I don’t have much love for the way the Imperial Guard were developed with regard to the Cadian uniform. The “look a bit like they were 2000AD” inspired Guard are more for my taste. I don’t mind the other regiments at all such as Tallarns or Mordians and so on I just feel that the Cadians should have been very much like the following John Blanche picture and not the kind of contempoary soldiers inspired design they went for. But whatever, I am lucky enough to have loads of the old models to work with in monte figero for this project.
🙂
Inspiration for this project is really stuff like….
And…..
Also….
Bit more work done on the Imperial Guard skirmish level force this weekend. Painted up the Ogryn test piece I made ages ago using Ork Nob arms, the HeroQuest ogre model and some plasticard. If I do another one of these guys I will go for more green stuff to build up the armour to match in closer to the guardsmen, perhaps even sculpt goggles and a helmet. The feet would be made into plasteel capped boots. I like the idea of the ogryns having a bigger version of the force uniform which is something positive which the current version of the Ogryn models have going for them.
The Guardsmen are getting there…slowly. Trick is in figuring out how to paint them quickly and keep the feel of the more completed test models.
WIP Squad
Close Up. Flat colours with floor wax based magic wash of black ink/devlan mud. One level of highlights on the skin parts though. These guys will be painted with a single highlight over a magic wash to get them done quickly. I can always go back over them later for fine highlights.
TheOttoVonBismark 
There is no denying the RT-ness of these guys, straight from 1989 🙂
Its good to be getting these guys churned out, they have been waiting in the winds for ages.
The WIP troopers look a bit green around the gills, but thats a colour cast from the photo I guess, right? Presumably they will end up with a slightly healthier pallor in the end.
I like the idea of armour on the ogryn tying in with the guard, but the plates on the guy shown look a little too plain to me. The addition of the little border visible on the breast armour of the troopers, plus the big circular unit marking plate would improve the look a lot I reckon. Shoes would help too, as you mentioned.
When I used one of those ogres (traded with you a long time ago) to make a very large ork I considered changing the feet to shoes somehow, but didnt bother in the end:
http://sho3box.wordpress.com/2011/05/16/da-bigdogz-gorkamorka-mob-2/
The barefoot look is ok on “Frankenork” but I think that I would rather that he had shoes all the same. That goes double for an ogre in the service of the Emperor I reckon.
The plastic Cadians were a missed opportunity, they are horrible figures. I was leafing through Codex: Armageddon a few months back and I was struck by how nice the metal Cadians were. The current plastic guys look even more dire in comparison.
Its good to see that productivity is still high, keep it up 🙂
Actually the deathly palour of some of these guys is quite on purpose. I plan to vary the skin tones a fair bit and the ghoulish grey ones were representative of humans from worlds where they did not get to see the light of day and so on. They are gonna be pale chaps one way or the other, perhaps not quite as ghoulish as the ones here….perhaps.
Regarding the armour on the Ogre, definately. I thought the easiest thing would be to add some rivets but matching them in with the outlined plates of the guardsmen is probably more appropriate along with adding a big button with the platoon designation badge.
This guy was more about seeing if I wanted to invest more time in converting the HeroQuest guys and it turns out I do.
I wonder if he will end up toe-to-toe with Frankenork at some stage? He definately needs a name before that happens 😉
Funnily enough I was leafing throug Codex: Armageddon myself in the last week!
“Fecking 40pts for a Farseer!!!! wtf kind of rules writing is that…and why is he tougher than a Warboss exactly, it’s basically a unit of Gandalf’s made of diamond…and why are 13th company Wulfen so fecking lame then? ”
Well that tends to summarise my re-reading of old rule books in general these days. But I do agree that the older Cadian models look better. I always liked that unit of black uniformed (with red trim) traitors from Cadia with the red eyes, very characterful I thought.
So I need to finish these guys and get the lieutenant painted up with a couple of attendants. Probably a veteran sarge, grenade launcher, commissar, radio man medic and standard bearer to complete the set. That should be enough for now anyway, although looking at the cover of White Dwarf 149 I think I have a good idea of the next squad to work on, hardened vets that look as much like that picture as my skillz and patience can accomplish.
Definitely with you on the old school imperial guard! I got the command group when I was about 13 or something and they are still some of my all time favorite miniatures. I lost a lot of my passion for the imperial guard when they shelved these guys. One of the coolest dioramas I ever saw was from a golden demon issue of white dwarf from the early 90’s (can’t remember which one exactly) where some dude built an apocalypse now style river patrol boat and manned it with old school imperial guard (Guess they were current school at the time though). Still have fond memories of that. Good luck with the rest of the project. May Commissar Yarrick smile on you.
Cheers Chris! I have most of the command group minis which I intend to paint up in the near future for this project. I seem to be seeing a lot of Mark Copplestone figures these days funnily enough. I also have some of his Future Wars series which I will try to add to the project at some stage.
The Apocalypse Now riverboat diorama rings a bell with me, I am sure I saw it at some stage but I can’t remember the details now. If you find a picture of it send me a link, I would love to see it again. Pity that those old White Dwarfs are not archived somewhere on the web – or perhaps they are and we have not found them?
As for Yarrick, the Ork in me would rather not have old Bale Eye Yarrick smiling at me as it probably means he is about ter blow an ‘ole in me ‘ed.
🙂
Awesome, looking forward to seeing you revive more of these classic minis as well as seeing more of the project unfold.
If I come across the image of the Apocalypse now river diorama I’ll make sure I get a copy to you.
on another note has your inner Ork considered constructing a unit of boyz kitted out with plundered and “renovated” old school imperial guard uniforms and equipment?
Happy Modeling.
Thanks for the support Anonymous! I hadn’t thought to do a retro Ork with old RT era guardsman’s kit at all actually. I might do one of them up at a later stage it would make for an interesting project all right. There is some precedent for it in the fluff for the Blood Axes after all. He would have to be armed with a big noisy gun though, I can’t really envision any ork being happy with a laser weapon unless it made big noisy holes in things….so plasma gun perhaps. I would probably base if off a newer plastic ork in any case.
This is one for after the guardsmen get finished for sure.
😉
Nice work on these old-school guys. I’m definitely keen to see more of them as the project develops. I had a whole lot of them myself back in the day, with a contingent of squats. Alas I sold them to buy my first computer. (an Amiga). I’m not sure if I regret it, in context, but I wish I could get those suckers back.
The medic (in your other post) also looks great. It never occurred to me back in the day to give them a white carapace, but it’s come off really nicely.
The Amiga was a pretty cool rig back in the day so I think it was worth having one for sure.
Thanks for the feedback on the Medic, I was not at all sure how he was going to look but you never know unless you do it in the first place I guess.
I am working on some Epic 40k Heresy Death Guard at the moment as a high output project as the Imperial Guard are fairly intensive for low model output, pics to follow soon.