Welcome to Gaia! ::

Having a clear vision of what you aim to create and knowing what bitz you need is always a good. Taking the time to mess with color schemes on a computer or cut and pasting pics together to make a rough idea of what the model should be reminiscent of is also good to do.

I love angels, I also like Assault marines. Serifs are six winged angels of legend. That's how I came up with the initial design for Modius. My dad came up with his name.

First decide on what pose you want the figure in then find the closest model to it. If your piecing the model together start from the ground up. The emperor is primarily plastic because the pose of the legs where correct for what I was looking to make. The $15 veteran commander kit is awesome for neat little sprues of bitz.

I know many of you have reservations about spray paint all of my models are sprayed with a base coat of paint NOT primer. I use Satin finish Krylon Fusion, it is made for plastics and is a beautiful coat it also works great on pewter figures. This spray dose not get dusty like others do. Just make sure your temp is 65 - 75 and you humidity is low or the satin finish gets glossy. For the gold of the Emperor and the silver on Modius I used Testors enamel paints, the Emperor is dry brushed with Citadel shining gold. I also use apple barrel paints as I tend to live in wal marts craft section. ( they know me by my first name )

If your trying to make a cape that seems to be wind blown use Crayola model magic, it is a foamy air drying substance that works great for every thing you can get a single packet of white again from the wal mart craft department for about 3-4 dollars.

One thing you may run into is the model being off balance and falling over. If you can't correct the stance of the figure with out destroying it glue a nickel to the bottom of it for a standard base for the larger ones a quarter will do. Fun note on this problem, I have a talented Terminator, if you bump the table he falls on his head and dose a head stand. It is pewter and actually flips completely over ! I didn't fix it cause I think it's funny.

Bitz and what armies are good for which parts. Keep this in the back of your head while looking for bitz, Look at the model for what it comes with and what it could be and how it could be modified, not for what it is or what army it is from.

Space Marines - Guns, Purity seals, grenades, knifes.

Imperial Guard - Accessories, shovels, canteens, sleeping roles, tarps, gas cans, back packs helmets, body parts.

Chaos - Spiky evil stuff, claws, tusks, nasty guns, cool jump packs, decapitated heads.

Grey knights - Normal swords, shields, cool shoulder guards, Nifty helmets, capes, purity seals.

Sisters of Battle - Bolt pistols, interesting jump packs, flamers, swords, halos, roses.

Space wolves - Fur !! Fangs, cool power packs, little furry bits.

Dark angles - Cloaks, swords. tiny little wingy parts.

Eldar - Awesome swords, wings, helmets, pointing hands.

Tau - Guns !! Drones/ good for any thing, crisis suits/ good for dread mods. ( heh, a dread with a rail guns, fun. )

Tyranids - Scythes, claws, fangs, scales/hides, trophy kills.

If I missed some feel free to add to the list.


TOOLS !! A lot of times floral tools work very well because they are designed to work on small scales. Jewelers tools are better but more expensive. True but perhaps little known fact if you have good control of an X-acto blade you can carve Pewter. I say the control part because I don't want to here that you guys have cut off your thumbs or something.
If you do cut your selves and don't feel like getting a band aid, black electric tape and a paper towel are good lazy people band aids.

This basic list of tools is what was employed to make both Modius and the Emperor.

Preferd glue of choice -for me it is zap-a-gap
Floral side cutters.
Pointy x-acto blade
Curved x-acto blade
Dremel - varying tips.
Emery boards/nail file - the small red ones.
A push pin. / unclogging the glue
Hair dryer / drying paint in a hurry. ( do not leave unattended models do melt !! use low speed )


Other notes

Properly prepared Crayons make decent missiles. Just don't put it near a window in the summer or leave it in your car. Spark plugs make awesome cannons or electric fencing posts for terrain. Fish gravel makes good piles of rocks. fish tank plants and ornaments are awesome for terrain. The black and white dirt you see in old parking lots is awsome base flocking, and its free.

I'm sure I forgot stuff but I hope some of this info helps.

My dreadnought is going to look so cool now, thanks isis.

Your welcome 4laugh If i rememeber more stuff I'll update the list.

I have only grazed the surface of vehicle modification really. I did however solve the problem with buying one Predator tank and getting both variants out of it. I replaced the sponson post with a small bolt that fit through the hole and just used a nut to hold it on. For the turret I cut the mounting pegs off of the sides of the Auto and Las cannons and have a quick change weapon mounts. I did the same thing with my hammer head tank for the Tau. 1 turret different weapons and easy storage. For one of my Rhinos I used the now spare turret for the hammer head to turn it into a Razorback/tow truck model for my Techmarine. Imperial guard have single Las cannons mounted on a frame. If you get 2 of these models and glue the Las cannons side by side they become twin linked. You could probably use parts from Eldar vehicles for a Tau tank. In terms of fluff it might work to. Eldar are a fading race and Tau are up and coming it might make sense for them to work together against a common enemy. 3nodding

One fun thought I had and I'll do it one day when I get spare models is to mount Rail guns from a broad side on a Dreadnought. Mwahaha... walking gun emplacement. Of course in terms of fluff and fun if the Dreadnought ever fired the rail guns it would probably fall over. blaugh

Depends on what kind of rail rifle. Broad side rail rifle or hammer head, a hammer head rail rifle, will knock a dready on its a**, and rip the arm off. a broad side, might just make it want to spinn around.

A walker that, it must be siad is far more superior to anything the Imperium posseses. And has build in gyro-stabilisers. It also depends how the weapons are mounted...

Yes they do pivot, and I agree watching a dread pull a noisy cricket from men in black would be good fun to see.

That sounds pretty cool, I think I way have 1 FW like that only because something happend to the model where I cound't fix it. But youe right it dose look neat. If I ever get spare parts for the Tau I will try it with a few others. 3nodding