Playing with some digital projects

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So, it's been a little quiet around here as my time has been taken up with my Maelstrom's Edge work. I feel like Under The Couch has hung around in limbo for long enough, though, and it's time to start posting some updates here again. I'll go back to sharing my Maelstrom's Edge articles as I produce them, and also hopefully share some personal projects that I'm tinkering with on the side.

To kick things off, I've been playing with a few digital assets for a bit of sculpting practice. Some of these will just be for the fun of it, some will be to fill gaps in my older model range.

For example, I have a Necron army for Warhammer 40,000 made up of the original 2nd and 3rd edition models. Back then, the original 'Deckchair of Doom' destroyers didn't have a heavy option... so I decided to make one:

Heavy Gauss Cannon 3D Model
Heavy Gauss Cannon Test Print

For something completely different, I'm working on a 3D sculpt of the old 'deodorant bottle tank' that Games Workshop featured back in the very first edition of Warhammer 40,000:

Deodorant Bottle Tank 3D Sculpt WIP

And finally (for now), I picked up a bunch of the original Space Hulk terminators some time ago. They were a rather inexpensive find due to the fact that, let's face it, they're not very good. But making allowances for their age and their roll as board game components, there's a certain charm to these sorts of elderly models that I find I quite enjoy. What I didn't enjoy was the gaping cavity that they have in the back of their armour as a side effect of the moulding process. So I sculpted a piece to fill it in:

Terminator Back Vent WIP

This initial attempt worked fairly well, although the vent sits out too far due to the central support in the back cavity protruding further than I had allowed for. So there's a little reworking required...

More soon!

Terrain Spotlight: Tissue Box Building

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The big joy of the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprue, for me, is that wandering around the house turns up an endless wealth of items just waiting to be turned into wargaming scenery by slapping some bits on it and painting it up. This week, I turned my attention to the recycling bin, where a humble tissue box was just calling out to be saved from the weekly rubbish collection. With a little cutting and gluing, and a lick of paint, I had Atmospheric Modification Plant #14 ready for the table!

Full walkthrough here: http://www.thecommguild.com/roller/thecommguild/entry/terrain-spotlight-tissue-box-building

Painting Spotlight: Colorshift Shadow Walker

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A few articles back, I painted up a Mature Angel using Colorshift paints, as a bit of an experiment. That was actually the second model I attempted with these paints, but I hadn't been entirely happy with the first one. This week, I had a little inspiration though, and so I dug him out and, with a final tweak to his face, wound up with a shiny green/blue Shadow Walker!

Full walkthrough here: http://www.thecommguild.com/roller/thecommguild/entry/painting-spotlight-colorshift-shadow-walker

Modeling Spotlight: Rodent Ball Spaceship!

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The Kaiser Industries OR-8 'Gaterunner' was originally designed as a small freighter. Sales were initially poor due to its limited cargo space compared to other ships in its class, combined with a lack of artificial gravity and other 'non-essential' crew-comfort systems in the interests of keeping the ship's mass as low as possible. Despite its ungainly appearance, the OR-8's speed and manoeuverability were excellent, however, resulting in the ship becoming popular with short-ranged couriers who used them primarily for 1- or 2-gate hops between systems. With the coming of the Maelstrom, many of these couriers were pressed into service as evacuation craft, with their non-pressurised cargo holds retrofitted to accomodate sleeper capsules.

This was a project spawned by a rodent ball habitat dome idea shared by Patrick Keith a while back on the COUNTERBLAST Facebook group. I had originally intended to do something similar, but when I received my ball it turned out to be a little smaller than I had pictured. While I was figuring out whether or not I needed another small hab dome alongside my salad bowl domes, I decided that the markings on the ball made for nice detailing for a cool ship design. And so the OR-8 was born!

Check out the walkthrough here: http://www.thecommguild.com/roller/thecommguild/entry/modeling-spotlight-rodent-ball-spaceship

Painting Spotlight: Escape Pod Diorama

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There are a lot of examples out there in internet land of huge, sprawling, super-detailed dioramas that you can pore over for hours and dream of one day having the time (or the storage space!) to make something like that yourself... This is not one of those. Dioramas can also be just a quick, simple exercise in putting together something different to whatever else you're currently working on. I love putting together armies, but sometimes I just want to do something unrelated, or I'll have a little flash of inspiration for a mini scene, and letting that out and building whatever it leads to is a great way of flexing those creative 'muscles'.

That's sort of what happened here. When I put together my kitbashed escape pod a couple of weeks ago, I had the idea to throw together part of a launching bay for it, just to give it something to hang from for the photos. I hadn't originally even intended to paint this, but looking at it sitting on the table afterwards, I decided that it would make for a cute little mini-diorama. So, I broke out a few extra parts, slapped on some paint, and this was the end result:

Full article here: http://www.thecommguild.com/roller/thecommguild/entry/painting-spotlight-escape-pod-diorama