The Dencara Story

Hey guys,

for those of you that are interested in the story behind the models I've update the Dencara Story some more.
I have separated the initial detection of the Orks and the valiant fight of Captain Giaroni and his small space fleet into the Prologue.

In Chapter I is completed and most of the main characters made their entry.

In Chapter II the first battles break out and the story continues.

I hope you enjoy the read :)

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

Cheers
Klaus

HERMES Shuttle (4) - ATHENA Steampunk Airship (112)

Hi all,

thank you for the feedback and comments.

Joe B  - thanks Mate :)
You will then be especially happy about the last 4 images (I hope).

Malevengion - thank you!
Well, I hope the the saluting officer will look proper in the end - I have no real "attention" legs, but I think the standing legs in long coat will do in the end. Fingerscrossed :)
Those LED strips are really cool and easy to work with. By now many brands are available, just make sure to get the ones working with 9V batteries, not the 220 ones ;)

Well, as I stated in the last post, I don't want to paint the HERMES in any of the Dencara camouflage patterns.
So I started out with a dark red and a parchment/cream color pattern.

Together with bronze highlights and metal drybrush it keeps the menacing dark appearance,

but also the VIP style.

Since this is the personal shuttle of Governess Felicitas zu Hammerstein it needs her coat of arms.

Her house is also symbolized by the golden Griffin.

 

Which is needed on both sides.

 

For the VIP I decided on a more Inquisitorial symbol.

 

The whole shuttle.

 

For the other side too... 

And this is now the finished HERMES shuttle - VIP version.

 

 

On the ATHENA deck

 

 

With the Dencara background.

 

 

 

 

And her current residence in my office.

 

With this now completed I began painting the crew.

First is of course the piper.

Here's the start of the tartan pattern.

 

And the finished pattern.

 

 

I hope you like the look so far.

 

While I still have a lot to do - painting the 23 crew characters that is - I'm already thinking forward to the next projects.
Plenty lot of ideas :)

Aurelius 12 Reborn on Warseer suggested:

Dare I open up the floodgates by asking if you're considering modular cargo as your next project.

Which re-kindled an old idea I already had.
An Airborne Assault!
And with the HERMES I think I have a nice delivery vehicle.
Probably based on something like this here:

 

Even though I think of an "almost touch down" of a militarized version of the HERMES maybe on a hilltop and the troopers leaving the assault pod - more seats, bigger doors.

I hope I can restraint myself from starting until I have the 23 painted :D

Cheers

Klaus

HERMES Shuttle (3) - ATHENA Steampunk Airship (111)

Hi all,

as usual thank you for the feedback, comments and emails :)

I hope you had a great weekend with lots of family- and hobby-time.

Some of you have asked me for a scale-/comparison-shot of the Eisenkerns and TGG compared to teh 40K Guards.

 

 Here's a 40K trooper between an Eisenkern and a Tough Girl.

Here I mounted two standard IG arms on an Eisenkern Panzerjäger female.

And this Panzerjäger has two Forgeworld Krieg arms, with a standard IG trooper on the right.

All-in-all I think they fit together well and since the Empire of mankind spans many different worlds with very different gravities, the differences in physique can be explained easy.

Well, in the meantime I built another, greater turbine fan.

And I mounted it in the forward section of the HERMES.

With this last major piece of the built in place I started to add armor plates and a front grill.

With the help of the great tool by Camkierhi it was quite quick. These PVC Cutters make the cutting/snapping of thicker (1.5 or 2mm) plasticard really easy.

Thank you Camkierhi!

Before I could add more plates and panels I wanted to try and add light effects again :)

Those LED strips are really easy and once you know how it's done you can lights quite quickly.

I decided to add light effects for the thrusters first.

Powered by a 9V block battery.

I mounted the cables, so they would add to the Imperial look and feel of the HERMES shuttle.

While digging through some of my old build stashes I found this old seat section I had build for some obscure project :)

With these it was quite easy to build the interior of the VIP pod.

And of course the Pod needs lights too, right?

I also tinted the thruster LED's blue and the interior lights red, using Airbrush transparent ink.

The VIP pod also needed a throne like seat for the governess.

Then the pod doors.

Which are mounted in the open state for the scene.

Together with the ramps.

Light test :)

After the successful lighting of the model I completed the additional panels and plates.

 

 The final HERMES.

 

So I started to finalize the reception scene. For this I decided I'll need a piper :)

 

After some GreenStuff sessions I got this.

 

 

The two female Eisenkerns received assistant's accessories.

 

And I decided I needed a saluting officer on the deck.

 

Two guards for this side.

 

The complete reception scene.

 

A welder working on the bomb shaft completes the crew.

 

The 23(!) crew memebers assembled for priming.

The VIP pod received the first lick of paint.

Since the HERMES with the black primer looked quite menacing to me, I decided not to go for any of the Dencara campuflage patterns, but to keep it (almost) black instead.

So I painted it in a very dark violett.

 

And I will try to add dark red highlights and maybe skull ornaments, similar to what I did with the ZEUS.

So, what do you think?
Cheers

klaus