LED Miniature Makers of Instagram

On By Chris B.In LEDs, Social Media1 Comment

I passed the 10,000 followers milestone on my hobby Instagram recently, which was a pleasant surprise. But it got me thinking about other LED miniature makers who deserve an equal amount of love! So I thought this would be a good opportunity to uplift and celebrate some other members of the Instagram LED miniature community. Embedded below are some of my favourites, presented in no particular order. Why not take a few minutes to check out their work, and if you like what you see then give them a follow!

light_em_up_minis

Warhammer 40K T’au Empire

doc.brown_miniatures

Warhammer 40K Necrons

leelilum

Gundam & Warhammer 40K

technicalrunnerd

Warhammer 40K Chaos

grimdark_illuminations

Warhammer 40K Necrons

warhammer_40K_bahrain

Warhammer 40K

mek_with_screwdriver

Warhammer 40K Orks

dako.studios

Star Wars Legion & Lord of the Rings

https://www.instagram.com/p/CKJ7K6GHqC3/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

dak_rogan

Star Wars Legion

techmagos_binary

Warhammer 40K Imperium

boboshobby

Warhammer 40K Scenery

That’s just a small sample of the great work that you can find out there. Many apologies if I follow your LED work on Instagram and I’ve missed you out, it wasn’t intentional! If you have any suggestions for other great LED miniature artists that I’ve not mentioned above, please let me know in the comments. If this has inspired you and you’d like to have a go at making some LED miniatures yourself then you can find my tutorials here and supplies here. That’s all for today, see you again soon!

Lamenters Kill Team Lugeo

On By Chris B.In Kill Team, Lamenters, LEDs, Space Marines, Warhammer 40,0002 Comments

The strong are strongest in the kill zone.

Sergeant Lugeo

So, almost two years after starting this Badab Kill Team project, how are things looking for Kill Team Lugeo? Quite good I think! I had originally planned seven members for the squad, and the seventh is already on the workbench. But I’d like to see the upcoming new Kill Team rules and find out exactly how many models are in an Adeptus Astartes fire team and what specialists they can have before finalising the squad. Once I’ve read and understood the new rules, I might even get a game in with them!

If you’d like to read any of the previous articles about individual members of the Kill Team and how their LED effects were made, you can either search my blog for articles tagged “Lamenters” or click the links below.

Brother Haemis | Brother Ardito | Brother Salvio

Sgt. Lugeo | Brother Quartus | Brother Achillus

That’s all for this week. See you again soon, and best of luck to anyone trying to pre-order the new edition of Kill Team this weekend!

Lamenter Comms Specialist

On By Chris B.In Badab War, Kill Team, Lamenters, LEDs, Space Marines, Technical, Warhammer 40,0002 Comments

Enemy contacts are inside the perimeter. Unfortunately for them, so are we.

– Brother Ardito, Comms Specialist

Another Lamenter joins my long running Badab War era Kill Team. Brother Ardito is a Comms Specialist, so let’s hope that’s still an option for Adeptus Astartes Kill Teams in the new edition of the game!

Influence

For this model I was strongly influenced by the classic metal sergeant from the old Space Marine command squad box (sorry, this was the best reference image I could find). I didn’t set out to copy it exactly, just to capture the general energy and atmosphere of the model. Brother Ardito is made from the ‘Easy to Build’ Primaris Marine with auspex, although as you can see he’s been heavily altered to change the pose, details and make it appear that he’s wearing MkVII power armour, in keeping with the Badab-era setting.

Effects

The LED effects were achieved using the principles set out in my LED Hololith tutorial, although instead of a wrist-mounted hololith, the LED is mounted in the auspex screen. The LED is a 3V Red Ultra Nano SMD Chip LEDs available from Small Scale Lights, in series with the supplied 100Ω resistor. Although green is often traditional for scanner screens, I decided to go with red to match many of the other LEDs in the team and avoid having a mixture of too many colours.

The wire to the LED runs through the arm, torso and leg to the battery and switch in the base. A more detailed description can be found in my LED Hololith tutorial, as mentioned above. If you want to have a go yourself and you need tools and supplies, you can find them here.

First I painted the auspex screen Citadel Khorne Red, trying my best not to get any paint on the LED. Once the paint was dried I filled the screen area with the ever-useful Water Splash Effect Gel, available from Green Stuff World. This goes on white but is transparent when dried. You will need to apply it slowly and patiently, and use a flat tool to flatten it down. Otherwise you may have a lumpy screen!

Once the ‘screen’ was dry I painted it with two coats of Citadel Blood Angels Red Contrast, allowing the paint to dry between each application. Finally, I painted a pattern of ‘contacts’ on the ‘screen’ with Citadel Wild Rider red. This was more for visual interest when the LED is off as the LED is so bright it has little effect when it was on.

That’s all for today, I hope you found that interesting. Come back soon for more Lamenter action as the Kill Team slowly comes together!

Ork Kommando ‘Proof of Concept’

On By Chris B.In Kill Team, LEDs, Octarius, Orks, Warhammer 40,0005 Comments

He’z about az sneaky az an axe to da face!

Common Ork Kommando compliment

Gripped by excitement for the upcoming Kill Team: Octarius box, I decided to build a “proof of concept” model from bits box spares. Firstly, I wanted to check I could still remember how to paint Ork skin, as it’s been a while! Secondly, I wanted to test out a “new” colour scheme. Thirdly, I wanted to see if there were any LED issues I hadn’t anticipated.

Building

As mentioned above, this model was constructed from spare Ork components I had in my bits box. The head is metal and from an old rokkit launcha boy, with a beanie hat sculpted from modelling putty. I used the techniques described in my LED Muzzle Flare tutorial to make the LED effect. The only new problem I encountered was the squat pose of the Ork legs – compared to straight Space Marine legs this was difficult to drill without making additional cuts. I ended up making a cut at the hip to make drilling easier, as you can see in the image on the left above. Otherwise it was as per the tutorial.

Painting

The Blood Axes are my favourite Ork clan, and I have a large army of them painted in military blues and greys. However for the new kommandos I wanted to try and replicate the classic red second edition 40K kommando look, as shown above. At first I thought I’d paint the red fatigues with grey areas of camouflage pattern on them, but I wasn’t positive I could pull that off without it looking confusing for the eye – that is the point of camouflage after all! So instead I decided to paint the webbing in grey rather than the brown leather colours I normally use. Although looking again at the image from the second edition 40K Ork codex above as I type this, I’m now wondering if I should have painted the stikkbomb sack on his back a brown leather colour rather than grey? Ah well, that’s why we need to make test models sometimes!

Overall I’m pleased with how this model turned out and am looking forward to applying these techniques to the new plastic Kommando Kill Team. That’s it for today, see you again soon!

Lamenter Heavy with LED Motorised Assault Cannon

On By Chris B.In Badab War, Kill Team, Lamenters, LEDs, Space Marines, Technical, True Scale, Warhammer 40,0002 Comments

Debate the Tyrant’s cause if you like, but it’s hard to argue with 1200 rounds a minute.

Brother Salvio, Lamenter heavy weapons specialist

This is another model that has been living in my head as a nebulous idea for well over a year. In fact, I’d say my failure to settle on a way to execute this concept for my ‘Heavy’ specialist is why my seven-man Lamenters Kill Team project has currently been running for a year and a half! But now he’s done, so let’s have a big round of applause to welcome Brother Salvio!

Influence

There are a number of sources that I’m ‘riffing’ off with this member of the Kill Team, many of them from video games. The Team Fortress 2 Heavy is an obvious one, as are Halo Spartans carrying turrets (particularly Jorge-052) and even the Call of Duty Juggernaut. What is boils down to is a heavily armoured soldier carrying a large gun that you might normally expect to find on a vehicle! To help sell the theme of heavy armour, I decided on MkVIII ‘Errant’ armour for this marine, particularly as this has the enhanced face and neck protection seen in many of the characters linked above.

Above images © Games Workshop.

If you haven’t been following along with my Lamenters Kill Team project, then I should explain that it is intended to be Badab War era, so these are ‘true scale’ Marines rather than Primaris Marines. Every member of the team so far has been wearing armour appropriate to the era, which so far means MkVI, MkVII and MKVIII. So how did I go about turning MkX armour into MkVIII to match the reference images shown above?

  • Used modelling putty to increase the height of the neck gorget.
  • Selected up-armoured shoulder pads with elbow joint protection.
  • Replaced the skull on the chest with a jewel.
  • Filled in the detail on the wrist bracers to create a smoother armoured feel.
  • Removed the additional protection from the top of the MkX knee pads.
  • Left the MkX ankle joints intact – this was the first time I noticed MkVIII armour also uses them!
  • Replaced the Primaris backpack with a Tactical backpack.

I also added extra ammo pouches and grenades to enhance the impression of bulkiness.

Effects

I’ve just published a full LED Motorised Assault Cannon tutorial on my website here, so I won’t go into too much detail in this post on how the assault cannon effects were achieved. The short version is that I used a 3V miniature motor, a Small Scale Miniatures 3V yellow 0805 chip LED and my Nighthaunt Candle technique to creature the muzzle flare.

That’s it for this week, I hope you found that interesting. Come back again soon to find out if I ever finish this bloody Lamenters Kill Team, haha! Hopefully I will be able to finish them soon, as it looks like we might possibly be in for a new edition of Kill Team.