Warhammer 40k

[Halge]

So, is this possible the least inspiring Primarch models they've done yet? Just a dude standing there; zero dynamism for a battle scene.

Yeah, didn't think much of it when I saw it either. Some parts even feel disproportioned, like the hands and the sword hilt. Dull paint scheme too (literally)- using black as the dominant colour doesn't do models any favours.
Kind of like the helmet though, even if it isn't quite how I pictured Lionel Johnson. And the wings ought to have been some metal variant instead.

Lion El'Johnson needs to come back.

Welp, guess he did, kind of.

 

[Halge]

Anywho, some updates on my ammy modeling.
Made a couple of models that didn't quite work out. Swallowed my pride and decided to basically copy a few oldhammer models, hoping to learn something about posing and proportions.
Worked out quite well actually. Not sure I've figured out the GW mojo, but as long as I stick fairly close to the "schematics" the models turn out fairly good.
Made a bunch of decent models this way, but these 3 are the ones I thought turned out the best:

Spoiler

The proportions look a bit wonky in the renders, but better once printed. They are definitely old-school, but I'm beginning to suspect that's pretty much a must when drawing 28mm scale for home printers.

 

[Halge]

The knight with the horsehead is based on this GW model from god knows when (probably not old enough to classify as proper Oldhammer though):

Spoiler

Don't know if anyone itt really cares about the old stuff, but I might be posting pictures of a couple of classic warhammer models in the coming days, just for fun. Some of them are really, really cool.

 

[JBSchroeds]

Last Astartes chapter is out:

 

[M4rk]

Last Astartes chapter is out:

This was badass, and made by a single dude.

 

[Protectandserve]

Last Astartes chapter is out:

Part 5 is even better than the first 4. Which I did not think was possible.

 

[Hogey]

Last Astartes chapter is out:

this dude should have a Hollywood budget

 

[Halge]

A small selection of Oldhammer miniatures. The quality of the miniatures made from 1980-early 1990's vary greatly, but some are really cool. And let's face it- the paint style had a charm about it that the styles that are popular today lack. Took the pictures off of a website called Stuff Of Legends, that has an extensive (if slightly incomprehensible) catalogue of old GW stuff. Can't believe that site is still around- I remember last visiting it at least 5 or 6 years ago, and it looked like a relic even back then.

Spoiler

Chaos champions on cowhorses:

Also, the first Warhammer miniatures I ever got- Warhammer Chaos Beastmen. Dug them up out of a box at my parent's house about a year ago when they were moving. Think they are from early-to-mid 90's, somewhere thereabout. I still really like them, and not just for nostalgic reasons. The box art doesn't really do them justice. They have a great pose that suits their purpose (massed infantry), works around the limitations of what I assume must be a rudimentary two-part mold brilliantly, and are easy as pie to both paint and convert:

Spoiler

 

[Halge]

Never mind me, just messing around with some animation functions in my 3d mod software.
Didn't get all the angles and stuff right, but then again I wasn't trying to stay faithful to the actual APC- I just wanted to knock out a random modern vehicle to get a feel for the process. Might trick it out with some skulls and chaos symbols and whatnot to make it warhammer-compatible.

 

[Law Talkin’ Guy]

So I was doing some colouring with my four year old son this morning. Decided to do an Ultramarine. I mean why not? It’s day 25 of lockdown, and my boy loves it when I sit and colour with him.

Might try to do an ork or a Tyranid or a chaos marine or a titan later.

 

[JBSchroeds]

Got so damn sick of dicking around with calipers to reverse engineer that titan crap (turbolaser did eventually get blocked...yippee) that I went back to put the finishing touches on a bunch of my Imperial Knight parts. God, it is so much more satisfying to work free-hand than be a slave to reproducing something that already exists.

Spoiler

With this work done there's only a couple small parts to finish and, unfortunately, they need to have their dimensional fitment verified by a more accurate printer than what I've got. Before I drop the big money on a resin printer I still need to get the stuff that is finished worked up into casting blocks. I think I've shown the idea of the casting blocks before. Basically, instead of having master parts that need to be clayed before molding you print a pair of block that is essentially the parts as they would be in clay (prototype I did):

Spoiler

This design has the advantage that there is zero skill required to prep the parts for molding, and the molding process is non-destructive so you can run molds indefinitely off the same blocks without needing to re-clay every time.

 

[JBSchroeds]

Some of you might think this is interesting. I've started working on the casting blocks for my completed parts and started with the body. The process works like this:

1. You need to figure out how you want to split the model. In this case there is no splitting required, each part can easily be cast as one piece. But models with complex shapes or poses usually need to be broken into more than one part with some kind of indexing feature for assembly (peg/slot, etc).
   
2. Each part is going to be using a two-part mold so you need to figure out where you want the mold line to be. Determine that line and create it on the model, choosing a spot that will be easy to clean and won't disrupt important details if you end up having flashing.
   
3. Once you know where the line is you need to figure out what angle, if any, there should be between the part's surface and the interface of the two molds. This is particularly important if you are interfacing on a hard edge on a mechanical object; you don't want to be overly biased to one side or the other because it can potentially make mold slippage easier.
4. After the interface surface around the object is determined you need to merge that with the block's outer perimeter. If your interface surface is simple then this step is relatively trivial. With something more complex it can be tricky to get things to flatten out in a smooth manner.

Here's a picture of a complex mold surface (the sprue hasn't been added yet, just the raw interface) where the part itself is in green and the mating surfaces in grey:

Spoiler

EDIT: Figured I'd just edit instead of cluttering up the thread with a new post. Here's a completed set of blocks with locating nubs and sprue added in. The sprue is setup so that I have the option of doing a bottom-injection style instead of pour style. The advantage of injecting from the bottom is that it fills from the bottom instead of running down the sides and pooling. Theoretically this helps avoid having bubbles/voids in the cast because the air can evacuate out the top without having to compete with resin trying to enter through the same sprue trees.

Spoiler

EDIT2: Huh...that...doesn't look right...OH SHIT. Yup, that's fucked. I've got multiple major errors in there. See if you can figure out how I fucked it up.


EDIT3: Jesus, it took me like five tries to get this all sorted out. Think I've FINALLY got everything pointed in the right direction.

Spoiler

 

[M4rk]

 

[JBSchroeds]

I tried to print a set of casting block prototypes so I could try out the bottom-injection method but unfortunately I ran out of filament half way through the second block. I went on Amazon to get some more and the shipping time for that plus some other related odds-and-ends was so far backlogged that I wouldn't get them for like five weeks. So much for this being a good time to try and get this work done. Looks like this project is dead in the water for at least a month. I'm not going to even bother placing the order at this point.

With the IK project on hold I went back to the Warhound files. The flamer and laser are mostly blocked so I started in on the plasma. For some reason I ended up doing a more detailed first pass than I've done on the others. I've got the front half almost totally done:

Spoiler

I'm happy with how this one is coming along.


EDIT: Finished my blocking (and some detailing) for the plasma.

Spoiler

Interestingly, those cables at the bottom were actually really easy. The program I use has a feature called "flow along curve" where you make a line and then it will take a solid and morph it to match the shape of the line. So all I had to do was make a straight bundle of cords, which is just a polar array of cylinders that takes no time to setup, and flow those along a curve of the shape I wanted. All-in-all like ten minutes to do the whole thing: plug, cables, and bundle ties.

 

[Rozko]

I tried to print a set of casting block prototypes so I could try out the bottom-injection method but unfortunately I ran out of filament half way through the second block. I went on Amazon to get some more and the shipping time for that plus some other related odds-and-ends was so far backlogged that I wouldn't get them for like five weeks. So much for this being a good time to try and get this work done. Looks like this project is dead in the water for at least a month. I'm not going to even bother placing the order at this point.

With the IK project on hold I went back to the Warhound files. The flamer and laser are mostly blocked so I started in on the plasma. For some reason I ended up doing a more detailed first pass than I've done on the others. I've got the front half almost totally done:

Spoiler

View attachment 760767 View attachment 760768

I'm happy with how this one is coming along.

Those designs look good

 

[whougonnacall]

The guy who made helsreach has launched trailer for blood angels...looks dope

Also saw on 40k reddit crowdfunder for animated version of the last church novellea

 

[whougonnacall]

Saturine wall is out so lore spoliers
- turns out the astartes/ primarch project had a mother erda as well as a father (big e) a perpetual who helped big e then rebelled when she saw the scale of his ambitions
Turns out many perpetuals hung out long ago but big e was a freak...way wayyy beyond the power of any of the others
She may have help scatter the baby primarchs

-new character jenita krole head of silent sisters , null so powerful ordinary people cant even see her

- shock twist inquisition not started by malcador at all ! Dorn relaunches remembancer project with I symbol ! They are given his highest authority to interogate and record details of the siege

-lokken kills little horus !!

-sanguinius walks the walls to raise morale then later kills a warhound titan all by his lonesone

-dorn meanwhile trys to lure perty into attacking a wall ....instead fulgrim and abbadon do so and are ambushed

Siggy actualy survives and even hurts fulgrim in a fight hes being utterly outmatched in...about to die and dorn jumps in!
Dorn actualy holds his own vs fulgrim at at fights end dishes outs some serious damage on him...fulgrim heals up due to warp fuckery and teleports away bored for his men to finish dorn and siggy...they dont of course
Eildion is there and is hilariously sent flying by dorn so that he can return later

-abbadon hacks his way through a few loyalist heros taking damage ...guys a frigging beast
Finaly outnumbered almost loses his life to garro ( not fair fight though ) before teleporting away, beforehand on point of death has finaly had enough of chaos , horus and the whole rebellion

- last scenes corswain and elements of the dark angels appear !!!

 

[whougonnacall]

Another lore post as its lockdown
Lion lord of the first is newish and pretty awesome
- seems the lion sees the dark angels as the emperors real executioners whereas he sees russ and the boys as a dog to scare people with .
This is due to the 1sts( at he time ) having an unbreakable loyalty , they will quietly methodicaly burn every single trace of any enemy should it threaten and if enemy destroys the imperium they will avenge it ....the lion literaly calls them ' the final solution'

- firewing do a lot with intel gathering and counter intel ops

-enemy is the khrave who are described as older than many galaxies , can feed off insecurities and see peoples psyker imprints ....hence men of iron are employed by da as they are basicaly invisible to them

They dont seek glory for what they do hence not fussed on ullanor parade

They have archeotech that are described as 'would cause a break with mars if discovered ' pov walks past cashes of these and told not to ever touch a single thing
We see they have a few men of iron ( all with individual handlers with killswitches) , psy cannons , pov character walks past a casket requiring 2 specalists to open it that causes a painful psyker scream when only just in its presence !
This is all maintained by their techmarines and still have specalists from terran campaigns
Its hinted all the stuff the have would be the emps big bitchslap should mars ever revolt

- we see the lion in all his brilliance here , a khrave tries to mind rape him only to end up revealing info to the lion
The lions inital moves are just bait to draw khrave out and reveal their bases also it gives him hints to where their secret human thralls are ....which are purged galaxy wide within the imperium ! Dude is a master 4d chess player it seems

 

[j123]

Saturine wall is out so lore spoliers
- turns out the astartes/ primarch project had a mother erda

The head scientist on the moonbase that had issues with the guy who challenges beliasarius cawl and he up being part of his consciousness?

Turns out many perpetuals hung out long ago but big e was a freak...way wayyy beyond the power of any of the others
She may have help scatter the baby primarchs

There's some fan theory that big e might be a dark age of tech invention and is the last of its kind (an army of big e's existing.... Wild stuff). Made with fabricated memories of his life and programmed to ascend humanity at all costs. It has some inconsistencies such as the fight with the void dragon in the 13th century, but it seems still within realm of possibility.

-abbadon hacks his way through a few loyalist heros taking damage ...guys a frigging beast

Failbbadon the armless a beast? Wut?

 

[Halge]

Some of you might think this is interesting. I've started working on the casting blocks for my completed parts and started with the body. The process works like this:

1. You need to figure out how you want to split the model. In this case there is no splitting required, each part can easily be cast as one piece. But models with complex shapes or poses usually need to be broken into more than one part with some kind of indexing feature for assembly (peg/slot, etc).
   
2. Each part is going to be using a two-part mold so you need to figure out where you want the mold line to be. Determine that line and create it on the model, choosing a spot that will be easy to clean and won't disrupt important details if you end up having flashing.
   
3. Once you know where the line is you need to figure out what angle, if any, there should be between the part's surface and the interface of the two molds. This is particularly important if you are interfacing on a hard edge on a mechanical object; you don't want to be overly biased to one side or the other because it can potentially make mold slippage easier.
4. After the interface surface around the object is determined you need to merge that with the block's outer perimeter. If your interface surface is simple then this step is relatively trivial. With something more complex it can be tricky to get things to flatten out in a smooth manner.

Here's a picture of a complex mold surface (the sprue hasn't been added yet, just the raw interface) where the part itself is in green and the mating surfaces in grey:

Spoiler

View attachment 759371

EDIT: Figured I'd just edit instead of cluttering up the thread with a new post. Here's a completed set of blocks with locating nubs and sprue added in. The sprue is setup so that I have the option of doing a bottom-injection style instead of pour style. The advantage of injecting from the bottom is that it fills from the bottom instead of running down the sides and pooling. Theoretically this helps avoid having bubbles/voids in the cast because the air can evacuate out the top without having to compete with resin trying to enter through the same sprue trees.

Spoiler

View attachment 759522

EDIT2: Huh...that...doesn't look right...OH SHIT. Yup, that's fucked. I've got multiple major errors in there. See if you can figure out how I fucked it up.


EDIT3: Jesus, it took me like five tries to get this all sorted out. Think I've FINALLY got everything pointed in the right direction.

Spoiler

View attachment 759562

Okay, so a couple of question if you don't mind. You may have already explained it in one of your posts, but my ADD won't let me process more than twitter-length posts at a time so I might have missed it. If you did, maybe you could refer to said post(s).

1. What exactly is the purpose of the mold? More specifically, is it for casting multiple copies of the object, or just one prototype that you then put post-print finishing touches on, or what? Curious about what your endgame is, and what stage in that process the mold is. I've already figured you kinda play in a different league than most of us hobbyists, but I might learn something useful.

The idea of printing a mold is cool, and looks great on paper, and is something I've fiddled with (a tiny bit) myself, but I figure you'd run into all kinds of problems. Like the mold having inaccuracies, and the printing material not being suited for the casting material. I made a quick try with a printed two-part PLA mold, with the following results (tldr version: didn't work):

Spoiler

Melted tin alloy would, surprisingly, not melt PLA outright. At least not when poured at a temperature just above melting point. But it did fuse with the plastic, to the point that I had to pry it loose. I never poured metal into the actual mold (it took long to print, and I didn't want to waste it), just on a piece of scrap PLA I had lying about. While it didn't melt the plastic I suspect it deformed it somewhat, and anyway like I said it fused solid with the plastic. So no way you can use metal as a casting material in a PLA mold (but we all knew that already).

Two-part resin didn't seem to produce enough heat to deform the mold, but it did stick to it much the same way as the metal. I had sprayed the inside of the mold with silicone, but that didn't help one bit. Couldn't even get the cast out of the mold by prying with tools. Didn't help that a PLA mold, unlike standard rubber or silicone molds, won't bend or flex one bit.

Haven't bothered with Green Stuff yet because the mold was wrecked by the resin and I didn't feel like printing up another. Might experiment some more in the future, but so far my impression is using PLA as a mold (especially for repeated use) is basically unfeasible.

2. What kind of equipment do you use for casting? You wrote about doing injection molding instead of pouring, so I assume you have access to somewhat cooler equipment than just a pot stove and a casting ladle?