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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.