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New day, new hobby stuff. Today I've taken the time to go to the oldest and best scale model shop in town. Before going there I swore to myself that I would only buy what I actually went there for, Microscale Krystal Klear (which was sold out). Instead I bought a similar product from Revell and some Vallejo colors.

The only other thing I couldn't resist to buy was photo etched scale models of spent bullet cases. 8€ for slightly more than 20 cases, not exactly a bargain, but definitely worth it. They are going on Nanus' base, I only bought them because they have the right size for his minigun.

I'm quite proud of my sudden resistance to seducing hobby goodies and I'm sure it was just my one strong day, but I only spent 20€.

Back home I attended Nanus again, sculpted the final strap of his mask, decided for a smoother look of the face and added another layer of putty. I also added a first layer of putty to his wrists, filled the gaps in his crotch (the one place I personally would like gaps the least) and extended the rather tiny grip of his shotgun.

My estimation is, that I'll be able to finish him towards the end of the week, but then again "Brink" is coming out on thursday, that could/will interfere with my plans.

UNEXPECTED UPDATE:
Surprised? I've decided to keep 'em coming, so I'm presenting you another juve for the Scarecrows, Cachimbo.
Nothing special here, cadian legs, enforcer arm with sisters of sigmar chain flail and renegade torso.
No conversion magic involved. Hope you still like him, even though he's quite ordinary.

I'm glad you all kinda like him. Special thanks to Asylum, that one made me smile.
Oh and Good Green, you're right about the pick axe, I'll have to carve that thingy off.

I'm in a hurry to get back to my workshop and finish Nanus, pictures will come tomorrow, expect something different. This one is special, even in Baiyuan-land...

Update:
I will definitely finish Nanus tomorrow, there is only very little left to do: Replace a strap on his mask, that fell off, add some straps to his pouches, add a housing to one area on the weapon, add a filter to the mask and fill some gaps on the backpack and ammo feed.
Shouldn't be more than two to three hours work, so you can expect the pictures tomorrow.

Well well well, it's been a couple of rather unproductive days, playing Brink, being sleepy from some medicine and just doing other recreational things. All of this resulted in Nanus not being finished yet, but I got back to work this evening and added some more details in GS.

I'm planning to do some more tomorrow, but I won't make any promises this time, we'll see.

If everything goes as planned there will be a double update tomorrow: pictures of the finished conversion of Nanus and pictures of a 54mm arcoflaggellant I painted some years ago and wanted to show to PDH due to a discussion in his great p&m blog.

Stay tuned and feel free to comment on the other recent stuff.

Thanks Scarper.

About Adalhard, the glossy parts are glossy no more, I changed that the day after posting. The inlaid effect wasn't on purpose, but if you like it more for that, well I planned that all the time. The hair is maybe my favorite detail too.

About Nanus, yeah quite a lot of work, he's been in the making since early 2010. I didn't work on him all the time of course, actually didn't touch him between two intensive periods at the beginning and now. But just his weapon took so much converting, you wouldn't believe, or maybe you would, after seeing my other stuff. It's not as much as the buzz saw on Cortaro, but not that much less either. Don't want to go into detail now, I'll save that for the actual post.

About Brink, it's fun. Not the holy grail like some people expected, but a good game. In a few words: Different Leveling, teamfocused MP, practically no SP (you play the exact same missions as in MP just in order, while you can actually open your SP to others and make it MP), nice optical customization on your character, but not on the weapons and interesting maps with few unfair choke points. Edit: Oh and PC only, the console versions are ork dung.

Edit²: Forgot Cachimbo: IIRC cachimbo means gun. His name was Gotgat first, but when we changed all the names to spanish that had to be translated of course. I'm actually not too fond of how his pistol is positioned in his hand. It looks good from the right, but it looks crap from the left.

Hello everybody and thanks for the nice comments and suggestions!

Ok, now for todays news.
First of all let me say that it's not exactly what I had planned to post today, not all of it to be precise.

I'm granting Nanus some more time, because I've decided to remove some more elements of the original sculpt, to make him look more like one of my Serpentes.
So the update is the other thing I mentioned, the 54mm arcoflagellant I promised to show PDH.

This one is actually from a couple of years ago, 2005/2006 I'd say and even though it might have been the last model I painted before starting again this year, nowadays I would do a lot of things differently.

Nevertheless I'm still quite fond of him, for my level of painting back then he turned out pretty good.

The weakest part is the metal, which looks very boring and maybe some day, when I finally grant this one the base he deserves, I'll touch up the metals.


UPDATE:
Here we go: I think I dubbed him Furor back in the days and he was supposed to be part of a warband led by a meanie ecclesiarch who's big in arcoflagellation.

Furor wasn't a typical candidate for arcoflagellation to begin with, just a law-abiding imperial citizen, but he crossed the confessor in some way (there is a whole story about it somewhere in my =I= stuff, but I forgot) and you really shouldn't argue with people with the power and means to gouge out your eyes, rip out your nails, teeth and spine and only lobotomize you afterwards to let you savour the pain before they turn you into a mindless killing machine of a slave.
Without his eyes and without being worth the cost of proper augmentation, he was given a sort of motion tracker for finding his victims. This fact doesn't exactly make him less dangerous, quite the opposite. Be honest, wouldn't you instinctively run if you see such a beast approaching?
Of course it's a good thing not to be in front of Furor when his activation code is being said and his stimulants kick in.

Well, meet Furor!

PDH wrote:I was just about to log off and continue reading the Ravenor Omnibus and low and behold the arco appears.

Good books, though the Eisenhorn trilogy was slightly better.

I actually rather like the metal...especially on the claws piston.

You mean the oily part? That's the only place it doesn't look dull.

My favourite part though it the bright red scratches contrasting with the skin.

I really like that too. Funny thing, it's been so long ago it feels like talking about somebody else's paintjob.

Left arm is from Crash or Krush or whatever it was called. The right arm is the hideous old chaos warrior claw mutation?...if I'm right it doesn't look so hideous on a 54mm model.

The left arm is in fact from Ghazzkull Thrakka (or whatever he is spelled like). And the right one is mainly the original arm, but you're right from somewhere around the wrist down it's that mutation arm, which had just the right size imo. Strange how much 40k is out of scale sometimes.

The dark angel green works here but I'm now decided that I was right using the turquoise.

It was actually much darker than I had it in mind, I thought it was brighter.

Thanks dude....Oh and are there any more warband members because I'd like to see them too?

Your welcome, but I'm sorry to tell you that I didn't exactly paint/finish a lot of my 54mm conversions. I own the whole inquisitor range with very very few exceptions and I have started projects for the majority of miniatures in it. Sooner or later there will be more 54mm madness.
At the moment there is a pretty ordinary guardsman with a pretty special needle rifle in the making/painting. I guess I'll finish that one in the near future.

neil101 wrote:Hello Furor, he looks great , They bionic eye is particularly good

Thanks, I was very fond of the lenses too. Now that I use the plural I begin to realize that the smaller lense has chipped off when I dropped him before taking the pictures... DAMNATION! I hate that...

Viktor von Domm wrote:is furor made up from a inquisitor scale size flagelant or from a 28mm scale one? i waited for a long time to see someone use the former here so i would have something to do with my own model...never figured out how to use him...got him for an apple and an egg from ebay...and he is collecting dust ever since...^^
really good work on furor by the way, the blood looks very convincing and the blending of the red and then the blue looks fantastic!

vik

Thanks Vik! The model is basicly just Damien 1427 with the additions mentioned above, the arm of Ghazzkull and the hand from the old chaos mutations.

I hope so Vik. And if you do it let me see it, I'm always curious what others do.

In other news: not much progress on Nanus today, I only managed to put some layers of miliput milk in some recesses. I'm strangely exhausted lately, I really need to pick up my normal pace again. On the other hand I really don't want to rush anything, so stay tuned. Update soon...ish.

Quick Update:
There isn't much left to do on Nanus as I worked on him diligently. So much sculpting...
Only two things remain: Sculpt a casing for one of the targeters and add filters to his mask.
Should be able to take care of both things tomorrow.

I'm looking forward to it too. Hope to finish him this evening.

About my avatar it's indeed a picture of a gorilla, with chinese not japanese characters blended into it, but never mind the mixup. I made it some years ago and it's actually part of an animation where the characters and the picture fade in and out of each other.
Both the characters and the picture refer to my chinese name: 白猿 bai2 yuan2, which means "white gorilla" and was given to me by one of my chinese masters in 2001.
The white gorilla is a character from chinese mythology, he's like a demigod who regularly messes with the other gods and steals the peaches of longevity from the eternal gardens (to heal his sick mother actually).
He is also a character that appears in the ideology of my style of Gongfu, Tanglang Quan aka praying mantis.

Really never mind the mixup, I'm not expecting people to know the difference and really don't mind. Actually I thought about using the animation for the first time while answering you, but I just found it's not a gif, it's a psp.

Busy week and more and more last minute changes to Nanus result in him not still not being finished. But soon, even though you might have stopped to believe in it.

Another thing keeping me from finishing him, is that I mentally got back into one of my favorite projects and now my mind is swamped with

Nevertheless hang tight, I'm making sure you get some gatling-goodies soon.

Thx Izanagi, I'm glad you like the stuff.

In other news:
BOY am I frustrated, Nanus is killing me. I'm redoing the same parts over and over and over again. Namely his stupid mask and even worse wristguard, it's so bloody annoying.
Anyway, there is only one more thing I need to do and that's adding straps to the last wristguard I sculpted and then that's it. I'm fed up with this one and I'm quite determined to do some very different project next.
So maybe I'll spend some time on that -diorama, that should take my mind of necromunda for a day or two. Or I could work on the genestealer magus I started some time ago. We'll see.

Vote if you like, I might take it into consideration.

About the SM, there are many approaches to true scale I'm considering, though Migs approach was the one I considered first. So far I can say that it will propably be similar to migs'. I definitely want that extra hight from the soles and leg lengthening. In the end the approaches aren't all that different after all, my will certainly contain some spontanous tweaks, but won't be all new. So terminator legs and lots of GS.
One point that troubles me are the arms, people tend to forget biggerizing them, I will have to have a close look at those.

@Neil: Yeah, I know the ones from Hits-the-spot, but since I'll only make one or two marines, I think it's better to start from scratch. I'm looking forward to this too, but it will have to wait a bit more. I'm waiting for that special pair of legs I want to base my marine on.

After getting some most welcome distraction from Nanus I'll try to finish him today.

To achieve that distraction I did actually work on that kroot thing and not on the genestealer, but only a little. I've put together one of the two kroots using bluetac and it's quite an impressive sight already. I started this project a couple of years ago and the legs and torso had been worked on back then.
I tried his arms for the first time now and they fit perfectly with the huge crossbow he will carry.
So it will actually be just a looot of GS work from this point on. But I don't want to tell you too much yet, let's say it's going to be "big".

Another thing I did, was trying a color scheme for my innumerous tau, who have been waiting for a paintjob for years, but never got one due to a complete lack of a color scheme.
I'm still not sure, but I found a color that could work for me. After years of being unable to decide between "techy cold, grey/white + another color" and "military, functional, flat colors" for a overall look, I just fell in love with a color. It's a very bright and fruity yellowish orange. I'll post the sample warrior should he ever be finished.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Announcement: Nanus is finished and the pictures are taken. I'm editing them right now, so once I'm done and find some time to write the wall of text that will go with them, I'll post the

Until then a little appetizer, the base model. Stay tuned to see what I made of it this evening.

I really hope this doesn't get appended...

UPDATE:

The Character:
This one is the second heavy for my Delaque gang, the Serpentes Obscvri and his name is Nanus, which means "the midget".

Nanus isn't a typical Delaque and some of his brothers like to tease him, calling him a Goliath, but he wasn't looking like that to begin with.
Sure Nanus wasn't exactly predestined to be a silent scout to begin with, standing a head or two taller than the others in the hab-block, but it wasn't before being offered the place of a heavy under Princeps Lacerus' lead, that he bulked up like a goliath.
And when he accepted the prestigeous rank of a heavy in one of the most infamous newcomer gangs, he was blinded by the fame and power to come and he had no idea that he was looked at as an investment.

You do not normally take a leave from a Delaque gang. Unless you're lucky enough to be falsely considered dead at some point, any delaque gang leader will make sure, that you are truly dead before letting you wander off with information or equipment worth way more than your life, which isn't too much anyway.
So when he found out, that to become a heavy in one of the more ambitous gangs, you have to go through a hell even worse than every day life in a hive, he couldn't say "no" anymore.

Everybody looks at heavies and wonders what's wrong with them, seeing a grotesque caricature of their fellow gangers, but nobody dares asking them how they became what they are.
He was prepared for merciless workout and similar methods to suit the position, but form follows function and he certainly wasn't prepared for crude muscle implants being stacked on his bones by some underhive "doctor", who resembled a butcher much more than a healer.
And he also wasn't prepared for the agony of constant E.M.C.S.T (electric muscle contraction stimulation training [yeah that's right, and you thought it was crap, when you saw it on the shopping channel xD]).
But worst of all, being forced to take stimulants and steroids daily, helplessly standing by, while your mental ability and manhood quickly wither away, transforming your once bright mind into something with not that much more potential than a rather smart (not to say averagely dumb) Goliath.
Nanus still isn't exactly stupid, far from it, but his ways of thinking became more simple, any philosophical or political thought long forgotten and his choler rising quickly at meaningless things.

If it wasn't for the drugs, Nanus would have been the first to realize that it might have been a political move of Princeps Lacerus to make him one of his heavies, Lacerus being fully aware of what it would turn the a-little-bit-too-promising juve into, someone who will never challenge anyone for the leadership of anything.

The Conversion:
First of all: Why did the miniature need to be converted?

Firstly because I am what I am!

Secondly because there were a couple of things I didn't like about the original sculpt.

Namely:

The scale of the gatling was too realistic and not impressive enough.

His glasses also looked to mundane and civil and the whole face looked strange, like he got his face punched in or something.

The sculpt had some details that didn't say Delaque for me, for example the big studs on the wristguard, the chains on the other wrist and of course the bat-buckle of his belt.

The last thing I wasn't too fond of was the bump on the backpack, which is of course realitic, but therefore doesn't look that 40k-ish.

The process:

The first thing I did was cutting off the puny barrels of the gatling, cute little thingies. What remained of the gun was basicly just the motor parts, two tubular things.

I looked around for a new body for the gun and ended up cutting a big shoota from the lootaz' plastic-mek into pieces. I drilled open the whole barrel and then cut out the middle part.

The next step was finding barrels that were a bit bigger and I ended up using seven hexagonal 1mm polystyrene rods, which I drilled open one by one and then glued around the core rod.

After inserting it into the socket and putting on the front stabilizer started a long trial and error phase looking for a lenghty something to connect the stabilizer with the rest. I found a solution finally, but I had to rip it off a few weeks later, it wasn't right.

It took a couple more weeks to stumble across the final solution you see in the pictures, it's some part from a WW2 1:35 scale model and it felt just right.

I don't want to explain everything in detail, as you can see there are tons of tiny things that went into the conversion, but there are three more things that actually deserve to be mentioned.

The face, because I originally just planned to add proper goggles, but they turned out odd and after trying it twice, I decided that the face didn't allow the right placement, so I decided to give him a mask and sawed off his face.

I sculpted the damn thing over and over again, giving it snake fangs made from bent needle tips, then taking them off again, because it looked too much like blood pact, sculpting it more skull-like with teeth and nostrils, then taking them off because it made him look like a pig, and so on. Around ten different versions before I settled with the plainest design.

The wrist guard, because I only decided not to keep the chains, when the conversion was almost done and because it took me another week to get it right. Similar story, trial and error, many many times, boring to tell, I'm happy with the final thing, the way there was a mess.

And finally the choice and placement of his side arm, I did it way too late, when most of the model was finished and hard to handle without breaking anything. I knew he had to have a basic weapon tucked in somewhere, but it took quite a while to decide which one and where to put it.

Originally he was supposed to carry a backup lasgun, but I didn't want to tack it on somewhere, or sling it around the backpack, where he couldn't realisticly reach it.

He ended up with a shotgun, simply because it was the leanest/smallest design, that still didn't look too small for him to handle.

The placement was the hardest part, I tried a dozen positions, but they all looked unrealistic and impractical. To fit it under his coat was a tricky part, because there was no space at all. The place was very narrow and a pistol holster was already squeezed in originally, so I had to file it out and in the end I used a flat milling power tool to create some clean space. The shotgun was flattened down on the back side and only half of it was left in the end.

I'm very happy with the result, it looks very believable imo.

Soooo, a wall of text, like I promised earlier, but after reading it all, you deserve some pictures. You did read it all, didn't you? If you didn't shame on you, go back, start again and don't you dare looking at the pictures before reading aaall the way through.
Ok, enough BS, enjoy and leave a comment.
P.S. Some pics look a bit fuzzy, most are actually quite crisp, click them, they look better in the gallery.

Ok wow, many comments! And all of them so complimentory. Thank you ALL for the kind words.
And now for the Q&A:

The mask:

the facemask is brutal good looking...where did you get that? there seems to be a filter in fron of it or something that you filed away... hmmm.

It was sculpted, the part that looks filed is one of the spots where I covered up one of the holes I drilled into it earlier and for some reason it left a bump, which I then scraped off.

The face mask makes me think Tau. I realise you sculpted the mask but what is the the actual rebreather tube from (me want)? My favourite part is the strap work at the back...could so easily have been passed over (obviously not for you though)

It's my favorite part too, thank you. Like always, it's the details that make the whole for me and obviously for you as well.
The filter tube on the mask is sculpted. First I made a short tube with some grooves, let it cure, drilled it open, put it on a piece of wire glued into the mask and finally sculpted the end piece.

The mask is fantastic - did you take any pictures of your other WIPs? Even if they didn't fit the feel you wanted for him, I bet I could steal some inspiration from them

Nope sorry, it's all gone, but I'll make sure to put up more things for you to steal inspiration from.

The Good Green wrote: Did you sculpt the whole mask or use a necron heard as the base? I like the hinge on the backpack too. And all those straps... you crazy.

I considered using a necron head and actually tried it, after seeing a nice conversion by someon from warseer, but it was to small and didn't look right, so I had to do it myself, no base, just putty.


The gun:

PDH wrote:Man, that gun must have some powerful suspensors! That cannon is a thing of beauty and I really like the massively over done gun shield. I also like what you've done to back pack...6000rpm it would need that cooling fan.

Mate, you always recognize the small things, like the fan. Not that much of an eyecatcher, but important in the whole picture.

HF Izanagi wrote:The redesign for the gatling is great looking, much more hefty and mean-looking. I thought the original was pretty sweet already... damn you, Michaelangelo. Damn you...

That made me smile, thank you!

the iron sights i like, the only thing i am a bit unsure about is the ballistic shield to the gun...
(the realism check of that big piece of metal and amo being wielded by this guy i spare us all as a cool model wouldn´t look cool if it looked realistic... so this argument is being locked in brackets for its uncoolishness^^)

You said it, in this case the selective lack of realism is the main source of coolness, but I understand your point of course.
Then again who said it's all metal, maybe some light weight plastic, or suspension. Also did you read the part about the artificial muscles and stimulants, he can handle it.


The putty:

Also , what putty are you using? I was thinking a mix of grey stuff with more black than white, but from what I know of you it'll be something faaaar more complicated

And where'd you get the black putty? I'd ask the same if it were white mud, I simply MUST KNOW where to get some!

No magic putty, just normal stuff. I think it's galeforce 9's grey stuff, the properties are almost exactly the same as GS, so I could have done it in green as well. I do sometimes mix in a bit of (black) Fimo to make it softer, but only when I'm sculpting things with a lot of structure, like fur or a face or something. I think I didn't do that on Nanus.
On the gun I used some brown stuff of course, which is awesome, use the right putty for the job!
On the backpack I used Milliput and on the base Vallejo plastic putty.
An integral part of the sculpting are the right tools for sculpting, the putty isn't that important to me.

Other things:

the siding on his ammo hopper, how what huuuh? It looks awesome!

Scale models! No matter if it's a plane, a tank, a truck, a car LOOT IT!! In this case the dark grey plastic parts on the back pack and the gun came from a tamiya model of some german AA gun. I buy whole kits just for bitz... Sounds like a slogan...

As for the fluff - ace. Dark, sinister and no too OTT, perfect for the delaques!

YES, so somebody did care to read that little bit of fluff, I hoped for more feedback on it, so I highly appreciate that you mentioned it.

The wristguard looks great actually - deceptively simple in appearance, but with lots of finer details when you look closely. The 'finer details' all over the model are pretty incredible - so easy to skip over when sculpting, but such a massive payoff when you get it right.

Thank you, you're right of course, easy to skip but defining and you know me well enough, it's all about the details for me. The only danger is add too much detail and thus fail to create an overall harmony, it's a very close thing sometimes. (I almost tipped Cortaro over the edge of being too busy, but in the end he turned out perfect to my eyes, just the right amount of details.)

And finally, is that ballistic wristguard cut and shaped leather?? IF so, awesome.

Exotic idea mate! I love when people use unconventional materials on their miniatures, like real hair or other real materials (I draw a line at using boogers for plague marines or similar things.). Anyway, the wristguard is just putty, the texture results from the piece of plastic I used to flatten it.

Talking of strap work......haha those belts are behind the cannon yet you've still sculpted it excellent.

It's obsessive and I know it will be barely recognizable once the gun is glued to the body, but I would know there is a ugly spot behind the gun, so I couldn't leave it unattended.

Oh and finally the shotgun grip plasticard work....mental in a good way.

Thank you, it's so strange, what a simple and meaningless detail, but I myself love that small thingy too.

Scarper wrote:Absolutely love his mask, and the weapon as well. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, but I just don't understand how you can see things fitting together as well as you do!

Thank you, I said it before, and I'll say it again, it's really no big trick, just patience and being very critical with your own creation.
I just try around with any idea that comes to mind, discarding it or putting it on the list and in the end I look for a combination that goes with my vision of things. So put much thought into your project and don't be too generous with yourself and never restrain from taking any effort to improve your project. I often decide to change something in the last second, ruining parts of the model, just because I couldn't stand one stupid detail.
That's basicly what I do, it's sick at times, but no other way makes me happy.

Do you work commissions? You should consider it, man. Even if it's not painting, your work is definitely original for this type of steampunk/grimdark universe.

When I considered working in an artistic profession after finishing school I quickly decided against it, because whatever form of art I'd like to perform I'd never want to perform it on demand.
So no, I think I couldn't do commissions under most circumstances, it would be like giving away my babies, each project is a small piece of me.
I could give one to a friend who'd appreciate it, but not for mere money.
Another possible scenario would be if someone got me hooked up by an interesting project I could contribute to.

HF Izanagi wrote: Dude, I'd eat a baby for that model, man... does someone owe you a crapload of money???

If I ever need any babies to be eaten I'll contact you. Maybe one day when my cabinet is full I'll sell some of my work, but that day is somewhere in the dark future.

Space_Potato wrote:Who's blood did you drink to get that amazing?

Ok, that's not funny at all! Who told you about the blood drinking? The judge said there is insufficient proof and that there would be no further prosecution. So get the hell off of me, I don't deserve the harassment, an occasional virgin or infant, no big deal really. I try to limit the blood drinking to poor artists nobody would miss, but noone can expect me to stick to that diet forever, there has to be some reward...

In other news, it's a hell of a week, so much to handle. I had a day off today, but since I had to get my dog to the veterenary and help my sister preparing her first flat, there wasn't time for much else, damn you life!
Ah well not totally true, a friend came over for two hours and we discussed the further steps for the gaming table, which we really need to push forward, it's been months since our last game of necromunda.
He also had some first hand information about the finecast miniatures, as he works part time for GW. Very intrigueing, can't wait to get my mittens on one.

Little hope for more hobby time in the next few days, I'll have to make the effort to get painting in the evening, if I'm not as wasted as today that is.

PDH wrote:You lucky so and so. I really enjoy helping people move into new flats/houses.

Then get over here and help her, but actually it was fun, plus I just had to climb down own set of stairs, since she's moving in downstairs.

I've been meaning to do that this week too...I dragged myself to the painting table and I painted a base, a whole 25mm base, that was it. I guess it means I can start on the attached scavvy at some point.

Something similar here, I actually managed to get the basic steps on that test tau done, but no more. On the other hand I rearranged my painting table, so that's an indirect success.

I was rather looking forward to finecast but looking at this http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/371719.page it does not bode well and I am a little worried.

Browsing through that thread... What he said was, that the finecasts are MUCH more detailed. Only problem he mentioned is that there are lots of air bubbles, quite bad ones. But that's GW's problem, I'll give any misscast back till I get a decent one and then enjoy the better miniature. I'm still exited about finecast, it will make some trouble, but I'm willing to have it for a better quality.

Llamahead wrote:You are arguably Dakka's king of kit-bashed guns! The buzzsaw Ogryn is excellent and the Heavies are unique characterful and work! Also thanks for reminding me of the Ash Nomads I know what my next new 40k project is going to be!

King of kit-bashed guns, I like the sound of that and I'll try to gather some more titles.
About the nomads, you're welcome, be sure to let me know when you start working on them, can't wait to see some ash waste goodness.

Cadaver wrote:Well, over the past fews months we've had a few projects that more or less were along the same line without being directly inspired by one another, like our Vostroyan inquisition forces. However, in this case, I'm going to have to loot this idea wholesale! I'm floored. I am genuinely blown away by the overall look here and the changes you've made.

Thank you, big compliment.

I've been aware of the heresy "not delaque" range for quite awhile but didn't really see the potential in most of the models. I'm gonna have to order this one for my Delaque gang as I really don't like the GW Delaque heavy stubber. The Army of Two style mask is awesome, I might have to use something like this across my Delaque gang to give them a more sinister appearance, which I've always felt fit Delaques. We'll see what I can come up with. I've been working on my Eschers currently. Even managed to paint some stuff!

Did you put up pictures of the paintjobs yet? Haven't seen them...
Can't wait for your Delaque. I wouldn't go for an all-masked look, it would look sinister sure, but I'm afraid it might look to much like a cult or renegades or something.
I'll do another masked heresy Delaque soon, it's all in my head already and this time I'll do it all differently, I wonder how you will like that one.
And the GW heavy stubber has a weird pose indeed, I almost regret using him, but as soon as I can afford an autocannon there will be a new one anyway, the conversion is already half way done.


In other news...
The week is still terrible, I'm really hoping the next one will be better. I didn't have any time or energy left for painting or converting the last few days, but I managed to continue building some scenery, pictures might come soon.
So much for now, gotta run to work.

c0un7_z3r0 wrote:The gun seems to be a little bit on the heavy side but looks totally awesome anyway!

True, but it's 40k after all. And those guys are called heavies, aren't they. Oversized guns are a difficult topic, have you ever seen a 1:1 lasgun, looks ridiculous, like all 40k guns. I like that lack of realism though and I believe in light weight material, hidden suspensions and artificially enhanced muscles.

Cadaver wrote:No pics of the paintjobs yet. I still need to paint the base and do a few final highlights.
That's a good point in regards to the masks. I'm thinking I might just use the cadian rebreathers, and maybe alter those a bit. Luckily, I have plenty of time to figure it out, with all the projects I've started. Just bought a Goliath gang and bits, so I think that will make necromunda project #5. I'll get it all done one of these days!

I used a cadian rebreather on my gang leader, looks ok, nothing special, but they do the job.
I know what you mean, my necromunda projects are too numerous as well, plus I still intend to convert and paint the complete I54mm range. (Even worse I'm seriously tempted to start a dark heresy group...must resist!)
Well my income tax declaration is due tomorrow, so I won't have much time to paint either.




In other news, I've spent some more hours on the centerpiece for my upcoming game table and I can tell you, it will be quite big, wip pics soon.

Do you play DH? What do you think about it?

Thx Igandris.

About DH, I'm currently reading the core rules, for inspiration mainly, but I really like them. I'm an Inquisitor afficionado and always enjoyed the rpg aspects of the specialist games, so I'm very likely to fall for DH. My only concern is that it could distract me from our already slow-going necromunda campaign. I think it would be best to postpone DH a little, too much hobby stuff already and too much real life on top of it.

Anyway, no news for today, no time for the hobby, I'm rearranging my library atm and used the little time left to play my last not-yet-20 character in DOW2's last stand mode. Fun game! I'm almost done with that though and I die to get back to my conversions soon.

Yeah I like those suspensions stylewise, but that is reserved for my autocannon heavy, the conversion is half done, I don't want them all to have that. About the reasoning I'm just like that, it has to make some sense. In this case I decided muscle implants and stimulants are enough to justify the missing suspension.
I also like the concept of anti gravity suspension pads, like those you can buy in Inquisitor. Maybe a bit too fancy for necromunda, but then again the gang is supposed to be techy.

ancientsociety wrote:Blogs like this are the reason I started writing the Inquisimunda rules - there's so much creativity and inspiration here! Keep up the awesome work, sir.

So I'm officially approved by the author of Inquisimunda now! Thanks mate, I'd be happy to get some comments from you.


In other news, it feels GOOD to be back! I think it's been more than a week since I last had the time or power to climb up to my workshop and do some conversion-magic. All the other days I just settled with playing some DOW or just going to sleep early, when I finally had some free time.
Today I spent an hour or two trying to pick up some project again, but felt not in the shape to get back into an elaborate conversion, so I decided to go for something simple, yet necessary.

So I made some progress on Versatilis, former juve and now ganger with gunfighter skill (among other skills). Versatilis is quite a monster in game mechanics: A+1, I+1, Gunfighter, Weaponsmith, Crackshot, Hipshooting. Now he really needs a better BS and the Fastshot skill.
The model is based on yet another heresy miniature, the running one and I'm planning some more or less subtle changes.
Some time ago I had put him on a proper base, cleaned mold lines, removed his neck and swapped his head and weapons.
Today I changed my mind about one of his weapons and the head, so I basicly started anew. Instead of giving him the bolt pistol/las pistol mix he had so far, I decided to give him two bolt pistols (just for the looks) and a pair of silenced Mac-11s as backup (which are holstered on his thighs, looks cool).
His head was some bald head from a friends bitz box, which still wasn't small enough, the model is rather petite. I'm pretty sure there is no head out there that will suit all my requirements, so I'm going to sculpt one.

To do:
Improve bolt pistols
Sculpt head
Sculpt ballistic vest
Sculpt some straps for the holsters and for his (small) backpack

Straps and vest are done.
Sculpting the head is next and when that's done I'll only have to work on the bolt pistols.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ski-mask and goggles done.
Only bolt pistols and maybe the backpack left.

Update on Versatilis:

It's always the same with me: Every time I think, ok this time you keep it simple, weapon swap, head swap, done... And then my brain starts working and in the end it's never as simple as planned.

At the moment I'm working on the bolt pistols, which originally were supposed to be used unchanged, because they are special as they come. I'm using two of those rare compact bolt pitols from the 2000 New Van Saar weapon sprue, but they had a lot of flash and the halfs were shifted badly, so I had to file a lot.

Starting from there it quickly got more and more complex. You know me well enough to tell that I'll rarely leave a weapon unmodified, even if I try, like in this case.

Custom barrel, custom sights, enhanced magazine and a suspension for the puny former juve to hold those babies one in each hand...

Depending on my free time tomorrow, you can expect the project to be finished within a couple of days.

No progress on the painting frontier. I thought about more Tau color schemes I'd like to try and I know I really need to finish the first of the Delaques, but nothing yet.
I'm still kind of rearranging my study, which is where I paint, so there were some days when I simply couldn't paint and the last few evenings I've been to tired or to hooked up by Monster Hunter Freedom Unite, which I accidently started playing again after a years hiatus.
So Cortaro is still just primed with some wash on his base.

About the baiyuan style, that's an apt description of the mess this project has become, but I'm starting to have those "feelings" for the miniature, which I didn't have when I began, there was no spark of inspiration, just "I need a dual wield ganger, let's make one." The feelings of course mean two things, he is going to be in line with my other creations and it's going to take much longer than originally planned.

I actually planned to have another 2h of converting this evening, but instead my sister made me carry her whole kitchen furniture up to the attic.
The 15 minutes of converting I actually had in the end, led to some news about the pistols. I found a better more techy alternative for the custom iron sights I had planned and now there are red dot sights on top of both pistols and it looks so badass.
Still much to do just on the bolt pistols though, I need to add a frame of plastic card, connect the suspension brace to the guns, glue on the new barrels after properly modifying them again and at last add some random details, as usual. So there will be a lot of drilling, sculpting and adding plastic card on the pistols tomorrow.

So much for today, now back to MHFU, there are two Tigrex who await my lethal attention.

P.S. Does anyone remember the 12,7mm SMG with silencer from Fallout: New Vegas? By pure coincidence the pistols turned out to look somewhat similar to it...maybe just remotely, but they remind me of it. Add a lower arm suspension, RDS and replace the silencer by a huge muzzle and you have it.

I could give you a supposed to be very fruity orange firewarrior, that in the end just looked like standard tau color scheme which frustrated me away from finishing him.

The 12,7mm SMG is actually a top loader, so there is a long flat magazine on top of it, like some actual SMGs and ARs have it, P90 for example.
My bolt pistols have pretty big box magazines under the body of the gun.

Painting something boring is even more boring, I agree. ^^
One problem of coolness first is, that I have no idea how to afford the 60cred of weapons I gave to this BS2 gunmonkey just because it looks so cool.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Always having an eye on necromunda stuff at ebay I'm used to see Spyrer Matriarchs an Patriarchs being sold for 60€+, but this one here puzzles me. Three Scavvy dogs from 2003 for 120€...
http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=310321817877&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

neil101 wrote:Look forward to seeing your take on the weapons mate , that fallout gun is pretty neat , i dont remember it though , i mainly use the rifles.

I used it for CQC, massive damage and still silenced. My character in NV is a sniper type of guy, 100 stealth and massive criticals, so the best weapon in the game is the Abilene Kids BB-gun. It's silent, cost ridiculously few AP in VATS and has a 100 shot magazine. With the right build and this weapon you can kill Deathclaws and Brotherhood nerds with one sneaky critical, actually they are being torn to shreds, which I think is stupid. BB-gun of DOOOOM!

PDH wrote:Neil - Thats 60 creds of weapons for someone who cannot shoot straight and when he does has to check if he's run out of ammo or broken his gun. Now I believe a bolt pisol has a 6+ ammo roll. lmao I reckon they should count as Autopistols.

Now that you said it, I realize it's actually 70 creds. 2x bolts 2x20, 2x autos 2x15= 70 creds.
About the ammo roll, yes it is 6+, but he is a weaponsmith, which means he gets to reroll any missed AR, so hopefully his bolt pistols will last a round or two before he has to bring out the MACs.

Edit: Hhm when I wanted to close the tab with the google image search for MAC-11s I found this picture of Santa Clause's body guard. It's good to be Santa...

Bauyuan I have this great image in my head of an orange with a fire warriors helmet drawn on to it. But I guess that would be a juicy fruity orange fire warrior.

Maybe a tangerine would be better, an orange would make a crisis suit...

Damn I wish I had some Scavvy Dogs to sell!

That or any other stuff from the 2000-2003 releases, they are all relatively rare due to the short creative period of fanatic and the quick death of the specialists games. So if you have the new Van Saars, the new bounty hunters, the spyrer matriarch or patriarch or ash waste nomads you can make some money, they are all 60 bucks usually. I was just surprised people would pay that money for three stupid dogs, while there are tons of other possible models for them.

Howdie folks and friends!

Another day with lots of freetime, that is not at my immediate disposal, my sister's flat again...

Anyway, besides finding some cool old crap for my gametable, I could only spend like 30minutes on my conversion.

Those 30 minutes I put to best use though, I managed to get past a bottleneck of this project. I've been thinking and thinking and couldn't find the right way to connect the arm suspension with the guns.

After a few days I finally had a new idea when I was in bed yesterday and today I gave it a try. Well what can I say, I'm a freaking genius, it worked sooo well, I wasn't expecting that at all.

I hope to finish this one tomorrow, even though I already know it's going to be a busy day. Stay tuned picture update imminent...