Leave No Model Unconverted (A Tall Scale Battle Company in the making)

[tryanotherone]

Very cool project.

I love the strictly business look of your Marines.

Do you mind showing us (tutorial - hint, hint) how you make your minis larger?

[Veteran Sergeant]

I'll consider a full tutorial, I just never think about it while I have the relevant pieces unassembled. Though this project is on indefinite hold right now as I've lost a lot of my motivation. Sadly, it has nothing to do with the amount of work involved, but more in the kinds of unpleasant, distasteful people that seem to infest the 40K forum community and it sapping my motivation to work on it. Honestly, it's Summer, and I've been surfing the last four straight days, lol. I can't be bothered to lose valuable time working on my skin cance- I mean tan, and beach body when I've got a wedding to go to Hawaii this winter, and the water is warm enough to surf without a wetsuit. I want to thank all the people who've made this project a lot more successful than I had hoped it would be when I set out with some cheap X-Acto blades, some plastic card, and only the faintest idea what I was doing or how I was going to accomplish it. I'm glad that people have taken some inspiration from my ambitious, yet amateur work. If I've contributed positively to the modeling community in that manner, then I'm glad for it. If you have any questions about any specific processes, by all means PM me. I'll be happy to explain any and all of my methods, and my thoughts behind them. If you dig up this same log on a couple of the other significant 40K forums (same basic thread name), I've got a few tutorials and modeling philosophy posts that didn't make it here (mostly just because it never got asked and I'm not the type to self-aggrandize with "I'm so brilliant, listen to me" lol) that some people have said inspired them.

However, here is a picture I took of my workbench, with all the relevant tools.


Sadly I had no prepped torsos (only ones that had been glued together). But there's nothing fancy about the process. Add card (I used 1.5mm) around the outside ring of the belt, file down to be flush with the belt leaving the inside hollow to accommodate the rounded top of the legs. If you use a ton of gear like I did, the belt buckle will be concealed by pouches or grenades. If you don't, or you want a competition level model, you'll need to clip off the belt buckle and sculpt the belly plate/cables to extend downward.

The legs, if you decide to cut the feet loose and re-pose the legs entirely, will have to be greenstuffed to re-sculpt the now-missing sections of the soft armor joints. If you leave the feet intact, you just need to cut the leg at the joint, file both sides flat, and glue the card spacer (I used 1mm). The first method, which you can see will eventually be used on the pieces above, is obviously a lot more work.

I got the extra pouches off Ebay, in discounted lots of 100. If you only need enough to 1000, or 2000 points worth of Marines, you won't even need that many (I used 4 individual pouches per model, essentially two 2-pouch sets cut apart). I cut ~1mm off the bottom of the larger pouches to make them slightly shorter and closer to the length of the magazines (accounting for the portion that would be inside the rifle), which helps with the fitment as well. My pouch philosophy is that you always look at the gear the model would have, and then apply pouches as they'd need them. A lot of time, people glue on pouches to models that wouldn't use anything in that size pouch, lol. Hence why instead of using the standard pouches for the special weapons Marines, I simply constructed them out of sprue because the melta canisters and flamer fuel canisters are thicker than bolter magazines. Sprue is the greatest stuff ever. You never know when it might come in handy. I've used sprue as spacers for the combimelta, the grip for the stormbolter, the discs on the standard, etc. If you have as much lying around as I do, you might already have a pre-cut section for the size you need for whatever you might be working on. You don't have to be a master class modeler to create some fun figures.

[tryanotherone]

Thanks for the fast reply and the explanation on how you converted your minis.

I hope you'll get your mojo back soon but I fully understand you.

I would not waste the fine weather, either. Just make sure you'll update this thread in the future.

:-)

[andyg2006]

Veteran Sergeant, your work is truly exciting and awesome. I don't know how anyone could dislike what they see here.
My mind is usually full of ponderings about conversions and kitbashes, but your ideas and application about posing and items to use are very good and effective.
I hope you can find people's motivation and support (at least here) enough to come back to this.
No pressure (and RL comes first as always), but just whenever you're ready.

[Veteran Sergeant]

Eh, it's mostly my own fault, and it actually has nothing to do with feedback on this thread or any of its others. If anything, the enthusiasm is what kept it going. It's mostly my fault. I come from a world where people take responsibility for what they say and do, and don't resort to acting like whiny little girls when they don't get their way. I know those people exist, but I'm not well equipped to deal with them in any manner that doesn't involve the derision they so richly and utterly deserve. I'm all about good, intelligent discussion, and even contentious debate as long as people stay anchored and use evidence and reasoning rather than an "I'm right, you're wrong" approach. But it seems things very quickly devolve into very personal involvement for some people, and they become rude and defensive and obstinate. The emotional investment in plastic toy soldiers and the fictitious factions and characters they represent is higher than I realized, and nobody ever accused gamers of being the most emotionally stable and self confident of people. The Internet makes them bold beyond their normal levels, but they remain able to talk all kinds of trash, but not take it in return. Nobody on an Internet forum will ever hurt my feelings. I won't even bat an eyelash. But I know when I'm being insulted, and I won't hesitate to fire back with a quip of my own. That drives me into conflict with the moderators of some of the other 40K forums packed to the rafters with trolls and goons (I've actually never had any real problems here). I've tried to just keep to my little blogs, but I get bored at work (summer is the slow season for my company) and I'm inevitably drawn to "see what people are talking about", especially with the release of 6th Edition. And, inevitably, reasonable discussion flies out the window when someone is quite convinced they are right and indignant about it, and my first instinct is to play with those people like a cat does with a dying mouse because I can't respect anyone who throws a tantrum.

So I'm going to take a break for a bit I think. It's been at least a week or so since I did any work on these guys, but I didn't want to leave people hanging. There are those five guys above who are still sitting in the same piles they were when I took the picture, haha. Eventually I'll look at them and say "Ya know, I should assemble them." And I'm sure at that point I'll get back to work on it once I'm over being irritated over the ridiculous "play nice" rules of Internet forums.

"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split" -Robert E. Howard, "The Tower of the Elephant"

Again though, thanks for your interest in my project, and don't worry about me. I'm just aware of when there are systems I can't beat (lazy, weaksauce forum moderation being one of them, since the moderators of some forums are made up of the same people I'm butting heads with it seems), and I won't lose sleep trying to fight them. That's why I got out of the Marines in the first place. I've been involved in enough no-win wars already.

[Veteran Sergeant]

Okay, so I decided to see what it would look like if I lengthened the legs another 1mm. It was something I always wanted to do (to keep the real world proportions of lower and upper leg), but had decided it was too much effort.

But, because I'm fascinated by this project and completely unconcerned with finishing it (apparently), instead of new models, you get new, old ones.


Oh dear God, they're getting bigger!



Sadly, the older plastic on the leg of the guy on the left sheared instead of cut clean, so he'll need some cleanup on that leg with green stuff, but overall, I'm actually pleased with the outcome, even if I am not pleased that I now have to pull apart and redo forty something models.

I guess the good news is, I don't have to change the name of the thread. Because they're now just 31.5mm, instead of 30.5mm. So it's still accurate.

[madd0ct0r]

I dunno, you're starting to lose the 'heroic scaled' side of things. Any guardsman on the board is going to look pretty unnatural in comparison.

Maybe have the 31.5mm as 'Veterans' with a few centuries extra growth?

[Spjuth]

Since I have not commented here before: Very nice project! All you ideas for poses are quite an inspiration.
Also, the new slightly taller marines look a lot better, imo. I think that was my only issue with your marines, the lower legs, did look a bit on the small side. I don't think you're really close to getting them too over-sized yet. Any guardsman on the board are going to look pretty small, which is the whole point, yes?

[Zoring]

I love all the modern firing stances your boys have here. Really adds a lot to the figures to have them posing like trained combat soldiers rather then pointing their guns vaguely in any direction. The Marine with the pistol is my favourite very cool idea and awesome execution.

The new legs look good scale wise, just the join is maybe a little wonky going down, as the lower calf bulges out slightly (most noticeable on the left figure) but I think after a coat of paint you won't notice this at all.

Hell I like this and i don't even like Space Marines

[murgel2006]

Very good looking project.
Yours do look more realistic as they are mainly taller and not more massive.
Many other "true scale" look like an army of overpowered massive body-builders, yours look like a tall US Marine/Royal Marine etc. they do look real. And very business!

[Tarian]

Looks very nice, looking forward to seeing more.

[Veteran Sergeant]

I don't think you're really close to getting them too over-sized yet. Any guardsman on the board are going to look pretty small, which is the whole point, yes?

Yeah. Guardsmen should look small. And while I say that, Guard is actually my favorite army, so it's not to make them look puny or worthless. It's just that Space Marines are supposed to be epic, while Guardsmen are supposed to be the poor Joes stuck out there to die. That's why we sympathize with them, lol.

The new legs look good scale wise, just the join is maybe a little wonky going down, as the lower calf bulges out slightly (most noticeable on the left figure) but I think after a coat of paint you won't notice this at all.

I think that's the angle of the photo, and what you're seeing is the little tubing at the ankle that the figures have for whatever reason. I've contemplated cutting it off all of the models, actually, since I cannot figure out why that tube is even there, or what it does. On the model's left leg, it was just a case of the plastic shearing off instead of cutting smooth, so I need to fill the gap back in.


Thanks guys. Glad you've been enjoying it. Finally ironed out what I think will be the paint scheme if I ever get around to "finishing" these guys (my buddy berates me if I ever refer to an assembled model as "finished", heh). Don't get your hopes up though, lol.

[Keeper]

Hey, I just stumbled across this plog and have to say that I absolutely love your conversions they look absolutely stunning. The one thing I didn't get yet is how you achieve the "aiming" pose of the marines holding their bolter higher than normal? Would you mind sharing your approach on this?

greetz keeper

[Veteran Sergeant]

Thanks. Glad you've enjoyed it.

Sorry, didn't see this the other day, was on vacation and I resolved to not check these forums until I was back someplace that wasn't tropical, lol. Depending on the pose you're referring to, the answer could be different.

For most of them, however, it is achieved by cutting the army off at the the shouldpad mounting point. I don't have any pictures handy because the models are boxed up (and I'm at work). But you can see where I sliced off this power fist. Same place.


Then cut the hand off at the wrist. File down the wrist joint (or you can be clever, cut it off, and rotate just the joint, then reattach the hand and joint back to the arm) to the angle you want the hand to sit. You can also greenstuff if you're of that mindset. That's probably the most professional way, but I hate sculpting, so I avoid it wherever possible.

Then simply rotate the arm to the desired angle you want. Attach the hand so it fits straight up and down. The support hand is typically a little easier. It usually just needs to be cut off and rotated at the wrist.

I had a really long post about my arm posing philosophy and methods on Bolter & Chainsword, but they are down for maintenance. May want to look up my plog there once the site is back up if you're interested in more. I definitely recommend against trying too hard to achieve an "aiming" look, since the chests are too deep and the boltguns way too big to ever do that without looking silly. I just assume the Marines have really spiffy targeting in their helmets, and they use more proper firing stances because that's how they'd be trained as Scouts. Plus, I've never been a fan of the whole 80s-Action Movie style hip firing stances.

[Veteran Sergeant]

So I dug these guys out again, and finally started work on my latest project. It's not far enough along to post pictures of it yet, but it's gonna take a while to plan it out and execute. This is a doozy of a conversion, but it has the potential to my favorite project yet.

Here's a teaser:

[Dr Zoidberg]

Old 2nd Ed Landspeeder pilots in a Valkyrie cockpit... Interesting.

[PrimeMinisterSinister]

Awesome. I'm watching.
Also, I think you're spot on lengthening both parts of the leg. They'll look amazing when you paint them up.

[tryanotherone]

It's good to see that you picked up the work on your project again.

IMHO the new size fits the Marine feel much better.

Could you compare the new Marines to the newer cadian IG, please? I would like to see the size difference.