Omricon's GLOWING 1k Sons Army Tutorial

[omricon]

I and a friend am currently working on a Thousand Sons army with green LED's inside to make them actually glow green, the colour of their souls possesing their armour. The model below is a prototype hence the clearly visible wires. Below is a tutorial for making them including less obvious wires. My friend [GrahamGilchrist] did most of the painting and I did most of the modelling, the head was a real **********.

This is the finished product:

[Luke]

That is the coolest thing I have ever seen! How come I didnt think of it
Cant wait to see a whole army like this!

[Quin 242]

Sweet baby Geez.. that thing looks nifty as pie

[omricon]

What you NEED to create a unit of 1k sons that glow green:
1. Standard boxed set of 1k sons from GW
2. a STRONG modelling knife
3. A decent modelling drill with a range of drill bit sizes.
4. 8-10 3V lithium batterys (optionally change the voltage if using different LEDs). I used the size CR 1220 as it was a snug fit but this is a matter of taste.
5. 8-10 3mm ultra powerful green LED's. Mine were 15,000 mcd (brightness measure) I bought packs of ten off a guy on ebay called phenoptix. They were rated at just over 3V. At least one of the LED's is used as a 'fitter' and so gets glue and other cr@p on it and wont end up getting used in the end and I always like to have one spare.

PLEASE NOTE: When they say 3mm, I do not believe they are reffering to the casing as the LED's I received were definitely bigger and just about fit into the marine torso, let alone an arm or something. Additionally the brightness measure is important, it should be brighter than the old class of LED due to the glow effect being achieved by reflection.

ALSO NOTE: This list does not include the champion but rather only the eight squad members. This is still WIP so more about champions and things later.

OPTIONAL EXTRAS:
1. Khorne zerker heads for converting to 1k sons heads and for easier drilling. (harder painting)
2. A dremel for drilling metal if you can do this carefully enough without destroying the head.
3. green stuff for covering up the wires and modelling the zerker heads.

Now onto the step by step!

Step 1: Pop the torso sections of the CSM sprue and cut a large hole where the head and legs should go, this is to allow the LED to have space inside the hollowed CSM torso as the one I used was bright and not very small as a result:



Step 2: Cut a semi circular hole in the front section of the torso where the arms are, if you are using plastic arms you might be able to get away with cutting a semi circular hole in the back section of the torso too. This allows light to escape from the torso through the arm joints in a ghostly fashion:



After both these jobs the front torso section should look like this:

[omricon]

Step 3: Cut the front part of the arm to leave a gap between the arm and the torso to allow light to escape:



Please note the rest of Step 3 is contained in the next post, being a picture of what the arm looks like after being cut. This process is actually not that hard to do with metal.


Step 4: Glue the torso together, glue the arms and bolter onto the torso at an angle, glue the backpack and shoulder pads on. This is doable because the way the arm is cut still leaves a flat bit which contacts with the back of the arm/torso joint and the front bit as a gap. Be sure not to block off the gap with the shoulder pad (Note this is one I did earlier with metal arms, but the process is the same for metal):

From the bottom:


From the front:


Front the top:


Some people prefer using the Ahriman backpack, feel free to subsitute that in at this point.

[primarch16]

Madness I love it.

[omricon]

Continued from Step 3: (a picture of the finished arm...)


Step 4: Make sure the LED fits and works, this isnt just for size, you also need to make sure you have a 3V watch battery handy that will fit in the base of the model:



Step 5:
Cut the top of the legs off and drill holes through them to allow the LED wires through:

[GrahamGilchrist]

My friend [GrahamGilchrist] did most of the painting and I did most of the modelling, the head was a real **********.

Haha. Indeed that would be me. Hi everybody. You can blame me for the paintjob
It was a lot of fun to do and not-actually that complicated. You just need to make sure you get an led which drives straight off a 3V battery which you stick in the base.
The worst part was drilling the metal head and eye holes. White metal is NOT an easy substance to drill large holes in. Bring back the days of lead ... I endured much accidental finger stabbing for that model :cries:
Omricon wants a whole army of them but I think we'll need some kind of plastic head conversion if we do it again!

This was cross-posted from the Thousand Sons tactica thread where some of the guys asked for a walkthrough. Seeing as Omricon is planning a whole army (the Madness!), we thought it best to put it in a Project Log.

I welcome C&C for the painting!

[Rich 123]

Looks great! Lovely way of representing Thousand Sons! So often they look like Ultramarines with silly hats on.

You said you had problems with the heads. Why not just use plastic CSM heads (its not like you dont get them in the TSons box anyway) and just pin the metal head dresses cut off the Sons heads?

That might save some headaches (no pun intended!) and make a whole army easier to do - we'd all love to see it!

Good luck
Dicky

[omricon]

Step 6: Insert the LED into the legs of the CSM and bend the wires into position down the legs of the CSM. You may need to cut a groove in the legs so the wire fits better and use green stuff to cover up, its personal taste, (there's a guy on the net who drilled through the legs of his necrons to get red LED's into the eyes, feel free to try that if you like but it may be difficult as the wires on the LED are stiff and the CSM legs are bent so it is difficult to get the wire all the way through):



Step 7:
Fit the marine together:

[UnRiggable]

I always imagined their armor being closed to prevent the spirits from escaping

[omricon]

Step 8: Drill out the head. You need to drill the eyes using a fine drill bit, and you need to cut the neck off your head. We used the metal sons head but the other models in the army will use the plastic CSM head and the sons head backplate glued together, that makes drilling the plastic head easier, (as suggested in a previous post):

Cutting the neck off:


Drilling the head:


Please note that the head is not hollow and requires a lot of effort to hollow out if metal.

[omricon]

Step 9: drill holes in the base and bend the wires so that it holds the battery in. I have yet to come up with a simple switching mechanism so for now its pop the battery in and out for use, it does stand up and the battery doesnt fall out though when the metal is bent enough:



Step 10: Glue the head on and test it in your favourite bit of scenery/lighting conditions:

[omricon]

Step 11: Paint your model and enjoy

[omricon]

I always imagined their armor being closed to prevent the spirits from escaping

If that was the case as soon as they got shot and there was a hole in their armour their souls would leak out I think they are harder than that and traditionally their souls are ghostly green

[Edzard]

VERY awesome! I once saw some necrons that had lights in their heads too..

[hertz]

ouch... this is gonna be a hard one to finnish,right?

well, its your life good luck!

[omricon]

We'll See 1k sons armies are very low on units so it will be easier than my IG army I reckon with the lack of painting.

I also plan on doing a glowing dreadnought...

[ghostmaker12]

dude thats awsome it would be cool to see that on a necron but it looks sick on that SM.

[75hastings69]

dude thats awsome it would be cool to see that on a necron but it looks sick on that SM.

There is a whole Necron army on the internet somewhere by a guy in USA called Daniel Wolff (I think that is his name) he posts under the name Polkadot. HERE is a link. Enjoy and prepare to be in awe.

p.s. I had a go at this and besides only completeing 1 destroyer that never completely worked as expected all I manaed to get was really angry and several deep lacerations to the thumbs and fingers