Imperials

By Doghouse., in Painting

I'm a bit of a newbie to Legion but a long time 40k player and thought I'd give it a try as something new. I'm starting off with an Imperial force to begin with but being a big conversion fan didn't want to just go with straight out of the box so decided to break out the green stuff and get stuck in.

The first unit I am working on is Stormtroopers, I'm using purely the body of the DLT-19 trooper which I sourced individually on Ebay. I was going to make them all sandtroopers but the problem for me there was that I'm guessing it's safe to say FFG will bring them out at some point so I think it would make it unfair on my opponent to have them look similar. So instead I'm going with the idea of a veteran unit, maybe a garrison force on some remote planet. At the moment I'm just going with arm swaps but will probably re position some heads as well as add some pouches and maybe the odd poncho.

The Commander is DLT-19 trooper with Luke Skywalker's head which has been heavily modified. The reasoning behind this was I first thought about sculpting the head, then considered third party bits but ultimately settled on using Luke's head as it just felt like it'd fit in better with the Rebels and not stand out so much. I'm currently working on the pauldron and equipment pouches and I'm just defining the shape before cleaning them up.

The pictures aren't great for now, being too dark, but I'll try and get some proper daylight shots come the weekend.

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Being a big Stormtrooper fan I have a lot more of them on the way along with the AT-ST and I am just getting started on the core set.

That's lovely work so far.

Nice work on the trooper. I purchased some green stuff when picking up my core sets but have yet to use it.

I have seen some amazing work done with it, I just fear ruining a miniature with a bad sculpt. I used to work with clay and contour putty but have no experience with green stuff. The associate at the place where I bought it looked at me like I was speaking rodian when I asked how to use it.

Brightguy: Thanks mate. :)

Sparty1701: I made mine with Green Stuff but still need to do some tidying up. I may have to get hold of some of those you linked though.

C3POFETT: I've been using GS for years now and it's not as intimidating as a lot of people think to be honest. It's basically a case of mixing the blue and yellow until you get a solid green colour, you can add a little more yellow if you want the texture to be stickier. If you have it in ribbon form then just cut straight across the strip but if you have the tubes of blue and green I tend to break off a little bit of equal amounts and mix it together.It's best to use Clay Shapers like these http://heresyminiatures.com/shop/index.php?main_page=advanced_search_result&search_in_description=1&keyword=clay+shaper. but I know some that just a tooth pick or cocktail stick. Once you have the GS on the model you'll find a tiny bit of water on the surface of area you are shaping works wonders if you are using a clay shaper or metal sculpting tool. For around twenty minutes after you have started sculpting the area will start to harden, as it is a memory material any work done after that tends to harder as it tries to revert a little to it's previous shape. The key is practice, just mix up a bit and try playing around with it before committing to converting anything. If you get stuck let me know and I will do what I can to help. ;)

Have my first test model under way now and am really enjoying painting him so far. The picture hasn't done him many favours as it has washed out the blending but I'm not too worried about that. This model is a conversion using the legs and arms from one of the other troopers with the commander torso that has the pauldron.

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I'm going to be going for a platoon of 36 models supported by veers and an AT-ST that just arrived.

Got a bit more done but they are all in various stages of WIP and I added a General Veers proxy. Basically the left hand was malformed and I wasn't overly keen on the face so ordered a bare head off shapeways so I could drill out the helmet and fit the new head.

Now I've had a play around with shapeways I've just ordered some 3D heads that I've made myself which will hopefully be bare clone heads. I'll have to see how they turn out first though.

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First attempt at a potential grizzled clone bare head. It's still very experimental at the moment, I'm used to traditional GS sculpting and this digital stuff is something new to me. I'll see how it turns out once the prints arrive.

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Very impressive on all counts!

Thanks mate. :)

Just another quick update. Using one of 4 a Duel Tabletop's shapeway heads I've started on my second unit commander.

The idea is he has taken a deflected blaster shot to the side of his head which has shattered the lens of his helmet and cut his left eye along with some minor burns. Rather than fight with limited vision he's taken the now defunct helmet off and thrown it to the floor. I've hollowed the helmet out and removed the lens but for now I am in major clean up mode on the shading on the armour. Also need to tidy up the neck area of his command pauldron but he's getting there. Ideally I want each commander to look unique and for the platoon as a whole to look beat up and grimy as I like the idea of them being a desert world garrison on some back water outer rim world.

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...nice work!...

Thanks mate. :)

The test head I made arrived today from shapeways and for my first try at this kind of thing I'm really happy with the result. I've replaced the other head I used because I feel it fits a bit better with my theme I have. I'm toying with having these guys as an experimental last batch of clones lead by the General Veers stand in. Still need to do a lot of blending, general clean up and blending in and greying the hair a bit but he's getting there.

As I want this guy to be a Captain I've decided to add a white pauldron guy to the unit as a Sergeant. Once the basics are in place I'll give them all another pass and clean them up to make them a bit more uniform and better blended.

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