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Yeah, me too. Will be doing them all that way from now on.

Gem eyes looking good there Gits, think they're the way to go.

Iffy - I was hoping for some glitter and googly eyes Still a damn sight better than my early attempts.

Gitsplitta wrote:
@graven: Thanks my friend. Yeah... funny that it's never a big priority, but to be honest doing anything besides a guardsmen would be really difficult and is likely to be met with a "parental veto" simply on the amount of work it would take... especially since the missus is the primary costume designer and builder. And if they wanted to be guardsmen... I'd have to hurt them.

Love the part about hurting them. My nephew wanted to be a gretchen for halloween. Reason bieng its the first and only model he has and he comes over here and paints for hours trying to make it look great and so he told his parents thats what he wanted and my sister gave me a very long lecture about how she doesnt want her son running around looking like a little imp with a big gun lol.

Oh but a grot would be a GREAT costume! Just call it a gobblin and you'll get a whole different reatction (you can add the gun at the last minute).

Hey Gits, with regards to your query about using blue washes on red paint (from arakasi's blog). The WD you need to look at is WD365 (may 2010 issue). Or atleast it is that 1 in the UK.

The article is about painting a black orc big boss on a boar.

I have been away for a week, but loving the progress that has been made.

And the costumes are great, can't wait till i can take my little nipper Ben out trick or treating.

Hey people, I sat down today to start work on a MW termie heads...and go totally sidetracked with the jumppack wings

So here are the V2 wings with the single engine jumpapack











So thats my take on Mantis Warrior Jumppack wings/steering vanes....What do you all think?

Wow Blackhand, very nice..very clean and simple, i like it. I like the fact that they seem multi-poseable, which lends itself greatly to conversion work, such as folded away when landed, spread open in flight etc.

As a fluffy rule thingy, would they also count as a combat shield? (5+ invulnerable save in close combat). Could imagine the MW spinning around in combat using the edges to lop off limbs or weapons clattering off of them as the MW is defending himself.

Just curious, or would that mess with having a legal army for adepticon?

Ooooops my bad its a 6+ invulnerable save ...... was just curious because the samurai on horseback often wore silk shrouds/ garments when riding into battle. Apparently it billowed like a sail around their back as they went..... the whole idea behind it (and it really worked!!!!) was that any arrows launched at them would get entangled in the silks and fall away leaving the rider unharmed. They tested it recently and not a single arrow caused harm to the horse rider.... thats why i thought of the combat shield thingy, plus you can still use 2 weapons if you wanted..

I like the framework here. I can see how it will balance the organic style with the grimdark aesthetic. I'll do my take on this once I get a sang guard pack off mr gits!

Nice work on the wings Blackhand...

Two questions/thoughts:

- How are they in relation to where the shoulder pads would be? I run in to cases all the time where depending on the pose of the arms the shoulder pads interfere with the backpack or jump pack. My MW pads are also bigger than normal due to the chain around the outside edge. I'd better send you a couple ASAP so you can take that into account.

- Have you considered adding shorter, slightly more rounded wings underneath those like on a real mantis. They wouldn't need to be poseable & in my mind would act more as stabilizers than anything else. I wouldn't make them any longer than the flare (or cuff) of the back of the shin guard. They don't even need to go all the way to the main wing pivot... they could join back into the sides of the pack.

A smaller set would look good too, just got to be careful it doesn't start to look too heavy and cumbersome as that single engine does look kinda big.... or maybe its just because the MW isnt fully built.

wow love the termi pads they look amazing the purple contrasts the bright green beautifully

@Ifalna great painting on your part too espceially the chameleon skink


Automatically Appended Next Post:
like the wings blackhand and the smaller wing set as stabilizers would look great

dantay_xv wrote:Hey Gits, with regards to your query about using blue washes on red paint (from arakasi's blog). The WD you need to look at is WD365 (may 2010 issue). Or atleast it is that 1 in the UK.

The article is about painting a black orc big boss on a boar.

I have been away for a week, but loving the progress that has been made.

And the costumes are great, can't wait till i can take my little nipper Ben out trick or treating.

Hey dantay, sorry... forgot to answer you. Thanks for the reference... I'll be sure to look that one up. How was your Halloween? We had back-to-back parties for the kids and then I took them trick-or-treating. We had a very full weekend! (and a lot of fun)

The wings attach to the underside of the backpack's secondary engines and should have a fair amount clearance between the shoulder and the wing. I will make up a full warrior with arms on so that we can see if they fit together.

Another set of sub-wings are definitely in the offing, I will have a go at them next.

I have to say Gits that I may be a bit slack and not recast the engine. The part is not particularly complicated but I certainly can't add anything to the design and recasting it when you will only need at most ten or so seems a slight waste, what do you think? Were they expensive to get hold of?

Another thought is the fact that the wings are one sided and will be cast that way, what do you all think about glueing two of the cast wings together so there is detail on both sides? The only downside I see is that it will be reasonably thick, no thicker than the sanguinary guard wings though.

BLACKHAND wrote:The wings attach to the underside of the backpack's secondary engines and should have a fair amount clearance between the shoulder and the wing. I will make up a full warrior with arms on so that we can see if they fit together.

Another set of sub-wings are definitely in the offing, I will have a go at them next.

I have to say Gits that I may be a bit slack and not recast the engine. The part is not particularly complicated but I certainly can't add anything to the design and recasting it when you will only need at most ten or so seems a slight waste, what do you think? Were they expensive to get hold of?

Another thought is the fact that the wings are one sided and will be cast that way, what do you all think about glueing two of the cast wings together so there is detail on both sides? The only downside I see is that it will be reasonably thick, no thicker than the sanguinary guard wings though.

No need to re-cast the engine... you have more important (Skaven) things (Sabre Lions) to do. Leave the wings as thin as you can, extra detail would be easy enough to reproduce with plasticard and add to the other side of the wings. As you have already mentioned, I'll only need 20-some anyway (figure a few extra for characters).

now if there was a way to have the wings somewhat transparent......

There is a way Polari...it just takes over 36 hours to cure the doming resin

I was planning on sending Gits the moulds for the wings after I had cast a few (20?) sets for him in resin so maybe he can have a look at casting clear wings

ah ok did not know that curious to how it would look now haha

I have doming resin, so if given a wing "scaffold" could cover the clear parts on my own (hopefully).


I think clear wings are one of those things you'd want to work into a metal mold eventually... I'd be afraid that resin would be too prone to breakage given day to day use.

Come to think of it, I could get out my carving tools and soap stone blocks & experiment with soap stone casting. I think getting the wing "frame" or scaffold to cast would be tough (metal would cool and freeze before filling the mold, however if I gave the wing a thin layer of solid metal in-between the frame elements, the pewter might stay liquid long enough to get a full wing. Then I just go back in with my jeweler's saw and cut out the in-between parts. Simple.

yeah...*simple*

Well, theoretically simple, straight-forward at least. I've pulled off much more complex molds in soap stone including 3-D locking molds and they turned out just fine. Half the trick is designing things so the mold fills completely and freezes correctly.

Nice thing about the lattice-work that supports an insect's wing is that the structure is perfect for supporting casting. All those downward pointing, interconnecting struts will serve to help the metal flow and fill the whole mold before the metal cools to the freezing point, though I suspect I'll have to torch the mold pretty well before it's hot enough to make a good cast.

love those wings to death!

the wings are pretty bad ass

Pseudo update:

Have actually been quite busy working on stuff "behind-the-scenes"... strategizing for Adepticon and trying to figure out how I'm going to make an army that looks like it walked out of a time portal to 1990. I hope to pick up the work on my Venerable dread tonight and with luck... finish the camo pattern. Which will pretty much leave him finished sans banners and extra danglies... and basing of course.

As far as my Adepticon boggles go, I have two primary issues...

1. I need to make some RT-era sternguard figures with combi-plasmas. Of course there were no such thing as combi-plasmas in that era so I'm going to have to make it up as I go. I have plenty of old RT-era beakies to experiment with but the real trick is getting the skinny little umbra pattern bolt guns (which I never liked) to mesh with a plasma gun in a convincing fashion. This is complicated by the fact that the old plasma guns were freaking huge. At this point, I just can't see using a RT-era plasma in combination with the umbra (original) bolt gun as the plasma has about 4 times the mass of the bolters & would result in just a stupid looking weapon. I do have some of the Chapterhosue combiweapons though that are set up so that the extra weapon sections can be magnetized (so you can adjust that component on a model game to game). They are fairly small and understated to begin with (which I like... even for my 5th edition army) and I think with a bit of additional work I might be able to combine the two into a credible weapon. Will post my WIP when I get to that point for C&C.

2. Second issue is that I need to make an RT era MoTF with Conn Beamer. Now I have a couple of the RT conn beamers which are shoulder mounted & look vaguely like a plasma cannon. Not a very interesting weapon, but they are historically correct. Of course as with the sternguard, there was no such thing as a MoTF at the time, so I can either modify a regular tech marine or build one from scratch. I had planned on building one from scratch... but I think I've found an original tech marine figure that could be modified to suit my purposes... and the old RT tech marine figures were actually very ornate and pretty sweet, so if I can convert one of those babies it would be a very nice compliment to the rest of my force.

My thoughts on the over-all design as are follows: Either mount the weapon from the shoulder as originally designed or modify it to an under-slung position... though I'm leaning toward the shoulder mount as it is the original, intended configuration. Now when you get the conn beamer you give up the power claw/arm thingies that the tech would normally get... however it seems to me that in reality you wouldn't actually lose the arms, it's just they they get re-purposed to support the massive gun rather than being available for assault. So my idea is to make a couple of doc-oc like flexible arms (which always made a heck-uv-a-lot more sense to me than the goofy things the tech marines usually have which look orky rather than Imperial), but have them extended straight backwards and down to the ground to support the recoil of the massive gun (like modern day artillery battery supports). That keeps the appearance of the tech marine with his extended and integrated mechanical augmentations which still making it clear that the extra appendages are not available for use in assault as they have a dedicated recoil-suppression role. Since I have a whole 40mm base to work with (standard size for a MoTF), it also gives me better basing options and a chance to "play" with the pose. I may also beef up the gun to give it appropriate mass, again reinforcing the visual need for the support struts/arms.

Thoughts?

Is there any chance of seeing an example for the master of the forge please?

Off the cuff, what about mounting it like the heavy weapons that the lootaz use?

Have you considered gettig hold of Azraels combi plasma and making copies??? I know its not RT but it might work

The extra arms used as anchors would look great and would make alot of sense considering the power of the conv beam....just got the picture of the MoTF in a crouched position with the beam over his shoulder firing with the other arms bracing....maybe the feet on the thunderfire or a broadside can be used for the ends of the bracing arms?

dantay_xv wrote:Is there any chance of seeing an example for the master of the forge please?

At the moment he exists only in my head.

Off the cuff, what about mounting it like the heavy weapons that the lootaz use?

I could, but I don't know that it would be necessary... might just be needless complication.

Have you considered gettig hold of Azraels combi plasma and making copies??? I know its not RT but it might work

Not familiar with it. Do you have a link or something?

polari wrote:The extra arms used as anchors would look great and would make alot of sense considering the power of the conv beam....just got the picture of the MoTF in a crouched position with the beam over his shoulder firing with the other arms bracing....maybe the feet on the thunderfire or a broadside can be used for the ends of the bracing arms?

That's a good suggestion, but in looking carefully at the figure I think they're way too big to be appropriate. Keep in mind that the RT era marines were much smaller than the current regular marines... the current MoTF is even bigger than that.

I used the arm with the combi plasma on one of my wolf guard, will take a pic and send it to you

Thanks dantay!

No worries Its a pity GW stopped letting you buy components from the catalogues, now you have to buy the whole model... Azrael is the Chapter master of the Dark Angels

Hoping to get some pics up tonight, a bit ashamed at the lack of progress over the week.

I am doing a new project..... Wolf Lord with obscenely big spear riding on an attack bike lol!!

That one. His arm, gun and shoulder pad are all one piece. You can pick up the whole model very inexpensive like on the eBay. Hes got a cool backpack too.