Panther F... Quick mobile update :-)

A quick snap of the Panther as it stood last night. Apologies for the picture quality - phone camera!
Enjoy!

Panther F WIP

I've been hard at work on my Panther F (for the eagle eyed who read the post below, yes it was going to be a Panther G - but for artistic reasons I decided to go for the Panther F) over the past few days and thought I'd share a couple of in progress shots...

Obviously lots more work to be doing - but happy with how things are progressing at the moment.  Feel like I've broken the back of tricky P.E. stuff (although not added them as yet) and hopefully progress will now speed up as I only have the simpler plastic bits to be getting on with.

Panther working clamps

I've started my 1/35th Panther project and have finally mastered the assembly of working clamps.  These ones from Voyager are smaller than the Aber offering (and consequently even more of a fiddle!) but can still be assembled to work...

Golden Demon 2012

So I mentioned Golden Demon below.  This was my first ever visit to Games Day, and whilst I had considered the possibility of entering "at some point" in the future, it was my brother who talked me round to entering this year.  The logic went, if I painted something I already had, what was the worst that could happen?

 After 7 weeks or so of building and painting (the first two and a half were spent getting the Forge World kit into some sort of semi respectable shape) I had a model that I was pretty happy with the paint job on.  Don't get me wrong, there is plenty that can be improved on it - but I was satisfied enough to pack my suitcase, jump on a plane and visit the NIA via my cousins wedding...

Having never been to Games Day / Golden Demon and not really knowing what to expect as I dropped my entry off amongst the dozens of other display cabinets and hundreds of other entries.  Overall, at this point, I was satisfied that what I'd entered wasn't a total embarrassment (my biggest fear was to show up with something that was totally out of place and make a monumental pratt of myself) and left it there.
I was rather happy to find that three or four hours later (when it was time to collect those models that hadn't made the cut) my model was still on the judging table...

The end result was I made the "cut" and was one of the final dozen or so models.  I didn't "place", but considering I wasn't planning on entering until quite late in the day I was overjoyed with the result.
I already have plans for the Salute painting competition in April and the 2013 Golden Demon...
Anyway - enough words :-) to the pictures...

As usual, comments and criticism welcome.

Ultrasmurfs...

So after getting my Orks to a playable state, my next 40K project is an Ultramarine strikeforce.  I'm not sure how many points this will weigh in at - the point count seems to rack up at quite a rate with marine based armies - but my aim is to kit bash and convert as many of the figures as possible to hopefully end up with as unique a force as is practical.

Whilst I plan on making figures I can play with, this is for me a painting and modelling exercise, with "the rule of cool" being paramount. Consequently it may not be the most effective force on the table top - but by the Emperor it will look the part! :-)

First up is my potential Captain, although the more I look at his weary face (and further to comments from club members) the more I think he is a bodyguard or champion - weighed down with the responsibility of keeping his Captain alive.

Next is what will probably be an assault marine Sergeant - again not sure yet. I'm a big fan of the assault marine "running" legs and plan on using them both for jumpers and at least one "action pose" squad of tacticals.

Finally we have my Chaplain.  This will be based on the excellent work by Ron over at From The Warp (check this site out if you're not familiar). If my Chaplain can get anywhere near to this level I'll be more than chuffed.

This force is part of a painting initiative that I have running at my local games club, and GPGC members will be able to view more updates on The Flying Colours forum.

Comments and critique welcome.