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[Veteran Sergeant]

Index Astartes: Invectors

So I have finally decided to turn this into a P&M Blog because I hope maybe that will keep me on track, and being a Marine-centric forum will gather some feedback and ideas. I'm a very lazy modeler at times. I work full time, I go to school full time, I have a girlfriend who also unfortunately full time, and I am still in the Marines as a Reservist. So my free time that isn't spent on sleeping, or homework, or girlfriend maintenance, or the gym, I sometimes have a hard time keeping on track with my project. I don't play a lot of 40K anymore. I was big into the hobby starting in 1993 at the tail end of Rogue Trader, and played a ton of 2nd Edition, and some of 3rd, and then only off and on since then. However, when I was kid, and thus a young, under-funded 40K player, I had always wanted to have my own Battle Company of Marines. Problem was, I had two small Fantasy armies, and three small 40K armies and one big one (and a Necromunda gang, and a Gorkamorka gang...). So I never had the money available to just flat out waste on frivolous, excessive Marines.

Enter the well funded adult gamer version of myself, lol. So, with the help of Ebay and a reclamation of my old figures, I now am now pursuing my dream, lol. However, it would be too easy to just buy 100 Space Marines, some tanks, and such. Any lame average Joe with cash to blow can have 100 Space Marines. Nope, I'm going to convert them all. All of them. Everything in my army will be converted, somehow, no matter how small. The Marines will be easy, since I've adapted some techniques for "Tall Scale" (as I call it) or "biggerizing" Marine figures. I don't like the Terminator Legs versions. If they aren't heavily re-sculpted, the end up looking like Kim Kardashian with a giant ass and a way too small waist. Some people make phenomenal ones, don't get me wrong. Apologist's Ultramarines come to mind. But that's just way too involved for me. And second, it often makes them too big. Space Marines are supposed to be 7-7.5 feet tall. Really just a head taller than normal men, for the most part. Plus, I want to use the standard Mk VII plastics and just fix the proportions.

Very quickly, I decided that my project would address my long standing problems with Space Marine models.
1. They are too short, obviously. Space Marines should be 7-7.5 foot super-soldiers. The GW human figures are probably just too tall, but too late to fix that; gotta make the Marines bigger.
2. They don't have enough ammunition to fight wars. Marines need to be loaded for bear. Look like they could actually fight a war. So all of my figures would have ammunition pouches, grenades, combat knives, etc.
3. All the Marines should have helmets because no good Marine would be without his helmet. It's just dumb. Encased in nearly impenetrable ceramite, only to leave you nugget exposed, and lose all the life support, communications, imaging and targeting enhancements of the helmet? Idiotic.

Also, the Battle Company had to be "Counts As", WYSIWYG for the Standard, Blood Angels, and Space Wolves codex lists.

Plus, being that I was going to convert everything, my last challenge was to only use Mk VII parts, but also ensure that every model had a character of its own. That they weren't just carbon copies of Marines with bolters, but with believable poses. This of course is not going to be easy with a whopping fifty two bolter Marines in a Battle Company, and forcing the majority of them to wear helmets.

So I set to work, with some plastic card, and a dream. A lot of these are old photos of rough prototypes that I didn't fully sand, or gap fill, etc. Excuse any rough early modeling problems. At first, I wasn't sure how tall I wanted them to be. So I went with 1mm extensions to the thighs (which I thought were too short anyway) and an extra .5mm at the waist. The results were decent:



The tall walking stance makes him a bit taller than he actually is, but it was a good start. Next to him are Hasslefree's McKenzie (part of my new Imperial Guard project), a 2E metal Cadian, and Sgt Bylkow (one of of my favorite Squat models). Left his weapon off for the detail.



Decided this wasn't tall enough. So I moved up to 1mm at the waist. This was starting to give the height I wanted, but I only had about 25 or so walking legs, and they aren't cheap on EBay, and well, if they were all walking it would be a bit homogenous. So the firing stance models had to retain height too.




So now it was time to start working on some individual models.

This guy was posed to be pulling a grenade off of his belt. But instead of using a pre-posed hand, I cut and repositioned one of the bolter support arms, bent the fingers closed around a grenade separated from the grenade bundles.


Bolter Marines:



Arms have all been cut and re-positioned, for two reasons. The standard "hip firing" bolter cradle formed by the arms in stock form looks dumb. And second, I wanted some more dynamic looking poses, not just the more realistic ones.



The metal arm is from an old Devastator sergeant.



I always liked the old Auspex, in theory. But the bit for it seems way too big and way too clunky. So, in some of my musings (yet to be revealed), I thought about a flip up wrist display.



Of course, un-drilled barrels was out of the question, so that was rectified. Some of the models have weird poses, but that's because eventually they will all be based. So they may not stand flat on the standard bases.


The Marine on the far right is Brother Givenicus. Eventually he will have a grievous energy weapon style wound that has rendered his left arm useless. I cut all the fingers apart, and bent them to appear limp and useless, and re-positioned the thumb.


Now I needed some special weapons. I present the shortened Assault Pattern flamers and meltaguns:



Some more Marines:

Mid draw. Arm cut and the the fingers bent to be around the grip of the knife.



I have decided that the heavy weapons Marines will have the helmets with the extra targeter mounted on it. Plus, I decided the Tactical Squad Heavy Botlers will have box mags instead of the giant belt fed apparatus. Devastator Squad HB's will have the belt apparatus, but I figured Tactical Squads would need more portable weapons. This is an early version, and I have since modified the box mag to be better looking. Plus, there will be Bolter Marines from the rest of the squads who will be carrying extra heavy weapon ammo (missiles or bolter mag boxes).


This one is the newest. A severely in-progress WIP. I wanted to inflect some more Rogue Trader era brutality to this army. I'm a huge fan of the darker, more brutal Space Marines of the old days. This one needs a ton of work, obviously, but here's the start. The Tau helmet mounted on the shoulder pad came from the Chaos tank sprue, and was clipped and filed down to match the shoulderpad contours. The idea of a mounted helmet came from the multitude of RT era drawings with severed heads. But I didn't want it to be too brutal and cross into Chaos tainted territory. I feel the Chaplain, once he's been modeled up, will be keeping a close eye on Brother Brutus.


The severed head is a Wood Elf sorceress head, the hand is the Grey Knight Daemonette head hand. The Dark Eldar is a classic 3rd Edition warrior that we had piles of from the three 3rd Edition boxed sets we had that nobody ever bothered to assemble. The helmet is a Black Templar helmet with studs, to mix up some of the helmet appearances. Plus, I think it makes Brother Brutus look a bit more harsh and maybe a bit more unbalanced and potentially vicious.

Part of the feeling I'm trying to evoke with this "army" is that of how I envision the Space Marines. These guys are seven foot, functionally immortal, genetically engineered super warriors. Human, but something more than human, and something a little less. I want to illustrate that they are both completely ruthless towards xenos. I plan to have not just Marines brutalizing the Eldar corsairs (that way I can utilize both Dark Eldar and regular Eldar) I've decided the Marine Company is fighting, but also abusing Eldar prisoners out of a complete disregard. But I also want to hit on the Marine commitment to humanity. Show them protecting children, or wounded Guardsmen. I've got a pretty amazing idea for an objective marker that you guys will have to wait for.

Anyhow, I hope this work interests you guys. I'll try to keep this getting updated now that I've committed. Sorry for some of the mold lines I didn't file, lol. Sorry for some of the legs that haven;t been filed smooth and flat where they have been extended A lot of these pictures have been taken in progress over the last couple months, being send to my buddies via email for critique. So they don't all represent the current states of the figs. But, taking new photos is way too much effort right now. But as I go along I'll try to give you guys some ideas where it is at. Right now, my Battle Company is about 25% complete. So you guys should get to see pretty much the entire evolution of it.

Thanks for any thoughts you guys have. Especially any criticisms, ideas you don't like, etc. I'm definitely open for anything constructive or suggestions. Painting to begin shortly, but I'm trying to keep the project simplified by working in steps.

Edited by Veteran Sergeant, 28 December 2012 - 01:52 AM.

[Paladin7221]

Damn, these are all kinds of brilliant - now that there's a collection of them the differences in pose between these and 'normal' marines is pretty vivid, and it looks just about perfect. This all injects what I would consider a dose of realism to Marines, simply because the enlarged proportions mean that there is now workable space to put all the gubbins that you'd expect a combat monster to have - was it just at thigh and waist you enlarged these or did alterations have to be made to the torso and pack as well?

As regards ideas to show the humanity side of things, how about a crouched Marine acting as a bullet shield between the enemy and some wounded Guardsman/civilian or somesuch?

[DietOfLiquor]

Loving the conversions! Keep em' coming

[Zeller]

So all you're doing to make them larger is adding the space in the legs? The difference that makes really is quite dramatic. Your marines really give off a more appropriate space marine feel. I'd venture to say they remind me of republic commandos a bit too. Nicely done so far.

[Brother Syth]

These look fantastic. Each model tells a story, and i like your truescaled method as it seems achievable to people that don't greenstuff much. Really liking the combat knives and kit that each marine carries, looks like they have enough to last a battle now. Keep it up.

[Veteran Sergeant]

Damn, these are all kinds of brilliant - now that there's a collection of them the differences in pose between these and 'normal' marines is pretty vivid, and it looks just about perfect. This all injects what I would consider a dose of realism to Marines, simply because the enlarged proportions mean that there is now workable space to put all the gubbins that you'd expect a combat monster to have - was it just at thigh and waist you enlarged these or did alterations have to be made to the torso and pack as well?

Well thanks.

To answer the construction question, because I realized I left it out.

Yes, the legs are cut and extended 1mm at the thigh. I contemplated extending the shins out a half mm, but it seemed like a lot of work and honestly, the proportions seem pretty close as is, and I'm getting most of the height I want. The waist is the real problem. Marines seem to have really short torsos, so they are 1.5mm at the waist too. You just can't see the waist modifications on the models because of all the gear. Which is good, in one sense, because it reduces the amount of sculpting work because I'm not worried as much about blended lines and such since they are mostly invisible. I did not alter the torsos or backpacks. I didn't think it was necessary. If anything, the packs look less bulky now.

So they end up being 2.5mm (roughly) taller than the standard Marines. You can see the evolution in the "walking" or "running" Marines. The first one is only .5mm at the waist. The second one is 1mm and the last two, drawing the knife/sword & Brother Notasinglef**k Givenicus is 1.5mm. So you can measure them in relation to the Cadian. Most of the models are 1.5mm torsos now, though a few were 1mm.

Oh, and no, Brother Brutus is not sodomizing that Dark Eldar, lol. I assembled both parts independently, Brutus first to look like his bolter was dropped slung (sling still WIP), and that was the only way that Eldar body would fit on the 25mm base, even with Brother Brutus placed all the way to the back edge. The body is posed up to make it look like the head was hacked from the body roughly, and then it slumped forward to fall at his feet. The painting planned for this model should be pretty gruesome, and involve more than a little darkened Tamiya clear red, heh.


Thanks for the feedback guys. Glad some of you like them. There's a lot of work involved in this. I took a long time off from the hobby side of things, so my techniques are slowly improving. Even if my army doesn't end up a masterclass for modeling, I want it to have some character and flavor. I'm glad my intent to make even standard Tactical Marines "interesting" is working, at least for some people. After all, Troops Choices need loving too, lol. Honestly, I want all the models to stand out. Not just be set dressing for the characters. I think, in the end, the characters (who will all be magnetized) may end up kinda bland except for all the fancy bits I bought for them, while some of the rank and file Marines steal the attention. I only have one Assault Marine assembled so far, and he was a test model, so kinda boring, but big plans for the rest of them.

[SincaiN]

Love the flip up Auspex .. I'd think a SM would want his hand free so that would make more sense then going Spock Tricorder style ..

The dude holding the head is a bit creepy, the model at his feet is in a very compromising position But it's off to a good start..

Keep up the nice converting work !

[Andrew J]

Loving the poses. Your simple scaling works wonders for them. What chapter/paintscheme you gonna use for them?

[roooooot]

This definitely solves my conundrum of how to accessorize my scratch built Sternguard.

These guys are well kitted up, I love them.

[Dorns padawan]

Very nice models mate, love the wrist mounted auspex! The executioner is my favourite mini. I like how the each have a certain uniquness to them. Look forward to more mate. Thread watched!

[Dark Scipio]

Very very good looking.

[ssspectre]

These are really excellent. I like the amount of extra gear you've added to the front of the marines (as supposed to putting it all around the sides and behind them) - it gives these guys a very convincing real-world special forces look. I realize it's partly there to save sculpting work where the torso's been spaced, but you're going to need a few shortcuts for a full company.

Also loving the shortened assault weapons - wish I'd thought of them before I finished every single meltagun in my army.

[Veteran Sergeant]

Actually, it was more for "realism" than modeling simplicity. I looked at the way that I had arranged my own gear when I was with an infantry company. With a right handed shooter, you want your primary magazines on the left side to be loaded with your non-firing hand, etc. Then, I decided the gear should be kept more or less uniform. You can see on the Special Weapons Marines, I created pouches out of sprue and plastic card for the spare melta cylinders, flamer fuel, etc. They are a bit thicker than the bolter mag pouches. That's because the Special Weapons aren't actually glued down. They will be magnetized and swappable, and the cradling arms spaced to accommodate all three types. After all, given my beliefs on how the Codex Astartes would work, the force needs to be flexible and ready for all situations. Haven't decided on whether or not my plasma guns will be shorter. I created the Assault Pattern meltas and flamers so they would be closer in size and length to the bolters, and would look better swapped into the Assault Marines too. Having more "compact" (relatively, lol) assault weapons make them a bit more maneuverable at the short ranges they are designed for.

[NightHunters]

Love your work brother, have been working the same stretching magic on my "tactical" marines for a while now and they do look so much more in proportion! good work on the firing poses as well, small bit of crit, hope Brother Brutus will be getting a sling on his bolter as I rather feel it may otherwise look as tho he is inappropriately holstering it in the poor unfortunate at his feet!

FTE

[Veteran Sergeant]

Been slow going recently with my school, work, gym and gf schedule, but I did end up re-doing Brother Brutus because I got quite a bit of feedback that said it looked like he was sodomizing the poor dead guy with his bolter, and questions about where his sling was.

Originally I had no intention to include a sling since the Marines are supposed to have mag-clamps. But I decided to see if I could make a futuristic one point rig-sling using a staple. In the real world, one point slings aren't terribly popular with operators anymore because the dangling rifle has the annoying tendency to want to smack you in the junk. But, I figure if you have a plasteel and ceramite codpiece, you can risk it. Not sold on it. May end up removing it, and going back to the mag-clamp.

I made a new corpse too. I really liked the look of the slumped over one I originally had. It looked natural, and brutal, for a body that had just had its head hacked free, and fallen forward against the Marine before coming to rest on the ground. But I don't want the figure to be comical. I want it to be a little horrifying, or at least disturbing, lol. Really trying to capture the brutality of the Space Marines. I'm willing to have a little fun with these guys, but at the same time I want them to be intimidating like they should be.



Done some painting work too, using old figures that I won't be able to use for the Tall Scale Company. They're all color tests, to see what color scheme, style and technique I want to use. But I won't post any of it here until I have finalized my decision on a paint scheme.

Edited by Veteran Sergeant, 11 April 2012 - 03:07 AM.

[reckoning34]

These marines have inspired me to build all my marine armies in this fashion. Some of the coolest models Ive seen in this hobby. Following this one for sure.

[AlexCrute]

Thoroughly satisfactory.

[Sh0sen]

Everytime I see these I want to go back and rework my scaled up marine!

[Paladin7221]

The whole pose just screams:
"Yeah, you're next...."

Also, I pinched your short flamer design, hope you don't mind!

[DarkVen]

Finally I've read it

Cool conversions. I like these combat-thingees on marines always, it makes them look like soldiers. And here they all are in place. Also interesting idea about scaling marines. Will it be one of known chapters, or a chapter of your own?
This reminds me of DtD NLs thread.

Subscribed.

DV.

[Veteran Sergeant]

Very nice models mate, love the wrist mounted auspex!

Here's a better picture of that Marine and his pose. He's actually tied for my favorite between him and Brother Brutus as well.



Amusingly enough, he was just a test model to prove the auspex concept for an upcoming model in the Command Squad. I think there will be an auspex Marine in ever squad. I mean, there's enough of those useless bits lying around, lol.

Also, I pinched your short flamer design, hope you don't mind!

By all means. I've actually come across others who have done similar things as I've been working on this project over the last few months, so I can't claim it as "mine" by any means, lol.


I should have the first of my magnetized Sergeants finished soon.
Edit: I'll just tack him on here. He's mostly completed.


Right now he only has three options (chainsword not shown), but I'll get around to it. His right leg has a tiny magnet to hold a bolt pistol to it for situations when it would be needed for the model. May end up giving him another tiny magnet for holding meltabombs.

Fixed my Heavy Bolter guy too. Wasn't pleased with my sloppier box magazine.

Edited by Veteran Sergeant, 16 April 2012 - 05:06 AM.

[NightHunters]

Good job on Brutus, much more modest!

Also agreed on the HB marine, much improved, actually really like the fluff for the tac. heavy weapons troopers to have box mags, makes a lot of sense (and I may have to thieve that idea) and actually the same goes for the auspex, really well done!

Keep em coming!

[Marshal Sampson of Terra]

This probably isn't the takeaway you wanted people to have from your thread, but I just converted one of those "MK II" flamers for my Flesh Tearers. Though you aren't taking credit for it, I'm giving it to you anyway since I say it here first! Keep up the good work!

[Veteran Sergeant]

No, that's awesome. They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Besides, it's been done before so I'm not the first. Heck, if I was worried about people using my ideas, I wouldn't be sharing them here.

[SMcaptainAurelius]

Your sergeant with both arms dropped looks like he could stare down a battle tank! Lovely stuff.