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A couple weeks ago I started doing the eBay thing and I had this overwhelming compulsion... The Emperor spoke to me in my dreams and commanded I resurrect his old Imperial Guard units so that they may serve in glory again...

Turns out His old IG units are a pricey bunch. So far I've managed to get them for $1.26 per trooper including shipping. Of course, the pictures don't always do them ...uhh...'justice'? I'm actually doing this blog for some of the sellers who are interested in seeing what's become of their old Imperial Guard figures. It's heart warming to hear them say how much they'd love their old minis to see the battlefield again, and so they shall. For the Emperor!



OME! (Oh My Emperor) Is that...TESTORS?!? NOOOOOOOOOoooooo.... Emperor's balls. Anyone know how to get enamel off without melting the plastic?

I'm hoping the Simple Green will weed out the Enamel from the Acrylic. Bath time!



The light-up Plasma Generator in the background there is for sale on eBay if you want to help fund my project. If I can't get the Testors off, it's jack my price per unit up substantially. I can't really blame the seller, as they probably put these together back in 1989. They look like they were painted by a 10 year old because they probably were. If you ever want to do a project like this (with IG or Marines or old school Eldar or whatever) it behooves your before placing a bid to ask the seller these two very important questions: 1. Is that paint I see enamel or acrylic? and 2. Did you use super glue or airplane glue (plastic cement) If they used enamel or plastic cement you don't want 'em. They're not worth the shipping price. Obviously, if you can't pop them apart or strip the 20 year old paint job off, they're useless crap.

As I said, it's not really the Seller's fault. Although I am rather peeved about a lot I bought where I stripped the paint and primer only to find an even older layer of cursed Testors below. Here's a great lot I got totally unpainted and there were only 3 heads I wasn't able to pop off. All the arms should be usable and I'm going to throw the old-school weapons back up on eBay.



I've filed off the old glue and after washing off the dust I'll be ready to start my conversions.
The plan is to give them "new" weapons and kit. The weapons will be easy, the kit however requires I Dremel off the crappy looking dagger and packs on their Imperial heinies. Due to several lots being assembled with airplane glue, I'll have to perform some radical amputations. I'm already concerned I've not enough arms to go around, so I'm going to do a squad (maybe two) with Catachan arms, which I think look rather good, especially if I paint them up as Necromundan 9th Regiment. When I get to that point, I crave your opinion. Ultimately I'm going to assemble them the way I want, but Dakka posters seem to have a keen eye that might save me a lot of grief and/or give me great ideas I never thought of. They're too expensive to suck, so experimentation must be kept to a minimum.

Ok, so I'm going for a new look. I'm sure other people have done this before, but I've never seen it. (Going to troll old forum posts after this for ideas). Traditional old-school IG are a bunch of no-neck stiffs who are constantly searching the ground for pennies. The Emperor is giving them a raise and I'm going to pin and green stuff their non-existant necks so they're not staring at the ground and I can get more range of difference between models. There's only so much you can do with 3 head and 3 bodies, so to get them as different as possible I'm going to throw in some new-school heads and do my magic act of sawing some of them in half and repositioning the torsos.

I want them to look different, but I also want them to be recognizable as classic IG, so I'm not using any Cadian helmet heads or Catachan 'Rambo' heads.

Stay tuned for more!

This looks like it could become very interesting very fast, subbed and good luck

I was about 13 when I got those IG. I used plastic model glue to assemble them. I then used testors paint on them. Not quite sure how many coats. Hope the simple green works for you.
I am moving to a new job, so I had to purge a lot of stuff. These guard do not fit into my guard army of Valhallans. So I hope you can enjoy these guardsmen, and make them work for you.

You can use Denatured Alcohol, that's what I used.Just combine with tooth brush.

I heard from the guy at the hobby store that "Castrol Super Clean" works like a charm.

LOL I found the very first mini I ever painted yesterday. Testors. It was an old Ral Partha Ranger figure.


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Ok, so I've gotten several suggestions, Denatured Alcohol which is mostly ethanol, so Rubbing Alcohol should do the same, Castrol Super Clean, Brake Fluid, and EZ OFF Oven cleaner.

And my wife thinks the Simple Green is stinky...she's in for a shock. I'm going to try Brake Fluid because I know I have some in the garage. I'll try it on a couple and see how it does.

Brake fluid works but Dettol/Simply Green is far more pleasant (less actually poisonoustoxic and difficult to legally dispose off) so would be worth trying first.

I'm a sucker for the original IG models. Subbed and will be back for more.

I haven't made a lot of progress on this project, but I swear on my honor to the God Emperor that I will post some pictures of a couple that I finished tomorrow. This is my holy vow. You'll be amazed and astounded, I promise.

Stoked to see what you can do with these!

Dude! I am doing the exact same job! A few weekends ago I spent many hours soaking in Dettol, then finishing off with Fairy Power Spray. I now have about 60 clean minis, including both metal and plastics. I am about halfway through getting rid of the flash the previous owners did not worry about. I am just going to go with their original weapons though, or Rogue Trader era switches - I have a lot of RTB01 marines, along with their missile launchers and flamers, for example, and the old Orc plasma cannons...

Subbed, out of sheer curiosity.

I have so much envy for you having the old plastic. I crave a miraculous cheap eBay win so I can recondition them lovingly too!!!

Darth Malus wrote:
I was about 13 when I got those IG. I used plastic model glue to assemble them. I then used testors paint on them. Not quite sure how many coats. Hope the simple green works for you.
I am moving to a new job, so I had to purge a lot of stuff. These guard do not fit into my guard army of Valhallans. So I hope you can enjoy these guardsmen, and make them work for you.

Oooh, Valhallans! Feel free to post them, and welcome to Dakka!

Sorry, not Valhallans!



I've done more, but I thought these two would be a good comparison. "New" one is still a little 'flashy' and needs some sanding and a couple gap fills still.



I like the look of the new equipment. By the way, don't try this project if you don't have a Dremel with some fine grinding tips. It's a lot of work grinding off the old kit without ruining the figure.



As you can see, I had to go with the old arms because of the torso width on both Cadians and Catachan, their arms simply didn't fit. Made him look like a Mutant. Bummer, because I don't have enough arms. I'll have to wind up casting some.

More to come. The Melta-Gunner and Plasma-Gunner look really good. I'll have some painted soon too.


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 Fifty wrote:
Dude! I am doing the exact same job! A few weekends ago I spent many hours soaking in Dettol, then finishing off with Fairy Power Spray. I now have about 60 clean minis, including both metal and plastics. I am about halfway through getting rid of the flash the previous owners did not worry about. I am just going to go with their original weapons though, or Rogue Trader era switches - I have a lot of RTB01 marines, along with their missile launchers and flamers, for example, and the old Orc plasma cannons...

Dude, if you need old-school weapons, let me know. We can work something out. Seriously, 95% of them are just going up on eBay and I have....LOTS...of them.

I highly recommend a dab of green stuff and giving them a neck. It's surprising the range of difference it makes when you can pose the head in more directions.


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 JohnnyHell wrote:
I have so much envy for you having the old plastic. I crave a miraculous cheap eBay win so I can recondition them lovingly too!!!

Seems like lately the only place to find them is eBay in the UK and they ain't cheap. Last time I saw a full box it went for something like $250. Normally it's about a dozen figs and they want like $5/each for them.

I guess I was lucky and started early. I have over 100 of them now. I could make a full Company!


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http://www.dakkadakka.com/core/gallery-search.jsp?u=41290

There's my gallery if you want to see them bigger.

I've managed to get some of the metal ones off ebay. I agree they can go for silly money. Its taken me ages to get enough to make a squad.

Maxim, I think I am pretty sorted for weapons, but if you had any spare arms, that would be awesome, as I was expecting to have to learn resin-molding as I am a few short. I have a small amount of modern IG bitz, or a few more interesting older items. I will try to sit down and figure out how many arms I am short. Let me know what sort of things you might be looking for, if you do have spare arms you want to swap.

Johnny Hell, it is really hard to find these guys at good proces on EBay. I have paid through the nose for one batch, gotten super lucky on anothe batch that even came in the original box, and then picked up a few here and there. The best way to get these guys at a decent price is very laborious and relies on luck. Every once in a while I go onto the Tabletop Wargames and RPGs section of EBay.co.uk (not the US version, though I see you are UK anyway) and do searches for "assorted" "job" "lot" "mixed" "bundle" and similar searches. You have to trawl through a lot of gak, but every once in a while, you find an auction that has absolute gems in, but which goes for maybe 10-20% of value because the person doesn't know what they are selling, so it is not properly labelled. Other people obviously do it too, because you don't always get an absolute steal, but you tend to get at least reasonable prices that way. As I say though, I may do that once every three months or so, and spend maybe 3 hours just trawling through EBay! Sometimes you don't even find anything worth bidding for,

 Fifty wrote:
Maxim, I think I am pretty sorted for weapons, but if you had any spare arms, that would be awesome, as I was expecting to have to learn resin-molding as I am a few short. I have a small amount of modern IG bitz, or a few more interesting older items. I will try to sit down and figure out how many arms I am short. Let me know what sort of things you might be looking for, if you do have spare arms you want to swap.

Johnny Hell, it is really hard to find these guys at good proces on EBay. I have paid through the nose for one batch, gotten super lucky on anothe batch that even came in the original box, and then picked up a few here and there. The best way to get these guys at a decent price is very laborious and relies on luck. Every once in a while I go onto the Tabletop Wargames and RPGs section of EBay.co.uk (not the US version, though I see you are UK anyway) and do searches for "assorted" "job" "lot" "mixed" "bundle" and similar searches. You have to trawl through a lot of gak, but every once in a while, you find an auction that has absolute gems in, but which goes for maybe 10-20% of value because the person doesn't know what they are selling, so it is not properly labelled. Other people obviously do it too, because you don't always get an absolute steal, but you tend to get at least reasonable prices that way. As I say though, I may do that once every three months or so, and spend maybe 3 hours just trawling through EBay! Sometimes you don't even find anything worth bidding for,

I do love it when they don't know what it is they're selling. I once got some for about 50c each and they were in the D&D category. Arms...arms...That, my friend is something I don't have enough of either. I do have some resin and will be casting some. I've not casted many things, but in this case I will try as many times as it takes to get it right, because dammit, none of the other arms work! I'll get back to you on that, I promise.

Here's a couple more I've almost completed. I was very happy with the Meltagunner.



What do you think? Does the Catachan backpack work?




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Hey, Fifty? I came across a secret cache of arms. If I have extras I'll let you know and we can work something out.

 Fifty wrote:
Johnny Hell, it is really hard to find these guys at good proces on EBay. I have paid through the nose for one batch, gotten super lucky on anothe batch that even came in the original box, and then picked up a few here and there. The best way to get these guys at a decent price is very laborious and relies on luck. Every once in a while I go onto the Tabletop Wargames and RPGs section of EBay.co.uk (not the US version, though I see you are UK anyway) and do searches for "assorted" "job" "lot" "mixed" "bundle" and similar searches. You have to trawl through a lot of gak, but every once in a while, you find an auction that has absolute gems in, but which goes for maybe 10-20% of value because the person doesn't know what they are selling, so it is not properly labelled. Other people obviously do it too, because you don't always get an absolute steal, but you tend to get at least reasonable prices that way. As I say though, I may do that once every three months or so, and spend maybe 3 hours just trawling through EBay! Sometimes you don't even find anything worth bidding for,

Haha, so YOU'RE that guys that searches 'job lot' and bids against me? DAMN YOU!!! Don't tell everyone the secrets of the 'Bay! :-)

Misspellings are my other favourite. So many "Wahammer" and "Warhamer" items out there.

I salute you guys with your vintage IG wins. I am jealous. But since developing my Cadian/Pistolier mashup Praetorians I'm having a ball. I will watch this thread and get my classic plastic fix that way! :-)

Maxim, that would be awesome, cheers. I don't think I am many short. Maybe I will make finally sorting them this afternoon's job instead of planning lessons for Monday!

Here's a comparison with a standard Cadian Guardsman. Notice the proportions of everything are different. Putting Cadian arms on the Old School involves sawing off part of the OS Guardsman's shoulders and the result is just not pleasing. Don't get me wrong, I love Cadian models but the idea here is to get something that looks totally different. Another problem is the OS Guardians have a slightly wider torso, so the arms don't fit quite right. A lot of the Cadian lasguns have the left hand molded on and you have to line up the left arm with the wrist. I decided no amount of putty or extra sculpting time was worth it. I thought Cadian arms would be cool, but they make them look like Mutants and you have the same problem with hands moulded onto the guns. Now, back in the day the Necromunda figures came with bare arms, which make the OS Guardsmen look rather like sickly wimps. The old Necromunda figs were skinnier, probably all that delicious Corpse Starch they feed the IG.



So here we have one I did with a Cadian backpack. Also a great look I think.

Before I do any more "Standard" troopers, I'm going to experiment with breaking their arms and greenstuffing them to get some different poses. The biggest challenge with the old kits are the limitations on bodies/arms. Side note: a lot of "Bare Heads" look quite good on the old bodies, for example the Cadian with the headset who's shouting orders. It's really a nice change from the "Dolph Lundgren" head.


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 Fifty wrote:
Maxim, that would be awesome, cheers. I don't think I am many short. Maybe I will make finally sorting them this afternoon's job instead of planning lessons for Monday!

I know I'll have a lot of the heavy weapon arms. I doubt I'll be using many as I'll be trying to make the heavies into more current "weapon teams" or try to have them hip-firing the smaller heavy weapons.

They look so damn good with new-style weapons. Mega-envy, great work.

Looking good. Subbed, love to see where you're going with these

LOL, I've got a lot of them. I'm going to try to make an actual IG Company per the actual 40k rules, quite a few "customs" for my DW/DH/RT and Only War games and I'm sure I'll have to sell off a few squads on eBay to support the whole thing. Right now my wife has no clue how much I've spent on this particular project.

If I do sell some on eBay, I'll be sure to ask your advice on squad assembly, primed/not primed, painted/not painted etc.

Check this out: I've got access to a guy who runs a 4000W laser cutter for our company. He's going to make me some company symbols and stencils in brass etching. I'm heavily inclined on going Urban Camo for the fatigues and black on the boots, flak and helmet and going with 1st Regiment "Big Red 1". Back in the day (for they are vintage minis after all) Codex Grey was the official color or IG units. Unless someone can change my mind. Anything I sell painted of course might be any paint scheme, but the Aquila stencils will look bad-ass.

What's you guys experience buying/selling on eBay? I'm not a "Pro-Painter" but I'm better than average I suppose. I prefer to buy unpainted minis myself. Is it worth painting some for sale? I've done conversions that sell for $20-50 just assembled and primed (I don't expect that for these...) I'm afraid my 43 year old eyes and paint job might actually lower the value.

Glad you are going for codex grey. I'll be going with the traditional black and grey, with blue as a spot colour, as my guys' fluff will be that they are part of Lufgt Huron's Tyrant's Guard.

This project has awesome written all over it. Nothing like those old Rogue Trader models.

Typically, people want unpainted models. You can experiment, but I'd stick with doing it for fun.

Still can't find anything that'll get Testors off without melting the mini as well. Purple Power and Simple Green work pretty good on Acrylics, but Testors is like Ceramite armor.

Have you checked the Painting and Modeling or Painting and Modeling Tutorial forums? Someone there may know how to strip it off.

Ok, which one of you gits is outbidding me on http://www.ebay.com/itm/261199250702?ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1431.l2649 ?

Yeah, I did. I've tried Easy-Off, brake fluid, Simple Green and Purple Power. So far, Simple Green works the best. Easy off and brake fluid melt the plastic. If you're careful on the timing though, brake fluid will strip the paint AND make any Super Glue brittle and the parts easy to pop off, but if you forget and leave it too long.....rubber IG's. Not to mention it's pretty toxic and hard to legally get rid of.


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 Fifty wrote:
Maxim, I think I am pretty sorted for weapons, but if you had any spare arms, that would be awesome, as I was expecting to have to learn resin-molding as I am a few short. I have a small amount of modern IG bitz, or a few more interesting older items. I will try to sit down and figure out how many arms I am short. Let me know what sort of things you might be looking for, if you do have spare arms you want to swap.

Johnny Hell, it is really hard to find these guys at good proces on EBay. I have paid through the nose for one batch, gotten super lucky on anothe batch that even came in the original box, and then picked up a few here and there. The best way to get these guys at a decent price is very laborious and relies on luck. Every once in a while I go onto the Tabletop Wargames and RPGs section of EBay.co.uk (not the US version, though I see you are UK anyway) and do searches for "assorted" "job" "lot" "mixed" "bundle" and similar searches. You have to trawl through a lot of gak, but every once in a while, you find an auction that has absolute gems in, but which goes for maybe 10-20% of value because the person doesn't know what they are selling, so it is not properly labelled. Other people obviously do it too, because you don't always get an absolute steal, but you tend to get at least reasonable prices that way. As I say though, I may do that once every three months or so, and spend maybe 3 hours just trawling through EBay! Sometimes you don't even find anything worth bidding for,

Fifty, I've already decided that I'm going to have to cast some. I'm going to buy the mold compound tonight. I've never done a 2-part mold, but I have about 5 full sprues in case I hose one or two. The guys at the hobby store will guide me right I hope. I already have some resin.

If I get really ambitious, I'm going to try my hand at casting some different posed arms. Especially left arms. I found the "heavy weapon" arms work great for the Cadian Missile Launchers, but the armored left arm always seemed out of place. I am going to use them to make some Whiteshields with actual shields. Not sure if that's an option in the new Codex, but in original 40k, Power Shields were a fairly common component to both SM and IG close assault squads.

Oh, kneeling legs. I'm going to try to sculpt some kneeling legs and cast them.