Salamanders Space Marine Term. Captian
The cloak is molded to resemble scales.
I molded dreadlocks onto the head.
As a symbol of achievement, many Salamanders mount the heads of slane Drakes on their armor. The Salamander Space Marines are master craftsmen, raised in the forges of their fathers, on the in-hospital world of Nocturn. They have learned to thrive in a world that would kill normal men a dozen times over. Known for their skill in weapon smithing, they are also known as 'Drake hunters' because one of their training practices is to send an initiate out to hunt one of the gigantic dragon-creatures, indigenous to their homeworld, known as Drakes. Should the initiate complete this task, he shall be a Slamander Space marine. Many Salamander Space Marines undertake this task more then once, each seeking a larger, and more dangerous, specimen then their last. Frequently the armored hides of the Drake will be displayed as a Tabard, or a cloak on the accomplished marine, a mark of triumph and badge of honor among his fellow marines.
The Salamanders are unique in that while they are a uniform chapter of marines, their history and heraldry is rooted deeply enough to make them unique among the uniform space marines. Hammers, burning swords, Dragon heads and Dragon scales are all images and items associated with the Salamander Space Marines. I also took this opportunity to advance my sculpting skills. I wanted to make this particular character a Terminator Captain, mostly for the imposing size it would carry. I also wanted to arm him with a hammer and a Melta weapon, as these are both trade mark items of the Salamanders tactics. Because I wanted to have the option of using this figure in a real game without any handicaps due to lack of ranged attacks, I opted to arm him with both a Melta gun and a bolter.
Building the model itself was fairly simple. I used plastic Terminator legs with the Marneus Calgar Torso. I liked the look of the Calgar torso for a couple of reasons. First its' raised collar gives it a more ornate appearance. Secondly there is a good deal of riveting around the armor itself, making it look better built than normal terminator armor. The big advantage is that it includes a large cloak. I intended to use that to my advantage for this conversion. One of the defining images of the Salamander Space marines is the use of Drake scales as ornamentation on their armor. Many of the higher ranking Marines utilize Drake Scale cloaks. I achieved that particular conversion by covering the cloak in small disks of model putty and flattening them to resemble scales.
I wanted to challenge my sculpting skills a bit with this model and decided to give this marine a receding hair line that fed into dread locks. I achieved this through a three step process. The first process was shaving down a plastic space marine head. I selected a head that had a respirator. The Home World of the Salamanders is an ash strewn volcanic no-man’s land and the humans who have managed to live there make frequent use of face masks and covering of one form or another to filter the ash from the air for breathing, so I felt the imagery was appropriate. I shaved and filed the hair line down and then took an exact-o blade and scored around the hair line. I needed to score it in order to provide an area of attachment for modeling putty. I achieved the look of dreadlocks by rolling a long thin rope of modeling putty, cut it into shorter strands and attached them to the scored part of the head.
The hardest part of this conversion was the left shoulder. The Salamanders chapter badge is a leering dragon head. I wanted to take it a bit further and actually mount a dragon like head on the shoulder pad, a sort of trophy of accomplishment for the captain himself. I attached a Lizardman head to the shoulder and built up the neck with some model putty. I made the texture for the throat by layering on several thin strips of model putty and then blending them into the neck. I used the scales trick from the cloak on the back side of the Lizardman head. Finally I built the Combi-bolter/Metla gun. I took the left half of a storm bolter and attached it to a Melta gun. I used modeling putty to fill in the gaps between the two weapon bodies.