In my last post I showed my attempts at making a cast of my long time coming Primarch project. I filled the silicone rubber mold with Green Stuff and the cast I got out of that the next day was actually pretty decent considering. Perhaps because the Green Stuff wasn’t exposed to air when it was curing but the cast was a bit sticky when I removed it, still hardened, but oddly sticky. After a thorough washing I gave it an inspection. There were slight gaps on the legs along the mold line where I’d not added enough Green Stuff, but other than that the cast came useable (with a little attention).

I then decided (as these components aren’t for sale as they are) to get a professional to cast them (go see BattleCast). I’ve had a handful of these made, and Joel at Anvil Industries was happy to use my own mold to do so. Below is the comparison pic to show the quality of the casts next to one another. Now that I have these I’m able to detail them up and attach the arms, heads, etc. I’ll be making more of this type of thing to build up my own Space Marine force.

On an unrelated topic I’ve started work on a regular scale Gabriel Angelos of the Blood Raven chapter and should have an update on that in a few day.

I just wanted to share this little gem that I got in the post this morning. I ordered a Goldar the Barbarian from Reaper after seeing it on a Beast of War ‘On the Table‘ episode. Whenever I roleplay or play games like HeroQuest (yes I still play HeroQuest) or play MMORPGs I almost always play the barbarian or warrior. However, in my mind there are very few really great muscle bound Barbarian models out there, so when I saw this I jumped at the chance to get one.

Although I think the model is great as it is I did buy it with the intention of tweaking it somewhat, a new weapon, slightly altered pose and improved loin cloth for starters. I didn’t know what the scale of this model would be I just hoped it would look nice on the tabletop, but when I got it this morning I realised that is the perfect scale for an unarmoured Truescale Space Marine. I’ll still be making this one a Barbarian character model, but if I find any need in future for an unarmoured Space Marine I know exactly where to start from.

This is my guide to how I make a basic Artscale Space Marine in Mark 7 Power Armour. This guide shows my approach to the idea of scaled up Space Marines, and has been strongly influenced by many others. Since I made this original guide two years ago my techniques have changed a little. The original tutorial is presented here but where appropriate I’ve linked to further Mini-Tutorials.

Please feel free to leave comments or email me with questions or suggestions on how to improve this tutorial.

This is only my second Mark VIII power armour conversion. The first work in progress pic below shows the three basic components (legs, torso and head) assembled and based to give an early impression of how the final model will look. Normally I make the legs and torso separately and assemble later but I think doing it this way is probably a lot better. The components basically form a skeleton onto which you can sculpt the surface details. Because the surface needs to be highly polished it is best to treat the “skin” of the model as a separate part of the process to the structure underneath. If you try to establish structure and surface detail at the same time you make it twice as hard for yourself.

This guy is an Imperial Fist of the Deathwatch, carrying a Storm Shield and Thunder Hammer. The Thunder Hammer is a modified version of Lysander’s weapon and the shield is a FW Black Templar Storm Shield with all the detail removed. To do this I first removed as much detail as I could with clippers and a knife being careful not to damage the shield itself. Because of the harmful nature of resin dust I took some fine grade wet&dry paper and sanded it off under a running tap (not hot water) until I had a smooth finish. This way the dust is just washed away harmlessly, leaving your lungs intact.

The Imperial Laurel on his helm was done very easily with a bit from one of the Space Marine box sets. Find a Tutorial here.

I really wasn’t sure how well this model was going to turn out, but now I’ve finished it I have to admit that it pains me to part with him. Rather than repose the legs I simply based him on a slight slope, and stuck with the out the box pose of the legs. This approach is a simple way a huge difference without having to chop up legs. Making Mark VIII armour requires a little more attention to detail but isn’t so different from Mark VII to be a big issue. Most of the rest of the model is standard procedure, building a base model on which to sculpt a “skin”.

I didn’t have a second Deathwatch terminator pad (found in the box sets) spare so I cast another one using a Blu-Stuff one piece mold which I then cut up a little to add an Imperial Fist icon. The helm is also magnetized with an alternative bare head allowing them to be swapped over whenever, also allows easier painting.

As I can’t keep this mini for my own collection, I’ll be using it as a guideline for my own Lamenters Company Champion when I finally get time for my own army.

This 5 man Grey Knight squad are to based on Grey Knights immediately after the Heresy. As such they have Nemesis Force Weapons in the style of those on 1st edition Grey Knights, ie: Halberds with storm bolters built in.

I opted to use the older metal Terminators as a base for the legs as I find them to be much better posed than the plastic ones which seem to me to be a bit too widely spread. Adding Green Stuff to metal is more difficult than adding to plastic, I’m not entirely certain why that is but I would advise beginners to use plastic models as a base.

The Grey Knight plastic torsos are unusually deep compared to regular Space Marines so I used no spacer in between the front and back. The NFW has had its blade removed and attached lower down so that a cut down bolter would fit atop of the blade. The bolter barrel had to be replaced so that it was in a better position. The added =I= symbol also fit perfectly and the cable was my first try out of my new TubeTool from Masq-Mini (I’ll review it properly in a later post) and I’m very pleased with it.

I lengthened the arms (using plasticard spacers) and Green Stuffed over them to add the necessary size (see a Tutorial here). When I’m working on individual bits like this and I need to put them somewhere for the Green Stuff to cure without getting damaged I use a large blob of poster BluTac (sometimes I also add temporary pins to hold small pieces by).

I had quite a specific brief for the Justicar to resemble a model I did very early on in the blog. I also got the chance to add a shoulder mounted psycannon (I have a bit of a thing for shoulder mounted ranged weapons, not sure why). It took quite a while to make it fit nicely, but I think it works. I wanted the psycannon to be pointing in the same direction as the Justicar’s bionic eye, as if the two are linked. The rest of the squad came together quite naturally from using mostly Grey Knight components. The whole squad is pretty self explanatory to anyone who’s seen my work before.

Click here for Work in Progress pics

This is a an Artscale version of Talos from the Night Lords Legion based upon available artwork (mostly from book covers). From what I can tell he seems to be equipped with almost a full suit of mark V armour. Whilst I could have fashioned one of my own style Mark V helm I decided to acquire one of the relatively Forgeworld pieces as the quality is just so nice.

I really wasn’t sure how to proceed with this project at the beginning (the pose is the first important step), in this case I went back to the artwork (featured on one of the covers) and deciding to use that as starting point. Even though I’d already tried something else and this meant scrapping some of the work I’d already done the project wasn’t going in the right direction at the time. This is another example of how taking steps backward in the conversion process can be highly beneficial, and something I recommend you be willing to do from time to time.

To achieve the finish on the cracked chest plate I first sculpted it untarnished, and just before it had finished curing I took a scalpel to the chest plate to simulated the cracked armour by chopping into it, again referring to the artwork. I ended up pushing a small wedge of plasticard underneath the torso to better mis-shape the rent in the armour. Although the chest eagle took 3 attempts to get it how I wanted it, I think once painted up nicely this will look obviously damaged, where as my earlier attempts just looked scratched and a bit lame.

Work in progress pic.

My favourite elements are the sword and the Night Lords shoulder pad. I should note that I re-made the sword hilt into something a lot better after taking these pics but I forgot to photograph it before sending it off to the client.

To describe the actual work done; the legs are completely scratchbuilt to the same scale as my other previous terminators, whilst the rest of the model is more subtly modified. The torso is already fairly large and the only change I made was to space the front and back pieces with Green Stuff to give it more depth, but only at the bottom. The arms are largely unmodified, only altered to accommodate the pose. Rather than sculpt an outer skin over the shoulder pads like I normally do I instead opted to extend them by adding thicker trims whilst rescultping the arching plates that go over the top. The model’s head is stock just because it’s so damn nice (I was tempted to try and save it for a later project).

I wasn’t totally satisfied with the Force Hammer that comes stock, and after many attempts found an icon bit that is meant to fit atop the terminator armour that could be nicely modified to fit. As an added bonus I also magnetized the head of the hammer and gave him an optional Halberd set up. The hammer looks better (gotta love the brass bits from FW) but a halberd might be a better choice in game so I added the option at least.

The final addition after the odd purity seal and grenade was the loin cloth from the box set. Only problem was it didn’t look particularly animated, just a bit bland. So I trimmed it on one side and sculpted over most of it to try and create a bit more flow. I’m starting to gain a bit more confidence with cloth shapes now, the trick being to have the basic shape underneath the surface already in place and solid so you’re only sculpting a smooth skin rather than manipulating a big lump of putty.

I knew I would have difficulty carving text directly into the greaves because of the way I build minis in GS, so I opted to attach engraved plates in the same positions. This is the first time I remember attempting to sculpt text like this and I have to say I’m reasonably pleased with the end result. The basic technique involves making the entire plate in one piece of Green Stuff, making sure it’s the right shape and in the right position and then using a sharp pointed tool “push in” all the space around the letters.

I have to say the quality of GWs plastics gets better year on year. In some ways it’s hard to find ways to attempt to improve upon the standard kit. Luckily for me scaling up minis is a particularly unique form of converting 

Here is a commission for a single Deathwatch Space Marine (to be used in FFG Deathwatch RPG).

The brief was far more specific than I normally like (I like to be as free as possible in the creation process) but I really liked the concept. Sometimes having someone push for a really specific finish can be an advantage and I don’t think this would have turned out as well as it did had the client not been so pedantic (it’s a compliment, truely). This particular Space Marine is equipped with Mk IV armour and a modified heavy bolter. The helm is a stripped down FW Khorne Berserker helm which looks pretty cool I have to say. The heavy bolter is actually made from 2 heavy bolters, the devastator variant and one from a Bandblade (I believe), as I wanted to make it unique. Because I didn’t have any of the devastator back packs left in my bitz box I asked the client if I could give him a a box magazine rather than belt feed. I personally think it looks cooler and is fitting for a DW who would have the most advanced gear. I would have like to have added a bipod also but the size of the box magazine made it look redundant.

The base was done really simply using textured plasticard sheet cut to fit the base and separated to leave small gaps, like gaps between floor panels.

I took the above pics when I felt the conversion was finished but the client requested an alteration to the model’s pose so that the gun was in more of a firing position. I think I have a habit of avoiding action poses and whilst I still liked the previous posing as it made the gun look heavy, I do think this is an improvement though. Additionally a slight modifiation made to the handle of the heavy bolter (reminds me a little of the Pulse Rifle from the Aliens film).

This was my second Lord Commander Culln conversion, commissioned after I made the first one. I followed the same guidelines as before only really altering the cloak. I took this cloak from a Hector Rex Forgeworld mini (with a lot of whittling of the inside to make it fit). Even though it doesn’t match the original artwork as closely I think I prefer this particular model.