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I tend to wonder why females are not standard in the Cadian Guard infantry sprue and me being a dreamer have decided i will sculpt up some figures after next week when i make a stop at Miniwargaming for some Green stuff and Skull white. It is an Ambitious project and i am very excited to begin work. I plan on making them not have massive breasts or skimpy uniforms , but they will have a curved and slender shape as you would expect in a fit female , the only thing I lack a plan for is the breast plate modification to house its new tenants.

ANY thoughts ideas or suggestions are welcome , actually encouraged by me !

Breasts would not show through an armor plate. Just look at real life females with flak vests with the plates in.

Good Point i guess your right maybe just a smaller torso [not much of course] and a slightly raised flak plate would do for this.


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Here we are you were right! However , im still considering modifing the plate to allow a slight showing of breasts to add to the female look of them.

Where are these lovely ladies from? They don't look Israeli...

For female guard conversions all you need is more feminine faces, and slightly reduced waist size/slightly increased bust size to fit in with the heroic scale's exaggerated details. Minor amounts of boob armor might not be the most realistic for modern day, but 1. This is the Imperium, they do things a bit more over the top than modern military, and 2. Rule of cool.

This will happen:

If you make them realistic, people will say they can't tell they're female
If you make them obviously female, people will say they're not realistic

Every. Frakin. Time.

ph34r wrote:For female guard conversions all you need is more feminine faces, and slightly reduced waist size/slightly increased bust size to fit in with the heroic scale's exaggerated details. Minor amounts of boob armor might not be the most realistic for modern day, but 1. This is the Imperium, they do things a bit more over the top than modern military, and 2. Rule of cool.

Tits it is then that was my original plan along with a thinner waste and smaller feet and maybe slimmer arms and legs

These might help you out.

What depresses me is i know i wont be able to put a helmet on those.

I have never seen a good female imperial guardswoman sculpt, ever.

Every single attempt so far has looked like a blow-up doll or posed in a kinky anime schoolgirl pose to show off the bewbz so greasy neckbeards in their mid-30's can jerk to it.

Also, most attempts fail to release that women's legs are different to male legs, it's more a case of their hips being wider than their waist being thinner, you've got that idea all backwards.

I know how a female is shaped opposed to a male what i meant was their curve between the hips and the upper body where men are more triangular , im thinking a semi realistic figure here. No Massed cleavage - scratch that no cleavage , belly button or massive breasts with silly poses. They will wear what male guard wear but im thinking i should make a slight adjustment to the breast plate to add to the female look . however ill leave that till last , and see how it looks without it.


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Wait i never said anything about hips and i said their waste would be thinner.

Laughing Monk over at Shadow Forge Minis did an excellent conversion pack.


The open jacket is a bit much, but the others work very well. There is a chest, but it's not ridiculous, so the curves are evident but you avoid the chailmail bikini issues others have had. And the Heads that are cut away for helmet are good too, but a little odd as you tend to notice the missing chin strap.

My biggest complaint is that the torsos are a smidge smaller then the stock GW male ones, so the arms look a little bulky. However... the trimmer arms that come with Forge Worlds upgrade kits fit these marvelously well.

If you are going to sculpt your own then the Monk is a good example to follow.

For heads, Hasslefree has a great set of female heads.

Don’t listen to the "Women in armor look like men" guys. While technically accurate, remember you're making 28mm "Heroic" miniatures, not full sized museum displays. Certain artistic liberties must be taken and .... exaggerations made.

Booby armor is, realistically speaking, silly. But, along with soft features, and trimmer waists, they are the physical characteristics that make females stand out from males. If you don't give the mini at least some obvious changes in their overall silhouette, then they won't be visible as female and, aesthetically speaking, you've failed to accomplish your goal of making minis that can be identified as female.

You know, this post isn't new. Don't get me wrong, it's just that it's depressing there seems to be a dearth of good female head/torso sculpts on the market. I feel your pain. This is an issue that needs rectification!!!

There are several companies which make EXCELLENT head sculpts...male heads. If you ask me, every company that does this sort of thing should offer at least ONE pack of female heads. Laughing Monk's are probably the best, but from what I've seen every other company's is aweful with the one mediocre exception posted above Ghostofman's.

GW CAN make good female heads. And torsos. Hey the Elves/Eldar/Dark Eldar/Sisters of Battle look pretty darn good. IF we're extremely lucky there will be a plastic Sisters set which we can scavenge heads from, but they'll all have the same haircut and probably not look "Guardy".

Tidbit of History: In 1990 (before there were Sisters) Rick Priestley himself told me that the reason there were no female "Space Marines" is that the sculptors couldn't come up with sculpts that feminine and bad-ass at the same time. All their female minis back then were FUUU...UU...UUUGGG- LEE. And I think fugly is the nicest word I can think of for 'em.


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What I'm saying is that there's got to be a big market for female "guardsmen" because this topic recurs over and over and over on pretty much ever 40k forum.

We should post pics of every female head swap we can find and where to get them.

Hey man good luck sculpting up some Imperial babes. No one ever seems to get it right. I'd go with the slight boob under armour sculpt. Just to make it obvious they are women but no so outlandish that it looks stupid. Maybe just for a bit of fun knock one up whos preggers? You know, "Born in the fires of war" and all that.

Those Shadow Forge females look half way decent (for once). Anyone used those before?

Ok, not the best screenshot, but she looks EXACTLY like I want my female IG to look like. Sculpt one of these and I'll put my order down for 100 of them.



If you're serious about sculpting this, either play Space Marine or try to find some of the concept art. It's less about boobage and all about proportion. If a computer geek can render this chick, then GW could make a plastic sculpt.

The thing I noticed about her was she wasn't wearing "man-sized" armor, had a decent butt and her shoulder pads were toned down proportionately. Also, her armor while not "boobs" was accentuated by the fact that the bottom abdominal plate was left off, showing her uniformed midriff and giving the illusion of boobage without looking sexist, unrealistic or worst of all un-sexy. They did a good job on this chick.

Typically, female soldiers & athletes are very fit which means they have smaller breasts than your average female which means that, for the most part, a female soldier in full battle rattle is going to look very very close to a male soldier in full battle rattle.

At one point I'd sculpted a couple of females for my IG. I started by shaving the pec armor plates off the breast plate then adding a layer of greenstuff to raise it slightly & slanted downward from neck to stomach, then reattached the armor plates.

I'm looking for a healthy balance between realism and sci-fi fantasy. The problem with converting IG to female isn't really their chests. It's their waist, butt, legs arms and hands. Even in full gear, she shouldn't have man-hands or a man-butt or broad shoulders. Her waist should only be that thick if she's got ammo packs on her belt.

I've seen some really good Female IG, but they were all, for the most part, total re-sculpts. Most of them look like a tranny with a ponytail unfortunately. I simply don't have the talent, which is why I pine for someone to do some really good ones and mass-produce them.