Brother Astarte

This weekend I started painting my first true scale space marine*, but I didn't get him entirely finished. Today I had the chance to do the last few touches.

*: Now he isn't my first true scale space marine, I did one a few years back, trying to use only regular marine bits, it didn't quite work the way I wanted. He is however the first of the Howling Griffons true scale warband for games of Inquisimunda and such.

I present to you, Brother Rolan of the Howling Griffons:

The last known pict-capture of Brother Rolan, during the height of the Luyvan Insurrection, early 997.m41. The image was recorded by a security pictor inside a manufactorum near the Luyvan spaceport, hours before the final evacuation preceding Exterminatus. The Howling Griffons 5th Company performed desperate rearguard actions to allow as many key personnel and civilians to escape. As the 5th Company hasn't fought in the subsector since, it is unknown if Brother Rolan was among the last evacuees.

Brother Rolan is a battle brother of the Howling Griffon's fifth company, second squad. Brother Rolan is a recipient of the Aureum Gryphe (seen on his right greave) and has been awarded the right to personal heraldry, as depicted on his right pauldron. Both are unusual, as the lack of other markings or awarded honour-gear seem to indicate that he is still young in his career among the Astartes. On his left greave you can just make out the  badge of the Jülich Sanction campaign. The aquila beneath it indicates he was present at that campaign's culminating 5 day running battle in the great city of Lorimar's Fall. It is speculated his Aurum Gryphe and personal heraldry were earned with feats of valour during this conflict.

As he is a true scale marine, here is the mandatory size comparison:

He's made using Terminator legs, from which I removed the hip plates and sculpted in the recesses. I glued a 2mm spacer on top of the Terminator legs' ball joint that connects to the torso, and carved back the bit above the belt to accept the stomach cabling (which is gloriously invisible now that his bolter is in place....).  The torso was made by combining the front of a Terminator torso, minus the "arch" and the rear of a Grey Knight Terminator torso, minus the psychic hood. Once that was glued in place, I added the stomach cabling and greenstuffed in the gaps in the stomach area. The vents on the Grey Knight Terminator back were narrowed to accept the power armour backpack. Shoulder pads are Terminator ones, with the gaps filled with GS and plasticard trims. The griffon icon on it is sculpted in greenstuff (Which was fiddly work, I can tell you!). 

His arms are regular power armoured ones, mounted lower in the shoulderpads to give a bit of extra length (the gaps between pads and arms is filled with greenstuff). I also thickened the lower arms, wrists and elbow pads to prevent the T-rex Syndrome true-scale marines with power armoured arms often suffer from.

He's mounted on a 30mm base ( I started him well before GW showed up with their 32mm bases...), as I thought a 40mm base would be too large and partially negate the (visual) effect of the true-scaling.

Essentially, he is my "practice run" for a small group (a diplomatic mission?) of Howling Griffons space marines for =I=Munda. As such he is left relatively plain, as I focussed on the basics for him. His teammates will probably be more dynamic and decorated. I plan to centre the group around a Librarian, with Brother Rolan and a (veteran) sergeant acting as his honour guard. Maybe I'll add a true scale scout as well.

Here are some, less obscured images of him: