Showcase: Sexy Commander Shadowsun

Back in February 2008, my friend Sierra showed me the above illustration (sadly I can’t credit the artist, I don’t know who created the artwork) and said it would make a better Shadowsun model then the GW sculpt, I agreed and decided to undertake one of my most difficult conversions. WIP shots after the jump!

This isn’t a guide or a tutorial, I’ve literally just rounded up all the pictures I have of this model and put them in chronological order with some annotations.

The conversion actually starts with the actual Shadowsun sculpt legs, they have been cut up and repositioned to mimic the illustration. I also had to heavily file the sides down with a flat file, and then use a a round file to shape the calves. Using wire these are pinned together and a rough body and face shape are created. 

In this shot you can see I’ve added more wire and greenstuff to make some basic arms shapes. The head is pinned in place as well. 

It was at this point I released that Shadowsun’s fusion blasters would be way too big for this project. I used cut down pulse rifles for the main body and cut up strips of plasticard to make the fusion blaster muzzle. The barrels are the ends of pulse rifles.

In this picture you can see I’ve blu-tacked the weapon systems in place to check the scale. I’ve also started work on the armour (groin and chest).

This model is tiny, virtually the size of a coin. Shoulder armour has been added. Shadowsun’s pony tail has been pinned to the head and I’ve started on the hand shapes. 

The above shot shows the completed hair.

These two shots show the completed conversion. I’ve added arm braces, fingers and converted a backpack from battlesuit sensors glued to a hammerhead sensor spine array. The piece at the top is a drone controller from the XV25 boxset.  

Painting is underway in this shot and I’m really happy with her anime style eyes looking to the side. 

I converted one of the drones to match the drone in the original illustration. Carefully cut the bottom ring from a drone. The take the drone top and cut a notch big enough to fit a sensor in it. I used a sensor from the old commander box set. you’ll also need the spare part from the XV25 box. No one knows what it is for but it mounts on a 25mm base as some form of marker. In this case we glue it to the underside of the drone. 

I finish the models off with some scenic bases. I created a story with Shadowsun’s base by adding her torso armour to the base with battle damage. It looks like it’s taken a battering so she’s ditched it because it was impeding her abilities.  

Apologies for the terrible pictures, it was 5 years ago and I didn’t have the comprehensive photography set up I own today. Sadly I don’t own Shadowsun anymore. She became a Mercenary for hire on the planet eBay and netted me a tidy £160.

Check out how I paint my tau armour in this tutorial.