I put the finishing touches to the Gabriel Angelos conversion a few days ago.

The two main parts of the conversion that I think require some explanation are the cloak and the Thunder Hammer (which I’ve been informed is correctly called Godsplitter).

Originally I had tried to sculpt a cloak using a sheet of wax I’d been given (basically candle wax in a 2mm thick sheet). Using metal tools and a lighter to heat and shape the wax I tried making to make something resembling natural cloth. However, I couldn’t get it to work as intended so I’ve shelved that idea for the time being.

Instead I made a partial mold of a chaos warrior cloak, sculpting the top half to fit the rest of the model. Having it made from Green Stuff allowed me to trim it down and shape it to fit much better.

The hammer was made starting with the trimmed down Grey Knight Thunder Hammer (the power armour version). I started by filling in the central part to make it into one large block. I wanted to make the head of the hammer look like it was made from something like a chunk of ore or volcanic rock, that then had a metal casing riveted onto it. I put a thin covering of Green Stuff on two of the faces of the hammer and then added a texture to it by pressing a piece of sponge into it while still soft.

The rest of the faces of the hammer head were done one at a time and rivets added (Grandt Line product) while the Green Stuff was still soft (no glue required).

I wasn’t sure whether to add the reinforced plating to the legs or not, but it did seem like something was needed. I wasn’t sure about this conversion until it was in the final stages, something I find happens quite often in the process. I usually feel that the project isn’t working out as well as I had hoped until it is in the final stages when everything seems to just come together.

I’ve kept the client of this conversion waiting a very long time for this piece, but I promised I’d have it finished in time for christmas and I intend to stick to that.

Originally the brief was for an Artscale Gabriel Angelos based off of specific pieces of artwork. However, because this model will be used in competitive play the brief was changed to a regular scale conversion. Even so, I decided to take the liberty of altering the size of the mini ever so slightly but still have him fit nicely of a 25mm base.

First I removed the legs from the groin section on a standard pair of plastic legs and pinned them back on with a bit of a space left between each component. I then filled this with green stuff to lengthen the legs ever so slightly. I’ve seen this done many time before with plasticard, but in the end I just use the material I’m most comfortable with.

I then added a thin skin of Green Stuff over the legs to add a little extra mass. The thigh, knee pad and greaves were bulked out separately, each time allowing the Green Stuff to fully cure. You can see on the above pic the difference this small amount of Green Stuff can make to the overall look of the leg when compared to the unaltered “thin” leg. The final conversion will stand about 4mm taller than a standard Space Marine but at the same time won’t look in any way out of place.

I added a Green Stuff collar to the torso, in an effort to simulate the artwork I was basing the conversion on, and also because I like to see a proper gorget on power armour. The brief required Angelos to have a half mask on his face, bionic looking but more akin to a mask than the usual bionic skeleton. To do this I cut away a part of the plastic head (a trimmed down Grey Knight head btw) and added a tiny eyepiece. I let this eyepiece Green Stuff cure fully before adding the actual mask around it. I may still add a few tiny tweaks to the mask, I’m not entirely sure yet.

The final mini will be holding Godhammer (his personal Thunder Hammer) out in front of him in a 2 handed pose. I’ve built the basic hammer from some Grey Knight components but have yet to remake the actual hammer head, which needs to be one solid block rather the way it is now. I’ll probably opt to use plasticard to do this.

Finally, other than adding artificer details to the armour itself I need to add a cloak suitable for a chapter master. I’m currently experimenting with a couple of different methods to do this (as I also need to make cloaks for a Primarch project) but I’ll be showing a “How To” guide on it once I figure it out.

Hi all.

So I have this Artscale Deathwatch mini (Imperial Fist) that I made for commission a couple of months ago and unfortunately the client hasn’t got back to me. Rather than just try and find a buyer, I’m going to auction it off and give the money to a local RSPCA Animal Rescue Centre who are running an appeal at the moment.

First thing to decide is how to paint it up as I’m sure it’ll raise a higher final price if it’s painted. It was commissioned as a member of the Deathwatch, but I can easily paint it up in Imperial Fist or Crimson Fist colours. I’m leaning toward yellow as I’m pretty good with yellow paint and that looks great with battle damage. I’ll also provide an alternative 40mm base so this can better “count as” Lysander.

If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions on the best way to go regarding painting please leave a comment or email me.

Also once it’s finished and goes up for auction (eBay obviously) any help promoting it would be extremely helpful and appreciated.

EDIT: Since I posted this I’ve been talking with Volomir and he’s kindly agreed to paint up this miniature for me. Obviously this means the mini will be 100 times better than if I painted it myself and hopefully it’ll raise a fair bit more money.

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.

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 

I’d wanted to do this particular conversion for a very long time. Ever since I named the original blog “Master of the Forge” I envisioned having a pic in the header of the home page of a Master of the Forge model, something suitably impressive.

I had a few sets of resin legs spare from my experimenting with resin casting (didn’t go too well). I figured I’d use a pair as the starting point and sculpt all the lovely Techmarine stylings over the top of any air bubbles in the cast. The top half of the model is from the Thunderfire cannon Techmarine.
The original concept of the model was to have it equipped with a Conversion Beamer, mounted on his backpack as a kind of shoulder mounted weapon, and carrying a Thunder Wrench in both hands, reminiscent of the Rogue Trader era Techmarines. The head is roughly based on the design of the Techmarine featured in Dawn of War 2. 

I had a hard time deciding how the final model would be equipped. I had plenty of techmarine bits, so I played around dry fitting bits until I found a combination I though worked. Even quite late in the build I went back and swapped some things around, eventually giving him a thunder hammer and a wrench. Although the original concept was to have him carrying a 2 handed thunder hammer/wrench it seemed a shame to obscure the sculpting on the model with a big weapon held out in front of him.

The conversion beamer itself was mostly made from an upside down lascannon with the tip of the weapon being cut from the Techmarine’s original servo-harness. Most of the cables were made from guitar string. For anyone wanting to replicate the layered armoured effect on the legs I posted a Mini-Tutorial here.

Ever since reading the Grey Knights Omnibus book I’ve wanted to convert a Grey Knight Chaplain (NOTE: this is before the release of the 5th edition Grey Knight codex). When I decide to start any kind of project I look for inspiration (usually artwork or other minis) to help envision what I want the final conversion to look like. In this case I found this amazing image.

I’m sure some of you would argue against the existence within the fluff of GK Chaplains, but I rather like the idea, if nothing else just for aesthetic reasons – Chaplains always look cool, but a Grey Knight Chaplain should be something really special.

I started this project with a few ideas in mind. I wanted it to approximately fit the description of the Chaplain mentioned in Ben Counter’s Grey Knights book, ie: all black power armour and a gun metal skull helm. I also had this idea of him carrying a thunder hammer that looks similar to a crozius arcanum.

You can probably see where the parts have come from. The legs are from the Grey Knight Terminator Brother Captain, and the torso/head is from one of the standard Chaplain models. Normally I would make the torso from plastic and green stuff to give it extra depth and position the head properly, but I decided it best not to remove the head from its original torso in case I risked damaging it. Part of my working process involves trying out a variety of options and poses till I find something that works best. In this case I hadn’t decided on the weapons and gear from the start so I gathered a selection of possibles (swords, thunder hammer (crozius), stormbolter and storm shield).

In the end I settled on the Storm Shield (from the Forgeworld Inquisitor) and a custom Thunder Hammer/Crozius but I eneded up modifying it into a one handed weapon.The Thunder Crozius was made from brass details (Forgeworld again), plasticard and some crozius bits from a Chaplain model. I also selected a large book (from an Inquisitor familiar model) that I would later be slung across his body. I imagined the Chaplain recording the names of the Imperium’s greatest unsung heroes in it.

The Crozius/Hammer had been made a bit more compact by shortening the hammer heads and adding a smaller handle. The forearm is taken from the Hector Rex mini, just so it matches the arm holding the storm shield. I really like how this weapon has turned out. Took a lot of tinkering with to get it right, but this is one of the things about converting minis, the longer you tinker the better it is likely to be. It did in fact start out as the Thunder Hammer on the Preacher Josef model but has been chopped up and whittled down till only the center part between the hammer heads is left… and I could easily have used plasticard to build that bit 

As this was an Artscale conversion I proceeded to fill in the gaps in the terminator legs to make them look more like power armour and resculpted the chest to be both deeper and more pronounced. My first attempt on the chest I tried to retain the original details, but as I really wasn’t happy with the result I ended up resculpting the whole thing, aquila and all.

I had a lot of trouble finalizing his pose, but eventually settled on a crozius resting at his side rather than the usual held aloft pose common to all Chaplains. It helps give an impression of weight to his mighty hammer, but also allows the fitting of the shoulder pad to look far less awkward. Although this model has 9 pins holding him together, there are elements that are definitely fragile (the iron halo for example) but there’s not much I can do to improve that. Guess I better not drop him.

Midway through painting him I decided I wasn’t totally happy with the positioning of the shield arm, mostly because the direction the attached purity seal was hanging looked odd. So I rebuilt the arm with the shield in a slightly more dynamic pose and the seal hanging more naturally downwards. Whilst doing this I realised I’d missed an opportunity to take the rather awesome Iron Haloed Skull design of his helm and repeat it on his own shield. So before continuing with painting I sculpted the Iron Halo design onto his Storm Shield.

Originally I’d wanted to have all of his power armour black (as described in the novels) with just a few gold details and a silver skull helm, however, the all black armour just didn’t really look that good, so in the end I opted to paint both shoulder pads the same silver as his helm.

As a bit of fluff for him I’ve given him the title of Guardian of Names and painted the name Durendin (from the novel) on the iconography of his backpack. He carries and protects one of the Grey Knights sacred tomes, a book that records the name of each and every Grey Knight to have died protecting mankind. If that’s not a role for a Chaplain I don’t know what is.

Size comparison.

Here we have a Red Scorpions character in terminator armour (a counts as Lysander I believe). The client had commissioned four Red Scorpions Captains each equipped differently. This is the first, equipped with terminator armour, thunder hammer and storm shield. The pics are pretty self explanatory. The thunder hammer arm is magnetized at the shoulder joint, allowing rotation and removal for easy transporting/packing. The shield is a conversion of Lysander’s with the Imperial Fist iconography removed.

The head and the loin cloth on this model came from the Assault on Black Reach Captain, a great mini I just have to keep hacking up. The bit on the base is a dead Tyranid Ripper from the Chaplain Cassius model and the head of the thunder hammer came from an Iron Hands model. Although the hammer head is smaller than a regular plastic one, I find it looks a nicer scale and will be unique amongst other thunder hammer wielding terminators. The legs and shoulder pads for the model came from the Forgeworld Commander Culln miniature.

The client had requested a lot of battle damage on this model. My approach to battle damage is to paint up the model first and add the battle damage as the last details (click here to see the model before damage was applied). When applying damage either physically or with paint you have to be carefully to find the right amount, too little will be unnoticeable, too much may ruin all your hard work.

Work in Progress pics