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Quite brilliantly, I got distracted from starting this thread for a good week or so..
I have an excuse, of couse, in that I just moved house, and everything is still fairly packed. Unpacking is boring!

Anyway, a couple of months ago, I picked up these guys from ebay:



Sexy, eh? A bit more detail?

Mk1 front..


and back (with banner pole)..


Mk2 front..


and back..


Now, I love these ancient guys, but of course, one thing is that they are left behind by the adjusting scale and newer modelling technologies used in current 40k.

Sure, it's cool to use them in a pre-heresy or similar army, and yeah, it'd be fair to use them on slotta-bases and whatnot, but I like to challenge myself (read: frustrate myself entirely)..

A little about me: I'm an Iron Hands man, in both hobby and spirit.
Firstly I have hundreds of Astartes, not a single one of which is fully assembled and painted.. This over a good 5-6 years? Gotta be some kind of record!

Secondly, I challenge myself to all sorts of modelling conversions, both simple and impossible. These always fall by the wayside when I get distracted by something else impossible to do..

Fellblade? Check.
Fully magnetised all-options Land Raider? Check.
Rhino/Vindicator magnetised combo? Check.
Master Of The Forge on bike, converted from a Skaven Doomwheel? Check..

So yeah, I get distracted and flit from project to project, be it mine or a commission sculpt.

But anyway, the Mk1 & Mk2.
I love them, but there are a few things that would obviously bug me about a 1988 model.
1 - It's a heavy chunk of lead
2 - It's small in comparison to current models
3 - Not much detail
4 - Slotta base, not termie-sized base
5 - Static pose
6 - No weapon options

So, here I am, stepping out on the journey to making current-scale Mk1 and Mk2 terminators, in at least one interesting pose (maybe more), with more detail and with a full complement of weapons and arms..

I figure I'll do the weapons from Termi-Nation to keep the old-skool theme quite accurate, but I'm also going to recreate the model parts as exactly as I can..

So, wanna see what I've done so far?


The bannerpole, converted from the sergeant banner and the biker pole.
Unfortunately you can't see the other side, where the sergeant pole is filed away and new fabric grooves added to denote proper motion, I'll get these photoed at some point..
I'm also considering replacing the pole coming from beneath the skull with some slightly thicker brass rod.
Does it look too thin?


The stormbolter!
Obviously taken from a regular terminator arm, I had to trade to find another sickle-clip arm and hack that apart, and also added the angled straight magazine from the stormbolter in the SM Commander box on the side.
Got a scope with very little in the way of mould lines I'll be attaching above that shortly, and I'll add some separate barrels to the front as well.


Powerfist!
The fingers from a regular fist, thumb also, but rearranged.. I've sculpted the extra layers on, but not yet any edging..


Shoulderpad!
I sculpt using a 50:50 mix of green stuff and super-fine white Milliput. It gets a finer texture than green stuff, allowing for much tinier detail to ber sculpted in, and dries harder.
This shoulderpad literally feels like it could be bulletproof..


Body and shoulderpad!
Wahey, the main part! The body is still in sculpting phase, as is evident, but the shape is there.
The head is from the Blood Angels Death Company box, with all blood drops filed off. I chose this head as if you look closely at the head on the lead Mk1, it has tiny grilles just on the edge of the seal, and obviously I'd want to get in a food few matching bits..
The gorget is actually the back of an SM body facing forward, with the GS/Milliput on top. I filed down the curved edges into straight lines, and added two more gorget pieces from two more SM backs, both cut and measured to be precisely fitted.
I couldn't use plasticard as I needed something *really* thin..

Anyway, thoughts?
I'm half-expecting Forgeworld to come out with their own sculpts in a couple of weeks (as would be my luck), but for now I'd like to hear from you!
Any suggestions?
Comments?
Ideas for other sculpting projects to distract myself with?
Post away!

Interesting I didn't know you could combine green stuff and milliput. May have to give that a go in the future.

Looks like an interesting project, got any other sculpts to show off?

Hmm, other sculpts.. Unfortunately a great deal of stuff is still packed, so finding anything of merit will be difficult, though I'll have a look for some kitbashes and get em photoed.

*checks photobucket*

Ah! Doomwheel conversion!



Right, so everyones seen a doomwheel before, I've filed away a large amount of the internal "cockpit" area so as to be able to fit in the seat from an astartes bike.



Handlebars here, just stuck on with blu-tack so as to be able to gauge the effect.

I'll likely also use the control panel from the Thunderfire Cannon as well, nowt like a load of complex controls for a haphazard-looking machine..



Front armour and gun! Obviously, all Skaven symbols are gone, and the forgeworld Ferrus plaque added, as well as the pintle-mounted bolter.
I think at this point I was mainly considering cool things to do with it to make it into more of a display piece rather than an actual army unit, though it's been long enough for me to have no idea where to go now..
Thoughts?



Master of the Forge! Hastily stuck together to show the dynamism I'll end up modelling into the piece, not using final pieces..
I figured I'd have him leaning out and smacking something with the hammer (obviously converted and angled correctly), right hand on left handlebar and right foot on seat, maybe with the wheel tilting to the left..
I'd filed the cockpit away mainly because it'll give me more room to add his servo-harness, this I'd also considered modelling dynamically, maybe with some of the vice-tipped arms grabbing onto a lamppost or rubble, possibly hammering into the ground to give a huge, momentum filled turn..



Track piece! Obviously I can't have it on wooden treads, so I made a prototype tread to cast from resin or green stuff. I used digital medical callipers to get the sizing and depth *exactly* right, but now I look at it, it doesn't feel finely-detailed enough, so I might make another..

Hell, I dunno, flitting from project to project is certainly a way to keep yourself entertained!