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First the "Shock and Awe" photos:



This is the suprisingly simple way that I did the lit up Shield effect.


Here are the parts spread out. At top left is the shield gen, with the mounting block cut off. It will act as a plug, blocking the beam main light of the LED (Light Emitting Diode), allowing only the shield etches to be seen. It also represents the shield generator itself, as its supposedly whats making the forcefield in the first place, right?

Top-center is the modified Crisis arm, with a hole drilled and then routered out to fit the LED directly.

Top Right is the pre wired LED. The LED in question is a 3v Blue LED found at Radio Shack. This comprises all of the lighting "add-ons" I did to this model, and the power cables are clumsilly ran off of the base to a AAA battery twin pack. But for more dedicated modellers, a 3v battery could be hidden in the base (but the flat disk 3v batteries wont last very long- compared to AAAs). The powering, switching, and hiding of the power source is up to you, the reader... this is just about how to do the shield effect.

Bottom Right is a large vehicle flying base- a common thing in Tau army collections. What was doe to it will be detailed further below. The center hole was "cupped out" a bit so that the round tip of the LED would nestle into the center and the light could better fill the "insides" of the flying base disk.

Bottom left is the router bit I used to do all the modifications- it goes to a dremel, and is great for removing unwanted plastic.


Looking closer at the light source itself, we see the beefy and super bright LED. As a 3v LED it needs 2 AAA or AA... or really any other 3v battery power supply to power it. The prongs of the LED can be seen snipped very short, and the little green wires soldered directly to the bottom of the LED. The super thin wires are "Transformer Wrap Wires"- wires that are wound into coils to make homemade transformers/motors/solenoids/etc.... also found at Radio Shack. These wires are basically solid strands of copper, with a coating of lamination to insulate them. Stripping the insulation away is as simple as scraping mold lines off models with a razor blade. At the other end of the Wires, the black wire or - part of the battery goes to the shorter prong, and the red wire/+ end goes to the longer one (it will only work one way, and getting it backwords only results in nothing happening, by the way)

The cover for the solder points was a kitbashed fusion blaster. I had to cover the backside, as it emmitted almost as much blue light as the front end. I hollowed it out with the routerbit, and cut away the vent holes so that light can be seen "venting" from them on the inner face of the arm. This is a compromise- not a typical part of a Shield Gen, but trust me.. no one will even notice it when the lights are on.


At first I tried just a clean flying disk for the shield, but the effect was much too faint, and barely visible even in a dark room. The outer edge, however was a beaming ring, as the plastic turned out to have quite good fiber optic qualities. What was needed to up the lighting was to score the flat side of the base with an exacto knife so that each scratch would act as a 'highlight'- reflecting some of internally channelled light away on its marred edge. On each scratch.

How I did the etching was suprisingly simple. I helt the disk in my left hand, near the center, and with my right hand, scraped a curving arc from the center out (as shown with red arrow), using my wrist to make the arc- keeping my arms stationary in relation to each other. As I repeatedly just scraped-returned to center-scraped over and over again, my left hand spun the disk bit by bit counterclockwise as my etching arm just did its repeating movement in the same place [did I explain that well enough? I really dont wanna make a youtube of "how to scratch a base" ] Once I etched that curving pattern completely around (I think I went 2-3 times around just to cover it enough), I swapped hands, and using my left hand/wrist, etched the green lines the other way. This created an overlapping "weave" that in the end looks suprisingly complicated, considering how simply it was applied (just 2 hands and the tip of a knife). If you look closely you can see that not all arcs are perfect... but in the end it didnt really have to be.


And heres the complete setup, tested out for the first time with power. Everything looked good, and the shield gen is ready to install.


And thats really all there was to it. How you finish up the modification is up to you: you could drill holes in the Crisis suits chest and legs to hide the pair of wires running down to the battery base, you could just paint them black and spiral them down a black flying base in "plain sight", or however you want. I personally let things lapse after I achieved the look I wanted, and never got past this stage myself. After experimenting with hearing aid batteries and watch batteries, I found that AAA was really the best, for lighting up the lights for any meaningfull time, and for having the "push" to power more than just the shield (notice the plasma rifle in the original pics?), And I was GONNA just incorporate the AAA twin battery pack into an extra high base. But just never got around to it (haha- maybe for eBay commision work Id get around to it! .

But thats it! Radio Shack is your friend for LEDs, battery packs, tiny wire, tiny switches, etc. Just go out and get $20.00 worth of 'bits' and link them together to see what you can figure out. Its only 3v, you wont get shocked or anything, and the worst you can do to an LED is burn it out like a normal light by pushing too much power through it.

PS: For more advanced applications, it should be noted that a resistor is really reccommended for battery straight to LED circuits... as you need a "current limiter" to keep things under control so that the LED crystal wont eventually wear out and fry. 155 ohms is the magic number for 3v LED systems- but 150, or 200 are still good enough. Just add them somewhere in the "circle" of wires between the LED and a battery ends.. either side will work, just like the on/off switch. Done properly, these LEDS would never burn out.

Very cool. And surprisingly simple in its construction too, It looks great in the pics.

How well does it show up on the tabletop?

Incredibly cool. Two thumbs up (would be more, but I'd be burned as a mutant if the Inquisition saw me do that).

I like that you could achive some very different looks just by changing what kind of markings you etched into the shield. Personally I think I'd have tried for a series of concentric circles (maybe by putting a knife in a compass or something) rather than radial arcs, but that's just me.

I'm hoping to find a chance to play around with lighting up some of my bigger models myself later this year.

Yes this is great!!

Thanks for posting it up at our request!

I'm gonna abuse the heck out of this technique!

I'm so gonna use this *_*

Kewl, just be sure to accredit me for giving you the technique when someone asks you "WOA!! how did you DO that?!?", so I can regain worldwide famousness, and maybe find my way to White Dwarf, Firebase, DOW, or whatever.

I also have a radio controlled self contained Tau Hammerhead with pivoting turret, headlights, and believe it or not servo tracking chin/wing turrets.. If youd be interested in seeing that, search Librarium Online, or Tau Online for "Servoed Hammerhead project"

..Or just check my long abandoned [for now anyway] Blog to see all my tinkering projects all in one place:
http://calabansworkshop.blogspot.com/

That is a really neat effect. Is it worth doing in a fullly-lit room that folks usually game in or is it more of a display technique?

Does look impressive! I'm willing to bet some folks can be pretty creative in how they hide the batteries (Tree trunks/logs maybe?)

Wow, what an amzing guide. I might actually try this.

NICE!, consider this idea stolen!

That is truly awesome.