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Love the skink mystic. Almost makes me want to grab one of mine just to do that to him (to the skink). I know I would never use it but still.

Here is further progress on the Autach



I am basically doing a homage to my favourite eldar model of all time - the old Dire Avenger Exarch. I have detailed the torso armour, and have started detailing and smoothing the leg armour.
Like the Exarch model, I have given my guy a loin cloth, but have made mine fluttering back to add some more movement to the pose. The loin cloth also obscures the join of leg to torso which I wasn't quite happy with. I was worried about doing the jewels but they turned out quite easy to do and were very satisfying to sculpt. So they appear everywhere. You can see the basic shape of the right arm and gauntlet-gun. I was trying to do something like the eldar off the front cover of the codex, but haven't quite got there yet.

Do you think its worth the effort to customize each marine to true scale? i agree that they look great but wouldn't they just become annoying to transport/play considering there larger then most minis.
and have you considered creating a tutorial for this method, because my company master is coming around the corner

The alpha legion marines are so cool! I like your take on true-scale... They don't look like an obvious mish-mash of terminator parts, seemingly thanks to your skilled use of greenstuff.

I don't quite get the larger eldar guy. Are eldar modles also much smaller than they should be? He seems a bit big and beefy for eldar.

There is a link to the tutorial method a couple of posts back. On whether it is "worth it", that depends on your definition. I am trying to build a counts-as deamonhunters army, so all my truescale marines are counts-as grey knight terminators. So I don't need to do that many of them (only about 10). The rest of the army will be stormtroopers etc, so that the differences in size can be seen. If you were doing a whole space marine army, without any 'normal' humans to compare, then truescaling them would be slightly pointless.

Game-wise, because they are counts-as terminators they are on the correct bases. But doing this type of army means you are taking the idea of Fluff-before-Efficiency to it's limit; not the greatest idea if you play 40k to win lots of games.

Edit: I've taken the background fluff of the eldar to be that they are slightly taller and skinnier than normal humans. My model is taller, and compared to my truescale marines he is stick-thin.

I love the Autarch! The pose is super.

I think the sword would be better cut from plastic than sculpted with gs.

The Autarch is starting to shape up nicely! The legs are still a bit too beefy for my tastes though, but you're getting there! Great to see true scale Eldar out there!

I love how the autarch has turned out good job.

Great sculpting again mate, love the eldar and the skink mystic. Had tried to find a use for old plastic skinks myself, now you have convinced me!

Cheers,

Dante

I'm always amazed by people who go through the work to do this. Looks good! Do people actually play with true scale marines?

Is it really worth the bother greenstuff a sword instead of taking one from another mini? It seems like you could pull it of, but I am still not convinced.

Fantastic work on all of your sculpting projects in here. You really should rename this thing ^_-. I was only expecting to see more Legionaires when I checked in, and here I see an amazing autarch and skink!

I do believe I'm in the camp for using an existing sword or possibly plasticard carving for a sword instead of GS though. Just seems like you'll get more out of the effort than doing it with GS.

I'm not against sculpting the sword blade but I'm probably against using GS to do it.

I think you would get better results using milliput. It dries harder and can be sanded, cut and tooled easily to get it into the desired shape.

I have seen plenty of people use it in the past to make blades by putting it into rough shape over a length or wire and then sanding the blade to get the right edges and a flat, smooth finish.

Maybe give it a shot?

Cheers,

Dante

That Eldar is exactly what I've always imagined Eldar to look like. Amazing job!!

Thanks for the kind comments guys.

For anyone looking for tips on making weapons - I think you are right about using plasticard as a sword-base to give a thinner starting blade.

I made my sword out of a length of paperclip wire, wrapped in greenstuff and carved into a blade shape. It is probably about 1.5 times the thickness of a perfect sword.
The reasons I carved it entirely out of greenstuff was;
a) I was worried about getting a smooth transition between plasticard and greenstuff. If you look at the bolters on my marines:

you can see I found it very difficult to get a smooth transition on flat surfaces. The chainsword on my captain was also plasticard/greenstuff blend, and had the same problem. I got round this by cheating and painting thickly, but I wanted to see if there was another way.
b) I simply wanted to see if I had the skills to do it. This project is really just a fun way for me to learn how to use greenstuff, and I don't mind if some experiments don't work out quite as well as expected.
The sword is also stupidly long, even for 40k. However, overall I think the weapon works well to offset his comically oversized helmet.

In case any beginner-sculptors wander in here, I recommend buying greenstuff from Gale Force 9:

I recently found out about HobbyCraft stores. They are giant craft shops that are located in those large industrial out-of-town shopping areas where you find big PC World and Halfords. These tubes cost me £10 (equivalent to ~ 5 GW blisters). HobbyCraft also sell a bit of GW stuff, but also Galeforce9, flamesofwar(?? v. cool), model train scenery, paints, everything. I fell to my knees and wept.
They also sell milliput and Greystuff. I decided to go for the greenstuff because I like the performance and wanted to practice with it, but I hear greystuff sets harder? Anyone have experience or opinions on which is better?

One piece of advice I would give anyone following me on the insane path of sculpting; get yourself a greenstuff-caddy. This is a model/something that requires a fair bit of greenstuff, but is not especially complicated. Therefore when you are working on your main model, you might finish the section and have to wait for it to set. Or the greenstuff you have made has gone slightly too hard for you to continue sculpting tiny, fiddly bits. What do you do? Use the remainder on your greenstuff-caddy. Mine has been:

Gahet (who I want to end up looking ring-wraithy), the base for my dreadnought, and what is this mysterious object?.?...?...

Metal tools are the key to getting a smooth transition from plastic to greenstuff. Press the edges reasonably hard with the metal tool to get a flush join.

Also, you might want to try some milliput washes to fill small seams and joins, just add a small blob to a little pot or pool of water and mix to a wash then paint onto the surface. It can be sanded flush if it ends up a little uneven too.

Cheers,

Dante

Darth Fugly wrote:
I have detailed the torso armour, and have started detailing and smoothing the leg armour.

very nice work and looking forward to seeing them painted.

How do you smooth the GS after it dries?

I've tried filing and cutting, but usually end up futzing-up the whole thing.

thanks and take care

For the eldar, the armour plates are quite exposed so it was relatively simple to carve them and file them back using a needle file. Then re-apply small bits of greenstuff to tweek the shape, add details etc. For example, if you look at the first picture of the autach on page 2, everything is very rough and just there to give body bulk and a basis for me to work off. I then filed smooth and carved the pectoral plates. The plate following the rib cage was heavily carved back with a knife to give a much thinner shape and then the abs were added.

But in general I would recommend trying to get as smooth a finish on the greenstuff as possible while it is still 'wet', bcause it is much harder to file afterwards if it's in an awkward place on the model.

CMDante wrote:Also, you might want to try some milliput washes to fill small seams and joins, just add a small blob to a little pot or pool of water and mix to a wash then paint onto the surface.

Nice one I will look into this.

For a smooth finish to GS, I have recently gotten some clay shapers (actually they are "color shapers" but that is close enough). They look like brushes, but have a rubber head (in different shapes), which can be used to smooth the GS.

I know a few other people on this forum have also gotten them to help with the TS marines.

Piousman

Darth Fugly wrote:..you can see I found it very difficult to get a smooth transition on flat surfaces.

I agree, I've had many problems trying to gap fill SM vehilcels, I stick to a regular one part putty for flat areas.

Darth Fugly wrote:...and what is this mysterious object?.?...?...

Looks like Horus.

Maybe you should make a true scale terminator captain. Bulk up the power fist and make the iconography stand out. I mean, I couldn't personally do this, but you have talent and you should make something big to prove it.

So nice to follow this thread. I like how you've generated a truly unique feel for your project. I think, together with mine we have two very different and very unique takes on the legion and it'll be great to see both progress parallel - even if my time line is 10k years later

what colors did you use to achieve the blue armor? I;ve been trying to make Alpha's but I can;t get a good blue with GW paints.

I don't think this is thredomancy because I just read Alpharius say that for P&M it isn't so much a issue...

But what happened to this blog...it was amazing!

It's isn't so much an issue if it's your Thread, but reviving a dead Blog... I think that is an issue.

With nothing really to add either...

OH MY! those ancient paints from when the necrons were a civilisation are by far the winner of this post! I even have some in my collection including a pot of old yellow ink that actually comes out yellow! maybe we should start a thread on old paints?

but I digress, this is about the awesome mini's we have featured here, and they are well done, true scaling is hard and time consuming and you've done a great job, with time will come perfection but you have nothing to complain about here, love the paint job too!

It is often best to (P)rivate (M)essage the (O)riginal (P)oster when a Blog has gone silent for a long time...

Please...