Hi Warseer,
I fell out of the 40K hobby about 10 years ago, but the implosion of my D&D group and the release of GW’s new paint range have conspired to get me back into it. I started off just wanting to try out the new paints and found enough space marine parts for a tactical squad...now I have a whole army to paint! Whilst poking around the ‘net I came across true/art scale space marine conversions. I think the first ones I saw were Apologist’s Ultramarines. Hence, my new marine army sits staring balefully from a shelf whilst I throw greenstuff, plasticard, and glue everywhere.
Between them, Apologist, Synapse, Doghouse, Lamenter, and many others have really inspired me to have a crack at some true/art scale Fallen Angels. I’ve always loved the background, and still had a pair of DA terminator legs from the chapter upgrade sprue in my bits box. The way I’ve gone about it is mixing together all sorts of advice I’ve seen online, especially Doghouse’s tutorial blog on B&C and the tutorials on masteroftheforge (he’s Lamenter, right?). Can’t think these guys enough, I’d never have had the courage to try this on my own.
Thanks to various bits sites, I now have 5 assorted legs and I’m planning a command group sort of affair: Cypher, a vivisectionist/apothecary based on the ideas from the Tyrant’s Legion list in IA9, a “modern” era Fallen who joined with Cypher after learning the initial bits of Deathwing lore, an ex-Red Corsair bordering on worshipping Khorne, and a seriously old veteran Fallen wearing cobbled together armour and armed to the teeth. Toss up between this form and the Chaos plogs. I decided with this one, as I want a faded Imperial look, rather than outright spiky death-dealers.
Here’s a couple of wip shot. Please excuse the the variable quality; I’m becoming reacquainted with my camera’s macro mode, but we’ve got a while to go before we’re best of friends just yet!
These are front and back shots of the legs after I added 1mm plasticard to the feet and carefully trimmed/sanded it to shape. The legs have then been packed out with greenstuff. This was really my first try at working with it extensively, and I quickly discovered that it looks a lot smoother when wet than fully cured. Nothing a little bit of sanding can’t cure. Since this photos I’ve filled in the scrollwork on the Grey Knight legs (far left) and removed the crux from the right knee of the middle set of legs. I also found that the narrowest gauge of plasticard I got in my local hobby is just the right thickness to broaden the waists out to the same width as the “belt”. I’m not confident in my greenstuffing skill to think I can widen the waist that way, so I’m planning to use more plasticard to give certain models the “belt” back.
Here’s how the legs and torsos sit as of last night. I’ve used a piece of shaped plasticard to deepen the torso’s slightly.
These are for my pseudo-Khornate marine using GK legs and a mk VIII torso. The collar has been thickened and extended with thin plasticard, and blended in with greenstuff. I think it looks better in real life than here! Still some sanding to do in this guy. He’s going to have a line of spikes on his left leg and I’m going to use some filled in GK shoulder pads to make his armour look slightly heavier than the others. His head will be the screaming Deathwatch one, with a converted, i.e. hornless, chaos champion helmet on his belt. The abdomen needs filled out and something added to his chestplate (probably lots of skulls). Armed with a lengthened and double-edged chainsword, or chainaxe from an old metal chaos termine, and a really sweet submachine gun with a chainblade attachment I found on line.
This guy is going to be my seriously old veteran. I’ve used some AOBR legs that I got free with WD yonks ago. I’m planning on using plasticard to change the shape of his left leg so that it looks like a mark IV one. His backpack is going to be a modified IG comm-link, so it looks jury-rigged, and his head will be the half robotic one from the SM captain set, maybe. Ubiquitous plasticard should make an abdominal armour plate. I’m not sure how to arm him, maybe a combi-plasma gun with a big box mag? He’s the least developed idea so far.
This is gonna be Cypher. I’m shying away from robes, as I really like the detail on the DA veteran legs. That’s a BA torso, which needs extended downwards to widen the waist. Still some sanding to do on the legs. Gonna be blazing away with an old chaos bolt pistol and plasma pistol. For his un-used sword I’ve got a Black Templar piece that should be perfect and I got some metal Cypher backpacks direct from GW to use on him.
This is going to be my creepy looking vivisectionist/apothecary, Zahariel. I really liked the detail on this BA death company torso, so I’ve kept it all. I think the blood drops will be suitably disturbing amongst all the DA heraldry. I’m not going to expand his waistline, as I’ve got lots of “recovered”, i.e. chopped off a plastic apothecary torso, bits and GK skull grenades to fill it out. The plastic command squad narthecium is going to be converted to be his left arm, and the BA honour guard one will make up his right. The Cypher backpacks also came with Fabius Bile’s backpack, so at least one of his servo-arms is going on Zahariel, plus I’m stealing Apologist’s idea of using the ravenwing techmarine head, as I think it really shows that an apothecary is some sort of tech-specialist.
This is going to be Rafael, my “modern” era DA who has joined up with Cypher. He’ll be armed with a sword and shield, and some sort of shoulder-mounted cannon (there’s a GK paladin with one on masteroftheforge, and I’ve always loved the Predator look!). I’m toying with delberately scoring all the imperial heraldry with my craft knife, to show Rafael’s disgust at what he learnt, but I’m having a hard time deciding whether to deface the gorgeous DA terminator shoulder pads I got from Forgeworld
Last picture, promise. I quick size comparison of Zahariel with a normal marine. Looks like I’ve reach my goal of being about a head taller and proportionally bigger everywhere. Head’s just balanced in place, so please excuse the wonky angle.
Lots of greenstuff work to do on the torsos; they need broadened just above the waist region and the all the abdomen's need detail, but I’ve got them all to the stage where I can start working on the arms. I dry-fitted some last night, and they look seriously stubby against the rest of the body! I’m also going to start working on the shoulder pads, to fill in gaps and/or add trim. Looking at the models with dry-fitted shoulders pads suggest that I don't need to add any width at the shoulders, since the pads with really fill the body out.
Thanks for looking, sorry it ran so long,
D
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