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Ok so ya I want to modify one of my extra FW's to look like my avatar the issue I have is I have little to no experiece acctually sculpting greenstuff I can use it to patch and smooth out unsightly lines and such but I never really cared enough to bother sculpting with it.

That said I am trying to think of good ways to bring this figure to life without focring my self into attempting something that may amount to little more then alot of wasted greenstuff.

But the basic way I was thinking about going about this is first to turn normal Tau shoulder pads into the slotted pads shown in the picture, I was going to do this simply by carefully cutting the normal Tau sholder armor into the three spaced pieces and using greenstuff to keep them together.

Now the part I have been fighting with my self about choice A. Attempt to sculpt a Katana out of green stuff or B. go to a local toy or hobby shop and try to find something with a katana that will work that I can just glue to him.

If you have any ideas or thoughts on how I could make this work lemme know I am too afraid to attempt this right now so I am gonna go work on something else

definitely try to find something in the shape of the sword you want gs is not that great for making straight thin objects

Good to know, that runs me into the problem most of the miniture katanas I can find are way too big to use on a Fire Warrior

You can carve swords out of plasticard fairly easily, that might be a good option for you.

That issue ends up being that I want it to be sheathed like in the picture so i don't know how easy that will be to make out of plasticard.
I found the perfect legs and i am pretty confident as to how to modify the arms so he will have the correct dueling posture

Actually, having the katana sheathed makes it even easier. Get an Eldar Howling Banshee power sword - they're pretty katana-like these days. Then wrap the blade in a thin layer of GS and carve any designs in it that you want for decoration.

As far as the shoulder pads go, I'd be hesitant to chop the entire pad into three pieces. I think you'd be better off using three rectangular chunks of plasticard. Take a file or dremel and shave down the face of the shoulderpad a little. Then lay the plasticard rectangles on with the lowest one first. Place the second so it slightly overlaps the first, and do the same with the third. Then use GS to clean up the sides a little where the plasticard attaches to the pad.

Death By Monkeys wrote:Actually, having the katana sheathed makes it even easier. Get an Eldar Howling Banshee power sword - they're pretty katana-like these days. Then wrap the blade in a thin layer of GS and carve any designs in it that you want for decoration.

As far as the shoulder pads go, I'd be hesitant to chop the entire pad into three pieces. I think you'd be better off using three rectangular chunks of plasticard. Take a file or dremel and shave down the face of the shoulderpad a little. Then lay the plasticard rectangles on with the lowest one first. Place the second so it slightly overlaps the first, and do the same with the third. Then use GS to clean up the sides a little where the plasticard attaches to the pad.

/facepalm Wow man I had not even thought of using plasticard for the shoulders thats a great idea as for the howling banshee do you happen to have a pic of one so I can see if I like it or not? But ya I had thought of doing something similar with one of the chain swords I have left over from some of my chaos sprues. I will test that out when I get home and see if it works or not. Thank you.

privateer press legion swordmasters have some cool blades.

try cutting a piece of plasticard the rough shape of the sword it will give the gs support and give you something to work off then sculpting from there should be easy.

i just recently started making things with gs and its alot simpler then i had thought
malenthrope head only problem is the tendrils are still soft and bendy almost a week later which aint to bad for them but for something like a sword that would not be good

Zhetsuken wrote:/facepalm Wow man I had not even thought of using plasticard for the shoulders thats a great idea as for the howling banshee do you happen to have a pic of one so I can see if I like it or not? But ya I had thought of doing something similar with one of the chain swords I have left over from some of my chaos sprues. I will test that out when I get home and see if it works or not. Thank you.

Aw man, GW changed the Banshee swords again! The first generation of Banshees had sort of cutlass-esque power swords. Then the second generation had more katana-esque swords. Now, it looks like they've gone back to the cutlass shape again. Crap! I'll still see if I can dig up a pic, but it'll take me a little longer now.

Death By Monkeys wrote:

Zhetsuken wrote:/facepalm Wow man I had not even thought of using plasticard for the shoulders thats a great idea as for the howling banshee do you happen to have a pic of one so I can see if I like it or not? But ya I had thought of doing something similar with one of the chain swords I have left over from some of my chaos sprues. I will test that out when I get home and see if it works or not. Thank you.

Aw man, GW changed the Banshee swords again! The first generation of Banshees had sort of cutlass-esque power swords. Then the second generation had more katana-esque swords. Now, it looks like they've gone back to the cutlass shape again. Crap! I'll still see if I can dig up a pic, but it'll take me a little longer now.

Maybe not but the eldar chain swords are exactly what I am looking for so all i have to do i think is find someone who plays eldar and has one of the arm w/chainsword bits left over with a little GS and a hobbyknife I should be able to make a fair decent sheathed katana I think =) I also did a couple quick sketches(with pen ) in class today for how I want the shoulder pieces to look as well as the katana.

I knew I had a model laying around with one of the eldar chain swords this is the idea I am not going to salvage this one cause it is on one of my Harlies but I think guardian sprues have chainswords so maybe some one will have one laying around, I can only hope.

check out the samurai eldar I did, and see if you like the katanas. I would not recommend cutting up the Tau shoulder pads. I've converted Tau Samurai before and its a bad idea. Plasticard would be more feasible, but you would lose out on molded sept symbols. Katanas are pretty easy to make out of thin plasticard, especially if you have the hands holding them. If you want to make a good hilt and grip for the swords, it gets a Lot more difficult. But that is true irregardless if you buy or make them...
Also, if you are doing a whole Samurai army, I highly recommend putting Sashimonos on all the FWs [the back banners]. They look really nice with a coherent colour scheme.

Good luck!

Ya that looks pretty good, I am planning on keeping the katana sheathed and have him in the standard dueling position so drawn blades of plasticard won't help me much. As for the shoulders I think I am gonna at least cut out the symbol and put it on some modded plasticard shoulers. He will be my only Tau samurai I am gonna proxy him in as my HQ during friendly games.

Yes I realize you want to make sheathed katanas, and that was what I was referring to when I said they were easy to make. Banshee swords would be Way too big.
Cutting out the symbol should work. If you still want it. Or you could just cut the ends off the shoulder pad and add new plasticard on. That would be fairly straightforward.

Ah ok ya a banshees sword would likely be too big but i think the chain swords off normal Eldar guardians should be just perfect. I do want to use the Tau symbol especially the groved one thats already on the shoulders.

Fantasy Skaven carry Katana-like swords. You might want to look at those and see if any of them would be useful to you.

Ah - that's a good point - those ones would be a better size compared to the Tau, too.

Breotan wrote:Fantasy Skaven carry Katana-like swords. You might want to look at those and see if any of them would be useful to you.

I am going to the hobbystore today after english comp I will look into that thank you for the suggestion. I will be picking up some more GS since I have been out for days now. I will probly start on this project this weekend I hope it turns out all right.

does your local hobby store carry any of the Dark Age games miniatures?

the sabre model has two nice katana's that could be easily replicated..

http://www.dark-age.com/store/popup_image.php?pID=124

Or you could do a chop and pin with one of the swords from Urban War's Triads

http://www.urbanmammoth.co.uk/acatalog/Triad_Blister_Packs.html

Well I finished assembling my Tau Samurai what do you all think? Also the last picture is a test paint job I did for my idea of my Tau having urban camo.

looking good but your urban paintjob looks a bit like you just put white and black strips on an unprimed model

Ya I was very unsatisfied with the gray primer because it do looke too close to unpainted models. Here is a comparison pick of the gray primed guy with an unpainted model.

I did some washing to the gray base to pull out the details a bit better plus these guys are just test models I just want to see if I really like the paint scheme.

Here is a black based attempt which everyone i have asked has liked much better.

and a Side view of the black base


Oppinions are welcomed as well as suggestions so fire away anyone.
Thanks all.

The grey works pretty well but I'd say give it a green wash or something to balance it.

kool

This looks awesome. Now he just needs a posse of pathfinder ninjas:



Woah. This thread was totally necro'd. My bad. I didn't notice. Sorry dakka