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Like hell he does! >:C

But in all seriousness, epic work as always!

 Brother Chaplain Kage wrote:
I'll keep that in mind, Alpharius.

Starting on the paint:

Looking good. Those rivets really do greatly enhance the visual appeal. Fantastic that they are your own work!

I'm still sad about that shoulder pad, though....

Time to get t his updated a bit.

Here's a Space Wolf I started on, doing my take on one inspired more by Norse history than whatever GW bases them on.



Size comparison next to a Destroyer:



Once you make a MKIII marine stand up straight, he's surprisingly tall.

Almost finished, but I had to stop here to work on other projects for the end of the year:



Things like some figures as gifts.

Thousand Sons marine still very wip and an Imperial Fist veteran pretty much finished:





My interpretation of Exodus from the XX Legion, wip:



And finished:

Man, your sculpting is ace!

How did you do the right hand on the Exodus? I've been looking for a good way to do that or find a pointing right hand for a conversion I have on the table.

I love them. All of them. Phenomenal detail!

To be fair, I have to go through the rest of the thread now, but I can't wait. Keep it coming!

Awesome, simply awesome.

I was ready to send the majority of my 2014 Conversion Budget to him - here's to hoping I'm more successful in 2015!

Zuul wrote:Man, your sculpting is ace!

How did you do the right hand on the Exodus? I've been looking for a good way to do that or find a pointing right hand for a conversion I have on the table.

For both hands I had to cut the fingers away from the palm section and reposition them, and for the right hand, I had to remove almost all of the thumb to get the IGuard binoculars to fit, but it's turned at such an angle you can't really tell.

mars2024 wrote:

I love them. All of them. Phenomenal detail!

To be fair, I have to go through the rest of the thread now, but I can't wait. Keep it coming!

Thanks!

Alpharius wrote:Awesome, simply awesome.

I was ready to send the majority of my 2014 Conversion Budget to him - here's to hoping I'm more successful in 2015!

Maybe... I'm currently talking to a few people on another board about some commission work, but both are a much smaller job than what you were wanting.

I've requested some ProCreate for Christmas and I've heard it's much easier to work with than GS so I'm excited to give that a try and maybe it will be spur me on to trying new things, like a bunch of true scale marines. No promises though!

I also come bearing new pics. It's a Horus Heresy XIX Legion(Raven Guard) member I'm working on, and the idea is that it's very later in the Heresy and his armor is a mix of marks with a MkIII shoulder pad, MkIV chest, right arm, and jump pack, MkV legs and eventually left arm, and a MkVI helm.

Here's the initial collection of parts after digging through the bits box and trying out a general pose.:



Changed out the chest piece for a different MkIV, bulking out the thighs and right arm a bit, and reshaping the axe. I was trying to even out a raised spot on the right arm when part of the GS just tore away so it will be fixed.



Should have more pics soon as several of the pieces currently have GS curing on them.

Loving that power axe!

And as far as conversion work goes, just keep me in mind, and in your potential client queue is all!

That Exodus is inspiring...

How have I only managed to find this thread now??!

Some really great conversions / sculpts and general skills going on! And I love the idea of the "newly turned" chaos troops... during the heresy...more of the traitor feel without the full on debauchery of chaos... without the spikey bits and skulls.... well.. apart from the World Eater... but he is allowed!

Those Space Wolves are definitely working out well... quite obviously influenced by the Nordic histories but clearly space marines... very well done!

The red glow beneath the Alpha Legion Sniper is truly menacing & I love the use of the paper towel and white glue capes... IO have tried to use the same technique a couple of times for tarpaulins with varied success...

Cant wait so see more!

Thanks for the feedback and kind words.

He's gone through some changes in the past several days. I first tried for a skeletal bird look for the helm:



But I wasn't satisfied with it.

So now it looks like this:

Man, I missed some great update posts. Thanks for all the photos! I do love the Norse marine, especially the helmet and the added size.

The Exodus is definitely awesome--I love the concept and execution, and the gun is mammoth! I may have asked already, but is that cape just made of tissue paper in "White/Elmer's" glue? The way it settles and drapes over the model is great.

The Raven guard is also very cool, although I do find the "Raphael-esque" fat thighs kind of amusing.

The Exodus gun is rather large.



Yes, the cape is just tissue and white glue. Normally I just use facial tissue or 'Kleenex', but with him down on one knee like that and the cloak going all the way to the base of the figure, the Kleenex just wasn't cutting it - it wouldn't hang correctly no matter what I did. I tried building a base for the tissue made of paper towel and spent a good amount of time working in the creases and folds just how I wanted them and one it was dried, I simply put a layer of tissue on top of the paper towel base and brushed watered down glue directly on top of it so that it conformed to the shape underneath. Once that had firmed up some, I went back over with glue that was thinned about 1 part water to 4 or 5 parts glue to get it to harden up properly.

The larger thighs are part of me BCK Scaling™ my marines. I don't care for True or Art Scaling and don't believe it's necessary to extend the legs at all, much less with spending more than twice the amount of money for a squad made with Terminator parts. For me, thickening up the thighs some and lengthening the abdomen gets their proportions where I want it. Marines are always described as having these massive body builder physiques and there's no way in hell that those scrawny little legs that come standard on the plastic figures could contain muscles AND armor of any appreciable thickness.

Look at 'em!



And then look how much thicker the greaves are in comparison. Not only is the larger thighs making the flesh under the armor more believable, but it also brings the upper legs more in proportion with the lower legs.

Ha! Awesome! Yes, as a rugby player myself I am fan of the "strong legs" you have crafted. Definitely more power there. Thanks very much for the clarification and great step-by-step in the cloak, too. I really like that effect, especially for scouts.

I hear you too about not wanting to spend twice as much for Terminator parts to try to Tru-Scale them up. Can I ask you about that arm I see above, though? You've pinned it, obviously--will you fill that in with green stuff and thus also extend the length of the arms?

I really haven't done any of this, but am...gradually...thinking about it. This hobby is crazy like that. I just got to a place where I am very happy with the standard of my painting and my overall army build, and then I find out about scratch built tanks and Tru-Scale marines. Always more hobby fun to be had...

The arm has already been filled in and you can see that in some of the more recent WIP pics.

Oddly enough, it was GW that got me into converting minis. I had been collecting minis for a while, but most of what was available in my area at the time was just fantasy stuff, mostly from Ral Partha. When a new game store opened up in the next town over, I was introduced to 2nd edition 40k and other Citadel minis, as well as their How to Paint guide that showed you how to chop and modify minis!

At first, I was horrified at the idea, but then the sickness took hold and I have been its thrall ever since.

Fantastic work as always Any plans for the IX Legion?

On another board I'm doing a challenge where each month you make a single figure for a different Legion, starting at XX and counting down, so Exodus was the Alpha Legion, this guy I'm currently working on is Raven Guard, and there will eventually be a Blood Angel, but no plans for a large force or army of them.

I'm making my own "Exodus" for my home-brew Marine chapter using the AL rules and it's entirely your fault BCK...

 Elnibbus wrote:
I'm making my own "Exodus" for my home-brew Marine chapter using the AL rules and it's entirely your fault BCK...

I make no apologies for spreading the hobby illness!

And now, the modeling phase finished for this Raven Guard guy:

And finished.

Very cool. I like the use of a restricted colour palette very much.

I'm finding I like limited palettes much more than I used to, and I just can't seem to do the normal GW type paint job with base, shade, and edge highlights anymore.

I like a more realistic look and for the Heresy era, darker muted colors really seem to fit well.

Some absolutely beautiful stuff in this thread. Exalted!

Thanks Bob! Glad you like it.

Recently, I've had a hankering to get back to some of my Eldar, with a specific desire to see how I can improve on some of the Aspect models(or at the very least, make them more my own) that I'm not happy with. That would be Howling Banshees and Warp Spiders for the time being, and for now, I'm going to try some things for a Banshee Exarch. The problem is that I don't like the current Banshees models; my favorite incarnation is the 3rd Edition "squid head" models.



As much as I like them, the models are showing their age somewhat. So are the Eldar Guardian plastics as well. So, what's a mad converter to do?

Start digging through my Dark Eldar sprues, of course!

I went with this pair of legs, but I'll be using a Kabalite chest.



For a while, I've been bothered by one aspect of the Eldar armor, and that's how it looks like a spandex body suit with some armor pats glued on. The lower body is especially bad in this regard, with almost nothing on the backs of of the legs. This is supposed to be a ancient race with technology so advanced it's practically magical to the plodding Imperium of Man, and that's the best job the sculptors can do with the armor? I want something that looks more substantial and enclosing, kinda like the Kabalite armor. And God-Emperor help me, I've been surfing the net looking for inspiration.

I like this Stark Enterprises concept art I found for something along these lines:



If the armor has to have features to define the sex of the wearer, namely boob humps, I like the way it's done here where the armor is more spread out and flattened overall, rather than the two giant boob cones that would channel strikes directly into the sternum.

If the all armor thing proves too much to do and I have to fall back on the under suit with armor plates, I'd like to see if I could pull off something along these lines:



Doesn't that look more Eldar-y?

And finally, my chop job WIP to test out the pose and general idea. I had to cut and file so much material off of the legs to remove the detail that I had to build quite a bit of it back up, but this also gave me the chance to increase the size of the leg muscles some.



Don't mind the wonky position of the left side of the hip/pelvis area as I had to adjust that side quite a bit to get that serious sprinting look I was wanting. The left arm will probably become a part of the model with a longer haft and two Eldar blades on the ends to make an Executioner, but the right is essentially just there as a test. The head is also just a placeholder and right now, I'm not sure if I'm just gonna cut the head off of one of my old squid head models, or try to sculpt a whole new one from scratch.

If I get really nuts, I might see about making this an updated version of Jain Zar. O_o

Well, I went nuts. I'm going to make this my own version of Jain Zar, but I don't think it will resemble the figure or art very much for a several reasons:

1) The hair is just ridiculous. I might try for something along the lines of Lelith's hair.

2) She resembles a Dark Eldar or Harlequin more than one of the 'good' Eldar. And what's with all the screaming faces on her armor?

3) Unlike all the other Phoenix Lords, she doesn't look much at all like the aspect warriors that follow her path. (Ok, Maugan Ra is iffy, but he's still closer in appearance to a Dark Reaper than she is to a Banshee.)

4) Her stupid spiked, bladed boots. How is she even going to stand up with those things?

The general points I want to hit with the figure are to make her resemble a Banshee while also looking strong, fast, and scary. Here's a little more work done:



That head is just there because I wanted something other than the blank Guardian face.

Oh, I'm considering doing something similar with Karandras and Fuegan.

-BCK

Both your painting and your converting are excellent, however your raven guard paintjob looks nothing like the raven guard. The armour is grey-green as opposed to black, which kind of makes it look like a son of horus instead.

Anyways, keep up the great conversions

The back story I came up with that guy is that he's a Terran that doesn't really care for Corax, so he's gone back to a Unifcation paint scheme.

Karandras is my favorite Phoenix Lord - I'd love to see your take on him!

 Brother Chaplain Kage wrote:
The back story I came up with that guy is that he's a Terran that doesn't really care for Corax, so he's gone back to a Unifcation paint scheme.

Fair enough, so he's really more of a XIX Legionary than a Raven Guard one

He's my favorite too and his figure looks soooooo bad. Not sure just yet what I'd do for him.