Do you remember the Salamander scout vehicle? Checkout this fresh tutorial on how to make this venerable vehicle for your army now that Forge World doesn’t.
With nothing more than a Chimera variant, some styrene, and a lot of hard work and time, it’s possible to convert your very own Imperial Guard (Astra Militarum) Salamander. In an earlier Conversion Corner I showed you a Salamander built mostly from styrene and spare bits. Here I’ve broken down my process with two more Salamanders.
The foundation of any good Imperial Guard conversion is the hull. In this case the standard Chimera hull upon which Forge World designed the Salamander Command and Scout vehicles. All that is needed are the side hulls. It is helpful to have the bottom, front and rear angle as seen in the above picture, but each of those components can be fabricated from styrene with relative ease if necessary.
Begin by assembling the hull and cutting a piece of styrene to size for the floor. I used plastruct diamond plate for some added detail.
Track guards are easy to make from styrene, look great, and let you save half your track sections for use on other projects! I used rivets from Meng to detail the guards and some model putty to fill in any gaps.
Repeat!
A closer look of the crew compartment as it comes together. I recommend starting with the side panels. Cut one, use it as a stencil to cut the other side, and then work on the front panels.
The front of the crew compartment is a little trickier. As before cut one side to your liking and then use it as a stencil. Remember you can always cut more off but it’s a lot harder to add it back on! The trim was completed with thin strips of 1/4mm styrene.
It’s all about the details. You may recognize some of the bits I used to create the comms unit on these. I didn’t have identicals of everything but I got as close as I could to make the models match.
And now my squad is complete!
Additional details, and other projects, can be found below
