Conversion - The Thing - part 1

Back when I had an Vampire Counts army I had a lot of fun converting my minis. One of the more frustrating and challenging conversions involved opening up a horse model and putting a skeletal horse model inside where you could see parts of the bone sticking out. I have been trying to figure out a way to do something similar with my 40k army for a while now. When I saw this bit I knew I had to do it.


I was inspired when I saw this chest piece. I wanted the teeth to be opening up and enclosing a body within the armor. I tried to make it like in The Thing when the doctor is trying to shock someone back to life and his chest opens up and bites off his arms. It's an older movie but man is it great. If you haven't seen it you owe it to yourself to go rent it and give it a watch. It is Kurt Russell at his finest.

The first challenge was getting the armor open. I fooled around with an exacto knife but didn't get far so I grabbed the Dremel tool.

I made quick work of the inside of the model. A little too quick. I was working on thinning up behind where the teeth come together and the bit snapped in half. Luckily it broke right down the middle. I couldn't have cut it better.

Once I had the front chest piece in two I started doing some measuring with a few body bits I had laying around. I eventually came up with the pieces in the picture below. I was quite pleased.

Next time I will show you how I fit the body into the armor.