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Hello Dakkadakka! My first post ^^. I got back into 40k recently as I found that a lot of my coworkers are playing it. This past weekend I heard the call of my long neglected Imperial Guard army and so I thought I would begin my long planned conversion project. I want to take basic Cadians and turn them into my own version of gasmask/trench coat wearing guardsmen, a little inspiration from Death Korps and Steel Legion. Here is my progress so far in various stages of WIP.

I'm using heads from Pig Iron, just adding a little Procreate putty to create the gas mask ala Death Korps. For the body, I spend a long time sanding it down; getting rid of the chest armor design first. The first pic shows the chest but it's still unfinished. I take more putty to smooth out the bottom corners of it so it looks all nice . For the legs I'm trying out Death Korps inspired boots (stockings?) and add the trenchcoat. That is really insane to scupt and I've had to rip off the trench coat numerous times. In the above pic, I'm starting to get the hang of sculpting the guardsmen's right leg but I have no idea how to do the folds on his other leg. Very frustrating! But just gotta keep trying.



This pic shows the back of the coat. Apologies for the dark image and the blurriness. I want to show some weathering and torn-look at the bottom of the trench coat to make it seem like these guys have been through hell and back. Yikes, this pic shows me that I have to spend more time smoothing the putty before it cures. Oh well, I can add more and smooth that... At the moment I'm also using backpacks that I found in my Cadian box. Like those a lot.





This last pic is the very first one I converted. He looks rather bulky because I didn't sand enough of his legs down before adding the trench coat. You can see the guitar string I used for the gas mask tube. I also converted the lasgun to make it look like Steel Legion's. You can see that in the 3rd pic.

Anyhoo, this is a project I just started and I have a long way to go but I'm just taking my time and enjoying the process. I hope keep this thread updated. More pics to come soon!

-Mike

This looks promising. Good work, I can't wait to see more.

Hey looking good, if I'm not mistaken the "stockings" are called puddies, and they kept mud and bugs from getting inside.

Much cheaper than original Death Korps models. The coat on the second model from the left on your first picture really looks the part. I'd say you've started your work pretty nicely. Also, those Pig Iron heads definitely add a lot of character.

some progress pictures of my Cadian conversions. Worked on two of the trenchcoats last night and hit a Eureka moment-- using Vaseline. I've read numerous posts before mentioning the use of it and last night was the first time I used it to smooth everything out. Not only that but when you put it on your cutting mat, you can then put your putty down and it won't stick.







With this latest batch of coats I was trying to keep them thin (something you can do if you roll the putty with your clay shaper like rollling dough) and seeing what it looks like smooth vs the weathered and torn look I had before. What do you think? I like the beaten and torn look but I like the shape of the latest batch.

And as I was moving my guardsmen to the area where I would take the photos I dropped one!! The stand and an arm broke off but that's ok because now I can give you a better picture of the gasmask tube using guitar string.



Next up on the to-do-list is smooth out some of the corners on the chest armor and do the gas masks. I'm also planning on putting in collars (you can see one on one of them) and adding a spike on top like Prussian helmets. I tried getting on one last night but the piece was so small it was too difficult; I'd drop it before I could place it. Looking down I couldn't find it, stuff like that. In my next post I'll add the spikes so you can see 'em. Until next time!

I like them alot! Really good work

Nicely done- I know how much effort goes into this sort of project since I've made Tallarns from a mix of catachans and cadians

Keep up the good work and dont let the enormity of doing a couple platoons weigh you down!

brilliant idea and i can appreciate the time and effort put in to these mini's.keep it up.

Thanks for the encouragement guys! Today was a good day. I pretty much finished my first five conversions for my army! The first batch of pics shows the guardsmen almost done. Some details that I've added:

-pouch on left waist to hold gas tank
-spike on helmet (Prussian style)
-thicker cuffs around wrists (later pics and actually, still gotta finish some)













followed by some group shots of the finished guys





and next is a comparison pic of my converted guy next to the original Cadian. My guys are a little taller which I think is fine; I'll just write that into the fluff ^^





feels really good to get these guys done. There's still some detail on them that I have to finish, little things like the cuffs on some of them and I have to fix the spike on one. I also want to try to add rivets to their shoulder pads, one on each of the lower corners. I think it could look cool.

And now I think I might go with a smooth trench coat vs the weathered-- with the weathered, everything seems visually busy and the smooth coat gives the eye some rest. I could be crazy tho and might like the weathered look tomorrow ><

Next up is either do three more of these guys or do the special weapons guy or the sergeant. hmmm...

It's really looking nice. Conisider me subscribed. When i read spikes on the helmets, I thought CHAOS, but after seeing it, it's a nice touch after all. Good work.

Hav you thought of a color scheme yet?

Thanks Scrazza. I haven't really thought about the color scheme yet. Defnitely want them to look gritty though. I want to add dirt to their coats and stuff like that, perhaps mud.

But I'm hoping that their color scheme will be original and set them apart from Death Korps, Steel Legion, etc.

What might be cool is to use Photoshop to test some color.

Any ideas? ^^

Maybe a brown/green contrast?

As for the metal gear make it look rusty and weathered. That might suggest they aren't newly conscripted ones, but they actually know what they are doing.

Did a paint over in Photoshop real quick. what do you think? Going off your brown/green i went with sorta copper/green, the green being similar to the color that copper rusts to. I like the color harmony and tried adding in mud for the base and the rust mud color getting on the coat. I could maybe do a goldish tint for the helmet. Will try more tomorrow. These are pretty fun to do.

I'm not sure on the golden helmet though, It's to far off for me. But that's tastes!

Really great stuff! I like the colours you did in photoshop, although, I agree that the brass helmet seems a little out of place. Perhaps paint up a test mini to see if it suits? Can't wait to see more!!

some color exploration. I like these:

C -- for some reason I'm on the fence on this one. kinda wacky. I wonder if it could work?
E -- your basic grey
K -- cool greys pretty decent
N -- like this one for the darker city scheme.
O -- big fan of this one. cool greenish grey.
R, S -- I like these for a desert scheme.
T -- grey with a green tinge on coats
V -- like this one if I were doing some kind of penal legion or mesa desert
Z -- dig this weird aqua color, explored it quite a lot
NOW -- another dark theme that I like

Which ones do you like?

F or R for me.

F - Red uniforms always look striking on the table.
R - Pale uniforms also stand out - and allow the details of your uniforms to show.

Nice work!

Time for sleep m(_ _)m z z Z Z

more paintovers on my models. Concepts for emblems and tried some battle damage. Order of images is my favorite to least favorite. This will probably mark the end of color concepting for a little bit as I jump back into converting ^^ Stay tuned!


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what I usually do after the individual concepts is to duplicate them and see what they look like as a group. funny thing is that as an individual model, I don't really like the green one but as a group its one of my favorites. Not really feeling the brown but greys and whites I like.