Trim for the Trim God!

The standard way to make a vehicle look fit for the Chaos Gods is adding spikes but what if you want even more Chaos? More Spikes? Well if you want it to look like your about to add small cubes of cheese and pineapple chunks and host a 70s party then yes more spikes it is. But what if you don't? What if you like me are not a fan of gratuitous over-spiking? Then Chaos trim is probably for you. Here's a reasonably straight forward way to add such a thing to your CSM Vehicles.

Things you need Green Stuff, 0.5mm thick plasticard(styrene), Chaos Vehicle, Super Glue, Scalpel, Steel Rule, Pin Vice Drill (1mm bit), Small Rectangular or Square File, Emery Paper( Fine Sandpaper), Soft (2B) Pencil or very Fine Permanent Marker, Cutting Board and a Length of Plastic Rod about 2mm thick.

Stage 1 The first thing is to assemble your Rhino (or other CSM Tank) up to a stage you are happy with.

Personally I leave off doors and such so I can do extra on them later except the rear door which is impossible to add after assembly.

Stage 2 Unusually I'm going to ask you to make a little tool for yourself to use for riveting, this is where the length of Plastic Rod comes in.(You can skip this if you have a preferred way of getting nicely domed rivets see Stage 8 on how it is used.) First make sure the end of the rod is nice and flat and not angled at all, then take your Pin Vice Drill and drill a small indent into the center, approximately 0.5mm deep. You can always re-trim the end of your rod and try again until you are happy with the result.

Stage 3 Take your Steel Rule and Scalpel and cut a decent quantity of the 0.5mm plasticard into 2mm strips. Make sure these are evenly cut as this will cause issues later.

Stage 4 Mark up where you want to place your Chaos trim on the Rhino hull with a soft pencil or fine permanent marker. Then trim off any existing rivets that will be in the way using your Scalpel. ( I try to collect these up and save them for use later.) There are two ways of approaching the steps just below the doors. A) Pre-cut a notch in the plastic strips big enough for the step to fit into and GS any gaps later. Notch cutting and GS filling are covered in another part of the Tutorial ( Axel Studs) so I won't show it. B) Cut off the little step below the side doors, these you definitely want to save to glue back on later. This is the more awkward method in my opinion, so for this tutorial I will show that.

Stage 5

Next start gluing the trim in place. Don't worry about trimming to shape at the ends and notches along the bottom edge of the tank until after the strip is securely glued in place. Once the glue is set you can use the actual Rhino's edge as a guide to trimming them to shape except the ends. The most awkward bit is the Round Axle Studs in the corners, for these you need to cut a notch before gluing which is then shaped after gluing. Any small gaps where the strips join can be filled with GS.

A bit more burble from me on the trim notch cutting here, the directional arrows on the pictures are suggested to help prevent the trim pulling off as you work, the basic idea is you push onto the tank rather than pull away.

Stage 6 Now you can add little triangles of plasticard to for that pointy effect so loved by Chaos ( or arrow heads, whatever you want really).

After the glue is set it is time to fill any gaps around the trim and joins with a bit of GS. Place lumps of GS onto any gaps or areas you want to fill of level off and simply drag your wetted knife blade across it to even it up, ( you can use clay shapers if you have them).

Once the Green Stuff has hardened off you can then sand any rough edges from cutting the Plastic strips/triangles with the emery paper. Also even out the GS if you need to ( Very gently on the GS, you don't want to have it pull out of the gaps you filled).

Stage 7 First off glue those little steps you cut off back on, and GS the gap after the glue is dry.

Then mark out where you want rivets.

I suggest starting with the corners/ends and then evenly spacing the rest in between those points, not forgetting to position some where they where originally either side of the notches along the bottom etc.

Then taking your scalpel and using it like a drill make holes where you want your rivets, don't worry about the size too much just make sure they are bigger and slightly deeper than the rivets are round and never greater than the end of the tool you made. The reasons I use a knife rather than a drill are it is more accurate and the rougher edges the knife leave make for a better keying surface for the GS.

Stage 8 Now you get to discover the way to use the plastic rod riveter tool you made.... I suggest doing this process on one side of the Chaos Space Marine vehicle at a time, allowing time for that side to set before moving on to the next. No matter how careful you are you will squash some rivets somewhere if you try to do more at once. Make up batch of GS ( I prefer a larger amount of blue for a slightly harder GS) and roll out into a long thin 'rod' about a bit thicker than the holes you made in the trim.

Taking your scalpel cut off a small amount of the GS and place gently on/over the hole you prepped for the rivet placement (slightly wetted the scalpel can help with this).

Now you get to use the home made gadget, making sure it is good and wet first to help it release the finished rivet. Then press it onto the blob of GS and hole area firmly, hopefully the GS will get pressed into the

hole. You will probably get some excess squidging out of the sides, just before removing the tool make a small rotating and 'rolling' motion with it.

If you are lucky this will cause the excess GS to come away when you remove the tool, if not you can use your scalpel to remove it. Self removal of excess GS.

Manual removal of excess GS.

With practice you can get get quite efficient at this process and rivet the daylights out of

anything you want, flashy symbols of your chosen God, Heresy era shoulder pads.

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