Topic: Assembling and Painting a Luminark / Hurricanum

[Shadespyre]

Before I start gluing this kit, how much do people paint this thing during / before assembly? It occurs to me that lots of it (the interior, the inner portions of the orrery for starters) are going to be a git to do once it is all glued together. So what pieces do the experts think I should paint at which stage of assembly?

[Armholeeio]

i think you have answered your own question 

[Darknight]

I assembled mine as a conversion, but I think you should probably assemble the chassis and wheels as a single piece on the base and paint that, paint the horses separately, and then build the little house and paint that in parts. You could undercoat the whole thing and paint the insides of the pieces, then glue them in place and do the outside. The orrery I would certainly do separately - you won't get the flaming ball painted if you don't do it before the cage!

[Albrecht Hexenjaeger]

I painted almost the whole Hurricanum before assembly. Same with the War Altar. I consider myself an experienced modeler and yet, these kits took a lot outta me. A Luminark is not in my near future...

[Shadespyre]

Actually, I started taking bits off the sprue and it looks easier than I expected. I think I'm going to be ambitious and try and go for a dual-use model which I can swap from Hurricanum to Luminark as required. Although I am going to need to stock up on magnets first...

Okay, I'm going to do this as a mini-plog, so people can learn by my mistakes!

First step - read the instructions and familiarise myself with the sprues. Then I've started cutting out and cleaning up the parts I need, sorting them into separate pots. At this stage I've just got the parts for the horses and chassis; the main "building" structure; the orrery and the laser cannon. I've left all the twiddly bits and crew on the sprues.



The main things I notice at this stage are:

• some of the parts are quite fiddly to get off the sprue intact, probably the worst being the candles on the end of the main structure. Handle with care! I also nearly lost one of the small wheel hubs. If using clippers, I suggest putting the empty box lid on your lap and cutting above that to catch stray bits!
• there are very few parts that you have to choose between making the laser and the orrery, basically a few globes on sticks. I think I'm going to keep the ones supplied for use on the orrery and sub in some suitable bitz on the laser cannon, because I suspect I'm going to use the hurricanum more often.

Next step is to test fit things, so I can see what goes where and what I want to paint before I glue it.

[Wigmar]

It's great of you to make this mini-blog, I'm definitely subscribed!

[Shadespyre]

No pressure on me then...!

The obvious first stage of assembly is the carriage and horses, which are the same regardless of which model you are building:



The wheels are all double sided, so make sure you get the design you want to see facing outwards - I went with the magical symbols rather than the Sigmar stylings. Then I assembled the horses too.

It might look like I have stuck the whole model straight onto the base, but that would restrict later modelling steps and definitely painting. What I actually did is blu-tack a small piece of card to each wheel / hoof, put a spot of glue on each, and then place the model onto the base in the position I wanted, Then you can remove the models:



and the base has handy markers for where all the wheels and feet will stick. Now I can go ahead and landscape the base without worryng about obstructing the model. In this case it will be pretty basic, with PVA sand and a few small rocks and plants I think.

Then I've assembled the laser cannon section of the Luminark, leaving off the parts that are common with the Hurricanum:



And then the orrery for the Hurricanum:



I don't want to glue it any more at this stage, but it does fit together nicely:



I'm hopeful that I can leave some of the Orrery unglued and free to rotate. In fact, I have only done the easy bits so far, but I'm very impressed with how this kit fits together, with many parts push fitting without glue. That said, I have started playing around with the main structure, and this is where it will get fun....

[Shadespyre]

A bit more assembly done. First I test fitted all the parts of the main body to see how they fitted together. I wanted to see how easy it would be to part assemble before painting. I did this both ways round:



Well worth playing around with how it all fits together, the way the round platform at the front clicks into place is clever, but not immediately obvious (to me anyway). Again, notice that the end wall, ceiling and this platform all have different patterns on each side, so make sure you get the one you want showing on the outside.

Then I took it apart and rebuilt it with glue BUT I only glued the surfaces that were going to stick to one side of the structure (the right hand pieces in the following picture). So when I took it apart again I had this:



You could probably just glue these parts straight to the one side without construction, but I wanted to make sure everything was true because for the model to be swappable around I need the carriage body to fit neatly onto the chassis in both directions.

I also decided to glue in the book shelves at this point.

The main hurdle I can see at this point is the stair case. It has two points of attachment, one at each end, and of course I don't want to glue it to the chassis, which means it will be stuck only at the top end. I think the solution to this might be to drill through the sides of the stair case and put narrow steel pins through into the carriage sides. However I do it, I can't fix it in place until the interior is painted anyway.

So, I think the next step is undercoating and to paint interior areas. Here is a list of the sub-assemblies I have ready to paint:

Horses (2)
Chassis
*Carriage sides with book cases etc (2)
Laser Cannon
*Orrery stand with sun
*Orrery cage half (2)
Orrery ring of planets
*Staircase

The asterisks* are the bits that need to be properly painted before I can progress construction any further. And I just realised that I have one other problem to solve: what colour should I paint it?

[Darknight]

Color of the Celestial College is deep blue, with option for other "Heavenly" colors. Gold springs to mind.

Colors of the Light College are yellow and white. Yellow is sort of Gold . . .

[GamesPoet]

I'd likely paint the items that are common for both vehicles in a more neutral color, and then maybe focus the parts that aren't in the colors of the particular school of magic.  Then again, I might just have the figures in those colors, and make the vehicles parts all similar, yet still neutral.

Like what you're doing here, and will follow it.  Thanks!

[mr chumley warner]

LOL, i joke not, i got my wagons, glued them together 100% as fast as i could,

then sprayed skull white, and then painted a massive watery undercoat of bestial brown,

some of the inner detail was hard to get to, but i used special longer brushes,

then i just painted it as fast as i could

terrible really , but i have so much to collect and paint, i can't do it properly ! 

GW featured it on line

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/wnt/blog.jsp?pid=2700134-gws

TBF you dont need detail in the hidden areas , it's all about what you can see not what you cant see!

[Shadespyre]

Dude, that is how you paint EVERYTHING!

But in many ways I totally agree, but I'm striving to be a better person! 

Obviously, blue is a good fit with my Middenheim army, and I don't really want to paint it white anyway - all right thinking people hate painting white! I would go with wooden brown (like I did with my War Altar) but there is very little unfinished wood visible. Perhaps a paler blue or light grey?

Either way, it is probably going to get a lot of gold, as Darknight points out...

[Noght]

Thanks for the Thread Shade.

Question.  Couldn't you just set the Hut with the platform behind?  Does it matter for the Celestial Globe?  Clearly you need the Laser facing forward.

[Shadespyre]

...

Umm, yes, I suppose I could. I hadn't thought of that...!!!

Latest news: the model fits together so well that now I have put a coat of black and then white undercoat on it... it doesn't fit together!

[Shadespyre]

I thought I'd push on with the crew while I thought about colours and big pegs in small holes...

I decided to make up one acolyte as Light, one as Celestial. They will be interchangeable through the power of magnets...



But there is only one wizard included... with a choice of two cloaks! So, it's interchangeable magnetic cloak o'clock:



Ta da!

So I can swap between a Light Wizard or a Celestial Wizard as I wish:



Fairly poor pics but I hope you get the idea. I made the arm with the caliper staff fit better by whittling away the sleeved arm with a sharp knife until it matches the bare left arm better. I may swap the staff top for the one provided for the Light wizard before I paint him, but that can wait for now.

[GamesPoet]

Clever!

[Shadespyre]

Cheers!

More magnets:



Simply a single magnet in each model, and one at each end of the chassis floor, and you have interchangeable acolytes. Obviously I positioned each acolyte with the cabin structure in place to make sure the assembly still works!

 Not ideal that one of the magnets will usually be visible, but not a disaster either. Maybe I can make some magnetic decor to cover whichever magnet doesn't have an acolyte stood upon it?

I've done a similar job on the wizard, but he gets a magnet in each foot. Again, I've made sure that both builds of the wizard can be stood facing in both directions, as this will be needed for the reversible body to work (and for now I'm still leaning that way.)

[Delthos]

There's tons of gribblies that come with the kit. Any one of the telescopes or other things could work. Just one more magnet and you are good to go!

[Shadespyre]

I've been neglecting this while I worked on other things....

I started slapping a lot of gold paint on things before Christmas:



I'd very quickly decided that a neutral colour scheme wasn't working for me, so I've plumped for Ultramarine Blue. It's Middenheimy, it's Celestial, and it goes nicely with the Burnished Gold especially.

Christmas day, I did a quick after lunch paint job on the library shelves and applied a good coat of Devlan mud:



Then I glued the two halves together. To do this, I fitted one half to the carriage base, applied some glue to it, and then fitted the second half. Once the glue was secure I could pull the top section back off and reverse it, just as I had hoped!

I then repeated a similar step with the base-coated staircase - fitting everything in place, applying a bit of glue, and then quickly pushing the stairs into the correct position. Despite my worries, the finished assembly is quite strong and stable:



Here's a picture of the current state of things - I've assembled the carriage in Luminark formation, with the laser cannon and two crew in place:



Oh, and I painted and decorated the base....

[Siberius]

Nice!

Did you find the symbols running up the side of the stairs make it not quite fit snugly at the top?

I have only done a dry run aside from the horses which are glued but I like the way it fits together.

I realised that it would make a spiffy black coach if you use the guy off thr corpse cart too!

[Maza]

Nice informative thread this! 

I like the deep blue/gold colour combo.

[Shadespyre]

Nice!
Did you find the symbols running up the side of the stairs make it not quite fit snugly at the top?

Yes, they required a little encouragement to get to fit squarely. Perhaps a gentle filing would help, BUT I wouldn't remove them entirely as they provide another contact point for secure gluing.

[Shadespyre]

Some progress - this is pretty much all painting rather than assembly. First off, I forced myself to paint the horses. It's amazing how much you better you feel once you've got a base coat on everything, so I carried on and did the shades and highlights. I saved myself a bit of effort by not bothering much with the flanks of the horses which will end up facing each other.

I've highlighted the blue with stark ice blue edges instead of the normal drybrushing I use, and then continued this onto the wagon. I usually prefer the soft, naturalistic look of drybrushing but edging like this works pretty well on armour and so on.

Then I painted the blue on the big front wheels. Worth discussing how I did this - because I find gold paint covers badly, I painted the gold / bronze first and then went back and painted the blue around it. It's a bit mental and took a while with a fine brush, but I think this was less frustrating than trying to paint thin paint multiple times onto very small details.

All that done, I was able to carefully glue the horse and wagon part to the already finished base:



Assembled (at least partly) on a base it suddenly feels more like a Warhammer miniature and less like a toy!

Here's the carriage body:



I need to finish the candles, and you'll notice I've left off most of the optional decor at this stage, I want to wait and see how the model looks without it, then add a few bits if I think they are needed.

Lots of work left to do! The orrery and laser cannon are only base coated in golds, and the wizard and acolytes are unpainted at this point.

[Shadespyre]

Finished!

Pictures of the Celestial Hurricanum, which I think will be the main way I use this model in games:



But here is the Acolyte of Light (Acolight perhaps?)



And the Celestial Wizard can change his cloak to be a Light Wizard of course:



And with a few quick pushes and pulls we get this:



Now, I'll admit that the Laser Cannon for the Luminark isn't quite finished - it needs the lenses finishing and some details picking out in different colours to break it up a bit - but it's midnight on January 31st and for now I'm stopping work...

[Darknight]

Sweet work, man! Looks gorgeous. Lovely model.

Post it in the "show us . . . " thread.