Mare Solum: Building a mercenary

"Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."

Over the last few years, the Inq28 movement has steadily been increasing in popularity, as evidenced by more and more collaborative events, such as the Pilgrym and Tor Megiddo. Relatively few have taken place in the USA, however, aside from the Curse of the Alabaster. Vince Fiore, of the Dark_Tech_ fame is looking to change that with his world-building collaborative project Mare Solum. The setting has a great deep-sea diver/nautical theme that I thought would be fun to explore. Having just spent a lot of time converting and creating molds for some Imperial Guard, I decided this would be a great opportunity to see what diverse things I could create with them, trying to make them visually distinct from the stock models, but also fitting with the Mare Solum theme.

Before building this model, I was convinced I would never use the Goliath rivet gun!

I decided I wanted to build a jetpack wearing mercenary, someone who could jump around from airships and rusty shipyards. The first step was to craft a suitable rocketpack. A Goliath rivet gun proved the perfect starting point, really looking the part after cutting it down and adding a nozzle from a Van Saar plasma cannon. Next I wanted to modify the model’s body to make it look suitably technical, fitting with the bulky engine on their back. The Electro-Priest box set was invaluable for this. I used one of their head braces to create a collar to surround the model’s helmet. The helmet itself (and the shoulderpads) was taken from the Van Saar kit, with the front part of a genestealer cultist light creating the viewport (thanks @apoteos_miniatures for the suggestion!). With the basis for the conversion done, I used green stuff to touch up various aspects of the model, including adding a few harness straps to keep the jetpack on the warrior’s back.

The Electro-Priest kit provided a wealth of interesting technical pieces that allowed me to create much of the mercenary’s suit.

I am really happy with how the model’s shotgun is small enough to not detract from the rest of the model. Had I used one of the genestealer cultist ones, the size would have been distracting.

This mercenary came together really quickly after first coming up with the idea. I am really pleased that the parts I cast for my Imperial Guard worked so well for building a slightly more eccentric figure. Now onto painting the model; the Mare Solum event is quickly approaching!

- Adam Wier