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epic.

Been super busy, but here are a couple of new guys. Semester is coming to an end, work will have finally settled down, so I should be able to get back on the wagon.



On the right, is Brother Lefty. Marines are ambidextrous, but there's no reason to fire left handed unless you have to. But sometimes perhaps there's a wall or something to fire around. I feel like left handedness is close to heresy though, so perhaps Brother Lefty will be under close Chaplain scrutiny too.

On the left is my reloading brother. He's in mid action, having dropped the empty mag on the run and is moving to his pouches for a spare. Not 100% happy with him yet, so I may end up re-posing the left arm at a different angle.

These are fantastic, I'll definately be following this thread from now on, alot of inspiration, I'll be starting a second Marine army when I finish my Wolves and I will most definatelly be converting them after seeing this

great work! count me sub'd

This is great work, however can i suggest that you make the reloading marine look down as if he is searching for the mag?

Thanks guys. As far as the reloading brother, I will probably leave him as is. After years of drilling as a Marine, I could fetch new mags out of pouches second nature. I figure after decades of drilling, the act of reloading is instinctive, and astonishingly fast. I am stuck capturing an instant of action in an extremely fast movement, lol. I won't lie, I chose the easy way out. Anywhere else in the action would have been a lot more complicated to model.

I will have some new pics soon. Took my laptop in for some warranty work and it's too much effort to format via smartphone so I will do it tomorrow at work, lol.

The problem with he reloading guy i think is the changes you've made to the legs. When in normal SM scale the legs look great for a charging marine, however when it comes to your conversion to true-scale the legs lose their look of forward momentum a bit...certainly from the photo there he looks a lot more upright than a charging marine would. Looks good otherwise. I like lefty - its nice to have a marine that has gone down a different path.

I think it is more of the angle of the picture. The Marine isn't supposed to be charging, simply walking forward anyway. I've actually created some exaggerated running poses for other models, but I didn't want that guy to look like he was going balls out. He's supposed to look calm and moving forward. If I've missed the mark on that, I'll go back and revisit the model.

Anyhow, as promised, a couple new guys. My most recent projects have been time consuming, including reclaiming my old metal/plastic Land Raider Crusader that I foolishly, in my youth, glued the hurricane bolter sponsons on behind the side embark doors. Took a long while to fix, and my fingers hurt afterwards. But I'm a lot happier with the model now. I was never going to be able to mentally reconcile the idea of the guns having to cease firing while the squad jumped out, lol. Fortunately I finished a few new infantry models first.

First up is my first Assistant Gunner. Heavy Bolters and Missile Launchers go through a lot of ammunition. Therefore, for every HB or ML model in my army, there will be a companion model in the squad carrying spare ammunition. In the Marines we call these guys Assistant Gunners, and the job often falls to the new guy. Sucks to be the new guy when you might be the new guy for a decade or more.




After that, I have two new "looters". The guy on the left has picked up an exarch's shuriken catapult as a souvenir. Or maybe for heretical use. Who knows? This is Rogue Trader after all.

The second guy has mounted the skull from a Tau Auxiliary from the unit's previous campaign on his shoulderpad. The unfortunate donor was a fantasy Lizardman from the old boxed set I bought at some point and had never used. I filed off any skin detail, removed the eyeballs, and then hollowed out the underside of the mouth.

I fairly enjoy the looters, it makes a bit of sense, everyone would like a memory of a successful battle!

The prototype for my custom built Combimeltas, currently magnetized to a Sergeant.





This solution for combi-meltas will be ridiculously cheaper than buying the official bits, and I like the look of it. I think as I perfect the process,the subsequent ones should look much better. The flat top to the melta barrel works aesthetically to provide clearance for the bolter barrel. The power source is from a multa bomb cut lengthwise and narrowed. I think i may go back and shave some of the details off of the rifle like the eagle.

The power fist was cut free from the "punching" pose at the shoulder,and reattached to a regular shoulder mount in order to achieve the less ridiculous pose, while retaining the closed fist look.

This is a great idea.

Are you pinning and puttying the gap between the legs or is that a plasticard spacer ?

I was thinking of using plasticard for a similar project. I haven't been excited about Marines in years, but making tall marines would suit me. Marines and Guardsman standing eye to eye has been a thorn in my side for years.

Depending on the cuts and the original set of legs, some of the models will need gaps filled, but right now it is all plastic card and cement. For durability, you probably could pin them, but this is a hobby project more than a gaming project. Probably won't see a tremendous amount of table time.

A lot of this project came from the fact that I played both IGuard and Marines for years and it always bothered me. Eventually I want to ressurect my IGuard too, with Squats! I love the little bastards. So much character in the old Squat figs. Mix in some new Guard figs too as veterans or something.

I feel your pain. I love my Marines and Guard, but I won't put them side by side..

You've gotten pretty good results with this approach. I will try something similar the next time I work on Marines.

I am hoping to have a "new Guard" model soon so that you guys can see what the size differential is with current models. My IGuard company has remained mostly untouched since 2rd Edition and was built with the 2nd Edition codex. So nearly all of its models are classic metal Cadians (or Squats, ftw). And none of them since the age of the modern plastic kits.

However, any new Guardsmen will have to be converted too, of course.

It's been asked here, and was posed on another forum, how the arms are modified to make these poses.

Here's the example of how you can file the soft armor at the joints to fix the hand positions, or as in this case, create an entirely unique pose. The arm has also been cut at the shoulder and rotated to 90 degrees horizontal to help achieve the desired look. Left wrist was sliced behind the wrist to rotate the support hand to grip the rifle.



So you can see the arm cuts, I'll show you the magnetized power fist from the most recent Sergeant. This arm was actually the "punching" power fist that was cut from it's shoulder piece and fit to a standard shoulder to achieve the hanging look. I have three of those fists, so I wanted some variation. Figured I'd test proof of concept and try to mod it. I feel it was successful. As you can see, nothing sophisticated here. Wish I'd taken process photos of it. I clipped the tubes free from the arm, then sliced them at an angle to make the arm fit flat to the body, but make it look like the cables were disappearing under the should pad when it was actually assembled.



As you can see, it looks rough as hell when by itself. I'm going to finish it with gap fill and some more clean-up, but this is what it looks like when it is on the model:



Like I've said, no need to masterclass as a modeler to achieve a solid table-top appearance. The shadow hides the detail, but that was the best I could do with awkward lighting angles and no professional light box.

Here's a last one with the top down so you can see that with proper wrist rotation, the bolters will remain straight up and down. Wrist positioning is key, because if you just try to rotate the arms, you'll end up with odd angles. Both wrists on this model have been cut to achieve this look.

Very impressive work, absolutely love the poses that you have!
Thanks for showing how to obtain the sweet arm and hand poses

Going from the comparison shots on the first page the scale looks spot-on IMHO and even with the marines loaded with kit they don't look cluttered. Well done!

Subbed for sure.

Thanks. I think the height helps them look less cluttered. Plus, I take about 1mm off the bottom of the mag pouches to make them look less gigantic.

Anyhow, I've been industrious (for me). I finished the first Combat Squad of Assault Marines. Back on the first page was my lone Assault Marine. Well, he's got four buddies now.








Nothing terribly exciting about those guys, and they all need finishing touches. I was just glad to have sat down for a while and gotten some more work done. They are spaced 1.5mm at the waist and 1mm at the hips, with a krak grenade as part of their belt kit. I'd love to have krak grenades for all of the Marines in the Company, but they are a lot more rare than the frag grenades that come in every Marine sprue, so more expensive as bits. I've been salvaging them from friends who have Grey Knights and such. But I'd realistically need about 100 of them, haha. All the Marines have been clipped at various joints to create unique poses. Except the running guy. I was actually able to achieve the desired result with stock arms. If you notice the guy with the extended right arm, that's actually been done by taking an extended left arm and cutting it free and swapping the middle section to the right arm, and the reverse for the right arm, so you have a 90 degree left, and extended right, which isn't part of the normal sprue options.

And here is my other madness. I've been wanting to do this for a while, and had to figure out the best way. I'll show him before the commentary.





That's right folks, it's a multi-laser, lol. C.S. Goto was right all along. That, and everyone knows that Marine Special Weapons troopers can have a multi-laser on a roll of 91-00. Duh.

Veteran Brother Anachronus has the honor of carrying the Chapter's prized relic, an ancient (Space Marine) man-portable multi-laser. A weapon no longer in common use amongst the Marines, the multi-laser has been well cared for and passed down from generation to generation of Marines. Large and unwieldy, even for Marine Heavy weapons, ever since its suspensors stopped functioning properly, Veteran Brother Anachronus stays in shape by practicing back flips during the long periods of time between battles.

I will probably treat this as a Counts As Heavy Bolter or Lascannon since Marine-deployable Multi-lasers are probably not coming back after 20 years MIA. But it should make for an entertaining conversation piece. It still needs some work because the right arm had to essentially be constructed from three different arms, and spacered under the shoulder in order to achieve the right angle. The multi-laser itself is from a Sentinel, with the barrel shortened, the under-rail clipped off and a bolter grip inserted, plus the power pack having been cut down and fitted onto the side to look like a removable power pack. As you can see, using .5mm card and creativity, I created a spare power pack on his hip. A third spare will go to an A-Gunner just like the Heavy Bolters have.

The Squat Standard Bearer is there because, well, he's awesome.

The Battle Company is almost halfway done now. Well, halfway minus the closet full of unassembled tanks, lol.

Dude, you are right. That squat is an amazing model! Boy i miss them guys.

Sorry, I've been following this thread for a while but not commented. Loving your work and am probably gonna use your technique to make my commander taller than his men.
Think my favourite is the guy a few pics up with his bolter pointed down at an angle. Lovely work. How have you achieved that angle? Have you used something other than GS on the wrist?

There's actually no Green Stuff involved in that pose. The wrist was cut in two places. Once behind the hand itself, and again right in front of the armored "wrist ring" This left the soft armor by itself, which on the stock arm, creates an upward tilt. I rotated it around to create a downward angle instead. In hindsight, a "safer" way to do this would be to cut behind the wrist ring, since it can be rotated along the arm and you don't run the risk of damaging the much finer details of the soft armor.

I have used bits out of a ton of kits, and there are tons I haven't even gotten around to using yet, lol. But so far, the only things on these models that isn't created directly out of GW kits and sprue are the plastic card extensions.

A little something different from my workbench. Because, you know, focus and efficiency has never been an issue with this project and I've got so much free time.



Pictures didn't come out too clear, but it was a proof of concept model for an additional squad that will be added to my Imperial Guard. He's just a test model and will probably be disassembled in favor of a different set-up and Catachan legs, but I wanted to see what it looked like when done. The arms have both been re-posed, but the distinct change I made was his shortened up las-carbine because, well, the un-augmented human figures look a bit silly holding those gigantic lasguns the current plastics come with. He's supposed to be some kind of top-tier Guardsman to be represented in game as a Veteran or Stormtrooper. Perhaps a member of the command squad or an augment? I've added a respirator to him which will eventually have straps, as will the lasgun have a sling. When I was a Marine, I loved that carry and referred to it as Weak Side Samurai Style, even though traditionalists hate it because it puts the barrel into dirt if you aren't careful. With a two or three point sling, however, it's a great way to get a weapon out of the way for using your hands without taking it off completely, but maintain control of it.

I really like this lasgun. All it needs is a new barrel, which will probably be done up with plastic tube. It will also look good in the hands of my plastic Squats. I may go full-stupid and slim it down along its axis like I did with the Horatius Pattern bolt pistol just so it matches the slimmer structure of the older lasguns on my metal Cadians.

Anyhow, I should probably have some new Marines done soon, and I'll try to take an accounting of the existing squads and some of the vehicles. Getting closer to a finalized paint scheme too, so who knows, some of them may eventually have paint.

Good stuff, i always enjoy someone breaking away from the stereotype. Also i agree that space marines shouldn't be FEMA workers with oversized machine guns. This isn't the UN and "we cant hear you whining, the gun shots are too loud!"

overall, good work, love the character it gives them, as all space marines are individuals? Don't tell the Inquisition i said that!

Never been a fan of Imperial Space Marines but I'm all about unique and skilled modeling. The conversions you have here are interesting to look at, full of individual character, and all are excellently done! Well done all around. Subbed and will be back.

Wh40kPicasso wrote:Good stuff, i always enjoy someone breaking away from the stereotype.

Thanks. Though I prefer to think that I'm breaking back into the stereotype.

Skalk Bloodaxe wrote:Never been a fan of Imperial Space Marines but I'm all about unique and skilled modeling. The conversions you have here are interesting to look at, full of individual character, and all are excellently done! Well done all around. Subbed and will be back.

Thanks. I agree. Space Marines are pretty bland out of the box. While I think Chaos Marines are a bit too overstated (Did I really just use the term "too overstated" in reference to 40k?) the way Games Workshop envisions them, they do often tend to be a bit more flavorful than their current incarnation loyalist buddies. Hopefully Chaos gets some new plastics soon. And hopefully without those stupid belt fed bolters. If it had been one or two bolters per sprue, it wouldn't be a big deal, but 4/5 Chaos bolters have that silly belt hanging out of them. Makes me cringe as I try to figure out A: How they load it, and B: why they only carry such a limited amount of ammunition, lol. There's no way the bolts are actually that big.


Anyhow, I've decided to give an accounting of the project as it stands. This isn't actually all of the vehicles, and none of the vehicles are "complete" to my standards. You can see my 3rd Edition first run LR Crusader (I literally bought it the first month the model was available when its rules were only in White Dwarf and non-Black Templar Chapters were still limited to 1), which I, quite fortunately in retrospect, never painted. I apologize for the poor quality of the photos as I didn't have any better place to take pics, and had to use my phone's camera (it takes pretty good photos, but not up to such a task)




And in a squad by squad order. None of these guys are permanently assigned to these squads, it just makes it easy to keep track of the project if I keep an organized tab of how many full units I have completed. Only have two completed Sergeants right now, so the angry pointing guy is filling in as the squad leader for the Devastators. "Kill those donkey-caves over there!"





The 2nd Squad's magnetized Sergeant is probably getting reassigned to the Assault Squad as I think with some different arm poses, re-basing and a jump pack he'll look okay. I had big plans for his pose (was going to be stomping on some poor bastard's face), but I wasn't able to convey the movement and animation I was looking for, so he got re-done. The final effort isn't really working for me. His magnetized arms are second hand, so it may just be the arms aren't posed for that specific model. Or he may get taken apart and completely re-tasked. However, for now he stays.



I didn't bother to photograph the Assault Marine Combat Squad because, well, they are a few posts up.

Regardless, there's the total project progress. I've finally gotten around to playing Fallout: New Vegas (I've had it for months, lol). I don't play a lot of video games, but I loved the Fallout series back in the day (still have copies of the three original PC games). However, as you can imagine it chews at my hobby time. Sorry, heh.

Its funny cause that is how I did my true scale as well. Good stuff !

Ah. Actually, it's not so much the modeling aspect but the fluff behind them. I'm not a fan of the Imperium. I am much more interested in watching the galaxy burn.

However, all the points you made are valid and sensible. Chaos can get a bit campy if the modeler isn't paying attention or goes way OTT w/ spikes. And skulls. And blood. Not spattered, but drowning buckets of it. I especially love the bases with piles of corpses on them. Does the Chaos Warlord drag them around with him all over the battlefield? Ugh.

Your True Scale is inspiring. I've seen some that look ridiculous (12' tall Space Marines, anyone?) so I've never really given it any genuine interest. This force is cohesive in appearance, full of dynamic movement, and very well done. It is making me rethink how I'm going to approach my next new project once 6th Ed comes out and I may well try my hand at this, at least on some test models. If I like it I'll keep going.

"Death to the False Emperor" is still my battle cry but I also understand the need to have someone to shoot at. So keep cranking out those -Imperial lapdogs Space Marines and may the Long War continue indefinitely.

No, I absolutely didn't want them to end up gigantic. The Black Library has been especially guilty of the Space Marine size creep. To me, I can see the advantage of some large, beastly shock troops. The problem is that size becomes a liability instead of an asset at some point. If you look at most of the tallest guys in the world, they are around 370 pounds. If you take into account the Space Marine's enhanced physiology (denser bones, denser musculature, larger chest cavity with several extra organs, etc), they are going to weigh 500 pounds or more, before armor, weapons, and ammunition. And that's just at a 7 to 7.5 foot height. The bigger that Space Marines get, the harder time they have fitting inside doorways and passages designed for humans. The heavier they get, the less load bearing structures there are designed to carry them (or, many of them at once). The larger and less efficient their vehicles are, etc. Plus, the bigger you are, the larger the target. 40K stays true to the idea that the measures will always outstrip the countermeasures. So even as impressive as power armor is supposed to be, it still isn't impenetrable, so things like maneuverability and cover are still of a paramount importance.

So, amusingly enough, out of all the fluff stuff that 40K gets wrong when it comes to real world feasibility, they were probably right on target with the 7-7.5 foot mark. Big enough to be physically powerful to carry the kinds of absurd weaponry the Marines do, and intimidating. But also small enough to be a practical infantry unit.

And good luck with your own. I've not tried it out on any Chaos Marines yet, so I don't know how difficult it will be with their armor, which carries a lot more detail than the loyalist ones do. But the process itself is not that hard if you use all the cheats and shortcuts I do like using the pouches to cover up the niggling details at the waistline.

You definately have my favourite true scale models on the entire forum. Everyone trying to get a truescale marine usually overdoes it so that either limbs and heads become disproportionate or the model doesn't look enough like a space marine anymore. What you have done on the other hand is fantastic. They still have the same look, same feel but have been made alot larger with a few subtle adjustments. Great work, definately want to see more!

LDP

The Buzz Lightyear dude is epic

On a serious note I really do like the idea's you have put into this, so simple but VERY effective...

And even adding the TRUE likeness to match the fluff... You sir have a new subscriber. One that will watch with great interest.

Keep up the amazing work,

TSD

Thanks guys. So here's something a little different. This isn't an update. Maybe a downdate?

In case you're wondering what has been keeping me from doing any work, it's the NBA Finals (Go Heat) and this:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/s480x480/552905_10151063354426159_1616627817_n.jpg

However, in the time I've allotted to the project, instead of being productive and completing the Assault Squad, I decided to whip up a Chaos Marine for Skalk and my other slimy traitorous bastard followers. This guy will eventually be a Night Lord, because the Night Lords are awesome. But he'll be a Night Lord without all the bat wings and such, because bat wings aren't scary, they're silly, lol. The hanging skull is from the Chaos Land Raider sprue, and the helmet had its topknot sliced off. His left hand was intended to be all half-clenched and threatening, but it hasn't turned out quite how I want it yet.

Here he is with my loyalist trophy taker, as they argue which side of the Long War has the rights to take skulls and whether or not the Space Marines lost their rights by not defending the IP after Rogue Trader..


Here he is from the other side, facing off with my re-done I Guard Vet who now sports Catachan legs mated to the Cadian torso.


And finally a straight on shot, with two refugees from the old days of Necromunda.


Anyhow, I'm going to try to get back to my Space Marines, and stop distracting myself.

That is a great example of the actual size difference the fluff refers to between a normal man and a genetically enhanced warrior.

Really enjoy the CSM. You should paint him Codex colors and hide him in one of your squads, see if anyone notices.