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I'm looking to make a few True Scale marines and I was in need of some acvice on where to start and how to get a good solid look. Please help me out.

God, no. Don't do it, man. It's not worth it. Turn back while you still can.
The only way you can make decent true-scale marines is to cut and greenstuff the entire model. You might as well just sculpt the whole thing. Just extending the legs and torsos won't do it, because they'll just look really awkward. This is my end result of a truescale marine. It was a monumental pain.

Thankfully I'm not a SM player so this will be nothing more than an atttempt at making something cool.

Well, in that case, good luck to you.

Well, you could start by taking a look at my topic...

(http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/304872.page)

I started with the Dark Angels upgrade sprue. Has everything you need to make whatever your heart desires.

If you have some SM stuff already, you can get even more customization.

For the legs, I took some Terminator legs (provided in the DA upgrade sprue), filled in the frame with GS.

For the torso, I took one of the front torsos (doesn't matter what it looks like, since it'll be completely covered anyway), and chopped the back off one of the DA bodies (actually, it's more like hacked, tore, and ripped. But if you use a normal tac set, it should be easier to get the back). Covered them with GS to make them the proper size (made sure the attachment bit on the back was still exposed and raised!), and then cut out a bit of the bottom of the front of the chest to make it look more like a chest plate (after all that GS, it starts to lose its form). I also gave him a very simplified Mk8 style neck guard.

For the backpack, you want to chop off the nob on the back, and attach the backpack slightly lower than you normally would. This is because the backpack just looks too high otherwise. I learned this the hard way.

Before joining the torso and the legs, I used some plasticard to make a the belt, and covered up all the excess glue with pouches and gubbinz. You could also use a tabard, or, if you're not a complete fether like myself, you could just glue it on properly the first time.

For the head, I chopped off the ball joint on the neck. You don't have to do this, but I wanted to have a little more control over the placement of the head.

After that, it's all arms and accessorizing. When it comes to the arms, you can do one of two things. If you're like me, and like sensable proprortions to your hands and weapons, you could just use SM arms and be done with it. But if you like the heroic scale of the weapons and hands, and just didn't care for the size of GW's SMs, then you can use Terminator arms. Whatever floats your boat.

So, yes, there's a fair bit of chopping involved, mainly for the back and head, but it's not nearly as much as Elemadris suggests. The hardest part was greenstuffing the body, because I kept having to go back and forth. Also had to take off the backpack (which meant repping off ALL the GS on the back, which was actually really well done at the time).

Took me about 5 hours to complete, looks great, love it. You could get more varied stuff if you had more than a single upgrade sprue fulfilling your entire Space Marine collection.

I like to consider mine incentive NOT to start a SM army, since I'll never want to make an SM army that doesn't match that scale after the conversion, and I'll never want to convert an army's worth of those guys anyway.

nah done too many times
try a true scale imperator titan

My half-way true scale fem-marines turned out pretty good in my opinon. Termy legs and the rest was normal stuff with the special heads. Heck 75% of the five girls was all warstore grab bag items.

Do the old metal terminator legs work or just the new plastic ones?

Plastic ones. The metal ones are too small.

Darn... I need to find a set that wont cost me too much.

Yeah I first started with a couple I got from a grab bag, now I may just replace my entire force with them...

Lol, any spare plastic termi legs?

Hell, I bought one set, and now I want to do another at some point.

I found the DA upgrade pack to be a good deal, but that's because I found it for half of what GW listed it as. For $30, it's a little far on the expensive side, but it still comes with a lot of parts. And with most DA iconography being as ambiguous as it is, you can really do a lot with all the bitz it gives you.

I might have to grab one, I love the looks of all the bitz that come in it.

Try this!

If you have old terminator legs, you need to cut them in two, add a tiny bit of plastic in between the parts and them fill the gap with greenstuff.

Super Linky Malika

now silly question time.
Would it not be possible to use ordinary SM legs an bulk them out?

For me this will possibly be the only realistic option at present.

Also for true scale termies will they need even bigger legs?
TIA

You can just bulk up normal powered armour legs, but it's a much less forgiving process (you have to cut them very cleanly on both sides at multiple points), and you don't get the inherent bulk that TDA legs have. It's definetly possible, there are several dakkites that have done it, but it'll be easier to use TDA legs, and usually will net you better results too.

As for true scale terminator armour, that is also true. My truescale Marine towers over a terminator, even moreso than terminators tower over normal marines. I can imagine that the conversion process for a true scale terminator would be more akin to a scratch build than a conversion.

Hmmm.
Since I have built a unit of SW's and THEN decided true scale would be cool....

maybe now would be a good time to reconsider and leave it alone
Thanks Fafnir.
The links are very helpful for when I get stuck in

As soon as I manage to get a set of plastic termi legs I fully intend to start this process!

tony_nids_10 wrote:As soon as I manage to get a set of plastic termi legs I fully intend to start this process!

Didn't realise you were intending to do the conversion on yourself

Yeah! I want to get some of the legs to make a squad of True scale tac marines. No purpose other than to se if I can and for fun.

Should be good
Not sure if I will have the staying power to do a full army but the modelling aspect a figure at a time will be fun.

Yeah I don't even play SM's I just want to do the project.

tony_nids_10 wrote:Darn... I need to find a set that wont cost me too much.

If the words "cost me too much" are part of your vocabulary, you don't need to be doing true scale Marines.

Wow, thanks Breotan. I was worried that all I was going to get on this thread was support for an idea I am going to try. Good thing you came along and fixed that.

It's true though. You need to get parts from multiple kits, generally very expsensive kits. If you don't already have extra parts on hand, can't get some really good deals, or can't trade up for the parts, it's going to be costly. Expect each Marine to run between $15-20 each.

That is the joy of having absurd amounts of bits. If I dont have it I can prob trade for some. Between here and my FLGS it shouldn't be too tough to get some termi legs!

Ah! I don't
Before embarking, it really is a good time to put the idea to bed isn't it!

Oh well good job I have plenty of greenstuff and chewing gum

I am doing true scale with standard SM legs and lots of green stuff. You can check it in this post:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/303912.page

I was already Subscribed HAHA!