A while ago, I ended up with the task of converting the Sergeant model from the Black Reach boxed set (At least I think that's where he's from). Not a terribly difficult conversion I thought, but one that proved trickier than I imagined. The task was simple, sling a bolter over his shoulder so he is WYSIWYG.
And so I set about positioning the bolter and creating a sling out of plasticard. My first attempt (shown above) was not bad, but the sling lacked a little bit of life to it and looked a little stiff readers thought.
For my second attempt, I wanted to see if I could add a little more life into the sling and make it appear as though it were holding the weight of the bolter as it conformed to the shape of the armour underneath. It's the one aspect I did not capture all that well on the first model.
The first thing did was position the bolter again and I opted to use a thinner (in terms of thickness) piece of plasticard for the sling. This allowed me to better "form" it on the model.
Looking at the picture now, I can see that the front does not show the form of the sling as well as the back portion does. Just being able to add a slight twist here and there as the sling moves over his torso does wonders for making it look as though it was meant to be there and is actually supporting the weight of the bolter.
All in all, it's not a tough conversion to do, it just requires some patience in working the plasticard over the surface of the model. You don't see many slung weapons in the game and it makes for a nice change to see it on a model. Getting the plasticard to attach to the weapon can be tricky and results in a some fragile connections, but nothing game ending that would keep you away from using him to play with.
And for the keen eye, you can see where I've repositioned his chainsword arm a bit more forward and placed him up on spacers so he won't look as though he sinking when he is based.
Make sure to check out these posts as they might help:
How to reposition Space Marine arms
