My plasma incinerator is like the sun I never had.

– Ordoñez, Hellblaster Sergeant

Almost two years after finishing my first Crimson Fists Hellblaster, I’ve finally returned to add another member to this unit. I did start assembly work on this model quite a while ago, but rage-quit after accidentally breaking the last two pink 1.8mm LEDs that I had in stock!

The details and pose of this miniature are largely unaltered from the stock Dark Imperium model, although as you can see in the WIP image below I added an extra purity seal to the plasma gun. This was to help conceal an area of the gun I had to resculpt after installing the LED.

The LED plasma effect was achieved using the techniques described in my original LED Plasma Weapon tutorial. If you’d like to have a go at plasma weapons but are worried this method is a bit too complex, I also have my Simple LED Plasma Weapon tutorial.

I’m sometimes asked “why pink for plasma?”. As I explain in the designer’s notes of my tutorial, there are a number of reasons I chose pink as my colour for plasma. Firstly, the range of miniature LEDs I use only has a finite selection of colours available, and I’d used a lot of the other colours already. Secondly, I’ve used argon plasma in semiconductor fabrication processes in a previous job, and that was pink, so I tend to associate pink with plasma. Thirdly, it’s pretty eye-catching, and tends to stand out among the other LEDs.

That’s it for this week. Hopefully it won’t take me two years to get the next member of the squad finished! I’m trying to get through as much of the Dark Imperium box as I can before the Indomitus box (presumably) arrives in July. I’m really looking forward to adding the Primaris Space Marines from this new box to my Crimson Fists!