Remember when I said that the 100mm lava base I made with hellhounds wasn’t for another Wave Serpent? I hope nobody took me seriously on that – it was absolutely for another Wave Serpent. I conceptualized this as being to my Fire Dragons what the other Wave Serpent I’ve built is for my Howling Banshees – a party bus. And this part bus has all sorts of Fire Dragon-appropriate bells and whistles, including a set of the Fire triad LEDs from Evan Designs and orange-yellow maneuvering thrusters, along with a molten red “breathing” pair of extra LEDs I had kicking around for the crew compartment when the hatch goes down.

This project is a deeper cut than just another LED tank, though. The daemon mounted on the top of the tank is a reference to one of XenonMage’s old D&D characters, as are the hellhounds. I also thought that the wings and tail had a very Morathi, or Daughters of Khaine vibe rather than a 40k Chaos vibe. Meraki, the Tiefling/Daemon in question is magnetized and removeable since she’s a little fragile as a show piece, and she was 3d printed by the fantastic folks at TheOwlBearFactory on Etsy. I’m decently happy with how the painting on her turned out though I wish I could have gotten that gold to glimmer and stand out just a little more.

So, we had the Meraki reference, we had the fiery LEDs for Fire Dragons, and I thought to cap this all off and to fit this a little more into the “fire” theme, I tried to give the tank a molten, hot metal look, using something like an Avatar of Khaine for inspiration. This is probably where my biggest self-criticism on this model comes in – the way that I imagined this concept and the way it turned out in practice never quite clicked. I think if I had my time back I would have found a way to show some cooler “raised” or non-lava-adjacent metallic colors. Now that it’s technically done, though, I don’t know if I’d have the willpower to go back and redo it.

This is a build I have some really mixed feelings on. I’d been planning this for months, between working on sourcing the parts, figuring out a molten metal paint scheme, and getting the right combination of LEDs. Meraki, the base, and the lights turned out great. Something about the hull patterning just doesn’t quite work for me, though, although maybe some of that is just the way the lightbox setup looks right now. I think this build in general also points to one of the big faults of my recent hobbying – trying to go big and flamboyant and fantastic rather than just having fun with what I’m doing and letting something together naturally or organically.

Speaking of which – I have some fun low-effort stuff ahead but will probably be taking a brief hiatus to get some IRL stuff sorted out. When I come back I imagine I’ll be running at a slower pace and uploading smaller projects, but I think I’ll also be letting myself have a little more fun with them, and I have some neat ideas for modestly-sized upcoming builds. And definitely not a Land Raider. I totally didn’t just add a Land Raider to my pile of shame. (That would be crazy.) Gonna leave on a good note though with a couple things this weekend that I’ve had coming for a while, and that I’m really stoked to show off.