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That's really cool... and probably not much smaller than the Inquisitor scale Space Marine by GW

He looks awesome, and I think the thinner, smaller blade is much more realistic and will look really nice when painted up. Great job!

I really like the gorget work.

Good choice of weapons in the end, he looks solid. Can I assume a golden colour is on the way for this guy?

Thanks a lot for the kind words, guys! And yes, there will be quite a bit of gold in the paintjob for the Marine, I suppose

Oh, and while this guy may be pretty big for an 28mm Marine, rest assured that the 54mm Marine model is still quite a bit more imposing than this!

A smaller update today:

My problem at the moment, if you can call it a problem at all, seems to be that some of the models I have recently built seem to warrant further retainers and familiars, just because it’s such a great way of further exploring them as characters. You’ll be seeing another example of this in a minute, and while building some additional models (for additional narrative texture) is a blast, I wonder whether I’ll ever be able to finish all of these… Then again, as long as it’s fun, it certainly can’t be all bad, can it?

Anyway, I have come up with two possible retainers for Brother-Sergeant Auriga, my true scale Marine:

First up, I’ve had this little guy in my bitzbox for ages now:



While I love cherubim – they’re such an ironic part of what makes 40k interesting – I never got around to finding an actual use for the model: That bolter the little guy is lugging around didn’t seem like such a good match for any of my Inquisitors, and I didn’t want to chop it off for fear of permanently ruining the model.

Brother Sergeant Auriga, however, is a Space Marine. And by virtue of being a Space Marine, he would own and wield a bolter, right? Well, so much the better, because now he has a servant to carry the weapon for him, at least when it’s not actually required on the battlefield, but rather as a “sign of office”, as it were. And it really fits my idea of the Golden Legion that they would not be above a bit of ostentatiousness like this.

Once I had seen the Marine and cherub together, there was no stopping me, and so I started working on yet another retainer for Brother Auriga: My original plan had been to have options for both a bare head and a helmeted one, but then I really liked the idea of having a chapter serf carry the Brother-Sergeant’s helmet. Here’s an early mockup:



These three really look great together, if you ask me:



As always, let me know what you think!

Holy Gak he looks like Teal'c

I really like the marine, but he feels a bit static compared to your other works.

Really like the helmet bearer.

In typical KrautScientist fashion you have taken what was already a brilliantly realised TS marine and boom! - added a super awesome retinue!

Love the idea of a cherub flapping about trying to lift a bolter for his lordship, and the helmet bearer is just great.

Brilliant stuff Scibor made a bunch of these which might be worth a look for you.

Awesome work as always. That TS marine is a work of GENIUS.

Question though, have you considered trying to integrate the cherub with the marine's base? I'm not 100% sure it'll work, but if you can kind of imitate Celestine's cloak with the cherub behind him, it may give him a slightly more baroque, over-engineered grandeur

Well, though i checked this thread quite often, I never subbed. Consider that mistake corrected
Amazing job in here as well, you rarely disappoint me mate!!!!

Wow, those are some really nice ones, the artscale marine is very well made and the helmetbearer is a nice idea. Keep it up!

Thanks for the positive feedback, guys!

Let me just add that 1) giving Brother-Sergeant Auriga a fairly static pose has been a very conscious decision (in order to underline his "huge hunk of rock" look) and 2) I've kept the cherub on a separate base, both in order to keep him useable as a separate model and to prevent the Marine from looking overcluttered.

A small update today, with just a couple of easy kitbashes or WIPs:

First up, I completed PeeDee's base: He'll definitely be one of the next models on the painting table





I also picked up one of the servitors accompanying FW's Hector Rex model for a really good price a while ago:



Rather than using it as a servitor, however, I believe I’ll make this guy into a Magos Xenobiologis, maybe for Inquisitor Alvar's retinue. I really like the look of the model, both because it’s rake thin, which makes for a rather unique visual footprint, and because it’s really close to my archetypal idea of a Magos of the Adeptus Mechanicus.
The one thing I have done so far (apart from scrubbing the mold release agent off the model, mind you) was to cut off the tangle of cables serving as the model’s left hand. It will be replaced by a fairly regular hand — or maybe by that DV cultist champ hand with the blade tipped fingers? Anyway, this guy is not very far along yet, but I really love the base model!

And finally, I have recently completed a really fast and dirty kitbash one evening after work, when I needed to do something creative in order to relax: I decided to build a servo-skull heavily inspired by the type of extra-grimdark skulls that appear in the Witch Hunter artwork. Take a look:



Again, a really easy conversion: I just added the top of a Empire flagellant’s head to a resin skull and blended in the seams with a bit of GS. Then a parchment was added, making it look like the skull was carrying around Imperial liturgies. And finally, some cables were used to provide a suitably tech-y look (and a certain sense of movement) to the whole affair. The whole thing didn’t take longer than rougly half an hour, but it was a fun little exercise to take my mind off things.



As always, let me know what you think!

The magos is looking promising and the servo-skull is great.

I wish the parchment under the skull read 'Eat At Joe's'

Wishful thinking.

I love the kitbash though. It is very simple and clean, and looks great as a result.

Its perfect.

Cheers, guys! Happy you like the new models!

Hey everyone, update time! Finally managed to finish a model, albeit a rather small one

Anyway, I give you: PeeDee the Monkey, beloved augmeticised familiar, inspired by a well-known fellow hobbyist:









As always, let me know what you think!

Haha, great expression on his face - he looks genuinely shocked!

Sometimes I think we've been separated at birth - Now we've updated our blogs at almost the same time!

Cheers, mate!

 GuitaRasmus wrote:
Sometimes I think we've been separated at birth - Now we've updated our blogs at almost the same time!

Seriously, I hope that's not the case, because that would mean that you're the sibling with all the talent

That is a great painting dude! Lovely stuff

Looks great, such a cool little figure!
Loving all of these familiars and servo skulls =)

Cheers, guys!

It's finally time for an update today, so let me show you some new kitbashes!

I already mentioned in a prior post how much I love weirdingway’s Navigator models. In fact, I feel his models make up one of the most creative and interesting 40k/INQ28 projects around at the moment, and one that has been a deep well of inspiration ever since I first came across it.

You will probably remember the Navigator model I kitbashed fairly recently, a model that I am pretty happy with:



Building this model was a fun kitbashing experiment as well as an attempt to get my current obsession with weirdingway’s models out of my system – at least a little bit. But ultimately, the Navigator bug had hit me so badly that it became clear to me that I needed to add a couple of additional models in order to make up the Navigator’s personal retinue.

Unlike weirdingway, however, I am not trying to expand this into an army project, so I tried my darnedest to stay focused and only build a handful of additional models. The other big challenge was to make the models more than just cheap knock-offs of weirdingways’s characters — I’ll be honest with you: There was a very real temptation to just copy his awesome kitbashes and be done with it

I went a bit against my own laziness, however, and now I think I may have come up with a couple of models that share the eclecticism of weirdingway’s retinue, but put a slightly different spin on things.

The background for my Navigatorial House, named House DeVries, is that it is the oldest and most influential Navigator house of the Velsen Sector. The house is unbelievably rich and very much at the height of its political power, which has made its members increasingly haughty and eccentric. At the same time, their genetic makeup of the house has gotten more and more “particular” over the millennia, so that some of the members of the house can never hope to be able to walk among regular humans, while even those who act as representatives of the house will show minor but noticeable signs of deformity (like my Navigator above).

In keeping with the status of House DeVries, I wanted the Navigator’s retainers to be both eclectic and ostentatious enough to look the part. So I grabbed my bitzbox and got to work.

So far I have:

A regular of the DeVries household guard:



This model was based on an WFB Empire Musketeer given to me by PDH. I really liked the model, so I wanted to use it as part of my Navigator retinue — I’ll happily go on record stating that I love using Empire bitz on 40k models! Even the puffy sleeves! Especially the puffy sleeves! Not due to laziness, mind you (though I am pretty lazy, actually), but because, in my idea of the 40k universe, there are lots of puffy sleeves, powdered wigs and strange, anachronistic elements.

In this case, that approach produced a model heavily inspired by a formation like the Pontifical Swiss Guard, which was pretty much what I was going for. In order to prevent the model from looking too fantasy, I added a head and backpack from the Tempestus Scions kit. And even though I really wanted to keep his weapon, I did add the muzzle of a Cadian Lasgun — maybe the weapon is a priceless Longlas? Or maybe it has been expertly crafted to resemble the ancient weapons from Old Terra’s history, due to the whims of the Navigators?

In any case, while this guy might need a tad more work, I already like where he is going!


I also built an an officer of the DeVries household guard, or possibly even its guard captain, based on a Tempestus Scion:



Once again, the Swiss Guard vibe is clearly palpable, isn’t it? The slightly baroque breastplate is really a good match for this particular look. I also wanted to gives the guard officer’s weapons a slightly impractical, very ceremonial look, so he is armed with a very ostentatious (and rather bulky) chainsword and a tower shield that originally came from the Bretonnian Men-at-Arms:



The decoration on the shield consists of an aquila (shaved off a Centurion shoulder pad I used for my Obliterator — waste not, want not and all that) and a parchment from a Marine kit. I also added a feather I had left from converting the Navigator, because I thought it would make for a nice bit of visual consistency to have feathers appear as decoration on several models in the retinue!

All in all, I really love this guy: He has such an “implacable man” vibe going. Plus the head really gives him a slightly sinister aspect, doesn’t it? He may be dressed like a fop, but there is actually no doubt that he could hold his own in a fight…


I also built a Majordomo for House DeVries. The idea for this model developed when I thought about the function of the actual Navigators in the organisation of the house and realised it would be cool if the members of the house were so rich and powerful and in their own little bubble that dealing with everyday matters was completely beneath them. So they would need a servant to coordinate their household and keep their little empire running. And while this servant would not be a trueborn Navigator himself, he would wield some of the authority and power of House DeVries, making him rather powerful and important to everyone other than his masters. So I set out to build a suitably ostentatious model for such a character. Take a look:





The model’s a rather easy kitbash making use of Cadian parts, an Empire Knight’s breastplate and a particularly great head from the WFB Empire Battle Wizard kit: While I think the kit is full of missed opportunities – especially when it comes to the bodies – some of the bitz are simply amazing — this head among them. As you can see, the Majordomo carries a tome of treasured secrets — maybe the travel routes through the warp jealously guarded by House DeVries? Or maybe the genealogic charts of the house?



You may also have noticed the withered claw clutching the book, and there’s a story behind that: In my imagination, while only “pure blooded” children of Navigators will become functional Navigators themselves, I like the idea that the members of House DeVries are known for their voracious “appetites”, really “sowing their wild oats”, so to speak. Now my idea is that House DeVries tends to use the many, many bastards produced by members of the house as household guards, retainers, menials and what have you. Now what if the Majordomo is not pureblooded enough to have been born a Navigator, but very much pureblooded enough to share in some of the deformities of the more exalted members of the house?

In order to represent the fact that he is wielding a portion of his masters’ influence, the Majordomo carries a staff of office crowned by a stylised warp eye:



The staff was constructed by combining a Sanguinary Guard axe haft, a part of the Chaos Terminator Sorcerer’s staff and a piece of Space Marine bling on top Oh, and to give credit where credit is due: The use and placement of the purity seals on this model was very much inspired by MonkeyBallistic’s wonderful 30k Imperial Navy Captain. Thanks for the inspiration, mate!

In fact, after building a couple of retainers for him, even the original Navigator didn’t escape my attention, and so I added a ring to his right hand:



I really like how the ring serves as a representation of House DeVries’s wealth and creates an interesting visual counterpoint to the somewhat misshapen claw of a hand…

So here’s a look at the entire retinue so far:



Coming up with these models has been brilliant fun so far! And while the fact that I have taken lots of inspiration from weirdingway should be very obvious, I still hope that I was able to put my own spin on things!

Let me know what you think! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Really liking the archaic feudal vibe with these guys I think a Servitor/Cyborg with puffy sleeves would really finish the retinue

I think Blanche would kiss you if he could. Baroque and 40k mix together a little too well! Ace job, makes me want to get right into it as well!

Thanks a lot, guys!

@ Llamahead: A Servitor with puffy sleeves, eh? Hmm, I'll look into it...

@ Deunstephe: That is a very nice compliment ...I guess


Yesterday evening, I sat down and worked a bit on the Savant model that will end up being a part of the painting diorama I posted earlier in this thread.









Like I said earlier, the model's face suffered from a rather serious miscast that I had to repair by adding a bionic eye. However, since the model came pre-undercoated, I only learned precisely how damaged the face was during painting. I did my best to return some of the lost detail through the deft appliance of some washes and highlights, but there was only so much I could do.

Anyway, let me know what you think!

Looks fine, just some scar tissue, which obviously he got when he lost his eyes and arms.

Cool thread! Kit bashing much

That is awesome, Kraut! Really fantastic job on the script work on his parchment.

Cheers, guys!

@ Moltar: Much as I would like to take credit for that script, it's only a decal from a Sisters of Battle decal sheet -- although I am slightly proud of managing to apply it so flawlessly