Hello, and welcome to a new WIP series for the Deathwatch. It's time to step away from House Taranis for a time and return to my 2017/2018 Hobby To Do List. I pledged three Deathwatch Characters, and so far I have completed a Watch Master and Watch Captain. This librarian will be the third.
It is a simple conversion built from a stock Games Workshop Space Marine Librarian. I felt the pose of the model lent itself to a slightly off balance landing as the Librarian let loose a fury of plasma fire at and unseen foe. Or perhaps he is about to launch back up after loosing his rounds. I replaced both arms and the backpack, and left off the cherub. The original head was turned hard right to sight down the plasma pistol.
The right arm was easiest to replace with a stock plasma pistol arm from the latest GW Space Marine Assault Squad set. I kept the original shoulder pad to display the crest of the Librarium, rather than replace it with a chapter specific pad. The left shoulder pad was attached to the upper torso and had to go so I could replace it with a proper Deathwatch shoulder pad. This involved some careful cutting with the razor saw and then a bit of cleanup with an X-ACTO knife.
The left arm was replaced with one from the Deathwatch veteran sprue that was holding a power sword. I removed the power sword, hand and all, at the wrist with a clean cut using the razor saw. The force ax was sourced from a power ax in the Space Marine Vanguard Veteran kit. That weapon was held in a right hand; I needed a left hand here. After sorting through my bits collection, I settled on an unused Corvus Hammer from the Ravenwing Command Squad. The hammer head was snipped off and replaced with the power ax head which I snipped from its original haft. The pieces were all pinned together using brass rod and super glue. In hindsight, I probably should have used plastic cement for a better bond of the plastic parts (rod not withstanding). We'll see how it holds up. A standard Deathwatch shoulder pad was then added.
The jump pack is also from the Space Marine Vanguard Veteran kit. I chose one with terminator honors and scrolls, suitable for a character. It didn't sit flush over the shoulder pads (no big surprise if you've customized with jump packs before), so I put a small blob of green stuff between the pack and the back plate and pressed the pack down into place. Any green stuff oozing out around the joint was then trimmed off and smoothed before it set up. It will not be noticeable after painting and helps fill the gap securely and prevent the jump pack from looking like it is about to fall off the armor. :) Green stuff is tacky enough to bond the plastic parts once dry in my experience.
The final model was glued down to a 30mm base. Wood glue was applied and the base dunked into the bin of basing material to create the terrain that matches the rest of my Deathwatch. For whatever reason, I did not choose to go with cork bases for my Deathwatch models.
Here are a couple more shots of the completed model.
The force ax got a purity seal to add some interest and call it out as a sanctified weapon of the Librarium.
Those with keen eyes may notice that the bolt pistol's grip has been carefully cut away and the holster hollowed out to maintain the illusion that the Librarian has drawn his sidearm. Never mind that it would never fit in that holster! Hah. It's an illusion right?
So; there will be some cleanup of mold lines and and sprue attachment points I may have missed. Then this fellow will be primed and moved to the painting table. I hope you have enjoyed this preview of the model prior to painting. I omitted detailed shots of the conversion work because it seemed so simple and straight forward to me. Perhaps too boring for a proper how-to article. If you disagree, please let me know in the comments and I'll look to provide this detail for future conversions.
Expect to see this Librarian and two more Grey Knight Characters appear on the blog in the coming weeks. Then it's back to House Taranis so I don't lose too much momentum on the big knights! August's workbench article will likely be my build of the Cerastus Knight Castigator, so we'll see how that goes...
Cheers and Happy Gaming!
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