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Great job bro, these minis look fantastic

Beautiful. Once they're painted up, I think they'll look a lot like Sternguard.

Very impressive. A shame I had not noticed this before I assembled my first two CSM squads. But I will definitely do this on my Chosen, as they are unlikely to ever stand next to my normal CSMs anyway. This won't work with Raptors, I think, due to how their legs are designed. But adding length in this way will much help counteracting the thing I like the least with CSMs, their ridiculously massive horns.
Tons of thanks for sharing this brilliant idea.

/curtsy

Go for it. Detail textures on the legs can pose a problem, but you can file it off, or cover it up.

Massive horns are my biggest problem with the Chaos Marine models, lol. I think only around 25% of the parts in the current Chaos Marine kit are even usable for me. I bought a box of them off of EBay thinking I'd assemble some antagonists for these guys.

Yeah, I think there are enough parts for me to make like 5 guys out of 20. The heads are awful in the CSM kit, the bolters with the belted ammo are stupid. I am probably going to give them to a buddy if he decides to resurrect his Chaos army. Guess I could swap in some alternate heads. It's just irritating that so much of the kit isn't usable unless you want silly looking models.

I think the Chaos Marine kits would be better if they were more obviously "legacy" armors, and more obviously piecemeal from more modern designs. In my opinion, the best way to do Chaos Marines is probably to order MkV kits from Forgeworld and then do some mixing and matching with the plastic kits, assuming the scale is the same. I've heard some talk that the FW kits are slightly smaller? As if Marines needed to be any smaller, lol.

The poses you have converted are so much better than the standard wonky stance space marines that make no sense whatsoever. These guys actually look like they are in a fight. The other guys look like they are trying to do stretches.

I like the idea of having the knife on the back might have to borrow that.

Magnifique! I wish that I had the patience to do true-scale marines. Perhaps I should start those.

 inmygravenimage wrote:
Very cool. Also, best name for thread ever.

Amusingly enough, because I work in marketing doing content creation and management, this is one of the better compliments in this thread, heh.


I just wish I had more time and energy for this project to provide more content for the thread.

Subscribed! These are fantastic.

Well this was inspiring:p

This is a great blog on your conversions. Wow, just so much time and effort. Keep it up man.

Fantastic conversion work, those Space Marines look so much better at that scale,
and I like how they tower above the standard Guardsmen, really helps reinforce that engineered super human background.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Go for it. Detail textures on the legs can pose a problem, but you can file it off, or cover it up.

Massive horns are my biggest problem with the Chaos Marine models, lol. I think only around 25% of the parts in the current Chaos Marine kit are even usable for me. I bought a box of them off of EBay thinking I'd assemble some antagonists for these guys.

Yeah, I think there are enough parts for me to make like 5 guys out of 20. The heads are awful in the CSM kit, the bolters with the belted ammo are stupid. I am probably going to give them to a buddy if he decides to resurrect his Chaos army. Guess I could swap in some alternate heads. It's just irritating that so much of the kit isn't usable unless you want silly looking models.

I think the Chaos Marine kits would be better if they were more obviously "legacy" armors, and more obviously piecemeal from more modern designs. In my opinion, the best way to do Chaos Marines is probably to order MkV kits from Forgeworld and then do some mixing and matching with the plastic kits, assuming the scale is the same. I've heard some talk that the FW kits are slightly smaller? As if Marines needed to be any smaller, lol.

I very much agree with this. But would Forgeworld work? Resin is a lot harder to work with than plastic.

I'll see if I can have a go on an experimental model. The DV Chosen look badass but will be almost impossible to enhance in this way, every tiny little bit of them is covered in extremely ornate detail!

I think many are interested in this. Have you considered making a more detailed tutorial?

I had started a tutorial here in the tutorial section, but some people couldn't behave themselves, and the moderators didn't handle them, so I deleted it. I have very little patience for stupid people.

To be honest, I don't use many Forgeworld parts, so I don't know from a technical standpoint. I just meant from an aesthetic standpoint. Pretty much everything about this project is a pain in the butt, lol. Each individual model is time consuming. Hence why I make very little progress on new ones. Constantly getting distracted and sometimes I just look at them and can't bring myself to work on them. I figured with it getting kinda cold and dark early here I'd get back to work on this. Then my brother sent me the new XCom game as an early Christmas present, and well, that was the end of any free time I spend at home.

I have about four or five partially completed guys right now. A couple other new ones, but not worth their own post. Just filling in some of the ranks. Been looking into Tyranid bits for my next trophy-adorned Marine, but being patient about hooking up a good deal on EBay for the bits I want.

I plan to zealously steal your ideas take thorough inspiration from you. Your "tall-scale" is not only (relatively) simple, but looks quite a bit better than the kind of "true-scale" that involves essentially sculpting out of greenstuff a new body over the top of the armour.

Meanwhile, I have a few questions. In regard to this post, would it be possible to get a few shots of what these guys look like without the belt? While I was going to add considerable amounts of ammunition and the like to my Marines (with the help of Anvil Industry's fantastic Equipment Pack), I wasn't intending to do it that extensively on all of them, mostly to draw a contrast between a regular Marine and a Havoc, the Havocs having pretty much every available space on their armour covered with belts, pouches, missiles, etc. I'm also (tentatively) going to attempt this on Raptors, which will involve greenstuff on the legs along with the plasticard inserts.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:


As far as Terminators, I have a few sitting around that I was going to do. But I don't plan to make them significantly taller, maybe 1mm taller than the Power armored guys at eye level.

I was considering leaving Terminators as they are, but now I'm not so sure. How would you make them scale with the power-armoured guys?

Thankfully I have no shortage of free time and a great deal fewer Marines than you! Also, you're brilliant.

EDIT: Oh! I just randomly compared my Dark Vengeance Chosen to a Black Legion Aspiring Champion (Captain Slaughter!), and they're a good head taller! There's no way I'd be able to tallscale them with all their crazy details, and they'd still be shorter than tallscaled Marines, but the difference won't be as super obvious as it would have been otherwise, especially if I put them on scenic bases to give them a bit more height.

^ That. I had planned on trying to adjust the scale on my DV Chosen, who I plan to use as Aspiring Champions, but maybe it won't be necessary.

Having the champion smaller than everyone else will look weird, though! There's only so much a higher base can do.

I haven't done it on any other squad yet, but from now on, all my future non-Renegade squad (Really CBA to do this on my 'horde' Renegade squads, tbh) will get the size adjustment treatment.

Just fou d this, to.death. With. You. I now have to chop 30-40 marines to pieces AND write some grim dark. And find some "scanner-thingies, AND purchase the now codex.

I agree I'm quite torn and want to do the same with my marine pile.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
DV Chosen, who I plan to use as Aspiring Champions

Exactly the same for me (aren't they so pretty?). Because mine are Alpha Legion, most of them use Loyalist parts with the icons removed, but I do sprinkle elements of Chaotic goodness throughout!

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:

Having the champion smaller than everyone else will look weird, though! There's only so much a higher base can do.

They're approximately 2mm taller than normal Marines. With a scenic base, I think they might just blend in fine. Obviously I can't say for certain, having no tallscaled Marines to compare them to.

Well, if you've read my Dark Verngearnce! battle report, you'll know my buddy has Dark Vengeance. So I'll try to remember to take a picture of them side by side for scale next time I'm over there.

Eventually we'll finish up playing the Battle for Macragge scenarios and there will be a sequel to it.

As far as the Terminator sizes, you can see it here:


That's one of my newer models next to the Terminator Sergeant body from Assault on Black Reach. Obviously I will need to modify the Terminators to be taller in order to scale properly with my own Marines, but that really, eye to eye, they aren't much taller than regular Space Marines (much of it to do with the squatting stance of the power armored model.

As far as your earlier question about the belt lines, if you're going to leave off the gear, you'll need to cut the belt buckle off and sculpt it lower on the model because otherwise they'll look a little short on the torso side. Basically, I had always planned to have the gear (in fact, the gear part came long before the decision to up-scale them), so it was never an obstacle for the project. It can make it somewhat complicated depending on how detailed you want them to be.

I think Alairos did his Khorne cms terminators to a taller scale. I don't have a link handy for the blog and it's not been updated, but the steps are there.

Thanks for the reply! I see what you mean about the belt, now. They're actually sort of sitting around the Marine's stomach, which is the fault of them being almost chibi, I guess.

Looks doable. I wanted to do more plated waists as well, so that'll help keep the detail down (relative to exposed cabling). Spoilered for huge images.


I think it can be done! I have to say, though, I really do like the look of them with the equipment belts. I'll definitely do a number like that (maybe even most of them, depending on how Havocs turn out).

EDIT: Oh, forgot. The problem with Terminators is that I'm not entirely sure what to extend. Also, I can't find anything on Alairos!

EDIT2: I think you meant Ailaros. Reading the "The making of the Knights of Malice" now!

EDIT3: Found it!

Veteran Sergeant, where exactly do you make each cut? I especially wonder about the 'belt' cut. Do you make the cut just above the actual belt? Or do you add the extension between the leg and torso components?

Also Frozen Ocean, I did that with my Havocs as well! They are very heavily kitted out. Every single one has backup ammunition, a sidearm pistol, a combat blade, a back-up Bolter, and so on. Just a SHAEM that I did not think of truescaling them.

There are no cuts on the belt. The torso has narrow strips of 1.5mm thick card glued underneath it. They are then filed smooth on the outside, and rounded out with a rounded hobby blade on the inside so they fit with the rounded top of the legs.

The torso is then just glued in place atop the legs

Legs are cut at the top of the thigh where it meets the joint, then midway along the shin (even with the top of the detail on the back of the legs). 1mm thick card is glued in place, then filed down. The missile launcher above actually has 1.5mm on that left leg, but that was because the leg snapped (old plastic) as I was cutting it, so I filed it down more and just used slightly thicker card to fill in the gap.

It's a Tyranid carapace plate on the side of his leg. I don't like the way it turned out (too hard to tell what it is), but I haven't gotten around to pulling it off. Pay it no mind, lol. I wanted to have some trophies from recent campaigns against Tyranids. But my buddy with Tyranids was only able to find one sprue with spare bits so I was working with what he had.

Aha, got it. I am going to try your technique on my Chosen. It seems like a lot of work like you said, but I believe it will be worth it. So you cut out the extensions from sheets of plasticard rather than slicing out pieces from a plasticard rod? Interesting.

Have you considered elongating the arms as well? Their proportions are more appropriate than many other parts of the base model, but with double leg extension they are beginning to look slightly puny. They would not need a lot, but it would help much with the impression.

The human arm only hangs down to mid thigh. Normal Space Marines figures are gorillas, lol. The arms may look a little odd at first, but then you realize making the Marines taller actually brings the arms back closer to proper scale.

...I checked, and yes, you're right.

Ignore the wipe on my part.

In other words, tallscaling is the most perfect thing.

I just finished my first tallscaled Chosen. Just... Wow. Veteran Sergeant, your technique is genius. I only had 0.5 mm thick plasticard available, so I used double layers for the legs and a triple layer for the chest, though it was not easy to make it work with the way the chest/hips joint is designed. It did not really matter anyway since I covered the entire area with bags and stuff, but I am still not entirely happy.

I'll try your design with narrow strips instead on my next one.

If you're not worried about being able to articulate the waist, you could just file down the rounded top of the legs. Might make it easier. You'll obviously only be able to rotate the waist on its axis, but not every pose requires any "lean" to it.

Or you could determine the angle of lean ahead of time and file it flat on that angle.