Newbie questions, incl. winged Canoness

[Elric of Grans]

I will start with the easy question first I have been thinking of doing the common conversion of adding wings to my Canoness, but have been having a spot of trouble working out sizes when flicking over the Games Workshop wing-bitz section. I had thought that the Bretonian Pegasus wings look like a great pose, but if they are each as big as her then it would look silly. Does anyone know if any of the non-demon wings there would be an appropriate size for a Canoness?

Now the bigger question. I have taken quite a liking to viewing the amazing conversions people have come up with around the place and found myself coming up with all manner of ideas. Unfortunately, these ideas would vary between `very difficult' and `insanely difficult'. The easiest of these would be the Disco-Necron army, with electronic Monolith-Dance Floor... and I bet I am a good five years too early to even make that one! Can anyone suggest anything for someone looking to build-up the essential skill-set required for the more amazing conversions that the more experienced modelers are capable of. My absolute dream conversion would probably be almost entirely originally sculpted, so I am aiming to learn as much as possible. Guides to simple conversions or something of the sort would probably be a great start.

Perhaps the biggest problem I have at the moment is that my ideas are all far, far too grand, and I have next to no simple ideas to start with --- my budding Sisters army does not seem to say `conversion material' to me for some reason. Perhaps with a few simpler conversions in the army I may start to see slightly bigger ones that I could use to further the skills I started developing.

[stayscrunchyinmilk]

A great, fun conversion that's cheap, starts easy with good results and gets as hard as you want is Imperial Guardsmen / Undead conversions. Get a sprue or two of zombies, the old skelletons (NOT vampire counts) - or but an old unit and rip it up, and cadian sprues, I really enjoyed making them,
Simple ones:
Lower half of skeleton (filed level at spine) with cadian torso, skeletal head with a bit of anything - make a bit from sprue/cut spear pole stub etc for neck, add empty cadian helmet on top (maybe cutting / filing rear of skull if not snug) , file skeletal arms at ball joint carefully (especially as hollow) for pose, with waponry, voila. (P.S. cut off the fantasy weaponry around the fist. they're balled, and with a flat top can have any weapon fixed. the really old swords have a finger guard that looks like a good grip on heavy weapons)
Then expand on there - My next project with the undead Imperium army will be a Grey knight parody with forgeworld Nurgle Marines and Chaos Marines, Force Weapons added, but i'm not quite sure how to do storm bolters on the arm greaves yet, oh and i may try for fly like wings (with the f/world iconography very fitting, and explains the deep strike - been looking into cold pour resin (Alec Tirantis produces, or that was my hint from a artist friend) but not sure how to do it without being fragile.)

[Elric of Grans]

That is a good idea; it could result is some really effective visuals. An idea I just had while reading this: would it be taking things too far to nail/chain corpses of heretics (IG/Priest/Mariene gear + skeletons/zombies) across Rhinos and call it extra armour? Hey, it is the Inquisition!

[boo]

That's a fairly sane, and should be pretty effective & easily allowed as extra armour (unliklie my slannesh rhinos which have pink 'fluff' fabric on them for the same thing )

[stayscrunchyinmilk]

That's a fairly sane, and should be pretty effective & easily allowed as extra armour (unliklie my slannesh rhinos which have pink 'fluff' fabric on them for the same thing )

And on rhinos (I now have three old style razorbacks without the tops given to me by an old friend as a "if you want them or i'll bin them" gift - get some green stuff and do a skull "stretching" out of the front - That'll be really good practice.
Tip: wet your fingers / implements while using green stuff, to stop it sticking to them. I still haven't mastered it.

Hey, I've a good idea, the old rhino front armour plates are about the same size as the fantasy "Coffin lid" sheilds... Or i could give my (Not dead) inquisitor a ride with spare SM Dreadnaught plates, adding ornamentation.