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Thanks a lot for the kind words, guys!

@ KingCracker: You know, somebody on one of the German boards spotted the exact same thing, and you're both right, of course. Now I am a little worried that Chaos always keeps corrupting all of the conversions I do, even for the "ultra-loyalist" Custodes...

Alright people, it's been a while since this thread got some love, but today it's time for some Custodes-related news!

While I originally started my Custodes as a small side project with a very limited scope and a “Why the hell not?” approach, several factors have led to the army expanding far beyond what was originally planned: One reason for this was the fact that kitbashing Custodes out of all kinds of Space Marine parts is just a whole lot of fun. And there were all the Dark Angels models from the Dark Vengeance starter box too. I had to use them for something, didn’t I? Anyway, even after completing the first two squads for the army, I still couldn’t stop building and building. Today, let’s take a look at the most recent additions to my Custodes:

1.) Kitbashed Cataphractii

I already featured all of the individual models, but here’s another look at my finished Custodes Cataphractii squad, basically ready for painting:



Originally, I had planned to build only one model as a proof of concept, but the Terminators that came with the Dark Vengeance box allowed me to bump the squad size up to five. While these may look a little different from FW’s “official” Cataphractii model, they were kitbashed with base models and bitz I already owned anyway, and I think they read as Heresy-era Terminators well enough. Still, five models should be enough for now, so the next step would be to actually get some colour on these guys.

2.) Sisters of Silence

Another spur of the moment idea was to add a small squad of Sisters of Silence to the army. This was made pretty easy by the fact that some of the Dark Eldar models make for pretty convincing Sisters when combined with a couple of more imperial looking bitz.

I recently added another model to the squad. This time, the model was converted from a Dark Eldar Kabalite Warrior instead of a Wych:







I thought it would be a cool idea have a model wielding a flamer in the squad, so I used a bit from the plastic Empire wizard kit and combined it with the body of a Dark Eldar shredder to create a flamer that looked suitably archaic and ornate (and was, once again, pretty close to the official HH artwork).

Here’s the squad so far:





I think I’ll be adding one more model to make sure the squad is actually legally playable. They could probably be used as Scouts, although that’s really not all that important to me. In any case, a squad of five will look nice enough, even if it’s just on a display board The one decision I still have to make is whether to paint these in gold (like the regular Custodes) or rather in a combination of red and silver (as they are seen in several pieces of HH artwork).

3.) Legio Champion

I have mentioned the fact that I am slightly addicted to building HQ models on several occasions. So in addition to my already completed Custodes Shield Captain (and another possible commander converted from the Dark Vengeance Company Master), I wanted to build an imposing warrior to represent a mighty champion of the Legio Custodes. I wanted him to look like he could basically bring down a fortress all by himself. Here’s the result:









I combined all kinds of Marine parts with the legs of a WFB Warrior of Chaos. I also added a slightly converted Thunder Hammer. The storm bolter looks a little too clunky, so maybe I’ll just swap it for a storm shield. And I have to be honest with you: The whole model was really heavily inspired by one of the very nice Custodes models over at The Buddy Times (I really wish Hashashin would get back to building more Custodes!).

4.) Jump Infantry

I already told you that my Praetorians were built using parst from the GK, Sanguinary Guard and DA Veterans kits. That means I had a lot of leftover bits from those kits, so I thought it would be cool to build some kind of jump infantry for my Custodes, using those parts. Here are my test models for a squad of five:







And the second model:







This one is a bit closer to the classic Custodes look, wielding yet another converted Guardian Spear.

All in all, like I said, these were basically built from leftovers. I considered adding the Sanguinary Guard wings for a long time, seeing how they are a really nice fit with the overall Custodes aesthetics, but I decided against it in the end: For one, the models would have looked like nothing more than Sanguinary Guard with High-Elf heads. Plus leaving the wings off means the jump packs look identical to FW’s MK IV jump packs, adding to the models’ Pre-Heresy look. And without a doubt, the leftover wings will come in handy sooner rather than later…



Apart from the two painted test models, there are three more in the squad. I’ll probably paint these next, so expect them to be the next update concerning my Custodes army.

Anyway, these are my Custodes-related projects at the moment. All in all, the army remains a fun project to distract me from all the World Eaters stuff. Plus it offers me the way of using all the strange and obscure Marine bitz that end up in my bitzbox in new and interesting ways.

As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Very nice work, KS! Very clever use of that Wizard bit on the flamer, and the jump troops look great. I especially like the champion. Very nice combination of bits, there. Where is the little lion bit you put on the shoulder pads from?

Cheers, mate! The lion head is from the WFB Empire cannon/mortar kit. I still had the model lying around from an old WFB starter box, and it came with several of those small lion heads.

Cool work man! Love the flamer especially

I love the new guys! The new HQ is awesome! He looks very imposing!

Cheers, guys!

I love that flamer...

May have to "borrow" that idea when SoB get a proper 'dex

I also like the JI!

Loving the flamer, very clever use of bits mate. The new big bad ass looks mean as well. Great work as usual.

nice use of the wizards staff, makes a great gothic flamer!

Alright, guys, just a small update:

You may remember that I had planned to add one model for each armour pattern between Mk. I and Mk. VI to my squad of Custodes in Astartes armour, right?

So far, I have...

Mk. I, "Thunder Armour":



Mk. III, "Iron Armour"



Mk. V, "Heresy Armour":



and Mk. VI, "Corvus Armour":



That only leaves two patterns, and while Mk. IV should be easy enough to get right, thanks to the available plastic parts, Mk. II had me rather stumped. I'll be honest with you, I even considered just getting a couple of Mk. II bitz off ebay and be done with it. But then, I really wanted to kitbash these out of GW plastic parts. So last night, I finally managed to do an early mockup for a Custodian in "Crusade" armour. Take a look:



Granted, the model needs quite a bit more work, and even then, it will not be perfect -- none of them are. What I am going for is a reasonably close approximation without resorting to using FW stuff. That said, I am rather happy with the model so far.

Let me know what you think!

he looks pretty gnarly. i personally like the MK III the best.

Well, the model is obviously still pretty rough, but it's definitely getting there. What I can say with certainty now is that Mk. II is the least supported armour pattern when it comes to readily available plastic parts. The other armour variants were far easier to approximate.

Alright, I did some more work on the Mk II Custodian:





I changed the CC weapon to a pretty ancient looking chainaxe, trimmed off some detail and added a small lion figurine on the breastplate to camouflage the BA iconography there and to make the model fit the rest of my force. This guy still needs some finetuning, but I think his armour is reasonably close to the artwork and the FW models.

Let me know what you think!

Very nice

Yea I think you got it now. Good job!

Thanks, guys! Glad you like him!

That MK2 is awesome.

Where is the head from? I've never seen it before.

really love what you've been doing, especially the SoS. I know you said the heads are oop but I was wondering what kits they were originally from? I've done some simple two part moulds before and from looking at the heads and face piece I think it might be possible to mould them. I'm interested in doing a few SoS models for modeling and really like the way you did yours

I like the idea but my only gripe is that all the legs are mk 6 or 7.
mk1 only the chest has armor and the legs should be normal legs with armor plates.
mk2 legs/chest should be banded armor
mk2 legs/chest should be banded armor with armor plates on the front.
mk5 needs more studs
your mk2 looks more like a mk4 to me.
love the helmet, sorry but i am a purist when it comes to space marine armour

Thanks a lot for the comments, guys!

@ Jehan-reznor:You've certainly managed to catch me red-handed: There's indeed quite a lot wrong and/or inaccurate about my kitbashed armour marks. Apart from the fact that I had to use available plastic parts, this is also because I am extremely lazy (and really bad ad GS work), so I aimed for a rather loose approximation of the different designs. My idea was that if I managed to hit enough of the "right" visual cues, most people wouldn't notice the things that are wrong - I do of course realise that this must sound rather irritating to a purist such as you

@ Obsidian Raven: The head's from the new WFB Skullcrusher kit: I had shaved off the Khornate "bunny ears" to use them for one of my World Eaters, so I decided to transform the rest of the helmet into an Mk. II. Some plastic was shaved off to turn the eyeslits into a single slit, and I added the sides from a regular Marine helmet. Oh, and the topknot came from some Chaos kit or other...

@ Hive Fleet Lazarus: Well, the heads were spliced together using old Dark Eldar heads (from the old warrior kit): The top of the head is the old, bare head from that kit, and the bottom came from one of the helmets. So if you manage to acquire some of the old heads, you're good to go! Let me know, though, I might want to buy some

I suck at the greenstuff to here is my attempt at MK2 techmarine, i just used plastic strips

Just took a wander through your thread and got quite excited...o_O Diggin' what I'm seeing here. Please continue.

I love the Thunder Armour. Everything you've done is great, but that conversion is just so good.

I love the four big boxing gloves on the tech marine lol.
Where did you get that head in the mk 1 thunder armour from?

Thanks a lot, guys!

@ Jehan-reznor: That is a pretty sweet looking Techmarine, to be sure! Great job! Still, I hope you'll forgive my laziness in kitbashing slightly inaccurate Marine armour

@ shingouki: That's a Cadian head from one of the IG vehicle kits - Chimera or Sentinel, I believe, but I'm not sure. I just shaved off the IG symbol on the forehead and added a CSM topknot.

Phew, it's been some time since I have posted in this thread! However, let me assure you that my kitbashed Legio Custodes army is far from abandoned! As a matter of fact, not only am I still working on the army, but I also have something new to show you today:

First up, you may remember the first two painted models for a squad of jump infantry I posted quite a while ago:



Well, the squad obviously has more members, so these are probably the next Custodes models to be painted for the army:



I couldn’t bear throwing away the beautiful GK flamer, so I used him on this member of the squad: A little flamer action never hurt anyone, after all. On second thought, hurting someone is very much the whole point in this case

Then there’s the standard bearer for the squad:



I used a leftover part from the WFB Empire Knights, which makes an excellent standard for the squad. You’ll notice that the rest of the model also looks fairly ostentatious, as befits a member of the Legio Custodes:



And finally, the squad leader:



Using mostly Sanguinary Guard parts, this grizzled veteran looks like the hero he is. I added a CSM Plasma pistol as well as a company champion’s power sword to make the model’s equipment look especially ancient and well-crafted.

A Venerable Dreadnought’s shinguard was used as the squad leader’s left pauldron:



The engravings are unfortunately the wrong way around, but there was really no easy way to fix this. I still like the overall effect, though.

While these models had been built for quite a while already, I have now cleaned and assembled their jump packs, so they are very much next in line for painting.




I also built some more models for Squad Asklepian, the unit of Custodians wearing older marks of Astartes power armour. My goal was to have every armour pattern from Mk 1 to Mk 6 on display in the squad, while some additional models with suitably old and/or ostentatious looking armour were also drafted into the unit.

So here’s the model in Mk I “Thunder amour” I already showed you a while back:



I am still really pleased with the model, if I do say so myself.

Then there’s the Dark Angels Plasma gunner from the Dark Vengeance boxed set: Since his helmet looked deliciously vintage, I gave him some new arms a while back and added him to Squad Asklepian. Since you last saw the model, I added some additional detail to it:



A small lion figurine was added to the custodian’s chest, thereby creating a winged lion ornament. I also added the bottom of a purity seal, used almost like a loincloth in this case. As you can see, the model will end up as the squad’s standard bearer.

While some of the older armour variants were reasonably easy to approximate, the Mk II “Crusade” pattern had me stumped for quite a while: I’ll be honest with you, I even considered just getting a couple of Mk II bitz off ebay and be done with it. But then, I really wanted to kitbash these out of GW plastic parts. In the end, I did manage to build a model that at least looks reasonably close, though. Take a look:



First of all, I just used the clunkiest bitz I could find for a more heavily armoured and less mobile look. The weapons (taken from the Khorne Berzerker sprue) also look suitably clunky and pre-heresy. The most important part of the conversion is the head, though: It originally came from the WFB Skullcrushers: I had shaved off the Khornate bunny ears to use them on another model, and coincidentally realised that the helmet could work as a Mk. II with a little bit of work. So the eyeslits were carefully converted to a single, cyclopean slit, and the “ears” from a regular Marine helmet were added to the sides.



It may not be a totally accurate representation of the armour design, but I am still pretty happy with it. At least it manages to look pretty archaic, and this whole project was really never about perfect accuracy anyway, but rather about the joy of converting and kitbashing.

Lastly, I still had a Marine wielding a rocket launcher from the “Assault on Black Reach” boxed set knocking around, and seeing how his helmet had a nice, archaic look, I wanted to use him for squad Asklepian. However, turning his 40k rocket launcher into a 30k one proved to be quite a headscratcher. So the model mouldered in my bitzbox for a long time. I was almost tempted to just get one of FW’s rocket launcher arms, but once again, only using plastic GW parts was part of the self-imposed restrictions for this project, so I had to find another way.

And then, only recently, it hit me: I knew which GW plastic parts to use to make that weapon look like an older design. Here’s the finished model:





One of the good old Space Crusade weapons really helped me out here! Granted, it’s far from perfect, but I think it’s a pretty reasonable approximation of the “official” FW stuff, given the rules I had set for myself. As a matter of fact, I am very much in love with this clever (at least for my standard) little conversion at the moment!

Of course I also added a topknot and an additional wing ornament to tie the model in with the rest of the squad.



So here are all four models together, ready to be painted:



This brings the number of models in Squad Asklepian up to nine and means I only need to do a model in Mk IV “Maximus Armour” to complete the collection — fortunately, I already have all the plastic bitz I need for that last Custodian in the squad.

So, as you can see, the work on my Legio Custodes project continues! And I still want to get at least most of the army painted before Forgeworld release their own take on the Emperor’s bodyguard. Because once the “official” models are available, I am pretty sure no one will cast another glance at my own meagre efforts



Anyway, any and all C&C are always welcome! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Concerning the left shoulder pad of your squad leader:

You could use some green stuff to hide/remove the letters.
Either put it right on top of the shoulder as it is at present or carefully cut away some of the plastic and than add the green stuff as some kind of inlay.
First option would work as well with a thin piece of plasticard.

After doing this you could either put some symbol or so (wing insignia, veteran symbol, etc) on top or - if you used green stuff - engrave your own words (or symbol)

if your looking for an easy way to flatten the shoulder pad scripture,
id suggest liquid greenstuff, slap a load on with an old brush and it'll fill the indents up nicely, then you can smooth it over with a nail buffer if you have one handy,

on another note this project is inspirational to say the least,
please keep up the good work sir

Big fan of the missle launcher conversion, very cool indeed. Very cool army and even when they do bring out the forge world version i think yours will be a source of inspiration for anyone not wanting to spend the no doubt heafty price to get them.