I'm so bored assembling basic marines

[CaptainForrix]

I've got the syndrome of only wanting to convert vets, commanders, and terminators. The problem is, these are specialists and not the bulk of my force.

 

I become so bored with the assault, tactical, dev., and scout models. Is there any ways that you've found to want to put them together? Are there any simple conversions that inspire you?

 

Thanks for the help,

 

Forrix

[feuer_faust]

Hmm...

 

Clip some of the magzines, and make the hand holding the gun higher and the hand holding the hand-rest lower; the end result is a marine reloading his bolter.

 

Also: by all means make your basic guys look a little fancier; a knife here, a seal or special badge there. Perhaps your chapter fully displays each marines heraldry and battle honours all the danged time?

 

Try a lot of cutting and GS to do left-handed marines?

 

There's a few.

[teutogen]

I like to look at artwork and read about how dead ard' the basic marine is to get some inspiration for my tactical marines.

[Guest mentors]

have a look at the mentors in my photobucket (see sig) you'll see a few converted tac marines, this might give you a bit more incentive.

 

:D

[schoon]

Take a look at a few good comic books (BattleChasers is good) with big guys in power armour, and observe some of the poses they use. Comic artists exaggerate things to make them more dramatic - and so should miniature builders :D

 

Even a vanilla Marine can be interesting with the right pose...

[Gyson_Vore]

What I do is I try to make each person in the squad to have his own feel. I have one that is positioned liked he just went through a breach in the wall, another is ready to lance a tank with his melta gun. Try to give each member a little character...

[krystalmesh]

Try a lot of cutting and GS to do left-handed marines?

 

amazing. all these years, and i never thought of lefty marine...AND IM LEFTY! thanks for the idea. no idea how im going to go about doing it, but it must be done

[Beornling 3.1415]

Try a lot of cutting and GS to do left-handed marines?

 

amazing. all these years, and i never thought of lefty marine...AND IM LEFTY! thanks for the idea. no idea how im going to go about doing it, but it must be done

 

 

strangely it's not that hard, I usually GS and file the right hand so that:

 

Throwing a grendade

signaling to the rest of the squad

gripping the ammo reload

etc

 

the limit to the poses you can do with the right hand is a big thing, also if your a beginner at making lefties, try buying the Vet squad arm sprues.

[The Angelus Sanctus]

Zgar (many moons ago) did some minor conversions to basic marines to bring them out alot more and i think they were great.

 

 

Here is the link:

 

Zgar's Ultramarines

[Brother Sergeant Alasseo]

Play around with the bolter style- give a couple of them bolt carbines, or pre-heresy bolters, or drum mags, or even try and figure out the mentor pattern (since the tutorial for them seems to have died in the Great Crash).

 

Even if you just give a bolter a foregrip it can totally change the feel (especially with a drum mag). Personally, i have one tac-marine with a pre-heresy style (tutorial in the Liber Faber), and another with a bolt carbine, and a third with a mkilia pattern bolt sniper rifle

[aretziel]

hope this pic isn

[Guest mentors]

here's some different bolters i made based on the pics above

 

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d42/spikyjames/WIP%20Stuff/100_0859.jpg

[feuer_faust]

oh: the Plasma Pistols on the older assault arm sprue has tons of lefties.

[OwlandMoonGuy]

One thing that you can try is to turn your generic squads into more specialized units

[mr_lee_]

OwlandMoonGuy - those marines are quite impressive.

 

If I had to assemble a bunch of generic marines, as you call them in your OP, I would try my best to make each one into a small diorama that looks good as a squad. For example, I have a unit of Chaos Marines that when put in place look like they're running the same way as their champion is pointing.

[aretziel]

the knifes on the bolters do look good on those marines =)

 

I neve rliked knifes on bolters before but ... looking good =)

 

and the minis themself look g-g-g-gg-great =)

[kr00tman]

cut up the legs and make running poses , thats always cool

[Einstein]

Try to raid your friends Bitz Boxes, and get some alien stuff to work with - make them Tyranid, Tau, Ork fighters, or anything, even if only on the bases... You could also look for bitz to make different marks of armour, or research a bit and make the things in the tactical box fit together (still talking armour).

[retlaw83]

While this is impossible to do with a loyalist army, I purposefully built every single marine in my Chaos army to look different through a combination of different torsos, guns and switching parts between plastic and metal models, using parts from both the loyalist and Chaos ranges. My one havoc is even holding his autocannon across his chest like a bolter, something I managed by bending the shoulder pad and hand to the side using pliers and using a little greenstuff. My one missile launcher havoc has a heavy bolter converted into a missile launcher hefted in his left arm, due to some creativity with the Catachan and Chaos Space Marine box sets.

 

I've also noticed that holsters, grenades, sheated swords and other bric-a-brac spice up bolter marines nicely. A very simple conversion that anyone can do is attaching a combat knife underneath the foregrip of a bolter, giving your marines bayonets. When the heads are turned to the side like they're firing from the hip at enemy targets, and then the models turned to face the opposing army, a line of bayonetted bolters looks good in front of the heavy weapons of a havoc squad.

[T14]

When I assemble my minis I try to theme batches in terms of different stages of battle.

 

examples

batch 1: Charging

batch 2: Close combat poses

batch 3: Rapid firing/suppression fire

batch 4: Reloading

batch 5: deploying/marching

batch 6: relaxed poses (checking bolter, dressing wound etc.)

 

Then you can either keep the "1 unit only has 1 type of pose" when you field your army... or mix up the poses in your battlefield units

 

Cheers

-t14

[The Angelus Sanctus]

IIRC, i think there was an article in WD that covered some marine conversions as well, some needing some minor GS work. Cant recall what issue of WD it was (would have to go and look at my cover notes to find out which one).

[BLZBOB]

Some light customising is always good as are weapon swaps my previous assault squad have several weapon swaps and more dynamic poses

 

linky

linky 2

linky the third

 

In my almost completed tac squad I have taken this a little further and have a few marines in more interesting poses including a bolter with box mag for the squad 2IC one marine with a knife held behind his back and one guy that looks as if he is racking the slide back on the bolter. Its a very, very rare marine that doesnt get the scalpel treatment at some point even if it is only rotating the hands.

[Brother Lysander]

I too opt for a theme per squad. The last squad I did all had beaky helmets, and I mixed in some chaos torsos to get across that archaic look, and attached bayonets to each bolter. I also tend to assemble my marines in pairs, and make them interact, for example a marine pointing next to a marine holding an auspex, 2 marines running, 1 throwing a grenade whilst the other lays down some surpressing fire. This gives your squad some nice variety.

 

BL

[Legacy40k]

Play Chaos :P

 

 

-Legacy40k

[Lord Ragnarok]

hope this pic isn