Haunting the Grid -- Wraiths

On a more positive note, I am going to start up my Wraith conversions today. Having an out of production Wraith now for both scale and reference, I have now gathered up all the materials I need to begin work. Here's my "grocery list", as it were.

• 5 sets of Hormagaunt Talons
  
• 5 Warrior Heads and Torsos from the Ghost Ark kit
  
• Heavy Gauge florist's wire, cut into five 4" lengths
  
• Cork tile
  
• 1 empty Cottage Cheese container
  and of course
  
• Green Stuff

At the tournament most everyone got a chance to look at the layered Cork basing I did on the 40mm bases. Aside from being aesthetically pleasing, this also gives me something to stab the florist wire into in order for the model to stand up (a large paperclip could also be used, but florist wire is easier to work). The spine/tail will be built up out of Green Stuff disks and balls along the length of the wire. The torso will have be be trimmed of it's broken arms, and once that is done the Talons can be easily applied. I lucked out in that the Wraith I got was already modeled with a pistol, so I will only have to make one more for wound tricks and squad variety (we still have a week of 5th left, damn it!). My plan is to chop down one of my MANY spare Gauss Flayers to make the pistol, as it quite nicely already has an arm holding it.

Now, whatever could I need an empty Cottage Cheese container for? Simple: it is pre-curved Plasti-card! I have giant spaulders to craft, it is an old style Wraith, after all.

I plan on painting the wraiths in the white color scheme, but I will be priming them black, and for two reasons. Firstly, because I no longer trust Army Painter spray paint/primer for anything other than Plague Marines, and secondly it will make getting black into the deep crevasses for contrast work easier

One small recommendation, and you probably had this in mind already, paint your cork. It looks great as a sand-stone-like rocky base, but it needs paint as well.

Also, your painting is improving very quickly, which is great. Keep trying stuff out and you'll do nothing but improve.

My plan for painting the bases was more or less the same as how I painted the bases for the scarabs: black spray paint followed up by a dry brush of Warpstone Green and Reaper Field Green.

Now, for some photo-documentation!

A few more steps in now. Also, "Hammer of Wrath" is mentioned a few times in the new White Dwarf, mentioned as something Jump Infantry can do... hehehe...





This has got to be the most Green Stuff I've used in any one project. Heck, this might be more GS than I have used in all my projects previously. I am going to let it cure a touch more before threading the rest of the "beads" on, and I will need to make spacers to go in between. Once all that sets, I can give it a quick once over with sand paper and bend it into shape. For now, I need to find where my painting glove got to so I can spray some bases.

I have the spines assembled and curved now (I'll do photos tomorrow, kind of tired currently), and I just ran into a problem I did not anticipate: the plastic of the Cottage Cheese container does not seem to receive the glue at all. I will nail them with the spray paint tomorrow so see if I can get the glue to bond to the paint layer instead.

Also of note: when curving the spine, be careful where your hand is, as it is very easy to snap the head off by accident.

I found an elegant solution to the problem of the Cottage Cheese container not bonding to the glue: Moar Green Stuff! Waaaaaagh!

In all honesty, though, this not only solved a modeling problem, but also added in a detail I would have otherwise skipped, that being the vertical ridge on the inside of those big honkin' airplane wings. In the current state the wraiths are in, I would consider them "casual playable". I think they need another 3 coats of paint before I can look to get the "fully painted" point for a League match. Still, I am looking forward to seeing what these beasts can do in the coming edition.

Points wise, this is 210 points of Wraiths, with an extra 40 points of war gear tossed in.