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And stage 2 of incorporating the jets gives this suit a red-hot arse...

The jets were attached and then I worked about them to fill in the shape with pieces of plasticard.


and all closed in and ready to fill in gaps:


Onwards...

Awesome work. Already looking"as design"

Flatulent pattern crisis armor

Thanks Cam'. Good to hear.

Thank you Theo'.

Gaps filled, legs on, pose... partly set...

The initial idea for the pose was a bent rear leg and pointed front leg; very cinema-ninja pose.
However, after finding the base he is supposed to have from my box of bases (and I had to turn to the internet to be sure it was "only" a 40mm base), the above pose just doesn't fit in that space; the feet have to be so close together it doesn't give the dynamic pose it needs to be.

Therefore, I've changed to the other typical pose of the 40K universe; one foot up on a thing. *sigh*
But rather than a fallen victim or piece of ruin, I went for a tree.


I'm working on giving the tree a partly uprooted base, but I'm seeing the scene more as an old, uprooted and broken tree that he's put his foot up on. Rather than in the process of randomly pushing a stump over. Either result is probably fine in the end.

The hips have now been drilled and pinned into the body, so there's no changing now.
You'll also notice the putty in one of the knee joints: I had a bright idea of how to rotate the knee that didn't work out.
The short form of the lesson is:
When reposing the knee joint of the crisis suit, cut around the circle of the knee to give a curved end to the lower leg piece that can then be glued on anywhere around the circle.
Don't cut into the knee joint and try to rotate the inner circle of the knee with relation to the outer parts, it just doesn't work.
Obvious in hindsight.

Putty to the rescue.

I'm now working on getting the base done so that I can (at least temporarily) mount the body so that I can position the arms and then the head in a realistic pose that looks balanced. Because, yes, it doesn't look balanced yet...

Base done to the basic level (there's more to be added in time, but is fine for getting the pose done).

And I've started on the arms:


That arm's not attached yet, just hanging there. Got some putty filling to do first.

The other arm needs a proper hand... that's going to be a lot more work...

I see a little captain in him . The new pose is much better than the standard one in my opinion.

Thanks Theo'. Well he is the first HQ I've built for the army, so he does need to give off the captain vibes a bit.

Starting from 2 pieces of thick sprue glued together, I made him a hand...

But first, I needed to place the arm and decide upon the weapon.
I had planned to convert the bright lance into a rifle for him, but it wasn't lending itself to a rifle (the whole bulk of the weapon would need to be changed, only keeping the barrel, which isn't much of a "conversion"),
and the arm being thicker than any realistic hand means that it interferes with holding a gun,
and the removal of the left hand means holding a rifle is out too...

Therefore, I decided to go more "mech warrior" and incorporate the lance into the shoulder and that led to the decision to make the model more asymmetric and therefore more mech-like (sit inside) and less suit-like (walk inside) in appearance.
I went about moving the shoulder to the outside of the additional weapon mount, and pinned it all the way through to the body:


Then, I set about carving the hand:

I don't like the folded away look to the crisis suit hands, so this is intended as a permanent hand.

And all together (sans-head):


Head and things to do...

That is some serious carving there, excellent work.

Stop being so good at this modeling stuff you are giving me a complex! Kidding aside it is fascinating to see how you did the hand, I think I am hot stuff when I remember to drill out the barrel of my guns. Will be lurking as this project comes together.

Interesting work happening i see on the crisis suit!

Awesome work carving that hand, I can't help but think that lance looks wrong there, like the suit is impaled on the shoulder. Good call to go more mech like ... that's what they are meant to be after all.

Interesting to see where you go with this now!

I've been away getting boozed up in Leamington for the weekend, so no major advancements, but I do have some to show that was started before Friday...

But first...
Thanks Graven.

Thanks Yorkright, I get by with much patience, just keep chipping away at things until they look how I want them. This is why I show these step-by-step photos and all my wip shots, so that you can see that nice results can be produced from something that looks a mess until it's finished.

I think this is part of the battle for those less experienced with sculpting and carving: whatever you are working on looks nothing like what you are aiming for in your head, and you loose motivation / bravery before it starts to come together. You just have to keep going, making smaller and smaller changes, and it will suddenly start to look "right"; look at the photos of my hand sculpting (or even further back into my various sprue carving tutorials), it doesn't really look like a "good" hand until the final photos. There is just as much carving going on between the last rough photo and the final photos, as there is between any two of the other photos (it's just smaller pieces being carved off). It didn't look "right" until I had those plasticard pieces stuck on and it was still in danger of being chopped off until I took those photos and took a step back.

Take care, pay attention to references, be sure of what you are about to chop off (before you chop it) at every stage, don't rush, remove the minimum quantity of material each time (you can always remove more, it's tricky to put it back if you remove too much), and keep at it even if it's looking ugly.

In particular for the hand above, before the first photo I had roughly drawn on 2 of the faces of the block a 2D view of the thumb and where the fingers would be (one from above and the other from inside the hand). Then I used those markings as a guide for sawing out that first stage. That's a good tip for getting started with roughing out a shape from a cube.

Thanks Shas'.

Thanks OMN. I see what you mean, but hopefully painting will solve the issue and tie them together.
I don't want to build up more around the base of the lance as I want it to look like it can still elevate, but I may add some cables to the rear/bottom which may tie it in too.

And photos:
I've added a head. The actual crisis suit head won't fit (that is, be able to rotate) with the placement of the intakes, but I also had this piece out for possible use and the cutout on it's back fits perfectly.
Added the Tau dish thing (I'm believing this is for drone control),
And I added the radar dish as The Scientist's signal generator that keep the army members under the impression that all is well. Think of it as the equivalent to the Tyranid synapse thing.



I feel that he still needs something more to really mark him out as an HQ, not sure what yet.
Can't have a cloak as he has a jet pack, those things don't work together well.
He won't carry his own banner, and I have plans for units to have banner bearers in one form or another.
Needs some kind of trinkets about the back, just need to look for some suitably HQ-like items...
Thoughts welcome if you have any...

Ta.

Interesting TREQ you got there. (TREQ= tactical rock equivalent. Something the mini puts one foot on. )

It is a very effective conversion. Consider shoulder mounting the lascannon(?) instead of how you have it currently.

Looking forward to seeing it with some paint.

Looks absolutely real, official and legit. Right down to the tactical rock corking.

The dish is the shield generator, just FYI.

Red Harvest wrote:Interesting TREQ you got there. (TREQ= tactical rock equivalent. Something the mini puts one foot on. )

Thanks, I didn't want just a rock or a piece of ruin, so a tree it was. And a tree is handy for extending the pose from the base dimensions.

It is a very effective conversion.

Thanks.

Consider shoulder mounting the lascannon(?) instead of how you have it currently.

I did think about mounting it on top of one of the intakes, but that's a bit "normal" for The Scientist to do, so within the shoulder was the next step, then it was "lets have it where the shoulder is and then move the shoulder outwards, that'll be nice and odd".

Looking forward to seeing it with some paint.

Soon. Getting to the point of "what else can I add, maybe there is no more..."

inmygravenimage wrote:Looks absolutely real, official and legit. Right down to the tactical rock corking.

Thanks graven. And without any cork...

Kepora wrote:The dish is the shield generator, just FYI.

Thanks Kepora. I may have found that out eventually, good to know.


As I said, smaller details leads to thoughts that the end is near...
While thinking of what HQ-like things to add I thought I may add a knife for the Tau bonding knife thing... BUT...
Then I remembered that I'm building this for my army, and adding a tau item to a tau model is just not on, so...
I found some SM and Eldar bits... and some other model bits:

I think he's looking HQ-like now.


There's some small putty work to do, and finish the base, and I think that's all...

Catching up at last!

True-scale Crisis is coming along great, and your step-by-steps are always awesome.

I love it! I say Primarisupersize EVERYTHING!
Primaris Catachans, it needs to be done!

Thank LT. and I'm happy to share.

Thanks Dave. lol
I do have plans to alter the size of the various Imperial Guard miniatures... although in the other way from the Primaris... Puny humans should be puny.

Aaaaaaand... Primed:


I don't even know what colour scheme I'm going for yet... only thought so far is mainly dark...

I like the model and the effort that went into the hand is amazing. I will say that upon first glance, the bright lance and wreathed skull stick out to me like a sore thumb. Paint might ameliorate that.

Needs a sumo top knot

that is an impressive amount of converting into that model. The results are really strong and good. It has a lot of character.

Thanks ph34r, That's not a problem, for this army there is meant to be a great deal of "sharing" of equipment. This is not meant to be a pure Tau unit as, yes, the style of the lance and skull don't fit the Tau aesthetic. This Crisis suit has been repaired and "improved" by The Scientist.

Thank you Theo'. I may just paint the head shroud black to reference that.

Comrade, Hi! Good to see you back about the place. Thanks.

Current paint scheme thoughts are a nice rich, deep blue with bright green bits... Not started yet.

Do blue and orange. Favorite combo.

Excellent work bud, really adds a lot to a good mini,. I have to say, on first glance I had a bad thing going through my head..."You put your right arm in your right leg in, you do the okycoky and shake it all about!!!" But having looked at it properly, it has a nice balance.

It is a good scheme, Comrade'. I have done a blue/orange scheme before on the Eldar heavy weapon platform:

Bad photo from back in the day... also need to revisit that model at some point...

I have the blue on the Crisis suit now, so I can see if orange will go with this particular blue, see below.

Thanks Cam'. yeah, there are so many model poses and photos of groups of models that look like they are dancing. It can happen so easily.
Glad that this pose works though, I did strike the pose myself to get it right.

As I said, I have made it blue:

Two tone with a black wash.

I'm probably going to focus on getting the plague marines done in my other blog first and then return to this chap.
Stay tuned.

I am staying tuned. That is a nice shade of blue and is well washed.

That is a great blue base colour. Will be waiting for progress.

Nice blue/pruple tone to start with

Apologies for taking so long to get back to this, but the Plague marines are now done. You can see them over in my money-making thread, or the other places that I've posted them up... or even buy them on Etsy.

Thanks Comrade, Cam' and Shas'.

Back to painting the Tau suit.
This is blocking in the areas to be not-blue.
I've tried out a scheme test on a few photos and these areas are to be white or bright green. They will be blended up to white and then the green areas will just need a coat or two to finish.


I'll continue to block in colours for a bit before starting the blending.

I also need to catch up on blogs...