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Malika2 wrote:Dude! That is really cool! I remember I tried to do something similar a couple of years ago with the Badab War, only it never became anything more than a MSN Groups.

Talk to Grey Death about that one, he's a Badab War extrordanaire! (And that probably wasn't spelt right...)

I think Grey Death was also on the project back then, don't remember for sure though, we had some cool artwork (some of which is still used by Lexicanum apparently).

But yeah, I don't really have the time and energy to start yet another project. I'm already on the Anargo Sector Project, Troll Forged Miniatures and then my own modelling projects. My brain is fried...

Looks great man i ought to start some project like this one day!

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

Yeah I probably will be doing it soonish as my b-day is this friday so I will have plenty of cash but I guess I have to wait for my leg to heal aswell!


I have added images of my figure that i created to my gallery, please comment and rate as you see fit. Thanks.

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"

Saw your site man,very nice. Hope FW doesn't take crazy long to deliver your order. Can't wait to see the tutorials.

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 :(

Amazing as ever man!

Sweet fancy Moses! How I long to come into possession of this!

BrotherArgos wrote:while a childminder looks after our daughters.

Is that the equivalence to a Babysitter? Or is this some sort of Robot?

In all seriousness though your work is truly inspiring and I cannot wait to see more. I check this thread daily as I'm sure others do. Keep up the good work!

Great stuff as always, and thanks a TOn for the simple green europe link!

Have always wanted to try it but was only US sold..

good stuff... i wish i had the patience or money to do stuff like you are

@ 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: -

Sweet Jesus, I hate you.

Hate is a very strong word. I'm just jealous.

Where could I get those Salamanders stuff, I would kill for those bitz.

Those salamanders heads look good

It's really enjoyable watching you build this obvious labour of love. I've learned a lot from your posts, especially about the photo-etching, but I think the biggest lesson I've learned is just how lazy I really am.

Thanks for taking the time to share each step of the process. I can't wait to see what comes next!

@ 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 ?

Bump to find out if there's more going on...

(and I think the sarcastic hate and jealousy is due to your amazing skill at this Br. Argos ).

Wasn't it obvious ?



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

You're gonna destroy it?! Heresy!!

You're mad...

This will be epic.

Great stuff
im a fan of guard
nice work on the casting GW really should make em plastic
nice stuff

ABH

Agreed,nice work.You sir are AWESOME!

Seriously

You're using a Reaver as scenery?!?! You, my good sir, are mad. On the plus side, you'll probably hold the honour of most expensive terrain piece outside of a GW.

A dubious honour, but one nontheless.

Dragonlover

As usual your stuff is awesome. May I suggest you put the site link in your sig. In a few pages it will become difficult to find.