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Happy Saturday, it's chilly and raining here on Armageddon, so we will talk about the armor I built this week. You can see the full gallery here http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-64081-29002_Armor%20Wip.html

I pulled out all my bitz to do some scratch-building and kit-bashing:



Many moons ago I got some Leman Russ parts and this week I finished it. I had to scratch build the hull:



I think that it turned out pretty well.

I also put together two Armageddon Steel Legion Sentinels:



These two kits, and two more Chimeras, were still in the shrink-wrap so it was like Christmas!

I am working on building launch-rails for 2 HK missiles to add to the Sentinels for some extra-shooty goodness:



I ought to be able to get these painted up next week after I assemble the Chimeras. I want to paint them all together - with the Basilisk and Leman Russ Vanquisher so that the paint schemes are consistent.

This week we are working on the Crassus. I broke up an old tank model (no, I don't know which kind) and started laying out the sketches for making a Baneblade. The problem is that it was just too small, and I didn't want it to look silly. So I changed the project to the Crassus.

I built a frame from .03 plasticard to support the top and sides



Here you can see the armored plates on the top and sides



Will be adding plating to the skirting, a sponson from the LRBT kit for the H Bolters on the sides, and then two H Flamers in the nose section of the command module. The command module is pretty much done now, adding bits and fluff to the vehicle to increase its "Gothic-ness".

Update:
Here are those completed pics:



As you can see it is substantially larger than a LRBT

Top notch scratch building there, excellent job.

Thank you!

Top quality work there. I'm impressed at how you can bang out such amazingly clean plasticard cuts!

Thanks, Flinty! My straight-edge has a brass edge, so the x-acto knife keeps a straight, clean line. Also, I only score the plastic then bend it 'til it snaps. I found that the more times you go over the cut, the sloppier it tends to get so I just do it once.

I just made a little tutorial for Jarl that shows the technique http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/489153.page#4983238

As another Steel Legion player, these are awesome. Way better than my old work. I'll be watching this post.

Thanks, CIsaac, I appreciate that. When the Crassus is primed and roughed in I am going to pull all of my armor together and "unify" their paint schemes... looking forward to checking out your blog too.

 hdbbstephen wrote:
Thanks, CIsaac, I appreciate that. When the Crassus is primed and roughed in I am going to pull all of my armor together and "unify" their paint schemes... looking forward to checking out your blog too.

Thanks! Though I don't have any of my IG posted on Dakka (they are elsewhere) just yet.

Plasticard has always scared me, but I love some of the concepts of the big Forgeworld tanks.

My "new" LRBT came in the mail this morning



With the scratch-built Punisher turret, H Bolter sponsons, Lascannon and pintle-mounted H Stubber it should be able to dish out 30 dice worth of pain!

So, my extremely frustrating experience with the Crassus is complete. Ugh. I need an airbrush.





I had a lot of trouble getting the yellow stripe to cover over the red primer, this represents 4-5 coats, some of them thicker than others. I stopped because the lines and streaks were starting to bother me more than the smooth coverage. Time to watch some more tutorials, or just invest in an airbrush...

 hdbbstephen wrote:
So, my extremely frustrating experience with the Crassus is complete. Ugh. I need an airbrush.


I had a lot of trouble getting the yellow stripe to cover over the red primer, this represents 4-5 coats, some of them thicker than others. I stopped because the lines and streaks were starting to bother me more than the smooth coverage. Time to watch some more tutorials, or just invest in an airbrush...

Unhelpful advice time: You need an airbrush!

Alternatively (and I know it'd be a lot of work) this would really benefit from rivets added to the plating and them some washing/weathering effects to really help pick them out. For the basic structure though? It's looking great.

Thanks! Haha, I almost didn't even start painting the stripes because I was afraid this was going to happen. As for rivets, yeah, I hear you. I am thinking of going back and adding "painted" rivets - small black dots with smaller silver dots in the center. I did that with my scratch-built Aegis line and it looks decent on the table.

I found this box of WFB Empire Militia in my trove the other day, and while deciding what to do with them it occurred to me that the 5 torsos with the long jackets would be good for making up some Commissars, because you can never really have enough of them (and there are a limited number of poses).

So that is what we have here. These three are masked to go along with the rest of the Steel Legion troops:





I used some GS to make the lapels for the jackets, that was tougher than it looks. The breathing masks were atually pretty easy, and I think they will paint up nicely. I am still deciding whether or not to add collars to these models or no.