So I really took my time with this one, but I’ve now finished the last biker in my Bike Squad. I showed the two other bikes back in… 2020. Yeah…
This guy, and his bike, sat on my desk for the two years pretty much with the first basecoats applied. Now that I’ve found myself enjoying painting marines, I thought I’d finally bite the bullet and get the model finished and off the table. After a week or so of painting, he’s ready to join his biker buddies.
I still quite like these models, even though they’re really showing their age. The whole bike seems to be skewed a bit, and the mini-marine has even less waist than, say, a current Tactical marine. And I guess it’s telling that on GW’s website the biker model has it’s helmet antenna broken off… But, with some minor conversions/kit bashes, a nice paintjob and base they still look cool.
Speaking of conversions, I built the meltagun arm from Tactical squad bits, adding a pistol grip cut off from a pistol holster, and even went so far as to reposition the little aquila trinket to look like it’s flapping around in the wind. As you might have picked up on, the pose is inspired by the old metal biker with plasmagun.
Painting-wise, there’s not much to say. I tried to paint it as similar to the previous bikers as I could. There are some differences that come from not batch painting and leaving the project for two years, but they’re very minor. The only really new thing was the heat burn effect on the melta barrel. I’m not really happy with how it came out, I rushed and didn’t let the different colors dry properly, so I got some coffee staining which I of course couldn’t really fix. But it’s serviceable, and I’ll try the technique again with some future model.
This project has taken waaay longer than I would’ve thought, but the two bikers I built a month ago are now finished! There’s still one more to build and paint for a complete squad, but I think I’ll paint something else before that..
I’ve got a bit of a confession to make. I don’t find my Revelators power armored marines much fun to paint. All the main colors – gray, yellow and gold – are more or less a struggle to paint. Well, maybe “struggle” is a wrong word, tedious would be more apt. The base paints cover well, but the layer ones are terrible. I very much like the end result, but getting there is mostly dull, very time consuming work, and I feel that I could use that time better on some other model. But I’m kind of locked in with the paint recipe now, and as I’d like to see some kind of a “finished” army at some point, I’ll continue to add a unit every now and then.
And oh yeah, if you see any out of place silver spots (hopefully not) on the models, that’s because the Vallejo Metal Color bottle caps are the worst! For some reason they occasionally leak while shaking them, resulting in a spray of silver droplets all over the place! This time a couple hit my models, of course in a way that required three paints to fix each splotch. I need to remember to cover the caps with a paper towel while shaking the bottles..
It wasn’t all bad, of course! The detailing and light freehand work (check out the “navigator” screens below) were enjoyable, as was the basing and even edge highlighting the gray armor. I’m pretty happy with the chipping as well. The goal was to do a very light application to the bikes only and leave the riders clean, to echo the rest of my Revelators. All in all, again, I think the finished models look great and are a cool addition to my collection, even if there are one or two mistakes on them..
Another great thing is that these bikers also qualify for a couple of hobby challenges: firstly, they’re my submission for Azazel’s Jewel of July-August. I’ll try to paint a quick character or something before the month is over for an additional entry, but yeah, we’ll see how it goes.. Secondly, they count for the vehicle square in the hobby bingo. Heh, I’m really setting up those sweet bingo rows, aren’t I? Hopefully I can actually follow through on at least one of them!
I haven’t had much hobby time in the last couple of weeks, but I’ve slowly been building a Space Marine biker squad for my Revelators mini-marines army. Here are the first two finished riders, a third will follow later.
I got these bikes from my wonderful wife as a b-day present a little while back. She doesn’t really know anything about the armies or rules of the game, i.e. which units are part of what armies, which would be good for games, or what models I have in my collection already. Well, I too am not really familiar with the rules, nor do I care, and I’ve said to her that if she wants to get me minis, she can buy anything that she thinks looks cool. She ended up with these, as the marines looked familiar and one of my other hobbies/interests is motorcycles. I really appreciate her putting thought into this, rather than just picking the first box she sees!
I quite like the models, even though in practical terms they’re a bit silly with the wide tires and low ground clearance. They look brutal though, and fit the marine aesthetic splendidly. However, there’s no denying that they’re getting on a bit.. Assembling the models was rather fiddly, and getting the bike halves to align satisfactorily took some work. I was also worried about the seamline in the middle of the bike, but I read a good tip on TaleofPainters: when putting the halves together, use a lot of (plastic) glue! Then press the halves together so that some of the glue goop oozes out. When it’s dry, the seam can be scraped clean, leaving a smooth surface. I primed these fellas last night and the trick worked out great!
I wanted to individualize the riders a bit, so I did some light conversion/kit bashing work on them. The sarge’s head is from the SM Commander kit and the fist is from a Tactical Squad. I also added a banner top from the same box to further mark him as the squad leader. Both of the riders got some pouches and grenades, and some purity seals on the bikes. The chainsword on the other bike is from the mk3 marine squad. As it’s originally meant to be holstered/strapped to a backpack, it was a bit shorter than a normal Tactical Squad chainsword and already had some straps so it looks like it’s actually secured in place. The idea for the sword came from photos of Imperial First bikers in an old 3rd edition SM Codex.
I wasn’t happy with the stock bases, and ordered some plain 75mm oval bases from eBay. I don’t think they’re exactly the same shape as GW’s (the oval looks like it has slight “corners”), but in the photos it seems to be okay. They also had to be washed as there was some black goo on them. So yeah, the quality’s not quite up to GW standard, but okay. As they’re bigger bases, I wanted to decorate them a bit more than just plain sand and the occasional skull and tuft. Of course, as some of my models have bases that are just sand, I didn’t want to go too mad. The sarge got a slight “ramp” made out of cork, while the other marine got a piece of H-beam and some DIY-barbed wire. Just something to hint at a battlefield, but still keep it in the desert/wasteland style.
So where’s the third squad member? He’s still unassembled as I want to try something new: I recently got a package from Greenstuffworld, and with it a pack of Blue Stuff. I’m trying to make a mold of the bike wheels and copy them for terrain/basing projects! I made a couple of tries already, but wasn’t satisfied just yet, so I’ll try some more. The copies don’t need to be perfect, but I’ll try to get them as good as I can. When I get to the actual assembly, the rider will most likely be a meltagunner, but he’d require some work on arm posing, so we’ll see how it comes out.
What? It’s been more than two weeks since my last post?! Where does all that time go..? Anyways, since I still haven’t finished anything new, I thought I’d present something different. I and my better half visited Imatra a couple of weeks back, to see an IRRC (International Road Racing Championship) event. Here’s a couple of my better photos from that day.
Now, I’m not a professional photographer (not me in the pic above!), and wouldn’t even really classify myself as a hobbyist, but I dabble in photography from time to time. And what better subject to practice on than really loud and really fast motorbikes? Armed with an old entry-level DSLR and a brand new super-zoom lense that I got for a graduation present, I took around 400 photos in the 4 hours that we were there. Around half of them were more or less blurry messes, but I did manage to get a couple of nice and sharp shots with motion blurred background. More luck than anything, but I’m happy!
The first race we witnessed when we got to the site was sidecars. I got to say that the passengers, apparently known as ‘monkeys’ in English or ‘purkkiorja’ in Finnish (translates roughly as ‘can slave’), are positively mad! It’s their job to help balance the bike in corners, and they do this by leaning over the edges, with bodyparts (face, mainly) almost scraping the tarmac. From photography point of view, the slightly slower speed of the bikes made them easier to shoot and track, so funnily enough there’s more motion blur on these than the following superbikes.
Due to their speed the superbikes were tough to get sharp photos of. I had to increase the shutter speed, which results in less motion blur, but I guess it’s still enough to separate the bike from the background.
The second-to-last race of the day, and the weekend, was with vintage bikes (from the 80s, I believe). Beatiful machines with cool liveries, and as with the sidecars, were a bit slower and thus easier for me to photograph. I should try to edit one of these photos with some retro effects, I reckon..
mcmattilaminis 
