WIP of test conversion for a Samurai Marine

[Targol]

Hi there !!

After the dread, I'm continuing with the basis unit of the SM.

The idea is to make him look the more possible like a samurai without too heavies conversion for my sculpting skills.

I did this test on a clip marine from Macragge box.

I chose a clip marine because most of my SM come from Maccrage, black Reach or painter sets so I'll have to deal with their limits.

 

So, first conversion : shoulders.

http://images4.hiboox.com/vignettes/3608/72e5f86c716f3ef0f4f2015f37446224.jpg http://images4.hiboox.com/vignettes/3608/f0dc056b27bf68b2a3957deab204e9d2.jpg http://images4.hiboox.com/vignettes/3608/407ae318a0445f64bd66ea00c7cc8b76.jpg

I spent approximatively 3/4h to sculpt these above existing pad without touching them before.

I was wondering if, for next ones, I could make a miliput mold on the cleanest converted shoulder pad (right one I think).

Then, I could press a GS ball between the existing pad and the lubricated mold to fasten conversion work.

Do you think it could work ?

 

Next step, I think, will be to try to add plated neck protection to look like samurai helmets.

And, of course, the back standard just like the dread (but one only for him).

[aioannou]

good work so far, there is a topic on here somewhere with some lovely japanese weapons you make like.

 

the shoulders are really good and very unique.

id say add some to the legs and chest too next. and leave the neck or head til last as then you can get scaling right.

[LordYagyuTetsuhara]

Howdy!

 

The marine looks pretty cool man. I'm working on a samurai-themed marine army myself(have been for a while now LOL). I went a different route with the shoulder pads. Instead of greenstuffing bits on, I simply made them out of writing pen tubes. I also made the armored skirt(can't remember the proper name off the top of my head LOL) out of greenstuff. Really simple to do and looks pretty good. I think I might try your idea for the back banner poles as converting the ones you get with the marines is tedious :lol: . Here's how I did mine:

 

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh185/Boondock_Shogun/HPIM1046.jpg

 

I'll definitely keep an eye on this. I really like seeing samurai-themed marine armies and the possibility of coming across new and inventive ways to convert them is pretty cool too.

 

Good luck and good gaming,

 

Nate

[Slawson]

Some nice conversion work there. I have a samurai themed army that was completed with traits and needs some more work for the new codex since there is not a character that gives cleanse and purify and no mercy, no respite.

 

They are the red and white marines and vehicles.

 

Rising Sun Chapter

 

The pole weapons are modeled for power fists throughout the army. The little horns on the helmets are high elf bits.

[Targol]

Thanks guys for the tips and pics.

 

Next step for me was the "armored skirt" (as LordYagyuTetsuhara call it ... but I don't neither know the correct name).

As I use clip marines, I abandoned the idea of making it on the thighs : on clip SM, the position of the legs and the various things hanged to the belt should raise to much work for basic troops.

So, I sculpted a center plated skirt in 1mm plasticard but, before gluing it, I made a miliput mold of it.

I also made a mold on the right shoulder pad.

 

Here is how it looks like now :

http://images4.hiboox.com/vignettes/3608/409c80753c08c118db5fe3e60c5a93c4.jpg

The blurry picture doesn't show well the relief of the skirt, but it can be seen on the mold on its side.

I'm gonna put some GS between the skirt and the belt to soften a little.

 

Zoom on the skirt mold and a "warmed sprue molding" realized with it :

http://images4.hiboox.com/vignettes/3608/73d11c5dd44ec0534da7c67d129502ca.jpg

Molding is not perfect but, with a couple of cutter and file work, I managed to get a cool looking skirt (not photographed) in 2mn (many time saved :D )

 

Zoom on shoulder pad mold :

http://images4.hiboox.com/vignettes/3608/54b2ac0de81d019346a13712ff626fc9.jpg

I need to work a little bit more on it before a molding test...

 

That's all for this delivery...

Thanks for reading.

[Brother Eneok]

These are really cool! I love the way you made your own molds to help speed things up a bit and your sculpting skills are very good! Far better than mine.

[Targol]

These are really cool!

Thanks B)

I love the way you made your own molds to help speed things up a bit (...)

Well I'm prospecting on molding to gain time and what I can say for the moment is the following :

• The first try with the shoulder pad mold was not very impresive : I put too much GS between the mold and the existing shoulder pad. That leads me to spend the same time with the molding than without it. I Think that I should realy gain time by knowing exactly the amount of gs to put.
  
• About warmed sprue technic, this works very nice... except if the mold is to wide. If the mold is more than 6mm wide, the warmed sprue doesn't reach the mols ends when pressed on it. I'll have to improve that.
  

(...) and your sculpting skills are very good! Far better than mine.

Not so good if you take in account the spent time.

To reach this result, I spend much time on my sculpt and work the GS until it's almost dry.

For the last shoulder pads (based on the mold), as I put kitchen oil in the mold to allow it not to stick to the GS, I worked the gs with an X-acto blade using the oil to allow my knife to slide well on the GS surface. As is, sculpture is corrected all along its drying process.

 

Yesterday evening, I tried to sculpt a dragon symbol (same that my chapter symbol I use as avatar).

The idea was to make knee pads with it...

Unfortunately, my sculpting skills didn't allow me to realize such a tiny sculpt (a 3mm dragon is not easy to paint but worse to sculpt :D ).

yet, I managed to sculpt one 6mm wide that could be used as chest plate or for the vehicles. I think I'm going to make a warm sprue miliput mold with it too.

 

I should post pics of ongoing work this evening...

 

Targol

[Targol]

Auto reply to keep my promises :

Here are the pics of the dragon I scuplted yesterday evening and ... guess what ? ... a mold of it :)

http://images4.hiboox.com/vignettes/3708/223ec0da8f158238e0499d692df3d6ce.jpg

Reviewing this picture, I must admit I was not very good at sizing my work in yesterday's message.

Using the 10mm wide grid underneath, it's rather 10mm wide and 8mm long. By the way I couldn't scuplt it tinyer. :mellow:

 

Also another pic to show : 4 SM at different stages of conversion (some are very WIP) :

http://images4.hiboox.com/vignettes/3708/392317a07ef2d8905a57fb1c04728710.jpg

From left to right :

• Original one on which has been sculpted the original shoulder pads and on which is stuck the original plasticard sculpted "skirt". Note that I removed the eagle on its chest to make a test with above dragon mold... just to see if it fits well.
  I'll show you if it works :P
  By the way, even if it fits, I'm not sure I'll do this for all SMs.
  It should depend on how much it can be seen when the bolter is in place, masking it.
  
• Second SM is the "first generation" I made yesterday using the molds for the skirt and for the shoulders (with many work after unmolding for the shoulders).
  
• For third and fourth, I tried another technique with my moldings : Rather than using GS, I used the remaining of the Milliput I used for the dragon's mold and made smaller balls. I'll try to work them dryer.
  

[Targol]

Well double auto-reply, I'm running for an award :P

 

By the way, here are the news :

I tried to cut "horns" like samuraï helmets have in plasticard but the result was to tiny and broke. So I got my GS and tried to sculpt.

 

I realized 3 different shapes to put variety in my army... here they are :

http://images4.hiboox.com/vignettes/3708/f2542f34aaad7ccd2d5b04303fda91ea.jpg

 

I used a blister as support for its glassy surface that'll help molding after. The fact that it's transparent was not specially wanted, but I realised that this transparency was quite helpful.

 

It allows, for example to roughly test the look of the marines with the horns before molding these.

As is, if modifications have to be done, they're made once on the original rather than on each molded part.

 

So I wedged a Marine on the table, put the blister on it the best I could and took pictures :

http://images4.hiboox.com/vignettes/3708/8bb59f31a00421d515aa06c04e6ed5bc.jpg http://images4.hiboox.com/vignettes/3708/d91b2aa18fdfe89c2c50f9c239c5a647.jpg http://images4.hiboox.com/vignettes/3708/82721b1a7203b9aa1e1fc2759a8a22c8.jpg

Last one seem too thick, I think. I'm going to flatten it a fit with a file.

What do you think ?

 

Well, and some of you may have noticed that the SM I used for these pictures was marine #0 (the original one with sculpted rather than molded parts) that has been white primed and on which the little dragon sculpted before was stuck.

Yet, I don't know if I'm going to repeat the chest dragon on every clip marine as it can't be seen much when arms and weapon are in place.

 

So, as would have said Tex Avery, "That's all folks !!!"

Feel encouraged to comment as advices are always welcomed.

 

"La suite au prochain épisode"...

[Targol]

Little up to show you a PiP on SM #0 :

http://images1.hiboox.com/vignettes/3908/2094fc878fe69af68d8e9c247d37c192.jpg http://images1.hiboox.com/vignettes/3908/0eee07c9b58c3ad3d742ba677a37d06d.jpg http://images1.hiboox.com/vignettes/3908/cbe3adf8e3fdf78e4e0ad648633928a6.jpg http://images1.hiboox.com/vignettes/3908/38bc8243924df40f4b8d2d808678c8ab.jpg

Eyes not finished yet.

I count on mass effect rather than in my painting skills to make a cool look. I think that with the "flagged" backpack (like on the dread) and the weapon, It should look Ok for me.

 

Please, don't let me do a fourth autoreply when I'll keep you updated ;)

[Pandora]

Looks nice. ;) Always liked the idea of a Samurai Space Marine.

You going for a Samurai HQ? That has some seriously cool potential. I'll keep an eye out. :P

[Patrick O)))]

A few years ago there was a samurai army featured in a WD GT review. Looked good for the most part, but tbh I prefer the look of yours

 

Found this http://www.fanboy.com/images/samurai-vader.jpg

 

Might be inspiring! ;) commander figure, perhaps

[Brother of the Temple]

I think your molds look great. I like the idea of the shoulder pads, and the helmet "horns" also are a nice touch. The color scheme goes very well with it too.

 

All in all good stuff....keep it up. :o

[barek]

Really good!

[Brother Richard]

I like the color scheme and the molds, good work.

[Lamenter]

This project is showing real promise. Love the PIP work, nice choice of colours.

[Targol]

Wowww. Thank you for all these kind replies.

Compared to my preceding loneliness, It's a cool change :)

 

I'll keep you updated...

[Targol]

Well, I think that "Brother Primus" (as he is the first one built) is finished now.

For the moment, 3 of his friends are on my workbench at different build/paint stages.

I gain many time with my molds but am still very (very) slow...

 

By the way, here is "Brother primus" :

http://images0.hiboox.com/vignettes/4008/5fc965695feea8d28e487524a4482dd4.jpg http://images0.hiboox.com/vignettes/4008/b4ce61a0b8439c158bdd6debb4707b1f.jpg http://images0.hiboox.com/vignettes/4008/53cb7d80f968b98172648140d3bf57a0.jpg http://images4.hiboox.com/vignettes/4008/0a822b345b70d5c91bcd43baefedf061.jpg

 

His friends will look like him except for the chest dragon that I'll reserve for HQ or special troops. It takes me too much time and doesn't help gluing the gun.

What do you think ?

I think that's not to bad for table-top ;)

[Hubernator]

Very impressive. Seriously loathing your model lol No seriously, well done. Lovely colours and it does give that samurai feel to it. You might want to touch up on the right hand holding the bolter. There's a nice area of black that could do with a little tweaking methinks.

[Tabor]

i really like the model but personally i think the chest dragon is a bit much.

other than that, awesome :)

[Muskie]

I like this. I've never tried to mould something. I usually just spend the money as in the end time is dearer to me than money, though I've never bought a Thunderhawk or anything crazy like that. I don't use green stuff much, I do a lot of my converting with simple swaps and painting technique. I may have to do more green stuff work in the future just to expand the tool kit. Lately I've invested in non-GW bits and weathering/rusting/aging stuff.

 

That will find its way into future paint schemes here on my website and probably at Da Waaagh.

 

After early December I'll be back painting and converting working towards 2009 Vancouver Astronomi-con. I also be making terrain. I'll do up some tutorials, some for Nihm, some for Barret, and some just for fun. Probably one on rust techniques and one on terrain/basing. I've begun to subscribe to the buy cool base theory, I don't know the cost of doing an entire army, but my armies are so old I won't be starting a new army likely ever but squads and existing models could be rebased cooler.

 

Keep up the good work, I'll try to follow this, but I need to spend less time online and more time studying.

[Pandora]

Wow, what a hijack. :yes:

[Thunder_god]

I like the idea, and your new shoulder pads look very nice.

 

With the way the samurai used face masks to intimidate their foes, I cannot wait to see how you do a chaplain for these guys.

[Dorns Padawan]

Very very impressive stuff! Am watching this thread with great interest!

[Targol]

First, thanks for the cool comments.

 

Second, some answers:

i really like the model but personally i think the chest dragon is a bit much.

So that's cool as I won't put it on other marines.

I'll only put it on vehicles and on some very few figurines but with much more work than I made on Brother Primus. I must agree with you: it's too rough as this.

 

With the way the samurai used face masks to intimidate their foes, I cannot wait to see how you do a chaplain for these guys.

You put the finger on one of my biggest problem for now : will my sculpting level be sufficient to achieve such a tiny job ?

My priority MUST be Primus' mates if I want to play with these guys one day but, as a recreation, I started to convert a sergeant to make a boss with it with much more conversions than on simple SMs.

I started to sculpt an helmet on its head and was a little bit afraid by the precision that the mask in general and the mouth hole more precisely will need to be sculpted.

I think I'll sculpt a mask. It's a must have.

But I think that it'll be one of the last thing I'll convert on the boss.

I'm an optimistic, I keep thinking that my skills are going to grow :)

 

PS : As the WIP is now off, I will not present other figs on this thread but only answer questions.

Other WIPs will be presented in new threads.

Finished conversions are presented in this "blog".