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Hey all,

Just recently got back into 40k, was collecting, converting and painting various 40k army's for roughly 5-6 years. Been doing PP for quite some time (YAY Trollbloods! FWARR!). Just recently kicked back off in the citadel realm with a fantasy army for the first time ever. Unfortunatley I made the mistake of reading the horus heresy series of books that I had been avoiding for quite some time and as expected re-discovered my addiction to marines and chaos.

Anyway, ranting aside I've noticed the wave of 'tru scale' marine and armies coming through. I cannot however find a clear definition on what tru scale is (don't mean tutorial there's oodles of those), what I mean is what exactly are the most prominant parts that need upscaling/size modification? Lengthening legs seems to be a big one, as well as bulking up the torso. If you didnt have a ready supply of termy arms and legs, would bulking up the shoulder pads be an acceptable option? Is there anywhere that discusses which parts specifically you could bulk up?

To get back into it, I have a great idea for an army and as I've learnt that my entire painting style is horribly outdated and plan to use this idea to re-teach me how to paint, I thought I would mess around converting them too (the main highlight of the hobby for me is conversion and to a lesser extent, read: more spastic, painting rather than the tabletop gaming).

True scale is a term for models that are modified to be anatomically accurate for their supposed sizes. It's understood that GW space marines are generally too short and disproportionate.

Thanks, that much I assumed. What's the proportional comparison? Imperial guard counterparts? Is the head the frame of reference for the rest of the proportions?

What should be bigger? Everything? Just arms/legs?

That's the bit I'm shady on.

Thanks mate.

As I don't play 40k I am not sure what the baseline is for proportions. What I do know is that properly done, truescale marines look quite passable as real life mock ups.

The art has really pushed the sheer bulk of a marine since about 3rd edition.
People tend to complain that they look to puny next to Cadians (and Catachans, but noone cares about Catachans)...which is all Brian Nelson's fault for making Cadians needlessly bulky.

Really, you need to add size everywhere except the head. So, yes the head should be your frame of reference. Practically "true scaling" can be anything from shinguard/thigh lengthening to sculpting over terminator armour, to full sculpts from scratch.
This means that "true scale" marines are anywhere from 7 to 10 feet tall and vary from about three to five feet wide...which isn't any more realistic than what you started with.

They can look great, they can look terrible. If you like modelling then the best thing to do is get stuck in, noone can really say what is right or wrong here.

Awesome, those were just the answers I wanted to hear. Thanks guys!