[Log] Battle Masters Mighty Cannon - Part 1

September 19, 2015 to October 21, 2015 - All I need to complete the Battle Master's Imperial Army is to finish painting the mighty cannon and crew.

Undercoated five years ago...

This will be used as an Empire Cannon for Age of Sigmar. The Empire Cannon unit consists of 3 crew members, so I decided to kit bash to make the third crew member.

Third Crew Member

26 gauge wire armature (left) with aluminum foil (right)

I made a basic armature with 26 gauge wire and bulked it up with aluminum foil. The aluminum foil is likely not needed for that small of a figure, but I was hoping to conserve on putty. The 3rd crew member's torso and legs was sculpted with Milliput. Once the torso and legs were done, I begin gluing everything together.

The head came from Perry Miniatures War of the Roses Light Cavalry multi-plastic box set. The arms holding the cannonball is from the Games Workshop's Empire Cannon multi-plastic box set.

Some filing was done and liquid green stuff was used to fill the gaps between the arms and torso.then arms + green putty

Cannon Base 

I want all my figures to have a base with magnets. Instead of purchasing Games Workshop plastic bases, I decided to make my own base for the cannon. I used 1/8 inch basswood as the material and cut it to be a 40 x 60 mm base.

40 x 60 mm basswood base 1/8"

After sanding the base edges and giving it a bevel shape, I cut/chip off some of the wood to allow two magnets to be inserted, Milliput was used to fill in the gaps. Once it looks like the magnet will fit nicely in the hole I applied superglue. The magnets have a diameter of 1/8 inch and thickness of 1/16 inch (Magcraft's neodymium-iron-boron rare earth magnets). Making my own bases seems fairly easy and saves a good amount of money from buying plastic bases.

Painting

I want to stick to the red and white color scheme. In addition, I want to add some black into the uniforms of Empire troops involved with war machines or guns. After toying around with the base colors, I decided only to have some black for the "head crew member" only. In future posts, I will refer to the crew members by what they are holding-cannonball, sponge, and botefeux, I would like to finish this unit by the first week of November.

Next Log Entry - [Log] Battle Masters Mighty Cannon - Part 2