I assembled the vehicle as normal. I had a few door hatches left over from my Stompa so the Rhino chasis got those slapped on. I also had a bunch of plates left over from the Stompa as well as some from Ramshackle Games. I glued on some extra bits and bobs and made the vehicle chasis looks suitably Orky. If you are thinking about doing any 40k Ork Conversions then I would strongly suggest picking up an Ork Stompa - there are TONS of great conversion bits in there. Now the fun part started.
I wanted the Whirlwind Launcher to look really unique. I didn't just want a Whirlwind Launcher with an Ork Glyph on it. I built one of the missile pods as normal and glued it on the launcher base. I then scratch built a big rocket for the other side. If I had the rocket left over from the Stompa I would have used that, but it was already glued down on the big boy.
For the big rocket I used pieces from the Drop Pod, a Ramshackle hatch cover, a fin off of a Deff Kopta, and a tank from the Imex Chemical Plant. The end result was a pretty snazzy little rocket.
Once everything was together and dried I shelved this project for about a month. I have recently been stirred into activity on this model again. Littleboyblues posts on weathering put the bug in my ear and I have decided to try my hand at this technique on this model. The first step for when I weather a model is to actually beat it up a bit, and that is where I started on this model.
I use a cut-off wheel on my Dremel tool and put gouges and cuts in the model. I will actually take the spinning disc and kind of 'slap' the model with it. This creates a very rough and irregular pattern on the model. Once I have given it enough gouges and scratches I break out the super course sandpaper and 'clean it up' a bit. This does two things - it adds light scratches all over the model, and it also de-burrs the melted plastic from the Dremelling.
This is usually as far as I would go weathering a vehicle. I would paint it up as normal and then add some rust/metal to the scratches as a final step. One of the techniques I came across while researching different weathering techniques was using liquid mask to make rust effects. The linked tutorial uses pigments and varnish - which are on their way in the mail - but I figured I could get started without having those materials on hands.
After priming the model black I applied pva and baking soda to places that I wanted there to be some heavy rust. Once that dried I put down a spray coat of a nice reddish brown. I then went in and used a mix of brown and Vallejo Orange Red (an AWESOME rust color) in the cracks and gouges.
I let this dry for a good hour in front of a fan and then broke out the liquid mask. I applied this over the areas with the rust and score marks. I let this sit overnight and would see how it turned out the next day.
In the next post I will let you know how this process turned out and show you the next steps.