This is my first attempt at a blog here, so I hope I can keep things running smoothly without too many long gaps.
Trying to decide on a new army after a 10 year absence is a big step; there are so many forces to choose from now that my original army is no more. The force that finally got my vote was the Guard, thanks to the Krieg models, but pricing up a 500 point list was just stupidly pricey. With a dislike for the current plastic sets, I set about converting some test troops from existing sets (Cadians and SM Scouts), Pig Iron heads and a little bit of green stuff. The paint job is just a quick test, hence it looking rushed/incomplete.



They don't look too bad, but neither are quite what I was looking for. The heads are a little too small compared to the rest of the body; plus it was going to work out just as expensive to make either of these as I'd need to buy a truck load of Scout legs/bodies/arms from somewhere and all the bitz places seemed to be permanently out of stock.

Then I found BrotherArgos' hugely inspirational Steel Legion thread and decided to go for broke and try my hand at sculpting/casting my own instead. Never having done any sculpting before, it's a nice big challenge!

Here's a rough sketch of what I hope my new guard will look like. Click the image for a larger view


The rough idea is for a regiment raised from a mining world, with everyone growing up in the mines and learning to fight in the tunnels rather than in more open spaces; hence the nick name, The Moles. This would lead them to use more close quarters weaponry like shotguns, flamers and las-carbines rather than big tanks. The mining environment would, probably, also lead to a disproportionately high number of bionic parts in the units as well as always taking at least one Tech priest and servitors with them.

I'd like to make a number of legs/bodies/heads so I can mix and match parts to make a slightly more rag-tag force; eventually expanding out to cover all the list options.

Regiment history and the start of my sculpting later

They are amazing and suit the theme you seem to be going for quite nicely. These could easily double as renegades *hint hint*

I love the subtle changes on the guy on the right alongside the obvious ones.

Fantastic use of PI heads. I'm keeping track of this one for sure.

These guys look fantastic so far.

Don't go with the traitorous scum that's infesting the P&M Forum! Stay with me, stay with the Emperor! Only joking, keep it loyalist, maybe?

*Fights infilTRAITOR*

Yes.

Anyway, I'm glad you've got such a clear and concise concept going on, it's always refreshing to see a well planned army.

sA

Starting the sculpting

As I mentioned before, this is the first time I've attempted to do anything with Green Stuff, so any tips would be greatly recieved.

Using some cadian legs as a base, I started adding on some greatcoats. For now they are just the basic coat. I'll start adding some of the extra details from the sketch later, once I'm sure that the coat matches up to the body correctly. There's also a few things left to do to the feet. Around the ankles/lower legs will be bandaging, plus the boots need some steel toecaps adding



I've tried adding on some edging to a couple of the coats, but it's going to take some practice to get them looking smooth and strap like. The different lengths of coat don't really matter to me as I want a rough looking regiment. In fact, you can see one of them has a ragged edge already

While they all cured properly, I had a go at the body too



Again, some detail still needs to be added and milliput used to smooth out some of the roughness, but you can at least see the overall idea. It's been done so that any head should still fit inside the scarf, though I know this is going to come back to bite me when I try and cast it unless I can find some way around it.

Eventually I want to make some of my own heads to go in there, like the domed heads in my sketch.
The plan also involves creating some packs, which include a breather canister. Not quite sure how that's going to look yet though


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I guess the plus side to my mining colony concept is that I can use them as either traitor or loyalist because they are going to look scruffy as hell

This looks really good, and for a first-time user of Green Stuff you have a real knack. The only advice I would give it to ensure your tools are wet, don't try to do too much at once (do a bit, let it dry, do another bit) and perhaps leave the GS to cure for a few minutes once you have the basic shape, and the re-mould.

But, great stuff! I love the idea of "The Moles". You should make some "counts as" tanks which are based on mining equipment - nothing huge, but perhaps smaller ones? You could have a little exo-suit which counts as a Sentinel, and is smaller and squatter? Maybe a train of three connected small carts which counts as a Chimera? Some sort of thermal rock-cutter which counts as a Hellhound? The incredibly fat miner who eats all the pies which counts as a Baneblade?

I recommend looking at (and don't laugh) the Lego Power Miners for inspiration!

I agreewith Darknight, looks liek you have an ack for some greenstuffing there ! Especially for your first time.

I really like the scarf like things, if that's what they are (take no offence in me not knowing, I'm dosey like that )
And I really like that spikey helmet as well.

Good job.

Wolf

Thanks, I think I just need to be more patient when sculpting. I have a pot of water on my desk, but it never seems to keep things wet for more than one or two strokes before the tools start sticking to the green stuff and distorting things.

I've seen the Power Miners and they are very cool, in fact, the Mine Mech looks rather Sentinel like anyway. If the Catachans can have a chainsaw in their sentinels, I can have mining equipment on mine

I'm not sure what to do about tanks yet, I think they may be tank regiment from a nearby Frontier world in the same sector. But Ogryns are certainly going to be represented by some sort of heavy duty mining suits, or power loader type affairs.

Look for the page on IG regiments from the 4th Ed Rulebook. There's a similar Regiment called the "Tunnel Rats" in there with a very similar uniform that may help you a lot as well

Nice work on this regiment!

endtransmission wrote:Thanks, I think I just need to be more patient when sculpting. I have a pot of water on my desk, but it never seems to keep things wet for more than one or two strokes before the tools start sticking to the green stuff and distorting things.

I have done a fair amount of sculpting with GS, and I don't like using water as a lubricant. Not only does it quickly disappear, but when the GS gets very fine, water can start causing it to disintegrate and prevent it from sticking where you want it.

I think a much better alternative is to run your sculpting tool along the side of your nose or in your hair near the scalp (don't stab yourself). As gross as some people find this, human skin oil is a very good lubricant for sculpting on this scale. I learned this trick from an art teacher in a print making class in college. Works a charm.

If you don't want to use that, then I'd recommend a small smear of vaseline or other petroleum jelly. You'd wand to wipe most of it off, but I really think GS performs better when used with oil lubricants rather than water.

Your mileage may vary.

Good luck!

If you don't want to use that, then I'd recommend a small smear of vaseline or other petroleum jelly.

Alternatively, you could slather yourself in vaseline and rub your tools on yourself. Of course, if you do that at the FLGS you might get some strange looks .... but we do play with goblins, right?

Darknight wrote:...slather yourself in vaseline and rub your tools on yourself.

Take me now.

sA

metallifan wrote:Look for the page on IG regiments from the 4th Ed Rulebook. There's a similar Regiment called the "Tunnel Rats" in there with a very similar uniform that may help you a lot as well

Thanks, I haven't read the 4th edition codex, I'll have to have a look and see if I can find a copy. Always good to have more inspiration


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nathonicus wrote:water can start causing it to disintegrate and prevent it from sticking where you want it.

I noticed that this evening while trying to add some bandages around the legs (photos tomorrow, hopefully!). I'll give your suggestion a try over the weekend, thanks!


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Quick update as it's too dark to take a decent photo outside and my lightbox isn't set up. Last night I managed to clean up some of the legs, added some bandages to one pair; sculpted another body and created a first draft head.

I found the picture of the Althian Tunnel Rats in the 5th Edition rulebook this morning. Nice design, but not quite what I'm looking for as they are too spikey. Plus I see their cloaks getting caught in mining machinery; much like super hero cloaks in aircraft

The Chem Dogs from the 4th edition codex look closer to my concept as they have long coats and a tank on their back.

Reading through http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/'s list of Guard regiments, it seems what I've been designing in my head is very close to the Mordant Acid Dogs. Apparently WD284 had a page about the Acid Dogs Vs Hrud. Does anyone with this issue know if there's any more information about them than there is in that wiki article please?

Now I need to decide if I stick with the Junos Moles, or if I swap over to the Acid Dogs. Making Acid Dogs would give me the opportunity to pretty much make each one unique; though that does mean I need to make a bajillion different heads and/or accessories to go onto each one. Could be fun from a sculpting point of view; though less so from a casting one

endtransmission wrote:

These are very, very nice!

infilTRAITOR wrote:These are very, very nice!

Thanks! I managed to add more details last night, such as a belt and buckles. Letting the green stuff cure for a bit before adding in creases certainly makes it easier to add detail. The new body is much nicer, even if I do say so myself

Hopefully I can get some photos later

endtransmission wrote:

infilTRAITOR wrote:These are very, very nice!

Thanks! I managed to add more details last night, such as a belt and buckles. Letting the green stuff cure for a bit before adding in creases certainly makes it easier to add detail. The new body is much nicer, even if I do say so myself

I agree w/ infilTRAITOR, they ARE really cool... I love the way they seem much more lively and realistic than standard Cadian troopers...

For real soldiers always have a lot of additional wargear strapped everywhere they can, grenades, magazines, knives, compasses, pouches, scarves, headlights, etc... I think you got it damn right!

Will follow your work with the greatest focus...

Congrats!

The first attempt at a body was a bit scruffy, so I decided to leave it to cure for a while. I'll try smoothing it out a bit later. In the mean time, I"ve sculpted a second body and attempted a dry fit with some arms and one of the pairs of legs



As you can see, the arms haven't been cleaned up properly; they are just to see how things are going.

When we take the arms away, you can see the new body in more detail... and can also see that I need to work on making the body fatter at the bottom so it has a better fit with the legs as well as adding details like belts

I really can't fault that at all and am highly anticipating seeing it painted

Yes, a belt would come in handy for smoothing the gap between legs & torso...

Right. After some deliberation, I've decided to stick to my Malfian regiment as the Acid Dogs uniform/description wasn't quite what I had in mind. It was a busy weekend, so sadly there aren't any updates. So some background instead.

The Malfian Region

The Malfian regiments are recruited from across the Malfian subsector, which is part of the Calixis sector of Segmentum Obscurus. Due to the remote nature of the Calixis sector, most of the Imperial Guard tithes remain in their sub-sector, being fed to the numerous war worlds that litter the sector. Malfian has it's fair share of these, including Farcast, Kuluth and, most importantly of all, Protasia, who has declared independence from the sector.

The Malfian regiments are generally drawn from the numerous Hive worlds Alactra, Landunder, Lind, Malfi, Tephaine and Zweihan's World, allowing the mining, forge and agri worlds to maintain their worker levels. Occasionally, however, each of the remaining worlds supply specialists towards the overall Malfian regimental command, especially during times of crisis, which we will get to later.

The Fydae System
The Fydae system contains three planets, Junos, Fydae Minos and Kessae. Junos is a mining world, ripping itself apart with guild wars. Fydae Minos is an Agri world, supplying large amounts of corn and cattle to hive worlds across the Malfian Region and Kessae has only been settled for 1000 years and as such, is classed as a frontier world. With lots of unpopulated land and two planets supplying large quantities of salable goods it's unsurprising that a number of pirate groups have set up shop in the Fydae system, which is causing havoc with the tithes being sent to the Imperium.

Junos
Junos is one of three planets in the Fydae system, located in the southern reaches of the Malfian region and supplies various minerals and metals to the nearby forge world of JXM A18Z. These materials produce parts for the Calixis fleet, which is stationed in the Malfian region.

When it was first settled, Junos was a pleasant, green world with a very low gravity; but over the millenia, heavy industry and the fallout of heavy strip mining has polluted the atmosphere to such an extent that most of the air has boiled off into space, forcing everyone below ground into the mines. Unlike most Imperial planets, this has actually levelled the playing field for the populace somewhat as the noble families generally fled to Malfia rather than face life underground. With the entire populace living in the tunnel system, never seeing sky or breathing fresh air, life on Junos is more akin to being born on a spacecraft than living on a planet.

The habitation areas fill old, mined out areas of the planet's crust, with the mine shafts sinking down towards the core of the planet. With no oxygen being produced on the planet's surface, only the day to day living quarters and the active tunnels are oxygenated; the miners have to wear sealed helmets with oxygen tanks in order to avoid posioning from all the dust and gasses released when mining. In order to ensure the smooth delivery of the metals and minerals mined on Junos, a delegation of Adeptus Mechanicus are always present on Junos in order to maintain the air pumps and mining machinery. As a side effect, it is not uncommon for miners on Junos to have some form of low quality cybernetic augmentation, either as a result of the constant fighting, or a mining accident. The high cost of these augmentations are covered by the extortionate insurances the miners are forced to pay as part of their Guild membership. As far as the Guilds see it, it's cheaper and more efficient than trying to recruit and train more miners form off-world.

With no noble families, the mines are now run by a conglomerate of mining clans who make sure Imperial tithes are paid on time. Each clan supplies it's own security details to form the PDF, or fulfill the regimental manpower. As such, corruption is rife within the security services as each clan holds sway over their forces. It is also fairly common practice for each house to "sponsor" local gangs in order to grab terrotiry from rivals under the guise of keeping the peace. All this adds up to a lot of people becoming very skilled in tunnel fighting as everyone tries to keep hold of what is theirs.

The Junos Moles

Having lived in dark, cramped conditions all their lives; involved in almost constant gang of guild warfare, it's not surprising that Junos has a fairly steady supply of recruits looking for a more relaxing time in the military. Their uniforms are taken from their mining heritage; long armoured leather coats with sealed helmets. Weaponry is styled to be as compact as possible, with the regiment favouring las-carbines, shotguns and flamer based weapons above all others, with fusion weapons being converted from the standard mining equipment. Plasma weaponry, due to it's unreliability, is shunned as a meltdown in some of the environments they fight in could cause breaches and atmospheric loss. Their ability to fight in confined, dark environments has led to them earning the nickname of The Junos Moles.

They also tend to lack snipers, rough riders or heavy armour; none of which have their place in a mining environment. These areas tend to be filled by regiments founded on Fydae Minos or Kessae. The Fydae Minos snipers tend to be so skilled that they regularly replace Ratling squads in the Malfian regiments. Ogryns on the other hand, have been replaced with hulking suits of mining armour and the Moles have a permanent staff of Tech priests and servitors on hand to maintain their equipment and cybernetics.

The main areas of deployment for the Moles is to night worlds, city fights and, most implortantly, ship boarding actions, where their tunnel fighting skills shine. More recently they have seen action across the entire Calixis sector, scourging outbreaks of the Fydae zombie plague. To date no-one is quite sure where the virus originated, but it seems to favour areas where people are in constant close contact. There's no-one better to send into those confines than the Moles...

If you're lucky/unlucky I may flesh out the other planets a little when it comes to doing the other units such as Ratlings and tanks.
Sorry, that ended up much longer than expected! At least it should keep you going until I get some more work done on the sculpts

Oh nice background for them... I like when people expand some obscure part of the 40k universe (for this one, Dark Heresy uh)...

I just have two points I wanted to mention:

endtransmission wrote:With the entire populace living in the tunnel system, never seeing sky or breathing fresh air, life on Junos is more akin to being born on a spacecraft than living on a planet.

- maybe you should consider Junos to be a low-gravity world; this would match better with Junosians being close to void-born citizens, as well as putting some emphasis on their skill in boarding action (i.e. in-spacecraft warfare)

endtransmission wrote: It is not uncommon for anyone on Junos to have some form of cybernetic augmentation, either as a result of the constant fighting, or a mining accident.

- Even in the 40k universe, bionics are "quite" scarce... So you could justify this by the vital role of Junosian miners for the Calixis sector, and with the ruling mining clans preferring to afford crude cybernetic implants on wounded miners rather than having to train more and more off-worlders in replacement of maimed workers... Moreover, should you need some reason for Adeptus Mechanicus troops in your army, you could introduce a small AdMech party in charge of producing bionics for Junos...

Other than these two minor points, I think it's well-rounded!! Nice job!

Cheers,

Raphaël

Both excellent points. I'd forgotten about the scarcity of bionics. I'd originally had something similar with the AdMech presence, but more for the mining machinery and air pumps... but completely forgot about it. Good idea with the bionics though, thanks

I like the Dark Heresy material, there's plenty of interesting bits to pick up and add into a background. I'm tempted to carry to expanding out the Fydae stuff over time for DH use, not just background material for my guard. I also want to try and include various Inquisition related items into the force. Maybe the HQ is a junior inquisitor and his retinue who are leading Moles for a while (using the HQ stats/equipment of course)

I shall go update the text now

endtransmission wrote:I'd originally had something similar with the AdMech presence, but more for the mining machinery and air pumps...

I think this works better than a bunch of TechPriests whose sole mission is to graft "lowly" wounded miners with bionics... So let's say they do this as a hobby, or part-time job lol ..

Cheers,

Yggdrasil wrote:I think this works better than a bunch of TechPriests whose sole mission is to graft "lowly" wounded miners with bionics... So let's say they do this as a hobby, or part-time job lol ..

Even better. The Guild takes a large portion of the miner's pay as "insurance" in case of accidents and only provides really basic, simple bionics in return. When people join the Guard some of these need to be upgraded as it wouldn't be safe to use them on a battlefield. This gives me the chance to model some clunky looking bionics that get the job done and some smarter looking ones. (there are also new comments in my previous post too)

First quote:

endtransmission wrote: The Guild takes a large portion of the miner's pay as "insurance" in case of accidents and only provides really basic, simple bionics in return. When people join the Guard some of these need to be upgraded as it wouldn't be safe to use them on a battlefield.

Second quote:

endtransmission wrote: It's cheaper for the guilds to provide these than it is to lose a valuable miner. Plus, it's covered by the extortionate insurances the miners are forced to pay in their guild membership.

I think we get the idea better in the first quote, but I'm not sure why... Thinking about it for a moment, I guess it's because of the order the sentences are. If you swapped them, like :

"As a side effect, it is not uncommon for miners on Junos to have some form of low quality cybernetic augmentation, either as a result of the constant fighting, or a mining accident. Their tremendous cost[, both the bionics in itself plus Techpriests proficiency [or tithe],] are covered by the extortionate insurances the miners are forced to pay in their guild membership, and it's cheaper for the guilds to provide these than it is to lose a valuable miner." (phrases in [ ] are optional/alternate suggestions)

We would understand the links between guilds/AdMech/miners/bionics better...

Anyway, your idea of tithing a huge share of the miners' pay as "insurance" is very Imperial/guilds/40k-like (your call ) and fits very well in the theme...

endtransmission wrote: In order to maintain the air pumps and the mining machinery, the guilds have brought a delegation from the Adeptus Mechanicus to Junos

From this sentence, we understand the guilds are powerful enough to summon an AdMech presence to do their bidding... If it's what you meant, then go ahead (your story after all uh). But I'd rather have something like "In order to maintain the air pumps and the mining machinery and ensure the proper delivery of the various ore to the Imperium, a delegation from the Adeptus Mechanicus has settled in Junos and works closely with the ruling guilds" (a bit awkward but I hope you get my point...)

endtransmission wrote: Maybe the HQ is a junior inquisitor and his retinue who are leading Moles for a while (using the HQ stats/equipment of course)

Would you be using Witch/Daemon Hunters rules, or would you count him+retinue as Company Command Squad + advisors from the IG codex?

endtransmission wrote: I like the Dark Heresy material, there's plenty of interesting bits to pick up and add into a background.

Indeed, it's been my "breakfast reading session" for a while, and I like it alot... Some very original fluff, planet/hive/character wise... And some nice details about life in the Imperium, forces present in an Imperial sector ( WHAT?!? Only 50 SoB for the whole sector?!? )... Thanks Fantasy Flight!!!
Can't wait to get my hands on some other books, plus Rogue Trader (which will most probably unveil a lot on the darkest corners of the 40k universe)!!!


Oh, btw, good writing skills!! Much less boring than mine !!

I like your suggestions/clarifications, so I'll tidy things up a bit more in the morning when I've got some time thanks

I'm not sure if the Inquisitor thing will be used, it was just a vague idea for having a more interesting looking Company HQ with the advisors being things like a Rogue trader instead of the Master of the Fleet. Though these are all things to do *after* the basic troops are sorted.

IMustNotGetSidetracked.IMustNotGetSidetracked.IMustNotGetSidetracked

endtransmission wrote:IMustNotGetSidetracked.IMustNotGetSidetracked.IMustNotGetSidetracked

Yeah, I guess the Ecclesiarchy should write a psalm somewhere, or maybe the Munitorum could update their Infantryman's Uplifting Primer :

Prayer for straying souls

Oh thee Emprah
May thee bless us lost souls
With the most perfect dedication to our current project

[Chorus:]
IMustNotGetSidetracked.IMustNotGetSidetracked.IMustNotGetSidetracked

Oh thee Emprah
May thee clear the watery pools
So that on our paintjob lies no defect

[Chorus (twice)]

Sidenote : don't forget to crush all those stray heretical models, that lay scattered and unfinishedon your desk, when reciting the chorus

Let's hope that could do the job (but I'm not so sure uh...)

Last night saw a number of little additions to the bodies and legs; mostly adding bandages around the ankles and belts/bulk to the waists so that the bodies matched up to the legs properly. I've also had two or three attempts at making the helmet in the original sketches. I think tonight I'm going to try a different approach of goggles, gas masks and scarves instead. For some reason this seems infinitely easier than creating a domed head that looks ok; plus it means I can make each person slightly more individual.

Speaking of individuality, so you may have noticed that the bodies and legs are fairly blank in places. The aim for this is to cast a load of generic bodies and then detail each one individually. Suicidal? Maybe... but the sculpting is actually good fun, even if it is slow going at the moment.

My new light box arrived this morning, so I'll be able to take pictures of progress more easily, rather than having to wait for a sunny day. Now I just need to work out the whole casting thing so I can start to actually piece things together!

The resin and moulding materials have been ordered from TOMPS and should arrive tomorrow, which means this weekend I can have a go at casting some of the bits. The EXCITEMENT! Now I'm off to to buy all those extra bits like some cheap lego, plasticine and mixing pots from PoundLand

Sorry for the delay in updating this... but disaster struck during my first attempt at the mould making process. Despite using olive oil, which a number of tutorials recommended, the two halves of my mould stuck together into one great big lump of blue rubber

I need to go on the hunt for a better mould release agent, vaseline seems to be the next release agent of choice. On the plus side, when I'd cut it apart to retrieve all my bits, it was nicely bubble free so at least I got part of it right.

To keep you going , here's a quick look at the lasgun (or the back of...) and head that you've not seen yet. The head isn't what I want for the final thing, but at least it was something to do a test model with. If I get time later, I'll scan the head design that I want, but for now...



[update]

Oh. One thing I did learn about my sculpts and casting is that I'd gone a little sculpting-happy with the scarf on the bodies. If you take a look at the pictures earlier in the thread you'll see that the heads sit recessed into the body piece. In order to get the dip inside the scarf, I've had to create a little plug that I can leave in the mould when pouring the resin in. Fingers crossed that the idea will work when I get a working mould

As I mentioned earlier, the sculpted head you can see above was an early prototype, but it came out a bit too boxy and unbalanced; it may still be useful as a tank commander head as it does have a suitibly large targeter built in

So I went back to the drawing board (or sketch book in this instance) and came up with this :



Much more Miner/Soldier than the sculpt. Under the scarf will be a gas mask, so there will need to be tubing coming out from underneath the scarves going to oxygen tanks on their backs. I may just sculpt this onto the backpack rather than the head and make it look as if it's coming out from under the scarf on the body. The eye piece will be optional (I think. If I can cast it separately). The basic helmet will have a dent in each side allowing the eye pieces to be placed on one or both sides, or the easy inclusion of radio sets, lights or hw/vechicle targeting equipment to be attached. Under the helmet is a simple leather hood covering up most of their face, stopping dust getting to their comms equipment (the bump over the left ear).

I have it all sorted in my head... now for the hard part of creating it. I just need to work out how to create a nice smooth, balanced rim for the helmets as they probably wouldn't be circular, but more oval in shape to fit the head more comfortably. Any ideas on how to cut/create this? I only need to make one bare helmet and I can create a green stuff mould for future ones.

Any women in the pipeline?

I see the Moles as being open enough to accept anyone who can handle themselves in a firefight, so eventually I hope to have some female guard, but at the moment I'm just trying to work out what the actual designs are going to be and making a test cast that actually works.

I'm sure its crossed your mind, but when I read that you might use mining vehicles with 'counts as' rules I thought of this...

heh... why stop with Termites when you could have actual platoon-carrying Moles... or a Company in a Hellbore

That is a very cool Termite and is exactly the sort of thing I want to put into my force eventually, thank you! I used to have loads of Termites, Moles and even the mighty Hellbore back when I played Epic guard. I'm still sorry I got rid of that...

I can see normal tank tracks and dozer blades, but I can't make out what the drill has been made from

To try and tie my guard into the miner role, I've started coming up with some concept sketches for replacing power fists with mini impact hammers instead, a bit like the Ironclad dread, so having Termites as well would be great. I do want to try and use Mole Mortars from the Vraks books as they certainly fit


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Flinty wrote:heh... why stop with Termites when you could have actual platoon-carrying Moles... or a Company in a Hellbore

Just noticed that Termites or Moles are in the Apoc book; so yay! They must be done!

You could get inspiration for this from red faction guerilla, sentinels would look awesome if like those digger things they've got.

Very original army on show,keep up the good work.Nice GS work.


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Very original army on show,keep up the good work.Nice GS work.

Sorry about the double post.

Looks and sounds good so far, it will be interesting to see a painted unit or two of these guys

SilverMK2 wrote:Looks and sounds good so far, it will be interesting to see a painted unit or two of these guys

Deff Dread red Edition wrote:Very original army on show,keep up the good work.Nice GS work.

Thanks. Hopefully I'll actually have a few bodies cast this week, so I can start piecing together a few test models


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Septic wrote:You could get inspiration for this from red faction guerilla, sentinels would look awesome if like those digger things they've got.

I've not played the game, but looking at some screenshots, the mechs look very tall? I'm not 100% sure what I'm going to use for Sentinels just yet, but I'd like to keep things short and bulky, so some of the AT43 mechs are looking like better inspiration at the moment. I'll carry on having a look at Red Faction though as it's good sci-fi mining inspiration, if nothing else I do plan on replacing power swords with hammers and power fists with an impact hammer type construction

FW do a breaching drill IA-GUA-T-116 @£25.45

Miss Dee wrote:FW do a breaching drill IA-GUA-T-116 @£25.45

I do like those and will be picking up one at Games Day to fill in the role of Termite/small unit transportation. It'd be nice to create an actual Mole though as it fits with the name and may even be where they got their name from... who knows

I know you're all *desperately* waiting to see some of the Moles pieced together. Unfortunately mould attempt 2 didn't take shape too well for some unknown reason. The first half captured all the detail perfectly, but side 2 was just plain useless. I think my problem is getting the legs into the right place so they don't have overhangs, so I started a third and fourth set just for the bits I know work, such as the bodies, new head, rifle and helmet. While I waited for mould attempt 3 to set properly, I started rummaging through my bits box and pieced together my first preacher so you at least had something to look at while I faff around with rubber and resin



There's still some work to do as bits of the sculpting started to peel away at the edges overnight where it got too thin and the plastic was too smooth. I also need to put a gas mask and oxygen tank on him so he fits with the regimental theme. I think the mask is going to be hanging around his neck rather than being on him; just so people can hear him praise the Emperor's name. Future ones will probably have the speaker placed in front of their mouth as part of the gas mask, as it makes more sense. Any other suggestions for improvements to the Preacher?

Do you need any Redempionists think a preacher with a meltagun with a book of imp law or whatever or Storm Troopers?

Where is the wire going from the speaker?

And the only things I can suggest are to make the chain and the burner on the pole fall in line with gravity.

You might also want to put a couple of spot lights on the top of the book stand to light up the text... I assume it will be dark underground, so it makes sense to illuminate the wordss of the Emp

Now that I think about it, perhaps some more eagles are needed here... have you thought about having them as clasps for the robe?

And because I forgot to say it the first time: That model looks pretty damn cool.

The wire for the speaker goes down his sleeve. Tonight's task is to try and build a little comms lump on his back with cables going up the back of his head into the block over his ear. I like the light idea too. I'll try and sort something out for that as well.

You know, I'd not noticed the chain/gravity issue or lack of eagles, I blame Dr Who for distracting me. Thanks




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Miss Dee wrote:Do you need any Redempionists think a preacher with a meltagun with a book of imp law or whatever or Storm Troopers?

I think Redemptionists would make great preacher type figures for Blood Pact, with their masks and what not, but they are a little too manic looking for the Moles. Flames on your head in a closed environment wouldn't be good either

That actually brings up a background thought. If they are tunnel fighting/boarding specialists, flamers would be really useful; but if they are from a world with limited/low oxygen supplies and a sealed environment would they really have experience using flamers? I limited (in a fluff way) plasma/sniper specialists because of the closed/tight environments, so surely flamers should be rare too? You wouldn't really want to use a weapon that destroys vital resources? Or am I taking this too far? Would they simply learn to use them as part of their Guard training and be fine using these weapons away from their home world, or would prejudice remain?

They might use flamers to explode pockets of trapped gas in the mines, so I imagine that they would be in use, though perhaps limited to specialist squads.

You might want to give flamer troopers quite heavy leather/flak overalls to protect them from the explosions and heavy hoods etc...

SilverMK2 wrote:You might want to give flamer troopers quite heavy leather/flak overalls to protect them from the explosions and heavy hoods etc...

Everyone is going to be pretty bundled up anyway, but I do like the idea of bulking up flamer troops even more and limiting them to specialist squads. I now have this image of 4 flamer specialists with their Sarge carrying a little canary in a cage... Maybe an auspex built into the sleeve of each flamer troop would be a good 40K compromise.

Thanks for the cool idea. I was slowly writing out every special weapon in the list... which isn't very healthy for them

Haha! I love that idea.

You really do have to build a little bird cage being carried on the backpack/gear of one of the troopers

Shouldda kept my mouth shut. I have no idea how I'd even start creating a scale canary/cage... I'll add it onto the list of things to think about when I've got some SpareTime(TM)

Really like the modeling and background. Keep up the good work.

I look forwards to seeing these models develope.

If you have some really thin wire you might be able to do it.

Alternately, just green stuff a solid cage

Wont a meltagun be better than a flamer?

What you might also want to look into are paint shapers also known as clay shapers they are like paint brushes with silicone like tips of different sizes and shapes that do not stick to green stuff . They are great for shaping the putty you want to smaller mini scale version .

Here is a link of what they are .

http://thepaintingcorps.blogspot.com/2009/03/friday-quick-tip-whats-paint-shaper.html

slann wrote:What you might also want to look into are paint shapers also known as clay shapers

I have a small one, I just keep forgetting to use it as the handle looks like a paintbrush in my pile of tools... must remember to try it tonight as the preacher's robes need smoothing out a bit!

[edit] I tried it last night and it's brilliant for smoothing out areas. Thank you for reminding me![/edit]





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Miss Dee wrote:Won't a meltagun be better than a flamer?

Meltas are a definite, but it's always nice to have a flamer or two on hand; especially as my main opponent will be Orks

If I end up being uncertain about flamers, I could always say it's a scatter laser or large bore shotgun type affair that has an area effect that "counts as" a flamer. I might actually do the same for the plasma gun if I can think of a viable alternative...




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inquisitor_lord_slade wrote:Really like the modeling and background. Keep up the good work. I look forwards to seeing these models develope.

Thanks, it's nice to know people are reading and enjoying

Not that I should be suggesting anything given I'm likely to be on the end of it - but they could be some kind of chemical thrower "counts as" flamer? Or just add an extra oxygen feed nozzle

Chem throwers might be a good idea, given the Devil Dog chimera variant. they would certainly be all bulked up to protect them from the toxic nastiness, thanks. I get to combine to great ideas and still stick to the background. Win!


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Oooookay. Some more updates. The rubber *still* hasn't completely set; keep your fingers crossed that it's set by tonight as I'm desperate to see if it's good enough to do a test cast. There's also a new body and head for you to see. I forgot to take a picture before making the mould. Doh!

Anyway. As I couldn't play with the mould, I carried on with the Preacher, cleaning him up a little and fixing the bits pointed out yesterday such as the gravity defying chains/censor and the lack of cables and eagles. I think he's pretty much done now, so he can cure for a while.



As he's drying, I started piecing together a test psyker. Like everyone else, I'm using the flagellants as the base, but I intend to go at him with the green stuff tonight so he's not showing off unnecessary flesh. You can at least imagine the pose, even if the body isn't even started yet



And finally, an early version of the new head, minus helmet. Cunningly the helmet has been sculpted separately (and very very carefuly) so that it will just drop on top of the head without any cutting. That's the theory anyway. I have a feeling that it may be too thin to cast... we shall see. There's no scarf on the heads either. I've decided that these can be added on later to make each one different, if they even have them at all. The aim is to make each one an individual with different scarves, helmet attachments etc.



The newer version of this head is in the drying moulds at the moment. The only real difference is that the seam in the top of the head has been covered up and the back of the hat has been taken all the way down so it looks like it's a hood coming out from under their coats.

Looking awesome as always. I am looking forward to how your casting turns out when you finally get a mould to work. Oh, and dicing these guys up one we both have playable forces!

The casting is going slowly, unfortunately. The moulds look to have recorded all the detail, but the resin casts don't seem to be picking up all the details; plus there's a fair bit of flash. The Internets seems to think I need to put talc into the moulds to capture more detail; I think I also need to clamp the moulds tighter to prevent flash forming. On the plus side, there aren't any bubbles appearing, so I must be doing something right

Not sure what I'll do if I can't get the mould to work... I've wasted a lot of resin and mould rubber so far. It'd be a shame to give up now, but it is becoming tempting to just green stuff the whole lot. Speaking of... the weekend was rather busy, so I didn't manage to get any further with the psyker yet, though I did start piecing together my army leader from a few bits and bobs that were kicking around.

To make the tabletop look more interesting, the Company HQ is going to be a Rogue Trader and his retinue, with platoon HQs, Techpriest and priests being agents for an Inquisitor (not sure how heretical he's going to be yet) that is traveling with the RT. The guard units can then be from different planets the RT/Inquisitor have "recruited" from. This gives me the chance to come up with a number of different unit designs to cope with things the Junos wouldn't have, such as drop troops.

To top it all off, I think it'd be kind of fun to try and create DH/RT stats and background for (at least) the HQ units and their ship as well. Who says I make life complicated for myself?! I just like the idea of it all having a life of it's own and a reason for having lots of character. It also gives me something I can do towards the project during quiet moments in work.

Last week I found a copy of the Horus Heresy artwork book for £6; dear god there's a lot of inspiration in there. I can see why there are lots of PH projects kicking around... it's just a shame that most of the guard pictures look exactly like existing regiments, even if the names are different. It does, however, make me want to add a unit of pre-heresy, true scale Thousand Sons into the retinue at some point though. Now to work out how to win the lottery so I can concentrate on it...

One day you'll actually get a painting update. One day

Liking these guys, you needs more Humphry Davy lamps on their heads though!

Also, your sketch of the helmet on page 1 instantly reminded me of the Sontarans from Dr Who.

Now you mention it, they do a bit!

At least they aren't going to have potatoes for heads... though that would speed up the sculpting somewhat

MeanGreenStompa wrote:Liking these guys, you needs more Humphry Davy lamps on their heads though!

They are all quite marvelous. Have spent hours skimming dakka today. May GS myself into a more interesting shape tonight.

This I love. Really love!

infilTRAITOR wrote:
This I love. Really love!

Thanks
That started it's life as an Empire Goldsword head.

Casting update
Using talc in the mould last night did produce more detail in the casts, so I finally have at least some bits that I'm happy with; mainly three bodies, a head and the helmet, so tonight I'm going to put one together for you to see. The Lasgun is still missing too much detail on the back side, so I think I need to find a supply of bolters to try making that one again. Casting the legs is still proving tricksy too as there are too many undercuts and odd positions, so the mould isn't all that great. I probably need to resculpt some more accessible (ooo err!) legs before trying that part again. Now I've (sort of) got the hang of casting helmets, heads and bodies; I can try creating a bigger moulds so I'm not getting one head/helmet in each casting batch

Have you tried making a vibration table?

Get a PC's CPU fan (can get them for a couple of £), glue a couple of chunks of metal to one of the fan blades (such as a nut), get a 9V battery and hook it in.

Then you mount that on a wooden board.

If you want to keep it cheap, stick on a couple of pieces of fairly soft foam in the corners/edges, then stick it onto another board.

You can refine the method by building a frame with springs, replacing the fan blades with bolts and nuts (so you can vary the vibration), or dimmer switches (to do the same).

This may help work some of the casting material into the harder to reach recesses in your moulds.

Oh dear. I sense a massive speed bump coming up!

Space Hulk just arrived and it's GORGEOUS!

lol

i was wondering, are you gnna sell any of the cast ups?

cos i love that lasgun o.o

They do look nice!

ghosty wrote:i was wondering, are you gnna sell any of the cast ups?
cos i love that lasgun o.o

The lasgun has too many obviously GW pieces in it to sell unfortunately; plus it didn't cast very well anyway as half the details were missing, or faint. I've not really tried making up my own rifle yet... maybe that should be on the list of things to do soon. I've just ordered some more bits to make a unit's worth, so I'll stick up a little tutorial when they arrive.

I'd like to be able to sell bits I've done myself, but that's waaaaaaaaaaaay down the line once I don't have any GW pieces in there at all (pretty much like the bodies now I guess) and I've worked out the casting properly (unless someone else wants to do the casting part for me?

Nice to see original guard regiments - I'd love to see a page somewhere with all the unusual regiments people have come up with.

Great work!

This is great - how have I missed this? I think you need sentinels armed with Drills instead of chainsaws.

Very very cool.

I love how you paste in that goofy avatar of yours into every image you post... it creates a statement to the effect of "Don't jack my pictures, jacka55". Very nice.

I can't wait to see the results of your casting... I suck at sculpting so any inspiration helps

kestral wrote:I'd love to see a page somewhere with all the unusual regiments people have come up with.

I still need to fix some of the tags and add in some of the missing references, but I've been compiling things like that and other guard inspirations in my travels. They can be seen over on http://igideas.tumblr.com

darkkt wrote:This is great - how have I missed this? I think you need sentinels armed with Drills instead of chainsaws. Very very cool.

Thanks. The aim is to try and modify sentinels so they aren't quite so tall and to add things like drills or plasma cutters onto them, so you're spot on

Casting Update

Well, here you can see the body cast in all it's leaky, not so crisp glory. The green bits in there are a cunning part of my mould. These pieces lock into some sockets in the mould and allow for large recessed areas that I wouldn't normally be able to do. It seems to work quite well and will produce less stress during the demoulding process. Any guesses as to which sprue was used to create the pouring channel?



And here's some of the pieces put together.



I don't know what it is, but it doesn't look as nice as it did with the original greens. I may have to try the body with normal Cadian legs to see if it's just that the new legs are wrong, or what. The head certainly isn't looking as good because a lot of the detail seems to be missing, or at least difficult to see in the resin. I really need to try and build a vibrating table, like SilverMK2 suggested, to see if that improves the crispness of things. If that doesn't work... it looks like I'm green stuffing the whole lot; which complicates things no end where the heads and helmets are concerned. p00t.

To be honest, they look pretty cool to me.

If you give casted pieces a bit of a wash so that the details show up better in pictures, we can judge a little better but I think they look pretty cool.

I'll do that tonight and repost it. I may tack the green stuff version together as well for a side by side comparison as well.

One thing I have learnt is that I've made the channels to the bodies a little bit too thick in the mould. The back of the grenade has become part of the flow channel. This isn't too big an issue in this case as an arm will cover it up...

Well, be sure to document all your trials and tribulations casting, as I plan to do a fair bit when I eventually get round to doing my IG and want to learn from you, as you are doing something simmilar to what I want to do in terms of custom uniforms and heads etc.

SilverMK2 wrote:Well, be sure to document all your trials and tribulations casting, as I plan to do a fair bit when I eventually get round to doing my IG and want to learn from you, as you are doing something similar to what I want to do in terms of custom uniforms and heads etc.

Sure thing

So far da fings wot I av lerned :

There's a shed load of stuff you need. I keep having to do trips into town at the weekends to pick up something else :
- RTV rubber
- the fast cast resin
- plasticine
- wooden spatulas (either buy lots of cheap ice lollies from Asda and feel refreshed each time you make a mould or cast, or Tomps sell boxes of 100)
- syringes
- lots of lego blocks, preferably the 2x4 or longer, plus a large, thin base
- plastic party cups (50p for 100 from Asda)
- Vaseline.
- a cheap brush
- something to melt vaseline in, I've got a cheap curry bowl from poundland
- some decent scales
- lots of old sprues to make the mouring channels in the moulds
- Talc

JB's casting tutorial in the Articles section is pretty good, with a few modifications as noted below. I think most of the variations are because I couldn't get hold of the moulding putty he used in the UK without paying a fortune to import it from the US. In the UK, the best place to get resin and mould rubber is http://www.tomps.com , they were quick to respond to my questions and are planning on putting together a beginner's pack sometime soon. Just don't be fooled into buying the casting manual they have... the useful bits are already on their website; the rest you really don't need.

1. Why the Vaseline?
A number of tutorials suggest putting a layer of olive oil on the first half of the mould. this may work if you're using moulding putty like the article suggests. This doesn't seem to stop the RTV rubber from sticking together though, so a thin layer of melted vaseline painted over the rubber (not the models!) will help you not to make a large blue rubber block. Painting over the models as well will obscure details and give you a rubbish mould. You can use a spray can of release agent, but Tomps didn't think it was necessary while I was learning as I'm unlikely to want the early moulds to last too long.

2. Why the Talc?
The first test cast I did came out minus most of the smaller details. There were no visible air bubbles in the casts, it just didn't seem to have made it into all the corners. A layer of talc on the moulds before casting (with the excess shaken off of course) seems to help the resin flow into some more details; though it's still not 100% crisp. I'm working on this bit... suggestions welcome!

3. Why the syringe?
Leaving gravity to do it all may work if you're only doing one or two large bits, but if you're trying to do smaller things like rifles with fiddly bits, you're going to need some pressure to get it flowing through the mould. Be careful not to push the syringe into the mould when invecting the resin though; you'll push the two halves apart and cause leakage/air bubbles.

4. where's the elastic bands mentioned in the Article?
The first time I tried casting, I did have elastic bands and card around the moulds, but it didn't seem to be working very well. The moulds were deforming and I was getting a lot of leakage and air bubbles. Luckily the two moulds that I'd made, side by side, can be secured between lego blocks on the base. This allows nice even pressure across everything apart from the top. It's not stopped the flash from forming, but it's now significantly less than with the elastic band. I think I just need to put more bits of card in between the moulds and the lego, to increase the pressure slightly.

5. Think about the placement of your pieces in the mould
As the title says... think carefully and make sure there aren't any bits that are going to trap air. I'll post a picture of my moulds tomorrow so you can see how I placed things. I've only had one air bubble in 5 test casts because I forgot to allow air out of the head. oops!

6. Indentations and a simple solution
If you look back at the original body parts I sculpted you'll notice that the head is recessed inside the body. When it came to creating the first mould I noticed that it was going to cause a massive problem.; then I had a brainwave. Using a bit of green stuff I created some little plugs that are moulded to the recessed area and a hooked area at the top. When you create the mould halves, make sure this piece is sitting in the recessed area properly. When you go to create an actual cast, carefully place the plugs back into the now empty mould. If you look at the picture I posted earlier of the test cast you can see the plugs in place. They easily pop out and leave you with a recessed area. *tada!* I wouldn't suggest using too many things like this though as you're bound to forget to put them in (like I did for test cast 2) and you end up with an odd hooked lump on your piece

7. What about all these rubbish test moulds?
You don't need to throw them away. Keep them; slice them up into little bits and put them around the edges when pouring in your RTV to create a new mould. As long as there's no release agent or vaseline on them they will stick to the new rubber, bulking out the mould and saving you some precious rubber

What else?

A number of people recommend vacuum chambers or pressure pots. If you're only doing basic, fairly plain things I don't think they are necessary. They may, however, be the answer to me getting more detailed casting... though it's rather expensive to shell out a couple of hundred pounds on a theory. I'm already in trouble at home for buying Space Hulk and have been told I need to perfect the casting thing before I'm allowed to shell out on more equipment... I think I'll try SilverMK2's suggestion of making a vibrating table first though... I wonder if Poundland still sells those "personal massagers"

I'm sure there are other tips/tricks that I've picked up along the way (or will in the future). Do people think it would be ok to add these tips to the end of JB's article? (I'm not sure what the local etiquette is for that sort of thing)

Thanks for the good info

I am sure if you PM him, he will probably give you the OK (I don't really know what the etiquette is for editing articles either ).

I was thinking of casting out of the really hard plaster, rather than resin. I can't remember off the top of my head what the type was that I decided on but there is a lot of information on plaster casting on the Hirst Arts website discussion page.

It can apparently be very strong and durable, though I think most of the people on there only really cast blocks etc out of it rather than models, but I am willing to experiment

I'd have thought trying to do anything too fiddly with plaster would be very brittle?.

I know the resin rifles I've made snap fairly easily, so I think they may end up being plastic after all. I'd be interested to know how you get on with the plaster though

I'm not sure... from what I have read on hirst you can get very strong plaster, though as I say, they are mostly building brick shapes out of them, so I can't really say how goor they will be for models.

Here is the link to the discussion page I was talking about anyway.

Great stuff!

Subscribed!!!

Wow. We are nearing the end of page three and no actual finished items in sight

Last night I took another look at the test model I put together yesterday morning. Looks like I wasn't paying attention. The head I used was from a previous cast, not the most recent; The newest head is actually pretty good, so I didn't need to worry too much. The Rifles are about the only bit I'm not sure are casting well. I ran a wash over the resin figure from yesterday so you can see the detail more clearly (cringe at the lumpy head!). Seeing the body on cadian legs actually looks a lot better than on my legs, so that may have been another problem I was having yesterday... time to have another bash at creating some better legs too. Getting these ideas out of my head onto an actual model is slowly driving me crazy, especially as I only get about half an hour a day to do anything in at the moment. Curse you project deadlines!



There are some bits that aren't as clear as the original, but I think most of these are down to the fact that they are subtle; it's easy to see subtle on greenstuff. My lesson from this is exaggerate detail more when sculpting for casting. It would also explain why some of the detail is missing form the rifle. I should have some more bitz arriving in the next week or so, so I can put together some new rifles and try again. I'm also going off the helmet design, mostly because my sculpt so far is a bit wonky, not circular and looks like a fireman's helmet!. I've got some Brettonian heads in the post, so I'll see what I can do with those to get closer to the actual helmet design I have in my head.

Also, this may, or may not, be the basis for the Rogue Trader that leads my force. There's a lot of work left to do to disguise where all the parts have come from and make him look a bit more foppish, bu tyou get the rough idea.



I've reached Sabbat Maryr in the Gaunt books and they have a great idea about flamers that I may steal. The commanding officers wear an armoured sleeve with a built in flamer unit (canister on their back). In Sabbat Martyr this is because they believe flame is a purifying thing that only the leadership should wield. For the Junos it could well be that (returning to SilverMK2's idea) flamers like these are limited to boarding specialists; only available to elites and HQ units.

Wow, fop 'til you drop

I think the resin cast is pretty reasonable. I think if you want better quality casts, you will need to really, really make sure that the item you are casting from is exactly right, utterly flat where it needs to be flat, etc.

In my experience, (which is limited) any mistake or bit of slightly unfinished sculpt/etc on the master model is usually emphasised on the casted pieces, so it really does pay you back a lot to make the master as well as you can.

Original sculpt - awesome. The body resin cast looks fine - I guess paint will tell. Agree the heads could use some work... (your lightbox setup looks to be working awesome too!)

Love the Rogue Trader - are you planning to defeat my orks while they are rolling around in laughter? Or should I bring some freebooterz/flash gitz for a looting expedition?

damn you. Now I want a jester as a sidekick for my RT

If my current project allows me a weekend (which currently looks doubtful) I'll try and make some arms to fit the cast body and try adding some paint to see how it looks.

I need to get something final soon and start painting if I'm ever going to catch up with your orkses... nothing ever quite fits with what I was aiming for.

The Rogue Trader is inspired! I can't wait to see him painted. I'm also looking forward to seeing how your casts paint up - I've not had the guts yet to try casting my own stuff, but it's something I plan to do one day, so I'm following this thread closely.

Utterly awesome stuff here can't wait to see what you come up with. Maybe some WW2 British Heads would be a good base for the miners. Also Ramshackle Games do a Giant Boring Device. I've had dealings with them in the past and their great!

Good thought with the british heads as a base. I hadn't thought of those... it's obvious from the shape when you think about it!!

Rogue trader is looking positively lovely, the hat is really working for me. If you're planning on increasing the fop factor, perhaps you should exchange his cargo pants for some poofy fencer's shorts or tights with a rather ornate codpiece?

The legs are currently just there to hold him up while I decide what to do

Current thinking is to cut off the pockets and make them more like normal trousers, or something and then add a big, ornate frock coat over the top

I'd be tempted to go Cyborg! A cyborg Fop just the thing to lead grizzled miners into battle!

Llamahead wrote:I'd be tempted to go Cyborg! A cyborg Fop just the thing to lead grizzled miners into battle!

Oddly enough, you'll never guess what I was making this evening
Not going to get a chance to take any photos until later in the week sadly... hopefully the wait will be worth it though.

This should be good! Have you seen the Alpha Forge stuff by the way? They do an asteroid miner force and it might be worth a look at.

Llamahead wrote:This should be good! Have you seen the Alpha Forge stuff by the way? They do an asteroid miner force and it might be worth a look at.

The Alpha Forge stuff is interesting, though possibly a little bit too cyborg for my taste. It would make an interesting "counts as" Necron force though

Quick Update Time!
I only had a couple of minutes with the camera this morning, so here's a quick teaser of the cast body with some new modified legs and an update of the psyker



The cast body looks better with these legs than it did with the greatcoat ones; though I still need to add things like tubes and valves to them so they look more like tough leather/canvas with mining adaptions. The thing on his back is the air canister for their breather units, with the tube going under the scarf, theoretically to connect with the breather mask on the head. I quite like this design... I may have to redo the moulds with this on every body to save having to re-sculpt it each time. I'd obviously need some alternatives with a flamer canister as well, or some packs, but that's the point of having multiple bodies to cast isn't it

The psyker has some re-sculpting that needs doing around the back as it's a bit chunky and, quite frankly, rubbish; but he looks really nice next to the priest as they are both wearing chunky body armour with a raised collar. I think I need to do this sort of thing for any carapace armoured troops...

Question about the legs that are with the cast body. Does it look odd with the long jacket, or would it be better off with Catachan legs instead so it doesn't have the flared jacket bottom? Either way I will need to bulk out the top of the legs as the body is too fat for the normal legs as I padded it out to fit onto the greatcoat legs I did. I'm wondering if bulking up the legs a bit so they look more like this would suit the bodies and concept more than greatcoats

The psyker is coming along well,I must say this whole blog is interesting and original.You have excellent sculpting skills which makes the log all the better.Even though it is a way off,I can't wait to see you put some paint on them.

Deff Dread red Edition wrote:The psyker is coming along well,I must say this whole blog is interesting and original.You have excellent sculpting skills which makes it makes the log all the better.Even though it is a way off,I can't wait to see you put some paint on them.

Thank you
The priest is actually ready for painting, so I need to pick up a can of undercoat to spray him and the contents of Space Hulk... so your wish may be closer than you think. Maybe...

How about doing some Borg?

Been having a think this morning (mostly while reading the Troll Forged forums). I think I need to face facts and have a go at sculpting everything, not just the body and a few bits here and there, otherwise it's going to start getting very expensive if I have to buy Cadian arms and catachan legs every time I want a new unit.

I may start again with the bits, now I know what they need to look like, and make them fit with the Cadian/Catachan parts without having to add green stuff like I did in the teaser photo.

Fear not. I'll put together and paint the one in the teaser picture first as you've all been so patient

Miss Dee wrote:How about doing some Borg?

?

And I think that creating all your own parts will certainly save cash in the longer term. Plus it means you can get them exactly as you want them.

Dude. Stop being so awesome. I'm getting jealous here and I may have to come to you and steal everything.

Not that Borg.

SilverMK2 wrote:Plus it means you can get them exactly as you want them.

And therein lies the main problem. I can't decide exactly how I want them, for I am FickleBoy™


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infilTRAITOR wrote:Dude. Stop being so awesome. I'm getting jealous here and I may have to come to you and steal everything.

If you're lucky and I ever get enough time to finish something or ever manage to work out how to make a cast that doesn't produce a billion tonnes of flash, or create enough parts to get someone to produce it for me, I may start selling bits, so you don't have to be jealous any more
*wishful thinking!*


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Miss Dee wrote:Not that Borg.

The dodgy ebm band (The Borg)? The dodgy pop star (Michael Borg)?

No. I'm not going to do any Borg I'm afraid; though I would like to make "counts as" versions of all the special characters; which means an OTT cyborg Stracken type in the dim, distant future.

This is a fun army to watch, thanks for sharing it and I look forward to seeing a finished Malfian.

Your wish is (nearly) my command. Thanks to a bout of insomnia early this morning, I've finished putting together the test model. At last I hear you cry!



I'm really happy with it and can see where I need to go with the new body/legs/arms. The boots need to be tidied up a little and have some more details adding so they look more like heavy, maglock boots for vacuum work rather than a big lump; plus I need to create legs without the jacket bottom and tidy up the thigh pads (not sure what they are for, but hey). Other than that... I'm really pleased it.

Anything anyone thinks could be improved upon?

As you can see, he's already got a name... no background or anything yet. That will come, along with Dark Heresy and Inquisitor profiles, when I don't have a major deadline hanging over my head

I've just been and read back over the whole thread; it's interesting to see that the current design has almost no relation to the original sketches; but in my mind they aren't all that far apart. I guess this is the plus side to running a blog for something like this; watching it evolve and having a full record of it. I'm glad you've all come along for the ride; all comments, ideas or criticism is gratefully recieved

As you say, the boots need some work. Other than that, the only negative thing I can say is that I am not sure what the pipe on his shoulder is doing.

Otherwise he looks very professional. The extra bulk and equipment looks really impressive.

How is the tank on the back going to be painted in relation to the model? At the moment it might be difficult to tell exactly what it is. I personally like the look of a metal tank in a fabric harness.

Love the spade too.

That test trooper looks ace will be following this ..

SilverMK2 wrote:As you say, the boots need some work. Other than that, the only negative thing I can say is that I am not sure what the pipe on his shoulder is doing.

I don't know what the pipe is for either. Blame it on the lack of sleep or something. I think at the time I was thinking it would be for pressurising the body suit if they go into low/zero gravity... but I'm not sure... I just liked it

I just remembered... they are supposed to have a high percentage of cybernetics, so maybe it's something to do with that too?

SilverMK2 wrote:How is the tank on the back going to be painted in relation to the model? At the moment it might be difficult to tell exactly what it is. I personally like the look of a metal tank in a fabric harness. Love the spade too.

I'm thinking some sort of battered metal colour with peeling paint for the tank; possibly yellow paint?, or something... I really don't know what colours their uniforms are going to be yet either. That's a future post topic

I don't want it to be too obvious as it'd make a perfect target for someone on the battlefield, but you're right, it does need to stand out from the uniform a bit. Future tanks may be a little more rounded so it doesn't just look like part of someone's armour.

Speaking of armour; I came up with an idea for the elite's carapace armour last night and I need to find some solid plastic tubing that is wide enough to fit a head inside so I can create a neat collar; probably about 1cm diameter?. I was thinking a biro barrel, but the plastic is too thick and the plastic-card suppliers I can find don't have tubing that wide... my google-fu is failing me today

Not sure if I've posted in this thread yet, but I'd just like to say that I love your army. I just wish I had your greenstuffing skills .

The latest guy looks awesome - and keep that pipe on his shoulder, it looks cool . They need paint, NOW!

This is all new to me too. Just grab some GS, a paint shaper and one of the metal sculpting tools and have a go. I don't think it's actually that bad if you take things slowly. Just remember to let it cure for a while when you do something, otherwise you'll end up doing what I've done a few times and accidentally squashing some carefully crafted detail or other.

I'm still trying to get to grips with finer detail and fabric-y shapes (just take a look at those boots!), so don't worry. just have a go and keep practising

As for paint... I'll be buying some primer at lunchtime, so you should get something next week as I did promise to paint this guy before starting on the new sculpts.


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I guess if I'm buying primer I should really decide on colour schemes as I may need more paints too...

Homeworld : Mining colonies
Tactical roles : Tunnel/city fighting; low/zero gravity worlds; ship to ship combat

Originally I had browns in mind when they were going to have big leather coats on, but now... I really don't know. A brown force will potentially look really dull on the battlefield.

Ship to ship actions probably don't really care about camo; tunnel fighting again probably wouldn't really need camo as you don't need to hide from snipers so much... but city fighting would need some form of camo. So I guess greys/olives of some sort?

I would perhaps go for brown overalls, yellow and black/silver warning hashes for the weapons, yellow for the tank, grey straps.

Then a really pale elf flesh type skin colour with a thin wash of ogre flesh or something.

The orange and black warning would bring the colour and pop to the model, the yellow tanks bring a nice block of colour (plus it fits in with the mining equipment, which seems to be yellow in most places), and the brown/grey fit in with working in an enviroment where it is dirty and there is not much light most of the time.

I like the peeling paint idea for the tank too. In another thread, someone suggested putting a small amount of superglue on the area you want to look like it is peeling, and use a pin to keep prodding and teasing the glue as it dries, and then it looks like the paint is flaking off.

Not tried it myself, but I can see how it would work.

I saw that tip; I definitely need to give it a go. I'm also coming back around to browns; your right it does fit more with their initial environment... so it makes sense.

I will be brightening up the army as a whole with the HQ units anyway, so browns should be ok; especially with dirty, chipped yellow tanks. Flamer canisters will be red; so it makes sense to have oxygen a colour too.

The skin is definitely going to be very pale; bordering on albino. Maybe tatoos...

Glow tats?

That could be kind of cool... some electric blue and/or orange there

IMO, colour schemes need three colours: two main colours that compliment each other and give the look you want, and then a tertiary colour that looks good with them, but is bright and ties the whole force together visually. In terms of your fluff, maybe blacks, browns or reddy colours would work for the two main colours, and then perhaps you could use white, yellow or bright red as your tertiary?

I might stick together a couple of test cadians to play with first...

Are you the numa numa guy? ( icon look similar hehe )

I personally am not really a fan of red on brown (unless it is a really, really dirty red). I would be more inclined to go with a bestial brown cloth, and a lighter brown armour, or the above mentioned dirty red (almost teracotta?).

I would certainly stick with yellow for the tanks, perhaps the breathers too.

I would almost definately try to get the hazzard marks on them somewhere as well.

But this is just me, they are your models, and looking at your (I seem to recall) painting of those ork DA models, you are fairly adept at painting, so can probably pick out the best look for them

No, not guilty

I just make funny little characters that look (kinda) like people : http://endtransmission.co.uk/category/graphic-design/little-heroes-graphic-design/



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Just went into GW to pick up some paints and the guy suggesting I take the painted figure in so they can give me some pointers. I think they guy thought I was new to painting as I was umming and ahhing over what colours to get.

Looks like I need to tidy up the feet a little more and take them up on the offer; just to see their confused faces when I don't hand over a Cadian.

Leth looks awesome. For the plastic tubing look at plastic pvc pipe and cable routers in a DIY shop. It'll probably be cheap enough. For the camo I'd be tempted to go metals as it would work as reasonable camo in starships and the underhive and in normal tunnels wouldn't matter. Part of this is just the fact that I reckon a metallic guard army would look good and it just seems to fit to me.

endtransmission wrote:

SilverMK2 wrote:How is the tank on the back going to be painted in relation to the model? At the moment it might be difficult to tell exactly what it is. I personally like the look of a metal tank in a fabric harness. Love the spade too.

I'm thinking some sort of battered metal colour with peeling paint for the tank; possibly yellow paint?, or something... I really don't know what colours their uniforms are going to be yet either. That's a future post topic

You could do the tanks up in accordance with British Standard colours for pressurised gas

(p.s. Yellow would be chlorine or ammonia! Breathable gasses would have white shoulders or a bright green)

Flinty wrote:You could do the tanks up in accordance with British Standard colours for pressurised gas (p.s. Yellow would be chlorine or ammonia! Breathable gasses would have white shoulders or a bright green)

Good call, thank you. It's amazing the random things you learn when painting a small plastic toy

I wonder what colour Promethium would be using the british standards? Bright red for flammable, or burgundy like acetylene?

Acetylene has particular problems when heated, hence it has a special colour marking in the UK. The Fire Brigade hates the things because they can explode several hours after being heated due to decomposition of the gas inside the cylinder. Standard practice is to evacuate the area for several hundred metres around the cylinder and then fire water on the cylinder for at least 5 or 6 hours

I would use red though

I like the idea of yellow with black icons and/or diagonal stripes - ie primarily as a warning to other miners - 'ere be dangerous materials! Be careful! I think it would nicely offset a more drab coloured (dusty?) uniform - but that is just me. If you are worried that they might stick out enough to improve my ork accuracy, you could always model cloaks draped over the top attempting to camouflage them somewhat (should work good with your scarves and bulkier trappings too)

Love the idea of the colour coded bottles. I think it would work really well, especially in the way other people suggested in warning other miners. It makes sense for such an industrial setting as the one your IG are based on.

Also colour codes would stop such japes and frivolities as exchanging the Commissars breath tank for Laughing Gas or Ammonia!

also make a rule for exploding tanks

Heh.. Guard already wear paper thin armour... I think rules for exploding tanks are already well attended to by the squidginess of the bearers

Sorry for the long bout of radio silence; I got caught up in tight deadlines the last couple of weeks. Thankfully that project is done with and I get a couple of days breathing space, due to being off ill. Boo to illness, but at least it's given me some time to slap a bit of paint on some figures for you

First up is Leth, who when you last saw him was just plain resin and green stuff.



The colours are a little off as one of my lightbox lamps died and I had to resort to a daylight bulb on one side, otherwise you'd never have any pictures. The main uniform uses the foundation colour, Charadon Granite, washed with the brown wash gives it a nice greyish olive brown colour. Because I suck at doing eyes, I think most of the foot troops will have silvery photo-contacts so they can see in the dark. Characters like Pastor Julius here on the other hand will get proper eyes



He's still a WIP, but as I was posting photos I thought you may want to see how he is progressing too. Bases still need to be finished/worked out for both of them, but I've got lots of basing material now, so it's just a case of playing around for a bit. I swear that it's pure coincidence that they both have facial scars!

Other than those two bits of painting, I've got a bit more background sorted in my head, I just need to get it out, ordered and any gaps filling.

Current thinking is that the radical Inquisitor Lord Fengor has commandeered a Rogue Trader (and his crew) to accompany him and his Black Ship as he travels around, chasing down a huge intergalactic cult/conspiracy (unknown as of yet). On his travels he has also acquired guard elements from a number of different regiments, the most recent being the Junos Moles who were stuck on a mining asteroid that was being overrun by Plague zombines. He's also going to be accompanied by a couple of Demon Hosts and eventually (maybe) a unit of pre-heresy Thousand Sons that got lost in the warp and ended up appearing in the current timeline (possibly ashamed that their Chapter turned to Chaos) as allies. This should allow me to play either Demon Hunters, Loyal Guard or Renegade Guard, depending at what point we meet Fengor in his career

Trying to work out if I can modify Anima:Tactics Cordelia into an Rogue Trader's companion/body guard, or if the dress is a little too OTT

I'm also considering using Void Viper Wing bikes for Rough Riders as I don't see a Rogue Trader, or an Inquisitor, wanting to carry much livestock around the galaxy. I know the rules don't quite match up, but visually it makes more sense.

You beat me to an update, and with more paint too! Looking good - can't wait to see them in person - and momentarily before orky decapitation

I can't wait to see more of them together, I'm pleased with how Leth looks. Buying the washes was the best choice I made recently

Wow, they look fantastic(er) painted. Just the right amount of colour on them to break up the duller base colours.

The painting really brings out the sculpting well too. Great stuff.

No coloured tanks?

How are you going to base them? Rocks? Shale?

I might go for a mix of crushed rocks over a kind of rock floor (such as might be found in a mine tunnel).

Will the rough riders be a different regiment? I don't really see them fitting in very well with the fluff for the Moles.

My RR are made from space marine bikes with the front forks split to have 2 wheels to make it into a trike, if that gives you any ideas.

Yeah, the rough riders may well be more like a city gang that the Inquisitor thought might be useful; more like the Akira biker gangs

that guardsman and the other dude sure looks good great work

Sweet f**king A!! Excellent work on them although they need MOAR WEATHERING!!

infilTRAITOR wrote:Sweet f**king A!! Excellent work on them although they need MOAR WEATHERING!!

Thanks! There is chipping and weathering on the tank, though it didn't come out too well in the photos. Damn you lights!!
I do plan to add mud to the feet and trousers at some point... this one was more to get the colour scheme right so I can go away and sort out better legs and add the gas tanks onto all the bodies before recasting it all... again!

Speaking of which... guess what I've been doing tonight
There may be photos tomorrow morning


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A very quick update from last night's green stuffing.



They still need a lot of work tidying/evening things up... plus deciding if this is actually what I want, but they look more suitable than the old greatcoat legs I'd previously done

Looking interesting so far. I have to say that the previous model's trousers look pretty cool as well, so perhaps you might want to go for a mix of the "wrong trousers" style power pants and the more regular trousers already featured.

I think the new legs will work well with your overall look though.

Wrong Trousers... Oh god. Now I'm imagining Inquisitor Wallace and Commissar Gromit hunting down and destroying warp tainted cheese. How wrong is that?!

[bwahaha]

Your greenstuff work is very nice.

It makes me miss converting - work has been so mental that my 40k hobby box hasnt moved from the top of the cupboard in 6 months...

but now im feeling all inspired again - maybe when i get back from overseas I will give it a bash!

Thank you, converting was what got me back into GW recently. I missed fiddling with bits to make something slightly different. I don't really get much time for modeling either; I find leaving everything set up on a small table in front of the tv helps as I can do 10 minutes here and there when I stop for food. Doing conversions in short bursts also helps the process as everything has time to cure between stages

The more I look at the legs today, the less I'm liking where they are going. I think I actually prefer the ones on Leth that still have the Cadian jacket oddly. Hmmm. Will have another go tonight with a new set of legs and try combining some of the ideas. I like the new boots (not that you can see them properly in the photo), they look a bit like a smaller scale SM leg as they are supposed to be magboots; unfortunately I don't think the application of the support struts and knee pads are right. I should have used plasticard rods to get an even look.

Speaking of support structure for things. Why is it that power fists don't shatter, or at least dislocate, a Guard's arm when they hit something? You'd imagine that the impact would cause some major damage to the weilder as well as the target. I have plans to rectify this when I get to the command level.

Perhaps they have inertial dampeners? Or some other way of offsetting the reactive force of hitting something really hard... you might be able to use little gas jets that trigger whenever the power fit hits something to stop the recoil taking off their arms.

But I have to say that I am not sure how the power fist works, so there may actually not be much of a forcefull reaction (over and above the force behind the blow), as the energy of the power fist may translate into something other than extra hitting power in order to rupture armour and/gibbs.

I wish that I could set my stuff up in front of the TV so I have something to distract me when tediously painting loads of stuff, but it is all hidden away in the spare bedroom with all the boxes for all our furniture etc :(

Edit: in regards for the new trousers; I did like the old ones, as I said. Perhaps the new ones can be used for HW troopers who need some help to lift the heavy weapons (they might be adapted from small man portable power assit rigs for hauling heavy mining equipment and drills etc)

I do like the idea of mag boots, could have some cool zero-g rules for them (I was thinking about low/zero-g rules in relation to my IG, as they are now almost exclusively space bourne warfare specialists - I have decided ).

To be honest I'm not entirely sure how they work either; it's probably a Handwavium distortion effect rather than physical impact; though there are references to ripping/tearing, which would insinuate some force being needed behind the fist. I can see that working with power armour/terminator armour as you've got a ready support structure with boosted strength etc. But a poor guardsman with flak armour surely wouldn't have the strength to do much of that, even with a distortion field

I just like the idea of needing additional support rigs for these heavier/more forceful pieces of equipment; so I will try to add in visible recoil dampers and some form of arm/body support for anyone with these; or replace power fists with wrist/fist mounted plasma cutting torches; which seems much more fitting given their roles/background.

I like the plasma cutters idea. The burna boy power weapons work in a similar way, so it is not totaly outside of the fluff.

We shall see how it develops; it's probably a long way off before I get around to power fists as Arakasi has suggested we team up for the 40K Doubles Tournament in January to give us both a deadline for our forces. And to have some fun I guess

This means I'll probably be looking at starting some armour soon so his Ork assault has some heavy firepower behind them. Be interesting to see how plans for that develop!

Well, best of luck and I will certainly be interested to see it when it is all done

And of course I will be here to post rubbish in your tread too, which I am sure is a huge bonus

The tanks will still be part of this thread as there will still be Moles as the foot troops; I'm just not sure I'll be using power fists in the list is all I meant

And nothing is rubbish; all comments/ideas are valuable stuff. Now I just need to try and restrain myself at the Forge World stall on Sunday, at least until we've decided *what* tanks I need to buy

Arakasi and I have just returned from GDUK; which I shal henceforth dub Queue Day rather than Games Day. I'm too old to push and shove to see some miniatures in a case somewhere in the hopes of seeing a preview of something new. The Forge World stands were the most interesting, and also responsible for a large hole in my walllet

The Moles have just acquired their first Commissar, a tech priest with 2 servitors, an imperial pilot (to become a Master of the Fleet stand in) and an Artemia pattern HellHound... plus the master class book, weathering kit and the Ork pilot (who sadly isn't joining our fleet, unless I can think of a very very good reason why the Inquisitor wouldn't have shot him on sight )

The FW show cases had lots of nice shiny guard tanks that I'm coveting, but you all know them already. But... there was a sneek peek at an Elysian jeep for IA8 (photo by Emperor's Teeth). It's very cool indeed, but sadly I couldn't get any photos of it as he kept hiding it when cameras were around. I think IA8 and some of the Elysian stuff will be must have purchases if this is anything to go by!

Fantasy Flight were there, showing off the RT book... but failed to bring anything at all to sell (wtf?!). It's looking very pretty and likely to supply some much needed inspiration for my General and staff... whenever Amazon deem fit to deliver it. I said it looked pretty right?

Anyway. Onto other things. Sculpting progresses on the Moles. The bodies have had gas tanks attached and some of the finer detail exaggerated a little bit more so the casts look less flat. Two pairs of legs are nearing completion, I just need to finish the magboots and they should be ready to try casting as well *yay!* That's not all... there's also a body for Elites to use with an almost space suit like structure. I'll try taking some pictures after tea when my fiancee returns my macro lens!

*shakes fist at lens stealing person*

And I look forward to seeing the burning holes in your pockets and the models there in

I forgot to take any pictures last night as I got sidetracked by my nice pile of bits from FW. I only remembered as I was running out the door for the bus this morning; so my apologies for the crappy pictures. Hopefully you can at least get some idea of what's been done.

First up is a comparison between my two servitors. The one on the left is a standard FW version. The one on the right has a heavy bolter made from loads of junk from my bits box and some other minor mods. He still needs some GS work to put his right sleeve back on and to smooth out some of the other areas.



And then we come to the WIP legs. Both sets still need the boots building up more around the top and back, but I got what I was aiming for with the front of the feet.They look/will look a bit like smaller versions of SM legs with the bulky leg protection and the separate feet sticking out. The feet on the right pair were done with grey stuff as an experiment to see what the difference was between grey and green. I'm still not sure...



What I did forget to photograph this morning is the WIP Carapace armour body and the psyker who now actually has a head. Still. that gives you something to look forward to tomorrow

The bus ride to work was spent reading the Armour Masterclass book... damn it's inspirational; though when they talk about some of the steps in the painting process I did want larger photos of what they were doing and why. Sometimes it wasn't overly clear... I do now want an airbrush though, but with the wedding only 4 weeks away I'm not too sure I'll be allowed to buy one just yet (and even then buying a decent one with compressor will be a hard sell, with everything that we need to do to the house!), so I will have to spend the next few weeks detailing the tank, finishing the sculpts and planning what I actually need to buy for the tournament. I'm fairly sure that will necessitate even more tanks, so *obviously* I'll need something faster than a paintbrush to paint a larger armoured force

Does anyone actually have experience of using airbrushes? If I'm just learning, or just painting camo, does it really matter that the pressure won't be constant if I started off with a cheaper, canister powered one instead? I'd imagine that would only be an issue when you get into the finer detail areas rather than doing large blocks of colour?

Love the servitor. Looks like it was meant to be

The legs are looking good too, though the boots look kind of like slippers rather than boots. Are you going to bulk out the calf sections too?

Looking forward to the additional photos.

I don't have an airbrush, so unfortunately can't help you there.

When are you getting married? I am getting married in 4 weeks too (well, 3 and a bit now anyway )

SilverMK2 wrote:Love the servitor. Looks like it was meant to be

To start with it felt wrong to go cutting up a FW resin, but he does look like it should be there. Much more so than the metal GW servitors with heavy weapons... I think I need to order another 4 or 5 to give me all the options for a servitor squad for my Tech priest.

SilverMK2 wrote:The legs are looking good too, though the boots look kind of like slippers rather than boots. Are you going to bulk out the calf sections too?

Yeah, When I said the top needs bulking out, I meant the calf section, sorry. I think finishing the legs needs to be tonight's priority as I need to start building units. Speaking of which... does anyone know if these guys will be tournament legal models if they are cast? I'd hate to build my force and then be turned away on the day...

SilverMK2 wrote:When are you getting married? I am getting married in 4 weeks too (well, 3 and a bit now anyway )

Congrats
We're getting married on Saturday 31st, Halloween. No particular reason, other than the date was free. Everyone is convinced we picked it purposefully

I can imagine, I have no FW stuff, but I feel bad enough about cutting up GW stuff sometimes

I have no idea if they will be legal... I don't play tournaments. I imagine that if you can see enough GW-like parts underneath you can claim they are just converted rather than cast... Not sure though.

Haha! Well done!

We were booked in on the 31st to start with, but the people on the weekend before cancelled, so we stole the 24th

I will give you a toast when I am in Egypt on the 31st anyway

Thanks, we'll raise a toast to you on the 24th too

I think I need to investigate before we go signing up...

I may have found a second tech priest for my RT though. This year's WD subscription model (Squats? What Squats?!). Possibly with some servitors made from WFB dwarves...

Haha! That model looks great

You definately need some red haired insane dwarf servitors which constantly try to go and over-kill the enemy

I like how the models are coming along and especially the silver eye contacts. It'll be cool (in a creepy way) seeing an entire army with metallic inhuman eyes.

endtransmission wrote:

SilverMK2 wrote:Love the servitor. Looks like it was meant to be

To start with it felt wrong to go cutting up a FW resin, but he does look like it should be there. Much more so than the metal GW servitors with heavy weapons... I think I need to order another 4 or 5 to give me all the options for a servitor squad for my Tech priest.

Haha, I know the feeling. It feels like defiling a bit of jewellery or something, they're so ornate and expensive .

Gave myself a massive fright the other day when I was dissecting a FW guardsman with my trusty bonesaw: I accidentally dropped the model on the floor and ran it over with my desk chair as I went down to pick it up. He was completely unharmed though, which was a minor miracle.

----

Do you think you could give a run through of how exactly you get your greenstuff so smooth? I spend ages smoothing mine, but it still looks a little sloppy in places and I sometimes end up filing it down when its dried.

Smoothing out green stuff is a combination of practice and tools. I'm using colour shapers as they don't stick to the green stuff, so unlike the metal sculpting tools, you don't need to use any lubricant. For metal tools, Nathonicus' suggestion of using natural grease from around your hairline, or the side of your nose has been a great help too. To smooth things out, gently brush backwards and forwards over the rough area with the colour shaper and it will smooth out nicely. You can find colour shapers in the sculpting or paintbrush sections of Hobby Craft.

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Thanks to an overly productive night last night I have four updates for you:

Mr Psyker (as yet unnamed) now has a head with lots of cables down the back. You can see some in the photo, but as I used grey stuff instead, it's not all that clear. Sorry!


Then we have the post-green stuffed servitor from yesterday, now with a sleeve and any holes filled in.


And an update on the legs from yesterday too. I finished bulking out the boots and added some ports for tubing (much like the arms had on Leth). Tonight I"ll be finishing them off with a thin layer of miliput to try and smooth out any little flaws that are left


And finally... those new legs in action with a peek at the Carapace armour that I've been piecing together for any grenadier or stormtrooper units I decide to create. the head will be bulked out a bit so that it appears to be sitting on the rim, rather than inside it. They will also have a faceplate that (if they were real) could slide down and be vacuum sealed for boarding actions. The head is tonight's task along with miliputting the new legs and body.

Love the carapace armour. I imagine that it will look great when you sort out the head

The eagle looks great. I love the break in the armour at the front and the power vents at the back.

The only problem with the servitor is that you can see where you have clipped the white rods with cutters... you might want to go over the ends with a knife to smooth them out.

I like the legs... the boots look pretty good. You thought about putting some controls on the side so they can turn them on and off etc? Will there be power cables to them too?

The psyker could be called Blaine

Although I accept that the real life inspiration is more of a fake trickster than actual psyker

Anyway, all looks good so far, especially the storm trooper prototype.

Well spotted, I'd not spotted the clipping marks (*duh!*). Will sort those out. Looking at the servitor photo more, the sleeve could possibly do with a little (a lot!) more work too.

I don't think there will be cables going to the boots, but I do like the idea of controls somewhere for switching them on/off. Will have to have a think later and see what I can sort out.

If I had to call the psyker anything with a real world reference, it'd probably be Penn

Looking great as ever. I love the carapace in particular. I think it looks pretty cool with the heads down inside it like that.

You going to do any Demolition team / Bomb squad?

Miss Dee wrote:You going to do any Demolition team / Bomb squad?

Eventually, yes. I'd like to make bits to be able to build any unit option in the book, especially when they fit with the background like mining experts (demolition teams) or boarding specialists (Grenadiers). I see the demo experts looking a bit more like the SWAT demo teams, with the large padded plate strapped to their fronts and little robot helpers... finally a 40K use for the C.A.T from Space Hulk!

Given the background for the Moles, I would also like to be able to equip them with the mining lasers from the Elysian lists in the IA books, to form a breaching team. Not sure if this would go in the Demo team, or what, but it's too thematic to turn down

cool good luck.

Sorry if somebody's already said this, but have you had a look at the hades breaching drill and sentinel power lifter from forge world? They look awesome and could easily be rationalised as press-ganged mining equipment.

Yep, both have been mentioned and both are very cool indeed. When I get my initial force sorted out I will look at adding things like that in as I really want to try and produce a thematic, story driven force, rather than anything power-gamer-y

okay i thought i loved your normal guys.

but i have a new lover

your fething awsome carapace armoured, powerbooted facemasked stomrtroopers o' doom!!!!

i really love them. they seem almost like a halfway point between power armour and flak armour . luvvem! the detailing is fantastic. now i must ask. are you gonna sell any moulds?

I love the paint scheme and greenstuff work. It inspires me to better my own efforts!

.

NOT POSSIBLE!!! HOW CAN YOU BE SO AWESOME!!!!!!!!

*.*

DC

With the colour shapers what stiffness did you go for? The Firm or Clay version?

Thanks for all the kind words! At the moment there are restrictions on which bits I can sell due to what they are based upon. I needed to do the legs this way as I need some units finished by January for a tournament. Once that's out of the way I can look at another round of legs; plus some arms and heads that are solely mine. At that point, yes. I'd love to start selling them. It'd be amazing to see what other people did with the bits

Flinty wrote:With the colour shapers what stiffness did you go for? The Firm or Clay version?

At the moment I've got the softer cup and chisel ones and the firmer taper point. All of them are the smallest versions Hobby Craft had. The big ones really are big. I may invest in firmer cup and chisel ones too at some point as I'm using the colour shapers far more than the metal tools.



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ghosty wrote: they seem almost like a halfway point between power armour and flak armour .

Surely that's the point of Carapace armour?

Hello,

The lady in the posh frock looks wonderful. Add her in. Perhaps you should get two, one with her normal good lookin' babe face and then another with a gas mask on. Now I've said that, I'm sure you'd do the gas mask one first and forego the other.

I like the look of the grenadier with the high collar and cadian type helmet; they look fine IMHO. My grenadiers are plastic void 1.1 viridians with GW IG arms and pig iron heavy inf closed helmets. Have a look here http://www.pig-iron-productions.com/hd6-heavy-infantry-visored-head-sprues-p-16.html these are the ones I use. If you find something you like, it might speed you up a bit.

Keep 'em comin'

Having seen the new FW drop troop FAV, the thought struck me that you could adapt the idea to some kind of tunnel transport vehicle that would be used by the minors to transport workers to the mine face from their dorms/lifts/etc.

Something quite low sprung, quite fast and lightly armoured, adapted to fill a combat role perhaps?

I fell in love with the FAV when I saw it at GD; I fully intend to use a number of them when it comes out. Why try and replicate perfection?


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Zzzzzz wrote:The lady in the posh frock looks wonderful. Add her in. Perhaps you should get two, one with her normal good lookin' babe face and then another with a gas mask on. Now I've said that, I'm sure you'd do the gas mask one first and forego the other.

To be honest, as part of the Inquisitor's retinue, I'm not sure she needs a gas mask; just a more suitable 40k weapon and outfit. The masks are only really used by the general troops as part of their boarding/low atmosphere specialisation; which should become clearer when I finish writing the background story behind the expedition.

Zzzzzz wrote:I like the look of the grenadier with the high collar and cadian type helmet; they look fine IMHO. My grenadiers are plastic void 1.1 viridians with GW IG arms and pig iron heavy inf closed helmets. Have a look here http://www.pig-iron-productions.com/hd6-heavy-infantry-visored-head-sprues-p-16.html these are the ones I use.

I've used the same heads on my experimental models in the first post of the thread. Personally I found their heads a little small in comparison to GWs, but they are still very cool and one day I may get around to finishing off those two units, just to add a little variety into my force. Thankfully I'm almost finished with the first draft of the head to accompany the grenadier body; I hope you like it when it's done. Fingers crossed that will be tonight!

omg that F.A.V looks awsome!

Yesteday myself and Arakasi put together a vague plan for our tournament force, you can see and comment on it over in the army lists part of the forum : here.

If this is where we are headed... I need to work out what the heck a Psyker Battle Squad looks like... The one psyker I've done so far is fine, but I don't really want an entire squad like that... and I really don't like the metal models from GW either. In my head I see the PBS as being the most stable new finds from my Inquisitor's Black Ship. I'm just wondering if they should all be in their original civilian clothing, so each one is completely different, or if they would have been provided with clothing when they were taken?

There is the option of using the Empire wizards kit, but I'd have to buy 4 to make up my squad, which isn't cheap; plus I'd need a load of laspistols from somewhere...


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I was going to post some photos of the new head, but looking at it in daylight... I need to start again. It looked rubbish!

Hmmm... perhaps civ clothes with a flak vest on top?

Or they might be in some kind of almost "prison" style uniform, to denote their position as part troops, part conscripts, part priosoners, part "look at me funny and I will blow your head off"

I might be tempted to model a control collar on them simmilar to penal legion troops.

Unless you want these guys to be the more trusted kind of psykers, in which case I would go with either the civ clothes and a flak vest, or some kind of formal battle uniform, as I am assuming that they will get some form of official training and supplies, as they are working for the Imperium.

I can't quite decide. Everyone seems to be using the Flagellants to create a very ragged, crazy look to the PBS.

What if, in his travels, the Inquisitor found a small clan on a Frontier world or Death world that had reverted back to a feral state and over time had evolved to produce more psykers than normal to defend against the inhabitants of the world? The PBS can then use the Necromunda Ratskin gang, which has some very nice models in it. Unfortunately I'd probably need two boxes to get enough that aren't armed with rifles...

It is possible. Are there any servitor style models that you could use to represent some cyber psykers?

As much as I like the look of the models, I am never sure just how well "primitives" would fit into a more advanced looking army.

Alternately, you could try some of the pig iron models... I can't remember the name off the top of my head, but they go along with the millita models in their model range... look like renegade forces.

Hassle free miniatures have a range of Civvies which could easily be re-sculpted with green stuff.

Trouble is they are metal and there not GW. But there good quality.

get the school girls with the mac10 and sword.

Possibly some sort of arm band or other apparel denoting them as psykers? - or even a tattoo or branding - think almost like marking prisoners (or certain marking of individuals in WWII), but not as far as full orange jumpsuits... This would work with either a variety of civilian clothes (in the case of new finds) or even "standard" moles (put through training) - though I would opt for heads without helmets to help show the individuality in this case. Both would use the prominent arm band, apparel or branding to identify the unit/members.

I caved in last night and started cutting up the left over flagellants I had as all the sculpted bits are currently encased in drying mould rubber.

So far, the flagellant torsos have been cut off and replaced with all those spare Cadian torsos I've got kicking around. It kind of looks like robes under neath a flak jacket. I'm in the process of green stuffing some boots on them and filling in all the ragged bits of robes so they look a lot less liek a bunch of lunatic crazies. I've yet to decide about the heads or arms...

It's looking better than I thought it might and certainly looks a lot better than the crazycrazy looking PBSs that other people have. They are supposed to be trained, sanctioned Psykers after all. They would have had a bullet through the head if the warp had started to drive them doolally.

Another idea for the Sanctioned Psykers if your going down the civilian idea might be a variety of Necromunda Gangers a few Orlocks/ Van Saar/ Escher/ Delaque and Cawdor to represent varying worlds you could use the Juves to make them look like young recent conscripts.....

It's been a while since I graced you all with an update; wedding planning got in the way. So here's a few, rather looooong, updates for you

The fall of Kalan IV

Every now and then, Ordos Calixis receives reports of events that are far too fantastical for anyone to ever believe truthful. The most documented of these is event that took place on Kalf, commonly referred to as the “Dance of the Dead” ++ For more on these events, see Disciples of the Dark Gods, Pages 63-64 ++ . Official reports state that there was one rogue psyker with the ability to reanimate a couple of corpses and that an ex Arbite Marshall, Valadimar Haek, panicked; calling it in as a full scale rising of the dead. The fact isn’t alive to refute this point has led to the report being taken truthfully; despite the wholesale destruction wrought upon the planet tracking down this one “witch”.

Haek was, in fact, part of Inquisitor Nonoro’s personal retinue, scouting for trouble; which he seemed to have found on Kalf. He wasn’t known for overstating things; nor was he the type to panic under fire. This has led Inquisitor Nonoro to denounce the report as falsehood, which has led to conflict with his former collegues; most especially the originator of the report, Witch Hunter Sennacherib.

Officially the current whereabouts of Nonoro is unknown; there are rumours floating around the higher levels of the Conclave that he is now in possession of recordings made by Haek before his death and is now waging some secret war to uncover the threats they revealed.

Nonoro wasn’t the only person to vanish during this time period; two of Nonoro’s former acolytes, Ravion and Kalerii, now Inquisitors themselves, were also reported missing. Occasional reports surface about their locations or actions, to many they seem random and, in some cases, very Radical in approach. None are quite sure what they are up to, but many guess that they are both working closely with Nonoro to track down whatever it is they are looking for.

+++ Ravion : Personal log +++
While investigating Heretek activities on 88 Tansa, a psychic distress call came through from a ship’s navigator who had just left the mining colony of Kalan IV, a large mining asteroid around Junos in the Fydae region. They had recently picked up a shipment of ores for delivery to JXM A18Z. Shortly after launch, the quartermaster was down in the hold, securing the inventory, when he was attacked by something. None of the available reports are sure what it was, but within a short period of time, the crew had apparently turned violent and slaughtered each other; the navigator managed to get out a short distress call before they broke into his chamber and all contact was lost with the ship. While disturbing, this was originally put down to Hull Ghasts and an overexaggerating navigator. We all know what taking things for granted can lead to. The official view quickly changed when a day or two later all contact with Kalan IV was lost. Kalerii has gone to investigate while I finalise the assault on the kult in Jenn…
+++

And now onto my forces. As we're entering a tournament soon, I've actually got something to aim for. My share of the doubles tournament is as follows :

HQ : Primaris Psyker : 70pts
Elite : Psyker Battle Squad w. Chimera, +3 psykers (7 psykers in total + Overseer) : 145pts
Troop : Veteran Guard w. shotguns, 3 Meltas & Chimera w. Hvy Flamer : 155pts
Troop : Veteran Guard w. shotguns, 2 flamers & Chimera w. Hvy Flamer : 130pts

Red - Parts ordered/to be cast
Orange - Unit built, needs paint
Green - Complete

And now onto the models

First up is the PBS


And then we have the first casts of the legs. Originally I was clamping the casts with a lego framework. Switching to a proper clamp has increased the quality of the casting process *yay!*. Saldy I now need to remake the cast as the last lot of resin didn't set, it turned to goo instead. I can only assume some water got mixed in somehow... anyway. I've always found it kind of amusing that guard have larger special weapons than Marines, despite being weaker. Sooooo combining this with mining environments I've decided to create underslung special weapons :

All looks good so far.

It will be good to see how you are fixing those underslung weapons in place. I have a couple of underslung weapons with my orks (I ran out of ork weapons and had to convert some IG ones), so I know it can look good, but I can't see on your guy exactly how you are going to do it.

I think I love the bottom middle psyker (as well as the two wit him) best. The running one I am not so sure about... looks a little strange to me.

Edit: The casted parts look pretty good, though obviously will await final judgement until they are painted

Having seen the cast parts in person, I don't think they will be disappointing anyone. The latest batch are a marked improvement! Congrats!

endtransmission, how much did it cost you to get all the necessary equipment to start casting your own pieces, just out of interest?

I think it cost me about £40 for all the bits, including postage. That included enough rubber to create about 8 moulds and a huge number of cast pieces

You'll want :

RTV Rubber for making the moulds
and some fast cast resin. Tomps also sell boxes of stirring sticks and plasticine.

You'll also need some lego bricks, a base, some talc, a couple of pieces of thin wood to put around the mould when you put it into a vice.

Thats not bad, I might look into doing that at some point then.

I take it you got everything from tomps?

I was going to ask at some point where you got everything from, as it is always good to go to somewhere you know someone has got stuff from before.

Yeah pretty much. They were very helpful as I had no clue what to order from them, so they carefully put together a starter pack for me with everything I needed. It arrived within 2 days too, so I can't praise them highly enough

Sounds cool, I will save the address and put an order in at a later date when I get round to doing up an army that requires lots of casting (which will be my IG).

Those psykers look great and I'd love to see a picture of the cast guy showing more detail. Also thanks a lot for the idea of the Bullpup style Lasguns I may have to do a few!

An idea I just came across on another thread on DakkaDakka for your mining lights - Spacemarine backpack vents to add shoulder lamps?

Hmmm interesting. I'll have a play with the few packs I have left and see how it looks. Thanks

The lack of green on your list scare's me.

Good luck.

DC

Damn. I just went to check the Tournament site and they have corrected an error in original advert. We've got to pick an extra 250 points each... *argh*

I could be mean and stick a second PBS in as well as topping up the current squad to maximum... but somehow that feels like being really powergamer-y; which goes against the "playing for fun" thing.

I think topping up the current PBS to maximum and adding a Leman Russ of some sort would be rather useful. There may be some points left for some ratlings... I can't remember the points values as my book is at home.

The models are coming along very slowly. The bodies are too fat for Cadian arms (bit of bad planning there!), so each one is having to have new bits of arm sculpted on which is ever so boring and tome consuming. I've also run out of bases to put them on... now to decide if I've got time to make and cast a load of bases as well, or if I should just buy a load of resin bases from elsewhere...

I have about half my Vampire Counts army on thick card bases which I cut to size. With some grass and sand on top, you can't really tell the difference.

Just a thought, though it will probably be less than acceptable in a tournament, so perhaps not the best idea...

endtransmission wrote:Damn. I just went to check the Tournament site and they have corrected an error in original advert. We've got to pick an extra 250 points each... *argh*

I could be mean and stick a second PBS in as well as topping up the current squad to maximum... but somehow that feels like being really powergamer-y; which goes against the "playing for fun" thing.

I think topping up the current PBS to maximum and adding a Leman Russ of some sort would be rather useful. There may be some points left for some ratlings... I can't remember the points values as my book is at home.

The models are coming along very slowly. The bodies are too fat for Cadian arms (bit of bad planning there!), so each one is having to have new bits of arm sculpted on which is ever so boring and tome consuming. I've also run out of bases to put them on... now to decide if I've got time to make and cast a load of bases as well, or if I should just buy a load of resin bases from elsewhere...

Buy the bases I should. They're cheap and look good. I recommend darkartminiatures.com. They do a big pack where you get 20 25mm, 5 40mm and a 60mm all for about £9.

Damn. Seems we missed getting tickets to the tournament... who'd a thunk that they would sell out so quickly? Still... this is probably a good thing given that we've not actually played in years

Wednesday should see the arrival of our massive order from Wayland Games with everything we needed to finish the lists. I may have to take photos as it's going to be a rather large box! I think we're going to try to still try and get everything finished by January so we can go play against people and get in some practice

Ork taktikal error that was :( Its wot 'appens when orks can't decide if dey be orks or space marines...

I've not seen these mentioned on Dakka before, but has anyone tried the 1-48 WW2 Combat miniatures? They have some rather nice looking figures that could make nice guard (assuming scale is ok)

http://1-48combat.com/russian.htm
http://1-48combat.com/german.htm

I would order one to try, but the postage to the UK is €14.50, with the figures only being €8.50!

Some other useful figures in my lunchtime wander...

For Catachan Whiteshields there are these Somali Pirates : http://www.cavalcadewargames.com/cavalcade/Somali_Pirates.html

Grizzled veteran heads : http://shop.ramshacklegames.co.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=19&products_id=216

Monowheel bike. Could be used for Sentinels or Rough Riders : http://www.tobsen77.de/index.php?lan=en&show=gallery&id=1

If your interested in alternative figures and bits and bobs TAG The Assault Group is worth a look they've got some great items to play around with!

Ok, it's been rather a long time since I last updated... I blame the wedding, honeymoon and the Xbox for that little lapse in concentration. Thanks for being so patient

So what's been happening?
Myself and Arakasi did an order for all the bits towards our tournament forces, which included three Chimera and the psyker for my Guard.

The Chassis of the chimera are now together, in a slightly different configuration to normal, with the turrent towards the back of the tank rather than the front right corner.



I like this far more than the standard pattern... unfortunately it means that I'm three turret hatches short as I uncovered the front ring by moving the top layer of the chassis. Originally I wanted to use the Artemia Hellhound turret, as you can see in the photo... it looks a bit chunkier than the normal turret; unfortunately Forge World won't sell me just the turret from these kits (even though I wanted 9 of them)... so I need to think of something else to do...

Then there's my Psyker to lead them all into damnation



The Psyker battle squad is together and part way through being painted blue, so you may actually get some photos of a finished squad soon, won't that be nice!

As for the vet squads... they are taking longer than expected as only some of the Cadian arms fit my bodies properly (doh!), so I'm having absolutely no fun trying to get the damn bits to match up properly. Eventually I need to make some of my own that do fit; it's just a case of trying to make them so they don't stuck to the bodies when sculpting them.

I also hit a problem with the moulds doing odd things, which means I need to redo the moulds... again; which I'm getting a little sick of, let's be honest. It's very tempting to see if someone else will cast them for me so I don't need to worry about it any more.

A Christmas present to myself is to start up a little Daemonhunter force as well by adding an Inquisitor and a unit of marines in a Razorback to my current Guard setup. FW should be delivering some Red Scorpion bits next week *fingers crossed*

Nice Psyker...

What head it this?

Nice chimera's.... You could always plasticard the turrets of course, I did it with mine and they're pretty easy. Pics in the gallery

Yggdrasil wrote:Nice Psyker...
What head it this?

Thanks
The head is one of the bare, hooded heads from the Dark Angels sprue

CommissarKhaine wrote:Nice chimera's.... You could always plasticard the turrets of course, I did it with mine and they're pretty easy. Pics in the gallery

That turret looks great, the side mounted cannon is what I'm aiming for too. I guess if I can get one right I can cast the rest... I'll give it a go over the weekend and see

Interesting army, I'm glad I found this thread again, will subscribe it now. btw congratulations to your wedding!

Having been having lots of fun with plasticard and deffkoptas, I reckon you could get exactly what you want - if not better - with plasticard. I don't think you would even need to cast any of them

I have three ideas to solve your cupola dilema.

1. Make castings of the cupolas you have.

2. The 3rd edition IG Leman Russ and Hellhound sprues came with two cupolas per tank (The Hellhound and Executioner each came with an extra pewter variant.) Perhaps you could ply the members of this forum and/or your gaming community to search through their bits boxes for extras. They'll look a wee bit different, but they'll fit.

3. Cover it up with plasticard! The turret looks too dinky for anyone to suspect that a man might want to fit throught there anyway...

My only question is, how will you represent firing points?

I LOVE the psyker.

I like the chimera configuration too.

looks very APC-ey

DC

I'm not sure how to deal with the firing points. I may add some ports on the sides of the raised area (tank's left hand side only as the turret will be in the way, obviously!)

My Squa... um. WD "Dwarf in Space" arrived a couple of days ago; it's a really nice model, though I think he's going to be hacked apart to become part of my =I= bodyguard... when I remember where the heck my saw went!

On another point, does anyone have suggestions on building nice looking cybernetic arms/legs? My attempts using plastic rods don't look all that great and I'm loathed to shell out for Necron bits just to make the occasional arm/leg that will look... Necron-y. Show me your bionics!

I used bits of spru (sp) to form the basis of my ork bionics, then used the millions of spare wheel nuts from my ork vehicles to form joints and motorise pulleys etc, and added some wires and other gubbins.

I could suggest using spru as the main building block of your limbs, then add some thinner rods to the back (I would wrap one end of the rod in a few turns of paper to simulate a piston rod) and stick them to the back of the spru limb.

Then perhaps add on some armour plates to the shin/forearm and thigh/upper arm (to hide the spru), as well as some kind of articulating joint (a round horizontal plug of green stuff?) and some wires etc.

I am sure you can experiment with that basic idea and get something that looks pretty cool... certainly judging from your general level of greatness

DUDE love the tank idea so consider that taken

Those tanks are genius. Personally for bionics I prefer the simplistic approach of just using Space Marine arms and limbs. They seem to look good as them.

The original idea for those tanks isn't mine; unfortunately I've lost the link to the original creator, otherwise they would be getting full credit.

I've looked at sticking Marine arms on, but it was obviously a marine arm. I'll stick a photo up later of the one I've done; someone may have an idea of how to improve it

what about using necron arms

Ghost in the Darkness wrote:what about using necron arms

endtransmission wrote:I'm loathed to shell out for Necron bits just to make the occasional arm/leg that will look... Necron-y.

D'oH

Heh. Easy to miss, thanks for thinking of it though

this blog makes me want to start ig. Too bad i got no money.

So you got some of inspiration from odst?
Because i noticed some models look strangely farmilar.

I've seen them before but i don't know where?

So how many IG do you have now?

There's no inspiration from ODST as far as I know... I've not played it. The Pig Iron heads on the original test models look a little bit like them I guess...

Things are going very slowly as life keeps getting in the way.

I've got three chimera and a Hellhound partially built; one primaris, 7 psykers and a handler for the PBS, a tech priest and 4 servitors, a priest and a random selection of about 20 guard of differing types... not enough for an entire squad in one design yet though.


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As promised the other day, here's my attempt at a bionic arm. It looks ok, but I'm sure it's possible to do better...

For what it's worth, I'd love to have a bionic arm of that caliber. I'm sure it's possible to do better, but I don't think that one will look terribly out of place among the GW ones.

Adrian has posted a battle report from our little skirmish last week. You can read it over in the battle report section

I made a stupid mistake and forgot to write down the army list; misremembering it, so I was 40 points more than Adrian's Orks. Doh!

The game was fun, though it has made me go back and rethink the structure of my 500 points somewhat... time to see if I can squeeze a fourth Chimera into the list by turning vets into a platoon instead; dumping all the special weapons and just going for speed and as many multilaser/heavy bolter shots a turn as possible.

Unfortunately no more painting before xmas as I'm being shipped off to Austria with work next week.

I love that Chimera and I wouldn't worry about the fire ports none much. I never found them useful.

The Christmas break has allowed a little bit of time to do some work on my Guard. For now I'm sticking with the standard Chimera turrets until I can work out something better. Sticking tracks onto 4 chimera chassis in one sitting is... tediously dull. I can't believe it took 3 hours to do 4 sets of tracks. So much for doing a mechanised guard force!

First there are the two Chimera for my Vets




Then there's the Command Chimera, used by my Primaris and his PBS bodyguards (or my Inquisitor, depending which force I'm using)



And then there's the Hellhound. Ready for some paint too.



The PBS and Primaris are getting there paint wise, though I'm not overly happy with them yet (hence no photos).

I've also decided to add a force of Red Scorpions into the mix, starting with a tactical squad and Razorback. Following the FW rules, the tactical squad will be led by an Apothecary

[update : Scorpion chatter has moved to it's own log]

How did you achieve that dudes epically mustached face.??

That's one of the least Space Wolf-y Space Wolf heads in the Pack box. I thought he looked quite like a Victorian era, British general... which seemed to go with the whole Red Scorpion - slightly crazed, must do it exactly by the book theme

Oh. If anyone is looking at him and thinks that lighter grey spot on his arm is left over sprue... that's battle damage. There are various bits carved out of the armour as I want to make the whole force a bit ragged and battered as if they have been on a long campaign with no rest or repair time.

Ork inflicted perhaps?

Possibly. You never can tell with these things

I may split out the Red Scorpions into their own log to make things easier to track... what do you think?

how do you rear mount the turret? is there a tutorial for that build?
your vehicles look fantastic! i've always had a soft spot for that style of Hellhound. a soft spot, but not a budget for one! and as mentioned, those chimeras are really sharp as well!

alarmingrick wrote:how do you rear mount the turret? is there a tutorial for that build?

Thanks
I need to do another Chimera for my revised 500pt force, so I'll try and put together a brief description with the steps when I order it. There are only a couple of steps necessary, so it's quick to do and makes for a much more interesting vehicle. You do need lots of stowage to cover up some of the gaps though.

alarmingrick wrote:i've always had a soft spot for that style of Hellhound. a soft spot, but not a budget for one!

I love the FW Hellhounds, they look much nicer than the new plastic kit or the old metal turret. Originally I wanted to use the same turret on the Chimera; unfortunately FW won't sell them separately :(

yea, you never see any women in the minitures, they are all over books... wierd aye

rockmetal_mig wrote:yea, you never see any women in the minitures, they are all over books... wierd aye

Because sculpts with boobies make teenagers suffer hormone attacks

hahaha lol

Not a model update, but hey. It's about the army, so it's going in

Over the last couple of weeks I've managed to squeeze in a couple of games to see how things are progressing with the army.

In 11 turns (across 3 games) my PBS have only ever passed ONE (1) psychic test. They have caused more casualties to themselves than they have to the enemy... so they are going into retirement for a while. Last night the only Ld test they passed was when they got decimated by enemy fire and they decided to stick around to take some more. Idiots. Likewise, the Primaris also has very bad luck in ever casting anything. Looks like I'm just not cut out for rolling for powers.

On the other hand, last night both the Vet squads worked brilliantly with maximum meltas and Chimera to get them places, so they can stay and will no doubt be joined by more vets at some point.

As we were going for a surprise assault Guard/Ork combo I decided to try a CCS with Straken, medpack, Priest, 3 meltas, MoF and two bodyguards. I know medpacks and Priests get slated by guard players, but both were worth their points last night (and then some!). The priest's "reroll missed CC for the unit" and FnP allowed the vets and Straken to pull down 7 marines, a vet sergeant and a chaplain... winning us a game we should have, by all rights, lost. They can come and play again. Plus I may have to add some priests into the other Vet squads to give them some more punch. Carapace armour on the vet squads was also well worth the points as melta squads tend to take plenty of fire.

So. Some plans for the coming weeks.

- Paint existing models!
    - possibly buy airbrush for tanks

- Restart the casting process
    - Design new body that will take Cadian arms without too much fiddling
    - Make sure the carapace body fits Cadian arms
    - Make some extra sets of legs for variation
    - Order maxmini shotguns and plenty of Cadian arms

- Build a proper Straken "counts as" and CCS

- Buy some Catachans and new Gors to make Imperial beastmen
    - Decide if these are going to be Whiteshields or Penal legion

Don't worry about it, my 2 Ork Warpheads have between them passes 1 psychic test in their entire gaming history. Granted it is only about 3-4 games I have played with them, but they killed about as many of my own models than the enemy

Can't wait for more models, IC's and PAINT

The PBS has become the standing joke; so they are being shipped off to Earth to power the god Emperor, to be replaced by a much maligned abhuman unit that will hopefully be more useful

Haha! Good stuff!

endtransmission wrote:The PBS has become the standing joke; so they are being shipped off to Earth to power the god Emperor, to be replaced by a much maligned abhuman unit that will hopefully be more useful

Maybe Da Plan of the Ruinous Powers was to get them sent back to Terra so that they can envenom the Emperor's soul with their most-dubious psychic powers!!!

Death to the False God hahahaha!!!!!

Yggdrasil wrote:

endtransmission wrote:The PBS has become the standing joke; so they are being shipped off to Earth to power the god Emperor, to be replaced by a much maligned abhuman unit that will hopefully be more useful

Maybe Da Plan of the Ruinous Powers was to get them sent back to Terra so that they can envenom the Emperor's soul with their most-dubious psychic powers!!!

Death to the False God hahahaha!!!!!

Fiend

Sweet ass army, bro! Keep it up!

don't forget the how to on the Chimeras!
and that sucks about the PBS!!

Actually the Old Crow turrets look a lot like that one.

Stunning stuff mate good job!

Thanks for all the comments, despite no real updates in a while. Still no new pictures from the weekend, but a few minor updates all the same...

I'm about half way through a third set of legs. Once these are done it's back to making moulds. After lots of fiddling, I found that actually I don't need to make my own arms after all. The Cadian ones do just about fit, if you put them on the right bodies. This makes my life so much easier and removes one of the barriers that I thought I had. Hopefully photos later in the week when I have the legs done. I also managed to find a reasonably priced airbrush kit on ebay, so this week I should get a nice little present arriving soon that will make the tanks easier

alarmingrick wrote:don't forget the how to on the Chimeras!

Unfortunately that is going to have to wait until the new chimera kit comes out as I can't find any of the old ones in our area. I can't imagine it will change all that much though.

Oh, I just found the place that originally inspired my version : http://theback40k.blogspot.com/2009/07/pimpin-my-rides.html
As you can see, mine are cut slightly differently. Whereas the one on the site above cuts after the second periscope, I cut after the first; which moves the turret even further back. You then use the small spare plate, that is used for the Griffon/Basilisk back, to fill in the top a bit more. If you look at this picture you can just make out this place behind the front turret ring before the slope up.

Disjointed Entity wrote:

Yggdrasil wrote:

endtransmission wrote:The PBS has become the standing joke; so they are being shipped off to Earth to power the god Emperor, to be replaced by a much maligned abhuman unit that will hopefully be more useful

Maybe Da Plan of the Ruinous Powers was to get them sent back to Terra so that they can envenom the Emperor's soul with their most-dubious psychic powers!!!

Death to the False God hahahaha!!!!!

Fiend

Well, that's a possibility....

Well, I've just taken delivery of the Elysian Tauros Venator (FAV) and it's simply gorgeous, even though it is full of flash and some very thin (or missing) areas on the chassis. There are lots of little tabs to carefully snip off for the rollbars and suspension, which will need a very steady hand.

The weapons for the turret should swap out easily enough as they do supply two weapon shields in the pack. A small magnet would secure it so that nothing falls off mid game.

The crew look tiny compared to the bodies I'm currently resculpting... I was originally looking to replace the crew so it fitted more with the rest of the army. This plan may have to go out the window... I'll try lining up pieces when I get home. It may just be head-swaps and a little bit of GS.

I've also been thinking about it's usage this afternoon. If I can create single weapon options for the turret, rather than the twin-linked that the model has, it could work nicely as a sentinel replacement (bit expensive, but workable for a mech force). I can't imagine it will end up being much more than that when the rules come out anyway. Maybe fast moving with twin linked on the turret weapon for extra points...

Think you could use it as a version of a land speeder storm... thats my plan

Miss Dee wrote:Think you could use it as a version of a land speeder storm... thats my plan

In it's current incarnation it'd work out nicely as a standard landspeeder as adding it's second special weapon wouldn't be too hard. You'd need the rumoured troop carrying version for the Storm as there's not a lot of space in the back for carrying anyone. Having just said that, it may be possible to cut up the back of the Venator to fit the Storm's benches in, though I pity the passengers

Thanks for the heads up.

You've done a lot of superb work that is very inspiring for me. I'm tempted to pick up the sculpting tools and clay shapers but I'm cursed since I'm currently out of any decent green stuff. Both of my FLGS were completely sold out today. Looks like I'll be sending an order out over the internet soon.

Your coaching points on making molds in the UK with materials from Tomps is key information. Add it to my article if you like or just put a note and a link to guide folks to a new article if you write one. The point about RTV and olive oil is good to know. I plan to switch to rubber molds sometime in the near future. I'm also curious to see if the vibrating table works. I will also try the talc out. I'm getting ready to sculpt stowage for my mechanized vehicles and plan to make molds to cast as much as I need for twenty vehicles.

Thank you! Your guide was the basis for my learning, so fair is fair

I keep meaning to add my stuff to your article, but work keeps getting in the way. (How dare it! Naughty work! Bad work!). I need to resculpt the bodies so that they take Cadian arms properly (preferably before I start on building my platoon!), so I'll try and take the time to flesh out the guide a bit more when I do that. I can certainly recommend the talc for improving the flow in the mold as it sucks the fluid resin into the cracks.

I don't have a vibrating table, but banging the work surface it's resting on certainly helps release trapped air bubbles, even if I do get funny looks from the rabbit. So I can only guess that the vibrating table would be very handy to have around.

An update for anyone else. I finally got a little bit of time to play with the airbrush, so I now have four grey tanks. Now I just need to find the time to mask off the camo and another dry weekend to spray that on...

In addition to that I also have a penal squad, an update to two vet squads and an assembled sentinel that I need to take photos of at some point... maybe on Thursday when I get another game. There should also be some updates to the Red Scorpions thread at some point too as the terminator squad is coming together nicely.

I have to say I like the Bionic arm have you seen the Kromlech legs and arms that Maxmini have been selling they might be useful for this project somewhere!

I have seen them. They are really nice work, but a little too orky for my taste


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Well, it's been quite a while, but I've finally got some photographic updates for you. There's been a bit of work done on most units, so lets start with things you've seen before and their current state :

The tanks have been given a base coat. Now I need to work out what (if any) additional camo they are getting and then how to weather this colour nicely.



Next up is a WIP Stracken "counts as". There are still some bits of tidying up and detailing to be done in the paint job. (and yes, I spotted the damn mold line after the paint went on... see me not pay attention! now I need to decide if I go back and clean it up and have to repaint bits or not.)



I've now got a fully magnetised light sentinel to play with



And most importantly, a Penal squad. Given that the back story has most of this force coming from a mining world, I figured they would have indentured Twists and Abhumans in the mines. When they fled the plague, the abhumans became the penal squads... the Twists didn't make it off world. These used a combination of Catachan parts with the new Gors. the bits went together really nicely... after I'd hacked off their chaos loving torsos



And finally... a full army shot.


There you go. Larger image

Like the Beastmen.

Spectaculr conversions and great painting. Keep it up!

BATTLE REPORT
Da Dark Angelz vs The Junos Moles (750pts/Pics!)

Thanks! I was just about to come and post a link... don't need to worry now

I really like the beastmen.

Your vehicles make me wince since they are fairly monotone right now. I know that you're figuring out their future scheme, but my techpriest mind keeps pinging that you are offending the Machine Spirit by painting your fleshpuppet infantry in loving detail while neglecting the awesome machines. :p

If work ever lets up and I get a spare weekend once my 4th Chimera arrives, I'll look at the tanks... just for you and your Techpriest mind

Any ideas on a good camo? I'm thinking about the Urban Rubble scheme on http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Imperial_Guard_Camouflage_Schemes

But what colours? The base is Charadon Granite, but what other colour? If I use a medium/dark grey, I'm going to have a fun time trying to add weathering onto the tank as those are the these colours that seem to be recommended for paint chips... maybe some rusty reds, like the Chemical Waste scheme?

As for future plans... I've started piecing together a platoon with some heavy weapons, just to add lots more bodies into the force.

endtransmission wrote:If work ever lets up and I get a spare weekend once my 4th Chimera arrives, I'll look at the tanks... just for you and your Techpriest mind

Any ideas on a good camo? I'm thinking about the Urban Rubble scheme on http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Imperial_Guard_Camouflage_Schemes

But what colours? The base is Charadon Granite, but what other colour? If I use a medium/dark grey, I'm going to have a fun time trying to add weathering onto the tank as those are the these colours that seem to be recommended for paint chips... maybe some rusty reds, like the Chemical Waste scheme?

As for future plans... I've started piecing together a platoon with some heavy weapons, just to add lots more bodies into the force.

I really like the Chemical Waste scheme but it looks like airbrush work. If you want to use those colors in the Urban Rubble scheme, then I wonder if you'll have enough contrast so that people actually notice the scheme.

If you want more details on the paint colors used for those Chemical Wastes and Urban Rubble patterns:

Try GW's guide online: http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?categoryId=&pIndex=1&aId=2400009&start=2

My guess is that's where the Lexicanum got its pics.

The contrast is my worry. I can't think of a good contrasting colour, other than cream or black. I'm not completely sure that granite and cream is a good camo scheme. A dark red would look good, but it's not a high enough contrast to be easily visible.

On another note, I finally got another Chimera, so here's my little guide to creating the Malfian pattern tank.

The first step is easy. Build the Chimera chassis as normal, leaving off the top, until you get this far


Take this piece


And cut the corners off, so it looks like this


Fit the place onto the top of the tank, just behind the main cab


Next we need to cut down the top. Place your saw just behind the first to viewports and using them as a guide... cut the back part off.


Before discarding the back part, we need the two sides. So carefully cut these off


Stick the in place and file them down so they are level with the top of the tank. I tend to stick the back door on to make sure the sides are correctly aligned.


Shave off the 6 rivets that look white as these get in the way of sticking the top on.


Before sticking the top on, we need to deal with the two lasgun ports. I never liked the lasguns, so reverse two and glue them in place as two view ports instead.


Once the top is in place it'll look like this


As we're using the turret ring/hatch on the front of the tank, we need to cover up the hole in the turret. Glue some plastic card over the top and trim/sand it down so that it fits seamlessly.


Use any bags, boxes or barrels that you have to neaten up the tank and make it look used. Also use it to cover up the open part of the hatch on the back.


You are now all done.

Nicely done, good stuff

I'm keen to grab a few new chimeras for a range of vehicles - they look like they're pretty OK kits. Do they generate any decent amount of bitz?

One thing I've noticed with the newer kits is they're very tight on the extras. Now we have to pay(!) for the vehicle accessory sprue, I'm finding myself saving all the littlest bits for a worthy conversion.

The new Chimera is really nice, with plenty of bits. After finishing that conversion I've still got most of the second sprue left. The only bits you don't get that I need for this variant are the track guards, which is rather annoying as I've just run out.

It looks good end transmisssion.
When I finally get some Chimeras I may be forced to aquire some Malfian pattern ones

I've been thinking and the only thing I might look at adding is more detail to the top of the turret - either some kind of hatch or just periscopes etc, as it looks a little plain compared to the rest of the build.

At the least some rivets?

Thanks a lot for the tutorial. But one thing aren't the heads Gors not Ungors?

Llamahead wrote:Thanks a lot for the tutorial. But one thing aren't the heads Gors not Ungors?

So true. I must have been getting ahead of myself as there were vague plans in my head for using ungors as whietshields. I'll go back and correct the earlier post about the penal squad.


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SilverMK2 wrote:I've been thinking and the only thing I might look at adding is more detail to the top of the turret - either some kind of hatch or just periscopes etc, as it looks a little plain compared to the rest of the build.

At the least some rivets?

Oddly the normal turret is very plain compared to the rest of the body, even on the older version. In my head, the turret doesn't have a hatch as it's a sealed, remote unit so there is still space for the normal sized crew compartment underneath. I do agree that a little bit more detail could be a good idea though. I'll have a look tomorrow and see what I can dig up out of the bitz box.

Nice! thanks for sharing.

The chimera is kewl.

Very nice stuff you have here. I am doing something very similar. I was also inspired by BrotherArgos. Shame he hasn't been updating lately.

I'm doing WWII airborne guard, using casting to replicate my bits. If you are happy with the mould removal stuff you have now I would stick with it but I use the mould release spray that lots of kits have. Works like a charm for me and doesn't obscure any detail.

About to start building a 'shake' table to vibrate all the bubbles out of the moulds. Using an electric toothbrush motor with replaceable batteries.

Look forward to seeing your progress.

endtransmission wrote:Oddly the normal turret is very plain compared to the rest of the body, even on the older version. In my head, the turret doesn't have a hatch as it's a sealed, remote unit so there is still space for the normal sized crew compartment underneath. I do agree that a little bit more detail could be a good idea though. I'll have a look tomorrow and see what I can dig up out of the bitz box.

Perhaps a good place to mount smoke launchers, or an aerial for communications equipment? Or hell, even small radar dome or targeting camera. Since it is remote operated like you said, aiming it via conventional iron sights, or similar means, isn't an option.

Following all the suggestions to add more detail to the turrets I've rooted through the bitz box and come up with these thanks to the Sentinel and the new Chimera kits:

Muuuch better

The big lights add to the whole "underground" aspect of the fluff too, so extra points for that

Im not sure if it would work but a hellhound would look cool in this style...if slightly strange since the fuel tanks are at the front That could end badly!

A Hellhound would look very cool in this style. The tanks wouldn't have to be at the front. If you look at the new kit, the gas tanks are fairly flat, so it would be possible to place the turret in this position...

Despite already owning a FW hellhound, you've sparked some ideas for when I need a second

aweet. I look forward to trying it out...possibly...I will definitely have some chimeras in this style however!

Glad to see this blog is still going , love how it is turning out ... very cool .

slann wrote:Glad to see this blog is still going , love how it is turning out ... very cool .

Thanks
I blame work for a lack of time recently. Hopefully I'll be getting some back soon so I can do some work on it all. Though I do have to admit that I'm wishing I'd just decided to go for Elysians or DKoK...


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Imperial Monkey wrote:aweet. I look forward to trying it out...possibly...I will definitely have some chimeras in this style however!

Make sure to post photos when you do, I want to see how other people handle the turret

Awesome work as always, keep it up.

In preparation for the Nottingham tournament later in the year I actually sat down and worked out what models I had and what I needed to make in order to have all the models. More importantly, what I needed to get so that they were actually all WYSIWYG.

One rather costly order from FW later and all I need now is a Valk and a load of spare bitz

What landed on my doorstep today was 4 packets of Krieg engineers with shotguns to give me my full compliment of vets, with the command upgrade set for the sergeants.

Some Comms units to use as objective markers as well as some Tau pilots and the Vendetta upgrade kit.

You'll see what the Tau are for later (assuming it doesn't look stupid, of course!).
As for the Vendetta, I thought I may as well properly magnetise the Valk so I can use it as a Vendetta later if I want to. Sadly I don't have 30 points spare in my list. Boooo!

As mentioned earlier, I still need to find some spare bitz; namely enough plastic marine flamers and meltas to give to give everyone the right equipment, plus a batch of guard gas masks and SM Scout goggles to finish my platoon. If anyone has any spares they want to sell or swap, please yell as these are always out of stock at the bitz places

Consider your Chimera idea stolen for my last tank in my WIP. It will be used for the framework of a modernized manticore. Great ideas. I love the work.

Thanks! I look forward to seeing your take on it as I love your rocket launcher; I may have to steal that in return

I have ideas for a Hydra too, but they are under wraps until I've got my first 1000 points finished.

Sounds great. I couldn't imagine they would be any less steller then what you have going now.

Nice to see you back! Looking forward to seeing what you've been/are up to...

Couple of questions from a guy building a highly detailed savlar chem dogs army...

The torso with the tubes that meet in the front, those are space marine scout torsos correct?

Where do you get your heads from? Could you link to some of your sources? I am building some very nice guardsman but I need more kinds of heads with rebreathers.
Your work is very inspiring. I have some completed model pics that I think you could draw ideas from, I will post them later as it is past my bed time.

Thanks!