[mcjomar]

Well, given the name, one would presume they are violet, rather than blue, unless we define violet as being a specific shade of blue?
Regardless, I'm sure you can guess where this is going.
I figured I'd get a start on my metal marines, and have hacked up as many as possible so I don't hack off my sister in law from all the noise of hacking things up.
So I'm starting here.
I've not pinned those boots to the base yet, he's just balanced right now while the left hip pin dries in place. I'll pin the bootheels in later.
This time I took the additional suggestion of carving off the kneepads as well as everything else, and that seems to have done the trick in regards improving the posture.




I'm going to old-school with the chest plate and replace the skull with the 2nd edition gem instead, even though in this case it will be hidden by his gun.

[mcjomar]

Not bad so far, although because the legs are standing up more, it makes it a little more difficult to get the soft flexijoint looking good.
It ends up either looking too bulgy, too thin, not thick enough, or too busy. I settled for "slightly too bulgy" as a reasonably acceptable look for the knee joins because everything else looked worse.

I'm reasonably happy with the hips and the foot though, and I've made a small start on the left arm.
I'm debating whether or not i'll try to shave down the left arm to look like the right, or leave it as is as maybe the armour is a little mix'n'match.
I'm pretty sure I'll replace the skull on the chest with the gem like I suggested though.
I think I prefer that look.

Next step, once the left arm looks reasonable for now, I'll position and pin the right arm and use GS to rebuild the bits where I cut things off, like cables and wrist computers.

[Lord Borak]

Off to a good start mate. The joints look ok to me. I'd perhaps give the links a bit more definition but that's just me. The base is cool, where did you get that from?

[mcjomar]

I just searched for 60mm bases on ebay and found a bunch. This is one of the best ones.

[mcjomar]

so I need to GS fill the left hand and sculpt the fingers/thumb.
I also need to consider working some GS round the join between the two parts of the gun.
I'm going to have to get a file onto the right gauntlet so that I can get it correctly shaped and looking tidier.
Not quite sure what to do with that left gauntlet still.
I might attack it with a file, I'm not sure.
Oh and I need to GS the right elbow joint.

Otherwise, he's sort of close.

[TheClassyGamer]

I love seeing conversions of this figure.  I so want to do some someday once I get a chance to get back into the hobby.

[mcjomar]

This was done a while ago, but I only just got around to taking photos.
I just need to sort out the left arm, and turn the chest skull into a 2nd ed chest gem, and he'll be about done I think, once I've filed the head a little.

[Lord Borak]

Oh wow, that pose is AWESOME. Great conversion man. Is that the Dreadnought Plasma Cannon?

[mcjomar]

Specifically it's the Venerable Dreadnought plasmacannon, yes.
Mated it with the Artemis Bolter on the back end.
Due to the position and necessity of resculpting the Artemis left hand with fingers and thumb, I had to alter the position of the plasma canister as well. It looks reasonable though, so I'm good with it for now.

[mcjomar]

Okay so I'm looking at this guy, and I'm no longer quite so wild about the pose.
It looks like he's firing over a parapet, which is cool, but I almost want to drop the arms down to the standard marine hipfiring pose.
On the other hand, it's already done, pinned, and does look cool as it is already, and would swallow up extra time and effort.
Currently, I just need to decide if I'm going to leave a skull on his chest, or GS it into a gem, and also fill in the hand with some GS also, and he'll be ready for priming, whereas if I reposition the arms, I'll have to do all sorts of shenanigans, and possibly ruin it.
Thoughts?

[realitybytes16]

It's been a while and you may have already made a decision, but honestly I think he looks fine. It's a cool pose and you don't really sound all too thrilled at the prospect of more work ultimately the choice rests with you, but if it was me I'd just roll with it - it doesn't look bad and this way you can get on with other builds .

[mcjomar]

Yeah, overall I think you're right.
All that needs doing currently is a little bit of GS work to tidy it up, and then a lick of paint.

Besides, there's 4 more marines to do in this squad, and then I've got a few more marines to work on.

[RobSkib]

Holy smokes that's a lot of marines! The blaster is cool although it looks a little squashed, I think that's just the upscaling of the dreadnought weapon though, not much you can do about it. What are you planning on doing with the others? I'm still waiting to see my first 54mm Primaris grace these hallowed walls... 

[mcjomar]

When I get around to it;

Antoninius - bolter marine, I'll try to get him in the standard hipfire, rockstar stance pose from classic Marine artwork - he's a marksman bolter specialist.

Julius - Sergeant, will have bolter in one hand, and the other I'll try to fabricate something - I'm thinking I'd like a Marine-scale auspex. I've got a good base, so I'll try for a more interesting pose, rather than the A-line that Novarius (my plasma marine under discussion) and Antoninius (my other metal marine for this squad) will have.

Scarus - bolter marine, but more around combat and grenades, so either a knife in his off-hand, or a grenade. I've forgotten which base I picked for him, so not sure on pose yet - I may try to imitate Gav's Alpha Legionnaire to an extent here though?

Cassius - bolter marine, but also the squad medic (sort of). I'm half-tempted to have him kneeling, to see how it looks for a marine to do that at this scale. No idea yet though.

After that, all the other marines will be from other chapters so they'll probably get a different thread as they won't be part of this squad.
I've actually got enough marines that - outside of this squad - I'm not sure how many I've actually got now! I'm hoping I've got at least 3 more though (not counting one I've purposely set aside for a second Cypher model to imitate the new version), as I'd ideally like an Imperial Fist, Crimson Fist, and one other - I'm hemming and hawing between a Blood Raven, Raven Guard, Salamander, or Lamenter, and honestly if I had enough marines to do one each of those as well as the ones I've already done, then that would be brilliant. On the other hand, I only have so much space to store all this stuff, and I really need to clamp down on this sort of thing, otherwise I'll end up with a 4th maplin case of Inquisitor models.

[mcjomar]

I've done a little bit of painting - it still needs more work.