Squidmasters Kabal of the Eternal Night

You're not referring to it by it's name.

Noah's Dais.

Good point, sorry.

To help me remember, I've added this guy:

oh my goodness I just choked on a sandwich. He's brilliant!

Technically this one is a bit off-topic, but I've just started taking commissions for builds and conversions, and this is one of my first which I'm thinking is coming along quite nicely.

Its going to be a Bloodthirster:



Once I;ve finished fleshing it out and detailing thw ings, I plan to add armour and of course a head.
The stick being held in the right hand will bea long whip.

Holy heck I'm jealous. How much do you charge for commissions? -to the pms!-

I'mk at the stage where I haven't quite figured that out.
So for now I work out how uch the materials will be and add a little on top of that.
Also, you know, I'm in the UK, so postage might be a thing.

THe Daemon above is somewhat a test to see if I can get something done by a deadline. Coming along decently so far, but having trouble working out how to do the head.

The TANTALUS is complete!!!

As I;ve mentioned before, I wanted to go for a far simpler rig than the oversized behemtoh Forgeworld produces, and make it more of a larger variant of the Raider. If the Raider is adapted from the basic transport yachts of the old Eldar Empire, then my Tantalus is the limo. Not overly flashy, but an excellent transport vehcile for VIPs and parties.
It features a forward control station behind blast shield, an old man sitting wistfully onboard, and a fun addition in a webway portal at the rear of the vessel so the modern Archon has an escape route if things really go tits up on the battlefield.

Behold!











I'll come right out and say that part of me wishes I had been slightly more ambitious, but for a general build I'm pleased with it. maybe whatever I decide to add next will have more room for aesthetic ambition, but for a nice simple Tantalus to sit at the heart of my empire this will hold up very nicely.
I mean to give it its first go on the battlefield tomorrow against some Blood Angels, so I'll see just how many Medusae I can fit on this beauty.



As always, comments, criticisms and other words appreciated.


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And finally with a quick glance over my work table, I see I have to finish:

10 Kabalite Warriors half painted
A set of terrain half painted (commission)
A large Daemon to finish armouring
10 more Legion of the Damned to build (Marine bodies and legs needed)
5 Thousand Sons and four Terminators to finish building (long anguishing project)
A Dark Eldar themed Plasma Obliterator (base and main stem done, starting on upper platform)
And possible word of two build commissions coming through

The speed and skill with which you put this together speaks volumes about your abilities Squid, really really like this, looks so much more practical as an assault vehicle than the (admittedly beautiful) forgeworld tantalus.

I love the detail on the portal at the back and the screens at the front, really make it that extra bit awesome.

I do have a love of the sails so they would have been cool but only on personal preference.

If you want to be more ambitious you'll just have to make another one!!

Dragontree wrote:

The speed and skill with which you put this together speaks volumes about your abilities Squid, really really like this, looks so much more practical as an assault vehicle than the (admittedly beautiful) forgeworld tantalus.

I love the detail on the portal at the back and the screens at the front, really make it that extra bit awesome.

I do have a love of the sails so they would have been cool but only on personal preference.

If you want to be more ambitious you'll just have to make another one!!

He needs to make another one with something different instead of a webway on the back.... Maybe something like another control platform but there's a guy sitting there surrounded by monitors

Its unlikely for the doreseeable future that I'll build another.
I'm more than likely to try to think of a new project than rehash an old one.



Speaking of old, back in December 2013, when this plog first started (a whole 12 pages ago) I posted this:



THis is one of my Scourge. These were actually the very first unit I ever converted for my Dark Eldar, but for some reason in over a year and a half I never finished painting them (the pic was after being repaired and resprayed after an "incident".
So that paint-job never got finished.


Until today.


Behold! My Scourge!




Scourge built from Eldar Swooping Hawks, with Dark Elf Warrior heads, OLD Scourge wings cut in half and general Splinter weapon barrels.
Solarite a set of old Necromunda Spyrer Yeld wings with a Dark Elf Corsair body, head and arms, atop a set of old Scourge legs.

Probably a bit naughty, but a quick bit of pimping for my Distraction, now 100% COMPLETE:
Squidmaster's LEGION OF THE DAMNED


And a quick note on a new project.

A while back I promised to build an Imperial Knight for a friend.
So I finally will, but with my own twist. It'll be a small Warhound instead:



Whiteboards. God's.....er............drawing board............

My Dark Eldar table meanwhile has finally found a 10th Mandrake for my unit (to add to nine Nazghul), and has seen more work done on the last ten Warrior I currently have. More pieces have been found for the PlasOb, and I'm very close to finishing that large Daemon I showed a little while back. Once finished, I don't have any kind of Daemon army, so I've decided to sell it. In case theres any interest at that point. Needs a new base though.

New project!

I've been trying to come up with something useful, and quit importsntly just something to do while the final planning for the Knights happens, so I've decided on something small and interesting.
A nice new Fortification!

What the Dark Eldar really lack is a decent ground based Anti-Aircraft weapon. The best anti-air we have is our own very fragile jets, so I wanted something else. Something strong and fortified with some good anti-air firepower. So I looked through Stronghold Assault and came across the Firestorm Reboubt, a decent heavy bunker with space for six guys to fire out of it a turn, some nice battlements and two Quad-Icarus Lascannons. With Skyfire. And Interceptor.
That just screamed everything I wanted, so thats what it shall be.

Here are the first work in progress shots. Lets see if you can work out the theme:







Get it?

A lot of my other stuff has a strong theme - webway technology. My Bastion erupts from a Webway, my Tantalus houses a small portal, etc. So with this one I'm going to carry on the theme of Fortifications emerging from portals. THis one will be a BALCONY jutting out of a large portal. The plan is to have a large image houses inside a portal structure behind the balcony showing a throne room or corridors beyond. I may have to use a printed still for that, as its not really something that I think can be modelled very well without leaving a lot of space for it behind.

The main base uses some leftovers pieces from some mdf terrain, with plastic parts as the flat ground, and then various rods and beads building up the balcony railings. This part as seen here is probably as it will be, though I'll likely try to add some lantersn to the corners of the railings.
Some more machinery will be added underneath to hold the balcony above a base, most likely with a mechanical arms holding the balcony out to make it look like its been moved through a portal.
Two drones are also planned to hover to either side of the balcony to host the two gun platforms. This'll also allow me to build four instead of the two gun the Firestorm comes with, so I can swap out for the optional Punisher Cannons when the mood takes me.

More on this soon!

Looking good Squid!

Do you have a laser cutter yourself or do you have a cheap person to outsource your cutting to?

I don't cut at all actually.

The mdf pieces being used here are leftover trash parts from my clubs recently bought Spartan Scenics sets (the large modular pieces - corridors etc).

Ah thats handy!

How is that scenic set if you've had a chance to peruse? Its look good online but never too sure about value for money.

What thickness of board would you recommend as a good starting thickness, just for messing around with for conversions, I just want to get a feel for cutting and shaping some before I apply it to any ideas.

These ones I'm using, being from the Spartan set, are 3mm. THis is decent for strong and sturdy, and good for terrain and bulkier things (Imperial vehicles for example). Not certain it works best for Dark Eldar. I'm only using these bits as a base (which they are good and strong for) and prefer using much, much thinner plastic for more elaborate designs.

Thanks man!

Additions!

A bit of LEGO to help build the under-carraige support structure, and the start of some plastic sheet covering.



And here is how it will sit on the base.






THere's some more to add to the under-carraige, importantly some wiring and another couple of "moving" parts that make it look more obvious that the balcony has been extended through from another place.
I may not do a massive amoutn seeing as how this whole area will barely be visible at all once the base is on.

The gun platforms starting to take shape.

The main base here, with the anti-grav generators and power core, are a simple series of washers suspended together with beads. These are mounted on a standard round base with a hole drilled in so that these can sit on small flying bases.



The main spine of the first two.
These have been made to be the main stem of the gun holders. Where the blue beads to each side are will be mounted the Quad-Icarus-Lascannons, one pair of guns on each side.



And mounted on the main base.



The other two bases I've made up wll have different central spines to house a Punisher Gatling Cannon each. I want to option of swapping out if called for by an opponent.

The main bunker part of the Redoubt comes together, and gets its last major addition.



THe backplate you see here forms the portal through which the balcony protrudes.
You can't see the abck which makes it more obvious, but what we've got here is the same sort of thing as my previous portals - a few handfuls of small broken glass shards stuck to a flat base. The difference I've added this time is a cover of toilet roll stuck in place with PVA glue. This has caused the toilet roll to shrink and wrap down to retain the texture of the glass shards whilst adding strength to their hold.
What you can see on the front here is where it wraps around the front and it still needs its top cover of PVA. It should look good, so I'll show when thats done.

Barrels for the Quad-Icarus-Lascannons, four barrels needed for each platform so eight plastic rogs stuck into a main component built from very old Ork guns.



More guns, one half of each platform shown here.
Each of the barrels above has been expanded with beads and thinner rods to give a little more texture, and stuck either side of a square bolt which will house it on the platform spines.



Slightly blurred picture (sorry) of one platform, with each of the two halves on either side of the spine.
Some more work is needed to texture it out and cover the join of the bolt to the spine.
I think some sort of machinery through the centre of the spine, maybe a targetting unit of some kind would be a good idea. I may get to that.



And just a quick shot of the two Quad-Icarus-Lascannon platforms either side of the Reboubt.
In the final finished product they will of course be floating on flying bases, and the two platforms shown here will be finished off.


So all I need to do to finish this built is round-off these two platforms, and built the other two - the ones which will house the Punisher Gatling Cannons.

GIVE ME YOUR TALENT! ALL OF IT

Firestorm Reboudt finished.

Annoyingly the image through the portal didn;t come out as clear as I had hoped, so I may do some further painting to highlight the image.


So here it is, the Firestorm Reboubt / Commoraghite Balcony:

With Icarus Lascannons:



With Punisher Gatling Cannons:



With a couple of Warriors:



Underside:

*bows to Squids utter genius*

I've finally added the third member of my Eldar themed Execution Force.
To stand alongside the Ulthwe Culexus and the Iyanden Vindicare there is now.....a Saim-Hann Eversor!



THis was fairly basic, a Guardian body, Dire Avenger head and Flawd One claws, but the overall look comes together quite nicely.
I've tried to make sure that every lump that couold be a soul-stone has been painted and highlight as one the same colour as the claws to try to infer a linked power source?
Anywho, ther eit is.

That means I only have one more Assassin to build, the Callidus. Based on remaining core Craftworlds it's probably going to be Alaitoc, but exactly how I make it look is yet to be decided. I've been toying with the idea of making it half look like an Eldar Callidus, and half a sort of distored disguise that the Callidus is coming out of? That may not fit in with the other three though. so it may instead be some kind of faux-hidden figure. I'll figure it out later once I find a nice body to use.

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In other news, projects have been winding down and distractions have been kicking in. I recently started an Imperial knights build (over in the Distractions board) and have been rebasing my Last Chancers (large Inquisition force) plus adding a few guys to the roster (not on any board.....yet).
I've been looking at my Plasma Obliterator and redesigning it a little, and now thats it the festive season I'll be able to pick up a decent sized bauble to be the main cannon/eyeball section. So I may have the PlasOb (PlasOrb?) done sometime this holiday season.
After that, I'm thinking I'll finally get around to building a decent sized Voidraven. I may start putting together some sketches for that soon......