Took me a long time to get there, but the squad is finally finished (pending comments from the client). I personally wasn’t satisfied until about 80% of the way in when the squad started to really come together properly. Most elements of the models I’ve covered in previous posts and are fairly self explanatory. The most recent element were the Mark III back packs. In illustrations of various forms of power armour Mark II & III have a distinct style of backpack, although there has never been a specific model component (as far as I know) of that design. I tried to follow a similar styling to that of the armour – bigger, plates and cabling. Whilst the the vents on the top are very difficult to keep uniform, I’m fairly pleased with the final thing.

The Alpha Legionnaire Badge on the shoulder pad was first made in greenstuff and then casts were made using silicone rubber putty as a simple one piece mold. At some point I’ll make a post about this new material, but I’ve only just started experimenting with it, so I’ll wait till I’ve had a chance to try a few things first.

The whole squad has come together nicely, whilst they aren’t perfect conversions, there is definite progression occurring over time, which is obviously nice to see. For anyone who’s interested the client plans to use these as “counts as” Grey Knight Terminators.

Anyway, here’s the pics:

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Completed Project Alpha Legion, Backpack, Grey Knight, Mark III, Mark IV, Silicone Rubber Putty

Just a quick self explanatory update. The rest of the squad isn’t far behind. Note: the Mark III has a Mark IV backpack in this pic, his own will be slightly different when finished.

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Work in Progress Alpha Legion, Mark III, Mark IV

Here’s a few shots other the Alpha Legionnaries I promised ages ago. I’m especially pleased with how the icon on the squad leader’s chest came out. The Mark IIIs are considerably bulkier than the Mark IVs but that’s intentional as they are meant to look more heavily armoured. I’ll be adding rivets to the Mark IIIs tomorrow, and if that doesn’t provide enough detail perhaps small eagle icons in the center of the chest plates. Everything else is pretty straight forward. The backpacks and pads are being worked on too.

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Click for larger image.

After these are done (along with a couple of painted minis) I’ll be focussing Terminators, getting the tutorial finished and a Huron Blackheart conversion.

For all those waiting please be patient.

Work in Progress Alpha Legion, Alpha Legionaries, Mark III, Mark IV

So I finally made some progress with the Alpha Legionnaries in Mark III and Mark IV armour. The Mark IVs are pretty much ready to receive their arms and backpacks. The Mark IIIs still require some work on their torsos (doing that tomorrow). One of them has had his chest plate sculpted but still requires a plate to go over the groin area. All the Mark IIIs will have some rivets added to increase the heavy armour plated look and bring them inline with GWs own Mark III miniatures.

The client requested that the squad be equipped with combi-bolters, so I’m using Chaos Terminator arms for the Mark IIIs and regular Terminator arms for the slightly more sophisticated Mark IVs. In an attempt to make them look more combi-bolter than storm bolter I’ve removed the nozzle (might be the wrong word???) and replaced them with drilled out plasticard tube. These need a little greenstuff work over where there used to by chaos iconography, but that’s pretty straight forward.

I’m sure there’s a lot more detail I can go into, but I’ll leave it till the next update.

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Click for larger image.

Click for larger image.

Work in Progress Alpha Legionnaries, Combi-bolters, Mark III, Mark IV

Hey guys.

Small update for you all on the Mark 4 from the Alpha Legion squad. The greenstuff is largely done on the torso, just need to do another plate to go in front of the groin, but need to wait the GS underneath to firm up. The trickiest thing about this (other than the sculpting) was getting the chest to stick out far enough. I had to hack the Forgeworld torso down the middle without damaging any of the details, rather tricky but all done with a scalpel rather than sawblade.

The rest of the squad is a little begin the progress of this mini, the Mk3 helms having taken time to get right. Will have a squad update very soon, but just wanted to show the progress of my first Mk4 armour. Have to have some of these in my own collection, no doubt.

Work in Progress Forgeworld, Mark IV, Resin

I finally got some work done on the squad of Alpha Legionnaires I had promised I would do weeks ago. This is the second time I have started this squad (part of the reason for the wait). I had tried to pose some of the squad in a striding pose, but many of the legs just ended up looking like they belonged to ballerinas, skipping… you get the idea. I ended up swapping most of them out for a more standard marine pose, with some minor adjustments. Striding/running poses are very difficult to do without them looking weird, and with a variety of only 5 pairs of Terminator legs to use, it only makes thing tougher.

In the near future I will start removing the thighs completely and sculpting them from scratch.

The squad here will consist of 3 x Mk4, and 5 x Mk3. I’ve begun sculpting the Mk3 helmets to match the helm used by the Space Marine Master with helm in hand. I think I may try an alternative style based on some of the earlier models/drawings of Mk3 armour, just to see how they look.

The Mk4 bits are from forgeworld, and I think they are brilliant, my favourite style of power armour by far. Still a long way to go with this squad, I’ve already begun working of their weapons, a collection of power weapons and combi-bolters (client will use these as GK Terminators). I’m going away for a few days but when I get back I’ll be giving these my full attention, so hopefully most of the work will be done by this time next week.

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Work in Progress Alpha Legion, Forgeworld, Mark III, Mark IV, Squad

Thanks to Doghouse posting a pick of one of the old style backpacks in his Warseer Project Log, I managed to improve on the backpacks of the MK V conversions I’ve been working on. Here’s the first, a definite improvement over those issued to the last squad. This one will be used to create a small greenstuff press mold.

Work in Progress Backpack, Mark IV, Mark V, Mark VI