Gabriel Angelos

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.

Updated: January 8th 2012

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.