Thursday 17 September 2009

Commission - Spartan Space Marine Shoulder Pads

One of the best ways to customise your Space Marine army - besides it's paint job - remains the marines shoulder pads, one of which typicaly displays the Chapter emblem or badge. There are a number of ways to tackle it, you can use decals, paint or have a physical icon which can be painted, you can do these individually but many people choose too use either one of GW's own sculpted pads or too use the simple technique of greenstuff casting or stamping the pads from a single master.

This is what a number of people at my local club have opted to do including a couple of staff. At a recent club night I turned out quickly a Blood Raven pad and a Scythes of the Emperor pad, though lacking a camera I was'nt able to take any pictures at the time (the Scythes Pad has now gone up country to the Newcastle store, but hopefuly I'll grab some of the Blood Raven one at a later date), however in gap while working on some press molds for the Ogryn Ripper Guns I'm working on at the moment I completed another quick emblem for a Spartan Space Marines pad which another local had asked me to do.

The method is nice and simple, take one blank shoulder pad.



And a design.



The design is then marked roughly on the pad.



It is then built up in stages appropriate to the design so that you can complete a 'section' and leave it to cure without risking undoing any work done while fiddling with another part of the project.



Often as in this case only two or three stages are needed, and you have a finished piece which once cured can be used to make a mold or stamp for adding to as many marines (or indeed any other place!) as you want, and always identical.

4 comments:

Malcolm Wilson said...

Looks awesome. Do you have any tips for doing the actual molding part? I tried this myself a while back and the casts invariably turned out as a blobby mess, or the master got ripped off the shoulder pad. :(

Raptor1313 said...

That's some pretty swell GS work.

Having done a heap of casting recently, I'd say in Malcom's case it might be an issue of not enough release agent. Gotta coat the original with SOMETHING, or you might pull it off.

Dencarion said...

They are really nice, and have a powerful effect.
Great job.
Cheers
Klaus

Col.Gravis said...

Thanks guys :)

Malcolm, I do have plans for some more tutorials, one of which is green stff casting based around a component I'm doing for the Ogryn Ripper Gns I'm working on at the moment, however I'm inclined to suggest that Raptor may be corect in this case, probably not enough lubricant, what did you use? Alternatively you may have pulled the mold too soon or had insuffiient pressure which could account for the blooby unsccessful casts.