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Here's my dilemma: I'm broke. I also want to use a model that I don't have. Here's what I have to work with:

Space Marine tactical squad box
Dark Vengeance box set
AoBR box set (at least two of the captains)
Captain eagle backpack

Here's the model I hope to make from the vanilla SM codex:

Captain with bike, power sword, bolt pistol, and artificer armor.

Can I get away with it? I have green stuff and liquid green stuff, and probably some other bits as well that I haven't mentioned. I would love to be able to convert the AoBR captain onto the DV bike (with a head swap to boot), but the model just doesn't look like it would be easy, or even possible. I have two of the captains so if I mess one up it's no big deal. Has anyone done this before? I'd love to make this work.

I haven't done something like that but i can share a few thought with you.

At first what style of chaptain you want to go for. Because theoretically you could just grab the DV biker sergeant, remove the iconography and replace the chainsword with a power one. If you want to represent the pistol, just grab one and glue it to the side of the bike.
Use the eagle backpack and put a banner on top.
This would create a helmetless chaptain wearing a robe.

If you want to actually use the DV captain there are a few things to consider. To get him on the DV bike you have to saw through his hip what will damage a lot of the details like the tabard. Also you'd need to recreate most of his cloak as it will not fit onto the bike seat. (Not an easy task) His arms aren't ment to be used on a bike and reworking that would even mean more loss of details. And at the end you get a model where most of the stuff is scratchbuild to replace the stuff you have cut away.


A few alternatives:
- Use the biker sergeant like i mentioned earlier.

- Use a normal tac squad body and the arm holding the bike-handle and build your own design of decorations. As hard as the conversion you suggested but with a lot less damaged and unuseable parts and models.

-Carve the legs away from one bike and rebuild the holes with GS (Or just buy one bike) and put the captain next to the bike as if he just is dismounted.

- Put the captain on the bike doomrider style

Bahaha! I love that doomrider! Unfortunately, I would only do that with the AoBR captain if I could get his cape to flap the right way, which is way beyond me.

I'll try hacking at the AoBR captain and rebuild his cape to be piled around the seat (like he's stopped) with greenstuff, and if that doesn't work I'll go for the tactical squad conversion. I feel much more comfortable smoothing out and filling cracks than making my own detail. I really don't want to just use the sergeant bike as the captain because I plan on using him in a vanilla Bike SM army, and there will be too many similar models and I need him to stand out. (again, I'm broke so I'm using several DV bike sets to make the vanilla Sm bikes).

I did this with the DV Librarian, DV Biker sgt, and the handle bars from another DV biker.

The handle bars of those bikes each have an arm attached and one is lefty, the other 2 righty.
The DV Libby is casting with his right hand, and I wanted to keep that. So have to swap the handles bars for another pair.
The cloaked leg worked for me as I wanted a cloaked Librarian.
For uncloaked Character use one of the other bikers without a cloak
The angel wing front faring will always look dark angels though,along with the feathers at the back. the front faring could be smoothed off with putty and re-decorated with a studded trim, maybe some purity seals and other bits to denote rank and importance. Its a shame you can't give a character a bike with a plasma talon, as the Ravenwing Command Squad Box is much more convertible and less mono pose, but contains no twin bolter bikes, the plasma guns are seperate though, a bit of handy work could have some other bolt guns fitting in i bet.

I was considering just chopping off the angel wings on the sides and leaving that piece as just the middle. The guys are in power armor they don't need a puny little hunk of decorative metal in front of them. Something like this but without the sides. I have some plasticard so maybe that, but probably not.

I would think that the faring protects the bike itself more than the marine riding it, although they do get T4(5) due to riding the bike.

 btldoomhammer wrote:
I haven't done something like that but i can share a few thought with you.

At first what style of chaptain you want to go for. Because theoretically you could just grab the DV biker sergeant, remove the iconography and replace the chainsword with a power one. If you want to represent the pistol, just grab one and glue it to the side of the bike.
Use the eagle backpack and put a banner on top.
This would create a helmetless chaptain wearing a robe.

If you want to actually use the DV captain there are a few things to consider. To get him on the DV bike you have to saw through his hip what will damage a lot of the details like the tabard. Also you'd need to recreate most of his cloak as it will not fit onto the bike seat. (Not an easy task) His arms aren't ment to be used on a bike and reworking that would even mean more loss of details. And at the end you get a model where most of the stuff is scratchbuild to replace the stuff you have cut away.


A few alternatives:
- Use the biker sergeant like i mentioned earlier.

- Use a normal tac squad body and the arm holding the bike-handle and build your own design of decorations. As hard as the conversion you suggested but with a lot less damaged and unuseable parts and models.

-Carve the legs away from one bike and rebuild the holes with GS (Or just buy one bike) and put the captain next to the bike as if he just is dismounted.

- Put the captain on the bike doomrider style

I miss doom rider and his "gushing plasma"

I was going to suggest something mildly similar to the surfing Doomrider. Instead of having him surfing the bike, have him leaping off the front, sword in hand, plasma at the ready.


Alternatively, if you only have standing legs to work with, model him standing next to his bike, one hand resting on his "baby" protectively as though he's just put a fresh coat of wax on it and he's not about to let a silly thing like a battle scuff it up. I wouldn't use the AOBR captain, as they aren't easy to re-pose to any significant degree.

If you have an AoBR sargeant, stand him next to the bike and cut off the pointing hand, replace it with one of the open hands that cradle the bolter on a tactical marine. Dont worry about him not lookng ornate enough right now. You can always revisit the model and bling it out more as your bits box accumulates.

Okay, so here is what I have right now. The green stuff is not yet cured and a little wet. I'm wondering on how best to make that into a good elbow, (his right arm), but I've always sucked at that. The rest I'm okay with. If anyone has any advice within the next 10-15 minutes of posting this (or for however long it takes for the green stuff to cure), I'll try it. My fallback option is to hang something from that piece of greenstuff, paint it brown and have it be a leather strap of some kind.

Oh, and yes I know I still have much work to do like mold lines and fixing the removal of those wings (last recond removal to make the cape flow better), but I'd like to fix the green stuff if I can while it's still wet.

Well, i'd try adding the elbow pad in after the joint has hardened. Remove a little bit of GS from the joint and push in those rides the other flexible joint areas have. Let that cure and then add the elbow in another step.

Edit:
and GS needs a day or so to harden and i'd say 4 or 5 hours until it is save enough to work on the model again. Just don't press directly at it.

What elbow pad? The elbow pad of the model is part of the original AoBR stub of his arm that is visible, just in front of the green stuff. I need to trim that green stuff down to be flush with the hand/wrist part of the arm.

Oh. You're right and im stupid. Looking at my own AoBR model is see the pad creeping into the shoulder. Strange i kinda remember a more visible pad to be there.

But maybe you could move the pad a little bit forward with GS. That would give the arm a bit more feature.


And as i haven't said it already i really like how the cloak turned out. The torso looks better that i had thought it would. Good work there.