Ultramarines Company Champion - advice request

[Toxichobbit]

Well, kind of.

This isn't the actual Company Champion, more of a mock up to get the pose and position right and give me a visual aid for asking advice.

Lets start with the pose. This is kind of what i'm going for. Ignore the individual parts, they aren't the actual parts that will be used. I just used whatever I had to hand in my parts collection to get as close an approximation of the size of the parts as possible. The final model won't be a Dark-Ultra-Blood-Marine, I promise .

The idea with this pose is that he's leaning into his shield to recieve a charge, or using his shield to push back an enemy combatant, ala a Spartan or Roman Legionary. I really want to put the emphasis on this models shield, rather than the sword that is usually the focus of a Company Champion's pose. To achieve this i've used a leg that's bent at the knee (from the Assualt Marine kit) and a more standard leg (from the Tactical Marine kit) and tilted the body forward at the waist. The shield is held in front of the body, as high as possible while still allowing the Marine to see over it. Finally i've got the sword posed down, held in ready position, rather than mid swing or being brandished at the enemy. I'd like this Marine to convey the feeling of a "defensive" fighter, one who looks to guard himself and his Captain/squad mates against enemy attacks before striking back. Here's a few more shots from different angles.

So, now onto what i'd like advice about.

Firstly, the pose. I'm reasonably happy with this as a starting point, but i'd like to refine it to convey the idea of a Roman/defensive pose even more. Looking at the above pictures i've already decided I want to use a different weapon arm - i'd like the sword held horizontal across his waist, with the weapon arm bent at the elbow as if he's ready to stab past his shield. That would look very silly with a sword the size of the one in the picture, but i'm intending to use a smaller sword more suited to this style of fighting. I'm also going to raise the head a bit more to counter the leaning forward pose. Aside from those two ideas, i'm pretty happy with the pose.

Second - parts. The general feel i'm going for is roman legionary/gladiator. I want to avoid anything too Spartan-ish as well. He's an Ultramarine, not a Minotaur.

Head - a crested helm looks good, but the problem is that my Captain and the Command Squad Sergeant are both going to have crested helms. I feel that a third helm in the squad might be too much and might also confuse the Champion with the Sergeant. The other options i'm considering are a unique helm reminiscent of a Roman Legionary, an artificer helm, or no helm. I'm not sure where i'd get a "Roman" helm from, but for artificer helms I might go for something like this or this. If I go for a bare head, I want to go for one that isn't shouting or has any bionics, although after rooting through my parts collection I can't find any. They either have hair, bionics or are shouting.

Shoulder Pads - no idea yet. Something ornate, possibly Roman-esque.

Chest - originally I was going to go with the Sanguinary Guard muscle armour that i've used in the picture, but i've since considered going with something else and saving the muscle armour for the Sergeant. I want this guy to be less of an officer and more of a hero. Then again, muscle armour is quite reminiscent of ancient heroes - gladiators, roman officers, greek heros etc, so maybe i'll stick with that.

Legs - two legs with ornate armour, in a similar pose to the ones in the picture. Chances are the right and left leg will come from different kits, but as long as the left leg is bent forward while the right leg is straight and they have matching armour Mks, then I think I can make it work.

Arms & Backpack - no idea yet. once again ornate, but I have plenty in my collection to choose from. I can re-pose pretty much any set of arms to the position I want, so i'll just pick some nice looking ones when I get around to actually assembling the model.

Sword - here's the bit that's got me stumped. He needs a power sword, as that's standard equipment for a Company Champion. The trouble is all of the power swords are large. The best i've come up with so far is the sword from the Ultramarines Chapter Standard Bearer. A Marine scaled gladius would be even better, as it would perfectly match his shield, but I have no idea where to get one. Whatever I use in the end, i'll probably end up sculpting on the power cables to show it's a power sword rather than just a plain blade.

Shield - you can't have a legionary styled Marine without a legionary shield. Luckily i've found one here. It's a little big for a combat shield, but there's not really any way to have a small shield without compromising the look of the model. It's also bigger than most storm shields, but it won't be powered so hopefully people won't mind it being a combat shield. Not that I ever play in events anyway.

There's my thoughts and progress so far. If anyone has any ideas, criticism or advice on either the post or the parts i'm thinking of using (or both), i'd really appreciate the feedback.

Thanks in advance .

[Mr.selfdestruct]

Personally I think it's great. The only parts recommendations I would make would be to find a more gladius looking sword, keep the blood angel torso but add the roman style leather strap that covers the groin.  Perhaps more decorative shoulder guards?  Otherwise I think it's fantastic, and the originality of the pose is what really does it for me.

[death given form]

Honestly, I think you're on track so far. My big suggestions have already been covered, being the posing of the arm and the shield. If you have access to one, one of the giant storm shields that the Deathwing Knights have would work well, once all of the Dark Angels iconography has been removed. It would require some small modification, but should work well.

 

Head. That's a little more tricky. The transverse crest was largely used to mark important or high-ranking individuals. If you want to help set him apart, why not look to ancient gladiatorial helmets for inspiration? There were a wide variety of styles, many of which would help set your champion apart. 

 

Weapon! I have some ideas for this. The first one you have already touched on, the short honor blade used by the Honor Guard champion. Would fulfill the role perfectly. Second, and this is more Greek than Roman, is a WHFB High Elf spear blade. They have the leaf shape commonly seen in a lot ancient Greek straight swords. On that note, why stick to that style of sword? A champion with a falcata would be really unique!

 

Are you going to put pteruges (tassels) on the marine anywhere? Around the waist and under the pauldrons would work best.

 

That's what I have so far. Curious to see what you'll come up with.

[Lorenzen]

if it were me, id  raise his front foot slightly (stand him on a rock, it makes everything better) so his eyeline isnt towards the ground so much and id position the sword as though he is ready to stab after hes taken the hit on his shield.. currently hes kinda waving it behind him with little purpose. and finally id push the shield out a little more from his body.

 

have a look at the asterian moloc mini, the shield arm is after the hit, already batting them away to stab them in the face, but its similar to what i think you're going for

[The Yak]

First off its a great idea and vision.

 

The problem with space marines is as soon as they take their helmets off they cant stop shouting can they? You could try Lugft Huron's head from forgeworld as he has his teeth gritted, which may help convey the image of bracing himself for the challenge/charge. Also the service studs add to the hero vibe.

 

As for the sword, do you remember the old space wolf power sword on the grey hunter command frame? Although it has a wolves skull on it this can be removed and its the closet in terms of hilt thingymabob to a gladius I have seen GW do. The length is shorter than the more recent massive swords too. And you can always shorten it but this may affect the balance.

 

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440285a&prodId=prod150001a

 

As for the other parts I can't really think of any usefull bits at the minute. One thing I like is that you want both his legs to be the same mk. I love mixed armour mk's on a marine but I cant stand it if they dont have matching arms and legs! Any other combo is fine but they do my nut in. That's what annoys me about the legion praetor model. Best warriors in the legion and they can even get a decent pair of pants...

 

Anyway really looking forward to seeing this guy develop, come to think of it I wouldn't mind seeing the whole squad, actually the entire damn army would be nice. What happened to your Ultras plog? I liked what you were doing with them.

[Yosef Hausakluif]

The pose is great!, only criticism would be just my personal opinion that the shield throws the model off, it does not match the ultramarine look...

[Hyaenidae]

For the head, I'd suggest the bare Chaos Lord on Manticore head. I used it on one of my Deathwatch swordsman marines, and it turned out pretty cool.http://image.bolterandchainsword.com/uploads/gallery/album_8383/gallery_37532_8383_243520.png

[Grotsmasha]

Just about all of my opinions have been covered, but check out kromlech, they have a Ultra specific gladius sword pack.

http://www.beastsofwar.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Gladius-2.jpg

Cheers,

Jono

[Toxichobbit]

Personally I think it's great. The only parts recommendations I would make would be to find a more gladius looking sword, keep the blood angel torso but add the roman style leather strap that covers the groin. Perhaps more decorative shoulder guards? Otherwise I think it's fantastic, and the originality of the pose is what really does it for me.

Agreed on all of those, especially the pteruges (leather straps). The more I think of it, the more I agree about the torso. I think the best place for a sculpted breastplate like that is on the Company Champion. For the shoulder guards i'm seriously considering the Roman style ones from Anvil that I linked in the OP. They're not too expensive so i'll pick some up. If they don't work out i'll pick up some FW ones that have bits I like on and get rid of whatever chapter icons are present and replace them with an Ultima/Aquila.

Honestly, I think you're on track so far. My big suggestions have already been covered, being the posing of the arm and the shield. If you have access to one, one of the giant storm shields that the Deathwing Knights have would work well, once all of the Dark Angels iconography has been removed. It would require some small modification, but should work well.

Head. That's a little more tricky. The transverse crest was largely used to mark important or high-ranking individuals. If you want to help set him apart, why not look to ancient gladiatorial helmets for inspiration? There were a wide variety of styles, many of which would help set your champion apart.

Weapon! I have some ideas for this. The first one you have already touched on, the short honor blade used by the Honor Guard champion. Would fulfill the role perfectly. Second, and this is more Greek than Roman, is a WHFB High Elf spear blade. They have the leaf shape commonly seen in a lot ancient Greek straight swords. On that note, why stick to that style of sword? A champion with a falcata would be really unique!

Are you going to put pteruges (tassels) on the marine anywhere? Around the waist and under the pauldrons would work best.

That's what I have so far. Curious to see what you'll come up with.

I've got some of the Deathwing Knight shields. They're really nice, but much more medieval than Roman. I'd definitely use them on Black Templars, Dark Angels or any other Chapter with medieval styling, but for Ultramarines i'll pass. Don't want to use too many time periods as inspiration, otherwise the models (there will be more Ultras in the future) will loose their essence. I will be using pteruges - funnily enough after i'd posted up the pictures I remembered about them and fiddled about with the set you get in the plastic Captain, trying them on the Sanguinary Guard torso I used in the pictures. It's not a snug fit, so i'm not sure exactly what i'll do yet. Maybe sculpt a new belt section for the pteruges so that they fit well on the torso, or maybe try some of Anvil's pteruges to see if they fit better. If I go for the Roman style shoulder pads i'll use more pteruges there (resin ones if possible because i'll want to bend them around the pose to emphasise the forward movement), but if I use "traditional" Marine pads i'll stick with just the waist ones.

Falcatas are nice, but a bit too Greek. When I get around to doing my Minotaurs i'll be using them. I hadn't thought of it so i'm glad you mentioned it. I actually have quite a few of Privateer Press' Idrian Skirmisher models, who wield Kopis (would be pretty much indistinguishable from falcata at 30mm scale). With a bit of stick mold I could make up a batch of them, build hand guards to make them more falcata like and have a Minotaurs army with copious amounts of melee weapons. I might also see if I can pick up some High Elf Spears from a parts store when I do the Minotaurs to make some smaller Greek looking blades. Great suggestions .

if it were me, id raise his front foot slightly (stand him on a rock, it makes everything better) so his eyeline isnt towards the ground so much and id position the sword as though he is ready to stab after hes taken the hit on his shield.. currently hes kinda waving it behind him with little purpose. and finally id push the shield out a little more from his body.

have a look at the asterian moloc mini, the shield arm is after the hit, already batting them away to stab them in the face, but its similar to what i think you're going for

I use the stand on a rock trick a lot, but in this instance i'm not going to. I want the model leaning forward, bracing into his shield. Your right about the eye line though - he needs to be looking at his opponent. I'll fiddle with the helmet and see if I can raise it enough so that he's looking at the enemy, not the floor, without adjusting the angle of his body.

First off its a great idea and vision.

The problem with space marines is as soon as they take their helmets off they cant stop shouting can they? You could try Lugft Huron's head from forgeworld as he has his teeth gritted, which may help convey the image of bracing himself for the challenge/charge. Also the service studs add to the hero vibe.

As for the sword, do you remember the old space wolf power sword on the grey hunter command frame? Although it has a wolves skull on it this can be removed and its the closet in terms of hilt thingymabob to a gladius I have seen GW do. The length is shorter than the more recent massive swords too. And you can always shorten it but this may affect the balance.

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440285a&prodId=prod150001a

As for the other parts I can't really think of any usefull bits at the minute. One thing I like is that you want both his legs to be the same mk. I love mixed armour mk's on a marine but I cant stand it if they dont have matching arms and legs! Any other combo is fine but they do my nut in. That's what annoys me about the legion praetor model. Best warriors in the legion and they can even get a decent pair of pants...

Anyway really looking forward to seeing this guy develop, come to think of it I wouldn't mind seeing the whole squad, actually the entire damn army would be nice. What happened to your Ultras plog? I liked what you were doing with them.

Yeh, they do shout a lot don't they. I'm stumped on for a bald head and I really want one. I'm thinking now that both my Champion and Command Sergeant will have magnetised heads, as I want both fancy helmets and helmet-less heads for them. I could at a push use a shouting head, but that would result in both my Sergeant and Champion shouting. I'd rather have just the Sergeant shouting while the Champion concentrates on preparing to recieve a charge. Huron's head is pretty good, but he's not bald and i'm not sure I could do the sculpt justice by filing off the hair. On the other hand, while looking up Huron, I noticed his arch rival Carab Culln also has a reasonably not shouty head. I'm currently thinking the version of him as a Vanguard Sergeant, with the mohawk filed off - if only I could find a decent picture of that head. If that doesn't work it might be a case of going through third-party manufacturers parts to see if I can find something that fits.

After reading this I dug out some of the old Space Wolf power swords and your right, they are almost perfect gladii, if they weren't too long. I think i'll use one as a spartha for my Captain though, so you've solved one of the issues that I had without me even telling you about it . Don't worry about the legs, they will match. But which Legion Praetor model are you talking about. The Legion Champion? He certainly does seem to have different legs, though they don't seem to be any particular Mk.

I can't do the whole squad or the entire army, but I can do the other squad member that's finished at the moment. This is the Standard Bearer for the same squad as the Champion.

I have the Veteran from the squad kind of assembled and vague ideas for the Sergeant and Apothecary. I do intend to start a proper plog for my 3rd Company (the previous thread you mention was just for last years ETL), but I wanted to get an entire squad finished to a standard i'm happy with first - i've been looking through a few of the long plogs on here and been feeling very inspired but want a solid start before I begin my own. Currently I have one or two Marines painted from about five different squads .

The pose is great!, only criticism would be just my personal opinion that the shield throws the model off, it does not match the ultramarine look...

I probably should have put a tldr at the end of the post. In the wall of text somewhere I explained that these are just proxy parts until I get the actual pieces that I want to use. Fear not about the shield, he'll have a scutum (Roman Legionary style tower shield), much more fitting for an Ultramarine.

For the head, I'd suggest the bare Chaos Lord on Manticore head. I used it on one of my Deathwatch swordsman marines, and it turned out pretty cool.http://image.bolterandchainsword.com/uploads/gallery/album_8383/gallery_37532_8383_243520.png

That's a nice head - plenty of scars. If I can find one that'd be pretty much perfect. I'll have to trawl lots of parts sites to see if I can pick one up.

You have Deathwatch Marines? I've seen your Astral Claws (one of the inspirational threads I mentioned above) but I didn't notice you'd done some Deathwatch. Now i'm going to have to do some searching.

Just about all of my opinions have been covered, but check out kromlech, they have a Ultra specific gladius sword pack.

http://www.beastsofwar.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Gladius-2.jpg

Cheers,

Jono

I'm not convinced by them - possibly a bit too much guard. I've ordered some though and i'll have a proper look when they arrive. Maybe I can shorten the guards a bit and get something i'm happy with. It's a shame because the blades are solid and I like the trinkets they've got attached with rope.

[Adeptus-Alaska]

I love this, his pose is perfect!

 

 

1. for a suitable gladius, try this.

 

take the captains sword from the AoBR set, trim it down to desired size.

 

find a large(ish) bead, maybe wood, or those plastic one from the girls diy jewelry kits. cut it in half for the hilt(remember, romans had 1/2 sphere sword hilts.)

 

for the pommel, try a smaller bead(any material) no modification necessary.

 

also, most roman swords had a "tang cap" as the tang went all the way thru the pommel. I would use a tiny bead, or even better a tiny skull(like a chainsword pommel)

 

2. the shield, the AI one is awesome, but in a pinch, you should just make one. I make all my shields out of plastic coffee cans as they have a really sweet curve in them! decorate to taste(don't forget your aquilas!)

 

3. for the torso.......hmmm, have you considered a lorica style one.

just grab as plain of a torso as you can find, and file the crap out of it. keep it even and the basic shape intact.

here's the tricky part,

 take some plasticard strips cut to size with extra and glue them horizontally to the torso.

 

4. shoulderpads, well i'll have to think about that for a bit!

 

hope any of this helps at all

[Lestat]

Speaking as a Historical gamer with a fairly large Roman collection, I can appreciate where your ideas are coming from. If you are worried about having too many transverse crests, you could always try looking at an optios style crest instead - complete with feathers. The pic also shows the pteruges common on officers. The Sang guard torso will work well as Roman officers had sculpted breastplates. The current Company Champion shoulder pads will work well for layered armour - lorica segmentata.

http://www.caerleon.net/history/army/optio3.jpg

Having a short gladius style blade held horizontally at the waist is ideal. Roman tactics involved punching at the face with the scutum (shield) and thrusting at the belly or groin with the gladius. The reinforced iron edge and boss of the scutum made it an excellent offensive weapon as well as defensive. The edge could easily sever toes if punched downward with enough force.

 

Hope that helps.