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

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

@ 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.

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 ...

@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 ?

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.

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

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

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

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 !

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

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"

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 :(

@ 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



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

@ 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 ?

Wasn't it obvious ?



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

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.

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 ?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
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"

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.

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!

@ 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 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

@ 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

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

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? ...

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.

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

@ 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.