XV-8 Customs

[paulson games]

The stock crisis suits look terrible and I highly prefer the FW variety, so I started messing around with mixing pieces to get a more streamlined looking suit. This will probably end up in my HQ squad.

Body, legs and shoulders are from Shas O' Rymyr the arms, weapons, head are from the XV-84 feet and jetpack are from the plastic suit. I may still change the jetpack for something scratch built, not sure yet. Needs a bit of greenstuff work to repair the missle tip and fill cracks. I will also probably rework the peghole for the flying stand so the torso has a slightly forward lean it to.

Comments welcome.
.

[Xeones]

I agree with leaning the 'suit slightly forward. It'll give much more "direction" to the pose. I'm also glad to hear that you are considering redoing the jetpack. With all the nice shallow curves of the Forgeworld bits, the jetpack piece is starting to look very blocky and out-of-place. I've never been a real fan of the XV84 helm (I much prefer the XV89 myself) but that's just my preference.

Other than that, it's a nice little bitz bash battlesuit and the casting seems to have come out well enough too.

[CMDante]

Shaping up nicely so far, very sleek looking.

What do you have planned for colour scheme?

Cheers,

Dante

[paulson games]

I'm not set on a cadre paint scheme just yet I'm still toying with a few ideas.

Here's the front runners of possible themes, the first two are color patterns done on photoshop and aren't actually painted.

Traditional desert camo:



Urban Grey Camo:



German Tiger Camo:

Those aren't my models but rather ones I pulled from ATT. I thougt the paint pattern looked pretty cool, based on the WW2 german fighter paint. I'd try for a bit smoother transition between shades via airbrushing.

My whole Tau army is pretty much devoid of paint save primer so I'm still fishing for ideas before I start working. Comments on the various patetrns are most welcome as I'm quite undecided but I'd like it to look top notch once i actually commit to painting.

[paulson games]

Was working on this earlier today before I sliced the heck out of my finger and had to stop. My modelling ability is really taking a beating, broken thumb and slashed finger on the same hand. Some seriously bad luck lately.

This will likely be used as my Shas'O commander, he'll get a samurai-esque back banner and the sword arm needs a lot more work once I can stop crippling myself.

[Warhound]

For a long time you have been trying to get to that slightly more 'Ashigaru' style of suit- as many others have too!

I think with this, you have created the perfect balance! The size of the head and the shoulder pads, coupled with their shape- reminiscent of the curves and angles of the orignal warrior dress work very well indeed.

Yes, there is the issue of the hand on the sword- I would use the same (as it had 4 digits) but 'square' it off like the existing style.

Very nice work and good to see you reaching a solid conclusion!

cheers
WARHOUND

[paulson games]

The hand is going to take some work, I'm going to attempt to square off the fingers by filing them and get rid of the rounded eldar discs on the knuckles. I already shortened the sword a bit but not sure if I need to change the hilt and further modify the blade where it attaches to the hilt.

I'll probably add a shield generator to the forearm as it looks a bit thin compaired to the suits weapon arm. The generators always look on the small side to me but not sure if a modified drone would look too big or not.

I have some more playing around to do with him, but i think he's off to a good start,

[paulson games]

Update!

No classes on fridays so I was determined not to let project time go to waste, couldn't do any scraping or fine work with my finger messed up but I played around with some sticky-tac and parts for the Shas'O and here's what I came up with. Unless anyone has some great suggestions to add I think this will probably be the finalized build & pose.

I think I'm going to nickname him Samurai'O
(The 'O suffix in japanese fittingly means "great", ie great warrior or great knight)

.

Edit:
Working on this suit got some gears going in my head and I was hit with a pretty cool idea. Inspired in part by Farsight's write up. He can have an increased bodyguard size of 7 which of course made me think of the seven samurai film, one of my all time favorite films, and by far my favorite samurai movie. That had me thinking that I should do a Farsight HQ set up of seven suits.

With that thought in my head I was driving around I realized that I should personalize the weapon load out and suit style of each one, like a command squad made of 7 differant independant characters. Not only would it be great for modelling as each suit would be unique but it'd also make for a cool way to experiment with some differant weapon configurations and maybe add customized abilities.

Stat wise they'd be much the same as a regular HQ bodyguard but each would be modeled to reflect the individual personalities of the samurai.

It also had me smiling over the idea of not-quite samurai Kikuchiyo in a battered retro XV-8 with a gianormous "compensator" cannon. The rest of the suits would be based off the streamlined FW R'myr and broadside chasis, save for Kikuchiyo in his angular salvaged suit.

The rest of the list would be made up of regular troops as they would represent the farmer ashigaru that the samurai are helping defend.

[paulson games]

I was toying with the oversized cannon of doom and now I actually have it attached to a real model rather than just photoshopped, so here it is in all it's uber cannon glory.

Got Guns?
.

[Warhound]

Love the big guns, want the big guns, can I have some big guns;-)

Perfect mount for it too, by the looks of the XV9 arm!
The box on the side looks a bit plain- but otherwise, I love this!

Cheers

WARHOUND

[paulson games]

Now that my hand has had a chance to heal up a bit I was able to get some actual modelling done.

Plasma cannons have always been a source of annoyance for me, the biggest factor is the fact is that every single plasma cannon I’ve even gotten has been warped on the barrel as a result of bad injection molding. Also I find that it doesn’t match the look and feel of the other Tau weapons, all of the other Tau weapons crisis suit (and otherwise) are typically enclosed. Anyways being dissatisfied with the stock plasma I decided to create my own version to use with the various FW suits.

This is built from styrene strip and sheet as well as some koto bits, The back side is still incomplete but it’ll simply be a mirror of the front. I’ll be casting the completed piece as it’ll replace all the stock plastic plasmas.

[Wolfs16]

Looks great Paulson! I really like the use of Koto parts. I'm expecting my first few sprues soon, so I will be interested to convert something up after seeing how you and other use them.

The weapon is a count as Plasma Rifle, right? Tau don't have Plasma Cannons, so maybe the wording is throwing me off. Anyways, if it is meant to represent some plasma weapon, then maybe adding a few vent lines would make sense.

[paulson games]

Yeah it's a counts as plasma rifle, sorry about calling it a cannon must be the marine player in me misquoting the name.

[Warhound]

WOW!

Now that is awesome work! I agree with you about Plasma's- why does the look and feel have to be so similar across GW stuff?- The only thing missing is the coils on the Tau versions- but even then, you know that it is the most likely to be a plasma.

Anyway, I really like the design and the simplicity of this- easy to cast and is seamless in its feel! I would add some vents somewhere however as this would make it slightly more techy?

cheers
WARHOUND

[paulson games]

.