So after I read Graham McNeils new novel Mechanicum (about the civil war on Mars in Warhammer 30K), I was left in despair. Why has GW never developed a Mars Army? There are so many good options and that army can have all the great weaponery, since they design and make it all themselves. Even the bad ones in the book are amazing, like the creepy female assassin, driving around on little hovercraft feet.
Anyway, I looked online for some scratch models and found a few blurry pix of a Dave Taylor Mars Army in a glass display case, but not much else.
So I decided to copy the guy on the front of the Mechanicum book. He has some big assault cannon with lots of wires and red cloth. I assume he is a protector like Rho Mu 31 (one of the main characters in the book), a gene enhanced used-to-be-human that has weapons built into his body, has enormous muscles and smells and looks like rotten meat and wearing rather more worn out and battered clothes.
So this is what I did:
Legs: Terminator. I cut them up to create a good stance on a piece of Martian rock. The rock I
made with the plaster (see post about that method here) and I filed it round to follow the base
Arms: Ork arms. I did want big muscles but not that big, so I filed them off a little.
the Fortified Manor Set. Below is the one of the Loota Gunz that I used for the wiring and the turret gun. The main barrel is made from another Loota Gun
Here are the two together:
Then a few bitz and pieces to make it look good. Here it is all wired up
The other arm has a staff that has special powers. Only a few days ago was I able to find a good one from a blister that had a hovering skull in it.
Head: in the book Rho Mu 31 has a bronze mask with red glowing eyes. In ended up using this weird skull in my biz box, don't really know where it's from. Attached a Chaos breathing mask to it and sculpted it into a Termie torso.
Cape: Green stuff. I would love to take a class in how-to-do-it-right.
Here he is painted up.
The skin was hard because I wanted to make it look kind of pale and narly, especially where the gun meets his arm. I added some green there.
Anyway, it was a fun little project and I will probably use him as a Terminator with Assaultcannon for my Iron Snakes.
Mike
Check out the battle report in Issue 8 of Firebase: http://warseer.com/firebasemag
ReplyDeleteThey have a pretty cool scratch build mechanicum army that might interest you
What a great idea, and what a fantastic result. I'm currently in the middle of Mechanicum and wandered myself just why there are no official army lists for a Mechanicum force, but when I think about it you would be right about them having an assortment of weapons, but ofcourse that could be why not... them being the largest producer of weapons in the Imperium would no doubt be an unstoppable force in the field. Then again lowely servitors to act as troops backed up by heavier weapons platforms such as the servitors that accompany some techpriests should be able to balance things. Great conversion mate!
ReplyDeletethanks for the tip, i will check out firebase.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the notion of all those cool servitors. It would be the ultimate GOOD army as a scratch built heaven, not just the Orks
Mike at SCW
Well done, The model is pretty awesome. You captured the cover superbly. I guess i'm gonna have to read the book pretty soon now.
ReplyDeleteIt looks pretty good, but i dont like the flat squished apperance of the head, i wish it had more human volume to it.
ReplyDeletethanks for the feedback. In the book that model is wearing a bronze mask and at the time I could only envision a real friday 13th mask, now I wish I had just grabbed a termie head and painted it bronze
ReplyDeleteMike at SCW