IG Codex ... Argghhh ... <looks at large pile of cadian boxes> ... <considers doing some IG> ... <Ponders which force> ...

Cadians ? ... done to death, who wants to be the same as everyone else ...
Vostroyans ? ... Character ... Cossacks ... Hmm possible ... but too archaic for me .. and METAL ... metal is the bane of conversions.
Catachan ? ... oh please ... Rambo ... big arms ... BIG ARMS ... nah ...
Death Korps ? ... got a good few packs of them, with snapped off gun barrels, resin weak and snaps ... expensive ... like the look though.

Uhhh oh ... just ruled out all the plastics ... hmm not good

Praetorians ... Character ... Metal ... hmm no longer sold on the GW site .. ebay .. possible rarity appeals
Mordians ... Praetorians with caps ... prefer Praetorians
Valhallans ... Russians, Look ok ... great coats ... hmm maybe
Tallarn ... Arabic never moved me ...

Steel Legion ... hmmm WWII German Paratroopers ... that might work, Metal ... Hmm based on Armageddon, would work well with my Salamanders ... Nice artwork too, stylish, and the cool laying down and firing Heavy weapons ... Ok this is working for me. But I want plastics ... and compatability with the Cadian sprues ... oh damn ... time to do some work.

So began an Easter weekend of fun converting, with the intention of making a Cadian soldier into a Steel Legion soldier ...

I have got about 85% of the way there so far, just gloves, boots and lightning emblem on shoulder left to green stuff.

Take a look, tell me what you think, anything wrong ?








I used this for inspiration ...

Why not just use the current steel legion models?

You are chopping off their head anyways?

Fan-friggin-tastic.

Are you going to do a whole army? That's going to be a LOT of headless metal models...

Current models lack, medics, banners, flame throwers, mortars, etc etc etc ... the range is limited to around 13 figures total.

By being able to use Cadian plastics I can now fill those gaps easily.

As for heads, I will sculpt my own in Green stuff, anything I sculpt myself I will cast in resin.

Blue Orphen wrote:Fan-friggin-tastic.

Are you going to do a whole army? That's going to be a LOT of headless metal models...

i believe he is modellign some stuff to see where he can go with them and then casting stuff ocne he has the look right hence the plastic in the title or am i grbabing the wrong end of the Stikk

You right on the money ... I wanted to check viability first, before heading into production.

That looks like a lot of worthwhile work, best of luck and I look forward to seeing it when it's done.

Here is a list of the changes so far: -

Chest: Chest piece was from Vehicle sprue, and was chosen as it did not have any armour on. Channels cut for straps, straps made from plasticard, Ammo Pouches made from plasticard,rebreather made from plasticard with the grooved section being cut from one of the cadian trooper heads, Eagle shaped clasps added finally.

Head : Taken from a Steel Legion trooper (one of the few without a massive mould line), Added gas masking tubing using the "power cabling" from Dragonforge ( http://www.dragonforge.com ). At some point I need to sculpt the head from scratch so I can mould and cast my own copies without legal issues.

Arms : Cadian Rifle arms, Shoulders shaved down and some small creases added, more work needed to make proper folds, also need to add the lighting strike insignia on the left shoulder.

Hands: Detached from the Cadian rifle arms, rotated slightly, the hand that was part of the gun was carefuly cut off without damaging it, and attached to the arm and therefore allowed the use of a different weapon.

Weapon : Because the Steel Legion are an Armoured Fist unit and as such spend a lot of time in vehicles, they generally use Las-Carbines instead of las-rifles. The normal metal models have carbines (with folding stocks), and I used the Las-Carbine with folding stock from the Tank sprue to represent this. I had to change the way the hands worked to make this happen.

Legs : Cadian legs, trimmed down at the top, Three layers of green stuff to build up the bottom of the coat, final layer applied carefully and smoothly, Coat pleats added last.

Feet : Need to trim the boots back, and then sculpt on the changes to a full knee high boot, also add a small skull in the center at the top as per the 4th edition IG codex image of a steel legion trooper.

Canteen : At the moment I am using a Forgeworld Elysian canteen, however it doesn't fit with the style on the metal models, something else to make from plasticard or Greenstuff.

Knife/Bayonet : Currently a Forgeworld Deathkorps knife, I am happy with this and find it matches the metal steel legion nicely, I have a significant amount of these from my Deathkorps, so might stick with it.

Blanket : Currently taken from a metal Steel Legion trooper, however its going to be sculpted in green stuff so it can be reproduced.


The future ...

Do more converted parts to enable me to use the new Cadian command sprues, and all the old Cadian stuff, and the add-on forgeworld cadian parts.

See if I can make transparent resin goggles ... now that would be cool.

BrotherArgos wrote:Head : Taken from a Steel Legion trooper (one of the few without a massive mould line), Added gas masking tubing using the "power cabling" from Dragonforge ( http://www.dragonforge.com ). At some point I need to sculpt the head from scratch so I can mould and cast my own copies without legal issues.

Check out West Wind, they have seperate WWII gasmask heads.

Part of the challenge is improving my Greenstuff sculpting skills, and therefore of course the rights to reproduce my own resin copies.

looks pretty cool man
be a nice army in the end i suspect

And for power cabling, buy (or steal from friends) guitar strings.

I love the Steel Legion, but I also love the Vossies and the Mordians.

Aaah I just got love for all the IG.

I am hoping it will be a nice army in the end, with some character and variation not normally found in the Steel Legion.

Way easier is what i did to this model i used the plastic sniper bitz from the new command sprue and slightly modified a metal model...

Indeed, but this way I have the ability to choose the pose and variations in pose that sticking purely with the metal miniatures doesn't give me

True good point. Did you notice that there are 5 rebreathers(gasmasks) on the new command sprue maybe they can help...

Love to see how you will sculpt your own heads...

Oh these heads will not be too hard, lets face it, its a helmet, with a gas mask and some goggles ... not like sculpting a face.

Ok was a good night tonight, got one of the gloves done, put the lighting flash emblem on the shoulder, and made a folding carbine stock out of wire that looks the same as the one on the tank kit carbine. Pics tomorrow.

I love your models, I think you did a fantastic job on the coversion, right down to the suspenders! Do you realy think you can sculpt proxy heads and cast them in resin? If this dosn't work out it might be adviseable to use PigIron heads and maybe embelish them with a bit of greenstuff. I am looking forward to seeing more of these!

I love your models, I think you did a fantastic job on the coversion, right down to the suspenders! Do you realy think you can sculpt proxy heads and cast them in resin? If this dosn't work out it might be adviseable to use PigIron heads and maybe embelish them with a bit of greenstuff. I am looking forward to seeing more of these!

Very nice. I love the coat.

gak, that is freaking awesome. Can't wait to see more.

Would you be willing to do a more in-depth tutorial for this? I love my steel legion, but really want more conversion options.

While looking at the new IG codex, I came to this rough army list .. please bear in mind I am aiming towards an Veteran Armoured Strikeforce.

The following is 1500 pts.

Company Command Squad with Medi Pack & MeltaGun in a Chimera, with Heavy Bolter x 2

Veteran Squad with Meltagun x 2, in a Chimera, with Heavy Bolter x 2
Veteran Squad with Meltagun x 2, in a Chimera, with Heavy Bolter x 2
Veteran Squad In Valkyrie, with Meltagun x 3

3 x Leman Russ, 2 Normal, 1 Punisher
Hydra
Basilisk, Enclosed
Armoured Sentinel with Missile x 3
Valkyrie

Depending on the complexity of the final model I might well do a tutorial.

Just like a CD, you can make as many copies of a copyrighted item you like for personal use. You just cant sell them. If you want some propper steel legion heads amongst your own then you are allowed to cast from the original metal.

Liking the look, much less time consuming using a base model such as the cadians, and they're pretty cheap per squad compared to FW alternatives. You can clearly sculpt very well so these should look fantastic.

Are you painting them the grey/sand of the Steel Legion from Armageddon?

I hope to paint them so yes .. although I will try and follow the slightly darker colours in the inspiration image in my original post.

im very confuzeled but looks kl !"£$^&*

Good stuff. Any ideas on basing yet?

Ash wastes? Urban hive style?

I love how in that art the troopers look damned terrified, rightly so I suppose!

Its looking to be Ash Wastes as the basing style, however I am never sure what people do for Ash waste style.

Some Picture Updates ...

Firstly here is an extended version the Folding stock normally found on a Las-Carbine. I hope to model a few of the arms to accept this version.







It took around an hour to make the stock, but I think now I know the "how to" I could do it in about 30 minutes, or possibly cast it in resin?

It feels strange to be doing this much modelling. I haven't put this much time into doing this for years, but I am enjoying it immensely. I have to achieve things before the real world calls me back or worse, I burn out, therefore I am pressing ahead hard.

This mornings update focuses on the aquila clasps on the chest, the shoulder emblem and the glove.

The aqulia clasps are less than 1.5mm they were scraped with a scalpel to reduce the hard edges, then cuts were made to create the fantail of the eagle and to hint at the location of the heads





Next up is the first glove done, when the greenstuff has hardened I need to fatten up the fingers a little to make a more glove like feel.



Lastly the emblem is done, and I need to practice it a lot so I can do it on other arms.





More photo's later, with a comparison shot showing a Cadian, my Steel Legion trooper, and a Metal Steel legion trooper side by side.

Very nice gs work. One question is what are you using as the base? for your green stuff works. (the thing with the arms torso and lasguns stuck in it.

looks like blu-tac to me

It is. As a matter of fact my steel legion trooper is held together by the stuff

Here are some comparison photos showing a Cadian built using almost identical components to the one which I am making into a steel legion trooper, then there is my Steel legion trooper, and finally a metal Steel legion trooper.

The pictures are deliberately stripped of colour to make the comparison easier, although there is a final shot with colour for those interested.






Here is the colour photo.



I was surprised to see the differences, the first difference between the Cadian and my trooper is the bulkiness that the shoulderpads and helmet give the Cadian, followed closely by an illusion of height difference (Cadian looks slightly taller), however even when measured they are virtually the same height. The second more obvious difference is 2mm difference when compared to the Metal Legionnaire, if I am going to use them together I will need to make sure the scenery on the bases boosts the Metal Legionnaires by a couple of millimetres to fool the eye.

Although the boots remain to be done, as does the final gloved hand, I am pleased with the result, and have begun work on my own sculpted helmet, soon to be followed by a complete head. While the first layer of greenstuff dries on the helmet, I have also put the basecoat of greenstuff down on the right foot. Hopefully more pictures tomorrow showing progress.

Oh lastly I found a wonderful rolled up blanket, which comes attached to the Cadian backpacks from Forgeworld, which I will be using instead of the metal one.

Sir, I am sickened by your patience and skills. Kudos!

I really liked the folding stock. If you do use it on all the models, I think it would be cool to have a couple of them folded up. Kinda like how they always show the skorpion in any game ever with the stock folded up, so people tend to thing that is actually part of the gun (i mean like not something attached to the back. I know its "part of the gun")

The only thing i like better about the metal model is the boots look cooler to me. A little skinnier and taller. I bet if you extended the boots up a little taller, and maybe even trimmed them down a bit it would look pretty cool. It could even give it more of a "pants tucked into tight boots" look.

Love the work, just posting to say I actually prefer your scratch build to the stock metal model. The extra height from the Cadian base makes it look much sturdier and a bit more imposing. Looking at your list its good you don't have too many actual infantry, I can't imagine the time it would take to make a full army from these guys. Godspeed though, looks great!

@ xcom85 : The folding stock is one of my favorite bits, but won't be used till one of the later models. I need to make a die so I can reproduce it quickly and accurately.

As I had commented earlier, I worked on the boots last night and made a small addition, just on the knee a small skull, the idea came from the illustration of the steel legion in the 4e Imperial Guard Codex. Now one boot is almost finished I am pleased with the look.

Here is a picture from the 4e IG codex: -


@ Captain Fabulous : Thank you, If this all goes well, I hope to have a fair number of them eventually.

very nice work here, when are you planning on finishing the army? 2022? no just kidding.

do you have any other conversions planned yet, for example heavy weapons, tanks?

-Develain

I do indeed have other conversions planned, Heavy weapons, tank and ordanance crew, command squad, medic, standard bearer, etc.

After an unproductive morning I finally managed to catch up on some more sculpting ...

1. Heads

A] Interesting head from the Baneblade sprue, with some minor sculpting it would serve well as a trooper without helmet and as such becomes head number 3 on my list.
B] An old head I was working on for a potential deathkorp project, which can back to my attention, currently head number 2 on the "heads to do list".
C & D] Freshly sculpted helmet shape on its second layer of greenstuff, the lip around the base of the helmet needs extending and minor modification for the front, then an eagle needs to be placed on the front also, this will then be cut off, moulded and cast to serve as my master helmet for future cadian sized heads. On a minor note, in image C the gap from helmet to head on the side seems wide merely due to the lack of an ear, when I checked its the same size as the other side.

2. Boots

a] Right hand boot completed, with new skull as mentioned in previous post.
b] Side shot demonstrating heel now cut into sole of boot, where there was none previously, and the extension of the sole to surround the back of the heel, which is faithful to the original metal steel legionnaires.
c] Rear of the boot showing seam/zip line leading down to the aforementioned sole extension surrounding the heel.
d] Wasted Greenstuff (and who doesn't mix to much) is being used to pad legs for the next Leg sets in the Leg list. Rather than waste GreenStuff its often worth using it to prepare for future work as padding and hole filling is often required (especially for clothes).

3. Shoulder

The shoulder has been extended with a minor lip, this will serve to hide the point at which the arm joins the body (normally hidden by the huge shoulderpads on a cadian), and it also accentuates the "Coat" aspect somewhat by extending the lapel. The other side remains to be done, but I was pleased with this side so will definitely do it.

4. Blanket & Gloves


Nothing special about these two, just showing the nice detail of the Forgeworld blanket and the fact the other glove has now been done too. Of the original list of things to do only one boot, a shoulder extension and the head remain.

I am hoping to finish off the other boot by the end of tomorrow, as well as the 2nd stage on the helmet and the shoulder, with some preliminary work on either a new arm set or one of the legs.

Just finished the second stage of the helmet, got one last stage to go and adding the aquila on the front.

Flagging a bit now, got the boot and shoulder to do, the boot will take longer and is only the 1st stage of a 3 stage process. I might just go for the shoulder lip as its a one hit wonder and I will be finished with the torso completely then.

Ok, its a monday ... that means work!

I am working for the British Museum today (they are a client of mine) so not much will be happening till last thing tonight.

The shoulder was done last night, and tonight I face the boot, last stage of the helmet and starting work on some new legs. I am considering creating a tutorial when I make the next one, showing the stages and effort involved.

Brilliant! I love homegrown ingenuity. Your work is inspiring, very interesting to watch develop. Are you planning to cast the men in seperate parts? Some alternative poses?

Oh, and how on earth did you do the stock?

Peace.

sA

Your green-fu is strong, and you are investing it in a very cool project!

Wow they look really good, I wish I was as handy with Greenstuff as you.

DAMN. Those are going to be super kick ass.

This is a fantastic project. I can't wait to see more.

Very cool.

Glad to see this log over here too, it's shaping up really nicely!

Cheers,

Dante

Current update : Took some pictures to show current progress as an assembled trooper. Realised it won't be long now before I am ready to work on the second one.









To answer an earlier question, the stock was done with a pair of needle nose pliers and huge amounts of patience over the course of an hour.

First layer of second boot done now, two more layers to go, Lapel on second shoulder extended not happy though and might cut it off and redo, Aquila added to front of helmet with GS.

Still need to get skull embedded on boot, need to tidy the lip on the helmet.

Pics tomorrow morning after all the GS hardens, if I get time before work.

On an interesting note, as I was working at the British Museum today, I had time to go to Warren Street and visit Tiranti's a casting, moulding and sculpture shop, where I picked up a couple more Wax Carver #5, my sculpting tool of choice (and favored by many sculptors) I also collected some Silicon rubber so I have sufficient for the casting.

Amazing work!

Just be careful not to add a second S to your models, or they'll be illegal to take to Germany ^_-

Just be careful not to add a second S to your models, or they'll be illegal to take to Germany ^_-

Haha yeah miught cause some trouble , i think they look great, better than the originals by all means !

From a guy with a steel legion army: love the conversion.

This mornings pics: -
The picture of the head needs to be clarified, it is not destined to be an open faced head, it is merely the framework for me to make the helmet on. Once the helmet is made and cast, it will be cut off the head and become the "master helmet" for the next generation of work where i work on different gas masks and different goggles.

Going to be working on the last boot, and fix the shoulder tonight. Now I have looked at the helmet with Aquila ... I am satisfied and will attempt to cast the helmet later this week.

SWEEEEET!!!!

Just finished tonights sculpting...

Got the remaining boot second stage completed including the skull just below the knee, I need to thicken up a few places on the boot top, add a seam, and add the heel protector.


Extended the shoulder on the torso to the level I wanted it, so the torso is now complete I think.


Started a second pair of legs and got the rough shape of the coat onto them, this will be cut and trimmed back next time, but I wanted to get most of the "padding" on.



But for now I am going to bed

Schweet! I like this more and more. I should log-off and go sculpt!

Indeed you should .. go sculpt something and show me !

Ok a bit of a change this morning, first of our regular update mainly regarding the tidied, but still at least two more stages to go second leg set.







Just because I wanted to see one of the heads I am thinking about framed on a body ...



And in the next post a change from our regular Steel Legion stuff ...

If you where to cast these parts id buy some for sure !

Sadly I will not be selling any of them.

Just a quick showing of an unfinished Adeptus Mechanicus Heavy Servitor, the right arm has a socket fitted to enable the use of Sentinel weaponry, and I always envisaged using them as a replacement for Sentinels in an AM army. He has been sitting looking at me now for a year, blaming me for not being inspired enough to finish him

He needs chest armour, the plasticard shoulder pads finished, tubing and piping running down his spine and connecting to his tracked carriage, a bionic eye, and a host of small details.











And in the next post this evening we will return to our regular Steel Legion stuff ...

Wow! This is a great project you have started! You know you are on the right track when you have to look at your model then the official one and debate which one is cooler. Especially when yours starts winning!

Definitely keeping an eye on this project of yours.

Meph

Very very awesome!!! I have always loved the legion but never liked the old models,sadly I have as yet not enough modelling skill to use GS to make some.Well hope to see more!!!

Love that eye patch head, will be borrowing that idea at some point down the line I can guarantee that!

The servitor is a cool bit of bits bashing and some nice plastic card work but as you suggest, is lacking a little something to make it less of "ogre on cyclops" and more "mechanicum servitor".

Looking forward to more.

Cheers,

Dante

If you can find it, Necromunda made a Steel Legion Sniper in squating position. It would make a nice addition to your army. Nice work so far, Keep it up.

Thanks for the support guys, and yes the Heavy Servitor never delivered for me, thats why it remains unfinished.

Oh, thanks for the tip about the Steel Legion Sniper, now I have to find one

Anyway tonight's sculpting will be second stage on the new legs, and possibly trying to get some new arms started (for variety). I will also be finishing off the boot on the first pair of legs which need a seam up the back and the heel protector added.

Interestingly that should give me enough to start casting a full figure, although I am still thinking about my own canteen. I have a valid reason for that however, in a gas mask they often have to use a tube to drink through, which isn't represented on the canteen I am currently using, but is on the metal models. So I might think about fixing that.

I haven't done this much modelling in years, and have never done this much sculpting ever ... I am now thinking 5-6hrs a day is almost like a full time job, on top of my normal work. I might well have to cut back a bit, or I might burn out at this pace.

Anyway, as discussed earlier here is tonight's work.

Most boring first: -

The next set of arms is in production, and the shoulderpad has been removed and the arm has been tested for fit with the torso, one problem the ammo packs on the chest bring is they get in the way of the arms, unless the arm is carved on the side which is out of sight, to let the ammo pack sit snugly behind it.


Next up is the unhelmeted head, simple stuff tonight, smoothed down the surfaces I am going to work on, and added the first strap to hold the mask on, there is another strap to go almost vertical infront of the ear next.




Next is the new set of legs, the padding out phase being finished we are onto working on the edges, doing the edges of anything in greenstuff is the hardest part, and on the steel legion models there is a "kick" on the edge of the cloth to accentuate it and stop it feeling quite so "heavy" that the original sculptor used. I am duplicating it, but its one of the slowest parts as it doesn't come naturally to me.


This next bit is tonight's hardest part, and I still need to practice, with my limited sculpting experience, I have never done the female form, so adding female characteristics to the torso is a bit of a challenge. This next picture shows my first attempt at this, from the get go one of the goals of this project was to try and produce a female torso for the Steel Legion, to further create some unique variation. Please bear in mind this is an early attempt, and not the finished item.

I would like to do approximately 1/3 maybe 1/4 of the troopers as women. the complex part of the sculpting is the affect that the leather harness/strapping on the Steel Legion would distort the female form and I cannot find any examples of women wearing coats wearing anything similar. That kind of pushes me into very unfamiliar territory as I prefer to have real world examples when sculpting something new.

No new pictures this morning, as I did not get up early enough to get any sculpting done, hopefully more tonight.

Looks good.

Nice work. To rip on the only other obvious comparison, looks a lot better than Doc Thunder's attempts!

The female nature of a trooper is just an aspect, she is just another trooper. I want to acknowledge that they exist, without making them stand out.

The unhelmeted head looks like it will fit your steel legion theme perfectly...

keep it up

Yes I must admit I have a good feeling about the unhelmeted head, with some stubble for hair perhaps painted on.

Argos:
Looks good like I said on Warseer. What I said about female models there still stands.

The Dreadnote wrote:Nice work. To rip on the only other obvious comparison, looks a lot better than Doc Thunder's attempts!

That was completely unnecessary. And in my opinion, should earn you a vacation from here. Good thing for you my opinion doesn't matter.

~Eric

There are saints with less patience than you mate

Looking fantastic, though, and much better than the metal ones. I may have to steal the folding stock idea. Whats the metal bit you used, or it it just a bit of curved wire?

aAnd basically, the female in armour is pretty the same unless her face is visible. Otherwise, she's just one of the pack

Oh look, threats on the internet. How quaint.

In a sudden surge of enthusiasm, I purchased the models I needed to complete the army list I defined above. Forgeworld are now secure during the recession: -

These are my purchases: -

HYDRA FLAK TANK CONVERSION KIT
Because fast skimmers and bikes are annoying, but mainly because with planet strike a lot more skimmers/flyers will be around.

ARMAGEDDON PATTERN MEDUSA
I plan to make a Basilisk/Medusa/Griffon mortar with magnets to hot swap between them, this also gives me the enclosed artillery that Armageddon Regiments use extensively. So I should have an artillery piece which can be either of the basilisk/medusa/griffon as I require.

VANAHEIM PATTERN BASILISK GUN SHIELD
If the enclosed section of the b/m/g artillery is removed, this will be avaliable instead of a gun shield on the gun itself, and also magnetised.

DEATH KORPS OF KRIEG TRANSFER SHEET
I want the small shoulder numbers for the back of the steel legion helmets and my tanks.

DEATH KORPS OF KRIEG MARS ALPHA PATTERN LEMAN RUSS VANQUISHER COMPLETE KIT
MODIFIED RYZA PATTERN LEMAN RUSS TURRET
MODIFIED RYZA PATTERN LEMAN RUSS DEMOLISHER TURRET
These three will allow me to build my three tanks, with the lead tank being an Mars Alpha pattern, I plan to make the turret weapons interchangable, to allow me to build other variants from Forge world later.

When these arrive I will start to document the modifications and changes for the vehicles, as well as the sculpting

Absolutely fantastic to see the intricate detail of plastic card and green stuff is amazing

The Dreadnote wrote:Oh look, threats on the internet. How quaint.

Threats? Hardly.

Just pointing out that your attack on Dr. Thunder was uncalled for.


BA: Definitely looking forward to seeing the tanks.

"X looks better than Y" is an attack now? Just comparing one to the other man, and it just so happens that Argos wins.

The Dreadnote wrote:"X looks better than Y" is an attack now? Just comparing one to the other man, and it just so happens that Argos wins.

If you hadn't prefaced it with: "To rip on..." then, no it might not be. At least, not if the two items were the same. Female Marines =/= Female Guard.

Not to mention the fact that no one else said anything about Dr. Thunder's stuff until you decided to attack it.

Not going to crap up BA's thread with this anymore. We can agree to disagree, I think.


To reiterate what I said on Warseer about female miniature troops:

Taarnak;3502281 wrote:

Brother Argos;3502153 wrote:
I have spent some time investigating women in combat gear with weapons, and I have to say, apart from occasional hair visible under a helmet, they look like guys with barely visible female attributes. I think I will do some minor changes to the torso to represent that, but nothing significant, maybe a slight enlarging of the hips too.

I have noticed that generally men carry stuff on their hips more than women too, there are definitely changes in locations to carry stuff, so I will spend some time looking at that too.

These are undoubtedly true, but one thing to keep in mind is: You will be looking at these from a few feet away most of the time.

If you are not going to change the torso to be appreciably female at that distance, I would not bother. You work will be invisible anyway. I think what you have is a very good start. Just remember her curves when you add in the harness and pouches and you are set.

I know people always complain whenever anyone tries to make female troops (or god help us...Marines) by adding breasts, but it really is the only way to make the point at this scale and distance.

Just something to think about.

~Eric

Well after a fairly relaxed couple of days I finally got down to some more work with my Steel Legion!

I started off by working out what items I wanted to mould / cast and how I was going to split them between the two moulds I envisaged. In the end I decided that the body, weapon & heads would go in the first mould



Followed by the less used legs and arm mould



It took me about an hour to get the components into the Chavant Sculpting clay I use as the base in the moulding process, I ran the sprue in and connected all the components up. I then built up the walls of the mould containment (the old faithful lego, used by amateur mould makers the world over) and headed down to my work room.

I was lucky enough a couple of years ago to buy a pressure resin casting package, which consists of a Compressor, Pressure Pot, and all the funky gauges and piping to connect it. Being amazingly careful with any pressure system I started by checking my compressor (hasn't been run for a while), then my pressure pot, and finally I made sure I knew the mix ration (by weight) for the catalyst I would use with the Silicon rubber and finally sat down to make some moulds.

I had purchased the Silicon Rubber while in Tiranti's the sculptors shop in London, during lunch at the British Museum last week. I got out the plastic disposable beakers I use to mix and proceeded to make enough rubber for both moulds, and add enough catalyst to give me a 30 min pot life, pot life is the working time before the rubber starts to set solid, and a final release time of 5-6 hrs, it was going to be overnight for me so no worries about the delay.

Once I had the catalyst calculated I mixed it with the rubber and made sure it was WELL churned, with a normal casting arrangement that would not be good, the air mixed in during that process would cause bubbles in the moulds. However with a pressure caster it would not be a problem as the bubbles would be crushed by the pressure of approximately 40psi.

Once well mixed, I poured approximately equal amounts of rubber into each mould, covering the Steel Legion models. Then as pot life time was ticking, I got the moulds into the pressure pot, and placed the lid on. There are four wingnuts on the lid to keep the pressure tight and stop stupid things from happening such as flying steel lids for instance. Once tightened evenly, an important step in a pressure vessel not to tighten one to max first, I attached the pressure hose from the compresser which I had pressurised earlier to 80 psi. The gauge on the pressure pot rose rapidly to just over 40psi and I closed the valve as it had reached where I wanted it to be.

All that was about 10 mins ago, the rubber is now slowly setting under pressure in the pot, and will be released in the morning when I get up. For those wondering why I am creating the mould under pressure, it is critical to do so, as moulds made at normal pressure will dimple and deform if used for pressure casting later on.

Hopefully this is an interesting insight into preparing for moulding with pressure, if all goes well I will show you the resulting mould tomorrow morning when it is set!

An important note, just to make sure I wasn't breaking any rules here, I checked the rules thread, I could not see anything pertaining to casting or moulding, however if I am in error regarding the rules, I apologise and please delete this thread. The rules thread I used to check was: - Link

Cool. Let us know how it works out.

Taarnak wrote:Argos:
Looks good like I said on Warseer. What I said about female models there still stands.

The Dreadnote wrote:Nice work. To rip on the only other obvious comparison, looks a lot better than Doc Thunder's attempts!

That was completely unnecessary. And in my opinion, should earn you a vacation from here. Good thing for you my opinion doesn't matter.

~Eric

This isn't Warseer.

Valhallan42nd wrote:

Taarnak wrote:Argos:
Looks good like I said on Warseer. What I said about female models there still stands.

The Dreadnote wrote:Nice work. To rip on the only other obvious comparison, looks a lot better than Doc Thunder's attempts!

That was completely unnecessary. And in my opinion, should earn you a vacation from here. Good thing for you my opinion doesn't matter.

~Eric

This isn't Warseer.

Oooooookay...

Color me confused.

~Eric

BrotherArgos wrote:

Hopefully this is an interesting insight into preparing for moulding with pressure, if all goes well I will show you the resulting mould tomorrow morning when it is set!

I'm intrigued to see how the molds turn out. I'm just starting casting bases, and small other parts. I'd suggest writing a tutorial article at some point.

Just woke up, going to head down to the workroom to check the results of last nights labours, pics soon!

Things went well for the first half of the mould, there were no errors I could find and the mould had set correctly. Here are some pictures showing the moulds are they had been release from the lego containement.

Steel Legion Heads & Body



Steel Legion Arms & Legs



One of the concerns I had was the fact the aquila clasps on the torso were only lightly glued into place and I worried they would come off in the mould and ruin a lot of work, however I am pleased to report they all cast correctly and nothing detached!

The next stage is to cleanup the parts we are moulding and to remove any chavant sculpting clay still adhering to the component. We all make mistakes, and one of mine cropped up right now, I placed one of the blocks of clay with the embedded compontents underneath a hot halogen lamp (I usually use the position for fast setting green stuff) and tidied the contents of the other one. Unfortunately the clay got soft under the halogen lamp and adhered to the components much more than it normally would, which resulted in an additional 45 minutes cleanup I would not normally have to do :(

Anyway once all the components are clean we put the new silicon rubber moulds back into the lego containment and place our components back into them exactly where they came from, here are a couple of pictures showing this: -


Steel Legion Heads & Body



Steel Legion Arms & Legs



<to be continued in next post>

Moulding the other side ... continued.

Once all the parts are back in the rubber we need introduce the concept of a mould release agent. The mould release agent will stop the new rubber we are just about to pour from sticking to the rubber we just made, without it you get a solid block of rubber with your components somewhere inside and a lot of unhappiness. However the mould release agent which is a fine spray from a can, could clog and add a texture to whatever we are going to cast, so we need to protect the components from the spray, but at the same time make sure we coat the rubber thoroughly. Time to get some blu-tac: -

Steel Legion Heads & Body with blu-tac



Steel Legion Arms & Legs with blu-tac



At this stage we used the Mould Release Agent: -



Once the mould release agent has done its job, we carefully remove all the blu-tac and raise the level of the containment around the mould, to handle the new rubber we will be about to pour into the mould.





At this stage the mould was ready to have the new rubber poured in, so back to the workroom and once again check all the equipment, get all the chemicals ready, mix the rubber, add the catalyst, pour onto the moulds, and then place the moulds into the pressure pot and pressurise to 40psi. This time I increased the catalyst to a higher ratio to decrease the casting time, so we should be done in about 3 hrs.

Here is a picture of the compressor and pressure pot, you note with safety goggles also.



I will be gone for a few hours now, I am taking my daughters to their Ballet Dancing exams, I might have my iphone with me to answer any questions

Well as normal sunday has been a busy day for me, but I finally got the chance to continue with my moulding & casting.

Last time I had just shown you the mould going in for the second half, I am pleased to say that was a success, and I pressed on with cutting the mould and adding channels for the resin to flow once under pressure, here is a picture showing the moulds with cuts for resin flow done.



I proceeded to test the cut mould and was pleased with the initial result: -



As you can see all the pieces cast correctly, and to my satisfaction, upon closer examination no more than two bubble prone areas, one in the hand and one on the rebreather. The rebreather was luckily where the pipe was meant to go, and therefore worked in my favour, and the hand was difficult to see, so I decided to live with it rather than remould. both would be fixable with a little greenstuff if it was required.

After removing the model and cleaning up the flash I could not resist assembling him to see how he turned out. I used the power cables from DragonForge Design again as they worked perfectly.

Here are the first pics of my new Steel Legion Trooper assembled and ready to be painted.

Wow, that's amazing. How much experience do you have with casting?

Genius pure utter genius i doth my cap to you sir

Fantastic work. I'd love to see some of the resources you've used to get you to that competency with casting, if indeed you have used any and not just trial and error!

Games-Workshop should honestly take notice. THIS is what the next plastic kit should be!

Just came across the thread, great work and similar things had to be addressed to an Imperial Fleet officer piece I am doing, it was really interesting seeing you tackle the same things as I. Learned a couple of tips from that alone, thanks!

The later posts on your casting adventures were very informative, appreciate the time in writing up your methods.

Quite like the alternate head, the eye patch is just right for the overall feel of that officers head.

Looking forward to your progress!

~ Tael.

Bravo, sir! Well done.

Outstanding casting tutorial. Excellent results. Perhaps you should make an article (well... use a pure GS mini or something to avoid any complications).

This may be redundant, but THAT is cool right there; very nearly would inspire me to try casting/ molding if i forgot my priorities. very awesome

Hello

I thought that you needed a vacuum chamber rather than pressure pot to do moldings?

You want to draw out air bubbles I thought?

Regardless, your job looks fantastic - love the concept and how it's worked out.

Cheers

Tim

Excellent work! You'll get a whole army done in no time.

Hell, looks even better than- No! Bad Dreadnote!

@ ph34r : I have been casting about once a year (usually a couple of moulds per project) for the last 2-3 years.

@ grey_death : Moulding and casting are dark arts, and are only passed onto an apprentice from a master ... Actually the documentation on the net is decidedly spares, especially in the area of small figure casting.

@ Shas'El Tael : Look forward to seeing the Imperial fleet officer! got any pictures I could see ?

@ anticitizen013 : I might do an article on casting one day, or better yet a video!

@ tallmantim : Pressure is better than vacuum for those on a budget, the best is using both.

@ The Dreadnote : Bad Dreadnote!

Just to make it fairly plain, I have no intention to sell these models (I have had a number of polite purchase requests via pm), they are intended to make my Steel Legion army, a customised army from its point of inception. I want something unique for myself, and as its a good 40k year already for me, I wanted to make it very special.

For those even vaguely interested in why its a special year, I was lucky enough to have my online persona make it into a Short story & Series published by Black Library. The short story book is "Heroes of the Space Marines" and I am in the story "Fires of War" on Pg 190. Brother Argos appears as the Master of the Forge for the Salamander space marine chapter and I get to help out a few times throughout the story

Anyway, back to where we are with the Steel Legion, next on my list is to finish another pair of arms and pair of legs and mould them, to offer more variety. As usual I will post my sculpting progress as we go!

Inspirational dude. You ever thought of selling the casts?

sA

thats really amazing

I could not resist trying a figure using the new parts I had made, and I wanted something sergeant like: -









Would not take much to add the Steel Legion badge on the arm and some gauntlets and we would be there

Ok this is bad ... now I am playing with Toy soldiers, next I will be making lasgun noises!

isnt the raised hand from the empire militia box?
this is pretty amazing lol, i need to start this whole casting thing for some of the daemons ive sculpted 0_o

that is soooo cool I wish I could do that

I'd figure the raised arm to be from the imperial vehicle accessory sprue, with the tank commander.

<laughs> Pew Pew Pew !!

sorry couldn't resist ...

Worked on the current set of legs last night, got 2 more stages roughly to go till they are complete, I also had a look at another pair of arms trying to work out which set next as there are only four sets with lasguns. I found one and stripped off the shoulder pads, and am working on the hand separation from the gun. At some point I also need to finalise a method for making the wire folding stock.

Pictures later tonight, today I am off to the Infosec (Information Security) show in Earls Court, London. Should be fun!

Very good,I like it!!!

First part of my Forgeworld order arrived today ... here take a look at the Vanaheim pattern gun shield for my medusa/griffon/basilisk : -



The other two items were ok, and were a demolisher turret - ryza modified style and a normal leman russ turrer also Ryza modified.

To the credit of FW they agreed to send me out another plate immediately, and also had the pleasure of telling me my Armageddon pattern medusa would be shipped as well.

I was however a little dissapointed, as the box was undamaged and well padded internally, so fundamentally it was almost certainly put in broken ...

Well apart from the forgeworld mishap, your army looks incredible!!

I also want some Ryza turrets.

BrotherArgos wrote:First part of my Forgeworld order arrived today ... here take a look at the Vanaheim pattern gun shield for my medusa/griffon/basilisk : -



The other two items were ok, and were a demolisher turret - ryza modified style and a normal leman russ turrer also Ryza modified.

To the credit of FW they agreed to send me out another plate immediately, and also had the pleasure of telling me my Armageddon pattern medusa would be shipped as well.

I was however a little dissapointed, as the box was undamaged and well padded internally, so fundamentally it was almost certainly put in broken ...

Has it been hot in your part of the world? It might have deformed in shipping...

BrotherArgos wrote:First part of my Forgeworld order arrived today ... here take a look at the Vanaheim pattern gun shield for my medusa/griffon/basilisk : -



The other two items were ok, and were a demolisher turret - ryza modified style and a normal leman russ turrer also Ryza modified.

To the credit of FW they agreed to send me out another plate immediately, and also had the pleasure of telling me my Armageddon pattern medusa would be shipped as well.

I was however a little dissapointed, as the box was undamaged and well padded internally, so fundamentally it was almost certainly put in broken ...

Hot water and some super glue will fix that one just fine with the replacement you will have 2

Anyway a few people commented that the raised hand on the sgt looked wrong, I suspected it was the grossly oversized lanyard making the arm appear weird. I have removed the lanyard and am much happier now with the way it looks, here is a before and after shot: -

Holy flying cow!

Amazing stuff!
words cannot express the amount of win here
*subscribed*

I really thought the lanyard was a great addition to a piece like that. Yeah it's a slight bit oversized, but at this scale if you want it to be more than a piece of string, it really needs to be.

@ Müller : Welcome to the log

@ grey_death : Oh your so right, If you look at the inspiration picture from the first post in this massive log, you will see a lanyard, and I SO want to do one for this guy, however it will be done to scale! So expect one sometime in the future!

Good NEWS !! I got my IG Codex, Valkyrie, Catachan & Cadian command sets and a new sentinel in the post ... YAY!!! So this evening I will be looking in some detail at those boxes and deciding if anything is going to be converted to steel legion

Not to mention trying to make a new army list!

Looks cool - I liked the lanyard too.

Ok, I am leaving London for a few days on business/pleasure in New York, this will have a definite impact on my ability to post updates. I have however taken some Greenstuff, some plastic sprues, and my sculpting tools, I am determined to get some arms / legs done. I invariably wake up very early in the morning while in New York, due to the time shift, so I will try and get some sculpting done in the mornings, with any luck I will have some pictures to show you guys when I get back

I could however do with some input from you, I have made a "todo" list of things I want to sculpt, if you can think of anything Steel Legion relevant I am missing please post it!

Female Torso: -
Need to sculpt female torso, add braces & aquila buttons.
After reproducing need to add ammo packs, rebreather.

Male Torso: -
Need to sculpt another male torso, add braces & aquila buttons.
After reproducing need to add ammo packs (3 this time), rebreather.
Also after reproducing create officer variant with lanyard, medals, gorget, etc.

Head: -
Need to hollow the new helmet I sculpted, clean out the inside, and make a loose helmet for diorama / hanging on webbing / belt.
Need to add Googles onto helmet
Need to do seperate Goggles for belt / neck hanging
Need to add gasmask detatched and on webbing / belt
Need to do gasmask lowered from face at neck region (for officers)
Need to do Company Commander heads, with drop sided helms and skull gas masks.

Arms: -
Finish converting all Cadian arms to Steel Legion (glove work mainly)
Make a small press mould to quickly do the Steel Legion lightning emblem on the sleeves.
Look and see if it is possible to use a socket arrangement for gloves and arms, to reduce hand/glove sculpting (possibly magnetised ?).

Legs: -
Need to look at Deathkorps / Elysian legs for possible alternate leg positions.
Need to look at adding any variant postures from Catachan legs.
Reproduce boots, possibly look at a socket arrangement for ease of use.
Need to do longer coat for company commanders .. with fancy edging?

Weapons: -
Do the stock wire folding stuff (check diameter, maybe use etch folding plates to get the bends)
Create a gun without the stock on it ... so can add the folding stock too it.

If you can think of anything I am missing which is steel legion relevant, please post it!

I am in the process of making a one-off SL guy of my own, your blog has been a great inspiration

P.S. The Sergeanty person reminds me of Colonel von Stauffenburg

You could use the new cadian command box set for any new legs you are planning on converting. Also steel legion missile launchers, you know the ones that look like rpg's?
That is if you want missile launchers

Damn the look bitchin. how long to make the prototype piece?

They look great , really doing the Steel Legion justice i think. looks far better than the originals i think, they seem to be too squtty and rubbish for my tastes haha.

As always your project looks very good. You might want to craft a few female faces/heads, unless you want all your guardswomen to wear gasmasks.

Just woken up on the second day of my New York trip, I have a day off today so I am going to visit a friend over in New Jersey, and do a bit of shopping in a local wargaming shop, and head over to an excellent wargaming club called "HQ the Club", over in New Jersey. I have been there before and they are a very nice bunch of guys, with a great club.

I also managed to grab 10mins in the The Compleat Strategist a games store in New York, I bought some of Procreates sculpting putty to give a try, supposedly its less sticky than green stuff, longer working time, and can hold a harder line/edge, we will see! As I have all my tools with me and there is a room to put aside for making / painting your army at HQ the Club, I will make some time to do some sculpting there I think.

Should be an interesting day!

Am I jealous....no. But its not easy. Although my town doesn't even have a hobby shop, at least people don't shoot eachother here.

Ok, I ended up getting a box of Cadian command in Time Warp Comics (NJ), and having a thoroughly enjoyable 6-7 hours sculpting and chatting at HQ the club. They were a great bunch of guys who made me feel very welcome, whilst I was there I managed to get two sets of gloves sculpted and put on the 3rd layer of green stuff on a pair of legs. I tried doing the gloves using ProCreate and it took me a while to become used to the differences but they turned out ok, an important note was the fact I managed to complete the gloves in one go, where normally with Green Stuff I have to do two stages. So certainly so far there appears to be a time saving with some items due to the nature of ProCreate.

Unfortunately I don't have my camera with my to take some pictures of the work done, however I will obviously have a bunch of pictures to show you on Monday, with more stuff added if I get a chance to do some sculpting today. I took along to the HQ my finished steel legion work, and was delighted to find that in real life it got an excellent reception, there is always a concern that people looking at something online can only see the good things that you show them, while in real life they get a good look all over the model. However in this case my work was scrutinized and got a very good response, so I can stop worrying about that now!

On a final note, I would like to thank Joe, Lou, Billy bob, Scott & the rest of the guys for a chance to talk about games and relax in a great environment for a very pleasurable few hours.

His Masters Voice uses ProCreate I believe for most of his sculpting projects to good effect. Would you say it's a more favorable medium for those starting out? Or would some GS experience be beneficial?

It's always fun to check out other shops when you're out and about like that. It's like different side of the hobby everywhere you go!

Yes it is always interesting going shopping when abroad, and there are always fascinating new people to meet!

I would say procreate could indeed save some time for me on simple things like gloves, possibly boots. I would imagine that it would also be beneficial for new sculptors, as it is somewhat simpler than green stuff in most ways. For me however it is a process of unlearning GS habits, so I am not sure personally yet about a change over.

Must. Flogg. Self. For. Feeling. Good. About. Own. Work.

Well, now I at least have another source of inspiration here on dakka.

@ Paul Atreides : I hope you will be inspired, its one of the reasons I am putting so much work into this. I want people to step up and do things I am inspired by!

I finally got some pictures taken last night to show progress: -

New arms, the laspistol arm requires a lightning strike insignia, which to be honest I am trying to find a quicker way to do. I am considering using small circle of thin plasticard, with the lighting strike done in green stuff, or a GS press mould. If you can think of a different method please mention it.



The penultimate stage on the next set of legs is done, only the trim round the edge is left to do. This stage was the addition of folds to the coat to give it some life.




Finally here is a picture of some components just after they were made, as you can see there is still some flash to clean, and the fault in the hand is starting to annoy me, I need to create an additional feed to clean that up. I thought it would be interesting for people to see that no matter what the method of creation there is always cleanup.

Awesome as always. I'm inspired. It may take me awhile but I may have to do something similar to produce my IG army.

You sir know what your doing, it looks great.

Very good work, sir.

I specially like the MP40 stock you've got on your lascarbines. Very nice, fits the Steel Legion very well.

Keep it up!

I'm with grey_death on this one. The lanyard looked cool. Reminded me a lot of the cords that the U.S. infantry wear with their Class As.

I was up in Milton Keynes today, and popped into a Games Workshop store, and left with two sentinels and a Basilisk box. Over the weekend, I had planned to spend some time working on how to make my Basilisk/Medusa/Griffon which is Enclosed/Open, using magnets and I suspect some plasticard!

In a weird twist of fate I also received the next part of my Forgeworld Order today, funnily enough the enclosed Medusa model, fate was obviously taking a hand here and pushing towards working on the Basilisk/etc. Sadly I was once again slightly disappointed as the Medusa components are again deformed, but unlike the Vanaheim pattern shield they are not broken, merely warped. Interestingly the replacement for the Vanaheim pattern shield arrived too, in good condition this time. Now with all the components arrived I am going to enjoy working out how to make it all swappable with magnets.

In a first step towards painting I undercoated some Cadians and my Steel Legion in black primer, I plan to practice to get the colours I want on the Cadians, and when happy start on a test Steel Legion trooper. Its an interesting time branching out from the sculpting into other areas, I am concerned that I might lose focus, but I know that I need to see a finished/painted Steel Legion Trooper soon, to give me some feeling of moving forward.

Some pictures of the new stuff arrived and the undercoated troops tomorrow, bed time now as Mrs Argos calls!

I was going to do something similar for my guard... and by similar I meant put pigiron heads on cadians..... You sir have made my plan look feeble in comparison. Can't wait to see it all come together!


P.S. Your Sculpts better than GW.
Nuff said.

No, my sculpting sucks compared to Gw, however it was a nice compliment and thank you

Ok here are the pictures from last night showing the warped medusa enclosure, now I know that its simply a matter of using a hair dryer or hot water, with careful bending to restore those peices, I have done it a fair few times, but looking at the way they are distorted shows they almost certainly were compressed by stacking with other items, either at the people who produced them (FW cast using other companies around the world depending on the load on their own resources) and sent them to Forgeworld, or by storing them poorly in the FW warehouse before distribution. Both of those reasons can be fixed with simple procedures, either placing the item into a stacking tray that keeps them all seperate, or boxing them at source to ensure they don't compress. Obviously this might cost more, however given the amount of products that Forgeworld have to replace due to these issues, that cost might well be recouped significantly. Anyway rant over, here are the pictures: -





Finally here is a shot of a Cadian & Steel Legion trooper side by side, primed and ready for painting, tonight's post will cover how I determine the colours I will be using, especially as I am basing my colours on the inspirational image that started this whole idea going for me: -



Inspirational artwork, showing the colours I wish to use, tonight we will use some techno wizardy and a small program I wrote to determine the colours to use: -



Your welcome to suggest a paint scheme to achieve the above colours, will be interesting to compare

Stunning work man. I've always been a fan of the Steel Legion, and these conversions really do the artwork and fluff justice!

As for the colourscheme, are you limited in only using GW colours or do you use other brands as well?
Spikyjames did some DKoK with the Steel Legion style colourscheme, they look great and the recipe seams easy enough to pull off right!
Basically, this is how he did the scheme.. Literally quoted from Warseer..

the trenchcoats are bubonic brown with gryphonne sepia wash followed by highlighting with bubonic brown and then mixed with bleached bone for further highlights.

Hope this helps a bit. I'm looking forward to see something painted!

Great casting work. I'm not surprised by your FW experience, it seems most people have a positive one, but I'll be surprised if your replacement part ever arrives based on my experience.

I am happy to use any brand of paint and do so frequently

I wanted to work out which three colours (dark,medium,light) would get me closest to the Inspirational artwork shown above. Now obviously I could guess fairly well, there are few enough colours in the GW range to have a good chance of getting it right. However if one is prepared to use the closest colour from any range of paints, that is quite a bit harder. Well it might have been if I hadn't already spent a good few months programming a tool to do just that, my Space Marine painter. Now I know your thinking how on earth is that going to help finding a colour match ? perhaps Argos has written one for the Imperial Guard ? ... well not yet, I have a few (Chaos marines, Sisters, Terminators, Orks and even Tau) done but not Imperial Guard, although I might do one soon.

The latest beta version of the Space Marine Painter includes a colour matching program to tell you which paints you would need to use to get the colours you want on the model you painter. Now by simply opening the steel legion artwork in Photoshop (or other painting software), I can see the colours as Web-hex colour codes easily enough, and put them straight into the painter program. So first thing is to open the artwork and select three areas for light, dark, and medium shades of the colours I want, I could do more, but for the purposes of this demonstration three is enough: -


A: #bc8c42
B: #ad772d
C: #9b570c

Now I have those colours, I can simply paint some areas on the space marine painter: -



Once that is done, I then select the +++Finalise+++ button to see the closest paints to the colours I have chosen.



Interestingly, there are some colours in other paint ranges which are closer than the GW Paints!

The number under each paint represents a "Colour Distance" between the paint and my ideal colour, derived from a three dimensional colour space, the math to do that is horrendous, however I did all the heavy math lifting for you already (for those interested here is a site with the math - http://www.brucelindbloom.com/index.html?Math.html )

For the lightest shade as we can see Coat d'arms Military Leather Brown (2.13) is the nearest colour, with Iyanden Darksun (2.159) very close behind, but with such little difference I could use either.

For the midrange colour GW Snakebite Leather is the clear winner (2.971)

For the darkest base colour however Foundry Paints Tan (1.79) is much closer than GW Bestial Brown (5.54) and will mean an order being placed on Foundry in the morning

I think I will add a couple of more data points (a very light shade, and very dark one) before finalising the colours, but I can do that tomorrow.

Hopefully this was an interesting example how a painter can use artwork with some online tools to derive a colour scheme for his army.

I am working in Wimbledon tomorrow at a Theater Lighting company, so might not get a chance to add something in the morning.

Wow, I wish I put that much thought into color, might make me a better painter.

It's all about putting effort in, whether it's colour choice, or sculpting or just collecting

Well after a relaxing day with Mrs Argos, and a nice meal out, I got back to working on my Steel Legion this evening. The project is currently branching in numerous directions, first off there is continued sculpting to do, I also need to settle on a paint scheme and test it out a couple of times, and finally as the Armageddon pattern medusa arrived I want to start work on the swappable basilisk / medusa / griffon model I wish to make. As it was already dark by the time I got to do some work, and I like painting during daylight, the decision was between sculpting and making tanks, guess which won!

You guessed right, making tanks any time!

As usual I made the tank sufficiently complex to hold my interest by making the decision to create one vehicle capable of being three different ones, to add some more complexity the same vehicle must be capable of adding any of the options in the rulebook, which means the following: -

Swappable heavy flamer / heavy bolter
Enclosed Crew Compartment (The Armageddon pattern gives me that innately, however I wanted to be able to field my Steel Legion in other conflicts without enclosed cabins too)
Pintle mounted storm bolter / heavy stubber
Hunter Killer Missile
Dozer blade
Extra Armour
Camo netting

Now as any of these might or might not be taken, it was important to be able to add or remove them as required. Lets take a look at possible solutions: -

Swappable heavy flamer / heavy bolter - simple enough, swappable with magnets.
Enclosed Crew Compartment - I had purchased the vanaheim pattern gun shield as the alternate to the armageddon, but I had a flash of inspiration more about this later on
Pintle mounted storm bolter / heavy stubber - simple enough, swappable with magnets, might need to create my own pintle mount and cast it.
Hunter Killer Missile - simple enough, swappable with magnets.
Dozer blade - not looked around the net for this one, but I am assuming someone else must have magnetised one of these somewhere!
Extra Armour - Going to simulate this with track guards I think, held on with magnets again.
Camo netting - not done this before, but sounds interesting and I had seen some things about it in one of the Osprey Panzer modelling series, so some research here
Basilisk gun / Medusa gun / Griffon mortar - Use heavy magnets to be able to add or remove the gun into the gun mount, need to buy them, want 3mm diameter, with 4mm depth, giving a support weight of about 0.4kg, more than sufficient for the task (the deeper the magnet, the stronger normally).

In addition, I wanted the back door to be able to be open or closable, Crewmen to be attachable or removable, and working lights (ok I am just kidding about this one, but wouldn't it be cool!)

So first up, I needed to fix the terrible warping of the resin in the crew compartment, I borrowed Mrs Argos hair dryer and with some careful application of heat, reset the warped panels on all the items I had, some took a couple of times as I tested fit and adjusted, but in the end all was straight and the way it should be. While testing for fit, I carefully removed the Resin feeds, filed the surfaces flat, and looked for faults. The glaring problem I soon found was the corner positions of the cabin had not cast properly and big bubbles underneath the armour plate existed, visible as A & B in the next picture: -



It is however noticeable that the warping has been fixed in the main, I will just have to fill the cavities with greenstuff / greystuff. Next up is a picture of the cabin while being test fitted, during this stage I make sure the components fit well together and think about how I will join them, do they need pinning for instance, where to glue for the best hold, etc. During this stage and while thinking about the model generally I started looking how I was going to swap between the Armageddon Pattern and the Vanaheim pattern. I came to the conclusion with some careful cutting work the top of the Armageddon pattern could be made to look like the Vanaheim pattern, and as I was growing attracted to the cool flooring and walls in the Armageddon pattern, I resolved to get another crew compartment top and cut it back to look like the vanaheim pattern. This would allow me to keep the cool back door, lower compartment with photo-etched floor, and gun fittings for all three variants (I would later live to regret this descision somewhat as it made things much more interesting). Here is the cabin during the dry fit stage: -



To make my plan work I would have to be able to swap the top of the cabin with the open top cut back version, so some solution of connectivity was necessary, the answer obviously was magnetism. I have been a bit favourite of magnets for some time, they enable me to be flexible when making models, and if done right are not noticeable. So I started to think about the locations for magnets and the size of magnets I could use there, I wanted something that would hold the top on reasonably well, but could be removed to swap the gun or change to the vanaheim pattern easily. Here are the locations I decided on marked on the next picture: -



Positions A & B show the larger 1.6mm magnets in use, these give about 0.12kg of pull each and are placed to pull the top part onto the bottom part for a snug fit, Magnets C & D are smaller 1mm magnets and pull the sides of the cabin in to create a tighter fit also, they have a pull of about 0.08kg each. All together they let me hold pick up the cabin by the top and the bottom doesn't separate. With the magnets working I started to think about the way to cut the upper cabin to create the effect of the vanaheim pattern. Here is a mock up of the effect I am looking for done in photoshop.



All was going well, when trouble struck and the door hinges, which were poorly cast, broke off. So building new door hinges will be added to the list above, here is a picture showing the damage: -



Well its 2am and my eyes are complaining, so time for bed. More tomorrow as we look at the gun arrangement, and a sinking feeling about it.

I have yet to say this but your stuff is awesome keep it up it all looks good it will great painted.

Thanks, it helps keep me on track when I get supportive comments

This morning I got started early, first on my list after test fitting the crew compartment components was to assemble them and test fit the entire comparment into the framework of the Basilisk vehicle body.
The following two images show this being done: -





I had to trim the "guide rails" on the inside of the Basilisk body to get the fit I wanted, but in the end it was a nice tight fit. Once I was happy with the fit I moved on to dealing with the bubble holes shown in the last post I got one done, and am waiting for it to dry completely before doing the other. I suspect I will need to do it in two stages to get the nice sharp edges that armour needs to look right, with some filing inbetween. Here is a picture showing the first stage of the bubble repair work: -



One of the reasons I am going to the trouble of making my own version of the Vanaheim pattern shield using the Armageddon pattern components is the wonderfully detailed interior, once I had assembled it and had a good look, I realised how cool looking it really was and knew at that point I wanted to have it for the inside permanently. Here is a picture showing the interior, with the photo-etched flooring and the shells underneath that: -



The two reinforced plates half way along the flooring are where the support posts for the gun go, smaller than the normal Basilisk support posts and as I was to discover to my cost a tighter fit by about 1.5mm. My plan with these would be to reinforce them into the floor panels with 1mm wire and glue them with superglue. I wanted a good fit because they would have two 3mm magnets with a pull strength of approximately 0.4kg each to support whichever gun/mortar was fitted.

Taking a break for lunch now, will show the posts in position and discuss the issues with the gun/mortar after the break

Ok, first off the second bubbled area on the crew compartment has been filled (stage 1), and the final hard edge been added to the previously shown bubble, in a few hours they will be set and I can file the hard edge to finish it and add a hard edge to the second area. Here is a picture to show the work done on both bubbled areas, the one on your left is at the hard edge stage, while the other is setting and still soft edged, hopefully this is visible in the picture:-



Putting this to one side to set, I looked next at the flooring, I really like the photo-etch and the rounds below it, however the middle had a tendency to sag as it was unsupported, to counteract this problem I added some supports in positions along the middle which should be impossible to see on the final model. Along the center I used brass 1mm rod cut to the right height, and at the end I used Resin sprue. In this picture you can see the lovely detail in the lower ammo bay under the floor and the supports used: -



After this was done I moved onto a test fit for the posts and the guns, I have the old style Griffon Mortar in metal from long ago, however it looks minuscule next to the Basilisk and Medusa, so I spent some time researching in the Imperial Armour volumes from Forgeworld and found that the Death Korps of Krieg Heavy Mortar was basically the Griffon Mortar mounted on a carriage. Five Minutes later I had bid on and won a Death Korps of Krieg Heavy Mortar on ebay, it was unmade and was £2 cheaper than Forgeworld, and would be quicker than the delay waiting for Forgeworld (sometimes two weeks or more). Moving on I then tried the gun posts in position, here is a picture showing them.



First up was the medusa gun, it was a perfect fit when in place, and with the compartment on it had full movement, so far so good



Next up was the Earthshaker cannon from the Basilisk, and suddenly things were going wrong, first up the gun was too wide for the posts by about 1.5mm, so after some careful filing and using the micrometer to check accuracy I reduced the width of the Earthshaker by 1.5mm and tried the fit again, it worked: -



Next came the compartment test fit with the earthshaker, and suddenly I realised the plastic Basilisk gun was not going to work, I hopped over to the Forgeworld site to check the cannon used in their Armageddon Pattern basilisk and to my horror saw it was a custom version made to just fit. Damn ... I was faced with two options, one cut down the existing plastic basilisk and modify it in a similar way to the one on the forgeworld site, or spend another £50 and buy the forgeworld one and a whole new cockpit. Not a good choice really, one involved a time delay and added more work to the project, the other cost a significant amount of money.



Mrs Argos often thinks I choose the path of most resistance in some way to prove myself, I was starting to wonder if she was right.

So what do you think I chose to do next ?

You choose to build your own, because thats what makes dakkas saints of inspiration dakkas saints of inspiration.

You were smart and listened to your wife.

Here is a clue: -



Sadly next time I have some time to model I will be addressing the following problem: -



I haven't been tidying up after myself, and now my workspace has dissappeared, so I will be tidying up next time, so I have a clean working area to begin painting!

Now that's crowded. But i do like the little box with legos underneath the desk. Also, good plan with reducing the scope of the earthshaker to make it fit, assuming that's what that part of top of the cannon is that.

Very cool stuff. The last couple of pics look like my desk....almost.

As misfortune would have it, I am at home today with my daughter Amelia who has flu like symptoms. She has been sleeping on and off all day today and as such I have had the occasional chance to tidy my desk.



On the upside my Forgeworld order was delivered today, with my Mars Alpha pattern Leman russ: -



with Vanquisher, Battle Cannon & Demolisher Ryza pattern turrets: -



Death Korps Leman Russ filters & Trench Runners: -



and the Hydra flak turret: -



As you can see the Hydra has some big warping issues, but I have my trusty Hairdryer now!!

I have done some preliminary work on the Earthshaker cannon, rather than spend another £50 with forgeworld, I expect some pictures later on tonight.

I'm very excited to see your new stuff

I dreamt that my FW order would arrive today, woke up and damned this day for it was a dream... realized the mail had already arrived, when to the mailbox and oh there was my FW order

Guess we both got em on the same day

You sir are brilliant.

sA

Hey, we make use of the very same types of glue!

Paul Atreides wrote:Hey, we make use of the very same types of glue!

Loctite Super Attack?
Yeah me too

Same here with the glue those brushes are handy. Brilliant stuff with the moulding and some useful advice about dealing with problems in Resin casts. Can't wait to see more keep up the good work.

BrotherArgos wrote:
On the upside my Forgeworld order was delivered today, with my Mars Alpha pattern Leman russ: -

A quick off topic, but did FW change the Mars Alpha pattern? I just bought one at Gamesday and it doesn't have the separate heavy bolter and lascannon. It has just the fixed bolter and none of that engine exhaust thing on the far right.

Well after some fiddly detail work I have almost finished the changes to the Earthshaker Cannon

Recoil compensators have been added above and below the gun barrel: -



Numerous small twiddly details have been added to either side: -



Many bolts were added to raise the level of detail to match that of the Forgeworld castings: -



To help with the Rivet / hex nut work I used a Greif rivet maker, a fascinating tool which acts as a mould, you heat a section of sprue using a lighter and then plunge it while still warm into the mould of choice, using a sharp scalpel the rivets are then cut off the sprue and glued onto the item. In the following picture you can see the moulds and in the background the initial stages of the Earthshaker Cannon.



Next is a view from the rear shows the inside of the Earthshaker Cannon, it has the first stage of filling with Grey Stuff, and a central barrel. The next stage of the grey stuff will create a smooth flat surface flush with the end of the barrel. This should enable me to have the rear hatch of the gun open or closed (therefore I will be hinging it and adding a magnet too)



Finally there will be a small brass eagle added to the forward blank white plate, when they arrive (hopefully wednesday) this should finish it off.

@ aka_mythos : this is the DeathKorps Alpha tank, I too noticed it was different and had a las-cannon. Therefore it appears there are two variants.

wow Where did you get the rivet makin things ?

Cannon = wow! I have cannon envy.

Great work on the Earthshaker!

Thanks too for the info on the Greif tools.

Wow, I've got to get one of those Greif rivet makers.

BrotherArgos wrote:

While almost everybody nowadays knows how to fix this warpage, Im still surprised that FW has the nerve to deliver utter crap like this. Absolutely stunning ....

btt: Good stuff. The shaker looks the part

I got mine about 10 years ago at a small model shop in New York, however a few online can be found at: -

http://www.spruebrothers.com/Nexternal/miscelleneous-cat-186.htm

I put those makers in in a google search and cant come up with any thing. Where prey tell did you get them?

Thanks for that but ofcorse they dont have the Hex one...it soooo figures!

I am working down on the south coast of England today in Angmering, at one of my smallest clients, lovely people, always very welcoming. Hopefully when I get home tonight I will be able to get some more done on the Medusa/Basilisk/Griffon, I am currently awaiting the special magnets I ordered for the project and the delivery of the krieg heavy mortar (griffon mortar on a chassis) from Ebay.

Currently I have three streams of activity: -

1. Sculpting more arms / legs etc.
2. Test paint scheme on cadians / test steel legion model.
3. Working on the Medusa/Basilisk/Griffon mortar.

I am going to try and balance them a bit better and rotate them to make sure they all advance equally. For some reason I am nervous about painting the test models, I worry that I won't do justice to the hard work so far, I should just get on with it really.

Just get stuck in, if I had your skills I wouldn't be nervous at all!!

Wow, that is really cool. I live really close to Angmering.

Your models are pretty awesome too.

That gun is awesome.

I've always had a thing for beautiful artillery, but that is very, very nice. Looks genuine as well, something that many people miss in making custom barrels for heavy weapons, e.g. Tank conversions.

I have ordered some of those rivet makers, they look immense.

sA

Captain Vyper wrote:Thanks for that but ofcorse they dont have the Hex one...it soooo figures!

Agreed, if anybody has access to these, share the love!

jabbakahut wrote:

Captain Vyper wrote:Thanks for that but ofcorse they dont have the Hex one...it soooo figures!

Agreed, if anybody has access to these, share the love!

Why not just order them from the source that BrotherArgos recommended?

I saw the Hex maker on their site. I'll try to order all three and let you know what happened. They're based in Liberty, MO about an hour from where I live.

FW are taking the piss.
i dont even bother to order from them anymore, made 2 orders from them.

1st: squiggoth.
mould was so bad that its back leg was a 2cm long stump of resin.

2nd: dread from FW, the section where the head was ment to go was just filled with resin.
5 hours work with a drem cleaning it out enough to put the head in place and i was ready



all your work is looking great so far
cant wait to see more

JD21290 wrote:FW are taking the piss.
i dont even bother to order from them anymore, made 2 orders from them.

1st: squiggoth.
mould was so bad that its back leg was a 2cm long stump of resin.

2nd: dread from FW, the section where the head was ment to go was just filled with resin.
5 hours work with a drem cleaning it out enough to put the head in place and i was ready

all your work is looking great so far
cant wait to see more

I understand when warping happens. FW can't really pack their models in dry ice to keep the heat off (or can they), but all out mis-molding is pretty bad.

I think I've been exceedingly lucky, the worst I've had was an over sized Repressor top. I just boiled it till it shrank to the right size.

it seems the more people complain the worse they get lol, you would think for a company that makes as much as it does they would atleast put some effort into making sure the parts are complete, rather than somewhat damaged.


alot of friends have also stopped buying frmo them aswell due to constant mistakes made by FW (one of my friends waited 4 months for his delivery, that was after calling them every few days) turns out FW had got the label mixed up and sent it to the US instead.
took him another 5 months to get his money back, and that was from a reaver :(

Spent some time this evening playing with paint formulae ... still not happy, however here are a couple of pictures showing current progress. The bottom coat is all that's been completed, everything else is at various stages of completion.





I tried two or three different schemes but nothing works the way I want it to.

Generally an unhappy evening, and I am even considering an alternate colour scheme.

I think if you started with a white undercoat instead of the black you might have better luck getting a look closer to the painting, you showed earlier. I see bothe the helmet anc the coat starting light colored and with the darker colors blended in in thin layers.

Ok, well the answer appears to be don't judge your own work in the middle of the night when your very tired and you haven't finished it. The black undercoat on the the other items was getting annoying and clashing with the coat too much for me. In addition I think one more shade in each direction (lighter & darker) will help too.

This morning while getting my daughters ready for school I grabbed 2 minutes and painted the boots in scorched brown, and very roughly shaded one of them. Its a long way from complete by the change from the unrelenting black to something more sympathetic with the coat helped a lot.



Anyway time to leave for work, today I am in South London, Balham to be exact at my own office for once. Hopefully a more relaxed day, although I already have two reports to write for clients.

Looking forward to getting home tonight and adding some more colours!

I detect a stain is needed. Nothing drastic. Just a lightly applied black stain to the coat, maybe? It just looks like it could do with one. The colour looks damn near perfect -- a great Homage.

Hmm, I'll be interested in your progress tonight.

Peace.

sA

Well coming into work was definitely the right idea, knowing I was here today I had directed some recent purchases to arrive here and they were sitting on my desk waiting for me

First off, the Forgeworld Death Korps of Krieg Heavy Mortar I had purchased off of ebay, delivered quickly (so positive feedback for him) and in much better condition than the FW delivery I had!

Please forgive the quality of the pictures, from my iPhone instead of my tripod mounted Casio P505.



I plan to use the mortar section itself with some adjustment to the fixings in the Basilisk/Medusa/Griffon I am building, according to the Imperial Armour books, the Krieg Heavy Mortar is actually just a Griffon Mortar in a wheeled carriage, so is an appropriate model for the task, however being fussy, I checked the images of the Forgeworld Griffon Mortar and it is indeed the same weapon.

As if to complement its arrival, the lovely people at http://www.e-magnetsuk.com delivered my order of magnets I require for the Basilisk/Medusa/Griffon.



I got four sizes of magnets for my project: -

1. 1mm Dia x 1mm deep : Perfect for small discrete fixings, like stopping doors opening etc. 0.1kg pull
2. 2mm Dia x 1mm deep : Good for larger doors and items, including wrists etc with replaceable weapons. 0.12kg pull
3. 3mm Dia x 2mm deep : There larger magnets work well for things like sponsons or other heavy potentially removable items. 0.4kg pull
4. 3mm Dia x 4mm deep : Now this is the odd magnet for me, I have never bought one before, but as with most magnets its increased depth makes it much stronger. The aim is to use them in the gun mount on the basilisk, the mount has a depth of 8mm, which is plenty enough to hold them securely. Each one of these magnets has a 1kg pull, so a pair on either side of the gun should give substantial hold, and still enable me to switch out the gun when I want. If they are two strong, the 3mm x 2mm are the fallback plan!

With the arrival of these items, I merely need to "reproduce" the basilisk gun I modified and I will have all the items for assembly, but I promised myself I would finish the test painting on the Legionnaire first!

There is the possible arrival of another parcel from Forgeworld, containing my small brass etch eagles, if it turned up it would of course be a sign that the Emperor wants me to work on the Basilisk/Medusa/Griffon

wow do FW thigns usually come so screwed?
I was thinking of buying a few things.. but i dont know now..

They occasionally turn up screwed up, however in this case I think I have had more than my fair share of bad luck.

Some are easy to fix with hot water or hair dryers, some cannot be fixed and need to be replaced.

One the subject of BasiMeduGrifs (trademark of Argos Industries), I checked the size of the Griffon Mortar and its 2mm thinner than the Basilisk/Medusa gun size at the mount point. I will therefore be adding a couple of mm using plasticard so it can sit in the same gunmount.

Being stuck at work is making me nervous about the magnet solution, I want to try them and make sure everything is going to work the way I envisioned. The 3mm x 4mm deep hole will need to be drilled into the mount .. and then the magnet with superglue slid in and left very slightly proud of the surface. The same will need to be done for the Gun itself, once complete I have to hope the two gun mounts will hold the various weapons and keep them straight. The combined pull of the magnets is 2kg, sufficient to support the weight, and given the alignment of the magnets will slide into and out of place.

Here is an image showing the proposed location of the magnets: -



(image copyright tulkasulmar @ Bootcamp, used without permission)

Given the lack of pull "along" the length of the magnet and the fact it should all slide "across" the magnet and into place. Combined with the depth (4mm) embedded into the mount, I am hoping the magnets will remain in place and not pull out.

Lets hope it all hangs together!

Oh excellent news from Mrs Argos, the (almost) final part of my Forgeworld order is sitting at home!!

This should be the Exterminator & Annihilator Leman Russ Turrets, A Manticore on a gun platform (swappable with the Hydra), my Brass etched aquila, and finally a Death Korps of Krieg Mole Launcher team (always loved that).

Definitely looking forward to getting home now

BrotherArgos wrote:

I got four sizes of magnets for my project: -

1. 1mm Dia x 1mm deep : Perfect for small discrete fixings, like stopping doors opening etc. 0.1kg pull
2. 2mm Dia x 1mm deep : Good for larger doors and items, including wrists etc with replaceable weapons. 0.12kg pull
3. 3mm Dia x 2mm deep : There larger magnets work well for things like sponsons or other heavy potentially removable items. 0.4kg pull
4. 3mm Dia x 4mm deep : Now this is the odd magnet for me, I have never bought one before, but as with most magnets its increased depth makes it much stronger. The aim is to use them in the gun mount on the basilisk, the mount has a depth of 8mm, which is plenty enough to hold them securely. Each one of these magnets has a 1kg pull, so a pair on either side of the gun should give substantial hold, and still enable me to switch out the gun when I want. If they are two strong, the 3mm x 2mm are the fallback plan!

I get my magnets from here http://www.neotexx.com/

You can get 3x3x0.5mm square jobs that surface mount really easily. While they are a german site (and so shipping is a bit more), they don't have any ordering limits which can be handy.

Here are the pictures of the Forgeworld that was waiting for me at home tonight

First off the Exterminator & Annihilator Leman Russ Turrets: -


Next is the Manticore and the gun platform, the Manticore and Hydra turrets are interchangable letting me get double duty from them



Finally the Mole Launcher (I want to have at least one team of them for my Steel Legion), and the Brass etch Eagles.


I am going to test the magnets tonight for the BasiMeduGrif, to make sure that theory will work. Followed by a little more painting

Thanks for mentioning the German magnet site !

Do you plan on doing any conversion work on that mole mortar team to make them more steel legion or just leave them as DKok?

I will only be using the hands and the equipment... not the figures. So yes they will be Steel Legion

Tonight the air was filled with magnetism!

Gentlemen I present to you the fully magnetised BasiMeduGrif ... oh and a Heavy Mortar on a carriage.

First up ... The guns and mortars themselves: -



Please note the 3mm magnets on the side of each weapon, ready to slide into place!

Here are the guns in situ ... first the Griffon Mortar & Heavy Mortar on Carriage: -







Secondly the Medusa: -





Continued in the next post ... the Basilisk!

And now the Basilisk: -





As you can see all the guns have been magnetised as have the gun mounts in the Compartment and the Gun Carriage.

I finished the Eagle and bolts on the Earthshaker cannon, and spent some time building up the body of the Griffon Mortar to fit the gun posts.

All the magnets are tightly fitting and glued with superglue, so far no glue failures, but its still early days.

It was a good night, with very pleasing results however as its 1:15am and I am travelling up country to Milton Keynes tomorrow I am going to get to bed now!

Steel Legion are generally a mechanized army, have you planned anything special for your Chimeras?

Outstanding work, Argos! Can you shoot a photo to show us where you placed the magnets on the armored compartment?

Brilliant stuff wow you work fast.

Sorry, going to go off topic here for a moment as its been a good day for me

If you own Dawn of War II .. and have the 1.3.1 patch you will be able to see the following



Its right at the end of the credits, however it wasn't there when the game was released.

Some time age Dominic Chan (Mad Scuzzy), noticed a significant similarity between the buttons on the Army Painter in Dawn of War II, and our own Space Marine painter.

Here is a copy of their button, and our artwork.



It looked quite suspiciously like out Marine Painter image had been used to generate the buttons in DoW II, and we had not been credited or mentioned.

Well after a few months of emails and discussion THQ/Relic did the right thing and admitted they had used the images, although it had been a mistake

They apologised, added our name to the Credits (see above) and a bag of goodies is in the post

Nice to see the everyone get the credit they deserve!

Ok sorry for that, just was really happy ... back to the steel legion!

erhm... gief goodies NAO

Looks similar, but doesn't look like a copy.

...its a copy. I don't see a single detail that isn't the same.

aka_mythos wrote:...its a copy. I don't see a single detail that isn't the same.

I'm glad I went back and brought it all into photoshop for a closer look. Now I have to conclude that they are in fact definitely not the same. They probably just added that stuff to make them feel better. Easier than generating negative feedback for something so trivial.

The first thing I did was scale them to be equal. Given that there is a great deal of pixelation from the smaller in-game image, I added some filters, tweaked the lighting and eventually removed the color.



Many of these details you cannot see on the screen, you miss much of the detail not being able to zoom in, but in Photoshop it becomes very apparent the differences.
1) The heads have all sorts of stuff that doesn't really match up.
2) The space between the arms and the body is larger on the painter version.
3) The knee pits have ribbing on the game version, the painter doesn't.

I was worried that some might claim the differences are only due to the resolution of the game version. So I decided to line them up in an attempt to de-res the painter version to match the game version. Turns out they really don't match up at all. The proportions are all off everywhere. I've attempted to show this by layering different tranparancies on top of each other. I don't know if it will come across, but when you're sliding the transparency slider and can see it appear in real time on top of each other-there is no doubt, they're not the same.



You can click on the above one and zoom in via the Dakka viewer.

<laughs> The image was resized, but not proportionally, so that it would fit the button. Just untick "constrain proportions" in Photoshop.

That plus an email from THQ admitting it had been used, and had been scheduled to be replaced with their own artwork , but due to time constraints it had been overlooked.

But hey, you might be right, the world is a weird place, funny for a company in this day and age of legal battles to admit fault though.

Last night was a quiet night for me, however I did some work on the last piece for a unified Artillery approach.

With the magnets in place and a common system for attaching the guns, the remaining piece to work on was the Earthshaker gun platform: -



This uses the plastic part from the Basilisk, which I modified last night to handle the gun posts from the BasiMeduGrif, this will allow me to use the Earthshaker gun platform for my Basilisk barrel or Medusa barrel. The modification puts the gun mounts into the exact same height and position as the plastic ones were, adds detail above and beyond the plastic one and allows me to use magnets.



There is a section of "filling" that needs to be done, and detail like nuts and bolts etc. need to be added but that won't take long.

With this complete I will have the ability to swap all the various gun barrels between multiple mobile or static platforms depending on my requirements (Apocalypse or 40k for instance). Obviously the same gun platform can also be used for the Hydra or Manticore systems too, giving me many artillery options as required.

Wow, that is quite a few options. I feel bad whenever I don't build something like a Whirlwind with the ability to be a standard rhino.

I have a question for you, I am in the process of working out what time I have at the weekend to work on this project. The project currently has three streams of activity: -

1. Sculpting - Arms, Legs, heads, etc.
2. Painting - Working on the paint scheme for test figure.
3. Modelling - Working on Vehicles, currently the Basilisk/Medusa/Griffon.

As I have no idea how many people are following this log (if any), I have the following question for those that are: -

This weekend which should I focus on for the log: -

1. Sculpting
2. Painting
3. Modelling

Please post below (if anyone is reading this) which you think I should focus on!

It would be really nice to know how many people are interested and what they are interested in

Painting.

You have shown us abjectly little of what you can do with a brush, but judging by how masterful the rest of your project is, I'm sure we'll be impressed. Sort out a few of your troopers, fix the colour scheme etc.

Peace.

sA

These are looking great ! i love the idea for a magnetised basalisk/griffon/medusa tanks may have to steel that idea for my krieg, will save me a couple of bob.

I've been following quietly from the sidelines and have been most interested in the sculpting and vehicle assembly (but mostly the sculpting).

Great work on everything. I'm thoroughly enjoying it.

I've enjoyed the sculpting, modelling, and casting. I'm more interested in the sculpting and casting

I second sA when I say "Painting please".

I think once you have that test model finished all manner of additional wonderful ideas will fill that head of yours and we'll reap the rewards by getting to see it all laid out here online.

Cheers
Dave

Great work throughout this project. I'm really enjoying seeing how you handle this.

After your little bit of colour software wizardry earlier in this thread I would like to see how that actually translates when it comes to picking up a paintbrush. Therefore my vote is for continuing painting the trooper.

I think more people follow a thread than actually write something, I personally like the sculpting or scratch building.

I'm ok with anything you choose to do as its all sweet looking. I would really like more modeling though.

Sweet painted models I see all day here, on warseer and on B&C, but these sweet modelling jobs I dont get to see that much, keep it up with the modelling

(But I want to see it all painted i a not too far future ;P)

Just chiming in as a follower of this since you seem to think you might be shouting to the void. I love all the work you've done here, as I'm in the process of building my own guard army. Its very inspirational, if a little daunting as my own skills are no match for yours. I'm very interested in the sculpting/modeling portions of this (the original putty work on the troopers got me following this, and the level of detail you put on the basilisk cannon was amazing), but like others apparently I'm also wanting to see how it translates to the painting stage. So really, I'll be reading no matter what you post, which isn't really a helpful answer I guess, so for something more concrete I'd vouch for anything involving work back on the infantry for a change of pace, painting or modeling on them.

Ok the results across the various boards this log is syndicated too are the following: -

Painting : 24
Sculpting : 14
Modeling : 12

So the people have spoken and I will be getting my brushes out tonight!

Woo!

I like watching painting logs. It encourages me to paint, to continually raise my game.

I'm looking forward to this!

sA

If we are going to discuss painting, I first need to show the equipment that I use for the task: -



I have a number of disposable palettes (actually my daughters clean them for pocket money) and as I am working with the shading for a basecoat I will us have 4-5 colours in the paintwells and occasionally mixes in between them. As the basecoat is Iyanden Darksun, I will be shading it with Snakebite Leather, Bestial Brown and for highlights Bleached Bone, these colours are visible already sitting in the paintwells, they have been watered down to the consistency of milk with a 50:50 mixture of Windsor & Newton Flow Improver and Water. I generally prefer to use multiple translucent layers of paint for shading, on the basis that I can always add another thin layer of paint, but its very hard to remove a thicker obscuring layer.

The paint brushes are a size 0 and size 000 made by Windsor & Newton and are from the Series 7 brush range. There is little to say about these brushes apart from the fact they could quite possibly the best miniature painting brushes in the world. I cannot speak highly enough of them, and can honestly say when I started to use them that my painting skill improved by at least 10-15%. If you don't have them, get them!

There is a lint free cloth in the picture which I use for removing excess paint from my brushes.

Finally there is a large NY Starbucks mug (a present) which I use for my water, which I try and change frequently.

More details as we look at some images of the test Steel Legion Trooper, please bear in mind that these images are 2-3 times larger than the figure in real life and as such you will see details normally not seen by eyes in real life: -



These first two images show the results of shading the bottom of the coat, and ONLY the coat, nothing else has been done.

I started by applying the very thin coat of Bestial Brown into the recesses around the coat below the belt, around the various items on the belt and in the depths of the folds. I tend to work in small areas of no more than 1cm square, once the paint has has been lightly applied into the correct location, I switch to the other brush which I hold in my mouth and is already wet with water and use this to feather the edge of the paint I just applied and blend it down into the other colour. Feathering involves using the wet brush to spread the still wet just applied paint and thin it out so there is no definable edge. Because of the shadows cast by the arms/gun and belt items, its hard to see, but there is a dark shade around the belt / belt items.

Next moving further down the coat I applied Snakebite leather and feathered it both above to the bestial brown and down towards the basecoat. This creates a subtle shading above the midway line.



Once these two subtle shades are applied, I use a very subtle "filter" of Iyanden Darksun (10:1 water to paint) to shade the Bestial brown & Snakebite Leather and make them more cohesive. A "Filter" is a very watered down paint, which exists to tone the colours underneath it towards the desired colour, often hard to see, but a useful tool none the less.

Next around the lower edge of the coat and on any raised areas (knees, folds, etc) a very thin layer of bleached bone is applied, and feathered as above.

This shading creates a subtle range of "darkened" basecoat, rising to a "lightened" basecoat. It is important at this point to realise we are actually making a decision, with this subtle shading little will be visible at the 2-3ft viewing distance of a wargaming table. Were we to compare it to a "high contrast" paint scheme which will appear just fine at 2-3ft, our figure will appear quite flat. However if viewed closely at less than 1ft or photographed, the shading will be more realistic, and not as "cartoon"-like as the high contrast paint schemes. Basically you cannot have it both ways, and to be honest I don't like high contrast paint schemes, so therefore I go for a more subtle scheme.



Next another "filter" layer or two are added to move the thin bleached bone layers into the same colour range of the basecoat.

Finally thin lines of bleached bone are added to the tips of each raised area to finish off.

Boots next ... although tomorrow I will be a little busy, going swimming followed by a trip to see Angels & Demons

Very impressive, not to mention ambitious. Are you planning to keep this quality for all models in the army?

Filters, yes! I use a lot of these sorts of techniques, it's very nice to see them used with someone else. I think he's looking great so far, very close to both the art and the original models.

sA

Not much progress today, however I have got most of the belt items painted, one of the gloves, and the ammo packs on the torso. In addition almost all the other basic block colours are in place.



On a satisfied note, I am pleased with how the Aquila buttons turned out





The leather items were Scorched brown basecoat, with Bestial brown & Snakebite leather highlights. The same basic techniques I used yesterday were applied again today, blending / feathering all the various shades.

For the blanket I used Wargames Foundry's Charcoal Black, highlighted with the Charcoal black (light), Wargames Foundry do a set of compatible shades as a pack of three, this one being shading for black. Further lightening of the colour was achieved with Bleached bone mixed with the Charcoal black (light), I used Bleached bone to keep a subtle hint of brown throughout most of the figure, where skull white would have had a harsher, less compatible effect. To tie all the colours together, I used a filter made from the base charcoal black.

The simple metallics on the dagger, were done with Boltgun Metal, Chainmail, and finished off with a badab black wash, to dull some of the shine.

The helmet is a mix of Knarloc green & Chaos black, very dark but hopefully will lighten somewhat later.

Hi, im really impressed by your work here, it nearly goes far enough to be called art, ive been browsing these threads for a bit now, but i decided to register just so that i can comment on this thread, i hope that you soon get some pics up of a whole squad of steel legion,
i have one question for you. are you going to do anything special with your chimeras? i think you could probably make them really good,

Oohhhh and btw, if you still have that huge pile of cadians you can always ship them to me, my armys looking a bit sparse currently.

Late last night when I should have been modelling I was watching a movie instead "Der Untergang" (released in the UK as "Descent"), very interesting movie, slightly depressing but compelling watching.

Anyway, I only did a small amount of work last night, on the hatches and forward weapons of the medusa: -



Firstly as can be seen on the hatch on your right, I filed down the hatch to a reasonable thickness, which allowed the hinges to engage properly and not look incorrect as the one on the left shows. I then added some handles, to keep the style the same as the hatches supplied with the Medusa. The handles themselves are 1mm thick plasticard, with 0.5mm wire at the joint, quite a quick detail to do, and helps keep styling the same across the model.

After that I started work on the forward weapon, I wished it to be swappable in a similar way to the main weapon, so the first consideration was to create a location to put a magnet in. So first I needed to choose a magnet, the 3mm x 2mm depth, seemed the ideal choice. To support the 2mm depth I needed to add some plasticard to the open panel, I glued three pieces of 1mm plasticard together and let them set solid. After which, I glued the plate to the inside of the Hull, filling the weapon hole. Once this had set I proceeded to drill in successive sizes from 1mm - 2mm - 2.5mm - 3mm in the center (roughly) of the plasticard in the hole. The reasons for multiple drilling was to ease the pressure on the plate, if it had been drilled immediately with a 3mm drill it would have tore from its position due to the torque of the drilling. This way the hole was increase in size gently and stayed glued (less material to remove at each stage). I stopped and checked regularly to ensure the magnet would be about 0.1mm above the surface of the plasticard: -



On a side note both of the small rectangular hatches have been filed down in that picture, and as can be seen they look good with the hinges now.

Once the magnet was in place, I placed a blob of wet paint onto it, and pressed the gun into place. The paint marked on the rear of the gun where the hole for the magnet should be drilled. Using the same procedure as above, I drilled till I had a deeper 3mm hole. Then I put a magnet in place on top of the magnet in the plasticard, Then I applied some super glue to the magnet, and finally push the bolter down on top of it. Leaving it for a couple of minutes and then pulling them apart, I was left with a perfect fit.



Finally I repeated the process I used for the heavy bolter for the flamer, and once finished I cleaned up the magnet in the plasticard as it had dried paint on it.



@ Lt. Scourge : I will be doing some work with the Chimera, got a few ideas to play with, the cadians will be staying happily in my army vault thank you very much

This project continues to amaze!

Great work and lovely painting. I like the work and detailing on the tank also.

I like the way you've used magnets, something i have never thought off, the tank your making looks great,
anyway, about my last post, it was worth a shot.

Thanks guys, its always encouraging to get comments

The flamer disappoints me though, it looks so old style. I have a plan to change it I think, more tonight if I can find the parts I need!

BrotherArgos wrote:Late last night when I should have been modelling I was watching a movie instead "Der Untergang" (released in the UK as "Descent"), very interesting movie, slightly depressing but compelling watching.

The film was released as Downfall in the UK. And it is superb.

More excellent work, thanks for sharing.

The flamer does look a bit of, maybe get a dreadnoughts one, i dunno.

After spending some time this evening looking at the flamer, I came to the conclusion it definitely needed to be "Updated". The Steel Legions are at least middle tech for a 40k IG army, not as high tech as Elysians mind you, but certainly they exceed the Death Korps, and at least equal the Cadians. This can be seen with their Portable Las Cannons and very cool looking missile launchers (almost more RPG looking).

With that in mind I set about upgrading the plug and play heaver flamer I had made yesterday, the core section of the flamer looked fine, it was just the nozzles that looked so old fashioned. So with a quick snip of the clippers, I removed the nozzles. Now a replacement had sprung to mind earlier, from the Catachan or Cadian command sprue, there is a new Heavy Flamer, so after couple of minutes rummaging, I managed to find one and started cutting carefully through the three feed pipes. Once I had finished I needed to find a way to join the old Heavy flamer body with the new Heavy Flamer Nozzle.

Obviously pinning would be important to keep everything straight, and given the dimensions involved I went for 0.5mm wire and drill, after some careful drilling we ended up here: -



If you look carefully in the picture above, you can see the thin wire extending from both sections, ready to be superglued. Here is the result after gluing: -



Something wasn't quite right, I could not put my finger on it at first, so I compared the old and new Flamers: -



Then I realised, in real life and 40k there is almost always a joining collar of some sort when a pipe joins onto something. Well some 0.25mm thick x 0.5mm wide plasticard strip soon gave me the collars I neeeded. One word of caution, pre curl the plasticard first with your fingernail to make the job easier, and be prepared to do the middle one last, with only partial strips of plasticard as there is not enough room to go all round the middle pipe once the other two are done.



It seemed to add that final part and "finish" it for me, although I must say this is one of those times where using green stuff instead of plasticard would most probably have been faster.

For me the final result was much closer to what I wanted for my Steel Legion, although I realised that I would need to reproduce the result many times when doing my Chimera and other vehicles.

Kick ass stuff man! Very inspirational! Keep up the good work.

I definitely like what you did to make a more modern flamer for your Hybrid. Very good idea. And Downfall was that one with Hitler and his bunker, right? Good movie. Anyway, keep up the excellent work, I'm really digging your many talents.

Nice work. I look forward to seeing the finished article!

Very nice, so your putting flamers on your chimera. fair enough, any other ideas? and when are you going to finish more minis? i really want to see a squad up and running.

I totally agree about the flamers, great work upgrading it to the more modern style it really suits the overall look of the tank much better.

This blog just keeps getting better and better. Kudos!

ah, the greatness of custom plastics

SonsOfLoki wrote:ah, the greatness of custom plastics

Consider your sentiments echoed

Having considered the issues in my last post, I decided to start with the weapon attachment to the turret. I quite like the Gun mount, a small piece of plastic with the circular indents supplied by GW, however in my minds eye those indents are always holes leading all the way through. So that was my first job with a 1.5mm drill, it is lucky I often check how things are going when I am drilling in plastic, because I realised of all things the indented holes on each side don't actually line up. To get around the problem I only drilled to midway with each hole, luckily the holes are only slightly off so one can still see through the holes and not notice the mis-alignment.

Once the gun mount was complete, I also cut the storm bolter off the sprue, and check all the pieces for fit. Everything lined up ok, and the small pegs on the gun mount held the stormbolter attached. Now as I wanted to make weapon interchangable, I would have to replace the small pegs on the gun mount with magnets, and fill the holes in the stormbolter with magnets also. A bit of measuring took place, and I worked out that 2mm magnets could be put into either part of the storm bolter, and two 1mm magnets back to back could be placed into the gun mount where the pegs had been.

Here are a couple of pictures showing the stormbolter and gun mount when complete: -



and after gluing the stormbolter halves together: -



In case you are worried about mould lines etc, they would be removed when I had completed all the testing for the weapons/ gun mount.

The first weapon had gone so simply, I just knew this one had to be harder, and it was a lot harder. Firstly the joint into which the gun mount sits, was actually father apart than the Storm bolter, and in addition there was only a partial hole in the ammo container, this would make it hard to fit and glue a magnet. The magnet in the gun side went easily enough, once again another 2mm magnet sufficed, however with the ammo container I had to extend the container to get a closer fit to the magnet. Plasticard once again to the rescue, and with some slight adjustment I had created a steady place that could take a 1mm magnet. Unfortunately the added thickness of plasticard pushed the socket where the ammo container rested and the ammo container itself apart, another thin piece of plasticard between them and we everthing was working again.

Here are the pictures of the finished Heavy Stubber and gun mount, note the white plasticard work to make it all fit properly and hold the second magnet: -



and after gluing: -



Finally here are a couple of shots showing the gun mount in-situ on the hatch, I need to make a secure mechanism for that next ... a modellers work is never done!





Tomorrow I think I will get some more sculpting done, as a break from magnets and tanks ... it is a different pace, much slower, and in some ways more rewarding.

Last night I forgot the post the final photo for the above post showing the hatch gun mount in place without the weapons: -



Obviously it was a bit late last night

Having read through all your vehicle work again, I can say with confidence this project is getting steadily more epic. Excellent work!

Well I hope so, Epic is always good ... although this evening is sculpting time, I want to finish a pair of legs and a couple more pair of arms!

However I am considering my next Forgeworld purchase, this might well be the last for a while. I want to get a superheavy tank for my Steel Legion and preferred the new Shadowsword / Stormlord over the Baneblade.

Looking at the available options on the Forgeworld website I came to the following conclusions: -

1. I did now want an all resin vehicle, which narrowed the options considerably. Resin is harder to convert than plastic on many levels.
2. Of the remaining choices there were two variants, the ARKURION PATTERN, and the Death Korps ARKURION PATTERN.
3. Given these two similar choices I had to make decisions based upon the differences and which were closer to the "Steel Legions". First off the Death Korps had air filtration systems which worked well with the steel legion (gas masks all the time), and finally the gun housing on the Death Korps Arkurion Pattern looked "better" to me than the simple plate on the normal one. So Death Korps variant was the one.
4. At this stage the decision became between different variants of the vehicle, ShadowSword, StormSword or StormBlade. I was troubled by the fact that the first two were supplied as basic plastic kits from GW themselves,although I prefered the Death Korps styling. If I was to look at making an tank with interchangable weapons, the best choice would be to get the Stormblade, as it was the one which Games Workshop did NOT make, and then at a later stage I could make or buy the weapons and make a swappable version which game me all the vehicle options including the Stormblade.

Ok, so Death Korps of Krieg Stormblade Arkurion Pattern was the one I wanted, it would give me all the variable options I prefer for a vehicle and at the same time had the cool Death Korps look with the air / engine filtration systems. <click> purchased!



Image copyright Forgeworld

At the same time I got some Medsua shells, Chimera armoured skirts and a Death Korps Thudd gun (to complete my artillery collection).

That should wrap up all my Steel Legion purchases for a while!

Nice, i like the massive plasma cannon on that thing, although if it blows your amry is going to be in for a shock, but im sure that will add to the fun, the work on the sponson mounted weapons looks good, and im glad that your getting back to sculpting again.

are you going to mass produce a bunch of the steel legionars for your army?

Once other pairs of legs and arms are sculpted, yes indeed I will

Oh I like your avatar btw .. where did you get it

<grins>

I've started a death korps army (thanks to your take on the IG models actually) and I don't think I can stress enough how much I envy the depth of your pockets dear sir.


I want that super heavy so bad (although regular inf. would prob. be good to start with, right ? ;P) And I just LOVE the look of 40k plasma weaponry as well, which just adds more to my jealousness ;P

Haha I agree with the above, (Muller), your pockets are deep indeed ! Shortly mine will be too and i can splash out on more DKOK infantry yay!
Ahem.

Back on topic looking good man, very nice magnetising work aswell looking good alround Bravo.

Wolf

Deep pockets come from working hard and being old

Anyway the final part of my Leman Russ turret order arrived after a month's wait, this should give me ability to change between any of the available leman russ weapons, and I will be making the Punisher and Eradicator weapons systems myself: -



More on the Leman Russ multi-weapon as the project progresses.

In addition I received some ultra fine photo-etch 1mm high numbers & letters, there have a number of uses for vehicles and general modelling: -



The more I use photo-etch on models, the more I consider trying to make some of my own specifically for this project, and possibly for other space marine projects.

Last night went well, I have some pictures I need to prepare and upload showing the sculpting progress from last night. They should be up shortly.

I've seen home photo etch kits, I've got FW photo etch parts but have never really used them. What is so grand about them?

Ultrafine Detail ... the ability to make very fine detail items that are true to scale, and detailed beyond the limitations of plastic parts.

Ahhh deepd pockets from being old, damn thats where im going wrong, Anyhoo, looking good, you have inspired me to do the same on all my tanks !

Such agood idea to magnetise things and this has shown me the awesome potntial! Thanks


Wolf

jabbakahut wrote:I've seen home photo etch kits, I've got FW photo etch parts but have never really used them. What is so grand about them?

Just have a look at my blogs and you can see some of the options that Photo etch gives a modeller.

In particular as Argos points out its the ability to super detail to a level past plastic or resin casting.

Transparent Grilles that you can see through into the inside of an engine deck, fenders and armour panels that you can wear and damage very easily in a natural way, as well as super detailed fully functioning storage containers and crates etc.

Photo etch really can bring a model to life.

What FW produce is only Photo etch symbols, but other companies make complete uprgade kits that cover everything.

Indeed it can, I have a Micromark PRO-ETCH PHOTO ETCH SYSTEM on the way as we speak. I hope to start making some kits for common imperial guard vehicles for myself

How do you sculpt the helmets on them? Not the mask but the helmet that looks like its out of WWII.

As you can see here, its sculpted with green stuff as the picture here shows: -

The Helmet is very German Paratrooper circa WW2.

Looks great though and fits the setting brilliantly.

Ohhh a photo etch system, let me know what you think of that. I'm hoping to get an Etch mate soon myself.

The small letters and numbers are great where did you get them? I've seen people do similar things by shaving the letters off plastic sprues.

I have the Etch mate, and the mission models roller very good tools! The small letters and numbers are made by Aber, and I got them from E-Bay. I was planning to do some in detail projects with the photo-etch System when I get it and have some practice. I was thinking some fine etched panels for the various tanks, and possibly some armour edging for space marines etc.

Last night I returned to sculpting and figure work after a break where I had been working on my Medusa model and painting. I like sculpting, however of all the things I work on it is the thing I find hardest to do. It is this that means I tend to sculpt when I feel in the mood, rather than often and frequently.

Two new items were started last night, the first is the simplest and will require little sculpting, but the item needed preparation, so the cadian shoulder pad was cut away, and the area filed down to a reasonable shape and size for a shoulder. In addition the wrist was cut down also and smoothed off, in preparation for the glove: -



Next up, I started work on the long coat legs from the Cadian command box. This will be a relatively simple piece of work, the coat needs adjusting so that it doesnt go across to the right side of the figure and instead closes in the middle, to match the steel legion standard. In addition, the boots need to be changed to the SL style, and fancy buttons and fixings need to be added to make it office worthy. I adjusted the coat last night: -



Moving on, I needed to make some changes to a previous sculpting project, the pointing arm, specifically the glove. It resembled a rubber glove instead of a leather gauntlet, due to the smooth nature of the wrist, it needed some folds and weight added to it, I was happier with the final result: -



After that fix, I next did some work on an existing project and started work on the final stage of the running/jogging legs. Starting at the back of the figure, I added the hard edge to the bottom of the coat, and built up the corner points, before extending it around the coat, I got about 25% done, and will be doing the remainder tonight: -



The edging process is usually slow going as one has to blend the added material into the existing sculpt so that there are no visible joins. I use a Wax Carver #5 ( I must remember to supply a picture of it tonight), which has a nice end for burnishing, which is the name of smoothing action one uses. The boots on these legs also need to moved to the SL standard.

Last figure work for the night was further progress on the bare head with gas mask, I extended the gas mask strap over the head to join the back, I need to add a buckle at the join point still. There are still two more straps to do, and to rebuild the ears, once done this will give a nice alternative head, and will match the finished helmet I already have (which can be slung from a belt): -



There was also another sculpting project started last night, which will be shown in the next post, with an explanation.

Wow, that army is taking shape rapidly. I can't wait to see how it all turns out.

With the arrival of the new Command boxes for Imperial Guard, we received a number of flags, some like the cadian flag are customised to those regiments, others like the sunburst with the skull inside it are more generic. I had planned to do some regimental/platoon flags for my steel legion especially after the description of the Steel Legion in the new IG codex cites Commisar Yarrick saying "So raise high the black banners of vengance - now is our time". With words like those one has to respond and get the Black banners flying!!

Obviously I haven't numbered my regiment, as I need to peruse the various sources of decals (Death Korps from FW, Imperial Guard from FW, Imperial Guard from GW) to decide which would be the best number to use (most occurring or easy to generate number). So I will have to leave a space for the number, and instead concentrate on the background and history of the numberless regiment. Here I started to take inspiration from all the sources of information I could find about the steel legions of Armageddon, which are sadly not many. The books in question are Codex Armageddon, Imperial Guard 4th edition codex, Imperial Guard 5th edition codex and the Black Libraries Battle for Armageddon sourcebook. In addition I have some online sources, including some of the content from the Armageddon website when it was still up.

Taking all these sources into account, the field is wide open for historical regiments. After the second war for Armageddon was over, a number of almost destroyed regiments which had served admirably were put to rest, and their insignia, history and backgrounds were recorded for posterity, this was all under the assumption that the threat to Armageddon was finished fifty years ago. With the renewed threat to Armageddon a lot of these cached regiments were refounded using their previous history to inspire and motivate their new troops. Knowing this I could have some historical background for my regiment, citing specific battles and locations from the second war for Armageddon five decades ago. The historical background of the 2nd war was recorded in some nice detail in the Battle for Armageddon source book and as I flesh out the history that will be my main source of inspiration. As a side bonus, the flora and fauna of Armageddon was documented in the same book, so I will when making bases and a display stand have some unique plants and animals to decorate them with.

In addition knowing I wanted a typical Ash waste (grey and white, with some rotting flesh highlights) I would be placing my force in relatively close proximity to a Hive, so one of the defensive lines most probably. All of this added detail will focus my work on the bases when I begin work on them eventually, and keep a cohesive picture of what's happening to them and where the unit is. This will hopefully keep the final outcome cohesive and add to the overall level of detail for the unit.

Anyway back on track, we were talking about the banners. While perusing the Battle for Armageddon book, there was an emblem used for Armageddon in the book, which was created specifically after the second war to represent the struggle and sacrifice of the people of Armageddon: -



While considering the emblem I came to the conclusion it would perfectly represent the newly presented flag of a second war regiment refounded to fight in the 3rd war. Rapidly putting two and two together I realised the new flag in the Cadian command set with the skull in a sunburst could be altered to fit my needs. By removing the skull and the scrolls I could sculpt the sun rays and towering hive spire onto the flag. One thing held me back though, the flag had been shot up and had a purity seal attached to it. So first off I needed to remove the purity seal, and begin to rebuild the holes in the flag: -



As you can see I am about 1/3 of the way through the process, and once all the green stuff has set it needs to be sanded with a very fine sander to make sure it is flush with the flag perfectly. Once the flag has been repaired, I will clean off the skull and scrolls and beign work sculpting in the blank spot. In addition I will need to add some scroll work in other places on the flag for the eventually to be chosen regimental number / name / slogan.

As I have always liked the mini drama that the regimental banner of the Vostroyans represents (its very striking), I will eventually make my own!

Lol, what sort of fauna lives in a place like Armageddon? mechanical deer? Just doesn't seem likely you'll have many non mechanized or poisoned animals. Anyway, good luck with that. You'll make it work some way of another, you have so far.

Wonderful stuff, as ever, Brother A!

I especially lurv that BasiMeduGrif. It's a great bit of conversion work, all that magnetizing.

Your paint scheme is coming along nicely too.

Keep it up!

Impressive work! I've always liked the idea of the steel legion and even contemplated starting an army at one point, but the sculpts weren't quite my favorite. You've done quite a job in moving the image forward. Kudos!

I love the attention to detail on everything from the basic trooper's kit to the excellent closed-topped artillery. Are you planning to sculpt a small variety of troopers to cast and then mix-and match arms and such?

However you move forward, keep up the great work.

@ Lord Kaesar II : Lots of Fauna basically, some very nasty plants.

@ GitSmack : I plan to reproduce the entire leg and arm range of the Cadians in the style of the Steel Legion (possibly some of the Catachan too).

Well it was a pleasant return home tonight, as in the fastest time I have ever seen Forgeworld delivered my last order all complete. So here are the obligatory pictures of the items delivered and then all the pieces for my army will be in place apart from the sculpted items!

To start with here are the Stormblade pictures: -

First off the main body plate: -


Then the Plasma weapon and engine plate: -


Followed by a couple of pictures of the remaining bits and pieces: -




In addition the plastic baneblade (not stormsword) sprues were supplied.

Next up was the Thuddgun, the final piece of artillery I was looking for (the colossus can come later). All my initial testing shows it will fit the gun carriage like the heavy mortart, and in addition I could mount it into the body of the Basilisk / Medusa / Griffon Mortar both in open and enclosed mode with perfect fit. So I might well be making my own custom mobile Thudd gun on its own chimera, I wonder what to call it ... obviously some mythological creatures name, but which one ?



Lastly the Chimera extra armour and medusa shells, the extra armour is the final piece of the chimera puzzle for me, now I just need to work out a way of fitting it. The medusa shells are for show and to make custom arms holding the shells.



Tomorrow hopefully I will have some more sculpting to show ... although it is getting late here!

You are some sort of a monster.

You're doing an entire guard army with that kind of modelling!?

Give me deep pockets now so I can do what you're doing but with DKoK

Somehow the plasma blastgun looks about ten times more brutal than normal in that picture...

I heart this project.

This is very, very impressive Brother Argos. The Stormblade looks promising, but I can't help but wonder if you are in fact completely mental...

For a name for your Thudd Gun on a Chimera - how about a Eurayle - it's from the Greek Gorgon, but called the "Far Springer" (with Medusa being "the Queen")

Ive got a suggestion for a name, how about Gigantes, its the greek for giant, that would match up well with Collosus.

You know when some people deal with a mid-life crisis they buy a new car... Brother Argos buys forgeworld.

aka_mythos wrote:You know when some people deal with a mid-life crisis they buy a new car... Brother Argos buys forgeworld.

Nice.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

my own custom mobile Thudd Gun on its own chimera

make sure to build an ammo cart to all that artillery

Hippogriff is most probably my favourite name so far from all the people who commented.

So far the Forgeworld purchases are still less than I can earn in a day ... so its not quite mid-life crisis yet !

I managed to get some more Sculpting done today, some simple things and working on a couple of the almost finished tasks.

First up, a number of prepared items, with the areas to be worked on stripped down using a scalpel: -



In this case, the shoulder of the powerfist and the wrist of the bolt pistol arm.

I then proceeded to fill in a few more holes on the flag, I tend to use left over mixed green stuff for this rather than throw it away: -



As you can see only a couple more holes to fill in, but they are large, I might cut and fill them in with plasticard to reinforce them before adding green stuff.

Moving along I managed for the first time to finish a glove in one sitting, something I have only managed using pro-create before: -



After that I added the hard edge (stage 3) onto the set of legs I have been working on: -



All that remains now will be the other side which should be doable in one sitting.

Obviously things were going quite well so I decided to work on the bare head with gas mask: -



I have cut a hole into the green stuff on the back of the head to fit a buckle to hold it all together, and add a strap leading to the top of the head.

As a final treat I did some work on the female tank commander torso: -



I added the webbing on her right hand side, and in addition removed the bottom parting of the coat (it was on her right also) and recreated a central parting.

Quite a busy day ... but I have a good green stuff vibe going on!

Ummm, hippogriph might be confused with the entry on the brettonian army list, but ahh well.

Only if your mixing Fantasy with 40k ... a rare day!

Well yes, but still an easy mistake, i suggest you search "mythological creatures" into google, the first result is wikipedia, it has a large list of creatures, have a look, i just think that hippogriph sounds a bit weak.

Now I tend to disagree, with its relationship to the Griffon Mortar and the fact that both guns share the same carriages it makes sense

As a start, awesome blog so far-your work is very inspiring!

Mythological name-wise I like Cerberus not sure if it's already by other IG tanks :].

Keep up the great work!

You have allot of You Beautiful and inspiring work in this thread BrotherArgos. I have no suggestions on your sculpting or casting technique, both are very well done. But since you mentioned photo-etch and the Micro-mark kit in particular. Its a good starter kit; but its over priced and most of the items in their kit can be had in greater quantities and sizes at your local electronics and computer store.

The biggest problem with the kit is that the etching tank and laminator are to small and will limit the size of your projects and waste etching fluid. Here's an economy etching kit designed for fabricating prototype circuit boards http://www.frys.com/product/3456583?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG. You can get: a large 5 liter heavy duty polyethylene etching tank, Air pump and tubing, Sparging unit, Bag of vinyl gloves, and Complete instructions for $38.29. A pro-level kit with a huge 7 liter tanks runs about http://www.alliedelec.com/Search/ProductDetail.aspx?SKU=6610320&MPN=416-E runs around $168.85. Also the Ferric Chloride etching material can also be had for far less in bulk, around $25-28 / gal.

I only mention this because I was going to purchase that kit, but was advised against it by, by members of the Fine-scale Modeler Forum. I got the Economy etching kit mentioned above instead, and have a have a letter-sized laminator on order from e-bay. I've been designing parts in Adobe illustrator and I have to tell you that this is the coolest thing. If your interested i'll be sure to let you know how its goes.


Anyway, wonderful work

Thanks for the advice, when I ordered the kit it was as purely as something to experiment with, a starter kit as you said.

But it is something I would love to know more about, so yes please do tell me how it all goes, I would appreciate a chance to talk to someone who has done it already.

Great work! I am inspired. I should Make some of these bad boys.

BrotherArgos wrote:Death Korps ? ... got a good few packs of them, with snapped off gun barrels, resin weak and snaps ... expensive ... like the look though.

Amen to that. Just got a bunch of them in the mail today. Gorgeous models. Brittle as hell.

Well I have missed a day of posting, but the good news is that I sculpted that day, just didn't get time to post. Its a bank holiday weekend in England , so I was out in the garden tidying up the cherry blossom and getting the garden ready for summer, I also cooked my first barbecue of the year in the lovely weather. Just so you know, I will be out visiting various locations around southern England if the weather holds, taking my daughters to see cool stuff like leeds castle! This of course means less sculpting / modelling / painting etc as I will be spending time with my family.

Anyway back to the Steel Legion! The sculpting enthusiasm is still continuing, and a number items have been finished and are now awaiting reproduction. However as usual I will start with the early stage work first. Here are the items that have been whittled down in preparation for green stuff work: -



Of note is the preparation of the officers coat, the boots cut back and the trousers tidied ready for green stuff and the Steel legion boot style. The first arm is the grenade arm, the cadian shoulderpad removed and some extra clothing wrinkles added. Lastly the gun holding hand, which is a lot more work than it looks, the Cadian weapon holding hands start off attached to the gun and not the hand, therefore the gun needs to be cut up and the hand slowly worked at till the gun portion is removed, whereupon it is re-attached to the arm awaiting the Steel Legion glove to be sculpted. Its a fiddly process at best and normally I managed to cut the fingers off of one hand before getting it right.

Next up is the 3rd set of legs I am working on, the static guard pose legs from the Tank sprue, over the past few weeks, any spare green stuff has been smoothed onto this pair of legs to build up the coat ready for the time where detail will be added. Well today as the second set of legs nears completion I decided to start to add detail and put in the overlap at the front of the coat, and cut out the gap at the back: -



Nothing special with this, but it is pleasing to have almost finished the running/jogging legs, which is a segue to a picture of the almost complete second set of legs: -



The hard edge at the bottom of the coat is now complete, with a slight upward flick, this lightens the bottom of the coat somewhat and adds to the feeling of movement. In addition one of the boots has almost been completed. I am looking forward to completing this set of legs as it will add much needed variation to my current small selection of Steel Legion components.

Work continues on the gas masked head with no helmet, a small brass ring was added at the back and the "elastic" parts of the gas mask have been tied back into it, well 2 out of 3 have been so far: -



Once the mid strand of gas mask on the right hand side is done and another ring added at the top, I will have finished the gas mask head and it will be ready for reproduction.

In a sudden rush of understanding, the optimal path for completing the Steel Legion gloves finally clicked. Often when I am working on things I will try and seek the best way to do something, and after a while I find something in my head clicks and I find myself able to do things efficiently and well. Well it finally happened with the Gloves, when I switched from my normal Wax Carver #5 tool, over to a Clay Shaper, the Cup Chisel size 0 - Extra Firm, in case anyone is interested, the shape of the tool lets me smooth and build the glove shape really quickly and let me get three arms finished: -



There is a little tidying to do on them I suspect, but the speed at which they were done was a significant improvement!

Lastly the most pleasing finished item was the female torso. After some research I had started adding the webbing to the torso and wanted it to be in the currect shape given the different anatomy. I am quite pleased now she is finished, with a mix of plasitcard webbing on the back, and green stuff on the front. This torso is now going to be reproduced at this stage, to enable a number of variants to be produced with different amounts of ammo packs in different locations on the webbing, and also the aquila buttons to add the final steel legion feeling!



I think the next post (most probably tomorrow at this rate) will be about the sculpting tools I use on a regular basis, and why / how I use them. Till then I hope you try some sculpting yourself!

The attention to detail here is very impressive. Well done!

I just love the modeling job you've done on these, they've really got a great style and have captured the Steel Legion look.

I think it is true to say when one practices something that one usually improves, well with regard to sculpting I find that to apply doubly so. So over the last five weeks since I began this blog and yes that is all it is although it seems longer, I have been doing more sculpting than ever before.

Initially there is the confidence that repeating things brings, with minor variations to add a small problem, the gloves represent this improvement nicely, basically the same shape with a little twist depending on the position of the arm and hand. As a method to improve ones skills I suggest a minor modification to your troops like this, for instance five weeks ago, this took me about an hour to get the glove into the shape I wanted, and often I needed to add a second stage to get the edge correct. Now after eight or nine other gloves made and finding a better tool for the job the time it takes to reproduce the glove has fallen to around 15 - 20 minutes, and hopefully with no added stages.

Moving on to more complex work, I find myself confronted with the problems of folds in cloth, all kinds of issues arise such as where should the be, where do they start and end, and how shallow or deep should they be. This is in addition to the issue of thinking about how the folds will appear when painted. To be honest it is all a bit too complex and often results in choosing the simplest path rather than best one. However with this kind of problem we have the answers in front of us, Games Workshop (and lots of other figure manufacturers) produce hundreds of figures in a variety of poses and clothing styles which give us all the clues we need. In my particular case there are a number of Steel Legion troopers all with the same clothing in a variety of poses, so when I am considering adding some folds to a coat, I look amongst the Steel Legion troops I have and see if there is anything similar to take inspiration from.

Finally however one has to actually create something that one doesn't have an example for which means understanding how cloth and folds work. It is at such times that I turn to an excellent book by Burne Hogarth, which explains how and why folds and wrinkles in cloth come into being. This book is a bit much for someone starting sculpting, however I recommend downloading a copy from Sribd ( Here ). It won't help much to start with, but if you spend time sculpting it will act as a good guide later on. It goes without saying that the further works of Burne Hogarth are helpful also, so if you see them download them also. You might not use them immediately, but later on they give some fascinating insights.

Another important area for people wishing to sculpt is which tool (or tools) should they be using. It is safe to say that it can be summed up simply, whichever tool you are comfortable with and that makes the right impression on the sculpting material of choice is the right tool for you. A slightly glib answer possibly, but at the core of it there is a definite truth that cannot be ignored. Sculpting at its simplest is using your hands or an implement to make a mark upon a surface. Some people do some excellent work using scalpel blades, needles, toothpicks and home made tools. Every single tool on that list is appropriate as long as the sculptor achieved the result they wanted. Basically anything that works for you is the right tool.

Personally I use a small variety of tools that I am comfortable with, I mainly sculpt with green stuff, therefore I tend to keep my tools "wet" at all times, and use saliva to do so (yuck but it works well).

My primary sculpting tool is a Wax Carver #5, initially recommended to my by a sculptor at Games Workshop during a chat, it proved to be hard to find. However it is stocked by Tiranti's in London under the name "Dental Tool SG", now you can see why it took an age to find originally, the only clue was the text on the tool said "Wax Carver #5", and it doesn't even say that any more so new people have NO hope of finding it. This tool is wonderful for a sculptor, here take a look at it close up: -





One would think the first picture showed the end of choice, but actually its shown in the second picture. The small pointed spatula (for want of a better description) is excellent at smoothing, tidying up edges, pressing things down and burnishing them and all round sculpting. I do 80% of all sculpting with that end of the Wax Carver #5, and the other end lets me do score or cut lines with both the internal and external curved "blade". Beyond those two the thin necks of either end let my roll out and smooth green stuff in preparation for placing it onto the figure also. I tend to use my thumbnail as a pallet to store the Green stuff while I am sculpting (thanks to Mike Anderson at GW for the tip), it reminds me often to use small amounts of Green stuff rather than waste big lumps. I cannot recommend this tool highly enough!

The next tools of choice are Clay Shapers, these tools come in a variety of sizes and hardnesses, I use the smallest and hardest ones, and they are often helpful to get a smooth surface with green stuff. The one big advantage they have is that being made of silicon rubber, the green stuff will not adhere to them, so no need to spit on them all the time! Here you can see the entire range, I recommend getting them once you have become comfortable with the Wax Carver #5.



The next set of tools are quite expensive and rather specialised, but can help you with a number of small fiddly pieces of sculpting. I ordered them (and they are all hand made) some time ago, and they were made and sent to me. They are amazingly tiny as the following pictures show: -



Here is a closeup of the ends with a ruler for scale: -



You do NOT need these tools until you can use the ones above, and they are VERY expensive at $120 a set. However they are made by Perfect Touch at http://www.perfect-touch.com if your interested.

Lastly is a double ended dental pick, which is great for making small holes or occasionally clearing bits of Green stuff out of small holes.



Which you can see with in the picture above with the Wax Carver #5

Hopefully this was an interesting insight into how some of the sculpting with my Steel Legion was and is done.

Its very interesting to see the tools you're using. I think its helpful, I don't think too many sculptors when they're discussing sculpting have gone beyond the basic tool. I do a lot of sculpting myself and I've been wanting to take it to "the next level" but I find myself a bit limited by my tools so this was very informative.

I know you listed a couple sources for some of the tools you use, do you have one for the clay shapers? Someone recommended those to me a little while ago, but I haven't been able to find any in stores around me. A reliable online source would be very appreciated.

Here is a link to a USA based site: -

http://sculpt.com/catalog_98/CLAYTOOLS/clayshapers.htm


Well back to work after a few days off with my Family!

To ease me back into the Steel Legion after a quiet time I resumed work on my Artillery project - the Medusa / Basilisk / Griffon / Hippogriff (the chosen name for the Mounted Quad cannon). One of the side developments of this project is the ability to use the same weapons (magnetised) on a gun platform. I have always liked the cruciform shaped gun platform used by forgeworld as it reminds of the gun platform for the 88mm flak 36 as seen here used extensively by the German forces in World War II. The gun platform can mount the Hydra turret and Manticore turret, which obviously when combined with the ability to field the Earthshaker cannon and the Medusa it becomes an attractive option. I had put a little work into the gun platform previously (which uses a basilisk base plate) and last night I continued to work on it.



To accomodate the more detailed Armageddon pattern gun mounts I had to cut into the base plate and rebuild it using plasticard, once this was done I had to add some detail such as rivets to make feel the changes fit with the rest of the base plate. You will also note the use of "Brass etch" rivets, more on them later!



Here is the base plate with the gun mounts in place and one of the magnetised weapons fitted. If this all works out I will be able to swap weapons between either the Medusa / Basilisk and here.

Obviously the Basilisk base plate comes with a Basilisk Gun shield (the large curved bit at the front), which I must say I dislike as a modeller for a couple of reasons, firstly on the front the winged skull is poorly sculpted, while the rear of the shield has NO detail at all and looks incongruous because of it. On a personal level I also dislike it because in the Armageddon ash waste where my Steel Legion is "based" a high gun shield in a desert-like environment gives away position. Strangely this was also true for the above mentioned German 88mm flak, and they either removed or altered the shield to something lower. So I decided to lower the shield in some way and add more detail. Looking at the forgeworld site I saw the Medusa had a lower shield ( Here ) and looked quite nice, but having bought a bit too much Forgeworld at the moment I decided to make my own instead.

Firstly I cut down the normal shield to the required height which was just enough to cover the gun mount and weapon, and then started adding detail to the front, similar to the above linked Medusa shield.



I used the rivet maker for most of the rivets, especially the large hex ones at the top. The rest was built up from plasticard after I had removed most of the centre section. In keeping with forgeworlds Medusa shield I trimmed the corners of the shield using a modellers small set square to get an accurate 45 degrees. I then switched to the rear to work on the lack of detail and try to bring it to life.



Using some plastic strip I created a reinforcing structure behind the armour plate, and then added a number of small rivets made from Brass etch. The photo is over exposed a little and makes it hard to see the rivets at the bottom of the plastic strip, however trust me they are there.

In addition to make the support frame more realistic I added some hex nuts to the points where the gun shield attaches to the basilisk base as can be seen here: -



and with more detail here: -



I am quite pleased with the final outcome, however after looking at the pictures above, I have decided to add a small brass eagle at the bottom of the front of the gun shield to give it that final touch.