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

[Veteran Sergeant]

The auspex convertion is brilliant (and the rest of the army as well)! Would you be offended if I used that idea myself?

No, by all means. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, lol. Besides, I wouldn't share my army here if I didn't want people using any of my ideas. It would be pretty cool to see the flip up auspex, or Horatius pattern bolt pistol show up in other people's armies.

The process is pretty simple. Cut the bottom of the handle off just below the buttons. Cut the display off just above the buttons. Trim the little antenna do-dads off, and then carefully cut lengthwise to make the display and buttons pieces half as thick. If you're careful doing this, you'll actually be able to use the back sides of both the display and the buttons, glue them together and make a second flip up auspex in the closed position. Now it is just a matter of trimming carefully to fit the auspex on the forearm of the model, and smoothing out the edges of the display with a file. The fist on the arm is from the Grey Knights sprues.

[synthet]

thank´s Veteran Sergeant! The little walkthrou wile sure comes in hand! I´ll use the idea on my flesh tearers I´m currently building, and I plan the whole army to be done after the summer.

[Veteran Sergeant]

A couple new guys. My most recent projects have been time consuming, including reclaiming my old metal/plastic Land Raider Crusader that I foolishly, in my youth, glued the hurricane bolter sponsons on behind the side embark doors. Took a long while to fix, and my fingers hurt afterwards. But I'm a lot happier with the model now. I was never going to be able to mentally reconcile the idea of the guns having to cease firing while the squad jumped out, lol. Fortunately I finished a few new infantry models first.

First up is my first Assistant Gunner. Heavy Bolters and Missile Launchers go through a lot of ammunition. Therefore, for every HB or ML model in my army, there will be a companion model in the squad carrying spare ammunition. In the Marines we call these guys Assistant Gunners, and the job often falls to the new guy. Sucks to be the new guy when you might be the new guy for a decade or more.




After that, I have two new "looters". The guy on the left has picked up an exarch's shuriken catapult as a souvenir. Or maybe for heretical use. Who knows? This is Rogue Trader after all.

The second guy has mounted the skull from a Tau Auxiliary from the unit's previous campaign on his shoulderpad. The unfortunate donor was a fantasy Lizardman from the old boxed set I bought at some point and had never used. I filed off any skin detail, removed the eyeballs, and then hollowed out the underside of the mouth.

[Veteran Sergeant]

The prototype for my custom built Combimeltas, currently magnetized to a Sergeant.





This solution for combi-meltas will be ridiculously cheaper than buying the official bits, and I like the look of it. I think as I perfect the process,the subsequent ones should look much better. The flat top to the melta barrel works aesthetically to provide clearance for the bolter barrel. The power source is from a multa bomb cut lengthwise and narrowed. I think i may go back and shave some of the details off of the rifle like the eagle.

The power fist was cut free from the "punching" pose at the shoulder,and reattached to a regular shoulder mount in order to achieve the less ridiculous pose, while retaining the closed fist look.

[synthet]

They look fantastic! This is surly an source of inspiration, keep up the good work.

[Veteran Sergeant]

People have asked for tutorials on the processes for these guys, and specifically on another forum about the arms. So here you go. Hope this helps some people.

Here's the example of how you can file the soft armor at the joints to fix the hand positions, or as in this case, create an entirely unique pose. The arm has also been cut at the shoulder and rotated to 90 degrees horizontal to help achieve the desired look. Left wrist was sliced behind the wrist to rotate the support hand to grip the rifle.



So you can see the arm cuts, I'll show you the magnetized power fist from the most recent Sergeant. This arm was actually the "punching" power fist that was cut from it's shoulder piece and fit to a standard shoulder to achieve the hanging look. I have three of those fists, so I wanted some variation. Figured I'd test proof of concept and try to mod it. I feel it was successful. As you can see, nothing sophisticated here. Wish I'd taken process photos of it. I clipped the tubes free from the arm, then sliced them at an angle to make the arm fit flat to the body, but make it look like the cables were disappearing under the should pad when it was actually assembled.



As you can see, it looks rough as hell when by itself. I'm going to finish it with gap fill and some more clean-up, but this is what it looks like when it is on the model:



Like I said. No need to masterclass as a modeler to achieve a solid table-top appearance. The shadow hides the detail, but that was the best I could do with awkward lighting angles and no professional light box.

Here's a last one with the top down so you can see that with proper wrist rotation, the bolters will remain straight up and down. Wrist positioning is key, because if you just try to rotate the arms, you'll end up with odd angles. Both wrists on this model have been cut to achieve this look.

[omegoku]

Some cool looking marines here.
I will have to follow this thread!

Looking forward to seeing them painted

[PrimeMinisterSinister]

Dude, you've got such an eye for angles. Just moving a wrist here or there looks sweet. You're doing great work.

[droken]

This. Is. Epic. Keep up the good work! Subscribed in hope of a grand continuation. :-)

[Leeman Russ]

Fantastic log - Subscribed!

[Veteran Sergeant]

This. Is. Epic. Keep up the good work! Subscribed in hope of a grand continuation. :-)

Thanks guys. Hopefully this post is epic and grand enough for you.

I've been industrious (for me). I finished the first Combat Squad of Assault Marines. Back on the first page was my lone Assault Marine. Well, he's got four buddies now.








Nothing terribly exciting about those guys, and they all need finishing touches. I was just glad to have sat down for a while and gotten some more work done. They are spaced 1.5mm at the waist and 1mm at the hips, with a krak grenade as part of their belt kit. I'd love to have krak grenades for all of the Marines in the Company, but they are a lot more rare than the frag grenades that come in every Marine sprue, so more expensive as bits. I've been salvaging them from friends who have Grey Knights and such. But I'd realistically need about 100 of them, haha. All the Marines have been clipped at various joints to create unique poses. Except the running guy. I was actually able to achieve the desired result with stock arms. If you notice the guy with the extended right arm, that's actually been done by taking an extended left arm and cutting it free and swapping the middle section to the right arm, and the reverse for the right arm, so you have a 90 degree left, and extended right, which isn't part of the normal sprue options.

And here is my other madness. I've been wanting to do this for a while, and had to figure out the best way. I'll show him before the commentary.





That's right folks, it's a multi-laser, lol. C.S. Goto was right all along. That, and everyone knows that Marine Special Weapons troopers can have a multi-laser on a roll of 91-00. Duh.

Veteran Brother Anachronus has the honor of carrying the Chapter's prized relic, an ancient (Space Marine) man-portable multi-laser. A weapon no longer in common use amongst the Marines, the multi-laser has been well cared for and passed down from generation to generation of Marines. Large and unwieldy, even for Marine Heavy weapons, ever since its suspensors stopped functioning properly, Veteran Brother Anachronus stays in shape by practicing back flips during the long periods of time between battles.

I will probably treat this as a Counts As Heavy Bolter or Lascannon since Marine-deployable Multi-lasers are probably not coming back after 20 years MIA. But it should make for an entertaining conversation piece. It still needs some work because the right arm had to essentially be constructed from three different arms, and spacered under the shoulder in order to achieve the right angle. The multi-laser itself is from a Sentinel, with the barrel shortened, the under-rail clipped off and a bolter grip inserted, plus the power pack having been cut down and fitted onto the side to look like a removable power pack. As you can see, using .5mm card and creativity, I created a spare power pack on his hip. A third spare will go to an A-Gunner just like the Heavy Bolters have.

The Squat Standard Bearer is there because, well, he's awesome.

The Battle Company is almost halfway done now. Well, halfway minus the closet full of unassembled tanks, lol.

[Veteran Sergeant]

A little something different from my workbench. Because, you know, focus and efficiency has never been an issue with this project and I've got so much free time.



Pictures didn't come out too clear, but it was a proof of concept model for an additional squad that will be added to my Imperial Guard. He's just a test model and will probably be disassembled in favor of a different set-up and Catachan legs, but I wanted to see what it looked like when done. The arms have both been re-posed, but the distinct change I made was his shortened up las-carbine because, well, the un-augmented human figures look a bit silly holding those gigantic lasguns the current plastics come with. He's supposed to be some kind of top-tier Guardsman to be represented in game as a Veteran or Stormtrooper. Perhaps a member of the command squad or an augment? I've added a respirator to him which will eventually have straps, as will the lasgun have a sling. When I was a Marine, I loved that carry and referred to it as Weak Side Samurai Style, even though traditionalists hate it because it puts the barrel into dirt if you aren't careful. With a two or three point sling, however, it's a great way to get a weapon out of the way for using your hands without taking it off completely, but maintain control of it.

I really like this lasgun. All it needs is a new barrel, which will probably be done up with plastic tube. It will also look good in the hands of my plastic Squats. I may go full-stupid and slim it down along its axis like I did with the Horatius Pattern bolt pistol just so it matches the slimmer structure of the older lasguns on my metal Cadians.

Anyhow, I should probably have some new Marines done soon, and I'll try to take an accounting of the existing squads and some of the vehicles. Getting closer to a finalized paint scheme too, so who knows, some of them may eventually have paint.

[constant_ones]

You're tall marines are looking great, at first when you said a whole company worth I thought quality would suffer for the sake of quantity, but you are putting out fantastic models, love how messing with the proportions of gws basic marine opens up a whole slew of poses and dynamic ism in the model

[AlexCrute]

Big props for doing whatever the hell you want a la multilaser.

[madd0ct0r]

I've seen tall scale marine logs before, I've seen true military marine logs before and I've seen 'all models converted' before.

Not many manage all three and keep up such a level of attention to sensible detail. If you are including PDF liason officers in the army, they'd make very good wound counters. When bullets ping off the guy next to you, shrapnel becomes more of an issue...

[Veteran Sergeant]

You're tall marines are looking great, at first when you said a whole company worth I thought quality would suffer for the sake of quantity, but you are putting out fantastic models, love how messing with the proportions of gws basic marine opens up a whole slew of poses and dynamic ism in the model

Thanks. Any time I run out of inspiration for the project, I just stop. I'm very picky and I want to be happy with the end results. There's no rush to get it done. I troll other project logs looking at what people have done, I look at pictures I took from my Marine career, and pics from other real world operations around the world. It's important that each of the figures ends up looking like a real (super)person who is doing something that makes sense in the context of combat, or patrolling, or whatever else I have decided an individual figure is up to. Sometimes that means they sit for a few days. Other times, like with the multi-laser guy, I sit around waiting anxiously for my bits to arrive by mail, lol. I hope that level of neurosis is translating to a project people are enjoying. I know I'm having a good time. It's going to be a tremendous disappointment if and when I ever actually play the game again. I'm definitely a model builder, and not a fanatical painter or gamer anymore.

I've seen tall scale marine logs before, I've seen true military marine logs before and I've seen 'all models converted' before.

Not many manage all three and keep up such a level of attention to sensible detail. If you are including PDF liason officers in the army, they'd make very good wound counters. When bullets ping off the guy next to you, shrapnel becomes more of an issue...

Well I'm glad to have not let you down... yet. Give me a chance though. I make a really good first impression, but an endless string of ex-girlfriends is a testament to my ability to disappoint anyone given enough time.

I had to laugh at the idea of Guardsmen or other attaches as wound counters, and was imagining a retinue following the force commander model magnetized to a 60mm base. I do really want to get my hands on one of the old Squat servitor models who'd make a great figure for that, but thus far have failed to find one on Ebay for a reasonable price.


Anyhow, I've decided to give an accounting of the project as it stands. This isn't actually all of the vehicles, and none of the vehicles are "complete" to my standards. You can see my 3rd Edition first run LR Crusader (I literally bought it the first month the model was available when its rules were only in White Dwarf and non-Black Templar Chapters were still limited to 1), which I, quite fortunately in retrospect, never painted. I apologize for the poor quality of the photos as I didn't have any better place to take pics, and had to use my phone's camera (it takes pretty good photos, but not up to such a task)




And in a squad by squad order. None of these guys are permanently assigned to these squads, it just makes it easy to keep track of the project if I keep an organized tab of how many full units I have completed. Only have two completed Sergeants right now, so the angry pointing guy is filling in as the squad leader for the Devastators. "Kill those ******** over there!"





The 2nd Squad's magnetized Sergeant is probably getting reassigned to the Assault Squad as I think with some different arm poses, re-basing and a jump pack he'll look okay. I had big plans for his pose (was going to be stomping on some poor bastard's face), but I wasn't able to convey the movement and animation I was looking for, so he got re-done. The final effort isn't really working for me. His magnetized arms are second hand, so it may just be the arms aren't posed for that specific model. Or he may get taken apart and completely re-tasked. However, for now he stays.



I didn't bother to photograph the Assault Marine Combat Squad because, well, they are a few posts up.

Regardless, there's the total project progress. I've finally gotten around to playing Fallout: New Vegas (I've had it for months, lol). I don't play a lot of video games, but I loved the Fallout series back in the day (still have copies of the three original PC games). However, as you can imagine it chews at my hobby time. Sorry, heh.

[Veteran Sergeant]

So here's something a little different. This isn't an update. Maybe a downdate?

In case you're wondering what has been keeping me from doing any work, it's the NBA Finals (Go Heat) and this:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net...16627817_n.jpg

However, in the time I've allotted to the project, instead of being productive and completing the Assault Squad, I decided to whip up a Chaos Marine for Skalk and my other slimy traitorous bastard followers. This guy will eventually be a Night Lord, because the Night Lords are awesome. But he'll be a Night Lord without all the bat wings and such, because bat wings aren't scary, they're silly, lol. The hanging skull is from the Chaos Land Raider sprue, and the helmet had its topknot sliced off. His left hand was intended to be all half-clenched and threatening, but it hasn't turned out quite how I want it yet.

Here he is with my loyalist trophy taker, as they argue which side of the Long War has the rights to take skulls and whether or not the Space Marines lost their rights by not defending the IP after Rogue Trader..


Here he is from the other side, facing off with my re-done I Guard Vet who now sports Catachan legs mated to the Cadian torso.


And finally a straight on shot, with two refugees from the old days of Necromunda.


Anyhow, I'm going to try to get back to my Space Marines, and stop distracting myself.

[Hadriel Caine]

So much converting! I like the (apparent) simplicity of the conversion and the huge difference it makes to the stature of the marines. The recent scale shots were v cool. I like your traitor too. I agree about the Night Lords being cooler without all the random bat stuff.

[canberraguy]

Really nice work. The cutdown melta and flamer look great. Consider that idea stolen....

[Veteran Sergeant]

So much converting! I like the (apparent) simplicity of the conversion and the huge difference it makes to the stature of the marines. The recent scale shots were v cool. I like your traitor too. I agree about the Night Lords being cooler without all the random bat stuff.

I don't know if I'll do too many more Chaos Marines, or ever turn them into an army, but I wanted them to be sinister, rather than the kind of OTT madness they are with spikeds and giant horned hats, etc. I'd like them to be far more understated, and the sense of evil coming from posing and the more subtle details. I hate the Chaos plastics now that I've actually seen them up close. The horned head helmets are almost completely useless. The chainswords, the nicest thing I can say is fortunately I have plenty of extra Space Marine ones, and I don't plan to need too many, lol. Going to put some of the extra loyalist chestplates without aquilas to work I think too. But new helmet heads are going to be a problem. Can't really justify buying FW head bits for a side project, haha.