Dave's Mercenaries and Stuff

[daveholliday]

I started this thread back in January 2012 to log my progress through the Tale of 2012. I fell by the way side getting distracted and not achieving a full 50pts painted over the year.

However the intention was to carry on building and painting my Mercenaries, which I actually started putting together back in 2010. That's what this thread is now used for, although among the Merc model's you'll find the odd intruder.

Merc Index
Completed Models in the thread
Magnus the Traitor and Orin Midwinter
Mercenary Objective
Steelhead Cavalry and Stannis Brocker
Reinholdt
Steelhead Riflemen (remaining four to max out the unit)
Nomad #2 (conversion using Stormclad arms)

Completed Models in my Merc album.
Nomad #1
Thor Steinhammer
Mule (converted steamlobber)
Wrongeye and Snapjaw
Kell Bailoch
Gorman DeWulfe
Ogrun Bokur
Steelhead Riflemen (min unit)
Steelhead Halberdiers #1 (min unit)
Steelhead Halberdiers #2 (min unit)
Dannon Blythe & Bull
Ragman
Piper of Ord
Renegade
Rhulic Blaster
Drake MacBain

[daveholliday]

As all my currently undercoated models are for my Merc army, I am going to continue painting my Merc's for the moment. Last year I converted a few jacks, in fact only my first Nomad has been assembled as it comes. The other jacks having various minor and major conversion work on them. Here are some pics of what is currently on the conversion table.

Buccaneer, based upon a Talon's torso.



A bodged together Rover.



My second Nomad, before I started painting it this month. Actually a nice simple conversion that didn’t require much work or thought, but it looks really good IMHO.



And the current work in progress picture of the same Nomad’s paint job.

[Kegtapper]

That is a great nomad. Great paint job and I really like the bases. Did you make them yourself or did you buy them?

[daveholliday]

Thanks, glad you like it. I have just been working on the Nomad, painting the metallics. I have stolen some ones idea on these boards about getting a rusty look using an orange wash over the metal. I'll try and find the thread.
Edit: It was Mutley, who washed their Shocktroopers armour in orange although I didn't quite go with such a strong colour.

The bases I make myself, sculpted, moulded, and then cast in resin.

[Mr.chair]

Yeah, that conversion looks great. I'm definitely a fan.

[Antigonus]

I like the look of the Buccaneer, dave - is that a Devil Dog net I see being used in an Assault-y fashion?

[daveholliday]

That?s right, it is the net from the Devil Dog grunt. I was going for the whole assault pose thing with it. I have one or two gaps to fill and then get it undercoated. I prefer the Talon chasis/torso to the original Buccaneer, hence the swap along with one or two other tweaks. Although, I can see it being a PITA when it comes to playing games because of the massive overhang of the model over the base. Here is a pic from a different angle.

[Mnkylord]

Love that pose! Looks WAY more interesting and dynamic than the default. An excellent conversion!

The Talon looks great, too, and the Rover bodge is coming along nicely. Love seeing new and interesting poses for old models. It's like "seeing something again for the first time."

[pattison]

I really like your stuff! All aspects.
Go mercs!

[daveholliday]

Thanks very much, I'll try and get some more work done on the conversions shortly.

******************************

I have been messing with using a different technique on my metallics. Instead of just dry brushing things, I have had a go at thinning down the paint and using it as I would the matt paints.
Not having a massive amount of success yet.
Below are both of my Nomads' swords. The upper sword is the first Nomad, who efffectively got a bit of dry brushing. The one below, is the Nomad I am currently working on. The second Nomad has had coats of metallic paints, followed by washes. I thinned the metallics down about as much as i would thin my matt's down (i guess i don't thin these down as much as the good painters do though).
But that seemed too thin, as the flecks of silver just seemed to sink. And it was surprisingly hard to get the paint to build up on the mini. So I reduced the dilution and ended up with a rough build up of paint on the surface.

Anyway for a first attempt I am kinda happy with how the blade tip has turned out. But I am a bit disappointed with how the blade turned out, especially down towards the hilt. Saving grace was a mix of armour wash and turquoise ink, I think that has given the blade some contrast to help with the effect I was going for.

[Mnkylord]

Actually, I think it has turned out pretty well so far. I think the gradation of colors looks fair more metallic and interesting than it was previously. Before, it almost a stone-like texture to it. Now, it has a kind of roughly forged metallic look. So I'd say good work, so far!

[daveholliday]

Actually, I think it has turned out pretty well so far. I think the gradation of colors looks fair more metallic and interesting than it was previously. Before, it almost a stone-like texture to it. Now, it has a kind of roughly forged metallic look. So I'd say good work, so far!

Gad you like it, I agree the first Nomad's sword is a bit bland. The second Nomad's sword is more interesting. Just need to practice a little more

Anyway its a while since I posted and not a massive amount of progress. But the Nomad is complete, and here it is...




Well having just got the pic's uploaded onto the PC I have noticed a few bits and bobs that I missed. But I can go back and touch things up any time.

Question: Do smilies count as images? I just tried inserting 4 pictures but got an error saying I had 6!

[daveholliday]

Well to distract myself from painting any infantry, I started to put together Rocinante on the new plastic jack chassis. When I was cleaning up the plastic jack I couldn't help thinking it was tiny. So now I have the body together I thought I would get it side by side with a standard Nomad, just to see if I was right.

Bare in mind that there are no arms on the plastic jack and the original Nomad has a wide shouldered pose. Although they are at the same height, as the bases are the same.


It's funny when they are side by side, the plastic one looks a lot better size wise. The hull is about right, although perhaps a little lob sided due to the shoulders. However the legs, or the upper legs at least, look weedy. Perhaps when the arms get attached the legs wont be noticeable. The smoke stack has gone from one extreme to the other. It is massive on the metal Nomad and on the small side in plastic. I actually prefer the middle ground of the metal Mule's smoke stack, still can't please every one

[daveholliday]

I finally finally finished 4 (and only 4) Riflemen to finish off the unit. The min unit was painted months ago, so its long over due to actually get these guys done.

[daveholliday]

I also got a solo finished, Reinholdt. This guy was quite fun to paint.



EDIT: ha I just noticed I haven't quite finished the base, doh!

[PG_banethralls]

Where aare the bases from?? Love your work keep it coming

[Antigonus]

Question: Do smilies count as images? I just tried inserting 4 pictures but got an error saying I had 6!

To answer your question, Dave - yes, I believe they do.

[Gladius]

I love your Talon-Buccaneer conversion. I like the Buccaneer's rules, but have never been a fan of the model.

[daveholliday]

Where aare the bases from?? Love your work keep it coming

Thanks very much, glad you like them. The bases are my own doing, sculpted, moulded and cast. I had the intention of being able to produce them to sell on line. I just haven't got that side of things sorted out yet.

To answer your question, Dave - yes, I believe they do.

Weird wonder what the cap on the images is for?

I love your Talon-Buccaneer conversion. I like the Buccaneer's rules, but have never been a fan of the model.

Same here, although I do like the Privateer heavy jacks, I have never liked the Buccaneer's hull. The legs and arms are fine, it really is just the torso and head that puts me off the model.

Well next up on the list of stuff to paint is some Steelhead Cav & Stannis. I have also just recently joined the airbrush band wagon so I will be testing out my airbrushing skills on a Khador jack.
I'll also try and finish building the Buccaneer, Rover and Rocinante (just remembered I need to contact PP about a miscast Roci gun ). Damn that's a big list, don't hold your breath folks.

[daveholliday]

I don?t claim to be an expert at assembling models but I do feel confidant in my ability to put stuff together. So I figured I would share my experiences on assembling Rocinante after seeing a number of threads commenting on having difficulty assembling the gun arm. Unfortunately I didn?t think of doing this write up until after gluing everything in place. So there are no work in progress photos, just some dodgy diagrams as best as I can manage. Sorry about that!

It is understandable that people are having a hard time assembling this model to their satisfaction. There are 6 joints to line up in total to attach the gun arm to the torso.

Joint 1: wrist joint connect the gun/hand to the arm at the models wrist.
Joint 2: shoulder joint connecting the arm to the torso.
Joint 3: forward chain joint to gun.
Joint 4: forward chain joint to shoulder.
Joint 5: rear chain joint to gun.
Joint 6: rear chain joint to shoulder.
See diagram 1.




Fortunately the only real load bearing joints are the wrist and shoulder and as such I decided to only bother pinning these two joints. There is nothing stopping you pinning all the joints, only your own sense for preserving your sanity ;-)

After cleaning up all the parts, the first step I went through was dry fitting all the components. I used some blue tack to hold the pieces together while I got an idea of how to arrange all the bits to get them all to meet. I could not get them to all meet up straight out of the blister. For me to get the two chains to meet at the shoulder and the gun, and for the hand to be in a straight line with the arm, the shoulder joint was miles out of position. The arm ?socket? joint being about 5mm behind the location for the shoulder ?ball? side of the joint to line up. Sorry there is no picture to show this, you?ll have to make do with diagram 2 instead.



At first I thought it was just because holding the model and bits in one hand and trying to manipulate all the bits with the other hand was just not aiding in lining up all the parts. So I decided to pin the gun to the arm at the wrist joint to help support the weight. I drilled straight into the wrist through the centre of the nub that would locate the wrist to the arm. I drilled straight up the length of the arm through the locating recess at the wrist. In total there is about 15-20mm of brass rod pinning the two together. I did not glue either end of the pin in place at this time, just so I could manipulate the joint later on if needed (and I did need to), see diagram 3.

I went through the process of dry fitting again with the blu-tac. I found that the shoulder joint was still out of position for the position I wanted the gun to be in. I wanted the gun parallel to the ground. The way I had pinned the arm meant that the arm would also be parallel to the ground. When locating the shoulder joint with the gun and arm in this position, the chains are a long way out of position. In fact they looked so far out of position that even if I bent them the front chain looked too short and the rear chain too long. See diagram 4.



When you think about it this means that the gun is positioned too far forward and too high from the ground. So I decided to tilt the wrist joint by bending the front of the gun up. Doing this made the chains look the right length when dry fitting the model together again. However the chains still didn?t meet the shoulder where I wanted them to and the rear of the gun was interfering with legs and ground (and over all the position of the gun looked dumb), see diagram 5.

This time round I changed the position of the shoulder joint. By moving it back round the ?ball? of the shoulder joint, the gun becomes parallel with the ground again. Once again dry fitting it all together showed that the chains were about in the right place. They still don?t quite line up as I want them to, but they would do with a little tweaking, see diagram 6.

[daveholliday]

Tweaking the wrist joint; I took the pinned wrist joint apart and used a knife to shave the metal locating nub from the wrist joint and a little of the metal hand behind the thumb. The reason for this was because of the way I had pinned and bent the joint, the hand had moved forward from the arm and made a small gap. Doing the above made the hand fit snug to the arm again.
Tweaking the chains; I very very slightly bent the forward chain so that when attached to the gun its angle was closer to vertical when viewed from the front, but unchanged from the side. I also very very slightly bent the rear chain so that when attached to the gun its angle was closer to vertical when viewed from the side, but unchanged when viewed from the rear.

Guess what I dry fit it all again, and was pretty happy with where everything was locating. This time I made a mental note of roughly where shoulder joint was located. I am fairly confident in my ability to pin stuff together and didn’t mark in any way where I would pin the joint before drilling. If you are not as confident I recommend marking the location of the joint in some manner (although you might need a third hand to do so lol). I drilled straight down the centre of the upper arm, see diagram 7. I also drilled toward the centre of the ball that makes up the shoulder at the location where I guessed I should do, see diagram 8. Again I used about 15-20mm of brass rod for the pin and did not glue it in place.



You won’t believe this but I dry fitted all the pieces again! I could pretend that my guess at locating the pin in the shoulder was spot on but it wasn’t. This is why none of the joints had been glued, so I could keep putting it together and taking it apart to make sure the parts were joining how I wanted them. I drilled the shoulder again (I didn’t bother filling in the old hole, you could if you wanted to but it’s going to get filled with superglue eventually) and the second time round it was in the correct place.

Time to glue stuff together, the wrist joint is glued together, and the pin is glued into the top of the arm and left to dry for a minute. I also temporarily attached the chains to the gun with a tiny drop of superglue. Now I located the arm onto the shoulder to see if everything was still lined up before I finally glued the shoulder joint. Everything was close enough, the joints at the top of the chains did still have gaps but those could be played with some more after gluing the arm in place. So taking the chains off the gun I then glued the shoulder joint into position.

The hard work was really all done now, all that was left to do was adjust the chains to get them to fit as well as I could be bothered to get them to fit. I could have glued them on as they were but I would have had a bit of a gap at the shoulder and the bracket attachment to the gun would not have sat correctly. However from across the other side of a table I don’t think you would have noticed these issues. I like to get things to fit as good as I can though so I started bending the chains again.

Obviously the idea is that the chains are helping carry the weight of the gun, so in ‘reality’ they would be straight under tension (or slightly sagging down if they were not carrying the full gun weight). To try not to bend the part along the length of the chain I did my best to only bend the part at the join of the bracket to the chain at either end, see diagram 9. Doing this helped enough to get the chain to locate on the gun nicely and to locate at the shoulder better. I had to put the odd slight bend in the length of the chain to line up each end to the best of my abilities. I also bent the plates that curve around the shoulder to help with this as well. Once I was happy I glued the chains in place.



All that remains is to fill any gaps before getting it painted up.

Sorry that is pretty long winded, I could have shortened it, but I am trying to get across the concept of taking your time. Of dry fitting pieces together each time you change something to see how it works out before finally gluing it all together.

Biggest bit of advice I can give for assembling Rocinante is be patient! Sure he is a pain in the *** when compared to assembling other models but he is not really any harder. I use exactly the same techniques as on other models (alright I am normally get it done a lot quicker).

What would I do differently if I was to build a second Rocinante?
I would go look at Rocinante’s 360o view on the PP Gallery. From there you can see how things were intended to go together pretty well. For example if you look at my Rocinante compared to Privateer’s Rocinante head on you can see that the angle of the gun is different, see diagram 10. Perhaps I wouldn’t have to mess with the chains so much if I had noticed that before.

[daveholliday]

OK so what do you think of this? Is it a little do much base for such a small model? I have two units being assembled and was planning on mixing up the poses of each one to make them slightly different. The main reason being that I was not so keen on the pose of the model below. However with a little bit of context added to the model I am beginning to like the pose more. The imagery of an assassin leaping from behind cover to strike down their target is pretty cool. And its what I have tried to convey with the basing. But is this basing too much, does it detract from the model, or should I stop worrying and just get it painted lol?


An over the top base for an over the top pose!



The more I look at it the more it grows on me, especially with some ivy or something growing up the column.

[daveholliday]

Haven?t updated this in ages.....so much for New Year?s Resolutions. So I figured I would update it with the stuff I have managed to do since March.

Well the last time I updated this thread I was in the middle of painting up some Steelhead Cav for my Mercenaries and using this thread as a distraction to post up some newly assembled models. Well I don?t know why but the Cavalry models just seemed to sap the painting mojo out of me. They dragged on and on for a couple of months. The only reason I got them finished in the end was because I wanted to use them at a tournament requiring fully painted models at the beginning of July. I am actually quite pleased with how Stannis turned out. I feel a bit "meh" about the cavalry models but I think that is mostly due to how unmotivated I was to paint them.
It?s funny how some models make you really excited about painting them and others do not isn?t it?

Here are some pictures of the finished Cav and Stannis.

Cavalry




Stannis Brocker


Every now and then I write an article for Steamforged (it also helped as a distraction from painting cav ). The Rocinante assembly tutorial posted earlier in this thread is up on their site, it was the first one I submitted. I have also written a few more since then, and intend to keep submitting articles whenever I convert something.

Iron Fang Pikemen brass rod tutorial.
There are plenty of these kind of tutorials out there, this is just my take on a common problem.

Iron Fang Pikemen brass tube tutorial.
And because I had a second unit to do I also did them a slightly different way. The end results are slightly different, and to be honest I prefer the look of the brass tube method over how my brass rod IFP turned out.
That reminds me I still need to go back and finish a conversion of the IFP standard bearer.

[daveholliday]

I do not play in that many tournaments, whenever I do I am usually to be found in the bottom half (more like quarter) of the final rankings any way. However I do enjoy playing in them, one of the best things I find is playing against a fully painted army. It doesn?t need to be of amazing quality, when you are sat 4 to 5 feet away just a competent table top standard paint job gives a similar visual appeal (maybe not impact though) to the game as the most beautiful minis in the world.
Scenary and terrain adds to the visual appeal for me too. When you go to a tournament you cannot control what the terrain and tables will look like. However you can control what your armies happen to be fighting for. I have been guilty of just placing a spare appropriately sized base down on the table top for my objective marker or flag. So I decided to make some flags and objective markers.

This is what I came up with:




And I turned that into another tutorial for Steamforged.
Sorry this update sounds more and more like an advert for Steamforged, erm it?s not supposed to lol.
Having said that there are a lot of excellent articles on the site, my favourites include Mat?s painting videos and Baffo?s sculpting tutorials. Well worth a visit

Like most projects with me, I start them and get easily distracted by some thing else, and the original project takes longer to get finished (if at all) than planned. Which was why I started this thread at the beginning of 2012, and joined in with the 'Tale of Warmahordes 2012', to encourage me to finish what I start. I started the objectives back in May hoping to finish them for a tournament held in Cardiff called the Welsh Open, I didn?t even get close to that deadline. So the next tournament after that was the ETC at the beginning of July (the same one I needed the cav for). This time I managed to get them finished but only a few days before hand lol.

Painted Objective Marker

[daveholliday]

As well as the cav I also finished up a couple of other models for the ETC.

Magnus
I used him in the hardcore event before the main event kicked off in the evening. I am pretty pleased with how he turned out. probably my best painting to date, especially the face. For the face I followed the PP article from NQ 23 and it can also be found in the back of the Merc Faction book.
For the hair I followed Ghool’s handcannon online tutorial. (Same goes for Stannis).




Orin Midwinter
I followed the same article for Orin’s face, but the hair came from the Nemo2 painting article in NQ 17.




What is next? Well….
I could do with painting another Renegade to make Magnus1’s tier list a fully painted tier 4 list.
I want to paint some designs on the flag markers I made, and I might make another 2 flags to have a full set of 4 flag markers.
There are another couple of other projects on the back burner, but one thing at a time eh!

[Llael'sHope]

Excellent job all around. I don't see anything to criticize, not that I would have the right. The objective marker is pure win too!

[Antigonus]

Having been on the same team as daveholliday for the ETC, I can confirm that the models look better in real life than they do in the pictures.

And we did end up in the area in the standings that dave predicted

[Penguin616]

These look fantastic! Very nice colours and painting. And the bases are very good too.

[Txe]

The bases and the Conversions are amazing. I love when someone manages to put as much work into their models as you clearly have.

[hamlfmileduck2]

I agree with the others, the bases and conversion work add a truly unique dimension to your force. The painting is excellent, would love to see some photos of the whole force in action.

I too feel exactly the same about the pleasure of two fully painted forces fighting over a lovely table, be that in tournament play or whatever. Feel free to pop by if you ever find yourself in Berkshire for a crafty game or two!

[daveholliday]

Thanks very much for the comments guys. I shall try and get a pic or two of my painted Merc army on a gaming table some time.
Antigonus, playing on the bottom tables next to the bar, best place to be

Little update, did some undercoating along with some patio building (not that this blog is about patios). Finally got round to undercoating Rocinante, along with finishing and undercoating my Rover conversion.


The Jacks


I am having a bit of an experiment with undercoats. My normal undercoating technique is spray black and then over spray brown. However for a few models I thought I would give this zenithal undercoating a try. Spraying them black, then grey and then finally white from increasingly higher angles. If any one is interested with how I go I'll try and update this thread after each colour gets laid down.

Kayazy Eliminators (one of them is shown above) in traditional black/brown. And Sylys, Aiyana & Holt with the zenithal sprays.


So much for painting a Renegade eh!

[Shinji]

I love the objective markers. Would love the see the flags painted up.

[bernoodist]

Great Work , love the Kayazy leaping out from behind the column , what are the bases your using as they look great

[jdeckert]

Would you mind sharing how you paint the stonework on the bases? They look amazing.

[Minotaur]

I'm loving your collection, very nice! Especially the original nomad with the repose.

[daveholliday]

Thanks for the comments, and sorry for delay in responding I have been away on holiday.

The bases are my own work which I cast up in resin. I might get round to doing a tutorial some time.

The bases are painted using Foundry paints and GW washes. For those that don't know Foundry sell their paints in palettes of 3 pots of a colour. A shade colour, a base, and a highlight, respectively known as colour A, B, C.
Colours used:
Base Sand A, B, C.
Canvas C
Boneyard C
Devlan Mud wash
Gryphon Sepia wash

First base coat the base in Base Sand A. Wash entire base with Gryphon Sepia. Highlight/drybrush the whole thing with Base Sand A, same again with Base Sand B, followed by Base Sand C. Now highlight the stones with Boneyard C, then highlight the stone edges with Canvas C. Finally the dirt gets a wash of Devlan Mud.

This reciepe was originally created by JTY, and if you wish to see it in all it's glory painted by an expert check out his Farrow: http://privateerpressforums.com/show...l=1#post508677

If you don't have foundry paints you basically want 5 shades of paint going from a sandy yellow to menoth white highlight. I am looking for replacements for the washes myself so any suggestions are welcome. I have feeling JTY uses Vallejo washes rather than GW. If i remember next time i see him i'll ask.

[Defenstrator]

Looking great. The conversions are really nice, the bases are great, and the painting looks good. I just like the character your army has, and things like those objective markers really set it off. I also really liked the Steelhead cavalry. I just thought they looked sharp.

[daveholliday]

@Defenstrator thanks for the comments, I am glad you like them

Here is something a little different, what do you all think?

[Happyslayer]

wow, I really dig your stuff, the bases are amazing too! I want to make something like that with my mercs (Mostly Morrow/Llael), I was going for a Cathedral square kinda look, think I'm going to inspire myself from your bases and make 'em look a bit more ''religious''.

Keep up the good work!

[Strangelove]

@Defenstrator thanks for the comments, I am glad you like them

Here is something a little different, what do you all think?

This is really awesome. I love it so much more than the regular mortar. I may need to try something like this.