Truescale Termintors

In creating my new army, I have undertaken to make sure that each of my regular marines (perhaps with the exception of the scouts, since I'll have them in kneeling positions) are converted such that they are trusecale. I've wrote a couple of articles about how to achieve this end, including the conversion of terminator legs to create my custom version of Armillus Dynat, as well as regular space marine leg conversions. 

Such conversions raises problems for terminator scale models.

Not only will they seem too small, but its not really apparent how to solve the issue of making terminators truescale. Perhaps the first issue is that a number of other convertors have expanded the chest and torso of regular marines when they create truescale miniature conversions. Clearly, I've not bothered with this step for my miniatures. I think this is fine as it makes the marines look the correct height, and I'm not truly so fussed that their torsos are not Hulk like scales. But for terminators, they certainly need to look much more imposing than regular space marines.

My solution is therefore to increase the height of the terminators, without bothering bulking (or Hulking!) them up in the torso regime - which for resin based miniatures is very tough work. 

The ways I considered achieving the extra height included (i) slicing the thighs and using a pin to increase the height there; (ii) slicing the shins / lower legs and using pins there to increase the height; (iii) slicing at the ankles and increasing the height there; (iv) raising the torso significantly above the top of the legs when combining the two parts together.

In all of the slicing cases, it involves cutting through resin (which is tougher than plastics in some regards), and then the subsequent application of greenstuff to fill in the holes. For regular marines that I slice through the thighs (or near the hips), this is not an issue: the legs are circular and can readily be greenstuff'ed in with convincing effect. But for terminators, the greenstuff'ing stage would be much more hard since the legs of the terminators are not completely round in appearance. On this basis, I went for the fourth option in the end: creating an extra space between the torso and the legs. 

The image below shows the final model for the squad sergeant with the thunder hammer using this method, coupled with a bit of a dynamic pose due to a waist twist.

If you look closely around the waist, you'll see how much extra height can be gained with this method, without having to resort to tricky slice-and-greenstuff conversion work. For Tartaros terminators, the waist actually has an extra piece that is ordinarily hidden by the torso (which almost comes down to the belt when glued as it was intended). All I've done here is added a generous lump of greenstuff between the legs and torso to achieve this, plus a bit of superglue. A very minor amount of sculpting later, and the look is achieved. 

I've finished this particular miniature by drilling out the bolter muzzles, as well as adding some pouches to his left leg. I like the overall look of this guy, and he's certainly now got the correct height in comparison to the truescale marines I have (I'll post a height comparison photo at a later date). Time to rinse and repeat this method on the other Tartaros terminators I have.