Well.. now I can open up the can on various projects I have done over the years, in a forum of like minded souls.
I became pretty well known internet wise with my Sheas'Shi, Naga'la and Gue'Vesa auxilaries back in the early days of the Tau Empire 1st Ed. Codex. A change from my work on the Scythes Space Marine army of Warhammer 40k franchise. So here, in one place, I'll showcase just what it took for me to put together all these goodies.
The Gue'vesa
My first project was the gue'vesa models. I quickly formulated some fairly obvious ideas on the direction, then decided on blending the Tau Helm and a Cadian helm after discovering both had exactly the same widths at the mould line. You can even see a Pulse Pistol idea there..
From here I used a local company to source my casting materials (Barnes Ultrasil 2-Part) and reproduced the modified helm quickly. In between casts, I modified the shins and pulse rifle hand-me-downs. All in all a relatively quick and simple introduction to resin moulding for me.
The Shea'shi
Along a similar vein to the Gue'Vesa, this centred around modifiying GW Beastmen Ungor heads and became the precedent for using them as a bases for even Tau bare head modifications. With some straight forward cutting and shaving, I rounded off the doggish looks and add greenstuff to accentuate others.
As you can see the initial cast had some air bubbles, which was easily corrected with a more astute second mould making effort. Again, simple stuff, which resulted in;
The Naga'la
I landed an article about my Tau force in White Dwarf and decided to do something additional to my modified armor and infantry. I've always liked the idea of Sauroid warriors and set about thinking up ways to create a squad of them; I quickly disliked the current edition Saurus warrior heads and sought out the previous edition's, more komodo-like heads.
With modifications sculpted on and various components blended to create a styled chest piece, I also worked with an eye to air channels and pouring direction. The most evident being the Head and Gun stick mounting;
After one redo of the chest piece (which I poured and rolled as I closed the mould) I ended up with this initial squad all kitted out. Only the leader's head mount didn't make it through to painting. I also added crest booms for style and sweep. These were easily modified styrene rods.
Painted initially a grey blue, I then readdressed the collection in a brown grey and further more, added mottling to add a more reptilian edge to the finish.
So far, besides the odd piece for replication among other projects, my history with resin is small and limited. Hopefully this coming year I can begin to tackle some much larger projects!
One teaser is this Heavy Lifter Drone chassis I was working on before my travels;
I had been surprised in earlier dry fits that the measurements, depth and general look is very very similar in scaling to a standard Gun Drone. So quickly using a standard GW flyer base, a 30mm disc base, with etching and blended cuts and some limited GS work, I cast these up to have a couple of dummy resin pieces already. First project for them is cargo hauling scene, part of a civilian line of project for Tau I'd like to complete. Just need to detail the underside some more really.
More when I return to my hobby desk!
Seb.
