Wow, this thread is amazing! I'm reading through it from start to finish... I haven't seen a picture of a large number of troopers yet from your casting process. Did you do up a whole bunch of them already? (I probably missed it somewhere between pages 5-8!)

Thanks

I really appreciate you going throught the casting process gives me a better idea. One day when I get a compressor and all that othegear I'll have a crack. Oh yes if you ever feeling like doing an article please do!

Oh yeah and the steel legion guys are ace.

Argos how much blue tack do you go through? it's crazy.

nice

Very inspiring, keep up the good work.

I spent almost all this weekends hobby time painting as well as being a grumpy old man! When I am being creative (as Mrs Argos calls it), I tend to swing between manic phases and grumpiness and as such I am sure my daughters and wife tend to tiptoe around whilst I am modelling. I think I will need to buy them some presents for putting up with me for the past month or so!

The good news is the painting on the test figure is now complete, however I still have dusting (pigment powders) to do on him. He is therefore at that lovely factory fresh stage at the moment, before he hits the battlefield with a thump.

However before seeing the almost completed figure I am going to go through and pay some attention to basing. To determine which base colouring I am going to use I need to know where my troops are "located", a quick scan of the local terrain gives us four variants as follows: -

1. Ash Wasteland, for some reason orangey-red in colour, the one used for almost all the pictures in codex armageddon. Almost desert like, is doesnt fit into the colour scheme the Steel Legion use for their vehicles at all, and I must admit I don't like it, so this one if not the one for me!
2. Equatorial Jungle, where the remnants of the last Ork invasion are hiding, and being attacked by Armageddon Ork Hunters (the Armageddon version of Catachan Troops). Obviously its a jungle environment and green. Once again not a winner for the Steel Legion.
3. Hive Urban environment inside a hive, possible and attractive at some levels. One to consider!
4. Hive Outfall, the immediate vicinity around a hive, shown in the Codex Armageddon at the bottom of page 20, and also seen in the craters in the picture at the top of page 20.

Well with the last two in mind, I also start thinking about one of my other requirements for my Steel Legion. The need to fit in with my other armies planned and already existing, i.e. my Salamanders and my future concept army, the Adeptus Mechanicus represented by Legio Invigilata and its accompanying Skittari (from Forgeworld Voss nearby to Armageddon). Looking quickly through the exisiting documentation for Armageddon we can see that all three forces were present and mentioned at Hive Helsreach, fighting within and immediately around the hive complex at both the Ironsides Shipyards and on Hel's Highway.

With the terrain to be fought over, and the location known on Armageddon it was a straightforward conclusion to do a mixture of Hive Outfall & Hive Urban bases, this would also tie in nicely with the colour scheme of the Steel Legion vehicles. So shades of grey with the occasional offset colour seem to be in order, with additional small items for flavour.

Moving ahead here are a few images showing the initial four stages of the base: -



A. I used a tube of Polyfilla Extra fine (fine spackle in the States I think) in a tube to add some depth to the base, one of the things people often fail to with basing is adding volume (i.e. depth) to their bases. This simple measure creates minor height variation and allows you to change the stance of each figure slightly.

B. Using some Fine sand and small stones while the Polyfilla is still well I add a fine gritty texture to give the feeling of rubble / ash. This will allow us to use dry brushing techniques to paint the base later.

C. In addtion while the Polyfilla is still damp, I use a pair of legs in the same position as my trooper, to place footprints in the ash. Obviously ash / grit gives way under the pressure of a footfall, therefore the figure needs to have his feet "in" the ash, rather than resting on top of it, for added realism.

D. Finally I use some plasticard to add a pipe, broken and jutting out of the ground, it occupies the central area of the "empty" part of the base to add some detail to it. This should keep the base from the potential monotony of shades of grey.

One quick side note, I use a mixed tub of basing material for most of my bases, with an assortment of different materials from slate, to small stones through to fine sand. I then just push the bits I want on the base while it is in the tub. Here is a shot of my basing tub: -



From here on we need to add some shades of grey and some offset colours, the next picture shows most of these stages, however I must apologise as one of the pictures became corrupt before it was transmitted from my Camera to my Pc and is therefore not available.



A. The first layer of colour is Adeptus Battlegrey from the Foundation paints range, a good wet brush was slopped about without much care at this stage, not too think, but fair coverage. The next picture is missing, so I will have to describe it here, a light drybrushing of Astronomicon grey from the Foundation range was put over the top of the previous coat.

B. I then switched to using Washes, and some Badab black wash was placed randomly around the base to create darker areas. This was then followed up with a mix of Devlan Mud/Gryphone Sepia 50:50 once again randomly applied around the base overlapping in some areas the black wash. The aim of this is to create colour variation and tone, the real world is full of small tones and shades in everything we look at, and to make something feel "right" we need to recreate this by adding small variation on our basing.

C. We got to the final part of the ground painting, this was quite simply using small amounts of Rotting flesh, Bleached bone, and Skull white paints on the very tips of the ash to add highlights. You can quite clearly see where the feet will be going by this stage, and the base has a more realistic feel, apart from the pipe.

D. At this point I realised the pipe had a nice clean edge, which is of course very unlikely. So I took a scalpel to the edge of the pipe to give it a jagged appearance.

The pipe was all that remained to finish the base, and I wanted a rusty feeling to it, so I switched to using Mig Pigments, which are powdered colours to finish the pipe. Here are the powders I used: -



Here are the various stages of the pipe: -



A. I made a mistake and in a very traditional way, I coloured the pipe with Boltgun Metal, a waste of time, I should have done it with Scorched brown.

B. Next I added some of the Old rust pigments and used an white spirit based thinner to dissolve the pigment onto the pipe. This lets the pigments dissolve and flow over the pipe in a natural way.

C. This was repeated with both Standard rust, and Light rust, so that we got some nice rust tones on the pipe. Finally a sprinkling of powder was added on top to give a more realistic finish.

D. A close up showing the "powder" nature of the rust on the pipe, giving it a much more realistic feeling. At this stage a small amount of powder was added under the pipe as rust tends to leech its colour onto the surrounding area.

Lastly I put the legs back on to see how it would look: -



The edge of the base needs to be painted black at this stage, but I am sure you don't require a picture for that.

Later on I will upload and show the finished test figure on the base, but today I am off up to work in London near St. Pauls at one of my Financial clients for the day.

Looks great mate! Hive outfall is a great choice for the basing and those Mig pigments look just right too. Might I suggest that you add a patch or two of thraka green or leviathan purple to the bases in a subtle fashion to add to the toxic look?

Cheers
Dave

nice really love it so just sing,
love is in the air!!!love is in the air!!!

Finally home from work!

Here are the pictures of the test figure, the painting was finished late last night: -



I am pleased in general with the sculpting, conversion, casting and painting of the model, it feels most strange to look at a figure and know it looks nothing like the original cadian frame it is based upon and that I can reproduce that figure as and when I require it.



In this second image it is possible to see the Greif lens used in the barrel of the Las Carbine, giving it that distinctive glow!



From this view I am pleased with the bedding and canteen bottle, although I think I will sculpt my own canteen bottle in the end.



The right arm seems somehow bare, I am thinking of adding a triangular insignia on this arm, which I have seen in a couple of the Steel Legion illustrations. I will wait till I get my Photo-etch kit and see what I can do with that. The other way to tell squads apart might be to paint a colour stripe along the epaulette/shoulderboard, and use that to tell my future squads apart.



I am pleased to see the Las-Carbine barrel looks far more normal here, for some reason the first picture shows it almost gleaming! When in reality it has a number of washes of badab black on it, and looks more normal in this picture.



Lastly the comparison picture, showing the same basic Cadian frame that my Steel Legionnaire is derived from on one side, and on the other side the Steel Legionaire most similar in pose to mine. Looking somehow stunted. Looking at this picture has the biggest effect on me, and showed me clearly how much work I had put into the project so far.

There still remains the "weathering" to be done to the figure, to make it fit with the environment more. Basically some mig pigments worked into the books and lower coat most probably. But apart from that there is little I would change. Some people commented the base was quite plain, however I feel it sets off the figure nicely and I suspect as I sculpt some ash waste detritus in the future, I might go back and a couple of simple items.

Now to make some more ...

Lovely, i love the sculpture, it almost seems a shame that you will have to weather it, you really are a man of many talents, sculpting, painting, how good are you at playing though, i really do like it, i can't wait for you to complete a squad.

love the goggles ^^,

That is inspiring. Wow. Its so nice to see it come together. One down ninety to go? I'm looking forward to seeing how you handle your Sergeants and Officers. Will you be doing a Commissar or any other advisor?

Argos, that is simply amazing. To see the excellent conversion and paint job come together in the final project is stunning. So much more unique than the Cadian plastic it came from, and more lifelike than the Legion metals. I really cannot say enough good things about it. And I wouldn't take the discouraging comments about the base to heart. I'm all for the ability of basing to add scenic elements, but there's a point where it becomes overwhelming and detracts from what it is really there to do - display the model. It is a nice contrasting color with simple accessories that adds to the wasteland feel of the model, without drawing so much attention away that it downplays the amazing sculpting and paint work. Keep it up, I can't wait to see this army start to take shape en masse.

I think this end result is fantastic - it looks so natural and well-crafted. My only criticism (and this isn't really one) is that when I convert something, I want people to look at the figures and go wow. Your SL has been so well executed, I can see people looking at an army on the table and not realising it's a sculpted / converted army! I wouldn't really worry about that though

Fantastic painting!

That trooper looks great, and good use of the mig pigments on the base.

I like it that you used all three shades correctly and didnt just slap only one layer on.

Excellent,simply wonderful!

Nice Basing i only put sand on

Are you doing the whole army to this standard? if so i hear a golden demon best 40k squad in the eaves.

I plan to do commisars as well, and in theory the whole army to this standard.

However I am sitting here tonight, not really knowing what to go next, I have lots of sculpting and modelling for this project, but feel a little out of it.

I think the only answer will be to push on past the feeling and try and get some stuff done.

Sculpting enough for a few more steel legion parts would be a good start I think. I would like to get that next pair of legs finished.

You can do it! (as the unwashed masses cheer on BrotherArgos)

When I'm working on something and hit that wall, I find its good to list out what you've accomplished and what you still have to do and start on whichever item is most appealing to your whims. Usually its whatever is most different from what I previously working on.

We've still yet to see heavy weapons teams, sergeants, this commissar.... how about some more on your artillery?

Artillery FTW!

You can do it all night long! ;P

Bro Argos, the bases are simple and easy! I used it on some of my new guardsmen, and I must say I am very pleased with the result.

thaey are splendid you have now made me want to buy some of those off you unpainted. (illegal i know but hey!!) you have me on resin crack now. its the good stuff!!

Well last night the urge to create returned with vengance, I finally staggered to bed at 3am, which is unusual because normally I only put a couple of hours a night into my work, but I was pleased with the results of my efforts.

While fiddling with the Gun Platform for my Earthshaker I had come to dislike the diamond mesh flooring which can be seen clearly here: -



I had always thought it looked a bit odd, as though it was stuck on afterwards to cover up a plain section, the very way it is raised from the floor level around it seems odd to me.

So I started cutting, which I have to say is a longwinded, difficult and boring job. You cannot relax or slip because you would damaged the part of the model you want to keep, which means you need to focus on quite a mundance activity. However as you can see I cut lots of bits out: -



Which left me with a great big empty space, which I then needed to fill. As I planned to fill the space with my own mesh, I started by adding a support frame, measuring the thickness of the remaining flooring, I found it to be 1.3mm thick, while the photoetch mesh I had was 0.3mm thick. This left a rather convenient 1mm frame to construct to make the floor mesh level. I had lots of 1mm strip which I started cutting and gluing around the edge of the hole as can be seen here: -



The circular sections around the pipe were painful and had to be done a couple of times till I was satisfied with the results. Looking back I did not need to worry as the mesh would cover it and obscure the detail.

Next came another long-winded, but careful activity, cutting back the mesh to fill the frame I had created. I started on the long straight side first to get the a good working edge right, once this was done I worked my way down the sides, snipping small pieces off, piece by piece till the frame lined up with the edge. Finally I then cut across the other remaining side, carefully snipping away till the mesh fit around the circular pipes. Here you can see the finished mesh, its not glued down yet as I plan to make further supporting framework first, but the shape is basically correct: -



I really liked the see-through nature of the mesh, but as mentioned above, realised it needed more supporting framework underneath. But at 3am I decided bed was important as I had to be up at 6am for my daughters and work.

Here is a final shot, with gun mount fitted to get a feel for the work.



During the work I managed to break the surrounding frame in one place which needs filling and smoothing. In addition I knocked two of my brass etch hex nuts off, which need to be re-attached. But I think it was worth it for a nice see through, level floor

wow... thats ridiculous. Its such an improvement. This is going to be a real beast when its done.

The next thing I am worrying about is the change of the chimera / basilisk chassis to use thinner add-on plates ... if you look in the rumour thread on warseer under IG 1.5 wave, you can see them.

I don't want to make a model thats out of date / looks old, before I have even finished it.

This whole thread is pretty awesome. The test figure came out very nice. And that artillery piece looks very promising. Keep up the good work

I would cut them down it looks a lot better that way.

Yes I had considered reproducing the exact same as the new ones, so I could use all my old vehicles with them.

I think you should avoid the problem with the side plates by either draping them with rolled or unrolled camo netting, hanging stowage off, or just make side plates of your own design. Any combination of those three would make your vehicle represent something more immediately utilitarian in a way different than a chimera might be.

A quiet night last night, sleep was high on the agenda. I had decided after seeing lots of pretty pictures of the newly released hellhound images that the changes to the side plates would be annoying. The reason for the annoyance would be that I would have OLD looking vehicles, even though they were newly made with lots of custom work, basically they would look dated within two months of being made.

So I came to the conclusion I could do something very simple to make sure I was compatible with the future style, here take a look at the new Hellhound side plate: -



Changes to notice are the side plate has been thinned, and recessed detail has been added. Well we might not be able to do the recessed plates, but we cut the our larger side plates down to a similar size and very easily make out vehicles look more modern. One can observe that the plate has been reduced to the same depth as the strange piston like thing on the front edge, therefore giving us something to measure to work out the new depth. Basically after measuring the side plate has had 2.5-2.6mm cut off of it, therefore armed with a scribing tool and a ruler, I marked out a cutting line along the top edge. Then with my Dremel vice holding the side plate securely and the Games Workshop Razor saw in hand I started to cut.

I must admit at this point a particular weakness of mine, I am terrible at cutting a straight line with a saw, and try to avoid doing so most of the time. However this time I managed by being careful and slow and managed to hold the line! Here you can see the reduced thickness side plate with an old style plate next to it for comparison: -



As you can see any sensible person at this point would be happy, and have basically ensured their vehicles match the new style, but I have a curse, the curse of being a perfectionist. It can occasionally be a benefit, and lead me to learn and expand my abilities as a modeller. It encourages me to purchase any interesting tools I see, even if I cannot use them at the time I buy them, because I might need them later. It makes me have a well stocked plasticard collection, just in case I need a particular shape and size. Sometimes it rewards me with some stunning work, that I look at and think, Wow, did I do that?

However most of the time it drives me to do things I don't really need to do, and wastes my time chasing things I can never achieve. As I am sure you noticed in the picture above, I looked at the newly reduced side plate and thought, "Hmmm, It doesn't match the GW one, I need to keep working on it till it does". What a waste of time, in 2-3 months time GW will release the hellhound pictured above, and I could just reproduce the side plate from that. But the curse kicked in, and I started thinking about how to add the recesses and cut outs shown in the Hellhound picture.

Firstly I needed to cut out the column of three small slots on the right as we look at it. Small slots like this close together are a real pain as the thin remaining pieces between them need to be perfect or the whole thing will look a mess. So I started by grabbing a stencil and a scribing tool, these tools are made by Hasegawa and I purchased them a while back from a hong kong dealer on E-Bay (notice the curse again): -



This tool is useful for scribing shapes into plastic/resin to add surface detail, or to mark out places to cut. I particularly wanted the row of shapes just up and left of the bluetac, as they fit perfectly the size and shape of the cut outs on the hell hound. So I scribed the shapes onto the surface and used them as a guide for cutting out carefully with a scalpel and a drill. Any small slips or mistakes I corrected with procreate putty, which helped keep the sharp lines and edges required.

Once this was done, I marked out using the templates again a larger rectangle in the next panel. The aim this time was simple, I would remove the entire panel, round off the corners with pro-create, and then use it as a template to make the panel to fit back inside it. I cut out the panel successfully, trying hard to keep the lines straight, and once complete, I padded the corners with Procreate putty. A while back I had worked out a method of rounding corners easily, simply pad the corner with green stuff or Procreate and use a plasticard circular rod pressed into the corner, make sure it is touching both edges on either side of the corner, and whatever remains will be a nice smooth rounded corner made of putty, although protruding both above and below the opening. Once set the putty can be cut flush with the surface on both sides using a scalpel, leaving a virtually perfect rounded corner. It takes a little time waiting for it to set, but I can always get on with other things while waiting, compare this to trying to cut out a perfect flush rounded corner and it is much easier and sometimes quicker.

Here is a picture of the work so far on the panel, I went to bed soon after this point for a nice early night with Mrs Argos: -



More tomorrow, when I will be finishing the frame under the brass etch on the gun platform and adding the remaining panels to this side of the chimera side plate.

Looking good so far

Just in case your interested, a very nice guy called Wodon over at Boot Camp told me the following about the "Strange Piston Thingy"

The strange piston thing on the front of the Chimera hull and the matching brother on the Leman Russ is actually the adjustable position Tension Idler for the track assembly. Basically the front wheel is on a fixed axle, as opposed to the Roadwheels which are spring mounted to "float" over the terrain. The rear position is the Drive Sprocket. Of course against all logic the Leman Russ has a Drive Sprocket on the ground, but that is another story.

The "Strange piston thing" allows the crew to move the Idler's axle to change the tension on the track. When doing suspension repairs the first step is to release this tension be sliding the Idler back to the rear. Once repairs were done and the track refitted the Idler would be forced back into position. As this is mechanical tension it was the work of many hands or a specialized tool.

It is cool to find this kind of stuff out, so I thought I would pass it on

That is cool info. I know modern tanks use a similar mechanism to loosen the tracks when they have to do maintenance or replace tracks.

Also those modernized sidings are looking really nice.

wow cool anyway kepp up the perfectonism. (i think thats a word). anyways keep us updated!


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perfenctionism maybe


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also could you tell me how you paint your steel legion just so i can try it out as i go for a darker colourscheme

BrotherArgos wrote:Just in case your interested, a very nice guy called Wodon over at Boot Camp told me the following about the "Strange Piston Thingy"

The strange piston thing on the front of the Chimera hull and the matching brother on the Leman Russ is actually the adjustable position Tension Idler for the track assembly. Basically the front wheel is on a fixed axle, as opposed to the Roadwheels which are spring mounted to "float" over the terrain. The rear position is the Drive Sprocket. Of course against all logic the Leman Russ has a Drive Sprocket on the ground, but that is another story.

The "Strange piston thing" allows the crew to move the Idler's axle to change the tension on the track. When doing suspension repairs the first step is to release this tension be sliding the Idler back to the rear. Once repairs were done and the track refitted the Idler would be forced back into position. As this is mechanical tension it was the work of many hands or a specialized tool.

It is cool to find this kind of stuff out, so I thought I would pass it on

aka_mythos wrote:That is cool info. I know modern tanks use a similar mechanism to loosen the tracks when they have to do maintenance or replace tracks.

Also those modernized sidings are looking really nice.

I don't know how they release the tension in the IG in the 41st century, but many modern vehicles, at least those that use hydraulic tensioners, have a release mechanism so that you can bleed the grease out of the tensioner. When you need tension again, you use a grease gun to inject grease through a fitting on the tensioner. Checking track tension is a daily requirement in a mech unit and every one of my drivers had a grease gun with his bag of tools. I've considered building my technical servitors with a grease gun as one of their tools. Now that you bring this up, I'm getting an urge to work on servitors again. However, since BrotherArgos can do it better, perhaps he should give it a whirl? Surely, the Steel Legion must have servitors.

Regarding new vs. old Chimeras, you're doing fantastic work but I remain nostalgic for the older style. I figure that most FWs won't even get the new Standard Template and my vets are using their old equipment until the techpriests cannot keep the blessed vehicles running any longer. Hopefully the Omnissiah will not let them fail!

Hey Argos I was just wondering were you found that new Sm painter beta? I'm a B and C member but can't find it anywhere.

* Press SM Painter button on the main page ( right upper corner)

* Press Imperial Forces Recognition [Painters]

* And press The Space Marine Painter Beta V5.0

Thanx I know how to find the Sm painter what i mean is how do i find the colour matcher version that Argos has used.

Are you going to make a full army of these guys? because right now there is only one, out of many.

Must you not start with one step, to march 1000 miles? I'd say that he'll be able to produce plenty more once he gets all his special different casts made.

Bloodthirster wrote:Thanx I know how to find the Sm painter what i mean is how do i find the colour matcher version that Argos has used.

After finished painting but before wargear press finalise

Continuing work on the side plate took up most of my saturday work time. the first thing I noticed when working on the side plate was the change to the last panel (the one at the rear), when compared to the new images. In the new images its much larger and fits snugly, however when you look at the old one the following is evident.



Its too short by about a 1mm, so removing all the bolt heads, I set about extending the panel by 1mm, I used two sheets of 0.5mm plasitcard laminated (glued) together. When they had set I stuck them to the sideplate and trimmed them down to match.



I also took this time to widen the hole I made to match the changes, I also saved all the rivet heads so I could reattach them later. There were some gaps where the rounding of the edges of the original sideplate caused "dips" between the extension and the original. If they were small I filled them with a thin layer of super glue and filed them flush. If they were large I then went on to fill them with Pro-Create and smooth them with a Clay shaper. I also loaded up the corners of the hole with procreate and used the same technique as the previous hole to round the corners, I then left this to sit and dry for a couple of hours while I went out with Mrs. Argos.

Upon my return the Pro-Create had dried and I set about filing it once more to get back to a smooth level surface, most of the time any form of advanced modelling seems to be about filing!!



At this stage I noticed that the edges of the hole needed a little more tidying and did so.

I went on to try a test fit of the plate to see if my extensions had worked and I am pleased to say it was an accurate and tight fit. Although its funny when I look at the following picture the point which captures my eye every time is the large plate bottom right hand corner, where I had over trimmed the recessed plate and had to retouch the corner with Pro-Create. The difference in colour immediately catches my eye every time. It will be fine when I reproduce the side plate, and all the colours will homogenise.



After cutting and trimming the small recess plate I fitted it, returned all the bolts to the their rightful place (using the image of the hellhound side plate to show me the new locations for the bolts as they had moved) and lastly placed some of the Mig Productions brass etch rivets (0.5mm) into the holes on all the plates.



I have two remaining tasks for the side plate, one is to trim and tidy the edges on the small side plate a little more, and then to work out how to do the recessed handle on the large plate. The handle is going to be troublesome as it has square ends. I might leave that till after I had reproduced the plate and I have a more dense material to work with.

In answer to SonsOfLoki, I have a female torso and a new pair of legs and 2 sets of arms to mould and cast, this will then significantly add to the amount of variation I have for new figures. Obviously I will continue to increase the army size as I get more components finished, however sculpting your own army takes a fair amount of time

This is looking great. I am a dental student, and I must say I find that the instruments used in dentistry come in very handy!

The side plate is coming along better, keep it up!

Looks good, but seems like an awful lot of work for panel lines. Why don't you just scribe it?

BrotherArgos wrote:As you can see any sensible person at this point would be happy, and have basically ensured their vehicles match the new style, but I have a curse, the curse of being a perfectionist.

Wow! I am impressed by your tenacity . Keep it up!

It's about you being happy with the model, not anyone else . I have this trait as well, and sometimes it is wonderful! Sometimes I spend too long doing something... but most of the time, in the end, to me it was well worth it

Great work! This has been an amazing project to follow.

Its not over yet !! .. and most probably take forever!

Well I have had a good modelling day today, and put together this Female Steel Legion Sgt. I am very pleased with the female torso and it seems to work well with the new running legs.

There is still some more sculpting on the legs to do, but the style worked!



I was happy with the use of the small FW Elysian pistol in holster, although I feel the chainsword arm is positioned incorrectly, but as its only held together with Blu-tac I am not worried.



The rebreather on the female torso will be added after it is reproduced, as will the webbing based ammo packs, from observation almost all female soldiers wear items on webbing below their chest, so thats where I will be sculpting them, instead of on the chest as the men do.



The running legs are turning out ok, only one boot left to go, but with the new arms it will dramatically increase the variants I can make.



This is the angle where the chainsword arm looks incorrect, I think the once the arm is closer to the body (no blu-tac) and the green stuff added to mix it into the shirt, it will work.



The last is my favourite pose, leading her troops in the charge towards the Ork enemy, head tilted forward as she runs!

It was good today to get the urge to do some sculpting again, and do some more figure work!

Look good Brother!

Awesome! You're going to have an impossible combination here... a steel legion army with a variety of poses

not sure if its any use to you, but if youve got a copy of "art of warhammer 40,000" (who dosnt) page 84 and 85 are more steel legion pictures.
its scary how much yours looks like one of them!

I did have a look at the book, thanks for the reference!

I am pleased that my sculpting is holding up to the style shown in the artwork. I really need to get more sculpting done, to increase the variants possible and get a squad done!

This is my first comment on your work, though I've been lurking a while; all I can say is that you have really done justice to the imagery of the Steel Legion.

Your conversion work, sculpting and painting is superb and I thank you for putting such detailed descriptions of your process up, as well as nice clear photos.

Keep up the excellent work,

Earl

Good to see a female miniature that looks female and not cartoon female

Are you planning to do any female heads? like with ponytails and the like?

Ponytails? I don't think it'd quite work with helmets and gasmasks.

Oooooh ! Looking very good mate that femalguard
worked out really well.

Wolf

BrotherArgos wrote:I did have a look at the book, thanks for the reference!

I am pleased that my sculpting is holding up to the style shown in the artwork. I really need to get more sculpting done, to increase the variants possible and get a squad done!

its great mate-i couldnt believe how good the likeness was!

@ Inquisitor Earl : Thanks for the support, its always good to hear someone appreciates my work

Anyway, one concern I have had for a while is how the rebreather and pouches on my male torso would affect various arm combinations. In an effort to prepare for future sculpting of gloves and emblems, I gathered as many different Cadian arms as I could and test fit them to see if there were any problems. I was pleased that in most cases there wasn't a problem, the two key exceptions were the Flame Thrower arms, and for want of a better description the "Carefully aiming" arms. I found that with careful shaving on the inside of the arm, which is out of sight, it is possible to get them to work well with the Steel Legion torso.

The flame thrower was particularly pleasing to get working, as it is one of the "missing" components from the steel legion range and part of the initial reason I undertook this project in some ways. Please bear in mind, no mold lines or barrel holes have been drilled, this was merely put together to see if the arms would fit with the torso using blutac, however the result was pleasing so less chatting and here are the pictures showing the flamethrower: -



I trimmed off the shoulderpads using a scalpel, and then used a combination of medium, fine, and extra fine sanding sticks to smooth the top of the arm.



Looking at the pipe running back to the tanks on the back, I want to replace it with some of the cabling from The Dragonforge which I normally use for the gas mask pipes. The reason for this will be the increased detail for painting purposes, I always find painting smooth pipes with no detail difficult!



I am not sure what to do about the lack of bedroll for the figure, when it is such an obvious accessory for all the other troopers, I might mount it vertically between the two gas bottles perhaps with straps going round, which would add some detail to the quite cartoony looking tanks. That makes me think of adding a small stop cock on the top of the valves too ... for added detail.



I love the final shot, he looks so determined thrusting his flamer forward to purge all before him!

You could perhaps model two bedrolls onto another figure? Anyway, looking good regardless!

Or maybe just have one guysin each squad who has to lug everyone else's ammo around. Like a gretching, but actually has a purpose.

looking good guy, i love your work and please let us see a whole squad.


lovin your work emp.

I am sorry there will be no update today, one of my larger Japanese clients had a security issue yesterday and I got home around 10pm and am going back in for 6am. I should be finished there by Friday and normal service will be resumed then.

Good luck!

Amazing...
I'd love to do some of the casting similar to yours... Do you have a tutorial?
How essential is the pressure machine, and how much does that cost?

Well its Friday and I am back, my work for the Japanese client was successful and I got home early enough last night to get some Modelling done. I am just editing the pictures now, and uploading them, so I should be posting within the hour

@ Jon : I do not have a tutorial, however I am in the process of setting up my website, where I will be hosting my own Tutorials. The pressure casting is the reason the casts are so clean and crisp without bubbles / air holes. It costs around £500 or so, but its possible to do it a bit cheaper I am sure.

Dude are you the same guy who did those cool DKOK guys on the "eternity gate" site?


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http://bootae.ibforums.com/index.php?showtopic=9153

Those guys I mean.

Those are indeed my work, I haven't looked at them for a long while. Why do you ask ?

Anyway moving forward, this is a small sub-project I have been waiting to do, I didn't have the neccessary components in my Bitz Box for once, so I had to purchase the components. I had ordered the Forge World extra armour panels for the "Chimera" type vehicles. I thought the look quite appropriate for my Steel Legion Chimera variant vehicles, specifically as the Germans in world war two had specifically used such "Skirts" on a number of their vehicles. Here as a reminder is a picture of the Forge World extra Armour: -



As you can see one of the Forge world panels is broken in the middle, and they are both warped / curved. However both of those issues are easy to solve in the big scheme of things. What concerns me more is the fact that if I use them every single one of my Chimera Variant vehicles will have identical weathering / damage patterns. Now if there might be one or two, that would be ok, however with a Steel Legion force I plan to field a number of Chimera and having them all the same damage patterns would annoy me. So I think its time to make my own version, which I can them reproduce, and add unique weathering / damage too as required.

First thing I need is some patterned plasticard with the appropriate sized squares on, a quick measurement later with my Digital calipers and I discover the size of each small square on the panelling is 3mm approximately. This was a little confusing, as I knew that Evergreen who make the squared plasticard that the original would almost certainly be done with, only make squares in 2.1mm or 3.2mm. So a few other measurements later and I found the winged skull, which was obviously from the vehicle add on sprue, had also shrunk about 1.5-2mm in width compared to a fresh original. This change in scale implied that the original piece when made had been larger, and had been reproduced in resin numerous times (2-4 times) before being finalised. Moulds often slightly reduce the original in size, this is normally not even noticeable or anything worth worrying about, unless producing machine parts with a tight tolerance. The shrinkage will become more important later on!

Anyway I ordered the 3.2mm Sq plasticard and the smaller size in case, from http://www.netmerchants.co.uk in their modelling materials section. I used Netmerchants as they have next day delivery and so far have not let me down on any of numerous orders. They delivered as expected, and I had to leave it all on my desk waiting for a chance to get on with it. Well suffice to say I had that chance last night, and I jumped into it with both feet first. As I had a "template" to work from, it was simply a matter of counting squares to work out the sizes for each panel. As you can see from the picture below, the squared panels and the back panel were easy to make. I think I will be able to get around 5 sets of extra armour out of a single sheet, which at £5 is reasonable, however there is also the cost of the backing plate sheet, at another £5. You can see the panels cut in the picture below: -



The image above also shows the holes being cut into the corners, used to fix the front and back plates together supposedly in real life. The holes will have hex bolts placed at the bottom and in slight variant from the Forgeworld original I will be trimming the 45 degree corners slightly more than they did. For the hole drilling I stuck to my normal pattern of increasing the hole size gradually, in case the plasticard tears or deforms. I started with a 0.5mm, then 1mm, 1.3mm, and finally a 1.5mm drill. You can see some of my Pin Vice drills in the picture, I must admit I generally purchase new ones whenever I see one in a shop.

Once the plates were stuck together, I placed some of the Brass etch hex head bolts into the holes, using the normal dab of superglue technique used I had mentioned earlier in the log. I continued building plates and did the one with the winged skull on, and finally the end plate: -



This image shows the finished work, it has not been weather or damage detailed in any way, as that process will occur after I have reproduced it in resin, therefore ensuring each vehicle will have uniquely damaged / weathered extra armour. The frame on the back lines up with the top and bottom of the Side panels (the ones I was working on last week), and it is the side panels which will be magnetised for removal, therefore letting me add or remove the armour at will. The reason for that choice is because I will already have resin reproductions of my own side panels and the extra armour will be permanently attached to these and magnets placed to hold it all securely and tightly. You can also see at the bottom of the image is the top view, where I have more brass etch rivets to add detail, otherwise known as something to paint that isn't flat.



Finally we can compare the two, they should look alike, but you can see on at the back how much the Forgeworld one has shrunk from the original size. I am pleased with the reproduction and now I can get on with the other side. The weathering / battle damage on the original helps to give it a lot of detail and interest, however with our prisitine version we can add that level of interest uniquely to each vehicle now.

On a small note, I am almost finished preparing a website for this log, and Tutorials about some of my work for the site, hopefully next week early sometime it will be ready.

Oh and a small addendum for Deff Dred Red Edition ... here is a picture of one of them finished.

Oh I just wanted to know how they turned out.They look very nice.As for the steel legion,excellent work on those to.I must say you are an excellent modeller.

I love this blog. So much attention to detail.

kepp up the good work cant wait to see the chimera finished

The side armor looks fantastic, and is something that, honestly, anyone can do if they take the time to. I will have to keep this in mind as I move forward with concepts for my own IG.

You also have me looking very seriously at doing brass etched detailing as well.

This army will be such a treat to watch unfold the more you get into it all. And if your site will be blog based, it'll definitely be linked from The Painting Corps.

Waiting impatiently for more ^_-.

Thanks Guys, and yes it will be a blog format website grey-death

Anyway, it was a curious weekend, I had a quite a lot of pleasant surprises!

First suprise was the arrival of the Pro-Etching kit, followed closely by a new Digital calliper and lastly a micro-hole punch.

I was surprised at the quantity of items in the Pro-Etching kit, but I still need to get some Ferric Chloride and some Sodium Hydroxide before I can commence work with it. The supplier cannot send those hazardous chemicals internationally therefore I have to source them locally. I have noticed that Maplin in the UK supply the Ferric Chloride, but I am looking for a cheaper supplier (if you know of one please msg me or post here). I haven't got round to looking for the Sodium Hydroxide yet. Here you can see the etching kit in all its glory on the side in my kitchen, I will be going into detail about each component they supply later, and a full review and test of the pro-etch system when I have had a chance to try it out.



About 3 days ago I noticed that the battery in my current digital calliper was dying. Now normally this is simply a matter of replacing the battery with a new one and away we go, but I had been after a better quality digital calliper for some time. I had noticed on ebay that someone was selling a Mitutoyo digital calliper for a bargain price of £9 with only one day to go and no other bids. Now Mitutoyo callipers are good quality and normally retail around £125, so this had the potential to be a good purchase. In the end I got them for £13 + postage, and when it arrived it was in perfect working order, it has a finer resolution as far as measurement goes, and just generally the feel of it is far superior to my current digital calliper, which feels quite plastic / cheap.



Lastly among the arrivals was a Micro Hole Punch, with holes from 0.5mm -> 5mm in 0.5mm increments. Obviously the 1mm hole is great for making rivets out of plasticard if needed, while the larger sizes are good for making hole covers or instrument dials in cockpits. The one I really wanted however was 2.5mm, as it was the exact size of the shoulder emblem on the Steel Legion troopers, and would mean I did not have to try and make perfect circles out of Green stuff again! Oddly enough the ones I found in the UK were all sized in Inches, and I had to get one from an American supplier to get one in millimeters, weird huh? Anyway here is the Micro Hole Punch, with one of the punches in place and the rest arrayed before it. One normally slides thin sheet plastic between the clear plastic and the metal base and then insets the correct sized punch, and taps lightly with a soft hammer. Perfect sized plastic circles fall out of the bottom which can be used as you will see later: -



Moving on to finished work, I completed the alternate extra side armour to mirror / match last weeks one. The same process was used and once again it matches the Forgeworld version precisely. I think making these would be a good initial step for anyone wanting to learn hot to work with plasticard. As such I will be preparing an in depth tutorial on how to make them and posting it on the as yet unreleased website. Here is a picture of the finished side armour.



Finally, using the new Micro hole punch I made some circular emblems for the Steel Legion arms. I used 0.13mm thick plasticard sheet and cut out the holes using the 2.5mm punch, the reason for this thin plasticard was to stay in scale, and to have something that could deform to the rounded nature of an arm easily. I simply applied a small amount of plastic glue to the circles, let it work on the plastic for 5-10 seconds and then pressed firmly in the place I wished it to go on the arm. You can see the results here, all I need to do now is add the lightning strike using green stuff, and I am trying to think of a way to do that without green stuff if possible (anyone else thinking Photo-etch right now ?), Here are some arms with the plasticard in place: -



Ok, I am off to find some Sodium Hydroxide ... and a way to adequately ventilate my working area!

Get that website up soon

You're opening a lot of eyes up to a lot of different techniques and tools ^_-. And it's dangerous. For my wallet.

Hey, A thought, you know there are a variety of actual steel barrels out there with rifeling for model tanks, including a 17 cm bore for a Tiger II chassis. I wonder how that would look on a bassie?

With the work going into the website, getting other modellers interested in Armageddon and working with me on the website and finally the Photo etch kit arriving and trying to learn all about it, I can honestly say I have been busy, but with little I can show you yet.

However I can give a run-down on how the Photo etch system should work, and a review of the various kit and what it does.

For those that don't know Photo Etching is the process of using strong chemicals to eat away metals placed within them. This process is used by people to make circuit boards for electronics as well as modellers. You can control the eating away of the metal by covering it a thin layer of resistant chemicals which protect the bits of metal you wish to keep.

So it is therefore possible to print this resistant material and laminate it to the metal and use it as a means to make thin sheets of brass containing shapes you wish to keep. Here is an example from Forgeworld showing what is possible: -



Notice how small the possible results can be ... If I manage to master the process I will be able to produce Steel Legion emblems for tanks, troopers, flags, etc. It also opens up possible avenues of modelling I haven't been down before and will give me some scope to add complex items to models without casting.

However its a bit of a black art, certainly in the wargaming field, although less so in the master modelling field. The pro-etch kit I bought for instance, has almost no reviews I can find on the web, which means I am working on faith. Lets hope it all turns out ok!

My first step was to try and identify and understand every piece of the kit supplied. So without further ado, I present an overview of the supplied kit: -



A - Photo Resistant film, used as the protecting film on the metal, its light sensitive and kept in black tubes to stop it reacting and becoming useless. It needs to be opened and used in a darkroom until you have it in place on the metal and wish to "develop" it.

B - Laminate Carrier film, to hold and take the metal sheet & photo-resistant film, through the Laminator without seperating.

C - Chemical Resistant Plastic tubs to hold the Sodium Hydroxide solutions, first one is used to remove the undeveloped Resistant film so the bits underneath can be eaten by the etchant chemical. Second one is for removing the remainder of the resistant film from the finished product at the end.

D - Pro-Etch Manual, describing the process, I am hoping to make my own guide when I have got on top of the whole process, so that its easier for other people in the future.

E - Etching Tank, the place where the etching takes place, usually 2/3rds full of etchant (Ferric Chloride) and with the metal sheet being etched held inside.

F - Etchant Resistant Tweezers

G - Holding Rod, this sits inside the Etching Tank and holds the Brass sheet horizontally (so the brass particles fall down into the tank easily)

H - Brass sheet supplied with the kit, I purchased more and can get more locally if I need.



A - Disposable brushes, for removing chemicals & brass particles from the sheet.

B - Micro Cleaning pads, to clean the Brass to a very clean bright surface, so the resistant film will stick to it properly.

C - Goggles, the chemicals and the fumes they release are VERY dangerous and the wearing of protection is not optional.

D - Plexiglass plates, for holding the film and metal during the exposure process which makes the film stick to the metal.

E - Gloves in a measuring pot, once again the gloves are important to ensure no risks are taken with the dangerous chemicals.

F - Laminator, to fix the resistant film onto the metal using heat and pressure.

G - Clips, to hold the plexiglass together during the exposure process

H - Aerator to ensure the etchant remains fresh while etching the metal

I - Apron, once again for protection.

As you can see there is a substantial amount of items in the kit, and a relatively complex process to follow. Because the kit travelled from America to England, the etchant (Ferric Chloride) and cleaner (Sodium Hydroxide) need to be purchased by myself, however if I was in the States they would have been supplied.

I am waiting for the chemicals to arrive, and might well take a day off of work to test it all out sometime next week.

On a final note, if there are any people producing armies from the Armageddon 3rd war, either Ork or Imperial, who wish to actively contribute to an ongoing blog format website about Armageddon and the forces fighting there please contact me. This is for the following games: - 40k, Apocalypse, Battlefleet Gothic or Epic Armageddon.

look forward to seeing the results of this new venture

Good grief you really are venturing into the perilous fields of the dark arts of modelling alchemy first resin moulding and now this. You truly are a master of many esoteric mystic modelling arts!

This has been an amazing ride so far, Argos, very impressive. I've never been so riveted to a thread involving the Guard. Thanks for sharing all the steps of your process with us.

As I have almost completed a number of arms, legs and torso's for reproduction, my attention has once again turned to moulding. Recently I have changed supplier for my resin, and lowered the price significantly from £40 per litre down to £12 per litre, thanks to Jeff Wilhelm for the advice. Silicon Rubber on the other hand has a fairly constant price and Tiranti's in London still remains my favoured supplier with their T20, & T28 ranges. The cheap resin supplier is TOMPS and while I was ordering from them I thought I would give their rubber a try incase it had better performance characteristics.



It has a lower Shore A hardness than my normal Tiranti T28 rubber and in theory should be more flexible when cast. This has a number of advantages, most particularly when a mould has overhanging sections which would normally tear less flexible rubbers. I hope to give this a try at the weekend, and plan to use it for the crew compartment top section on the Medusa, which I plan to reproduce, and trim back down to make a shield like the Vanaheim, but which in addition would still fit with the great compartment flooring/lower section.

While working up in town recently I got to go into the 4d modelshop, now they are an expensive shop, however they have some things on the shelves that I don't normally get a chance to examine first hand. One of which was a selection of Smooth-On rubber and resin products. I noticed specifically they had ClearCast Resin, which should produce crystal clear transparent castings of parts, now this intrigued me on a number of levels, firstly I could make some transparent view ports for my tanks (maybe even use a dye to make them reddish), secondly I was interested in making some transparent goggles for my steel legion, which would look pretty cool. So I purchased the box as you can see below, and added making seperate goggles to my list.



Finally because I had to make some working space for my Etching kit, I rearranged my work area and tidied up the moulding section, here is a picture showing the moulding work area.



On the top shelf, I have large mixing containers, tissue paper for wiping up spills, and alumalite white resin.
On the shelf below that, I have TOMPs fast cast resin to try out at £12 or so, alongside the can of French Talc, which helps with mould flow.
Below that, I have Tiranti's Rubber, both T20, and T28, with Silicon oil, which you can use to decrease the viscosity of silicon rubber, and also to prolong the life of moulds.
Then we have rubber gloves for handling chemicals, and some European Rubber that I only use for one off castings as it tends to decline quickly.
Finally you can see the smaller mixing containers, the Ambersil mould release spray, my digital scales and some of my Steel Legion moulds waiting to be used.
The draws in the white cabinet contain mixing sticks, tools, knives, clippers, and cleaning products.

Good news tonight, I got 2 arms complete with emblems, and did more on a set of boots. I also finished off the design of the website, backfilled it with 77 blog entries showing all the work I have done on the steel legion to-date and a friend added his first two entries also. I want to get the first tutorial done and then the site will go live

fantastic. not alot more i can say!

A busy night as I did some sculpting and worked on the tutorial for the website, not much to show for it till the website goes live (most probably this weekend).

Here is a picture showing last nights sculpting progress: -



I am pleased with the emblems and worked on a few rough versions to test first. I got the lightning strike down to about 10 mins to sculpt and with practice it will fall even further. Although I also plan to make a brass etch version. The second boot is now sculpted using green stuff it is a little rough and is a base coat and now needs soothing and the skull and zipper at the back placed on it. This is the last item I am awaiting before the next round of reproduction commences.

I also have my sculpting tools and Optivisor at work with me today so hopefully some more sculpting at lunch time.


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Ok lunchtime sculpting went well, I added the zipper to the boots at the back, touched up some rough GS work, added the last strap on the Gas Masked head and finally did the last lightning strike emblem on an arm.

Photo's next time I am near a Camera

Are you going to make resin Steel Legion pieces from all plastic cadian pieces?

grey_death wrote:You're opening a lot of eyes up to a lot of different techniques and tools ^_-. And it's dangerous. For my wallet.

.... and quite possibly my lungs if Argos convinces me I have to start resin casting and brass etching!

BrotherArgos wrote:
I also have my sculpting tools and Optivisor at work with me today so hopefully some more sculpting at lunch time.

You must have an understanding boss. Or just be the boss for that matter

dirkthe1 wrote:

BrotherArgos wrote:
I also have my sculpting tools and Optivisor at work with me today so hopefully some more sculpting at lunch time.

You must have an understanding boss. Or just be the boss for that matter

I wouldn't put it past him

Umm yes, I am the boss, was it that obvious ?

Anyway, there will not be any updates till Saturday morning, I spent today at a clients till very late, and tomorrow I am at the hospital.

Normal service will be resumed shortly

All I've looked through is the last page of this thread, but even that was enough to drop my jaw and cause me to subscribe. Amazing work, and I'm excited to see where this project takes you.

some really good techniques and tools shown throughout this thread - its as much of a tutorial as a blog!
good stuff

and johann is a real piece of work...

@ Mr. Grey : I really suggest reviewing the other pages

@ krusty : Thanks, and Johann is one of my favourite pieces of work!

Ok lunchtime sculpting went well again, finished the boots sculpting, need to add a small heel of plasticard and they are done. I also changed the sniper cloak and rifle from the new command set, scraped/filed the big pads away and rebuilt the cloak to hide the change.

Will get some pictures up tonight I hope, I plan to gather all the things for reproduction and takes some pictures of them also.

Looking great! Are there new pictures yet?

I have just finished the final sculpting push before reproduction, I thought you might like to see some of the results. I have one pair of legs, a female torso, two heads, seven arms, and numerous things like bedrolls, knives, canteens etc.

Here are the running legs, which to be honest seem to have taken forever, I kept on finding small things to change that I was unhappy with: -



The changes from the initial cadian legs were to cut off the original jacket bottom, resculpt a new jacket bottom to match the steel legion length, cut away the boot section, resulpt the boots, add zippers up the back of the boots, add ankles, add skulls on the top of the boots at the front, build the back heel of boot into the sole, and in one case build a complete new heel from plasticard.

The next significant addition to me "Steel Legion Sprue", is the female torso: -



The changes from the initial cadian tanker torso were to cut off the original legs and tank hatch, adjust the collar so it meets in the middle and add tidy up with greenstuff, make the female aspects of the chest, add the webbing to the chest area, add an eagle as a belt buckle, cut grooves out at the locations where the webbing was going on the back, place the plasticard webbing into the grooved shirt, and finally add plasticard triangles where the webbing meets the belt. Look at the magnified model, I think I will tidy the lower crease on the front of the shirt, it looks rougher than I like when magnified.

Next is the officers head: -



I shaved the head, removed the ears / ear cover, smoothed the head, altered the chin, altered the nose, rebuilt the ears, and added hair and an eye patch.

I think this is my favourite piece so far, I am really pleased with the way the gas mask head looks: -



The head is from the tank sprue, I cut off the ear coverings, shaved down the items attached at the back of the neck and side. The I extended the gas mask straps to the back from the sides, added a brass etch ring to attach the straps onto, ran the straps up to the center of the head, and finally rebuilt the ears. I am really looking forward to painting this head, with stubble!

Finally for the sculpting are most of the arms: -



As you can see all the arms have had gloves in the steel legion style added, the cadian shoulderpads removed, and on appropriate arms the steel legion lighting in a circle emblem has been added. The white plasticard was cut using my new Micro Hole Punch (for those wanting to know where to order from - http://www.micromark.com ) and made the horrible task of sculpting perfect circles redundant.

With all of the above now complete, I will begin reproducing them, this will give me two pair of legs, two torsos, 4 heads, 11 arms, 2 Las-Carbines and numerous small items. I can finally start making some more of my first squad, with some of the variance I originally started the project to achieve. I have discovered legs to be really annoying to do, arms easy to do, and heads fun to do. Sadly the one thing I need more than anything else now is legs.

Its taken me a long while to get this far, but I hope it has been interesting so far. The work continues ...

Hi

Looking great. I was looking into photo etching a little while back to look at making some cool panels for a land raider (taking GW art and etching it in the shape of the panels).

I found some DIY stuff, but nothing that made me really confident that I could do it so am keen to see what happens with the pro-etch.

Cheers

These look great. Have you considered selling the sprues ?
Im not sure how GW feels about this as there is a lot of your own sculpting here so its not as if you are just making casts of their models.

@StubbyGB : It would be illegal to sell them and to be honest although I been approached 50+ times to do so my answer has always been no.

Anyway, a nice present arrived on my doorstep this morning ... My Forgeworld Vendetta upgrade, here is the obligatory picture: -



In addition, to punish myself I have lined up three pair of legs to work on (one kneeling), for the next round of Steel Legion parts. I think with some more legs done I will have enough of a "Sprue" done to move onto the painting phase for troops.

Oh there was also a Death Korps Rider in the delivery today, but no promises, I am just looking incase. Actually I would prefer to do Motorbike riders, but cannot think of an alternative to the lance that I could replace it with.

Lastly, what do people think of Ogryn, worth doing some form my Armageddon Steel Legion force ?

I've heard it said that a grenade launcher could be used as a lance replacement on bike-mounted rough riders.

Re: Ogryn, I've never really been a fan of them myself. Personally I wouldn't.

Just use a big grenade as lance

With regard to rough riders, Deveran over at the boot camp and The Dreadnote here at DakkaDakka mentioned using grenade launchers and Deveran even suggested the following single-shot grenade launcher as a replacement for the explosive hunting lances (which are also single shot). I suspect something like this would fit the bill and keep with the mechanised infantry image.



It is similar too but slightly smaller than the death korps grenade launcher.

Yea the dkok one is much wider and longer, as you said

That's the old US army Vietnam one wasn't it?

And yes. Please do Bikers. Sleek dirt bike creations, or burley manley mens choppers?

Yep it is, M79 "Thumper" 40mm Grenade Launcher... tasty.

Well the postman had a package for me this morning, sadly it was very damp, from the inside. This was concerning to me as I had recently got dangerous liquid chemical Ferric Chloride delivered!

It turned out to be something else entirely, it was the product I use for stripping paint off of old models. Now ... over my many years I have had the pleasure of living around the world and for a few years lived/travelled back and forth between London and Long Island, NY. While in the states I found and used an excellent paint stripper for my models, that doesn't harm plastics, metals or resins (disclaimer: always test something a little to make sure yourself) the sad thing being it was almost impossible to find outside of the USA. So after settling full time in South London, I was unable to get any more, and with all kinds of bans on travelling with fluids on planes, my chances of getting more had diminished, as had my stock of the product.



The product is called Simple green, I fill a small container, and literally drop the figure I want cleaned into it. Its possible to pull it out 20 minutes later and with an old toothbrush just wipe/scrub the paint off, or you can do as I do and leave it for a few days and its almost all fallen off. So far its worked on anything I have put into it even some old figures painted with enamels from ebay. Now with a vehicle you can just fill the bottom of a large bowl and do one side at a time, rather than waste a whole load filling the bowl, or alternatively you can fill the bowl and then filter/strain the old paint out and put it back into the bottle (using a funnel).

So as you can its good stuff, and hard to come by outside of Northern America, but as I was running out of it, I thought I would look to see if anyone was selling it anywhere in the UK before trying to order from the states. Well as you can deduce from the opening paragraph I did indeed find a supplier, it was Simple Green themselves in the UK, who had recently opened an e-shop for Europeans.

For UK & europe you can find it here: - Simple Green UK

In America its often available at Walmart etc, but if not it can be found here: - Simple Green - North America

Now be aware it can be expensive in the UK, however it is reusable and can last a long while. I haven't tried diluting it personally, so if anyone does try that please post the results.

I will take some before and after pictures over the weekend so you can see what it does

Wow as is my want i have again come to this post late so just spent many hours catching up, and all i can say is this was truly amazing, wow

I suddenly love the idea of one-shot grenade launchers for stand-in hunting lances. I still love horsies though.

Anyone know where to get those M-79s in 28mm form then?

Bad news on the Simple Green dude, that sucks. I've found great success with Acetone Free Nail Polish Remover for stripping plastics. After a while it tends to make the plastic softish, but it hardens back up again once dry. The Cutex brand (thanks, Dakka!) specifically, but I'm sure they're all the same.

Ogryns: I love em. The ones I sculpted were a blast to make, and they performed in battle too.


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EDIT: Hush my mouth; here's some!

http://www.theassaultgroup.co.uk/store/home.php?cat=70


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EDIT 2: Those grenade launchers looks a little sketchy to me. After a bit more research I'd go for a modified WHFB Empire Pistolier arm...

Have I somehow not replied to this thread yet? It's the first thing I look for every time I log on. It's probably the best P&M blog on here. That's the truth. Anyways, looking forward to see some WHFB Ogres converted into Steel Legion Ogryns .

Just read through the whole blog... wow, is all I can really say. Your plasticard work is very impressive, and has reminded me I need to get a metal ruler.

Oh yeah, where did you get the rivet punch thingy with the different sized holes, and how much was it? It'll be useful for my Mechanicus/Knights.

Dragonlover

SIMPLE GREEN IS THE MOST AMAZING LIQUID EVER, and now that I know it works on everything, it's even cooler.
Also been watching this blog for a while, amazing work you are doing, keep it up!

Bro, you have absolutely ruined a whole afternoon at work as Ive marvelled over your P&M blog.

Outstanding!

Glad I could be of interest ... keep following it could get better! ... We have Photoetching, Clear Resin Casting, Custom Decals and Laser etching coming ..

On to the bad news, I spent the weekend up in the Coventry with my parents-in-law, so sadly no modelling, sculpting (or fun).

Good news is the website goes live tomorrow with a couple of other contributors to help me

Hi i have been reading through this thread and have been intrigued by so many new techniques and have even tried my hand at converting a random figure into an S.A.S. major with disasterous results. (I had to go to hospital after stabbing my leg with a craft knife) But i kept going and finished my figure but i can sya that i wouldnt have done it had it not been for me reading this thread lol. Oh and im new so hi!

Vet Sergeant Travis wrote:Hi i have been reading through this thread and have been intrigued by so many new techniques and have even tried my hand at converting a random figure into an S.A.S. major with disasterous results. (I had to go to hospital after stabbing my leg with a craft knife) But i kept going and finished my figure but i can sya that i wouldnt have done it had it not been for me reading this thread lol. Oh and im new so hi!

you have also inspired me to do a tanith army although being jobless isnt good for modeling so i havent gotten started... but when i have money i will get started

unless i lose interest

this was at bursley not sergeant travis sorry dude

nvm sorry.

For some time I have had an interest in the wars for Armageddon, ranging from the initial chaos invasion, all the way through to the third war where the Orks were brought to a standstill with the blood of Imperial martyrs. Almost subconsciously my army choices have reflect this interest, I have collected and cherished my Salamander Marines, the Sisters of the Order of the Martyred Lady, my recent Steel Legion troopers and my dream of an Adeptus Mechanicus army from the nearby Forgeworld of Voss. I wish to create rules to unite all these armies into a true Army of the Imperium, and field that force in games such as Battle Fleet Gothic, Epic Armageddon, Aeronautica Imperials and of course Warhammer 40k, all based around the defense of Armageddon.



Recently I, like many of us, have been collecting and working on an Imperial Guard army, the Steel Legion. As you know I have been maintaining a log of my work on this site and others. Amazingly, over time I have amassed a lot of of posts detailing this work, and realised that this work, with my passionate interest for the Armageddon conflicts, could form the basis for a website. I discussed this with a number of friends who all also had interests in the Wars for Armageddon, slowly an idea of a site detailing the History, Modelling, Painting and Gaming of the Armageddon wars grew into being.



There had been an intense amount of information concerning Armageddon on the old Armageddon 3 website, this had been lost when the website had been shut, some of it had scattered to other websites but there was is no central resource for the Armageddon conflicts. With the help of some friends and hopefully invited guests, we hope to build a repository for this historical and gaming information. Somewhat in the style of the Bell of lost souls campaign packs we also hope to add detail to some of the smaller parts of the conflict across a range of systems from 40k through to Aeronautica Imperialis.



The painting and modelling articles will be a continuation of my work on the Steel Legion, with additional material from my armies mentioned above, as well as those of my friends who are building the site with me. While on the subject of friends, an introduction is in order, first off is Ragnar, a friend of many years standing who will be bringing his Space Marines, the "Praetoris Aeneas", Strikeforce Alpha 492 and the Phantine XXIII to the closing days of the 3rd war. Secondly is one of my Co-Admins from the Bolter & Chainsword SCC, who will be working on the "Exorcists" chapter, the Dieprian 756th, and the 609th Fighter Wing. We hope to get some assistance from various guests and also to add a few more permanent members of staff over time, including Ork Players, if you have some interesting modelling, painting, stories or gaming ideas please contact me and possibly we can showcase your work on the site.



The initial modelling content at the moment discusses, sculpting, painting, resin casting, magnets, photo etching and plasticard work, I am sure there will be something there to interest you and the first tutorial will be ready shortly showing how to make "extra" armour using plasticard. These tutorials will have video content demonstrating the modelling techniques used, and will form a growing library of reference material for modellers.

Anyway enough chit-chat, take a look at the site, leave comments, participate if you have some ideas and most of all enjoy yourself in the Battle for Armageddon

The website looks excellent at first glance, will have to check it out in depth at a later time. Good job sir!

Maybe this could help ?

http://web.archive.org/web/20000815065248/http://www.armageddon3.com/

Altough everything didn't get salvaged from the deep abyss that is the internet.

EDIT: Here's all the salvaged pieces http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.armageddon3.com

EDIT2: Apperantly only 3 different pages were salvaged, the rest is duplicates

Keep working

Indeed it is helpful, I stripped the info from it already though

Over the coming weeks we will be adding it to the website with added content from other GW sources too !

Dude! That is really cool! I remember I tried to do something similar a couple of years ago with the Badab War, only it never became anything more than a MSN Groups.

Malika2 wrote:Dude! That is really cool! I remember I tried to do something similar a couple of years ago with the Badab War, only it never became anything more than a MSN Groups.

Talk to Grey Death about that one, he's a Badab War extrordanaire! (And that probably wasn't spelt right...)

I think Grey Death was also on the project back then, don't remember for sure though, we had some cool artwork (some of which is still used by Lexicanum apparently).

But yeah, I don't really have the time and energy to start yet another project. I'm already on the Anargo Sector Project, Troll Forged Miniatures and then my own modelling projects. My brain is fried...

Looks great man i ought to start some project like this one day!

I hope you do start a project like this, its hard work but the results should be good

Yeah I probably will be doing it soonish as my b-day is this friday so I will have plenty of cash but I guess I have to wait for my leg to heal aswell!


I have added images of my figure that i created to my gallery, please comment and rate as you see fit. Thanks.

Interesting day today, after the launch of Battle For Armageddon yesterday. I have scripted my first Video tutorial for the site, and have decided on the Hd recorder to use, the Toshiba Camileo H20, which at about £160 was a reasonable purchase and should cover my needs. I have worked out a way to shoot the Video as though seeing the work in progress from my viewpoint, but need to experiment to make sure it will work. It all promises to be quite exciting and will make it possible to clearly demonstrate things such as green stuff sculpting clearly. Delivery from Amazon is expected tomorrow.



In addition, as it was the end of the financial year and the company had done well, despite a very poor start, I decided to treat myself to a large FW purchase. More to be revealed when the delivery arrives

Last night I gritted my teeth, and got every set of unique Cadian / Catachan legs I possesed out of the boxes. Overall I had 9 pairs of legs that were unique (plus the two pair I have already sculpted), but I am missing the running Catachan legs, and the standing to attention Cadian legs (metal only).

The problem I have with the legs is that they are hard sculpting work, but with all these done I will have more variants than any IG range. This is really the first point in the project where I have faced doing something I find annoying / difficult, so its a real test of determination for me. Last night I cut off the pockets on the trousers, removed the lower part of the cadian jacket where needed, and filed them down with a medium file. The reason for the medium file is to give the Green stuff something to key onto when I apply it to the legs.

Obviously I am biting off a little too much at the moment generally, as I took progress pictures to show the legs this morning, automatically uploaded them to my PC using my EyeFi card on my camera, and then completely forgot to shunt them to web server to work on them :( However I will add them this evening when I get home. I am hoping to do some basic "filling" with green stuff on them during lunch (my staff are getting used to seeing me in an Optivisor at lunch now).

Oh and tomorrow I might show you a neat trick with "Broken Glass"

Saw your site man,very nice. Hope FW doesn't take crazy long to deliver your order. Can't wait to see the tutorials.

It was a good lunch hour with basic filling done on 5 pairs of legs, the other four hopefully can be done tonight sometime, although I will be having a nice meal out with Mrs Argos, while a childminder looks after our daughters.

I will try and get some pictures showing the basic process I use for the filling, its almost like making a nappy out of green stuff and quite weird looking at first.

I took this with my iPhone, please excuse the quality, I felt as though I needed to show some progress after forgetting to upload last nights images :(

Amazing as ever man!

Sweet fancy Moses! How I long to come into possession of this!

BrotherArgos wrote:while a childminder looks after our daughters.

Is that the equivalence to a Babysitter? Or is this some sort of Robot?

In all seriousness though your work is truly inspiring and I cannot wait to see more. I check this thread daily as I'm sure others do. Keep up the good work!

Great stuff as always, and thanks a TOn for the simple green europe link!

Have always wanted to try it but was only US sold..

good stuff... i wish i had the patience or money to do stuff like you are

@ manworker : Don't worry about the money, its a convenience not a necessity. A modellers skill is in his hands and his mind, not in his wallet

First off here are the photo's I forgot to upload yesterday: -



Here you can see the bottom of the cadian jackets have been removed and roughed up a little for the layer of green stuff to be added. The pockets have been removed and smoothed where needed too. On the officer legs the pouches and the chest have been cut off, these legs require a different process, where the coat parting will be moved to the centreline instead of the side and buttons/detail added.



Here you can see the infamous GS nappy, I take a rolled "sausage" of green stuff and run it between the legs, and then around the belt line. This puts around the right amount of GS in roughly the right places for what we need to do.

Starting at the top, I wet my fingers and push the Green stuff hard against the belt line, trying to squeeze a tiny amount of excess over onto the point where the torso joins the legs. The majority of the excess I draw down with my thumb, pulling and smoothing it as I work my way around the figure making the lower part of the new coat. As you can see most of this process so far has all been with fingers and no tools, as this is not the final layer of our GS work we can do this with no concerns. However I tend to keep the layer smooth anyway out of habit as can be seen here: -



As I am working I am thinking of the flow of the cloth and how it would wrap around the legs. You can look at the metal Steel Legion figures for examples to help with this part. Lastly using my nail I push the bottom line of the coat up a little to tidy the line, however once dry I often tidy up with a sharp scalpel to get a hard line.

If you are doing this yourself, you should have ended up with a set of legs looking similar to the last picture. Don't worry if yours look rougher, you can always tidy with a scalpel later, and to be honest its usually only the final layer that needs to be smooth.

I hope to have some time at lunch to get the last four lets nappied and smoothed, however they are crouching and things get a little more difficult. We should see tomorrow how that turns out.

If yesterdays Broken Glass comment intrigued you, here are the results of an experiment I did with some of the Imperial Scenery from Games workshop. I always look for simple ways to make my work stand out from other peoples, this includes my scenery. I also hate it when all the scenery looks the same on my table and like each building to feel different in a number of ways.

The following should make each window different from the next and consequently each building too and give a nice unique feeling to my scenery: -



The glass is laser etched clear plastic sheet, I am still experimenting with how to get the best out of it, but the principle is working well I think. Take a look at the picture, visualise a grimy battle torn building, think of a thin layer of dust on the glass, and see a steel legion trooper just visible through it, hiding behind the wall. There you go a glimpse into how I visualise things as I work on them, I try to see the whole scene in detail, and then work towards that detail.

Going to be a good day today, Camcorder arrives ... and tomorrow mystery Forgeworld purchase



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While we are on the subject of laser etching I thought people might like to see some previous work I had done: -

Sweet Jesus, I hate you.

Hate is a very strong word. I'm just jealous.

Where could I get those Salamanders stuff, I would kill for those bitz.

Those salamanders heads look good

It's really enjoyable watching you build this obvious labour of love. I've learned a lot from your posts, especially about the photo-etching, but I think the biggest lesson I've learned is just how lazy I really am.

Thanks for taking the time to share each step of the process. I can't wait to see what comes next!

@ Valhallan42nd : Hate ? .. why ?

@ s.j.mccartney : Jealous ? .. why ?

@ Ghost in the Darkness : I made them for myself, I don't sell my stuff, sorry.

@ Mastiff : Given the quality of your work, I will take that as a compliment. If you want to, I would love to see how you do that Tartan work!

Ok, time to plead guilty. This mornings update got swallowed in an orgy of playing with the new Camcorder last night, now I could try and plead that I was preparing for the tutorial, but as I only have videos of my family and the hamster its unlikely you would believe me.

The good news is that it works well and I should be able to do the close up, first person perspective tutorials that I want. Although I will need to purchase an HDMI -> DVI adaptor cable to make it all work.

Oh and if all goes well and if the nice man at Forgeworld can be trusted, the mystery Forgeworld delivery should arrive today. I am quite excited by that, but by now you will have guessed what it is ... surely ?

Bump to find out if there's more going on...

(and I think the sarcastic hate and jealousy is due to your amazing skill at this Br. Argos ).

Wasn't it obvious ?



Going to use it as scenery ... an exploded Reaver across the landscape of Armagedon!

You're gonna destroy it?! Heresy!!

You're mad...

This will be epic.

Great stuff
im a fan of guard
nice work on the casting GW really should make em plastic
nice stuff

ABH

Agreed,nice work.You sir are AWESOME!

Seriously

You're using a Reaver as scenery?!?! You, my good sir, are mad. On the plus side, you'll probably hold the honour of most expensive terrain piece outside of a GW.

A dubious honour, but one nontheless.

Dragonlover

As usual your stuff is awesome. May I suggest you put the site link in your sig. In a few pages it will become difficult to find.

* Try's to find Mr. & Mrs. argos's house to talk him out of such heresy as destroying a fw titan for terrain *
Oh the humanity.

our club did the samething to an eldar titan for a 40k eldar runic board . came out real nice too .

Cool using a titan as as terrain, if your work so far is to is to be the jugde it will be awesome. keep these posts going im totally enthralled.

I have finally started my project btw but i wont post stuff on forums until the full project is finished. But as i have said to many times, I wouldnt have done it without the inspiration of this thread to keep me going.

Sacrilege.
Heresey.
I'm going to flatten London with an orbital bombardment to stop this heinous act.

*sniff* The shear fact that you can afford to buy a reaver and use it as terrain is making me cry...

But, It could be truly awesome if any of your other work is to judge by.

I'm going to use the way you did the coats for my IG inquisition. =) So thanks!

I think he might be joking about the reaver terrain thing.
At least, I hope so...

Perhaps he will cast the pieces first then use the reproductions as terrain?

Can you buy individual bits from FW? I never could figure out how you can do that.

You bought the Armageddon basilisk cover right? How do I buy one of those, I want that too!!

Wow, this is really inspiring work, and I know this because, along with the new codex, it is inspiring me to get back to work on my own Steel Legion army. Which brings me to a painting question.

BrotherArgos can you tell me how you were able to duplicate the color for the greatcoat on your painted model on page 2? I have the Codex: Armageddon, but Martin Footitt's little blurb about how he painted the GW Studio models is just no help to me, for some reason, and I've given up in frustration. I'd appreciate it if you would lay down for me the colors, layers, and mixes used to achieve that appearance, if you would be so kind. I am using both GW and Vallejo Game Color paints.

Its probably blazingly simple, but I've just never acheived that particular color, and thats the color I want :argh:

Thanks in advance, and keep up the amazing work.

Destroy it please! Best terrain on the planet... minus that BFG 40k wrecked ship I saw floating around. It was the size of a 6x4 board in itself.

Sorry for missing posting yesterday, but I was working at a clients all day and had no chance to get to the internet. So today is all about the weekends activities, when I got the chance to do something fascinating, my daughter Hannah (10yr old) wanted to spend some hobby time with Daddy!

Initially she started off building a really simple WWII kit of a V2 rocket in 1:48th scale, about 20 pieces, all fairly simple. She used the GW flush cutters to remove the model from the sprue and learnt how to keep the cutters close to the kit (I know its not the best way to do it, but I did not want her using my hobby knife/scalpel to tidy up). She then used my "Squadron" sanding sticks to tidy up and remaining marks of the sprue, and after about 45 minutes and some help with the instructions she had built a rocket. She learnt how to carefully apply glue (Revel Contacta Professional) to the model, and to not flood the area she was gluing and then to keep the parts pressed together till they stuck.

I was truly impressed that she took the time and effort to do things the way I suggested, normally getting things done quickly and with the least effort is her way to do work. She was also proud of her work at the end and wanted to paint it and add decals (she called them stickers). I mentioned that could be another days hobby time, and she agreed.

After finishing the rocket it was my turn to do some modelling, and I assumed she would drift away and go back to playing, however she didn't, she hung around asking what I was going to make and suggesting she could help me, by cutting things out and helping me glue. So "Team Argos" decided on making one of the new Planetstrike Imperial Bastions as a project, Hannah helped cutting out the pieces and tidying them up, and then gluing them together. For one of my models, it might have slightly more glue visible than normal, but I have a certain emotional attachment to this piece of scenery now.

Some observations about the model, its relatively straightforward and GW did a reasonable job making the kit with lots of detail and options (I think they are also selling some of the kit as as the Bastion Upgrade Pack in the scenery section of their website). One suggestion I have is that the centre point of the flooring is unsupported so use some sprue to reinforce it underneath: -



The other thing I noticed was the poor look of the joints at the corners of the building: -



In addition as you can see in the picture above, due to the thickness of the walls the joints in the wall can be highly visible, this troubled me as well. So I set about trying to find a way to cover the joints on the corners, and to hide the joins where the walls met. Plasticard was my immediate solution and rummaging around in my plasticard box I found some Evergreen stripstyrene 2.0mm "Angle" (Code 292) although the 2.5mm "Angle" (Code 293) would work just as well.

Suppliers in the UK and USA have 292 in stock, if anyone knows a central European supplier of Evergreen please post, so I can include that in future as well.

This would cover the wall joint and was the same width as the reinforced banding found on the lower section of the building, so would feel to scale. I would need to apply rivets to the Angle strip to keep it in character with the rest of the building, which was going to be a boring task, but I did get to use the Micro Hole Punch that had arrived with the Photo Etching kit. The hole punch made the process fairly easy, and to keep the rivets to scale I used the 0.5mm punch.

In addition I added cover plates to the corner joints to conceal them, and used rivets to make a plausible looking riveted joint. The plates were made from 0.25mm thick plasticard, which I cut into 11mm sections, once I had four of them, I then cut out a 5mm square from one corner. This resulting L shape made the lower plate, while I then cut a 2.5mm square from one corner of the 5mm square I had left, this made the top corner joint cover. These corner joints were then glued to the corners and with a little pressure deformed to fit the slight angle of the corner. In the following picture I have used badab black wash to highlight the rivets, as almost no matter how I took the picture the "white on white" nature of the rivets and angle strip hid the rivets completely. I am sorry if the wash makes the work look slightly messy, but it was the only way to highlight the rivets and once the model is sprayed it won't be visible: -



As you can see the wall joint is concealed and the corner joints are hidden and rationalised away. I used the same spacing for my rivets as those found on the lower section of the model itself which was approximately 6.5mm. The black wash sadly makes the rivets appear larger and slightly uneven, but they are all accurately sized and spaced appropriately as will be revealed when an grey or black primer coat is added. Placing the rivets was helped significantly by a new arrival to the glue section, not easily available in the UK I had to order this via ebay from a hongkong reseller, the Tamiya Extra Thin cement. The beauty of this cement is the ultra fine applicator brush as shown in this picture: -



As you can see in comparison to my thumb in the corner of the picture, the brush is tiny, fine and comes to a point, allowing incredibly fine glue work. Having used it to place 100+ rivets at the weekend I must say it performed excellently and I will be getting a spare bottle.

With the addition of bucket loads of rivets and being situated in the Ash waste of Armageddon, this model cries out for some rust using the MiG powders and with light grey concrete-ish feel, lots of rust streaks running down the surface from the rivets when the acidic rains hit the wastelands.

With Hannah's help it turned out to be a fun piece of scenery to make and hopefully she will continue her interest in modeling.

You could just fix it with greenstuff
Nice job btw

Kudos on Hannah being interested in Daddy's hobbies! I think you'll keep that rocket forever.

Working up in London today, no updates from me, however I think SCC has been working on the 609th fighter wing on Battle for Armageddon.

Because of work and the clients needs I won't have the chance to do any modelling till Thursday evening as it currently stands, which means next update will be Friday sometime.

Do you remember how I discussed being a perfectionist can help when working on something and sometimes it can hinder you?

Well this last three days it has driven me crazy, I have been working on the Bastion that Hannah and I made, and I wanted to get a nice concrete style finish to it. I have tried washes, powders and stippled painting, I could not find anything that worked for me.

So before I throw this model out of the window, does anyone have a good technique for painting/creating a concrete effect? Link to an article ? ... description of how YOU did it ?


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The more I think about the problem I realise the issue is that concrete has small holes in it as can be seen here ...



The problem I have is that all "textures" applied are protrusive, and don't match what my mind wants, which would be "intrusive"

Have you tried grey pastels?
Scrape off some powder and apply it

The following links might be useful:

http://model-trains-video.com/page.php?14

http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/417

Have you considered applying some kind of filler/pumice to the surface in a thin layer or two to give it the texture?

Cheers,

Dante

Hey, Dante, that was my idea.

Humph.

sA

Then you should have said it quicker mate .

I think a thin layer of filler, stippled with an old stiff brush ought to do the trick.

Cheers,

Dante

Oh, it has to be thick enough so that you get a cohesive texture and surface. Spread it out a couple of times. Perhaps use a paint scraper (one of the nasty ones for ripping stuff off walls) to smooth, or try it out on a test piece first?

sA

I'm liking how the bastion is coming so far.

For concrete: I use a really cheap walmart paint that bubbles up a lot when shaken. Applied in one thick coat, it leaves little bubbles in the finish that pop and dry that way (think of the underside of a pancake).

I don't know if it would work on such a large surface, and the other suggestions sound safer.

Do what my brother and I do for our fortress. Use drywall putty and put it on surface scraping it extra thin then once it dries go at it with sand paper.

Hi Argos

I understand your issue with intrusive rather than extrusive.

Could call for some experimentation...

You were looking at brass etching, so that could be an option for creating a pitted surface (clad it in brass that has been partially pitted by the etching solution over a small period of time. Not really practical for the bastion however (or much else!)

Alternatively, maybe using the same sort of idea on plastic -

1. Flick specks of peanut butter or similar in a random pattern against the plastic;

2. Spray with an enamel spray paint;

3. Wash the pieces, exposing plastic under the specks of peanut butter; and finally

4. Expose the plastic surface to some paint stripper for a short period of time.

In this case, the paint stripper should react slightly with plastic, and cause some pitting in the surface. Where the enamel paint covered, the stripper should be barred from the surface and so will continue to be smooth like a formed up piece on concrete.

As another alternative, perhaps a dremmel with a point bit could be used to selectively pit the surface.

Cheers

Just a couple of thoughts.

Thinned dark paint flicked onto the surface from an old toothbrush or stiff-bristled paintbrush would probably work best to give you hundreds of tiny, unevenly spaced hole approximations. Flicking straight down onto the surface with a nearly dry brush should prevent any strange splash or gravity lines.

I'm not very well versed with using salt as a mask, but I've seen the results before and if you used popcorn salt (very fine grains) instead of regular table salt, you might be able to get slightly 3D holes... agian, this is purely theoretical.

Another thing that might do it is tapping the surface repeatedly with a wire brush to create small holes (pre-softening the plastic with cement might be necessary). You could then scrape the little crater rims that this creates with a hobby knife.

Best of luck and I can't wait to see what you come up with.

You could perhaps use plastic glue to melt largeish holes and then for the smaller ones just flick paint on as GitSmack said; but I dont really know as i dont do much terrain so good luck with whatever you choose!

The other option would be to use liquid latex mask (vallejo).

Apply some using blister foam or by flicking with a brush, paint and then remove. The build up of paint around the mask will provide a small recessed effect.

Cheers,

Dante

Hi there,
Ive been following your post very closely since its beginning, its great the work you've been doing, particularly the casting.

As for the concrete effects- is this of any use?
http://www.miniaturescenery.com/PaintingVillageSeries.asp
http://www.miniaturescenery.com/PaintingChurch.asp



Apparently this guy uses Deluxe Sandswept, which should be easy enough to track down at B&Q. I'd say the effect looks fairly good too- although it doesn't quite give the holed effect you wanted.

I'm not sure that the holed effect is necessary for a model to look like concrete, though. Not all concrete has that effect, to be honest I would imagine stronger concrete such as used in the bastion would be far more dense and without the air bubbles to ensure it is very strong.... Of course, it all comes down to what effect you are trying to create.

Jon

haha i cant wait to see wat you have instore for the reaver
keep up the good work

Sorry for the extended absence, for the last week and a half I have been bed ridden with an ear/throat virus. At the worst point I was sleeping around 18 hrs a day and remaining in bed even when awake.

Finally I returned to work yesterday and trying to catch up with my backlog after all that time away. So I will be busy for a couple more days catching up.

However as is always the case when you cannot do what you want to do, I have a whole load of ideas to work on. I think first up with be adapting the new Demolisher/Punisher/Executioner to work with the modified Ryza pattern turrets I bought from Forgeworld (I love the look of the new plasma weapon). In addition all the parts for my next steel legion trooper are complete and sitting at home in Silicon rubber as we speak.

I am looking forward to getting back to my Steel Legion after an enforced absence.

Argos, great work as always!

I have been looking for the Tamiya extra thin cement for ages and I just havent been able to find it even in Japanese stores like Hobby Link Japan. Where did you get it? The name of the ebay seller would be really helpful.

With regard to your concrete texture question there are a few good scale model techniques for this.

Firstly some people use fine grit sandpaper. Cut the required shape in the sand paper sheet and attach it onto the plastic surface. I have seen this doen on concrete flooring in 1:35 modern AFV dioramas to good effect. It's quick and easy and gives a good rough texture.

Alternatively another (and in my opinion better way) is to use Mr Surfacer. Are you familiar with it? It is a filler thats used by scale modellers to add surface texture to armour. It comes in various grades and is sold in small pots. Basically you paint it onto a surface, let it cure then afterwards you can sand it down if required. Excess blobs can also be disolved by glue without damaging metal or plastic underneath.

Mr surfacer like Tamiya thin cement is hard to source in the UK, but easy to order online from HLJ, it comes in 500, 1000, and 1200 grades. It really is great stuff.

Thanks for the tip Gundam-Mecha ... here is the ebay item number for some of the cement!

270432790932

I have used Hobby Link Japan when working on my Tau, I will have another look!

Nice to see you feeling better, was starting to wonder if you has lost interest in the project!

Keep up the great work.

Glad you are feeling better, I have been following this thread and your work blows me away. I am trying to get myself motivated and actually put into practice some of my ideas for my Guard. Your projects and skill are very inspiring (massive understatement btw).

I hope to get something done/started before the 11th as I am having my tonsils ripped out (on our wedding anniversary too ).

Yay, you're back! Can't wait for more updates!

Hi,

Great work on the SL.

As far as texture, do you have a Dremel, Black & Decker Wizard, or similar tool? I think you could get an intrusive texture with the steel brush tool.

Glad to hear you are back at it mate, keep up the good work!

Cheers,

Dante

yaaay your bakc! Your ideas have taken me to cast a modified baneblade gasmask dude's head. But it is cast in greenstuff so is fragile(ish), but i am hoping to make a model with the head and use it in my flgs 's giant apocalpyse battle between traitor guardsmen (GRRRRR) and loyalist guard (WWOOOH YEAH GO DUDES).

Great to see your back Argos!

And that last post was quite hyperactive

I have looked through this thread over and over and what strikes me is the ingenuity and the confidence that you have in your modelling, something tremendous and a great virtue. Congratulations on a fantastic and attractive website as well.

sA

BrotherArgos wrote:The rebreather on the female torso will be added after it is reproduced, as will the webbing based ammo packs, from observation almost all female soldiers wear items on webbing below their chest, so thats where I will be sculpting them, instead of on the chest as the men do.

Spot on there as Id hate to have the webbing squezzing and hurting.

Fantastic job,

Such wonderful spirit and approach in your project - I'm soooooo anxious to see finished articles though

You sir, keep impressing me!

Great work!

Cheers,

Jack.

Brother Argos keep it up! You inspired me on my build, to take unorthodox approaches to ridiculous extremes. If you get a chance please take a look.

@ smiling Assassin : Thank you, its always nice to get encouragement.

@ Miss Dee : Mrs Argos says there is little worse than a sore chest! So I wanted to make sure I got everything right!

@ aka_mythos : Excellent work, loved the work, as a matter of fact I might need to talk to you about the process. I have some work I did in 3d studio max that I would love to "realise".

@ Migsula : You know you cannot rush creation Migsula! ... You back home full time now ? ... or back to London anytime soon ?

Anyway its the school holidays and I am knee deep in Children and fun, so won't be posting for a couple of weeks as I spend time with my family!

However the casting worked nicely for the female torso and the new legs and arms. I also managed to get the new plastic Plasma gun and Punisher cannon to work with the Forge World modified Ryza pattern Leman russ turrets. So its been a good week, and will have plenty to update on when my family have finished wearing me out !!

I love your stuff.

wait wait wait....
your going to trash a titan?

a reaver titan?

probably the most complex kit forgeworld has made?

i think im gonna cry
with joy
this thread is the coolest ever ! your very talented.

Yeah, hows that going btw?

These guys have (had ?) tamyia extra thin cement
http://www.modelsforsale.com/

Mmm, keep up the good work.

Truly amazing work with the green stuff! Would you mind sharing how you are able to get the gs perfectly smooth?

Cat

Ive read the whole post and i have to say its brilliant, well done that man.


ps, what are the rules concerning casting GWs stuff and copyright?. Are you allowed to cast for personal uses?

Vitruvian XVII wrote:Ive read the whole post and i have to say its brilliant, well done that man.


ps, what are the rules concerning casting GWs stuff and copyright?. Are you allowed to cast for personal uses?

He's not -directly- casting off of whole minis. He's doing his own sculpting and plasticard. So they can't do much other than wag a finger. If he bought up a bunch of the pewter Steel Legion and recast them, then he'd probably get assaulted with 3d6 Strength 10 AP 1 hits from the Adeptus Lawyericus

sweet guardsmen!

I would love to get my handed to me by that army
and would it not be 3d6 strenght D ap 1
FM

Hows the sculpting coming along?

I'm dead curious about that myself. Or has GW sent a 'cease and desist' order due to them trying to banish the Steel Legion to the distant past with Squats...

This thread hasnt been updated in a while so im guessing hes either busy with work, or just hasnt had time to update... There is nothing here that GW could claim as illegal.

... the net needs a sarcasm smilely, as we all know how touchy GW can get re their IP. Due to the convoluted laws concerning said, they tend to sue first and ask if it's baseless later.

The OP would've said something if it was a 'cease and desist'. More likely he's just busy. GW is so set on Marine Season and Space Hulk still that I doubt they'll find this, or care if they do. They won't do much until the greatcoat Guardsmen come out, which will be 'soon'

... when GW says 'soon' I assume it will be the same 'soon' as me finally coming up with the cash for that DUKW that I've been trying to acquire...

Cast them! Sell me some!!!!!!!!!

Sixth months.

sA

I'll admit, I'm starting to wonder what happened myself

They are/were doing some sowftware updates at the bolter and chainsword so don't really experct any updates for w while.

We should totally have an auto pop-up for members under 50 posts, reminding them to check the dates of threads.

The Dreadnote wrote:We should totally have an auto pop-up for members under 50 posts, reminding them to check the dates of threads.

What about auto-locking threads that are more than say, 2 months old. The only person that could post should be the OP (say they finally come back to the thread). If someone has a question it should be resolved with a PM.

Eh, sometimes they actually do say something relevant that re-ignites the thread.

Not to mention, the guy says he wont sell castings about 4 times in the thread. Sorry i just browsed it now that its current.

Necro bad, don't do it. Locking for the time being. Brother Argos feel free to PM for an unlock should you come back to the project!

An update? Wow, I thought Brother Argos had ended this project.

Your painted Legion minis are beautiful.

Is this project rolling again BA? Look forward to seeing progress if it is. Was really bummed when we stopped hearing from you and seeing your great work.

I am not sure where to begin ... so I suppose some form of overview is important.

What Happened?

Two years ago this project consumed me and spat me out. It was the most ambitious project I had ever undertaken and in the end it burned me out. I stopped painting for a year afterward and didn't return to 40k for another year on top of that. When I did it was to work on my Iron Hands.

So What is Different Now?

I had some bad news recently, I have been diagnosed with diabetic retinopathy, I had three haemorrhages in my left eye in the space of two days, the effect on my vision is significant. I have impaired colour, depth perception and fine detail focus with my left eye.

Suddenly I run the real risk of losing some or all of my sight. Knowing I might lose the ability to paint and model .. is driving me to do it. Holding tightly onto what I have, frightened I might lose it.

I desperately wanted to find out what I had lost so far, I personally believe that my steel legion is the high watermark of my hobby activity, therefore the logical place to test against. So I started to paint another steel legion trooper, it was harder than I hoped, however as you can see from above it is of a similar quality to my previous work, although to be honest much slower to do than before as I had to correct many more mistakes.

Simple stuff suddenly got harder, without good depth perception I don't know where brush is in relation to the surface I want to paint. Time after time I would approach the model with the brush only to bump against the surface because I didn't not perceive the distance correctly. I could go on and on, but a simple way of you understanding is to paint with one eye covered next time you paint anything. Its a steep learning curve.

The final result as can be seen above, was I hope within 5% overall quality difference of the previous work (next to it). With an improvements on the goggles (as I have done some significant lens work in the time since I did the Steel Legion last time.

So Where Do We Go From Here?

I will NOT be working at the same pace as before, it is physically impossible for me now.
I will TRY to learn new things as it might be my last opportunity.
I will ATTEMPT to narrow my focus to Steel Legion only projects.
There WILL be times this blog goes quiet as I undergo treatment on my eyes, I will try to give notice of this.
This project WILL almost certainly not finish, but it will move forward. I have a number of new ideas and techniques to discuss.

Initial areas of interest we will be looking at are ...

Airbrush work
Using Oils on vehicles
Pigments on vehicles
Using Enamel Washes on vehicles
Laser Cutting for small detail parts
3d Modelling and production

I want to get more troopers made and painted, so that means the old favourites of sculpting and modelling will also feature heavily.

If you are a previous watcher of this thread, welcome back. If your new, then spend the three hours it takes and read the previous hundreds of posts to catch up!

If you have any questions your welcome to ask

There should be more images and discussion of some of the above techniques later today and over the weekend.

@ Maj. Winters : It is rolling, with the conditions above Your welcome to come along for the ride

@ JB : Thank you ... it is appreciated

Take your time your health is more important

Wow, that's some heavy stuff.

I don't really know how to react, I'm glad you're back but it's not for the reason I thought.

Its still beautiful work and better than me on my best day.

I'm no neurologist, but the brain is an amazing organ. It finds ways around things. If you keep up the good work, you might surprise yourself with how your head adapts and learns new tricks at how to do things again.

@ Miss Dee : Your right ... I would not risk my eyesight just to do some modelling. However, like all things that one might lose, you cling on harder.

@ FM Ninja 048 : Be pleased to see me, that is more than enough for me. In return I will try and make some nice models and interesting posts

@ Goresaw : Lets hope so .. I could do with a break

Dude, Brother, this is sad to hear. I hope all the treatments go well and your sight only gets better, not worse.

Your skill with creating these Steel Legion figures inspired my 101st Airborne figures and my own foray into sculpting/casting. (On a temporary unemployment-forced hiatus).

I look forward to following the progress you make.

And btw, the newer fig looks just as good as the first. The goggle lenses look MUCH better. So I think you are doing better than any of us could hope to considering!

Stay strong brother.

That sucks I thought it was bad when I broke my painting hand,but at least that healed up.
The new one looks just as good as the other to me.
Airbrush is a great idea for your condition
Not sure if you got one but here is a link to a no frills one I use from Ebay,its not badger or pashce but does the job nicely
http://www.ebay.com/itm/380197903063?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649#ht_789wt_689
The best book I have ever,ever read on the techniques you are inquireing about is FAQ2 from AK Interactive,thier DVDs are awesome too.
http://ak-interactive-usa.com/

I hope this is some help to you,if you ever have vehicle questions please feel free to pm

my laptop (New) now takes up my painting table hummmmm


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Im recovering from a major op and im getting treated like i can lift heavy things ............ I dont think so.

And and get moaned at as the person I look after dont get it

Welcome back, you've been sorely missed! I'm sorry to hear about the haemorrhages/retinopathy; I can understand your position though as my depth perception has shifted with diabetes too... it seems like a constant niggling worry.

I've found vehicles are much easier on the eyes than figures, especially when playing around with weathering powders and oils. Having said that, I can't see any significant differences between the two, so I think you're doing much better than you think you are. That could also just be down to two years off and worry. Take it easy and don't push too hard as this is something to enjoy.

Take care Argos, I'm sorry to hear it.

Wow, sorry to hear buddy. Hope everything pans out.

Regardless its good to have you back on the boards, weve missed you

Monday morning and I spent the weekend relaxing and thinking about what sub-projects are part of this lumbering behemoth that is this log.

The next few posts will show the key sub-projects and give a description of what I want to do with them.

So, in no particular order of importance.

1. The Macharius Salvation

Some time ago a fellow gamer contacted me regarding a forge world purchase that had gone badly wrong for him. Even though he was an good modeller I think he had given up on this purchase as a bad deal and he wondered if I would like the vehicle in question. We decided on a price and I eagerly awaited the arrival of a Macharius Heavy Tank with Vulcan Mega-bolter.

When it arrived I could understand why the gentleman in question had most probably wanted to sell it on.



Some parts had arrived broken from Forgeworld orginally and in a moment of enthusiasm the original owner had decided he could model his way around the problems. One of the original sponson guns was missing its cylindrical housing and an attempt was made to use Green Stuff to replace it.



Tracks were broken and the result was "Hidden"



Super glue and green stuff were generously applied around the model (with added fingerprints)



and finally .. as is often the case with Resin models the fit was poor.



These are possibly the worst aspects of the vehicle, however just generally there is a lot of excess superglue and poor fitting around the entire model.

"The Macharius Salvation" will be the recovery of this vehicle from its poor current state into something I could use on the battlefield. Initially it will be focused around filing down the excess superglue, filling in the cracks and gaps where possible and recreating the missing sponson cylinder from scratch.

Once that is done I will then try and add some new features and upgrades to the model before giving it the distinctive Steel Legion camouflage pattern!

It is a shame for such a lovely forge world model to go waste .. so its a unique "fixer upper" opportunity.

The next project I will be posting about later on today is codenamed "LRIWS" ... Any guesses as to what that stands for ?

@ Everyone : Thank you for the kind and supportive messages

My Macharius duo were an absolute pain to put together. The main problem were the base plates as they were so warped only one end could touch the tank at a time. It took ages with a hairdryer and hot water to try and get it in place... then I had to use lots of plasticard to fill in the gaps before puttying over them.

I did find that the housings in the turret match one of the standard plasticard tube sizes (though I don't know which one off the top of my head), so I made lots of replacements and magnetised it all, so I can have any weapon option.

By the looks of it, your one actually has the exhausts touching the base plate, Which is a bonus, as mine needed loads of filling there too.

I can't wait to see how yours ends up

Great to see you back modeling mate, so sorry to hear about your health issues.
Stay the course, you have as much support as anyone could want from everyone here in the internet. Thoughts, and prayers if you believe for you and your family in this difficult time.
I wish you continued health and goodluck in life and you modelling endeavors, in that order.

Aaron

Excellent stuff here, Argos! I'm glad you picked the project back up, as I hadn't seen your previous work!

Subscribed!
Rawson

Wow that macharius looks pretty beat up, im confident you can do a bang tidy refit though

Leman Russ Integrated Weapon System : LRIWS for short.

I have always enjoyed modelling as much as I have done wargaming. As a modeller, my aim is to make a pleasing and often historically acurate model to the best of my abilitiy. The bit I enjoy about mixing that with wargaming is that you have multiple potential options with most vehicles. Like most "Magnet Boyz" I love magnetising my models and vehicles to enable them to have multiple tactical uses, different weapons, options etc. Well with so many potential variants of the Leman Russ, it becomes a bit of a challenging conundrum!

It breaks down into numerous subsets ...

1. Sponsons or Not - Weapons variants (Heavy Bolter, Heavy Flamer, Melta or Plasma)
3. Forward Mount Weapons variants (Heavy Bolter, Heavy Flamer, Las Cannon)
4. Pintle Mounted Weapon or Not - Weapons variants (Storm Bolter, Heavy Stubber)
4. Camo Netting or Not
5. Extra Armour or Not
6. Dozer Blade or Not
7. Hunter Killer Missile or Not
8. Turrent Mounted Weapon Variants (Battle Cannon, Exterminator Autocannon, Vanquisher Battle Cannon, Eradicator Nova Cannon, Demolisher Siege Cannon, Punisher Gatling Cannon, Executioner Plasma Cannon, Annihilator Las Cannons, Conqueror Battle Cannon)
9. Named Crew (Knight Commander Pask & the Forgeworld named variants)

As you can see its quite interesting to try and to build a single Leman Russ which can accommodate all potential variants. But hey ... why should it being hard stop us from doing it ...

Initially we are going to tackle the Turret Mounted Weapon Ssystems as per LRIWS mentioned above. To make things slightly more complex I really REALLY like the Modified Ryza Pattern Turret from Forgeworld .. As seen in the picture below.



Well last time I was working on my Steel Legion I collected almost all the variant turrets from Forgeworld. But if you were following from before you know I sometimes throw money at my solutions!

I somehow strangely had not got the Battle Cannon variant (doh) ... and obviously I needed a solution for the Eradicator Nova Cannon & Punisher Gatling Cannon (both came with the 2010 Leman Russ which I did not have).

Well after a trip down to my local GW (Croydon), I became the proud possessor of a brand new 2010 Leman Russ Box! The Eradicator Nova Cannon would take a little bit of work, mainly obtaining the FW conqueror turret again and fitting the two together (the barrel size was closest of all those I checked). The Punisher however was going to take some work, it had a wide gun mantlet and a cunning fitting system to make it work. While I was also looking at the Punisher, I could not help but notice the Plasma cannon GW had included in the Demolisher Box. Wow, it was so much cooler than the Forgeworld variant, and best of all matched the look of the super heavy vehicles that FW did too.

So the problem then became one of making a gun mantlet that would enable me to mount a Plastic Plasma Cannon & Punisher Gatling Gun into the same turret. As the pieces were basically compatible with each other I needed to create some kind of cut down mantlet that fitted the same space as that used by Forgeworld on the modified Leman Russ turret, therefore giving me the weapon swap out capability I sought.

Here is my succesful attempt, yes there was a failed version (curse you Forgeworld) but more on that later.



First off I duplicated the original fitting in a scrap mould (a mixture of other small one or two off parts needing casting but not needing to be cast many times) which would be cut up into small pieces and used in other moulds as filler. I then cut the moulded gun mantlet down so that it was the width of the Modified Ryza pattern Leman Russ Turret. Then I proceeded to make a surround out of plasticard that looked similar to the ones made by FW. This is where the first variant bit the dust, if you take a careful look at the picture of the second attempt, you will see that the "back" is not square with the front (as shown by the greenstuff "shim/wedge"). The first attempt was perfectly square, naively assuming that forgeworld had made the gun hole "square". Uh-huh ... it wasn't square on the first turret I checked, nor the fourth ... Which is where I started checking the guns themselves, they were not "square" either. Hence the second version that matches the "irregular" fit of the gun hole

Once this was right I merely needed to test for fit and trim the plastic parts.





More in the following post .. The trials of the Demolisher Cannon, ordering yet more Forgeworld, did the Punisher work? ...

AS in Frank Castle?

Love your stuff glad to see you are still going strong !

Nice to watch your fabrication thought process. I think a fully swappable LR tank would be awesome. Always a modeler's nightmare to build it one way and be stuck with it if rules/tactics/games change.

Leman Russ Integrated Weapon System : LRIWS - Continued

Below you can see the collection of most of the variants



The demolisher for some unknown reason was cast as a solid part of the turret by forgeworld. As you can see at the bottom of the picture below I needed to cut the end of the turret off and work away at the resin till I had the cannon separated and tidied off. I need to build a small plasticard plate to sit on top of the gun when it is fitted to the modified Ryza turret.



In the same image you can see the Punisher Gun in place. I must say I was pleased with the look, I think it looked good with the different turret

Using the same gun mantlet component we can also fit the Plasma gun to the turret. This finally gave me the chance to comparison the Forgeworld Plasma gun with the GW one in the same turret.



I think I prefer the GW one to the Forgeworld turret, given its similarity to larger weapons on Titans and Super heavies. What do you think?

Lastly I cut down the FW conqueror gun and used it as the base of the GW Nova Cannon. I found the inside of the GW cannon had a 6mm diameter space which could take the appropriate sized plasticard tube. I drilled a similar size hole into the resin of the FW gun "base" and slid the tube into both parts. Once I checked fit and ensured everything lined up correctly I took the picture below. Looking closely at the picture, I think a plasticard collar should be fitted to the point where both items join, with rivets on it, to match the FW style.



All that now remains is to order a new Conqueror cannon and the forgotten normal Battle Cannon from Forgeworld.

Well that is my second project started. I have also done some work on the Macharius and will hopefully have some pictures to show progress for the weekend.

Just a quick update on the Macharius Salvation.

I started work on the Green stuff filled turret. Here you can see midway through and almost finished.



As you can see some minor damage was done while removing the greenstuff. Given the force required to remove hardened Green stuff its lucky in many ways it was not worse.

I will be tidying the gouges and nicks in the resin using Pro-Create for no good technical reason other than it is grey coloured and matches the model.

In addition I made a new cylinder style turret out of plasticard tubing. The size of the original turret is 10mm in diameter so I used a 10mm plasticard tube cut to the correct length for the sponson.

The original turret had an oval recess cut into it to allow the Heavy Bolter to be fitted. To get the same look I tested using the next smaller diameter plasticard tube inside, it was a nice tight fit and would form the "base" of the cut out. I then removed the smaller tube .. and proceeded to carefully drill out the oval using larger and larger diameter drills from 1mm - 5mm. Once I had the circular ends correct, I merely used a scalpel to remove the section between them.



Once this had been done I started to glue smaller and smaller diameter tubing inside to "fill" the cylinder. You can see this in the photo above, and the variant sizes of plasticard tubing I used for the task. I was pleased with the result, which looked very similar to the original resin piece.

My next task will be to fill the small gaps in the end of the cylinder with green stuff and file them smooth. I am not quite decided yet whether to magnetise the weapons, however given my previous track record it is likely.

Tonight I will be starting the turret clean-up, I have taken pictures "before" starting and will take some pictures "after" for comparison as I work.

You have more patience than I, sir I guess if you're willing to put in the work, you can get some good deals on salvage, but I always get shivers when I think about it

Keep up the great work!
Rawson

To be honest it is a curse sometimes. I cannot say how many times I have thrown work into the bin because I wasn't happy

Brother,

Just re-read the thread to gain some reader momentum for your return. Again, I'm not only impressed with your skill in painting/sculpting/casting etc. but how well you pass it along to us. It's frustrating to find an awesome blog that just doesn't provide good pictures or explanations. No problem with that from you.

For the turret, is all that "fill" really needed? Why not just do the one inner tube to make the base for the bolter to attach to and do a disk at the top and bottom? Would save you a lot of tubing.

The plastic plasma cannon certainly looks a lot better than the FW one. I approve!

I'm not a fan of the Nova cannon on the ryza mout though. It might look better with a shorter barrel between the turret and the massive end piece. Possibly removing the piece after the ring might improve the look?

As for the turrets, why not just pack in some milliput filler? It'd be much much cheaper. I assume now you've got one done you're going to cast it to get enough the same?

@ Maj Winters : Thanks for the compliment, I always try and explain how I solve problems, not just show the result.

The Turret fill is starting to become embarrassing <grins> I was actually just playing with plasticard. Once the first inner tube was in place I proceeded to add more and more on a whim till in the end I filled it with a solid rod. Of course I should / could have just filled it with green stuff or milliput but it was the modelling equivalent of doodling to be honest.

@ endtrasmission : I too am pleased with the plasma cannon ... a big improvement I thought. The Nova cannon however is not yet finished, with the appropriate collar and extra fine detail I hope / think it will fit the Ryza style.

As mentioned above, the turret was just me playing around <grins>

I have been working on the Macharius tonight and almost finished the sponsons, a tiny amount of filling remains to tidy them.

Now the sponsons are almost done I am moving to the turret to get that tidied. I am tempted to use the Air filtration parts from the top of the cut up demolisher turret to give the Macharius a closer feel to its smaller Leman Russ cousins.

I must be in a lively mood tonight as I have also been working on a Chimera and a Sentinel coming up with some plans for modifications.

I placed my Forgeworld order as well ... I have a Ryza pattern battle cannon coming as well as a Death Korps of Krieg Mars Alpha Pattern Leman Russ with modified Ryza pattern turret.

I am thinking of standardising on the Mars Alpha pattern for my Leman Russ Hulls as I prefer the look and profile.

Wow! This is quite a project

Argos, I had wondered what happened with this superb project, and it is brilliant to see it alive and rolling along on tracks again.

At first I thought it was a classic technique of too many suggestions, hunkering down like any creative and sticking to your vision.

But this news, very serious and I empathise fully. I suffered blurred and failing vision after a Jeep ran over my hatchback through a red light. As a graphic designer, illustrator and hobby creative I can truly say, it was the most fraught and chilling week of my life. When my sight began to normalise I dove into every project I had going with similar conviction. Ended up smashing my hobby work out of the park, won my first and only Demon, (re)built my websites below and just kept goal setting year on year.

All I can say is, respect the medical advice.. but go man go. D-mn the torpedoes Brother.

Glad you're back.
- Seb.

Busy weekend ... got quite a lot done on the Macharius Salvation sub-project.

To start with I repaired the storage bins at the back of the turret. The original strip around the bottom was damaged so I removed it, I tidied up the damaged three supports by removing them and generally sanded down the damage areas to a clean surface. I then measured the remaining supports and reproduced three them using plasticard.

It is important to note that these models were mainly constructed out of plasticard to begin with, therefore reproducing them should just be a matter of measuring the thickness of card used and then cutting to the appropriate size. Below you can see me starting to glue into place the replacement supports, I tend to use self locking tweezers for the job. They hold the item so all I need to do is place the item (with the glue of course). I tend to find normal tweezers where I need to apply pressure to hold the item start to shake slightly at precisely the wrong moment.



Also you can see the finished supports in place, this other half of the image shows the damage to the "edge" of the box we will cover with plasticard "angle" strip. In addition you should be able to see two damaged brackets on the large face, the hidden face also has a damaged bracket.



We skip forward in time for about three hours and can see the final results of our work. The points of interest are labelled: -

A - A tarpaulin was added from the normal Tank upgrade sprue, I decided to do this as it adds some extra detail to the model, making it seem more life like/used, it also conveniently hid the damaged surface nicely. Sometimes there IS an easy way out! One small point of added detail in the magnified section was the removal of the "solid" part under the curl of the fabric. The plastic moulding process demands that no overhangs / obstructions can occur, therefore they "fill" these little areas with plastic. By removing the plastic carefully with a scalpel / hobby knife we can increase our level of realistic detail, these things are hard to see, sometimes almost imperceptible but they can make a difference.

B - The banding on the lower edge of the storage bin was replaced and extra rivets added. Note the triangular arrangement of the rivets at the corners, I decided to use this arrangement as it was the standard used on other parts of the tank. Often when repairing or modifying a vehicle it is important to achieve a sympathetic or similar style to "fit" in and not look out of place, something that ruins a lot of excellent work done by beginners without them realising it.

C - The struts we covered above, however please not they appear very slightly thicker than the originals. This is almost always caused by shrinkage at the moulding stage, if a master model is not kept and used for the mould, then often first run duplicates are. These duplicates are themselves slightly smaller, when they are used for making a replacement for an old / work out mould the size once again decreases. If you do mould your own work at any time, always remember to keep the original and try not to destroy it in the moulding process, I keep boxes of my originals safely stored away incase I get mould failure.

Tracks are often a pain on resin vehicles and as I am sure you remember from the early photos we had an almost completely missing track at the back. I needed to replace this track with something, so I set about making a new one from plasticard as you can see below. Once again measuring a normal track piece gave me all the dimensions I required and about an hour later I had the replacement made as you can see. A cut up chimera (more on that sub-project later) supplied the rivets and all the rest came from my store of plasticard. If you plan to do any serious modelling with tanks / vehicles, I can only suggest you invest in a broad selection of plasticard strip, tube, sheet etc from Evergreen and/or Plastruct, you will NOT regret it.



I was pleased with the replacement track and have not put it into place yet as I might actually mould it, still have not decided yet.



Luckily the end of the damaged track was used to replace one that had been sheared away at the front of the tank, waste not! It still needs a little filing, to smooth the procreate used to join / support it, but I wanted to get this post done at the end of the weekend and not waste time filing till tomorrow.



Trying to keep the same "turret" theme I planned for the Leman Russ turrets, I took the cut up turret from the demolisher and carefully cut away the filtration systems from the side and top. These two pieces were then added to pretty much the only clear space on the Macharius turret. The first picture shows the side mounted component already stuck into place and you cannot see underneath it where it has two plasticard struts for support.

I then ran / shaped two small ribbed cables (from Dragonforge) from the side mounted component, up and over onto the nearest clear space on the top. Support brackets / ties made from plasticard were added with bolts for realism / detail and I must remember to get some photo-etch brass strip which would have been much easier.

Finally I added the top mounted component for the filtration and drilled it to receive the ends of the two ribbed cables. Once glued into place (both cables and component) I proceeded to use procreate to create "covers" for where the cables joined the components. Once again I used procreate not because of preference over green stuff, but because it was already grey in colour and I preferred that.

Lastly we move onto the finished sponson with heavy bolter.



Here we can see the cuts and nicks of the sponson on the left hand side, have been repaired with procreate, which I also used to fill the gap between sponson and vehicle. When the not cylindrical turret is added the finished result finally comes together nicely, overall a lot of work, but it makes such a difference compared to our original greenstuff packed version.

With the turret finished and the sponson .. we are focused on the tracks and the leading edge of the Macharius. The LRIWS sub-project is on hold at the moment as we await the delivery from forgeworld (currently marked as dispatched on friday, thanks FW).

I am anticipating another 5 hours work to finish the modelling phase of the Macharius Salvation, then she gets put aside for a while as we move onto the Airbrush and Oil Wash work. I want to practice on a dead old Leman Russ to get the finish I want right before committing it onto the Macharius, as with all things it is better to practice on something you don't care about first before ruining hours of work on a great model.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I will be working up at the British Museum in London. I am hoping to get enough time to finish the Macharius though

@ Shas'El Tael : Hey Seb, thanks for the welcome back. Its a horrible place to be in and I see you understand, your support is appreciated

Excellent work BrotherArgos. I followed the Iron Hands thread. Your attention to detail and the process you use is really fun to watch. I always learn something.

Thank you Radiation, I hope you will follow this one also!

Talk about TLC! Great work here, Argos!

Welcome Home Councellor... I folowed your thread before and i am pleased you decided to revitalise that project. Stay healthy Sir!

All your conversion work is amazing keep it up !

Man I wish there were more blogs like this one out there..

Love your stuff mate! It is inspirational to read your updates.
I hope that your eyes get better .
[can't wait to see that Macharius done!!]

My original plan had been to make more repairs and modifications to the Macharius Salvation sub-project. However I had some Forgeworld stuff and a surprise in the post today which demanded a small post.

Firstly here is a picture of the forgeworld haul ...



Two Ryza turrets and a Leman Russ Mars Alpha pattern hull including trench rails.

I have long been a fan of the look of the Mars Alpha pattern hull, for its extra detail and length. You can see below the difference between a normal GW Plastic hull and the Forgeworld one ... its a Beast



When you add in the nicely detailed hull mounted front weapons ... you get a good looking model! ... note however no Heavy flamer .. guess who is going to have to make that!



With the Mars Alpha were the remaining weapons I needed to complete the set for the LRIWS sub-project. The normal looking Battle Cannon and a replacement Conqueror pattern (its actually an alternate battle cannon, but it looks really like a conqueror to me!). In addition I got a couple more turrets for my collection.



Also in the post was something I had been interested in from the states.



I had been wanting to add some panniers to my various vehicles so this tempted me also. I had seen some models with them on and thought I would give them a try!

Lastly and definitely not least ... There is one single Steel Legion figure I did not have in my collection. The ultra rare Necromunda Sniper ... who actually was a Steel Legion trooper kneeling. This figure is really rare and out of production, I have been scouring ebay for four years looking for him, when one came up in America a couple of weeks ago. I bid sniped like crazy to get him and I am ashamed to say paid what felt like a small fortune for a single figure (whoever sold him will be happy I am sure). But he is MINE NOW!!



There are few alternate heads/faces/alternate poses in the Steel Legion, I had them all but this one ... Now I am very happy

I also got something else in the post ... this one from the far east ... but that bit will have to wait till I start that sub-project ... next week I suspect!

@ Rawson : Thank you ! .. I took a look at your 104th Vostroyan ... excellent work!

@ konst80hummel : Welcome Back, I will indeedy try and stay healthy

@ ghostmaker : Thanks ... I am thoroughly enjoying working on my Steel Legion again.

@ Sicarious85 : Are there not? ...

@ Tech Guard : Thanks .. me too .. I will be getting Laser Photocoagulation on my retina soon I hope .. which should help slow down the decay.





Automatically Appended Next Post:
One thing I forgot to mention last night ... The quality of the castings were an improvement over the last time I was buying things for my steel legion (2009).

Obviously it could be just this batch etc ... but it was pleasing to see that things had improved.

Wow.. massive difference in size between producers for the Alpha pattern.. crazy.

That sniper!? It was you!? - You swarmy sonofa - I jest

I got crazy on some Bretonnians a year back to source parts for a foot knight... I shall remain chaste about the final price. (Flutters fan innocently)

The Necrmunda Sniper/kneeling Steel Legion trooper is a cool model, congrats on finalising the collection.

Great updates, blogs like this help a lot of smaller manufacturers break into the mainstream with their detailing kits and painting gear offerings.

- Seb

Love the mars pattern tanks, I am sure your amazing attention to detail will do them justice! That is good news about your eyes .

We are on the final run to finishing the Macharius Salvation repair, just some filling and surface work to do.

First up we take a look at the exhausts on the back of the Macharius ..



As you can see not a good fit at all, not to mention irregularly cut. I considered using a hair dryer to bend the pipes for a better fit, but was worried the curve would end up looking wrong/compressed if I did.

I decided finally to use procreate to rebuild the point of contact for the pipe as you can see below at point C. Only one done so far, but the other one is scheduled for tonight, on an interesting note often with green stuff / procreate it is better to let things which are near to another harden and dry first in case of accidental damage on finished work when working on the second item.



As you can see above at point A the track replacement is in place, I had to fill an enormous bubble hole in the resin below and let it harden. One fitted I added 1.5mm plastic rod to make the track joint, now it is all dry I have to fill the small gaps between the track and the white rod to make it accurate.

Point B. shows more filling for the cracked corners. Because of the size of this hole I had to create an initial filling, recessed from the surface slightly in all directions, which will harden and act as a base for the final smooth coat.

As you can see the rear of the vehicle rapidly approaches completion, I for one will be glad when the "filling" is complete.

Moving to the front we can address the front "joint" for want of a better description. The joint/fit was terrible as you can below, this one was/is hard to hide.



You can see in the bottom of the picture, the gap that needed concealing. First I tried to remove the bar to tidy it all up, that was not going to happen, it was wall and truly glued into place. None of the support struts on the bar even touched the tank at any point either. I finally decided to employ a physical trompe l'oeil technique to fool the observer, using a square strip of plasticard to create a much straighter line which the eye would latch onto instead of the irregular drifting line it concealed, basically misdirection. It would not be perfect, there was just too much movement, however it would look better than the previous joint. Once the plasticard was in place I filled in behind the struts (see point A) so they all looked like they joined on to the hull correctly, I then subtly used a scalpel to make them all look roughly the same depth by re-cutting the front on the protrusive ones (once again a depth illusion). All that remains is some minor filling work around the new strip to finalise.

Now we move back towards the middle.



I replaced the damage hatch and tidied up some at point A, there was lots of spilled super glue. The edge of the viewport at point B was damaged and chipped off, so I cut it back a little to clean up and then sculpted it back using procreate. Finally there was a long edge where the cover for the stubbers didn't meet the hull which I filled and smoothed. There is a small amount of filling to do, but not much

To give you a more cohesive view here is the current work in progress shot, it almost looks finished



Notice how the plasticard strip at the front makes the straight line illusion work!

I am pleased with the way its looking now, but I am want to get it off my desk to make way for the next sub project!

@ Shas'El Tael : Thanks Seb, I had a good trip down memory lane this morning looking at your older Scythes of the Emperor images that you found on the Zip disks ... they look so cool

@ Tech Guard : Thanks

Wow Brother,

Amazing restoration work you are doing on this tank. I need some body work done on my car, how are you at full scale work

Can't wait to see this finished and painted!

Its pretty amazing to see someone take junk and make it perfect!

Bad day today ... Had another haemorrhage in my left eye bleeding into the vitreous gel in the middle of the eye. Timetable for laser surgery to try and stop the bleeding has been accelerated, I will be having laser surgery on Tuesday next week now. I currently have my screen on the largest font size to see/type this.

So sorry no updates today and might not be any till after I heal following my surgery.

Best of luck with the surgery Brother Argos. Hope it all goes smoothly.

Good luck Argos, our thoughts are with you.

Stay strong Argos. A speedy recovery to you.

Best wishes to you Argos...

Good luck mate!

Just a quick update ...

According to my consultant both eyes are affected, however the left one is worse because the vitreous gel is pulling away from the retina (the other one isn't yet).

Therefore I will need Laser work in both eyes. The laser is not going to clear up the blood floating around in my left eye, that might require a Vitrectomy, where they drain the gel in the middle of the eye (with all the blood) and replace it with an inert clear fluid. Only time and healing will tell if that is necessary.

The laser work basically has them shooting a laser at the back of my eye (the retina) and for want of a better description "burning" off the periphery of the retina. This is destructive and I might well lose peripheral vision, night vision and some colour vision. The thing it does however means that my eyes need less blood/oxygen (no need to feed the dead areas) and should stop haemorrhaging all the time. Basically I am trading off my peripheral vision to keep my core vision for longer, which kind of sucks, but is a lot better than being blind. From what they said I will need 4-5 visits per eye on a once a week basis, that will be fun ..

The good news is that last weeks haemorrhage is fading slowly (can take up to a month) and my sight should be "ok" for modelling tomorrow so I will be getting on with some stuff soon

BrotherArgos wrote:Just a quick update ...

According to my consultant both eyes are affected, however the left one is worse because the vitreous gel is pulling away from the retina (the other one isn't yet).

Therefore I will need Laser work in both eyes. The laser is not going to clear up the blood floating around in my left eye, that might require a Vitrectomy, where they drain the gel in the middle of the eye (with all the blood) and replace it with an inert clear fluid. Only time and healing will tell if that is necessary.

The laser work basically has them shooting a laser at the back of my eye (the retina) and for want of a better description "burning" off the periphery of the retina. This is destructive and I might well lose peripheral vision, night vision and some colour vision. The thing it does however means that my eyes need less blood/oxygen (no need to feed the dead areas) and should stop haemorrhaging all the time. Basically I am trading off my peripheral vision to keep my core vision for longer, which kind of sucks, but is a lot better than being blind. From what they said I will need 4-5 visits per eye on a once a week basis, that will be fun ..

The good news is that last weeks haemorrhage is fading slowly (can take up to a month) and my sight should be "ok" for modelling tomorrow so I will be getting on with some stuff soon

Wow, way to keep a positive attitude with something so suckish! I feel really bad for you
but get out there and do some modelling!!!

Wow sounds like some gnarly work to be done. Hope all the procedures go well!

The Emperor Protects.

does he

Hang in there man. 4-5 yrs to Cyborg eyes...

Good luck !

There's a guy on dakka who's had the surgery; the one where they replace the fluid in your eyes, he had an interesting thread about it.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/409733.page

Dunno how useful that is, maybe Piston Honda (great name btw) could tell you more about it.

Look forward to more steel legion/tanks.

Wow.. dude i'm kinda new here and i'll post something 'bout my stuff soon but that is not the point..

i've just read all your threads and this one is just awesome.. the minis are awesome the painting is awesome the modeling and acasting are awesome.. dude you are awesome
i feel realy bad for you and your health and i'm trully amazed that you can still by so enthousiastic about it but..


even with your eyes problems.. your painting skills are truly wonderful and to that i'll just add

get better and keep up the good work !