My goal was to make an entire fighting force of these:
The Death Guard, the main Legion that's the source of Plague Marines (those in the image above being unaffiliated). As my starting point, this:
A 45-ish figure starter set with around 20 of those in Power Armor, half swords-and-feathers-and-angles-and stuff-themed good guy Marines (Dark Angels), and the other half red...themed bad guy marines (Crimson Slaughter).
Some cool sculpts in this set, mainly the Chaos guys.
First step was assemble everything. I mixed and matched Chaos and non-Chaos Marine parts as best I could in attempt to make them look uniformly Chaotic, but being a starter kit, most of the figures only came in a few pieces. Then I shaved off the mold-lines. A lot of the Dark Angels/Imperial iconography had to be shaved off as well. After that time-consuming process, I was left with a bunch of spiky guys, and a bunch of smooth guys. Spikes (greenstuff or scavanged from other models) were added to the former good guys to make them look more chaosy, as were extended armor-exhaust ports (the ball shaped things on the sides of their backpacks). This is a weird detail that's just always been a chaos thing, sometimes they're meant to look like demon wings, other times, especially on older models, they're just weird and long. I took a lot of inspiration for this project from the early 90's era Chaos- when they didn't try to make any kind sense as consistent, realistic, science fiction guys with uniform equipment and instead just looked like heavy metal album cover art:
Some details like horns and spikes were removed from the native chaos models to make everyone more uniform.Then battle damage was added to all which was quite fun. Battle damage ended up being fairly heavy, as I wanted them to look like they'd been through centuries of combat and withstood a lot of damage (what Plague Marines are good at in-game).
In attempt to recreate the Death Guard image, I gave some spikes (from various sources) on the crest of their helmets and studs here and there on their armor (sliced styrene rod).
To capture the more general Plague Marine image (gross and dirty), I glued sand in random spots on them to represent rust and grime, added miscellaneous weird growths with greenstuff, and elements such as hoses (guitar wire), bulging plates added to their armor to accommodate their bloated stomachs (greenstuff + styrene rod for the rivets), single asymmetric horns (from various Warhammer Fantasy plastics or by removing one of the existing horns), guts and intestines hanging out (greenstuff), and splits in the tips of their sabatons. (That is, the shoe parts of the armor, I had to look this word up to know what to call them. I don't know why this detail has always been part of the Plague Marine design, maybe it's supposed to imply that their feet become so swollen that the armor sort of bursts?)
More general Chaos Space Marine design elements added in
I also intended to make all weapon upgrades swappable. Most units in the game come with the option of spending a few points to give one or two guys a heavy or otherwise special weapon. Obviously, the various weapons have their strengths and weaknesses. Unfortunately, frequent edition changes vary the relative balance of the different classes of weapons. I don't want to get too side-tracked criticizing bad game-design, basically nobody wants to get stuck with an underpowered weapon permanently attached to their miniature, hence I include all options on swappable hands. Other people do this with magnets. for this project, I used brass rod. The results are satisfactory, I think. In retrospect, I should have used finer brass rod to attach the weapons to the guys hands. Instead, I used heavier rod to attach hands to the guys wrists, meaning I had to scrounge around for way more hands to attach to each weapon. As a further complication, this meant I also had to have right and left handed weapons (literally some weapons with right hands attached and other with left hands attached) and right and left handed (handless) weapon specialists.
Also, I made custom urban bases with plasticard. This project got out of hand fast.
Oh, and I tried to adhere as strictly as possible (75-100%) to "What You See Is What You Get". Which is a meta-game convention that if your unit/model has a weapon or other piece of equipment that is to have an in-game effect, it MUST be represented on the physical model. Now, there is room to be lax here, official models commonly don't feature every single bit of equipment that the official rules say they have. However, since these are such heavily modified figures representing units other than those they were sold to represent, I felt a personal obligation to be as faithful to the letter of the rules and the unwritten letter of What You See Is What You Get as possible. Similarly, NO non-Gamesworkshop components were used, as people are disqualified from tournaments for that sort of thing. .... Note that by components I mean pieces from other-brand miniatures, I did in fact use "components" such as pieces of plastic sprue that non-Gamesworkshop miniatures came on :)
Each Plague Marine is meant to have:
boltgun, bolt pistol, plague knife (which can be interpreted as any bladed weapon), and blight grenades (germ weapon grenades made from severed heads). As stated, I took every effort to represent every single one of these on every single model.
Anyway, anyway, here are the pictures...
I will post front shots, then rear shots, then annotations (every figure was given split sabatons, rust patches, miscellaneous greenstuff growths, and chips and damage to their armor, so I will not mention these) ...
First, the first four Plague Marines:
Left to right:
*Gas-mask-guy with bolt pistol, plague knife, and boltgun (being reloaded by tentacles on his back, I didn't make this, it's a bit from Dark Vengeance that was intended for a different figure), featuring shoulder spikes (Ork jaw armour + greenstuff) , gut-plate (not visible), and studded pauldron with holes from missing studs*
*Beaky-style-helmet-guy with boltgun with over-sized iron-sight and axe-bayonet (counts-as plague knife), and blight grenades, featuring armor exhaust diverted back into helmet*
*(This is actually a single pose marine from a much older starter box) with boltgun with over-sized iron-sight, bolt pistol, and plague knife, featuring grinning (goblin) face in pauldron and mutant head from the multipart plastic Chaos Space Marine set (usually meant to be for followers of Slaanesh, but in context I though it looked suitable for Nurgle)*
*Bald-guy (who already looked pretty chaosy) with boltgun, bolt pistol, and plague knife, featuring extended wooden exhaust vents*
Next four:
*(Another 2nd edition starter box marine!) with boltgun, bolt pistol, and plague knife, featuring greenstuff spikes on pauldrons, greenstuff + PVC tube eye lenses, repositioned hand on top of bolter, plate with screw missing on bolter, and extended exhaust ports (Tyranid legs)*
*Side-horn-guy (other horn was clipped and the area smoothed) with drum-mag boltgun with over-sized iron-sight and over-barrel bayonet, bolt pistol, plague knife (cleaver on belt, not visible), and potato-masher style blight grenade (on belt), featuring organic exhaust vents (drilled out Tyranid legs) and Nurgle emblem on pauldron*
*Other-beaky-guy with boltgun with drum-magazine, and bolt pistol, featuring horn sprouting from pauldron, Nurgle emblem on other pauldron, helmet crest spike, gut-plate, and exhaust rerouted back into helmet*
*Sorta-skipping-guy with boltgun on sling, bolt pistol, and plague knife, featuring exhaust rerouted to helmet, gut-plate, Nurgle Emblem on pauldron, Nurgle emblem on medalion hanging from waist, and blunted horn (compared to stock figure)*
Last four of the basic grunts:
The two on the left got a primer touch-up on their backs after this photo...
*"My stomach hurts.."-guy with spiky boltgun with decorative grip (kind-of visible), bone-handled plague knife, and generic-sort-of-grenade, featuring helmet crest spike, organic extended exhaust vents (Tyranid arms) Nurgle emblem on pauldron and backpack, bolt/bullet hole in forehead, ruptured gut-plate with entrails spilling out over boltgun, and hand clasping stomach (first and only hand I've ever sculpted, this guy is my favorite)*
*Skeleton-chest-guy with boltgun being reloaded by back-tentacles, bolt pistol with over-sized iron-sight, plague knife, and potato-masher-style blight grenade, featuring unarmored grenade arm*
*Brain-fungus-guy with boltgun with duct-tape extra magazine modifcation, sheathed plague knife, and blight grenade, featuring Nurgle emblem on pauldron, gut-plate with loose dangling hose, and exhaust rerouted to helmet*
*Satchel-guy with boltgun, plague knife, and a big sack that's presumably filled with blight grenades and heck maybe even his pistol, featuring helmet crest spike, curved horns sprouting from exhaust ports, horn sprouting from pauldron, Nurgle emblem on other pauldron and knee, and exhaust rerouted toi helmet*
Now the swappable special weapons guys and Aspiring Champions (squad leaders). The Aspiring Champions also have their own separate weapon upgrade options, which I have also made swappable.
Left and right hand Flamers, 2 left and 2 right hand Plasmaguns, left hand Boltgun, left hand Plague Knife, left Powerfist, Powersword, Powermaul, Poweraxe, left and right hand Meltaguns, right hand combi-plasmagun, right hand combi-boltgun, 1 Pair (left and right) of Lightning Claws.
Here are the specialists without weapons:
Now, close-ups. Starting with the first couple specialists:
*Forward-facing-exhaust-vent-guy with plague knife and pictured with plasmagun, featuring gut-plate with dangling tube and hole on back of backpack covered with some kind of tape*
*Exposed-belly-guy with plague knife, blight grenade, and pictured with plasmagun, featuring helmet crest spike, Nurgle emblem on pauldron, exhaust rerouted to helmet, and organic exhaust vents (hollowed horns from Ogre Bulls standard)*
The next couple:
*Ruptured-gut-plate-guy with plague knife, frag grenade, and pictured with meltagun, featuring horn, spilling entrails, and exhaust rerouted back to backpack which has organic chimney structure protruding from it*
*Lotsa-tubes-guy with plague knife, frag grenade, and pictured with meltagun, featuring cracked gut-plate with loop of intestine hanging out, side horn, and bolted-on cracked pauldron*
Next, the last of the specialists and the first of the Aspiring Champs. This specialist is unique in that he can also hold a boltgun, should the need arise for an additional grunt or point constraints not permit an additional weapon upgrade. The reason I imply that only this one can wield the extra boltgun is because the hand attached to it is more like half a hand. It is sliced flat on the side with fingers and his pose hides this.
*Auxiliary-weapons-specialist-guy with holstered bolt pistol, bone-handled plague knife, blight grenade being hurled by hair, and pictured with boltgun/plasmagun/no hand, featuring helmet crest spike and gut-plate*
*Three-mouths-no-eyes-champ with combi-plasmagun on sling, frag grenade, and poweraxe/sword/maul featuring extended exhaust vents and cracked gut-plate (mouths from goblin heads)*
Finally, the other two Aspiring Champions. The lighting is different because they weren't photographed with the others yesterday because their arms weren't primed yet, and today it was cloudy, so they only got light from my lamp as opposed to lamp and sunlight like the others.
*Cape-guy with plague knives and pictured with combi-bolter and powerfist / lightning claws / dual-wielding plasmaguns (not allowed in-game), featuring cracked gut-plate with intestines coming out, upward pointing exhaust system with mushroom growing on it, stomach gases routed into neck, and Khorne aligned head from Chaos Space Marines multi-part plastic kit with Khorne emblem shaved off of pendant and Nurgle emblem drilled in*
*Horse-skull-on-pole-guy pictured with combi-plasmagun and plaguekife / combi-bolter and plague knife, featuring entrails spilling out of robe, tubes going from stomach to mouth area, daemon face on pauldron, and Tzeentch aligned head from Chaos Space Marines multi-part plastic kit with mouth replaced with exhaust vent*
Whew!
...that's it for the Plague Marine Units. There's much more to come though, so stay tuned.
(I'll update this post eventually with some group shots of these guys formed up into units)
Rob,
ReplyDeleteGreat conversions and a cool new blog in the blogosphere. I've linked to you from my toy soldier blog (http://toysoldiersforever.blogspot.com).