Doc Butcher finally gets his tent!

I know that I was supposed to be working on Harker's Squad and my second Starstreak Hydra, but when a friend dropped over some high density foam, I kind of got distracted. I've been meaning to do a treatment tent for my Field Ambulance unit for over a year, so when I got the foam, I broke out the hotwire cutter and baby wipes and got stuck straight in.

Overall, I'm pretty pleased with it, there's the odd bit that could have been done better but then, I've always seen these projects as a chance to learn and I certainly learned a lot with this one. This tent completes my medical unit, so I'll get them all together and do a proper group post soon. In the meantime, here's so pics of Doc Butchers treatment tent ....

So, that's 462 Field Ambulance completed, time to crack on with Harker's squad, hopefully, there won't be any more distractions!

Col

Stretcher bearers finished

I've been pretty busy lately with various projects but I managed to finish up the stretcher bearers for 462 Field Ambulance. Soz the pics arn't brilliant, the light here has just be horrendous and these were the best I could do after an hour of trying to take some decent ones. I'm really going to have to invest in a lightbox, if anyone has any good recommendations on where I can buy one in the UK, please let me know.

Anyway, back to the pics ........

All that's left to do is to make up and paint the treatment tent, which I'll be starting this weekend, so expect pics soon. Once that's done, it'll be another project finished and time to move on to 1st (Vet) platoon, which means having a play with Harker and some green stuff. I think I'm going to have to get my hands on some plastic catachens as the metal ones I've got arn't going to be up to conversion job I want to do.

He ain't heavy, he's my brother!

Work continues on 462 Field Ambulance with the next conversion, a pair of stretcher bearers.

Overall, I'm quite pleased, the arm poses are a little iffy but they're from the heavy weapons gunners as they were the only arms that were the same on both sides. I'm not sure on the field dressing green stuff sculpt, it looks a bit chunky but I'll only be able to tell for sure once it's painted up.

 

 

Once I've got these guys done, all I'll have to do to finish the project is do the treatment tent, so the hunt for the perfect babywipes has already begun. Painted pics coming soon guys.

Doc Butchers victim finished

Here's the first bit of hobby goodness for 2010. I'm pretty pleased with how he's turned out, and he was really fun to put together. Overall, I think I like the wound and surgical sheet the most both in sculpting it and painting it.

 

It's not the only thing I've been working on, the sentinel halftrack is coming together nicely and should be finished for next week. Also on the hobby front, the Corbanian 1st went to war last night, I got a game in at the local club. I played against nids and wiped the floor with them. 

I'd like to say that it was due to my tactical brilliance but in truth, Dunc had some pretty poor dice rolls and just couldn't stop my armour. He was also playing nids and I know from experience that they suffer against armour anyway, so it was an up hill struggle for Dunc from the start

But, a win is a win, so it's a good start to 2010 nonetheless.

Way back when ...........

So, I was flicking through an old copy of WD109 when I came across the inaugural guard article. Well, I say article, at 22 pages, it was more like a codex. Things were very different back then, first off, GW only put one advert for the 'new' guard box in the entire article!

Anyway, onto the boys, way back when I was a boy, the guard was a very different army. We flew around on land speeders and jet bikes, we drove into battle land raiders and rhinos.

Our sgts packed vortex grenades, our troopers packed conversion beamers and d-cannons and we had assault squads, yes, you heard me right, guard assault squads, with jump packs!!!

We were very inclusive in the day, we'd take criminals, squats, ratlings, ogryns and even beastmen, I jest ye not. Back in the day, we also used some dodgy methods of getting the job done, like suicide bombers, yes that's right, us guard were miles ahead compared to the real world in using high explosives and stupid devout people to cause death and destruction.

As you can see, things were very different back then, and yet twenty years on, there's still so much that's the same. Unfortunately, White Dwarf isn't one of them, it makes me laugh when I heard you young whipper snappers going on about how rubbish WD is. For us greying vets, we remember a very different WD. In this issue, along with a 22 page guard codex, we had the vehicle rules for Adeptus Titanicus (Now epic), rules for greater demons in WFB & 40k, rules for goblin fantatics in blood bowl, the inaugural 40k terminator rules, the rules for reaver and warhound titans in AT (epic) and finally the rules for orc stone throwers and goblin chariots plus a host of letters, faqs, titbits and heavy metal.

Now that's what I call a White Dwarf!!!!!!!!

Finally, a quick update on my operating table for 462 Field Ambulance, it's almost done, I just need to finish the drip but I wanted to show you a wip because I'm really proud of how the green stuff work came out. What ya think guys?

Doc Butcher finished

I finished Doc Butcher last night, overall I'm pretty pleased with how he's come out. I went a little OTT with the blood on the apron, that's what happens when you try to paint at 2am when you should be sleeping. I did add a bone saw at the request of a few of the guys on the Bols forum.

It took me three attempts to get the teeth right and the handle was a real challenge but it worked out quite well in the end. One thing I did realise when I was painting him up was that in future, I need to sculpt more texture / creases on arms, aprons or any other large flat areas. With the Doc's arms being mainly flat, when it came to painting them, they turned out flat. So, that's the first sculpting lesson I've learned since starting sculpting, hopefully, I won't repeat that mistake again.

Finally, I had a play with one of the biker bases John at Spectre hobbies sent me. I'm sure you can guess where I'm going with this one.

Ambulance finished

Finished the ambulance last night, overall I'm pretty please with how it's come out considering it was a damaged trade. This one's been quite challenging, it's given me a go at some basic plasticard work which I've enjoyed quite a bit. I've also done rivet for the first time, seriously fiddly!

 

 

Doc Butcher is halfway painted, so hopefully I'll be finishing him tonight. I've also got together the bits for an Executioner with plasma sponsors, so that's going to get put together over the next night or two.

Doc Butcher

My adventures into GMS (Guard Medical Services) continues with my first field surgeon to go along with the Ambulance, and my casualty objectives.

As some of you who follow my blog already know, I've only just started to play around with Green Stuff and sculpting. My only other attempts have been the cloaks on my snipers and my marbo. This model was a whole different challenge to those cloaks.

I wanted to get across the look of a field surgeon, so that meant that he had to have an apron, face mask and some sort of medical tool. I started with a tank commander model, cutting off his side pouches. From there, I built up the apron. The arms are from the catachen command medic, I filed them down a bit as surgeons don't have huge muscles and then added cuffs to give the impression the arms were clothed. Finally the head came from the catachen command sprue, I cleaned up the side knot for the bandanna and added a face mask. Overall he looks like I wanted him too. I showed my wife, and she said 'Is it a butcher?' much to my initial dismay. I thought for a moment, then realised he's a field surgeon, so yes, he's a butcher! Doc Butcher to be precise.

OK, now I know I'm new to sculpting, and I'm certainly no Col. Gravis, so I'm going to be honest with myself about what I don't like and think I could do better. I don't like the fact that none of the edges are sharp on the apron and mask. They're all rounded, but I'm assuming that's because I'm using a rubber sculpting tool and not a metal one. Also, the cuffs came out a bit chunky, so in future I'll put a lot less GS on initially and building it up over time. Hopefully, over time, I'll get better at judging how much GS I need to do something.

If any of you guys have any tips or know of any good guides, please let me know as the more info I can get, the better. So, what do you think of Doc Butcher guys?

It's an ambulance

Yep, Gorefest got it right (Tol - you already knew!), it's my chimera ambulance. I've added the stretchers now and it's pretty clear what it is. The stretchers are just cut down cocktail sticks with baby wipes wrapped around them.

Ambulances hold a special place in my heart as I served as a medic in the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC). Here's a few pics just of some of the ambulances that have been in service in the British army in the past decade. First off, we have the old long wheel base Land Rover 3/4 tonne ambulance. I learned to drive in one of these.

 

Next up we have the larger 1 tonnes Land Rover. I actually did my civilian test in one of these as the 3/4 tonne was off road one the day of the test. The lady examiner was very impressed if you know what I mean ;-)

The FV 432 - an all round apc which serves as everything from a command vehicle to a mortar platform. Seriously fun to drive.

 

 

FV-104 - Samaritan

 

 

 

 

 

 Finally. we have the Swedish import, the Viking.

Check out the stowage on the FV 432 (the second one)

That's enough of the pics, I hope you liked my little homage to Brit army ambulances. I'm off to get my own painted up.

Can you guess what this is?

I picked up a "painted" chimera in a trade at my local club. It was a bit damaged, it had lost it's lasguns and the turret wasn't quite right. So I wondered what else it could be used for and an idea popped into my head. I've done a bit of work on it, just a little more to do.

I've filed off the turret mount and lasguns mounts, added a vent, stowage, antenna, search light, tow hooks and stowage hoops. I've got a little more work to do on it, but it's 95% there. So, can you guess what this is going to be?

Work continues on my autocannon squad, they're almost done now, just got to do their black armour and I'll be starting on the lascannon squad. Going on campaign continues to grow, although I'm needing pics of campaign maps, so if any of you can help, drop me a line.