40K HOBBY: Legion of the Damned, Converting & Painting Part II
Here’s a follow-up showing the finished and fully painted conversions that were featured in my recent article about my custom Legion of the Damned (LotD) squad.
I decided to do this in spite of the heavily mixed comments on that article mainly because the unsolicited comments I received on these models as I was painting them last week were overwhelmingly positive and because at least some of the readers here requested it. When Bigred first asked me to write for BoLS, it was mainly for hobby content. It’s not for everybody and no single aspect of the hobby or its coverage here is expected to please everyone. That’s why there’s a variety of types of articles, so that there’s hopefully a bit of something for everyone. In any case, for the sake of the readers who wanted it and without further ado, here are a few pictures of my finished Legion of the Damned model conversions.
For those who missed the first article, these models were built entirely out of plastic GW model kits with a bit of Kneadatite (“green stuff”) added. The basic kit for this project was a single plastic multi-part Space Marine Tactical Squad. Parts from Skeleton, Flagellant, and other various Games Workshop kits were also used. Each trooper has been painted with unique variations of the flame designs that appear throughout the squad as well as various bone designs. The main colors used for painting were Krylon Flat Black, Citadel Chaos Black, Bleached Bone, Red Gore, Blood Red, Blazing Orange, Sunburst Yellow, Skull White, Fenris Grey, Dheneb Stone, Boltgun Metal, Chainmail and Scorched Brown.
This photo shows all ten models as a squad. A few highlights include the skull “beak” helm of the melta-gun trooper, the bone sword of the Sergeant with skeleton pelvis hilt, the free-hand leg bone motif painted on his leg armor and that of the adjacent trooper to his left, the flames on the plasma pistol and the free-hand arm and hand bone designs painted on the right arm of the troopers near the right edge of the photo. See the photo at the top of this article for a better view of some of the detail on the Sergeant. 
A close-up of the Plasma Cannon Legionnaire showing the bone fuel hose and the flame designs on the plasma cannon: 
Three more of the troopers with their various unique flame decorations and a variety of free-hand bone decorations. The skull-shaped Mark VI “beak head” helmet was created with a little “green stuff” and some carving directly into the plastic head with a modeling knife. 
Four more troopers and a variety of flame and bone decorations. 
A top view of two troopers: 
So I finally got this project out of my head and ready for the game table after fifteen months of thinking about it and I’ve already moved along to other projects, though I’m still deciding on a name for the Sergeant. For the most part this conversion project turned out as I had imagined it in spite of a few compromises made for the sake of time. Even so it took considerably longer than a “normal” Tactical Squad would have taken. A few passersby mistook these for production LotD models while I was painting them, so I guess the result was generally successful if far from perfect. I really do these things to satisfy my own hobby demons (now daemons thanks to Warhammer Chaos’ infectious nature!), but if a few others enjoy them too then I’m always happy to share. So what hobby demons drive you to spend oodles of time with little soldiers?
