Archon Studio – Masters of the Universe Battleground: Wave 6 – Evil Horde Faction: Leech, Scorpia & Mud Monster

That post title long enough for you? It’s been pretty much a year since I finished or posted anything from Archon Studios’ MOTU game. The main reason for that being that I wasn’t really enjoying the models I had chosen to paint next.

Both of thee models have strangely closed poses, despite being nicely details, well cast, multipart plastic models. Leech isn’t too bad – but he’s not good, while Scorpia is just fucking awful with her awkwardly-posed crossbow aimed at the floor and blocking off painting much of the model.

I more or less followed the box art with some research in looking at the toys to reference what I was doing. Since I don’t know anything about either of these characters, I found some odd contradictions on what Scorpia looked and acted like. Turns out that there was a recent-ish animated “reimagining” where the Netflix writers basically rewrote the character in the tiresome way that they always seem to treat legacy IP these days – I’d go on a rant here, but instead I’ll just say that I’m ironically glad that I’m not actually a MOTU fan and mostly picked this KS up from a bit of general recognition, the fact that the game got generally good reviews and that the models looked nice.

This shot above is an especially good look at how awkward Scorpia’s pose is. This is the main reason that this set took me pretty much a year to get painted – it was just a trio of models that was too easy to shove to the side and paint something else instead. It was actually “cleaning up” the painting desk that got these three done – so now they can get out of the way. It even led to me getting the next post’s models painted and now I can pick another small box or two to paint and move on out of the way – so very much a win overall!

3D Printed Bolt Rifle – by Creative Conflicts UK

3D Printed Bolt Rifle - by Creative Conflicts UK

Time for the next large-scale 3D printed 40k props – a pair of Bolt Rifles from maker Creative Conflicts UK on Makerworld. This particular 3d model kit is known as Bolt Rifle – WH40K Inspired Cosplay Prop. The previous bolters I printed were based on the venerable models that were introduced with the Marines from the 3rd Edition starter set and remained a mainstay of 40k for many years afterwards until the Primaris were introduced last week – or what still feels like it to me!

3D Printed Bolt Rifle - by Creative Conflicts UK

Instead going with red and green for the bolters, this time I went with red and black. The black one pretty much based on the current official scheme GW uses for Ultramarines Intercessors. Speaking of Ultramarines, the default model features the “U” (inverted Omega) of the Ultramarines but I instead sourced this winged skull to use as the detail element, which matches the models more closely.

3D Printed Bolt Rifle - by Creative Conflicts UK 3D Printed Bolt Rifle - by Creative Conflicts UK

As with the Bolt Pistols shared last time, these bolters have “sculpted” rivets that I may come back to later and paint in. If I come back to these pieces and add weathering later on, I’ll paint in the rivets then.

3D Printed Bolt Rifle - by Creative Conflicts UK 3D Printed Bolt Rifle - by Creative Conflicts UK

I varied the metals simply by using a few different brands of silver PLA. Sadly, I ran out of my most favourite silver when printing the parts of the red one – you can see the extra shine on the barrel and other detail pieces.

3D Printed Bolt Rifle - by Creative Conflicts UK

Speaking of the red one, I decided to customise this one more significantly, and detail it to match my Minotaurs Space Marines which I really need to get back to working on and actively painting – it’s been FAR too long!

3D Printed Bolt Rifle - by Creative Conflicts UK

I printed a Minotaurs Chapter Icon that I found several years ago online somewhere, scaled to the size of the bolter’s case. I also wanted to have a chevron in order to mimic the device found on Spartan shields as well as the painted elements on my own Minotaurs Marines. I had to create this myself in Tinkercad, but luckily it was a simple enough thing to create, even for a 3d modelling neophyte like myself.

3D Printed Bolt Rifle - by Creative Conflicts UK 3D Printed Bolt Rifle - by Creative Conflicts UK

Since the Ultramarines scope lenses were painted in red, it only made sense for these Minotaurs ones, in a red-themed bolter to be a nice green.

3D Printed Bolt Rifle - by Creative Conflicts UK

And here we are! Another nice pair of cosplay props – or oversized toys for oversized boys. Thanks to CreativeConflictsUK for the files, and thanks to Marouda once again for the moral support while building these as well as the hand modelling.