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EDIT: July 31: <<Skip to page 2 for my new power armor Khorne/World Eater conversions!>>

One of my recent conversion projects has been HEAVILY modified Chaos Terminators. My goals for this project are several: beef up the size of the termies, so that they are visibly larger and more intimidating than standard multi-part plastic termies, and more importantly, dramatically bigger than power-armored CSM. I also wanted to make them more "baroque" in the sense of "extravagantly ornate, florid, and convoluted in character or style." (dictionary.com)

I really love some of the old-school artwork in White Dwarf, Codeces, etc., showing CSM in really ornate and creepy armor. Very few standard GW items do this aesthetic justice, in my opinion (though the Chosen, etc. in Dark Vengeance are almost there, and the reason that they're so awesome). Here's some art of the kind I'm talking about:



This is one of my all time favorites.



This one might be Fantasy, but same basica aesthetic of heavy ornamentation.



I'm not in love with everything about this pic, but it is a Termie, and you get the idea about the decorative embelishments.

So, without further ado, here's some pics of my (WIP) guys:










So the first one I started was this guy, who I think of as the "Captain" or squad leader:



You can't quite see from this angle, but the unfortunate Astartes that he's holding up is a Blood Angel. The thing that initially gave me the idea to start this project was the Hellbrute bit that I've used for the torso here. I'm still ironing out some things, like if/how to use the cape, and the top of the armor over his face, what shoulder pads to use, etc. Here's another angle:



The second one I started is the Heavy Weapon guy, with my heavily modified Reaper Autocannon:





The gun arm was time-consuming, but I'm pleased with how it turned out. Again, there are a few minor elements I'm still ironing out on him.

This next guy was actually 75% finished and put on ice for a while, but brought back out for this project. He's not been true-scaled at all, but I'm hoping the extra bits and bobs and gubbins make him large enough visually to make him not look out of place in the squad.



He was originally inspired by the great creepy face/pilot of the DV Hellbrute. I carved it out of the Hellbrute and integrated it into a Termie torso (with no small difficulty)



This fourth guy I'm feeling slightly less inspired, but still he's a big'n and hopefully I can find some cool bling to bring him up to the other guys' level.



Finally, I have one who's just in bits, blue-tac-ed together. just kinda working out the basic parameters right now:





I've got two more partially started as well. One of which is intended as a Sorcerer, with much of his armor borrowed from Fantasy Chaos stuff. I'll post pics of them once a little more work gets done.

If anyone wants to make suggestions or critiques, I'd love to hear them. And, if anyone can suggest good bits (GW or otherwise) to help with such a project, that would be REALLY appreciated. This project hinges on having a good supply of interesting parts to jazz up these guys and make them really complex and visually interesting.

More soon, and thanks Dakkanauts!

-C6

The first three especially are excellent.

Wow, yeah that Captain/Leader is sick, great work.

Great kitbashing!

I... I...

Wow

 SilverMK2 wrote:
The first three especially are excellent.

Thanks! They are also the ones that have had the most work done so far. I'd say I'm 80-90% done with those three.

This kind of work comes at great cost in time. I couldn't convert a whole army with this kind of degree of complexity (though it'd be awesome).

My recent projects have been almost perversely complicated. I've been working on converting DV Chosen as my rank-and-file troopers. I chose the DV Chosen because (as I alluded to in my initial post) I think they're just super awesome in terms of design. FINALLY! a Chaos Space Marine who doesn't look like a loyalist Space Marine with some arrows and slightly more skulls on his armor. The problem of course is that they're monopose, making converting even tougher (and theoretically more limited). Rather than taking that as discouragement I relish the challenge all the more. Though if GW made a multi-part plastic Chosen box set with the same level of quality Chaos design, I'd buy 10.

Here's a couple of examples of those conversions:









But I digress...

I actually already have several Terminators painted up for this army. Here's the only pic I have handy, of the leader-type, 95% assembled:



I also have a heavily converted Sorcerer, a guy with a standard Autocannon, and a couple regular guys. But none of them are True-scale sized-up, and have minimal decorative conversion work, so I'm not sure they'd go with these guys, or clash too much.

Ok, more commentary later. Thanks again for the compliments!

-C6

bloody lovely work - subbed

Ooooooo, nice! Looking forward to seeing more progress on these.

Thanks again for the good words everyone. Thought I'd post a rough pic of what my basic color scheme is. Here's my first converted mini for the CSM, a Dark Apostle conversion, again based off DV:



So black & red, with blueish-grey highlights, and a Snake design theme. I'll try to take some more recent pics of other things I've painted (i have more enthusiasm for converting than painting).

More later!

-C6

Might job, battle brother.

These are awesome! Really capture the 10,000 years of war vibe! *looks at own models and sighs*

Great work here!

I'm not gonna lie. This is one of the coolest things I've seen in a very long time. I wish I had the creativity to do this with my space wolves. Have you ever thought of doing a tutorial?

Absolutely brilliant conversions. Excited to see more!

They look fantastic, loads of good detail.

Good to see them painted up.

My god! That Terminator throttling the Blood Angel is one of the coolest models I've ever seen.

Definitely keeping my eye on this thread.

Have to jump on the bandwagon and give you high praise for conversions you did. This is definitely way GW should go with chaos marines, models like yours perfectly embodies essence of bitterness, hatred and veteran status of CSM. Unfortunately GW after rogue trader era fell flat and gave us Marines with spikes.
Your work inspired me so much that I am willing giving a try on something similar.
Please keep us updated, and did you decided on color scheme yet or did I missed that.

 KillaCam wrote:
I'm not gonna lie. This is one of the coolest things I've seen in a very long time. I wish I had the creativity to do this with my space wolves. Have you ever thought of doing a tutorial?

Thanks! TBH, I haven't every thought of doing a tutorial, since my method of working (especially so with this project) is so random and unfocused (though the end product might not reflect this). Here's a rough breakdown of how I go about making guys like this:

1. Usually I get some random inspiration. In this case, the "sarcophagus" bit from the Hellbrute multi-part box looked like a neat bit to use to make an up-scaled/truescale Terminator, so that's where I started. I also roughly defined the project in my head: Truescale Terminators with alot of baroque detail (like the old-school GW art, which I allude to in my initial post).

2. With the idea of making some baroque truescale/big'n Terminators, I then went about collecting various bits that might work well for the project. At this point I go through the bitz collection (mine is actually pretty huge, and very, very varied). I toss any bit that even *might* work well for this project into a little bin. The Belakor tabard, the Khorne Skullcrusher axe, Hellbrute heads, Ork choppa/chainaxe, Warp Talons bits, parts from the single sprue fantasy Chaos Lord, and more.

3. I then kinda ping from idea to idea. I chopped up the legs to give slightly more height, I used one of the fantasy Chaos Lord's forearm/gauntlets for the left arm, then decided to put the unfortunate Blood Angel into the left arm. Of course, then I had to solve the problem of how to hold him up. There weren't many left hands/arms that would be good for throttling the Astartes. I ended up using the left hand from the Leader of the Dark Vengeance melee cultists. This was a little tricky. I'm still ironing out some of the marine's details, like which exact hands to use (it's hard to model him grasping the Terminator's gauntlet as he struggles). I'll post closer up pics to illustrate what I'm talking about here later.

4. I usually also hop from one guy to the next, rather than completing any one at a time. Sometimes this is also because I am still trying to figure out how to solve certain problems (like the Marine's hands, as mentioned above). But sometimes this is because I'm super disstractable. However, this does help me to come up with good ideas before I finish a piece. It's time-consuming, but in the end I think the slow simmering of ideas ends up making the final product much more solid, design-wise. But, as I said, it's really rather time-consuming...

Guys like these are so specific, unique, and idiosyncratic, that I'm not sure I could really make a proper "tutorial," as such, but rather just offer advice about the design process. There are other things I do that might warrant a tutorial though. When I get back to my Chaos-ified15mm Dreamforge Leviathan to take some pics, I could perhaps make brief tutorials about some of the techniques I use (like casting armor trim details - a somewhat tricky process that nonetheless yields some useful decorative bits).

Ok, this class I have to teach isn't gonna prepare for itself. Thanks again to everyone for the kind words!

-C6


Automatically Appended Next Post:

dubovac wrote:
H... and did you decided on color scheme yet or did I missed that.

The Dark Apostle pictured above (in the black and red) is my basic scheme. Honestly, I am slightly reconsidering, but then I always do that...

Man those Terminators are insane!

 Malika2 wrote:
Man those Terminators are insane!

Thanks! I am planning to get the new Wrathbloodmongers Khorne Chosen-y guys, to use the baroque/scary armor bits for further expansion of this project. I'm not sure even how many I will end up making. If I keep getting inspired, then I'll just keep churning some guys out. Of course, I haven't fully finished even one yet!

-C6

Suitably brutal indeed. Please keep updating. Very cool stuff. Gotta cast my vote for the DV heavy weapon conversion. That gun is absolutely out of control and he is owning it hahaha.

Those look pretty slick so far. Have you thought about grabbing the FW Red Butchers? They are slightly odd poses stock, but for kitbadhing they would be great.

 catharsix wrote:

 Malika2 wrote:
Man those Terminators are insane!

Thanks! I am planning to get the new Wrathbloodmongers Khorne Chosen-y guys, to use the baroque/scary armor bits for further expansion of this project. I'm not sure even how many I will end up making. If I keep getting inspired, then I'll just keep churning some guys out. Of course, I haven't fully finished even one yet!

-C6

I was not a fan of the models themselves but they look like a gold mine for conversions. Looking forward to what you come up with.

 whalemusic360 wrote:
Those look pretty slick so far. Have you thought about grabbing the FW Red Butchers? They are slightly odd poses stock, but for kitbadhing they would be great.

I have definitely considered picking up a couple - I like the look, but they don't have the kooky "ears" that I don't always like. I'll probably end up trying a few.

So, as a change of pace from the Termies, here are some minor pics of my WIP (barely begun) Chaos-y Knight Titan. Just some designs for the plates. Lmk what y'all think:

Shoulder plate:







And a shin plate:





I haven't smoothed it out/cleaned it up yet, but that will come. I'm particularly pleased with how the should worked, and am looking froward to similar GS press mould casting work on this and other models.

Ok, back to reading about Japanese Art History. Thanks Dakka!

-C6

Nice conversions. Your greenstuff work is stunning!

 Warboss_Waaazag wrote:
Nice conversions. Your greenstuff work is stunning!

Thanks! I can't say that I'm all that good with GS - these are from press moulds that I then carefully apply to the surface because they're more flexible than the original rigid plastic parts. It's the way an amateur like me with no real sculpting skills can get cool effects like this

-C6

 catharsix wrote:

 Warboss_Waaazag wrote:
Nice conversions. Your greenstuff work is stunning!

Thanks! I can't say that I'm all that good with GS - these are from press moulds that I then carefully apply to the surface because they're more flexible than the original rigid plastic parts. It's the way an amateur like me with no real sculpting skills can get cool effects like this

-C6

Whatever you want to call it, it looks amazing. Even if you aren't sculpting the pieces yourself, you know enough about mold making to create impressive copies.

 Warboss_Waaazag wrote:

 catharsix wrote:

 Warboss_Waaazag wrote:
Nice conversions. Your greenstuff work is stunning!

Thanks! I can't say that I'm all that good with GS - these are from press moulds that I then carefully apply to the surface because they're more flexible than the original rigid plastic parts. It's the way an amateur like me with no real sculpting skills can get cool effects like this

-C6

Whatever you want to call it, it looks amazing. Even if you aren't sculpting the pieces yourself, you know enough about mold making to create impressive copies.

Well, thanks Warboss. Most of my art/design training and practice is 2-D (hand-drafting and computer), but I think that the general habits of an artist/designer really help no matter what medium you're working in. And it pays to be a super-picky perfectionist!

I'm working on some more Khorne -oriented Termies and Power Armor guys recently, so I'll post some pics of them soon.

-C6

Catharsix:

Great job man. My youngest brother is drooling over the Autocannon guy you have in Power Armor.
He wanted to know if you had any ideas for making Havocs in a similar vein?

On my own statements, I would say this is an army that would seriously benefit from 32mm bases rather than 25mm bases. Those guys look beefy.

Looking pretty awesome there mate.