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You've got some great kitbashing going on here. Every model is interesting and brings something cool to the table. Will be keeping an eye on this. Keep up the good work!!!

Real life has once again kept me from posting more updates, but I've managed to make lots of progress on a big new addition to the household.

Originally my plan was to never make any Navigators outside of fully enclosed suits — leaving the viewer to imagine their mysterious mutated state. But after having fun sketching the gothic astronauts I started thinking about what my navis nobilitie might look like under the armor. At first I was thinking of heavily mutated mugwump / eraserhead-baby types, but kind of preferred the more human mutants wearing cosmonaut caps:




In any case, neither direction seemed exciting enough to explore in model form (at 28mm with my skills at least). And then I remembered an idea I had years ago for a demon or alien model, before I got back into the hobby. I remembered one of the old Realm of Chaos mutation table results that resulted in the body of the mutant being replaced with a giant head, with legs emerging from the neck, etc, which reminded me of a favorite part of a movie I loved as a child — the giant-headed emissaries at the beginning of the Neverending Story (see below). I always liked that idea and thought it could be fun to build with a WHFB giant head or even a 54mm inquisitor head. Here is a terrible old sketch exploring the idea:



All of the sudden I knew what I had to make — the true head of the household, an ancient and inhumanly mutated Novator. The large head seems very fitting for a mutant engineered/bred over the millenia to not only look directly into the warp, but calculate the impossible trajectories and paths a warp-going vessel traverses. And the background supports the idea of navigators growing larger than normal when dueling for the office of Paternova.

Some of my inspiration:


(Neverending Story, Spirited Away, Lynch's Dune)

And some concept sketches:




The idea is the head had grown so large it is supported with mechanical implants and suspensors, and the novator either sits on a walking thrown or has extra mechanical legs attached to his cranium. I was really excited and ordered a WHFB giant head from ebay, eager to get started. But when I opened the package I was shocked at how small it was! Hardly a giant at all. At first I thought I could make it work, but it's just not what I was envisioning.


Just terrible! I'm sure it could work with more conversion, but it's not what I wanted to make.

So I decided to instead sculpt a head from scratch. More to come soon ...

Anyone who can mash-up Dune, Neverending Story, and Miyazaki deserves some kind of medal for crazyawesome.

Needs more of this:

Simply wonderful! I really love your sketches. Shows the creative mind at work.

I still think there is perhaps room for less advanced Navigators that follow your Cosmonaut Cap style. Perhaps from inferior or more stable bloodlines. If you could realise the guy on the left in the second sketch that would be epic.

Very much loving this new direction though.

Thanks! I suppose I could fashion some Feyd Rautha winged speedos with blood angel wing ornaments ...

For sculpting reference, I gathered some great monumental heads:

Constantine's head (Capitoline museum, Rome), various Olmec heads (Mexico), Daibutsu of Kamakura (Japan)

Sorry for the low quality of most of the following photos. I have to remember to take better wip shots.

I started by trying to make a rough skull in Apoxy sculpt, which I could then cover with green stuff musculature and skin. But my first skull was a total disaster. I kept mushing the parts I had finished, and ended up with this lopsided mess:


I scrapped that and started over, building only the front half of the head and sculpting against a solid plastic board. This made it much easier to control what I was doing. I also looked more closely at anatomical reference images which were helpful:


Much better! Next when it dried I went back and carved into the dried putty to give me room to add layers on top.


And then added some Apoxy eyeballs and a first layer of greenstuff:


And once that was dry, another pass of detail and form:


I'm really happy with how it's coming together, and the way the head sits next to the regular human figures:


I should give credit to my wife (who is an expert at drawing portraits and did some figure sculpture in college), for giving me some invaluable critiques along the way.

Tomorrow I'll post further face sculpting, as well body and gaskmask developments.

Wow. It's amazing you're working with such detail on such a small scale.

Very amazing work, loving the creative use of various bits to build a unique force :-)

Fantastic sculpting work there! And a great concept in the first place

Man, if only you could get your hands on some see through plastic bubbles...

You might be able to get some WW2 model kit turret pieces to act as a dome. I'm thinking B17 or Avro Lancaster.

Love the big head idea , your concept art is very evocative as is your sculpting , kinda reminds me of the face of bo.

"We didn't make the big giant head, we only made it big..."
- Third Rock From The Sun

Thanks everybody! Sculpting this head gives me so much respect for people who can sculpt regular size 28mm faces. Seems completely impossible!

I wasn't sure what to do for a body, and remembered seeing cool conversions built from the fantasy chaos shrine mutants (John Blanche and Dave Taylor have done great ones) so I ordered both of the mutants from a bits site. They're great, grossly mutated sculpts, and at first I thought one of them could work with my head:




But although they do look cool, they are too muscled and lumbering for the noble ancient I'm going for. At this stage I had also added more putty to the head, further developing the features, trying to get everything fairly symmetrical. Please ignore the wonky pupils I dabbed on with a pen. I thought they'd help me imagine it when painted but they just look stupid. Still, it will be fun to paint such big eyes!

Because I couldn't find any bodies that worked with the head in my bits box, I decided to try sculpting a body too. So I did some more sketches to figure out what to sculpt and ended up with an idea I like; a walking chair combined with cross-legged pose:



The idea is that the head is attached to and supported by the back of the chair, which also contains life-support functions; the organs within the Novator's small human body can't pump enough blood or oxygen to support the enormous head and brain on their own.

Very rough body in oven-bake clay:


poor sad navigator:




Then I started adding the fun details, building out a breathing mask and the start of a cosmonaut style hood:


Then I started sculpting the legs (at first I was going for a full lotus, but opted for a more relaxed cross legged pose):

There you can also see the beginnings of a throne cobbled from bits, as well as a test use for the giant head and the mutant body. That would represent a failed challenger to the Novator's throne — it seems Navigators settle challenges with warp-eye duels, and when this cousin and would-be usurper locked warp-eye with the Novator, his mind was hollowed out and he was left a drooling vegetable. Turned into a servitor, he functions as a constant reminder to other challengers, both from within and without the family. Or maybe I'll just use this head on a different body to represent a lesser Navigator and this fat body will become a simple servitor ...

I'm really excited about the pose because when combined with broad shoulder armor like this, it reminds me of a daimyo or shogun. And with the head, a daimyo-cosmonaut, which makes me happy.


The grooves on the mask were sloppy and uneven, so I decided to rebuild them with a plasticard understructure:

Since I took this photo yesterday I've added a new layer of putty on top of the plasticard and it looks much better.

How does this body and chair seem? The idea would be to add four legs and a large back / head-support, as well as lots more detail, technical gubbins, and of course gothic ornament. Maybe the body needs to be hunched forward more?

Thanks!

This
is
awesome!

Look at the big brain on Brad!

The start of the chair and pose look promising - if anything with that massive melon he needs to sit back into the chair - too far forward and he'll topple.

Hmm, for some reason I can't help but think of the Lizardmen Slann creatures when seeing this. Maybe you could use that kit as well?

The Slann parts probably wouldn't work, but they are certainly similar.

Floaty chair maybe?

Why wouldn't they work? Man, you could even have a navigator in a tank, the whole amphibian thing would then work even better!

A Slann-dune-navigator-tank-thingy would be quite cool.

It's just that with the way the Slann is made, converting it would be quite hard - The Slann itself comes as one piece, and the chair would look a bit out of place.

You truly have a creative mind and your thought process is astounding, I was impressed by the artwork alone but seeing this become a 3 dimensional model is just amazing.

Will you be adding any kind of support rigging for his head though, I only ask as it looks like his frail body would collapse under the sheer weight of his head.

O and this keeps springing to mind :

thanks everybody!

I thought about the Slaan model as a basis for this but couldn't find one for sale without the throne (which isn't quite the right style for my group) and was afraid the scale would be way off. Looking at the model again it is quite nice ... although decidedly fat. Something to consider for sure.

If you got the whole mage-priest set, and made a mould of just the Slann, you could sell the original set.

Excellent work!

Once you have the back of the throne built, and his head wired in, the pose as is will look just fine.

just stunning sculpting, you leave me feeling very jealous. great great work

I really like the big bastard with the Multii-Melta.

Yeah, the Navigator/servitor is additional awesome.

So many wonderful ideas. Thank you for sharing all the concepts along with the physical products - I love seeing the different avenues explored around a theme before the final result.

Man that is awesome looking. It's so weird but it just works perfectly. He looks almost god like. I think that's been the result of your inspiration images.

I'm really liking that big mutant/servitor on the side.

This is just pure brilliance!

I love the concept, and your realization - and sculpting skill - is simply stunning

It is a shame you covered up so much of the excellent face with a mask. Personally I would have gone down the route of replacing the entire back of the skull with cabling and interface units to further reinforce the idea of him being extremely old and frail. The current armour etc makes him look like a warrior with a big head rather than the withered yet much feared and respected head of an ancient household.

The chair is looking excellent so far though.