Jetbikes, jetbikes, jetbikes!

I've been hoarding jetbikes, jetbike pieces and jetbike wreckage from e-bay for nearly a couple of years now.  Every time I saw them cheap, regardless of how badly they were painted or how insanely "customised" they were, I got them and stripped them.

After playing a 500pt game against  +Daniel Goldsmith' s Dark Angels I decided that for the next game (750) I needed to have mobile troops.  No way was he going to let me get away with camping 5 feet away and around a solid wall  from his firepower a second time.

So, jetbikes it is.  I'm also painting up the objective crates from Mantic, because I like them and want to use them as markers in 40K as well.

Here's everything, ready for priming:

In amongst them are two warlocks.  Their bikes are half Dark Eldar, half Eldar, with bits of extra plastic making smaller exhausts on the back, their torsos are DE wyches, their legs are elf (I think) horse riders from fantasy, their heads are from DE scourges and the spear arms are dark elf scourgerunners'.  A bit of a hodge podge, but I like the look.  They have magnets in their seats and buttocks, so I have the option of changing riders/bikes down the line.  

Not really sure if they're worth it considering 7ths new psychic phase. But I also have a half formed idea about just rolling single dice for them and taking the 50:50 chance of powers with no perils risk. With two powers each now, that's a 75% chance of something each turn.  A bit chaotic, but I can save the important stuff for the farseer, with his nice safe ghost-helm.

Here they are before priming, zooming over half-finished terrain pieces...

The problem I'm having now, is that I really don't like old Eldar helmets and that's what the standard jetbike pilot has.  I'm thinking of using kabalite warrior heads instead.

Also, for more warlocks in future, I have some wood elf wildrider heads with awesome antlers that would look good.  I don't want any two warlocks to look the same, but I want a certain amount of uniformity in the jetbike troops.

Swoopy Norks update

I think I'm done painting them.  The bases need to be finished now, especially the flying ones that need careful grass placement to hide their supports.

Farseer and jetbike almost done...

Here they are:

Some detail work and varnish still to go, but almost there.

Jetseer conversion part 1: gluenado

I hear lots of opinion about how GW are moving toward having a range of models that matches exactly the items in the codex in order to push out third party manufacturers.  That doesn't seem to have stretched to farseers (or warlocks) on jetbikes. Which  is fine by me, since there's very little in my collection that is made from current, out-of-the-box, un-modded, GW produced plastic.

I've seen lots of really great conversions and I was going to do something similar, splicing and grafting a cloak onto a jetbike rider, swapping heads and arms, etc., or possibly modelling a cloak with greenstuff.  But then the voice of Edna Mode came to me: NO CAPES!  This is a jetbike, flying at breakneck speed through a battle zone.  You don't want to be hurtling round a corner only to get tangled up on some spiky chaos adornments.

So, I get a guy in a close-fitting bodysuit, like the usual jetbike riders, give him a farseer head and an arm holding a spear. But he doesn't look like an HQ choice.  He looks like a windrider at fancy dress.

Instead, I thought, why not make the jetbike special instead?  I actually like Eldar jetbikes.  I think for the same reason I love the metal wraithlords: I had one as a kid. I may still have my harlequin jetbike somewhere. If I ever find it and scrape off the half-dozen layered paint schemes I lavished on it, I'll use it for a jetbike warlock. I wanted something special but still in keeping.

What I came up with was part vyper, part jetbike, with a sprinkling of wave-serpent and war walker bits.

The back end is a pair of wings and seat from a vyper with the enormous footplate bit removed, the  seat trimmed down and a jetbike front and shuriken catapult added.

  Then: fins, lots of fins.

There's a little gap either side of the seat that was annoying. It was obviously missing a part.

I found a bit in my box that fit, but needed another one.  It was an arm shield from the new plastic wraithguard. I don't own any, so it must have come in one of the bunches of bits I'd bought on ebay when I was looking for jetbike parts to build my squadron. Reddit helped me find the source and http://megabitzshop.com/ supplied the missing piece.

The rider is made from a guardian torso and legs, with arms from my bits-box and a metal farseer head I had in there.  If for nothing more than to hide where I trimmed the excessive shoulder pads, I decided a little cape was OK and created one from greenstuff. It's a fur over a cloak and although I don't think it's technically possible to stretch the definition of "mantle" to cover it, it's my "mantle of the laughing god" if anyone asks,

The base is documented in: this post and this post.

Jetseer base, continued

After getting the colours how I wanted them (see the previous post) I gave it a coat of matte varnish and added some static grass and Army Painter tufts.

Now time for water.  I used clear tape to build a temporary wall around the base.

The scenic water seeps through gaps (bitter experience)  so I went around the underside join with thick PVA and allowed it to dry before going any further.

A thin layer of scenic water was added and then it's a matter of waiting.

It took a couple of days to cure fully and unfortunately there were a couple of strange holes in the finish, so I decided to add a second thin layer of water to fill the gaps.

And here it is. Surface tension pulled the edges up, so I trimmed them with a sharp knife. I'm pretty pleased with how this turned out.  The jetbike and seer still need painting, so that's next on the list. I think I might use some masking tape to get a nice clean black ridge along the bottom to tidy up and make it look finished.

Jetseer base

So, my jetseer needed a base, too.  I really wanted to make something special since I've been taking so much time on the mini itself.

I decided to make a base with some greenery and some water.  Water because I've been wanting to try making a water base.  Greenery because I found some great twigs with lichen on them.

The base is cut from a spare top from my growing collection of Poundland drawers. Here  are the drawers in the middle of my organised chaos.

They come in packs, but the tops come off so you can make taller towers.  I have a bunch of spare tops and I use them as little trays, but I realised that they are also a source of sheet plastic.

I took a corner so that I could use the ridge to help build height and as something to anchor the wire that supports the jetbike.

Here's the piece:

And with a wire and lichen-ey twig...

 Trying out the jetbike on the suppoort...

Next, I added some plaster rocks. I made a batch of these a while ago using some plaster moulds. I only needed a few back then, but made enough to last for a few projects. I filled in around the rocks with air-drying clay and pressed in some smaller rocks.

The idea is that the ground will slope down to the water and the water will stretch to the edge of the base. See how I used clay to extend the twig into the ground?  I was chuffed with how that turned out.

Now for gravel, sand and flock.

Happy with the shape, composition and texture, I gave everything a spray of thin PVA, let that dry and then a coat of spray varnish.  I like the lichen, but don't want it squidgy, or changing shape with heat or moisture. Once everything was encased in PVA and varnish for good measure, it all got a coat of black primer.

And now the colours start coming back by getting painted on. This was all airbrushed. I made sure to have a black shadow where the log and ground met, to enhance the depth. I think it worked well.

And drybrushing...

Next I need to add the static grass and water. I'll report on that soon.

After a long spring term...

Another burst of progress.  The swooping hawks are nearly completely painted.  (Photos to come) Lots of things have been primed, some even have base colours on.

The wraithlord has colour, but needs a wash and detail.

I have some warp spiders that need painting:

I've also primed all of my deadzone stuff now, minis and scenery.