True Scale DIY Chapter 'The Angels Meliora'

[DeathbyWes]

Hi all,

I've been a long time lurker here at the Bolter and Chainsword and I'm finally posting.

I have enjoyed the 40K Universe since I was a kid at the tail-end of 2nd edition and have always been a fan of the iconic Adeptus Astartes and this thread will be an ongoing WIP about my DIY Chapter, the Angels Meliora...

In particular, the True Scale modeling that's been floating around has always been something I wanted to attempt - I'm admittedly a fanboy of the epic depictions of Astartes in the fluff and in the games like DoW2/Space Marine and seeing that translate into an actual miniature is especially awesome-sauce. I'll be starting modestly with a combat squad.

I've always seen the Astartes as pure shock troops. So in my mind, the Astartes would be operating almost exclusively in space station/orbital mining/boarding operations or at the very top levels of a dense hive or forge. Meridian and the Judgement of Carrion from DoW2, or the environments from Space Marine are where the Astartes excel. The more confined quarters they're in, the more their concentration of durability, stamina, mid-range firepower and close-quarter armaments allow them to be the demi-gods of war that we all know and love.

Here are all the bits I think for the kit bash that work for my sketch.

They'll need quite a bit of green stuffing and plasticarding, but I look forward to the project. Close up pics of the individual kit bashes to follow... Thanks to all of you on Bolter and Chainsword for inspiring me to start this project.

-W

Edited September 18, 2017 by DeathbyWes

[Urael]

Looking forward to seeing your progress!

One bit of advice for TrueScale: Clay Shapers. I cannot stress enough how helpful they are for working with greenstuff.

[Veteran Sergeant]

Good luck. Will be interesting to see what you come up with.

[-Brutus-]

Since I'm also a bit obsessed about true-scale marines I'll be following this =)

[Trysanna]

I'm quite interested to see where this project leads. Looks like you've got a good start, and planning will definitely help you stay sane. 

-Tarvik

[DeathbyWes]

Thanks for the kinds words all.

Close ups of the squad in-bound.  Next update we'll have hopefully progressed from kit-bashing to green stuffing

Edited July 4, 2014 by DeathbyWes

[DeathbyWes]

Veteran Squad DerErste, 2nd Company, the Angels Meliora.

Brother-Seargent Zephaniah

First thing will be to shave down the greeves of the squad members' legs to look more in-line with power armor. After that, the belts of the torsos will be clipped off, and green stuff goes over the power armor torso tubes so that the new, larger torso will fit to the tubes of the legs. Plasticard goes in between the torso halves to beef them up a bit as well. I'll be ordering some disc magnets to magetize the arms of the Close Combat Vets. The idea being to outfit them with combi-plasmas for ranged fire-fights. Also, and perhaps more importantly, because combi-plasmas look like the boss.

-W

Edited January 3, 2018 by DeathbyWes

[Brother Melice]

my conversion idea for true scale!!! i really want to see how you approach this! please document a step by step for this build!

[Grizzly_bear]

Very ambitious. Look forward to seeing these progress

[DeathbyWes]

Thanks Brother Melice!  I'm just working with my iphone camera, but will definitely document as much as I can!

W

[DeathbyWes]

Did a dry run today in order to check that this wasn't gonna be one of those ideas where the plane explodes in the hanger. Thankfully, the dry run was promising.

Side view w/ power pack, and the proportion looks pretty good!

Back View

Front View

There's gonna be some substantial green stuffing between the torso and the legs, but I think these guys are gonna be pretty boss.

http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac284/wessmithjazz/40K%20Stuff/Truescaletorsoandlegfit4.jpg

I have a few questions for those of you with some True Scale and green stuff experience:

1. Does green stuff act pretty well as an adhesive?

If so, I'm thinking I'd like to use one big piece of green stuff between the torso halves and then the legs. One solid piece to make sure these guys are sturdy. Any thoughts?

2. If the answer to question one is 'no', I'm thinking I'll first do the torso halves and let them solidify. Then I'll do the torso and leg connection and lastly I'll green stuff over the blemish between front torso and leg tubing. Does that sound like a reasonable plan of attack? i'd appreciate any advise you guys have to offer.

Thanks all!

-W

Edited September 18, 2017 by DeathbyWes

[-Brutus-]

I'd probably pin it in place first. I find that the greenstuff eventually fails when used as glue.

[Doghouse]

It can act as an adhesive but not a great one, for what you have planned it may work though if you pin it like brutus says.

[-Brutus-]

Or if that doesn't work for you you could always sculpt it in place, let it cure and harden completely. Then just pull the pieces apart and glue them back together

[DeathbyWes]

Thanks for the advice all!  Got some nice work done today.

 

Chopped off the greeves of the legs.  I will either need to go over this with some find sand paper, or the thought of some liquid green stuff came to mind.  Anybody have any good experiences with the liquid green stuff for smoothing out rough edges?

 

http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac284/wessmithjazz/40K%20Stuff/greeveschopped.jpg

 

And chopped off the torso tubes.  Def not pretty, but green stuff goes over all that.

 

http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac284/wessmithjazz/40K%20Stuff/Torsochopped.jpg

 

I put some green stuff in between the torso halves to bulk up.

 

http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac284/wessmithjazz/40K%20Stuff/Torsogreenstuff.jpg

 

And I'm experimenting with the first squad member.  A good chunk of green stuff goes under his torso, then I spread it around over his arm sockets.  Gonna do a finish layer of green stuff up in front where the torso and tubes meet.

 

http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac284/wessmithjazz/40K%20Stuff/TAC2bodygreenstuff1.jpg

 

Cheers all,

-W

Edited July 19, 2014 by DeathbyWes

[DeathbyWes]

So Greenstuff has...  a learning curve.

I ended up going the route of adding too much Greenstuff and then filing down.  They're lookin a little out of shape for Astartes at the moment, but nothing a little time with a fine grit file won't fix up!

 

Group shot

 

http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac284/wessmithjazz/40K%20Stuff/fae2aa22-be43-4c32-9409-53015ce85ca0.jpg

 

Close ups

 

http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac284/wessmithjazz/40K%20Stuff/torsocloseup1.jpg

 

http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac284/wessmithjazz/40K%20Stuff/torsocloseup2.jpg

 

http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac284/wessmithjazz/40K%20Stuff/torsocloseup3.jpg

 

http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac284/wessmithjazz/40K%20Stuff/torsocloseup5.jpg

 

http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac284/wessmithjazz/40K%20Stuff/torsocloseup4.jpg

 

Next step will be to file the Greenstuff down for as smooth a finish as possible.  Hopefully will have another update soon!

-W

Edited July 19, 2014 by DeathbyWes

[DeathbyWes]

Hi all,

Finally got a minute for another update, the combat squad is finally taking shape!

Filled in the greeves of the calves to look more in line with power armor. Think I'm gonna keep the Cataphractii details on the upper thigh, I dig the look.

The Veteran Seargent is coming together nicely - Here he is tacked up. They are on 40mm bases well, just for an idea of size comparison.

And I'm a sucker for heavy bolters, so I tacked up the heavy weapons marine all the way.

Had a concept change with these guys, instead of a mix-match of close combat and ranged marines, I decided to go with all ranged for now. (The rifles have a nifty way of covering up my amateur GS skills, hahaa...)

Gotta drill out the barrels, figure out where their grenades go and next update they'll hopefully all be primed up!

-W

Edited January 3, 2018 by DeathbyWes

[DeathbyWes]

Well it's been a minute since an update.

Starting to get the hang of greenstuff, so I'm expanding the scope of this true scale project.

Brother-Seargent Zephaniah will be getting a promotion to Captain and he will be leading a command squad.

Here he is with green stuff all finally filed down (It looks like hell at the moment but the surface is quite smooth.)

Captain Zephaniah

And here is the new Veteran Seargent for the combat squad.

I generally am not a fan of modeling Adeptus Astartes without their helmets, but I really wanted to illustrate how bulky and 'walking tank' the Astartes are by leaving the head exposed on him. Also, my GF finally understands that they're augmented humans and not space robots, hahaa... Anyhoo...

Sculpting the raised leg armor so that he matches the other Astartes' Cataphractii legs was a pain, but I think it came out okay.

Waitin on some new spray primer and then these guys are finally gonna get some color!

-W

Edited January 3, 2018 by DeathbyWes

[DeathbyWes]

Hi all,

Long overdue update with some good progress made on the command squad.

Since this is going to be purely a display army I threw the standard builds and load outs of a table top command squad out the window.  Operating in the dense Labyrinths of hives, forge worlds and the close quarters of orbital boarding operations, these guys are just my personal take on the rule of cool.

Here's a group shot and some individual shots as well.

 

COMMAND SQUAD

 

[http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac284/wessmithjazz/40K%20Stuff/COMMANDGROUP.jpg

 

HEAVY FLAMER / STANDARD BEARER

 

http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac284/wessmithjazz/40K%20Stuff/HVYFLMR1.jpg

 

http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac284/wessmithjazz/40K%20Stuff/HVYFLMR2.jpg

 

http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac284/wessmithjazz/40K%20Stuff/HVYFLMR3.jpg

 

COMMAND SQUAD CHAMPION

 

http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac284/wessmithjazz/40K%20Stuff/CHAMPION1.jpg

 

http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac284/wessmithjazz/40K%20Stuff/CHAMPION2.jpg

 

http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac284/wessmithjazz/40K%20Stuff/CHAMPION3.jpg

 

COMMAND SQUAD VETERAN

 

http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac284/wessmithjazz/40K%20Stuff/COMMANDVET1.jpg

 

http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac284/wessmithjazz/40K%20Stuff/COMMANDVET2.jpg

 

http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac284/wessmithjazz/40K%20Stuff/COMMANDVET3.jpg

 

APOTHECARY

 

http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac284/wessmithjazz/40K%20Stuff/COMMANDAPOTH1.jpg

 

http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac284/wessmithjazz/40K%20Stuff/COMMANDAPOTH2.jpg

 

http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac284/wessmithjazz/40K%20Stuff/COMMANDAPOTH3.jpg

 

http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac284/wessmithjazz/40K%20Stuff/COMMANDAPOTH4.jpg

 

Need to file down some of the green stuff on these guys still, but you get the idea.

Also in the process of gettin some paint on the other Astartes, who will eventually be bolstered up to a full tactical squad.

Hopefully another update soon!

-W

Edited November 13, 2014 by DeathbyWes

[DeathbyWes]

Just got my ironclad dread in the mail!

Not trying to make him as big as a dreadknight or so, but did want to bulk him up a bit so he still towers over his younger Battle Brothers.  He's pinned at the hip and legs...  not trusting just the green stuff to hold him together.

 

http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac284/wessmithjazz/40K%20Stuff/DREAD2.jpg

 

http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac284/wessmithjazz/40K%20Stuff/DREAD1.jpg

 

Cheating on his load out a bit with the dual under slung meltas, but I dig the look.

Hopefully will have an update on the first combat squad soon.

-W

Edited November 13, 2014 by DeathbyWes

[Grizzly_bear]

I think they're looking great fella, great idea and concept.

 

The only thing that is a little off in my eyes is the chest area, looks just a fraction too small in terms of depth and width.

[DeathbyWes]

Thanks for the input Dorns_fist.

Yeah I see where you're coming from.  Specially on the lightning claws and power axe/plasma pistol.  Re-did some greenstuffing to thicken them up a bit.

 

http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac284/wessmithjazz/40K%20Stuff/CHAMPIONNEW1.jpg

 

http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac284/wessmithjazz/40K%20Stuff/CHAMPIONNEW2.jpg

 

http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac284/wessmithjazz/40K%20Stuff/COMMANDVETNEW1.jpg

 

http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac284/wessmithjazz/40K%20Stuff/COMMANDVETNEW2.jpg

 

Hopin to get some paint on these guys soon!

-W

[deathspectersgt7]

Me to. Look forward to seeing paint.  

[The_Chaplain]

Holy Cats! You're true scaling the ironclad too? That's amazing! If you're looking for a detail to cover up the area under the engine (where the torso was connected to the resin block forgeworld are so find of doing) the fuel tank from a sisters immolator would probably fit, and with some minor cable work, could be made to look like a reserve tank feeding into both guns. Will you be adding any little detail around the waist to add bulk to the lower half? Also, this is a greedy request on my part, but can you take pictures of the frag launchers on top of the ironclad? I've never seen a good detail shot of the rear, side or how far the projectile sticks out from the casing.

[DeathbyWes]

Thanks Chaplain.  Not really true scaling the dread per se, but definitely bulking him up.

Here he is along side my captain and the catachan commander miniature.  I'll definitely be adding some cabling between the torso and hip.  I don't think I'm going to put any extra plating down the sides of the torso or so tho...  I like the leaner hip area, it almost looks like a dreadnought that wouldn't waddle now, hahahaa.

 

http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac284/wessmithjazz/40K%20Stuff/DREADSIZE1.jpg

 

http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac284/wessmithjazz/40K%20Stuff/DREADSIZE2.jpg

 

Also, here's a pic of the frag launchers - the projectiles don't stick out of the casing too much.

 

http://i908.photobucket.com/albums/ac284/wessmithjazz/40K%20Stuff/DREADTOP.jpg

Edited November 15, 2014 by DeathbyWes