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Thanks!


Overall this project is turning out better than I'd expected. I've been very pleasantly surprised at how well the material used to make Reaper's "Bones" mini's takes paint and shows detail, given how cheap they are.

Last night I was on the crapper pondering the GW Raptor sprue and came up with the crazy idea to use some of the parts along w/plasticard to build a jetbike. Soooo yeah...new Zona razor saw & miter box are on the way. Also dug around in my bones box (another hobby of mine is bone collecting, but only from animals I find...never purchased) and noticed that some lower rat jawbones appear to be the right size for such a project. Bones harvested straight out of the ground in the DMZ ghetto of Oakland, put to use making seriously evil custom minis. Utterly appropriate for the project.

D'awww.... rat bones make me sad, I have <3's for the little dudes and their people hands. That does look awful chaosy though.

 GrimDork wrote:
D'awww.... rat bones make me sad, I have <3's for the little dudes and their people hands. That does look awful chaosy though.

Yeah, I kept rats as pets when I was a kid. These were taken from skeletons & carcasses I found when some friends and I turned an emtpy/disused lot into a garden.

Technozombie Lord is done. He's really really big. Like "Whoop a Terminator's ass with his "bare" hands" big.

Yeah I would want no part of fighting that.

Finished a few more.

The difference in finish on the old batch vs the new one is kind of frustrating, but its not really THAT noticeable in person.

I included closeups of the Spellcrow heads to illustrate how good the casting is on their resin.

First batch of mini's is pretty much done! Have a bit of detailing left on the Scorpion & winged Terminator, but y'know...

Started on the jetbike & a mutated weapons pod using Strain parts from Sedition wars, a Chaos Raptor jetpack, some plasticard tubing, and one of the sets of rat jaws. I think its going to come out pretty nicely, though I dropped the bones & chipped them a bit. No way I could have put this together without a pin vise. Its got a kind of Reavers ala Joss Whedon's "Serenity" look going on I think.

I've got to say that the plastic that they used on the Sedition Wars mini's is noticeably harder than the GW stuff. This includes the mold line, of where there is a LOT...it doesn't really clean up very well in that regard. I'm glad I have a razor saw arriving this week.

Nice, that jetbike is really coming along well!

The plastic they used for SW is usually called restic for resin-plastic. You can't do it the same way as hard plastic really. Mold lines typically need to be carefully cut away instead of dragging your knife backwards or filing like you can with hard plastic (GW stuff).

It does have an interesting property to be pretty bendable after exposure to fairly hot water, dunk it in to hot hot water (like you just made tea or something, not quite boiling) pop it out and repose, dunk it into cold water to set. Really helps differentiate the basic strain models (if you aren't chopping them up for bits ).

 GrimDork wrote:

It does have an interesting property to be pretty bendable after exposure to fairly hot water, dunk it in to hot hot water (like you just made tea or something, not quite boiling) pop it out and repose, dunk it into cold water to set. Really helps differentiate the basic strain models (if you aren't chopping them up for bits ).

Good to know, the stuff is a nightmare to try and cut. Its WAY harder than the GW plastic, also seems to be a bit more brittle. if I'd paid full price for the boardgame I'd probably be hella pissed. Thanks for the heads up, I'll try this on the main body for the Grendlr.

Dark Vengeance Chaos sprues arrived in the mail while I was out getting coffee ($40 shipped to the door for a Hellbrute, Chaos Lord, 6 Chosen, and 20 cultists!). There goes the rest of my week, minus an evening to go see Die Antwoord play (unless homegirl flakes). I'm uhhhh, like totally stocked up on more evil chaos crap than I can paint in the next 3 months...esp since class starts back in a week. lol.

Between this and the Sedition Wars stuff you get an incredible amount of mini's for under $80 after taxes & shipping.

Gonna paint up the Hellbrute, but the gun arm he came with was stupid looking. The plasticard barrel configuration is slightly boxy, but overall I like it a lot more.

Hellbrute arm upgrade looks nice. I may have to get a couple of those from eBay sometime just to convert and paint.

Thanks man! I ran it by my room mate (who had never laid eyes on a hand painted mini before I moved in) and he said "yep, looks like its supposed to be there"....which is the fundamental goal of any conversion work. In terms of the "mini for your money" I think the Dark Veng stuff is mind blowing. They're far higher quality than the Sedition Wars stuff, and there are more than a few parts on the sprues that would be easy to kitbash onto stuff. The fact that they're snap fit is kind of limiting, but they are visually beautiful models. You're certainly not going to get 30 mini's and an armored walker for $40 in any other scenario.

I decided to use the full range of Reaper olive greens on him since this is going to be the "whoa wtf is that" mini I'll be dropping off as a demo of my work with a local smoke shop. Kinda looks like the Hulk for a hot minute while the first stage is drying.

The bald guy has a lot of work with washes to create contrast at 36 inches. I am extremely pleased with the end result on this dude in particular.

Yeah its a good deal, may have to pick one up if I ever fully delve into chaos. Nice colors there too!

I'm pretty pleased with how the colors turned out. I decided on ice blue highlights for power weapons & eyes, with a red/yellow combo for helmet lenses.

Massive scrollfest for completed but unbased photos. Final photo is project overview so far, started working on cultists with the lead unit as a "Fallen Commisar"....gonna be all gasmasks & suchlike. Should be fun.

Really nice! I love the green and the blue glowey bits are quite good. I think I'll have a similar scheme going if I ever do chaos, but I might rust it for fun

That cultist mini has seen a *lot* of conversion since the box came out, and yours should look pretty sweet by the time it's done.

Kind words, yo. 'Preciate the shoutout on the glowy bits....I like the contrast of the ice blue, but feel the Chaos Zombie Lord's axe looks kind of like crap. The winged Posessed Terminator's power weapon is more representative of how I'd like that particular highlight to look. Overall I'm very pleased with how the eyes on all the figures turned out. Eye's are intimidating as hell to paint. Rusting the armor would probably look really cool. The paint scheme for the armor and guns is actually EXACTLY the same...but the guns & weapons get 4 coats of my gunmetal (1 part blue 1 part black) wash to give it contrast...because who the hell would have a bright red gun in a combat situation?

The original head on the cultist looked like a Thundercat that had been smoking tweak, rofl. The detailing on the Dark Veng sprues is really breathtaking. Its pretty amazing how far the casting process has evolved since I got into this hobby back in 1993.

Side note, dropped off 5 mini's with a local headshop owner today. He's going to show them to his partners and I will find out on Saturday if they want to start selling them through the store! Very exciting for me.

I see what you're saying there, the pointy death poker thing looks better than the axe. Yeah, I'll go with that. The axe is still solid. If you've a steady hand or you're braver than I usually am, that axe would probably look amazing with some little lighting arcs going from the center out to the blade

The washing makes your guns just about right too, good technique.

So they're considering selling your models in their store? That's pretty cool

Yep, I'm going to find out if the owner is into it on Saturday. I feel pretty confident that it will work out. God knows the possiblity of extra cash would be great, but there's also the advantage of not having to store mountains of useless mini's at my house.

Anyhoo, progress on the Hellbrute continues. The 3 primary paint stages are done, and areas to be detailed are blacked out. This is what the paint looks like before getting glaze w/Nurgle's Rot. Hopefully I'll be able to finish up the details when I get back from watching Die Antwoord play!

Backstory: "Crazy Legs Johnson was a mean old man. He sat on the porch yelling at kids to stay off his lawn. One day a glowy green meteor fell into the yard. He picked it up yelling and cussing about the government before he realized the meteor was actually pure fething evil. Now he's straight from hell and still hates childrens."

PS got a new brush box that fits most of my modeling tools nicely. Hooray for organization.

Dag that's a nice box I've got spots for my brushes in my mobile painting station so I don't need such a thin at this point... but consider the idea stolen for later

Hellbrutes are cool. You're really selling me on the whole DV chaos half box

Yeah, the DV models are really beautifully detailed. Not the most conversion friendly, but there are some arms & such that would be direct swaps. To my way of thinking....a painted Hellbrute alone will sell for more than $40 in the right setting.

Anyhoo....off to catch a train to Oakland for a concert. Will update later tomorrow evening with glazed pics.

Picked up the "cheapest" useful kit I could find at my old FLGS before riding back today. Got home and spent a couple of hours working on the jetbike conversion.

Side note, Die Antwoord was awesome live. Strongly recommended if you like that kind of completely off the wall music. Hehe.

I'm heading out to talk to that shop owner about his desicion on carrying some of my stuff in his store. Kinda nervous, but very excited!

Welp, finished up the original project. I think they turned out pretty nicely, all things considered. Not ENTIRELY happy with the result, but its nothing more practice won't clear up.

These guys are heading for a local smoke shop today to go on sale at a price point that will recoup the cost of materials, earn me a few bucks to put into my bank account, and still leave room for the shop owner to do a 33% markup.

Obviously, this won't be the end of the blog. I really like this particular color scheme and Chaos conversions are always going to offer the most artistic freedom.

The jetbike looks great so far, fits nicely with the old RT era metal version. The rat jaw looks like it was made to go on it. Funnily enough, I found a skull (no idea what it's from, some kind of sabre toothed mole perhaps!!) which I kept to turn into some kind of daemon creature (an idea that's been in my head since I watched 9). Great stuff as usual!

Huh well good deal if they sell. Or did the shop already buy them from you and will just be putting them on the shelves?

Thanks for the supportive words ya'll. There's NO way I'd have stayed motivated enough to finish this project without the community on here. Dakka gets the job done.

 Gogsnik wrote:
Funnily enough, I found a skull (no idea what it's from, some kind of sabre toothed mole perhaps!!) which I kept to turn into some kind of daemon creature (an idea that's been in my head since I watched 9). Great stuff as usual!

Werd, finding bones is really cool stuff! I'm tossing around the idea of scouring the local woods once the weather cools off. I would reccomend a 50/50 mix of water & peroxide if you want to bleach it out...also kills the smell. Odor can be an issue with skulls since the roots of teeth actually rot inside the bone. If teeth are loosened or fall out after the soak, a dab of superglue and carefully reinserting the roots into the jaw will fix it right as rain.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 GrimDork wrote:
Huh well good deal if they sell. Or did the shop already buy them from you and will just be putting them on the shelves?

For now I get paid if/when they sell, this may change if the owner thinks he could buy them from me and then flip them online. The place is literally 4 blocks from my apartment, so its free storage in a nifty display no matter what....plus TBH it feels awesome to get positive feedback from people who have no interest other than the profit margin on sales. Means that they recognize intrinsic value of the art. If the Hellbrute sells it will pay for the entire Dark Veng Chaos sprue order, plus shipping, with a few bucks left over. I haven't even started painting any of the cultists or CSM in it.

I took my brush & some white paint to sign the bottoms of the demo models when I went up there. After I finished this and was cleaning the brush, the guy was utterly horrified to see me "tip" the brush with my lips. Asked me "oh god, what IS that stuff?" referring to the paint....just regular old white paint. He then said "There is no way I would put that in my mouth".....in a shop full of bongs, pipes, synthetic weed, etc. I had to keep myself from laughing.

That is vaguely hilarious.

Man just think if you had put a small pipe/bong setup inside the hell brute, you could retire!

 GrimDork wrote:
That is vaguely hilarious.

Man just think if you had put a small pipe/bong setup inside the hell brute, you could retire!

Hellbong!

Ok and then I google imaged that phrase...

o.O



Wait, if the bowl is in the head, and the pipe stem runs down the spine......uhhh where do your put your mouth?....

Well its my last day of being able to sit around and eat chinese delivery while I built monsters....class starts Thursday with mandatory orientation all afternoon tomorrow. I think the last month or so has been pretty productive in terms of hobby related stuff.

4 guys are kitbashed everything. Clanker on the end uses a Spellcrow chainsaw arm (Orc gear, but fits fine), and Space Legionary legs (kinda not feeling them) and is mostly about wanting to see how those two parts look painted up. Fiddleclaw in the middle shows neatly how the new GW models are NOT the same 28mm scale the old ones are...even after removing some of the overall mass its still disproportionally huge, even at the shoulder join. I tried to balance it out with an over sized weapon and shoulderpad on the other arm, which ended up making a pretty rad model. I have a special weakness for pistol wielding gunslingers, which is where I went with the guy on the far right. Fortunately his pistols have bayonets, so he probably kicks ass with gun kata's ala' the film "Equilibrium".....plus he's obviously from hell. Given how nicely the other bald guy with a power fist turned out looking I think this dude will be solid.

Jetbike conversion structure is finished. Gonna add some embellishments here and there, but you get an idea of how it will end up looking. I decided you were totally right about the OG look Gogsnik, backpack selection was based on making it even more baroque, while still aiming for a sleek & cohesive aesthetic.

The thing at the end is a centaur type beastie with the Brimstone mini from Sedition Wars as a lower section. I'm deciding whether to go with a a Gaurd Dog or Minotaur angle...leaning towards the latter with some kind of special order great weapon.

Decided to build him some big guns out of a Raptor jetpack. Going for an artillery/anti-aircraft look since my stuff is always heavy on melee and light on lasers. The barrels are obscenely long in relation to the visual mass of the backpack, but I think it will look fine once the model is built out.

Haven't decided if I'm going to have more than one set of arms, that might be overdoing it.

Huh that's pretty interesting, definitely look shooty.

 GrimDork wrote:
Huh that's pretty interesting, definitely look shooty.

Yeah, I like the way the barrels look even though the proportions are slightly off. Tossing around whether I want to give him dual wield chainswords and a horned helm or demon possessed shooty stuff and a more sleek head w/a targeting laser. Maybe build this one "plays as" Devastator & one "plays as" Mutilator....I mean that would give me a reason to order the WFB Forsaken kit....cause I need more sprues to take up space!

The Raptor clawtoes went on pretty well IMO.

I think the painting results are getting better. I took a bit more time to shade & add detail splashes of color on these 4. I decided to go full shooty route with the latest monster thing. Converted a heavy flamer into an autocannon, still working on a meltagun from the Space Marine trike kit...its going to be a combo biolauncher and auto cannon. I'll probably end up using a Raptor head of some type.