When the new became old

Who could have imagined that there would be a day when making realscale Space Marines would be considered oldschool? Ha! But here I am, for the day has arrived!

With the new Primaris Space Marines out there in the market it would be rather silly converting old pieces to make realscale marines out of them... And that is exactly what I'm up to :D

Well, first of all, a little catch up, just in case you don't know what the hell I am talking about. In the early times of Rogue Trader, Space Marines were regular troopers, just with elite gear and training (oversimplified explanation). But with the upcoming of 2nd Edition, their background changed enormously and they became more powerful, genetically enhanced monk warriors, giants among regular men, blah blah (kind of oversimplified again).

Unfortunately, the rules never changed accordingly and, while they became true elite among the armies of the Warhammer 40,000 universe, they never reflected that demigod-like spirit the fluff talked about (of course, Games Workshop wanted to sell models; a five men army would not be quite a wise movement for that purpose). Nor the minis reflected that, Space Marines models being regular human sized. Meh.

I like the concept of giant ironclad warriors causing mayhem all over. In fact, if you browse through the blog, you'll see that my liking of the 'truescale' movement (i.e., converting minis so they matched the background) is not new at all. You can also see that my thoughts on this go through the 'movie marines' movement, i.e., giving them according rules and making real monsters out of them. You can have a look at the battle we run on my pal Keyan Sark's blog (Spanish only, but I trust you'll find many other stuff of your liking there).

In recent times GW have released the new Primaris range, with larger minis. Finally proper scaled Space Marines. I don't care much about the new fluff anymore, but I understand they are a new brand of marines blah blah whatever. For me they are just the Marines as they should have been since long time ago. I'll get some of them, sure, but... (guilty voice) I have amassed so many bits through the years in order to create realscale Space Marines that I have to put them into use!

So, honouring this blog's name, here you have an experiment for a proper oldschool realscale Space Marine (weeee!)

My starting point will be Marneus Calgar's terminator armour legs:

All the Ultramarines iconography has been removed

I made a couple of experiments for the torso. I tried to replicate what I had done years ago and use a regular torso enlarged with greenstuff. But it didn't work that fine on these legs. I finally used a Terminator armour torso:

Samba dancer realscale space marine

I have made the decision to dismantle my Raptors army to build a realscale force. Let's face it, I have too many marines (imagine how many if even I can say that). I want to keep my RT Ultramarines army (proper Rogue Trader) and a realscale army. But I have no justification for an additional 'regular marines' army. It's been hard, but I made up my mind. No way back!

So, using the Raptors Command Squad bits, this was my general idea:

The samba mojo has suddenly gone

More or less the final form

Now I had to pick an army. I discarded Ultramarines as I was keeping that army. I seriously considered to paint them as Raptors again, as I like the military looking. But I finally decided not to do so. I had already done that project, I had to move on and do something different.

After giving it some thoughts, I chose the Space Sharks. Or the Carcharodons, as they are officially known nowadays. The grey dominant colour was not too garish and, according to their official background, their aesthetics are of Maori inspiration, which definitely tipped the balance.

So Carcharodons it is!

I tried to combine WH40K with Maori symbols

You can read Whetū on the greave. It's Maori for 'Star' (please, any Maori speaker correct me!). The front shield bears a Koru, a symbol of regeneration and new beginnings.

I wanted the armour to look worn and dirty

Ururoa is Maori for 'white shark', the Carcharodon

That symbol is Moana, i.e., 'Sea'. Seemed adequate for a sea-oriented culture. I blame Disney anyway

The patterns on the cloak are spear heads and shark teeth -Maori warrior symbols

Alongside a regular sized Space Marine

So this is how my new crazy project starts, a realscale Carcharodons army. I am aware that not all my fellow oldhammerers will like this, but I hope you will indulge my soft spot :D

I have some plans to give this Captain some companions. A few Primaris, right, but some other crazy ideas are lurking my mind like sharks. Like Space Sharks...