your future plans sound goooood!

can you sort out some rear shots of the legs to show the componente- also the light/flash is a little extreme to show detail (diff colout plastics etc)

Am considering doing all my elites in this vein!

cheers dude

Currently I'm really fond of "Armory" white / grey / black primers...
But With the last batch of re-paint on my tanks (the ones that had enamel incidents) I found 'Krylon' at my local craft shop, the type is 'Krylon Fusion for Plastics' and it goes on ... with 'Wow' levels of smooth even coverage, and it's really solid, in so far as being able to take a beating...
The undersides of my tanks were 'sanded' by painted table surfaces during recent tournaments : I don't have my metal flight poles fixed yet and I'm [expletive deleted] at the thought of having to run so many plastics... and look the same bright white full detail as before.

Hey Dark gear!

Any more updates- eagerly awaiting some great stuff from this project!

cheers

Warhound

Here you go Warhound, hope it was worth the wait. As could be expected, school has started getting in the way of the BCC. I've managed to squeeze in a few more hours on some foot designs, exploring two different directions. One is a beefed up XV-25 hoof and the other features longer toes as inspired by Kallimity's brilliant leg design.



I've got a photo project due this week so I should be able to hammer out the design next weekend. The good news about the downtime is that my mail orders came in so I finally have some GS, some buildings and a ton of magnets to work with.



Considering I'm still stuck on the foot design, I thought I'd post the two on one suit and leave it up to the tracksuit colony to provide some welcome feedback. While I am leaning towards the long-toed model, but with shorter toes, there's something interesting about the beefy hooves. Maybe it's the resemblance to our beloved Shas'O from Dawn of War... If I stick to the 2-toed design I'll then add for armour around the shin and ankle to protect that crucial point.

You'll also notice the second set of arms. Now the 'O has a good visual explanation for those 4 attacks. After years of fighting orks in Killer Kans, the Tau have started to experiment with more effective close-support options. Thanks to the necrons, XV's finally have a design that fits with their design aesthetic while also being suitably intimidating.

-Stepping through some ruins.






The base is still in the prototype phase as well but considering this is going to be an HQ for an urban cadre, the Basilica bitz seem to fit. Looking at the foot sticking over the edge of the base I'm debating whether or not to bump up the the base size to give the character a bit more presence.

Comments welcome as always,

Wow, that looks great. I really like how you've incorporated the new head, and the new weapon mount is very intimidating. Just to venture an opion on thefeet, I would go with the armoured two-toed design. The arms are the only things that seem...kind of out of place. The claws just seem kind of oversized and heavy...

Other than that though, great job, keep it up!

Whooo...I'm so ready to see this thing painted! Looking great so far, man.

ooh, that's an interesting look you have going! Very Grievous evil!

Cool base idea too, nice work.

Starting to look pretty solid, very nice conversion work. I don't particularly like the look of the Tompspyder arms, nor the idea of Tau with 2 pairs of arms. I also think comparing number of attacks to number of limbs to a bit weird, but to each his own.

Your foot design is intresting, will be intresting to see where it leads.

Cheers

Ok, REEALLY had to look, look and look again, and then a bit more.

I love this suit, however I think that while the intentions for the 'close quarters suit' are/were good, there are a few things that I feel may need to be looked at:

Glad you had a look at the Kallamity site- great inspiration there! I think that a blend of the 2 feet style could be the answer? If you were to have 2 seperate toes that were slightly more articulated- it would retain the tau feel, and yet add that level of 'agility' that I think you are trying to reach. The hoof is almost the 'siganture' of Tau suits, so to remove that would take the model into a whole other realism. Don't get me wrong, I really like the idea and would love to see the long toes completed, I just think it would stretch Tau design aesthetic a little too far?


1: How do you plan to model the SI?- curious
2: If the suit is to be 'building hopper'/ 'floor clearer' would it not be better to have a fusion gun on one HP and then a Burst cannon on the other?
The reason I say this is that I can imagine the suit scaling some stairs, fusioning a blast door open and then bursting in a letting rip with either the burst cannon (T2- arnie and gatling cannon stylee) or the compact (TL?) flamer?
3: Totally agree with the MT and SD's!

Now onto the arms. Hmmm, aesthetically I love them, however, even with all the advancements we/ the Fio are coming up with for our suits, I just think that the Tau mentality/ approach to war would still not include and desire to even approach CC. I can see the arms in defensive role, but then again, if you modelled VRT then he would never need to get that close, also how many dreads would he meet on a 4th floor?

My only other comment would be that the head needs somthing under the topmost hydraulic- some 'gubbins' protruding from the back of the head?

Otherwise, I hope that this helps and cannot wait for another update!

cheers

Warhound

A lot of good comments and feedback since the update. I'll do my best to answer all the questions.

The feet.

After much deliberation (and cut styrene) I'll be going for the two-toed design. As Warhound said it, it really does seem much more mobile than the iconic Tau hoof. The more I look at the model as a whole the more those hooves just don't seem to fit with the angular shoulders and chest armour plates. I'll make sure to document the production line approach to fabbing the 4 toes so that you can see the process. Balancing a mecha look with the streamlined Tau lines is kinda tricky but i'd like to thank Liquidwolf for posting the Cirillo suit pics as they are a great reminder it can be done.

Weapon loadout.

While the point about a FB being a punchier weapon than either a PR or FL when up close, let's not forget it only shoots once and also can't do anything at more than 12". The PR can at least be effective at up to 24" so you can still be effective as you close-in or jump from cover to cover. As for the flamer, from past experience, place the template right and the odds are good that you'll hit 5+ models who also have no cover saves. Doesn't so much matter vs MEQs but against Necron scarabs, IG or Eldar, it definitely helps.

The arms

You know how sometimes you just can't find a rational explanation for a design decision, only that "it looks good to me". Well, this would be one of these times for me They're there not so much to deal with dreads but because they were inspired by dreads. I'd also like to call it the "fear factor". A suit with an extra set of arms definitely has a bigger presence on the battlefied. The idea behind them is finer motor functions are handled by some kind of built-in suit AI so that even though Tau physiology has no way of knowing how to deal with 4 arms, the suit's "fight-by-wire" system calls upon the extra limbs when an opponent gets close enough. Suit AI's might not have been covered in published fluff but I can't see why certain functions couldn't be offloaded from the pilot in much the same way some of the human body's movements are controlled by the central nervous system in some cases. As my thinking goes, if flesh can do it, why can't a super advanced AI do it better? I'll wait until all the limbs are complete before I pass judgement on the scale of the claws but If I do drop them from the design, that will offer up a nice chunk of XV real-estate for more ERA tiles

Head, SI, SD's will be covered in a subsequent post.

cheers.

I gotta say, I love the work you've done. It looks different, it looks menacing and it looks cool. Those are really important factors in making a good model I think.

I think it would make sense for the suits AI to be smart enough to operate the 2nd pair of arms. Even if a normal suits AI couldn't, you could glue on a drone head and say that it's an extra AI node dedicated to easing the functionality of the suit on the pilot. (Kinda like the R2 units in Star Wars)

After all, especially in close quarters, a pilots gotta be able to react fast. One would assume that as much as possible is done to make sure the pilot can just do what he wants naturally without having to nesscarily think about how to manipulate the suit to do his bidding.

I can see this suit pulling off heroic stuff like jump-jetting through the window of one building across a street or alleyway into the window of another building to flame some enemies while they don't expect it.

No I'm not dead, but that I think I'm getting older since I actually let school work get in the way of modelling. There's nothing better than midterms to completely throw off your conversion plans. Luckily, I managed to keep the same focus I had at school long enough to carry it over into the build at the last minute. The end result is two feet and four toes from scratch, one arm, 2 new torso armour plates, one shield drone AND a magnetised bullpup plasma rifle all in one day Oh and 3 coats of primer.

On with the show.









BONUS! bullpup plasma rifle



Thank you all for the support, feedback and comments throughout this build, I don't think I would've spent nearly as much time as I did on this project if it hadn't been for the inspiration. Now that the deadline is over I can see a few I'd improve, such as finishing the toe pivots and smoothing out a few more holes, but first, must sleep...

excellent work, great to see that you came in on time!

It's a very good build and I am mightily impressed.

Best points for me are the feet and leg construction. Looks very "springy" and alien inspired.

Bonus points for the modded weapons and I hear you on getting it smoothed out. I've only ever tried to fill in the grooves up on the shoulder hard-points and found it a challenge to get perfectly smooth. It just seems really hard work for how little you get, you know what I mean? I could build another suit in that time!

Again, good work, good pose. Oh, and glad you aren't dead.

'Cricket' legs complete!!!

Great to see completed and that you have returned from the wastes.

I have to say that the photography is pretty too- it almost looks like a photoshop/ digi version!

Very nice work!

cheers

Wa'Rhound

Thanks guys,

Quite true about the smoothing Kai. At this point I'm thinking it would be easier to just add a big plate over the whole section. That would also bulk the suit a bit more which is never a bad thing. As it stands now, what's another hour of work considering I've spent about 80+ on this design so far.

As for the photography, the trick is bounce the flash off the ceiling after setting it to 1/4 intensity and keep the ISO as low as possible. Since the camera meters off the flash, I was able to stop the lens down to F11 so as to have enough depth-of-field to get the whole model in focus. The matte finish of the styrene sheet backdrop gives really smooth shadows on the ground too. Pardon the bad shot of the setup but the good camera was too busy posing.



As a primer I used Tamiya Color TS-4 German Grey spray paint. It's expensive but it provides really good coverage and dries super smooth. Since German Grey is the dominant shade for my scheme it just made sense to prime it with that colour from the get-go.

The legs were a big challenge to finish considering the size of the toes and the side plates for the shoe assembly. Truth be told I'm in awe of modelers who can make their own molds and cast their own resin parts. In the process I found a method for making multiples without having to use molds. I'd be interested to find out what techniques other ATT members use when faced with making copies of one plate, such as Kai's up-armour panels. I thought of GS molds but the cure time and the difficulty of sanding or filing it compared to styrene made that technique impractical.

CRICKET LEG POST-MORTEM (or how to make to make 2 similar feet without molds)

The toes

Cut four lengths of small gauge sprue to roughly the same lenght and glue them to a frame make from, you guessed it, sprues. This is to ensure they stay aligned once you start shaping them. Take your time, check your angles often. Slowly the 4 parts will take on the same shape.





The "ankle"

The initial prototype form is now mostly figured out so it's time to make a copy before going to the next phase, armouring. Since I already have one piece, I glue the part to styrene bar stock and let it cure for 20-ish minutes. The curing is important because you don't want the original to move around once you start shaping. Once again, a steady hand and slow strokes with fine files carve out the shape on the bar stock.



For the side panels of the ankles, repeat the process but this time with 3 plates of plasticard glued to one long section. In this case the ankle piece is added to the stack in order to get the right size. The plates are a bit more finicky to seperate than the thicker stock but a light filing will take out the scratches.










A benefit of this technique is that it makes easier to add tiny plates to a model. For example the front of the ankle needed an extra plate to bulk out the shape. Not thrilled at the prospect of having to work with a rectangle that was 1x1x3mm wide, I glued the bar to the front, let it cure and then cut the part to fit. Prior to cutting it off though I used the bar as a handle to do some fine filing on the piece before final assembly.



All things considered this was a challenging yet very instructive build. I look forward to the next design challenge because if this one was any indication, the quality of the work we can expect to see from ATT's members is pretty extraordinary.

Well there you go, hope this helps

It has occurred to me that we have some retarded good modelers on this forum. Nice work.


ADMIN EDIT : Hahahaha..word filter can be a cruel mistress...I suspect a suitably 'Positive' comment was made above.

Wonderfully built, superb concept and execution, been wondering what I could do with the spare Necron blaster end piece..Bullpup Plasma Rifle of course!

Thank you for your efforts considering, a great result!

~ Tael.

Thanks for the idea theft Tael Much appreciated and truly honoured. Ever since I picked up that first Necron Destroyer I've been finding new ways to combine the 2 technologies in interesting. From personal experience they're quite compatible since both have clean non-gothic lines. For example, the arm that connects the blaster to the body also makes a great pivot mount for missile pods.

Bear: Totally agree! Seeing the work during this competition was bloody intimidating (especially Zulu's) what with all the original poses and modifications happening.

The thing that pleases me the most about this challenge is that the Modding and Painting forums have grown so much in the past month. ATT isn't just for lists and battle reports anymore

Hey there!

great tutorial to back up the great entry!

One question, what glue do you use in the process of duplicate carving? I have issues with both super and liquid poly in this process, so do you also have to go back and 'repair' the rip points when taking the frame apart?

Also, do you have shots of your cadre in the grey? I have tried searchyFu, but with one hand I was easily beaten!

cheers

Wa'Rhound

Getting better and better! Any chance of some close ups on the head? I might have to 'borrow' your Idea... If you don't mind, of course!