# Leave No Model Unconverted: A Tall Scale Battle Company in the making



## Veteran Sergeant

I've had this log running for a short while on a couple other forums, but any extra feedback is always useful, especially on a project this big. I've found quite a few exciting logs here, so I figure I'll add my own.

I turned this into a P&M Blog because I hoped it would keep me on track, and it's worked out so far. I'm a very lazy modeler at times. I work full time, I go to school full time. I also had a full time girlfriend who mercifully eliminated herself, and I was, up until recently, still in the Marines as a Reservist. So my free time that isn't spent on sleeping, or homework, or girlfriend maintenance, or the gym, I sometimes have a hard time keeping on track with my project. I don't play a lot of 40K anymore. I was big into the hobby starting in 1993 at the tail end of Rogue Trader, and played a _ton_ of 2nd Edition, and some of 3rd, and then only off and on since then. However, when I was kid, and thus a young, under-funded 40K player, I had always wanted to have my own Battle Company of Marines. Problem was, I had two small Fantasy armies, and three small 40K armies and one big one (and a Necromunda gang, and a Gorkamorka gang...). So I never had the money available to just flat out waste on frivolous, excessive Marines.

Enter the well funded adult gamer version of myself, lol. So, with the help of Ebay and a reclamation of my old figures, I now am now pursuing my dream, lol. However, it would be too easy to just buy 100 Space Marines, some tanks, and such. Any lame average Joe with cash to blow can have 100 Space Marines. Nope, I'm going to convert them all. All of them. Everything in my army will be converted, somehow, no matter how small. The Marines will be easy, since I've adapted some techniques for "Tall Scale" (as I call it) or "biggerizing" Marine figures. I don't like the Terminator Legs versions. If they aren't heavily re-sculpted, the end up looking like Kim Kardashian with a giant ass and a way too small waist. Some people make phenomenal ones, don't get me wrong. Apologist's Ultramarines come to mind. But that's just way too involved for me. And second, it often makes them too big. Space Marines are supposed to be 7-7.5 feet tall. Really just a head taller than normal men, for the most part. Plus, I want to use the standard Mk VII plastics and just fix the proportions. 

Very quickly, I decided that my project would address my long standing problems with Space Marine models. 
1. They are too short, obviously. Space Marines should be 7-7.5 foot super-soldiers. The GW human figures are probably just too tall, but too late to fix that; gotta make the Marines bigger. 
2. They don't have enough ammunition to fight wars. Marines need to be loaded for bear. Look like they could actually fight a war. So all of my figures would have ammunition pouches, grenades, combat knives, etc.
3. All the Marines should have helmets because no good Marine would be without his helmet. It's just dumb. Encased in nearly impenetrable ceramite, only to leave you nugget exposed, and lose all the life support, communications, imaging and targeting enhancements of the helmet? Idiotic. 

Also, the Battle Company had to be "Counts As", WYSIWYG for the Standard, Blood Angels, and Space Wolves codex lists.

Plus, being that I was going to convert everything, my last challenge was to _only_ use Mk VII parts, but also ensure that every model had a character of its own. That they weren't just carbon copies of Marines with bolters, but with believable poses. This of course is not going to be easy with a whopping fifty two bolter Marines in a Battle Company, _and_ forcing the majority of them to wear helmets.

So I set to work, with some plastic card, and a dream. A lot of these are old photos of rough prototypes that I didn't fully sand, or gap fill, etc. Excuse any rough early modeling problems. At first, I wasn't sure how tall I wanted them to be. So I went with 1mm extensions to the thighs (which I thought were too short anyway) and an extra .5mm at the waist. The results were decent:










The tall walking stance makes him a bit taller than he actually is, but it was a good start. Next to him are Hasslefree's McKenzie (part of my new Imperial Guard project), a 2E metal Cadian, and Sgt Bylkow (one of of my favorite Squat models). 

Decided this wasn't tall enough. So I moved up to 1mm at the waist. This was starting to give the height I wanted, but I only had about 25 or so walking legs, and they aren't cheap on EBay, and well, if they were all walking it would be a bit homogenous. So the firing stance models had to retain height too. Eventually I decided to go with 1.5mm at the waist for a total height increase of 2.5mm.


















So now it was time to start working on some individual models. 

This guy was posed to be pulling a grenade off of his belt. But instead of using a pre-posed hand, I cut and repositioned one of the bolter support arms, bent the fingers closed around a grenade separated from the grenade bundles. 









Bolter Marines:

















Arms have all been cut and re-positioned, for two reasons. The standard "hip firing" bolter cradle formed by the arms in stock form looks dumb. And second, I wanted some more dynamic looking poses, not just the more realistic ones.










The metal arm is from an old Devastator sergeant. 











Of course, un-drilled barrels was out of the question, so that was rectified. Some of the models have weird poses, but that's because eventually they will all be based. So they may not stand flat on the standard bases.









The Marine on the far right is Brother Givenicus. Eventually he will have a grievous energy weapon style wound that has rendered his left arm useless. I cut all the fingers apart, and bent them to appear limp and useless, and re-positioned the thumb. 









Now I needed some special weapons. I present the shortened Assault Pattern flamers and meltaguns:

















Some more Marines:








Mid draw. Arm cut and the the fingers bent to be around the grip of the knife. 










I have decided that the heavy weapons Marines will have the helmets with the extra targeter mounted on it. Plus, I decided the Tactical Squad Heavy Botlers will have box mags instead of the giant belt fed apparatus. Devastator Squad HB's will have the belt apparatus, but I figured Tactical Squads would need more portable weapons. This is an early version, and I have since modified the box mag to be better looking. Plus, there will be Bolter Marines from the rest of the squads who will be carrying extra heavy weapon ammo (missiles or bolter mag boxes). 

This is Brother Brutus. A severely in-progress WIP. I wanted to inflect some more Rogue Trader era brutality to this army. I'm a huge fan of the darker, more brutal Space Marines of the old days. This one needs a _ton_ of work, obviously, but here's the start. The Tau helmet mounted on the shoulder pad came from the Chaos tank sprue, and was clipped and filed down to match the shoulderpad contours. The idea of a mounted helmet came from the multitude of RT era drawings with severed heads. But I didn't want it to be too brutal and cross into Chaos tainted territory. I feel the Chaplain, once he's been modeled up, will be keeping a close eye on Brother Brutus. 









The severed head is a Wood Elf sorceress head, the hand is the Grey Knight Daemonette head hand. The Dark Eldar is a classic 3rd Edition warrior that we had piles of from the three 3rd Edition boxed sets we had that nobody ever bothered to assemble. The helmet is a Black Templar helmet with studs, to mix up some of the helmet appearances. Plus, I think it makes Brother Brutus look a bit more harsh and maybe a bit more unbalanced and potentially vicious. 

Eventually Brother Brutus's corpse was re-done because people suggested he seemed to be doing some untoward things with his bolter to the dead body, lol.



















Part of the feeling I'm trying to evoke with this "army" is that of how I envision the Space Marines. These guys are seven foot, functionally immortal, genetically engineered super warriors. Human, but something more than human, and something a little less. I want to illustrate that they are both completely ruthless towards xenos, but also still fulfilling their role as protectors of humanity. I plan to have not just Marines brutalizing the Eldar corsairs (that way I can utilize both Dark Eldar and regular Eldar) I've decided the Marine Company is fighting, but also abusing Eldar prisoners out of a complete disregard. But I also want to hit on the Marine commitment to humanity. Show them protecting children, or wounded Guardsmen perhaps. I've got a pretty amazing idea for an objective marker that you guys will have to wait for. 

Anyhow, I hope this work interests you guys. I'll try to keep this getting updated now that I've committed. Sorry for some of the mold lines I didn't file, lol. Sorry for some of the legs that haven;t been filed smooth and flat where they have been extended A lot of these pictures have been taken in progress over the last couple months, being send to my buddies via email for critique. So they don't all represent the current states of the figs. But, taking new photos is way too much effort right now. But as I go along I'll try to give you guys some ideas where it is at. Right now, my Battle Company is about 40% complete. So you guys should get to see pretty much the entire evolution of it.

Thanks for any thoughts you guys have. Especially any criticisms, ideas you don't like, etc. I'm definitely open for anything constructive or suggestions.


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## Veteran Sergeant

Amusingly enough, this guy started out as a test model, a "proof of concept" so to speak, for a model for my Command Squad. I liked the results so much, he's actually one of my favorite figures so far.










I like the idea of the Auspex, I just hate its clunky model. So I went to work creating this. 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. 

Heavy bolter with a box magazine, as well as his Assistant Gunner carrying spare ammunition:









Have you ever wondered why the bolt pistols don't fit in the holsters that are on the Marine sprues?

The answer is Games Workshop doesn't care. However, the _new_ answer is because they are holding the Horatius Pattern Bolt Sidearm. A defensive weapon, it has a six round magazine, and was named after a legendary Space Marine hero whose troops held a bridge for a day and a night against an onslaught of Orks before reinforcements could arrive. 

The Horatius pattern bolt pistol has been sliced down the center, with the inside faces filed down to make the weapon skinnier, the front sight trimmed off, and the magazine shortened. It's not a perfect fit in the holster, but it is close enough for heroic scale work, lol. I still need to decide how to give it a stubby barrel protruding, but I thought you guys might like the new figure. 

This Marine has dropped his rifle to transition to his sidearm for immediate threat engagement. 









Some detail shots of the weapon itself:









I haven't decided whether or not to put the front sight back on or not. It's perfectly believable it could be flip up. At the same time, the Marines don't actually use the iron sights on these weapons, so hey. The front end of the weapon looks flared in the picture for some reason, but it is not that way in reality.

The right arm is from the gunner arms on the vehicle sprue. I may bend the fingers on the left hand to "wrap" the firing hand better. The post is a close approximation of the traditional isosceles pistol stance, with the offhand wrapped around the front of the firing hand in the push/pull bracing and recoil compensation method.

I decided to reclaim some old metal heavy weapons. Took a solid bath in simple green to strip the paint, and whatever madness I used to paint this guy's weapon way way back in the day was quite stubborn. 

But, in the spirit of capturing the feel of Rogue Trader, I bring a 2nd Edition las cannon. Cut the right arm from an assault Marine's bolt pistol, filed and re-positioned it to fit the grip of the old heavy weapons. Then I took the bracing arm from the missile launcher, clipped the hand and rotated it to properly brace the position of the lascannon. 

Here he is with his other two Devastator brothers:



















The metal lascannon on the right has a nice, weighty feel to it, but damn, is it a pain to glue it together. I had forgotten about that, lol. You get spoiled working with all plastics. Obviously the missile launcher will eventually have something under his foot that he is stepping on.

More Rogue Trader inspiration with some more Marines lugging around trophies. 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 inspired after all. The second guy has mounted the skull from an unspecified 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. 


















One of my magnetized Sergeants with a custom combi weapon. The Sergeants will all have heads with upgraded comms (antennas), and be magentized for all kinds of crazy options. I haven't yet gotten my tiny magnets, but they will be included at the belt line for stuff like Meltabombs to be attached. 


















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 first of my completed Assault Marines:





























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.


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## Veteran Sergeant

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. 

So there you go. The Company is about 40% done with assembly I'd say. Minus the closet full of unassembled vehicles, lol. I haven't included any of the assembledvehicles yet, because for the most part, there's nothing terribly special about them yet. 

For those curious about the paint scheme, sadly I'm just as picky about that as I am the details of the models. Which is a nice way to say "I haven't been able to decide yet". I've done some test models on old metal figs I won't be able to use for this project, but haven't been 100% on any of them yet.

Thanks for looking.


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## Lethiathan

You have too much time and money! Soon we'll have 6th and when that comes multi lasers will make a return. Fantastic models!


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## jaysen

Hmm, this should put you up there with the creators of Angry Marines! Very nice work.

You know what you need? Some Marines just standing around taking a smoke break or chilling out beside the Rhino.


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## Disciple_of_Ezekiel

Nice job on the conversion work. Given the extra height you have given the Marines, it def makes them appear and feel more in tone as they should. Well done!

I am very interested in seeing how they look once you start painting them.

Great work so far and keep it up!

Regards,
DoE


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## Veteran Sergeant

Lethiathan said:


> You have too much time and money!


Sadly, I don't have nearly that much time. You're looking at around 6 months of work compiled into three posts, but most of it is recent. I hope to finish by the end of the year with at least putting everything together. But you know who has too much money? Anyone who makes a DKoK army, lol. Now _that's_ financial dedication. I just troll EBay for deals. I'm going to have so many bits left over at the end of the project. I may be selling off like 1000 points worth of leftover Marine parts since I don't use any Mk 6 legs, beakie heads, or non-aquila torsos. Though I did promise to construct a single Mk 6 Marine (gonna have to buy a FW torso I guess, or use the one from my old Space Wolves sprue), complete with rhino horn (bonus points for the people who know what that refers to). 



jaysen said:


> Hmm, this should put you up there with the creators of Angry Marines! Very nice work.
> 
> You know what you need? Some Marines just standing around taking a smoke break or chilling out beside the Rhino.


 That's high praise indeed. As silly as they are, the Angry Marines make me laugh, every time. Some of my favorite all time conversions are peoples' Angry Marine figures. So much lunacy, so much awesome, and so much so that I'd considered an Assault Marine beating an Eldar Guardian/Corsair to death with its own severed arm. I can only hope that this thread offers that much inspiration and enjoyment as it moves along. As to the second part, that picture is actually one of my oldest 40K memories (after the scratchbuilt gunship/deodorant tank), and I'm fairly sure I'll have some extra Marines lying around at the end of this project for ancillary figures like dismounted vehicle crew and such. I'm sure I'll figure out a way to pay homage to that one. I've been trolling just about every 1st Edition book I have and can get my hands on to get inspiration. Heck, if anybody has a favorite, feel free to post it here or PM it to me and I'll consider if/how I can make it happen. Kil Kil Kil!

Anyhow, thanks guys. Hopefully I can move this along regularly. I've got the parts for another four Assault Marines sitting around awaiting filing and final assembly. Two will be rigged up for flamers/meltas and the other two will hopefully have exciting poses. Achieving dynamism with the melee weapons isn't as easy as the rifles, even though it would seem like it would be. I may end up having to do some more involved sculpting or figure out better arms to obtain and butcher.


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## 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.


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## spanner94ezekiel

Really loving the work so far. I do have a couple of niggles though:

1. I really don't think the special issue weapons needed their barrels shortening. I think they look too stubby now, in comparison to the rest of the model. But maybe that's just me.
2. That pistol you converted (drawn from the holster), I think isn't necessarily accurate. If you look at the holstered pistol, I think it looks like a normal pistol, simply without the magazine. Hence, the "slimmer" version you have simply looks too flimsy and unlike a bolt pistol to me - more like a laspistol unfortunately.

+rep for your amazing effort so far.


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## Zetronus

@Veteran Sergeant

Firstly a *HUGE THANKS for sharing your project*, I too have felt the Marine mini was too mini and need a couple of extra mils to stand out better.

Its a true joy to see your models, I love conversions and I was wishing the thread (and pictures) to never end!

I must ask, what gauge drill bits do you use for the barrels / muzzles, if I might be so bold as to also ask what tool do you use?


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## Veteran Sergeant

Zetronus said:


> @Veteran Sergeant
> 
> Firstly a *HUGE THANKS for sharing your project*, I too have felt the Marine mini was too mini and need a couple of extra mils to stand out better.
> 
> Its a true joy to see your models, I love conversions and I was wishing the thread (and pictures) to never end!
> 
> I must ask, what gauge drill bits do you use for the barrels / muzzles, if I might be so bold as to also ask what tool do you use?


Glad you've enjoyed it thus far.

The barrels are done with a 1mm drill that I bought at a model airplane shop and is powered by my fingers, lol. It's actually perfect for the side holes with no modification because it fits right into the molded depression and will push right through. It's a little too fine for the barrel mouth, but sometimes that is a good thing since it can be an imprecise practice. I tried to take a picture of the little bastard, but it's so small it didn't come out too well. 



spanner94ezekiel said:


> Really loving the work so far. I do have a couple of niggles though:
> 
> 1. I really don't think the special issue weapons needed their barrels shortening. I think they look too stubby now, in comparison to the rest of the model. But maybe that's just me.
> 2. That pistol you converted (drawn from the holster), I think isn't necessarily accurate. If you look at the holstered pistol, I think it looks like a normal pistol, simply without the magazine. Hence, the "slimmer" version you have simply looks too flimsy and unlike a bolt pistol to me - more like a laspistol unfortunately.
> 
> +rep for your amazing effort so far.


These are fair opinions. What I ended updeciding to do was just have 3 classes of bolt pistol. The SMG sized "standard" bolt pistols are sidearms for anyone who would need medium-short range engagement weapons. Devastators carrying missile launchers, lascannons, etc. Sergeants, special weapons Marines, etc. Everyone else would have a smaller, more maneuverable and less bulky sidearm. As far as them fitting in a holster with no magazine inserted, there's just no way I can reconcile carrying a defensive weapon that isn't immediately usable. I remember being ordered to carry a concealed pistol in Condition 3 when I was assigned to civilian clothes humanitarian stuff one time and it bothered me that I was being asked to carry a weapon (implying potential threat) and not having the ability to immediately engage a threat (suggesting the weapon wasn't considered needed). 

The special weapons are actually more or less the same size as the bolters now. They may look a bit stubby because people are used to seeing them look so large. Everything in 40K is a bit too big to me. Honestly, if it wasn't so much effort to fix the grippy hands (which would be way too big), and actually modify the weapons, I'd have slimmed down the standard bolters by chopping them lengthwise too. The effect I wanted at the end was a weapon that appeared to be maneuverable at close ranges. Which is important since both of those weapons are _only_ used at close quarters. Thanks for the rep though. We don't have to share the same exact vision. That's the fun of the hobby.


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 assholes 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.


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## Iron Angel

I've never understood why anyone would want to make it harder for their marines to get cover.


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## Josh101

I think the sarg in the second squad looks awsome, the whole squad is just running forward shooting like hell and hes just in the middle posing saying "BOOOSH" just my opinion though


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## jaysen

Iron Angel said:


> I've never understood why anyone would want to make it harder for their marines to get cover.


 
Now that brings up an idea.... converting dwarf space marines. Just take 1mm from the thigh, another from the shin, 1mm from the waist, and maybe from the arms.


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## GrimzagGorwazza

Iron Angel said:


> I've never understood why anyone would want to make it harder for their marines to get cover.


I think it comes down to where you get the most enjoyment out of the hobby. I enjoy the converting more than anything else so i'll build stuff because i like the way it is going together rather than because i like the way it will play. I've got a battlewagon with 4 big shootas and a lobber for crying out loud, not exactly an amazing tactical loadout but it looks pretty cool anyway and i enjoyed building it.

I would guess that creating something more inkeeping with the background is more important to the OP than how well the units will do in battle. Marines are meant to be taller than the models make them out to be after all. The only reason that they're not bigger model wise is probably due to the extra cost that the little bit of plastic would mean across the whole range.


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## Veteran Sergeant

GrimzagGorwazza said:


> I think it comes down to where you get the most enjoyment out of the hobby. I enjoy the converting more than anything else so i'll build stuff because i like the way it is going together rather than because i like the way it will play. I've got a battlewagon with 4 big shootas and a lobber for crying out loud, not exactly an amazing tactical loadout but it looks pretty cool anyway and i enjoyed building it.
> 
> I would guess that creating something more inkeeping with the background is more important to the OP than how well the units will do in battle. Marines are meant to be taller than the models make them out to be after all. The only reason that they're not bigger model wise is probably due to the extra cost that the little bit of plastic would mean across the whole range.


Pretty much. I'll be honest, I don't even really like the _game_ of 40K anymore. It's too simplified at its core, and has gotten too far away from its roots as a sci-fi wargame, and at the same time, it has broken itself by trying to use a simple system to represent complex army type interactions. But I played this game a ton as a kid, and I love the universe, or at least, I love it the way I envision it. If that's all this army ends up being, an expensive modeling project that sits on a shelf and looks cool collecting dust, it will have been fun. If it brings some inspiration to other gamers, and/or they enjoy what I've been doing, even better.

So yeah, this is a modeling log. If you're looking for munchkin power gamer type conversions and tourney lists, you're absolutely in the wrong place. I can't imagine ever playing Apocalypse, so the very core idea of making a Battle Company is absurd. I will, without a doubt, never field this entire army on a table/floor/etc. So enjoy my waste of money. Or don't, lol.



Josh101 said:


> I think the sarg in the second squad looks awsome, the whole squad is just running forward shooting like hell and hes just in the middle posing saying "BOOOSH" just my opinion though


Well I'm glad you like him. Just to be clear though, I was talking about the Sergeant in the second Tactical squad with the leg up pose, not the one with the combi-melta. The combi-melta guy I like.


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## jaysen

Well, I for one am glad that you enjoy creating something new out of the game. Your larger than life Space Marines are really cool. I tried to emulate a little, but didn't do as well. What do you think?


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## Veteran Sergeant

It's not bad. I'll admit right up front I've used nothing special to complete these guys, so don't get discouraged. It's really low tech.

My tools:
X-acto blades (I like the #10 general purpose rounded tip ones.)
1mm drill for the barrels
1mm (legs), 1.5mm(waist) and in some cases .5mm, plastic card.
Narrow tipped hobby file. 

I can't, off the top of my head remember what size I use for the arm magnets on the Sergeants, but you'll want to use one that is close to or the same size of whatever magnets you end up using obviously. But the above tools are pretty much it. I have some snips I use for sprues or cleaning up the old metal bits.

It isn't a master class going on here. Which should be encouraging, because if you like what you're seeing, it's the sort of results that pretty much anyone can achieve with a little patience. I have sculpted _nothing_. There is no green stuff involved in this project. Everything is crafted out of the existing models, bits of sprue, or plastic card.

Some of the earliest figures are here:









You can also see the difference in the placement of the cuts. I've moved to almost exclusively cutting along the hip joint for two reasons. Easier to file down, and also imperfections are better hidden by all the gear. To answer the other question: The legs are 1mm. The waist is 1.5mm. However, there are examples in there of 1mm. It's only a slight difference. The outer left and right models are 1mm. The one in the center is 1.5mm. 

For example, this is one of my favorites, and there's absolutely nothing special about him:








He'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 without any finishing: 










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. 










When posing, you just have to look at what's important to realism, physiologically speaking.

Think about the angles of comfortable, natural movement and the overall range of motion in the arms. It revolves around the shoulders, elbows and wrists. There is only so much you can do with shoulders unless you're going to be green stuffing or cannibalizing the various arms which have more complicated shoulder attachments. Some of the basic arms sit at different angles at the glue point. Might want to analyze the various arm bits you have. One handed arms seem to sit at a more distinct "outward" angle a lot of the time. Don't be afraid to mix and match arm bits as you cut them apart because most forearms are interchangeable; just keep track of them, lol. Fortunately for Space Marines, almost all good firing stances (in real life) involve shoulders being tight and tucked. So the elbows and wrists are where you need to concentrate. Unlike real arms, the armored arms of Space Marines are more or less cylindrical, so you can rotate them and revolve them without looking strange. Most of my arm cuts are made just below the "under-shoulder pad" that's part of the actual arm bit. At this point, you can rotate the arms pretty much at your discretion since the cut will be hidden underneath the shoulder pad.for the most part If you're picky, you'll need to do some clipping, filling and filing to make them perfect. Depends on what level you're taking your project to. For table-top quality miniatures, there's not a whole lot of heavy work needed.

The wrists are the other point of movement in the human arm you're going to take into consideration. There are two basic ways. Clip behind the wrist ring, or just the hand and soft armor wrist. Behind the ring is easiest, and ideal for the "support" left hands since what you typically need to do is rotate the hand to accept the new firing stance, but not mess with the angle it sits lengthwise. The right hands are probably best cut just in front of the wrist ring, leaving the joint intact. At that point you can carefully file the soft armor at whatever angle you might need. For "one handed" weapon grips like the combi-melta, I suggest using extra Assault Marine arms with bolt pistols or plasma pistols you aren't using (there should be plenty of these lying around if you have any Assault Marines in your army). Can even use the melee weapon arms. They're just more of a pain to shave off sometimes and won't have "trigger finger" hands. The wrists on them are typically already angled where you want them to be, while the bolter cradle arms have this unnatural upward angle to them because they are designed for a "hip firing" look. Whoever modeled them watched too many 80s movies for inspiration.  Those wrists will almost always need to be modified, and at the very least rotated so that the weapon doesn't have some kind of oddball cant to it and sits straight up and down (unless your pose calls for a cant).

My own personal philosophy is not to try too hard to make them look down the sights. It just won't work, and will look strange when it does. The guns are too big, and the chests too deep so the heads won't tilt far enough over. Plus, they've got a little nubbin on the gun that looks like a sensor and supposedly awesome helmet targeting (another reason the models need helmets). The iron sights on the gun are like the targeter on the missile launcher. It's an aesthetic thing for the model which is anachronistic to the genre. I've contemplated shaving off all the front sight posts on my models. What you're looking for in these poses is a more aggressive look. Space Marines, with their powered armor, don't need to worry about marksmanship fundamentals. But they're going to use them anyway. It's instinctive at a certain point. As Scouts and neophytes they didn't have power armor. They'd have been taught how to shoot correctly, and by the time they've been practicing doing it a decade or more, every damned day, it's going to be automatic. Plus, it just looks better.


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## jaysen

Very cool. I tried to make the chest larger with milliput, but it didn't work out too well. On the legs and chest and arms, I used pieces of leftover sprue to extend the cut, then filled in with milliput. But, it is very messy and tends to get into all the places I don't want it. I'll keep trying to get one as good as yours.


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## Greenskin

*Everyone gets a combat knife?! Yes!*

This Plog makes me happy and sad at the same time--happy, because this battle company is going to be F-ing spectacular (hell, it already is), and sad because it has now made me want to go back and saw apart all of my Astartes to make them 2mm taller.

Thanks for sharing the reasoning behind your modeling choices. I have always felt the same way about bolt pistol holsters and the various proportionality quirks that continue to plague GW's 40k model ranges. They probably have a lot to do with the limitations of the modelers and mold-making processes GW faced back in the old days. So, for continuity's sake we are still stuck with a rifle that's the width of a large cereal box.


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## folketsfiende

Excellent project! I do agree that Marines should be taller, and your conversions are neat and clean, while accomplishing the mission. What really makes them smashing however is the posing! Very dynamic and life-like. I look forward to seeing more pics!


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## Veteran Sergeant

folketsfiende said:


> Excellent project! I do agree that Marines should be taller, and your conversions are neat and clean, while accomplishing the mission. What really makes them smashing however is the posing! Very dynamic and life-like. I look forward to seeing more pics!


Thank you. I'm glad you like them. As I've told others, I really want to impart, with every model, the idea that it could be a real (super) person. So I want the poses to suggest a real movement, whether in combat, patrolling, or whatever else. I've used a lot of pictures I took when I was in the Marines, as well as other photos of real world troops doing things. Glad you like them, and thanks for the Rep.



Greenskin said:


> This Plog makes me happy and sad at the same time--happy, because this battle company is going to be F-ing spectacular (hell, it already is), and sad because it has now made me want to go back and saw apart all of my Astartes to make them 2mm taller.


 Sorry! 



> Thanks for sharing the reasoning behind your modeling choices. I have always felt the same way about bolt pistol holsters and the various proportionality quirks that continue to plague GW's 40k model ranges. They probably have a lot to do with the limitations of the modelers and mold-making processes GW faced back in the old days. So, for continuity's sake we are still stuck with a rifle that's the width of a large cereal box.


Eh, it is what it is. Gigantic rifles, while a bitch to carry if it was real life I'm sure, look cooler. I remember when I picked up some "real scale" US Marines how small the weapons looked, and how big the heads did. Then I looked at pictures from the Marines and went "Wait, it's pretty small in real life, huh". 

I'd written up that "tutorial" from another query on a different site. I figured I'd share it here since a similar question was asked and it was well received there too. Making these conversions is really easy, but sometimes, the idea doesn't occur to you until somebody else says it. I had no idea how I would go about making Marines taller until I saw what others were doing and said "You know, I could totally try that out". 



jaysen said:


> Very cool. I tried to make the chest larger with milliput, but it didn't work out too well. On the legs and chest and arms, I used pieces of leftover sprue to extend the cut, then filled in with milliput. But, it is very messy and tends to get into all the places I don't want it. I'll keep trying to get one as good as yours.


I cannot more highly suggest picking up some plastic card. I think I paid like two or three dollars for two sheets of it at the various thicknesses. I've used bits of sprue for various conversions (like custom sized pouches for the special weapons Marines and the combi-melta), but then you have all the irritation of having to cut it to the right thickness, etc.


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## Hellados

I love the posses and i am amazed at how easy it looks to make them taller!!

keep it up mate!


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## Veteran Sergeant

Thanks guys. So here's something a little different. This isn't an update since the Battle Company hasn't made any progress other than stripping the paint from some old metal dreadnoughts. 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.ne...480/552905_10151063354426159_1616627817_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 my 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.


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## Iron Angel

Veteran Sergeant said:


>


"Uh, yeah, guys? I got some space marine here screaming something and knife-handing me. Can I get some artillery here?"


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## Hellados

I just wish i saw this thread before i made all of my marines. . . . . . I think you should email some shots and a tutorial to to GW


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## Veteran Sergeant

Iron Angel said:


> "Uh, yeah, guys? I got some space marine here screaming something and knife-handing me. Can I get some artillery here?"


Thank you sir. The "knife-handing" reference was quite amusing. I wish there was a good hand option for that. The old RT/2nd Edition Space Marine arms with the flat finger left hand, of which I have quite a few, would work, but the hands on them are gigantic compared to the current iterations.


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## Veteran Sergeant

So, this project has evolved... again.


Originally I wanted to stay away from any "advanced" modeling techniques for the time consumption. But, apparently my ability to keep at this project has little to do with the time used rather than the time allotted. Unsurprising. 

So, since time isn't really an issue anymore, I decided to see what can be done with the standard legs, but re-posed entirely, rather than just extended and shifted slightly. I took a set of standard, wide-stance legs, and cut the feet free. After filing the the soft armor at the hips, I came up with a taller, closer together stance. The test model happened to end up as one of the Special Weapons troopers from my Assault Squad. 

Here you can see how he measures up next to one of the Marines with the "running" legs from the Assault Marine sprues. 










And here his is next to the classic Cadian who has served in a lot of my scale comps:










I will probably start doing this with more of the figures, even though it will actually require some green stuff sculpting, and more than basic gap filling. The bulkier pouches for the flamer fuel tanks/plasma coils/melta canisters were made with sprue and .5mm card for the flap, and need a bit of work, but the model itself isn't really finished.


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## Zetronus

*@Veteran Sergeant *

I cannot wait to see some of these painted!!!

*They are already epic.... I fear with them painted I will likely run out of words to describe its awesome!!!*

What chapter will these battle brothers be?

_And dont say "harlem globe trotters".... I would have to fed you to BOC if you said that._


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## Veteran Sergeant

Here's a big update. First, the Assault Squad, minus a Sergeant, is done.  9 troops, two with magnetized special weapons arms.











And second, finally there is an HQ option, a Librarian. 









This guy is a true bits mish-mash. Sanguinary Guard front torso, Grey Knights PA rear torso, biker helmet, Severin Loth arm, command squad leather belt, two different sets of legs combined, GK book bit with =I= filed off. GK Nemesis Falchion mounted to the Assault Sergeant arm, 2nd Edition Backpack, loose bolt pistol.


















I had been struggling with what bits to make what command models out of, and I finally just decided "Screw it, enough pussyfooting around" and made him up. I've had the parts for this guy for a while. Hopefully you guys like him. I'm relatively pleased with how it turned out. Originally the legs were going to be for the Multilaser Devastator, but the stance didn't work with the way I had to pose him. As a commander/sergeant model, he was given an antenna helmet to show an upgraded comm suite for coordinating actions. Couldn't decide which one to give him, so he got the unaltered Biker helmet since I decided the others were too jumbled for a Librarian figure.

That puts the Battle Company at 41 Marines strong plus three Rhinos, a Razorback, LRC, Predator and Vindicator (Assembled (mostly because I bought them that way, haha). There are more vehicles still on the sprues, lol). I'll probably either whip up the Assault Sergeant next, or start on the second Devastator Squad. However, the fact the army is officially viable for the tabletop(even if perhaps not 6th Ed optimized yet) is kinda cool.

Oh, and I've got great news for RT fans, and it isn't just that I saved a bunch of money switching to Geico. 
An image apparently taken from the 6th Edition book:









The Squat ban is officially over. I doubt they will be new models or a codex, but it's nice to know that the "We Don't Mention Squats" stupidity is finally over, and hopefully that erases the absolutely stupid "Ate by mysterious mid-galaxy Tyranids" unofficial story is gone too.


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## Veteran Sergeant

Okay, here's my latest work, some new Sergeants. 

First, I finished the Assault Squad by adding its Sergeant. The jump pack was an Ebay purchase that the previous owner didn't take much care in assembly and I'll have to fix later, but otherwise, he's pretty standard except for the Dark Angels power fist and the Sanguinary Guard legs. I modified the legs to lean a little less far forward by filing the base along the bottom to be a different angle. The arms are both magnetized, though the fist is the most dynamic option so I took the pictures with it. 


















Sorry for the poor image quality. Not sure why these two didn't turn out too well.

The second model is a Veteran Sergeant who will probably be part of the Command Squad, or a Sergeant for the 1st Squad (which will be Counts As Sternguard). He's a mish mash of bits like the Librarian. Wolf Pack legs, FW torso from the Red Scorpions Honor Guard, antenna head (vehicle sprue?), Commander sword arm with blade from the High Elf Archer command sprue (looks like the Roman Maintz pattern gladius/spatha).

Here he is with that combi-melta from the other Sergeant.








Storm Bolter arm and standing next to the Librarian:









Just how tall is this beast? 

















Yes, they're on the same level and the sword cuts at a regular Space Marine's throat. The metal standard bearer was stripped to be used as a test model for paint schemes.


As far as the Stormbolter, that's another of my creations. I don't like the fact that all the Stormbolters are only usable with one hand. Makes sense for Terminators, but there should be models for regular power armored Marines. So I present the Cerceus Pattern Stormbolter:










Box mag cut free and moved back. Rear of bolter extended in order to accommodate the new position for the pistol grip. Piece of sprue cut and filed to fit as a forward grip. While the model is one-handing it for dramatic effect (and because the arm is magnetized for easy swapping), this weapon can now be used with the standard left arm support hands were you to want to put one on a "regular" model.


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## Malochai

OK, I think this is a genius idea :victory: I'm not a great one for SM, but this is a very innovative idea that I just love!


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## Zetronus

@veteran sergeant

I have to admit, I do covert your army... =)

love the detail, the poses and the the impact these models present!

the latter will utterly blow-away your opponents on the battlefield.


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## LegionThree

Love how you've done this. I may have missed it but to make the disks of card did you use a punch or just a knife? Anyway awesome and well executed thought.


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## The Wraithlord

While I am too lazy to put in the work to truescale an entire army, I do love to see it done. Bravo on what you have done so far.


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## Veteran Sergeant

Malochai said:


> OK, I think this is a genius idea :victory: I'm not a great one for SM, but this is a very innovative idea that I just love!


I'm glad to hear it. Space Marine armies _can_ be a little "boring" as there are so many of them. My intention was to make a Space Marine army that was aesthetically pleasing to me and fixed all my problems with the models, but also that could be appreciated by people who aren't usually fans of Space Marines. I almost decided to play a dirty trick and paint them as Ultramarines since the poor scions of Guilliman get so much undeserved hate. However, I eventually decided I wanted to have a bit more freedom with my fluff and paint scheme so I chose to make them Ultramarines successors instead. 

The leg extensions are just rough cut squares from plastic card, filed down flush with the legs once the glue has set.

For those interested about paint, I finally have a color scheme I like, and even a background and name for my chapter. That was nearly as hard as assembling them. The count is up to 44 assembled Space Marines (out of the 110 to 115 that will be necessary).

Number 44 being this guy:









Obviously, he's a bit of a departure from the others who are modeled to appear to be completely functional, no nonsense Marines. However, the company needs a Standard Bearer, and I decided that I'd key in heavily on the Greco-Roman imagery of the Ultramarines, of whom this chapter will be Successors of. He's a true bits mish-mash like the Librarian. Sanguinary Guard torso front (with blood drop icons filed off. The central chest one needs a little work to round it out still). Sanguinary Guard laurel head. Space Wolf pelt torso (Roman legionary standard bearers were often draped in pelts). Standard Bearer pole arm. The chainsword arm is magnetized. The legs are standard Marine legs cut and re-posed to give him the lurching appearance.

The standard itself was a bit of a challenge. I knew that even with the somewhat dressed up nature of the character, that I didn't want a banner. A giant flapping flag is a hindrance and liability on the battlefield. So, again drawing inspiration from the Romans, I decided to make a Space Marine styled imitation of the classic Roman aquila/signa. The top is actually from an ancient Goblin Spearman. The "U" is the Ultramarines standard pole top with a hole drilled through it. I had to file the tip of the pole down slightly to accommodate it. The Aquila is from the Rhino sprue, with a second set of wings glued to the back to give it texture on both sides. However, I was at a loss as to how to imitate the discs. Then, inspiration struck and I turned to an old standby. Bits of sprue. Cut off carefully, they become perfect circles (well, to the limits of science obviously) and just thick enough for substance. These ones were cut from Landspeeder sprues. The original thought was for the standard to double as a weapon, and while it does to an extent, I may decide to go back and redo it a little. 










And here he is with his two Standard Bearer buddies:










He has the wolf pelt back because of the pelts worn by the classic Roman standard bearers. I'm figuring I'll paint it up as a lion pelt or something as soon as I figure out how to do that.  Having the lion's head draped over the helmet seemed like it would be impossible to do right, so I abandoned it early, opting for the laurels head instead, since that's another classic Roman image/icon and it's actually associated with Standard Bearers in the universe already. I chose the torso front because it had all of that other laurel iconography too. This guy's definitely in "parade dress" but hey, these are seven and a half foot tall genetically modified psychopaths. They can do that if they want.


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## Carna

The standard looks really good, well done.


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## Old Man78

Fantastic conversions, I love the "clutter" on the models with all the pouches and grenades very realistic, you must have the patience of a big bag of patient things in a patience factory+ rep


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## WarlordKaptainGrishnak

I really like these man, definately some + reputation. I like how the increased size on the legs doesn't really make the torsos, heads, or shoulders seem out of whack. Excellent work. Can't wait to see some of these painted!!!


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## Veteran Sergeant

Thanks Carna! I was really, really happy with the way he came out. Even with my bargain hunting it's an expensive model considering all the bits that went into him, so I didn't want to risk ruining him with sloppiness and not having a solid plan, or the exact parts I wanted. I actually had to wait a while before I could get the laurels head for a cheap enough price to justify the purchase, heh. 



Oldman78 said:


> Fantastic conversions, I love the "clutter" on the models with all the pouches and grenades very realistic, you must have the patience of a big bag of patient things in a patience factory+ rep


Well, when you don't actually play the game, there's no hurry to field an army. 

But the patience blends well with my laziness. I'll cut a few sets of legs apart, glue the card to them, and then wander off. Do the same with the torsos. Glue them together, apply card, then stop, lol. Come back at some later point to clip and file. Sometimes I've got a desk with various Marine parts on it for days, until inspiration strikes me. I was serious about not wanting an army full of clones, and wanting every Marine to have some personality and attitude. The Assault Marines have been fun, but then again, there's so much implied movement to them since they're psychopaths with rocket packs and chainsaw swords. I'd like to do the remaining ten up with some even more crazy techniques, perhaps have some in the landing process, rather than the ten I have which are already landed, and swinging swords and firing pistols or flame throwers.



WarlordKaptainGrishnak said:


> I really like these man, definately some + reputation. I like how the increased size on the legs doesn't really make the torsos, heads, or shoulders seem out of whack. Excellent work. Can't wait to see some of these painted!!!


Actually, the lengthened legs really help the models. Off the sprue, Marines have somewhat gorilla like proportions. Which is fine, since they're purpose built, genetically modified murder machines. However, the arms are really long. Adding the 2.5mm to the total model height "shortens" the arms somewhat, making them hang down in a more "human" range. Making them a little taller also puts the head closer to the 1:7 to 1:8 (compared to total height) range so it helps that part too.


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## Hellados

I have to reiterate, GW need to do this, 2.5mm makes SO much difference!

When are these big bad boys getting some paint dude?


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## Veteran Sergeant

Someone on another forum asked how they stack up, scale wise, with the standard vehicles. Please don't give me a hard time about how sloppy the Predator is, heh. This one was a pre-built EBay rescue on the cheap, so the clean-up work will be worth it. Plus, the side weapons hadn't been glued on, so it makes for easy magnetizing. 










So here's the model next to a Predator (balanced on bases for a more accurate height comparison). I mean, yeah, they look a little too big, but, then again, they always do. I should have included an unmodified Marine, but as you can see that the changes in height don't throw off the comparative scale that badly. Real world APCs are pretty cramped, and you have to duck coming out the doors. So while, yes, a 10 or 15% increase in Rhino size might help, it's not that bad. I can't bring myself to even contemplate modifying all of the company's vehicles too, haha. For the sake of my sanity, they're going to stay standard in size and the modifications or conversions will be cosmetic (or magnetic) in nature.

As far as paint goes, my friends keep bugging me to do it (because they're painters and not modelers, lol). I've got the scheme, I just need a couple colors of paint, and a few hours to sit down. I've very picky, and while a lot of the models look good in the pictures, there are minor imperfections I still need to fix with green stuff or gap fillers on a fair number of them. Since I don't have a ton of time to devote to this project (I'm a total liar), I have been spending most of it on the modeling portion, and leaving the painting for down the road. Like I've joked, when you don't actually _play_ 40K, there's no hurry to field a completed army, heh. This is a fun hobby project for me. But I promise that I'll get some non-grey scale color on these guys at some point. I mean, come on, I'm using like four generations of plastic parts, plus metal? Shades of gray and silver don't count?


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## Zetronus

that mini and vehicle stack up quite well, I am very impressed!

to be fair, I would say that the vehicles need atleast a 10-15% size increase anyway as there's no way you could see 10 standard marines in a rhino.... not without some of them hanging onto the roof.

These models look fantastic, I do long to seem them painted and perhaps a photo-shoot of their first battle! =)


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## Hellados

I'm trying to arrange a deal with a friend to paint all of his Space Wolves, I worked out the other day he has probably got over 25,000 points worth of grey and wrongly painted models!!

Perhaps if your mates love to paint then you could come to some kind of arrangement?


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## Veteran Sergeant

My buddies have tried to convince me to do some work for work trade, painting for converting, but unfortunately I like to work at my own pace, and I wouldn't want to have to be worried about the quality being up to par. However, 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 in 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.


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## LegionThree

Sad to hear your stepping out, sadder still its from others. But your stuff was/is brilliant. Hope to see some more from you in the future. Good luck with the surf.


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## Veteran Sergeant

LegionThree said:


> Sad to hear your stepping out, sadder still its from others. But your stuff was/is brilliant. Hope to see some more from you in the future. Good luck with the surf.


Thanks! Glad you've enjoyed it so far. I just burned out for a bit. 

I did, however, strip paint from three old-school 2E metal dreadnoughts, which, while not progress, was actually some work on 40K stuff, heh. 

So perhaps I'll get some work done on some new models. In addition to my job, I'm taking 18 units of graduate level classes this semester, so I'm going to need to unwinding time. One of my old 40K buddies expressed an interest in playing again, and while I have more than enough models to play, it may drive me to jump-start the project again.


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## Snakesaurus

Vet I hope you have not fully been put off the project and sharing it! Ive been interested in doing some form of true scale marines for awhile; alas the termy ones are too expensive, and other require green stuff which i am not at all good with!

First off I wanted to thank you for being to the attention this affordable and superbly looking method! and maybe be as cheeky to beg your advise as i Plan to do my entire space marine army like this.

Here is my first prototype following your by eye, First i wanted to ask you how do you mofiy the waist? I cut the protruding rounded shape away and layered the plastic card, is this what you have done? Maybe if you do decide to start up again just show us a few WIP Pics?

This was may first prototype (left) i would you say the height looks correct in comparison to your models?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/7977621432/in/photostream

Thanks again for this Blog vet, absolutely love your work ! Would love to see you scale up some terminators in the same way if your feeling up to it!


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## 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. :headbutt:

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. :laugh:




To answer the question about the waist, I cut the card into thin strips, and line the waist around the edges. It is then filed smooth on the outside, and then I use an old, rounded blade on the inside to round out the inside so it matches the contours of the leg top better. I guess you could file the leg tops flat, and then just use flat card. That might even save a lot of time and effort and be brilliant, lol.


----------



## 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:



Plus, these guys now finally have a name and a paint scheme:

Invectors Chapter
_The Tribunes of Cerceus and Wrath of Ultramar_


----------



## dbs101

excellent work


----------



## leinad-yor

I feel real bad for not finding this earlier, I just started doing roughly the same modifications to my marines. Something that I found useful was having an X-acto saw to cut through the legs cause even a new blade had good chance of not cutting clean or straight. I have a lot less problems with the saw and it only takes a very small amount off of the legs when cutting.

Lein


----------



## Veteran Sergeant

Usually I have no problems with the blade. That guy's legs were just older plastic, and sheared. Was kinda odd.

However, at long last, here is something new. He's still a work in progress, but I figured I'd give you an advance shot at the process. 









I wanted a 2nd Dark Eldar knife from the current models, but it turned out I didn't have one, so he got the rather vicious looking Chaos Marine knife instead. The knife on the left leg is a 3rd Ed OG DE knife.


----------



## SSG.House

Looks awesome! I like he way you utilized a single point sling process for some of the weapons.
Im a big fan of single point slings/wolf hooks. And the older model where the Marine makes the conversion from bolter to pistol is pretty bad ass.


----------



## Jacobite

Nice posing and nice equipment use. I really need to start using more on my minis.


----------



## Veteran Sergeant

SSG.House said:


> Looks awesome! I like he way you utilized a single point sling process for some of the weapons.
> Im a big fan of single point slings/wolf hooks. And the older model where the Marine makes the conversion from bolter to pistol is pretty bad ass.


I never liked them when I was in the Marines. Too easy to rack yourself in the junk with the weapon, lol. I had a good adjustable, quick-releasable two point that I used with my M4. However, when the Space Marines can mag-clamp most of their accessories to their armor, a big two point sling seemed a bit anachronistic for Space Marines. 

However, I figure sling technology for Marines could be more sophisticated (with "memory" restraints), and having an armored codpiece helps with the junk racking.



Jacobite said:


> Nice posing and nice equipment use. I really need to start using more on my minis.


I picked up pouches from bits sellers in bulk. I think I got large and small pouches in bags of 50 or 100 at a discount, lol. Apparently they're not in high demand.


----------



## Jacobite

Yeah not a lot of people use them because it's more work. I have a few sitting around, it's just another step at the end of the painting process. I need to toughen up and just do it!


----------



## Battman

Looks like a lot of good work here, makes the GW marines look heaps better which surprised me when I looked at this thread. Haven't got too looking through the rest of the thread but you should look into a scale rhino for these guys. + rep too well done


----------



## Haskanael

amazing work, keep it up


----------



## Veteran Sergeant

Thanks guys. I've considered upscaling the vehicles, but that seems like so much work, lol.

Anywho... I dunno. I'm not _sayin'_, I'm just sayin'... 


























:scratchhead:


----------



## Matcap

Inspiring thread! Seems that there have been a few GW employees lurking around heresy lately... I'd say start discussing their overdue royalties payments


----------



## Veteran Sergeant

So I've decided to finally get started on the 1st Squad, which will be "Counts As" Sternguard. 

Metal Deathwatch bolters on them.


----------



## Veteran Sergeant

Oh, and if you haven't yet, check out the first entry in my new battle report series as my friend and I play through Games Workshop's published campaign scenarios.

Veteran Sergeant Plays... DARK VERNGERNCE!


----------



## Veteran Sergeant

I completed a Sergeant for the Veteran squad. He's magnetized at the shoulders, but unfortunately most of the pics came out blurry because I didn't notice a smudge on the lens so you only get to see the one weapon option, lol.

He's 1mm at the shins & hips, 1.5mm at the waist like usual. 

Sword is converted from the High Elf Archer command. Legs from Space Wolves Pack. Head, not sure. One of the random heads with an antenna that I use to mark leader models who have fluffy upgraded communications.



















_Clamped to his belt, Veteran Sergeant Marcus carries with him a bronze helmet with a 
black stripe from a suit of Mk VII power armor. When asked about it, he will only reply that
it was taken from "a traitor."_


Anyway, if you liked my knife drawing Marine from Page 6, he's part of this month's Conversion Challenge. Head over there and check out the models from this month and vote on them.


----------



## Mossy Toes

This is really a next-level hobby project. The posing is handled expertly, the aesthetics are beautiful, and the scale comparison to standard humans is great. These are really Space Marines as the background depicts them: grand and terrible and intimidating. Keep up the good work.

With the new tactical squad box have you considered seeing how you could put the excellent new sculpts to use? (The pair of arms for reloading a bolter comes to mind).


----------



## Jacobite

Really nice work as always, the pose is very commanding as it should be. God I love true scale, if I knew of an easy way to true scale terminators I would have been sorely tempted for my Minotaurs but alas there doesn't seem to be. I think that head is from either the Apothocary or one of the Vehicle crews.


----------



## Veteran Sergeant

Confirmed. The head is from the vehicle accessory sprue. I just had a bag full of heads with antennas on them for my characters. The apothecary head has some kind of big spotlight on it, because the big spotlight on his backpack isn't enough.

As far as the new box, I have like 40 Marines worth of unassembled models. I can't imagine how I can justify buying more, lol. Plus since I only use the MkVII parts, it's actually more cost effective to just buy the bits I want rather than add to my "Sell on Ebay or give away to my friend who keeps asking for them" pile of MkVI parts. The Sternguard box especially disappointed me because it is a treasure trove of parts, but the legs are worthless to me with the tabards on them.

I've considered making a Marine who is helmetless because his was damaged, and I really like some of those bare heads. But I imagine those, and a grav rifle or two, I'll just have to get from bitz sellers.

Oh, and sorry about my guy having to murder one of your Minotaurs. But hey, Euxcine and all.


----------



## Jacobite

Veteran Sergeant said:


> Oh, and sorry about my guy having to murder one of your Minotaurs. But hey, Euxcine and all.


It's all good, such is the price of doing the High Lords bidding. Minotaurs certainly came out the better off after Euxcine and showed that the UM's will talk the talk but don't always walk the walk. Perhaps if Calgar actually kept his Second Founding brothers in line instead of swaning around pretending to be the big "I am" then the Minotaur's won't have had to smash some heads together 

I agree about the new kits, they are nice but they aren't actually that useful to some marine players.


----------



## Hellados

Still love what you're doing! can't wait to see a proper army (of some kind) take form, glad to see you've started playing now too (if I remember you didn't when you first started)


----------



## Veteran Sergeant

I don't know if I'm "playing" now. We did Dark Vengeance. And at some point we plan to do Battle of Macragge and perhaps some other stuff. I don't know if I'm willing to jump into actual 40K. I feel like if I have expectations, it will let me down, lol.

Playing the scenarios from DV (and hopefully BfM) is fun, because I can amuse myself with silly writeups because the scenarios are lopsided and goofy. I'm hoping to have another one done within a week or two. The trouble has been finding time to play. It's hard to not go surfing in the afternoons while the water is still warm and I don't need a wetsuit, lol.


----------



## Kaiden

Awesome work Sergeant! Whats your method for the last couple of marines? They look spot on.


----------



## Veteran Sergeant

No significant change. It's more that they are the culmination of the process.

1mm spacers in the shins and legs. 1.5mm spacer at the waist. Manipulation of the leg angles, removal and repositioning of the feet. The arms get clipped at the wrist, hand, and shoulder to adjust how the hands and arms sit. 

I'm really getting close to how I want these guys to be, in terms of height, and bulk. The newer plastic IGuard are still swollen, troublesome bastards, but fortunately nearly my entire IGuard collection (around 200 models) is made up of old 2nd Edition metal Cadians and Steel Legion which are better proportioned than the modern plastics.


----------



## ntaw

It's crazy how just adding length to their legs makes such a massive difference and doesn't throw off the size of the arms at all. This is great!


----------



## Veteran Sergeant

I posted this in the tutorial section as well, but here's a mini-tutorial for one of my more popular figures:

The Horatius Pattern Bolt Pistol.










So have you ever wondered why the bolt pistols don't fit in the holsters that are on the Marine sprues?

The answer is Games Workshop doesn't care. However, the _*new*_ answer is because they are holding the Horatius Pattern Bolt Sidearm. A defensive weapon, it was named after a legendary Space Marine hero whose troops held a bridge for a day and a night against an onslaught of Orks before reinforcements could arrive. 

The Horatius pattern bolt pistol has been sliced down the center, with the inside faces filed down to make the weapon skinnier, the front sight trimmed off, and the magazine shortened. It's not a perfect fit in the holster, but it is close enough for heroic scale work, lol. I still need to decide how to give it a stubby barrel protruding, but I thought you guys might like the new figure. 









Tha barrel doesn't actually flare. That's just a trick of the camera angle.

How's it made?










1. Clip the grip, magazine and magazine well, top sights, barrel, and targeter nub off.
2. Like so.
3. Slice evenly down the middle. Following the mold line does the trick.
4. File the middle down to slim the pistol's bulk.
5. Glue halves together.

Obviously the pose is up to you, but the pose above was made as such:

1. Gunner arms from vehicle sprue. Cut right arm free. _Carefully_ cut the thumb off the top, then reattach on the side of the hand.
2. Take a bent elbow support hand. Slice the hand off, rotate, and reattach. You may need to cut the arm under the shoulder pad too and rotate. 

This pistol also makes an excellent weapon for Imperial Guard characters since it actually looks like something they could lift in one hand.


----------



## morfangdakka

Damn seeing how easy it is to make Space Marines bigger and look like real space marines this makes me want to do it to my marines that are just sitting in a box doing nothing but these look really good. You may have inspired me to actually make a small marine force.


----------



## Kaiden

I'm gonna give this a go, one question sergeant, where do you buy your plasticard.


----------



## Veteran Sergeant

Kaiden said:


> I'm gonna give this a go, one question sergeant, where do you buy your plasticard.


A model/RC hobby shop near my work.


----------



## Veteran Sergeant

So my buddy and I started the Battle for Macragge campaign in preparation for the next installment of "Veteran Sergeant Play...". These guys have now finally seen the tabletop. Well, a few of them at least.

Here's a teaser.


----------



## Jacobite

Is that an original Nid I see before me along with a Beakie? It's retro Wednesday and nobody told me?


----------



## Veteran Sergeant

It is. One of the old Hunter-Slayers (before they became Termagants). Sorry for the crappy picture. My buddy's house doesn't have great lighting for head on macro photos, and I was using two slabs of styrofoam for a "lightbox" lol.


----------



## Jacobite

Awesome, it looks so much more feral than the current ones. Is the beakie yours?


----------



## Veteran Sergeant

While I have some boxed up somewhere, that one is actually a friend's. He found a pile of unassembled ones them lying around in a collection of bits. The funny part is, I'd asked him if I could snag extra Tyranid bits from him to use as trophies, so that was what he was looking for when he found them.

Between my friends and I, we have some fairly eclectic minatures. The next Veteran Sergeant Plays episode will feature models from pretty much every edition of the game except 6th at this rate.


----------



## Veteran Sergeant

While I've recently made a little progress on this, nothing major. Somebody had asked how they stack up to Terminators.










That's one of my newer models next to the Terminator Sergeant body from Assault on Black Reach. Obviously I will need to modify the Terminators to be taller in order to scale properly with my own Marines, but that really, eye to eye, they aren't much taller than regular Space Marines (much of it to do with the squatting stance of the power armored model. 

It's a common mistake made by Tue Scalers to crate these gargantuan Terminators, but ultimately the same sized Space Marine has to fit in the suit and operate it. So Terminators are going to be more massive with all the extra armor, but not necessarily any taller.


----------



## Jacobite

That's a very good point you make about TDA height, personally I add a 1mm space to the boots just to make them that little bit higher. Nice to see you are still working away at these.


----------



## morfangdakka

Very nice to see that you are still working on these as soon I will probably be attempting my own true scale marines since you inspired me to do it.


----------



## zxyogi

Nice work Vet Sergeant!!


----------



## Stormxlr

Been inspired to try my hand at True Scale marines  gonna have to use green stuff instead of plasticard though.
I am getting a shipment of DV Dark Angel marines so gonna have to creat at least 5 model squad.
Great work mate !


----------



## Veteran Sergeant

What? New content? An assembled model? Ridiculous.

So this guy has been in pieces for like three weeks. And I finally finished him. A little amusing back story. The head and torso were an old model which I had apparently glued together with Sovereign Glue. No matter what, that head wasn't coming off. But it was a usable torso with an eagle, and it also had a "Devastator head" on it, meaning it needed a heavy weapon if I was going to use him in my Battle Company. I tossed around doing another missile launcher (I still need at least one more), but then I thought about a multi-melta. But how to make a Marine looking left with a multi-melta which is set up to be held right handed? So I envision this guy stacked up on a wall, or some other kind of cover, about to turn the corner and blast something, and has turned his head back to see if his squadmates are ready to charge once he's blasted whatever is around the corner. 










The multimelta was an Ebay save, and had been slathered with two thick layers of paint, lol. It didn't even 100% strip on the first try, so I've actually been scraping a fair amount of it off with a hobby blade tip. 

His wrists also need to be finished since the angle that I wanted the multimelta to sit at was far greater than the available wrist actuator. Might have to resort to green stuff finally, lol.

The weapon needs some work before I finalize it, but I'm pleased with it. I _wanted_ to use one of the multimeltas from the old school tarantula kit since the are slimmer than the current generation ones, but I couldn't find any of them.  Found the Tarantual itself, but not the guns.


The second thing isn't a full model, but instead the concept for my new bolter. 









I shaved off the nonfunctional front sight post, then moved the barrel in line with the charging handle, while positioning the targeter nub underneath the barrel instead of over it. I kinda like the look of it. I've been fighting with the idea of what bolters to use. I don't like the default plastic ones because they are too thick. I don't like any of the Forgeworld ones for a variety of reasons. Mostly because I'm too picky, heh. But this may solve some of my problems unless I decide to perhaps press-mold the metal Deathwatch bolters. May end up mounting some kind of optic on it. Either the sights from the IGuard heavy weapons teams, or perhaps something from a 3rd party like Anvil? Not sure. Thoughts?


----------



## zxyogi

Anvil.


----------



## Ddraig Cymry

Slicing the binoculars from the Heavy Weapons Team in half would be alright, it should match by being the same boxy shape as the bolter.


----------



## infernalcaretaker

May I suggest Assault Rifles from PDC Gaming?

The Barrel is in line with the Charging Handle, and they have Drum Clips...


----------



## Veteran Sergeant

infernalcaretaker said:


> May I suggest Assault Rifles from PDC Gaming?
> 
> The Barrel is in line with the Charging Handle, and they have Drum Clips...


Those look cool. The problem with drum mags is that my Marines don't have any pouches to carry spares in. All of their ammunition pouches are sized for banana-style bolter magazines and short bolt pistol magazines. 

I'd been contemplating doing up some SAW-style bolters for fluff reasons, but that will mean I need to figure out how to give them extra ammunition for those weapons since the regular pouches will be too small.

See, the problem with thinking everything out when I'm making these guys is that I've thought everything out. :laugh:


----------



## torealis

Mate, just wanted to say thanks. Your log was the inspiration I needed to upscale my marines. See what you think


----------



## Veteran Sergeant

Two entries in less than a week? I need to be careful lest I make progress. Fortunately the ladyfriend's work schedule, illness amongst my gaming buddies, overcast weather, and no football left me with some time to kill today. 










I've had a fair number of ideas for Marines carrying supplementary weapons for a while. Some may remember the one with the looted shuriken catapult, lol. I wanted to create a Marine who was carrying a grenade launcher. Ultimately, the pose I wanted didn't work since my Marines carry so much extra gear already. So this was a compromise. The other problem is that 40K weapons are just so gigantic, even scaled to my taller Marines.

He's also armed with the Cerceus pattern bolter. The pose was created with the idea in mind of eventually mounting him on a hollow base and have him stepping down into a puddle of... some kind of to-be-determined liquid. I used a Chaos shoulderpad, filing off the decorative Chaosy bits, and then bending the skull so it appears to be hanging naturally. The grenade launcher is simply the Cadian launcher with two bolter grips glued onto it and its aquila filed off.


Ultimately the grenade launcher, game-wise, is just a decoration.


----------



## torealis

Very cool, love your accessorizing


----------



## Jacobite

Love the GL touch, perfect for some crowd control. Dam you and Tor, making me want to do some True Scaling.


----------



## Varakir

Jacobite said:


> Love the GL touch, perfect for some crowd control. Dam you and Tor, making me want to do some True Scaling.


Allso getting that feeling. I used to think true scaling was a bit over the top, but the more i see the more i want to do it.

Perhaps i can get some Imperial Guard and make them shorter - reverse true scaling!

That grenade launcher looks ace, what did you use for it? I'm finalising my campaign HOR kill team and i'd love to use this on my leader.


----------



## SwedeMarine

Varakir said:


> Perhaps i can get some Imperial Guard and make them shorter - reverse true scaling!


Squatting? :shok: Brilliant!


----------



## Veteran Sergeant

Varakir said:


> That grenade launcher looks ace, what did you use for it? I'm finalising my campaign HOR kill team and i'd love to use this on my leader.


It's pretty simple actually. It's just the plastic Cadian launcher with the aquila filed off and two bolter grips added. One with the trigger guard intact in the rear, and a second with no trigger guard up front.

As far as being over the top, it definitely depends on the project. There are some truly talented people out there. Apologist's Ultramarines are one of my favorite true scale projects. But he goes all out and sculpts everything. I think the "true scale" projects that go awry are when people try to shortcut them. You have to be committed to a project like that, and you can't just put terminator legs on a regular torso and figure you're done, because otherwise the Marine ends up looking like Kim Kardashian with wacky hip-waist ratios and thick legs. 

I wanted to create Marines who actually adhere to basic human proportions as much as is possible without overgrowing them _out_ of proportion with normal humans.









It helps that nearly my entire IGuard collection are the older Cadian and Steel Legion figures, which are a bit more reasonably sized than the current plastics which are taller and chunkier. So these guys look even larger when standing next to them.


Either way, good luck. It's a massive undertaking. I get severe hobby fatigue sometimes (though I don't play the game very often, so it isn't like I need these guys to fight battles). This project is now over two years old, and there's no reason it isn't done other than I just ran out of ideas for new Marines, and even when I do get new ones, it's hard to get motivated to do all the cutting, gluing, and filing that is involved, lol. The legs for the multimelta Marine were cut and prepped for three weeks before I actually brought myself to glue the pieces back together. The grenade launcher was built like a month ago and sat on the shelf since I didn't have a Marine to carry it.


----------



## torealis

I would heartily recommend it. It is quite an undertaking, but great fun for a hobby veteran, and not actually that difficult.

I'd recommend doing it with only one set of leg spacers, and that's sufficient to giant the height, and much, much simpler to do (keep one in the waist as well)

For me, I realised when doing guard that if I wanted marine allies, I had to true scale them, or it just wouldn't look right. I really, really love my new marines.


----------



## Mossy Toes

Continuing to look good. I would welcome more feet at unequal levels--a downside to flat bases is the static flat-footedness that can be made more dynamic by uneven footing, I think. Not to say that your models aren't dynamic and well-posed already: you and Xenobiotic do some fantastic work in that regard.


----------



## Varakir

Veteran Sergeant said:


> Either way, good luck. It's a massive undertaking.





torealis said:


> I would heartily recommend it. It is quite an undertaking, but great fun for a hobby veteran, and not actually that difficult.
> 
> I'd recommend doing it with only one set of leg spacers, and that's sufficient to giant the height, and much, much simpler to do (keep one in the waist as well)
> 
> For me, I realised when doing guard that if I wanted marine allies, I had to true scale them, or it just wouldn't look right. I really, really love my new marines.


Thanks chaps, inspiring stuff! :victory:

I'm building a kill team from my existing salamander forces atm with a few tweaks, but i would like a 2nd team at some point. It's a toss up between Tau and deathwatch, so if i go DW i guess i'll have a crack at this extendy legs malarkey :wink:


----------



## Veteran Sergeant

All I'm saying is that if you guys are making Deathwatch squads, one of the Marines, preferably in Mk VII armor, should be sporting my chapter's insignia.


----------



## Veteran Sergeant

Varakir said:


> It's a toss up between Tau and deathwatch, so if i go DW i guess i'll have a crack at this extendy legs malarkey :wink:


You don't have to stop at just extending the legs and torso. Removing the feet allows you to reposition them too. That, in turn, allows for greater variety in posing. You can see here, in this lineup of my "4th Generation" models (1.5mm waist, 2x 1mm legs). The figure on the far left is using Assault Marine legs, but the rest are conversions of the standard "squatting" Marine. You can see that variation in how the feet are posed, and how the legs are fitted back to the groin section (by adjusting the angle of the soft armor) can make them taller too.


----------



## JAMOB

Ooh this again! Looking great as always mate...


----------



## torealis

Veteran Sergeant said:


> All I'm saying is that if you guys are making Deathwatch squads, one of the Marines, preferably in Mk VII armor, should be sporting my chapter's insignia.


what is the insignia?


----------



## Veteran Sergeant

torealis said:


> what is the insignia?


Oh, I thought I'd posted it in the thread. It's actually fairly easy since they're an Ultramarines successor.

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/...hate-and-discontent-index-astartes-invectors/


----------



## torealis

See, I've already got an ultramarine...


----------



## Veteran Sergeant

Sorry for the time away. The current ladyfriend had been over a lot the past few weeks, and while Space Marines know no fear, the kind of women I date might not immediately understand my closet-dork fascination with tiny plastic spacemen. Thus the project had been packed away in the mean time.


I've owed you guys one of these for a while. I'd just never remember when I had them sitting around in pieces. You can see here how the strips are glued to the rim of the torso, and then rounded off a bit so that they properly sit on the legs. This isn't one of the better examples, he's actually one of the earliest models I haven't gone back to fix up, but I wasn't going to just start breaking more of them apart, lol. This guy suffered for your tutorial.

It's okay. He'll walk it off. When I glue his legs back on.


----------



## torealis

Wow... that looks like a lot of effort... good to see you back though.

Next time I make one of mine, i'll show you my shorter version


----------



## Veteran Sergeant

It is definitely a lot of work. I never claimed to be doing this the best way, lol. I'm not an expert modeler. I'm just a guy who builds stuff and sometimes it comes out looking cool. Half the time I'm cutting these guys apart on a wing and a prayer and hoping the final result looks like what I had pictured in my head beforehand. :grin:


----------



## Jacobite

I know the feeling, your wings and prayers seem to be a lot more effective than mine however!


----------



## torealis

I just file a little flat area on the legs, plop a spacer on top and glue the torso on. The one disadvantage is that you can see a gap if you look up at the model from underneath, but that's never going to happen, and the pouches take care of the rest.


----------



## Iraqiel

Huge kudos for you guys who put in the time and effort to convert the marines to true-scale. I don't think I've got the fortitude myself.


----------



## Veteran Sergeant

This guy still needs some work. He was assembled using an old set of legs that were repurposed when I pulled apart a dude who needed a waist extension. The legs took a bit of damage in the process that will need to be corrected, and I think I think I may cut the feet free.










Added this after I took those pics. Pic didn't turn out great, but it's a talon from a Carnifex. 









This guy obviously another veteran of the Tyranic Wars (in the fluff sense more than the rules-sense). Took a bit of fiddling to get him into the more aggressive pose with the heavy bolter (and amusingly exposes the lack of detail on the inside of the weapon), but it gives him a much more open stance with a "hose 'em down" look.


----------



## torealis

Beefy! Love it.... when are these guys going to see some paint?


----------



## Veteran Sergeant

I'd been discussing the fact that I had several Land Speeders to do, and how that would affect the scale project. So I set out to see how that could be accomplished. Turned out easier than I thought.

Though I must say I hate the Landspeeder kit. Maybe mine are just so old that they've warped to time or poor storage, but the chassis parts of this kit fits together ridiculous poorly. A lot of cleanup will be needed on this model just from having to re-glue portions of it. That said, it turned out pretty decent.










Of course, you're asking... are they tall scale too? Of course they are, lol. 









What purpose does this serve? None. Just for completeness I guess. 

"But you can't even see the legs!" Yeah.

The gunner is not peranently attached, so that he can be rotated along the guide-rail for the mount. You can see the interior details here, including the sidearms for the crew, and the spare box of ammunition for the heavy bolter.










Front on shot. You can see the pilots sit a little above the roof-line, but not too much. Both pilots have supplementary targeter heads to interface better with their heavy weapons.


----------



## Varakir

This is the hardcore equivalent of painting the inside of your tanks - well played sir! :victory:


----------



## torealis

You're insane! Nice to see they're progressing well.


----------



## Zion

Very nicely done. Probably a bit overkill doing the legs like that in the Landspeeder but it looks good.


----------



## JAMOB

Veteran Sergeant said:


> Though I must say I hate the Landspeeder kit. Maybe mine are just so old that they've warped to time or poor storage, but the chassis parts of this kit fits together ridiculous poorly.


I think that's just a thing...

Definitely overkill on the legs, but still, it looks nice. Are you ever gonna paint these puppies up? I kinda want to seem them in color.


----------



## Zion

JAMOB said:


> I think that's just a thing...
> 
> Definitely overkill on the legs, but still, it looks nice. Are you ever gonna paint these puppies up? I kinda want to seem them in color.


I vote for Technicolor, I hear it's the wave of the future!


----------



## Iraqiel

My mind is boggling at that level of true scale commitment!


----------



## Veteran Sergeant

Totally not related to this project, but my awesome coworkers got me a bonsai tree.

So I did the only reasonable thing you can do when you have a miniature Japanese tree.


----------



## Veteran Sergeant

Now with 100% more Xeno-Heresy!

So I've been in the process of developing an alternate 40K ruleset designed to focus around troops at the platoon-level (with some vehicle support). One of the things that did was inspire me to build up some small (500 points-ish) antagonist armies. This led me to scouring EBay for good deals on Tau and Orks (among other things). 

These two armies are something of polar opposites for me. Orks I always wanted to play, because I played Orcs in Fantasy and loved them, despite their penchant for self-destructing (Big 'Uns failing their antagonism roll right in charge range of High Elf cavalry in a tournament comes to mind). The old 2nd Edition Orks were amazingly fun to play against. But when I was younger I only had a limited budget to work with, and I already had basically three armies (and a Necromunda gang). So Orks never made it to the table.

The Tau, on the other hand, I've literally never played a game with or against. They didn't show up in the game until I was on my way out of it, and none of my friends ever picked them up. Originally I didn't like them because of the anime aesthetic (the first gen suit models weren't great either) and the goodie-goodie image. It wasn't until later that I realized the Tau were 40K's adaptation of Aldous Huxley's _Brave New World_, right down to the separation of castes biologically designed to be ideal for their tasks and the social engineering around The Greater Good that leads every caste to be happy in their role. Seriously, any Tau fan should read that novel if they haven't. Even if you're _not_ a Tau fan, it's a great book. Either way, that realization, and their depiction in IA3 made me decide that they were a great Grimdark addition to the 40K Universe. An oppressive, insidious regime that would be a villain in any science fiction storyline except 40K, where it ends up a "good guy". 

Anyway, enough rambling. We're here for little plastic toy soldiers. 

So, as with the Spess Mahreens, I had a list of things I wanted from my filthy xenos scum. Obviously they needed to by hardened and lethal looking. They also need to be loaded for bear as well (that's going to be an alternate challenge, identifying the bits I want to acquire for that purpose. Anyone have leftover Ork and Tau accessories they aren't using?). They obviously also need to be converted. That's the whole reason people follow this project, right? 

So here's the first Tau Fire Warrior. I put this guy together basically to get a feel for the model. 









First tasks with the Fire Warrior was cutting down the Pulse Rifle. The length of that weapon is _ridiculous_. I wanted make the Pulse Rifle still look exotic and deadly, but tone it down from the Napoleonic Musket length it had. The rifle is almost the same length as the model is tall. Fortunately, this wasn't a complicated process.









This leaves the Pulse Rifle a little longer than the Carbine (though I may modify those too), but also it looks manageable. The Tau have all this technology and they can't miniaturize their longarms? Anyway, I'm pleased with the result. I think it makes the Fire Warrior look more fierce and deadly. I'll need to perfect the process, but the cuts I showed actually work out pretty well, and will only need a small amount of additional filing and gap filling to perfect. 

I left off the left shoulder plate. I wasn't a fan of the way it looked. It seems like it would just get in the way. Maybe I'll convert it. 

A couple of gripes about the kit. A couple of the arm poses are terrible. There is one that literally only allows you to construct a model at basically port arms. I guess those arms will be donor parts. And I had to clip the left hand off and file/rotate it just to get it to fit correctly with the model. I had seen a ton of pre-assembled Tau on EBay with these really weird left arm poses, and I thought the original owners were just lazy. But it turns out the kit just isn't very good. It's a good thing I planned to chop them up anyway. In the end though, I like the scale of the kit. The Fire Warriors will look good next to my old Metal IGuard unlike the plastic IGuard next to my old metal IGuard (or the plastic IGuard next to pretty much anything. They're so ugly).

I was very excited about the Space Ork. Like I said, I'd wanted to do Sporks for a long time. In fact, opening this Pandora's box has me worried because it could get expensive, lol. Especially because eventually they're all going to have these heads:









So what did I want to do with the Orks now that I finally had them? Well, I want them to still retain their Orkiness, but I also want them to be a bit darker and more threatening. Orks are the comic relief of 40K, but if they were real, they'd be downright scary. Inspired by the novel Fifteen Hours, and those sweet Kromlech heads, the Sporks in my universe are going to be menacing.

Of course, that's going to mean a _lot_ of work. Not quite as much as a 40-part Space Marine model hopefully, but this is going to need some putty. I almost don't want to share my first mock-up because it isn't even close to what I want the final product to look like, but I thought I'd give you an idea what I was starting with.

First is fixing the pose. I want my Orks to stand a little taller, so I'm going to file down and re-angle the neck so they don't just have a head jutting out of their chests. This is mostly to give me more room to work with when posing. A giant head jutting out gets in the way of the arms and weapons, since most of my boyz will be armed with Shootas. Secondly, it will help with eliminating the hunchback look that I think is too exaggerated. 










The legs are way to squatty, and not in the awesome space dwarf kind of way. I clipped the left leg and rotated it downward. The final based model will need to be sculpted with an uneven ground so he has something under his toes, but that's a small matter. This looks decent from the front, butthe model's butt will need some gaps filled. The head will need some putty as well to fill in the neck. I may use this as an opportunity to model a hood from the gas mask head. I used the jaw piece as a shoulder plate instead, mostly because I liked the way it looked.

Either way, there's the humble but ambitious beginning of this new chapter of Leave No Model Unconverted. In my "To Do" box are some Killa Kans, a pile of boyz, Nobz and Stormboyz. I've got ideas for some traitorous human scum auxiliary Pathfinders, converted sniper drone teams, and some Kroot. 

And of course, here's a comparison shot. I wouldn't leave you hanging like that. 









Also, if you've made it this far but perhaps missed the previous post, I'll plug my other new project. I've decided to create a blog that will present the project in a more coherent way, rather than a chronological series of posts like this ends up being. 

I'm still playing with the format (so by all means share any feedback with the layout), but you can find it here:
*https://veteransergeant.wordpress.com*

Also, I've put it on Facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/LeaveNoModelUnconverted


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## Veteran Sergeant

So I've continued assembling some mockups of my Tau and Orks.

I will say this up front. I never realized how lucky I was with the Space Marines. There is light-years more potential in the basic Tactical Marine kit than is present in the Fire Warrior and Space Ork kits. The Tau have a grand total of four arm poses, and since the weapons are attached to the arms, it's a lot more involved to re-pose them. 

However, I've dutifully played around with them, seeing what I could do to make exciting models out of them. Obviously I'm working with a lot of the same basic philosophies as I do with the Space Marines. I want the models to suggest movement and/or action. Looking at the model you should be able to know immediately what he's doing and be able to imagine it in a scene. This can be really easy (an aiming model pretty well evokes firing at an enemy), but I want to test the limits of these kits (and of my ability, lol) so I'm going to need models doing more than that. To say the least, I'm a bit underwhelmed by the Tau Fire Warrior kit, but oh well. I only need to do 25 or so of them.

Here are the first 6.









The Tau are a little less fun to construct because of these limitations. At this point, there's very little "conversion" involved here aside from the rifles and the support hands (which don't seem to fit right). And to be fair, I _really_ like the shorter rifles compared to the longer ones, so that alone makes it worthwhile. The "running" guy has had a bit of work done to get the rifle to sit that low, and I plan to put a slight spacer at the back of his torso to make him lean forward a bit more. I want the model to look like it's dashing between cover.


The Orks. Wow. This is going to be more involved than the Space Marines I think. The good news is, I only have to do like 50 of them. Wait, what?

So the more I looked at the Ork models, the less I liked them. Blasphemy against Gork and Mork! But the reality is that they can't be posed (to any reasonable degree) because their heads get in the way, and they all look like they are trying to take a dump. They're all also hunched over. So it was obvious that the stock kit was going to be pretty much unusable in its basic form. After doing the first one above, wow. He needs so much work to be finished it isn't funny, lol. Or, maybe it _is_ funny, since I am doing this to myself. I could stop at any time. I swear.

The reality is though, I like the finished product so much more, and I think the effect is pretty striking. It also opens up a ton of possibility in the Orks while retaining their same iconic look. Either way, like the Tau, I've got six of them worked up. They're all _very_ rough, and will need some gap filling and greenstuffing to fix them. 

Three more Boyz with Shootas









A Big Shoota and a Rokkit Launcha.









As you can see, more than a couple of them are standing with a foot up on things. I have a feeling this is going to be common because trying to get their legs re-posed to make them stand more upright leaves a lot of uneven footing. But ultimately, the ability to do all kinds of creative things with the basing will probably eliminate this problem in the end. Right now, they're just standing on bits of sprue.










Either way, how drastic is this effect? Well, here's one of the Assault on Black Reach models.









Anyway, let me know what you think.


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## Veteran Sergeant

So I've been plugging along with some more Orks. The Waaaaagh is growing.

Like I'd said, I'd acquired some bodies from the Stormboyz kit. My hope was that once they were cut free from their scenic base elements that they could be adjusted to have running poses. It mostly worked I think. I’ll probably have to do some work on a couple of them that just kinda look like they are on tiptoes. But for mockups, I think I'm getting close to the effect I want. 



















Then I wanted to have some Nobz with shootas. This probably isn’t the best use of a Nob, but I don’t really care too much about how good they are in the game, lol. I really liked their Kombi-Shootas, but wasn’t really sold on the Kombi part. So I cut the missiles off. That left the model with a very hefty looking shoota. Good. It’s very Orky. Like you could krump somebody right good if you needed to. I filed down the neck so they could look off to their left (in the general direction they’d be shooting. It kinda helps, and even an Ork wants to be able to see the effects of all his dakka!). Honestly, with the changes I’ve been making to the Ork Boyz, the Nobz don’t actually look that big anymore. They’re definitely thicker, but not taller. The other two figures on the left are from the Battlewagon crew. I set their heads slightly lower than I did the first set of Ork figures after a couple suggestions (including by Soul Samurai here) that perhaps they were too human looking. 










The last thing I have on the workbench is a Killa Kan. These are fun little models, but I’m struggling to come up with any meaningful way to covert them. Originally I had wanted to give it a free-standing Torso that could rotate, turning the Killa Kan into a little grot-piloted Battlemech. But the way the model is set up has the body attached directly to the legs. So if I’m going to do that, the process is going to be pretty involved, and the model will end up sitting significantly taller (which isn’t a bad thing, but it’s a Grottlemech, I don’t want it to be too tall). I’ll have to figure out something, because it’s looking painfully… normal.


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## torealis

So glad to see you back, still doing incredible work man. Just incredible.


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## Old Man78

More james bond esque evil genius level of hobbying keep up the depressing but inspirational work!


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## Veteran Sergeant

Glad you guys are enjoying them. It's an interesting task to work with some of these old (and very uninspired) kits. The reason why you never saw any more Imperial Guard or Chaos Marines after the test models was just how disappointed I was with the kits and thus the results. I feel like I'd be the same way with the Tau, but at least they're scaled properly unlike the Chunk-Guard (or Astra Chunkatarum now?)

While the plans of a Grot-mech are still drafting, I got some Ebay-rescue Crisis suits in the mail. A couple of them need a lot of work as they seem like they were just kinda put together haphazardly. Fortunately one of them was more or less unassembled (only the body and jetpack had been glued together) and for some reason unprimed like the others. 

This is another kit that's showing its age and badly needs a reboot. Both arms are static and tucked in tight. The legs are also fairly static which explains why most of the ones I see on Ebay are either standing straight up, or doing jumping jacks.

So I cut it apart.

Nothing revolutionary. Just carefully cut off the lower leg and rotated it. Straightened out the right arm, which will need some cleanup work on it. Then I gave it in a sort of "strafing" pose like it was popping out from behind a building to fire at something. 


















Kinda wanted to get one together to see what it looked like. The arms and weapons aren't glued. Plan to go back and see what I can do to improve it. Going to disassemble the other ones I have and see what sort of potential the kit really has. Maybe give it some proper hands and let it wield the weapons like a rifle. I've seen some neat conversions online that give them a Heavy Gear-esque appearance. I think I've got some Grey Knight Terminator hands lying around that might do the trick. If I don't, my buddy might.


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## SwedeMarine

Nice work on the Crisis suit. If i can make one recommendation. i think it would look a bit more alive and dynamic to me if the extended arm was rotated so that the gun was on top of the forearm. Think of it like a SM with a wrist mounted Storm bolter. i think it would give it more of that strafing look that you were looking for. other than that top notch work mate. The Orks look great and i feel your pain with the firewarriors. So incredibly underwhelming to work with. and so many god damned fiddly bits.


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## Veteran Sergeant

I've not been terribly excited about the Tau thus far. Aside from the aesthetic improvement of the shorter rifle, I haven't really felt like I've been able to do much with the Fire Warriors, and didn't have any Tau models I _really_ liked yet. 

Well that's changed. Introducing my Pathfinder rail rifle sniper team:










Unfortunately the optic got roughed up a little, so it needs to be fixed back down. Seems It was made from the little gubbin on the front of an extra Ion Rifle I had. 

The left arm on the shooter is from the Hammerhead crewmember (I think. That's what I pried it off of, lol), with the hand clipped off and rotated downward so he's got it balanced on the crook of his arm against his knee. 

The spotter's left hand was cut and rotated too so he could hold the carbine balanced on his leg. I also filed the waist on the legs at a flatter angle so he'd sit more upright










These guys came out fairly close to how I'd envisioned them. Once again the left arms of the Tau have proved a liability, but the adjustment I made to the Rail Rifle model is satisfactory. But I wanted to have a shooter and spotter team that would look good matched as a pair. They just need a little bit of cleanup now.


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## Iraqiel

That's a characterful pair of poses you have there, those pathfinders look casually proficient. Sorry to hear that Tau have not been thrilling you, I hope that as your bits pile grows your enthusiasm and conversion opportunities match.


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## Veteran Sergeant

I think I'm actually "done" with the Tau, in terms of buying stuff. I was only ever looking to make about 500ish points, and constructed around an infantry-heavy force since I don't intend to play "normal" 40K with them. Right now I have 3 Crisis Suits, 2 Hammerheads (though one of them will double as a Devilfish), 25 or so Fire Warriors, 20 Pathfinders, 10 Kroot, 5 Stealth Suits and some drones. 

Everything about the Tau project has been done on a budget. That budget being "I'm not willing to spend a lot of money on this". So if it means restoring some $6 Crisis Suits and a $18 Hammerhead, then so it is. But it does limit the number of extra bits down unless people want to donate (or sell on the cheap) Tau bits to the cause, lol. Right now I'm looking at some third-party stuff for pouches and such since the Tau sprues are pretty spare on accessories.


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## Mossy Toes

Veteran Sergeant said:


> Everything about the Tau project has been done on a budget. That budget being "I'm not willing to spend a lot of money on this".


That is... a legitimately respectable self-limitation. More players could honestly stand to learn from such a blunt self-analysis, I think. That said, 500 points is certainly a solid Allied detachment!


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## Veteran Sergeant

Well, the point value is somewhat arbitrary since I am building a more tactical, infantry focused skirmish ruleset for my friends and I to play. So both the Tau and the Orks just need a bunch of infantry and some support units. 

How about Steel Legion Ogryns?










I was excited to do some Ogryns. The new kit looked great, and looked like it had a ton of options. 

Wrong!

The kit is a beautiful mess. The Ogryns are wonderfully sculpted, but each individual Ogryn is letter coded A, B and C, and will only fit together "properly" if you stick to the correspondingly lettered parts. Look at the outside of the box. What you see is what your ogryns will look like if you assemble them properly.

As if. We're doing these guys my way.

I'd always intended to cut off the hanging tank treads because I think they look silly. Turns out it wasn't an option. They'll only fit on the model if you use the Bullgryn arms. So I mixed and matched the arms to get poses I liked. This leaves all kinds of putty-filled gaps, but such is the price of freedom. 

I was able to get two vicious-looking Ogryns with their weapons leveled to lay waste to some unlucky heretics or xeno-scum. But that left me with one more Ogryn to assemble and the two least desirable arms, lol. I'm thinking I may bite the bullet and buy another arm for this guy (one of the power mauls). But in the mean time, I swapped the ripper gun to his left hand and gave him one of the Ork choppas as a knife. "Dat's not a nife. _Dis_ is a nife!"

Here's the Bone 'Ead. I made sure he was the tallest of the bunch. Next to one of the tallest of my Space Marines.










Then I realized that while I had saved a bunch of money by purchasing the Ogryns in bits (only buying the parts I needed), I had no bases for them. So these two beat up a Crisis Suit and stole his (already broken) flight stand base.










As a group.









Honestly I kinda want to do some more of these guys. There's something about Ogryns I really like. And something I _really_ like about Steel Legion Ogryns. I would even do them up as really expensive props. Just to have them loading cargo or hauling off prisoners or something.


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## Iraqiel

I agree, the Ogryn has gone from my least liked demi-human to my favourite, based solely on this kit and the modelling that has gone into it.


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## Veteran Sergeant

So the problem with my Imperial Guard* is that I hate the plastic kits for them. So I'm "stuck" with the metals. And let's be realistic. I have like 250 of them. I'm not getting rid of them and I'm not adding too many more.

But I want to add things in bits and pieces. The Ogryns were first, but second were some Squats. Not to actually _be_ Squats. But just to fill in as regular troopers. Squats are basically Imperial Guard anyway. Flak armor, lasguns, check. 

I took a picture of the bag yesterday, but then I thought: "You know, enough talking about doing Squats, and time to do Squats." You should always do squats. Leg day is important.

Where was I? Oh yeah, Squats in the service of the glorious Imperial Guard.










So I only have three of them so far, two rifleme- err, riflesquats, and a squa(t)d leader or something.










I'd been putting off doing these guys for a while until I was really sure what I wanted out of them. After all, Ork Boyz and Space Marines are a dime a dozen on Ebay, but unassembled plastic Squats (from a kit that hasn't been produced for over 20 years) aren't, lol. 


These guys were both fun to do, and a bit of a challenge. You see, the original plastic Squats were designed with this lasgun in mind.










So the hands are very close together by default. But if I wanted to make them blend in with my Guardsmen, I had to do some creative cutting. Like usual, some wrist rotation was also pretty standard. The guy with his weapon raised was an arm modified from a heavy weapons arm (cutting off its padded shoulder), and the shoulder from a regular one.

I probably could have saved myself some time and effort by using the arms from the plastic Cadian kit, but I hate that kit that much. The lasguns are a split. One came from the Catachan kit, the other (with its icon filed off) came from the Cadian kit. 










I'll probably go back to finishing my Orks before I hit any more Squats, except at the gym. Leg days are M, W, F. But plastic Squats will have to wait for now.





*I have not accepted the rebranding. Mine will remain Imperial Guard.


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## DaisyDuke

Their looking good. 
Ah the old days where you would get 20 models in a box for less than £10.
Might have to strip some exo squats.


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## Veteran Sergeant

Remember how I said I need to go back and finish my Orks and Tau... Well, the good news is I knocked out another 10 or so Orks to get them up to about 25. Then I got distracted by my bits box again.

The origin of my Eldar is somewhat mixed. When the Dark Eldar first appeared with 3rd Edition, we had a friend buy a the first boxed set. Mixed with the two or three rule boxed sets we had, that made for a fairly impressive Dark Eldar retinue. That nobody every decided to put together. Most of them disappeared in the sands of time, but I had a small block of them left over. The problem? They're pretty ugly, so I'd resolved to use them as base decorations where I could theoretically obscure their shortcomings with mud and blood.

Then I had some fun conversion ideas, and I picked up a small lot of Eldar Guardians and bits and some Dark Eldar on EBay. The conversion ideas never happened either. It seems that Space Elves just weren't to be.


Then I thought to myself, well, I need some Eldar for my skirmish armies, and I have a fair number of them sitting around between Deldar and Eldar. Why not combine them to be a small Corsair army? Nice, fluffy, and brutal. Plus another nod back to Rogue Trader. And every good sci-fi universe needs space pirates. Eldarrrrr.


Sorry.










Obviously I needed to convert, not just kitbash. Otherwise they have no place on this blog. Fortunately, my dissatisfaction with the core kit parts made this easy. I shortened up the Dark Eldar splinter rifles. Then I tweaked the shuriken catapult arms so they could get better poses out of them. Mostly just had to clip the firing hand off and then move it. Added some blades from the old school Dark Eldar sprues to pirate them up a bit. I rounded out the helmets too, because I never liked the super tall conehead look that much, and I wanted them to not just look like bog standard Guardian or Kabalite helmets.










Then I thought, well, it would be kinda lazy to just mix and match parts, and I wanted this band of corsairs to look like they were intermixed Dark and (light?) Eldar. I really like the Scourges heads (and the Reaver jetbike heads, but those are harder to get on the cheap), but headswaps aren't really converting either. So I thought, what if I swap parts of the legs around? This was a little easier said than done in some cases, but it gave them far less of a uniform look, which would be important to the aesthetic. So the ones who are regular Eldar (and thus still concerned about their souls) will have spirit stones. The Dark Eldar pirates will not. Otherwise, I will probably mix and match the weapons without too much regard for what's "legal".

Case in point, I took the splinter cannon from the 3rd edition kit, one of the few parts of that kit that looks okay, and put it on a Guardian body, with a Kabalite head (which apparently needs to be rounded out a bit now that I look at it.










Not entirely sold on the blade bits from the 3rd edition kit. I may get rid of those.












At any rate, this will be just the start. I plan to paint them up as Void Dragons, since I like the way that scheme looks, and their fluff from The Doom of Mymearapainted them as dangerous and unpredictable, as well as a bit of loose cannons under their haughty pirate princess, who should be fun to model up eventually.


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## Iraqiel

Ahhh now this is my favourite sort of eldar! I'll be continuing to watch with interest!


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## Roganzar

These look great. I've thought of doing a little bit of Eldar previously, but never been a big fan of the basic models, (Dark Eldar look better to me than regular Eldar, more stylish and look more fun to paint.) If I ever did do Eldar it would be a corsair force, after seeing the Forge World upgrades. However, I like your take on the corsair design much better.
I'm definitely going to be watching what you do with these.
+1 rep and a cookie for your ingenuity.


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## Veteran Sergeant

Yeah, I've never been a fan of Eldar (or elves in general). So it took a while to figure out a way to get excited about them other than thinking of ways to use their corpses as decorations, lol.


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## Veteran Sergeant

A bit of an aside to the project, since I've been mostly working on Xeno-heresy not allowed on this forum, but something I worked on. For those who enjoyed the original "*Veteran Sergeant Plays... Dark Verngernce!*", while my buddies played Advanced Squad Leader, I was busy assembling the Space Marine models from Deathstorm.

This is a cool kit, the Death Company Marines. For my taste, they're way too busy-looking and have too many details, but the basic kit is actually well posed, with some interesting bits that allow you to have decent looking miniatures without much scalpel time. In the end, I only ended up having to do some light conversion (arm rotations, weapon swaps) on a couple of the models to get some decent poses. I swapped in a couple of Sanguinary Guard legs I had lying around that I wasn't planning on using to give a couple models some more dynamic poses, given than they all have melee weapons and jump packs.




















My buddy was not excited about the idea of painting this pose.










Though when we realized he looks like he's about to do a Macho Man Randy Savage elbow drop (but with a chainsword)), it was kept. The thought to paint him up tie-dyed was dropped as too difficult, however.


So you can look forward to Veteran Sergeant Plays... Derthsterm! in the near future. Potentially with scenarios from other Shield of Baal books.


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## Veteran Sergeant

So it's been a while since I've done any real work on Space Marines (Deathstorm doesn't count because they weren't mine and weren't scaled up, just some minor conversion work.)

I've had the idea for this model floating around in my head for a while. Probably a year. I'd just never actually gotten around to starting it because I burned out on building Space Marines for a while. I wanted an badass Apothecary. But I wanted him to look like he was a Marine first, and since I don't play, it didn't matter what he was armed with, and I like Bolters.

Did you ever worry your Apothecary wasn't badass enough?

Meet Senior Apothecary Donatus, 5th Company, Invectors.










He will be getting an apothecary backpack shortly, but leaving it off makes the details a bit more apparent. I put the tubes behind him to better protect them from incoming fire, and gave him a Company Champion's shoulderpad (befitting his rank as a Veteran and providing extra ballistic protection while he works on fallen Marines)

You can also see where I shortened up the saw and reductor to look like they've been retracted (so as not to get in the way and to protect them when not in use). The narthecium comes from the Grey Knight Terminators kit (my buddy wasn't using it), obviously with the hand and arm separated, and then mounted on the upper portion of a regular Tactical Squad arm. The legs come from the Death Company kit (my buddy was willing to trade for some Sanguinary Guard legs for his DC). He's also the first model without an aquila torso. Can't remember where the head came from. I picked up a bunch of heads with antennas because I planned to use them for character models, sergeants and squad leaders. I think it's from the Land Raider Crusader kit. I don't much like the Apothecary head with the lamp on the side of it. Looks pretty impractical. This one looks like it's got all kinds of diagnostic equipment on it. Maybe a laser or something to help cauterize wounds. Let your imagination run wild. I just know it looks cool.

It's been so long since I worked on Marines I couldn't find my small drill bit, so his bolter is unattached, but eventually the barrel will get drilled out and converted to a Cerceus-pattern.

I've put him into the classic "advancing at the alert" pose that's not only one of my favorites, but popular among readers of the blog. This was accomplished, by, as usual, a clip and flip of the wrist.










He still needs a bit of cleanup, but this is effectively his final form. I was quite pleased that it came out more or less like I wanted it. This character ends up in a lot of the fluff that I put together for this project's back story, so I wanted his miniature to look every bit the part and do him justice.


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## Iraqiel

That's a nice pose indeed, and it's good to see an apothecary who is prepared to use a weapon that reaches out more than 12"...


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## SwedeMarine

nice. Im possibly stealing this idea for my own apothecary (when i get around to it)


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## Veteran Sergeant

Thanks guys. Glad you like him. Like I said, a lot of time went into planning this guy out, and it was important he ended up looking like I wanted him to.


People have asked for a tutorial on how I do these, so here goes. I tried to take some pictures as I went along with the apothecary. 

So, how exactly do I achieve these Tall Scale or True Scale Space Marines? Here's a handy tutorial:

In the end, you'll have turned a 10 part model into a 40 part model. Sound like fun?

My two primary demonstration models will be this Apothecary here:










And the Section Leader with wrist-mounted auspex (closed).










Step 1: Preparing the models

Well, the first thing that needs to be done is to decide what you want to do with the model. In the case of the Apothecary, I liked the posture of his legs, so I was only going to be extending them, rather than a full rebuild. In the case of the section leader, I was using the old "squatting" legs from the old Tactical Squad kit, and wanted to do a fully new pose with him. This meant cutting the feet free of the model.

With these projects, I'll typically work in batches. You'll need to allow time for all the components to dry and set once you've glued them anyway, so doing them in groups of 4-5 may cut your downtime significantly. You can see with the ones below, I've removed their feet. The difference in the poses you can achieve can be dramatic since the foot will no longer be anchored to the leg in a static position.










However, if you're using specialized legs, or if you're simply happy with the pose the legs are currently in, you can leave them alone. In the case of the Apothecary, his legs came from the Death Company kit, and I was happy with the way they were standing. So I moved on to the next step, which was inserting plastic card spacers.

I use 1mm thick card on the legs. One in the shin, one at the hip. If you're keeping the pose, you might want to do a mid-thigh cut, but I've found I like the waist cut better. It gives a lot more options later.










For the torsos, I use 1.5mm thick plastic card, cutting it into strips to line the outside of the torso "ring". Cut/file the outside edge smooth, then, using a rounded-tip hobby blade, scrape the inner side into a rounded shape.

Adding another small square inside (or some putty) will allow more contact points for gluing the torso to the legs later. This will add length to the torso. Now, I add a lot of gear to my Space Marines because aesthetically I like them that way. If you aren't going to be adding pouches and grenades, you will need to invest in some Green Stuff to model out their belt lines.

Step 2: Re-assembly.

Carefully, using hobby snips or a hobby blade, cut the excess down around the legs. Then, even more carefully, use the blade to trim it as close to the contour of the leg as possible. Once this is done, you can file it smooth if necessary.

Once you've shaved down the plastic inserts, you'll want to use either Green Stuff or Liquid Green Stuff to fill the gaps.










Now to prepare the pose. What is your Space Marine doing? Is he aiming? Is he patroling? For the Apothecary, I wanted him to be holding his gun at the "alert", which means with the muzzle pointing slightly downward, but ready to be brought up for firing. I felt this gave a certain "attitude" to the model. So how do we accomplish this with the lackluster arms provided in most Space Marine kits? With a knife of course.

Any time you're posing a Space Marine (or any model for that matter), you want to be considering range of movement. At the very least, try the pose yourself. If you can't do it comfortably, why would the Space Marine? If you're trying to impart a swinging motion with a melee weapon for example, try a couple swings while watching yourself in the mirror. Make sure you know how that weapon is used in real life too. You swing a top-heavy weapon like an axe or a hammer much differently than you swing a sword which is balanced closer to the grip.

My Apothecary looks like this:










So, how do we get there?

Sorry I didn't take any in-progress pictures of the arms. That was an oversight I'll correct in the future. For now, I'll get as good of shots as we can for it. Fortunately I couldn't find my small drill bit for the barrel so the boltgun isn't glued in place yet.

Here's a basic diagram of the arm cuts.










First, we're going to clip the arm just below the "under shoulder" that the shoulder pad attaches to. Once this is done, we can rotate the arm to do whatever we want, from an aiming pose, to the "alert" pose. This cut is fundamental to pretty much all the Space Marines I do, and is the base of posing. Think about your own body. Almost all of the directions you can move your arm start at the shoulder.










Second we're going to clip the wrist and flip it around so that the wrist soft armor is sloping up, instead of down. Sounds confusing, but an upward slope will obviously give us a downward angled hand.










Now, since we've fundamentally altered the way the right hand sits, the left hand isn't going to sit flush on the bolter. So it needs to be cut free and rotated. You can see this best on the Section Leader:










The Apothecary doesn't make a great example because I had to cut the whole forearm off that model to replace it with the Narthecium anyway. Here it is on another model, and you can see the far more drastic angle that the cuts achieved.










And there you go. You've now made a 30-40 part model:











As an aside, I wrote The Brief And Humorous History of the Horus Heresy on my blog. You should check it out:
https://veteransergeant.wordpress.com/2015/03/25/a-brief-history-of-the-horus-heresy/


Thanks for following along.


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## torealis

You are insane. And I love it.

Great tutorial. That's a huge amount of effort to every marine...

I have shrunk and simplified your process... it's not quite as perfect, but works well for larger numbers.
How many have you finished now? And do we get to see a painted one?


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## neferhet

torealis said:


> You are insane. And I love it.


agree on both.


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## Veteran Sergeant




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## Veteran Sergeant

neferhet said:


> agree on both.


The first part is certainly true.


So, it's been basically a year. I was really _not_ busy for a while. I moved to a place even closer to the beach, and the hobby was all downhill from there, haha.

Then we started playing X-Wing mostly. Other than magnetizing all my ships, there's not much I can do with that game, conversion-wise.

But, then, suddenly the clouds parted, a ray of sunlight pierced through from the heavens, and Genestealer Cult returned to the Warhammer 40K universe.


So I cut them apart.











More on that project when I have the time to construct a coherent long-form post for it.


Oh, and this:










“We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.” - H. P. Lovecraft


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## Veteran Sergeant

I've been away for a bit. So busy, so little attention to my forum posts. You guys can always follow me on Facebook, as it will update any time I do anything new. I don't post a ton, so it isn't like I'm going to spam your page. Heck, with Facebook's new algorithm, you'll be lucky to see anything from me at all unless you like/comment on my posts (then Facebook decides you "care" enough).

https://www.facebook.com/LeaveNoModelUnconverted/

Picture dump: .

Oldcrons! with converted gauss weapons and re-posed legs and arms.









More Eldar Corsairs









Space Skaven! Proof of concept test models made from Stormvermin, and a variety of 40K weapons. My buddy loves Skaven, but can't seem to get into Necromunda. 









Mordheim









X-Wing (well, a B-Wing, technically)









Genestealer Cultists

























A "platoon's" worth of "Upright" Space Orks









Even started putting a few base-layers of paint on Spess Mahreens


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## Roganzar

I love the idea of 40k Skaven in Necromunda. There would totally be mutant ratmen living in the polluted, radioactive depths of the Hives.
A thought on their weapons though. I think their weapons would look a little more varied. Like pulling in orc shootas and cultist, (Chaos & geenstealer) along with some regulation flashlights, err... I mean, lasguns.
Other than that always fun to see an update from you.


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## Fluketrain

Haha, another fan of having models step up onto bits of sprue .

Are you working on all those armies at the same time?


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## Veteran Sergeant

I figured Necromunda mutant rats would have scavenged Imperial weapons. Since they'll likely get used for Kill Team too, I gave a couple Kroot rifles too. I put models on sprue because eventually they should have real bases, and the sprue helps hold them in place and keeps them from breaking off the bases.

What are armies? You talk like I actually play 40K ever, lol. We play a little bit of Necromunda and Mordheim, but 40K games are few and far between. I just like cutting up figures and re-posing them to look cooler. I mean, I'd _like_ to play more 40K, but it rarely happens. In the mean time, I just like having cool looking models that are unique to my collection. Because my favorite part of the hobby is seeing what people can create with their imaginations. 

I was working on my own variant of Kill Team based closer on 2nd Edition rules mixed with some of the better WW2 games like Chain of Command and Battlegroup Kursk, but it's a massive undertaking to get it all balanced. I'd love to just play some platoon-sized games of 40K where movement and terrain matter again and there aren't any death stars or giant robots etc. So all of my "armies" are built using that idea. 

I already have about 200 or so IGuard (Steel Legion and metal Cadians) and some tanks and transports. I'll end up having roughly "platoon" sized forces of Orks, Tau, Necrons, Eldar Corsairs, and Genestealer Cult when I'm "done", along with some vehicles for each. Then I can just play with my friends, since I can supply all the models, heh.


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## Veteran Sergeant

I've been kind of industrious. My Counts-As Deathwatch using _actual Deathwatch_ parts are taking shape. The Mark 8 kit is cool. Far better proportions and a little taller than the standard kits, so it takes less extension to have them at the same scale. Models on the right are Mk8 bodies, the one on the left is a standard Mk7 from the old kit.










I threw together some more Fire Warriors with "Shorty" Pulse Rifles. I really like the Breacher Helmet. Wish I had more of them. The new Tau Fire Warrior kit is a _massive_ improvement over the old one. They're still not the most exciting models in the world, but they're way better than they used to be, and the kit actually has some interesting bits on the sprues. 

Dark Gray are new, light Gray are old.









Oh hey, look, I have a medal. Hadn't noticed that before, but apparently I've had it for a while, lol.


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