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Posted an old shot of work I had started on these guys awhile back, and enough positive response helped to boost my interest in continuing work (all be it quite slowly) on these guys. The plastic kit now available didn't hurt either.

First picture shows one of my original alpha versions. Cool idea, but I think it comes out bland.

Next two shots are my new beta version. The shoulder joints are small push pins, to give me easier posing while keeping the arms the right length. While I like the empty hood thing, the fact that the kits come with 5 robes, but only 4 hoods (a pox on whoever decided this was a good idea!!!) means I'll have 1 in 5 no hood, and thus helmet exposed, so I may just keep all their helmets visible. Could probably paint em up kind of skullish too to go with the Grim Reaper theme.

I think the new shape of the scythe blade gives it more character too. Some reference pictures of scythes I was looking at show them with a curved haft, which I may try out to break up the boxy right angle look of the weapon. I like the storm bolter better than the bolter, which also happens to be what they're supposed to have, but that may be reserved to Justicars only as Battle Wagon Bitz has been out of the storm bolters and hooded heads for several weeks now.

Thoughts, Opinions, Critiques or Flames?

edit: attaching the pictures probably helps.

The 5th guy should be skull-helmeted for the Sergeant. You can convert from a Khorne Berzerker helmet by removing the rabbit ears.

The Storm Bolter looks too big. You can move this to a shoulder / backpack-mounted weapon.

The "alpha" scythe is far more correct as a farming implement, and will give better visual results to the layperson.

As a proper (i.e. historical) fighting "scythe", the overall layout is like a halberd or other pole army, with a forward-hooking single-edged blade that starts out in-line with the haft like a spear. This is an uncommon weapon, but it would look distinctive.

I will be fielding halberd-armed models. They will count as Lightning Claw Terminators. This makes my life a lot easier, as I don't need to deal with Bolter, Bolt Pistol, or Storm Botler at all.

Not going for any kind of proper or historical look for these. Going for cool and stylized.

I think the storm bolter comes off looking larger in the beta shots because the marine in the alpha shots is enlarged (you can see some of the green stuff and plasticard), and the scythe haft of a tad longer as well.

Very cool. I like the way the bolters look on the scythes. Also the using balls to help you position the arms is a very good idea. I am looking forward to seeing where this goes.

Great idea! These are going to look badass.

I like the weapon on the alpha better too. Although the larger storm bolter could be an issue, for me it's more the blade that isn't quite right. It's too thick. The blade in the first shot is bit more balanced than the rest of the weapon. the idea of a scythe-gun is already so interesting and draws the eye- so adding an extremely thick blade puts it way over the top.

Thin out the blade by at least half, and even the storm bolter with drum will look cool. Alternately, you could move the ammo drum down a bit to be near the lower hand, just as an experiment.

Oh, and the two-handled grip in the alpha version was cool. While the way you have the beta holding his is good, that handle would look good if it were there, and a couple of the troopers were wielding them that way (like the alpha, that is).

Great concept!

I second the motion on the two-handled grip. I don't know how effective it would actually be in combat, but it's a better pose.

Update time.

I narrowed the blade a bit, but I'm digging the wider "hook" part on the end, so I left that in there. It has character. Added a bit of length to the haft, and then put in a slight curve to help break up the right angle of it a bit. Blue tacked a couple of shoulder pads on, which helps beef the guy up, and make the storm bolter seem less bulky I think. I really want to keep the guns on the scythes as throw backs to the Nemesis Force Weapons of old.

As far as the handles, while is would be a more authentic grip, the reason I'm moving away from it is because I found it allot harder to get them to hold it varying angles. They tended to hold it level with the ground which, incidentally, is the purpose of those grips. They let you shear the wheat with nice level strokes. As fun as it might be to go thru the enemy army and cut em all down at the knees, I want more variety in poses thru the squads.

I also threw in a quick side by side of the alpha and beta so you can see their size difference. That probably would translate to a good foot of height between the two. I think the better dynamics of the beta so far make for a real nice improvement

Need to rebuild the shoulders and wrist with some green stuff befor I glue the pads on, and patch some gaps in the bolter area of the scythe, but I think this may be production pattern of how I do the rest.

Oh, related question. I generally intend for the entire army to look like this. Terminators and Dreadnaughts included. (i do want to do a big robed dreadnaught....) However it seems the current preference is in Land Raiders. What would you do to a Land Raider to make it hit this kind of Grim Reaper theme?

tight looking figs

Aduro wrote:Oh, related question. I generally intend for the entire army to look like this. Terminators and Dreadnaughts included. (i do want to do a big robed dreadnaught....) However it seems the current preference is in Land Raiders. What would you do to a Land Raider to make it hit this kind of Grim Reaper theme?

Put skulls all over it, especially on the weapons. Maybe some icon-looking paintings on the hull depicting the Reaper. And of course, paint it black

Reaperfying a Land Raider: GS some cloth (shrouds) on part of it, rippling backwards in the wind. Also, scythes or an hourglass on the doors and an hourglass on the front.

I'm not so into the skulls. There are more than enough of those on every GW mini ever made, IMO.

On a tangential note, you might try cutting the shoulderpads off of Maugan Ra for one of your vet sarges, if you have a spare Maugan Ra lying around.

Quick shot of Knights in progress. About the only touch I added to the finished guy was some plasicard on the bottom of his feet. It was a suggestion by someone at the FLGS to give the robe some clearance over the base to make it easier to flock em, and then to not have them dragging their robes thru it. I did also give him a new scythe blade, but only because I wanted to use his first one as my template to trace all the later ones. You also get to see arms with new shoulders just because.

Waiting for some of that stuff to dry (those shoulders take forever to dry and set, but adhere rock solid), I've been working on the Justicar, and pretty much have him done now. He's following the tradition of other brave Justicars before him and holding his weapon straight out from his body. The other hand's got his Sacred Incense. I've decided the two main symbols that will show the Justcars are the heraldry crest on the shoulder, and the Storm Bolter on his scythe has ammo clips on both sides of the blade, not just one, to represent the Psycannon Bolts. I thought about sticking the Assault Cannon ammo clip instead, but have decided to save that for when I do auctual Psycannons on later Terminators.

Busy busy busy tonight. Here's a shot of the right arms, fully deshouldered and dehanded, with the ball joints in place. The hands are now on the ends of the scythes. They're not glued on yet, but it's a tight fit so they're not going anywhere. This way I can turn them to get them in the proper angle.

Alright, this is it for me for the night. They pretty much just need some various green stuffing to rebuild their shoulders and fill some gaps. The guy with no hood is pretty much a temporary head. I'm waiting on Battlewagon Bitz to restock, as they are out of all of the bitz I need for these guys. Once they're in, and I am able to order em and have em on the way and know I can do fully hooded squads I'll go ahead and hollow out their faces. Untill them I'm playing it safe. Got this email from Rob though, so they should be in soon I hope.

Probably soon, you can always sign up for the email notification on the site, so when they do come it they you are not out bought.

_Great_ poses! I especially like the justicar- great use of the censer there. The little rise from the plasticard also gives them a bit more balance in proportion, too. Nice work.

What are you using as the brightly colored balls on the arms? The look like a really good way to give the space marines natural poses.

Push pins. Cut off the shoulder, drill in a small hole, and clip the pin length way down. Then I have a pair of dremel bits with the nearly exact same size sphere cutting heads, which I use to make a socket in the fig. The hands I dremel out both the wrist and the hand as much as I can, so you don't lengthen it too much.

And now begins the work in the Hero. While I want to see this guy done, I've been kind of dreading it, as my green stuff skills are merely mediocre, and he's going to require a lot of it. My goal is to not have him end up just looking like a terminator covered in a blob of green stuff. So far I've done the upper torso. I'll let that set good before I move on to the legs.

While waiting for the aforementioned blob of green stuff to set up so I can start working on his skirt, I went ahead and put his scythe together. In true hero fashion, his weapon must be larger than everyone else's, so it's got a longer haft and a a bit longer/wider blade. Instead of the usual Storm Bolter, his is sporting a Psycannon mounted on it. Trimed off the barrels and support details, and made a new barrel based off of standard bolter designs so it fits in with his buddies still. The support that holds onto the wearers arm makes a great bit to mount the blade into.

Hero's got his skirt now. It's not near as sharp as some of the stuff I've seen other do *coughinsaniakcough* but I'm pretty happy with it so far. A learning process for sure. Going to make him a rope belt next. Not sure if I want to try and make a hood, or see how the normal marine hoods would fit/look.

very good job, you know your way around green stuff

When I first saw this thread I though "Reaper is making Grey Knights now? Huh?". And then when I looked at the figs I thought "Wow, someone's taking the chapter "Scythes of the Emperor" to a whole new level, lol. Very cool looking conversions so far. However, with all those hoods on how are you going to make one of these guys screaming as he has the giant scythe raised over his head? It's in the Space Marine rulez that they have to be shouting isn't it? Anyways, very cool looking and I'm interested to see what you do with a Dreadnought/Vehicle.

Those are pretty darn cool!
I am going to have to remember the push pin trick too, that is damn clever.
I think I might have make the scyth blades a tad smaller, but then have a weapon with a blade bigger than you is pretty much GW standard, so they should fit in just fine.

Where did you get the censor hand and backpack with the candle? I have never seen those before.

I'm not sure exactly what the censor hand is from, I believe just some CC weapon or other, probably from the command squad sprue. However, I'm sure you're more interested in the censor itself, which along with the backpack are from the same Dark Angles sprues those robes guys are from. Also comes with several other different looking censors and backpacks, along with a host of assorted goodies.

Stormtrooper X wrote:When I first saw this thread I though "Reaper is making Grey Knights now? Huh?". And then when I looked at the figs I thought "Wow, someone's taking the chapter "Scythes of the Emperor" to a whole new level, lol. Very cool looking conversions so far. However, with all those hoods on how are you going to make one of these guys screaming as he has the giant scythe raised over his head? It's in the Space Marine rulez that they have to be shouting isn't it? Anyways, very cool looking and I'm interested to see what you do with a Dreadnought/Vehicle.

Technically the Justicar is yelling, but once I secure a supply of hooded heads his losing his face so you won't be able to tell anymore. The next Justicar will be holding his scythe up in the air however, so rest easy.

Hood and belt. Hopefully I can get this guy done tonight for use in the FLGS game night tomorrow.

Look ma! ARMS!!

you know you could probably sell that. At least you could if it didn't have those GW arms on it.

Tacobake wrote:you know you could probably sell that. At least you could if it didn't have those GW arms on it.

Oops? I think if it was anything other than smooth robes I'd be screwed. I can't get sharp detail into. On that note, I dislike how the shoulders turned out on this guy. On power armor, when you stretch an arm out away from the body, the pauldron will slide around the shoulder onto the back a bit. On the terminator it didn't work out like that. I'm not sure if it's added thickness from robes, where I positioned the arms, or just inherent to the fig and that's why you tend to see terminators with their arms reaching forward and not to the sides. The result with this guy is you see more of the shoulder itself under the pauldrons. I've smoothed it out, and tried to sculpt in the armpit flexing, but I don't think it's turned out as well as the rest of the robes. At least it's a smaller detail, but if/when I do terminator squads, I'll be more careful with the arm poses to minimize alterations to their shoulders.

Next major project with these guys would be their dreadnought. That's going to be one heck of a lot of green stuff. Don't expect it anytime soon though. I want to finish up the squads of power armor first, 3 squads of 8, and I'm waiting on Battlewagon Bitz to restock before I can do much of anymore of them. Likely my last "major" update on this project until then, unless I can actually get caught up painting my Eldar and get some of these guys done up.