Modelling Typhus Part 2 - Legs and Weapon

Typhus'Lower Body

The lower body is very important in this model simply because of the lifted right heel. That pose gives the whole essence of movement to the figure that the original miniature did not have. The problems I  was faced with lay in the fact that a great deal of modelled features occur in the legs of these 'space marine' type characters. Their upper leg armour was separated from the lower leg armour by, obviously, a knee, but one which was constructed covered by a flexible ribbed joint, which was in turn partly covered by a large shin guard or greeve.

As a human leg can roughly be seen as a pair of cylinders with a central joint, I decided use circles of plastic set at appropriate angles to define the tops and bottoms of these cylinders. The hip girdle above is modelled as per the smaller space marine figures with a front 'codpiece' like shape and a curved rear end. The angled circles represent the junction of femur and hip girdle where another ribbed membrane occurs.

Usually when I finish a major bit, I put them all together (it somehow convinces that there is indeed an end in sight, if at this point a long way away). You will note that the torso's front has been covered by a layer of putty. It is all that is necessary at this point as much detail must be added to this area later on, and one thing that can be said of Nurgle models is that there is no such thing as super smooth, pretty or elegant.

 

 Here is how those circular cross sectional pieces fit together to make up the leg sections. Note that they  are of different sizes and doesn't this add to the fun of measuring accurately? Of course one major problem of this type of build (from small to big), is that all errors are magnified- oh joy.
Because the spaces between the two ends have to be filled with putty, I used as many 'filler' pieces of plastic as would fit and then started the puttying process.
That structure on top of the hip girdle was supposed to be the 'belt' area, but it was found wanting and eventually was disposed of, the angle between torso and hips was seen later to cause more problems than I could deal with. I think because all Nurgles have distended bellies (due to their disgusting, bloated rancidness ), the relation between the belly and the hips need to be more straight on, than twisted to the angles I had originally intended. Maybe that is why most overweight golfers cannot make a full backswing turn?

 

 

Ah, a cloven foot! Just shows you who this bloke hangs around with doesn't it ? Here I made an innocent but bad mistake. I modelled the feet hard onto the base board and didn't give myself the freedom to lift the figure off with protruding wires as I had done with all the others. This meant that I had to deal with a substantial piece of wood solidly attached to the model at all times.Normally this would be a good thing - stability, ease of turning, little chance of tipping- but, when finished, mounting became a big problem. More of that later.
Putty application is quite rough at this stage as, to the centre section of the thigh and shin sections, must be added quartering ribs - four bars at 90 degrees, back and front and two sides.

This is my home made Vacuum Forming Machine used to create shapes in plastic sheet that are hollow, light and multiple in number. The greeves or shin guards of space marines are a distinctive feature of the type. They are huge, tapered and cover both the lower leg but also the front of the knee. The internal radius had to fit with the top circle I had made for the lower leg as well as the greater one of the ankle region. This called for a master to be shaped in balsa that could be covered, using the power of my household vacuum cleaner sucking a sheet of softened plastic over it. I heat the plastic with a paint stripper gun until it is floppy and a pencil tapping it gives no sharp sound, then I turn on the suction and lower the sheet quickly over the master. The master is held in place on a perforated steel platform by Bluetac so the lowering action does not dislodge from the centre of the vac action. The frame holding the plastic is hinged to the hollow vacuum box, so the dropping motion is controlled.

 

Here is the result of a successful vac forming operation. The blue stuff is high density foam to tighten the seal for the vac nozzle and similar stuff is around the bottom of the plastic holding frame. I have different sized frames that fit this machine but basically they are just windows to hold a plastic sheet. Each sheet is drilled to match the four corner holes in the base frame and butterfly nuts secure the sandwich. Once the shape is obtained and the plastic has cooled, the nuts are undone and one hopes that the master will just fall out so that the real work of using the formed piece may proceed. Hah! Unless the master is made with sufficient taper the damn thing will always stick. The good news is that there is usually enough waste plastic surrounding the form that cutting this away allows the piece to be freed.

Voila! A pair of moulded greeves fit for a monster. They have been covered in putty to strengthen them as well as to allow detail work in more putty to be added. Remember, all vac or push formed plastic will be weak, for the plastic sheet (that started quite thin), will, as a result of the stretching-over process, be even thinner in its final form. It must be reinforced and sometimes using two or more copies of the shape glued together is a reasonable method.

Again, the pieces have been assembled to give me a clue as to how things are going- not looking too bad at this stage. At least I know where he is looking - too bad he can't do much about anything apart from kicking something to death.

Here are a couple of views of the leg building up work, with the initial ribbing of the knee joint, to the quartering bars that surround each leg section. For the bars I used an Evergreen square section rod topped with a half round rod. When I found the solution to these bits I was inordinately pleased, they worked so well, they might have been a manufactured kit part labelled for use just there. So cool!

 

This shows the completed right leg, attached greeve adorned with spikes ( can't be Chaos without spikes), and a big round pivot nut at the ankle. The greeve has been drilled to accommodate more spikes and growths. Rather than just sticking them onto the surface, I like to drill a slightly larger hole so that they are bedded into the surface and there is a narrow gap around whatever is protruding. This adds to the subtle textures that have to cover a large model  where every part is open to view.
The main problem I was having with the figure was one of relative size. Everything that had to be made just was so difficult to see in the original miniature. Those Games Workshop sculptors really pack a lot into their models but I have made that my challenge, to see their ideas at a scale easier to view.

Even though this weapon was a complex construction made up of at least 15 separate pieces, I seem not to have recorded the process apart from these few shots. It is very similar to the build of Festerheart's axe, but is much larger, being 27cm long. The blade, again, was a lamination of a number of plastic sheets which had to be ground down on one side to make a sharp edge and the tip got a dose of putty that, when fully cured, takes a nice point. For the leather handle I used very thin leather! Wow, and it worked as well. Who'da thunk it!

Next entry, some hive work, pauldrons and arms.