Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

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>