Well, a demon army is too hard to resist, at least as a modeling opportunity. I think I'll spend the next few months digging in.

My working concept for the army will be a chaos-possessed IG regiment. For example:

- for horrors: converted guardsmen with melting faces and limbs; their las-guns becoming hideous organic appendages spitting lethal warpfire;

- for plague bearers, I can resurrect my mutants.

- and, for demon princes and/or soul grinders, tanks and/or sentinels, ripped asunder and reforged with cthonic ligature.

Here's a teaser glimpse (using an earlier project, a defiler conversion) to whet appetites.

Alright, for a first project, I'm going to work up a new "demon prince" model.
In the Demon codex, DPs are "heavy selections," offering one of the few anti-tank firepower options. Accordingly, I'll base my version off of a sentinel model.
This "sentinel" will have been invaded and possessed by a demon spirit, however, so I'll graft organic elements -- flesh, bones, claws, some sort of face -- onto the vehicle, to embody its demonic animating spirit.

So my two main sources of bitz, at least to begin with, will be a sentinel and stuff from the spawn sprues.


A lot of greenstuffing will come later. Right now, I'm starting by fusing some of the major plastic elements. For example:

to get composites like:


As that last WIP snapshot suggests, I'm not really working from a masterplan here. Just trying stuff out. But I'll start building from the feet up, in this case, since sentinels need the balance.

Here's a look with both "legs" roughed out, and clawed "feet" added. (Again, there'll be a lot of greenstuffing to come.)


Another angle:


And a third angle, with a better look at the leg:


And one last angle, from the other side:


So I'm underway. More to come.
And in the meantime, feedback is warmly welcomed.

Aaah I see flesh, steel and madness! I like it!

I like the concept, as an Iron Warriors player, I love the idea of flesh meets metal.

I look forwards to *ahem* borrowing some of your ideas...

Wow, you just gave me and idea on how to reuse my old LATD army! Thank you good sir!

Symbio Joe wrote:Aaah I see flesh, steel and madness! I like it!

That's it exactly! (If I pull it off, of course.)

Okay, some progress. I've been blocking out torso/cabin section. First, afixing a spawn torso to the front of the sentinel cabin (after carving off the back half of the sentinel stuff), to get this:


Then, setting him on the legs, I played with the angle and proportions until I found a stance that I liked, setting the "torso" well back on the carriage (visa vi where the cabin usually sits), and slanting down toward the front, thusly:


The spawn torso does not fit proportionately with the sentinel legs, but I don't necessarily want the model to suggest anatomical correctness, and I think the conversion might work regardless. I don't want this creature to resemble a humanoid/robot construct, so much as a frenzy of flesh, crawling all over and winding itself into a doomed machine.

To which end, once I'd placed the torso/cabin, I drilled holes in the sides, thusly:


I've drilled holes because I'm anticipating planting cable/sinew arcs from the "shoulder" of the "torso" into the cabin interior -- as if the demon was not only wrapping his skin and musculature around the cabin, but also piercing and invading its interior. (This is hard to describe, and I'm not 100 percent sure it will work out visually, but I won't know till I've tried it out and seen the effort.)

Next I'll probably start working on the gun arm (probably using a sentinel multi-las arm as a base).
And soon I'll pull out the green-stuff...

This is a really excellent idea, full of deliciously sinister modeling opportunities. You've got a great start on your DP concept, I'm looking forward to seeing this beast once greenstuff ties the flesh and metal together.

Bonus points for the thigh in the middle of the sentinel leg, a simple touch but a great effect.

Foda_Bett wrote:Wow, you just gave me and idea on how to reuse my old LATD army! Thank you good sir!

So much of my desire to do this army comes out of my anger/despair at losing the ability to play my LatD.

A member of my local gaming club pointed out that the ball joint on the sentinel carriage was looking kind of like some weird huge codpiece on the model.
Well, once you've got that image in your brain, it's hard to see anything else. So I took out my snippers and....

Worked in a few cables while I was at it (the first of many).
And also took the opportunity to pin the torso/cabin to the legs while the back was open. (You can just see the pin if you look closely here

I'm loving this idea and will be watching closely. Hope you don't mind if I steal some inspiration from you daemon/sentinel one day. The idea itself is ace!

Looks great!
I like the second pose better as the spawn body seems to flow more with the sentinel cockpit.

Progress on several fronts.
First, the head. I was originally planning to pick one of the new spawn sprue heads for this creature. Then I remembered the old spawn head, the one with like 7 sets of concentric jaws and rings of teeth.... I've always loved that image. And as it happened, I had several in my bitz box. So out one comes.
The neck is too straight for my taste, though. I decided it was worth sawing the thing in two, pinning it with a winding wire, and green-stuffing in the fit.
Like so:

another angle, this one showing why I love the bit so much

and one more angle


After a rough layer of greenstuffing, I have this:


(I'm waiting overnight for the greenstuff to dry, before affixing it to the torso.)


As for the "gun," I'll probably use the sentinel multilaser as a base (did I say this already?), but twirl some flamer arm/mouths off of the barrel. Something like:

and looking down the "barrel"...


Tomorrow I'll begin fitting these components to the main body.

It's coming together.....

Slowly but steadily, this creature takes form.
Worked a bit on the back, and started some greenstuffing and cabling here and there.
First, several shots from the back:

and:


And then, from the side:

and the front:


Still a long way to go. I envision at least 4 more stages of green stuffing. Right now I'm just experimenting with textures.

I am liking the bent over pose, so I think I'll keep him deeply hunched -- as if he's sniffing for prey like some cyborg T-Rex.
Hmmm, think I'll give him a tail, too.

kaos!

Tacobake wrote:kaos!

Indeed.

Progress update:
After several attempts at crafting a suitably demonic gun arm, I think I have something I'm satisfied with. As planned, I'm using the sentinel multilaser arm, with flamer "arms" winding around the barrels. It's taken a couple of different sessions of assembly and re-assembly, but I think I have the basic blocking I want. Just to be sure the arm worked with the model as a whole, I've gone ahead and pinned it to the main body (leaving a lot of room for green-stuffed ligature, cabling and so on to create a join later).
Here's what we're looking at so far:

Keep in mind, I still have a lot of green-stuffing to do. I will probably greenstuff/graft a "shoulder" of sorts onto the back end of the gun arm.
And of course, I need to figure out what to do about the "arm" on the other side.

Sorry the pictures are bad. At least you can get a sense of the general outlines, I hope.


Finally, to see how the gun arm worked with the head, I blue tacked (actually white tacked) the head to the torso.

The white blob around the ring of the neck is just temporary. The actual join will be green-stuffed, and much more organic looking.


I'll be playing a league game tonight, so no progress for a few days. But then I'll dig back in.
As usual, C&C would be most welcome.

Excellent work so far.

The only critisism so far is that the claws on the left foot looks out of place resting on top of a metal 'toe' when the right foot has claws jutting out from where the toe has been removed.

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:Excellent work so far.

The only critisism so far is that the claws on the left foot looks out of place resting on top of a metal 'toe' when the right foot has claws jutting out from where the toe has been removed.

Fair point. I've been waiting for the greenstuffing phase to work out these kind of kinks.
I might "fix" it and remove the metal toe. Or I might trying modeling it to suggest the claws are demonically invading/snikting out of the machinery. (Though I'd want the efffect to look convincing, and not just sloppy. hmmmm.)

edited: spelling

looking great. and it's good to know that somebody can make cool stuff with the demon codex.

looking forward to te rest of this

I'm liking this so far. I did something similar with a possessed Predator a few years back.

Alright, more progress.
Last night I mashed and mushed more greenstuff onto the creature, beginning to work up the back shoulders, and further articulating the gun arm and legs.


He's not yet where I want him. I need to further refine much of the work on the back to suggest "erupting spawnish/organo/cyborg/demonisity," rather than just "greenstuff lava flow." So more detail work, more veins and tubes, more cabling are all coming. But it's easier now to grasp the basic form, I think.

Some other angles, to give a feel for the proportions and "anatomy" of this most unnatural creature:

and:


I'll put another round of work into him tonight. (I'm finding I need to layer the work in stages, or else my fingers mash up what I've already done as I hold the model to work on it.)

I'm still going back and forth with myself on what to do about his other arm. But I'm reaching the point where I'll have to make a decision and try out something. (I find I invariably reach a certain stage of work on a project at which, liking what I've done so far, I hesitate to proceed, not wanting to muck it up, yet knowing I've got to try something new on an unfinished section. One of the reasons I started this log was to force myself through such periods of doubt and timidity.)

Thats Awesome! Ad you're using the Daemons codex as a base, with a counts as type of system... Hmm.. If only I could implement a similar system with my IW...

Hi folks. I'm still fussing with second arm possibilities on the demon prince -- should have pictures tomorrow.

In the meantime, to keep your appetites up, here's a look at my mutants, which will stand in as "plaguebearers" in the army list.


As I said, these wretches were mutants in my LatD list. I figure they make good proxies for plaguebearers, being all haunted and harrowed looking.


I hope they convey the overarching theme of the army, namely, a haunted IG regiment, corrupted by The Ruinous Powers and sent on the Winds of the Warp to further the work of Chaos.


Fear them!



And here are some detail shots.

The painting on these is not particularly sharp. (This was my second army, painted a few years ago.) I think I'll try to tidy them up a bit, work on the detailing and so on, to bring the overall level of the army up.

Back again.
Worked up a version of the other arm that I'm reasonably satisfied with -- going more or less with Apologist's (on Warseer) of "a spastic flail" of cables and tendril arms.


Also began work on a tail:

More work to come here, joining the barb at the end to the cable tail length, and so on.

A bit more work and I'll be able to start painting the creature.

Any thoughts or ideas, while we're still at the plastic 'n greenstuff stage?

Hm...to be honest..I would change the head...the Spawn sprue offers alot of differnet heads, so I would try one of those. But your GS work is awesome !

Thanks for the feedback. Yeah, someone in my local gaming club described the head as "weedy" -- and actually I'd agree.
The thing is, I kind of like the weediness, if that makes any sense. At least in my eyes, it makes it look as though the head is erupting from the machine, as opposed to being connected to the construct in any way that made organic sense. Because I don't want the figure to make "organic sense."
So it definitely looks kind of "off." Hopefully, it's the kind of "off" I'm looking to achieve.

Great stuff. My only critique is that the tentacle arm appears to non-descript in reference to the rest of the model. It might just be the angle of the pic, but I think lengthening the tentacles/tendrils/cables would help to make it more visually distinct.

That model is beautiful and I don't think I would have the patience to pull that off. I agree with dogma though, the arm is the only part that really hits me as looking kind of odd on the model. Can't wait to see it finished!

Alright, managed to put some more work into this project over the weekend.
Specifically, I bulked out the "other arm" a bit with a power pack (sprouting cables and tendrils, of course), along with a pesky little "mascot" flamer arm. Here's a view from above and behind:

and here from the front:

I also worked up the tail a little more:

As soon as I fill in the base, he's ready to prime and paint!

I've done a quick base coat of crushed stone stuff for the demon prince, and will prime him tonight. Not much progress worth showing on that front.
So while we wait for developments there, I'll pull out some models I'm thinking of using to stand in as fiends.
Fiend 1:

Another angle:

And a third angle:


Fiend 2:

Another angle:

And a third angle:


And fiend 3 (sounds like a twisted Dr. Seuss line!)

another angle:

and the third angle:


These guys used to be spawn in my LatD list. I figure they can stand in as particularly horribly mutated "fiends" in a haunted IG demon army, since the mutatations do look rendy, fleety and nasty.

And then, for a herald, an evil psyker seems a natural choice.

Conversion work here is minimal. I've simply taken one of the Forgeworld renegade psykers, "elevated" him on a brass rod, and greenstuffed in some trailing robe extensions.

Loving this blog. Very inspirational. Had been considering a CSM or daemon Doom inpsired army but I like this more personal touch even more. Much more evil and techno-ish then the more catroonish GW stock models.
The painting really helps too.

Alright, back on the job!
I've started painting the demon prince. He's going to be a big job.
Here's how he looks with a few coats of paint.

and

I should stress this is very much painting in progress. I have more layering and toning to do for both the metal and the demon/flesh areas. But I did want to block out the major colors so that I could get a feel for the visual composition.

In general, I like the palatte, but I think things need to look a little less pink. And of course, the various veins, sinews, cables, wires, guts and gore all need to be picked out in various shades, so that they contrast more with each other.

Then the detailing begins....

Meanwhile, I'm beginning to scheme up the next projects in the army. I'm starting to tinker with possibilities for the horrors. I'll probably start another demon prince somewhere along the line, desecrating another sentinel to do so.

What do you suppose a 40K "chariot" would look like?

An amazing job thus far. Keep it up!

I'm still loving this project. Looking good so far.

Add some chains and hooks to get some Hellraiser feeling.

It looks good! Keep up the good work.

Many thanks for all of the encouragement. It really helps motivate me to continue.
Progress has been frequently interrupted lately with various real-life obligations, but I have staggered forward.
First, I made a few purchases...

The ghouls will become conversion fodder for horrors (if they work out the way I hope they might *fiendish cackle*).
The sentinel will give me a machine skeleton for another demon prince.
And the soul grinder will become (ahem) a soul grinder. (I like the model very much, particularly the demon torso and head, though I anticipate tinkering quite a bit with the carriage/legs.)

I decided to start with the horrors. I tried fiddling with various combinations of ghoul- and Cadian- and FW renegade bitz. But the ghouls really are creatures and models unto themselves, what with their posture and bitz breakdown. Any combination with 40K stuff made them look unnatural -- in a bad way. The prototype that worked best, I thought, was this one:

That's ghoul, legs, torso, and arms, with an IG lasgun and a head from Pig Iron. This version is still very rough: he has mould lines, of course, and needs greenstuffing to smooth out the joins, and probably some 40K touches here and there (maybe some cabling). But I like the posture and feel of the creature.
He has kind of a Hellboy vibe.

He's supposed to represent a basic Imperial Guardsman, infected with warp energies, corrupted into a foul denizen of demon lands, and sent back to the Materium to slaughter his former comerades.

I will work up a squad of horrors along these lines.
And meanwhile, continue painting the demon prince.

In the meantime, suggestions, comments, and critique are warmly welcomed.

Ohhhh, I love the Horror. It's quite sweet.

Side note: What isn't to like about 3 S4 shots per model?

The ghouls with spooky gas mask heads look really great. You ain't kidding about the Hellboy / BPRD vibe, quite nice. I personally dislike the lasgun and see them more slinging ethereal fire (ala Dawn of War, or horrors in general) rather than blazing away with the most cracked out lasguns ever. Would require some sculpting of fire here and there, but not a big thing. But if you're doing the lasguns as a fluff thing, and not related to the actual attak mode of the critters, than I can deal with that

- Salvage

For the lasgun idea id replace the barrels with some sort of learing face, or use the flamer hands like you used for the DP,

Im stealing the idea too, they'd make nice conscripts!!

Keep up the Great work

LL

Boss_Salvage wrote:The I personally dislike the lasgun and see them more slinging ethereal fire (ala Dawn of War, or horrors in general) rather than blazing away with the most cracked out lasguns ever. Would require some sculpting of fire here and there, but not a big thing. But if you're doing the lasguns as a fluff thing, and not related to the actual attak mode of the critters, than I can deal with that

I hear what you're saying here, actually, and I tend to agree (with you and with Lord L, who makes the same basic point). Which is why my lack of posting lately hasn't been for lack of fiddling and tinkering. I've been fussing with the "horrors" (ghouled up guardsmen), but I'm not yet sure I've come up with a solution that entirely satisfies me.

First, I assembled head/torso/legs for 6 of them:


So far so good. But having them simply hold their lasguns did not produce satisfying results. Partly because the ghoul arms didn't line up properly, even after bending and cutting/re-fixing. But also because a simple lasgun didn't really suggest warpfire to me.

So I've been trying some alternatives.
One way to go would be to afix some of a lasgun (minus the stock, the handle, the trigger, probably also the tip of the barrel itself) to an arm, then greenstuff in demonic ligature to suggest an unholy fusing of man and gun -- as if daemonic possession had grafted the two into a single, unholy, warp-animanted weapon.
Something like:

Here's a pair of closer detail shots:

(Since taking this photo, I've clipped out the handle and trigger apparatus.)
Here's another look:


If I go this route, maybe I'll try sculpting miniature mouths or at least tounges for the mouths of the gun-barrels. (But then, they might be too small to sculpt convincingly.)

I'm not sure, frankly. I think I'll have to press forward with this plan (so, more green-stuffing to come) on at least one test model, or probably two, then paint them up, then decide whether it works or not.

So I make this log entry not in an excited "see what I've done! Isn't it cool?!" tone. The mood here is "hmmm. Is this going to work, or not?"

Well, I'm much more convinced with the gribbly GS on there. I actually thought it was fire at first, wreathing the firing arm and gun, and thought that was an excellent idea. Now I see the gun is all merged into the arm, and I still think it's an excellent idea

I don't personally need mouths and tongues on all the guns, though a few in each squad would work, tie them in with the big sentinel demon thing's imperial gun + demonic mouths / flesh. But again, merging the lasguns into the body of the things works fine for me

- Salvage

Some progress over the weekend on painting the demon prince. I've been playing a bit with tones and palette, lightening the look up a bit (going a bit more orangely), picking out details, and so on.
I still want to do some more, but the creature is starting to come into three-color focus (in the comic book sense of the term):

and from one side:

and the other

As you can see, I decided to paint the flamer-mouth-tongues blue, to create a few points of contrast:

Here's a look at some base detail: demon prince prey:

Here he is noticing you looking at him:

And here he is from up top


He's still at the stage where I pick up the model, peer closely, turning slowly. Wonder if I should change things. Put him down. Pick him up again....

That Demon Prince is amazing, and I love the Horrors. I think that the fusion of human-weapon is a cool concept, and it looks freaky.

I just noticed the Space Marine on the DP's base. Hilarious!

I can see poeple scream and run away from that beast.

Progress lately has been sporadic, but the project has inched forward. I've spent some time fiddling with various greenstuff experiments on various horror prototypes. These ones are my favorites:


Some details:

and

and


This weekend I should be able to start painting up a few of these guys.

Next I think I want to try modeling another demon prince, using a few ideas I couldn't mash into the last one.

In the meantime, comments, criticisms, suggestions and critique would be very welcome.

Very cool. For some reason I am hoping to see some converted Obliterators in there, but I have to remind myself that it's a Demon Army, not CSM!

Aside from that I really like it. Are there any eyes on the Demon Prince?

VermGho5t wrote:Aside from that I really like it. Are there any eyes on the Demon Prince?

Damn, that's, like, psychic! One of the things I want to try is eyes (mostly from the spawn sprues) emerging from fissures in the sentinel body.
And you sensed that? I definitely detect the distant hand of Tzeench at work here.

edit: This avatar (of Schepp himself) helped stir up the idea.

Don't know where the picture's from. But it's creepy.

Just a thought, as I am also thinking Ghoul/Guard etc..

How about throwing a couple of Termagant Fleshborer armsets into this, those guns look organic and flamer-ish..

I think the picture is from the cover of a Tool album. I want to say AEnima?

porkuslime wrote:Just a thought, as I am also thinking Ghoul/Guard etc..

How about throwing a couple of Termagant Fleshborer armsets into this, those guns look organic and flamer-ish..

Good idea. The trick would be modifying the arms so they lost that very distinctive nid look to them.
Hmm, your suggestion makes me realize how much that xeno-zoology has unconsciously shaped my approach to converting the ghouls!

I've finished (well, 90% finished) modeling the first batch of nine horrors.

and

For the horror wielding a bolt of change, I decided to "mutate" a flamer:

I should be able to start painting them bit by bit (how else?) this week.

Oh lord. Amazing job! So great, I think I'm gonna go throw up. Sick man... sick. Your walker turret reminds me of those black tentacle things from Princess Mononoke, if anyone's seen that before.

Excellent first squad of gribblies, damn fine work Tin. The flamer is nice touch.

I too hope for bigger mutated gun monsters, but not sure what you have in store for us ...

- Salvage

Alright, the humidity here (northeastern U.S.) finally died down enough for me to prime the horrors last night. How exciting. I'm sure you all have lots to say about my black blobs at this point:


Anyone? No?

Well, I will post a progress report anyway, this time to solicit suggestions for a Lord of Change. I'm casting about for ideas here.
The LOC is ridiculously costly in terms of points, and so maybe not the most sensible army selection. But since I'm undertaking this project mainly for narrative and modeling reasons, I'm making one anyway.
The model has to be big (60 mm base). Has to be freaky and scary. Has to suggest Tzeentchish shooty powers, as well as flight.
And, to fit in with the theme of the army, he also has to somehow suggest "haunted, possessed IG."
Plus, I'm thinking about trying something with a C'thullu flavor.
So.

One idea I have is to take and rework a project I started a year or so ago. Never finished it, but took it this far:





Some things I'm thinking of doing to it:
Taking it apart again;
Making it bigger by a factor of 2 or so;
Making the overall lines of the piece spiral and curl more, so that it'd look like a spiral or a twisting tornado, instead of a pillar;
Splicing/grafting in IG elements (cables; imperial and guard debris, caught up in the tornado; horrified faces, trapped inside);
and then, re-coloring it to match other elements of the new army (see demon prince no. 1, above).

Does this sound as though it would work? Any other thoughts?
If I took this route, how would you recommend proceeding? My ideas are boiling over, but frankly I don't know how I'd go about making such an ambitious beast.

I really really really like those ghoul troopers. Kick ass idea.

How about this?
http://www.reapermini.com/FigureFinder#detail/02838

Got one of those ear-marked for a generic great demon myself

I like the concept Tin, and your ideas for making it better are good. Reminds me of Hammer's freaky green lord of change from his 1k Sons army, don't know if you remember seeing it before. Not on his pbase account, so I'll look around and post a link when I can find it.

EDIT --> THE HORROR (recall that greater demons used to possess marines, hence the dude in there)

- Salvage

Oh my. That's an amazing mini -- thanks for the link, Boss.
And for your suggestion as well, Foda B. I'm sticking with GW models as base material (not because I play in fancy GW tournaments, but just for the challenge of the restriction). Still, this is all grist for the mill, stirring up inspirations and ideas. Very helpful, at this stage of the process.

This army looks like it came from Silent Hill. Nicely done!

You've captured the sci-fi "demon" feeling that Games Workshop rather ignored when they released bright and spiky little daemons that, while cool looking in their own right, failed to connect with the demons from "Doom" or "Quake" that so characterize military Sci-Fi.

This is a step in the right direction. Your horrors and ghouls especially.

What are you planning for your HQ?

Arise! I summon thee, spirits! Return, return from the Earth and arise!

Well, after a long hiatus (full of real-life stuff and very little 40k, I'm afraid), I'm resuming work on this project.
See?


Actually, over the last few weeks I've made piecemeal progress on various fronts.

First, I'm putting together another small batch of horrors:

Up closer:


Then, I started up another corrupted-sentinel-demon-prince beastie.
Those humble beginnings:

The plan here is to use more of the sentinel, more intact than before -- but definitely beginning to crawl with C'thullian nastiness. Lots of eyes erupting on the hull of thing (this will probably stand in as a Tzeenchian demon prince). And inside the cabin, the driver more or less plastered to the interior of the vehicle (something like the wretched creature encased in the Forgeworld chaos warhound titan -- one of my favorite GW/FW pieces of modeling ever. (As you can see here, I'm starting with the corpse impaled on the lance from the WHFB corpse cart kit -- an amazing source of bitz.)
Here's another angle:


And then, I made the first, sketchy start on a Lord of Change. Here, I decided to try to model up my initial vision: a whirlwind of Tzeenchian demonic madness, cables and Imperial wreckage, the trapped faces of devoured souls....
I really and truly have no idea how this is going to turn out.
But here's how it's started:

and

and


Obviously I have a long way to go with these last two projects -- and honestly, no clear idea of how to get there.
The Gods will guide me, I suppose.
Or not.

Responses, suggestions, feedback of any kind is most warmly welcomed.

Well I'm really liking the start on the LoC, twin-headed flamer tornado that it's looking to become!

And I'm reminded how nifty your horrors are. Great stuff.

- Salvage

This is why I love chaos. Flesh on metal. Metal on flesh. Well done!

Some of my random thoughts. Not sure I like the pose. Guess thats hard to change now, its just that the beast is leaning forward so much I find it hard to see all the details on the front. And your GS is nice, but personally I always like more stringy muscles like youve got on the legs. More of that! And less messy tentacle stuff. Love the head. The neck is ok, but it doesnt seem to match up with the torso that well. Not sure about the tail. I think its the end thats not doing it for me. Love the legs and feet. The claws on the feet really seem to pop out of the steel. Love it.

Back to work!

After busy summer, I've dug back into work on this army -- and this time I'm pretty confident I'll be able to sustain momentum for a good stretch.

First off, after playing a few games, I've been impressed with the performance of the horrors -- so long as they're summoned in large numbers. So I'm modeling up a few more:



But most of my efforts recently have been focusing on that second demon prince.
As I may have said already, this one is also based on a corrupted-sentinel concept -- but this time I want more of the original sentinel, along with an open cab displaying the grisly sight of the sentinel pilot in the throes of possession. (The inspiration being that amazing Forge World chaos titan interior.)
Here's a look at progress as of a few days ago:

and

and

and

And then, here's more progress this morning:

and

and


Comments and criticisms welcome.
I'm thinking I want some kind of Cthullian head erupting from the cab -- or maybe just a tangle of tenticles?

im liking this DP more than the 1st (the head just doesent look right)
the main section of this one looks fine, just needs something near the engine and exausts.

Good to see more from you Tin, and I agree with JD that this possessed-to-hell sentinel is working better for me than the first one.

- Salvage

I'm liking the second one more too. Looks great. I finished up my nurgle daemon army and used dreadnoughts, nurgled out to become my daemon princes. If you want I can post them for you, I just don't want to throw them down on your thread etc.

I made gas jets for one of them to represent poo gas jets so they can putz around the field. Breathing poo gas on all the enemies.

Thanks for the feedback, folks.
I guess I agree about this second try, versus the first. But I still have a special place in my heart for gribbly number one as well.

JD: I'm definitely going to be working on the vents, engine, powerpack, and so on.

Goatboy: I'd love to see your stuff, and I bet others would as well. You should start a thread.

Further progress.
I've begun working on the demon prince's base and legs. As I want this army to be striding across the ruins of the Imperium, I found a special way to ornament his base:

That's the general pose, before pinning.
I also sculpted a series of hooked claws, for the creature's "feet":

Then I pinned the feet in place (including the ball joint -- since I find the sentinel ball joints tend break their glue bonds). And began greenstuffing in the claws and tendrils of possession:

and


The modeling is still WIP -- I need to touch up the claws (needed them to harden up more before whittling them), and I'll be working in at least one more layer of "skin" and tendrils, as well as claws for the back of the feet (raptor-style).
Lemme know what you think.

Not bad......for a heretic that needs to taste my psycannons!




no seriously this is some amazing work, keep it up.

Removing the front toe and adding claws looks really good (thought the claws need some attention).

And the pilot is superb. Love it.

the claws need a little work, might be worth using tyranid talons.

I've been noodling and tinkering, working it bits of greenstuff here and there. The "feet," at least, (which definitely did need work) are getting close:

and:

and

(That green blob behind the feet-tendrils is just stuck on the base, to begin to layer it up to the shattered-aquilla mound -- it'll eventually be textured.)

As for the cabin of the creature, I decided to go with a suggestion offered by someone in my gaming club and give the beast a malignant eyeball, rather than a full-blown Cthullu makeover -- although as you can see, I couldn't resist adding in a bit of a tentacle beard.
Still WIP:

and

and

and

It's hard from those images to get an overall sense of the proportions and "fit" of the cabin/face/torso as a whole. This shot works best in that regard:

I plan to work more on the tentacle beard, and to begin "possessifying" the vents, engine, and so on next.

How's it look so far?

I believe Coco Chanel put it best when she said "Always take off one last thing you put on." I also believe that that's the first time someone ever quited Coco Chanel on this board, but that's neither here nor there.

What that means vis a vie this model is that it is reaching perfection, but too much will make it as busy as your last Daemon prince, which was too over the top. You have a great concept and vision don't over do it. Make it work.

so far great job thought i think your first daemon prince sentinel should have 2 arms but it still looks great

Valhallan42nd wrote:I believe Coco Chanel put it best when she said "Always take off one last thing you put on." I also believe that that's the first time someone ever quited Coco Chanel on this board, but that's neither here nor there.

What that means vis a vie this model is that it is reaching perfection, but too much will make it as busy as your last Daemon prince, which was too over the top. You have a great concept and vision don't over do it. Make it work.

This is great advice -- I tend to agree that I'm on the verge of overdoing it here, so I'm trying to keep new touches light.

I've been working on the gun arm (taking a regular sentinel multilaser as my starting point).
First, I green-stuffed in a bit of daemonic tissue:

Then I pinned it to the sentinel cab -- a bit twisted, a bit out (leaving room for a bit more of that daemonic tissue).


Here's a better look at the pinning and the angle.

and another angle:


And here's a look at the whole thing, temporarily pinned together:

and


Next to do:
Greenstuff a vaguely arm-ish join between the gun arm and the cab.
And then, work out the power pack and something sinister to balance the gun arm on the other side. (Frankly, I'm not yet sure just what I'll do there. Maybe just a few erupting cables and tentacles?)

C&C is invited.

Maybe something akin to the Chaos dread's power lash? Something really large would overpower the model, I think.

this is coming along great i could never think of an excuse to do something like this but im gonna do it anyway

Thanks for the kind words. I appreciate the encouragement.
In the back of my mind, I've been wondering how to model "Blade Thralls" (i.e., bloodletters) for this army.
I love the new bloodletter models. But they really don't fit the theme or look of the stuff I've been doing.
So I bought a box, put it on the shelf, and dithered.
Then I found Virulent's take on bloodletters (half way down page 2).
:shock:
Damn, those are really evocative.
I decided to steal and modify the idea. Shaved the horns and elongated skull off of one of the bloodletter heads. Greenstuffed some ragged pants on (to evoke the guardsmen these shattered creatures once were). (The shoulders and chest parts I'll paint as warped carapace armor -- the rest as skin.) And (this last decision is tenative) greenstuffed in tendrils on the back spine (picking up on a visual theme that also appears on the horrors, demon princes, etc.).
Which, somewhat roughly modeled (mold lines and all!), looks like:

and

and

and


I kind of like it. I think. I'll have to paint up the test figure to be sure.
What do you think?

Yes you should paint it... NOW!

they need to look a little more humanish like wearing torn up IG clothing and/or armor

but they do look good

Demon Prince 2, complete! Modeling-wise, that is.
Spent a few days tinkering here and there. Basically, she's ready to paint.
Here's how she looks nekkid:

and

and

and

and


So far, I like it.
Hope I don't mess it up too bad trying to paint it!

the only way you could screw this is if you blinded us with your undistilled awesome

My FLGS is hosting an RTT on September 20th, just in time to motivate me to undertake a burst of painting. I'll have about 10 days to work 1500 points-worth into presentable condition. Most everything is at least partially painted -- everything but the second demon prince.
As of tonight, the army looks like this:

and
.

The list includes
a bloodletter (a lightly converted Belakor model)
2 x 3 flamers (using the GW models)
4 fiends
9 plaguebearers, icon
8 plaguebearers, icon
9 horrors, bolt of Tz, changling
8 horrors, bolt of Tz
Demon prince, mark of Nurgle, iron hide
Demon prince, mark of Tz, bolt, gaze

The horrors I've only just started (concentrating on flesh tones so far).
The plaguebearers (mutants, from an LatD version of the army) need touching up and detailing.
The bloodthirster needs repair (one wing fell off).
The Tz demon prince needs, well, everything.

Tomorrow I'll give the list a test run.
And then, I plan to put in a few hours of painting every day to pull things into shape for the tournament.
It's going to be a sprint!

all awesome but can we have a closup of the different squads of the army?

Wow, I really like what you have done with this! The sentinels have gotten me inspired to play with a Dread/Daemon prince conversion I had been contemplating.
That and the horrors just rock like nothing else. Well done!

A flurry of painting got enough of the army up to tabletop standard in time for a tournament at our local store today. I took some pictures during tournament play, but my camera skills are pretty weak, and my flash definitely did funny things to color. Still, here are some images from the front.

Here I am trying to assemble on a flank, preparing for a push on an opponent's objective:


Meanwhile, back behind my lines, here's the bloodthirster and the better part of a plaguebearer unit, holding my own objective:


After a few quiet turns, the bloodthirster gets bored and sends out some newly summoned fiends to scare off an enemy thrust:


Here's one of my demon princes (gifted with a mark of nurgle and iron hide, for this tournament), lugging a wound with him as he storms a Black Templar position:


Here are some horrors, looking for warp fire targets:


Here are some plaguebearers, taunting their opponents (just before going to ground!)


and another look at some plaguebearers:


More and better pictures to come in the next day or too....

And a couple more tournament shots I dug out.
First, a demon prince staring down some crisis suits:


And then, a dramatic demonstration of the efficacy of flamers. One of my opponents, a Black Templar player, sent a chaplain and a unit of assault marines boldly across the table to threaten my objective. On my turn, two sets of flamers appeared from the Warp, each scattering only slightly.
Here's the before:

and the after:


At that point, my opponent was forced to basically dig in around his own objective and wait for my counterattack. (Which, incidentally, he did manage to repulse.)

NOICE

Alright, here are some PIP pictures via better photography.

The horrors:

and

and (my camera flash went off for this one, so it's a bit too golden and glowy:
.

And here's a closeup showing my very lame effort at creating a glowy source lighting from the eyes:

(Not successful. I'll have another go at it, I suppose.)

(I still have more to do with these creatures. This is the basic scheme, though -- tying into the IG regiment scheme colors (mustard buff, and red armor) with some demon elements (blue, for Tzeentch, for these guys), and a suggestion of pink (for Pink Horrors).

Painting progress on the Tzeentchian Demon Prince to come soon.

Here's the demon prince with the Mark of Tzeentch, about 70% painted.

and

and


He looks a bit darker in the pictures, at least those last two, than he does in the, um, flesh -- but I still want to brighten the overall effect with sharper, lighter highlights on the metal and red/flesh parts.

I'm not sure what to do with the daemon eyes. Definitely something blue. But what should I do with an iris. I was thinking something like a cat eye, and at first I thought maybe yellow -- but now I'm worried it would look weird (weird in the wrong way, I mean). Suggestions would be helpful.

maybe give it something creepy like 2 pupils?

Impressive. Most Impressive.

It's things like that, which make me keep coming back to 40k.

My next goal is to finish my Lord of Change conversion.

The concept here is a mini tornado of cable, sinew, gore and IG detritus, topped by a double-headed flamer -- a swirling storm of daemonic energy
(The Lord of Change comes equipped with daemonic flight, various "shooting" powers, and considerable combat heft.)

The project started, you may recall, with a very basic armature:

and

and


Over the last few evenings, I've been adding a "gun arm," a "ccw arm," the first few strands of cable, and a lot of greenstuff. Producing:

(There's a good look at the gun arm)
and

and

and (a pretty good look at the ccw arm)

and (from behind -- with some cabling)


This is very much WIP. The final skin/texture will look nothing like what you see up and down the torso of the whirlwind. Lots and lots more greenstuff, cable, imperial wreckage and so on will be layered in and on.
But I thought you might be interested in seeing the thing at this skeletal stage.

cant wait to see it finished

Looking a bit like a tzneech spawn for now. Though I have a hard time seeing sculpts and scratchbuilds with the final fruits of the labor in my minds eye.

A bit more structure (and a good heap of paint to tie it all together ^_-) and I'll be able to give a better crit!

Good work so far though. You're not helping this 'I WANNA SCULPT' kick my minds been on lately that I've been pushing to the back of my brain....

Dude looking at your stuff makes me physically ill.

So disturbing and sickening. Keep it up.

As the spanish use to say when we see something great...OLE! that's freaking great! i love your work mate, keep working!

I don't know if you had this idea or not but anyway for your LoC to have the souls of the IG soldiers within the vortex I think you can you the wraiths from VC as spirits or could make your own

FlammingGaunt wrote:I don't know if you had this idea or not but anyway for your LoC to have the souls of the IG soldiers within the vortex I think you can you the wraiths from VC as spirits or could make your own

Actually, I had been thinking along these same lines, as you'll see.

Progress on the Lord of Change has been sporadic, and slow. This guy is so fiddly, and I'm just kind of picking at it, a bit here, a bit there, so he's materializing very slowly. But I have been making progress.

First, a look from behind and above, to give a sense of overall "anatomy" of this vortex of flux:


Then, a slightly different angle. I want to try showing the Lord of Change feeding parasitically off of the imperial corpses below (more greenstuff to come here, as elsewhere -- feeder tendrils and so on).

And from the side:

And a closeup on some of the souls sucked up into the vortex:


and


This is not yet done. I have detail sculpting up and down the whirlwind left to do. At this stage I'm still experimenting with texture, "skin," and details -- seeing what works, what doesn't.

Any thoughts or comments?

Impresive...

yea very nurgle looking

Quick tangent. The league in which I'm currently playing requires each player to model up three objectives on 40mm bases.

In keeping with my "haunted IG regiment as chaos demons" army theme, I've modeled up a series of rather grim crucifixion vignettes. I figure these poor wretches represent those stout souls among the IG that are resisting damnation. Hence the Lords of Chaos are punishing them, stringing them up, keeping them alive via unnatural sorceries, and using their torment to channel in energy from the Warp to sustain the demons' presence in the Materium.
Thus:

and


The greenstuff at the victims' feet will be painted as blue-tinged flames, modeled in 8-point circles of chaos, representing sacred circles...

I bow to your mastery of the grand funk that is chaos!

This is amazing stuff. A converted Demon army is an awesome idea. Keep up the good work!

Just frigging brilliant, thanks for continuing to share.

Thanks for the encouragement, everybody.
More fiddling....more.... more...
and the Lord of Change is just about done, modeling-wise.

Eh voila!
From above and behind:

and from one side:

and from head-on:

and from the other side:

and from behind:


I'll tinker just a bit more (can a "Lord of Change" ever really be finished?), then prime her.

Her???

Anyway, great modeling skills. All I can make is puss on Nurgle tanks

Now paint it!

Played a great game on one of my store's favorite table last night. I'll prepare and post a batrep soon, but in the meantime, here are a few pictures from the front.
The table is a swamp table -- very atmospheric, with tons (well, at least, 100+ pounds) of clear resin and richly modeled flora and fauna, both submerged and partially surfaced.
Here are some of my horrors and a demon prince, materializing in the muck:

And here horrors face off against two squads of grenadiers (beautifully painted by Matt Liddic, one of my favorite local players to play):

Here's a closer look:

(Unfortunately, it was Matt's turn. The horrors were entirely pasted!)
Here some plaguebearers greet more grenadiers:

And finally, here's a (wounded) Demon Prince (Mark of Tzeentch) is swarmed by guardsmen:

Thanks for looking.

Glad to see the madness continue Tin. The LoC is getting there for sure, nice and horrific. Really just needs bulk still in my mind, but the cables & swoopy souls & such are right on.

- Salvage

wow, this is a really novel take on chaos demons. i especially like the loc - much more dark future than the egyptian anthro birdie.^^

Ewwwwwww.


I like it. Seriously your spin off a sentinel is sweet.

A fantastic project! The green-fu is most powerful in this one... I'm truely jealous!

I was inspired by your use of ghouls.

I've made mine Plaguebearers:

Love your work with the ghouls!

And since a few folks have been kind enough to unearth this plog...
(ahem)
Lately I've been doing more gaming than painting -- which is a good thing. Still here and there, I've been picking away at painting the Lord of Change.

It took me awhile to work up the nerve to start painting him, I confess. He's so big and weird and all over the map. I was kind of intimidated.

I'm not done yet -- there's a lot of detail work to do, and bits here and there all over I need to clean up. (For example, some of the red I'll layer and texture up in fleshy/guts'ngore tones.)

But I have blocked out the basic color scheme, which looks like:

and

and


Things I like so far:
The Tzeenchian blue flamery, and the way blue energy zings up and down the creature;
the base, with the bodies feeding the demon;
the way the colors are beginning to emphasize the form of the creature;
the chaotic whirlwind/vortex effect.

Things I'm not happy with so far:
It still looks muddy;
It's still a bit dark;
My painting is pretty sloopy.

As you can see, I'm definitely in the mood for criticisms or critique. Input is welcome.

Thanks for looking.

Nice conversion! That looks like it took a ton of patience. I have trouble working on anythign that takes more than an hour or two .. that must have taken days or more!

The painting is coming along nicely. I dig the blue flamage. I think the "muddy" look comes from the lack of open space. Since every surface is highly detailed it is making it difficult to have sharper contrast. Not sure what you can do about that except keep plugging away at the details until they get some disticnt seperations.

Meph

You need something that is brighter and clashes with the overall form. Maybe something glowing more, that brings about the idea that it is glowing internally. Greens would be good, as you have a lot of cool effects going with the model (blues, bluish browns, low color skin etc). You could also try bringing out the pink in the skin tone for the fleshie bits, to help brighten it up.

Just did this soul grinder/defiler based off of what Cadaver did on his Nurgle Defiler. Tweaked it to be Slaaneshie with a mini boob as well as other fleshie bits. But you can see the glowing green on the back helps break apart the overal monotone color of the piece etc.

My Soul Grinder/Defiler 2

Really like it so far and might have to use it to tweak out a greater Daemon that fits into my theme or reused dreadnoughts and other fun bits.

Gack, don't leave your glasses resting on the lenses!!

GoatboyBBMA wrote:You need something that is brighter and clashes with the overall form. Maybe something glowing more, that brings about the idea that it is glowing internally. Greens would be good, as you have a lot of cool effects going with the model (blues, bluish browns, low color skin etc). You could also try bringing out the pink in the skin tone for the fleshie bits, to help brighten it up.

Just did this soul grinder/defiler based off of what Cadaver did on his Nurgle Defiler. Tweaked it to be Slaaneshie with a mini boob as well as other fleshie bits. But you can see the glowing green on the back helps break apart the overal monotone color of the piece etc.

Wow, great Grinder!
And it does help illustrate your suggestion. Thanks for the input. I'll keep working on this.

I would try and make the soul grinder IGish in some way like a mutant tank, or walker. I remember in a game I forget the name but there was a boss called the spider tank where it's trends broke and became legs but had a lot of mutantious flesh on it. I think that would look awesome

this whole army screams the Dark Adeptus book, if anyones read that.

love it all man, very impressive.

reminds me of an army in this vein i started a while ago, but based on necrons. i'll post some pictures when i find the army, and some WIP pics when i do some more stuff on it .

Hapless mortals! Your doom draws nigh.
After venturing out on an extended campaign of conquest (and defeat) in Danger Planet's Fall league, I'm returning to my private Forge World to construct and otherwise concoct more daemons. And to spur myself, I'm reviving this project log.
I'll start posting WIP stuff tonight or tomorrow.
In the meantime, to whet appetites, here are a few glimpses into the Harrowed now, including a few shots of my Lord of Change (further along in painting, though not yet done...


and

and


And an army shot of the Host


Comments and critique welcomed, of course.
Specific projects on the workbench include:
a soulgrinder (fairly lightly converted)
yet another demon prince (again sentinel-based, more Khornish, possibly with wings)
bloodletters (converted)
some Harrowish version of things that could sand in as Bloodcrushers.

Blood Crushers = spider-legged centuar quads with commisar torsos, kind of a mini-defiler?

The lord of change is looking pretty sweet. The colors are seperating now with the highlights very well.

Meph

LoC turned out just how I thought it would good job painting it thats something you should be proud of.
But seriously spider tank would look awesome!!

i really love the necroesque look of your fiends.

and the LoC is jsut ACE!

You should try to make some daemons based on the new Ork Stormboy jumppacks, give it a more organic/daemonic body and you have yourself some unique Harpies!

Necron Wraiths in combination with flaming greenstuff and some organic bits (perhaps a more human face) could be cool Slaanesh Daemonettes riding on whatever their cavalry uses.

The lord of change has really come along, great work Tin. Val's idea on the mini-defilers is groovy for crushers (comissar torsos? ha!), though any number of big beefy assault mash-ups might work. DOOM actually has several, pinky demons included

- Salvage

Some cool ideas, guys, thanks.
I'll experiment with the mini-defiler idea and see what happens.

In the meantime...


“The Exile begs an audience, my lord,” sniffed Eloq

E’Asuu nodded, amused by his major domo’s superciliousness. Under other circumstances, Eloq would tremble to come within reach of a daemon as ancient and powerful as the one he now led into the chamber. Yet now…

The Lord of Change leaned forward, studying the beast as it approached the dais.

Auax still smoldered with rage, E’Asuu noted approvingly. He may have been brought low, his dominions despoiled, his followers scattered, but he had not come to beg or truckle. Sulfur leaked from his pores, his eyes darted fiercely around the audience chamber, and though he carried himself suitably humbly – head bowed, claws sheathed, haunches low – the beast still brimmed with feral menace. He was supremely dangerous, a cornered animal.

He was perfect.


Mostly because I want to field a soul grinder, my next will be... a soul grinder.

And because I really like the GW model, I'll base my soul grinder on... GW's soul grinder.

Seriously, I do like the GW model. Particularly the demon parts of it. So (at least for grinder number 1), I'm going to take the head, torso, and weapon arms basically as GW sold them to me.

Where I do want to start fiddling is with the "machine" parts of the model -- the chasis/carriage and, in particular, the "leg" claws. I want to "daemonize" these parts a bit -- with more sinew, more viscera, more flesh and bone worked in.
I may try to work in some IG stuff as well (from tanks, perhaps?). But frankly, I want to get that first grinder assembled, painted, and summoned as soon as possible, so if things start to get complicated, I'll save the ambitious stuff for grinder number 2.

To start "daemonizing" the legs, I've carved out some of the facings (and I'll leave off the greave/shields).

And then, when I first glued the claw arm together and then glued it to the torso, the twin halves of the arm slipped apart.

It had half-dried before I noticed, and I was on the verge of prying it apart to re-set it... when I decided to work with it as is, using greenstuff sinew/daemonstuff to bind and join the two parts together.
Time to break out the green stuff!

Does the soulgrinder come with defiler claws?

Because if they do try doing a standing one,

That would look sooo badass.

The soul grinder does come with the defiler claws.

One potential drawback with doing a standing grinder would be that it would end up with a substantially different footprint, to which opponents might raise (legitmate) objections. (Since they arrive via deepstriking, the grinders' formidable power is balanced, in part, by the riskiness of summoning it too close to opponents.)
edit: It would look pretty badass, though.

Good point, but thanks for the heads up, ill be making one for myself now!!

put a vertical grinder on a base that roughly matches the dimensions of the normal grinder, so that you receive no unfair advantage.

“Curious, how circumstance tugs our condition this way, then that,” E’Asuu observed, his voices chirruping brightly, cawing harshly, chorusing raggedly, just on the edge of cacophony. “Lowly servants become mighty sovereigns as the Warptides wax. Mighty sovereigns are brought low and cast into exile as the tides wane. Fortunes flex and flux. Boon gives way to bane, and often it becomes impossible to tell the one from the other.”

The object of this moral lesson, the daemon Auax, said nothing. Merely regarded E’Asuu, tail snapping behind him, bile acid-hot in his chest.

E’Asuu smiled—sweetly with one visage, grimly with the other. “Why do you come to our court, Auax-outcast? What is it you seek of us?”

“Vengance. The chance to repay my enemies. The means to make war again. Give me iron, E’Asuu E’Aglaa. Give me armor, give me cannon and fire and claws. If I cannot rule, now let me rend, let me ruin, let me lay waste to those who conspired against me.”

E’Asuu sat back in his throne, savoring the moment. “You are much reduced, Auax. It seems to us that when last we crossed paths, aeons ago, you vowed to cut our hearts out and feed them to your hounds.”

“Aye, so I did,” the daemon growled.

“Pray tell us, then, why we should grant you such formidable powers as you now seek? Why should we succor one who, in years past, declared himself an enemy?”

At that, Auax grinned. “Actually, I thought the illogic of the idea might appeal to you, twisted one.”

Delightful! E’Asuu felt a frisson shiver through him. “Indeed it does,” he murmured.


I've begun applying greenstuff sinews, tendrils and general demon-viscera to the 'grinder.


It's a layering process, so there's still more stuff to be green-stuffed.

It's coming along, though.

Hey, any excuse to post fluff.


I've also started a khnornish demon prince with wings (able to stand in as a bloodthirster), but I'll wait until I get a bit further along before posting it. (I'm trying some things out that may not work.)

Thanks for looking.

one of the best daemon armies ive seen

ya I agree with corpsesarefun you really out done yourself

Ack. I've had this sort of idea (Daemons warped from machines) since Chaos Daemons were first separated from CSM and WoC.

But you've basically surpassed anything I could've hoped to do.

Great job.

Thanks for the warm words! It's very encouraging.

Shifting gears, let me toss in a few WIP looks at (yet another) demon prince, this one with wings and a Khornish attitude. (In fact, I want the model to be able to stand as a Bloodthirster, when the occasion calls for it.)

I'm starting once again with a sentinel as a base (anticipating battles in which I'll be able to field three demon princes, each manifesting as a possessed sentinel -- should look pretty cool).

This time, though, I want to split the cabin wide open to create a monstrous, slathering maw of a mouth.

I started by dropping the front cabin panels in boiling water, in an effort to soften them up enough to bow them open. That didn't work particularly well (the plastic is rather thick, and didn't soften all that much). So I encouraged things along with a pair of pliers, producing:


The whole cabin warped a bit, opening fissures along the bottom and the sides in the back -- but I kind of like that effect.

Then I began fashioning a vertical mouth, producing

and (another angle)

As you can see, I added a tongue (partly because at this point I realized the thing was starting to look like some Freudian nightmare -- not necessarily a bad thing, where demons are concerned, but I didn't want the effect to be too distracting).

I left that for a day or two, then went back in with more greenstuff for further orthodontics. Specifically, I modeled in a set of teeth on the outer rim, running up each side. (The teeth should pop more when painted.) ...
Consigned skeletal remains to the cabin interior...
And then added a few "venus flytrap"-type feeder mandibles,
creating:


(from another angle)

(from another angle)

(from yet another angle)


Now I had something more than just a mouth. I had a MAW.
That's where things stand now.
Future work will include:

grafting in more invasive daemonic tissue, threading through and violently piercing the cabin;

Grafting on a pair of wings (still up in the air [no pun intended] about what to use for wings);

grafting spawn claws (the long, curving ones), scything out from the creature's sides, to capture prey and gather it in to the maw);

Modeling the sentinel legs as bird legs, the creature still in flight, just in the process of alighting.

I warmly invite feedback. I have a sense of how I want this creature to end up, but I have most definitely not planned the thing out bit by bit in my mind. The project is still quite plastic, and open to ideas and suggestions.

Thanks for looking.

Damn it work faster.

good job by the way

More progress on the Bloodthirster/Khorne Prince.
I've done a bit more greenstuffing around the cabin. But in doing so, I realized I need to block out the entire figure before proceeding much further, so I grafted on some of the claws (from the Spawn sprue, with a bit of pruning and melding of those bitz) to get a feel for the evolving anatomy.
That effort produced this:

I like the random spikiness of the claws -- the way the seem to have erupted from the cabin, and I can picture them feeding the maw, crab-like. (Keep in mind the creature will have wings and taloned feet, hovering over prey to fight and kill.)
More greenstuffing will be needed to work in organic joins.
Here's another angle:

and:

More claws (smaller, I imagine) will probably be added.

I also began working a bit on the sentinel legs, cutting each in two at the upper joint and repositioning them to be longer -- taking the opportunity to bend them a bit inwards.

I don't want them symmetrical or even. I want them organic looking -- like limbs grasping at prey. Greenstuffed ligature and talons on the feet should improve the effect.

How's it looking?

im loving the look of the sentinel. not too sure how a "diving for a prey" sentinel will look like, but atm it looks promising

thats awesome

Looking good, you made me want to start a daemon army.
with the blood thrister sentinal I would of extented the mouth a little further out but it does look good with the claws.

Thanks once again for the ideas and encouragement.
FlammingGaunt: actually, I'm concerned that the mouth seems a bit, um, engorged -- and I plan on trying to tie it in in a bit more with the rest of the cabin, via (what else?) further greenstuffing!

Meanwhile, the wings are on.

A friend, Lenny, was nice enough to donate a pair of balrog wings to the cause, which seemed as though they'd be suitably daemonesque. They were. But they were also so big that they (quite literally) overshadowed the rest of the model.

Still, wanting to use what I had and move forward, I decided to work on them. First, I carved out the outer/upper wing segment on each side. Then I put the wings in boiling water (to soften the plastic) and bent them folded in a bit.

Better, but still too much wing.

Then I started carving out the "skin" portions of the wing, deepening the arcs between the "bone" parts, from the bottom of each segment up (if you see what I mean). That looked as though it would work, acheiving something closer in proportion. The plastic on the wings was quite thick, though, and I was soon carving slices into my fingers as I worked. (Blood for the Coversion God!) After applying bandage number three, I decided to call Jack (another friend) and ask to use his dremel. Properly equipped, I sanded my way through each wing segment. In the end, I took about a third of the "skin" surface area.

Leaving me with this:



And, from other angles:




I still want to touch things up with greenstuff, and to curve the little wing "fingers" in a bit. (One of them snapped off as I tried to bend it; that'll be fixed). Still, I think that's the basic architecture I was looking for.

So it's starting to come together!

MAAAANNNN, that is freakin cool

also love the straight(er) sentinal legs!!

can't wait to see more

your right those wings are huge but it still looks awesome. you should have it dragging a space marine off by his legs.

awesome daemon army. i looked at every page. this is top notch work. i wish i had as much GS-fu as you.

Progress continues, bit by bit.
I've put on the legs (after shortening them a bit). And continued to work in more greenstuff daemonicry.

and

and, from behind

and (this one best conveys the positioning of the legs):

and finally, a closeup of the cabin:


I still see a few places where I want to layer in more greenstuffing. Then I need to think up something for a base, and set up a brass rod to fix him to it (the creature will be hovering/descending, still mid-air).
But it's getting close....

Thanks for looking.

i absolutely adore this army
seriously, top notch idea, execution and painting

put a penis on your soul grinder; a massive one, like that other guy did:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/221280.page

looks buzzin though. (not the penis, your models. penises dont buzz. unless there like electric penises. and that just li- EEAAAUUGGHHH!!!)

Awesome work man, really. You may have just inspired me to do daemons!!!

-MANRIC

wats thw zombie bit from???

That thing is beautiful.

typhus wrote:wats thw zombie bit from???

IIRC, it came from the WHFB Corpse Cart.

Thanks for the kind words, everyone. Nice to hear that some of my ideas, many of them stirred up by work here and on other forums, are sparking other ideas.

Looking good are you going to make a special base for it?

Actually, as far as the base goes, I'm still waiting for inspiration to strike. Any ideas would be welcome.

Initially I was thinking I'd pick some terrain feature, probably ruins, that would add some height to the base, and then pin the model from a claw to said feature, to create a flying/landing effect. But the way the model turned out, there's no way a pin through the claw would be strong enough. I still want the model to be posed mid-air, so I'm going to have to mount it on a brass rod. As for what might decorate the base below, I haven't decided yet.

mount the model on a flying base nd have it about to eat and IG. i have this amazing image of a huge shreiking daemonic thing about to swallow this little imperial guardsmen who is just looking at the prince in horror and shock. also have a ruined city base, the greys would go well with all the reds of khorne.

I've begun painting the new winged demon prince. So far I've been concentrating on the sentinel body, demon maw, and talons. Which at this stage are looking like this:


and:


Nothing is finished yet. I"ve begun highlighting and washing, but plan more layers of stuff. This is the basic scheme so far, though: the sentinel gunmetal (washed with black, and lightly with blue; highlighted with gunmetal and mithral); talons and teeth bone white washed lightly with chestnut ink and heavily with Devam Mud, then highlighted with bone white; the maw viscera various reds, flesh/reds, washed with purple, reds,etc...

Meanwhile, I'm stuck on what color(s) to paint the wings. Keeping in mind that during games the view most people will have will be:


I'm thinking either shades of gray, with redish tint and accents.
Or possibly some kind of leathery color, with redish tints and accents.

Any thoughts?

I only just read this thread now, and I am gobsmacked. This is outstanding. Wow. WOW!
...
WOW!

For the wings, I think leathery with reddish tints would look really cool if done well.
But hell, on a model that gorgeous you could leave them black and my jaw would still drop every time I saw it.

I would copy the bloodthister paint scheme

I decided to try out a leathery/bone color for the wings, with distinct red tint and touches. Which came out pretty well:

and, from the underside,

and, from head-on,


To me at least, it looks like a model that screams"Khorne mofo, swooping in to slice you up."

Incoming! :twisted:

Holy gack! That thing looks great! I wasn't sure about it at first, but you pulled it off nicely!

Moar!

I have to say, tinfoil, that your skill with Green Stuff and your grasp of the concepts that you wish to portray, as well as your skill at making those concepts come to life is fantastic. I will most certainly be watching this thread in awe of your modeling skills.

Thanks, guys.

I've also made progress on the base. I figured I'd need some bulk and weight here, to balance and ballast the beast above. So I started out with a section of bunker a friend provided (thanks Jack!) that I sawed off (to fit a 60 mm base) chipped and nicked up (to simulate battle damage). I drilled a thick hole into the core of the bunker, for the bloodthirster's support rod, then added in some sand to even out the surrounding ground.

I wanted to create an effect suggesting that the daemon had just destroyed the bunker. Fortuitously, a few days ago I found what I was looking for in link off of a Warseer thread (post number 405): someone had modeled an explosion using clump foliage to simulate billowing smoke . Just the thing.

First I tried using PVC glue to afix the foliage to the base. That didn't work at all. So then I tried superglue, afixing small clumps of the stuff to wires (for which I drilled small holes in the bunker terrain). That method worked well, producing:



and, another angle:


The green of the foliage is distracting -- it's going to be smoke, not daemonic shrubbery. (And I needed to add a bit more, I realized after test-fitting it with the daemon model.) So here's how it looks under-coated:



and


and, with the bloodthirster:


and:


I'm pretty happy with the overall look. Next to do is put a few base colors on the, um, base.

wow nice idea on the foliage used as smoke. loving how the Thirster/prince came out, you really stayed in touch with your theme throughout the whole army. well done.

Alright, I've done enough painting on the bloodthirster to at least set him loose on the game table.


and

and

and


I'll probably add dibs and dabs -- more detail work on a few parts. But in the meantime, he's in the skies and looking for blood.

Now I suppose I'll have to work up some bloodletter conversions to serve under him.

Highly disturbing... The bloody, exposed muscle and bone is really bad ass looking.

wow this thirster/prince is amazing. Screw the grinders!

DAMN!!! that looks great.

That looks like a John Blanche painting given form and life. It's great for 40K.

chaplaingrabthar wrote:That looks like a John Blanche painting given form and life.

Now that complement makes me just blush. Really, the highest form of praise I could imagine. Thanks!

Now that the Bloodthirster’s been spawned and set loose, I’ve been thinking about bloodletters. (After all, it wouldn’t do to send one of the Blood God’s field marshals to battle without Khornish rank and file.)

I love the latest bloodletter models from GW–particularly their poses. Very savage looking creatures, with a wonderfully evocative air of menace.

Still, in keeping with my army’s theme and background, I feel compelled to do some converting. I want my particular bloodletters, like other elements of my army, to represent haunted Imperial guardsmen, tainted and twisted by the unholy energies of Chaos. Whereas GW’s beasties are pure daemon.

You may remember that I tried my hand at suitable surgery a few months ago, taking inspiration from some work Virulent did on his bloodletters. A few days ago I picked up the project again, tinkering a bit to produce the following prototype:

And, from another angle:

That right hand/claws mess doesn’t look right yet, but I like the look of the left hand/claws.

I still haven’t worked out all the details, but I see enough here to start putting together a pack.

So first I modeled some Hulk pants on the bloodletter legs:


And then I went to work on the heads, snipping the backs off the ‘letter heads…

and the horns of the ‘letter faces…


I decided to graft some of those horns onto the letters’ backs, as spinal horns. Then, after a bit of shaving/whittling on heads, I have this:

And one more picture, with more detail:


So I’m underway. More to come on this soon. In the meantime, suggestions or reactions are warmly invited.

Allow me to be the first to say...
OMGTHOSEAREFREAKINAWESOMETHEYARESOMUCHBETTERTHANOUTOFTHEBOXBLOODLETTERSANDYOUARETHEMASTEROFALLDAEMONARMIES!!!

Nice concept. looking forward to see more.

by the way, how do you do the hulk pants?

Progress has been slow, fitful of late, but the project has staggered forward.

I've sculpted 5 bloodletters so far, with others started. I still have a few touches to add, cleanup to do, but these ones are close to being ready to paint:

and

and


I have to admit, the greenstuffing looks rather crude, and I'm not entirely pleased with the results. But here and there I've got things that achieve the effect I was hoping for.

The backs of the creatures are meant to have bone spikes (2-3 per model, for most of them), surrounded by mutating tissue and gore:

and

(That one, eh.)

The skulls are meant to kind of look elongated and veiny and "wrong" in a mad scientist sort of way (though these guys are not very brainy!)


While the hands are supposed to be mutating (in the throes of daemonic mutation that, in these cases, takes a sort of werewolf form) into vicious claws

(As I said, the sculpting's pretty crude.)
and (this one turned out a bit better)


And then, I also felt compelled to mess up the creature's faces. As modeled, GW's bloodletters look savage, fierce, predatory -- as they should. But they looked too potent and sinister to be possessed wretches, formerly human.
So I've scratched out their eyes. Figuring, blinding them could be part of the possession, reducing the creatures to their more "animal" senses of hearing, smell....


I'm hoping they'll look a bit better painted -- and that I'll learn as I go along, so that the next batch will be closer to what I'm trying to get at.

C&C, as ever, would be very welcome.

Man, this thread just keeps on giving. Awesome stuff dude, you can be proud of an army like that.
If you wouldn't live on another continent I would play against that army all week

For some contructive critisism: Assuming that the green stuff around the waist and legs is supposed to be what's left of the guardsmen's pants, I would suggest adding a few bitz from their sprue. Some leftover grenades, some extra puches, maybe even a helmet or holster.

And that Bloodthirster/Demon Prince is made out of pure golden win.

Work faster! I want to see more!

Amazing work so far, those latest conversions just scream Doom3!

Fantastic!

I bow before your greatness.

The bloodletters remind me of the imps in doom. The quality of this army is just sublime.

You may just be replacing lemmingspawn as my favourite converter!

I think the blindfold idea is great kinda like the demon hunters in warcraft 3.

That's it. No more "real life"! I hereby renounce "real life," and re-dedicate myself to daemonic worship and Warhammer.

Recent progress on the Harrowed includes a burst of painting in preparation for tournament display.

The bloodletters are still very much PIP. I've been experimenting with skin tones, and overall color schemes -- trying (as ever) to evoke the creatures' human origins, as well as their daemonic defilement.

I'm getting close to what I want to achieve:


It's still a bit pinkish, I suppose -- but I kind of like the paleness of the flesh and the sense of blood and gore mottling the skin.


The red sections are supposed to be the remnants of carapace armor, now warping and fusing to the creature via the process of daemonic possession to form a sort of exoskeleton.


I still have a lot of detailing to do (e.g., washing and highlighting the hulk pants; painting horns and talons brown/bone white....)


Right now I'm at the stage where I like bits of one figure here, other bits of another figure there...


Still, the overall effect or impact I'm looking for is starting to hit me.

Those converted bloodletters look great! As does the rest of your army! I hope to see more.

Grrrrrriiiiiibbbbbbblllllllllllly ... Coming alone nicely Tin, and every time I see eyeless freakletters I want to convert up some just to give space marianes nightmares

- Salvage

I always liked nurgle.
And is it me or are the largest part of the converted armies on dakka orks and chaos.

well, I dont know quite what to say really.

A fantastic idea, brilliantly modelled and painted.

May your dice always roll kindly, you earned it!

Phill

Thanks for the kind words, folks.

goffnob deffsmakka wrote:I always liked nurgle.
And is it me or are the largest part of the converted armies on dakka orks and chaos.

Something about these armies does seem to bring out the twisted possibilities!

I've also been working on painting the soul grinder. It too is coming together in dribs and drabs, and while there is some detailing work I still want to do, it's getting close. (Sorry about the pictures. They're a bit dark -- but cumulatively they get the thing across.)

I like how the basic color scheme came out.

Looking it over, though, I feel as though I could have spliced a lot more with sinew-and-flesh-and-gore stuff into the legs and onto the carriage of the beast.

When it was plastic and greenstuff it looked effective. Painted, it looks kind of cob-webby.


Ah well, I've got more ambitious ideas for soul grinder II, which will be the next project....

Looks awesome just like the rest of the army.

Woah-ho-ho!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm so impressed even "woah" needs some kind of pleasing extension. Even though it does sound like a pleased father christmas.

Alright, as threatened, I've begun work on the second soul grinder -- the Altar of Souls. (That name sounds familiar. Have I heard it before and forgotten where? If so I'll need to change it.)

The working concept is a daemon engine -- an ancient, malevolent entity possessing an imperial chassis (maybe a once mighty baneblade? -- though I'm using the GW soul grinder as a base platform) and feasting on the souls of the tech adepts, drivers, and soldiers that once drove the thing.

Or something.

As for how to build such a thing, I'm not really sure. This will be one of those conversions I work up bit by bit, with only a vague plan about what I want the result to end up looking like, and only half-baked ideas about how to get there. I'll start with the grinder chasis, and bits of corpses sawn out of the corpse cart bitz.


To begin, I affixed several curled pieces of coat hanger wire to the chassis, creating a couple of spines.



Or rather, I wanted them to define several soul-spirals, like curls of smoke rising out of the altar.


(For playability reasons, I took care to make sure the overall dimensions of the model will closely resemble those of the GW soul grinder. These soul-spirals are just about as tall as the daemon head and torso that top the GW model.)



Then I spliced some corps bits onto the chassis, and began stringing them up the soul spirals.



Right now I'm just blocking out the corpse bits.



Soon I'll begin green-stuffing in some sort of daemonic ligature to fuse the souls (corpse bitz) into each other and into the daemon engine. The result may well resemble the work I did on my Lord of Change -- but with more soul/body parts this time, I think.

I'm not sure exactly where I'll go from here. I'll probably string a few more corpses up each of the spires, but have them thin out -- maybe ending in knotted tangles of grasping, clutching hands or something like that.

Ideas, criticisms, feedback would be very helpful.
Thanks for looking.

goffnob deffsmakka wrote:I always liked nurgle.
And is it me or are the largest part of the converted armies on dakka orks and chaos.

And your problem with that is.....?

I can report some progress on Soul Grinder II ("The Son of Soul Grinder"?). I've selected, pruned, and grafted more stuff onto the Soul Spirals:

The WHFB Corpse Cart kit continues to yield really choice material:

And I've also found a few odds and ends elsewhere, such as the Spawn kit:

When the thing is done, I want people to stare at the Soul Spirals, horrified, fascinated, hypnotized -- and I want the Soul Spirals to "stare" back:


Next up: out comes the greenstuff, to begin weaving flames, cables and ligature along the Soul Spiral.


Further updates soon.

Beautiful
your right about the hypnotic nature of the soul spirals
all hail tinfoil... all hail tinfoil...

Win, win, win, win, win. You win.

Your ability with motion and pose is even better than your (considerable) greenstuff skills. Really good stuff.

And may I steal the ghouls/Pig Iron idea for some rebel IG Ratlings?

Savnock wrote:
Your ability with motion and pose is even better than your (considerable) greenstuff skills. Really good stuff.

Thank you. That's very complementary.

Savnock wrote:And may I steal the ghouls/Pig Iron idea for some rebel IG Ratlings?

Of course. I'm sure I didn't invent it or anything. In fact, I think I first saw the combination among some mutants in a renegade Vraks army at my FLGS. (Thanks, Trooper!)

Let the greenstuffery commence!

This is going to be a long, slow, multi-staged process. Partly because I will be experimenting with effects and techniques as I go; partly because I'm still making up my mind about what a "soul spiral" should look like; and partly because I want the thing to look multi-layered and chaotic and layered anyway.

A tentative first round of work produced these sections:

Sort of a cross between sinews and flames, I guess.

I imagine I'll paint the mortals in flesh and gore tones, and the flames in icy blue.
The parts I liked best, at this stage, where those depicting souls struggling futilely to escape:


I let that dry, and had a second go at the thing:

and

and


Still a long way to go with this.

Feedback would be helpful, as the project is still in a very plastic stage at this point. Let me know what's working for you, and what isn't.

Thanks for looking.

That is is mighty impressive army!

It's still a bit early to comment on the Soulgrinder II, seeing how it is only just starting to take shape. But I like it so far!

im liking the concept, corpses and the greenstuffery so far
if i see something i dont like ill tell you.

The floating souls concept is great and you've pulled off that twisiting vortex fantastically well to amazing effect.

As others have said its the posing and the movement you are able to catch in your conversions that really bring them alive so much. You have a fantastic skill there and a rare talent.

Can't wait to see more of this.

tinfoil wrote:Alright, as threatened, I've begun work on the second soul grinder -- the Altar of Souls. (That name sounds familiar. Have I heard it before and forgotten where? If so I'll need to change it.)

You might be thinking of forge of souls.
Love EVERYTHING consider all the daemon/machine ideas "borrowed"

BTW are you going to be addimg legs or tracks to soulgrinder II?

freaky angel wrote:BTW are you going to be addimg legs or tracks to soulgrinder II?

Yep, definitely. Not exactly sure what I'm going to do with them.
Hmmm. Maybe moar souls?

Thanks for the kind words.

i was under the impression the alter of souls was to be mounted apon a tank, a moving sacrificial engine powered by the tortured souls of the departed.

think a 40k corpse cart but with souls instead of corpses.

corpsesarefun wrote:i was under the impression the alter of souls was to be mounted apon a tank, a moving sacrificial engine powered by the tortured souls of the departed.

think a 40k corpse cart but with souls instead of corpses.

That's a cool concept, but I think I need to keep this model as a walker. My army is so heavily converted as it is that it's hard for opponents sometimes to make out what's what, and I don't want to add to the confusion!

It wasn't supposed to be a suggestion
i was just saying what i thought you were doing anyway

how about a skimmer kept afloat by flames firing downwards?

This is going to look so awesome once it's done.....

Looking forward to see it finished!

Dude you have some awesome stuff! I can't wait to see the second SG finished.

Good lord... this soul altar is a great idea. Really looking forward to seeing it progress...

RZ

I need to see MORE!
what are you planning on doing with the ends of the soul spirals? and how do you do your greenstuffing? I'm trying to get that effect for flames and flesh that you do for various Chaotic and 'niddy projects

EDIT:are we going to see any thing of those minidefiler/crushers that you mentioned a while ago?

I haven't checked up on this thread for a while and all I have to say is wow!
The Bloodthirster looks amazinng painted.
I love where the soul spiral is going at the moment.
And the 'Eyeless' Bloodletters put mine to shame.

Keep up the good work.

tinfoil wrote:

corpsesarefun wrote:i was under the impression the alter of souls was to be mounted apon a tank, a moving sacrificial engine powered by the tortured souls of the departed.

think a 40k corpse cart but with souls instead of corpses.

That's a cool concept, but I think I need to keep this model as a walker. My army is so heavily converted as it is that it's hard for opponents sometimes to make out what's what, and I don't want to add to the confusion!

When you make your army list, make it in excel or some other program that allows you to put pictures of your models next to your units. Hand a copy to your opponent when you play. Or of you don't play with an open list at your FLGS, simply make a visual guide to your army with pictures and unit descriptions done up like an inquisitorial field report.

Progress on the Altar of Souls, my second soul grinder, grinds on. Layer by layer I’m greenstuffing in cables, coils, tendrils, wisps of daemonic fire….

A few days ago, things had reached this point:


Rather than record progress stage by stage, showing only incremental change, I’ve held off from posting. But the beast has been evolving.


As I worked my way out toward the tips of the spiral arms, I had to start figuring out what I was going to do to cap each one off.


For the “upward-reaching” spiral arm, I decided to try finishing things off with a “bouquet” of hands straining (futilely, of course) to break free and escape the daemon engine’s clutches. I had a few leftover ghoul hands, which seemed suitably skinny and grasping:


It took me a little while to work up the courage to try the idea out. (I find that’s a problem with a conversion project like this: halfway in or so, I start to really like what I’m doing – so much that I’m scared to ruin it by doing more!) After some dithering, I plunged ahead. Here are the results:


And (different angle)

(The plan for painting the model will be to paint the soul/body parts in warm red flesh tones, and the daemon spiral parts, including the flames, in icy blues, for maximum contrast.)


It’s not finished yet, but it’s getting close, at least along this spiral arm.


I have to admit, I like the way the beast is shaping up.

For the other spiral arm, I’m considering working in a cluster of daemonic mouths toward the end -- which, for gameplay purposes, would give the model a “maw” close where the maw on the GW model is located. For range and line of sight purposes, I probably should have some identifiable “maw” on the beast, for my opponents’ sake.

Though of course, I’m reluctant to try something experimental that would ruin the project.

Ideas and input would be very welcome. Thanks for looking.

So what you going to stick that beasty on?
For some reason I doubt soulgrinder/defiler legs will look right

From what little I can tell from the scale I think that a Land Raider would work well for the base of this project, a baneblade might be a little large.

This is truly work of art o_o 10/10

*where are the bodys and the heads from?

I'm still thinking of using the Grinder legs, but greenstuffing in a lot of "soul stuff." It is still a walker.

I might try shredding a chimera or a basilisk model and splicing in splinters, plates, bitz, to suggest the thing is "making itself" out of a possessed IG vehicle. (A friend in my gaming club has been urging me to do so.)

Most of the bodies and heads are from the WHFB Corpse Cart kit, some of them pretty heavily sawed up into pieces.

Thanks for the encouraging comments!

tinfoil wrote:
shredding a chimera or a basilisk model and splicing in splinters, plates, bitz, to suggest the thing is "making itself" out of a possessed IG vehicle.

I beg of you o' mighty tinfoil, make this so.

I'd suggest turning it from a Leman Russ as the Russ is such an iconic Guard image that demands to be perverted. Also I feel your worrying to much about making it a walker. Frankly nothing else is on the scale of a Soul Grinder in the Daemons army so counts as is not too much of a problem. For the Bloodcrushers may I sggest Ogryns or deformed combinations of Rough Riders and their Steeds? Wonderful work and I am amazed by your sculpting and Green Stuff skills. The Corpse Cart is great for stuff like this isn't it. I've got elements from it in lots of models for my Nurgle Beastmen and it's brilliant.

Incredible work, just like everything else of yours. Keep it up and finish this beasty soon

tinfoil wrote:

I might try shredding

Llamahead wrote:a Leman Russ

and splicing in splinters, plates, bitz, to suggest the thing is "making itself" out of a possessed IG vehicle. (A friend in my gaming club has been urging me to do so.)

Even better

Not much progress on the Altar of Souls for the last week or so, frankly.

Ah, but I have other things cooking.
Take a look inside the Vat:


Gruesome experiments! Misbegotten incubations! Fetal progress most unnatural!


And fearsome weapons spawning in the Fleshforge:

corpsesarefun wrote:

tinfoil wrote:

I might try shredding

Llamahead wrote:a Leman Russ

and splicing in splinters, plates, bitz, to suggest the thing is "making itself" out of a possessed IG vehicle. (A friend in my gaming club has been urging me to do so.)

Even better

Seconded. And with the new Russ kits coming out, theres lots of fancy bits that you can use for later stuff ;p

Awsome blog, glad to see your still at it.

Not so much an update, but a guy in our local club with some photography skills and a light box took some pictures, so I now have superior pictures up in my galley, including
M'Bashaar, the Bloodthirster:

and

and

and

More photographs from the lightbox, these ones giving a better look at my fiends.

I originally modeled them up as spawn for my LatD army, years ago. But I guess some Keeper of Secrets got her claws into them, and put her own handiwork into the creatures.

Some details:

and

While we're waiting on that second soul grinder, let me toss in a few more pictures of earlier efforts, again taking advantage of the professional photography skills of Dylan, a fellow DorkaMorka club member.

Here are a few looks at the Lord of Change:

I like the way Dylan captures a kind of velociraptor feel to the daemon's posture:

and:

And then, these being Dakka gallery photos, they link to huge versions (so you can zooooom way in and see how shoddy my painting really is!)

I'd like to go on record and state that I assembled this mess before FW issued its Bloodslaughterer (a model that is truly stunning).

Anyway, it's a confusing model, and none of my pictures captures quite as well as Dylan's do, IMO.
Thanks for looking.

My mouth just hit the floor. SHODDY PAINT JOB????!!!! NOT AT ALL! Thats beyong amazing dude. 100/10. That lord of change is the most amazing model I have ever seen.

That has blown my mind!!! If I was a dog I would have put my tail between my legs a long time ago.

................ your modestsy is killing me man. you did a great job and you know it.

I loved the style of your thirster and such models in toe as the deamon prince, but until I saw the lord of change... Jebus man, thats awesome, a true center piece.

Amazing

Very Very Nice
lovely to see some daemons popping around
nice work
Awesome models there so detailed cant wait to see more
best of look with the rest of the models
ABH

Love those aeronautica vehicles - can't wait to see what they become.

Alright. After a long spell of interruption, inactivity, and inadequate inspiration, work on the Harrowed has resumed. More particularly, magi of the Dark Adeptus are swarming once more around the second Soul Grinder, the Altar of Souls.

A lot of people have suggested grafting or bashing that daemon engine’s platform into/with an IG vehicle hull, such as a Leman Russ. I liked the idea in theory. But I just couldn’t visualize it or make it work when I started trying to fit tank parts into/onto the Soul Grinder chassis. After hemming and hawing about how to proceed, I just put the whole thing down for awhile.

And then, a few days ago, I picked it up again.

Since I’ll be playing the thing as a Soul Grinder, I figure it’s going to need legs in any event. So I’ve decided to start working on the legs, weaving the same motifs, techniques and kinds of bitz I’d been using up top into the daemon engine’s lower limbs.

I started by carving out some of the Grinder legs with a dremmel, preparing them (opening them up, really) for daemonic possession possibilities.



Then I began affixing corpse/soul/zombie bits. Such as these faces (from the Spawn kit/Nurgle head)


After greenstuffing a bit of daemonic ligature in, the leg looked like this:

(This is only the beginning; there’s a lot more greenstuffing in store.)

Elsewhere, I began by grafting on a skull and skeleton:


… then worked in a bit of greenstuff…


… (another angle)

(Again, the mad scientist cosmetic surgery is only beginning.)

Elsewhere, I tried spearing a soul (one of the corpse haulers from the WHFB Corpse Cart) to another leg’s spike blades.


Then, looking these experiments over, a truly fiendish idea struck me. I suddenly thought of the Porch of Maidens on the Acropolis, in Athens.

What, I wondered, would a daemonic equivalent look like?

I cut up one of the defiler legs…


… and worked in another soul/corpse…


(another angle)


That looked promising! Ensnared in a web of greenstuffed daemon tissue (still to come), I think we may have something.

Now I was feeling the thing!


Then I tried another leg.


Yep, I like it. I feel as though I’m back on track.

As with the upper part of the thing, this is going to take a lot of layers of greenstuffery to achieve the effect I have in mind. But now I have an effect in mind.

Sleeping gods are waking, my friends. Vast numbers of hapless souls have been sacrificed to propitiate the many gods and greater daemons who hover over this work.
Cthonic forces, long dormant, now stir. Be afraid.

And by all means, let me know what you think so far.

I am so very glad you're back in the saddle Tinfoil! This army project is a thing of beauty, you're executing your theme beautifully.

The defiler is coming along nicely, it's evident from your work on it thus far that inspiration herself has returned to smash you in the face with ideas. I love the "Porch of Maidens" look in the legs, and the souls attempting to free themselves from obvious points like the knee joints, brilliant stuff really.

My only suggestion, albeit small, is to try to retain a bit more of the weaponry aesthetic. In some of your other pieces, sometimes the weapons are a bit obscured (due to the nature of the project, understandably). From an opponent's standpoint though, it would be nice to have a bit more visual recognition. Yes that is a remarkably beautiful altar of souls, but oh yes, I can see it is equipped with (insert killy gun name here). Just my two cents though, by all means, you keep doing what you do best!

Thumbs up from me so far, I'm really looking forward to seeing more progress now that you've returned to the workbench!

Very interesting. I'm looking forward to whatever else you're going to do on this project

Thanks for the kind words.

Teek: I hear you on the issue of weapon/creature/vehicle recognition. It's definitely an issue for this army. I'll have to come up with something suitable for the Maw Cannon at least.

Still grinding away on the second Soul Grinder...


Progress is incremental, amounting to successive layers of greenstuffing...


... as the daemon engine masticates and digests his feast of souls...


Meanwhile, I'm also working in a few skeletal elements...


Here's a closer look:



Of course, I'll be meshing in more greenstuffed daemonic tissue to weave in the exposed bones more organically.

Thanks for looking.

Hey Tinfoil,
I like the departure from the usual leering daemonic faces...the skeleton bitz add a different flavour. Naice!

Out of interest - How do you personally mix your greenstuff? 50:50 or More yellow than blue etc.

Cheers brother.
Sirath.

Very nice job, a lot of dedication here.

You should take some "family" photos with sunlight on concrete or moss. Using a table would be best but most I have encountered are as far away from direct light as possible (I would put little mirrors on my army if it weren't ). Using natural light will be much friendlier to the colors you have used. The nicest tools for working with kneadatite (GS) I have found are color/clay shapers; the firm tipped ones are best though the soft ones are useful too.

Here is where I got mine, there is a store near by me, missed the 20% off day though .
http://www.dickblick.com/products/colour-shapers-tools/

Im a big fan of daemons
these are looking great
and i like what you do with the IG sentinel
its all good
keep it up

ABH

Sirath wrote:Hey Tinfoil,
Out of interest - How do you personally mix your greenstuff? 50:50 or More yellow than blue etc.

Usually 50:50, yeah. A bit yellowish sometimes (maybe 55:45), for a squishier blend when I really want to mush it rather than carve it.

Progress on Soul Grinder II (Son of Soul Grinder?) continues. I'll post more on that in a few days, when I can build up a few more layers, and show developments in multi-stages.

In the meantime, I've been noodling around with potential flamer/psyker/herald conversion possibilities, using the WHFB flagellant model as a base.

First, in the spirit of Tzeentch him/her/itself, I tried this:

(That's a flagellant body, ghoul arms, and a giant eyeball from the Spawn kit.)
Which looked fun, I thought. But kind of cheesey, too. Like some science fiction movie from the 1950s. Not really as creepy as I wanted.

But then, thinking of that great Forgeworld renegade psyker (the floating guy), I tried repositioning the arms:

Hmmm. That might work. If I float him on swirling robes, and fill those hands with eldritch change energies (wisps of greenstuff, painted in icy blues)...

The eye still looked a bit goofy all by itself. So I tried greenstuffing on some veins:

I like where this is going. (That shoulder will need cleaning up, I realize.)

And I've also been working on another idea. I started with (smaller) eyeballs on stalks:


...which I affixed to another flagellant body:


... then added some bits carved off of Forgeworld renegade figures:


... and:


Then, as with the first flamer conversion, I repositioned the arms:

(I do need to clean up that "elbow" join.)

And started greenstuffing in a bit of daemon nonsense around the eyes:


These are still rough. But I'm starting to like the idea.

What do you all think? Maybe they still look a bit cheesy, in a sci-fi schlocky kind of way (which is not the vibe I want for this army)?

Thanks for looking.

I am blown away by what I have witnessed in this blog so far. Makes my conversions look like a piece of crap

I dont really like the giant eye thing, its too retro scifi whereas your army is creepy and more horror based.

I like the big eye thing but maybe not for your army - I did the same sort of thing for one of me tzeentch daemon princes - here is a link to my gallery (I didn't want to link the image since this is your p-log)

http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/12300-Daemons%2C%20Tzeentch%2C%20Warhammer%2040%2C000.html

I am hopefully gonna get it painted up soon.

Somnicide wrote:I like the big eye thing but maybe not for your army - I did the same sort of thing for one of me tzeentch daemon princes - here is a link to my gallery (I didn't want to link the image since this is your p-log)

Yeah, I'm coming to pretty much the same conclusion -- though I'll probably finish the two I started, just to see how they turn out.
I like your take a lot.

I rather like the eye flamers. at first I felt it was a bit goofy for your army, but they grow on you ;P

This has got to be the most evil army I have ever seen!

Always love seeing your updates good job.
Have you got any ideas about fast attack?

This army makes me happy in my pants.

Kudos to you sir.

Well thank you, folks, for the kind words.

Grinding continues. Here’s a look at the process in several stages, leg by leg.

First, the “Bone Leg”:
From this basic start…


I glued the end of the leg blade onto the soul (corpse cart bit):


…then began applying greenstuff binding the soul to the daemon engine:


… then I worked in greenstuffed daemonic tissue to this point:

(You can also see I began to work on the rib bones above as well.)

…then, after another layer:

That leg’s getting close to ready.

The “Porch of Maidens Leg” is also close:



The “Hands Leg” is a bit messier in composition…


… and messier yet, after another round of greenstuffing:

(You can see in that picture too how I’ve tried to knick and carve up the leg blades a bit, to give them a slightly more organic feel.)

(Another angle):


And then, I’ve begun working on another of the legs, which I’ve mentally named the “Feeding Leg”:


So that’s where I am on the project right now.

A lot of pictures, and I realize there may not be much to comment on here, but wanted to update things mainly in the interest of showing progression step by step, as the greenstuff takes root, grows, sows new seeds….

Very interesting stuff. I look forward to seeing more of your work. Do you play in Boston? I've never seen daemons like that in the area.

satanslandlady wrote:Very interesting stuff. I look forward to seeing more of your work. Do you play in Boston? I've never seen daemons like that in the area.

Yep, I do.
Well, just west of Boston. My club plays in Watertown.

I was reading this whole thread through and I couldn't help but laugh in some parts. This is so awesome I couldn't help but laugh. Very well done!

I've been gulping down this thread for 2 hours or so, and I must admit your models are awesome!!!

Your ideas always seem so out-of-the-world, but you seem to work out everything to a perfect chaotic flavour!

I'm really amazed, and I can't do much but send some more congratulations for your work!!

This April I tried some similar GS work on an Inquisitor Lord, who's gradually becoming possessed by a Plaguebearer...

The approach seems quite similar, but I really like the Tzeentchian corruption on the Horrors!!!!
I'll definitely have to get my hands on some!!!

Thanks anyway for the inspiration huh!

Yggdrasil wrote:
This April I tried some similar GS work on an Inquisitor Lord, who's gradually becoming possessed by a Plaguebearer...

Feeling it! Looks good.

Thanks again, folks.

I just stumbled upon this thread and, my god, it's delicious! Keep up the great work, Tinfoil.

Progress on the Soul Grinder continues. Magi, adepts and their vassals scurry over the chassis, working their eldritch engineering. Warriors of the Host attend, bearing totems and talismans seized in battle – souls to feed the Beast.
The creature still lies in pieces, awaiting the final rituals of full possession and battle baptism.
Even in pieces, it twitches and stirs. Fires of pale blue flicker fitfully in the recesses of the thing.
Its time is drawing near.

Ahem.
I’ve basically finished the legs, at this point. No major changes there, for the most part. Just more daemonic ligature, greenstuffed in.
Though I did add a head and face to one of the legs:

And (another angle)

(I have to admit, I really like the way this pose and composition came out.)

I’ve also been working on the upper “torso” of the creature, and more specifically on its “head.”

Well, it’s not really going to have a head. But it does need to have a Daemonic Maw – both to create some compositional focus for the creature, and to create a firing point from which to measure blasts of phlegm and/or tongue.

Giving the creature a single daemonic head seems a bit out of place, though. The design/anatomy/architecture of the thing doesn’t really suggest a single entity to much as a teeming cage or cauldron of bound souls.
So I’m going with a different approach – a cluster of men’s heads, screaming in pain and horror as they channel and unleash the evil energies of their dark possessor.

I gathered a few heads that seemed to be screaming suitably:


Then I started braiding in a wire skeleton:


Affixed heads:


And started working in some daemonic tissue:


I still have a ways to go on this. More greenstuff daemon tissue will be needed. I might add another head or two. The mens’ mouths have to be spitting some kind of energy fire. I might even sculpt in some kind of daemon mouth/maw around the heads. (Not sure about that last idea, though. Any thoughts?)

Thanks for looking.

Excellent work! i'd love to see what you'd do for screamers, perhaps Dark Eldar/Eldar Jetbikes? Although this is supposed to be a possessed Guard army...

I dont feel that the heads are obvious enough to be a maw, they just look like more souls.

i just found this post, its amazing!!! particularly that lord of change just amazing, i spent 15 min just staring at that

Rough riders are your best option for daemons. Valkyries and hellhounds are to big and you already used sentinals.

I think a maw around the heads would be perfect, because as corpses said, it would set them apart from that super awesome cyclone of souls you got going on there.

what heads do you use???

deadly chicken wrote:what heads do you use???

IIRC, three of those heads are ghoul ((EDIT: I lie. Those are from the Corpse Cart)) heads, and the fourth from the flagellants sprue.

I'm still going back and forth about the maw idea.
Thanks for the kind words.

Wow. Good God!

I plain forgot about this thread until today. My mistake. I have to say that your Bloodletters look like a Bloodletter and a Broodlord had a baby. Or babies.

This army as a whole it just breath taking. Can't wait to see it all together. One big ol' group shot w/ a bunch of little shots thrown in.

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted, but the Soul Grinder continues, slowly and incrementally, to take form. I often take it out and tinker, not always constructively, but at least organically. The creature is finding its way to material existence.

First, I added a few more soul faces to the creature’s maw.


((That's one more soul face; I ended up adding another as well. Here's a closer look at that first one: )


Then I worked on the connective “neck” tissue:


This work became an attempt to evoke a grotesque cluster of nested “necks”:


At first I was thinking of this connective tissue as a writhing spiral of tentacular tissue:


But as my thinking and sculpting evolved, I began to think of the joints connecting these “necks” as maws themselves:


Pursuing that idea, I decided to try sculpting in a bigger maw/mouth/ring of teeth further down the spiral. At this point I took inspiration and instruction from a great tutorial, posted by ebolatheripe over on The Daemonic Legion board.

Taking ebolatheripe’s technique as a starting point, I grafted on a funnel-shaped base partway up the maw spiral:


After that part dried, I applied another band to the rim of the “funnel,” cut in teeth, let that work dry, then molded on a third, thin band over the base of the teeth to create a lip, producing:


Another angle:


And:



That first mouth is a bit large and out of proportion to the rest of the spiral, but I think I can build up the “neck” below to make it work.

Meanwhile, I plan to graft in a few smaller mouths, these ones further out on the spiral spitting the soul faces themselves.

So that’s where I am now. Still WIP. Still in the throes of creation. Still molding plastic ideas and possibilities.

How’s it look so far?

That is seriously awesome. The mouth doesn't look *that* out of proportion, although that could just be the pics. Any chance of a mock-up pic with the legs on?

Dragonlover

Those are some amazing green stuff skills you have there and this is a fantastic project that like a few others I'm going to watch with real interest.

You are the green stuff god. fantastic conversions.

I’ve (basically) finished sculpting on the Soul Grinder (!), and assembled the beast, producing:

From the front:


From the right side:


From behind, right side:


From behind, left side:


From the right side: good look at the Maw


From behind (I do plan to do just a bit more ‘daemonizing’ on this side.)


It’s finished!

Well, finished sculpting.

Well, nearly. I still have just a bit more tinkering to do (on the back, and around the ball joints at the tops of the legs).

Just another day or two, then, before I prime the beast and start painting (shudder).

Thanks for looking.

wow crazy. Nice work and GL painting it ^-^ looks like it's going to be a real job.

... and that is what a daemon engine should look like.

crazy!

may i ask how much you spend on greenstuff? it looks great.

I could marry you.
Wow.
That is amazing.