Tsuro's Truescale marines

[Tsuro]

Thanks. This guy, being a leader, really needed a more 'commanding' pose. Also, I wanted to maintain the 'standing on a rock' bit from the original model, although I won't know until all the bits come together how successful I've been in getting it to look like him. On the downside, it did mean building a larger base.

I'm quite pleased with how the saw blades are going. I'm hoping it won't overbalance the model once it's finished, but the alternative (other than not having it) was to have it on the left wrist, where I think it would have been lost.

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Today's update:

I thought the plasticard edges would go on fairly simply, but they took much longer than I expected. Also, because of their thickness the strips flare out rather than remaining flush. I've already filled the gaps, so when the putty is set I'll file the edges down. Hopefully it'll all look alright.

Here's a better shot of the plasma pistol, next to sternhammer's original.

The two obvious changes are the sight and the under-slung thing. (which I've decided is a red-dot projector) I've tried to style both of them to look as much llike the original as possible without looking out of place, hence why the under-slung thing is shorter on the plasma pistol.

I've also added another plasma gun 'bit' to the underside to mimic where the magazine was on the bolt pistol.

Medi gauntlet is coming along:

As is the scepter:

You'll notice it tapers slightly from top to bottom. This was unintentional, and a result of the two plasticard strips I rolled it between being different thicknesses. Still, it's not too bad and not worth re-doing over.

Finally, here's a pseudo wolf-skull I had a go at sculpting:

My intention is to use it for the back-pack vents. I trimmed down and gs'd over a wolf head vent to get the size/proportion right as my first attempt, although better looking, was really too large.

Tsuro

[AlexCrute]

I'm in love.

[Tsuro]

Next update:

I filed down the plasticard, but I didn't get the result I hoped for. It wasn't as smooth as I would have liked, and I decided I'd made the sections too wide.

So off they came.

The solution, obviously, was to use a much thinner strip. Unfortunately to get it to conform to the shape of the model like I wanted, the stips had to be too thin. The solution was to fit them slightly in from the edge, and then build up the remainder.

The hammer is on now, although it's not finished. I ended up cutting the hand to pieces - The GW holding hands really can't accomadate a shaft of much thickness before they look like clenched fists that have sprouted a weapon. Luckily it was a fairly simple to cut the hand up and file the fingers down. I still need to tidy it up though.

Relief detail next. Maybe then it'll look like sternhammer.

Tsuro

[Tsuro]

Today's update:

I've switched the final head back in. It didn't fit as well the temporary one at first, so I made an impression of the flamer-head base and copied it.

My first stab at getting the teeth on the mask was by GS press mold. Sadly this didn't give very good results, so I resigned myself to sculpting them from scratch. Early fumblings were frustrating, but then I remembered I'd bought a magnifying glass a while back for just such an occasion. With that the task became fairly simple.

After sculpting the mask, I did the front four teeth first. After they'd set I did the side two, and then finally the ridge underneath.

The head is a little smaller than the flamer-head I've been posting, but once the side hoses are on and wolf skull in place I'm hoping it won't look out of place.

Now he has relief detail on his leg and belt. The skulls were cast from various Space Wolf bits, and I then sculpted the wings around them. I did the rim first, and then the outer wings then finally the inner wings, leaving the GS to set between each stage.

I'm pretty pleased with the result. The magnifying glass was extremely helpful again.

The rod arm is almost finished now. You can't see it in the photo, but I've switched out the pommel for one I've sculpted from scratch. The old one was simply too large, more so after I put a plasticard rim around in. There's a guitar wire cable now that connects to the arm like Sternhammer's. The head of the staff is the only thing needing attention now, but I'm considering a new one as I think it may be less effort in the long run.

Nearly forgot - That's one of the shoulder pads in place. Theres a second (without the rim) But I've got it glued to a piece of card at the moment so I can manipulate it easier when sculpting.

Going to have to start on the pelt soon, which I do not relish.

and time marches on.

Tsuro

[Midas]

DANG

[Mercinaria]

your skills have progressed a lot since you started this thread, i am suitibly impressed :3

 

keep up the good work on sternhammer, and good luck with the rest of your models

[Tsuro]

@ Mercinaria- haven't they just. I guess practice really does make...better.

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Alright folks, I'm rushing to get out so heres a quick update of how the model looked this morning:

I cleverly wasted a lot of time on bits that are completely obscured by the arm and pelt. Helpfully one of those bits I was really not happy with at all.

I'm running out of time and there's still a bunch of things to do, but I'm definately going to have to do something about that hammerhead.

Here's a shot of the pack of the pelt and the medi-arm. I'm not wild about the texture of the pelt, but I can't remember how I did it last time. Probably something time consuming involving multiple passes.

I've been working on the front legs and the 'hood' today, and most of the remaining bits. The hood has not gone well though, so first job Sunday will be to cut that back and start again.

Tsuro

[Tsuro]

I'm crazy busy again, which means another short update I'm afraid.

Anyway, I finally finished Sternhammer last night. You can judge for yourself how successful I was in making a model that looks like Sternhammer. I could have easily spent more time trying to get him perfect, but at some point you've just got to step back and say 'enough.'

They'll be a more thorough analysis later, but until then:

Last shot is for scale.

Tsuro

[Firepower]

Yup....that 's pants-poopingly scary, alright. Excellent job throughout the blog dude, these guys are as menacing as they are big. I dunno which evil power you sold your soul to to gain that sort of command over Greenstuff, but is he still trading? :P

[Tsuro]

So I was looking through my Gallery and I couldn't believe how long it'd been since I last posted an update. It's been so long in fact, that I've had time to hack apart the models and re-position them; I decided most of the figures had an odd weight distribution in their walk that made them look odd or ungainly. I wish I'd noticed this before I sculpted all the soft armour.

Frankly, I wish I'd got the poses right the first time. I may well have spent as much time trying getting that right as I have sculpting.

Some general points:

• Still no shoulder pads, so obviously the figures will look off - I haven't made any attempt to bulk up the shoulders so think of those bits as bereft of armour. I decided that although the height and depth on the test pads were probably right, they were simply too wide. I managed to work this out just before starting the last set. I've almost finished the new one, but it's solid so I don't know how it'll look on a figure yet - I've also put it down somewhere that I can't precisely recall at present, so in a very real sense I've got nothing at all.
  
• Most of the arms, hands and weapons are only blu-tacked on, so there's a little drift.
  
• None of the heads are final.
  

Thought I'd start with the Wolfguard. Since I was doing drastic work on the posture I thought I'd remove the last vestiges of his chaos armour at the same time. I could never get the knee joints to look right, so I switched them out for some simple curved plasticard. I'm sure they were inspired by another design, but I can't for the life of me think what it could be.

If the belt looks slightly odd, it may well be because the torso used to be sloping in the other direction. I re-did the sides of the belt, but I really couldn't bring myself to tear up the front design (I was already well into the surface detail when I decided to go back to the structural) so I tried to work around it. I had to redo the platicard border in the end, which was a blessing as it hides some of the rougher bits.

I'm not a huge fan of pelts and necklaces on my space wolves; While I can see killing an enormous wolf unarmed as an impressive act, most of the figures only wear tiny scraps of pelt and that doesn't signify any great prowess to me. Of course I could give every model a great pelt to wear, but that'll get samey real quick. Also, I tend to think that wolf-tooth necklaces would probably get in the way, and more likely to be worn inside the armour in any event. No, I'll make my guys look like wolves by making them look like individuals (plus the hair and the teeth and the beards), but it does present the problem of how to 'bling' up the HQ staff.

So, I had a look at all the old figures for anything I could work up into a theme that was still recognisably Space Wolf. You'll note this guy now has a Ragnar style bracer and some Logan style Runes (which are actually fairly involved to make.)

Sadly, Wolfguard lack the Bolter, BP & CCW Grey Hunter load out and so I was a little concerned he'd look out of place without a side-arm. To this end he gets a drop-bag instead, although now I'm concerned the saddle bags make him look overweight. Hopefully the addition of the Shoulder pads and the rest of the utility pouches, grenades etc.. will alleviate this.

Finally, you'll notice that I've done up another Power Fist. I made a number of 'improvements' to the old one, including making tiny fingers out of plasticard that joined together, but somehow I also made it massive

It's amazing how quickly all those small additions can add up. Anyway, a new fist was needed and provided by standard terminator. I'm slightly concerned the 'arm' portion isn't long enough though: I want it to be clear that the hand stops there, and doesn't continue into the fingers (as it would have to on some of GW's figures). Of course that's the thinking that birthed ol' mammoth hand there, so it's a slippery slope.

There's not a huge amount to say about this guy aside from the obvious progress. He gets a prominent boot-knife because he's not getting a chain weapon, and I'll probably give him a large shoulder mounted one as well (like the guy from Halo: Reach). This'll be one of the few guys in the force allowed bird iconography, for reasons I'll explain later. The holster was made to accommodate the plasma pistol and I'm working on a 'refill' ammunition flask to go alongside it.

It doesn't show up very well in this picture, but I've heavily reworked his left leg. I'll try to remember to get some better snaps, because I'm really rather pleased with it. The knee and foot arrangement are 'inspired' by the guyver armour, and I'm so pleased with it I'm probably going to do a more obvious homage in the next batch. You know, when the year 2100 gets here.

I went through another two or three arrangements for that right knee before finally settling on this one. It was unbelievably frustrating since I thought I had a clear picture of what I wanted and how to do it (I thought I could file down that square thing in the previous post to get the perfect blended 'rim,' but it didn't work so well.

Luckily this guy din't need a re-position, although I did a lot of work with the arms to get a better pose - I finally used some reference (which I should have done at the start). The wrist looks a little odd right now, partly because Space Marine hands are oversized, but mainly because I've got it bent too far. I'm going to try and remember to fix that - hopefully its a simple arm alteration.

This guy was originally going to have a barogue/steam punk vibe, which is now reduced. Those rivets were supposed to be vents , but I couldn't get the desired effect with a press mold and drilling a hole through the rivets didn't work at all.

My mk.VI guy. Like the wolfguard he's had the remaining traces of chaos removed (or in this instance altered into a more robust armoured appearance). After I'd put a wolf head on the reinforced knee section, I realised that all the 'interest' in the lower section was on the rear leg and pointing at the ground. I had the idea of mirroring the leg design but, keeping the a-symmetric style, indenting it instead. I thought the design sort of resembled a person ( just like the celtic sword handles, except with a wolf's head) so I played that up in the new design.

the gun blends into the figure a lot in these photos, but I'm pretty pleased with it. There's a stock at the back, in case it's not clear what's going on there.

I haven't said much about the back-packs so far. This one was made from one of the rogue-trader marine backpacks. After I put the rivets back in I'll take some comparison shots, because I've stayed pretty faithful to the design and I'm really pleased with it.

This guys's coming along. He's my generic 'old school' marine - I missed out giving him a dedicated armour mark like mk.VI guy, because the reference I used was only from the waist up. In keeping with his archaic styling he gets hob-nail style boot treads, an older looking backpack and pouches without poppers. If you're wondering why the pouches on his pack are so large, it's because I've given his gun an enormous ammo clip and they're meant to hold spares. The clip is the same size as the captain/command squad storm bolter, but not as thick. This made sense to me, as a storm bolter is merely two bolters stuck together, but I'm not sure it works here. You can decide when I get some better shots of it up.

Last thing to mention is the sword. I wasn't liking the way the axe handle stuck so far out before, so I switched it out. It's heavily based on Ragnar's, except I've kept the motor parts. I'll add it to the list of things to get better shots of.

This guy. Why can't I get him right? It's partly my fault for posing him with that arm thrust forward (before this I've kept it by his side), but still. Since the other guy was getting a sword, that meant this guy now had to have an axe. Obviously I couldn't just switch the hands over, because in my desire to make all the models different I deliberately ensured they were holding their CCW in opposite hands. aghh. The holster is on his boot, because with the axe by his side there would be no space for it. As it's so far down I've included a barrel covering on this holster, but it would still get pretty dirty. That's meant to be a medial pouch on the other leg, it was originally on the plasma pistol guy but I switched over when I redid the leg.

I've just noticed that the leaping wolf on his chest is missing a leg. I wonder when that came off. This is why you add the detail last, people.

Another crowning moment in backpack design (and destined to go to plasma pistol guy. I don't know why I photographed it on this model). This one is converted from a second edition backpack and it's brilliant. I'd originally thought I'd have to add another set of tubing for the section I'd added, but now I don't think it's necessary. Expect to see more of these guys. just, you know. Probably not soon.

I'm sorry for any incoherent thoughts and what I'm sure are a mountain of typos. Also that I seemed to run out of steam as I was going along; It's taken me a while to compose this post and I was already pretty tired when I started.

Tsuro

[death given form]

The way the hips flair out, it makes your models look... squat. Rotund. I mean, I dunno about you, but my pelvis is in line with the rest of body; my bones don't quite stick out like that. :P The second model in your latest post is a good example of this. I think is mostly by the underarmor/ribbing. The torsos also seem too short to me, as well.

 

I actually think the last marine in the post is the best, proportionally-speaking.

 

Hope this helps, and I'm sorry if it seems overly harsh.

[Dark Apostle Thirst]

Indeed. Part of the problem is the lack of proper shoulderpads on all of your marines in this update ^_^