Artscale Commander Culln
Even though I had no plans to collect a Red Scorpions force, I love the cover artwork from Imperial Armour 9 and decided to try and create a conversion worthy of it.
Some of the proportions will be different as with all conversions like this the intrinsic proportions between art and model are different. I used a Grey Knight NFW (metal) as a base for the sword, the plastic ones not being available at the time though they would probably be a better choice as the blade is thinner and sharper looking. The stormbolter arm was taken directly from the FW Culln model with no real need for modification. The rest of the details were sculpted except for the eagle iconography on his hip plates which came from the Grey Knight brass sheet (Forgeworld).I opted to convert a plastic head rather than use the resin Culln head as I thought it might be a touch on the small side.
I started with the basic armature made from Terminator plastics ready to be sculpted over. The feet were completely replaced with scratchbuilt Green Stuff pieces and the plastic legs cut up extensively to pose them correctly. In addition the lower legs have had plasticard spacers added to increase the overall standing height (I used the same approach on previous artscale terminators so).
The torso has two pieces of plasticard fitted to either side and then filled with Green Stuff. Finally to bulk the torso I sculpted a new chestplate over the existing one. Making the legs uses pretty much the same approach as converting a power armoured marine, but with more layers on top. One of the hardest things about converting something like this is matching the left and right.
To make the arch/hood I used two strips of curved plasticard and greenstuff and mounted them on a piece of plasticard. I then made a mold (Blu-Stuff) and made a Green Stuff cast of the original. This allows me too make more in future very easily should I decide to make more scaled up Terminators.
Next I move onto the legs and the armour plates like the greaves. I start by applying one large piece of Green Stuff making sure it’s going to be more than I need. I then use a larger clayshaper to smooth it out making sure it follows the right curvature. Excess GS is only removed from the edges. If I still feel there is too much mass (to thick) I’ll spread it out some more (flatten it), gradually moving that mass to the edges where I can remove more of it with a scalpel.
Once the basic shape is there and it is nicely smoothed out only then to I focus on neatening up the edges.
It’s best to then leave each separate piece of sculpting to cure before moving on the the next piece as more than likely you’ll damage it if you don’t.
I left off the knee pads and hip plates because it’ll be simpler to make them separately and attach them later. You can either remove hip plates from plastic terminators or you could sculpt or cast (mold the plastic ones) them in Green Stuff.
Size comparison work in progress pic.
As you can see the stormbolter arm is not fixed (magnetized) to allow easier painting and ingame repositioning. I’m rather pleased with how the cloak has turned out and am looking forward to attempting it again on some upcoming conversions. I basically rolled out a thin sheet of GS onto some spare plastic that it comes stored in and shaped it into approximately the right shape. Before it had completely cured I attached it to the model and later modelled more shape onto it rather than just have it flat.
I decided not to go overboard with purity seals and stuck with the regular plastic ones. All in all I’m very pleased with the final piece and it does show that Artscale Terminators can be done very nicely. I also love the fact I was able to pull off the commanding stationary pose, as I wasn’t sure it was going to work out.
