Horus Heresy Tutorials: Thousand Sons Magistus Amon 16/02/17

[Gawain Veteris]

Hey Brothers!

Note to the moderators...The reason I've put this tutorial up here is that it is a WIP as well. It will be a running project involving all the armour marks and a number of legion specific pieces. In this first post is MKIV only with MKIII to follow soon.

I've been meaning to get a tutorial on Heresy armour up here for some time now but have never found the opportunity. It would appear however that I have found the time now! The basic idea is to produce a number of tutorials which may help you to save money by converting almost any GW plastic power armour kit into a heresy armour mark!

The focus is on more on the armour than the weapons but in the future I hope to share some methods I've used to turn standard plastic weaponry into heresy era stuff. I will also attempt to display how I would go about doing particular legions, eg head swaps for ultramarines and thousand sons, cloaks for DA and so on.

Without further ado (and in good Star Wars tradition) let’s start off with number 4!

Maximus Pattern

http://i1110.photobucket.com/albums/h451/Zaevin/tutorial4050.jpg

For the purpose of this tutorial I'm going to go mostly off the Forgeworld stereotype. The base model comes from the command squad box with the exception of the blood angels bolt pistol and the finecast backpack which is standard, just resin and not plastic. These principles can be applied to most GW plastic marine kits.

One thing I want to encourage people to take note of (and I'm sure the vast majority already have) is that there are absolutely loads of different versions of power armour bits which are considered one mark or another. I can think of 5 or 6 different kinds of mark IV helmet for example, from forgeworld and games-workshop. There are even more pictures of mark IV in artwork which looks different from the generally accepted and now seemingly official forgeworld pattern. So the choice is massive for people wanting heresy era marines.

Please note, this is just how I do it and I want to say that there are some fantastic armour tutorials out there! Hope you find this one useful too though

Preparation

What you'll need.
http://i1110.photobucket.com/albums/h451/Zaevin/tutorial4052.jpg
This is more or less what I used for the MKIV marine. Included among the usual suspects such as a sculpting tool and a hobby knife are Nail Perfection UK micro beads which I use to add to armour as bolts. Please for the love of the Emperor do not ask me how I found these... Anyway, like with any project it's a good idea to prepare the tools first so you know you've got everything you need

Torso
http://i1110.photobucket.com/albums/h451/Zaevin/tutorial4004.jpg
Start with any mark VII torso and clean off aquillas and scull icons and so on until you have a smooth surface.
http://i1110.photobucket.com/albums/h451/Zaevin/tutorial4013.jpg
Then score a line from under each arm to the centre of the chest plate.
http://i1110.photobucket.com/albums/h451/Zaevin/tutorial4014.jpg
It should also lead behind the torso to the backpack join.

Legs
http://i1110.photobucket.com/albums/h451/Zaevin/tutorial4005.jpg
For the legs you will need to remove the knee pads and smooth the cleared area to be the same level of the shin guard.
http://i1110.photobucket.com/albums/h451/Zaevin/tutorial4027.jpg
You should also cut away the curved part of the cod piece so that it is a flat surface.

Prepared Surface Pieces
http://i1110.photobucket.com/albums/h451/Zaevin/tutorial4008.jpg
At this stage you should have something like this. I mostly find it's sometimes easiest to stick these three together now rather than sculpting the bits individually.

...and on to part two...

Edited February 16, 2017 by Gawain Veteris

[Gawain Veteris]

Maximus Pattern (Main body)

Pun intended

[Olis]

Marvellous stuff, brother. If I try it I'll let you know any procedural snags. :P

[Blindhamster]

Good tutorial so far!

[WarSpirit]

Well done, i'll keep that in mind !

[kanan]

hey Gawain Veteris, great tutorial and very clearly laid out. as soon as i get some green stuff i am going to try your method myself. many thanks Battle-Brother.

 

 

peace

[Adeptus-Alaska]

wow, this rocks brother! now, I guess I'll get into the HH. thanks! (my wallet thanks you too!)

[reckoning]

Awesome tutorial. You just saved people a ton of money.

[Dosjetka]

A very well-explained tutorial. Many thanks for this :D

 

Ludovic

[death given form]

This. Is. Awesome. And will probably save me money. Very in-depth, and your sculpting is brilliant, mate. A thousand thankees.

[alejandrinus]

Awesome tutorial :) , the backpack and the vambraces are the only thing I havent tried yet, also for the helmets its cool to use the differents mk7 helmets, I personally have used various from the BA range and from others kit such as the one with antena from the bike sprue. Waiting for your other tutorials. Edited October 5, 2012 by alejandrinus

[Circus Nurgling]

Outstanding work! FYI you can use the little beads from a water filter as well (like Brita, but you don't have to stick to a brand name... just an example). The beads are different sizes, so you'll have to sort them out for which ones are appropriate.

 

Can't wait for your mk III! I honestly don't care for certain aspects of FW's interpretation of mk3, particularly the helmet, so I'm interested to see your take on it.

Edited October 5, 2012 by Circus Nurgling

[chaplainmikey]

Wow, really impressive tutorial!

 

At first glance I saw the finished mini and thought the greenstuff process would be pretty complex and difficult but in fact it seems a lot simpler than I imagined.

 

My GS skills are woeful but i'm going to give this a try myself.

Any idea when/if you willl be giving some pre-Heresy Bolters a go?

 

Really looking forward to seeing your next tutorial and i'm sure you will be saving alot of people alot of money with this! :lol:

 

Cheers,

Mike.

[Gawain Veteris]

Wow! I had not expected such interest. I'm overwhelmed :P

 

First of all thank you for your feed back regarding the structure of the tutorial. I shall endeavour to address your suggestions and make it a little clearer. Once again sorry for not yet including the backpack method. These will follow in the MKIII post.

 

Circus Nurgling: I agree with you, brother. FW MKIII helmets are certainly not my favourite haha My approach will focus on a less common design which can be seen on what I believe is Pg 165 of the 6th ed book. It's a picture of the Emperor surrounded by honourguards from numerous legions. The clearest are the Emperor's Children on the bottom right of the image and the (what I think is) Luna Wolf banner bearer.

 

Chaplainmikey: A few people have been asking me about this :lol: I reckon bolters will come after the MKII tutorial. As for time scale I'd expect the next tutorial, the MKIII to come around the end of this coming week ;)

 

As I mentioned in my first post I will be doing some Legion Specific tutorials on certain specialist units and in general just some things which makes your opponents go 'Oh they are Ultramarines or Emperor's children' right off the bat :) The aim is maximum impact, minimum cost. So while the mainstay of the thread will be Armour Marks, keep an eye out for Legion Specific mini- tutorials ;)

 

Thanks again for the interest. Hope this helps for all you HH lovers.

 

GV

[Dosjetka]

May I ask you where you get your green stuff and do you buy big batches of it?

 

Cheers,

 

Ludovic

 

EDIT: Also, what do you use to lubricate your sculpting tools? Vaseline, like most people?

Edited October 7, 2012 by Battle-Brother Ludovic

[Gawain Veteris]

Hey Ludovic

 

I do buy in batches however I can't remember off the top of my head where I bought my last batch :S Ebay is a good port of call which I've used before and so is Amazon.

 

 

To lubricate my tools I use only water really. I find that I don't work well with Vaseline while sculpting :) I've seen excellent results with it but I prefer water.

 

GV

[Gawain Veteris]

Hey Ludovic

 

I do buy in batches however I can't remember off the top of my head where I bought my last batch :S Ebay is a good port of call which I've used before and so is Amazon.

 

 

To lubricate my tools I use only water really. I find that I don't work well with Vaseline while sculpting :) I've seen excellent results with it but I prefer water.

 

GV

[Rhetoricus]

You do realize that forgeworld have now dispatched their top assassins to come and hunt you down don't you? Haha.

[Squeaky]

thats a really good way to do MKIV thanks il give it ago on a few of my marines

[Blindhamster]

my one suggestion, adding to this is, when doing mk4 marine legs, use the plastic mk6 ones, looking at the forgeworld ones, that is exactly what they did for the standard mk4 set. The reason for this, is the area where the knee pad is will look tidier for it.

[Gawain Veteris]

use the plastic mk6 ones, looking at the forgeworld ones, that is exactly what they did for the standard mk4 set. The reason for this, is the area where the knee pad is will look tidier for it.

 

This is a good suggestion and I did consider it when designing my approach to the suit. I did decide against it however for one or two practical reasons. First of all, there are precious few MKVI legs in plastic kits and a number of them have none at all. The aim of this method is ofcourse cutting cost and it would not be viable if I excluded MKVII legs in favour of MKVI legs. Not just this, but the free-sculpted knee pad enables more freedom with posing miniatures. The slightest twist of the knee pad can change the aspect of otherwise static legs imo. Also, my method for adding bolts for decoration is much easier when done on straight sculpted bits.

 

It is certainly something to consider for any Heresy Era Hobbyist, but for me, I put my faith in VII first and VI second ^_^

 

GV

[Blindhamster]

each tactical squad only has heads and shoulders to do 2 mk6 marines, but comes with legs for 4, so ideal use of the two extra legs would be to make the 2 mk4 marines! ^_^

 

p.s. I'm well aware how easy posing marines with mk7 legs are, I've nearly a full company of them reposed :P but the mk6 legs are actually pretty easy to pose too. When making a mk4 set of legs from the mk6 pair, I'd usually cut the knee off anyway so that the new kneepad can be scratch made.

Edited October 7, 2012 by Blindhamster

[Midnightmare]

Dayum this is excellent! I would have a go myself but with my woeful sculpting skills...erm yeah...how do you get your GS so smooth?

[Grizzly_bear]

Fantastic stuff here, I've always shyed away from sculpting but this may just give me the push I need as I love mk4

 

Thanks again

 

Rob

[TennisBall]

Really great sculpting there. In regards the vents on the backpack, would it not have been easier to simply fill in the vents with greenstuff and when it was set, file new vents through the greenstuff and the plastic rim? That's how I was thinking of doing it.

 

Also, have you thought about how to do the cone shaped vents like the MK6 backpacks have? A tutorial on that would be good.