Scenery with Sketchup

I downloaded this free application from Google a few hours ago and I have to say I'm pretty impressed. Sketchup is a free CAD type program with a bias toward architecture that Google have made available so people can add buildings to Google Earth. Seeing this opportunity I decided to have a go, except the buildings I intend to design have no real life prototype as they exist 40,000 years in the future ;o)

I'm a keen scenery maker and I even sell some of my cast pieces on eBay from time to time, so having a tool that enables me to plan on a screen means less time wasting mistakes and printing out scale plans makes life a lot easier (I could print the plan straight onto card if I wanted to). The example below is an Epic scale Censorium, the sort of building that would be common in a city of the Imperium, if I decide to make a master model for casting, the plans will make life a lot easier.

When trying CAD before I found it confusing and returned to pen and paper pretty quick, this application however is really easy to use and i recommend it as total novice to this sort of thing.

Hope you all had a nice Christmas, next week I'll be back with some more conventional painting type stuff...

Crimson Fist Terminators

This weeks bout of frantic daubing has delivered a squad of six Crimson Fist Terminators (the Black Reach termis plus an assault cannon from the plastic set for added flexibility). All in I think spent about six hours on painting these boys. I followed the same reduced scheme as for the Tactical squad outlined below, with the addition that the Crux Terminatus markings are a simple wash of Devlan Mud over Bleached Bone. Keeping the colour palette to a minimum means that I should have no problems in fielding a 1000 points soon after Christmas, a welcome antidote to my slow progress on my other projects!


You will notice that few of the minis I post up on here are actually based, well for me that is the very last thing I do on an army, it's a kind of ritual that clears my bench off and allows me to start thinking of the next project. Bearing that in mind though I am preparing a backdrop for photos on this blog that will make things a bit more aesthetically pleasing than a paint spattered cutting mat.

So next up to tackle is the dreadnought, and a metal tactical squad is waiting for some custom shoulder pads from GW....