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... when GW says 'soon' I assume it will be the same 'soon' as me finally coming up with the cash for that DUKW that I've been trying to acquire...

Cast them! Sell me some!!!!!!!!!

Sixth months.

sA

I'll admit, I'm starting to wonder what happened myself

They are/were doing some sowftware updates at the bolter and chainsword so don't really experct any updates for w while.

We should totally have an auto pop-up for members under 50 posts, reminding them to check the dates of threads.

The Dreadnote wrote:We should totally have an auto pop-up for members under 50 posts, reminding them to check the dates of threads.

What about auto-locking threads that are more than say, 2 months old. The only person that could post should be the OP (say they finally come back to the thread). If someone has a question it should be resolved with a PM.

Eh, sometimes they actually do say something relevant that re-ignites the thread.

Not to mention, the guy says he wont sell castings about 4 times in the thread. Sorry i just browsed it now that its current.

Necro bad, don't do it. Locking for the time being. Brother Argos feel free to PM for an unlock should you come back to the project!

An update? Wow, I thought Brother Argos had ended this project.

Your painted Legion minis are beautiful.

Is this project rolling again BA? Look forward to seeing progress if it is. Was really bummed when we stopped hearing from you and seeing your great work.

I am not sure where to begin ... so I suppose some form of overview is important.

What Happened?

Two years ago this project consumed me and spat me out. It was the most ambitious project I had ever undertaken and in the end it burned me out. I stopped painting for a year afterward and didn't return to 40k for another year on top of that. When I did it was to work on my Iron Hands.

So What is Different Now?

I had some bad news recently, I have been diagnosed with diabetic retinopathy, I had three haemorrhages in my left eye in the space of two days, the effect on my vision is significant. I have impaired colour, depth perception and fine detail focus with my left eye.

Suddenly I run the real risk of losing some or all of my sight. Knowing I might lose the ability to paint and model .. is driving me to do it. Holding tightly onto what I have, frightened I might lose it.

I desperately wanted to find out what I had lost so far, I personally believe that my steel legion is the high watermark of my hobby activity, therefore the logical place to test against. So I started to paint another steel legion trooper, it was harder than I hoped, however as you can see from above it is of a similar quality to my previous work, although to be honest much slower to do than before as I had to correct many more mistakes.

Simple stuff suddenly got harder, without good depth perception I don't know where brush is in relation to the surface I want to paint. Time after time I would approach the model with the brush only to bump against the surface because I didn't not perceive the distance correctly. I could go on and on, but a simple way of you understanding is to paint with one eye covered next time you paint anything. Its a steep learning curve.

The final result as can be seen above, was I hope within 5% overall quality difference of the previous work (next to it). With an improvements on the goggles (as I have done some significant lens work in the time since I did the Steel Legion last time.

So Where Do We Go From Here?

I will NOT be working at the same pace as before, it is physically impossible for me now.
I will TRY to learn new things as it might be my last opportunity.
I will ATTEMPT to narrow my focus to Steel Legion only projects.
There WILL be times this blog goes quiet as I undergo treatment on my eyes, I will try to give notice of this.
This project WILL almost certainly not finish, but it will move forward. I have a number of new ideas and techniques to discuss.

Initial areas of interest we will be looking at are ...

Airbrush work
Using Oils on vehicles
Pigments on vehicles
Using Enamel Washes on vehicles
Laser Cutting for small detail parts
3d Modelling and production

I want to get more troopers made and painted, so that means the old favourites of sculpting and modelling will also feature heavily.

If you are a previous watcher of this thread, welcome back. If your new, then spend the three hours it takes and read the previous hundreds of posts to catch up!

If you have any questions your welcome to ask

There should be more images and discussion of some of the above techniques later today and over the weekend.

@ Maj. Winters : It is rolling, with the conditions above Your welcome to come along for the ride

@ JB : Thank you ... it is appreciated

Take your time your health is more important

Wow, that's some heavy stuff.

I don't really know how to react, I'm glad you're back but it's not for the reason I thought.

Its still beautiful work and better than me on my best day.

I'm no neurologist, but the brain is an amazing organ. It finds ways around things. If you keep up the good work, you might surprise yourself with how your head adapts and learns new tricks at how to do things again.

@ Miss Dee : Your right ... I would not risk my eyesight just to do some modelling. However, like all things that one might lose, you cling on harder.

@ FM Ninja 048 : Be pleased to see me, that is more than enough for me. In return I will try and make some nice models and interesting posts

@ Goresaw : Lets hope so .. I could do with a break

Dude, Brother, this is sad to hear. I hope all the treatments go well and your sight only gets better, not worse.

Your skill with creating these Steel Legion figures inspired my 101st Airborne figures and my own foray into sculpting/casting. (On a temporary unemployment-forced hiatus).

I look forward to following the progress you make.

And btw, the newer fig looks just as good as the first. The goggle lenses look MUCH better. So I think you are doing better than any of us could hope to considering!

Stay strong brother.

That sucks I thought it was bad when I broke my painting hand,but at least that healed up.
The new one looks just as good as the other to me.
Airbrush is a great idea for your condition
Not sure if you got one but here is a link to a no frills one I use from Ebay,its not badger or pashce but does the job nicely
http://www.ebay.com/itm/380197903063?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649#ht_789wt_689
The best book I have ever,ever read on the techniques you are inquireing about is FAQ2 from AK Interactive,thier DVDs are awesome too.
http://ak-interactive-usa.com/

I hope this is some help to you,if you ever have vehicle questions please feel free to pm

my laptop (New) now takes up my painting table hummmmm


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Im recovering from a major op and im getting treated like i can lift heavy things ............ I dont think so.

And and get moaned at as the person I look after dont get it

Welcome back, you've been sorely missed! I'm sorry to hear about the haemorrhages/retinopathy; I can understand your position though as my depth perception has shifted with diabetes too... it seems like a constant niggling worry.

I've found vehicles are much easier on the eyes than figures, especially when playing around with weathering powders and oils. Having said that, I can't see any significant differences between the two, so I think you're doing much better than you think you are. That could also just be down to two years off and worry. Take it easy and don't push too hard as this is something to enjoy.

Take care Argos, I'm sorry to hear it.

Wow, sorry to hear buddy. Hope everything pans out.

Regardless its good to have you back on the boards, weve missed you

Monday morning and I spent the weekend relaxing and thinking about what sub-projects are part of this lumbering behemoth that is this log.

The next few posts will show the key sub-projects and give a description of what I want to do with them.

So, in no particular order of importance.

1. The Macharius Salvation

Some time ago a fellow gamer contacted me regarding a forge world purchase that had gone badly wrong for him. Even though he was an good modeller I think he had given up on this purchase as a bad deal and he wondered if I would like the vehicle in question. We decided on a price and I eagerly awaited the arrival of a Macharius Heavy Tank with Vulcan Mega-bolter.

When it arrived I could understand why the gentleman in question had most probably wanted to sell it on.



Some parts had arrived broken from Forgeworld orginally and in a moment of enthusiasm the original owner had decided he could model his way around the problems. One of the original sponson guns was missing its cylindrical housing and an attempt was made to use Green Stuff to replace it.



Tracks were broken and the result was "Hidden"



Super glue and green stuff were generously applied around the model (with added fingerprints)



and finally .. as is often the case with Resin models the fit was poor.



These are possibly the worst aspects of the vehicle, however just generally there is a lot of excess superglue and poor fitting around the entire model.

"The Macharius Salvation" will be the recovery of this vehicle from its poor current state into something I could use on the battlefield. Initially it will be focused around filing down the excess superglue, filling in the cracks and gaps where possible and recreating the missing sponson cylinder from scratch.

Once that is done I will then try and add some new features and upgrades to the model before giving it the distinctive Steel Legion camouflage pattern!

It is a shame for such a lovely forge world model to go waste .. so its a unique "fixer upper" opportunity.

The next project I will be posting about later on today is codenamed "LRIWS" ... Any guesses as to what that stands for ?

@ Everyone : Thank you for the kind and supportive messages

My Macharius duo were an absolute pain to put together. The main problem were the base plates as they were so warped only one end could touch the tank at a time. It took ages with a hairdryer and hot water to try and get it in place... then I had to use lots of plasticard to fill in the gaps before puttying over them.

I did find that the housings in the turret match one of the standard plasticard tube sizes (though I don't know which one off the top of my head), so I made lots of replacements and magnetised it all, so I can have any weapon option.

By the looks of it, your one actually has the exhausts touching the base plate, Which is a bonus, as mine needed loads of filling there too.

I can't wait to see how yours ends up

Great to see you back modeling mate, so sorry to hear about your health issues.
Stay the course, you have as much support as anyone could want from everyone here in the internet. Thoughts, and prayers if you believe for you and your family in this difficult time.
I wish you continued health and goodluck in life and you modelling endeavors, in that order.

Aaron

Excellent stuff here, Argos! I'm glad you picked the project back up, as I hadn't seen your previous work!

Subscribed!
Rawson

Wow that macharius looks pretty beat up, im confident you can do a bang tidy refit though

Leman Russ Integrated Weapon System : LRIWS for short.

I have always enjoyed modelling as much as I have done wargaming. As a modeller, my aim is to make a pleasing and often historically acurate model to the best of my abilitiy. The bit I enjoy about mixing that with wargaming is that you have multiple potential options with most vehicles. Like most "Magnet Boyz" I love magnetising my models and vehicles to enable them to have multiple tactical uses, different weapons, options etc. Well with so many potential variants of the Leman Russ, it becomes a bit of a challenging conundrum!

It breaks down into numerous subsets ...

1. Sponsons or Not - Weapons variants (Heavy Bolter, Heavy Flamer, Melta or Plasma)
3. Forward Mount Weapons variants (Heavy Bolter, Heavy Flamer, Las Cannon)
4. Pintle Mounted Weapon or Not - Weapons variants (Storm Bolter, Heavy Stubber)
4. Camo Netting or Not
5. Extra Armour or Not
6. Dozer Blade or Not
7. Hunter Killer Missile or Not
8. Turrent Mounted Weapon Variants (Battle Cannon, Exterminator Autocannon, Vanquisher Battle Cannon, Eradicator Nova Cannon, Demolisher Siege Cannon, Punisher Gatling Cannon, Executioner Plasma Cannon, Annihilator Las Cannons, Conqueror Battle Cannon)
9. Named Crew (Knight Commander Pask & the Forgeworld named variants)

As you can see its quite interesting to try and to build a single Leman Russ which can accommodate all potential variants. But hey ... why should it being hard stop us from doing it ...

Initially we are going to tackle the Turret Mounted Weapon Ssystems as per LRIWS mentioned above. To make things slightly more complex I really REALLY like the Modified Ryza Pattern Turret from Forgeworld .. As seen in the picture below.



Well last time I was working on my Steel Legion I collected almost all the variant turrets from Forgeworld. But if you were following from before you know I sometimes throw money at my solutions!

I somehow strangely had not got the Battle Cannon variant (doh) ... and obviously I needed a solution for the Eradicator Nova Cannon & Punisher Gatling Cannon (both came with the 2010 Leman Russ which I did not have).

Well after a trip down to my local GW (Croydon), I became the proud possessor of a brand new 2010 Leman Russ Box! The Eradicator Nova Cannon would take a little bit of work, mainly obtaining the FW conqueror turret again and fitting the two together (the barrel size was closest of all those I checked). The Punisher however was going to take some work, it had a wide gun mantlet and a cunning fitting system to make it work. While I was also looking at the Punisher, I could not help but notice the Plasma cannon GW had included in the Demolisher Box. Wow, it was so much cooler than the Forgeworld variant, and best of all matched the look of the super heavy vehicles that FW did too.

So the problem then became one of making a gun mantlet that would enable me to mount a Plastic Plasma Cannon & Punisher Gatling Gun into the same turret. As the pieces were basically compatible with each other I needed to create some kind of cut down mantlet that fitted the same space as that used by Forgeworld on the modified Leman Russ turret, therefore giving me the weapon swap out capability I sought.

Here is my succesful attempt, yes there was a failed version (curse you Forgeworld) but more on that later.



First off I duplicated the original fitting in a scrap mould (a mixture of other small one or two off parts needing casting but not needing to be cast many times) which would be cut up into small pieces and used in other moulds as filler. I then cut the moulded gun mantlet down so that it was the width of the Modified Ryza pattern Leman Russ Turret. Then I proceeded to make a surround out of plasticard that looked similar to the ones made by FW. This is where the first variant bit the dust, if you take a careful look at the picture of the second attempt, you will see that the "back" is not square with the front (as shown by the greenstuff "shim/wedge"). The first attempt was perfectly square, naively assuming that forgeworld had made the gun hole "square". Uh-huh ... it wasn't square on the first turret I checked, nor the fourth ... Which is where I started checking the guns themselves, they were not "square" either. Hence the second version that matches the "irregular" fit of the gun hole

Once this was right I merely needed to test for fit and trim the plastic parts.





More in the following post .. The trials of the Demolisher Cannon, ordering yet more Forgeworld, did the Punisher work? ...