[BFG] Battlefleet Maelstrom

[BlackEd]

Brother Argos -- I love this thread!  Your putty work looks really good.  And thanks for the shot of the sculpting tools!  I need to track down some of those tiny ones.

I'm not a BFG player, but I do enjoy reading about the modelling and casting that you do to get your fleet together!

Maelstrom Invictus!

[Brother Argos]

Thanks BlackEd ... you should take a look at my old Steel Legion work over on Warseer for more Casting Information.

Well I got distracted with yesterdays cherub ... significantly distracted. I started envisioning a busy command deck ... in typical anachronistic Imperial style there would be a large table with servitors moving ornate models of ships around using long poles to represent the current battle. Like you see in WWII movies showing air battles take place.

Once the idea had gotten into my head I had to try and make an ornate base for my models something very different from what I had normally seen. Using some rolled thin greenstuff I sculpted a banner waving in the wind and used ultrathin superglue to coat it (hardening it and creating a gloss surface). Here is the banner ..



You can see a number of cracks in the banner, where it was put under pressure for moulding.

Once I had the banner ... and the cherub(s) (I made another one) ... I set about casting them so I could make these two shots ... obviously they need painting as does the banner. but I can already see the name of the ship in my minds eye ... being held aloft by small cherubs as the "Ship" is moved using a long pole on the "battlefield" by a servitor.




With a ship



There is still more to do on the bases ... but I am getting there .. slowly!

I must admit when I first saw it all assembled it had a definate 40k feeling about it ...

[Guthwine]

That looks uber cool! Great idea and great execution!

[vincent]

The banner+cherub idea is awesome!

[Brother Argos]

@ Vincent : Having seen your greenstuff work with Warmaster I appreciate your comment
@ Guthwine : Thank you

A quiet Saturday trying to recover led to nothing getting done modelling-wise ... and I had a friend coming down on Sunday for a day of playing the Horus Heresy Boardgame. Which I must admit much to my surprise was excellent!

Lets take stock of the project and its aims shall we: -

Stage 1. Finish completely 7 cruisers (3 Light, 4 Normal). This involved creating the light cruiser using a mixture of kitbashing and scratchbuilding.
Stage 2. Scratchbuild a Battleship in the same style as the Cruisers.
Stage 3. Build Escorts in a similar style to the others.

Stage 1 & 2 have overlapped slightly as I was waiting for necessary components for the basing, which have now arrived!! although the intent was to keep each stage very clearly separated.

My current list of tasks for Stage 1 are: -

1. Finish work on bases (I have one more idea to test for my bases and I am waiting for a purchase I just got the stuff I was waiting for this morning)
2. Produce banners for bases (run the mould another 6 times at least)
3. Magnetise all bases with the Ninja Magic Adapters
4. Assemble all Cruisers and finalise.

My current list of tasks for Stage 2 are: -

1. Mould the Battleship Prow
2. Reproduce 3-4 Battleship prow for experimentation
3. Start work on the battleship weapon area and keel (lots of plasticard)
4. Work on the Engine section and wings.
5. Work on the Bridge Section.

As all my components have now arrived for Stage 1, I think I will cease work on Stage 2 till all the Cruisers are based and finished.

[Brother Argos]

Before I played around with Cherubs (and boy does that sound wrong when I reread it)  ... I had planned to do some self produced water slide decals for my bases. Now water slide decals come in two flavours, either a clear or white backing depending on your whether your decal has bright or white colours in it. I went for white as I wanted stars and nebulae on my decals and to work they need to be quite bright.

Using photoshop I prepared a number of different examples to test, printed them to normal paper first (to check the orientation etc) and then printed them onto the £1.85 a sheet decal paper. At that price I didn't want any mistakes, wasting sheet after sheet of mistakes could get very expensive. I was using Laser decal sheets, but they do Inkjet sheets too (which are a bit more complex to use), once the sheet was printed I cut around the decal and put it into a tray of water as one normally does. After about 45 seconds the decal was movable and so I transferred it to the plastic base and slid it around till it was centred.

Now the one big problem was the base was not flat ... its rounded nature (rather like marine shoulderpads) can cause nightmares for decals and indeed whole areas of the decal lifted up from the base and refused to lie flat. I had met this problem before however and own a product called Micro-Sol ... I had liberally covered the base in Micro-sol before applying the decal and once centred I then applied a layer of Micro-Sol to the top as well. I then left it for 30 seconds to partially "melt" the decal and deform it so it would follow the contours of the base. I then looked for trouble spots and re-applied more micro-sol till in the end every raised area was flat and adhering nicely to the surface.

I then let it dry naturally and painted the rim and stalk black to match. I repeated this for all three of my tests/examples so I could compare them on the bases and here they are: -



As you can see the technique works nicely and I can think of a number of tweaks and redesigns for the decals to enhance them further ... here you can see a shot on the base lying flat under a ship, its normal position: -



I think it looks nice and quite professional, almost like a printed counter in a game, but it does as a friend of mine pointed out lack a certain artistic warmth.

Here are two similar views showing the Cherub name banner and the base decal for your comparison ... Bearing in mind the banner isn't painted but imagine it was ..



Which would you use for your fleet?

[Vaaish]

I think the cherub banner is more interesting, but the decal is much more practical.

[Brother Argos]

I might well try and come up with a solution that uses both if I can!

No progress tonight, I actually managed to have a game of BFG for the first time in two years! ... I will have a clear night tomorrow so I can get to work again

[Vaaish]

perhaps something more scroll like? much thinner strip that bends around the base with the cherubs holding it could work and leave space for the decal starfield and fire arcs.

[Lex]

Actualy, and to stay within the original vision of ships being pushed around a tactical table, why not use the starsprangled decals on the bottow and EXTEND a (for lack of better word) "handle" from the top of the vessel that has the banner........

1) better visibility
2) allows you to pick up and move the ships without bothering the delicate bits on the ship itself......

[Brother Argos]

Some days go really well (making Cherubs etc) ... some days just FAIL

Last nights task was to make 4 bases for my ships and solve the banner / decal issue, I worked out a way to do the banner decal thing using magnets .. so it was a good start.

Then I hopped into Photoshop and started making a master decal from my previous work ... and decided to remove the ship class description (its stupid as I magnetise all my ships they can be any class) ... I fiddled ... tidied .. and got what I wanted.  I duplicated four of them and gave them names with a central theme and printed them on the Laser Decal sheet.

All was going well ... little did I know ... I kept going and painstakingly removing bubbles and flattening the decal to the curve of the base I proceeded to spend a couple of hours getting my bases done. There they sat all looking good if I say so myself.

My test base had gotten scratched when my daughter had picked it up (risking my wrath <grins>) ... so I was aware the decals were thin. I decided to put a couple of layers of Varnish on them to protect and give a little gloss / satin finish (looks good starfields).

So over eager (bad move at 10pm when your tired) ... I grabbed a couple and popped them into my spray booth and went for it ... the coating was smooth all looked good ... I let them dry off while I was getting ready for an early night.

Upon my return ... I saw large areas of the decal going all crinkly and weird ... DAMN ... I should have only done one not two .. and should have put a thin layer of hand painted varnish down first. So two down ... two to go.

I hand coated a single one next ... and tried again, only to discover one coat was not enough and it still crinkled ... just less.

Finally I ditched purity seal and moved to Vallejo Silk Varnish in a can. I worked perfectly and did not crinkle at all ... all was good and at least one was ok

Then as I carefully picked it up to put under my lamp to dry off quicker ... I fumbled badly and dropped the damn thing onto my floor where it got covered with cat hair and other detritus.

So about 4hrs work ... all for NOTHING.

Here are results ...



Bulwark of Faith looks ok .. but that's after I got hair etc. off ... and then I noticed the decal was offset <sighs>

So it was one of those epic FAIL nights!

But I needed to show you guys so you can see I did actually do the work <grins> .. and if you can mentally remove the bad stuff I think they would have looked really good.

[Brother Argos]

I did manage to file down the Golden Targe and Bulwark of Faith bases using an extremely fine sand paper. I removed the crinkles, touched up with black paint and then re-varnished using Vallejo Silk. I left them to sit for 2 hrs. till they were thoroughly dry before moving them (hindsight is a wonderful thing). The remaining two crinkled bases were un-recoverable sadly.

Tonight I will get another 5 done with no mistakes this time, that should give me all the bases I need for my 7 ships!

Once that is done I can get back to working on the battleship.

[Brother Argos]

Well it was a good weekend all round, got all the bases completed and varnished properly on Friday night and if you look closely at the stalk on Bulwark of Faith you will see a small embedded magnet for the cherub banner, which will eventually be added to all the others. However I stopped working over the rest of the weekend and spent the time with my daughter Hannah who had her 12th birthday over the weekend

Please excuse the hastily snapped photo from this morning, I was just heading out of the door and wanted to get a shot to show the progress made!



As you can see the magnetic adaptors have been fitted to the bases, and now the corresponding adaptor end must be put on each ship. I am also painting up a test cherub banner to see what colours to use. I am hoping for completion by the end of the week (minus cherub banners which I have now relegated to "decoration" rather than essential).

[fracas]

Those bases look great! I want some. Seriously.

[Zhukov]

This is just spectacular. Awesome work and keep it up!

-Zhukov