Sammael, Master of the Ravenwing: Kit-bash

Sammy on his trusty steed, Corvex, is my most extensive conversion/kit-bash to date. There really isn't much of an underlying model. The core bike is probably the biggest single-model contribution, but there are all kinds of bits here.

Is that a Dark Vengeance bike hiding under all those bits?

First, a little back story. I started this project for two reasons: I didn't want to pay $50 for a guy on a jetbike (official Games Workshop model), and I don't really like the way the official model looks.

How, you might say, can you not like the official model? That jetbike looks awesome. And that cape! Yeah, well, I'll grant you that there's a lot of detail and much of it is cool. But I've got three problems with it:
1. The model has their weird curved-looking line to it. It may be an optical illusion, but it's still what I see when I look at it. Combine that with the way Sammy is holding on with one hand and holding his sword up with the other, and it gives me the distinct impression of a rodeo cowboy riding a bull. I don't like it.

2. Sammy needs to go on a diet. His power armor seems to have been tailored to handle his immense girth. Maybe some folks like a hefty guy (more to love?), but my idea of an elite bike commander is that he ought to look sleek and fast. Sammy seems to be less running back and more linebacker.

I can't believe I ate the whole thing!

3. Lastly, his head is just all wrong. Like his body, his head seems bigger than it ought to be. His shouting mouth is half hidden in his armor. And he's having a Hollywood bad hair day. By that, I mean his hair looks the way an actor's hair looks when they want him to have the appearance of wind-blown, crazy hair, but also want him to still look like he's got attractive hair.

...totally looks like...

Ok, so enough of my mocking GW's Sammael model. Time to talk about MY Sammael model.

I had several goals in building this model:
1. Make the bike look cool.
2. Make it look like a space marine bike, as opposed to a space marine on an Eldar bike, or some such.
3. Use Games Workshop bits that I already had (as much as possible).

So I started with something conventional and something unconventional: a sergeant's Ravenwing bike from the Dark Vengeance starter set and some wing-looking buttresses from a Sanctum Imperialis terrain kit. It goes a little something like this:

Techmarine: "This is gonna be great, Sammael. Trust me."

I had seen some other jetbike kit-bashes on the web that started with a regular bike, and I pretty much liked them all, except that many of them had these stubby front ends. While I wanted my bike to look different from the official model, I did like the big, imposing front end. While I knew I couldn't replicate it, I did want to have some substance to the front of this bike. I decided to create a big air scoop-type thing out of the Sanctum Imperialis bits.

Getting the scoop put together was a challenge, and unfortunately, I don't have any good pics of the process. But in the end I was pretty happy with it. I then had to spend A LOT of time hacking at the front end of the bike to get the scoop to sit up against it well. I put a nail through the front of the bike, with a good chunk hanging out front as a support for the scoop. Then a fair bit of Apoxie Sculpt was added to hold it together.

So, that's the core of the bike, but it wasn't enough. With that impressive scoop on the front, the back end of the bike was left looking a bit small by comparison. So I stole another idea from other efforts on display around the web: using landspeeder typhoon bits as outrigger engines. Voila!

In the background you can see the inspiration for my next army: The Sisters of Derby

Again, hacking and Apoxie Sculpt were involved in the attachment. You may also note underneath bike around the middle is a protrusion. I'm not exactly sure what it's supposed to be - an exhaust port of some kind, I guess. I just liked the way the bit (some kind of vehicle bit lying around in my bits box) fit on the bottom of the bike.

I also built a center rear exhaust out of a jump pack exhaust and a dreadnought leg piece. More detail here:

What you gon' do with all that junk? All that junk inside your trunk?

One of the key components of Corvex (that's the name of Sammael's bike) is that it has a built-in plasma cannon. So I had to get that in there. I decided to go with something low profile, rather than the big-honking cannon on the bottom of the GW model. I used a regular plasma gun and a random vehicle bit I had lying around.

DANGER: AIR INTAKE

You may also notice the extra cowling I put over the front of the air scoop - taken from the Ravenwing upgrade sprue. There's also a Dark Angels decorative bit over top of that.

One thing that isn't clear in most of these photos is that the original Dark Vengeance bike is intended to be turning. I chose that bike because it was more decorative than the others, and had the flowing robe legs. However, I had to deal with the fact that the handlebars, front cowling (of the original bike, not the front of the air scoop), and attached bolters are all turned slightly to one side. My solution was to envision that this cowling and its guns turn as the handlebars are turned, allowing the guns to better home in on targets that Sammael is turning to engage. In keeping with this, the plasma cannon is built as kind of a flattened turret, and it is turned at the same angle as the bolters on the top of the bike.

The next bit was pretty straight forward: build an upper body out of the tons of body, arms, shoulder, and head bits in my collection.

Screw these guns. I'm coming to get you with my SWORD!

So here he is. Initially I tried to build the body out of torso bits from the Ravenwing sprue. However, they didn't really seem to sit that well on the Dark Vengeance bike. It was almost like they weren't the right size. So I went to the Dark Vengeance set, got a sergeant body, and hacked off the head. This was easier said than done, as the head had a robe/hood riding up the back of it. I also hacked off an arm to put on the sword arm. Lastly, he ended up rotated a little more to the side than I had planned, and that required some Apoxie Sculpt under the right arm. If you look close, the whole upper body job is not perfect. But I think it's good enough for the tabletop, and probably won't be nearly as noticeable once painted.

The sword arm is from the Ravenwing upgrade sprue. I love that sword arm. The head is actually from a generic Rhino-class sprue (the one with hatches, the storm bolter, and torsos for poking out of the hatches). My dislike of Sammael's original hair apparently carried me to the other end of the spectrum. You know, the Jean-Luc Picard end of the spectrum.

The final stage was the finishing work. This included:

• Using some putty to cover up the exposed ammo feed for the typhoon launchers.
• Converting the bike's bolters into storm bolters (by using an extra pair of bolters) - the other guns Corvex has in addition to the plasma cannon.
• Adding more Dark Angels bling- including that book that is on the front of Corvex for some reason.
• Putting the bike on a base - I used a flying base and put it in at an angle, to go with the way the core bike is turning.

Ta-da!

According to my friend, this is the Diva pose - because of the fancy background (aka empty Dark Angels box)

I haven't actually glued the book on yet. It fits pretty snugly without glue, and I don't want it on there until after the painting.

So there you have it. The history of my Sammael on Corvex kit-bash. He was a labor of love. He's not perfect, but I'm proud of him nevertheless. I may get my buddy the master painter to do the paint job for me. I'd hate to have all this modeling work ruined by my half-assed painting skills.

The End

Dreadnought

My "Assault on Black Reach" dread, converted to have a plasma cannon and missile launcher, as well as to be a Dark Angels venerable dread.





Mods that I made:
* Shaved off the generic space marine insignia on the sarcophagus and right chest panel. Replaced them with DA bits from the battleforce upgrade sprues.
* Hacked off the fronts of the legs and replaced them with bits from the battleforce upgrade sprues.
* Cut barrels of the multimelta off the right arm. Replaced with a plasma cannon taken from the Stormraven kit - cut off the back end of the plasma cannon to get a good fit/look.
* Cut the lower arm and dreadnought close combat weapon off the right arm. Replaced with a typhoon missile launcher front piece from the battleforce upgrade sprues.
* Added bling from the battleforce upgrade sprues.
* Added smoke launchers and a spotlight, both taken from the generic extras sprue that comes with all rhino-based vehicles.

So this is my build blog

I play Warhammer 40,000. I started a Dark Angels army when the new boxed set came out. I have all kinds of fun converting and kit-bashing models. And I want to post the pictures somewhere. That's pretty much all this blog is. Nothing fancy. Just a place to post my pics and maybe comment on them.

It's worth noting that I'm a kit-basher, not a scratch-builder. I can do a lot of (what I think are) cool things with existing bits, but I don't have the skills to build something out of raw plasticard or sculpt magnificent creations out of Green Stuff.

Here's your first pic, my most involved kit-bash to date. I'll give him a separate post at some point to talk about the details. For now, I simply give you, Sammael, Master of the Ravenwing.

Sammael, Master of the Ravenwing kitbash