Real life conspires against the miniture arms race once more. Slow progress since my last entry. New bits arrived in the post the other day so I have begun experiments into roughrider conversions. So far I'm part-way through building a single rider mounted on a dark elf cold one and armed with a grenade launcher. his upper body is from the Cadian plastic sprues while the lower half is from the classic Attilan Rough Rider figures. So far it looks pretty good, the main problem I can think of so far is how to scratch build nine saddles that look nicely detailed and identical to each other.
The sentinal is also progressing, the legs and base are nearly ready for spray undercoat, once thats done the assembled body and weapon can be mounted and then the paint job can be completed. Once I have assembled the model I may pause and go back to finishing off my Marines before continuing with the Guard Patrol.
Here are the results of my first attempts to combine Dark Elf Cold Ones with Cadian plastics to make a more interesting Rough Rider. The rider is made from the legs of a metal Atillan rider while everything above the waste comes off the Cadian plastic sprues. The Mount requires a bit more tidying up and I need to figure out how to model a cool looking saddle from green-stuff and whatever I can find in the parts bin. 
And here's the top half. The folding-stock Lasgun and extra pouches I added seem to work ok. This is the first time I've experimented with modelling webbing and stuff from green-stuff. Cockpit interior, pilot and roll-cage have been painted already. The exterior has been undercoated and dry-brushed with Tin Bitz and Bolt-Gun metal. 
The legs and base are now ready for spraying. The basic plastic base has been landscaped with fine-grade milliput and textured with modelling sand. A pulse-carbine, helmet and some tau grenades have been included to theme the patrol towards fighting Tau - my main army. I'm also experimenting with extending the texturing material (sand) up the lower legs to reflect a bit of weathering. I'll report more on how that works when I get a little further with the painting. 
