Creating pre-Heresy marines: Part 5b – Mark II power armour

by Whitehorn · December 18, 2009

This is the second part of the tutorial for creating Mark II power armour. The first part can be found here.

A Mark II helmet is readily available from the Maxmini Steam Knight set, but I feel this could still use a little customisation to fit with the base model I’ve used as a guide.

The first step taken is to roll a small ball of putty and glue it to the top of the helmet. Press this down into a flat disk and then let it cure. Once it is cured, drill through the center of the disc, into the head so that you can pin a spike into it later.

The putty may come loose when you drill. Reattach it after you’ve made a hole through it and into the head. Then find a suitable pin or paperclip to place a small rod into the hole. I’ve also cut a bit of the faceplate to make the eye area more open.

Slightly roll a ball of putty and press this onto and over the pin so that it almost reaches the putty on the head. You can then roll this a little between your fingers to make a small end on top. It can be left as a tube if you prefer, as it will need trimming and filing anyway.

Let the putty cure before attacking it with a knife and file. If using a knife, cut downwards from the tip at an angle. When filing, hold the whole helmet and move the spike along the file edge at an angle to bring the top to a point.

Cut a flat section from the bottom of the spike area so that the base is smooth. The pin is likely to tilt from this treatment if attached to the helmet – you can either remove it and shape it separate from the helmet, or bend and glue it back into place.

Finally, I removed all the neck from below the helmet as I want it to sit close to the chest.

Returning to the chest and legs as built in part 1, your armour should look a bit like this:

If you sculpted the front section of the chest separate from the back, you will need to glue the back on and continue the abdominal plate sculpt onto this.

Each of the plates may need some cleaning at the edges. Use a knife to re-slice and shave the cuts in between each plate.

To create the belt buckle, I used a leather hole-punch on a larger setting to cut a piece of plasticard and simply glued this to the belt.

Taking a sheet of thin plasticard, cut a rectangle roughly the same width as the buckle. Trim the length just short of the knees and angle the bottom edge, either as a point or curve. Glue this to the back of the belt buckle where it overhangs.

Creating the backpack has been previously covered here. However, every part of the Chaos Space Marine backpack has a use!

Cut the pack into the following pieces.

Particularly, don’t throw away the vent arms. Cut the cables off the arms.

File the cut-side flat and they can be used for the leg cables.

Putting the helmet, legs and chest together, your armour should now look a bit like this:

Next, the whole suit needs studs. I’ve covered making studs with large beads here and smaller beads here. For this model, however, I am going to use another method. Some call it the Ron Saikowski method, but Santa Cruz also detailed the method earlier.

The process is simple. You need a pot of PVA glue and a small pin-like applicator. I use an automatic pencil (those you click to push out more lead), though a pin, cocktail stick and mini-screwdriver all work fine.

Dip the tool into the glue so that you have a small blot on the end and then lightly touch this upon the model. Make sure the surface is free from vaseline and water.

Do a complete run of the whole model, dotting all stud areas. By the time you have done them once the first one should be dry enough to do a second layer. You will likely need 5 passes to build up a decent stud on the model. It’s also very likely some will rub off!

Take utmost care to not touch the studs during or after drying. They are prone to coming unattached, so try to prime your model as soon as possible to fix them in place.