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I've had this log running for a short while on a couple other forums, but any extra feedback is always useful, especially on a project this big. I've found quite a few exciting logs here, so I figure I'll add my own.
I turned this into a P&M Blog because I hoped it would keep me on track, and it's worked out so far. I'm a very lazy modeler at times. I work full time, I go to school full time. I also had a full time girlfriend who mercifully eliminated herself, and I was, up until recently, still in the Marines as a Reservist. So my free time that isn't spent on sleeping, or homework, or girlfriend maintenance, or the gym, I sometimes have a hard time keeping on track with my project. I don't play a lot of 40K anymore. I was big into the hobby starting in 1993 at the tail end of Rogue Trader, and played a ton of 2nd Edition, and some of 3rd, and then only off and on since then. However, when I was kid, and thus a young, under-funded 40K player, I had always wanted to have my own Battle Company of Marines. Problem was, I had two small Fantasy armies, and three small 40K armies and one big one (and a Necromunda gang, and a Gorkamorka gang...). So I never had the money available to just flat out waste on frivolous, excessive Marines.
Enter the well funded adult gamer version of myself, lol. So, with the help of Ebay and a reclamation of my old figures, I now am now pursuing my dream, lol. However, it would be too easy to just buy 100 Space Marines, some tanks, and such. Any lame average Joe with cash to blow can have 100 Space Marines. Nope, I'm going to convert them all. All of them. Everything in my army will be converted, somehow, no matter how small. The Marines will be easy, since I've adapted some techniques for "Tall Scale" (as I call it) or "biggerizing" Marine figures. I don't like the Terminator Legs versions. If they aren't heavily re-sculpted, the end up looking like Kim Kardashian with a giant ass and a way too small waist. Some people make phenomenal ones, don't get me wrong. Apologist's Ultramarines come to mind. But that's just way too involved for me. And second, it often makes them too big. Space Marines are supposed to be 7-7.5 feet tall. Really just a head taller than normal men, for the most part. Plus, I want to use the standard Mk VII plastics and just fix the proportions.
Very quickly, I decided that my project would address my long standing problems with Space Marine models.
1. They are too short, obviously. Space Marines should be 7-7.5 foot super-soldiers. The GW human figures are probably just too tall, but too late to fix that; gotta make the Marines bigger.
2. They don't have enough ammunition to fight wars. Marines need to be loaded for bear. Look like they could actually fight a war. So all of my figures would have ammunition pouches, grenades, combat knives, etc.
3. All the Marines should have helmets because no good Marine would be without his helmet. It's just dumb. Encased in nearly impenetrable ceramite, only to leave you nugget exposed, and lose all the life support, communications, imaging and targeting enhancements of the helmet? Idiotic.
Also, the Battle Company had to be "Counts As", WYSIWYG for the Standard, Blood Angels, and Space Wolves codex lists.
Plus, being that I was going to convert everything, my last challenge was to only use Mk VII parts, but also ensure that every model had a character of its own. That they weren't just carbon copies of Marines with bolters, but with believable poses. This of course is not going to be easy with a whopping fifty two bolter Marines in a Battle Company, and forcing the majority of them to wear helmets.
So I set to work, with some plastic card, and a dream. A lot of these are old photos of rough prototypes that I didn't fully sand, or gap fill, etc. Excuse any rough early modeling problems. At first, I wasn't sure how tall I wanted them to be. So I went with 1mm extensions to the thighs (which I thought were too short anyway) and an extra .5mm at the waist. The results were decent:
The tall walking stance makes him a bit taller than he actually is, but it was a good start. Next to him are Hasslefree's McKenzie (part of my new Imperial Guard project), a 2E metal Cadian, and Sgt Bylkow (one of of my favorite Squat models).
Decided this wasn't tall enough. So I moved up to 1mm at the waist. This was starting to give the height I wanted, but I only had about 25 or so walking legs, and they aren't cheap on EBay, and well, if they were all walking it would be a bit homogenous. So the firing stance models had to retain height too. Eventually I decided to go with 1.5mm at the waist for a total height increase of 2.5mm.
So now it was time to start working on some individual models.
This guy was posed to be pulling a grenade off of his belt. But instead of using a pre-posed hand, I cut and repositioned one of the bolter support arms, bent the fingers closed around a grenade separated from the grenade bundles.
Bolter Marines:
Arms have all been cut and re-positioned, for two reasons. The standard "hip firing" bolter cradle formed by the arms in stock form looks dumb. And second, I wanted some more dynamic looking poses, not just the more realistic ones.
The metal arm is from an old Devastator sergeant.
Of course, un-drilled barrels was out of the question, so that was rectified. Some of the models have weird poses, but that's because eventually they will all be based. So they may not stand flat on the standard bases.
The Marine on the far right is Brother Givenicus. Eventually he will have a grievous energy weapon style wound that has rendered his left arm useless. I cut all the fingers apart, and bent them to appear limp and useless, and re-positioned the thumb.
Now I needed some special weapons. I present the shortened Assault Pattern flamers and meltaguns:
Some more Marines:
Mid draw. Arm cut and the the fingers bent to be around the grip of the knife.
I have decided that the heavy weapons Marines will have the helmets with the extra targeter mounted on it. Plus, I decided the Tactical Squad Heavy Botlers will have box mags instead of the giant belt fed apparatus. Devastator Squad HB's will have the belt apparatus, but I figured Tactical Squads would need more portable weapons. This is an early version, and I have since modified the box mag to be better looking. Plus, there will be Bolter Marines from the rest of the squads who will be carrying extra heavy weapon ammo (missiles or bolter mag boxes).
This is Brother Brutus. A severely in-progress WIP. I wanted to inflect some more Rogue Trader era brutality to this army. I'm a huge fan of the darker, more brutal Space Marines of the old days. This one needs a ton of work, obviously, but here's the start. The Tau helmet mounted on the shoulder pad came from the Chaos tank sprue, and was clipped and filed down to match the shoulderpad contours. The idea of a mounted helmet came from the multitude of RT era drawings with severed heads. But I didn't want it to be too brutal and cross into Chaos tainted territory. I feel the Chaplain, once he's been modeled up, will be keeping a close eye on Brother Brutus.
The severed head is a Wood Elf sorceress head, the hand is the Grey Knight Daemonette head hand. The Dark Eldar is a classic 3rd Edition warrior that we had piles of from the three 3rd Edition boxed sets we had that nobody ever bothered to assemble. The helmet is a Black Templar helmet with studs, to mix up some of the helmet appearances. Plus, I think it makes Brother Brutus look a bit more harsh and maybe a bit more unbalanced and potentially vicious.
Eventually Brother Brutus's corpse was re-done because people suggested he seemed to be doing some untoward things with his bolter to the dead body, lol.
Part of the feeling I'm trying to evoke with this "army" is that of how I envision the Space Marines. These guys are seven foot, functionally immortal, genetically engineered super warriors. Human, but something more than human, and something a little less. I want to illustrate that they are both completely ruthless towards xenos, but also still fulfilling their role as protectors of humanity. I plan to have not just Marines brutalizing the Eldar corsairs (that way I can utilize both Dark Eldar and regular Eldar) I've decided the Marine Company is fighting, but also abusing Eldar prisoners out of a complete disregard. But I also want to hit on the Marine commitment to humanity. Show them protecting children, or wounded Guardsmen perhaps. I've got a pretty amazing idea for an objective marker that you guys will have to wait for.
Anyhow, I hope this work interests you guys. I'll try to keep this getting updated now that I've committed. Sorry for some of the mold lines I didn't file, lol. Sorry for some of the legs that haven;t been filed smooth and flat where they have been extended A lot of these pictures have been taken in progress over the last couple months, being send to my buddies via email for critique. So they don't all represent the current states of the figs. But, taking new photos is way too much effort right now. But as I go along I'll try to give you guys some ideas where it is at. Right now, my Battle Company is about 40% complete. So you guys should get to see pretty much the entire evolution of it.
Thanks for any thoughts you guys have. Especially any criticisms, ideas you don't like, etc. I'm definitely open for anything constructive or suggestions.
I turned this into a P&M Blog because I hoped it would keep me on track, and it's worked out so far. I'm a very lazy modeler at times. I work full time, I go to school full time. I also had a full time girlfriend who mercifully eliminated herself, and I was, up until recently, still in the Marines as a Reservist. So my free time that isn't spent on sleeping, or homework, or girlfriend maintenance, or the gym, I sometimes have a hard time keeping on track with my project. I don't play a lot of 40K anymore. I was big into the hobby starting in 1993 at the tail end of Rogue Trader, and played a ton of 2nd Edition, and some of 3rd, and then only off and on since then. However, when I was kid, and thus a young, under-funded 40K player, I had always wanted to have my own Battle Company of Marines. Problem was, I had two small Fantasy armies, and three small 40K armies and one big one (and a Necromunda gang, and a Gorkamorka gang...). So I never had the money available to just flat out waste on frivolous, excessive Marines.
Enter the well funded adult gamer version of myself, lol. So, with the help of Ebay and a reclamation of my old figures, I now am now pursuing my dream, lol. However, it would be too easy to just buy 100 Space Marines, some tanks, and such. Any lame average Joe with cash to blow can have 100 Space Marines. Nope, I'm going to convert them all. All of them. Everything in my army will be converted, somehow, no matter how small. The Marines will be easy, since I've adapted some techniques for "Tall Scale" (as I call it) or "biggerizing" Marine figures. I don't like the Terminator Legs versions. If they aren't heavily re-sculpted, the end up looking like Kim Kardashian with a giant ass and a way too small waist. Some people make phenomenal ones, don't get me wrong. Apologist's Ultramarines come to mind. But that's just way too involved for me. And second, it often makes them too big. Space Marines are supposed to be 7-7.5 feet tall. Really just a head taller than normal men, for the most part. Plus, I want to use the standard Mk VII plastics and just fix the proportions.
Very quickly, I decided that my project would address my long standing problems with Space Marine models.
1. They are too short, obviously. Space Marines should be 7-7.5 foot super-soldiers. The GW human figures are probably just too tall, but too late to fix that; gotta make the Marines bigger.
2. They don't have enough ammunition to fight wars. Marines need to be loaded for bear. Look like they could actually fight a war. So all of my figures would have ammunition pouches, grenades, combat knives, etc.
3. All the Marines should have helmets because no good Marine would be without his helmet. It's just dumb. Encased in nearly impenetrable ceramite, only to leave you nugget exposed, and lose all the life support, communications, imaging and targeting enhancements of the helmet? Idiotic.
Also, the Battle Company had to be "Counts As", WYSIWYG for the Standard, Blood Angels, and Space Wolves codex lists.
Plus, being that I was going to convert everything, my last challenge was to only use Mk VII parts, but also ensure that every model had a character of its own. That they weren't just carbon copies of Marines with bolters, but with believable poses. This of course is not going to be easy with a whopping fifty two bolter Marines in a Battle Company, and forcing the majority of them to wear helmets.
So I set to work, with some plastic card, and a dream. A lot of these are old photos of rough prototypes that I didn't fully sand, or gap fill, etc. Excuse any rough early modeling problems. At first, I wasn't sure how tall I wanted them to be. So I went with 1mm extensions to the thighs (which I thought were too short anyway) and an extra .5mm at the waist. The results were decent:

The tall walking stance makes him a bit taller than he actually is, but it was a good start. Next to him are Hasslefree's McKenzie (part of my new Imperial Guard project), a 2E metal Cadian, and Sgt Bylkow (one of of my favorite Squat models).
Decided this wasn't tall enough. So I moved up to 1mm at the waist. This was starting to give the height I wanted, but I only had about 25 or so walking legs, and they aren't cheap on EBay, and well, if they were all walking it would be a bit homogenous. So the firing stance models had to retain height too. Eventually I decided to go with 1.5mm at the waist for a total height increase of 2.5mm.


So now it was time to start working on some individual models.
This guy was posed to be pulling a grenade off of his belt. But instead of using a pre-posed hand, I cut and repositioned one of the bolter support arms, bent the fingers closed around a grenade separated from the grenade bundles.

Bolter Marines:


Arms have all been cut and re-positioned, for two reasons. The standard "hip firing" bolter cradle formed by the arms in stock form looks dumb. And second, I wanted some more dynamic looking poses, not just the more realistic ones.

The metal arm is from an old Devastator sergeant.

Of course, un-drilled barrels was out of the question, so that was rectified. Some of the models have weird poses, but that's because eventually they will all be based. So they may not stand flat on the standard bases.

The Marine on the far right is Brother Givenicus. Eventually he will have a grievous energy weapon style wound that has rendered his left arm useless. I cut all the fingers apart, and bent them to appear limp and useless, and re-positioned the thumb.

Now I needed some special weapons. I present the shortened Assault Pattern flamers and meltaguns:


Some more Marines:

Mid draw. Arm cut and the the fingers bent to be around the grip of the knife.

I have decided that the heavy weapons Marines will have the helmets with the extra targeter mounted on it. Plus, I decided the Tactical Squad Heavy Botlers will have box mags instead of the giant belt fed apparatus. Devastator Squad HB's will have the belt apparatus, but I figured Tactical Squads would need more portable weapons. This is an early version, and I have since modified the box mag to be better looking. Plus, there will be Bolter Marines from the rest of the squads who will be carrying extra heavy weapon ammo (missiles or bolter mag boxes).
This is Brother Brutus. A severely in-progress WIP. I wanted to inflect some more Rogue Trader era brutality to this army. I'm a huge fan of the darker, more brutal Space Marines of the old days. This one needs a ton of work, obviously, but here's the start. The Tau helmet mounted on the shoulder pad came from the Chaos tank sprue, and was clipped and filed down to match the shoulderpad contours. The idea of a mounted helmet came from the multitude of RT era drawings with severed heads. But I didn't want it to be too brutal and cross into Chaos tainted territory. I feel the Chaplain, once he's been modeled up, will be keeping a close eye on Brother Brutus.

The severed head is a Wood Elf sorceress head, the hand is the Grey Knight Daemonette head hand. The Dark Eldar is a classic 3rd Edition warrior that we had piles of from the three 3rd Edition boxed sets we had that nobody ever bothered to assemble. The helmet is a Black Templar helmet with studs, to mix up some of the helmet appearances. Plus, I think it makes Brother Brutus look a bit more harsh and maybe a bit more unbalanced and potentially vicious.
Eventually Brother Brutus's corpse was re-done because people suggested he seemed to be doing some untoward things with his bolter to the dead body, lol.


Part of the feeling I'm trying to evoke with this "army" is that of how I envision the Space Marines. These guys are seven foot, functionally immortal, genetically engineered super warriors. Human, but something more than human, and something a little less. I want to illustrate that they are both completely ruthless towards xenos, but also still fulfilling their role as protectors of humanity. I plan to have not just Marines brutalizing the Eldar corsairs (that way I can utilize both Dark Eldar and regular Eldar) I've decided the Marine Company is fighting, but also abusing Eldar prisoners out of a complete disregard. But I also want to hit on the Marine commitment to humanity. Show them protecting children, or wounded Guardsmen perhaps. I've got a pretty amazing idea for an objective marker that you guys will have to wait for.
Anyhow, I hope this work interests you guys. I'll try to keep this getting updated now that I've committed. Sorry for some of the mold lines I didn't file, lol. Sorry for some of the legs that haven;t been filed smooth and flat where they have been extended A lot of these pictures have been taken in progress over the last couple months, being send to my buddies via email for critique. So they don't all represent the current states of the figs. But, taking new photos is way too much effort right now. But as I go along I'll try to give you guys some ideas where it is at. Right now, my Battle Company is about 40% complete. So you guys should get to see pretty much the entire evolution of it.
Thanks for any thoughts you guys have. Especially any criticisms, ideas you don't like, etc. I'm definitely open for anything constructive or suggestions.