Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I have recently tryed some conversion work and am intrested in doing some more.

I am looking for insparation and I thought that the wealth of Skills and Knowledge on dakka could help me.

Please feel free to post infomation and advice on how to make a sucessful conversion as well as pictures of your own conversions!

Thanks RaptorsTallon

Would help if you told us, what army you are currently working on, and what models?

My current armies are:
Space Marines
Imperial Guard
High Elves

I'm not trying to convert anything in particuler, i'm just interested in converting in general. It doesn't even have to be for my army, I sometimes just make modles because I have spare parts, and because I can.
In fact my most recent conversion was a Dark Eldar Achron for a contest at my local GW. (We were given a box of old Dark Eldar Warrior sprues, and one of the old raider spures, which I quickly took and turned into a skyboard. I know an Archon can't take a skyboard but the contest was to make it look cool.)

Converting all depends on the mental picture you have for the piece you want to make. It could involve anything from plasticard (really the cheap For Sale signs you get at the dollar store can work) to using sprue to modeling clay/greenstuff/hot glue.

Pick the exact shape you want for whatever your model might be missing. For me, it was a pair of legs on a Terminator Chaos Lord. I thought of all the Chaos Gods, and realized that of all of them, the easiest one to make would be a Nurgle Lord (because really, what's easier than Nurgle?). I used Hot Glue to make him a slug body, and he looks bad ass. I then made him a Plaguebringer weapon from scratch with plasticard and sprue.



(You can see him primed in my gallery if you like)

The basic thing that you have to think of is: What special thing do you want your piece to have? Do you want to make a personal character for your army (say an HQ that you thought up)? What pieces are you missing to make this guy?

I've just decided to do a small conversion to make a Chapter Master/Captain.

I'm going to use the new Emporer's Champion finecast modle as a base, and give him a shield.

However, I don't know what shield I should use.
Any advice on a shield, or anything else I could do to the Champion to make a better Chapter Master/Captain would be welcome!

Gallery is a great resource, so is google images. Just search for "[insert army name] conversion"

Make a squad of tactical guard.Specopps dudes.

conversion is a... fiddly process. It's not just conversion tip, but.... what do you actually want? the tips start from an idea, not from rules of thumb.

The best advice I can give you is:
a.) Kitbashing: mixing kits together to get more veteran units
b.) economical/sparing use of parts. Save all of your errant armor chest plates (high collars) untill you have enough to build a whole army out of it. Expensive, but can look awesome. Same thing with beak helmets, they are slow to come by, and best off saving those till you can make an entire army if you want to do so.
c.) economical use of bitz--to distinguish from above, this is with regard to parts you intend on using. for instance, if you combine a plasma pistol with a bolter, to create a combi-bolter, there are parts left over. Preserve the rest of it, and you can attatch the bolter to the hand the plasma pistol was attached to. Moral: dont use 6 bitz when only 2 or 3 are actually needed.
d.) experimentation and trial end error in use of kneadadite and plasticard. you will end up with waste product. Try anyway.
e.) detail removing/relocating. many CSM helmets/heads work well with loyalist marines. khorne-skull-face is great for chaplain, some of the champion heads, when filed smooth and de-chaosified look like iron armor helmets, and can be further loyalized by adding the metal band down the top of the helmet. The same thing works the other way, taking the medieval knight-pattern loyalist helmets (dark angel and grey knight most common) and engraving an eight pointed star on the one mouth plate, and adding an arrow-point to the band on the top so it matches the other chaos helmets etc. Khorne berzerker helmets, once the vanes are removed, also make for interesting helmet variants.

And now I have blundered and started gabbling. Without a clear idea of what you are looking for, its hard to offer tips beyond 'trial, error, reattempt, success"

Get bitz. Stick them together. Get mechanical beast.

Hack chop slice make a cool librarian because the metal ones get boring after a while sanguinary guard weapons work exceptionally well .

IG is kind of a pain to convert because there are soooo many of them and tanks well they are tanks and high elves never to a knife or saw to those guys so cant help you there.

RaptorsTallon wrote:I've just decided to do a small conversion to make a Chapter Master/Captain.

I'm going to use the new Emporer's Champion finecast modle as a base, and give him a shield.

However, I don't know what shield I should use.
Any advice on a shield, or anything else I could do to the Champion to make a better Chapter Master/Captain would be welcome!

The least you should do is remove the helmet and replace it with a bare head.

The masters of the chapter have cool shields and sanguinary guard have cool weapons.

With a little snip here and a cut there and there ya go.