Chief Apothecary WIP (pic heavy)

[thade]

Okay, so. This is my first WIP thread ever on the site, and really the first time it's been more than just "Look, I can paint in the lines good." It's not up to spec with other work in this forum, but I really wanted to share because I'm pretty excited about it and having a good time with it. The pictures are okay as I (finally) picked up a "full spectrum" light bulb and my palette is white...so most of them don't look yellow (I'm using the iPhone for photos) and they're pretty clear.

 

Briefly: my chapter is a DIY called the Red Shields. They are a 7th Founding Salamanders successor that roughly 50 years ago suffered catastrophic losses in a pincer attack between Tyranids (which they were engaging) and Ahriman's forces (who they'd been fighting with for a few centuries before and had been waiting for this opportunity). The chapter now numbers at roughly 160 marines, most of which are veterans. The bottom line is that they are trying to regrow but are not idle. To ensure that everybody gets home (one way or the other) my force fields 2-3 apothecaries with every deployment. (To make this happen, I'm using the BA codex with no BA-specific units other than Apothecaries which are Sanguine Priest counts-as.)

 

It made sense to me (whether it was points-wise sound or not) that at least one apothecary on the field would be wearing holy Terminator armor to help ensure my borderline suicidal Vanguards have a shot at getting home too. With the recent release of GK (and my wish to start a GK army) I find myself with spare paladin apothecary arms, and so I'm off.

 

I had acquired most of this Terminator Captain (the body and the left sword hand, the left arm is attached) in a trade a year or so back and I'd been holding on to it for this purpose. Here he is on the palette:

 

http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/9687/img0201o.jpg

 

Annnd here's the arm I wanted to attach to him (note that it's also a left arm which he already has most of).

 

http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/5204/img0206x.jpg

 

So for my first time ever I got a little crazy with a dremel (a tool that was previously reserved for drilling magnet and pin holes) and my files, and...

 

http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/4701/img0205pn.jpg

 

http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/6274/img0203ji.jpg

 

http://img534.imageshack.us/img534/5844/img0207mv.jpg

 

http://img840.imageshack.us/img840/6642/img0208sf.jpg

 

Pretty close. I was happily able to maintain the piping on the arm while cutting just above the elbow on the narthecium, while grinding the pewter model down to just above his elbow as well. Setting them together shows that no amount of filing is going to even out the unevenness of the pewter junction, so it's time for my first adventure with green stuff.

 

First thing I do is pin the narthecium-bearing forearm, as I'm not certain how strong the green stuff is going to be.

 

http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/4827/img0210im.jpg

 

Then it's on!

 

http://img847.imageshack.us/img847/364/img0211p.jpg

 

Already forward thinking to how annoying a large upright sword on a terminator is going to be to stick in my case, I drill a magnet hole for his other arm. (Sanguine Priests in TDA come with a power sword, wee.) I love my Dremel.

 

http://img849.imageshack.us/img849/3168/img0213t.jpg

 

http://img839.imageshack.us/img839/6765/img0214q.jpg

 

Magnets!!

 

http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/8828/img0216wb.jpg

 

http://img839.imageshack.us/img839/8048/img0219br.jpg

 

Assembled. :ph34r:

 

http://img546.imageshack.us/img546/5927/img0220jp.jpg

 

http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/3568/img0221xj.jpg

 

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/2729/img0223ek.jpg

 

The green stuff is a little rough; parts of it I'm going to dangle purity seals over to cover it up...other parts I'm not sure, maybe I'll resort to black sleeves or something to disguise how bad it is.

 

The shoulder I chose (from the GK kit) has a shield on it...which I'll paint red (to tie him into my army) and I'll do the dna-symbol thingy on it in white. My army colors are black (as a base), red right leg, white shoulder plates with red trim and a red shield (on their right shoulder...so here I have to improvise). You can actually see my army schema in this post here. Since he's one of my Apothecaries he'll be in white armor with the shoulders done to fit my army scheme and possibly his right leg. Depending on how he looks I'm going to the face in flesh or in solid black (my guys are 50/50 in that regard, depending on whether they've visited the Salamander home world or not and undergone the transformation).

 

Currently I'm base-coating him white (which is painstaking since white spray paint goes on super thin and I've been busy and it's been raining) but I'll definitely pump more images in here with my next steps. :D Thanks for reading through all of that; I'm interested in any comments/critique/thoughts you might have.

[Olis]

He looks good, the apothecary arm seems to have been attached well enough and I see the model STILL gets whacking great sword. Keep it up. :ph34r:

[Dez]

Nice work with the Dremel, I've always got mine close at hand too. Something I've been researching a lot is working with Greenstuff, as I've never been good at it. I picked up some sculpting tools (I think they are Super Sculpty brand) that have plastic tips, like paint pushers. They work really well, and only need a bit of water to lubricate and my greenstuff work comes out relatively smooth without sticking. I got the set at Michaels, it retails for about $18 but they have 40% and 50% off coupons all the time...so I had my wife pick them up :woot:

[thade]

Thanks Dez :huh: Was wondering where I might get tools to do just that.