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Well, this is probably going to be super obvious to anyone who knows what they are doing when it comes to converting but my new way of doing the True Scale legs is working out pretty good. Just takes slightly more prep work, but overall I think that i will be able to churn out each pair alot faster than the previous way.

My first patch was basically build by cutting off the knee-cap and lower leg of power armour, then trying to cut of the Catachan legs at an angle that is pretty close to the cut on the power armour, do a couple of dry fits and then just file away until they kinda fit, and then just mash them together with plastic glue while trying to maintain a pose that looks semi natural. Then I filled gaps with green stuff while trying not to break the weak joints.

The new approach was to cut the knee cap and the lower portion of the power armour legs, and then cut the Catachan legs just a hair higher than before while trying to maintain a perpendicular cut to the thigh. I drilled a hole in the thigh where the femur would be as well as a hole in the PA, trying to keep them as centered as possible. Then just using a thin rod as a knee joint, they were simply glued together. The fit is solid, and the wire has enough give to allow me to pose the legs into a natural position. All that is left is to fill the gap with green stuff.

Such a simple way to do this, the fit is so much stronger, the legs can actually be posed to make it look natural. Again, probably obvious to more established folks, but this will make it a lot easier to build them.







I was thinking of keeping the knee cap a little higher than the cloth. Sort of like primitive armour plating to protect the joints. That way he would still be able to run and move even though he has some protection.

Alright then, here is the progress on True Scale Scout 2.0:

One of the pains about these scouts (which were also a problem with the shotgun scouts but I didn't really address them) is that the left arm is sculpted to run very close to the torso, so it ends up with what looks like a chunk of the arm missing:



This means that I ended up having to sculpt part of the left arm to make it look more realistic. The arms were pretty hard to match up while keeping the pose natural and have the left hand and wrist attach where they are supposed to. Two more pins for the shoulder fixed that problem:



Left arm finished, upper arm redone and the gaps between the torso and shoulder filled in. Right shoulder still needing to be filled. Once that was done I cut off the extra wire and filed it down even with the scout pads. Knowing that the regular space marine shoulder pads would cover these made it a lot easier.



Finished TSS 2.0. I like the new torso, although the Boltgun scout does not show it off very well. It solves the problem of having to sculpt a belt, sculpting an abdominal section (which I suck at) and makes a nicer backpack (and costs less than regular torsos & backpack as separate pieces). I think this is also a good example of the progress in the legs. The new pinned knee joints make the pose a lot more natural and he does not look like he needs to pee (one of the things that irks me about the TSS 1.2 model). The model is just a hair shorter than 1.2, but I think it still looks very True Scale.



Quick look from the back showing off the backpack. The torso looks pretty natural with the expended chest area to make sure the arms fit correctly.



Just another quick look of the size next to a regular scout.

I am going to have to post a progression of the scouts from Regular through TSS 2.0

Very good work so far, keep it up!
Glad to see a fellow son of Corax on dakka ^^

Made some more progress on the "tactical" scout squad. This will be the group with 4 Bolters and 1 Heavy Bolter.

The previous two guys are one of the Bolter guys and the HB guy:



So today I worked on the Sgt and the other 2 Bolter buddies. Of course all these guys are just put together and are far from finished. Still have to fill in more gaps, file down green stuff, get rid of mold lines, add grenades and other stuff, etc..etc..etc....

But as far as the progress goes here is the 2nd Bolter scout:







Pretty straight forward, walking forward, Bolter at the ready, scanning for threats. One thing I did start this time around is to actually assemble the legs on the specific base for the model. That helped quite a bit with positioning the feet on the terrain, and making everything look a bit more natural. Of course you can also see that I am taking previous constructive criticism into account and the shoulder pads are a lot less floaty. closer to the torso and the shoulders are lowered a bit as well.

Bolter Scout #3:







One downside to the Scout kit is that when it comes to either Bolters or Shotguns the poses for all the scouts are pretty much the same. There is not really much variety when it comes to the "Bolter in the right hand, supporting it with the left hand" stance that I used for Bolter Scout #1 and #2. A good resource for scout bits is the Storm though. You will have to do a lot of kit-bashing to get these parts to fit, but there is a plethora of arms and weapons on that sprue. This arms is from one of the scouts that is using his right hand to hang from the storm, and his left to hold his Bolter. I ended up giving him an Auspex in his right hand, scanning the area, making sure the coast is clear, while holding on to his bolter with his left hand. I would imagine that Space Marines could use either hand to shoot, but this poor scout might still be right handed.

And then the Sgt:







Shooting his Bolter one handed like a badass, charging into the fight. He is the only model not really WYSIWYG since all the models have Bolters and Bolt Pistols as standard equipment, and you can then replace either/or for a Combat Blade. I wanted all of them to keep both Bolter & BP, but I also wanted him to stand out from the pack a bit and not have 3 guys in similar poses. So I will either take the BP away from him or check with the Adepticon folks . Special shoulder pad to show that he is Sgt as well, although I am not 100% happy with how it rides higher than the left. Not sure what I will do to fix it since I would have to cut and reposition the elbow joint to make it fit.

And then a group shot:



I think put together they are a dynamic squad that tells a good story. The squad is in cover, the two guys in the back guarding the rear and providing support. A quick Auspex scan showed that an enemy patrol is approaching with minimal support. At the right moment the Sgt sprints forward, ready to engage the enemy with the Heavy Weapon scout jumping forward to provide cover fire.

Alright, got the Captain finished....except for one screw up I need to fix.



Eat Relic Blade heretics!

Still a bit shiny, I think I might have to hit it with a second layer of dull coate. We will see how it looks tomorrow.

Used the same technique for the power weapon that I have used for my thunder hammers in the past. Start out with dark blue and then work in increasing layers and blending to white.





Chapter symbol on the left, company marking on the left lower leg. I decided that the post drop-site massacre Raven Guard might be operating similar to the great companies of the Space Wolves. The scouts in my force are permanently assigned to the 7th Company and therefore display the same number as the Captain. The 7th operates independently from the other companies and is focusing on hit and run attacks, hitting supply lines and causing Horus trouble wherever they can.

The only screw-up on this model is the right shoulder pad:



For some reason, on the right side of the marking only, the writing decided to run when I hit it with the dull coate. The writing on the left side stayed pretty much intact. So I will probably go over that area with white again, and then either replace the writing or just give it a hit of dull coate.

Nice work, man! Keep it up ^^
aside from aforementioned problem with the shoulder guard, I don't see anything wrong with it... the part of the shield with a hole in it- some parts have a silver edge, and some black... is this deliberate?

I'm really digging the scout sgt, looks great, Good Job

shrike wrote:Nice work, man! Keep it up ^^
aside from aforementioned problem with the shoulder guard, I don't see anything wrong with it... the part of the shield with a hole in it- some parts have a silver edge, and some black... is this deliberate?

There was just a little bit of highlighting going on with the shield, it doesn't look that different in person. I think the lights just really make it stand out.

Klogger wrote:I'm really digging the scout sgt, looks great, Good Job

Thanks, I need to get to work on the rest of the squad.

I have done some painting on the Command Sqaud, should have them done by the end of this week. Here are a couple of earlier WIP pictures for them though.

You already saw the Captain, so here is the WIP of the Champion:



Power Weapon, Storm Bolter, and Combat Shield.

Regular Veteran:



Dual Lightning Claws.

Regular Veteran:



Storm Shield, Thunderhammer, Storm Bolter. He is actually one of my favorites just because I think I was able to get a very natural pose for how I would imagine someone holding a TH while not fighting with it.

Regular Veteran:



Lightning Claw and Storm Bolter. Least favorite out of the bunch, hips look funny and the whole pose just kinda screams "brainzzzzz".

Apothecary;



Painting him has been interesting. Trying to find a paint scheme that fits both an Apothecary and the Raven Guard has been interesting. Sgts have while shoulder pads and white face pieces. The regular veterans are going to have all black PA and white face pieces. So my plan is to give him a white helmet, either white shoulder pieces or white trim (maybe both), and white PA from the knees down. Enough to make him stand out, but still be mostly black.

For my apothercaries, I just went elbows and knees down as white, as well as the helmet.

Still working on the command squad, should have it done by this weekend.



The captain was already finished, I did just paint over the runny section of text with white and haven't decided if I am going to do anything else instead of text. I was playing around with adding a small grey skull of some kind to show him as a survivor of the Istivan V Massacre per Deliverance Lost, so that will most likely happen.

Apothecary is done, just needs a hit of dull coate. I did keep him mostly black for the RG, with white lower legs, white medicine drill thingy, and the centerpiece of the powerback is painted white as well. My main beef with him is that I was unable to get a good even coat of white on the legs, they just ended up being powdery.

One guy in the back needs just a little bit more pain, then gloss coate and decals, and 3 more guys need their decals and their dull coate. Hoping to fix them up tomorrow, and have them be dry on Saturday.

Awesome! I'd love to be able to do white properly though

Thanks, I need to paint one more guy for the command squad, then it will be finished.

In the meantime I started back up on the sniper squad. I tried a different way of building up the true scale sniper scouts this time around.

The original version again:



Pretty easy to put together, fairly straight forward, and I think the gun works pretty good. Biggest downside is that the arms look pretty slim.

Version 2.0 combines an actual SM Scout sniper, cut off at the hands, two separate arms, lots of pinning and green stuff:





And another cloak that I am just not very happy with. I have just not been able to find a good cloak. The backpacks on the torsos just make it pretty hard to do anything with it. I tried sanding down the back packs but it looked even worse. Only other real option would be to use a regular space marine torso like the original set of scouts that I put together.



Arms are bigger in this version, but they are a very big pain to put together. The snipers are turning out to be the most complicated build out of the bunch.

They look pretty good, apart from aforementioned arm size... maybe (if you can get into that area) bulking it out with a bit of green stuff?

Tried to do some green stuff, just not having much luck though. Doing the 3+ pieces of Scout arms is turning out to be too big a pain. I think I am going to stick with the skinny arms and just hope the black paint helps cover it up a pit.

Had to dig out a broken fence post today, but I was able to get about 45 minutes of painting in and I am on the finishing steps of the Storm:



Crappy pic, but I just got to tone down the highlights with some wash, touch up little pieces here and there, and then I should be done with putting paint on the Storm. Still has to have glosscoate/transfers/dullcoate, but it is almost finished. Base is halfway done as well.

Finally finished painting the True Scale Land Raider Storm.

It was quite an interesting project, my first real conversion of a vehicle and I have to say that I learned a lot from it. Painting it was quite a pain and finishing it feels like a good milestone.

With the Storm on the finished list, I started back on the Sniper Scout squat.

I think I finally got the camo-cloaks figured out though. Sanded off the entire back-pack assembly from the torsos, and used green stuff to fill in the hole for the power pack in the cloak.





The only thing I have not figured out with this guy is how to add an actual SM shoulder pad to the right shoulder.



I don't know if I should just leave the scout-pad on it and explain it with some weird "the missile launcher is attached to the shoulder pad and requires extra mobility" story or something like that.

I've been slacking with posting WIP pictures, but I wanted to throw up finished pictures of my 1000 point force that I used for Adepticon.

Here is the Scout Bike Squad with Combi-Melta on the Sgt:



5 Scouts with Bolters & HB:



5 Sniper Scouts & ML:



Command Squad:



Razorback:



Thunderfire Cannon:



And the whole crew together (including the assault scouts I posted earlier in the thread):



I already got some extra pieces for the force to bring it to 1850 pts, so I will be posting some progress pictures for that in the future. I will springle in some other projects as well. Starting up some Trollbloods, need to finish painting my Menoth, would love to finish painting my Fantasy High Elves as well. These will probably become my side projects for now.

My new project will probably become my main project for the near future: Starting to work on an Adeptus Mechanicus army using the Grey Knight codex. Should have lots of conversion potential.

Started to get a little bit of a start with my Adeptus Mechanicus force. Got my bases in (really like the stuff that Dragonforge Design puts out, got the goth-tech bases) and started to do some work on my first Dreadnought:



I knew I wanted to do something AdMech the minute I saw the model for the Adepticonstruct. I didn't realize how big that model was until I got home with it. This thing will end up being a psyrifleman dread when it is all done, just waiting on my autocannon-arms to come in the mail. Also got something special planned for the head, but that project may take a little while to complete. But I trust that it will be something very special

Well, as much as it physically and mentally pained me, I started on the organic dreadnought while I am waiting on the arms for the Adeptinought.

The main reason it pained me was because I decided to go with the Contemptor Legs and weapons for the ogre. So if the 1st guy is the Contemptogre Dreadnought

So here is my progress for today:





Basically I just took the ogre from the cannon, clipped the legs at the hips, and attached the torso to the Contemptor legs. I needed to lift the position of the arms up a bit since the original was too close to the body and I was not able to fit the autocannons next to the body and the legs that way. Arms were clipped at the elbow and the connector plates for the autocannon were attached where the shoulder joint should be.

So after the green stuff dries today I will need to file and fill the last of the gaps, and then work on the transition from the arm to the weapon mount. Also need to decide what I want to do with the head. Initial thought was to use a head similar to the Adepticonstruct and place it in the hole for the gut plate, using cables and wires to connect it to the neck area just to give it more of a WTF/AdMech feel.

And a quick little preview what he will look like with weapons:

Got a little bit more work done. Used the helmet ogre head to give it a bit more of a mechanical feel. I need to switch the portions over the eyes with something more bionic or some sort of targeting mechanism. Used cables between the "brain" and the weapons, modeled some GS on the elbow joints, and added a fancy gear over the gutplate to start on an AdMech symbol (although there must have been something in the green stuff, there was a little bump I could not get rid off, so I will try to file it off later):

Holy crap!
I never had the chance to notice that your Raven Guard were TS when we played.
They definitely looked awesome.
Good job man!

They just looked small next to Alpharius giant Rhinos and RiTides giant knights.

My tale of woe:

Trying to paint decent takes for ever. I am really trying to push myself towards learning to paint better and to use this fun project to improve my painting, learn to sculpt, and come up with better conversions. Currently I am working on picking up blending. My Raven Guard paint style has been to paint a base color, apply Wash, highlight, and drybrush. So with the Contemptogre being a fairly good size model, I figured that it would be a good model to try to get the hand of blending. I think I am picking it up at a decent rate, but man does that process take forever. At this rate I will put in over 24 hours of actual painting time into this model alone. But here is what I have so far. Besides getting some base coats down in different parts of the model, I have made this much process on one leg:



And even after hours and hours, the only portion I think may be done on this leg is the red

I think I did finally get a decent graduation from light to shadow on it, none of the gradients seem to clash severely. I tried to get the light->dark from top to bottom, with a second less pronounced light->dark coming from the frond and back edge. Tried to do similar on the foot as well. Things I know I still need to do: Apply a highlight to the studs, start blending the gold, start working on finishing the wreath and skull.