Blog Archives - LexCore - Epic 40K

Racing Orks

30/7/2017

My original plan was to make every Ork model unique. However at the same time for the bikers on the starting line, I wanted the same bikes rather than a rag tag of different ones. As my race track wasn't that wide anyway, I decided to have three and an additional two different ones behind. This would give me the standard five bikers, but this time without an Ork Nobz.

Beading Wire

29/7/2017

Not quite the colour I wanted but seems the sky blue is a bit difficult to track down. For around £2 a reel and only needing less than 2cm of wire, it's probably the most expensive component for these two. They don't show too well in the photo, but hopefully when I get around to taking more careful photos, the shiny wire shows up better.

Problem with Mixing Paint

29/7/2017

Problem with mixing paint is getting the right colour again. As seen on the bottom left corner, I forgot to spray paint the two pieces that break away from the main. They were cut so I can remove them as a separate exit tunnel for the drag racers. I'm not sure if the upper level foam was warped during cutting or after, but without any weight it curves up in the middle hence the visible gap. Although it's turned up to be much darker than my original dessert muddy yellow, but hopefully less noticeable as I place more stuff on top.

Extremely Quick Crash Barriers

23/7/2017

Despite trying to think of a best way to bend plastic to mimic the bends of a real crash barrier, I decided to just add thin rods to the top and bottom of a flat piece of plastic. I didn't even bother trying to use I beams. They look suprisingly good for extremely little effort.

A Bit of a Mess

23/7/2017

A bit of a mess with the air brush. I'm using the top loading one as it works better now I have the needle in the correct position. Also it works better and I don't need the correct paint consistency that the bottom loading air brush needs to suck the paint up.

I sliced this board so I could easily cut the shape of the race track and originally planned to glue it back together.

However I'm now trying to make it modular. The right piece that forms the underground level can be used as a game board instead. I'm not sure if I ever would do this, but keeping my options open. It would also mean that I could take photos without having to worry about the angle of the upper board getting in the way.

Messy Mesh

14/7/2017

Something to kick off the race track. As I had some mesh, I decided to use it, but forgot how messy and difficult it can get. As I was using super glue, the skin at the tip of my fingers were all

hardened as I tried to hold the mesh against the base. Luckily after only several attempts I got it to wrap nice and firmly around the base of the podium. Also planned is some flags, a banner around the front of the mesh and a way to keep the Orks in their place :)

Central Cavern Column

13/7/2017

Adding to my bag of hardware is a rock or broken slab piece from my garden. It's rough and sharp edges gives me a tool to imprint onto my rock walls giving it a rugged and rocky surface look. This is the first time I tried this so hopefully after some painting, the detail comes out nicely.

These two columns will be used to give my race track cavern some support where my Ork city will sit on top and some fallen rocks. I didn't go for the realistic look, but included the photo I was going for. I'll be adding more Ork made support columns eventually.

Taking the Plunge

12/7/2017

The problem with making large scenery is once you commit the design, it's very difficult to change it without starting again. I had this with Skull Mountain, but at least I was using free bubble polystyrene. I actually paid for this dense stuff . So I finally took the plunge and cut

the cavern for my race track. It would be a simple oval track with a drag strip running down the middle. I cut an exit to the left for future expansion for a later date if I wanted to expand

the drag track out a tunnel to the surface above. To finish this off a tunnel was made for the racers to exit to the surface.

Heat Wave Over

11/7/2017

Well the heat wave seems to be over and that is good when painting. My paint area is lit by a strip light that generates quite some heat. Possibly a reason why my paint dries so fast. While painting the first one, I had to constantly take a break as the sweat drip from the back of my neck. Now the heat wave has ended, I was able to comfortably sit through painting the last two of these.

The new nine has completed and I can start something new. I've been deciding between a special Tau Commander Battlesuit, a larger Riptide Battlesuit or back to some chaotic modelling and painting Orks. So many choices.

ABS Styrene

8/7/2017

Normally I use Evergreen Strip Styrene rods, but they only produce them up to 3.2 mm rods. I needed at least 4 mm for the Tau drones so I got what seemed to be the best option off ebay. However ABS Styrene is a much harder material to work with. Manual sanding was not an option and I had to use the Dremel. It was hard to see the edges being sanded and I couldn't get the smoothness I wanted. To top off all the issues with working with ABS Styrene, even the Guillotine had difficulty making nice straight vertical cut. I just hope when I start gluing and painting with it there's less problems.