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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.