Just starting out in Inquisitor

[renegade thor]

Hello all, im new to inquisitor and have started to plan a war band to start off with.The problems that i have come to is the Inquisitor ........
I want to build a female inquisitor  but struggling to find miniatures to start from. my conversions are reasonable so will want to tinker around  and add bits swap bits ect but there seems to be few female models in gw range. i have opt for 28mm rather than 54mm for now as i have a large imperial guard army so bits box is well stocked. any help ideas and advice be really helpfull

[Koval]

WELCOME TO THE CONCLAVE

Yes, there are very few female models/characters in the GW range compared with male ones, but there are enough available to create a variety of different characters and character types quite easily. What kind of character is your Inquisitor? A bombastic zealot? A driven radical? A decisive no-nonsense puritan? Something else entirely?

[MarcoSkoll]

Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of GW females, and of those there are, many aren't brilliant.

The clear-out of the old metal ranges earlier this year hit a lot of what there was - pretty much anything there was in the Specialist Games ranges (such as the Escher and Sisters of Sigmar) suffered, but many of the Daemonhunter/Witchhunter models also went walkies at the same time.

Of course, a lot of those are still available through eBay or similar, if at a bit of a premium.

A lot of the examples I can still recall are in the Fantasy ranges - there's:
- a remaining Bretonnian Sorceress
- Isabella von Carstein
- some Dark Elf Sorceresses, if you're handy enough to add clothing to them (they're a bit starkers for an Inquisitrix)
- the Vampire maidens from the Coven Throne, although this takes trawling bitz sites or doing a trade with someone that doesn't need them.
- similarly, the the Hag Queen from the new Cauldron of Blood is pretty good, if you could get her.
- The truly conversion mad might be able to do something with Valkia the Bloody.
- Possibly Alarielle the Radiant or the Handmaiden, although I personally don't think much of the latter... and they'd probably both need new heads to get rid of those helmets, and the scaling might be interesting on finding a replacement.

I'm not going to recommend the new Witch Elves - they're not appropriately dressed or posed. And while the heads aren't too bad, they're exorbitantly expensive for just that. Actually, scratch that - they're just exorbitantly expensive.
Similarly, no recommendation of the Sisters of Avelorn - they suffer from trying to be a combined male/female kit, which means they're too broad in the shoulder and, combined with quite poor face sculpts, they look more like drag queens.

The Dark Eldar range offers a bit too - the Succubus and Lhamaean could make something with a little work.

The heads in the Wych kit are quite popular too. And some people quite like working with the female pieces from this kit (and the Kabalite kit) - although, I personally find them to suffer a bit from the same broad shoulder syndrome as earlier mentioned. But all credit to Jes Goodwin, they do look better than the Avelorn models.

There are perhaps a couple of things for the particularly conversion mad... the Death Cult Assassins can do something with work. Unfortunately though, Alex Hedstrom's more slender proportions here means that they're pretty much incompatible with the rest of the range, particularly any heads. (But other companies do things that would fit).

I'll assume you've noticed the Sisters of Battle (or as it's now called "Adepta Sororitas") range. But for something not in full power armour (not generally great for being slightly subtle when on an investigation), the Hospitaller is perhaps most worthy of note here.

~~~~~

Of course, if you're completely insane and a bit magnificent, it is possible to convert from male miniatures. It's a bit of a party trick of mine - this was when I made an Arbitratrix from an old metal SM scout.

Certain models are definitely better for this than others though.

[Cortez]

For good Inquisitrix models you might want to have a look at some of the models produced by other manufacturers.

The plastic Kommander Sorscha from Privater Press' Khador range has potential and fits in ok scale wise, although you'll probably want to change the headgear.

Some of the mercenary solo's have potential too such as Madelyn Corbeau or Anastasia di Bray.

You may also want to have a look at the Malifaux range from Wyrd miniatures. Sonia Criid looks like she could provide a good base for a radical Inquisitrix although I don't know how well she scales with GW mini's.

[MarcoSkoll]

Sonia Criid looks like she could provide a good base for a radical Inquisitrix although I don't know how well she scales with GW mini's.

A little tall, although not unusably so, but importantly quite differently proportioned*:



The Malifaux range is described as 32mm - but that's actually more like 35mm tall, because of the arse-backwards convention of measuring miniatures to the eye (complicated by the fact some manufacturers do not use the the convention).

*That is to say, while similarly sized, any GW heads, hands, weapons, etc will likely be too big for her. Ye be warned.

[Keravin]

Kommander Sorscha does work well.   I found mixing parts with her meant the aesthetic worked better for 40k.    Daemonettes are convertable, provided of course that you do something about the breast issue.

Other than that I do think the Dark Eldar plastic range can work well, providing a good base to work from.

[renegade thor]

Thanks for the feed back, and thanks for the welcome. sorry to have taken so long to reply but work and family loss really through spanner in the works...
I was thinking that my inquisitor would be from the Ordo Malleus, I like the thought of a Radical , probably an anthites ... I can see good story lines from there . I  have looked at miniatures from other producers and have found the difference in size a bit of a problem. I had started to build her based on the female commissar from raging hero range, as one of u pointed out it 28mm to the eyes and the fact they are in commissar hats and heals made here bigger than a space marine.....

[renegade thor]

Just looking through the comments left and got to say Marko skoll, that the converted scout is amazing. that is giving me the idea I just not sure how well ill manage it.

[MarcoSkoll]

Well, due warning if you're interested in that - it's one of the tougher conversions I've pulled off. In its full glory, it's a process of narrowing the torso* and arms as well as, of course, a head swap:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5**, 6, 7, 8 & 9

*Contrary to common misconception, the trick to getting a model to look feminine is almost entirely in the relative shape of the shoulders, ribcage, waist and hips. Breasts have very little to do with it - a good female miniature will look feminine even if flat-chested, but a bad one will look masculine even if it's got cleavage from here to Turkmenistan.
Strictly the trick is the child-bearing hips but (with the right model) the chunky nature of GW's heroic scale means that you can achieve this pretty well with mostly only changes to the upper body.

** I eventually replaced this first head, as I didn't feel it was up to scratch.

Obviously, there are two easy ways to simplify the process.
1) Don't sculpt your own head. There are a few female heads within the GW range (see notes in the above posts) but there are 3rd party head packs too. I can't suggest any though, as I sculpted the head mostly I didn't have to go on a hunt for any.
2) Don't use a metal model unless, like me, you actually like working with them.

[DapperAnarchist]

If your character is wearing rigid armour, especially powered armour, they may not have any visible "feminine" features. Boobplate isn't quite as absurd as sometimes claimed, but if you're wearing something that's nearly a walking light tank, you are not really going to have to show anatomical features very much. The only anatomical features on Marine plate are the decorative chests on some Blood Angels, and those are not supposed to be reflective of what is underneath, but more like the decoration of Roman armour. While Marine plate is very big, very tough, semi-powered carapace would still not reflect that much of the underlying body. Check out Ultimate Black Widow's Irontech armour, at least in some shots there's not much "chest" to the chestplate, nor is it over all that much slimmer than some of Tony's armours.

[Editted] - At least, that's my excuse for my "entirely clad in powered carapace" renegade female Inquisitor...

[MarcoSkoll]

If your character is wearing rigid armour, especially powered armour, they may not have any visible "feminine" features.

The androgyny of armour is a common statement to come up in forum threads about guardswomen miniatures and the like.

It's not entirely untrue (although it's easier to tell the difference than some would like to claim) but it overlooks two issues:
1) artistic licence.
2) heroic proportion.

On point #1, we are already using artistic licence to make miniatures more functional as a gaming piece.
In truth, Imperial Guardsman should probably be buried mostly under webbing, Space Marines should carry dozens of pouches for spare ammunition... however, we remove a lot of this for a less cluttered look and to emphasise important WYSIWYG elements.
If I want a female character, it's not much to ask that other people around the table can see that in the same way as they can see her weapon loadout.
(And even then, I've had some fairly feminine models that I've actually had to keep correcting pronouns for*).

Point #2 - well, I tend to describe heroic proportion as "hyper masculine"; it's all thick arms, chunky torsos and solid thighs. Now, you can make feminine heroic proportion miniatures**, but a male heroic miniature is almost invariably too masculine to be very believably a female in that armour - without work, at least.

*As a general rule, if you're referring to one of my characters, you're far more likely to be right if you say "she" rather than "he".
If our RP group had our own version of "Things Mr Welch is no longer allowed to do in an RPG", I think one of those rules would forbid me from playing male characters. Which will be interesting we ever start a Deathwatch game.

**Although some GW sculptors actually choose not to, so you get things like this. (Apologies, I have still yet to paint Reaver properly).
The female miniatures here are not the same heroic proportion as the men. They're actually far closer to realistic human proportion, because that way they don't end up looking like steroid munching thugs.

[Cortez]

Games Workshops scale is actually quite small. A lot of their figures are only 26mm to the eyes while others are taller at the correct height of 28mm. Here's a size comparison photo of a few models (Ignore the odd mix of Dragon Princes and Warjacks in the background).



The Orlock, Guardsman and Goliath are all 26mm, whilst the Escher gangleader and Lahmian Vampire are 28mm. The 5th model is Privateer Press' Sorsha. She's 30mm but is wearing high heels (like you do when going into combat  ). She's also on a slightly thicker base than the GW models.

Incidentally 40k Space Marines are ridiculously short. After taking this photo I measured up some of my Space Wolves and they're the same height as the three male models (this is true for both old 2nd edition metals and more recent plastics).

[Necris]

Yes but according to my local store manger it's because guardsmen are standing up straight where as marines are bent kneed

And that is why he does not allow true scaled marines to be played in his shop! Despite the fact that straightened out they are still only marginally taller than a guardsman ( by my guess if a guardsman on average 6 foot tall a straightened marine is 6" 5/6 at best with a guardsman looking at the marines chin)

[Aurelius]

Yes but according to my local store manger it's because guardsmen are standing up straight where as marines are bent kneed

And that is why he does not allow true scaled marines to be played in his shop! Despite the fact that straightened out they are still only marginally taller than a guardsman ( by my guess if a guardsman on average 6 foot tall a straightened marine is 6" 5/6 at best with a guardsman looking at the marines chin)

He seriously doesn't allow 'true scaled' marines?! That would be everything wrong with modern day GW in a sentence!

[renegade thor]

whilst searching for the main model for the inquisitor I have found the war band seems to be just growing as ideas and models keep jumping out for me. it seems that im working backwards. also I find the back grounds for the henchmen and the like easy to think of from the look of the conversions but the main inquisitor im still struggling...