t quite as productive as I’d hoped – bearing in mind that I really should be starting to apply paint this week.

The torso is largely done.  I need to fix the head in, rivet the whole assembly and add wolf pelts over it.  I’ve begun work again on the arm shoulders, the close combat arm will be pretty simple in comparison to what I was intending, although I’d like to add some runes and totems to it to make it a little bit more interesting.  The heavy bolter arm I’ve decided to simplify by having the guns simply glued together, rather than cut up and set within a box.  Although my original idea is still better, too many things could go wrong and I’m concerned that I could end up messing the whole thing up and having to resort to something different.  The spindle for the heavy bolter arm has also been fixed into place.

Although both arms can have work done on them I’ve relativly little that I can do on the main body & legs until I have completed the base and know what actual pose the Dreadnought is going to have.  As such I’ve now begun to assemble the marine that is being stood on.  I’ve had to repose both feet to make him look like he’s struggling, and with luck will have one arm grabbing one of the toes of the foot.  I’m not quite sure how to bend the toes of the Dreadnought, but I’m sure that I’ll work it out :s  Once the marine is in place, I’ll bore a hole in through it into the foot & leg.  This will mean that the Dreadnought will come away from the base, but more importantly I can actually glue all of the items that require directionality on – the wolf pelts, trinkets and most importantly the wolf fur on the Dreadnoughts back.

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I ordered the bits to make up a Chaos marine last week and these arrived on Thursday.  Have just done minor tidying and blue tacked the pieces together to make a mock of the whole Dreadnought.  Still needs a lot of work, but personally I think that it’s going to end up being very nice piece.  I’ll put the photo of the mock at the bottom of this post.  There is a larger gap than I expected around the waist, so a few wolf pelts are going to have to be added to disguise it.  As I said on an earlier post, I’m aiming to have three basic assemblies – the Dreadnought, the giant fur and the base.  I’m going to get the Dreadnough torso finished and attached to the legs and then will sculpt the fur again, as I’m not happy with the actual one I’ve done – though the exercise did prove the principal of what I wated to do.

Yes that is a tank in the background.

Just a short post as I’ve just caught my finger on the edge of my razor saw and it’s chuffing painful.

Update: So I now have a plaster on my finger and it’s not inclined to split open and drip blood at the slightest pressure 🙂  As you can see the legs are almost complete.  I didn’t manage to get the last bits of guitar wire cut as I decided to watch a bit of telly and then slice my finger open.  I think that the base looks pretty good as well 🙂

Running Totals: Time – ~ 40 Hrs; Cost – £38.92

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I have very nearly finished the leg assembly.  The picture in the last post was taken just after I added in a piece of brass guitar wire (which seemed to take ages to bend to the right shape).  The 60mm bases I ordered from GW arrived so I was able to cut the cork to the wolf shape I wanted and glue it in place with PVA.  I need to fill the edges with polyfiller or similar, but the actual effect is pretty good.  This meant that I was able to glue the pins and the left leg in place, which after checking this morning has set solid.  I have to clean up any mess made by glue (which generally can’t be avoided), then add two pieces of guitar wire and fix the ball joint that joins the legs to the torso.  I need to drill a hole and attach a pin for the purpose of painting, but that’s it.

Running Totals: Time – ~ 36 Hrs; Cost – £38.92

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So I managed to get the right knee join pinned, glued and filled last night.  I used pure Green Stuff for the fill, as it’s more suited for the kind of gap that was created.  Also the trick of using a Milliput and Green Stuff mixture is that you sand it to get a perfect finish, where as Green Stuff settles slightly as it sets.  Due to the location it would have been difficult to sand, so careful Green Stuff’ing made best sense.  Super gluing the pin was a work of art in itself as it just didn’t want to stick – plus my mates superglue was crap, far too thick and uncontrollable even with a brush.  However I persevered and the end result appeared to be OK last night.

I ordered a pillar drill stand yesterday for my dremel (which was dispatched today).  Extravagant I know, but I think its actually worth it in the long run.  Plus I can use it when I eventually get round to creating a Knight Panther.

I have also taken the plunge and ordered a ForgeWorld Dreadnought.  I’m going to cast up copies of the head and powerplant and as such will still have a complete model to paint.  I can choose to sell this, keep it or do whatever I please.  I’ll use the original ones for this Dreadnought however!

Running Totals: Time – ~ 33 Hrs; Cost – £38.92

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Managed to get the left leg cut off the pelvis and all of the rods that form the new hip cut and drilled.  These provide a lot more flexibility for the whole model’s pose in comparison to the solid joints that it comes with.  I’ve not glued the leg on yet as there is a tiny bit of filling that needs to be done first, though nowhere near the amount needed on the other leg (where the saw went wobbly and I lost some of the hip).  I think that I need to give some consideration over the base next before I can finish off the legs, as I also need to ensure that the pose is correct before glueing the left leg in place.  Just playing I’ve realised that I run the risk of having the feet angled strangely – basically from a technical point of view, they would only have a few degrees of play before the pistons on the calf adjust.  Any angle too great and the legs look like I’ve not actually posed them correctly

Running Totals: Time – ~ 30 Hrs; Cost – £38.92

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Due to it being a weekend, I’ve actually made quite a bit of progress.  I’m still not 100% sure about getting it all ready for this weekend yet, as there is still a bucket load of stuff left to do.  The photo to the left I’ve just taken and shows the knee joint pretty much posed and finished.  The hip joint is also the correct size, although I need to fit the two pieces of plastic rod for this to be 100% done.  The other leg also needs to be cut off, but I’m currently thinking that I’ll get the right leg glued, filled and finished before I start on that.  I need to get hold of a Chaos Space Marine or some other creature to go under the right foot – which also needs it’s toes repositioned.

Running Totals: Time – ~ 27 Hrs; Cost – £38.92

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