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This will be an ongoing series of eclectic projects usually involving either space marines or the glorious grimdark world of the Inquisition. I’ll post when I can, hopefully you’ll drop by now and again.

So my hobby story is probably pretty similar to a lot of people here. I discovered GW models as a kid but couldn’t afford many. I was always interested and had a White Dwarf subscription for years but I didn’t really start properly collecting or painting until my early twenties. I hurt my knee and couldn’t work, and the months of downtime allowed me to truly discover my hobby. I even got to work at a Games Workshop store for a while and it was a blast!

From there the nerd slope just got more slippery - I got into RPGs and skirmish games, and eventually was sucked into competitive Warmachine and Hordes, forgetting about GW games for a few years. I also collected and played a lot of Corvus Belli Infinity, which is a cool game too. There the story becomes familiar; got married, had kids, found little or no time for gaming or even hobbying, and eventually dropped it altogether.

Fast forward 5 or 6 years and I had been seeing 40k memes popping up here and there and decided to catch up on what had been happening and...WOW there was a lot. New space marines? And they are bigger? People are back into inquisitor but playing it at 28mm scale and converting amazing models for it!? THERE IS AN ENTIRE 30k GAME!?!?!! AND KILL TEAM!?!?!?!?

I was always really into the Horus Heresy, and inquisitor was debuted when I still read White Dwarf. Kill Team had been a chapter approved article with limited rules but I had played it so seeing it developed into a fully fleshed out game was awesome. This was all just too enticing...

So I grabbed a box of intercessors and an Indomitus set and it was like rediscovering an old friendship. I always loved kitbashing and converting and now with so many game ranges and almost everything made from dense, high detail plastic the possibilities seemed endless. I started off with a Mortifactors kill team (who I’ll show here at some point) and, despite having only a few hours a week to devote to the hobby, got them painted in a few weeks.

That was a year ago and life has kept me in a ‘visualization only’ hobby mode but that’s finally changing. This means I have had time to get started on a project I have been thinking about for months. I have been chomping at the bit to build my first inquisitor and now it’s time. In my next post I'll get started!









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The model is going to be based off the old pewter Harlequin Troupe Master because his overcoat is badass. There are a lot of iconic eldar (or whatever they are called now) symbols and wargear attached so step one is to clean it all up.



Which yielded this:



And I knew I wasn't going to keep the crucifixion pose so I sawed the arms off as well:



So now I have a cool overcoat! For legs I knew I wanted something fairly baroque but still visibly armored - and ornately if possible. A few weeks ago I was going through some old tote bins that must have been from around my GW days because I found a bag of random sprues. None of them were more than about 50% full but they were from all across the 40k and WFB ranges and I'm not even sure some of these bits are still in print! Suffice it to say it was a great find, and some of those sprues were old Empire bits which gave me loads of Inq28 ideas.

Among the other really great bits were a set of legs belonging to an old Empire Captain (or maybe just the Greatsword officer, but they are cool regardles). I decided to make these fit. The waist is much larger as it was for a human instead of a space elf, but I positioned the torso a little high to leave room to bulk out the midsection later. After some more filing, drilling, pinning and test fitting, I had this to show for it:



As soon as I saw the Neyam Shai Murad model from Blackstone Fortress I knew I would buy it one day - if nothing else for the gorgeous paired phosphor serpenta pistols she carries. I never planned to use them together, but instead wanted one to be the sidearm of this inquisitor and the other to be saved for a future project. The idea of having him hold it out for a servo skull to reload while he continues to fight/berate his heretical enemies with his sword and angry litanies was just too good to pass up.

The sword is from the Warmachine range but the basket hilt and runes in the blade seemed appropriate to an Inquisitor - plus rule of cool!

I went through a lot of options for heads but ended up choosing one from a grey knight kit. While the Astartes heads are a little bit overscale for humans it's not as obvious as I had feared - and GW humans don't have properly scaled heads anyway so I think it can be overlooked. He also needed some more baroque details and also some more armor, so I dove into the bitz box and found a gorget and shoulder pad, which I had previously 'battle damaged' but it felt right:



At this point the model is really taking shape. It's very satisfying to visualize for a long time and then come up with something pretty close to what you had imagined. I can now start planning the real character details and what sculpting I'll need to do. First steps here are to fix the arm joins and bulk out the empty midriff, and I had a grenade gribbly bit with an Inquisitorial I kicking around so that went on to help hide the lithe eldar waist. I also started sculpting the gunbelt that his pistols' holster will hang from.

I'm debating a hat as well, let me know if you like the model better with or without it:



I started sculpting the holster itself and his scabbard on a flat plastic lid too. I find that if something is meant to hang off a model it will look better to sculpt it in independently and then actually hang it rather than sculpting it in place.

More to come in the next few days after the first round of green stuff is cured! Let me know what you guys think.

What a cracking start to a blog mate!

Loved seeing the process unfold. Now that you mention it, that harlequin torso is totally badass, and I can't believe I haven't seen something like this done before.

I'm firmly pro-hat at this stage as I think it is such an iconic Inquisitor accessory. Love the idea of a servo skull reloader and would love to see pics of the back!

Looking forward to more. Thanks for sharing!

Liking that conversion very much indeed!

Just a little update on the Inquisitor - who I believe will be called Galthus - from last nights progress:



I have added the rough holster rig and scabbard to test positions. Also found a neat little 'I' belt buckle and worked it down to size to use on his gunbelt. The hat will stay, thanks for the push and kind words tzurk !

Here's some shots from other angles. Not sure what to do with the back yet. I don't want a big bulky power pack because he doesn't have much powered armor such, but the original eldar backpack is pretty dainty and maybe too Xenos to work. Happy to have input on this!







I think the last one may be the 'hero' angle but hard to tell at this point.

That hat is a nice touch

The concept of 'Hobby ADD' seems to be pretty well accepted around here so I'm comfortable saying that I'm just as bad as most hobbyists when it comes to getting distracted by multiple projects. It means that there may not be a consistent theme to this blog outside of 'cool stuff I'm working on' but hopefully the stuff is cool enough to make up for that.

To that end...let's make some Sica power swords!

I am working on a special Kill Team right now for the current 28 mag challenge (Female space marines! check it out if you haven't already https://28-mag.com/2021/05/16/the-second-28magchallenge-for-2021-the-female-space-marine-project/) and I'm leaning towards a gladiatorial theme for the custom chapter. I may not get all five or so models done in time but optimistically I will go for two or three. One of the first ideas I had was twin Sicas, so I dug out some Nemesis Power Falchions and started brainstorming.

Cutting or filing the existing plastic blades down was an option, but I find it tough to get smooth surfaces like that back to a nice finish on plastic. Metal is much more forgiving and durable to boot so I went looking for some metal blades I could use. As I dug through my box of boxes of models I don't open often I came across these guys:

https://privateerpress.com/files/products/41109_CylenaRaefyllNyssHunters_WEB.jpg

I bought them years ago but never made any progress - I always liked some parts of the models but hated others. The swords specifically I thought were poorly done. While the scalloping on the blade is nice, the cutting edge is thicker than the spine and that hurts my brain. That said, for some reason this time I looked at them and saw the blade in reverse, with the scalloping as the reinforced spine and the interior of the curve as the cutting edge. Yes.

Out came the clippers and files and a little while and a lot of fine metal dust later, this process unfolded:



I removed all of the original blade, as well as the little cable and some other detail from the Falchions. The Nyss Claymores (I KNOW, but that's what Privateer Press called them so take it up with them - the elves don't even look Celtic...where were we?) were a bit more work. I clipped them off just above the bottom hand then filed the other hand and handle down into a roughly cylindrical tang. This takes one sentence to describe and sounds simple but it was a huge pain in the ass. Then, because I'm crazy, I filed an edge onto the interior curve of the blades to sell the Sica look. This also was a pain but was definitely worth the effort...right?



Then I just had to drill a hole for the tang in each 'power source' and marry the two components.



I love the way these turned out! I will have some progress on the first two bodies in the near future as well. Until then...

That inquisitor is cool, maybe try a Scion backpack? If it's still too big it should be easy to cut smaller

I have a Tuareg knife from Niger that has engravings very similar to the wave pattern on those swords! Good looking power swords there.

A quick Inquisitor update:





Playing around with position for the reloader servo skull.

Thanks for the comments and ideas as well! Scion backpack was near the top of the potential list - although the little eldar power supply is growing on me and is a natural attachment point for the servo skull(s?). I also have some Eisenkern Stormtrooper sprues somewhere and I think their backpacks were small but decently techy.

Feedback on the servo skull position is welcome.


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Thanks Gwyn, I am stoked on them. The Tuareg knife sounds cool!

Great stuff so far. Could we have bigger pictures, please?

Welcome to Dakka! Neat work so far. The Inquisitor is shaping up to be quite the cool mini. Glad you found your way back to the hobby!

Thanks for the encouragement and feedback. I’ll try to post some larger pics later today.

Well, it's been a crazy few days getting our house listed but yesterday morning found me with some increasingly rare free time, and therefore an update!

Let's check in on Inquisitor Galthus first:



Not too much progress today but I added the base of his main (pants) belt and some detail on the holster. I also made some progress on his scabbard but it's not currently attached and I didn't get any good pics so that can wait for next time. Larger image - I'll try to include at least a few of these each post.

I'm also trying to settle on a pommel for his sword. The current options are horse hair tassel:



Or heavy brass face breaker thing (too visceral?):



He still needs a lot of clean up but is really coming along. Next steps are to repair the cuffs and arms of the overcoat and clean up his right hand, then add some guitar string and more Inqy bits. I am very torn on whether or not I should add more servo skulls. I am kind of liking just the reloady skull so far. Input welcome!

Next up are the beginnings of the first two female space marines (one of whom will probably wield the Power Sicas I made).

I mentioned previously I was interested in submitting something for the 28Mag challenge on female space marines. I have two daughters and I don't like the idea that there's anything they shouldn't be able to do (and that's in a world without progenoid glands) so this one resonates with me. I knew that the core of my project was going to be 'don't sexualize' because I feel like that's something GW hasn't been great about with female models.

This is partly because I've never really been into cheesecake models that focus too much on eye candy and not enough on fantasy or sci fi aesthetics (a problem you rarely or never see with male models). It's also partly because we are still around 28,000 years before the dawn of the Space Marine and you can already see women competing in more physical roles. If you've ever seen WNBA highlights or a womens UFC fight it's not that hard to imagine power armored women crashing doors and toting heavy weapons with all the ease of their male counterparts.

Space Marines also rely on special organs and genetic engineering and other 'unnatural' elements to achieve their size and physical prowess, so it's reasonable to assume the same advantages would be given to a female version. They would be big, strong, fast and durable. It's equally reasonable to assume that any differences in their armor and tactical gear would exist for practical reasons rather than aesthetic or, especially, sexual ones. I think the Colonial Marines from Aliens are well done in this way. The female squad members don't show much more skin, if any, than their male counterparts and they use the same gear (even heavy weapons).



Conclusion: If the Imperium of Man were to condone female Space Marines they would be an awful lot like male space marines. Maybe with better judgement, and equipped to handle an even more broad range of circumstances (if my wifes' purse is anything to go by), but physically not too different. As far as all the fluff I've read goes Space Marines are already sterile, so no need for extensive pregnancy equipment - just the same black carapace and super organs and whatnot that male marines are given. SO they would be as big, and probably as strong, but what might be different?

I looked at sculpting and artists diagrams of human musculature and something stood out to me. When you get into the category of 'super muscular' there is not a great deal of difference between male and female silhouettes. The waist is slimmer compared to the hips and ribcage (which are both a little narrower than mens), the shoulders are slimmer with less trapezius muscle. The arms and legs tend to be around the same length, with similar capacity for muscle. The breasts lose fatty tissue as they gain muscle and start to look more like male pectoral muscles, and the neck is sometimes longer and more elegant. The feet are also smaller, but I'm not sure I'll be able to represent that,. I do not want to swap the feet from Firstborn to Primaris marines.

So if you were making power armor for a female space marine it would look mostly the same. The waist would need to taper in more aggressively and the chest would be slightly less wide. The hips could be a little slimmer, but it's not really necessary when there's going to be lots of kit there anyway. I like art scale marines better so I wanted to use a Primaris base and work from there. To solve the torso issues I decided to use a combination of Firstborn torsos and scout torsos, with the entire waist section removed. I can then resculpt the waist and lower torso accordingly.

Here are the first two, along with a Primaris marine for scale. I wanted the Femarines to be just slightly shorter than males.



The marine on the left has a Grey Knight torso and the right is a Scout. The Scout torso gives me the lines I wanted a little better, but I can work with the bulkier Grey Knight as well. I think that model will end up being the squad leader. Here are some close ups of the initial chop and refit:





I also had some extra green stuff after working on the Inquisitor so I roughed in the waist of the officer marine and the hips and waist of the other marine. I also started to repair the belt and buckle damaged while removing the upper torso from the Indomitus officer:





Next step is to test fit with both Firstborn and Primaris arms because I'm not sure what will look better. The idea I have roughed out for the Chapter is a Thracian theme. Their fun weapons, rough and tumble Greekish character and the possibility that they may indeed have had warrior women all make them an ideal culture to take inspiration from.

I hope to have updates on both projects again by mid week. Thanks for stopping by!