WhiteWulfe's Hell's Horses

[WhiteWulfe 40168]

Witty title not found.  Honestly couldn't think of one, not even a unit name.  I blame cramped up from assembly paws.  Didn't want to go with "rides again" or something, that feels too silly... or something 

 

A while back another forum member here sent me what I've playfully called a "welcome back to the hobby" package which had a number of things in it, but specific to this thread would be five mechs - A Masakari Prime (aka Warhawk), Black Hawk Prime (aka Nova), Ryoken Prime (aka Stormcrow), Uller Prime (aka Kit fox), and Puma Prime (aka Adder).  Now that I have an extra 3' of hobbying space that I'm hoping will be reserved as a "build-out" area, I figured it was best to get that particular use started out.

 

But first, a soft lil "farewell, but this is not goodbye" set of pics to the previous use of the space - a hobby I was involved heavily in for over five years, and will return to at some point, but for the time being it just wasn't providing much in the way of joy.  Skip the spoiler if not interested 

Spoiler

 

^Two different setups it's seen.  First was watercooled, and featured the copper-clad motherboard I playfully called my prized posession, or at least prized find since I got it for less than a quarter of the going rate even with shipping.  The second one was, well, more notably frozen as the thermocouple will reveal.  That's right, a small little pocket of negative Siberia right there in my warm living room.  Or something.  It's actually dry ice sublimating in an acetone bath inside a stupidly heavily machined lump of copper, but still :P

 

It was a ton of fun, and as of this post I still hold 21 first place, 17 second place, 16 third place, and 48 other scores that are either 4th or 5th worldwide on those particular pieces of hardware, some of them even beating out either more knowledgeable members of the community, or those using liquid nitrogen.  So yeah, it was a lot of fun over the years, and I did enjoy it, even after burning out during two Team Cup events, but it's been an enjoyable experience.  For now though....

^For now, it's time to pack things up, and say farewell for the time being.  It hurt packing it up, but on the flipside, I really REALLY could use the space to work in AND I just wasn't getting much fun out of benching.  I know I enjoy it, just need a break.  There are other places I can set the gear up later at.  I had thought of a long winded worded thing to say, but I'll wind up posting that somewhere else, simply because I'd rather stay motivated right now and not dwell in memories, what could have been, and past things.

^It isn't fully set up yet, and is very much so a work in progress, but still.  I'm looking forward to working here....

 

 

Okay, now what we're all really here for, the minis.

^As previously mentioned, I have enough to make an initial star of mechs.  For those that don't know BattleTech, a star is what the clans use for their unit sizing.  In this case, it's five mechs.

^First three, assembled!

 

^Ryoken/Stormcrow

^Blackhawk/Nova

Uller/Kit Fox

 

 

The other two will see assembly once my paws stop feeling so cramped up from holding tiny, tiny pieces and cleaning many mold lines...  In short, things begin.  Oh, and odds are I'll be going with Alpha Keshik for the paintjob.  Sure, it's the "traditional" colour for them, and it's also hot rodder's delight, but eh.  Such is life :P

Edited February 5, 2020 by WhiteWulfe

[Glitterwolf 201821]

Nice!

Another day another project!

[WhiteWulfe 40168]

5 hours ago, Glitterwolf said:

Nice!

Another day another project!

Indeed!  It's going to be interesting to paint those ghost flames on minis that are so tiny, but I'm also suspecting it will be an interesting thing to paint overall

[Corsair 27712]

Looking forward to this!

[WhiteWulfe 40168]

On 2/5/2020 at 8:02 PM, Corsair said:

Looking forward to this!

As am I, even if assembly of some of these feels like it takes downright forever!

 

 

^Two hours of cleaning things, and making everything fit and we have the other two now assembled.  Okay, part of the reason why it went so slowly was I was also sort of paying attention to Creature Caster's stream, but I figured I might as well be doing some sort of hobbying while I'm at it.  Not quite sure what that last little bit is for on the Puma as there aren't any obvious places for it to go.  Hmmmm.  Yup, still no idea *laughs nervously*

 

Now to just figure out if my plan is to start working on the basing for these guys first, or prime the three I did two days ago.  Decisions, decisions, although I'm fairly certain as much as I love it, Vallejo terrain goop won't be used this go-around, since it would be too easy to obscure details.

[Corsair 27712]

12 hours ago, WhiteWulfe said:

As am I, even if assembly of some of these feels like it takes downright forever!

 

 

^Two hours of cleaning things, and making everything fit and we have the other two now assembled.  Okay, part of the reason why it went so slowly was I was also sort of paying attention to Creature Caster's stream, but I figured I might as well be doing some sort of hobbying while I'm at it.  Not quite sure what that last little bit is for on the Puma as there aren't any obvious places for it to go.  Hmmmm.  Yup, still no idea *laughs nervously*

 

Now to just figure out if my plan is to start working on the basing for these guys first, or prime the three I did two days ago.  Decisions, decisions, although I'm fairly certain as much as I love it, Vallejo terrain goop won't be used this go-around, since it would be too easy to obscure details.

Okay, the Adder/Puma is the original Prime version packing 2 PPCs and a Small Laser. The laser goes under the chin of the cockpit, there should be a small hole or divot there.

[Standifer 1660]

Looking forward  to seeing paint added!

Edited February 7, 2020 by Standifer

[WhiteWulfe 40168]

11 hours ago, Corsair said:

Okay, the Adder/Puma is the original Prime version packing 2 PPCs and a Small Laser. The laser goes under the chin of the cockpit, there should be a small hole or divot there.

I'll take a look in a bit then!  Initially nothing seemed to be obvious, so if it really is a divot that would explain why it was so easily missed. 

 

3 hours ago, Standifer said:

Looking forward  to seeing paint added!

Same here!  More than likely scrubby bubbly tonight followed by primer, although I'm still debating about which colour to go with.  Half tempted to go 60/40 grey and black primer, since the Mission Models grey primer is a fairly light tone.  I don't want to go pure black, as I'd like to be able to more easily have details for the various paint accents in there. 

 

Ooh, I know. I'll do that 60/40 grey/black for most of the body, but where the flames will go I think I'll add more grey into the mix, so those areas are a tad lighter. 

[WhiteWulfe 40168]

12 hours ago, Corsair said:

Okay, the Adder/Puma is the original Prime version packing 2 PPCs and a Small Laser. The laser goes under the chin of the cockpit, there should be a small hole or divot there.

Re-quoting because I'm trying to figure out the spot it goes still *laughs nervously*

^Whereabouts does the small laser go - is it that sort of kind of bump within a square on the left, or is it that indented area on the right by chance? ^_^;;;;

Edited February 8, 2020 by WhiteWulfe

[Corsair 27712]

Good question, looking at the Original 3050 TRO the line drawings show it on the left side.

[WhiteWulfe 40168]

6 hours ago, Corsair said:

Good question, looking at the Original 3050 TRO the line drawings show it on the left side.

Why didn't I... Think... To look at that.  Well now. I might take a closer look now. Well, once hubby and I play a game together for a few hours since he really does want to play some more Divinity 2 ^_^;;;

 

Priming will happen at some point tonight, last night it didn't happen because I spent a decent amount of time sorting various things on both desks so I have room to work.  Still have a decent amount of work to go on the painting area, but progress is progress after all (short version: all the CAV KS 3 terrain was sorted and put away into plastic storage totes, so it can be easily accessed, but not be all over my desk) 

[WhiteWulfe 40168]

Okay, guess I'm not priming stuff today, and I'm instead pulling out the tub of Vallejo terrain goop - Rough White Pumice to be precise.  Sure, the sand ones would probably work better scale wise, but such is life for now.  Looks decent enough, AND conceals those bases a lot of them have, so there is that.

 

^They all look a little nicer now, which is always a lovely thing!   Puma I wound up drilling a hole in what looked like where the small laser was supposed to go, in what seemed to be an indent of some kind, as well as, well, uhm, where more than the average of the pictures of the Puma showed it being.  Annoyingly enough it has a habit of swapping from side to side in various artwork of different variants, but... Eh.

 

Priming will happen next, once I've let the goop harden overnight.

[Corsair 27712]

That would make up a great general purpose Star. Glad you got the laser figured out on the Adder, looks good.

[WhiteWulfe 40168]

8 hours ago, Corsair said:

That would make up a great general purpose Star. Glad you got the laser figured out on the Adder, looks good.

Aff, it definitely would make for a lovely star!  As for the Adder/Puma, I'm looking forward to seeing it with more paint!  Oh, and of course, more warriors to ride with them!  Current plans are to add in the Clan Starter Pack and both Hell's Horses star packs.  Sure, those star packs are 3085, but I'm happy enough with such, even if I tend to "prefer" being closer to the clan invasion period, there's just so many lovely mechs to choose from if one goes up to 3085...  Naturally vehicles will join in at some point, but the goal is to aim for to a slow, yet steady growth to this force.  There may or may not be additional forces brought to bear from the Kickstarter - such will depend on my insane idea of upping my pledge to 4x Star Colonels when the PM re-opens, but that idea isn't anywhere near set in stone, despite me rather liking the thought.

 

^I couldn't resist taking a picture of them as they were drying.  Boy they got a fair bit shinier...  Aaaand then nowhere near as shiny.  Looks like I'll have to touch things up, as about halfway through my primer seems to have gotten a lot more slick, and flowed a lot better.  Unknown if I inadvertently got too much water into it through my #4 brush, but given that on the fourth mech it started beading up as if it were too watered down, I suspect that's the case.  Mixture was 12 drops Black Primer, 6 drops Grey Primer, and 3 drops thinner, all from Mission Models.  I like their primers so far, they seem to have the properties I like with Reaper paints (Bones especially) but also have the added benefit of being able to be sourced locally.  Donna has really REALLY good maple candies at her store (Maple Airbrush, who happens to be the Canadian distributor for Mission Models), and there's a huge love of dragons in the store so yeah.  Anyways, that's off topic 

 

Boring update today, but arguably an essential one.  The real work starts over the next few days

[Standifer 1660]

Now we are getting somewhere!(paint wise that is)