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AS in Frank Castle?

Love your stuff glad to see you are still going strong !

Nice to watch your fabrication thought process. I think a fully swappable LR tank would be awesome. Always a modeler's nightmare to build it one way and be stuck with it if rules/tactics/games change.

Leman Russ Integrated Weapon System : LRIWS - Continued

Below you can see the collection of most of the variants



The demolisher for some unknown reason was cast as a solid part of the turret by forgeworld. As you can see at the bottom of the picture below I needed to cut the end of the turret off and work away at the resin till I had the cannon separated and tidied off. I need to build a small plasticard plate to sit on top of the gun when it is fitted to the modified Ryza turret.



In the same image you can see the Punisher Gun in place. I must say I was pleased with the look, I think it looked good with the different turret

Using the same gun mantlet component we can also fit the Plasma gun to the turret. This finally gave me the chance to comparison the Forgeworld Plasma gun with the GW one in the same turret.



I think I prefer the GW one to the Forgeworld turret, given its similarity to larger weapons on Titans and Super heavies. What do you think?

Lastly I cut down the FW conqueror gun and used it as the base of the GW Nova Cannon. I found the inside of the GW cannon had a 6mm diameter space which could take the appropriate sized plasticard tube. I drilled a similar size hole into the resin of the FW gun "base" and slid the tube into both parts. Once I checked fit and ensured everything lined up correctly I took the picture below. Looking closely at the picture, I think a plasticard collar should be fitted to the point where both items join, with rivets on it, to match the FW style.



All that now remains is to order a new Conqueror cannon and the forgotten normal Battle Cannon from Forgeworld.

Well that is my second project started. I have also done some work on the Macharius and will hopefully have some pictures to show progress for the weekend.

Just a quick update on the Macharius Salvation.

I started work on the Green stuff filled turret. Here you can see midway through and almost finished.



As you can see some minor damage was done while removing the greenstuff. Given the force required to remove hardened Green stuff its lucky in many ways it was not worse.

I will be tidying the gouges and nicks in the resin using Pro-Create for no good technical reason other than it is grey coloured and matches the model.

In addition I made a new cylinder style turret out of plasticard tubing. The size of the original turret is 10mm in diameter so I used a 10mm plasticard tube cut to the correct length for the sponson.

The original turret had an oval recess cut into it to allow the Heavy Bolter to be fitted. To get the same look I tested using the next smaller diameter plasticard tube inside, it was a nice tight fit and would form the "base" of the cut out. I then removed the smaller tube .. and proceeded to carefully drill out the oval using larger and larger diameter drills from 1mm - 5mm. Once I had the circular ends correct, I merely used a scalpel to remove the section between them.



Once this had been done I started to glue smaller and smaller diameter tubing inside to "fill" the cylinder. You can see this in the photo above, and the variant sizes of plasticard tubing I used for the task. I was pleased with the result, which looked very similar to the original resin piece.

My next task will be to fill the small gaps in the end of the cylinder with green stuff and file them smooth. I am not quite decided yet whether to magnetise the weapons, however given my previous track record it is likely.

Tonight I will be starting the turret clean-up, I have taken pictures "before" starting and will take some pictures "after" for comparison as I work.

You have more patience than I, sir I guess if you're willing to put in the work, you can get some good deals on salvage, but I always get shivers when I think about it

Keep up the great work!
Rawson

To be honest it is a curse sometimes. I cannot say how many times I have thrown work into the bin because I wasn't happy

Brother,

Just re-read the thread to gain some reader momentum for your return. Again, I'm not only impressed with your skill in painting/sculpting/casting etc. but how well you pass it along to us. It's frustrating to find an awesome blog that just doesn't provide good pictures or explanations. No problem with that from you.

For the turret, is all that "fill" really needed? Why not just do the one inner tube to make the base for the bolter to attach to and do a disk at the top and bottom? Would save you a lot of tubing.

The plastic plasma cannon certainly looks a lot better than the FW one. I approve!

I'm not a fan of the Nova cannon on the ryza mout though. It might look better with a shorter barrel between the turret and the massive end piece. Possibly removing the piece after the ring might improve the look?

As for the turrets, why not just pack in some milliput filler? It'd be much much cheaper. I assume now you've got one done you're going to cast it to get enough the same?

@ Maj Winters : Thanks for the compliment, I always try and explain how I solve problems, not just show the result.

The Turret fill is starting to become embarrassing <grins> I was actually just playing with plasticard. Once the first inner tube was in place I proceeded to add more and more on a whim till in the end I filled it with a solid rod. Of course I should / could have just filled it with green stuff or milliput but it was the modelling equivalent of doodling to be honest.

@ endtrasmission : I too am pleased with the plasma cannon ... a big improvement I thought. The Nova cannon however is not yet finished, with the appropriate collar and extra fine detail I hope / think it will fit the Ryza style.

As mentioned above, the turret was just me playing around <grins>

I have been working on the Macharius tonight and almost finished the sponsons, a tiny amount of filling remains to tidy them.

Now the sponsons are almost done I am moving to the turret to get that tidied. I am tempted to use the Air filtration parts from the top of the cut up demolisher turret to give the Macharius a closer feel to its smaller Leman Russ cousins.

I must be in a lively mood tonight as I have also been working on a Chimera and a Sentinel coming up with some plans for modifications.

I placed my Forgeworld order as well ... I have a Ryza pattern battle cannon coming as well as a Death Korps of Krieg Mars Alpha Pattern Leman Russ with modified Ryza pattern turret.

I am thinking of standardising on the Mars Alpha pattern for my Leman Russ Hulls as I prefer the look and profile.

Wow! This is quite a project

Argos, I had wondered what happened with this superb project, and it is brilliant to see it alive and rolling along on tracks again.

At first I thought it was a classic technique of too many suggestions, hunkering down like any creative and sticking to your vision.

But this news, very serious and I empathise fully. I suffered blurred and failing vision after a Jeep ran over my hatchback through a red light. As a graphic designer, illustrator and hobby creative I can truly say, it was the most fraught and chilling week of my life. When my sight began to normalise I dove into every project I had going with similar conviction. Ended up smashing my hobby work out of the park, won my first and only Demon, (re)built my websites below and just kept goal setting year on year.

All I can say is, respect the medical advice.. but go man go. D-mn the torpedoes Brother.

Glad you're back.
- Seb.

Busy weekend ... got quite a lot done on the Macharius Salvation sub-project.

To start with I repaired the storage bins at the back of the turret. The original strip around the bottom was damaged so I removed it, I tidied up the damaged three supports by removing them and generally sanded down the damage areas to a clean surface. I then measured the remaining supports and reproduced three them using plasticard.

It is important to note that these models were mainly constructed out of plasticard to begin with, therefore reproducing them should just be a matter of measuring the thickness of card used and then cutting to the appropriate size. Below you can see me starting to glue into place the replacement supports, I tend to use self locking tweezers for the job. They hold the item so all I need to do is place the item (with the glue of course). I tend to find normal tweezers where I need to apply pressure to hold the item start to shake slightly at precisely the wrong moment.



Also you can see the finished supports in place, this other half of the image shows the damage to the "edge" of the box we will cover with plasticard "angle" strip. In addition you should be able to see two damaged brackets on the large face, the hidden face also has a damaged bracket.



We skip forward in time for about three hours and can see the final results of our work. The points of interest are labelled: -

A - A tarpaulin was added from the normal Tank upgrade sprue, I decided to do this as it adds some extra detail to the model, making it seem more life like/used, it also conveniently hid the damaged surface nicely. Sometimes there IS an easy way out! One small point of added detail in the magnified section was the removal of the "solid" part under the curl of the fabric. The plastic moulding process demands that no overhangs / obstructions can occur, therefore they "fill" these little areas with plastic. By removing the plastic carefully with a scalpel / hobby knife we can increase our level of realistic detail, these things are hard to see, sometimes almost imperceptible but they can make a difference.

B - The banding on the lower edge of the storage bin was replaced and extra rivets added. Note the triangular arrangement of the rivets at the corners, I decided to use this arrangement as it was the standard used on other parts of the tank. Often when repairing or modifying a vehicle it is important to achieve a sympathetic or similar style to "fit" in and not look out of place, something that ruins a lot of excellent work done by beginners without them realising it.

C - The struts we covered above, however please not they appear very slightly thicker than the originals. This is almost always caused by shrinkage at the moulding stage, if a master model is not kept and used for the mould, then often first run duplicates are. These duplicates are themselves slightly smaller, when they are used for making a replacement for an old / work out mould the size once again decreases. If you do mould your own work at any time, always remember to keep the original and try not to destroy it in the moulding process, I keep boxes of my originals safely stored away incase I get mould failure.

Tracks are often a pain on resin vehicles and as I am sure you remember from the early photos we had an almost completely missing track at the back. I needed to replace this track with something, so I set about making a new one from plasticard as you can see below. Once again measuring a normal track piece gave me all the dimensions I required and about an hour later I had the replacement made as you can see. A cut up chimera (more on that sub-project later) supplied the rivets and all the rest came from my store of plasticard. If you plan to do any serious modelling with tanks / vehicles, I can only suggest you invest in a broad selection of plasticard strip, tube, sheet etc from Evergreen and/or Plastruct, you will NOT regret it.



I was pleased with the replacement track and have not put it into place yet as I might actually mould it, still have not decided yet.



Luckily the end of the damaged track was used to replace one that had been sheared away at the front of the tank, waste not! It still needs a little filing, to smooth the procreate used to join / support it, but I wanted to get this post done at the end of the weekend and not waste time filing till tomorrow.



Trying to keep the same "turret" theme I planned for the Leman Russ turrets, I took the cut up turret from the demolisher and carefully cut away the filtration systems from the side and top. These two pieces were then added to pretty much the only clear space on the Macharius turret. The first picture shows the side mounted component already stuck into place and you cannot see underneath it where it has two plasticard struts for support.

I then ran / shaped two small ribbed cables (from Dragonforge) from the side mounted component, up and over onto the nearest clear space on the top. Support brackets / ties made from plasticard were added with bolts for realism / detail and I must remember to get some photo-etch brass strip which would have been much easier.

Finally I added the top mounted component for the filtration and drilled it to receive the ends of the two ribbed cables. Once glued into place (both cables and component) I proceeded to use procreate to create "covers" for where the cables joined the components. Once again I used procreate not because of preference over green stuff, but because it was already grey in colour and I preferred that.

Lastly we move onto the finished sponson with heavy bolter.



Here we can see the cuts and nicks of the sponson on the left hand side, have been repaired with procreate, which I also used to fill the gap between sponson and vehicle. When the not cylindrical turret is added the finished result finally comes together nicely, overall a lot of work, but it makes such a difference compared to our original greenstuff packed version.

With the turret finished and the sponson .. we are focused on the tracks and the leading edge of the Macharius. The LRIWS sub-project is on hold at the moment as we await the delivery from forgeworld (currently marked as dispatched on friday, thanks FW).

I am anticipating another 5 hours work to finish the modelling phase of the Macharius Salvation, then she gets put aside for a while as we move onto the Airbrush and Oil Wash work. I want to practice on a dead old Leman Russ to get the finish I want right before committing it onto the Macharius, as with all things it is better to practice on something you don't care about first before ruining hours of work on a great model.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I will be working up at the British Museum in London. I am hoping to get enough time to finish the Macharius though

@ Shas'El Tael : Hey Seb, thanks for the welcome back. Its a horrible place to be in and I see you understand, your support is appreciated

Excellent work BrotherArgos. I followed the Iron Hands thread. Your attention to detail and the process you use is really fun to watch. I always learn something.

Thank you Radiation, I hope you will follow this one also!

Talk about TLC! Great work here, Argos!

Welcome Home Councellor... I folowed your thread before and i am pleased you decided to revitalise that project. Stay healthy Sir!

All your conversion work is amazing keep it up !

Man I wish there were more blogs like this one out there..

Love your stuff mate! It is inspirational to read your updates.
I hope that your eyes get better .
[can't wait to see that Macharius done!!]

My original plan had been to make more repairs and modifications to the Macharius Salvation sub-project. However I had some Forgeworld stuff and a surprise in the post today which demanded a small post.

Firstly here is a picture of the forgeworld haul ...



Two Ryza turrets and a Leman Russ Mars Alpha pattern hull including trench rails.

I have long been a fan of the look of the Mars Alpha pattern hull, for its extra detail and length. You can see below the difference between a normal GW Plastic hull and the Forgeworld one ... its a Beast



When you add in the nicely detailed hull mounted front weapons ... you get a good looking model! ... note however no Heavy flamer .. guess who is going to have to make that!



With the Mars Alpha were the remaining weapons I needed to complete the set for the LRIWS sub-project. The normal looking Battle Cannon and a replacement Conqueror pattern (its actually an alternate battle cannon, but it looks really like a conqueror to me!). In addition I got a couple more turrets for my collection.



Also in the post was something I had been interested in from the states.



I had been wanting to add some panniers to my various vehicles so this tempted me also. I had seen some models with them on and thought I would give them a try!

Lastly and definitely not least ... There is one single Steel Legion figure I did not have in my collection. The ultra rare Necromunda Sniper ... who actually was a Steel Legion trooper kneeling. This figure is really rare and out of production, I have been scouring ebay for four years looking for him, when one came up in America a couple of weeks ago. I bid sniped like crazy to get him and I am ashamed to say paid what felt like a small fortune for a single figure (whoever sold him will be happy I am sure). But he is MINE NOW!!



There are few alternate heads/faces/alternate poses in the Steel Legion, I had them all but this one ... Now I am very happy

I also got something else in the post ... this one from the far east ... but that bit will have to wait till I start that sub-project ... next week I suspect!

@ Rawson : Thank you ! .. I took a look at your 104th Vostroyan ... excellent work!

@ konst80hummel : Welcome Back, I will indeedy try and stay healthy

@ ghostmaker : Thanks ... I am thoroughly enjoying working on my Steel Legion again.

@ Sicarious85 : Are there not? ...

@ Tech Guard : Thanks .. me too .. I will be getting Laser Photocoagulation on my retina soon I hope .. which should help slow down the decay.





Automatically Appended Next Post:
One thing I forgot to mention last night ... The quality of the castings were an improvement over the last time I was buying things for my steel legion (2009).

Obviously it could be just this batch etc ... but it was pleasing to see that things had improved.

Wow.. massive difference in size between producers for the Alpha pattern.. crazy.

That sniper!? It was you!? - You swarmy sonofa - I jest

I got crazy on some Bretonnians a year back to source parts for a foot knight... I shall remain chaste about the final price. (Flutters fan innocently)

The Necrmunda Sniper/kneeling Steel Legion trooper is a cool model, congrats on finalising the collection.

Great updates, blogs like this help a lot of smaller manufacturers break into the mainstream with their detailing kits and painting gear offerings.

- Seb

Love the mars pattern tanks, I am sure your amazing attention to detail will do them justice! That is good news about your eyes .

We are on the final run to finishing the Macharius Salvation repair, just some filling and surface work to do.

First up we take a look at the exhausts on the back of the Macharius ..



As you can see not a good fit at all, not to mention irregularly cut. I considered using a hair dryer to bend the pipes for a better fit, but was worried the curve would end up looking wrong/compressed if I did.

I decided finally to use procreate to rebuild the point of contact for the pipe as you can see below at point C. Only one done so far, but the other one is scheduled for tonight, on an interesting note often with green stuff / procreate it is better to let things which are near to another harden and dry first in case of accidental damage on finished work when working on the second item.



As you can see above at point A the track replacement is in place, I had to fill an enormous bubble hole in the resin below and let it harden. One fitted I added 1.5mm plastic rod to make the track joint, now it is all dry I have to fill the small gaps between the track and the white rod to make it accurate.

Point B. shows more filling for the cracked corners. Because of the size of this hole I had to create an initial filling, recessed from the surface slightly in all directions, which will harden and act as a base for the final smooth coat.

As you can see the rear of the vehicle rapidly approaches completion, I for one will be glad when the "filling" is complete.

Moving to the front we can address the front "joint" for want of a better description. The joint/fit was terrible as you can below, this one was/is hard to hide.



You can see in the bottom of the picture, the gap that needed concealing. First I tried to remove the bar to tidy it all up, that was not going to happen, it was wall and truly glued into place. None of the support struts on the bar even touched the tank at any point either. I finally decided to employ a physical trompe l'oeil technique to fool the observer, using a square strip of plasticard to create a much straighter line which the eye would latch onto instead of the irregular drifting line it concealed, basically misdirection. It would not be perfect, there was just too much movement, however it would look better than the previous joint. Once the plasticard was in place I filled in behind the struts (see point A) so they all looked like they joined on to the hull correctly, I then subtly used a scalpel to make them all look roughly the same depth by re-cutting the front on the protrusive ones (once again a depth illusion). All that remains is some minor filling work around the new strip to finalise.

Now we move back towards the middle.



I replaced the damage hatch and tidied up some at point A, there was lots of spilled super glue. The edge of the viewport at point B was damaged and chipped off, so I cut it back a little to clean up and then sculpted it back using procreate. Finally there was a long edge where the cover for the stubbers didn't meet the hull which I filled and smoothed. There is a small amount of filling to do, but not much

To give you a more cohesive view here is the current work in progress shot, it almost looks finished



Notice how the plasticard strip at the front makes the straight line illusion work!

I am pleased with the way its looking now, but I am want to get it off my desk to make way for the next sub project!

@ Shas'El Tael : Thanks Seb, I had a good trip down memory lane this morning looking at your older Scythes of the Emperor images that you found on the Zip disks ... they look so cool

@ Tech Guard : Thanks

Wow Brother,

Amazing restoration work you are doing on this tank. I need some body work done on my car, how are you at full scale work

Can't wait to see this finished and painted!

Its pretty amazing to see someone take junk and make it perfect!

Bad day today ... Had another haemorrhage in my left eye bleeding into the vitreous gel in the middle of the eye. Timetable for laser surgery to try and stop the bleeding has been accelerated, I will be having laser surgery on Tuesday next week now. I currently have my screen on the largest font size to see/type this.

So sorry no updates today and might not be any till after I heal following my surgery.

Best of luck with the surgery Brother Argos. Hope it all goes smoothly.

Good luck Argos, our thoughts are with you.

Stay strong Argos. A speedy recovery to you.