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The sheer level of community, helpfulness, and sense of dedication toward reaching the goal in this thread is a credit to the hobby. Every time I check there is such a load of new information and updates that I take ages reading through and it never ceases to put a smile on my face.

Really hope the wings work out, Blackhand, you deserve a great outcome after all this effort.

Gathering Storm wrote:I guess your right Gits, this thread really is a "chatty" blog.

You bring up a good point GS... perhaps it would be useful to have a "best of" post to catch the new folks up on where the chapter stands so far. Coudn't hurt and all those pages for a few photos is a lot of work.

So without more adieu, here is... Celebrating 2092 posts with "the best of the Mantis Warriors"... in order of completion...

First, the original artwork...



My Mantis Warriors of 20 years ago...



The first new marine... still the only "green" painted. This was before I'd decided that the Mk-6 armor would be limited to the Tranquility vets (also before I'd decided to comimission new shoulder pads & Blackhand decided to help out with new helmets and packs). Still, I suspect he'll find a permanent home in my command squad or the like.



The first Tranquility Sniper (sternguard).



The first re-painted dreadnought:



Experimental vanguard figure... melted before it could be completed but still a working prototype:



Whalemusic360's vanguard concept:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/103741-.html

First Great Marine Swap project: A tainted Mantis Warrior running with the Red Corsairs:



My Master of Scouts, Darius Stone (Telion):



Second re-painted dreadnought:



Second Great Marine Swap project: An ork nob *pretending* to be a Mantis Warrior (called a Bug Boy)



Other sternguard:









The new, Chapterhouse shoulder pads:





And lastly, my new venerable dread and his fellow T-snipers:



BLACKHAND'S Mantis Warrior custom head sculpts:















BLACKHAND's Mantis Warrior masterpiece:


BLACKHAND's Vanguard concept:



There you go! Many moths of effort in one post. Now you can by-pass 50+ pages of chit chat and get all caught up in one shot!

Gits

(Actually a clever sculptor would just make naginatas that literally looked like a katana on the end of a pole (which is not far from the truth) that way you'd only have to make one mold and the buyer could just cut them down to make the katana if that's what they wanted.) wait... did I just say that out loud??

a naginata is infact a katana on a pole. they used it in the war too cut the legs from horses and when your pole arm broke you had still a sword. but only a little sword (because you where a warrior) the knight had a really big sword called a nodachi (who where over 2 meters). this is aall way before the samurai.

maybe a cool idea for bikers a nodachi (which is one of the few japanese stabbing swords)

liking the green mw, the silencer on the bolt pistol is cool aswell. nice to see the marine coming together, keep practicing those gs skills, im sure youll come good in the end

I love the dude with the surpressed Bolt pistol. That's an awsome pose.


We need to clone you so you can get this army FINISHED and we can see it all on the tabletop.

Great work. I hate yellow. I love your SternGaurd. That says something.

You have done a really good job I really like the flavour of the army and I am very impressed with the painting well done

Thanks guys. Whalemusic is actually the creator of the bolt pistol guy you all like. I liked him too. That's why WM is going to help me build all the tacticals for my tourney army. They're very plain figures, but I'm confident he can give them flair and style. ... you know... 'cause that's what he does!

I thought it was a useful idea to get all my progress in one post, just so folks could see the whole thing in one go and putting things in context. I put a link at the very beginning of page one, so that newcomers don't have to wade though 56 pages of blog to get caught up. Hopefully, people will find it useful. Will probably do this occasionally whenever the body of work justifies it.

And I'm going to move my current WIP from the summary thread to here... where it's not quite so out-of-place..

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just a bit of progress tonight on the legs. Things are pinned but not glued.

I very much like your tainted mantis warrior, a very dynamiic pose, and it looks like he is not too upset at killing his former brothers in arms judging by the helmet on the base.
I also like the spiky bitz on his legs, they may not look too out of place on you assault marines. I also like the terminator legs on your experimental assault marine.

If yo went with fatty's idea of the naginata/ nodachi.... the old white scars biker models had a spear wielding loon who may suit your needs, I think I ended up giving it to one of my bloodclaws.

Overall, nice job... its great to see the army and your modelling/ painting skills develop as the project progresses.

Todays progress.

Legs and now glued in place (after some additional hip socket grinding).

Body of power fist side has been built up a bit with GS.

Power fist arm is attached.

GS'd top of cabling that had been damaged by head removal.

Dropped gun, scope is now MIA. However, I found my stash of scopes which are actually the model I wanted on this gun all along, so now I don't have to remove the old one!



A riddle for you...

Q: It is plain to see that Sergeant Peltius is destined for greater things. Why is this true?

Hint: It has nothing to do with his missing head.
Hint: There is a (slight) clue in the way the question is asked.

Better Hint:


give up??

The answer is...


O.K., I never said it was a good riddle...



More to the point.

I need a really good bare head. The space between the shoulders is too small for a helmeted head, so even tough it pains me as I believe a marine not wearing his helmet is a sign of abject stupidity... I have no choice.

I see figures on dakka all the time with these awesome, very expressive heads... I want one of those for my sergeant. Please look through your memories and see if you can think of something. Does not have to be GW... as long as I can order it separately, can use what it comes with readily, or get it from a bits merchant... I'm good with it. I will not buy a $45 box of figures for a head though... that's out.

Thanks all!

Gits


OH, dantay... no, he's not upset at all. Faithless b-stards betrayed him and their allies the Tiger Claws. He's a Red Corsair now, though he wears his original colors as he believes he is still a "true" Mantis Warrior. And they all have spikey bits on their legs and arms... part of the insect look.

love the riddle and even moreso love the long show of pics of all the models you've gotten done! great work!

Haha, the Riddler you are not sir, however you do have an excellent ability to entertain and inspire so I guess it's not all bad.

Checking back in quickly, the guys are looking great. The group shot of the 5 marines and dread was beautiful, they really have come on leaps and bounds.

How far will you be extending the tranquillity scheme through the army? Just a squad or two or are you aiming for a whole sub-division within the army?

Blackhand, bad luck with the casting chap, hope you are able to fix it as the wings were looking very fine indeed. Best of luck.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
I believe we may have a difference of opinion on the riddle Sage .

The dread looks lovely, absolutely great! I think you've made the right choice to leave it banner-less. I personally think banners ruin the dreadnaughts look...

These are really nice, i prefer the tranquility marines to your normal one.

I really need to get a parallel thread going with my CF, arrrgh, so little time so many things going on!

Imp. Monkey

Yes i had noticed, the forearms of the tranquility vets, I have actually had to go over the pics several times as each time i notice something i missed before. Did you use the old knife blades as mandibles?

Cut the tusks off of a chaos termie.

Sorry Gits that sounds like an imperative, have you started a weekly challenge or something that I should know about

Oh and btw I would but I don't think said termie would be too happy with me marching up to him with a jeweller's saw.

No Len... I meant I cut the tusks off a chaos termie to get the mandibles. *sigh*. ...kids...

Sorry I had to tease, been working flat out all day on assignments

One of dees maybe? Some good heads in there, plus those legs I had mentioned. I can spot you a head in the mean time if you want.
http://www.maxmini.eu/store/index.php?main_page=popup_image&pID=101

Also, me making high movement models is kinda why it takes me FOREVER to get anything done

Oh those are excellent MW, I even went to MaxMini's site but missed those.

Believe it or not I raided my one box of tactical marines and found (with some modification) a head that works quite well. He's all assembled and drying now. Still a little bit of green stuffing to do, but even most of that is done.

Hope to have a pic of the essentially completed figure tomorrow. Once he's built... it's off to marine swap land for a couple of quick figs before getting back to the sternguard!

interesting pieces WM...would go great for the iron hands or any vet actually

can't wait to see it! I love seeing your work! it make me long for the time where I get to hold one of your models in my hand!

i would find it an honor to play you if you ever hit up the east coast!

Great catch up post gitz..

The sternguard coming along nicely.

Jim..

More progress...

GS work on left leg, chest plate and back plate. Modified and fit head. Back back added. Save ornamentation (chain saw blades and such, he's done.



@Sage: Love to play you... stranger things have happened!

Thanks Jim! Figured it was time for a catch-up post.

looks cool, my only nitpic is the leg that is posed on the rock, where you have sculpted it makes the thigh look bowed, needs straightening out. otherwise awesome

Good catch CL... as I mentioned before I'm not very good with GS. I'll do my best to fix that.

Gitsplitta wrote:Good catch CL... as I mentioned before I'm not very good with GS. I'll do my best to fix that.

practice makes perfect lol seriously though, the more you do it the better you will get, should not be to hard a piece to fix?

I don't think so... straighten the top of the thigh plate and flare the bottom cuff a bit so it's straight in profile too. I just have to cleanly define the edge of the armor plate which might be a bit tricky. I think I can figure it out though.

Gitsplitta wrote:OMFG is that funny! Where the heck did that come from? That was Legolas right?! LOL! Thanks Yggs, you made my night!

That's from an "awesome" TV series called "How I met your mother"... check the link : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barney_Stinson

This show is really funny, easy to get even for non-English-native-speakers, if only for the character of Barney Stinson, who's "supposedly" the hero's best friend. This guy's awesome.

One of the most famous quotes :

Fifty wrote:

Yggdrasil wrote:So awesome, I can't help but share this piece of awesomness with you (just be sure to replace every "Barney Stinson" with "Gitsplitta"!)

Like button.

MOD ALERT : I demand that this post by Flinty be remembered when the Like Button feature is released !!! (for that's probably the only one I'll ever get )

Back on topic:

See, you claim to be sluggish hobby-wise, but your preview of all the awesome work you've done denies it! Also, thanks for the basing tutorial, it's really nice...

here is the Mantis idea I was throwing around at you before Git I went ahead and built/painted him today (no base yet) he's some kind of Sgt with the Mantis talons I guess they would be power weapons or just to look cool.

He turned out pretty good seeing as he was the first model I have ever painted that much green on before







hope he's useful I'll send him along with the heavy once I get the bits from you oh and this guy needs a Mantis pad badly feel free to include one for the poor guy... cheers!

Someone please explain to my how Santobell can scratch-build and paint a Mantis Warrior *with* an "arm of the Mantis" in ONE FREAKIN' DAY when it takes me weeks of fiddling to get one done!!

Go Ahead.... I'm waiting...... explain it!!

*sheesh*


...



Great job on the Mantis Santobell! Great job on the hinged chainsword. They're pretty straight-forward but you got to align them just right or they look crappy. Funny that you picked the exact same head that I just picked for my sternguard sergeant.

I'll send you a couple of pads along with the dev. I'm not sure about the arms on top... but I don't hate them either... will have to stare at them a while and see if they grow on me.

Well, if nothing else this thread and encouraged two other people to make really nifty Mantis Warriors! (Santobell & Blackhand). To be honest, I've never seen a Mantis Warrior that I didn't make before... it's pretty cool! :-)