*please note that as with my bfg thread this is upcycled from another forum so please ignore anything that seems either hideously out of date or does not make sense as this is a collation of several posts...
"going into that droppod? droppod goes into the warzone? sharks in the warzone... space sharks..."
major Quint of the 111st Royston Rifles imperial guard
to open let me explain via two points:
first. the space marine is dead. long live the space marine.
yes primaris are here and is totally worth the wait if you ask me!
second. space sharks...
yes carcharadon astra themselves reborn in primaris marines.
ok, I've been funting around with
40k since around 96! I began with the little rtb01 marines and then went onto second edition marines eventally settling on guard forces from thereon in.
I never went back to marines as I felt the scale issue (presented by so many
40k stories) was all too apparent when you've got a guard who is sometimes taller than the marine he's fighting with...
I practically bounced up and down with joy when the primaris marines were released as I can finally field a unit of allied marines that dont look ludicrously out of scale with my guard.
so why space sharks?
to be honest I'm a sucker for moncromatic colourschemes. I practically see the world in black and white and this is evident in the dark and brooding colourschemes I've used on almost every force I've painted (aside from
bfg and my doomguy themed cadians that is). it is the 'dark Imperium' after all...
also they hark back to those heady teen days of the rogue trader marines and i'm an even bigger sucker for nostalgia!
so with this in mind I set about converting a squad of intercessors from the dark imperium set (ebay)
these models are great and to be honest are part of the reason I'm back on
40k again. these models (much like the genestealer cultists set) are designed to go together a specific way in a set pose but in doing so capture all the character and design beauty that I miss from the days of white metal minitures. that's not to say that I'm against multipart kits that can be posed any way. the tactical marines and cadians have tons of character but there are too army examples of models where the plastic replacements are just abhorrent. just look at the transition between the metal 90's scouts to the plastic set. argh! horrid! all the character was lost for me. these set pose jobbies (like the spacehulk and even to a lesser extent the assault on black reach models) retain that artistry I love and most fondly remember from my
40k past.
still I digress.
space sharks... my limited knowledge of them is +/- thus: crazy-assed porcelian white skinned nutters with a penchant for chain weapons that have been lurking around in the background of
40k since bitch slapping the mantis warriors in the badab war. they prefer stealth untill they reach their objective/target where upon the set upon the enemy with barely contained ferocity all in complete silence. leaving a trail of blood and carnage in their wake and disappearing just as fast. in fact their savagery would possibly give a world eater a run for his money and they're on our side! they mostly wear corvus and heresy marks of armour and have a lot of termies too.
great! all I needed was to convert these primaris to look a bit more oldskool:
as you can see this intercessor sgt has mk6 lid and pads and a phobos pattern bolter.
the colorscheme is mecanicus grey with skavenblight dinge parts (knees, bellyplates, ankle and elbow etc..) and black pads/eagle. I took some cues from aiden daley's storm hawk primaris (
wd aug 2017) and used the same highlight colours all over to better blend the mini. also did similar chips/weathering along every highlighted edge. with the pockets and kit I went for olive green as its similar in tone to the grey but adds a real tactical look to it. the savage looking combat knives handily come from the kroot sprue. these kroot bits are a fantastic addition to spacesharks as they have the tribal look and large hooks (originally used for housing kroot lunch gibs) which add to the whole shark/fishy feel. scout chest rig kit further shows off the scale and adds to the aformentioned tactical look.
you can see I have altered the chapter symbol to represent a swimming shark viewed from above. (time and ease of painting were the reason for this and in truth I much prefer the simplistic look) I have included the red stripe on the lid as on the classic scheme but I'm thinking of using that as a denotation of rank/veterancy.
this is but the first and will be followed by the other four. one will have mk5 style armour (using more of the studs and a converted centurion head) and there will be another mk6. I'll be swapping out this guy's backpack for a mk6 one from the assault marine set (I'll do the same on the other mk6 and the mk5 too) to better complete the truescale effect I'm going for. will probably try to get hold of the holstered chainswords from the mk3
hh models to add too. but they can be added any time in the future...
I lavished a lot of time and effort on this and to be honest this is the best painting I've ever done to date. as such it even got a mention in white dwarf, so, yay!, another childhood dream fulfilled!
so here, have a shamelessly over-edited glamour shot:
better images are better... and bigger...
I've not been this excited and enthused by
40k since 3rd edition! its an odd feeling and has clearly empowered me to do better...
I took this shot out of pure whymsy so thought I would put this on here too. shows the intercessor in a bit more context. standing in a ruined monastery with one of my guard from the 111st Royston rifles.
also here is a
wip of the mk5 guy I mentioned above.
chainbayonets! YAY!
more:
yep gak photography but I could care less. I'd sooner be painting/converting than taking pics...
conversion work to emulate classic stuff is quite extensive. any queries on parts/methods and stuff and I'm more than happy to answer...
and heres some
wip of whats coming soon(well soon ish...
)
top row right to left:
mk3 guy with converted bolter (tigrus to
rt-era lookalike),
mk4 guy with tigrus bolter and more subtle studs,
mk7 (second ed)
guy with phobos bolter and holstered chainsword (totally inspired from that classic artwork by kev walker),
mk7 guy with chainsword and holstered 3rd ed bolter (pose clearly stolen from
gk's castellan crowe, but general pose idea came from spacemarine video game so expect a splattering of gorno on this dude).
bottom row left to right:
mk7 (second ed inspired again)
guy with second ed bolter (feat. 3rd ed magazine assembly),
mk5 guy, with 3rd ed bolter with box mag from cawl boltfifle. also includes converted holstered chainaxe on belt (more on that later),
mk6 guy tataros legs, mk6 torso and lid, sos umbra bolter, the rest is primaris. (this guy is based on the Bourne ultimatum dvd cover),
mk7 guy, with knife and 'slung' bolter (using kroot strap, and 3rd ed bolter, made a week before the fancy new infiltrators did the exact same thing
LOL)
hard as nails sgt with in mk3 with chainaxe and classic
rt era bolter! chest plate is from tataros termies
(pose inspired by drax from gotg, as originally with two chainaxes, but swapped one out for the bolter converted from the sm commander combi-bolter, inspired from 30k era illustrations from 'the first heretic' book i recently read for the first time...)
fyi, the mk7 heads are actually mk8 heads from the deathwatch sprue as the slimline faceplates fit in with the high gorget of the intercessor plate with very little, if any, interference
reivers:
went in a different direction with these. even more
rt era looking! the heads are all ravenwing biker mk6 with the da stuff shaved off (for the coms aerial tactical look!), the single pad is swapped out for the classic studded pad. (this I feel keeps the more slimline look of the phobos armour when compared to the studded pads on my full armour conversions) the bolters are from shapeways and I love them!
rt looking but modern detail aesthetics. may swap out the mk4 backpacks for something more
rt era looking soon.
couldn't resist some cool poses like the twin pistol john woo guy and the double handed pistol guy, from the new infiltrators set (funny thing, I converted this pose and the new set came out two days later. so I logically replaced my naff attempt with this proper version of it!)
reivers, master sgt hall.
as you can see I've done a bit of painting on him already, mainly to see what the bolter painted up like and to see if the helmet-less head works, which I think it does for the sector's strongest marine...
more with actual photography soon(?)