Hello All!
In this tutorial, i hope to show you all how to take a Cadian and turn him into a decent looking Tallarn with a little craft-knifing and some green stuff.
First, you will need a pair of Cadian legs, a Chest, and a Cadian Head -
Here i chose a Cadian Sergeant head just for the purpose of the tutorial.
You don't need to pick out a Sergeant head, because, as you will see later, all that matters is the eyes on the face.
Next you will need some tools.
Obviously, Green Stuff, but i also have tweezers, a smooth thingy, an X-acto Knife and a thick-handled knife for heavy cutting.
To begin, you'll want to start by prepping the model. First, clean off the mold lines with your X-acto knife.
This should be common practice and i'm not going into that part in detail. Just do it.
Moving on, swap out your X-acto knife for your heavy-handled knife for prep work.
You'll want to first make some room for the Tallarn skirt by cutting off the bottom of the shirt off of the legs.
This is the highest part of the legs, as displayed in this picture -
Just trim it off, but leave a little so that you still have something to glue the torso to.
The next is the head. You'll want to trim off whatever he is wearing to make room for the shemagh underneath.
In this case, it's just the little speaker thing hanging off his left ear, but the same principle applies to heads wearing the entire Cadian helmet.
Next, you'll want to cut the top of the head off above the forehead, and trim the back of the head so that the neck comes out and slopes back inwards -
Next, just glue your head, torso and legs together.
This step isn't entirely necessary, but having a stable platform to work on is extremely helpful.
In my first prototype, i made three awful-looking shemaghs before i realized to just glue the head to the torso so that i could steady my hand proportionately.
(This may or may not already be common knowledge amongst you all, but everything i know about green stuff i taught myself through trial and error.)
The next step is to break out your green stuff.
It's extremely important to have a lubricant when you work with greenstuff, and make sure to keep everything you don't want the
GS to stick to lubricated, and keep everything you want the
GS to stick to dry.
Personally, i use water, partially because it's extremely simple to use, but mostly because it's free.
(I could only be paid to use something else for that price.)
Personally, i make 100% of my
GS conversions out of tiny, simple shapes, probably because i could never figure out how to draw stars or triangles in elementary school.
(Think flat pieces, ropes, and spheres.) In this process, we'll ONLY be needing flat pieces and one rope.
To make a flat piece, i take my lump of
GS, wet my desktop, and press the lump down onto the water with my thumb. Then i wet the handle of my X-acto knife and roll it on out -
Then i cut the flat piece into sections with my smooth
GS tool, instead of my X-acto knife, just so that i don't cut into my surface.
To make the skirt, just cut a section out of your flat piece that is at least three times as long as it is wide.
Then just pick it up with your tweezers and wrap it around the Guardsman's legs as many times as possible, trying to keep the skirt flush with the belt on the torso.
Next, wet your smoothing tool and press the skirt as tight as you can into the legs. "Press" being the keyword, here.
You shouldn't be pushing or pulling, just pressing with your smoothing tool. Keep trying to keep the skirt flush with the belt, though, or it will look really, really weird.
Next we work on the Shemagh, the centerpiece of all Tallarn Guardsmen, the part that really sets them apart from any other Guard army.
First, roll out another flat piece of green stuff, and then cut out along an uneven edge -
Take this piece and press it against the Guardsman's face with your smoothing tool just underneath the nose -
Take your smoothing tool and just push the edges of the facewrap around to the back of his head.
(Y'know, the area you were supposed to cut away from the back of the head? Yeah, there.) -
The next step is to roll out another flat piece of Green Stuff and to cut out a rough square.
Place this square piece over the top of the Guardsman's head, and make sure NOT to push it down onto the top of the head -
Now, while pressing as little as possible onto your baby's soft spot, push down the corners of the square, and then attempt to push them back behind his cheeks.
This will produce some natural-looking wrinkles. (I forgot to photograph this step. I'm really sorry, but i had to pee.)
THIS IS THE FINAL STEP! (Pat yourself on the back, you're almost in the clear!)
Instead of rolling out a flat piece of green stuff, roll out a thin rope of green stuff.
When i say thin, i REALLY mean thin. Make this rope as small as possible, and then make it a little smaller.
Then pick up this teeny-tiny rope and wrap it around the head of your model, outside of the headwrap already in place.
The very last thing you do is cut off that tail of extra rope with your tweezers and smooth it out to make it look as if the two ends were connected.
YOU HAVE YOURSELF A TALLARN GUARDSMAN!
