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Fantastic job,
when i heard you filing down the aquilla on the dread torse my heart skipped a beat, but it was obviously for the better. I love the picture thats second to the bottom, it makes it look bad a$$.

What if you put the 2 launcher parts as one piece, cut it down in size, and fit it at an angle into the top of the sarcophagus? Kind of like he's launching mortars.


Just a thought. He's looking pretty cool, though.

woOOoooo.. pretty
Great work!

Thanks for all the comments, guys.

I don't have a ton of updates - probably won't until the weekend, because my classes are taking up a ton of my time right now,

I did want to share this, though, as I think it's an interesting find. I dug this miniature out of The Warstore:



Link to it here.

I'm strongly considering buying it for the scythe head alone - I figure I can probably hack the area where the bone joins with the wood handle apart, and attach it in place of the crozius. Do you think this'd look good? The mini's only 7 bucks or so. I'm not entirely sure of the scale, which is my only other concern.

Edit: A quick photoshop as proof of concept.

I think that will work perfectly, just lenghten the handle a bit and it will be a truely menacing weapon

It looks great assuming that the scale is correct, it may be though that the scythe is too small as some reaper figs are much smaller than GW figs.

Edit: It seems that dark heaven figs are 25 mm scale which would make the mini too small.

Glad to see you up and building again sir!

I was thinking, for the heavy flamer on Vulcan, did you think about building it into the scyth itself? I was thinking of how St Celestine can shoot her sword as a flamer, and that got me thinking:

What if your Legion of the Damned commander had a Legio Custodes style pole arm/flamer weapon?

The bonuses would be (from my standpoint) that you leave the right hand free to do all manner of things, like pointing in a "Your time has come to meet the reaper" style, as well as giving a good reason to put some little flamey bits on the top of the scyth to balance out the long curving part, which visually always seems off balance to me. Scyths are really awkward melee weapons, after all

Looking forward to see where you go with all this!

Metsuri wrote:It looks great assuming that the scale is correct, it may be though that the scythe is too small as some reaper figs are much smaller than GW figs.

Edit: It seems that dark heaven figs are 25 mm scale which would make the mini too small.

Well, I bought it anyway, and one other reaper-esque mini, so we'll see.

Wehrkind wrote:Glad to see you up and building again sir!

I was thinking, for the heavy flamer on Vulcan, did you think about building it into the scyth itself? I was thinking of how St Celestine can shoot her sword as a flamer, and that got me thinking:

What if your Legion of the Damned commander had a Legio Custodes style pole arm/flamer weapon?

The bonuses would be (from my standpoint) that you leave the right hand free to do all manner of things, like pointing in a "Your time has come to meet the reaper" style, as well as giving a good reason to put some little flamey bits on the top of the scyth to balance out the long curving part, which visually always seems off balance to me. Scyths are really awkward melee weapons, after all

Looking forward to see where you go with all this!

It's an interesting idea, but then the whole right arm'd end up being a bit plain, no? Plus, I already thought I'd ignite the top part of the scythe anyway, since a burning weapon seems par for the Legion. Adding a flamer to that might clutter it up a bit.

And who says they're all that awkward?



This neat gif was actually part of the reason I chose the weapon in the first place.

Well, it would be a bit plain in that it wouldn't have a weapon built into it, but I suspect you could make it sufficiently fancy with icons and the like. You could even mix the flaming hand thing with the flamer weapon for extra flame.ness.thing. I do rather like pointing models though. It always seems to tie them in with their surroundings, especially when they seem to be issuing a challenge.

Have you thought about a shoulder mounted flamer? Might be neat too.

Can't see the .gif; work blocks DeviantArt (can't imagine why ) Trust me though, weapons shaped like large carpenter squares are really awkward to use. Even a kukri is pushing it a little and takes a good bit of practice to use passably. Not saying that it can't be done or look cool, but just that they always look out of balance.

Given that a scythe really needs to be wielded with two hands, I don't think that combining the weapons into it would look bad at all. And as stated, something interesting could be done with the other hand, like pointing but wreathed in flame itself.

That .gif is utterly incredible and I want to see someone use something like that at this year's flame festival.

And whenever I read the title of this thread, I think someone is doing an Alpha Legion army...

I am going to keep an eye on this.

oh, now i love the LotD so much. I would kill to get a n army like that.

Looking brilliant so far! Can't wait to see how it develops!

For the Dread definitely keep the launchers on the shoulders- it makes it far taller and intimidating. All it needs is a little something to fill the gap IMO. EDIT: Perhaps something similar to the Iron Halo on the first Dread?

For the Chaplin, I'd just use the standard powerfist and sculpt two little flamers on the back of the palm. As long as they have some sort of nozzle and piping, I should think most people would get what it is.

Finally, how about using regular Salamander models as 'Elite' LOD? That'd seriously confuse your opponent!

The Flaming Scythe would truly be the icing on the top of this magnificent cake, the Dread is absolutely amazing, love the concept of the CML on the Shoulders, just thinking out loud here, what would a banner or flames on the base of the dreadnought add? possibly nothing that great just thinking, and converting the Chaplain that is coming along absolutely great. The Scythe was a great touch, as a current salamander collector you sure are doing our chapter proud with your work keep up the work.

So I've got a couple things going on with the Dreadnought at the moment, most of which are drying and won't be ready to be finished off until later tonight. I hate waiting for putty!

I sanded down the top of the torso a bit, so that the Cyclone launchers I had would sit flush and straight on the thing, since previously they were angled out a bit and crooked. I glued 'em down, filled some gaps, and now they're on there for good.

In the meanwhile, I thought I'd try something. My buddy Zsoulless is a pretty great sculptor, and I asked him how I might go about sculpting ribs onto things. I thought it'd make good over-detailing to stuff like the cyclone launchers and maybe dreadnought shinplates or the likes. He recommended I get a baking clay like FIMO or Sculpey, and make a 'negative' of the ribs first. I gave it a shot, and figured I'd throw the results of the experiment up here.



This is my mold. It's not that great, but whatever, I'm just trying things out.

Here's what happens when you press GS into it and pull it back out.







It's not great - I probably won't leave that on there - but it's an interesting idea, nonetheless. I may have a go at making yet another mold with the ribs spaced a bit closer together, since I sort've like the idea of ribcage details over the cyclone launchers. I just wish I was a bit more of a sculptor, so I could just smear GS overtop this thing and somehow make it look like ribs, like all of those talented blighters do.

I also smashed together what I think will be the Seismic Hammer for this thing - it's pretty simple, all told. A metal furioso dreadnought arm is the base; the standard Seismic Hammer head is the impact surface, and there's a part off the thunderfire cannon kit between the two that helps space the bits out a bit - joining the seismic hammer bit straight to where the dreadnought's fist would normally go looked too stubby compared to a stock seismic hammer.



It's nothing too extravagant. I was having difficulty coming up with something that would fit as a seismic hammer on this thing, but still be thematic, so I figured simpler was better. This way, the weapon is obvious - I figure most people recognize the seismic hammer bit by this point - and because the hammer is recognizable, the fact that the dread itself is intended to be an Ironclad should be made clearer.

The arm itself will be added to - flames, bones, and scrolls where appropriate, you all know the drill.

The other arm I was looking at using, for the left side, is a standard dread CCW arm with a flamer slung underneath and a revised claw bit. This completes the wargear assembly I wanted for the Ironclad by providing lots of burny, close-range death. My concern, however, is that the styles of the arms are too different from one another to mesh properly on the same model. Have a look:



The old metal furioso shoulder on the model's right side is a bit smaller and sits closer to the body than the other one. I think I'm going to try to bulk it out a bit by putting some thin styrene between the arm and the torso, so that it matches the width of the other shoulder.

I imagine the fact that one is metal and the other is plastic is contributing to why I'm seeing them a bit uneven, too.

Anyway, more tonight once the putty work and stuff I'm doing to the legs has dried - I've been filing more and more bits off the stock Chaplain parts because of how unhappy I am with some areas of the FW cast.

Great work on the dread man. I like where you are going with the rib motif. Just one request: is there any chance you could put a thunder hammer in place of that seismic hammer? I never really dug the way GW represented that... too much like a digging drill or personal massager.

Also, to the scythe, that gif actually shows part of the reason they are awkward weapons: imagine him catching a tree branch ~3/4 of the way up. He has to back the entire distance from the tip to the shaft before he can get free motion again. He might be able to rotate the shaft a little to mitigate that (as one can do with an axe) but the curve makes it tough to clear the tip. Plus, if he swings and misses with the tip, there is no blade to catch anywhere (as there would be with kukri or falx) and so he has to pull back to hit.
Just reinactor geek chatter, but that's why they look awkward

Wehrkind: It's a good thought, and where I originally intended to go with it, but if you read the previous post you'll see why I decided to go the route I took with the seismic hammer instead.

Well, I'm still working on it, but I felt like taking a break from trying in vain to sculpt some sort of bone details, so I took some pictures instead.





I stuck a quick plasticard spacer between the dreadnought's right arm and the torso - I'll use a bit of putty to smooth that whole area out overnight, since I can't be bothered to deal with waiting for the stuff to dry while I'm still working on things. The arms are also magnetized on now, in the event I need to remove them for game reasons (weapon destroyed) or I ever feel like making a hurricane bolter arm.

I also decided to see if I could play on the skeletal appearance of the dreadnought a bit. I filed the groin plate down and puttied it smooth, and then used some of the newer skeleton plastics to make a pair of legs hanging off the front and curling down between the legs.





I think it's a neat look with the ribs and skull right above it - better than the dodgy-cast purity seal that was there earlier. There were some bubbles on the underneath of that whole groin plate that I got to fill while doing all this.

I need to add some sort of additional armor plating to the upper leg area, on either side of the hips - nothing really clever's struck me yet, though.

Anyway, I'm pretty pleased with it so far. I need to add an engine to the back, and then do a fair bit of legion-related detailing - see if I can't get some bone textures and flames on the open spaces, and skulls everywhere else. I've also been thinking a narrow banner that hangs between the two launchers up top might be a nice touch, but I'm waiting to see what I do to the launchers themselves before I start filling that area in.

One last picture for fun's sake:



More to come!

really cool project, hoping to see more soon
how big are you planning this army to be?

Cheers

LFF666

I liked the plasticard scythe in the first post better than that other one - the other one seems a tad puny for 40k.

That dreadnourght is sweet!
Love the guardsmen too! Very characteful (both models)

Steve

So I think I'm probably going with the ol' Termie heavy flamer arm for my counts-as Vulkan. I gave slinging a flamer nozzle under the stock chaplain fist a shot, and I'm really not happy with it. I've just kind've roughly puttied it on there, to be sanded and filed once it hardens, but truthfully my sculpting skills have never quite been up to par and this is a prime example of that in action.





The concept's there, I guess but truthfully I think the heavy flamer arm'd end up better in the long run.

I definately prefer your other drill as to the one you just showed. It was unique and had a finess to it that fits with the model.

Empchild wrote:I definately prefer your other drill as to the one you just showed. It was unique and had a finess to it that fits with the model.

You mean, Flamer?

I did not realize that was meant to be a flamer.... well way to make me die a little inside.. GOOD JOB(comment resended).

I found this earlier and it's of no interest to me, but I suddenly remembered this blog, and realised it may be of use to you.

This Guy's tutorial for a Vulcan isn't great, but he has a neat technique for converting terminator lightning claws intoa multi-nozzle flame hand. I thought it was pretty neat, you may do too...

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_kNe9bVr-l4Q/SWOFhRBNr2I/AAAAAAAAACk/Y8wVvxQiFtA/s1600-h/03.jpg

Why not just use that flaming brazier on the backpack. I actually reckon a flaming brazier or the Witch Hunters Flame Gun might work very well for this....

Random thought... If you have extra `Nids around, their chests would make for good rib cages.

Aduro wrote:Random thought... If you have extra `Nids around, their chests would make for good rib cages.

I don't have any extra Nids around. However, there are a few Chaos Chosen Space Marines that have rib designs on their torsos that would work that I've been doing some looking in to.

Llamahead wrote:Why not just use that flaming brazier on the backpack. I actually reckon a flaming brazier or the Witch Hunters Flame Gun might work very well for this....

I actually have a fantasy torch that looks like it'd strangely do the job, but I think I'd prefer the heavy flamer arm over that.

Tek wrote:I found this earlier and it's of no interest to me, but I suddenly remembered this blog, and realised it may be of use to you.

This Guy's tutorial for a Vulcan isn't great, but he has a neat technique for converting terminator lightning claws intoa multi-nozzle flame hand. I thought it was pretty neat, you may do too...

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_kNe9bVr-l4Q/SWOFhRBNr2I/AAAAAAAAACk/Y8wVvxQiFtA/s1600-h/03.jpg

It's an interesting approach, but I don't know if I like it, honestly. It gets the job done, but it's a bit basic.

I want to pitch this up here, as I've been receiving some reasonably good ideas and I wanted to show what I was thinking.



I actually really like the idea of the gauntlet-flamer being something like what Huron Blackheart has. I've talked to one of my talented sculpting friends, Zsoulless from over at The Waaagh, about maybe having a custom arm sculpted up, because the more I think about this design the more I like it.

I've considered using Huron's actual arm, and modifying it a bit, but I'm not entirely sure if that'd work - it's a very chaotic piece, and the hand would have to be totally remodelled.

In any case, this is something I'm going to endeavor to make before I default to my heavy flamer arm backup. I sort've want to take a crack at maybe sculpting it myself, just to see what happens but I have no idea where to begin - probably an armature of paperclip or something, and then the basic cylindrical arm shape, but I can't imagine sculpting fingers like that properly.

Now! A couple more baby steps with my Legion Ironclad!











I wasn't sure what to fill the top of the dreadnought in with, between the two launchers. After a bit of head-scratching, I dug a neat little iron-halo-esque bit out from god knows what kit (I'm pretty sure it's non-GW) and then spiked a banner on there behind it. The banner's from the Vampire Counts Skeleton Warriors box, with a flaming skull added from the Warhammer Fantasy wizard kit. I've been thinking it might be really interesting to paint the banner up as a burnt, tarnished, and otherwise mostly destroyed Fire Hawks standard, as a homage to the Legion's fluff background. Something to think about, anyway.

I also added a couple bits to the sides of the hip joint, in those open areas that were bugging me. One is a sensor module, hacked free from a pintle-mounted hunter-killer missile launcher assembly, since most dreads seem to have some sort of sensors located around that area. On the opposite side, I just pinned some simple scroll canisters there.

I added a second layer of flames overtop the first. It looks a little messy, because I did some pencil sketching right onto the model that since got smudged; primer will hopefully make the torso look a fair bit sharper. I riveted the top layer of flames, since it seemed appropriate.

I like the current pose it's in; it's somewhat turned, which makes it less static, and more interesting.

There are a couple areas I need to address before I'm happily done with this model. These are the arms, and the engine.I'm not entirely sure I know what to do with these areas - I could try hacking more flame designs out to glue overtop, but I don't want to turn the whole dreadnought into some sort of hotrod. Alternatively, I could try sculpting bone motifs, but I'm not particularly talented with greenstuff, or for that matter sculpting, and I'm leery about ruining parts of the model.

Anyway! Work continues. I'm open to ideas and suggestions.

That banner is ace, and while I think the angled legs look better for the more dynamic look, it does tend to lose the skeleton bit that you attached to it's crotch and keep it from lining up like you had before. Maybe have the skeleton bit hanging down from between the wires?

Aduro wrote:That banner is ace, and while I think the angled legs look better for the more dynamic look, it does tend to lose the skeleton bit that you attached to it's crotch and keep it from lining up like you had before. Maybe have the skeleton bit hanging down from between the wires?

Yeah, I've noticed that when the torso and lower body aren't aligned, it's posture looks better, but the skeleton image I was trying to evoke goes out the window a bit. I may reduce the twist a little bit just to bring that back, though I think it'll work fine once it gets some paint - the white bone against the black armor should keep the overall lines unified a bit better. As-is, the bones are on there so solidly (and with floral wires holding them in place, to match the reliquary bands in the shin pads) that I couldn't remove it if I wanted to without a dremel.