Fri Oct 17, 2008 6:47 pm
Art Director Blog: Space Marine Razorback - Getting Started
Hey guys. For my birthday, Brandon and Toby bought me this model for my army. Brandon asked the other day for an update on its construction and it made me realize: "Hey, maybe I should blog about it!" So I'm blogging about it!
It comes in this box,
and when you take it out of the box, there's like a stack of four sprues, each looks something like this.
Cutting each piece from the sprue as I need it, I constructed the razorback, careful only to glue things together that I wanted to remain permanently attached. This is actually a trickier decision than it may sound like, as the "Rhino" base is used for most of the Space Marines' tanks (whirlwind, predator, rhino, razorback and vindicator tanks all use the same Rhino base). If I glue something down, that means I can't customize it later if it gives me a strategic advantage.
For the Razorback alone, it came with two heavy weapon options. The Twin-Linked Heavy Bolter,
and the Twin-Linked Las-Cannon.
Of course, it only came with enough pieces to mount one of them. So what do I do?
I MAGNETIZE! Also for my birthday, a good friend named Justin gave me a big stack of tiny magnets (among other things). I used a bunch of these magnets to make each piece of the heavy weapon turret customizable on the fly.
I used two magnets to magnetize the turret stand, one for each gun. Then, each "Link" of the heavy weapons needed its own magnet that would attach to the turret (6 so far). Then, I used pieces of cut out sprue bits to create a support between the two guns in each set. Magnetizing this support, I was able to mount another magnet that would attach to the armor plate which rests on top of the heavy weapon turret. That's a total of 9 magnets, just so I can switch out between Twin-Linked Heavy Bolter and Twin-Linked LasCannon, depending what kind of enemy I'm fighting.
You can see many of the separate magnetized bits scattered on my workspace here.
I decided to construct some of its options, like the Hunter Killer Missile and the Storm Bolter (with marine gunner) without gluing and without magnets. The pieces fit in well enough on their own that they don't need magnets to switch out smoothly and quickly.
After I've completed modeling and magnetizing, the next step is to paint, so I begin with the primer. Being that my color scheme is mainly white and orange, I've primed in white (black bleeds through pretty bad on orange). However, you'll notice that the treads are black (and you won't notice that the bottom is black too). Priming black is better for metallics, which the treads and bottom will be.
I haven't primed all of its optional arsenal yet. For now, I keep all of that hidden in the trunk.
My next update will probably detail the painting process further. I'm excited about adding this model to my army and I remain thankful to Brandon and Toby for their gift.
It comes in this box,
and when you take it out of the box, there's like a stack of four sprues, each looks something like this.
Cutting each piece from the sprue as I need it, I constructed the razorback, careful only to glue things together that I wanted to remain permanently attached. This is actually a trickier decision than it may sound like, as the "Rhino" base is used for most of the Space Marines' tanks (whirlwind, predator, rhino, razorback and vindicator tanks all use the same Rhino base). If I glue something down, that means I can't customize it later if it gives me a strategic advantage.
For the Razorback alone, it came with two heavy weapon options. The Twin-Linked Heavy Bolter,
and the Twin-Linked Las-Cannon.
Of course, it only came with enough pieces to mount one of them. So what do I do?
I MAGNETIZE! Also for my birthday, a good friend named Justin gave me a big stack of tiny magnets (among other things). I used a bunch of these magnets to make each piece of the heavy weapon turret customizable on the fly.
I used two magnets to magnetize the turret stand, one for each gun. Then, each "Link" of the heavy weapons needed its own magnet that would attach to the turret (6 so far). Then, I used pieces of cut out sprue bits to create a support between the two guns in each set. Magnetizing this support, I was able to mount another magnet that would attach to the armor plate which rests on top of the heavy weapon turret. That's a total of 9 magnets, just so I can switch out between Twin-Linked Heavy Bolter and Twin-Linked LasCannon, depending what kind of enemy I'm fighting.
You can see many of the separate magnetized bits scattered on my workspace here.
I decided to construct some of its options, like the Hunter Killer Missile and the Storm Bolter (with marine gunner) without gluing and without magnets. The pieces fit in well enough on their own that they don't need magnets to switch out smoothly and quickly.
After I've completed modeling and magnetizing, the next step is to paint, so I begin with the primer. Being that my color scheme is mainly white and orange, I've primed in white (black bleeds through pretty bad on orange). However, you'll notice that the treads are black (and you won't notice that the bottom is black too). Priming black is better for metallics, which the treads and bottom will be.
I haven't primed all of its optional arsenal yet. For now, I keep all of that hidden in the trunk.
My next update will probably detail the painting process further. I'm excited about adding this model to my army and I remain thankful to Brandon and Toby for their gift.
Art Director - Novo Interactive
