Space Wolves Primaris Redemptor Dreadnought WIP

[sbarnby71]

Here's the progress of my Space Wolves Redemptor Dreadnought.  This will be my test model (which will most likely get sold) which should help me get a better idea of what I want to do on my "for-keeps" model which will most likely end up being a none legally armed Dread, but it will be for display, not for play.

 

First up remove the Imperial Crest from the top hatch:

 

I wanted to try and keep the rivets on the front part, but after 20 minutes of scraping away, I just ended up sanding it off.  I will most likely add the rivets back on later:

 

I wanted a big Wolf skull, so took a cast from the shield in the Venerable Dreadnought kit:

 

Will tidy up the chain links later to make them look like they are sunk into the armour:

 

Next was the right shoulder pad, taking a cast from the Forge World Lander Raider Door Set:

 

I did have the Wolf tail, but when I bent it to shape on the shoulder pad, it snapped off, but I might try and re-attach later or add a normal Wolf tail from the SW kit.  I made this cast months ago, so it was pretty solid, but by heating it up against a cup of tea, it added enough flex to get it to fit the pad nicely:

 

Left shoulder pad now, as this will be for the power fist arm, I wanted a wolf pelt, none of the GW products seemed right, so over to Spellcrow and a cast from their Light Vehicle Doors set:

 

I did lose the attachment bits at the top of the pelt, but I can add that in later:

 

The pelt does feel a little small, but I wanted to keep the idea that Primaris Dread is the new kid on the block and would not have won hundreds of years worth of battle honours so he would not be draped in pelts and fetishes like a Venerable would be.  And I can always go back and add some extra stuff later!

 

Next I added some gems that were cast from the Venerable and added them to the forward sections of both shoulder pads, I tried to get them level on both pads, but the joy of cheap super glue left them slightly off, but once they are in place it will be less noticeable:

 

Now for the Plasma weapon, pretty straight forward remove the skulls:

 

and add Wolf skulls:

 

That's as far as I've got.  Will post more updates later in the week when I have time to do the rest.  I want to add small Wolf Skulls to the covers of each of the power fist's fingers and hoping to add Brass Runes from Secret Weapon to each of the fingers to make it look like the each finger has the power of a God behind them! ;-)

 

Hope you like.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 8, 2017 by sbarnby71

[Brother Desultor]

Looks promising.

[HvitrValdyr]

Loving this so far.

[sbarnby71]

Very quick update as I only had an hour or so last night...

 

I wanted some big runes that will most likely go on the left shoulder pad.  I took a mould from the Venerable Dred Shield (the white mould, not sure if you can see the detail) then took a mould from that using blu-stuff, this should allow me to make some very thin raised runes:

 

While I was doing that I took a few moulds from the runes on the Spellscrow bits:

 

Hope to try them out later today and see if they both work.

 

 

Slight update here: The reason I made moulds with two different products, is because blu-stuff will not to stick to anything other than blu-stuff but boy will it stick to blu-stuff, which is great if you want to reinforce and existing mould or repair one, but fatal if you try and take a mould from a mould, in which case you end up with a solid lump... yep I did that recently and ended up with Krom Dragongaze's Axe embedded in a solid lump of blu-stuff, epic fail!   

Edited August 10, 2017 by sbarnby71

[Ragnarr]

Great job, bro! I would like to know how have you made it :). Really very good job.

[sbarnby71]

Update on the runes...

 

Was a real pain getting the green stuff to stay in such small moulds, but I got there. Just got the green stuff as sticky as possible, so let it dry for 10 minutes after mixing, then used a wetted plastic flat tool (will get a pic of this later as it's really good for working with green stuff) to flatten then scrap it across the moulds:

 

Left those to dry for about 4 hours, then though how the hell do I get these out of the moulds?  Had an idea of low-tac sticking tape, I had a roll of Scotch Invisible Tape.  Used a small section over the mould press down firmly, then peel it back slowly and the rune came off with the tape!

 

Next headache will be how do I get the rune off the tape.  I figure leave the rune to dry for a day or more, then put the tape into water which should dissolve the adhesive on the tape and hopefully the rune will just fall off.  If not I'm going to have to cut them off and that is going to be a pain.

 

Progress is going to be a bit slow for the next few days, but hopefully I'll get most of the rest done this weekend and get some more updates done early next week.

 

[sbarnby71]

Hey Ragnarr, glad you like it. 

 

Not sure which bit you were asking about when you said "I would like to know how you made it"?

[Naryn]

Very impressive use of press-molding, and excellent sourcing of stuff to cast. Excited to see where this goes.

[CrimsonReign]

this is fantastic, what do you use to make the moulds from?

[sbarnby71]

Hey CrimsonReign,

 

The blue coloured moulds are blu-stuff (http://blu-stuff.com), it's so easy to use two part mix. 

 

The white coloured moulds are a product similar to Blue Stuff (http://greenstuffworld.com) but I bought it about 7 years ago from an ebay seller out of china. 

 

The blu-stuff is a one time mould, but the detail level is amazing, but the moulds can be a little fragile.  Blue Stuff can be reused by heating up in boiling water, but I for me you don't get as much detail.

[Triszin]

I never would have thought of using tape, but its friggin brilliant

[sbarnby71]

Kromlech have just released these, not sure if I'd add them to this model, but when I make the next version which will be more of a Venerable then they might work:

[sbarnby71]

Update time...

 

Did some smaller casts of runes for the Power Fist, these were taken from the Spellcrow doors, but the runes were so small I couldn't create the copies cleanly like the one from the Venerable Dred Shield:

 

After a clean up with a new scalpel blade, they turned out ok:

 

Now to apply them to the fingers of the Fist, I knew I'd only be able to put a small dot of super-glue which would dry fast so I had to work fast on getting them on straight, I think I did an ok job on this:

 

Next was the small wolf skulls on the finger guards, I've only applied these to the 3 fingers, not the thumb (not sure why Dreds only have 3 fingers and a thumb?):

 

Now I added a Wolf head that was moulded from a Spellcrow bit and applied to the back of the hand part of the fist:

 

I'm not 100% happy with this Wolf head, but will wait and see how it looks overall, so it may change.

 

Update of the larger runes that were stuck to the Low Tac Sticking Tape... After 2 days left in water the tape was no-longer sticky, but the runes were still stuck solid!  I didn't want to wait any longer so using a scalpel I slowly slide it under each rune and was able to remove them from the tape. They were then applied to the left should pad.  To apply them I dipped the rune into a pool of super glue and dropped them on, they ended up pretty much where I wanted them, but there was no chance to move them once they were on:

 

I know the R rune is upside down, but the runes were taken as a reverse cast so they were never going to be completely right, but I think it still looks ok.

 

Final bit for this session was for the knee pads, I took a cast from a Aggressor Combat Shield that you can get from shapeways from a designer called Pop Goes the Monkey (will get the link later), he does amazing digital printed bits for Space Marines:

 

These were then applied to the knee pads:

 

Next I want to get the whole model put together as I've been working with each part in isolation, so I only have an idea in my head how they work together.  I don't want to flood the model with too much detail.  Will post some more updates soon.

 

 

 

Edited August 21, 2017 by sbarnby71

[Dantay VI]

This is looking amazing

 

Is the green stuff staying flexible enough once cured to stick on curved surfaces without leaving raised edges? 

[Brother Desultor]

Coming along very nicely

[sbarnby71]

Hey Wolf_Priest_Dantay - Thank you!

 

I found that green stuff if left too long is not that flexible. 

 

I went through a mad stage of making loads of casts a few months ago to be ready for projects, which kinda backfired cause they are not flexible enough for the curved surfaces.  So a few options:

 

• If the cast is old, then use a scalpel to thin it out from the back, the thinner it is, the more flexible it becomes, but that's pain to do and not always practical.

 

• Next option is to heat it up in boiling water for a few minutes, that makes it more flexible for a few minutes, so enough time to mould it into a better shape which it will keep as it cools. 

 

• Final option is make the cast and remove it from the mould after about 2-3 hours (this is a bit of trial and error depending on how thick the cast is) at this point it is really flexible but should still hold the detail and not get damaged as you handle it. 

Hope that helps.

[Dantay VI]

That really does help, thanks :tu:

[sbarnby71]

Plasma Cannon update:

 

While trying to think of a better piece to have on the back of the power fist (yeah it's starting to bug me now) I found an old piece from the Venerable Dred Frost Claws someone had chopped up and left in my local GW store (they had clipped off the claws), did a bit of chopping and cutting to try and make it fit, but it was just too big.

 

I then though it could work on top of the Plasma Cannon, bit like one of the Bolters in the Space Wolves pack set.

 

So I started with this part (minus the claws):

 

Chopped it back:

 

And flatten the underside and made a gove for the front sight of the cannon to fit into:

 

I had started to make a hole at the back to allow the rear sight on the cannon fit, but then thought, just chop the sight off, much quicker:

 

After a couple of dry-fits I had to make a grove for the top of the cannon to sit in so it skull stayed straight, then once I had a nice tight fit, I glued it on and then realised I was going to make a mould from it before I glued it so I could make another one for my Dred! (school boy error!).  But I think it works pretty well:

 

I need to do a little bit of filling with green stuff and where I cut the power cables I think I'm going to add some little balls or something to make it look like extra optics.

 

The more I look at the original, if I'd not removed the machinery bits  at the front of the skull, it would have looked even better, but like I said I started out with wanting it as a skull on the back of the power first.  Maybe for my own dred I'll do it that way.

Edited August 17, 2017 by sbarnby71

[Dantay VI]

Phenomenal work

[sbarnby71]

One thing I forgot to mention on the working with the green stuff casts, when you want to apply it to a curved surface, if the piece is big enough, only apply a small amount of super glue to the middle, let that dry, then gently lift up the edges that are not stuck with a scalpel, and with a cocktail stick or pin, get some superglue and add a small dot to the underside of the cast and stick it down quickly (try and use the scalpel or similar otherwise you stick yourself to it, I tend to use my finger nail as that does not stick like skin does) you might have to repeat the process in a few places until it is all stuck.  And left over gaps can be filled with liquid green stuff and then tidied-up once dry.

[sbarnby71]

Now the Sarcophagus. 

 

Just a quick removal of the skull:

 

And then add a wolf skull:

 

The more I look at this, I feel I was lazy here, could have removed all the laurels and stuff (but left the scrolls) and added a better skull and bones, but I've already glued it into the Dred now and don't want to mess the rest of it up.  Although if it bugs be enough I will go back and attack it with a Dremel and add something better!

[sbarnby71]

Front Armour Plating:

 

I took a cast from the Venerable Dred:

 

And added that to the left Armour Plate:

 

Here's how that all looks with the Power Fist attached:

 

Now for the right Armour Plate, I took a cast from another bit I got from Spellcrow:

 

Which gave me this fetish necklace, which came out pretty well:

 

Bit of a tidy-up and on it went (I had planned on it going a bit higher up but the super glue stuck too fast).  I still have some room for extra bit above it:

 

Here's how it's looking with the right arm attached:

 

Now a couple of shots of the upper body almost done:

 

I do feel that the front face armour on the shoulders is too plain with just the gems on them, but I'll see how this work when I've added a few more runes.  I don't want to flood it with too much detail

Edited August 21, 2017 by sbarnby71

[-OrdoTeutonicus-]

Very nice green stuff work consider it copied!

[SITZKRIEG!]

Great stuff!  My greenstuff moulding skills suck and I wish I could do what you've been doing.

[sbarnby71]

Added a Long Fang Skull to the right shoulder armour, this was taken from a Thunder Wolf Cavalry Shield, I figure he's got a massive plasma cannon, then he's gonna be a Long Fang (never got the only Long Fangs are allowed heavy weapons, but any old Dreadnought can have one):

 

Then just some small skulls for the feet:

 

Spent the rest of my time cleaning up the casts I'd added before with liquid green stuff to fill any small gaps left - a dull and messy job.

 

I think now all I have left to do is add something to one of the exhaust cowls and a couple of wolf tails - I always leave the wolf tails until last as I tend to break them off when I'm messing around with other bits.  Oh and I need to do some optics on that wolf skull on the plasma cannon.  Now I look at the Venerable Dred I see if I'd used the other Frost Claw it has optics over one of the eyes and would have looked way better, but I can always use that on the next one I build.

 

Edited August 21, 2017 by sbarnby71