jamsessionein
New member
So recently, thanks to a tutorial on the W.I.P. forums, I have been taught a way of lighting up the tiniest of miniatures. Due to my dire need to take modelling to ridiculous excesses, I thought it warranted further investigation.
No! It doesn\'t involve the use of arcane fiber optics piped from a model\'s base, which was my original guess. (And a pain in the rear, to boot!)
Rather, I have been introduced to a marvelous little piece of technology known as the SMT LED.
What is an SMT LED? It\'s the most ridiculously tiny Surface Mounted Light Emitting Diode you\'ve ever seen. About 1/5 the size of a normal 5mm LED, all told.
Now, I solder like a monkey, but apparently even I have the motor skills to bang this together.
From this little fella...
You get loads of light!
Don\'t believe me?
The applications for this sort of thing are limitless - just imagine an orky battlewagon all lit up, or the driver\'s compartment illuminated my different colored gauges! Even lit Kustom Force Field Generators! (Which I am currently planning.
)
And they fit in the tiniest of places...
This particular picture is a necron lord I\'m working on who has had his head and eyes (and chest!) hollowed out. I put water effects in the sockets with a little needle so that it would dry and form a lens over the eye and diffuse the light from behind it:
And you can do it in a variety of colors! I was in a sudden mood to start lighting some of my Daemonhunter dreadnoughts, and after about 15 minutes with a dremel and soldering iron I was able to put this together:
Dremelling a forgeworld item is not for the faint of heart, but you could do this to any dreadnought, any power klaw, anything large enough to fit these super-tiny lights!
I\'m working up the nerve to light an ork\'s bionik bonce at the moment. I might do it to Ghazzie\'s head for the sake of it.
This wire is the wire I recommend using with these things. It\'s super-tiny and can fit wherever the LED can, and it\'s pretty cheap. Don\'t expect retail radio shack outlets to carry this - I had to order my batch online. I also grab most of my SMT LEDs off ebay - they can get a bit pricy (I got 50 of the blue ones for around $15) but they\'re worth it!
No! It doesn\'t involve the use of arcane fiber optics piped from a model\'s base, which was my original guess. (And a pain in the rear, to boot!)
Rather, I have been introduced to a marvelous little piece of technology known as the SMT LED.
What is an SMT LED? It\'s the most ridiculously tiny Surface Mounted Light Emitting Diode you\'ve ever seen. About 1/5 the size of a normal 5mm LED, all told.
Now, I solder like a monkey, but apparently even I have the motor skills to bang this together.
From this little fella...
You get loads of light!
Don\'t believe me?
The applications for this sort of thing are limitless - just imagine an orky battlewagon all lit up, or the driver\'s compartment illuminated my different colored gauges! Even lit Kustom Force Field Generators! (Which I am currently planning.
)And they fit in the tiniest of places...
This particular picture is a necron lord I\'m working on who has had his head and eyes (and chest!) hollowed out. I put water effects in the sockets with a little needle so that it would dry and form a lens over the eye and diffuse the light from behind it:
And you can do it in a variety of colors! I was in a sudden mood to start lighting some of my Daemonhunter dreadnoughts, and after about 15 minutes with a dremel and soldering iron I was able to put this together:
Dremelling a forgeworld item is not for the faint of heart, but you could do this to any dreadnought, any power klaw, anything large enough to fit these super-tiny lights!
I\'m working up the nerve to light an ork\'s bionik bonce at the moment. I might do it to Ghazzie\'s head for the sake of it.
This wire is the wire I recommend using with these things. It\'s super-tiny and can fit wherever the LED can, and it\'s pretty cheap. Don\'t expect retail radio shack outlets to carry this - I had to order my batch online. I also grab most of my SMT LEDs off ebay - they can get a bit pricy (I got 50 of the blue ones for around $15) but they\'re worth it!
