Warhammer Wednesday: Space Marine Rhino

Last year I hit a point where I needed a bit of a pallete-cleanser from model railways. The Gerry Anderson stuff kind of hit the mark, then I found myself returning to the world of Warhammer.

I've not done much modelling with the products of Citadel Miniatures in recent years- though I love the books (anything by Sandy Mitchell or Dan Abnett), really like the artwork, and read the mag ("White Dwarf") pretty regularly.

This tempted me back. When I was about 10, my introduction to Games Workshop was with my mate Owen who spent a tenner he really wasn't meant to spend, on a kit for a Rhino APC. I was instantly taken with Warhammer (the blue boxes with the red/yellow trim! In the Grim Darkness of the Far Future, there was a surprisingly bold colour pallette).

I got the game box set (happy memories of sitting for tea at my grans house one Autumn night, piecing the figures together and desperate to get home and glue them together). And pretty inevitably, I got a Rhino of my own. A tenner was a lot of money to me at that age, but I was also aware that it was a really well-moulded kit in decent quality plastic, and well thought-out too so it could be customised.

The modern take on the Rhino has a crazy number of parts, and the quality of the moulding is impressive. Good, heavy duty plastic too. I suppose the price is in line with inflation, and I got mine from the excellent Acme Games wargaming shop in Llandudno, which I try to buy something from whenever I visit the town.

A mad amount of alternate parts and spares, to go in the bits box.

Higher level of detailing than in the 1990's, but keeps the classic look of the Rhino.

Interior details and a working ramp, nice touches.

This was the only downside- the baseplate for the floor didn't quite fit snugly and needed some filing. An unusual oversight for a kit which otherwise practically fell together.

I decided to go for a pretty bog-standard version of the Rhino, with not that much in the way of customisation. Pretty much a take on the one I built back in 1996.

Undercoated in black. Colour wise, I was unsure what to go for. I'd modelled Ultramarines (blue) in Epic, and Dark Angels (green) back in the day. I thought I wanted to do something really bold and bright this time though, and went with the Imperial Fists.

How many points for Yellow Tank? (Elder Child will get that- hello if you're reading this)

Trouble was that work and railways took over for a bit, then when it came time to do the detail painting, I'd lost the transfer sheet. Luckily I was able to source a sheet off eBay.

Now, I wasn't planning on getting into playing the games (I really, really don't have time to sit for 4 hours a day, assuming I could re-learn the rules) but I fancied taking a few forced-perspective pics out and about.

The APC got a detailing and weathering pass, then a dusting with varnish. I took it for some pics up in the hills above where we were staying in Wales... 

...where the weather continued to be vexingly overcast and moody.

I also snapped some pics on the beach at Criccieth, whilst waiting for a passing railtour excursion I was needing to photograph.

I wasn't happy with the photographs, and thought I'd have another go on the next visit to Wales, where hopefully the weather would be a bit better. I decided I needed some figures. I also didn't want to spend a fortune on a full box of figures, but found -again, through eBay- someone selling individual sprues.

There were no instructions, so putting the Marines together was a bit of trial and error.

I really liked the classic Womble-Marine design, and I'm glad it got a reintroduction.

Overall a fun project; apart from that little wobble with the floorpan of the vehicle, this was a great kit and I loved building it. It got me back into building Citadel kits, which is why 'Warhammer Wednesday' will become a semi-regular feature...

 

Hornby: The Collector. Damems in 00.

So, as I alluded to in the Christmas/New Years post, I've been busy moving house over the winter. Not too busy to make things, but far too busy to post about them. Given I've picked up a few regular gigs in the intervening period, I thought I better start posting on here again. First up, a project mostly completed over the summer (alongside packing up the house) for the Hornby Collectors Club; Damems in 00.

Damems was my local station, until we moved (the shot above with the 101 in the snow was actually the last photography session on the line before we moved).

Back during the plague times (that some of my various editors insist not be referred to these days) I decided to ease the boredom of the post-home-schooling afternoons by writing some layout planning articles for Railway Modeller Magazine. Damems seemed a logical start, as it was a place that -lockdowns permitting- I could actually visit.

Some very basic 1:1 planning underway, to get an idea of sizes.

Anyway, the piece got published, was well-received, and after a suitable gap I came back to it when needing material for the Hornby Collectors Club.  This time, I thought I'd actually build one of the layout plans I'd proposed.

Back to the basic planning again.

Reclaimed MDF board, set-track, and landscaping from foam packing material, card, and papier-mache.

Scenics underway, with cobbled sheets of unknown provenance, and Airfix level crossing, and green scatter as a base layer.

Buildings... obviously, this being a Hornby article, it was going to need to use all Hornby buildings or parts, and the article was aimed at the (relative) beginner. I hasten to point out that this rather poorly built example of the 90's Town & Country range "Bell Inn" wasn't my doing, it was bought off eBay in this condition to be a parts donor.

Stripped of parts, and the walls and so on re-fashioned to look a bit more like the real Damems stationmasters house.

For render, I used thin sandpaper.

The station building itself used more of the bits from the Bell Inn, and some MDF, but this time faced in scribed card for the planks.  Both of the above being completed during a holiday away, to the amusement of precisely none of the family who had to put up with me working in the evenings on the table in the caravan.

Back in T'North, and shooting outside on the drive. Not terrific, given it was early evening (typically at the weekends it had rained heavily and I was up against the deadline, so fitting in the shoot after work).

Not long after, I decided to punt the layout towards British Railway Modelling magazine, who picked it up, requiring a re-shoot. This had to be fit-in after the move though, and was a bit tricky (again, weather). In the end I shot the pics in the basement, using some borrowed studio lights. It was also a bit of a scrabble for figures, details, and trains, as I wasn't sure where the boxes with them all in were.

The article in the Collectors Club magazine, and hopefully shortly it will be in BRM too.

At the same time as I was doing this, I was working on yet another piece for the Collectors Club to try and bank some articles before the move. More on that soon.

Garden Railway Saturday; the first 32mm loco.

As mentioned in the previous GRS post, the plan is for a smaller garden railway at the new house. 32mm gauge this time instead of 45mm. To test the feasibility of it (bearing in mind this build was from last summer, when the move was on the cards but not finalised) we acquired a few items of stock.

So, the first loco. An I.P Engineering "Dan/Danny", based on an O&K Shunter, and effectively a modern version of a budget Fendyke Locomotive Works model originally released in the 1990's.  That Fendyke model really appealed to me as a 12 year old, and had I the budget to buy more than the catalogue, it might have marked my entry into garden railway modelling some 25 years early.

I always wanted one, and this kit was as close as I was going to get, so I bought it as my Christmas pressie to myself at the end of 2023, and finally got around to building it in the summer so we'd have something to trundle around the test-track when we eventually moved house. 

First thoughts... it's a minor one, but this is a bit of a weakly-designed kit in places. As an ex-Product Design Technician, I'm not keen on butt-joints for materials, particularly on pieces that need to be square, strong, and secure.

Relief-detailing was also lacking, being mainly engraved representations of the rivets, and some thin card panels for the engine doors. Though there were some rather lovely white-metal castings for the axleboxes and chassis weights, as well as representations of the controls and starting rod.

The thin MDF was given a coat of sanding-sealer, and I went a bit mad adding relief details to the model, principally some (probably too chunky and overscale) rivets, from gem stickers designed for mobile phone cases. Some nail heads formed doorknobs, the chimney was a spare part from a Warhammer tank I was building at the same time, and the fuel filler-cap was a rivet with paper-clip metal hinges.

For the livery, I wanted basically the Fendyke loco I fell in love with back in the mid-1990's, so black frames, grey roof, dark green gloss body, and hazard stripes.

My loco, with the original article. Mine has a few differences, but I'm very happy with how it turned out.

I made a light weathering pass of the model, before gloss-varnishing it.

Shooting on location in Wales in the summer; I wanted some beauty shots of the loco, and lacked a garden railway on which to photograph it at this stage.

And in the mag, effectively marking the start of the new saga.