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Thanks to Riley for this.
I decided to "improve" the look of my crisis suit. This article shows what I did, and how I did it.
When I started converting my crisis suit, which I now have named the XV83, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with the head. Because I wanted my suit to really stand out and the head is such a central piece of the suit I decided early on that it had to be different.
I researched several mech designs trying to settle on a suitable look but when the new Forgeworld battlesuits came out I decided it would be best to adopt their style. In this section I will explain in detail how I made the XV83 head so you can attempt this conversion yourself.
The XV83 head design is quite similar to the XV84 head. It is a bit broader in the front and has different detail. Somehow I got the idea in my head to make this a full plastic conversion and stuck with the idea through the entire conversion. So the head is basically carved from a solid piece of plastic. If you attempt to make it you may want to use milliput or Green Stuff instead.
Here are the pics from the parts that make up the head:
The most difficult part of making the XV83 head is definitely carving part A. It took me a couple of tries (And several times cutting my fingers in the process so watch out!) before I got it right. Below are some of my older attempts:
The white stuff is poster putty which I use to stick parts together to have a look at the overall feel while working. Now that we have had a good laugh... let's get to work!
You'll be attempting a pretty complex conversion so it may take several attempts to get it right. This is also pretty time consuming if I may add.
You'll be carving with a hobby knife. Please be careful. Find a suitable working place with lots of lighting and a working pad to carve on.
We'll be working from the side view. First get a suitable block of plastic and cut it down to the right proportions (Remove blue area from diagram). Then use the knife to remove a large part of the red area. Use a file to round off the shape. You can use sandpaper to finish off but it isn't necessary at this stage. WIP depicts what shape you will end up with.
We now switch to the top view. There are two ways to do this. I used step 2a. You can either remove the blue area with a knife and file and then add the red areas with additional plastic. Or you can carve only the green areas away (Step 2b). Either way you'll need to end up with the shape that's depicted in WIP.
Working from side view. Once again remove the blue area with a knife and file. Round off with sandpaper. See WIP for reference.
Switch to front view. Now you'll only be using the file. Round off the top of the head by filing away the blue area. Looking at the top view the Red area is the general area I rounded off. See WIP for the product of this step.
Switch to front view. Use your file to remove the blue areas on the side. Switch to side view. Use file to remove red area. Reference WIP for product of this step.
Stick to side view and use your hobby knife to carve out the blue area. Now switch to front view and carve out the green area with the knife. Reference the red area in the second side view to get an idea how deep to go and what the general shape should be. Use file and sandpaper on the area until the Camera lenses (Part C) fits neatly into it.
And there you have it. The final product: Part A. You can use a knife to etch lines into the head to add detail.
Part B is a relatively simple design. I carved it from a piece of plastic too. I don't think you'll be needing explicit directions how to make it, but if anyone runs into trouble just drop me a line (Must be a member of the forums).
Here's a diagram of how I go the detailing onto the part. I simply carved it from the bottom of a drone!
No way am I going through all that trouble of carving Part A again! If you're done with it you'll probably want to make a mould of it before continuing. I for one did.
In this section I'd like to discuss the extra armour I added in my XV83 conversion. Once again I found inspiration in the new Forgeworld Battlesuits. The shin guards are based on the XV84 design and the knee pads are from the XV89 design. The shoulder pads are my own design and are basically the simplest design I could come up with at the moment.
The armour I added is made of plasticard, stuck together with PVC cement and filed and sanded to get a smooth look. I plan to do similar conversions in the future, so I made templates of the parts. Here are the templates:
PVC cement actually melts the plastic locally so if you use the correct amount of glue you can create a seamless connection between two plates. Apply glue on the connection surface, let it work for about 30-60 seconds and then press both parts together with enough pressure. When it has dried, use your file and sandpaper to round of the sharp corners. The rivets on the shin guards are made by rounding off a plastic rod with a file and sanding paper and cutting small discs of it.
The Tau symbol for the shoulder pad was made from two circular pieces of plastic, one Large, one Small. The larger one was rounded off with sanding paper and filed down to the right thickness. Then a circular hole was made at the top so that the smaller one would fit in it. A thin line was etched from top till bottom to finish it off.
I wanted to match the new legs design of the Forgeworld battlesuits so I made the hinge where the leg connects to the body. The hinge is made in a similar way as the Tau symbol: circular piece of plastic rounded of with sanding paper, etch a line from top till bottom and cut tiny indents on both sides. Again GS is a good alternative. I cut the ball joint flat at the outer side and drilled a shallow hole so that the hinge would fit in it.
I also extended the lower legs on my crisis suit, so if you want to use the templates you need to compensate for that. Either draw new ones or extend the lower legs too.
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| Comment made by insanetau on 06:03:53, 23 February 2008 |
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| that looks awesome, but next time include a full body pic so we kan see the finished model, but other than that 810 |
| Comment made by darklightknight448 on 13:19:54, 5 December 2007 |
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| NIIIIICCCEE.... |
| Comment made by Shas'O Check'Sa Bar'naby Kias on 06:49:41, 21 October 2007 |
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| great carving of plastic, I wish I could do that! |
| Comment made by rocker360 on 10:09:51, 15 October 2007 |
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| u gd relly gd |
| Comment made by KauyonKor on 16:10:52, 16 September 2007 |
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| Amazing work. The only thing it's missing is a picture of the completed piece. |
| Comment made by destroy worm on 20:51:15, 13 September 2007 |
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| hard core |
| Comment made by WWPeka on 10:52:04, 1 September 2007 |
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| cool |
| Comment made by luminorne on 10:27:36, 28 August 2007 |
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| wow thats a pretty heavy duty convesion haha gunan take me a couple years before i can do that |
| Comment made by Oshova on 13:19:30, 23 August 2007 |
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| I love the head though the average person like me would never be able to do it! |
| Comment made by Oshova on 12:47:45, 13 August 2007 |
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| I love those shoulderpads! I wish I were that good. |
| Comment made by Trash-Candle on 04:35:55, 3 August 2007 |
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| cool, me thinks this could make a cool Tau Titan (if it was a little bit taller still) |
| Comment made by Karashi Lissera on 19:04:43, 10 June 2007 |
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| why would you want to make the battle sute taller? i mean it is all ready hard to hide then. |
| Comment made by xynos on 20:37:15, 6 June 2007 |
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| Perhaps a picture of what it looks like fully assembled? otherwise great! |
| Comment made by Wanax on 10:40:21, 23 April 2007 |
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| excellent |
| Comment made by Rejivar Konj on 01:37:20, 4 April 2007 |
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| I wish i was that talented, it would be nice to see some pics of the finished model |
| Comment made by Ace cipher zer0 on 14:34:08, 24 March 2007 |
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| WOW. That is awesome! I'm gonna try some of the ideas! |
| Comment made by Riley on 07:07:44, 19 March 2007 |
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| Never noticed these comments until now. Here's my reply if anyone is still interested: - To carve and etch lines I first use a sharp knife and then the GW sculpting tool. Just make multiple runs to get straight and neat lines. - The mold was made from green stuff but that didn't turn out that well. I'm working on a new head design so am looking for alternatives right now for molding material. Thanks for the comments! |
| Comment made by dudemanbubguy on 08:56:00, 14 March 2007 |
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| I think this conversion is awesome! You get a Forge World Crisis for half the price, and you can convert the hell out of it. Awesome job, I'd love to see more. |
| Comment made by Phasma Felis on 02:29:25, 26 February 2007 |
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| Very nice. Is it assembled or painted yet? I'd love to see pics of it all put together. Also, you said you made a mold of the main head piece--how do you do that? |
| Comment made by username on 14:26:13, 19 February 2007 |
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| sweet |
| Comment made by Inq_Razeil on 11:28:22, 18 February 2007 |
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| come to think of it. most of the kit looks like it was from forge world! |
| Comment made by munkey on 14:45:41, 10 February 2007 |
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| well if you wanna do things the hard way... look really cool |
| Comment made by Inq_Razeil on 08:18:59, 18 December 2006 |
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| you could of just bout the one from firge world! LOL nice job though ill give you that! beter than what i could do |
| Comment made by Bear on 05:57:22, 18 November 2006 |
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| Pretty Interesting looks like some good work. |
| Comment made by Commander Arthurein on 06:46:33, 9 November 2006 |
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| What's the tool you use for carve that forms and lines??? |
