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

Continuing the guides for producing pre-Heresy armour, next in line we have Mark II: Crusade.

The Crusade armour was the first fully sealed Power Armour used by the Astartes as the Emperor began expanding his control beyond Terra.

Here is one of Games Workshop’s classic Mark II Space Marines. The backpack has been removed to show the detail on the pads and legs, the model painted as a Dusk Raider by Whitehorn.

Components required for this tutorial:

A pair of arms with gloved hands. These are readily available from any Chaos Space Marine kit.

A Space Marine chest (and back), ideally with at least 1 cable running exposed down the center of the chest, vertically. I could find at least 2 chest types for this. Unless you collect 40k or Emperor’s Children marines, using the eagle chest is best as the whole are is going to be cut into. Save your plain chests for other pre-Heresy models.

Two normal shoulder pads. If you have the Red Scorpion kit from Forgeworld, use one of those pads for the left shoulder as it has a small circular disc on it, like the example model.

For the Helmet, Maxmini’s Steam Knight set has an ideal Mark II helmet, needing minimal changes.

A pair of Mark VII legs. The knee pads are required mostly.

Creating Mark II power armour:

Starting with the legs, compare them to the example model. The lower and upper parts of the legs are divided into 3 horiontal stripes. These need to be cut and/or sculpted. Start by removing any mold lines and piping on the leg plates.

Then mark your intended lines with a marker pen or paint.

Begin scoring the lines with a craft knife. Place the blade along the line, firmly pressing the blade into the model and drag it across the marked line. Repeat this a few times, across all lines. You will quickly have some defined cuts into the legs.

To further define the lines, place the blade into the cut and then scrape it up and then repeat, scraping down. This gives the edges a slight curve.

When you are happy with the leg cuts and your hands aren’t aching, cut out small rectangles into the thigh plates. There should already be a rough guidelines here provided by the existing model detail. These two holes will receive pipes later in the tutorial.

The tops of the knees can be shaved down to make he pads more circular as the original model is more egg-shaped.

With the cutting complete, some areas need to be filled in. Begin with the backs of the knees. These areas a to be connected with a smooth plate. Roll a small sausage of putty and place it behind the knee.

Smooth the putty into the area, making it seamless with the plates below and above the knee.

Place your sculpting tool horizontally flat and gently press into the putty roughly half way down the putty. Pull the tool downwards. Then do the same slightly above the same area and push upwards. Ensure you leave a small raised area half way. Repeat this all the way around the back of the knees.

Let the putty cure before doing the other knee unless you have pinned the whole piece to a holder. You don’t want to risk touching and ruining your sculpt. Curing can be sped up considerable by placing the model under a hot lamp.

The hip plates can be sculpted once both knees have cured. Take another sausage of putty and place it along the hip.

Simply smooth the putty so that it flows seamless with the plastic plate. The top of this area is covered by the torso, so yuo don’t need to define where it ends.

Repeat this for the other hip and then leave the whole model to cure. While it cures you can begin working on the chest piece.

Mark a line horizontally across the front of the chest from where the middle cable meets the chest plate.

Cut out everything below this line apart from the belt and middle cable. Then scrape off the eagle or any protruding details on the upper chest.

This section varies across some example models, so is optional.

Mark a small rectangel in the top center of the chest and two vertical lines either side of it.

Cut out the center area with a knife. Then cut into the lines at the sides and scrape away towards the side of the chest so that this U-shape is left raised, protruding from the chest. Remove any parts of the buckle that overlap thestomach area.

The small gaps below the chest need 2 horiontal plates. These can be created with putty. Roll a small ball of putty and place it into the gap.

Smooth the putty into the area completely so that it touches the chest, belt and cable.

Using a knife or thin sculpting tool, cut a single horizontal line across the middle of the putty an again where the putty meets the belt and cable.

Repeat this for he other side of the stomach area.

That’s it for the first part. This may take you a good hour or 2 to complete. Look out for the sexond part where I will be adding studs, shoulder pads and a helmet to the model.

View part 2.