On Conversions

So, I did get a request to talk about how I do these.

There are some basic things I do that seem to work. I'll note also that my methods are aimed at folks with a bit of patience, not necessarily a lot of skill or training. I haven't ever worked with Greenstuff, for example (there, I said it!). So a lot of what I do is not designed to deal with big hairy gaps. Enough justification—let's get started.

0. Have an inspiration. Most of these start with a wild hare, so indulge yourself in daydreaming from time to time. "Wouldn't it be cool if… " is a great start for some of these. Pictures, paintings, things from movies, or even other conversions: Headtaker, my Skull Champ conversion is in many ways a blatant plagiarism of my wife's Old One Eye diorama.

1. Work with plastic if you can. A lot of the GW line is out in plastic now, and is quite easy to work with. Metal is much, much harder for this and unless you're lucky enough to be working with vintage lead miniatures, far less forgiving. The other advantage of plastic is that if you're working with, say, a regiment box, you have extras left over in case your first try doesn't go so well!

2. Work with what you have! First, that means check your bit box to see what's there. If you're on prescriptions as I am, you may well have a large supply of old pill bottles, at least until you throw them out. These can work wonderfully for putting old bits in, and can be labeled with a bit of masking tape. A trillion Space Marine Backpacks are much easier to handle this way. If you've been at this any amount of time, you likely have tons of bits, from vehicles, to squad bits, to Fantasy, to old abandoned or "Specialist" games. Have a look at them to see not just what they are, but what they could be. Skaven tails could be Chaos tentacles, for example. Rattan Gobbo shields could be the walls of a makeshift Kroot hunting blind. That sort of thing. Second, that means see what's on the sprue. There are a trillion cool little things on there these days, and many of them lend themselves to inspiration. For example, the little mechanical thingie in the plastic Tau Stealth Suit box: it has no specific function, but it looks like it might represent all kinds of neat stuff. Two of those bits are mounted on the tail section of one of my Piranhas, to serve as the mobile Disruptor Beacon in an Apocalypse Formation.

3. Work with what you don't have! Check around with friends who play and model, and see if they have bits that you can use. If they collect armies that you don't, they almost certainly have things that you'll need or want or enjoy working into a conversion! And sharing your bits can likewise inspire or encourage them to try something new.

4. See what isn't there yet! A famous artist once said he sculpted by getting an image, and then carving away whatever wasn't that image. I'll also say, use that phenomenal power of human pattern recognition to see what fits into the image you have. My wife acquired a carnifex that had been assembled well, if imperfectly: one foot was slightly off the ground at an angle (from having been assembled as a body before affixing anything to the base—it happens). As it happened, it was the forward foot, and my wife is a Dallas Cowboys fan—and what fit into the picture was an old Blood Bowl plastic football. Goofy, yes, but fun, and the principle is important: what goes into this picture?

5. Build from what doesn't work to what does! At the last Ironbuilder, I was building a box of Cadian Shocktroopers, and wanting to convert at least one (because I wanted to earn some of that sweet, sweet prize support). So one of the troopers got the Vox Caster. I thought it might be fun to have some nasty critter sneaking past him, since he had the phone, as there was some fun irony in having the one guy with the capacity to report unusual activity be the one guy who didn't see it. My wife was building a box of Guants (Point 3, for those playing along at home), so I asked if I could borrow a Ripper, since they're small enough to fit onto a 25mm base with an infantry sized mini. But I had been lazy and put VoxCasterGuy too far back on the base, and the Ripper was sneaking sideways, and it just didn't have any oomph to it.

What to do? It would take longer than I wanted to spend to go do another VoxCasterGuy further forward, so I looked at the sprue again. Hey… there was a head for a sergeant! And unlike the other heads, he was unhelmeted, and his face had a bit more expression. It might be anger, might be consternation, or even surprise! Maybe surprise at something jumping at him? After all, the Ripper is springing off its tail. But if it was springing at him, then shouldn't he be reacting? (let's call this subpoint 5a: let the inspiration develop under its own logic) I went back to the sprue with the legs on it. Cool! Some of the legs had a walking pose, rather than standing. That meant there were feet that were not parallel to the waistline, and I could glue down the rear foot instead of the forward one, and have the beginnings of a model that was leaning, or maybe flinching, backward (and this is subpoint 5b: conversions that are dynamic are preferable, in my book, to ones that are static). The torso went on easily, and the arms were next.

Since it was a sergeant, I had the option to use the laspistol and chainsword so I could use him as a WYSIWYG model. That was cool, because it gave me more options for posing the arms, rather than the rather static two armed lasgun pose. The laspistol arm went "up," to convey the reflexive flinching. The sword arm came down a bit, to convey an attempt at blocking the attack. With more time, I'd have even snipped the hand at the wrist and glued it back on after rotating the sword slightly, to bring the blade more across the body. Now, the head. I fiddled with this just a tad, because I wanted him surprised, not screaming like a little schoolgirl (because this was an IG model, not a Tyranid one—if it were part of a Ripper Swarm conversion, then yeah, totally, Screaming Sergeant Sally all the way). That meant rotating the head as far downward as I could, to get him looking at the creature.

Looking at the sprue one last time, I noticed a very useful bit—an empty helmet. Lots of folks have complained about the dumbth of a character not wearing one, and yes, we recognize that going helmetless is mostly an excuse to have a face to paint on army characters. But that empty helmet gave me a bit more "story" for my mini. If the helmet was on the ground, then maybe the Ripper might have been hiding under it, and jumping out when he went to pick it back up? Note: the empty helmet bit made this easier, but it could have as easily been done with a spare helmeted head. It just would have taken a little more time, and some more work with exacto, saw, and/or Dremel to get the same effect.

Test fitting the helmet over the Ripper, I could see that it wasn't going to fit quite right as is, which brings us to point 6...

6. Get rid of what you don't need! I didn't need the whole tail section of the Ripper. I really only needed enough to glue down, and the helmet was going to do the work of covering up any mutilation of the tail section anyway! So, out came the exacto, and we got rid of all the bits that made the helmet sit funny, until it could rest on the ground in a mostly flat position, maybe tilting back just enough to show some motion, where Sarge had reached down to pick it up, and the Ripper had sprung at him, and that action had knocked it back a bit (remember, internal logic, and dynamic over static). This was almost done.

7. Listen to criticism and see if it helps you! I showed the piece to my wife as the Ripper's glue was beginning to set. She asked, "Are you sure that's where you want the Ripper?" Looking at it again, I realized, oh, yeah, Mr. Rippy has his head right in Sarge's crotch, with his little Rippy tongue out. Maybe not so great! I rotated him about 45 degrees, and now he was lunging, there was a little more room in the pose, and (happy accident!) now Sarge's eyes were right on the Ripper. All that was left was to put canteen and such on Sarge's waist.

8. When you're done, STOP! I was lucky, in that I had a time limit in the Ironbuilder, but the principle still holds. You don't have to go completely overboard with everything to have a good conversion. Sometimes, subtle works well. At the first Ironbulder, that meant having a Skull Champion that I wanted to see outfitted with grenades. Snipping the ring carefully, I realized that the ring would fit perfectly around one of the fangs of the exposed-face head. The sculpt would do 90% of my work for me! Sometimes, you do want to go all out—Headtaker is such an example. I wanted him over the top! Even then, knowing when to stop throwing additional bits on him was important.

So, that's what I've got so far. I guess if there's things you want me to say more about, ask in the comments, and I'll either edit more in or write another post on it. I'll just close by saying, give it a try, have fun with it, and see what you can come up with!

Thanks for asking, and thanks for reading!