How to paint a burned barrel

really easy but effective tip: painting a gun barrel (or an exhaust tube) in a proper way to represent a burned part is much cooler to see than a gun with a plain metal finish so i'm gonna tell you how to achieve that without much effort. we're gonna pass through 4 steps:

1) wash the gun with a really watered down Snakebite leather


2) wash a smaller area with Bestial brown

3) now do the same with Scorched brown

4) last: give the barrel a Black wash to make everything homogenous

and there you go!

Vendetta cockpit lascannon

the final weapon of my Vendetta is done! i must say this has been a little bit tricky because of the hollow case of the weapon. i decided to fill it with milliput, flatting it with the weapon flat side, then i left it to dry overnight and then carved both part as usual, gluing magnets to place.

Adjustment about magnetizing weapons

magnets are expensive so you should use the least of them unless you are a millionaire. since i am a poor italian student, i used only 2 to magnetize the hull heavy flamer of my demolisher. the problem with this method is that the weapon rotates, which is silly.

a really smart idea (which is not mine but Orlando's, thank you bro) is to make a pin to prevent the rotation. so simple...

how to customize a Leman Russ #4: fully magnetized weaponry

quite a painful work, meanly because of all that plastic shaving (gotta pass the vacuum cleaner on the floor). the trick is the same i used with valkyrie weaponry: make grooves, be careful, glue the magnets, let the glue dry and you're done. this is the result.

the heavy flamer is totally compatible with the hull mount, that of course can house many different weapons.

side sponsons stick to the hull thanks to 2 magnets each: pay attention to keep them parallel to the hull.

that's all for now, any question?

Valkyrie magnetic weapons update

just a quicky: i did the same as lascannons with rocket pods

a really easy conversion indeed, given you have the tools

How to magnetize your Valkyrie/Vendetta

the best thing about the Valkyrie is its versatility so, in order to exploit it best, i magnetized all its weaponry and this is the result.

with my dear old Minicraft drill i've milled a circular groove (is this correct?) and then i glued the magnet, paying attention to keep it perfectly horizontal: this step is important, if the magnet isn't flat then the weapons will be skewed (and will of course suck).

as you can see the twin linked lascannon is scratchbuilt: i used, for the wings weapons, space marines razorback's lascannons and 2 other lascannons from cadian weapons team. they are long the same and with a bit of care you can make them look very similar.
i used this magnets (s0201n), bought on www.supermagnete.de, check them out!

the only tricky thing on this issue is that you must never get mistaken about magnets polarity: make north stick with south and viceversa, otherwise the magnets will repel each other!

next time i'll show you how to magnetize the central lascannon so stay tuned!

how to customize a Leman Russ #3: Exterminator autocannon magazine

in 3rd edition we imperial guard had the possibility to deploy the Leman Russ Exterminator so in 1999 GW released a quite nice model that, many years later i bought on ebay, just for collection. well, with this 5th edition codex it seems that Exterminator is a nice choice for many reasons so i'm planning to add it to my armylist. the only bad thing about this tank is the excessive smoothness of the turret. to break this feature i added autocannon magazines on both sides, previously drilling a housing. this is the result. i like it, yeah.

how to customize a Leman Russ #2: turret

the Odessa X pattern turret is a quite simple scratchbuiding job... step 1: think a template (or at least steal one). personally i made both things, i've stolen one simplyfing it. step 2: build it: i needed only some glue and 1mm thick plasticard and this is the result!

writing the measures is a nice thing to do if you wanna avoid mistakes!

rear view of the diamond-shaped turret

another nice thing to do: try many ways of putting pieces of equipment on the turret with some adhesive putty

when you are happy with it, it's time to glue! bear in mind what you wanna paint (insignas, numbers...)

in order to have a nice rotation of the turret, the best and simpliest thing to do is make a cross with plasticard, obviously of the same dimension of the circle in the top part of the hull and fill the grooves of the hole (that hold the hooks of the original turret) with milliput.

after this, simply glue the gun one the turret and you're done!

how to customize a Leman Russ #1: treads

here we go! every guard player knows that the plain, unconverted Leman Russ Battle Tank is kinda tasteless, so let's make it a little more snazzy. this post is the first of a series that will treat this issue: how to customize a Leman Russ!

let's start from basics: if you own an old leman russ kit (1997-2002) you will notice that no tread cover is included since this upgrade was included in the revised 2003 kit... so? so, we will make some nice treads that we would never hide under some ugly armour plates!


simpliest conversion ever: take some 1mm thick plasticard and cut two long and narrow stripes, then glue it on the wheels

then make sure that every wheel is glued to the stripe in order to have a regular empty space under the tread and put the tread on to see if it fits

nice!

if you don't make this enhancement the tread will look like above

this is, in perspective, the final result, much cooler in my opinion.
i stole this conversion from a picture in the 3rd edition imperial guard codex: for those who own it, at page 47 there is a catachan leman russ with protruding (is this correct?) treads... it give an off road feeling, very nice in my opinion!