The Serpents' Breath - June 29, the first skimmers and bikes for my Harlies

I'm quoting Austn Powers here

"YEAH BABY YEAH!"

The dark skin is sooo perfect. I am really digging it.

More please

GAR wrote:

The dark skin is sooo perfect. I am really digging it.

More please

Thanks GAR, it's Snakebite Leather washed liberally with Leviathan Purple, and then lightly highlighted with Dark Flesh. There will be more Grotesques, but they are stuck in the postal webway at the moment.

On to my kitbash of the Forge World Reaper, which I have finished building and now primed. Even though the rules for it as they currently stand suck, I still wanted to build one. The primary weapon is magnetised, so I can later substitute in the Tantalus' big gun, or a Void Lance, or something else.

For comparison, the real deal is here:
http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Dark_Eldar/DARK_ELDAR_REAPER.html

And here is mine (looks way better primed):






Bladevanes added to rear hull


Cockpit detail and Storm Vortex generator, which is just a Shadow Weaver from a CWE Support Weapon.


Weapons console


Storm Vortex Projector weapon


How to build the Reaper was relatively straightforward:
- add some armour plate at the bow,
- make the weapon out of plasti-tube and a CWE missile launcher plus half of a rudder,
- make the sail out of thin plasticard after first combining several basic sails as the framework,
- lay down the Shadow Weavver as the Vortex's gubbinz,
- make a weapons console for the pilot,
- and add the bladevanes at the back.

I also re-profiled the front quarters of the hull slightly to match the rear quarters, and also the side railings towards the front just to differentiate it a bit. And I figured that a weapon of this size and power would need some extra cooling and ventilation, so I gs-stamped some vents on a CWE Falcon and stuck them on. Not sure they came out clear enough, will wait and see after they are painted.

C&C welcome. Cheers.

It looks really promising, but as you say, it's hard to say before primer, if transitions to blades etc look good or not.

The conversion over all, looks great!

Damn fine work my friend. Two thumbs up on the conversion. Sail=awesome.

Conversion is great and as Evil says, the sail is awesome. Would really like to see you come up with some alternative, original designs.

Thanks everyone. Painting has begun, hopefully it won't take me tooooooo long

Sky Serpent wrote:

Would really like to see you come up with some alternative, original designs.

Don't worry Sky, I have many, many ideas for DE vehicles to bring to life, from more Forge World knock-offs, to subtle-but-significant mods, to unique and varied designs. My problem is that I have too many ideas, not enough time, and insufficient funds at the moment since my wife lost her job back in June, so 'discretionary' expenses have taken a nosedive for the duration.

However, I can still do my Voidraven and Tantalus, since I had already stockpiled some parts before that unhappy event. My Voidraven parts finally showed up late last week, so the Tantalus will now get pushed back by a week or so.

Which brings me to - "How to build a Voidraven". I will try and do a fairly detailed WIP, since Local_Ork would like a decent description to add to his tutorial section.

First, the cost. For approximately 15% more than the current price of a Razorwing here in Canada, I got two Razorwing and one Venom hulls, a RW cockpit, one set of RW engines, a flyer stand, some missiles and sundry other parts from a bitz store. That's quite acceptable for what I want to do.

Second, my design. The codex describes the Voidraven as "[sharing] many similarities with the Razorwing Jetfighter, having distinctive sickle wings and comparable aerodynamic design, ..... at the fore of each Voidraven is a crystal pod housing a saddle much like a Reaver's jetbike ... from this lavishly appointed cocoon the Voidraven's gunner will unleash .... " That gave me my basic elements, although it also has 'sonic dampers' on the engines which I don't think I will be including.

I have had my basic design in mind for months, ever since the Razorwing first appeared. Isotope99 over at BoLS has been an early and fast, and very inspirational, DE kitbasher since the new codex and models first appeared. His Razorwing conversion adding a Venom to the front of the fuselage first demonstrated the conversion potential of the RW kit and formed the basis of my idea.

Next was Hydra's RW conversion with the enlarged wing planform, a beautiful feature that I am shamelessly going to loot and hopefully I can pull it off reasonably well.

But I really wanted to set my Voidraven apart from my Razorwing, so I wanted to give it four engines and twin-tail fins (a bit like a WWII bomber), as well as the tandem cockpits and bigger wings, and few other smaller details. I ordered all of the necessary parts but hadn't seen any examples of what I was planning until last week, coincidentally enough just two days before my bitz arrived.

That was when I stumbled across something that clearly showed my concept would work, which was a huge relief. It was a four-engined Voidraven done by Azuredeath on Dakka / Dread on 40Konline. Not only is it a terrific conversion piece, but you simply MUST check out the paint job he has done on it and on his Razorwing, they are jaw-droppingly good!

The one feature I didn't like too much on his conversion was the Razorwing's standard wing-mounted gun pods. With four engines plus the two gun pods, there just seems to be too many bulges so I will be looking into moving the pods underneath somewhere.

OK, “get on with it” the more polite among you are saying, so here’s the start to my Voidraven.

First, I cut the trailing edge off one set of wings so that I could make larger wings using plasticard, the same as what Hydra did.
Second, I hacked up the two Razorwing hulls (sacrilege, I know) so that when one set of wings is combined with the second hull, I will have the four engines together.


Then, I cut out the Venom’s cockpit area and the Razorwing’s on my central hull and joined them so that the higher Venom cockpit is in the rear.



Next, I trimmed the outer wings that I no longer need to form my new twin-tail fins. I did not purchase the standard RW tailfin with my other bitz as it alone is quite expensive and I need two of them. I figured that the wingtips have the same profile, they just need to be reduced in size a bit.


And, I made my two Void Lance weapons from Shattershard missiles. Their fins have a similar profile to the fins on regular Dark Lances, so I trimmed off two sets and left one, and I cut the end off the warhead so it can be mounted into the gun pod. What remains of the warhead can be the chamber where the void discharge is generated, or something like that. I might magnetise them, even though the bomber doesn’t have any other gun options at this point. If Forge World makes one with different weapons, then the ability to swap them out will be handy.


Nothing like winging it as you go along! That’s it for tonight, more anon.

At first (on my iPhone) I didn't understand anything,
but now, I think this will look fantastic!

The reaper is fantastic looking.
The Void Raven...

GAR assumes his Mr. Burns pose



We shall watch this with great interest.

First off I must say nice Reaper, might definately have to do this conversion to get a second one (ofc Ill buy atleast 1 forgeworld one) Also GL on the VoidRaven. Ive seen Dreads conversion, and if your doing anything like that, its going to look beautiful on the field.

WOW. How did i manage to miss this log earlier, i'm glad i'm going to get my sight checked next week.

In a bit of a hurry now but damn, i'l writemore later on.



EDIT

As i said earlier, fantastic work and a very nice tutorial on how to build a Voidraven. I myself have been thinking about it and the description of it leaves atleast some choices to be made. I think i will make a gunnery tower on top of the razorwing behind the driver. Yes i know its not exactly described like that but having a gunner sitting there in a guntower with two lances being able to firing it any direction. Of course thats just for show the rules will still be as they should be, so just for the look.

Using a venom and cutting that apart would be perfect for it i think, the shapes are so wonderful.

But a question is, does it really say that the Voidraven is as big as the razorwing? Can it be put on a small flight stand like a ravager? and be of that size? have you seen that?

Not that i would do it, i think a bigger voidraven would be such a beautiful centerpiece in the army.

Regarding your painting. You sure have some incredible skills i must say. That blue paint scheme is so gentle to the eye it is just fantastic. My favorites if i have to mention some are the scourges, the razorwing and the reaper? if thats what its called the forge world thingy.

The only thing i dont like is the Raiders you got. I'm not that fond of older models, the new ones are very good looking but the old ones does sure look more like transports.

Honestly? When i saw the pic of the reaver... i thought, "I have never seen FW openly showing such WIP pictures..." before i realised it was your conversion!

Looking fantastic!

The Void Raven is coming along pretty nice aswell!
I agree on the paint job of the last VR you have linked, but i must admit, that i don't like one or two choices the builder has made. The wings look to bulky to fit into the DE range. The ratio between wingspan and length of the VR doesn't fit for me. The other thing is the reaper-cockpit. Nice Background catch up, but it looks out of place. Would have made it cool, if he actually managed to work a jet-bike rider into that use a see-through glass.

As the VR being my first eldar conversion ever, i have to admit that it is something completly different than doing nids or CSM. Though being some what spikey, they still have the curves and all that, which is really hard to dublicate.
For all this curvy work i would highly recommend leaving GS at home and setteling for Apoxy Sculpt, Magic Sculpt or even Pro Create. Or mixing GS with Fimo or one of the others. Only that way, imo, you can get that nice curves and blending you need.

I will watch this closely

Hydra wrote:

Honestly? When i saw the pic of the reaver... i thought, "I have never seen FW openly showing such WIP pictures..." before i realised it was your conversion!

Looking fantastic!

Thank you very much Hydra. Having watched your own work for a considerable time now, I consider this to be a huge compliment. And thanks for the heads-up about matching the curvy bits. I was already quite worried about that and will try to use plasticard where possible, but otherwise will employ a 50-50 mix of GS and Milliput that I sometimes use.

Some progress on the Voidraven, not as much as I would like, but hey, I just had three late evening shifts in a row plus an entire day doing yet more renovations on my house That sort of thing really eats in to important stuff like addictio ....... hobbies.

The status of the main hull. Mine won't be as wide as Dread's over at 40Konline because he left a clear gap between the engine nacelles on each side, whereas mine blend directly in to each other. I had to straighten the inside edge of the outer nacelles to give them contact along more surface area. I also filed a negative chamfer inside each edge so that they would sit flat on the surface of the inner nacelles and allow the glue to grip better.



A comparison of the new wing trailing-edge panels that I made with the originals. Maybe 50% bigger overall? I didn't want to make them too big in order to keep the overall model within reasonable dimensions. The magnets are for the missiles.

The two inner engine exhausts are from a Raider/Ravager and are slighter bigger than the standard RW ones on the outer engines. The inner ones are mounted on to an engine exhaust cut from an old Raider, the only thing I could find that was the right diameter.

Unfortunately, they now interfere with the bottom edge of my twin main tail fins, so I will have to re-profile those. Grrr.



Here is an approximation of the proportions of the overall, finished model. I think it looks fairly well balanced in terms of length vs. width.



Front view showing the anhedral on the wings. It may look excessive, bit like a Klingon Bird of Prey, but I did try to join the outer wing sets to the main hull by matching the existing angle of the Razorwing model. As you can see, I was more successful on the left side than on the right, which droops a little further. But, the missile pads and gun-pod mounts appear to be fairly close to horizontal, so I think it's OK. Not entirely accurate, but I like it anyway.

I will post a side-by-side with the RW when I finish the VR. The severe angle at least helps to keeps the width of the model to a minimum.



And the Implosion Missiles. I made a set by re-combining various elements of a stock Monoscythe and Shattershard missile. The warhead is meant to look like a two-stage device, as the implosion weapons are described in the codex.



C&C welcome. Cheers.

Except for some rust and weathering effects I eventually want to do on all my DE vehicles, I have finished the Reaper and am very, very happy with it. Can't wait to get my hands on the updated rules for it and take it out for a spin.

And I finally changed the blue on my dragon boats' figureheads and sails to the ghoul skin green that matches the non-armour wyche suits on the rest of my figures. I think it looks much better. I still have to fix the Dragons' eyes.

This pale metallic blue look that I have is a real bugger to work with on vehicles, and not as strong as I would like. Originally I wanted to just copy Mark Bedford's bronzed look.

Hmmm.















C&C welcome. Cheers.

Man, thats shaping up to be the best Void raven Conversion yet , I want it !!

How far of completion do you think you are ?

I kinda hope that this is the direction GW has taken with it.

I am very envious of your modeling skillz

Thanks very much Sorrowshard. I'm perhaps three-four good nights away from finishing the build, just been hugely busy with work and RL this past week. And a little burnt out from everything I did last month. I just need to get off my butt.

Although I was procrastinating a bit and toying with the idea of lighting it internally. But that's for next time

I remember reading that someone (Jes?) said at Chicago that the VR will have two extra engines, but other than that I'm probably not too close. I have given the gunner as much perspex as I can without it becoming too laborious, but it's certainly no 'pod'.

Sorrowshard wrote:

I am very envious of your modeling skillz

Ditto your painting skills. I'm quite proud of my Reaper conversion, but not so of the paint job it got. It's good, but .....

I'll paint the Void for ya :oP

EDIT: IIZ iT FiniShEd yEt ThEreWilLbecAkE wHenItz doNe

Sorrowshard wrote:

I'll paint the Void for ya :oP

EDIT: IIZ iT FiniShEd yEt ThEreWilLbecAkE wHenItz doNe

Soon, my precious, ..... soon!


OK, small update with crappy pics, many apologies. It's 1:30am here and I'd like to get to bed sometime soon.

First up, my second squad of Grotesques converted from WFB Skaven Rat Ogres. The two in the front are alternate Aberrations with Scissorhands and Flesh Gauntlet, while the guy with the Dissie is the alternate gunner for my Wrack-mobile.

I used a few regular Rat Ogres this time, to get away from the fixed poses of the Plague Bell and Island of Blood ones, as beautiful as they are. The regular ones are OK, but nowhere near as good. You can pose them at least, but they have horrible gaps, especially at the arm joints. I had heard this beforehand, but couldn't believe what I eventually had to GS.




And secondly, the sexy jet bomber.

I mounted the forward gunner in a Reaver-like position, or 'saddle' as the fluff says, using an old Reaver frame cut down to fit with a new Warrior riding it. I mounted a custom cockpit display in front of him. By trimming the unseen bits of his feet and the jetbike chassis, it all fit inside the regular Razorwing fuselage no problem.




The cooling fins on the bottom of the Reaver chassis can be seen through the clear canopy on the underside of the fuselage, to give a bit of detail. I will put two canopies underneath, a full one and a half one, to provide my take on the "crystal pod" housing the gunner in the fluff. I suspect that GW will have something more akin to a WWII bomber's glassed-in nose, but this was what I wanted for the look and feel of my bomber.



And below are three overall views for an idea of the proportions. The white square tube behind the pilot's cockpit is internal framing for strengthening the join between the forward and rear halves of the fuselage.

I obviously still have to clean up the fuselage edges and blend in all of the engine cowlings, etc., properly. And after an inspirational brain spasm, I am re-doing my tailfins completely, so that will add another day to completion. The small fins seen here were meant to be auxiliary fins.

I also think that I am keeping the gun blisters in their current (original) position on the outer wings. I had said that after looking at Azuredeath/Dread's conversion, I would prefer to move them and possibly underneath somewhere in half blisters, but I don't think that there is enough room to do that now. It would also look worse than where they are, and the aesthetics of them here are a bit different to Dread's because my engines aren't spread quite as far apart as his.

It's a long weekend here in Canada, I am hoping I can have it all done and ready for painting by Tuesday of next week.







C&C welcome. Cheers.

Nice work! I really like the extended nose and wings. My only concern is the tail. or lack of one. It seems like the pieces in the tail's place look out of place, though I may just be used to seeing a tail there on the RW fighter. Again, these conversions are awesome. I look at mine now...and feel shame

I think this looks really, really good.
Perhaps the "neck" should have som wings or something, 'cause now it looks much like a swan.
If that is a look you like, it works, but if not, you should add something.

How about using normal pointy prows and using the dragon head as a gun shield with the dark lance protruding from its mouth?

Jonnyroxtar wrote:

How about using normal pointy prows and using the dragon head as a gun shield with the dark lance protruding from its mouth?

Thanks for the suggestion. I saw that somewhere just the other day, but of course can’t find it again now. It looked awesome and I may well try it on a vehicle or two in the future, but for now my dragon boats already have a Viking-esque theme that I want to stick to.

Evil Space Elves wrote:

……. Again, these conversions are awesome. I look at mine now...and feel shame

Dude, never, ever say that. I have been practicing for about 3 years now and I am OK, but if you look really close, well ……. ‘Sides, I have seen your painting and it easily trumps mine, so we’re even.

speedfreek wrote:

I think this looks really, really good.
Perhaps the "neck" should have some wings or something, 'cause now it looks much like a swan.
If that is a look you like, it works, but if not, you should add something.

I know what you mean, and I like canards and have put some on a few of my other vehicles, but the long, slender look is what I was going for here and I am pretty happy with the result.

Update – part one SpeedFreek’s comment ties in to what I ended up doing with my tail fins. As shown previously, I originally had a couple of Reaver bladevanes as auxiliary fins on top of the outer nacelles, but I liked the look and location of them so much I enlarged them in plasticard and used these new ones instead of the cut down outer-wings from the second RW that I had been planning to use. Those just looked too big, in retrospect.



The new tail fins are still not very big and actually are on the small side proportionately. But, it’s a bomber and not a fighter, so maximum speed in a straight-ish line is the most desired flight element, and that’s what these fins deliver. Smaller for less drag and a smaller target area, they are just enough to keep the aircraft flying straight and level, especially since they are augmented by another set of auxiliary fins underneath.

They also help give the bomber a very fast look and feel. That, plus the low priority for manoueverability were also factors in my not mounting canards anywhere on the front and keeping the slender front fuselage.

Here is the finished bomber after filling in the gaps with copious quantities of 50:50 Milliput and Green Stuff, and then spending copious time with the Dremel smoothing and blending it after it all dried. The forward magnet on the underside of the fuselage is for the eventual Void Mine. I made one, but the glue weakened the plastic in a couple of spots, with the result that I now have to think of something else







C& C welcome.

Update – part deux

Here are some shots of the finished Voidraven primed. As I suspected, the white primer was perfect for clearly showing every little imperfection in the filler where it’s edge meets the plastic. I will have to spend considerably more time fixing those up a bit more before I go any further, although I will only ever get them to a certain point, so I am not going to be too much of a perfectionist

Overall, I am very pleased with the proportions I achieved with this model, and with the overall look and feel of it. If I was to make another, I would do it exactly the same, I believe.

Anyway, hope you like it, will post more pics after it’s been painted.












C&C welcome. Cheers.

If it still is asymetrical, you have managed to hide it really well.
And not having a vertical fin in the middle of the hull really distinguises it from the Razorwing.


I think it looks awsome!



How is the balance?
Since you have added a lot of length and filling in the front and a lot of extra wing-span and body in the back, perhaps it evened out?

speedfreek wrote:

If it still is asymetrical, you have managed to hide it really well.
And not having a vertical fin in the middle of the hull really distinguises it from the Razorwing.

I think it looks awsome!

How is the balance?
Since you have added a lot of length and filling in the front and a lot of extra wing-span and body in the back, perhaps it evened out?

Thanks Speedfreek, and yes, I really wanted to set I apart fom the RW so that aspect of it is good. The asymmetry issue is still there, but it really is very minimal and aligning the model on the stand properly pretty much negates it. In fact, the model tilting on the stand is more of an issue than the slight misalignment.

The balance is fine, it sits on the stand no problem, with no inclination to topple in any one direction. The filler putty in the front is mostly counter-balanced by the greater amount of plastic in the rear half with the extra engines, etc.

Just to be sure, I put a good-sized magnet in the belly recess for the stand and another on top of the stand. I was worried about the balance from the beginning, but I was also annoyed out how often and how easily my RW comes off its stand in the middle of a game. But even before I put on the stand's magnet, it balanced quite nicely. Pure luck.