Space Marines? ... Iron hands

[Tybalt Russ]

I must say they are all turely amazing.

 

However I perfer the "Ducting Cover" base over the rest. It has a more realistic feel to it. The secound one has a muted feel to it.

 

Just my 2 cents.

[Aqui]

I like them both, although the first one just pips it for me ;)

[Master Melta]

Yeah, I think they are both awesome. I like the 2nd one more simply because there are more smaller details and it's doesn't look hand made when painted. The frist one looks great, but I can see how that could look more prefab.

 

Now, after you get done with those tutorials you can paint those two marines..... :(

[Brother Argos]

As part of a speed experiment I painted two marines at the same time last week. The times broke down in the end to: -

Painting Figure - 2.5hrs

Painting Base - 30 mins

Decals (3) - 15 mins

So I am at about 3hrs 15 mins per figure, which is a little higher than I had thought, but the results seem worth it, especially considering my Salamanders were more like 10-11hrs each. I still want to keep the timing as low as possible, so that I can actually get some units together and possibly even PLAY 40k!

As already mentioned last week was painting/weathering experiment week, trying new things and challenging older ideas. This marine was the first using the Forgeworld Bionics from the character set, but in all other respects he was a normal marine with no special modelling. Given his "normality" I planned to extend the rust weathering to other areas of the body, I decided on areas likely to touch walls and floor and as such the knees, shoulderpads and backpack vents.

I kept the shoulderpad and backpack weathering light for this model to get a "view" on it, but I think it adds a little without detracting from the monochrome colour scheme. The knees got a little more weathering than the higher stuff, more in keeping with how I had done the feet.

Overall the "stepping" pose on the base worked nicely and with the marine now on the base it has returned to being my favourite out of the two again. Damn I am fickle!

Overall I was pleased with the result and may spread "the rust" to the rest of the marines ... What do you think ?

[Master Melta]

Definitally.

 

Have you explained the rust technic?

 

I am basing all mine on concrete rubble and could easily see them getting the same treatment with a dusty light grey, but that could go horribly wrong as well.

 

One thing though, don't rust all places that are likely to touch the walls, just a patch here or there and randomize it on all the marines. You don't want them looking orange all over right?

 

keep at it!

 

MM

Edited January 17, 2011 by Master Melta

[Brother Argos]

The second marine this week was an attempt to add simple battle damage to a shoulder pad and try out the other Iron Hands box set Bionic Head. I must say the asymmetric lens made me unsure about this one, it just feels weird to me every time I look at it .. even when finished, to the extent I am not sure I would use this head type again.

You will notice the damage to the shoulderpad, either a sword or claw strike across the pad, added after the decal and touched up. It had been commented there shoulderpads were not getting their fair share of "damage", so I am working on different techniques to show damage on them!

In keeping with the heavily rusted / corroded base I decided to add more weathering to the feet/lower legs than normal and also to the Tactical symbol on the greave (I really just wanted to try the kneepad symbols on the FW decal sheet). This should show the worse environment this marine is advancing through ...

Lastly I have a group shot showing my current eight marines all together ... almost up to the squad now .. only got the Heavy Weapon marine and the Sgt to do ...

I am pleased with the cohesive feel they have ;)

[Cyrox]

Very nice Brother Argos!

 

The Fisrt Marine of the two is stunning, and its almost as if those legs were meant to be stood that way, rather then on a flat surface.

 

I know you used decal paper.. can I ask did you use White or clear decal paper, and what printer did you use?

 

This Iron Hands squad is going to be a show stealer

[Brother Argos]

Well these Decals are from Forgeworld ... I do use Laser Decal paper both white and clear with my Samsung Laser Printer.

[Brother Argos]

I don't usually show my work at an early stage ... when I am fiddling and trying to get things right. However I am pleased enough with the pose (and story-telling) on the heavy weapon trooper to show this. Please excuse the very early stage in the work, the photography and the slight blur, its almost midnight and I am going to bed soon: -

Hunkering down behind a low partition, aiming under heavy fire ... shells hitting the steel partition with resounding impact ... but he only has one chance to get this shot right!

You can see him aiming at you ... time freezes as for some reason all you can see is the grey partition wall with rust creeping up it ... your eyes take in the bullet holes riddling the wall in hyper detail ... almost abstractly you see the arming light flicker on and and his finger pulling the trigger!

Sorry for the over dramatisation, but for this model captured my imagination more than most while he was in my head, and then when I made him the story/imagery enthused me enough to post him.

Please don't critique him, he is not finished yet in so many ways, nor is the base, save the critique for later when he has had the time and detailing he deserves. I just wanted to show you guys a glimpse into the beginning part of my "design" process that I normally don't get to show.

I hope you can visualise the fight going on around him like I can :unsure:

[Brother Argos]

As I am going to be busy with work tomorrow and attending Relic/THQ on Friday for a day spent playing Dawn of War II Retribution I thought I would show something interesting to cover my absence and lack of work for 2 days.

These Bionics and heads were from Puppetswar and could make a nice addition to my Iron Hands.

A couple of the heads will work well on Space Marines, and all the rest of the parts too .. although I am not sure on the chest piece and the kneeling legs feels a little off (but not uncorrectable). The arms work nicely as does the power fist ;)

[Chapter Master Ignis Domus]

Any chance you can scrounge up 51,896 copies of it? ;)

 

Anyways, I hope to see that chainsword arm thingummiwhatsitmabobber put to good use. Perhaps as a bulkhead cutting utensil?

[Brother Argos]

Well the army I am building is aimed to be played with the "Blood in the Void" rules from FW IA9. So the use of a melta/las cutter or equivalent would be really good :)

[Wildfire]

Nice work Argos. I had no idea you were such a modeler!

 

Just a suggestion about your new army: I've always thought that if I was an avid hobbiest, rather than build an army of only one chapter I would make a crusade. That way I'd get to play around with a bunch of different chapters and ideas.

 

Not sure it would really work with your bases, tho (my absolute favorite thing about your models), as they really bring a theme out in the force.

[Brother Argos]

Ahh I am aiming this army at being playable with the Blood in the Void rules from IA9 (Badab war) ... so it will be infantry heavy with some dread support for shipboard conflict.

 

I also have two other imperial armies I can mix with to make a crusade army, Sisters and Salamanders :wink:

[subtlebrush]

Very impressed with the amount of detail you've put into these. Cant wait to see more.

[Brother Argos]

I did some more work on the Missile Launcher marine tonight ... specifically working on the servo arm attachment that comes with the "Missile Launcher" backpack from the Devastators box set. Looking at the construction it is intended to simply take a missile from the bottom of the pack and swing it up over the marines shoulder and drop it into his left hand so he can load the Missile Launcher.

I have to admit that was a bit disappointing to me ... the Iron hands had long been masters of the Servo Arm, so I decided to alter the basic arm that came with the pack and make it into a fully functional Servo Arm. The arm was a little short so I extended both the forearm and the upper arm sections so it could reach and reload. The new arm also needed to retract and extend, so I made the add on part slightly larger than the original forearm and structured it so the original forarm could retract into the new part.

Once done it looked a little "empty" so I added some bracing and some plasticard strip to the joint to make it more obvious how it fitted together. I was happy with the way it looked now and the added detail helped. I also cut the claw open and added in a missile to show it was ready to reload. There is still a little filing to do and some green stuff to fill small gaps, but that will have to wait till tomorrow as I stayed up till 1:30am to work on it.

Here are a couple of pictures taken in poor lighting and quickly before I go to bed.

Hope you like it :)

[Brother Argos]

No pretty pictures today ...

 

Now that I got rid of half of you and the ones who are intelligent are still reading we shall continue. I got quite a few things done at the weekend and its about that I wanted to write this morning. I encountered what I shall call "Stalling points" for want of a better word, those times when you keep putting off particular tasks time and time again till you "Stall" the entire project.

 

I found myself stalling at the weekend, I had the following streams of activity for my Iron Hand project all running concurrently: -

 

Sgt. Powerfist - Rebuild and restructure for magnets. Green stuff to repair slight damage to the armour casing.

Sgt. Hand - Tidy up wrist. Green Stuff the "sub-armour" between wrist and hand.

Hvy Wpns. - Green stuff small gaps in plasticard on Servo Arm and build the other side of the "sphere" at the joint to the backpack.

Hvy Wpns. - Build sole of shoe with plasticard strip.

Secret. - Green stuff secret helm for command squad.

Ven Dread. - Think about magnets and fitting together.

 

So ... guess what I did out of that list ...

 

That's right I played with the Venerable dread arm and weapon fittings till I got a solution for magnets and put plasticard strip on the sole of the Hvy Wpns marines foot, I then stalled!

 

Its quite amusing how our minds play tricks at this point ... I went and spent some time with my daughters, cooked dinner, watched a movie and then read a black library book before bed. Strangely however when I awoke on Sunday morning and went back to my desk, the "Stalling Point" was still there, forcing me to think of other things to do, even to the point of considering an Iyanden Ghost warriors army and how to paint yellow.

 

Finally my wife asked how the Iron hands were coming along and I had nothing to tell her ... It was then I broke through and applied some thought to what I was doing and made the list of things you see above (well actually just the bits I had remaining). It didn't take long after I had the list in front of me to realise I had been putting something off ... doing the green stuff work. My mind then went on all kinds of acrobatic attempts to avoid the self blame ... my favourite of which was ... "Its just common sense to gather it all up and do it all at once" ... which is of course complete rubbish.

 

I realised that this had happened often in the past as well ... saving things I didn't enjoy doing up into a large pile of unpleasantness which then makes me not want to do the project and finally kills it for me. Now I am a reasonable sculptor, you can see that from my work on the Steel Legion, this wasn't even complex work, it was just filling and tidying up. However now I had identified what was putting me off, I could do something about it, so I sat down and did ALL the green stuff work I needed to do and felt so much better about it afterwards.

 

I then started thinking about other things that caused the same reaction and came to the conclusion spraying black primer was another stalling point for me, where perfectly ready to proceed models sat there for days while I "got ready" to spray them. So from now on, I am not doing that, I am spraying as soon as I am ready ... and sculpting as soon as its required.

 

This is a project I want to finish ... not fail to complete it just because of stalling over something ridiculous.

[Master Melta]

BA,

 

I don't comment as much but still read everyday.

 

I am in the middle of my own projet as well.

 

I will begin posting on my blog this evening of my progress.

 

Scenario: I have 1 month to paint, decal and seal the following:

30ish Marines including 2 HQs, 5 FW MK III Stern Guard and a bunch of tactial marines.

2x FW ICD's and drop pods

3x Rhinos

1x Razorback

1x Vindicator

1x Predator

 

I primed all the infantry except for 1 HQ and 1 dread yesterdy and started on a tactical squad sgt. Tonight I plan on finishing my Command Squad.

 

I really love your stuff and am not copying your ideas but would still like a bit of advice on the weathering of the black armor.

 

You are just lining the grooves in the armor with bolt gun metal or some similar metallic, correct? I am debating on this approach, and thus am curious on how to do it, or just doing fine lines of codex grey which barely shows up.

 

Here is my blog: BLOG

It's been a while since I updated it, but plan on 1 a week for the next month.

 

MM

[Brother Argos]

Normally I work at home in the evenings, I try and put aside an hour a night to try and keep some momentum, however the real world often intrudes and you don't achieve your goals (falling asleep on the couch last night didn't help for example). So to make up for missing my painting time I have decided to do some painting at the office today, I have painted while travelling before and have built a small kit to help me do so. This is what I carry with me: -

At the back we have two boxes, where my sadly organised brain has dictated a colour coded scheme, green is a painting box & purple is sculpting. The box on the left has my missile launcher marine, broken down into components for easy access. While on the right we have the Sgt & left handed arms in for final Green Stuff work and if you look really carefully in the top right you can see my Gw paint pot.

In the middle we have a "Really Useful Box" with my paints and brushes, the brushes are W&N Series 7 Miniatures, sizes 0, 1 & 2. I also have 6 paints with me, Vallejo Black and White with Citadel Black, Boltgun, Mithril Silver & Dwarf Bronze, these represent. For this project these paints give me almost all I need to do the job.

Oh and as you can see the weathering on the Missile Launcher marine has been done on the body and backpack, I need to do the head, servo arm and missile launcher today.

In the left to the front we have my sculpting kit, this is new for me and I have put it together to overcome the recent "problem". There is a set of the smallest hardest clay shapers you can get, a Wax Carver #5, a dental probe and the green stuff tubes. This kit plus some saliva covers almost all I need to sculpt anything I require. Oh and my youngest daughter Amelia gave daddy a spare pencil case this morning to help carry his sculpting tools <bless>. I asked her for a purple one to match the colour coding but obviously her devotion and generosity only stretch so far ;)

My modelling glasses, not because I need glasses but actually because they are +3.5 magnification. I went to our local pharmacy (Boots in the UK) and got some for about £20. They help me a lot with sculpting and even with painting intricate detail, for me a definate worthwhile addition.

[Brother Argos]

@ Master Melta : Use mithril silver, you need high contrast to make it work. Don't "stroke" the brush along the line, instead dab or stutter it along the line to create an irregular edge.

[Brother Argos]

I got another couple of hours on the Missile Launcher figure last night ... so we have pretty pictures today.

He is still work in progress as I need to make the missile launcher white, paint the servo arm, paint the base and finally put the decals on. From the front and back: -

and from the sides: -

I noticed his rear foot had risen by the end of the photo's so he looks a little offset in the picture above, I haven't glued him to the base yet, but obviously will once the base is painted.

For some reason I am resisting painting the missile launcher tube white ... it someone feels more natural in black, however I think I need to do it to make him fit with the rest of the squad.

[Master Melta]

Negative.

 

Just because bolters are white that doesn't mean all hand held weaponry should also have it.

 

Keep it sleek.

[Marshal Rohr]

Bro Argos, just FYI GW is running an Armageddon replay in their studio in next months White Dwarf.

[Captain Juan Juarez]

For some reason I am resisting painting the missile launcher tube white ... it someone feels more natural in black, however I think I need to do it to make him fit with the rest of the squad.

 

I think it was in the other thread, said by SCC?, but resist the urge and instead pick out some kind of detail in white; the barrel casing at either end for example - admittedly this is probably a horrible idea, I'm not a painter *shrug* - because whilst it doesn't work in my opinion as pure black, neither would a large "blob" of white help.

 

All my own opinion of course.

[Master Melta]

Why not a small white decal or two from the IH decal sheet, some of those cool Kill skulls in a row???