6. Completing the Sisters' Rhino

Throughout October, I attempted to focus on one specific model: The Adepta Sororitas Rhino

Having bought it back in August, I really wanted to get it completed and ensure I had a fully prepared Combat Patrol for when I finally had the bottle to ask my wife's permission to leave her with the kids and go to my local wargaming club (it'll never happen, I'm too dedicated to doing my bit around the house. But still ...).

Therefore, almost immediately, I primed the entire Rhino (including the interior) with Chaos Black spray.

However, rather than begin painting immediately, I decided to hold off, painting my Librarian and a few Infiltrators first. The reason; I wanted to make some 'modifications' to my Rhino.

This was nothing extreme by any means. However, I wanted to give myself a few different options of display if I wanted to, such as removing the gunner, the hunter killer missile and the side doors.

So, with a selection of two differently sized Magnetics, I went to work.

First up, I attempted to bore a magnet sized hole into the Hunter Killer Missile. Unfortunately, being a neophyte with a hobby drill, I had no success and, instead, simply glued the parts of the missile in place. That will just have to be a permanent part.

The same went with the side doors, which I just couldn't figure out how to alter. So, instead, I opted simply to pick a couple of doors and fit them in place.

The gun Turret, however, turned out a lot more successly. First off, I focused on Sister, cutting a small  groove into the underside of her base. Then, I inserted a clipped part of a paper clip into the groove, before hand ensuring that the groove was deep enough that it didn't cause any bump.

With that I fit a magnet to the turret base, ensuring its placement immediately below the groove in the sister. Now, there was still a gap between the two but, fortunately, the magnetic field reached just enough to keep the Sister held in place.

I then drilled two small holes, one on either side of the turret, for the magnets which would hold the doors in place before attempting to drill the door hinges. Unfortunately, that didn't work, with the hinge cracking as a result. However, I found a workaround on this when I removed the centre portion of the hinges and replaced with an additional part of paper clip. This had the added benefit of allowing the doors to remain magnetised to the base regardless of the position they were placed in.

 

So, with the magnetizing done, I set about painting. I normally paint by colour, applying one at a time, but, given the size of the Rhino compared to the rest of the miniatures I've so far done, I decided to attempt to do the Rhino by part (e.g. tracks, front, roof, etc). Initially, I was successful in putting this plan in place, although I didn't entirely succeed as I abandoned the plan in favour of my standard routine by the end.

One thing I did do differently, however, was that I decorated the interior. Utilising a few few additional parts that had not been used; a book, candle, a couple of helmets, I enhanced the troop compartment into something a little more in use, including a sort of altar for the Sisters of Battle to make prayer to the God-Emperor for going into battle.

Much like the rest of the Rhino, I painted the interior in much the same manner. However, one change I made was, once I'd painted everything, I applied a (maybe too thick) drybrushed coat of Yriel Yellow throughout the entire compartment. This was all in an attempt to recreate a sense of illumination from prior mentioned candle and, truthfully didn't look too terrible in my opinion.

And with that, My Sororitas Rhino was complete (well, after the final parts like the main chassis and frame were glued together). There is one last thing I want to do and that is magnetise the roof wall, although given that this means priming the spare (open) door (which I haven't done yet), I'm content to classify that I am (for the moment) finished with the last piece of my Combat Patrol Puzzle.