Figure Conversions – Completed

Well, it’s taken far longer than it should have, but the figure conversions are completed! Let’s take a look at them 🙂

The technician gained a datapad of some sort and a pistol, while he kept his helmet and backpack. Since the conversion parts were produced for these exact figures, it’s no surprise they turned out okay, but it’s still gratifying. Sadly, they’re not being made any more. The next time I want to put together a technician from EM4 figures, the conversion will have to be a bit more extensive.

I’m actually really pleased with how this guy turned out. I thought the mask and symbol on the medical kit would look terrible, but they’re actually not bad. The arms were again specifically intended for these torsos, but the head is from a Mad Robot product and perhaps slightly too big. It’s not noticeable at any normal gaming distance, though, so I’m very happy with this conversion.

This is another conversion I’m really pleased with. All the conversion parts here are from the Anvil Industry Regiments range. They look good, and although I’m not a particularly good painter I’m pleased with how the facial hair turned out too.

The conversion parts here are again from Anvil Industry, this time their female Regiments range. I think they’re a slightly better size-match for the EM4 torsos than the male conversion parts, but the difference is almost impossible to tell and is irrelevant for all practical purposes. This picture doesn’t show it well, but the camouflage cloak also turned out surprisingly well. I thought it would look as fake as a $3 bill, but it turned out okay. I still need to find a convincing way of painting camo patterns on them, though.

Another figure which turned out very well. All the conversion parts here are from Mad Robot, and although they look good on their intended figures they’re noticeably too big for the EM4 figures I was converting. Thankfully it isn’t obvious at gaming distances, and this guy can be tasked with bug-hunting duties safely… or as safely as that job gets, anyway.

I wasn’t trying anything clever here, just a straight conversion with Anvil Industry arms/weapon and a Statuesque Miniatures head. Again, the figure itself turned out fine, although it was surprisingly hard to get the arms to fit and hold the weapon correctly. It’s good enough for a tabletop, of course, but that’s about as far as it goes.

Here’s a group shot, although somehow I forgot to add the Colonial Marine into this. Perhaps the bugs got him. As I said, overall I’m very pleased with how they turned out, especially since they began the process looking like this…

Let me say again that the EM4 figures are fine on their own. But the limited choice of poses and weapons does get a bit old after a while, and conversions are a good way to add some visual interest to your troops.

If I was going to offer some advice to anyone thinking of doing some EM4 conversions, it would be these three things:

1. Arm and weapon swaps are the easiest and provide the biggest return on your effort. People notice this sort of thing much more than they should, and just doing this might be all you need.
2. Head swaps are a little harder because you have to cut stuff away and scale differences between suppliers become a bit more noticeable, but they’re worth doing (even if it’s just for squad leaders or heroes or something). The EM4 helmets look a bit goofy, sadly, so changing them makes a big difference – combine that with an arm and weapon swap, and you’ve basically got an entirely new squad.
3. Anything else isn’t worth the effort unless you’re doing a single figure that people are going to look at closely. Adding doodads like pouches, capes, gear, and so on probably won’t be noticed, and if you’re going to swap the legs as well then you might as well just use an entirely different figure to start with.

Oh, and 4: don’t underestimate the ability of the paint job to make things look better. I’ll go into details about the painting techniques I used another time, and I’m not a particularly good painter anyway. But if you’re going to the effort of converting figures, you might as well put some effort into the painting as well. Even a modest effort can produce reasonable results, and has the side benefit of allowing you to cover up any problems you encounter (or cause) in your conversion work.

All up, and not counting the paint/glue/time I spent, you could do something very like these conversions for perhaps NZ $20-$30 for the figures and parts. For comparison, a 5-man squad of infantry from another (and notoriously litigious) company would cost closer to $60, and I don’t think they would look significantly better. In my opinion, the choice is pretty clear.