Modelling Typhus Part 4 - Chest detail, Cabling and Hands

This chest area has had a number of different treatments, mainly due to its curvature and size, but the addition of the front cables was the most radical. The size of the central unit was such that if it were placed on the surface, it would protrude too much, so I decided to excavate an area for it to be dropped into the chest. Various Dremel tool tips allowed the job to be done fairly neatly and even though it looks quite painful, no monsters were harmed in the fabrication of this area.

 

 The central unit was a complex little piece in that the tubes on either side had to be slightly curved to conform with the rounded chest, and this was achieved by gently heating the tube in a candle flame. Tube does not like this treatment and care must be taken so as not to kink it. The whole of the plastic assembly was mounted on heavy solder as this allows any bending with ease. Kneadit, (a quick curing two part plumber's putty), was used to make the large fluted centre piece, as it gets very hard, very quickly and can be drilled and sanded within ten minutes. I had to make a couple of these because my initial triple grooves were a bit wonky. Evergreen styrene tubes are designed to fit into each other as the sizes increase, and as I have a good supply of them, all manner of mechanical joints can be manufactured. Love the stuff!

 

 

These pics show the placement and filling work needed to get the unit seated in the chest. Where the cables enter the body, the junction was made with Apoxie Sculpt as even Evergreen does not have such a shape. The cables themselves were made by wrapping thin solder around the thick and making sure they were tight enough so that they would hold a bend without exposing too much inner wire.

 

Here is the three-way junction under the right arm, made of putty and fitted tubes, ready to accept cables from the belly and right shoulder. Gluing the pieces into position was not necessary as the curing putty does the job by itself.

General overview pictures of the cabling in place as well as details of the typical Nurgle bloated and rotting belly, complete with pustules so large they look like eggs.
Other features include chain mail made from lengths of jeweller's chain hung in super glued parallel rows, collar spikes added to the gorget around the head casket and strange hip pieces that all 'space marine' type figures have.
I have added rivets (made from slices of plastic rod), to any piece of piping to show the mechanical aspect of these super warriors, as well as smaller cables connecting upper leg to the knee joint.

 

Two succeeding pics of the left side, showing the treatment of the space between the body and arm which gave me a bit of a headache earlier in the build. Putty was added in a layer to cover the smooth plastic surface and then more was added in various places to build my preferred, 'hive' structures. I alluded to using these when there was a space to fill, but only with an appropriate structure. I think that the 'hives' fit the bill.

Here is a good overview picture of the figure showing the left hand gripping the weapon and subsequently, the whole idea of the Typhus model. In this can be seen the 'hive' structures doing their job of appropriately filling the gaps under the arms.

Three views of the left hand in the process of gaining its armour. Thin lead sheet was cut individually to fit each finger and to link the top plate to the lower. A cutting wheel on the motor tool was used to abrade the edges of each piece to denote battle damage and general wear.

Here are similar shots of the right hand showing the rivet detail on the hand armour as well as some closer  details of the weapon. It had the same 'hive' treatment as the main body but with a little subtler use. In these pictures can be seen the 'wood' treatment of the haft of the Manreaper and those parallel marks, indicating timber, were made in the putty covering with that silicon tipped tool I had mentioned earlier. The black hemispheres, representing large rivets, are found in the scrapbooking or jewellery departments of craft shops or cheap outlet stores. They come in a range of sizes on a plastic sheet and have a low tack adhesive on the back. I chose black ones but pretty pink would have done just as well.

 

 To finish this entry we see the whole model with the weapon undercoated in Games Workshop Chaos Black spray paint. You can see how big this scythe is and how it presents a problem in posing any converted version of the original figure. My model, just by being as large as it is, has I think enough impact that a simple lowering of the right arm is a sufficient diversion from the original to be acceptable.


In the next entry I will cover the modelling of a different and spectacular daemonic left pauldron, as well as possible plans for the display base  and maybe some ideas on painting the monstrosity in oils.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Modelling Typhus Part3 -Torso & Arms

Typhus, being a champion of the chaos god of disease, Nurgle, shows his fealty to his lord by carrying a virtual hive of pestilence on his back in the form of these open funnels. I had to do some serious cutting and grinding to remove enough plastic from the top edges of the box-like torso, to allow the putty funnels entry. They initially were difficult to form and handle in the soft putty but after a few goes, the process sorted itself out.

  

At first the funnels were made as singles, but as the putty hardened, I found it was easier and more interesting to make them as doubles or even triples. A largish piece of putty was rolled into a rough solid cone, inserted into a single funnel, then hollowed out and formed with a wooden pointed tool. Once in place it was much easier to form the lip, any curves and texturize the whole new funnel. This is a characteristic of working with putty, in that it needs some sort of stability, be it attachment to a base or given enough time, the stability of curing.

As per the original miniature, the whole top of the backpack had to show the rotten ravages of Nurgle. It was an easy job to incorporate those trusty micro balls as pustules as well as erupting spines and various holes, scars and general rot. A favourite tool of mine for this type of surface texturing is a silicon tipped 'paint' brush. This is great for inserting at an angle to form an off- centre hole, perfect for the entry or exit of a disease carrying grub or maggot. Yum!

 

 Here we see the doubled up funnels and a clearer view of the surface damage.
Just below can be seen the three large 'hive' bulges which are characteristic of this model. Remember that the symbol of this god is a cluster of three rounded things, be they circles, skulls or dead faces.

The rear view of Typhus' backpack has those circles plus more rotten armour and two special cone centred bulges which form part of the under arm connection detail. This was an area where the miniature wasn't really helpful because it was just so difficult to figure out what I was looking at. Really you shouldn't worry too much about problems like that - I mean, who else is going to pick you up on whether Typhus' armpit didn't look like that? My solution was to find a suitable detail form and bung them anywhere there seemed to be a gap. I chose a raised patch of diseased armour and riddled it with maggot holes - space problem solved!

Again with the combination of finished parts. This is getting ready for the arms and that underarm problem is starting to come to the fore. The arms have to fit not only the proportions of the figure as a whole, but they must be positioned in such a way as to fit the already made weapon. Hands do not hold weapons, the weapon has the hands attached to it. I had to make the arms, always with the distance apart and above the ground in mind, especially this weapon which is physically much taller than the whole figure. Because the attachment points of the hands on the weapon are fixed, the end points of the  wrists had to be a specific distance apart and so the question of underarm angles and included detail burns brightly.

pic 5

 

 

 

Here is a sequence that shows the Push Forming of the pauldrons or shoulder guards.
Pic 1   The tools required - plastic sheet  held in place over a hole in a piece of ply, hot air gun, the steel round ended master to be pushed into the plastic once heated.
Pic 2   After the push, seen from the lower side.
Pic 3   The regular view with the damage done.
Pic 4   The form removed but not yet trimmed and a sheet of putty, dusted with powder and rolled out ready to cover the shoulder guard once cut. Powder stops the roller from sticking to the putty.
Pic 5   The form was cut in half to make two curved shoulderguards. Here is one, covered in its layer of putty.
Pic 6   Two pauldrons, complete with curved inner 'fences' and fitted next to the torso.

What's this? Two purple pauldrons? On fitting the push formed white pair to the figure, I decided they were too big for the arms I was in the process of making, so the search began for something that would be a better fit. I didn't go the push form route this time as the master needed to be smaller and I just didn't have such a master that was heat proof. I did find however, a deodorant top (purple), which seemed to fit the bill. Great! So I went ahead and covered these halves with putty, fitted them to the figure only to find that they were too small! Thank goodness I didn't go to the trouble of 'fencing' them before I found a solution.

 

There is a considerable size difference isn't there? Two solutions - one easy, one more difficult. Cut the big one and remove a section, rather than cut the smalls and add a filler piece. Piece of cake!

 

 It seems that I did put the backing 'fence' on the smaller ones after all - forgot that. Well they'll  do for a space marine figure if ever I get the urge to go there in the future.
The first large one and the same, with a section removed are seen here on either side of the little purple job.

Here are the final sized pauldrons, slightly pointed at the top with all joints shimmed together and ready to go.

This is the starting process in making an arm, in that is a piece of wire being bulked up with aluminium foil. That is standard practice for most putty covered models, but the interesting thing about this photo is where the work is being done and to a lesser degree, the way I have found to work the foil. Apart from an article in Fine Scale Modeler (Maximo Salas on modelling dinosaurs), all the techniques I use have been self taught. Necessity has been the instigator of the way I work as I do not have anybody to bounce ideas off - no clubs, no modellers  and when I started, no internet. I needed a bulging piece of foil at the top of the arm to fit inside the pauldron and it needed to be flat on one side. By drilling holes in my temporary bench, I was able to position the piece and using a small hammer, pound the foil into shape, very tightly. This precise shaping of the underlying foil allows the top coat of putty to be thinner - a saving in putty use, not only in amount used but in curing time. Those holes, on the sides as well as the top surface, have been in use for any process involving wire where a bit of stability is needed.

He looks like something now, even with a rudimentary arm, doesn't he? The foil was twisted then wrapped tightly to give a good 'tooth' for the putty to adhere to. It wasn't measured as such because any adjustments could be easily made at a later stage, however, when test fitting the pauldron, I found my enthusiastic funnel building had encroached into the pauldron's fence. (I really should find out the proper name for that raised arch of armour that backs the shoulder guard).
Some heavy grinding took place and the area in question was relieved. This too can be fixed at a later date with part funnels being sculpted where needed.

 

More arm work here with the under pauldron support piece sculpted. This posed a problem as it is very hard to see how these underlying structures are shaped. The fact that they are partly visible means that the making of them requires some thought.

Pic A

Pic B

Pic C

Pic D

These last four pic's show various stages in the modelling of both arms.
Pic A   Here we see the elbow armour formed, a difficult piece requiring full curing, followed by grinding to shape. The ribbed joint structure is formed and you will note that some of the belly detail and chest cabling is also present. These details will be discussed in the next entry, but needed to be done before the arms/weapon/hands unit was attached. How small is that little guy?
Pic B   The forearm piece (vambrace?) is added with its complement of Nurgly nastiness.
Pic C   The right arm was much faster to model once the lessons were learnt on the left. BUT - a problem showed its ugly head way at the end which required some drastic intervention. More about that later.
Pic D   This is a critical picture concerning the relationship of the arms to the holding of the weapon. Where and how to model the hands - hands being only second in importance to the head. Rubbish hands, rubbish figure.

Next entry, chest and belly detail, cabling and hands.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.