Drop Pod! Razorback! Mark IV Marines! Aaaagh!

Hello! So I moved house and things got a bit away from me for a while but lo, I'm all set up and have new toys.

Having resolved never to paint a vehicle by brush again because a) it's laborious and awful, and b) it just doesn't come out that great unless you're willing to put in umpteen gazillion thinned out layers, I got myself some Macragge Blue spray paint from Games Workshop which retails for approximately half a million dollars here in blighted New Zealand. 

I do think it was worth it though! I saved many Dan-hours and the result was immediately a huge improvement on my tactical squad rhino. Here's the drop pod with its basecoat in place...

And here's how the Razorback is doing so far. This is going to be the command vehicle for the army so I wanted to make it a bit spesh over the tactical Rhino. It's back door is going to open revealing the control console and spare bolter inside, plus it's going to have extra gold trim in places so the enemy know to concentrate fire in its general direction.

I also bought the special Forgeworld Ultramarines door set from Forgeworld, just to make the Razorback pop a bit more as a command vehicle. They're pretty great.

Not sure if you can tell from the pics but I really can't stress enough how much better it looks with a sprayed on basecoat instead of using a brush. 

I also got a 5-man squad of Mark IV armour from Forgeworld's Horus Heresy range. I'm thinking of redoing a couple of my Command Squad characters and otherwise sprinkling them throughout the army along with the Mark VIs I already have. 

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Resin And You: A Starter's Guide

So today in the post, my Horus Heresy era mark 5 space marines from Forge World arrived!

And I figured it would be a good excuse to do a post about resin models, since they're a bit different from the usual plastic or metal jobbies, and come with their own bonuses and DEADLY PITFALLS. Well more like mild inconveniences really but that just seems a bit silly in all caps.

The main bonus of resin models is that the detail really is amazing. They look much nicer than metal or plastic, and combined with computer modelling Games Workshop have been busy rereleasing various old metal range miniatures under the Citadel Finecast line. 

A knife and decent sharp cutters are pretty much top of the list for modellers anyway, but with resin they come in especially handy. Resin is very brittle compared to the usual Games Workshop plastic, and if you're in the habit of pulling things from the sprue by hand there's a small chance you'll break part of the model if you try it with these puppies. Be patient, take your time and cut everything out carefully. 

Before doing the cutting part of the clean up process, resin pieces should be cleaned with some soapy water first. This is especially the case with Forge World stuff, which comes off the sprue noticeably slippery to the touch, covered in a thin film of setting agent. It comes off very easily with some soapy water. Because I was paranoid about losing mine down the sink, I used a small jar with warm water and a bit of dish washing liquid inside and a plastic straw to stir them about with, then I carefully wiped each piece dry with some kitchen paper.

Something I noticed was that the torsos of the resin space marines weren't nice and hollow in the bottom as usual, but instead had all this extra resin filler crap that was part of the molding process. It had to be cut out carefully with a knife, and it was a bit of a pain in the butt to do so. I ended up accidentally taking a nick out of the bottom of a torso belt, but I guess at least my fingers were spared.

 Finally all the pieces are nice and clean. From here on in it's doing your thang with super glue. Plastic cement isn't going to work on this stuff, so remember that if you're using the 'sets as soon as it touches anything' brands of superglue, to be careful about working out your positions and weapons in advance. You won't have the luxury of moving bits like you do with plastic cement.

And here are my five Mark 5's, ready to be turned into veteran sergeants, Sternguard, regular troops or whatever else I decide to do with them. I reckon some of them are gonna look even more badass when I add the Greek helmet crests that I've got coming in. 

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