Clee Scar'mang, Salamander - A tribute to Grayall (Update 3)

[Graymane]

Hello folks,

As some of you know Grayall is one of our resident artists, known for some awesome black and white line drawings. Now about a year ago, this beauty was posted:

(You can find them in this thread link)

As per usual, it received a fair amount of admiration from all and Brother-Captain Arkhan posted the following....

Someone, somewhere, has had a light bulb appear over their head with that image. I hope there's at least one effort to turn that into a model because it looks much better than the GW version.

He was absolutely right. A light bulb had gone on. And so it was with my usual half thought out exuberance and a potentially vast overconfidence in my own abilities that i replied....

Challenge accepted.

Definitely had a lightbulb moment. It might take me a while though but ill definitely give it a go. Now, off to buy some centurions and see whats what...

...which courtesy of various disturbances in the warp (life) is still roughly where i remain to this date.

However, us wolves never know when to quit and as such i have at last kept my word and started work on this interesting little project.

So far, all there is a centurion, some warp talon bits, a dreadnought head, some plasticard,a little construction, a smattering of profanity and some trial green-stuffing, but i for one am interested to see how it goes. Could be a passable model, or could end up looking like a snotling hit by a melta. We shall see...

May the Allfather guide my hand!

Any comments welcome and any advice gratefully accepted!

Cheers,

Graymane

[GrandMagnus]

Oh yeah, I'll be keeping my eye on this, most definetly.

[Custom Hero]

Definitly following this...

Good luck brother!

[helterskelter]

This is my kind of insane

*deck chair and toffee popcorn prepped*

[Soldier of Dorn]

Yes.

 

Going to be watching this with an eagle eye, brother. Make us all proud!

[Andvarr A]

Ooo tankish centurion...me like...

[Lemainus]

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

[Graymane]

Hello brothers,

Time for a small update in my adventures as a woefully under-skilled sculptor biting off what may well be far more than i can chew... I apologise for the general poor quality photographs, however the camera-phone was all that was to hand at the time.

First we have the feet and leg armour. Feet reshaped for the more hooflike foot seen in Grayall's pic. The leg armour has had the ankle armour shaved back, the curve increased and the first re-enforcement band added. I will have to build up the back of the legs and up-armour the lower legs, increasing the height to cover the knees. Not sure if ill try this with greenstuff alone or possibly plasticard. Any advice most welcome...

I have also started on what will be the right shoulder pad (left on the picture) which appears to be armoured with the dorsal spines and scales of some mighty beasty. I have hacked off the original detailing and have been adding spikes and scales, increasing in size and general spikiness towards the centre of the pad. Doing each scale individually is time consuming, but generally seems to be coming out ok so far....

With the central torso, i have again hacked off all the existing detail. I have then rebuild the armour pieces over the stomach using plasticard and started adding the re-enforcement bands using greenstuff. I also added a collar of plasticard to increase the height of the neck guard in general. This has then been covered in a thin veneer of greenstuff to smooth it off and add some detail. However, the vent in the neck is proving difficult. I simply cannot get the grill as fine as in grayall's original. Again any advice here is most welcome...

As for the hands, i think the claws work quite well. The original picture shows the right hand as having some spikes, but not much else is visible.I am contemplating possibly doing another drake head similar to the right, though im not sure. Having pried it off, I have placed the prototype head from the left hand on the right for illustration purposes. Thoughts?

Speaking of dragon heads, as mentioned, I pried off the prototype head on the left hand and have started to do it again. This second design requires that i add the horns, fangs and eyes, not to mention flames etc. afterwards. However so far, i quite like it...

I think I may need to increase the brow and skull size slightly and I'm not yet sure how I'm going to do the fangs and horns, but fingers crossed, eh?

I am hoping that a few needle files and some paint will help cover up most of the inconsistencies. If nothing else, this project has given me a whole new insight and appreciation of sculptors and those of you who have mastered greenstuff. I salute you!

Well, that's it so far. I hope you like it! And as per usual any comments, criticism and/or advice welcome!

Cheers,

Graymane

[Graymane]

Hello Folks,

Time for another small update (and again, sorry for the dodgy picture quality)

I have finally added every scale and spike to the right shoulder pad...

I have also reshaped the the legs. The codpiece was a simple greenstuff job over a plasticard spacer which i have used to increase his height slightly. The greaves reshaped with a section of plasticard and then a 50/50 greenstuff/milliput mix....

I have also built a small collar on the shoulder section using plasticard. This still needs to be greenstuffed to tidy it up.

I thought i'd tack stick him together and see how he looks so far....

Still plenty of work to do, but I'm fairly happy its going in the right direction.

As per usual, any comments welcome.

Hope you like him so far. :)

Cheers,

Graymane

[Andvarr A]

Wow...that's...just...wow...well done so far on the centurion, the scale shoulders look the business

[Custom Hero]

Nice job! Really good remdition so far, keep it up!

[Graymane]

Hello folks,

Thought to be lost to the warp during transit, Clee Scar'mang was recently rediscovered in suspended animation in a mislabelled box, in the back of a storage cupboard! He was promptly rescued and returned to the work table.

And thus it is time to re-awaken this slumbering project. So, after the best part of two years, time for an update!....

Here's the stuff from the last couple of days.

I have attached and expanded his power supply. Still a few gaps to fill but you can see the general idea.

I have attached scales to the chest and arm and edged the greaves. I still need to file them and tidy up a bit.

The larger melta was made by carving out the majority of the heavy bolter attachment and then hybriding in the meltaguns

I have also sketched out the rough idea of what needs to be on the left shoulder. Not sure if i should just try and paint this, or possibly do a thin greenstuff outline first.

Next on the agenda are some cables connecting the guns to the power-pack, the lizard hide on the right leg and maybe a little more greenstuff detailing, possibly over the knuckle armour. The one bit I'm really struggling with is the jaw bone wired to the chest - im still pondering that one...

Well, i hope you like him so far.

Any comments/feedback most welcome.

Cheers,

GM

[Gederas]

Always had a soft spot for the Salamanders, so this interests me quite a bit. Keep up the awesome work :tu:

[Bjorn Firewalker]

The Terminator-Centurion hybrid looks promising, and much better proportioned than the "fatty Marine" 4chan (and I) like to mock. What name did you give the armor pattern? If you haven't named it yet, may I suggest "Ultimatum armor"? (I previously suggested that name for a Terminator-Gravis armor hybrid.)