Sacrifice

[PrawnPower]

I expect it’s time to show some pics of my duel entry. I have to admit that I’m quite happy to have completed it as it’s an idea I’ve had for a couple of years now and I wasn’t sure I could actually manage the construction at one point. I should probably point out that I have a couple of other duel ideas that don’t involve figures/people but they are probably a bit more conventional than this one.

So this is Sacrifice
Link to CMoN and montage here
http://www.coolminiornot.com/232773

Thanks to Nigel, Rob (Cardis and Herring), Sebastian, Anders Adrian (Bay) and various others who provided hints and tips while I was working on it.


First I found out the state of the casting on Terminus Est was poor, very poor, so poor that the upper surface detail just had to go. So after a lot of dremmel work I removed the turrets and started on re-building the upper surface with plasticard, a few plastic bits off a more modern battle fleet figure, and some press mouldings of the rear panels.
















At this point I felt I needed to know the overall shape and feel of the piece as I was a running out of steam a bit with all the construction work. So I quickly knocked together some paper mock-ups of the two ships I would be using. I found it really useful as a quick bit of fun playing about with paper, scissors and glue as well as convincing myself that the idea would work.

[PrawnPower]

Part 2:

With that out of the way it was time to focus on the second ship and joining them together. After the PB meet I visited my parents where my dad actually helped me knock a small wooden mould together for casting the base in lead. It does weight quite a bit, but was necessary to counter weight the chaos battleship. A tube was then used to support the Tau Guardian so the rod that would act as the chaos ships spinal mount beam could fit through it and into the base.










Milliput and papier-mâché (It was a quick way of getting a lumpy texture with a smooth surface) were used to detail the beam impact point on the Tau vessel and build up the explosion underneath which would hide the majority of the beam used to support the two ships






The last part of the construction was to tidy the base which was done by building plasticard sides, using a small amount of milliput to fill in the gaps and sanded smooth. Sounds really easy, but had had to use the putty and re-sand it 3 times to make sure it was a good smooth finish. Then it was placed on a 5cm gaming base and the bottom given a layer of felt.

[PrawnPower]

Part 3:

Painting started with the Tau vessel, going for a relatively standard blue look (I forget the specific sect name) with a rather general lighting approach. So the painting was more to emphasise the panel lines although there is a significant contrast difference between the upper and lower surfaces.










The chaos ship had to be mainly green as it was still Nurgle infested after all the re-construction, so I went for a matching dark bronze superstructure and a mix of dark red and green shading. Painting started on the nose as I needed to paint inside first to get the OSL effect before attaching it to the body. At that point I started on the underside before going back to the upper deck and adding more OSL around the engines. The upper superstructure with the flying buttress work was done last.

[PrawnPower]

Part 4:

I’d played EVE-Online for a few years so I knew just where to go to et some inspiration for the base. Just a hint of a planet and some nice colourful nebula clouds to give a scenic background that would place the ships in their natural environment.






With all that done it was time to work on the beam. Basic colouration of the supporting rod was quite easy, it was light and easy to hold. However the energy funnels from the forward power extensions along the nose of the chaos vessel couldn’t be added until after it was fixed into place at that end. Maybe I should have practiced a bit first, but after bulking up the UHU with some water effects gel and tweaking the highlighting and shading I was quite happy with the effect (And breathing a sigh of relief)






And that just left one final stage, the beam impact on the Tau vessel. This was similar to working the start of the beam but needed the whole thing to be glued so was rather difficult to move about while working on it. And I needed to glue so thin slithers of transparent plastic in place to help provide some form to the energy flare backlash.

[Ritual]

It was bigger than I thought it would be! :innocent:

Great stuff, Conrad! I\'ve already told you, but don\'t mind saying it again... Beautifully modelled and finished and very original. :beer:

[GunjiNoKanrei]

This is fantastic - I have a soft spot for small scale stuff :) I really like all the little details and special effects you have added. A very cool and unique idea!

Originally posted by Ritual
It was bigger than I thought it would be! :innocent:

How big is it? I must admit I am not very familiar with BattleFleet Gothic miniatures.

[Ritual]

I\'ll let Conrad give you more precise measurements than I\'m able to estimate from memory. But, it\'s a quite imposing piece... and HEAVY!!!

[skeeve]

THis is the most original and well executed piece I\'ve seen in a while. Great idea. Only a ship actually in the process of ramming the other ship would be more difficult to pull off (hehe, just a thought for the future :))

[green stuff]

Very sweet! Both in design and execution.

[PrawnPower]

Originally posted by GunjiNoKanrei
This is fantastic - I have a soft spot for small scale stuff :) I really like all the little details and special effects you have added. A very cool and unique idea!

Originally posted by Ritual
It was bigger than I thought it would be! :innocent:

How big is it? I must admit I am not very familiar with BattleFleet Gothic miniatures.

The chaos ship is over 10 cm long
The overall the piece is 25 cm (10 inches) or so tall
Too tall for my cabinet :)

And glad you think it\'s fairly original
Don\'t think I\'ll be doing any other ships soon

[Ritual]

Originally posted by PrawnPower
Don\'t think I\'ll be doing any other ships soon

For next GD I think you should scratch-build a bigger Chaos ship! :]

[supervike]

I just love this!

Very creative and very interesting.

APPLAUSE!

[jahminis]

this is one of my favorite duel entries ever!!!

nice to see BFG...
the base is very cool...
the choice of nurgle and tau rocks...
of course, the painting and converting are excellent...

overall, an inspired piece of work...
job well done...

cheers
jah

[A Luna]

Its truly one amazing piece although I don\'t really like the middle section of the beam. It doesn\'t really seems like an energy(whatever) beam :( But the painting is suberb!

[Beelzebrush]

That\'s fantastic! A really nice idea and very well done too! Please, please make the background of the photographs black - it\'ll look ace!

[ScottRadom]

Awesome to bottom. I never would\'ve thought I\'d see a BFG duel. Well done, and grats on the trophy.

[freakinacage]

love that beam, it\'s makes a hell of difference

[PrawnPower]

Originally posted by ScottRadom
Awesome to bottom. I never would\'ve thought I\'d see a BFG duel. Well done, and grats on the trophy.

Thanks, but just to be clear, I was only a finalist

Also I would have liked to have done the beam with a transparent rod
Some lighting could have worked well I think
But the weight was an issue

[Avelorn]

Terrific work all round! Well done!