WW2 US themed Guard (Yet another army by Roach)

commissar_roach · March 13

So it's been a long time since I last worked on anything hobby related due to a lot of factors and I've been getting antsy lately. So I went ahead and broke out the Cadia stands box and the last IG Xmas battleforce and started working on a new themed army. (With actual GW miniatures this time!)

So this time around I planned on doing an army whose theme was more carried by their color scheme and less with large amounts of proxy work. I settled on doing a force themed around WW2 US troops, since the basic cadian kit can be made to fit that theme with some easy steps.

first was to do some head swaps

I settled on using US GI and US Airborne heads from bolt action boxes I had in my stash. they fit with a bit of green stuff work to fill in the neck holes. I'm pleased with how well they scaled with the Cadian sculpts.

I knew I didn't want to spend another year working on this army so I went with a mix of contrast paints with some basic touch ups from regular paints. it really cut down the work time.

I really like how well they turned out considering I only spent 3 and a half days on these from starting to build them to finishing them to this point. The bases will be done later in a batch with other minis from this force.

The next big part of the project was the vehicles. now I didn't want to do a lot of 3d printing or working with 3rd party proxies for this force, so that left me with trying to make the GW kits feel more "WW2 US'y" and that was a bit harder.

My first test model was the sentinel from the cadia stands box. I went with an armored sentinel and after brainstorming on it for a while I went with a cast hull look to try and keep it in theme.

The first passes of hull armor texture and adding of weld seams.

I added wires to the back of the smoke discharger and drilled out two of them to make it look as if it had been fired recently.

I also went and replaced the antenna with some stretched sprue (I mean, come on, that's required for one of my projects)

I also added texture to the armored leg panels and drilled out the holes for the heat shields on the back of the engines exhaust pipes.

with all that leg work done I went ahead and painted this up with my normal method for vehicles. basecoat, chipping, post-shading, decals, and pin washes.

(the other shots refuse to upload to Imgur, so they are attached to the post)

I was a little out of practice but I think it turned out well enough for this being the first vehicle in, like, almost 2 years? (darn does time fly)

And that is all I have so far! the weapons and small details on the sentinel will be the next things I do, along with all the bases. Then I'll be building and painting up a squad to see how well the paint scheme/method holds up with a full squads worth of minis.

I'd love to hear opinions on all this! it's the first time I've done some of this and really want to know what others think about it.

Galron · March 14

I like it. My only suggestion is an easy general one on the earth(and green) tone contrast paints. Use an extremely light dry brush of u:cuss:abi bone or Tyrants skull on all the non-metallic parts. It will tone down the brightness a bit and make them a little less contrast cartoony

commissar_roach · March 14

Well those haven't been varnished yet, so hopefully that and the bases will bring the shine down a bit

MithrilForge · March 15

looks great, My mate is doing a US themed Cadian army as well but he's simply going with colours and no conversion work (Unlike the great work you have done ) and very well done on that by the way :thumbsup:

I love the Sherman vibe on the walker, very nice indeed.

here's my mates walker just for interest of sharing like minded fellows work :happy:

-

Cheers, M

Edited March 15 by MithrilForge

Hiroitchi · March 16

Looks great man. Awesome stuff.

commissar_roach · April 2

I haven't had much time to work more of this but I was able to finish up the bases and extra weapons for the Sentinel.

I originally wanted a more 'wet' look to the ground, but I was short on time and skill, so went with more dry look I've used before for Bolt Action minis

Hopefully I'll be able to get more done soon, but I have a surgery coming up and it's unlikely I'll get the time so reinforcements might have to wait a bit for this force.

MithrilForge · April 9

Looks great :thumbsup:

also good luck with the surgery :sweat: !!

Cheers, M

commissar_roach · August 7

Well it's been a while hasn't it?

Surgery went well and I'm now fully recovered. Do you know what that means? that right, back to the hobby!

I thought it would be a good time to get a full squad and some characters built, so I went about trying to make the new commissar model actually look good. Let me tell you, I really hate how bland this sculpt looks, from the very basic but boring pose to the Tactical Rock™. The older commissar sculpts from 3rd and 4th ed that I love had much better character to them in my opinion, this one feels like you could totally use as a basic officer proxy with almost zero changes.

Okay, small rant over.

The Tactical Rock™ was taken off and the feet sanded down a bit to allow for a more easy flat footed pose. The big issue I had was trying to find a head swap I liked. As you can see below I had a lot to pick from.

I tossed the original head into the bits box and also found that the anvil industries heads didn't fit which left me with the US GI bolt action heads and some heads from the wargames Atlantic bulldogs kit. Ultimately I went with the bulldogs head due to the character I think it gave the figure.

Kinda feels like the Stalin lookalike head fit best with the commissar, don't ya think?

Next I went about looking for a figure to be my stand in for Ursula creed. I don't actually have much issue with the official model but it's a bit too busy for my taste. I found in my stash of Victoria minis the perfect stand-in.

she wont stand nearly as tall, but the base size matches up. originally she was solo on the base but it felt too empty so I found a pack of 28mm dog figs in my bits box and saw a derpy bulldog that worked.

Kinda reminds me of a British officer on D-day that had his dog on the beach with him. so hey, it's Kinda on theme, right?

the squad of infantry was pretty standard with no real conversions other than the head swaps. I ran out of time last weekend so here they are in the process of being painted on my workbench.

I also just got some new paint racks that I installed, which means I now once again have a place for all of my paints, which it nice.

Before

After (also with a wide shot)

And that's all I have currently! I just got my battletech kickstarter in so I'm not sure how much I'll pivot to that over the current wip guardsmen but we shall see.