Shadow Force Dragomir - A Raven Guard Army

[malika666]

Looking good man! As for the Apothecary, what about taking the FW RG backpack and adding some bits on it to make it look like (a better version of) the Apothecary pack?

 

I guess this will be a full army, this will probably also mean Assault Squads. What about giving them Chaos Raptor jumppacks rather than the Loyalist ones? Use putty to add Imperial/RG symbols on them. As for Lightening Claws, perhaps something sleeker than the Terminator Lightening Claws which simply look too blocky and blunt for the Raven Guard. You need something more elegant, maybe use Dark Eldar spikes (the bayonets of their old, 3rd edition, weapons would be most fitting).

[augustmanifesto]

where did you get that augmentic leg? its looks great!@

[WingsOfTheFalcon]

While I'm sitting here watching The Mentalist I've been trying my hand at real 'Corvus Corax pattern' Corvus helmets :o

The FW original can be seen here:

My humble efforts can be seen here:

Still slightly asymmetrical and rough but I'm getting closer and with a little more work should have something passable. Turns out to be pretty easy, I scraped away a rough triangle on each cheek with an X-acto and the used it to 'drill' out the nostrils. I didn't do a great job of either, they were a little rough and had some sharp gouges that didn't look right so I whipped up some GS and lightly filled in the gaps. The GS was much easier to get the correct shape with than the plastic, so I was able to work the nostrils and the 'gills' in the helmet without too much trouble. Once it hardens up a little I'll try and sharpen the shape up and then sand it smooth tomorrow night.

I'll try to grab some better reference pics of the original for other RG players and I'll also, if I can find another plastic Corvus helm, Emperor only knows what I've done with them all, try to do a step by step for folks too. It really is dead simple if you've got the FW version for references.

I would absolutely love to see a step-by-step for acheiving this, would be perfect for my Falcon Guard veterans.

[Deathwing70]

I agree with your idea's on the apothecary, there would be no astartes without them. I can't imagine a decent force of marines going to war without apothecaries, thats why I've decided to build 2 command squads for my force (which will take a long long time but at least the plan is there now :)). I won't sprinkle them with all the goodies they can have but I do plan on having 2 apothecaries...

 

Modelwise I think the RS helmet look better, it just fits with the armor better. If you combine it with the upright position ofcourse, though I agree it might not look as much RG as the corvus but it does have a large(ish) open space on the front of the helmet you could add something. You are planning to paint him white right?

[celes]

I completely agree on the necessity of apothecaries. How could it be possible to have a force of genetically engineered super-warriors without someone to administer the gene therapy and stop them from falling apart? Especially given the Raven Guard's history. On that subject, do you have any plans to model something that hints at their "unorthodox" past or are you helping to keep it hush-hush?

[Chapter Master Ignis Domus]

These are insanely good! You must be a very devoted painter to be able to spend this much time on these guys. I mean, the amount of thought it seems you have put into each and everyone of them is insane. Plus, you're doing 4 and a half hours per marine. You should get some sort of medal.

[SCC]

Looking good man! As for the Apothecary, what about taking the FW RG backpack and adding some bits on it to make it look like (a better version of) the Apothecary pack?

I've been looking at the backpack but I haven't come up with a suitable conversion yet, I'll keep thinking on it while I wait for my etched brass...

@Augustmanifesto: It's from the FW Space Marine character set. A lot of folks panned the leg when they first saw it but I like it :P

@Deathwing: I'm waiting on the brass before I decide, if I can add RG flavour via the chest and the armoured leg then I'll go with the RS helm, if I can't I think I'll go with my home made Corvus Corax helmet.

RS Helmet in current pose:

CC helmet:

I like the RS helmet, it matches the bulky Mk.III torso better but the CC helm is much more RG, as I said, we'll see how the brass goes. Regarding the paint scheme I'm leaning towards mostly black with some white, obviously the helix shoulder pad will be white and maybe the helm (especially if it is the RS) and the front of the torso might look good in white with a red helix and black raven's wings. Perhaps even both shoulders and the chest...

@Celes: Most of my ideas for modelling the RG geneseed deficiency revolve around Scouts as I'm leaning heavily towards a fully helmeted force for PA and I don't want to go as far as say, Wulfen or more monstrous 'Weregeld' type RG. I have one test Scout Sergeant undercoated who has a veteran Elysian head that makes him look old and worn. In my mind he's a Scout who never made it to full Battle Brother because his Black Carapace failed to grow although the rest of his Astartes organs work fine so he's doomed to a life of never reaching full Battle Brother status. Still, in the RG Scouts see more action, and likely more respect, than most Chapters so there are worse fates.

I was also toying with a small squad of subtle 'Weregeld' Marines, perhaps some whose progenoids were failing or were damaged and sought redemption through zeal but it seems a little BA Death Company on reflection...

@CM Ignis Domus: Thanks, though I'd point out many folks around here spend much longer on a single Marine than me (and in fact, I have in the past too). Equally others spend 90 minutes on a Marine and end up with something infinitely better so there's always something to work towards :P

[Centurion Tom]

These are amazing, really inspired me to keep going with my RG force. I planned to use similar bits to yourself but I never considered adding the personality that you have to each model. Am going to be spending allot more time on kit, posing ect, from now on. Will be keeping an eye on your progress mate.

[Tyrannicide]

In the Apothecary's most recent form I actually think the Red Scorpion helmet fits him best. If you can add that Raven Guard brass to his chest, I think it would make him fitting enough. And for whatever reason I think it could look cool if you painted feathers onto the helmet. I don't know why or what it could symbolize, but I just have that image stuck in my head.

[SCC]

I'm still waiting on my FW brass to show up so in the meantime I knocked out that promised tutorial for the 'Corvus Corax' pattern helmet:

'Corvus Corax' Helmet Tutorial

OK, here's the most useful image of the lot - the original Forge World Raven Guard helm:

As you can see from this image the 'Corvus Corax' helm (as I've taken to calling it) is a very simply converted Mk.VI Corvus (or 'beakie') helmet that extends the 'beakie' name even further to create an even more avian profile for the helmet. That simplicity though leads to a very characterful and distinctive helmet, one that could work for not only the Raven Guard, but also for Chapters such as the Raptors, Hawk Lords or even the Eagle Warriors.

Below is a simple step-by-step tutorial for creating your own 'Corvus Corax' pattern helmets.

Equipment & Preparation

This is a nice simple conversion so you'll need:

• A plastic Beakie helmet
  
• Hobby knife
  
• Sandpaper or a small file
  
• Green Stuff
  
• Sculpting tool
  

f you haven't got a sculpting tool you can use your hobby knife in a pinch. Make sure to prep the helmet as you would normally including removing any excess flash or mould lines.

Step 1 - Hollowing Out

The first step is to recreate the hollowed out areas on the sides of the FW helm. To do this we'll first etch in a rough outline of the area we're going to hollow out:

Then we'll carve the marked area out:

Note that I've made this a little deeper than the FW version for now as we're going to build it back up with GS later on. Check to make sure both sides are roughly symmetrical:

Once you're happy with your hollowing out it's time for step 2.

Step 2 - Nostrils

Our next step is to create the nostrils. Start by carefully creating two small holes with your hobby knife in the upper section of the 'beak' of the helmet:

Enlarge and round out the nostrils by twisting your hobby knife in the original incisions, then extend the line of the nostrils towards the end of the 'beak':

Be careful not to go overboard, it's very easy at this stage to make the nostrils too prominent like I did here:

That brings us to the next stage - time for some Green Stuff to smooth things out, fix those little mistakes and add some detail.

Step 3 - Green Stuff

Cover the hollowed out cheek areas with a nice, thin layer of GS. Make sure to keep your sculpting tool a touch damp to help smooth out the GS. When you've got a smooth finish to the cheek you can use your hobby knife to scribe the three 'gill' lines into the GS. It's important to make sure that you get as smooth a finish at this stage as possible and also to make sure you don't completely fill in the hollows with GS - after all those hollows are a key element in making the 'beakie' helmet look even beakier:

Green stuff at this stage can also help fix any little mistakes you've made along the way (like the over-large nostrils I created during this attempt). The last step offers a few different choices that will help give your helmet a slightly different look. Looking at our first picture, the FW image, we can see the underside of the 'beak' has been shaped a little to make it rounder or less flat. This look suits the RG nicely but other Chapters looking for a more bird of prey look can try sanding the underside of the beak to create a subtle hook like that borne by many eagles and hawks:

I've kept the effect subtle here as this helmet is for a Raven Guard mini but you can see that with a little more work a real raptor's beak could be created. It's also worth pointing out that you can imitate the look of other birds by changing the placement or size of the nostrils or by changing the depth and shape of the hollowed out areas.

Step 4 - Tidy Up

The final stage is to tidy up the conversion work. Before you tidy up be sure to let the GS harden for a few hours or, preferably, overnight, then you can carefully sand and scrape everything until you're happy with the final product:

There we go, a simple method for creating 'Corvus Corax' pattern helmets B)

[WingsOfTheFalcon]

Librarium... right now! Thanks so much for putting that together, I'm gonna get busy one some of my own right away! B)

[SCC]

Librarium... right now! Thanks so much for putting that together, I'm gonna get busy one some of my own right away! :D

 

It's already in the Librarium ^_^

 

One of the perks of rank, I can approve my own articles on the spot :P

[Messanger of Death]

This is AWESOME.... 'nuff said :D

 

Messanger

[SCC]

Apparently it's some kind of tutorial weekend as I've got another one ready for you guys to take a gander at...

My green stuff skills have always lacked behind my kit-bashing or painting abilities, I'm reliably informed that whining about it won't make it any better, so in an attempt to improve my sculpting I've been practising. Unlike whining this may actually result in improvement. To that end I decided to try my hand at making some of the very nice BA bitz released recently into RG bitz. After all they have lots of lovely feathers and they're generally pretty nice gear full stop. But even scraping off the blood drops leaves them looking either too BA or too bland, in neither case do they look particularly RG'ish.

In particular there are some nice swords that would be perfect for the RG if I could Raven-ise them a little, so looking at the FW RG Sternguard as well as other lines like the SW I determined that raven skulls could replace all those BA blood drops quite nicely. So earlier tonight I tried my hand at just that and this was the result:

It's OK, not brilliant I admit, but practice makes perfect so I tried again. This time I captured the process with some snap shots so I could knock up a tutorial for you guys out there :P

Equipment & Preparation

The conversion we're going to walk through is nice and simple, all we need are the following:

• Whatever it is you're adding the bird skull to, in this case a power sword
  
• Green Stuff
  
• Sculpting tool
  

Step One - The basic shape

The first step is to mix up some GS then form it into a nice ball. Place the ball where you want the raven skull to be and flatten it into a tear-drop shape. In this case I've cheated and left the basic BA blood drop shape in place:

Step Two - The bird skull

Now add a second, smaller ball of GS to the large, rounded end of your tear drop. Smooth it into a half sphere, this will serve as the skull of the bird:

Step Three - Eyes

Now add the eyes, start with nice round holes like so:

Now add the elongation characteristic of birds, depending on your sculpting tool this might be easier to do with a hobby knife or even a toothpick:

You'll notice when you make the holes you build up a small ridge in the centre of the skull, carefully smooth this down towards the 'beak', it'll form the beginning of the ridge from skull to beak.

Step Four - Nostrils & Ears

With the eyes done we need to add some nostrils to the beak section. Depending on the type of bird these can be placed differently, for the raven I'm placing them quite high, up near the eyes:

Again, this might be easier with a hobby knife depending on your sculpting tool. Also note that this time I've been careful to push the GS to the centre when I make my incisions. By doing this I help define the ridge of the beak a little more. For a raven I've left this ridge quite small but for other birds you can make it more pronounced or hooked so it looks more like a falcon or hawk for example.

The ears are quite simply holes on either side of the head, above and behind the eyes:

Step Five- Finish Up

When the GS has hardened you can sand and smooth where ever necessary and generally tidy up. As you can see the final product, below, looks pretty good, certainly better than my first attempt so perhaps practice will make perfect :P

[SCC]

I have a few days off work, a well deserved break if I say so myself, so I decided I'd settle down to do some serious modelling, maybe try and get the next 5 or 10 Raven Guard Tacticals modelled and undercoated ( I know that's slow given I'm on holiday, but I have a lot of books, TV and movies to catch up on too, not to mention Call of Duty Black Ops :P ). At any rate I sat down to this:

And instantly wanted to do something else

Which isn't really surprising, even for a slob like me that desk is taking things a little too far, so I decided to have a tidy up so I could get some real work done tomorrow. As I tidied up I realised that all I was doing was shifting the mess from one side to another so I stopped and had a little think about how I have all my spare (as in not being regularly used for the RG project) kit organised:

And then I remembered I had a couple of spare CNC racks still flat packed under the desk. I cracked 'em open, decided to just assemble a tool rack and leave the paint rack for now (though I might do it later on). And yes, those are Biggles books, because Biggles is awesome :yes:

I bought an Expanded Workstation combo pack back in 2007 from my LGS when they came out and the originals have been useful for keeping things tidy but I never liked having one on my old, much smaller, desk. You get plenty of storage space but it's a tad pricy for just pre-cut MDF, mind you, the design is excellent. The tool rack has spaces for brushes, hobby knives, cutters, sculpting tools and more whilst the paint racks hold GW, Reaper & P3 paints just find. Vallejo bottles fit but they tend to rattle around and look a bit lonely in those big spaces though the narrow 'neck' at the front of the paint holders ensures they won't fall over if you bump the desk or the station itself.

Assembly is quick and easy, you can see it partially assembled here after just a few minutes work:

CNC recommend PVA glue on all the joints but that'd take forever to dry and given the fits are nice and tight I've only glued the major joins. I did the same for the ones I assembled a few years ago and they're still rock solid. The machining is good too, there are a few gaps but nothing major and even after 3 years in storage everything works as advertised when I assembled this one. One minor issue is that GW's stuff generally doesn't fit, the hobby knife and drill for example are both too large due to their rubber handles to fit comfortably anywhere in the station.

The other major problem is that though the system provides excellent storage it has a whacking great footprint and no way to minimise it. Given the price and this limitation I'd advise that you look at the CNC Workstation line only if you've got a reasonable supply of both cash and space, this is definitely a luxury item for most hobbyists. On the other hand if you can afford the space then the system really is well designed, easy to put together and, with 4 major elements (tool rack, corner paint station, paint rack & parts rack - I wish they'd had that when I grabbed mine, I could really do with it for the RG project as I've got bitz from everywhere piling up in a plastic container all willy-nilly) it should fit the needs of most hobbyists out there.

The end result of my 20 minute assembly and my way longer than an hour clean:

Hopefully the tool station will help me keep things neat and tidy and let me get on with some real work in the coming weeks.

Overall Score: 3 out of 5

[Brother Nihm]

How long until it looks like picture 1 again you reckon?

[SCC]

I'll be extremely surprised if it's any later than the end of the week Nihm! ^_^ :D

 

Someone remind me at the weekend and I'll take another snap shot so we can all see how much of a slob I've been :huh:

[Pig Of Sparta]

[sighs wistfully] I envy your work space. Mine is the kitchen table and my storage areas are my side of a double wardrobe and the top of the kitchen cupboard. That said, it's good to tidy everything once in a while and you've improved your work area considerably, which I find usually makes it easier to concentrate (I try to have only exactly what I will need for a 'session' to try to prevent me getting too distracted. Nihm's right though, just gotta keep it from turning back into picture 1 :huh:

 

James

[Ivestar]

I really like the smoothness of the black you have got there. Very well done.

 

How wide do you make your "thin" highlights, are the only the edges or something more?

[SCC]

After a short break to recharge my hobby batteries and to lie on the couch drowning in humidity and pity over the second Ashes Test Match I've returned to the hobby table. Below are the two latest additions to Squad Rhuarc - Battle Brothers Atanas and Nicu:

Battle Brother Atanas

Atanas is the prototypical Marine, more than a century of service and he is still a Battle-Brother and content to be so. His decades of service have seen him garner several minor honours, the most prominent are the Imperial Laurel and honour scroll he was awarded as the sole survivor of a recon mission on the Samad X. Over the years his faithful service has seen the embellishment of his arms and armour, he bears an Aquila power pack, his studded shoulder pad is a relic of the Cleansing that followed the Heresy and several skulls have been added to his armour to mark particular kills.

Modelling wise Atanas is a slightly modified metal Sternguard veteran - Aquila backpack, left pad ground down to remove the Termie honours and with RG etched brass Chapter symbol added. I have to admit I'm pretty happy with the way he turned out, I think as a whole the model pulls together pretty well. I worried a little it might be too busy, particularly the red strap, but I'm more than happy with this for four hours.

Also note I've gone back to yellow eyes this time too, I think I might have hit on a better recipe, hopefully I can repeat it and refine it with future models.

Battle Brother Nicu

Brother Nicu carries a slightly modified bolter, the drum magazine and extra targeting equipment allow him to effectively suppress enemies whilst retaining the mobility that other systems, such as the heavy bolter, trade for their firepower.

Modelling wise Nicu is pretty standard, he's all plastic bar the bolter which comes from the old Scout biker set (I think). I nabbed a few as bitz on a visit to Warhammer World years ago and they're nice for some variety and 'firepower' in a squad. Again, the improved yellow recipe seems to have worked, the eyes are certainly more noticeable than the first squad at any rate.

___

Also, just for Nihm:

Still tidy! :P ;)

[Nomus Sardauk]

Apparently it's some kind of tutorial weekend as I've got another one ready for you guys to take a gander at...

My green stuff skills have always lacked behind my kit-bashing or painting abilities, I'm reliably informed that whining about it won't make it any better, so in an attempt to improve my sculpting I've been practising. Unlike whining this may actually result in improvement. To that end I decided to try my hand at making some of the very nice BA bitz released recently into RG bitz. After all they have lots of lovely feathers and they're generally pretty nice gear full stop. But even scraping off the blood drops leaves them looking either too BA or too bland, in neither case do they look particularly RG'ish.

In particular there are some nice swords that would be perfect for the RG if I could Raven-ise them a little, so looking at the FW RG Sternguard as well as other lines like the SW I determined that raven skulls could replace all those BA blood drops quite nicely. So earlier tonight I tried my hand at just that and this was the result:

It's OK, not brilliant I admit, but practice makes perfect so I tried again. This time I captured the process with some snap shots so I could knock up a tutorial for you guys out there :D

Equipment & Preparation

The conversion we're going to walk through is nice and simple, all we need are the following:

• Whatever it is you're adding the bird skull to, in this case a power sword
  
• Green Stuff
  
• Sculpting tool
  

Step One - The basic shape

The first step is to mix up some GS then form it into a nice ball. Place the ball where you want the raven skull to be and flatten it into a tear-drop shape. In this case I've cheated and left the basic BA blood drop shape in place:

Step Two - The bird skull

Now add a second, smaller ball of GS to the large, rounded end of your tear drop. Smooth it into a half sphere, this will serve as the skull of the bird:

Step Three - Eyes

Now add the eyes, start with nice round holes like so:

Now add the elongation characteristic of birds, depending on your sculpting tool this might be easier to do with a hobby knife or even a toothpick:

You'll notice when you make the holes you build up a small ridge in the centre of the skull, carefully smooth this down towards the 'beak', it'll form the beginning of the ridge from skull to beak.

Step Four - Nostrils & Ears

With the eyes done we need to add some nostrils to the beak section. Depending on the type of bird these can be placed differently, for the raven I'm placing them quite high, up near the eyes:

Again, this might be easier with a hobby knife depending on your sculpting tool. Also note that this time I've been careful to push the GS to the centre when I make my incisions. By doing this I help define the ridge of the beak a little more. For a raven I've left this ridge quite small but for other birds you can make it more pronounced or hooked so it looks more like a falcon or hawk for example.

The ears are quite simply holes on either side of the head, above and behind the eyes:

Step Five- Finish Up

When the GS has hardened you can sand and smooth where ever necessary and generally tidy up. As you can see the final product, below, looks pretty good, certainly better than my first attempt so perhaps practice will make perfect :(

Ah, it's nice to see other Chapters benefiting from the new Blood Angel sprues, to be honest I'm surprised I haven't come across any Raven Guard Vanguard Veterans with your patented "Corvus Corax" helmets and our winged jump packs yet...

Keep up the good work brother!

[Hubernator]

:( *sniff* it's so beautiful... I love the actual model and this paintjob has done the model proud. Well done :D

Edited December 13, 2010 by Hubernator

[Brother Argos]

Excellent work Chris .. I especially love Battle Brother Atanas ... and I am pleased to see the lighter bases :)

[SCC]

:P *sniff* it's so beautiful... I love the actual model and this paintjob has done the model proud. Well done :P

 

I especially love Battle Brother Atanas

 

Thanks guys, as I said, I was pretty happy with how Atanas turned out myself. He's one of the two models in each squad (Sergeant & Combat Squad leader) who I allow myself to lavish a bit more time on whilst still staying within the '5 hour rule'. I have to keep reminding myself that the army is for 'play, not display' but indulging myself with an Atanas every now and then is something that helps keep me going ^_^

 

As for the bases, I have to agree, making them just a fraction lighter has made all the difference, good call for all those who wanted that little revision :tu:

 

@SanguiniusReborn: I've seen some RG with the BA JP already but none with the wings - RG2010 has one in his B&C blog for example. I like the look but I'm not sure how RG it is, although reading the description of Corax with his winged jump pack in First Heretic has me rethinking that premise for characters in particular.

[Gillyfish]

They're really cool SCC and I like the tutorial for the 'beaky' helmet. So much so that I'm going to try it out for my Ravenwing command squad. Should be a subtle, yet characterful addition.