Legion Rising

[hushrong]

I had to contain a squeaking sound of excitement when I saw the printed bits you've made for that walker.

 

That is seriously awesome stuff you've made there.

[KrautScientist]

Hey mate, I'll gladly admit that most of the technobabble and the finer points of design go over my head, which is why I don't comment nearly as often as I possibly should. That being said, seeing something like that alternate Sydonian Dragoon armour plates mocked up on an actual model, that's actually fabulous, both regarding the quality of your work and the possible implications (*cough* Dark Mechanicum conversion kits *cough*). The incorporation of your personal forgeworld's heraldry is also really cool! Excellent work all around! :)

[JeffTibbetts]

Those buzz-saw arms are inspired. I love how I can even tell how they 'work' just by looking at them, with the drive motor on the inside. The extra bits are also fantastic as a nudge from the original design, but nothing so crazy that you can't tell where it came from. I'm mightily impressed, and that's saying something since your stuff generally impresses me anyway. 

[sarabando]

just need some more poses for the legs now :D

[Subtle Discord]

+++ Neural Congress ∙ Initialized +++ External Vox Vocalizer ∙ Activated + "Third iteration, blessed by the Omnissiah!" + Broadcast Diabolical Laughter ∙ 03 +++ Data Downlink ∙ Ongoing... +++

[hushrong]

Please fabricate me the perfect tissue because your excellent work has me in tears!

[Subtle Discord]

Thanks! Despite it being a nice small-scale test of Solus, it was a completely spontaneous distraction that actually turned out better than I could ever have hoped for, if I do say so myself (naturally I'm a bit bias). They're small components but it really does bode well for much larger/ambitious projects in the future. I can't wait to get to the Onager, *eyes glaze over* I'm thinking I might replace the entire front hull component or make a veneer for it along with changing the leg armour.

[Augustus b'Raass]

Another idea which will sell a ton: parts that make the Imperial Knight kit's legs posable (so I'm thinking extendable pistons (for the foot and the knee), the tubing connecting the pelvis to the legs, etc.).

[Subtle Discord]

Oh yes, just wait until I get to the Knight. Just wait... *Subtle steeples his fingers and 'looks ominous'*

[Khornestar]

So cool! Love that little gun and the saw blade as well.

[hushrong]

Man, I’ve been wanting that Acheron knight ever since I saw Brother Heinrich’s Acheron. I really liked how he add plates to its thighs I just don’t know if there will be that big of a market just for that though.

 

Speaking of knights and the new Adeptus Titanicus any interest in making something for that? Terrain ranging from human hab and manufactorum blocks? Maybe anchient human or Xenos ruins? Or wrecks of titans for scenery or possibly objectives? Or just go bananas and make titans upgrades or even stuff as wild as a Slaaneshi Subjugator look alike for folks that want to proxy different models?

[Subtle Discord]

Nothing's off the table really, but I'm not even going to let my mind wander there, for a game that's not even out yet, while I have so many things I can do at 28mm scale. But who knows what inspiration I'll have in the future.

[hushrong]

Well, please keep that annnnnnnddddd the possibility of battlefleet gothic ships in the recesses of your knowledge vault.

[ElDuderino]

Your work was always impressive in every way, but these latest things are on another level. First time i witnes the capabilities of a fully armed and operational 3D printer in this context, the future sure looks bright hehe

[sarabando]

id love more poseable legs for the ironstrider more like the Sentinel kit,

[Subtle Discord]

Thanks all for the positive feedback and encouragement. I'm not going to jinx it by assuming that I've got it all figured out, but I really seem to be getting the hang of it. Time will tell as I start doing larger and more complex assemblies, but these results are really positive, to say the least.

 

Hey mate, I'll gladly admit that most of the technobabble and the finer points of design go over my head, which is why I don't comment nearly as often as I possibly should. That being said, seeing something like that alternate Sydonian Dragoon armour plates mocked up on an actual model, that's actually fabulous, both regarding the quality of your work and the possible implications (*cough* Dark Mechanicum conversion kits *cough*). The incorporation of your personal forgeworld's heraldry is also really cool! Excellent work all around!

No problem at all. While I'm always pleased when I can coax readers into commenting and contributing to the ongoing conversation I completely understand the choice to stay quiet. I'm only too guilty of lurking and not commenting as often as I would like; I always like to try and say something with a bit of substance and something fitting just doesn't pop into my brain all the time. Thanks for the feedback and you're not wrong at all, Solus is the last piece of the puzzle I was looking for and things are going to start getting very interesting from here on.

 

I had to contain a squeaking sound of excitement when I saw the printed bits you've made for that walker.

 

That is seriously awesome stuff you've made there.

Your work was always impressive in every way, but these latest things are on another level. First time i witnes the capabilities of a fully armed and operational 3D printer in this context, the future sure looks bright hehe

Servitor Solus is a small part of the Omnissiah made real and granted to me to make my ideas actually happen in a way I've been waiting many years to finally realize. The glamor and initial nervousness of 'playing' with it has started to wear off at this point and I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed where to start and where to go, but that's a good 'problem' to have, so it's not a complaint... just reality soaking it. the first moulds won't be long now, so we'll just have to see how the initial casts look, now. I'm not expecting any issues, but 'm keeping my fingers crossed

 

Well, please keep that annnnnnnddddd the possibility of battlefleet gothic ships in the recesses of your knowledge vault.

We'll see. I'm all but certain that once things get rolling properly I'm going to need to consider how I want to expand and just what I'm going to focus on; I already need more labour but that's just in the books quite yet. Again nothing is off the table, but I can't get the cart before the horse (I do enough of that already) and worry about a game that's not back on the shelf yet. Trust that both titles/games are on my radar and I'm thinking seriously about everything, including them.

 

just need some more poses for the legs now

id love more poseable legs for the ironstrider more like the Sentinel kit,

I like the idea but it's going to be a hard sell given how expensive the Ironstrider kit is, I'm just not sure just how much demand there is for posable legs. They wouldn't be huge parts comparatively speaking, but they would still need to cost more than what I personally would want to invest into the Ironstrider model if I was thinking of a conversion kit. The small set of bits I made could be done for $10 or less, but something bigger would bring a larger price tag. It really is a shame GW has them at the price point that they do. Now that said, I do want to create general purpose mechanical and bio-mechanical legs for conversions, and maybe one set could be more slender and suited to the role, if not expressly made for the model.

[sarabando]

didnt realise id asked the same question twice sorry :S i can understand i was shocked at the price of the strider when i used one to make a chaos spawn conversion.

 

i doubt it would be possible but id love to see some more upright legs for MkIII and MkIV marines like walking running and standing at ease the filled nappy pose is getting old XD. I know some one of your skill could do it but the legal crud would suck.

[TheOneTrueZon]

Are you using the printer to make molds? I've heard that there are good results to be had from simply doing a boolean subtraction from a solid and then cutting it down from there for your mold pieces.

[The Traitor]

Wow, thats a really cool idea, it has always bothered me how bad the phosphor serpenta looked on the dragoon and how little sense it made, it looks A LOT better how you´ve done it. It seems I´m going to spend some time skimming through what I´ve missed, this last piece has certainly grabbed my attention!

[Subtle Discord]

Here’s a bit of a mixed bag with this update. First up I wanted to show some images from the studio’s workbench to illustrate what I’m doing to improve and streamline my mould making process. I’m sure there’s a few of you who’ve been reading my recent articles outlining my progress working with Servitor Solus and wondering ‘what the heck is taking so long to get casting?!’ and I wanted to take a moment to show what I’ve been doing that’s delated me a bit. This is an effort to reduce the labour of producing casting moulds to improve their production in the future, while also aiming for a top quality outcome that will ensure the best possible casts for the customer.

 

I’ve mentioned it a few times over the years, but I’ll reiterate, I hate ‘split moulds’ which are very common in casting resin models; with a split mould you place the object in the mould box and pour one complete block of rubber to completely encase the object, and then cut into the rubber down to the master object to free it from the mould rubber. While this is a method that saves labour during the mold making process it comes with problems that I simply despise. Not only can you damage the casting master as you cut it free, if the object is small and/or thin it can be very difficult if not impossible to cut the item free in a clean manner; even if you can cut the item free it generally creates an uneven mould line that you have very little control over. As such, they tend to ‘slip’ rather easily producing really obvious mould lines at best and horrible detail ruining mould slips at worse. Ever see a really nice resin cast model with a big ugly mould line/slip in a rather odd/obvious location? You can thank quickly made split moulds used/run as quickly as possible for that.

 

My studio will Never use split moulds. By producing a two-part mould extra time and labour is needed but you can have complete control over where the mould line goes and you can produce a mould that literally resists mould slipping and therefore creates almost invisible mould lines almost every time. Done right, this can also help the mould open and close making it easier to extract the components without damaging the mould and/or badly warping the part. Given the cost of RTV rubber, putting some extra labour into making a mould that can be in use for years to produce dozens of copies of an object seems like a shrewd investment; since it also means that it noticeably improves the quality of the components produced, this is simply a no-brainer choice for the studio to standby.

 

A quick first point, the RTV rubber is not binding to the surface of the 3D prints made by Solus as I make the moulds. This small detail is a huge positive for the studio. Past 3D prints made with the PolyJet process (what Shapeways uses) creates components that have a porous surface that needs to be properly sealed before making moulds, or the rubber binds with the object causing all sorts of problems. Servitor Solus makes parts with such a refined and smooth surfaces this issue simply doesn’t happen; to say this is a good outcome would be a huge understatement. It’s not something most people might even concern themselves with, but know that I’m the kind of perfectionist that does it on your behalf.

 

Encouraged by the accuracy that Solus has been achieving I’ve been working out the tolerances to produce ‘inserts’ that fit into the negative space of parts during the mould making process.

 

If an object you’re casting has a nice flat back it’s a simple process of laying it on the casting clay, adding the vents/gates, and pouring RTV rubber over the item; once the first half is cured flip the mould, remove the casting clay, and pour the second half. Now, if the object has all-around details with no obvious flat side and/or has obvious overhangs and/or holes that will lock the item in the rubber, you need to find some way to back-fill them to block the rubber in the first half of the mould. Up to this point I did this by hand using the casting clay, sharp blades, and sculpting tools to fill in these kinds of locations. This is where labour in creating a two-part mould can add up, and every time the mould wears out the process needs to be repeated. I’ll do it if I have to, but I wanted to find a better way.

 

With Servitor Solus completely at my disposal, opposed to outsourcing my 3D printing, I was able to do the trial-and-error necessary to get the tolerances as tight as I could manage to create standardized inserts for the components that will benefit from them. The example above is quite simple, but even with more complex objects creating a seat to occupy the negative area is reasonably straightforward in Solidworks. So, in most cases where it’s needed I should be able to create an insert for a component to simplify the process; place the object on the insert to make one side flat, place them on the clay, add the vents/gates, pour the rubber, cure the first half and flip, remove the clay, pull out the inserts, and pour the second half of the mould. Also, note how doing it this way will have the mould line follow the inside corner/edge perfectly making it really easy to clean up.

 

The last hurdle I’m trying to figure out with this process is how to better seal the paper-thin gap between the insert and the component so it resists the RTV rubber from seeping in between the two objects. If it’s not sealed the pressure curing process I use on my moulds creates a film of rubber that needs to be cleaned up before pouring the second half of the mould. Not a huge deal but it would be nice to avoid it to further streamline the process. I’m researching if there’s a readymade product that can do the job but it might just be as simple as adding a bit of petroleum gel in the gap and cleaning the edge. So, a few more tests are still ongoing to see if I can solve this, but the overall idea of making precision fit inserts in general seems to be viable thanks to how well Solus works.

 

All that said, the first moulds for the Pintle Weapon Kit (Certamen Mk.1, 2, 3) will be starting to finish over the next few days and the first casts and test assemblies will follow shortly after; I can’t wait to see the parts in grey resin. With limited equipment right now mould making is a bit of a catch-22, since I need to use my casting chambers to create my moulds the process unfortunately stops me from being able to cast, and vice-versa. Naturally, more chambers are planned, but for now it’s an annoying reality.

 

Ok, with all of that word salad dished out, let’s have last look (for now) at the final successful iteration of the Dragoon/Ironstrider bits to see how they turned out, shall we?

 

Since the red color tends to mute the contrast in the parts, here’s a screenshot of the last bits I did for the Dragoon/Ironstrider in Solidworks.

 

The first print I did of the Phosphor Serpenta arm was good but it didn’t quite ‘feel’ right to me and seemed a bit heavy; after it was commented that it seemed a bit off balance I figured it wouldn’t hurt to tweak the 3D model a bit. In the above image the back end of the weapon has been slimmed down a little to remove a bit of bulk while still keeping the same form, opposed to the Serpenta in the photograph below. It’s a subtle change but I think it suits the arm better now. These bits were a bit of a distraction within a distraction, but I’m so pleased with how all the components turned out I’m glad I took the time to make the extra bits. The components only change, what, 5-10% of the model? But it really does give the model a distinct look while not diverging too much.

 

After the second iteration that missed the mark it dawned on me what to do to quickly zero in on the fit I was trying to achieve.

 

The first parts were done ‘blind’ by taking measurements of the existing components and model which will work to get the general shape but will struggle to get a really exact match. Once a printed component can be placed on the model there is something to provide solid reference points to work with. I simply sketched the shapes of the model details I was trying to conform to (the round cap of the hip and the oval area of the pipe connections) how they appeared out of alignment, then lock the sketch so it couldn’t move, and altered the 3D model to conform to the sketch… And I’ll be damned if it didn’t work as well as I could have hoped. Again, it’s a little technique that’s actually a large insight that will be very useful for many future projects where I’ll need to zero in on the fit of a curved and/or complex component. It was good to figure it out on something small like this so it can save me time and materials on larger projects. *Subtle glances over at his half assembled Knight and mutters, “Soon.” Under his breath*

 

Next up, I need to get the other two Dragoons cleaned up and assembled, so this project will go dark for a bit before returning once I’ve got the group closer to being ready for primer. Naturally, if I do anything else of note for the project along the way I’ll try to remember to document the process. I’m trying hard to force myself to photograph what I’m doing more often, as I keep finishing things and thinking I should have documented the process. 

 

Thanks as always for reading and following along, some direct replies to comments should follow this in a little while, but right now I’m all worded out.

 

*Subtle shuffles off to find something to jam into his food hole*

 

[The Nephilim]

Gah! This is amazing. I can't wait to see what's next. It's amazing how fine you're able to get the spindly bits. How wide is the arm with the gun attachment?

 

*impatiently waiting for infantry upgrades*

*willing infantry upgrades*

*jedi mind-tricking infanry upgrades*

[Vairocanum]

Whoa that level of quality and accuracy is insane! Very interesting read through on the process as well, looking forward to seeing more!

[Subtle Discord]

didnt realise id asked the same question twice sorry :S i can understand i was shocked at the price of the strider when i used one to make a chaos spawn conversion.

 

i doubt it would be possible but id love to see some more upright legs for MkIII and MkIV marines like walking running and standing at ease the filled nappy pose is getting old XD. I know some one of your skill could do it but the legal crud would suck.

Heh, don't worry about it, it was so late I didn't notice that they were both from the same person, so it's all good. The more people keep talking about things like bits and legs has me getting itchy to at least dabble with something. There's part of me that wants to sculpt a Chaos Marine with modern proportions and detail it how I'd like it to look, but to do it how I'd want would copy GW design elements so closely that I don't think I'd want to sell what I came up with. As always, let's see where I am when I get up-and-running and we'll see what makes its way into the production stream. things are so early, I really don't have more than a vague idea where this is all going, I know what I want to do over the next few years but then it gets all fuzzy, to say the least.

 

Are you using the printer to make molds? I've heard that there are good results to be had from simply doing a boolean subtraction from a solid and then cutting it down from there for your mold pieces.

Nope, I won't be using the printer to make actual moulds, but as I showed above I am creating components to occupy negative space when it makes sense, and it looks like it's going to work. Solus is designed to create thin-walled objects so it's not ideal to try and print large solid masses and moulds would require that. Besides, I only want casting masters so I can create traditional RTV rubber resin casting moulds; they handle the undercuts and other odd shapes that are not possible in rigid moulds. That said, I do have a hope to evolve/expand to creating rigid moulds for styrene injection casting and have done some research to discover that my best bets would be to either invest in a proper CNC mill or use epoxy resins designed to create hard moulds much the same way I produce RTV moulds now. Yep, I've still got a few more things to learn, me thinks.

 

Wow, thats a really cool idea, it has always bothered me how bad the phosphor serpenta looked on the dragoon and how little sense it made, it looks A LOT better how you´ve done it. It seems I´m going to spend some time skimming through what I´ve missed, this last piece has certainly grabbed my attention!

Thanks! Once I got the idea to create combat arms it was all but inevitable. I too didn't like how the Serpenta is handled in the GW kit, and this solution just makes so much sense. Someone mentioned that I should try doing one with a two-handed grip on the weapon and I like that idea too, but for now, I think this is a great way to make better use of the small arm attachments than to add a couple of clamps.

 

Gah! This is amazing. I can't wait to see what's next. It's amazing how fine you're able to get the spindly bits. How wide is the arm with the gun attachment?

 

*impatiently waiting for infantry upgrades*

*willing infantry upgrades*

*jedi mind-tricking infanry upgrades*

Here you go, I tossed some dimensions on a screenshot of the Serpenta to give it some scale and you can see how large a selection of the details are. Hope that helps.

 

 

Let me get rid of my backlog and I promise that I'll start working on all manner of different designs of all sorts of different scopes and scales. The final pieces are in place, the start has been a bit slow, but it's happening now, really!

 

Whoa that level of quality and accuracy is insane! Very interesting read through on the process as well, looking forward to seeing more!

Servitor Solus is... amazing. No other 3D printer in the same price range comes even close. It really is the printer I've been waiting roughly ten years to be created and someone finally went and did it! I'm starting small to find my legs, but great things are on the way.

[The Nephilim]

Discord, that's amazing you're able to get such precise detail so small. I'm super excited about this. Like for years, all the Chaos bits everyone has ever dreamed of is now a possibility through these new technologies. Thank you for working on these.

[Subtle Discord]

Oh, trust me, it's got me itching to get back to my Chaos but I've set myself a series of projects that start with my current neutral AdMech force and I don't want to deviate, despite how tempting it is. Given the rolling redesign that GW is obviously doing for Chaos, I want to give them more time to see what they've got up their sleeves. It will happen and I aim to try and provide designs that will appeal to each of the four factions as well as general renegade and Undivided. It should also cover both Marines as well as Traitor Guard and hopefully, have some offerings that will appeal to 30k players who want things to represent early traitorous factions.

 

The foundation is down, now to start raising the building. The first round of moulds are finishing up as I get another round ready to go, so I should have some first casts to show in the next day or two. Stay tuned...