Monday, February 5, 2018

Miniature Monday: Cybernetica Datasmith

With all of my Kastelan Robots, I knew that I wanted to have at least one Cybernetica Datasmith with them, so I can change their protocols in game, without having to rely on command point usage and getting them stuck in a protocol for the remainder of the game.

I also knew that I wanted to make my character minis a bit more unique than the official ones, and with that in mind I went to work customizing him.


To help keep the project simple, I kept the original Datasmith's body, shoulders and backpack. I then went to work modifying his arms.

For the power fist arm, I took a spare space marine power fist and cut it at the elbow. It was then pinned and glued into place and the sleeve was rebuilt using green stuff. Luckily, I kept as much of the original sleeve as I could and didn't have to rebuild the bottom edge of the sleeve.

The original power fist had a skull on it, but I wanted to give it a bit more Admech feel, so I shaved it down and transplanted a crux mechanicus onto the power fist. I wasn't sure about it at first, but after it was painted I really liked how it came out.

In the original model he is wielding a gamma pistol, instead I cut this arm off at the wrist, as I had an idea of him holding on to one of the datachips he uses to change the programming on Kastelan Robots.

I found a Skitarii Ranger rifle and cut the hand off of it. The way the trigger finger is on it worked perfectly for a hand that was holding something and after a bit of reworking I had it all set to accept a datachip.

Eventually, I made the pistol hang from his belt by cutting the grip off a holstered pistol and splicing it to the gamma pistol.

The original backpack on these guys is pretty cool, but the Skitarii Ranger/Vanguard box comes with a really neat backpack for the enhanced data-tether and I wanted to find a way to incorporate it into the model.

Then I realized that I could keep the original backpack and have this one be an attachment to it and all it would take is some glue. It worked out nice and looks like it belongs there. Plus, it give him an event more tech heavy look, like he is laden with multiple devices and gauges to help him do his job.

The part of the model with the least work was his head. Which was actually just a bald space marine head with a ventilator mask.

For the paint job, I started with base coating the head grey, because I don't like painting skin tones over black. Once that was done, I went to work with painting the copper areas in Rhinox Hide and working them up to my standard copper recipe.

After that I painted the head with a mix of fair skin tones from Reaper's MSP line, and worked the shadows by mixing in Drakenhof Nightshade, while mixing Riekland Fleshshade into the upper areas.

These were worked back and forth until I was happy with the overall skin tone and the final touch was to give him some liver spots by mixing Rhinox Hide with Fair Skin and then glazing over it with the skin tone mixes again.

The robe was painted in my standard green progression of Caliban Green, Nuln Oil, Caliban Green, Warpstone Glow and Moot Green and I am super pleased with how this one turned out. He's probably got the best painted robe out of the entire army.

As I mentioned in an earlier Wizardry in Progress post, the power fist's color originally had me at an impasse. I didn't want it to be green, as it would have been too much green on the model.

I could have done red, as that seems to be the color of Techmarines and I like the idea that this guy could have been a Techmarine at one point.

In the end, I decided to go with the bone color that is seen on the insides of the coats of my Admech and the legs of my vehicles. I think it ended up being the right call.

That's pretty much it. He turned out really well and other than a few little things I think I could have done better (the upper arm of the power fist seems a tad long), I really like him.

While I was painting him, I recorded the entire process and decided to make a time lapse video of the whole thing. Check it out below the detail pictures!

That's it for now. As always, thanks for reading. Feel free to comment below, you can also catch me on Twitter and Instagram throughout the week as I share new projects as I work on them. On Twitch.tv Monday and Thursday nights at 8pm est while I stream with Hobbyistgirl, and now on YouTube too!