Ben's blog

[DaemonlordAbraxes]

Nice Sternguard and Tac. Squad work there Ilmarinen

[Ilmarinen]

WI-slow-P

So I've got my ticket for the Age of the Emperor Horus Heresy event in September ...and it's taking longer than ever to get stuff done!

I've started work on my Mk4 bike squad, which will be one of the more difficult tasks. Each bike uses the front spokes of a chaos bike, the front armour and rear of a space marine bike, cut down space marine legs with green stuff Mk4 kneepads, a black templar Mk4 head and chest, a cut down chaos backpack, chaos biker arms, an adaptation to the bike to make the front wheel position look more realistic, and customised shoulder pads (not yet started!).

Mk4 biker sergeant.






Mk4 bike and attack bike (the kneepads need more work).


I quite like WISP as an acronym!

[lord_caldera]

Wow that's a huge list of parts! It looks great though, looking forward to seeing some more!

[Maratheus]

Looking real good here.
I like the mk4 bikers, simple conversion but it gives it alot more character.
I also like the jump pack conversions, I think I'll grab some of that...

[DaemonlordAbraxes]

You should do a 4 wheeler with a guy sitting back to back with the driver shooting a very large heavy weapon

[Ilmarinen]

Got a little more done over the weekend - hooray.

My Mk4 tactical squad is almost done. Just the shoulder pads to sort out (fun with green stuff) and the sergeant to convert (based on Cassius). The Mk5 sergeant is the one from before with arm swaps in progress, and he will (hopefully) soon be joined by his Mk5 tactical squad.



Auspex.


Plasma gun and cannon.


Sorry about the poor quality of the pics. I'll have a better camera again soon.

[Ilmarinen]

A quick update. Still slow going, not helped by me having a fit of OCD over the style of bolters I'm using. Of course I decide that mk6 bolters aren't good enough on mk4 marines, so I have to swap several arms so they can hold the mk 4 forward clip bolters. One day the squad will be finished...

On the plus side, I've decided what style of mk4 shoulder pad to use and it looks good ...even if it does involve yet more rivets! I've also done the legs for half of the mk5 tac squad. Ugh.

I'll try and get some pics up later tonight. The next big step is making a press mould for the shoulder pad icons.

[DaemonlordAbraxes]

Where in the world did you obtain so many Mk. 4 heads???

[Iron Corsair]

Excellent job, Ilmarinen! Your White Scars are awesome!

[Ilmarinen]

Thanks for the comments.
@DLA - I've been raiding bits sites and I've got lots of BT upgrade boxes.

Pics! (My camera is still broken, so I'm still using the iphone - sorry). The re-armed (!) marines.





The riveted shoulder pads (from Collected Visions).



This Mk4 also gets to keep his original Mk2 bolter for some reason.



And the plasma cannon marine has both pads riveted (which involved pulling the backpack and gun off - I'll know to add the rivets first next time!)





My attempts as sculpting a green stuff shoulder icon last night failed abysmally! But I was rather tired, so hopefully my next attempt will be better.

[Ilmarinen]

A decent camera again!

A couple of pics showing the new mk4/forward-clip bolters.





Some success with the shoulder pad icon! Leaving the GS a bit longer before applying it, so it's firmer, and then letting it set more and cutting it gives a much better result. I still need to add the bar, and then I can try making making a mould. I guess my marines are actually White Scars!



I had some spare GS.



And I did some more work on the mk5 legs. "Go and kick that guy stunties!"

[Kriegersen]

Nice

[Ilmarinen]

No new pics just yet, but I need your help in deciding on a colour scheme.

I'm not that keen on the standard scheme with the red pad rims (and it's still not clear whether this depicts the chapter or 3rd company!). I'm using the DA icon as the closest thing on the painter.



The heresy-era scheme is better.



But I was considering a slightly different scheme, with the pads and rims reversed.



What do you reckon?

[Ilmarinen]

No new pics yet I'm afraid.

I've made some progress with the Mk5 squad - the legs, heads, bolters and backpacks are all done, so just the arms, pads and codpieces to go! The heads were hard going - having the trim and shape the back of the helmet from solid plastic was a pain.

I've been getting better at making the shoulder pad icon. I don't have much to show for it at the moment because I decided the older ones weren't good enough, so I removed them and need to start again! But soon...

I tried to contact a casting company to get a bunch of pads made, but no reply, so it looks like I'll be making all of them. I've ordered a bunch of studded pads, which I have to file the studs off! Crazy, but they're the only pads that are the right bulk for Mk5/6.

It seems that the all white colour scheme is most popular, so I think I'll go with that, and maybe do the red pads on a command squad.

I've also been debating about what kind of squad markings to use, and I think I've decided to go for the basic geometric designs (circle for tactical, hourglass/double triangle for assault, triangle for devastator) since the IA article shows a black triangle as an attack bike (dev-replacement) marking. The hourglass comes from the Raven Guard pre-heresy marking. I think the circle is best for the tacticals, rather than a half-and-half pad like the RG. I'm trying to keep things simple since I'll have to sculpt the markings in green stuff!

Hopefully I'll get some pics up soon.

[Arden Fell]

Wow. Can't wait to see these painted up. Are you gonna do a tut on the painting as well?

How many figures have you converted so far for this army? It looks like masses but you still seam to have masses of parts still lying there.

[TyraelVladinhurst]

very nice white scars. by the way i liked the white with the red pads (the last one you showed), as it still very clearly screams white scars.

[Ilmarinen]

Thanks!

I wish I had already done loads of figures - unfortunately there's a lot of pics of the same marines at different stages, so my actual army so far is very small. And yes, I do have loads of stuff still to do.

I'm beginning to get rather worried that I won't get everything done for the Heresy event in September. Yikes!

I'm trying to get everything built by the end of the month, and then I'll start painting next month.

[Pacific]

Interesting work so far!

You've done a great job keeping the studs unifrom on the mk5 legs. The emblem on the shoulder pad works well, will be great if you can keep it up over the whole army!

[Vredesbyrd]

Awesome conversions you've got in this army mate, its so nice to see people putting in so much effort to an army, rather than 'cheating' and just using the Red Scorpion kits. Don't get me wrong its what I intend to do, but this shows another level of dedication.

Will all your Mk V guys be getting plundered AOBR helmets or will you be going the Chaos helmet that looks like Mk V route?

Did you manage to get the flash made up from gs for the back of your Legion icon? Looking forward to pics of that if you did like, if not a 3d lightning bolt and painted flash'd work just as well I reckon. Much cheaper than the GW pads and nicer to boot.

I've gotta say that I like the third scheme the best, the one with the red pads, though would it be possible to incorporate more colour into it perhaps? Mainly to break up all that white, but also to save your sanity a little.

[Ilmarinen]

In view of my incredibly slow progress I've had to dramatically rethink my army list for the Horus Heresy event, to give me some chance of getting things finished in time. I've decided to include my squad of Mk6 marines, since they were almost finished, even though I'd originally intended taking only pre-Mk6 marines.

Here's a group shot of the Tactical squads so far.


I've got a lot better at making the pad icons!


And the first fully-complete Mk5s.