Blood Angel Terminator: WIP

Phase One: Assembly

I'm thinking the tough part of my Jawaballs Termie contest entry may be over? I had taken my "vision", for lack of a better term, and pieced it together today. The overall figure includes parts from three generations of Terminator models, and some newer marine purity seals. He actually turned out pretty well, I like the look quite a bit. I'm not the best painter in the world, but doing a mega conversion with an ancient fig's been quite cool.


Side Views


Rear

Taking a queue from my Assault Terminators, I added an "empty" helmet onto the belt. I like doing this, imagining the trooper hurriedly putting on his helmet right before wading into a firestorm. I mis-drilled a couple of foot peg holes by accident; I'll either fill these in before basing, or maybe have some Genestealer limbs sticking out of them.


Closeup Profile

It was very tricky to shoehorn the bare marine head into the 'hole' where the old helmet used to reside. I had to hack away much more of the head piece that I thought, leaving with just barely a face at all. Once set, it definitely gives the impression of being swallowed up by massive Terminator armor, which is what I was shooting for.


Completed Mock-Up Before Shaping the Head

After I had all of my pieces cut and ready, I laid them all out to kind of see how they'd look. In a sense, the figure kind of has two waistlines (or belts), once painted I don't think this will be too noticeable, and besides, it bulks him out and gives more height.


Parts trimmed and ready for glue

Here you can see the head after its been chopped down...a lot. Also, you can see how I snipped most, but not all, of the slottabase to give me some footpegs. I flattened the back of the spare helmet so it would sit flush on the rear belt, and the Storm Bolter's barrels have yet to be drilled out (always drill those barrels!). Here's a great pic of the original model I worked with, as you can see, a LOT of material had to be removed where the helmet used to be in order to make room for a bare head, and even then it was cutting it close.


All the Parts Gathered

The lower legs I used were from a free plastic Terminator that came with an issue of White Dwarf a very long time ago, at least ten years back. It was when plastic termies were starting to make the scene and they did much less than impress anyone. Using these though worked out well because the waistline is much broader than the current plastic (though much less detailed). This made the top and bottom torsos line up rather well, and since the top is skimpy on detail, the not-quite-overly detailed lower fits its aesthetics.


Disclaimer: Wear Goggles!

Most of the hack and slashing I did were courtesy of my Dremel. I was able to slice right through the newer limbs at an angle, and cleanly. The lower torso was cut away in quick order as well. The biggest help came when I head to hollow out the main helmet cavity. Wear your goggles, because as I went to doing surgery, little pieces of sharp, molten plastic were flying off the model and hitting me in the face and arms. Did I mention "molten"?


A by-product of all the conversion work is this pair of termie legs. I'm not shy on objective markers, but painted up as bloody stumps, these could work fairly well!


Here's a 'before and after' shot; before pic courtesy of the Vanus Temple