People going on about truescale marines and mutilating the minis to make these mutants is a real bugbear for me, it confuses the hell out of me. Space Marines are not giants they are 7-8foot tall fully armored which is tall but not any taller than people today can be (Basketball players ect...), you know what else tall and intimidating in the 40k universe? Everything!! The Orks your marines are on the table with are supposed to be huge scary things, Eldar are considered tall compared to Humans, Tyranids/Necrons are as tall as they want to be and your Chaos counterparts are also the correct height. In an effort to make Marines seem bigger compared to imperial guard people make them look wrong compared to every other mini that exists and wrong vs any army you will play against, especially crazy considering guard are supposed to be pretty strong/healthy examples of what a human can be.
Looking back i don't mean this to sound as bitchy as it probably does , i dont care what people do with their own minis but am curious about the thinking behind it since doesn't appear to be supported at all in lore yet i keep seeing horribly deformed spindly legged marines out there.
Being entirely honest, I agree with you. Put a Space Marine mini next to an Eldar, Necron, Tau or SoB mini and they are perfectly in scale. The issue is the ape-proportioned Guardsmen, swap them out for properly scaled infantry (Mantic, Forge World, Vic Minis) and the problem goes away.
However, Truescaling does have a place, and that is when minis go beyond gaming pieces to become artistic displays. There are some amazing things done with TS Marines as part of dioramas or such.
You have to remember that the guard do benefit from some light genetic manipulation and cybernetic implants, they are not supposed to just be your average joe. I agree a marine would be bigger mostly thanks to the armor but not by the amount people seem to assume.
I agree with you about making display pieces but in 90% of the time folks just stretch the legs and they look horrible lol, its one of those conversions that if not done perfectly just destroys your work imo.
Gantoris wrote: You have to remember that the guard do benefit from some light genetic manipulation and cybernetic implants,
Uh.... No. Care to provide a source on that? Outside of the Mechanicus based Skitarii and probably some inquisitorial based troops I think you'll find that this just isn't the case.
they are not supposed to just be your average joe.
Yes. Yes they are.
If memory serves me right then some troops like the Kasrkin do receive minor cybernetic upgrades. Kasrkin are far from basic troops though.
Gantoris wrote: You have to remember that the guard do benefit from some light genetic manipulation and cybernetic implants,
Uh.... No. Care to provide a source on that? Outside of the Mechanicus based Skitarii and probably some inquisitorial based troops I think you'll find that this just isn't the case.
they are not supposed to just be your average joe.
Yes. Yes they are.
If memory serves me right then some troops like the Kasrkin do receive minor cybernetic upgrades. Kasrkin are far from basic troops though.
Do Solar Auxilia receive implants?
Automatically Appended Next Post: A TS marine should be a bit higher than a Tau. Check Tau Codex, 6th ed softback for proof.
Gantoris wrote: You have to remember that the guard do benefit from some light genetic manipulation and cybernetic implants, they are not supposed to just be your average joe. I agree a marine would be bigger mostly thanks to the armor but not by the amount people seem to assume.
I agree with you about making display pieces but in 90% of the time folks just stretch the legs and they look horrible lol, its one of those conversions that if not done perfectly just destroys your work imo.
So is NMM or freehand work. Both are very good techniques in the right hands. There's a learning curve to everything, if they're not screwing up your models, leave them alone.
Personally I think it looks cool to have a Marine actually tower over a human figure. GWs scales are just idiotic. Look at Infinity models in comparison. People say they are "tiny" but they are actually just to-scale and don't have giant hands,heads,weapons. A SM compared to a normal human Infinity model stacks up like it should but not to a Guardsman.
Gantoris wrote: You have to remember that the guard do benefit from some light genetic manipulation and cybernetic implants,
Uh.... No. Care to provide a source on that? Outside of the Mechanicus based Skitarii and probably some inquisitorial based troops I think you'll find that this just isn't the case.
they are not supposed to just be your average joe.
Yes. Yes they are.
If memory serves me right then some troops like the Kasrkin do receive minor cybernetic upgrades. Kasrkin are far from basic troops though.
Ive been consuming a lot of lore lately and cant quite recall the exact source im thinking of, to be clear tho im not suggesting that they have huge amounts of work done or are anywhere near the superhuman level Space Marines are on. The line im thinking of bassically just says that while in transit/training they get some basic genetic enhancements ect. I mean its not a huge stretch to imagine a quick regime of testosterone and other gak like that we could do now if we wanted to make murderous nutters, these are disposable troops so would be cheap of course but point is they aint just citizens pulled of the street and dropped into a fight 1 week later.
Gantoris wrote: You have to remember that the guard do benefit from some light genetic manipulation and cybernetic implants, they are not supposed to just be your average joe. I agree a marine would be bigger mostly thanks to the armor but not by the amount people seem to assume.
I agree with you about making display pieces but in 90% of the time folks just stretch the legs and they look horrible lol, its one of those conversions that if not done perfectly just destroys your work imo.
So is NMM or freehand work. Both are very good techniques in the right hands. There's a learning curve to everything, if they're not screwing up your models, leave them alone.
Personally I think it looks cool to have a Marine actually tower over a human figure. GWs scales are just idiotic. Look at Infinity models in comparison. People say they are "tiny" but they are actually just to-scale and don't have giant hands,heads,weapons. A SM compared to a normal human Infinity model stacks up like it should but not to a Guardsman.
I do agree that marines should be a little bigger than IG if was 100% accurate but by making marines bigger you spoil the scale a lot more vs everything but guard and the difference with guard is somewhat exagerated by folks imo.
Hah, it is hard to look at Guardsmen as anything other than deformed mutants after painting any Infinity humans! Good job I went 3rd party with my Guard even before I started on Infinity, otherwise there would be many, many regrets!
As for the enhancement of IG, I can see them getting (in some cases, not all) immunisation packages, maybe in some regiments some kind of steroids or such, but certainly nothing to make them any bigger than an average guy pulled off the street and given a Lasgun.
So you think its unlikely they would be given loads of testosterone and steroids during training? It seems logical to me that they all look like body builders when they get of the transport ships, why wouldn't they have cheap enhancements made in training. No one cares about the long term health of these guys, whatever is easy and gives a small advantage would be done.
Automatically Appended Next Post: GW has always had a sort of "Comic Book" exaggerated style.
Gantoris wrote: So you think its unlikely they would be given loads of testosterone and steroids during training? It seems logical to me that they all look like body builders when they get of the transport ships, why wouldn't they have cheap enhancements made in training. No one cares about the long term health of these guys, whatever is easy and gives a small advantage would be done.
Unlikley asthe average 'trainting' a Guardsman gets consists of learning which of the of Lasgun to hold and to do what the Commissar says. Likewise, once they hit the battlefield they job, typically is to hold a line by shooting anything that moves, do what they're told, and catch a bullet/bolt/shuriken/lasround for the guy behind them, and buy enough time for reinforcements to arrive.
In other words, as little expense as possible will be spared per Guardsmen, they are just useful alive as bullet-catchers and dead as sandbags. Not saying there aren't regiments that do more training, enhancement or whatever, but it is certainly not the norm.
My understanding of the process is they are grabbed from the world of origin and put in massive barges for transit. They are stuck on these barges for a long time as they go where needed and this serves as the training center. They are defiantly cannon fodder but they are not just untrained muppets as you suggest, they would be no different from a modern infantry soldier in terms of training.
Any cheap way to make them more effective like drugs would be on the table because in the grimdark world no one cares about long term health issue.
I think using smaller IG minis is a better solution than ruining the scale of marines tho if this is really bothersome, but i love the GWIG :(.
The term that used to be bandied around was 'Art-scale' which i think is more befitting of the results people are going for. E.g. akin to the artwork of the 40k source books.
De-squat a marine and he's a tall dude, even without giving him terminator legs and torso. The issue is that doing so is immensely difficult.
Ultimately GW don't have any fixed reference for scale, for something to be in something else will be out of scale.
Guardsman as seen above are a great example as for them to be a sensible reference point (hypothetically a good choice as we know what an unaugmented human looks like) almost everything else is to small. Because of the inconsistencies of scale, how big a model is becomes more about which dudes you want to emphasize. Do your terminators get lost in the masses.....add more mass.
I always thought it one of the worst parts of the current GW art direction, once everyone is huge, hulking and covered in bling then nobody is. If you want a marine to look huge stand him next to someone small.
Its not really the currant art direction tbh, like i said they have always had a Comic Book feel. If anything its gotten less cartoonish recently, thats good or bad depending on your taste.
The crux of my argument tho is that Space Marines are more or less to scale with every other faction other than IG (and other straight humans like SoB i guess) and there isn't as big a gap there as people seem to think. When you truescale your minis for tabletop (i do see the value sometimes for display) you achieve the opposite results by breaking scale with everything else.
Iron_Captain wrote: The Space Marine miniatures are perfectly in scale, they are not the issue. People should be making truescale Guardsmen instead of Space Marines.
well il judge that when i see an upscaled grot. Marines are supposed to be massive and imposing. Regular marine models have massive heads, huge chests, no abdomens, tiny legs and half size upper arms. Not to mention their weapons are massively overchunked. True scaling just gives them that more proportionate look, and the added size makes them ideal for special characters. Im a fan
Marines look amazingly cool and the proportions are fine :(, the only way they could look better is if they all went back to being beakies! 9 times out of 10 when people truescale marines they end up looking like spindly legged freaks.
What you are calling dis proportioned is the deliberate Comic Book/Cartooney style thats a hallmark of Games Workshop.
AFAIK Imperial Guard are just conscripted out of ordinary citizenry (40,000 years in the future mind you). Hence, the untold billions in numbers, that they have no idea how many IG there actually are, and that deaths are meaningless because there are untold billions more to fill the ranks.
I suppose, you are right in that if you took everything other than IG out, Space Marines would be the correct scale. Therefore, the solution would be to shrink Imperial Guard
Yeah but i don't think the scale difference between IG and SM is as big as people think it is so ultimately you do more harm than good stretching Marines, smaller Guard is defiantly the way to go if this is a huge problem for someone. And i still don't agree IG are just utterly green hopeless civilians, they are cannon fodder for sure but they are trained and equipped en-route over a decent amount of time. And it really isn't much of a stretch to think they probably get performance enhancing drugs, steroids and testosterone during this period because it would be a very cheap way to increase performance of your ground army. This explains perfectly the chunky body builder look of GW imperial guard and further negates the problem with height vs Space Marines.
Games Workshop proportions are horribly out of true which is why so many truescale models looks weird, they exaggerate the already deformed Games Workshop models and highlight the problems they have.
The scale of the models is all over the shop with the Death Cultist models being some of the more accurate Games Workshop models, and compare them to a regular figure and they are tiny. At 28mm scale, your average human should stand 28mm high (some do take this to the eye level only but it is better to have it to head height and you see this with many 32mm scale miniatures (which, whilst much taller than a Games Workshop figure have far thinner limbs, and bodies, smaller heads et cetera) and this would represent an average 5'9" human. If we were to say a Space Marine was 7' precisely that would require a model 34mm tall.
If you were to make a scale miniature of an 8' Space Marine, a not unreasonable size based on the background, then the model would be 38mm tall, considerably bigger than your average human character.
Mostly you will find that human and Space Marine models are 30mm tall. Eldar models suffer by being too short, Tau too tall and only orks, who stand about 6' are accurately portrayed.
You can see the problem with human figures with this image:
This is an unarmoured and armoured Space Marine I made a long while ago at 54mm scale. You can see how the Marine looks (a smidge under 7' tall the model is 66mm where Artemis is, according to Jes Goodwin, supposedly 67mm tall, downscaled from a 7' 6" drawing) next to a regular human and then how Games Workshop's heroically scaled 54mm Marine looks in comparison.
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
I don't say my own models are perfect by any stretch but they are fairly accurate scale figures, not heroic, and I think they do serve to show how Games Workshop figures differ enormously from what would be an accurate scale miniature. But then they don't make scale miniatures they make wargames models and making a space marine bigger is a lot easier than making a guardsman smaller.
Gogsnik that's outstanding putty work m8 well done, i sort of disagree and agree with you and you have helped me to understand better why people think they need to do truescale marines.
What you see as "deformed" about what GW call "Heroic" scale is just what ive been referring to as "Comic Book" style, they are deliberately cartoonish miniatures. These were designed by people inspired by 70s and 80s Saturday Morning Cartoons and comics like 2000AD, this inspiration is still clear today despite being somewhat toned down recently. I suspect this is a similar effect to how some folks reacted to WoW graphics, they just cant stand the cartoon style. Truescaling is a doomed attempt to alter a stylistic choice, it will never work well because it throws out all the proportions and breaks the overall "look".
I don't disagree, the heroic style is just that and ordinarily I don't think it's a problem at all and the minis are what they are, although, even when I was only 9 or so I always thought Marines were too small. Ultimately, those 'truescale' models that work the best , find a way to make a bigger heroic scale model, rather than a to-scale model.
For instance, these are what a properly to-scale Space Marine would look like, with accurate, human normal proportions (you can see these in the artwork occasionally).
And some artwork along the same lines:
Spoiler:
Despite being highly accurate they look very strange but, super tall humans do look kinda strange.
Spoiler:
Unlike a more heroic 'truescale' which looks less weird because it conforms more closely to the Games Workshop style.
These pics are some of the better Truescale marines ive seen although i think in the first pic they are slightly to skinny overall. The image of a human you linked isn't a good comparison, that man suffered from gigantism and his body was not proportioned properly at all. He died young like all people with that condition because his body couldn't support his height of almost 9 freaking feet!
The bottom Marine is extremely impressive but no matter how good it is the fact still remains that compared to every other faction except IG the original scale is best.
Gantoris wrote: My understanding of the process is they are grabbed from the world of origin and put in massive barges for transit. They are stuck on these barges for a long time as they go where needed and this serves as the training center. They are defiantly cannon fodder but they are not just untrained muppets as you suggest, they would be no different from a modern infantry soldier in terms of training.
Any cheap way to make them more effective like drugs would be on the table because in the grimdark world no one cares about long term health issue.
you need to read the book fifteen hours its called that cause its the average lifespan of a guardsmen from enlistment to death its a great read and portrays what its really like to be in the guard
Gantoris wrote: My understanding of the process is they are grabbed from the world of origin and put in massive barges for transit. They are stuck on these barges for a long time as they go where needed and this serves as the training center. They are defiantly cannon fodder but they are not just untrained muppets as you suggest, they would be no different from a modern infantry soldier in terms of training.
Any cheap way to make them more effective like drugs would be on the table because in the grimdark world no one cares about long term health issue.
you need to read the book fifteen hours its called that cause its the average lifespan of a guardsmen from enlistment to death its a great read and portrays what its really like to be in the guard
Would they not spend more then 15 hours in transit to anywhere? lol
Gantoris wrote: People going on about truescale marines and mutilating the minis to make these mutants is a real bugbear for me, it confuses the hell out of me. Space Marines are not giants they are 7-8foot tall fully armored which is tall but not any taller than people today can be (Basketball players ect...), you know what else tall and intimidating in the 40k universe? Everything!! The Orks your marines are on the table with are supposed to be huge scary things, Eldar are considered tall compared to Humans, Tyranids/Necrons are as tall as they want to be and your Chaos counterparts are also the correct height. In an effort to make Marines seem bigger compared to imperial guard people make them look wrong compared to every other mini that exists and wrong vs any army you will play against, especially crazy considering guard are supposed to be pretty strong/healthy examples of what a human can be.
Looking back i don't mean this to sound as bitchy as it probably does , i dont care what people do with their own minis but am curious about the thinking behind it since doesn't appear to be supported at all in lore yet i keep seeing horribly deformed spindly legged marines out there.
I agree with you. All sources say that Marine models are in the proper scale. I disagree about this in all cases though, as there will be certain situations where artistic license can look cool.
Personally, its not the height that is an issue with the marines "scale" but the proportions of legs to arm to abdomen ratio.
Most space marine models have stumpy legs and no abdomen to speak of. The same goes for guardsmen but its not as noticeable (for me at least). I cant stand gw scale space marines. However, properly scaled and proportioned marines still can look a bit strange to the eye when they are not in some, whacky squating pose. Those straight legs with the shoulder pads sticking out. My eyes dont agree with it but its correct! I also find the standard gw space marine helmet to be slightly too massive
The other reason people true scale/art scale/upscale or whatever the cool kids are callingit these days, is because its something different to try, I dont really play 40k much any more, im more into the modelling and painting side of things and upscaling the marines is just another thing to try. It beats just taking them out of the box and slapping them together (unless thats your thing)
In my upscaled marines (that i really should get back to finishing) The only real thing that needs adding is an abdomen. and then they look normal to me.
Spoiler:
Admitidly my putty skills are on par with that of a 5 year old child but you get the idea (not even close to gogsnik's skill!)
Please forgive the whacky legs. Still getting the hang of it
And to put my upscaled marine up against a standard gw
Gantoris wrote: Any cheap way to make them more effective like drugs would be on the table because in the grimdark world no one cares about long term health issue.
you need to read the book fifteen hours its called that cause its the average lifespan of a guardsmen from enlistment to death its a great read and portrays what its really like to be in the guard
Sounds like a great book, ive never read any of the 40k fiction mostly because every time i look i get completely baffled about where to start. I just consume fluff entries in codexs non stop and read wikis ect, am obsessed with GW lore prolly have both my fav Sci Fi and Fantasy universes. I did look it up on Lexicanum tho and in the plot description it says...
"After four months of basic training and seven weeks of Planetary transportation, seventeen year old Guardsman Arvin Larn of 6th Company, Jumael 14th Volunteers, embarks on his first campaign fighting against a rebel uprising. However, due to an error in communication, Trooper Larn finds himself fighting on the wrong planet in the wrong war zone at the city of Broucheroc"
So that's 4 months + 7 weeks (They train in transit this much i know) this is more training than modern soldiers receive (6 weeks basic if im not mistaken) and also plenty of time to pump them full of testosterone and steroids ect...
Johnson & The Juice Crew wrote: Personally, its not the height that is an issue with the marines "scale" but the proportions of legs to arm to abdomen ratio.
Most space marine models have stumpy legs and no abdomen to speak of. The same goes for guardsmen but its not as noticeable (for me at least). I cant stand gw scale space marines. However, properly scaled and proportioned marines still can look a bit strange to the eye when they are not in some, whacky squating pose. Those straight legs with the shoulder pads sticking out. My eyes dont agree with it but its correct! I also find the standard gw space marine helmet to be slightly too massive
The other reason people true scale/art scale/upscale or whatever the cool kids are callingit these days, is because its something different to try, I dont really play 40k much any more, im more into the modelling and painting side of things and upscaling the marines is just another thing to try. It beats just taking them out of the box and slapping them together (unless thats your thing)
In my upscaled marines (that i really should get back to finishing) The only real thing that needs adding is an abdomen. and then they look normal to me.
Spoiler:
Admitidly my putty skills are on par with that of a 5 year old child but you get the idea (not even close to gogsnik's skill!)
Please forgive the whacky legs. Still getting the hang of it
And to put my upscaled marine up against a standard gw
I agree that its an interesting challenge and must say your one is one of the best attempts i have seen but this goes back to what we were saying before, marines are not deformed thay are in a cartoon style on purpose. All of there proportions are perfectly fine compared to eachother because stylistically it all goes together and nearly always when people truescale it breaks the inherent look of the mini and the result is awful. Trying to forcibly change the artistic vision of a piece is to me mind a fools errand, esspecially considering that the problem only exists vs 1 of the many factions.
I much prefer true scale marines. Especially compared to squating pose marines.
If you don't like them that's fine but to say you destroy the artistic vision in doing them or that you are crazy to want to do them just seems a little stupid to me. Sometimes people like something you don't and that's ok. True scaling / tall scaling a marine doesn't destroy the artistic vision of the model any more than any other conversion does.
I genuinely don't mean to seem like im passing some sort of judgement on people or telling them what to do with their own minis. I just disagree with you and wanted to chat about it, mebe learn the thinking behind it.
When im talking about "Ruining the artistic vision" i perhaps don't mean it as seriously as it sounds but i get frustrated when people talk about how standard marines look "Deformed" or whatever. They are Cartoonish on purpose, that is the chosen style of all GW stuff so making little changes to try and fight that seems futile.
If you could make your WoW toon (assuming you play/played it) look photo realistic using all the latest graphics potential of PC's would it look good Vs the rest of the game or would you look horribly out of place and ruin the look of the game world?
My personal biggest beef is marines aren't even in scale with other marine models.
Terminator armor is bulkier, but it doesn't somehow make the marine taller. Why a marine donning terminator armor somehow grows like a foot and arms extend an extra foot in length eludes me.
It's always amusing to see what aspect of our toy soldiers hobby gets people hot under the collar. For some people it's gee-dub's, err, 'interesting' scaling.
Personally I'm not a fan of true scale marines as more often than not they just end up looking like marshmallow men in power armour with even worse proportions than the original models. Even the very best examples still end up looking a bit off imo (probably due to being so used to regular sized marines).
But, you know, different strokes for different folks and all that. If people want to spend the time and money on true-scaling their marines and like the results then let them.
Being a 'nid player, I am really amused by the complaints in this thread when it comes to people making true scale marines. If there's any one army that's horribly off when it comes to scale on the table, it's tyranids. Making true scale 'nids....GOOD LUCK.
Personally, I don't care. If you want to make true scale marines, go for it. I probably won't be super thrilled if you try to play with a complete army of them, but since it would take you forever and a day to do that, well....
As for the WoW comment, I know there were pictures floating around a few months back...Blizzard redid quite a few of the character models, and overall they look quite a bit less cartoony now, with some horrifying results.
I still haven't gotten around to reading 40k fiction (I have so many other books I keep reading instead), but the advice given is typically start with the horus heresy. Otherwise Dan Abnett, and Graham McNeill, are widely considered to be the best authors for warhammer fiction, so you can always start with some of the books they've written. Or, pick your main army and go with some of the books for your faction.
Gantoris wrote: My understanding of the process is they are grabbed from the world of origin and put in massive barges for transit. They are stuck on these barges for a long time as they go where needed and this serves as the training center. They are defiantly cannon fodder but they are not just untrained muppets as you suggest, they would be no different from a modern infantry soldier in terms of training.
Any cheap way to make them more effective like drugs would be on the table because in the grimdark world no one cares about long term health issue.
you need to read the book fifteen hours its called that cause its the average lifespan of a guardsmen from enlistment to death its a great read and portrays what its really like to be in the guard
Would they not spend more then 15 hours in transit to anywhere? lol
The full title of the book is:
Basic Training: Four Months, Planetary Transportation: Seven Weeks, Life Expectancy...
FIFTEEN HOURS
The core rule book for Only War has a good insight into the average IG's training, from snatch to drop. There's a guardsman's diary appears in segments throughout - things like training on the journey are touched upon, from which end of the gun to told, to servitors using live rounds, etc.
For the sake of plot, the guard survives the duration, but his wide eyed attitude changes to one of resolve and futility.
It's not perfect, but it's a bottled look.
Schlyne wrote: Being a 'nid player, I am really amused by the complaints in this thread when it comes to people making true scale marines. If there's any one army that's horribly off when it comes to scale on the table, it's tyranids. Making true scale 'nids....GOOD LUCK.
Nids can be whatever size the choose to be surely? They cant really not be in scale, same for the Necrons tbh.
Gantoris wrote: I genuinely don't mean to seem like im passing some sort of judgement on people or telling them what to do with their own minis. I just disagree with you and wanted to chat about it, mebe learn the thinking behind it.
When im talking about "Ruining the artistic vision" i perhaps don't mean it as seriously as it sounds but i get frustrated when people talk about how standard marines look "Deformed" or whatever. They are Cartoonish on purpose, that is the chosen style of all GW stuff so making little changes to try and fight that seems futile.
I understand that they are cartoonish on purpose but in my senile old age the look of the space marine model doesn't match my ideas of what space marines look like. I personally want my space marines (I don't game with them remember) to look realistic or close to what I think they should look like. There's no denying that astartes models are deformed/cartoonish but some of us just can't stand it. I've been looking into making some 1:32 scale imperial guard and when U browse through historical minis. The flaws in gw design scream out at you more and more.
IG models don't bother me nearly as much as astartes models but im starting to notice it more and more. I tried making a guard squad armed to the teeth but all the extras (grenades, pouches, knives etc) are just so huge that the models start to look silly. I've yet to try with marines but I bet it looks even more out of place on them.
If U have only ever played with gw minis then maybe U won't notice but start using others that are correctly proportioned then it becomes irksome.
I can't remember if these are 28mm but they better represents my vision of a correctly proportioned space marine (even though its a little off in some areas)
I hear ya, and to me doing it purely for display purposes is different to when folks do it for tabletop and put them next to the now midget looking orks the will be fighting. Tho this collecting minis and never playing the game business is something else ill never understand!
I guess my problem is when the original purposefully cartoonish style is just dismissed as a flaw, i love that 2000ADish comic book look. They scream the British 80s culture behind their conception loud and proud and it gives them a really nice unique feel compared the competition. Any person on this forum would recognize a citadel mini a mile away, the style is part of what makes them so special.
Gantoris wrote: I hear ya, and to me doing it purely for display purposes is different to when folks do it for tabletop and put them next to the now midget looking orks the will be fighting. Tho this collecting minis and never playing the game business is something else ill never understand!
I guess my problem is when the original purposefully cartoonish style is just dismissed as a flaw, i love that 2000ADish comic book look. They scream the British 80s culture behind their conception loud and proud and it gives them a really nice unique feel compared the competition. Any person on this forum would recognize a citadel mini a mile away, the style is part of what makes them so special.
DOnt get me wrong I do play 40k occasionally just not smXD
I think one of the other reasons is its at the point where the 80's style is totally alien to a lot of gamers today. I'm 26 and missed out on all the badassness of rogue trader, early 40k. D&D (ok im no stranger but its not as popular as it used to be im told).
I look at some of the early artwork from gw and personally find it horrible but at the same time its kind of cool.
Reading some of the books and playing some of the pc games make it out to be super duper Sci fi serious. I always try to relate it to starwars to ease some of my pain. Back then cheese was the in thing. Gw needs to get with the times XD some of the recent art has the grimness of the 41st millenium but the models dont. well some do. Its like they can't decide weather to keep the 80's style or do a major overhall so we end up with a mix of models with varying sculpts.
The style and the dark humor are kinda separate tho, i mean im mostly with you when it comes to tone. I love the that the lore has evolved into what it is, the Grimdarkness of the far future is probably by far my fav sci fi universe. The word cartoon is not really adequate to what i mean because it seems childish, this is why i try to use comic book instead.
Many animated "Cartooney" things can be dark and serious, i could cite many examples of Japanese animation that demonstrate this but im sure you are probably familiar with them. 2000AD which is very stylistically similar to Old Skool GW had its serious moments to.
In a perfect world the humor side of GW could have lived on in the smaller fun games like Blood Bowl, but alas thats not to be. They have always remained true to that "Comic Book" look tho, which i admit is a matter of taste but it is what sets Citadel's work apart.
Gantoris wrote: People going on about truescale marines and mutilating the minis to make these mutants is a real bugbear for me, it confuses the hell out of me. Space Marines are not giants they are 7-8foot tall fully armored which is tall but not any taller than people today can be (Basketball players ect...),
Yeah... about that "basketball players" comment...
Spoiler:
The issue isn't that just IG are out of scale but frankly everything is if marines are really 8ft tall (which is their height in their power armor) and marines aren't just bigger in a single dimension (height) in the fluff. Truescale brings the minis closer to what they're actually supposed to be. The current marines are way too small next to everyone but orks. Those other models have their own issues about various parts of them being "heroic" scaled like the giant IG hands and head but either the marines dimensions are completely off or everyone else is. I chose the simpler option.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Paradigm wrote: Being entirely honest, I agree with you. Put a Space Marine mini next to an Eldar, Necron, Tau or SoB mini and they are perfectly in scale. The issue is the ape-proportioned Guardsmen, swap them out for properly scaled infantry (Mantic, Forge World, Vic Minis) and the problem goes away.
However, Truescaling does have a place, and that is when minis go beyond gaming pieces to become artistic displays. There are some amazing things done with TS Marines as part of dioramas or such.
See the above image. Also, the one below... Sisters in the art are not particularly taller beyond what their ridiculuous stripper fetish high heels give them so would generally come in at 6ft as above putting them roughly the same height as IG. The height of those human models is in scale with each other (even if the features on the guardsmen are "heroic"/freakish like their hands and head) but they don't mesh at all with marine models. The standard GW and FW marines simply don't convey the 8ft tall steroid freak in power armor look that accurately describes what marines are in the fluff. Truescaling them (via on of the multiple methods) does succeed in doing that. It may not be perfect but you get the appropriate sense of scale/size when doing so. Of course, I am biased as the weedy size of space marines is a particular pet peeve of mine that largely convinced me to make some truescale marines.
Spoiler:
From L to R:
Normal human
Normal human in power armor (so an SOB equivalent)
Astartes in Power armor
Normal human in terminator armor
Astartes in Terminator armor
It's not perfect obviously but IMO it's better than the scale differences in the official models. YMMV.
I agree they could be a bit taller compared to guard but disagree vs everything else, Tyranids, Deamons, Necrons can be any size they want so scale is relative there (them all suddenly looking puny to marines is still silly tho) and both Orks and Eldar should be taller than an average human and thus similar enough to SMs not to need any changes. Chaos Marines are obviously supposed to be the same as normal marines and this leaves only the Tau who to be honest im am quite unfamiliar with.
And as i have argued i think its reasonable to assume the average height/bulk of an IG soldier is noticeably above today's average height.
And as i have argued i think its reasonable to assume the average height/bulk of an IG soldier is noticeably above today's average height.
I can't think of a single thing in the fluff that I've ever seen that would support that. Could some IG from a low grav planet be on average taller (but then also thinner)? Sure. Could particularly rich regiments like Vostroyans be taller due to good nutrition throughout their lives? Sure, but humans on average are not currently getting taller as we're pretty much in western countries at the max average. In the past, the majority of the reasons for shorter average height was actually due to chronic malnutrition rather than actual changes in height. This is backed up from studies done comparing asian heights from 3rd world nations to immigrants born and raised in 1st world ones from the same region. While some IG may indeed be taller than modern humans, there is nothing to indicate that the "average" height/bulk of an IG is noticeably above todays's soldiers average height. If anything, the regiments from poorer planets like hive worlds would bring that average down due to malnutrion. Sorry but if you want to consider your IG as on average 7ft tall ballers that's fine but GW and the 40k universe don't agree. If anything, the grimdark universe supports that life on average throughout the Imperium is pretty bad (hence the grimdark) and I'd guess that the average height is actually lower. Of course, that is just a guess with no actual facts from GW to back it up. I do however have a copy of the IG primer book GW came out with so I'll have to see tonight if they comment on height in there.
And as i have argued i think its reasonable to assume the average height/bulk of an IG soldier is noticeably above today's average height.
I can't think of a single thing in the fluff that I've ever seen that would support that. Could some IG from a low grav planet be on average taller (but then also thinner)? Sure. Could particularly rich regiments like Vostroyans be taller due to good nutrition throughout their lives? Sure, but humans on average are not currently getting taller as we're pretty much in western countries at the max average. In the past, the majority of the reasons for shorter average height was actually due to chronic malnutrition rather than actual changes in height. This is backed up from studies done comparing asian heights from 3rd world nations to immigrants born and raised in 1st world ones from the same region. While some IG may indeed be taller than modern humans, there is nothing to indicate that the "average" height/bulk of an IG is noticeably above todays's soldiers average height. If anything, the regiments from poorer planets like hive worlds would bring that average down due to malnutrion. Sorry but if you want to consider your IG as on average 7ft tall ballers that's fine but GW and the 40k universe don't agree. If anything, the grimdark universe supports that life on average throughout the Imperium is pretty bad (hence the grimdark) and I'd guess that the average height is actually lower. Of course, that is just a guess with no actual facts from GW to back it up. I do however have a copy of the IG primer book GW came out with so I'll have to see tonight if they comment on height in there.
The average guardsman is above and beyond the average soldier in the Imperium, those being PDF troopers. I feel it's safe to assume then that their average girth/height is larger than an average civilians. The most physically capable humans today are much larger than the average person, but the guardsmen minis are a little wonked.
I do not believe that I have ever read fluff supporting Imperial Guardsmen being physically finer specimens of humanity than any other citizenry, soldier or otherwise. Codex Astra Militarium under Infantry Platoons - Conscripts reads:
"Conscripts are raised in times of desperation, barely trained masses of esxpendable bodies best employed manning fortifications or impeding the foe's movements"
it's worth noting that while Conscripts are less skilled (WS2/BS2 versus 3 for Guardsman), they are all S3 T3 1W I3. IG Infantry Platoons are also describd as being "perhaps even cheaper for the Munitorum to replace [than the lasguns with which they are armed]".
That being said, the fluff does support certain Imperial Guard regiments being more warrior-like than others; for instance, Cadians are all battle-trained from youth, and one could assume that all that warrior breeding would result in bigger, stronger adults -- a la Sparta.
I could agree that cadians would be leaner but likely not "bigger" due to the constant war status of the planet. It would be more like an 1980's beastmaster physique and not a schwarzeneggar one or god forbid a Game of Thrones "mountain" one that the OP is proposing as the standard IG human. It's hard to get all those vitamins, minerals, protein, and calories when perpetually at war; there isn't anything to indicate that has changed in the grimdark future and certainly isn't the case in the present. The only fluff that says any IG regiment that I know of is "bigger" is for Catachan regiments that are modelled and described as 80's action stars ala the team from the first predator movie.
In any case, the biggest catachan would still be dwarfed by the average astartes... and in the 40k model range (to bring the thread a big back on track), every IG is modelled like the biggest catachan. Sorry, OP, but your thread title's tone is needlessly aggressive and a huge (pun intended) exaggeration. It's more accurate to say it's "insane" to think that marines are well scaled as is. Truescaling though does present in game issues especially if you mount them on 40mm cinematic bases that better fit the models. If you don't bulk up the marines, you can still use the 25/30mm ones without an issue but if you use the terminator parts instead (the other easier route that requires less sculpting by the modeller) then you'll definitely have overhang on 25mm and probably on 30mm (don't own any of those so can't say for sure).
Gantoris wrote: Yeah but i don't think the scale difference between IG and SM is as big as people think it is so ultimately you do more harm than good stretching Marines, smaller Guard is defiantly the way to go if this is a huge problem for someone. And i still don't agree IG are just utterly green hopeless civilians, they are cannon fodder for sure but they are trained and equipped en-route over a decent amount of time. And it really isn't much of a stretch to think they probably get performance enhancing drugs, steroids and testosterone during this period because it would be a very cheap way to increase performance of your ground army. This explains perfectly the chunky body builder look of GW imperial guard and further negates the problem with height vs Space Marines.
I stand by this assumption, they get months of training and no one cares about the long term health of these men. I have always just assumed the body builder buff look of guard was due to extreme training regime and performance enhancing chemicals. This fits the design choices and is perfectly reasonable to imagine in the lore.
Johnson & The Juice Crew wrote: Personally, its not the height that is an issue with the marines "scale" but the proportions of legs to arm to abdomen ratio.
Most space marine models have stumpy legs and no abdomen to speak of. The same goes for guardsmen but its not as noticeable (for me at least). I cant stand gw scale space marines. However, properly scaled and proportioned marines still can look a bit strange to the eye when they are not in some, whacky squating pose. Those straight legs with the shoulder pads sticking out. My eyes dont agree with it but its correct! I also find the standard gw space marine helmet to be slightly too massive
The other reason people true scale/art scale/upscale or whatever the cool kids are callingit these days, is because its something different to try, I dont really play 40k much any more, im more into the modelling and painting side of things and upscaling the marines is just another thing to try. It beats just taking them out of the box and slapping them together (unless thats your thing)
In my upscaled marines (that i really should get back to finishing) The only real thing that needs adding is an abdomen. and then they look normal to me.
Spoiler:
Admitidly my putty skills are on par with that of a 5 year old child but you get the idea (not even close to gogsnik's skill!)
Please forgive the whacky legs. Still getting the hang of it
And to put my upscaled marine up against a standard gw
They're good, I just get the feeling like the torso is stretched just a little too much though.
My initial response is... lol, look at the guardsman, he looks like he's thinking ;'what the hell am I looking at' as he looks at the marine to his right >.>
"Truescale" is pointless and isn't even true scale.
I personally took a personal artistic choice destined to make my own toy soldiers look better until I decide to smash/sell them because their pointlessness bothers me too much.
but to each his own, I don't even care about GW in general, much less their fluff so I am free to do what I want.
Anyway, Melissia is right, truescale is pointless, so are many other things, that doesn't mean some people will not choose to keep doing them.
"Truescale" is pointless and isn't even true scale.
+1
I could see the appeal of a correctly scaled universe ~ but trying to fix pieces purposefully scaled 'wrong' is futile. One would need to start from the ground up and resculpt the entire lot. As pointed out in the thread, the marines arent even the worst offenders, its the human that is being compared to which is far more twisted out of proportions.
And its making the 10 men in a Rhino joke even more ridiculous.
+1 I could see the appeal of a correctly scaled universe ~ but trying to fix pieces purposefully scaled 'wrong' is futile. One would need to start from the ground up and resculpt the entire lot. As pointed out in the thread, the marines arent even the worst offenders, its the human that is being compared to which is far more twisted out of proportions. And its making the 10 men in a Rhino joke even more ridiculous.
I agree. Though at a bigger scale like the old inquisitor stuff i think it kinda matters.
aldo wrote: I personally took a personal artistic choice destined to make my own toy soldiers look better until I decide to smash/sell them because their pointlessness bothers me too much.
but to each his own, I don't even care about GW in general, much less their fluff so I am free to do what I want.
Anyway, Melissia is right, truescale is pointless, so are many other things, that doesn't mean some people will not choose to keep doing them.
Gotta love that Nihilism, nothing really matters so who cares!
"Truescale" is pointless and isn't even true scale.
+1
I could see the appeal of a correctly scaled universe ~ but trying to fix pieces purposefully scaled 'wrong' is futile. One would need to start from the ground up and resculpt the entire lot. As pointed out in the thread, the marines arent even the worst offenders, its the human that is being compared to which is far more twisted out of proportions.
And its making the 10 men in a Rhino joke even more ridiculous.
eff a rhino...have you seen a taurox on the table?
Ive been consuming a lot of lore lately and cant quite recall the exact source im thinking of, to be clear tho im not suggesting that they have huge amounts of work done or are anywhere near the superhuman level Space Marines are on. The line im thinking of bassically just says that while in transit/training they get some basic genetic enhancements ect. I mean its not a huge stretch to imagine a quick regime of testosterone and other gak like that we could do now if we wanted to make murderous nutters, these are disposable troops so would be cheap of course but point is they aint just citizens pulled of the street and dropped into a fight 1 week later.
Testosterone and steroid supplements are not genetic enhancement. They would also not cause a grown man's skull to grow to be the same size as his ribcage, or cause his hands and feet to inflate to the size of his entire waist (and they would not increase his height). We get it, you like GW's overinflated-balloon-child proportions. Just don't try to argue that they fit the fluff. It's also absolutely unfair to suggest that not enjoying this, as you say, "Comic Book" style is "insane".
Marines are truescaled because they are by far the easiest to do so. The only reason I haven't collected a large Eldar army is their ridiculous proportions, and there are no alternative models (unlike the IG) because Forge World only has an upgrade kit (Corsairs) and a single Aspect that is too heavily loaded with their unique wargear to repurpose into other things (Shadow Spectres). I've entertained the notion of some day getting truescale Eldar commissioned, 3D-printing a master and having it cast up. It would be expensive, though.
Melissia wrote: "Truescale" is pointless and isn't even true scale.
You are a brave man to speak such heresy!
I'm not a man.
But I will have you know that no heresy escapes my lips, only the words of the Emperor.
And "truescale" was not amongst them.
They were made in his image. Those puny things gw puts out are not in his image.
I smell a heretic!
Truescale attempts always end up looking goofy . The Emperor does not look goofy. He looks like Turkish Jesus in golden power armor with a flaming sword, which is awesome.
Frozen Ocean wrote: Testosterone and steroid supplements are not genetic enhancement. They would also not cause a grown man's skull to grow to be the same size as his ribcage, or cause his hands and feet to inflate to the size of his entire waist (and they would not increase his height). We get it, you like GW's overinflated-balloon-child proportions. Just don't try to argue that they fit the fluff. It's also absolutely unfair to suggest that not enjoying this, as you say, "Comic Book" style is "insane".
Marines are truescaled because they are by far the easiest to do so. The only reason I haven't collected a large Eldar army is their ridiculous proportions, and there are no alternative models (unlike the IG) because Forge World only has an upgrade kit (Corsairs) and a single Aspect that is too heavily loaded with their unique wargear to repurpose into other things (Shadow Spectres). I've entertained the notion of some day getting truescale Eldar commissioned, 3D-printing a master and having it cast up. It would be expensive, though.
No testosterone/steroids explain the overall body builder look and the exaggerated proportions are a result of a Comic style, combined the create a perfectly reasonable, artistically sound and lore friendly sculpture. Not enjoying the style s one thing but calling it a "flaw" before mutilating the minis is another, one wonders what attracted some people to GWs work in the first place.
Now we are conflating two entirely different issues of "Scale" and "Proportions", as i have argued already the scale vs everything in the game is perfectly fine apart from the Guard (and other humans), you would expect an Eldar or an Ork to be similar height to a marine. To get a bee in your bonnet about the proportions of a fictional Alien race GW made up is even stranger since whatever proportions GW give them is defecto what they look like. Stretching marines into odd mutants does nothing for the proportions and breaks the scale even further, its a lot of work to undo a perfectly reasonable design choice.
Melissia wrote: Truescale attempts always end up looking goofy . The Emperor does not look goofy. He looks like Turkish Jesus in golden power armor with a flaming sword, which is awesome.
The Eldar are meant to look elegant. Having enormously oversized heads and hands does not fit this at all. Say what you want about what "GW created", but GW's own artwork certainly does not support your suggestion that the models are what they're actually supposed to look like. Note the heads that are not almost the same size as their entire chest, unlike those of the models.
I did not use the word "flaw". You are arguing as if your aesthetic preference is somehow an absolute fact that the rest of us just fail to grasp. You find them to be "perfectly reasonable". I, and many others, do not.
You said earlier that you prefer the Corvus helmets, which look ridiculous to me. I think of the Mark 7 helmet as one of the most iconic and cool-looking elements of Space Marine design, and I'm not going to start arguing that disagreeing is "insane".
What I don't understand is why you feel the need to justify it in-universe ("they're super tall/buff because of enhancement") while simultaneously saying that it doesn't at all matter because it's just GW's art style. Especially since you repeatedly refer to "heroic scale" as "Comic Book", since certain comic book artists are known for adding more muscles than actually exist on a human body, and exaggeration of musculature is an overall very common thing in comics.
One thing, though. GW can't decide on what "heroic scale" means. This is most commonly seen with Forge World, but even GW main tends to approach truescale with character models (compare the newer Farseer models to Dire Avengers, for instance). The Dark Vengeance Chosen Chaos Marines are also quite a bit taller than standard Marines (they're quite close to truescale, actually), and not just on account of their poses.
This Marine looks great. If the Guardsman standing next to him were not so hideously deformed, it would be perfect. You obviously disagree. That means you have different tastes, not that you are bad and wrong and desperately need re-educated.
Since you seem to think that disliking the models means it makes no sense to like the faction or their design, let me explain it to you. I like the Eldar. They look great. The models, due mostly to their bizarre proportions, do not capture the aesthetic correctly. I want my Eldar to look like this, not like some distorted, bizarrely cartoon-like version that, if exaggerated any further, would be borderline chibi. The design appeals to me. The execution in model form does not.
Game Workshops artwork is done in many many styles by many many artists i would argue that there is but one and only one cannon source for the "style" of GW minis. That source is the sculpting, whatever various styles the artists they have hired to illustrate the fluff over the years the style of minis this mini making company makes stays consistent (tho drained of humor over time).
The look of the Eldar in particular has remained consistent in the exact "comic" style they were conceived in, GW manufacture miniatures and those miniatures are the yard stick for what the official "style" is not the fluff from whatever artist drew an Eldar this week
As for justifying chunky IG "in verse" i was responding to a previous persons comment that the guard look apelike, ive never felt the "Body Builder" look of GW guard was out of place. While this doesn't remove the scale problem between guard and Marines it would further shorten what gap there is. I do agree that with IG there is a small scale problem but contend that its nothing like as bad as people seem to think. Its so small that breaking the perfectly fine scale with every other faction to fix it is madness, hence the "insane" comment.
Again, not trying to make this a personal thing just something that's always confused me and thought would be fun to chat about. Everyone can obviously do with their collection as they please.
@Gogsnik -- While I am not opposed to using art at all to judge such things, that dude looks like he's at least 30% taller than the (hunched over) human.
Lore aside, we know exactly how tall a "normal" space marine is -- 2.1m or 7" (from bottom of boot to tip of backpack):
So, including the extra height afforded by the backpack an average space marine should be 20% taller than the average adult male. However, that size difference is likely to be smaller, as "adult" includes old people, and people get shorter as they age -- and Imperial Guard are models are of healthy dudes with 6-packs, not wizened old men.
Of course, the one depicted could always be a super-heroic hero!
Either that, or GW lied about 210cm to rip the golden ticket winners off with a smaller stack of miniatures. =]
(Note: I really don't care. I'm just contributing this picture for the fun of it. I think SM are cool as is, and I think modified SM are neat, too.)
Er, not quite? That picture is more likely due to the fact that GW just wants to give away less stuff...
Anyway...
1) The OP REALLY should have chosen a less inflamatory title for this thread
2) ZOMG! People...have different opinions! They...like different things! 3) And
Some people want to re-create this look:
Which is more or less how Space Marines have been described in many, many pieces of GW/BL/FW fiction.
At the end of the day, who cares?
Why exactly should it chap your hide if someone goes through the time/effort/trouble to make their models taller?
I hate that pic of the sm that is used everywhere lol. Ever since someone posted this pic on my thread i notice how out of proportion space marines are when similarly compared to a human.
If you look at that pic. Each square is a "head" worth of measure and its three heads from neck to groin. Space marine models are 1 1/2 and that pic above is 2. This is why they often end up looking squishy. Torsos are completley out of scale/proportion with the rest of the model. This applies to IG as well. Obviously this is the "heroic" scale at work and this is why people feel the need to scale up the space marines. I would love to see forgeworld make some 1:32 scale ig and space marines using the 2.1m height (maybe a bit taller) of the sm as reference.
Gogsnik, these things vary a lot in the lore from source to source but i think most people would agree Eldar (Space Elves) are supposed to be a bit taller than average human height and also that Orks get bigger and bigger as they live and thus the warriors represented by minis would be bigger than average human height. I do not believe this is an unreasonable position, for Tau i will admit an utter lack of knowledge, i left the hobby about 15years ago and they appeared in my absence . I don't totally disregard the artwork (which is often stunning) but i feel that if anything is to be used as a deciding factor concerning GWs "official" style then the minis are the one true source.
Alpharius wrote: Er, not quite? That picture is more likely due to the fact that GW just wants to give away less stuff...
Anyway...
1) The OP REALLY should have chosen a less inflamatory title for this thread
2) ZOMG! People...have different opinions! They...like different things! 3) And
Some people want to re-create this look:
Which is more or less how Space Marines have been described in many, many pieces of GW/BL/FW fiction.
At the end of the day, who cares?
Why exactly should it chap your hide if someone goes through the time/effort/trouble to make their models taller?
Answer: It shouldn't.
I have always expected the height of a SM to be between 7 and 8 feet, that fits with any lore i have read and official depiction such as the "Compare yourself to a Space Marine" thingy at Warhammer World. I admit the thread title is a little inflamatory , mostly just to get some views and lively debate going on. I do agree with you 100%, its not a really huge deal and anyone would be a fool to seriously care about it but the reasoning behind it is an interesting topic for conversation no?
warboss wrote: So you go from calling people who go through the effort to convert stuff to truescale "insane" to "fools". Stay classy, Gantoris.
What i actually said was "anyone would be a fool to seriously care about it", meaning i am not taking peoples truescaling super seriously just making chit chat :(. You completely misread the meaning m8.
Melissia wrote: Truescale attempts always end up looking goofy . The Emperor does not look goofy. He looks like Turkish Jesus in golden power armor with a flaming sword, which is awesome.
Gantoris wrote:
I admit the thread title is a little inflamatory , mostly just to get some views and lively debate going on.
Generally speaking, that sort of thing is definitely frowned upon in polite society.
And even on Dakka Dakka!
bra'tac wrote:
Melissia wrote: Truescale attempts always end up looking goofy . The Emperor does not look goofy. He looks like Turkish Jesus in golden power armor with a flaming sword, which is awesome.
Gantoris wrote: I don't totally disregard the artwork (which is often stunning) but i feel that if anything is to be used as a deciding factor concerning GWs "official" style then the minis are the one true source
hmmm. Yes, quite. On the tabletop, as a gaming component yes as to retain some semblance of balance (hahahaha balance? In 40k) otherwise taller models maybe at a disadvantage/advantage Los wise. It still doesn't make the models anatomically correct. Unless for some reason the space marines were engineered to have no abdomen then the models are still wrong.
Truescaling isn't soley about making marines taller than ig. Its about correcting proportions. The only way to do it is to either sculpt a new model from scratch to be 28mm high and be correctly proportioned but would still be no taller than a guardsman (and wouldn't look particularly imposing) or you alter the models and correct the anatomical flaws. This ends up being taller than a guardsman model.
The problem still exists that the guard models are anatomically broken. Again the 2 options apply. You sculpt one from scratch or you alter the current model. I've never seen it done probably because people would have brain aneurisms because they would be taller than marines.
I'm currently making plans to convert some 1:32 ww1 minis to 40k because I want to make some realistic soldiers bristleing with gear which U just can't do on an if model cos all there equipment is the size of a mans head!
There are plenty of "insane" things people do in this hobby according to other people. Who cares? I for one don't care about "true" scale (not actually true because Space Marines are fictional lol and also not true because as stated everything in the game is proportioned out of whack) *but* there are plenty of things I don't care for in the hobby that others love. Heck, honestly, anything that gets more people converting and using greenstuff and what not is a win IMHO.
Oh for the love of ...not the golden ticket picture...at least the first five pages of the golden ticket giveaway thread were almost all bitchin' about what "GW says the height of space marine is"
My problem with lameter's image is that the over all body proportions seems a little too thick for me and the head seems a little small, but that's my personal opinion. It's certainly far better than what I can do, and I have no desire to make anything truescale.
Melissia wrote: Truescale attempts always end up looking goofy . The Emperor does not look goofy. He looks like Turkish Jesus in golden power armor with a flaming sword, which is awesome.
Great thread, there is just a ton of information getting thrown around in here, subscribing.
I really like the way the Space Marines look, even as they are right now. The one thing that does irritate me though, is that they are just not big enough when you see an Astartes model next to an Imperial Guard model. So yeah, the scale is just plain off, at least as outlined in the lore and novels. I'm really not sure how they could "fix" it now though, this late in the game. I would be horrible to feel the need to replace ALL of your models because a new series came out that was scaled better..../shudder.
people do seem to have a tendency to write their posts as if what they are saying is a fact, and not their opinion...
the fact is, opinions vary a lot across such a wide spectrum of hobbyists...
for example, i have not agreed with a single thing that i have seen Melissia post in her entire five years on here, which in itself is pretty impressive...
we see things from the opposite ends of the spectrum...
different strokes for different folks...
personally, that piece of artwork from the Tau Codex is always how i have invisioned Space Marines to be...
in the fiction, the Guardsman's perspective has pretty much always been that Space Marines are giant gods of war astride the battlefield...
if they were the same size as a Guardsman, i don't think that the Guardsman would be so impressed...
i think "true scale" looks awesome when done well...
i will definitely have a go at it one day...
as the models come out of the box, i definitely wouldn't put a Cadian, or a Catachan, next to a Space Marine in a diorama...
it just doesn't give the right impression of the size of a Space Marine, to me...
alone, or next to an Ork Nob, a Space Marine looks just fine, as far as i'm concerned...
next to a Cadian or Catachan, not so much, but i think that FW's Elysians do a better job of representing the size difference...
anyway, i think that most people can agree that the scale is out of whack all through the GW model ranges, so there is not really any way to say who is right, and who is wrong...
the warriors represented by minis would be bigger than average human height.
It is well established that the average ork [boy] stands roughly the same height as a man and as such, the average ork model should be the same height as a man not 7-8 feet. The metal boss model I have in front of me stands 39mm or 8 feet tall and yet a space marine model stands no more than 32mm or 6 feet 6 inches a clear discrepancy; even more so with a Rogue Trader space marine who stands a mere 27mm high.
The stock miniatures are a very poor metric by which to judge the relative sizes of the things they represent as clearly they don't do that job very well. Even disregarding all the source material beyond 'space marines are giants compared to ordinary humans' the models fail to accurately portray this. Since shrinking a model is very difficult then adding height to a space marine model is a legitimate attempt to make a space marine look how he should look, which is much taller than a regular human model; and also in keeping with the established idea of regular elder and orks also being approximately the same size as a regular man.
I guess in my case a big part of it is being a bitter hate filled old man! . The proper iconic "look" of Space Marines was always about the minis first when i were a wee lad, i didn't read to much fluff until i was older i just played with Space Crusade and HeroQuest. I have a nostalgic love of way GW sculpt and design their products but i guess i can see why slightly younger generations can have an averse reaction to the minis. If your coming the the hobby after starting with Lore, Video games and Artwork i can see how the style of the miniatures may not match up to your pre conceptions of a Space Marine.
Same here, I've played the game for over twenty years and it was the Ultramarine Dreadnought in White 203 that made me a firm 40K fanatic after playing Lizardmen initially although my very first Citadel Miniatures were some pre-slotta dwarfs.
When a were a 'wee lad' the space marine models were always too small even though they were what drew me to 40K in the first place! Making them bigger is not 'mutilation', 'madness', 'insanity', 'futile' or denying the 'proper' look.
Gantoris wrote: You have to remember that the guard do benefit from some light genetic manipulation and cybernetic implants,
Uh.... No. Care to provide a source on that? Outside of the Mechanicus based Skitarii and probably some inquisitorial based troops I think you'll find that this just isn't the case.
they are not supposed to just be your average joe.
Yes. Yes they are.
If memory serves me right then some troops like the Kasrkin do receive minor cybernetic upgrades. Kasrkin are far from basic troops though.
Do Solar Auxilia receive implants?
Automatically Appended Next Post: A TS marine should be a bit higher than a Tau. Check Tau Codex, 6th ed softback for proof.
...I'm a big Tau fan, but ANY Astartes is MUCH larger then any Tau - that's just a fact of the matter. The OP forgets that Marines are fething MASSIVE in comparison to even Orks - who only the biggest of can really provide a real one-on-one threat.
In short: No, the current Astartes models are NOT to scale with the other 40k models - and most of the 40k races have scale fudging to make them more compatible.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Gogsnik wrote: Same here, I've played the game for over twenty years and it was the Ultramarine Dreadnought in White 203 that made me a firm 40K fanatic after playing Lizardmen initially although my very first Citadel Miniatures were some pre-slotta dwarfs.
When a were a 'wee lad' the space marine models were always too small even though they were what drew me to 40K in the first place! Making them bigger is not 'mutilation', 'madness', 'insanity', 'futile' or denying the 'proper' look.
Alpharius wrote: Er, I started 40K right around the transition from Rogue Trader and 2nd - and I'm a huge True Scale fan!
me too!!!
i started collecting Citadel minis before Rogue Trader and Space Marines even existed, and i'm a huge True Scale fan...
once 40K came along, i knew i had found my favorite setting ever, but SM minis have always seemed too dinky to me, through all the iterations...
when i go back and look at the size of my RT era minis, i just have to laugh at how tiny they are...
the latest version of the Tac Squad kit seems to have straightened the legs a bit, and looks a scosh bigger than the previous kit, but it doesn't equal the impression that the art and fiction have always given me of a Space Marine's size relative to a Guardsman...
now that we have the Tartaros armor from FW, i think i have found what is the perfect scale for a Space Marine mini...
i don't mind the plastic Termie legs and arms for True Scale, but i am a bit intimidated by all the sculpting it would take to change the look of the leg armour...
without Greenstuff filling in the spots between the reinforcing rods of the thighs and calves, it just looks too much like a Termie, and seems like lazy modelling, to me...
oh well, at least if i do jump in with plastic bits, it will make me have to practice my sculpting more...
Marines look amazingly cool and the proportions are fine :(,
No, actually the arms are way too long, and the legs too short. Hands too large, and heads too big as well.
the only way they could look better is if they all went back to being beakies! 9 times out of 10 when people truescale marines they end up looking like spindly legged freaks.
While I think the SM scaling is off, I think its only modestly so. Whether you think a SM needs a little more material like the image right above, or a little less like the slightly spindlier (relative to the plastics) of FW's marines... that's really about as far as things need to go. That's just my opinion but people are entitled to want their marines in whatever scale they want. Im certainly in the camp that believes its more the IG and standard human minis in the 40k range that are problematic. You only have to look at FW or even WFB humans to see how GW's screwed up IG.
Gantoris wrote: Yeah but i don't think the scale difference between IG and SM is as big as people think it is so ultimately you do more harm than good stretching Marines, smaller Guard is defiantly the way to go if this is a huge problem for someone. And i still don't agree IG are just utterly green hopeless civilians, they are cannon fodder for sure but they are trained and equipped en-route over a decent amount of time. And it really isn't much of a stretch to think they probably get performance enhancing drugs, steroids and testosterone during this period because it would be a very cheap way to increase performance of your ground army. This explains perfectly the chunky body builder look of GW imperial guard and further negates the problem with height vs Space Marines.
I stand by this assumption, they get months of training and no one cares about the long term health of these men. I have always just assumed the body builder buff look of guard was due to extreme training regime and performance enhancing chemicals. This fits the design choices and is perfectly reasonable to imagine in the lore.
You thinking it, doesn't make it true, The imperial guard have always been shown as like the Russian army from WW2, here is a gun there is the puny enemy go die. It is always mentioned that the imperium has one thing in abundance and that is manpower, normal soldiers are just cannon fodder, i can understand that they do it on Veterans though. And the look of the Imp guard could be that they rather get their conscripts from a planet with higher gravity than earth than from a planet with lower gravity.
I like the look of True-scale marines, but i don't want to spend hours of time modifying my marines instead of starting to just put them together, looks nice for a diorama but not for an army to play with (at least for me)
Marines look amazingly cool and the proportions are fine :(,
No, actually the arms are way too long, and the legs too short. Hands too large, and heads too big as well.
When i say the proportions are fine i mean in relation to the comic style they are trying to achieve, the look "works" its just a matter of taste weather you like it or not. The beakie in the picture you linked was a very old mini i don't think anyone would deny GW have improved dramatically in sculpting and molding minis over the years particularly with plastic, the current Beakies that you can get (Forgeworld or GW) are excellent. To be honest tho if pressed i would say the newer look is a lot cooler overall but i do have a nostalgic fondness for the 'ol Beakie marine, its why ive chosen Raven Guard as my new army .
Jehan-reznor wrote: You thinking it, doesn't make it true, The imperial guard have always been shown as like the Russian army from WW2, here is a gun there is the puny enemy go die. It is always mentioned that the imperium has one thing in abundance and that is manpower, normal soldiers are just cannon fodder, i can understand that they do it on Veterans though. And the look of the Imp guard could be that they rather get their conscripts from a planet with higher gravity than earth than from a planet with lower gravity.
I like the look of True-scale marines, but i don't want to spend hours of time modifying my marines instead of starting to just put them together, looks nice for a diorama but not for an army to play with (at least for me)
I realize im working from quite a bit of assumption here and cant really remember specific sources to quote which makes it hard to argue with this but to your Russian army IG example, your right for some regiments for sure (Death Korps?) but not all. Even if you accept my assumptions it would never cover every single regiment, the variety of training and equipment quality would no doubt vary substantially. I only brought up any of this to point out that the GW sculpted IG arnt as crazy as people often make out and that the muscle bound look many of them have isn't totally inconceivable within the lore.
Ultimately what im trying to say is that all the GW minis are consistent in style in relation to each other so trying to drastically alter this for just one faction creates more problems that it solves.
I have seen it touched on lightly a few times, but not concretely stated. So I'm just going to ask this, everyone is aware that the Horus Heresy legion marines have slightly tweaked proportions compared to the normal plastics and are both slightly taller and have longer torsos and limbs and essentially are a step towards true scale all by themselves? My Emperors children palatine blades are a good 5 millimeters taller then normal plastics, not even counting the huge plumes some of them have on their heads.
I like a good true scale conversion to but the op here has a point, nearly all the actually good ones are made from terminators and might as well be complete re-sculpts. Peoples opinions are of course their own, and honestly i can't fault someone for pouring blood sweat and tears into true scale conversions to personalize their armies to their own visions. But i do agree that some people take it to far, and marines really don't need to grow a head and a half in size with spindly wobbly leg syndrome to look right.
This is one of the reasons I drifted away from 40K, and now tend to only pay attention to (or own) the Tau, whose proportions are more realistic.
I grew older and began to find the comical proportions to be too hard to accept.
I wanted to see realistic proportions on the miniatures I have.
And those realistic proportions can seem to be very strange to people who are used to looking at the fat, squat proportions GW uses for the Space Marines, and for the rest of the 40K line to a lesser degree.
But other than sculpting a set of Space Marines myself, there are no options available for such things on the market.
I suppose that doing a SM in Maya or Mudbox would not be too terribly difficult...
I will have to give it a try, and see what it looks like (I have fully rigged humans of varying proportions available as a doll for such a project). And it isn't as if SM armor is overly complex.
Tau have their own bug bear in that regard (namely the squat crisis suits). The infantry are alot better but the xv8s suffer the same problem in that they're proportioned like marines and it is laughable that a fire warrior is in that chest in anything other than curled up into a ball. Some of the best conversions in the past stretched out the dwarf arms and legs to something more normal. The new enforcer suit also addressed that issue as well which is why I decided to buy one as my first new GW tau model in years.
warboss wrote: Tau have their own bug bear in that regard (namely the squat crisis suits). The infantry are alot better but the xv8s suffer the same problem in that they're proportioned like marines and it is laughable that a fire warrior is in that chest in anything other than curled up into a ball. Some of the best conversions in the past stretched out the dwarf arms and legs to something more normal. The new enforcer suit also addressed that issue as well which is why I decided to buy one as my first new GW tau model in years.
Well, if the rumors are true, we may be getting new Crisis Suits later this year...
It would be cool to do an Alpha Legion army with TS marines. They were noticeably taller than other marines... so much so that they could pass as their own Primarch.
Gantoris wrote: People going on about truescale marines and mutilating the minis to make these mutants is a real bugbear for me,
I am not a fan of "truescale" marine conversions - I find the current plastics to be fine.
The real problem is that the Catachan and Cadian plastic infantrymen stand a half-head too tall, compounded by being too bulky. The superscale humans are making the Marines and everything else look too small by comparison.
I have all metal infantry, and it's partly because the models are physically smaller, making big monsters look bigger.
warboss wrote: Tau have their own bug bear in that regard (namely the squat crisis suits). The infantry are alot better but the xv8s suffer the same problem in that they're proportioned like marines and it is laughable that a fire warrior is in that chest in anything other than curled up into a ball. Some of the best conversions in the past stretched out the dwarf arms and legs to something more normal. The new enforcer suit also addressed that issue as well which is why I decided to buy one as my first new GW tau model in years.
Which is exactly why I have no Crisis suits.
I did think of getting some and doing some conversions (I have done real-life work on a prosthetic leg - preparing for when I eventually lose my own - that I modeled after theTau Crisis suits, except for in proportion. I hear that it is popular, but I could apply the same standards to the model).
warboss wrote: Tau have their own bug bear in that regard (namely the squat crisis suits). The infantry are alot better but the xv8s suffer the same problem in that they're proportioned like marines and it is laughable that a fire warrior is in that chest in anything other than curled up into a ball. Some of the best conversions in the past stretched out the dwarf arms and legs to something more normal. The new enforcer suit also addressed that issue as well which is why I decided to buy one as my first new GW tau model in years.
Well, if the rumors are true, we may be getting new Crisis Suits later this year...
I hope they're not as it would indicate that GW is extending the insanity of a 2 year edition life cycle to invalidating $50 hardback codex books in the same timeframe.
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darkcloak wrote: It would be cool to do an Alpha Legion army with TS marines. They were noticeably taller than other marines... so much so that they could pass as their own Primarch.
You should check out Alpharius' (the dakka mod who posted earlier in the thread) pic gallery then since that is what he has.
warboss wrote: Tau have their own bug bear in that regard (namely the squat crisis suits). The infantry are alot better but the xv8s suffer the same problem in that they're proportioned like marines and it is laughable that a fire warrior is in that chest in anything other than curled up into a ball. Some of the best conversions in the past stretched out the dwarf arms and legs to something more normal. The new enforcer suit also addressed that issue as well which is why I decided to buy one as my first new GW tau model in years.
Which is exactly why I have no Crisis suits.
I did think of getting some and doing some conversions (I have done real-life work on a prosthetic leg - preparing for when I eventually lose my own - that I modeled after theTau Crisis suits, except for in proportion. I hear that it is popular, but I could apply the same standards to the model).
I can be so incredibly dim at times.
MB
While I can't comment on real life biomechanics, I'd probably not recommend using the tau ankle joint. Those things always break even in foam cases! You don't want to put your body at risk on a joint that is always broken on ebay used tau sale pics.
darkcloak wrote: It would be cool to do an Alpha Legion army with TS marines. They were noticeably taller than other marines... so much so that they could pass as their own Primarch.
Ooh, ooh! Check my gallery!!!
(And well said! People always seem to forget that part of the Alpha Legion IA!)
warboss wrote: Tau have their own bug bear in that regard (namely the squat crisis suits). The infantry are alot better but the xv8s suffer the same problem in that they're proportioned like marines and it is laughable that a fire warrior is in that chest in anything other than curled up into a ball. Some of the best conversions in the past stretched out the dwarf arms and legs to something more normal. The new enforcer suit also addressed that issue as well which is why I decided to buy one as my first new GW tau model in years.
Which is exactly why I have no Crisis suits.
I did think of getting some and doing some conversions (I have done real-life work on a prosthetic leg - preparing for when I eventually lose my own - that I modeled after theTau Crisis suits, except for in proportion. I hear that it is popular, but I could apply the same standards to the model).
I can be so incredibly dim at times.
MB
While I can't comment on real life biomechanics, I'd probably not recommend using the tau ankle joint. Those things always break even in foam cases! You don't want to put your body at risk on a joint that is always broken on ebay used tau sale pics.
I am aware of that. The joints on the real leg are different. The appearance is only (mostly - some structural design is included) cosmetic, as people are starting to want prosthetics that don't look like titanium sticks with ball joints or hinges at either end. Plus with a meso-scaled limb of that design, made from metal, you would find the joint, as designed to be much stronger than that of the model.
We have begun using more ergonomic design on top of aesthetic design to get higher performing prosthetics (if you look at the Paralympiat Amiee Mullins, she can run about 8mph faster than an Olympic Athlete with actual legs. And that is restricted from the optimized prosthetics, which could have her running faster than a horse).
But anime styled prosthetics are a thing now, and the Tau have that aesthetic.
Even with all of that, though.... The current Tau Crisis Suits are a mess.
warboss wrote: Tau have their own bug bear in that regard (namely the squat crisis suits). The infantry are alot better but the xv8s suffer the same problem in that they're proportioned like marines and it is laughable that a fire warrior is in that chest in anything other than curled up into a ball. Some of the best conversions in the past stretched out the dwarf arms and legs to something more normal. The new enforcer suit also addressed that issue as well which is why I decided to buy one as my first new GW tau model in years.
Well, if the rumors are true, we may be getting new Crisis Suits later this year...
I hope they're not as it would indicate that GW is extending the insanity of a 2 year edition life cycle to invalidating $50 hardback codex books in the same timeframe.
Models, not codex. There's supposedly a Tau/Space Marine battle set (Like the Stormclaw set), so hopefully it'll be a tie-in for that!
It's a bit off topic but they haven't done that so far to my knowledge in the campaign boxes. They use existing squad kits and add a single 1-sprue character to each side. We may get a Tau HQ but I doubt it'll be an xv8 and even if it is it'll only be available in that set. They could just redesign the xv8 models but I doubt they'll do that. They needed to do the broadsides because it was a combo metal/finecast and plastic kit. In any case, I hope they do and hope they don't end up being chibi again.
Yeah, any Tau/Raven Guard boxed set will be called something like BirdStorm and feature LEICs for each faction, and then some previously existing kits. They've all been loss-leader style affairs thus far.
Though, after working with the Tau models pretty extensively (see sig link), I've been vastly underwhelmed by them. If there's one faction other than Chaos Marines that badly needs a revamp of its core kits, it's Tau. The FW kit is bland and uninspired, and the Crisis Suits are downright awful.
This is one rumor im hopin is true, would mean at the very least a mini codex for me and a couple of new characters. On top of that i wont need to consider FW prices for a bunch of Raven Guardey stuff to cool up my army.
This thread has inspired me to take on modeling some Truescale Marines (I will be doing Mk VI and VII armor first) and to do some Tau Crisis Suits or maybe a Tau MBT (Since I don't care for the "Everything is built off the same chassis" models they have now) this summer when I am done with the Goblins.
I've always thought that GW could make an absolute killing by releasing an adult or 'artist' marketed model line of art scale models. I think true/art scale Marines look so good but I have no knowledge when it comes to making them myself.
Davylove21 wrote: I've always thought that GW could make an absolute killing by releasing an adult or 'artist' marketed model line of art scale models.
That is more or less what =I=nquisitor was supposed to be.
Larger scale artist-marketed models. Inq. Covenant is very nice, along with the large Kroot, Genestealer, and other models. Good stuff.
, i dont care what people do with their own minis but am curious about the thinking behind it since doesn't appear to be supported at all in lore yet i keep seeing horribly deformed spindly legged marines out there.
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...not the golden ticket picture...at least the first five pages of the golden ticket giveaway thread were almost all bitchin' about what "
