Sanguinary Guard - Part I

 

Black background wasn't the best choice.

Starting to put some sculpting lessons to good use with the parts received from the Crimson Lords campaign. I can still spot defects and layer lines, but the ordered parts are basically "good enough" and imperfections aren't noticeable from a distance.

The new Sanguinary Guard are, obviously, not the designs people were hoping for. The terrible helmets could've been forgiven and replaced with something else, but the lack of adornment and the lack of wings makes them simply not Sanguinary Guard. The excuse of "oh well, they're new to the post and armour hasn't been adapted" is disingenuous considering Mephiston, Dante, Astorath, and even a generic Captain all had their armour adapted. So it was that the Crimson Lords campaign became somewhat popular.

In the model shown I wanted to try and use the full front torso of older and smaller scale models. I needed to pick a model where the abdominal plate wasn't naturally too far tilted compared to the chest because I couldn't adjust that piece. Given what I know now, then a very (very) thin sheet of putty and sculpted impressions might be able to resolve that. I may just try that on one of the others.

The model torso needed to be clipped out and a good deal carved away behind the belt for the new torso to relatively fit. I didn't want there to be a lack of bulk so needed to pad out behind the torso rather than fit it directly flush. This was a lot more effort than it sounds. Green-stuff was used to fill initial gaps and give more surface for later Milliput layers to adhere to. There was quite a gap between the back and front of the torso and this needed to be filled, and the sides bulked out to fit properly. I'm not entirely happy with the end result, but it's good enough to stand up to a cursory inspection. The arm attachment points also needed to be filled out some more, and it's here that I was impatient slightly. This particular Milliput can be soft and difficult to file, especially if not cured for at least 24 hours. A sharp blade trimmed excess just fine, but I'll need to keep this in mind for future work.

The left arm is from the Crimson Lords pack, but the fist from the bits box of spare Intercessor arms. The right arm is the original with the shoulder pad removed and the hand replaced with a hand and sword from the 3D printed parts. The shoulder pads I'm still choosing, but I'll need to paint them separate so that the wings don't get in the way when painting. I actually learned more of how to use my own custom tools when fix the gun holster, which I now imagine to contain spare ammunition for the wrist mounted weapon. Leaving Milliput in the freezer overnight allows it to still be malleable, but with just enough resistance to allow for impressions to be made without tearing at it.

The helmet and wings are, of course, from the Crimson Lords pack. The wings interested me the most: everything else I could have work around, but those wings make it all worthwhile. I may have rushed to assemble and prime the model, but I wanted to know how it would all come together so that the next two are better informed. I did try to created moulds of the Blood Angels chapter badge, and then use thin pressings of Milliput to place them on the legs, but that didn't really work and I scraped it off. My sculpting isn't sufficient yet to tackle that, but perhaps in future I could put down a decal as a guide and slowly sculpt on top of it. I have ideas on how to experiment with that, namely using normal troop shoulder pads to sculpt a blood drop onto: simple, and might give better results than the mess I sometimes make of the decals. In the meantime, the legs and knee pads will probably just get freehand painting to mimic the style of the old Sanguinary Guard.

I'm pleased with the overall look. I think I would still have preferred a single main booster jump pack, but this is acceptable. A worthy successor to the older sculpts, and enough to keep me interested in painting for now.

-- silly painter.