Smaug Unboxing (pics and video)

I picked up my Smaug at the local GW today (along with the new White Dwarf) and here's the unboxing. I'm going to continue with an assembly walk through and painting video as well... hopefully I'll have enough time over the Christmas holidays.

Anyway, first impressions are good for this model.  There are no visible mold lines, and the casting is pretty much flawless.  We'll see how well the different parts fit, but so far the warnings about expert modeling skills seem over blown... those are needed to fill in bubbles on finecast.

Some size comparison Pics and unboxing video below... 

Shokk attack Gun Side by Side

I was curious to see how closely the new plastic Shokk Attack Gun matched the old one.  Mine's metal, but its most recently been finecast.

Anyway, they are very close in size, so using both of them together would be find, unlike some other kits GW has replaced with updated models (I'm looking at you Mek gunz).

**update** added some mek gun pics at the bottom of the post

Ogre Firebelly Finished

After a couple work in progress posts, here's the finished model.  Overall I'm pretty happy with him, and the fire as a light source was a cool learning experience.  I'm actually more happy with the fire than the OSL look... I've never really had much success with the flame look, and I think this one turned out ok.

Outside of the paint job I'm pretty disappointing with the finecast aspect of this mini.  For the price I'd expect something much higher quality, and this ended up having bubbles and seams all over.  Not enough to call it a miscast, but disappointing considering the price.  I've done a fair number of finecast models and as a whole the only upside I can see is that they are lighter (therefore don't need pinning) and easier to clean mold lines.

Mangler Squig Unboxing and Assembly

Here's an unboxing and assembly video of the new Finecast Mangler Squigs.  Overall I'm a little disappointed with the finecast, but its still a great model.  I'd probably be happier if it wasn't the same price as an Arachnarok spider... so I guess I'll only get one.

Interesting to note that they recommend using a hair dryer to bend some of the pieces.  I tried it out and it works fantastic.  They suggested 30 seconds, but 5-10 was plenty.  The hair dryer I was using has a no-heat option, so I heated it up, then pushed the button to remove the heat and used that to cool it down.  Worked like a charm.

Anyway, here's the video, let me know what you think.

Finecast Calgar start to finish

Here's the full set of videos all in one place. It took longer than expected to get these uploaded, but here you are. The first video is shorter at 4 minutes, but the rest are about 8 minutes each. That's down from about 2.5 hours of raw footage.

Finecast Calgar Part 3

Here's the 3rd installment. Sorry this is taking so long... uploading such large files is a little time consuming.

Finecast Marneus Calgar Painting Tutorial Part 2

Here's the 2nd of 5 parts. Each of these will be about 8 minutes in length.

Finecast Marneus Calgar video Part 1

Here's the first part. I'll be posting the rest as they compile and upload. I've got about 2.5 hours of HD footage that I have to piece together, add captions and speed up to 4x. The rest of the videos will be on my painting rig (white background and centred mini).

Finecast Marneus Calgar Complete

I just finished this guy, and am in the process of compiling all the video I shot while painting him. I basically followed the GW Masterclass article for Captain Sicarius and improvised a little with Reaper paints. I'm pretty happy with how he turned out and am curious to see how the video works out as well. I used my video painting rig after I finished the base colours, so its a bit harder to do all the details that way. In other words, its awkward and I'm not using my normal lights, so I'm making excuses for some of the blending. Otherwise I'm happy with how he turned out as well as the finecast details.

Finecast Calgar WIP

Here's a couple of pictures of the Calgar finecast mini I'm working one. I'm following the Captain Sicarius Masterclass article from GW's site for the colours.

Finecast Pictures

Here's the pictures from the previous post's video. If you view these full size they should be huge.

Citadel Finecast Review: Marneus Calgar

I had the pleasure of getting my hands on the new Marneus Calgar and Honour Guard box in Finecast. Check out the video below for some up close HD video and my impressions (I like it a lot).