Project: Make a properly scaled Space Marine (in Recon armour) (IMAGE HEAVY)

[Bloodpact]

First off the bat this is a topic which may invite some debate as the concensus on the height of an 'average' space marine varies between 7' and 10' depending on sources.
Several size comparison charts appear online, which give a Marines height at around 8'.



This seems to fit with the general concensus that an unmodified humans eyeline would be roughly sternum or nipple height on a space marine. Several other comparisons seem to agree...





Other pieces however display Marines as a little taller, with a human coming up to bottom of the chestplate or elbow height. It could be said however from these that the human in question is either a female or elderly male and therefore may be inferred to be shorter than average.





So, where does all this leave us? Im compelled to follow the 'nipple height' option. It should be noted that although Games Workshop recognised the scale difference in the Inquisitor range, Captain Artemis is still reasonably short, standing only a head taller than most male Inquisitor figures.

So, now i need to find a model which will give not only appropriate height, but also scale and mass for a Marine out of armour. The figure i have settled on is Scale 75's Fink Draad figure -



However, when he arrived he was a little taller than anticipated, putting him at the extremes of marine height (Angstrom is precisely 54mm to eye height) -



And so here i stand at the start of my journey with him. Current plan is to saw him across the waist and at the tops of his boots and take out a slice from each for an approx 5mm reduction in height for the figure. This should also help widen the figure and give him the 'Ogrish' physical appearance marines are often described as in novels when viewed by human characters.

Thats all for now, but just for a bit of fun, i also found this picture online of a real-life Space Marine walking a dog

[Kaled]

I tend to go with Jes Goodwin who says they should be 7' (with the tallest at about 7' 6") - seeing as he did a lot of the design work I think he's a pretty good authority. I don't know if it's still online, but there used to be a video or audio interview on the GW site where he's laughing with someone about how fans (and Black Library authors) keep exaggerating a marine's height.


(Note that he made a mistake on the diagram with his numbering!)

That model you bought looks like a good starting point - as you say, he is a touch tall but otherwise he's a good base to build on.

[MarcoSkoll]

It should be noted that although Games Workshop recognised the scale difference in the Inquisitor range, Captain Artemis is still reasonably short, standing only a head taller than most male Inquisitor figures.

I'd say that's as it should be, seeing as Jes Goodwin did most of the design of the Space Marines in the first place! I'd trust him over almost any fan interpretation.

His 7' figure (a better picture of the numbering mistake Kaled mentions can be found here) is a reasonably sensible one, although one can expect some variation.
While size gives a strength/toughness advantage, if Astartes are too much bigger than normal humans, they'll find that it confers a major disadvantage in environments sized for normal humans. Hives and spaceship corridors come to mind.

So while I may feel that Artemis wouldn't hurt for an extra millimetre or two at the groin to fix the slightly odd proportions there, he is already close on 70mm to the head if standing straight.

Put him up against a non heroic scaled model, such as my Inquisitor Rhodes (about 5' 2" tall)...


... and he's already tall enough to more or less match the Argal Tal/Cyrene artwork you posted. I haven't read any of the Horus Heresy stuff, so don't know if Cyrene's height is actually stated - but making her even a couple of extra inches shorter than Rhodes wouldn't be particularly unusual for a woman.

With that in mind, I'd consider an at least slightly more aggressive shortening, even if he's meant to be one of the taller Astartes. On which note, simply cutting below the knees may make the proportions of his upper and lower legs look odd, seeing as those knee pads are already sitting low.

[DapperAnarchist]

Cyrene is small - she's barely an adult when the Word Bearers meet her, and remains more or less the same size for the entire book.  Also, the Tau Codex piece has a couple issues - one, the human figure is a hunched old man, and two the perspective is weird - he could be, at standing/full height, up to armpit height on that Imperial Fist (who I always imagined as among the larger Marines, geneseed-wise).

[Necris]

If I recall Jes' space Marie's was used at gw hq on the wall and the numbering thing was to take in account the lift from the floor and the height it would be needed to fit.

[Quickdraw McGraw]

I prefer to believe they're 7-7.5 feet in height.  I've meet some good ol' boys from the country that are pushing 350lbs at 6.5 feet.  They didn't have beer guts, just big from hard work and breaking horses.

The Artemis model is a little disproportionate at the waist too.  I've always added an 1/8 of an inch to balance him out a bit.