Help with Arnold Conversion!

[Jaws]

Hello Coolmini forum!

I just decided to make a conversion of action movie hero Arnold \"Ill-be-back\" Schwarznegger for my brothers new catachan Imperial Guard army, for him to use as general or captain or whatever they have as a leader.

Help me put this guy together and surprise my little brother with him. I need ideas for bits and well any other ideas are welcome too!

This is what I have so far (unless someone has a better suggestion):

Torso:
either this or this. Do you guys know if they are bigger or smaller than the new plastic catachans?
I will also remove any chains and miscellaneous gangster attributes and probably make a green stuff tank top for him.

Or if I decide to give him a carapace armour, I might use a modified space marine scout torso + Goliath arms.


Weapon:

This bolter or this stubber here.
Im leaning toward the bolter since it\'s bigger and bulkier, regardless of which one I go with, I\'m adding a pistol grip and a proper rifle stock and postion the weapon and hands/arms so he looks like he is about to fire it from the shoulder like a regular assault rifle.

Legs:
Im thinking either use one from the plastic space marine scout sprue, or if I use the goliath ganger torso maybe Ill leave the legs if they look good enough and maybe just remove any unmilitary looking shin guards/knee pads or I could use a regular plastic catachans legs.


Head:
I\'m stomped, I dont have a clue what to use and I doubt I can make anything that even slightly resembles the man from GS.

Help me out here.

Backpack:
Not sure if I should give him any, maybe something that looks like a buttpack.

I\'m also gonna give him a big knife/small sword like the ones space marine scouts have, and put lots and lots of extra gear like grenades, extra ammo pouches, combat knife, binoculars, side arm in holster and maybe a GS harness that holds everything in place.

I\'ll have to be careful so he won\'t look to cluttered. Or maybe I\'ll make him look way too cluttered for comical effect.


Anyway, please tell me your ideas.
If I get some help here and I\'m not too embarassed by the paint job I might take the mini to a photo place and have them take some nice professional pictures of it (I dont have a camera myself) so I can post them here when its done.

PS. Sorry if this is in the wrong forum, I\'m sure if that\'s the case the mods will move it to the right one!

 

[Yetie]

Dude i like the idea, if i was you i\'d go for minamlistic maybe bullet belts across his chest, grenages around front waist and knife at in the small of his back.
http://uk.games-workshop.com/storefront/store.uk?do=Individual&code=99060202214&orignav=13. I thought the top one for the head, and maybe a sort of shotgun at his side. Hope that helps. Also im sure ive got a head from a chaos plastic spure that would be good as well see if i can find it out and send you a pic

 

[Jaws]

Ok, so where do I get the ammo belt from?

Your link:
Empire Warrior Priest, which part of these should I use? the head of the top one for arnold? I\'m sorry but I dont see the resemblance, but then again I have never seen that mini in real life.

Also, youre talking about the WHFB chaos warrior sprue? Ill check it out!

I just remembered that I could probably use this guys body here:
http://uk.games-workshop.com/storefront/store.uk?do=Individual&code=9947010513311&orignav=10
But I think it would be kind of a cop out.

 

[matty1001]

I thought this was going to be Hey Arnold, i got excited for a bit.

 

[freakinacage]

does it have tp be only gw bits?

 

[Jaws]

No of course not, but it helps if its a mini I can get.

I regularly buy bits from GW which makes getting GW bits easier.

 

[Taarnak]

Good idea!

I did something similar not too long ago for a Kill Team based on the Predator movie.

Here are the pics of what I did:

Finished Model



Shots of the gun conversion(s).

Dutch was made entirely from Catachan plastics and GS (except for the bolter which came from a space marine.)

Hope this helps some.

~E

 

[Yetie]

I was thinking it would quiter easy to sculpt the ammo belts. the emipre priest has just got good facial expresion that would go with the overall impresion, hair would be easy to scuplt on as well simple crew cut style

 

[freakinacage]

hassle free do a nice conan looking figure:



the face is great and the arms come separate so you could prolly use that too

 

[Jaws]

Looks good,I\'ll have to inquir about the availability of hassle free minis.

Originally posted by Yetie
I was thinking it would quiter easy to sculpt the ammo belts. the emipre priest has just got good facial expresion that would go with the overall impresion, hair would be easy to scuplt on as well simple crew cut style

Hair would probably be easy, but ammo belt is probably the hardest thing I can think of. :~(
If theres a way of making them easy, I don\'t know it.

Originally posted by Taarnak
Good idea!

I did something similar not too long ago for a Kill Team based on the Predator movie.

They are nice, I\'d like to see the rest of that team.


BTW I found this head here, what do you guys think?
I\'ll probably have to modify it a little, but still it\'s the closest thing I\'ve found yet.


Also, I have a question, you know the Goliath ganger body I said I would use in the OP? have any of you guys seen it in real life? is it bigger than than the new plastic catachans? cause if it\'s smaller, then its no good.

 

[freakinacage]

sculpting an ammo belt is pretty easy. just roll out a thin sausage of putty (gs/procreate would be best imo) and apply to the miniature. flatten a little to get purchase on the mini surface and to get better shape. then just use a tool (a knife blade would do) to push in regular indents to form the different cartridges/shells. when dry you can then chop the edges off to keep them sharp. then you can add the bullets (unless you want shottie cartridges) using the same method but just pinch off the ends so they look conical (NOT comical!). i hope that makes sense!

 

[Jaws]

It makes sense, but it dosent sound easy, since all the cartridges would have to be the same shape and size more or less.

Besides I checked the imperial guard codex and they\'re charachters arent allowed to take heavy weapons, so the heavy bolter is out.

Instead I decided to go with the heavy stubber:
http://uk.games-workshop.com/storefront/store.uk?do=Individual&code=9947059900508&orignav=300808

He can use it as a \"storm bolter\" rule wise.
So I\'d rather put (sculpt if I have to) a few magazine pouches on him, like this:

So let me know if you know where I can get a few of those in the right size (pretty big).

 

[freakinacage]

personally i would say that the belt would be easier and look better than the pouches. as for the stubbers, i always thought the van saar one looked rather naff

these 2 lok the same to me:

my personal favourite (the new goliath)

 

[Jaws]

Well, maybe I should explain the idea behind this conversion a little.

It\'s supposed to be Arnold, but not the actor, one of his charachters or maybe a mixture of his charachter in predator and \"commando\".

The Van saar heavy stubber is the closest thing to a real world modern gun Ive ever seen in the 40k universe, it reminds me of the Heckler & Koch HK21 (specially this one version I saw on the web a few years ago, it had a 30 round mag and a forward hand guard, it was spot on).

http://www.hkpro.com/HK23E.HTM

Plus I think it looks pretty sweet. :]
The ones you suggested, the top one kinda looks like a WW2 german MG34, the ones under it are all the american M1919 .30 machine gun:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1919

The lowest ones are 100% fictional I think, althought the left one looks like the chaos twin linked autocannon for terminators.

 

[TyphusoftheDH]

HEAD

I can\'t really get you a link that I know of, but I\'m sure Battlewagon Bits can get you a head, from the SM assault sprue, with half the face ripped off, just like in the terminator movie. It needs a nice crew-cut hair-do, though.

 

[Jaws]

Very interesting, I havent ordered any bits yet (no money), so Ill check their site out, thanks.

Is this it?
http://battlewagonbits.zoovy.com/product/48-0927

I can see it has a bionic eye, are you sure half the skin is off?

 

[TyphusoftheDH]

Sorry, that was my fault. This is the one. I found the link, even-


http://battlewagonbits.zoovy.com/product/48-0737

 

[Jaws]

That is friggin beautiful Typhus!

I think this will take the mini to a whole other level, and its much cheaper than the 4 pound Lieutenant I was gonna decapitate for the head!

And the head resembles the guy a lot too, with a little filing and maybe a donated scalp from some plastic head, this is one mini that is gonna look absolutely sick!

Now if I only had the painting skills to match..

 

[Manus]

don\'t know if you found all the pieces yet, but there was a conversion here some time ago or maybe it was in a WD, where the torso was a beastman torso with the hair filed of. Looked really huge and muscular. The chaos marauder sprue also have some cool torsos

 

[thepieman]

There are so many minis that have the arnie look in 40k, so it will be difficult to make him stand out. The best way would be to go for the terminator look. All leather, maybee take half the head off and mould a metal skully bit, shotgun over the shouler. There would be no doubt then who it was. Then i\'d do a base entirely of skulls just like the movie. Or if your not up to moulding heads, a pair of shades would do the trick. If you go for the conan/ comando stuff no one will know unless told. Keep posting