Magnetizing and painting Chaos Warriors as Word Bearers Legionaries

I painted 5 of these guys a while back, and they dutifully functioned as Chaos Space Marines for a while. I always joked that they throw their shields pretty well... equivalent to bolt pistol shots. I now decided to finish another 5, and WYSIWYG them for 40k. 

Arm conversions and magnets

Assemble and magnetize the bodies, as well as the fantasy arms as before. In fact, I had already done this way back - and left them to sit in a plastic box. Now, for the 40k arms. I decided to do a melee focused squad. 

Start with two plasma pistols. These scout arms work just fine. Chop off the hanging insignia and the entire upper arm and shoulder. Cut a bit into the forearm so that it will fit the arm socket. Drill and magnetize. Same approach with bolt pistol arms.

I crafted two heavy melee weapons for the squad. I decided on this old Chaos Knight polearm. However, with all the pistol arms being right handed, I had to do a hand change. I picked this bolter holding left arm.

Chop up the halberd arm and scrape off the hand. Chop up the bolter holding arm. Thin the arm to fit the socket. Glue the hand unto the shaft.

Drill all the arms and magnetize them. It's best to do this before gluing them, as the drilling puts quite the strain on the bits. 

There's also one more, a chaincannon. I snipped off the left arm joint, and manufactured a forearm using sprue.

Glue the pieces and dry fit.

Painting

I took the Contrast route, eager to try out something new.

Spray Wraithbone, basecoat the armor Flesh Tearers Red.

Edge highlight Khaki.

Coat Carroburg Crimson.

The end result is very similar, but a lot less fussy, than the original color scheme. I also don't have to re-base-coat the cloak 10 layers to achieve a white base.

Carry on with more Contrast-based options:

• Light leather belts
• Black boots
• Bone skulls and horns
• Warm white cloth

Put some Striking Scorpion into the eye and face slits, and splodge around for a cheap OSL effect. Carry on with:

• metallic chainmail and other symbols, simulating Word Bearers trim
• Brown fur
• Mud on cloaks and boots

Painting the arms

Paint the red armor as above, any silver as per the Word Bearers armor, and any weapon casings/hafts Black.

Two plasma pistols and a Muzzle burnt chaincannon.

I tried something fancier for the axes. Basecoat with a 1:1 mix of Night Blue and Ultramarines Blue. With Night Blue such a weak color, this took about 3 coats to get right.

Wet blend Electric Blue. It came out pretty bad looking, I am still blaming the consistency of Night Blue.

Edge highlight Electric Blue.

Spot highlight Dead White.

I also went back with a glaze of the base color to smooth that transition out a bit.

Finished!