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After I'd delivered on my previous commission work, I went out looking for some more. It wasn't too difficult to find.

A good friend of mine and fellow player at my gaming store has been running a DCA blob for quite some time. Basically, 2-4 death cult assassins and 6-8 crusaders with their storm shields and power axes to stand in front of them and absorb shots. He hasn't had any real models for this, though, and so has been using some cadians without lasguns with bits of plasticard glued to them to represent their shields. Wanting to upgrade, he put me on the case.

As I knew this client well, I had a lot of time to talk things through with him to figure out what exactly he wanted. The one thing he definitely knew was that he wanted the shields to be big. No power-field-projecting bucklers to keep missiles out of their faces. He wanted tower shields - things guardsmen HIDE behind. As things progressed, this got refined down to something like a riot shield. A big rectangle of steel with a viewport and (being 40k), a bunch of rivets everywhere.

With a basic plan, it was time to get started. I measured the size of the shield and then added 10% to make it just that much more ridiculous (a cadian model can hide pretty well behind this with only the top of the head and bottom of the boots exposed), cut out a vision slit, bowed it slightly and then attached reinforcing bands to it (to keep the bowing in place), and then threw on some rivets.



The client liked the prototype, and the project continued forward. I asked if he wanted his shields to look uniform or more slapped together or customized, and he like the latter. As such, I finished off the different shields with a few different rivet patterns.



While waiting for more input on the shields, I started getting to work on the axes. I asked him if he cared how they looked and he said he didn't.

After a bit of thought, I decided to go with a danish axe motif. After a few tries, I got the beautiful curving swoop I wanted, turned it into a template, and made several more.

Then it was a matter of cutting a piece of brass rod to act as the shaft, putting a bit of GS on the end and cutting it down into a cylinder, and then gluing the axe head on. I then embelleshed the head with some power leads (and I sharpened the blades), and then put a bit on the back and threw a piece of guitar wire on the back to act as a power coupling with a little more GS to make it all look nice. The shaft then got a few more rivets, and that was that.



I'd put the wire on the top, even though I'd rather have it sticking out the bottom to connect to a power pack, but I didn't have my client's miniatures that I could attach them to, so I had to come up with something easy to assemble, rather than forcing my client to spend some quality time with a pair of pliers just to get what he paid for to look proper on his models. This would have caused endless frustration, and that's bad for business.

Instead, the bottom of the axe was left completely blank on purpose, so he'd be able to slide it into a hand without having to cut off and reconstruct some of the fingers in the process. I figure with the power cable and leads on top, it should still look power-axey enough.

Anyways, while this was going on, I was talking more about the shield. I had these nice blank faces, and wanted to add some detail. I asked if the client wanted some inquisitorial iconography or some sort of styling, and he told me to pass on that. He liked the idea that these were bits of wargear scrapped together and made to be durable, rather than pretty as expensive pieces of irreplaceable artwork wouldn't be given to T3 henchmen who are probably just going to get killed, or loose them, or whatever. Also, he didn't like the idea of battle damage, as the force field on the shield would protect them from that.

What he did like, though, was the idea of purity seals. The recently-kidnapped henchman is shoved out of the chimera into the light of a battlefield day with nothing but a high -voltage piece of steel to protect him. Oh, wait, and here's some faith in the Emperor tacked on. Good luck.

With that in mind, I decided to slather the shield in purity seals. The client was pleased. So, for that matter, was I. After a boatload of cleanup and extraneous knifework, it was time to take some pictures, and deliver the product.





In the end, I think I achieved what I was looking for - something that clearly looks like they'd give a lot of protection to the wearer, something that clearly looks like a power axe, and something that would be easy for my client to attach to the models of his choice. The client got absurd riot shields that look like they could take a lascannon hit and be fine, say... about 2/3rds of the time.

Those are really cool. would love to see them in situe. I knwo the client passed on it, but an imperial Aquilla across the front would finish them off. Love the axes too, no question about what either item is in game terms.

Yeah, I kind of tried to push the client in that direction, but he just didn't want it. He liked the improvised look of a blank piece of steel with rivets. So it goes.

I'd love to rough the edges of the shields up a bit and make em look orky, even though I don't play orks. Great job, though, and I agree about the aquila really sealing the deal.

Ailaros, what are those shields made out of?

Just regular old sheet styrene (plasticard). The rivets are very thin-gauge plasticard rod. You just lop off a tiny bit of the end and glue it on.

Wow, it looks great. Thanks.

Looks very good.

Those look awesome! Any chance of an update with them all painted?

Nicely excecuted!

Thanks!

So, the client in this case has given me more stuff to put them together as crusaders. He didn't give me that much to go on for what he wanted, style-wise, so I've been putting off doing them up, but I've now determined them to be next on my docket.

You won't see them painted, though, because the client in question has a very particular paint scheme he does, but you'll see them soon assembled on to other models.

Awesome I'd quite like to see them on the models as well if your friend will let youtake pics.

D