Thursday, July 30, 2009

Sometimes the hobby gets out of hand...

I'll readily admit that I tend to carom between projects rather haphazardly and occasionally this results in creations that generally are unusable or unbalanced on the standard 40k battlefield - such as the Pegasus, the Leviathan, and so forth.

Every so often however, I'll get a wild hair to do something that's even a little further afield.



My local gaming group still plays a fair amount of Necromunda, and (inspired by the surprisingly active and imaginative Nerf community) I decided to make a Stub Pistol based on a Nerf Maverick pistol. A bit of dremel work, a couple brass etched insignia from FW, and a lick of paint and it was just about perfect. The best part? It's still a fully functional Nerf pistol, which comes in handy for supressing boisterous players in our occasional game of Dark Heresy!



Around the same time I made the Stub Pistol, I found a guy who was selling wooden replica bolt pistols and such (ever so briefly before GW squashed it, of course). I'd managed to nab up a couple items though. At the moment, the two pistols are all that are what I consider 'complete'.



Though there's no real way to tell in the Bolt Pistol pictures, it's rather large - plausibly designed for the use of a 7' tall Space Marine. I still have work to do on the Bolter (it's merely primered at the moment), but the large IA book should give a sense of scale. Both of the Bolt weapons have working LED flashlights and red laser pointers built into the body, which I thought was a nice touch.



Being a Guard player at heart, I had to have a Lasrifle as well - this one I feel needs the most work - it's got all the right shapes, but the detail is far rougher than I'd like. One of these days I'll strip it down and add some finer detail in plasticard and so forth, but it's almost at the very bottom of the priority/intrest list for me at the moment.

I did discover quite quickly that painting items on this scale is totally different from what I'm used to doing, and after doing the two pistols I set them aside and decided I'd rather paint 'real' miniatures again. Nevertheless, they do give the hobby loft a nice bit of 40k atmosphere!

11 comments:

  1. So the sound pretty cool, but the pictures don't seem to be working...

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  2. Hmm. Must have been a hiccup with my webhost. Looks like they're showing now...

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  3. You got instructions on how to make one?

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  4. Not anything super detailed, but I do have the dreft sketches if that helps. They can be found here in the upper left hand side of the gallery:

    http://www.cold-moon.com/40k/Props/MadProps.htm

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  5. What paints colours did you use on the maverick?

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  6. I kept it super simple - after filing off some of the Nerf symbols and attaching some brass etch Aquilas and Inquisition symbols from Forge World I primered it in a satin black. After that I drybrushed it with boltgun metal (lightly on some areas, heavy on others), and used shining gold for the Aquila. I've subsequently gone back and painted in the handgrip with snakebite leather and kommando khaki, but haven't taken a picture of it since then...

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  7. These are fantastic! I want one! ;)

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  8. The maverick bolt-pistol conversion is amazing. Please post a tutorial! I would love to make one as a present for my friend who is getting married soon.

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  9. Thanks! There's not really much to say as far as a tutorial to turn the Maverick into a stub pistol, it's essentially just a bit of sanding to get rid of some of the Nerf lettering, some primer and a re-paint... The bolt-pistol in the pictures below isn't the same piece, I'm afraid, that's a wood and pvc custom.

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  10. If you are ever looking to get rid of these amazing pieces of equipment, i am willing to buy one , if not all of them, in an instant. (: You did an excellent job at making those! Will you email the instructions on how to make one? Or maybe a price so I can buy one?(; my email is ianleedowns@gmail.com Thank you for sharing the pictures, they are great!

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