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About a month and a half ago, I won a stellar eBay auction. The guy was practically giving away over 30 CSM (berzerker models) and a squad of combi-melta terminators. And while that's what I wanted, it also came in a package with some chaos DV stuff. Now, I don't have much use for the cultists I got, and the DV lord is hideous, but I thought I could use it perhaps for an objective. That just left the hellbrute.

*sigh*

The DV hellbrute is, by far, one of my least favorite models in the entire range of 40k. It's crowded, incoherent, awkward, and really, really ugly. I especially hate all the pointless horns, and I ESPECIALLY hate those stupid armpit horns that come out the left side that would stop him from putting his arm down. I hate it. It turns out that hellbrutes have terrible rules in the current CSM codex, but even if they were overpowered, I still wouldn't field them because their model is just that terrible.

The question was what to do with it. My first inclination was just to let the swill ebb back out onto the eBay tide whence it came, but that was going to be a bit obnoxious. Also, if there was any way I could trade it to anyone, I could probably get a better deal for it.

And so I'd just sort of been sitting on it for the last several weeks, until finally, I got a bite. A person at my local gaming store has been experimenting with hellbrutes and was open to the idea of having another one. I could have just offloaded it right there, taken a few bucks and gone home, but as we were talking, I started to get inspired.

The person in question wasn't much of a modeller, and he runs tzeentch, and so he was open to the idea of a tzeentch hellbrute. Furthermore, he doesn't have the time to paint, and so was interested in a paint job as well. This meant I had a way to add some value, and thus drive up what I got in exchange.

More importantly, though, it was a challenge. Would it be possible, somehow, to fix one of the worst looking minis in 40k? I could, of course, spend an eternity scratchbuilding a new one, so I set myself a limit. How much could I fix the hellbrute, and convert it to look tzeentchian in just a week? The person agreed and magically became my client, who fashioned me with a tzeentch helmeted head to replace the hellbrute's, and asked for only two things. Firstly, he wanted the model to be armed with a plasma cannon and a power fist, rather than a multimelta and one. Secondly, to tzeentch it up, he suggested that the model have a bunch of arcane, wizardy, fiddly bitz on it. Otherwise, I could kind of just do whatever I wanted.

While normally this wouldn't be THAT much of a to-do, I'd be starting this off with a serious handicap. My starting point was a hellbrute, already assembled - incorrectly - with plastic glue.



Before I did anything I'd have to find out just how deep I was in it. That meant disassembling the model.

Surprisingly, this wasn't THAT bad. The person had used his solvents rather sparingly, and the connections, where "glued" were even rather weak. After a few hours of careful knifework, I'd gotten almost everything apart. When I did, I was met with a pleasant surprise - 50% of what I hate about the model was just a single piece of plastic (the bit that clips onto the front of the model around the head). When that was discarded, the model instantly became better.

Once I had cleaned things up (including warpy plastic "glue" bits and cleaning off mould lines), it was time to start the work proper. For the gun arm, I decided to actually keep things mostly the way that they were. All I had to do was chop out the multimelta... and well... the whole lower arm. For the plasma cannon, I dug out the one I got from my sentinel. I'd always been meaning to use it on something, but just never found the right place. Here, it would work perfectly.



With a little work, I got the plasma cannon in, and then added the extra power hosing thing, and a hunk of the arm armor I had cut off, rolled it all back together and glued it onto the model. I then just wrapped everything up in greenstuff scored to look muscley (or something), and that was that.



A pretty easy conversion, actually. But of course, it was about to get harder.

From here, I moved to the middle of the model. Repositioning the legs would have been doable, but not in the time budget I had. Plus, they don't look THAT bad. The back fleshy... blobby... thing is much worse, but it was going to take a serious amount of hacking and rebuilding to make that look better. As such, all of my efforts would be put into the front, which is where the worst attrocities were anyways.

I started by hacking out the stupid head in a bunch of teeth thing. Not only does it look dreadful, but it even misses the point. The hellbrute is NOT a demon engine like all the others. It's a dreadnought. It's a machine wherein you plug in a sarcophagus and the space marine pilots it around. It should thus LOOK like a sarcophagus. Especially since we're talking about a tzeentch-themed list wherein faux-egyptian doesn't look out of place.

Looking at pictures of dreadnoughts on the internet, I eventually decided on the contemptor/venerable dreadnought look. A cab with a head poking out.

To start with, I'd have to make a box that would give space for a head, and fit into the hole I'd just made. Then I'd glue another part on top to bring the front forward. Using a bit of brass tubing that I thought had a good diameter, I cut a nice arc out of plasticard, and got the pieces together to make it three-dimensional.



And then put it together. And then cut out the parts for the front bit.



And then put that together. And added some stylish rivets and a bit more detail work.



Before I put that in, though, I also shaved off the filigree from the front of the torso. The riveted metal edging has been getting poorer and poorer on GW CSM models, mostly because they're ruining it by trying to make it too complicated. Once I'd gotten rid of it I cut my own out of plasticard (a bit tricky as they're not straight, but slightly curved), and then added my own rivets.

That complete, I plugged the sarcophagus in and filled in all of the many cracks with greenstuff. Once that had set, I installed the head.



Much better. More importantly, it does a lot to help restore the fact that it's a dreadnought, not a random pile of flesh, armor, and hosing that were slapdashed together.

Once that was done, I just needed to put together the other arm. This was a simple matter of hacking it off, putting it back on at the correct angle, and then rebuilding the shoulder. That was just a matter of smooth GS, which was relatively easy compared to the plasticard.



Once I'd assembled everything, and did a few steps to fix the model, I still wasn't quite done with the gruntwork. Mostly, it was the fact that the pieces of this model fit together very, very poorly. I had a lot of gaps to fill and even a bit of construction work. By this time, though, it was already the weekend, and I was running out of time, so there was nothing for it but to finish off the detail work. So I broke open the bitz bucket and got to tzeentching it up.

A GK book from my first inquisitor commission, a DA censor thing from a bitz order, some GSed scrolls, and a GK locked reliquary all made their way onto the front of the model, and the tzeentch icon from the vehicle accessory sprue I ordered those years ago to get spikes on my obliterators went on instead of the eye of horus on the powerfist arm.

The end result looked wizardy, or at least some sort of abominable machine-thing that a wizard would create.







That monday, I brought it in and showed it to the client. He nodded his assent. I asked him about how he wanted it painted, but there were some communication problems. He was at first interested in having it painted like one of the models in this collection, but he didn't have the model with him, and I didn't know what it looked like. So we settled on generic tzeentch.

I asked if he wanted anything fancy done, like freehand or anything, and he had some idea in his mind, but I didn't understand what he was asking for. As such, I decided to just paint it tzeentch and let him add his own freehanding later if he wanted to. I asked if he wanted me to base it and he declined, presumably so he could do it himself.

And so I went to work with my mid-level painting skills. A bit of wet-blended blue for the armor, a bit of wet-blended brown-grey for the skin, and my current method for doing brass. A little cleanup and a little detail work, and after a few days of picking at it, I was done.









And so there you have it. Not the best work in the world, but, to my credit, that wasn't the point. The point was to make a plasma-cannon tzeentch hellbrute. Check. My point was to get this worthless model off my hands. Done.

As for fixing the hellbrute? Now that I've had some time with the model, there are a few more things I can say about it. Firstly, I was appalled at just how difficult it was to put together even in it's factory default ugly pose. Secondly, I did begrudgingly learn to like some of the horrid detail work that I had previously loathed. The spine sticking out of the back and the "gills" on the back don't bother me as much now as they used to, for example.

Surprisingly, though, the hellbrute does start to look nearly decent when you fix that zone within a half an inch of the head (as in, get rid of it and put something else in), and when you take that stupid armpit-drying left arm up in the air pose and bring it down to a reasonable angle.

Did I fix the hellbrute, though? No, not really. It's still awkward and ugly. Would I feel mortal embarrassment if I showed up to my game store and fielded this model? Likewise no. Not any more. So in that case, I guess it was mission accomplished, if you consider "fixing" to be "presentable at all". Which I guess I will.

But more importantly, the client liked it. In return, he had three, new-in-box boxes of chaos bikes, so nine bikes in all. He had bought them years ago for a project, but in all that time he hadn't even managed take off the cellophane wrapper off of them. Being basically worthless to him, I was glad to take them off his hands in trade.

And that's the end of my story. Because I haven't done one of them in awhile, here, have a poster:

Soo awesome dude--well done.

Holy golly gee whiz.

It looks...great!

The... hellbrute... looks... great.

Words I never thought I would say.

 ImotekhTheStormlord wrote:
The... hellbrute... looks... great.

Words I never thought I would say.

This.

Very well done conversion.

Very cool. It definitely looks better than the original.

Though I can imagine making it look even better if someone were willing to put in even more financial investment, say chaos-ified dreadknight legs. That back piece though...that would be a tough one. You'd have to work something from complete scratch. The more I think about it you could make a pretty neat looking Decimator out of the thing. Take a fuel barrel, greenstuff pipes, and lash it all together on the back using crafting chains.

Still, it looks great with what you've done.

A very nice conversion, and a fantastic paint job - great work! Visiting the showcase forum just gets better and better....

You and the way how you write your threads are the quintessence of what I love about this hobby

I do love me a good salvage job, well done sir I may convert a helbrute for my Daemons of Tizz army, have saved your pics for reference

- Salvage

Utterly fantastic job Fixt'ing that model. The finished product looks great, you can tell a ton of care and effort went into it.

Great post Ailaros! very well worded and i could almost hear your grunts of frustration and spits of loathing about that model! :-) all to come to a worthwhile end i must say, you've made something pretty damn good in only a week! I particularly like the re hash of the sarcophagus, well done and of course...Bravo and i love the poster.

Significantly better than the normal version - a good halfway between a hellbrute and dreadnought.

That is some amazing work!

Very very nice! Love it

Why fix something that is not broken? Not a very big fan of this one

I like it. It kinda goes into the space-marine world a bit because its blue but its still awesome and definitely better than the original.

Mine doesnt look anywhere near as crisp and clean as that, but then again mine is a giant ork now lol. I want to get better at greenstuff but for some reason, despite having decent experience with Polymer Clay, i just cant use this stuff that well.

I love it but the base isn't finished, so back to P&M it must go!

Still, PM a Mod when the base is completed, and we'll happily move it back!

Thanks, everyone!

Trondheim wrote:Why fix something that is not broken? Not a very big fan of this one

Hah! I'm surprised that there's anyone out there that actually likes the hellbrute as-is.

ImotekhTheStormlord wrote:The... hellbrute... looks... great.

Words I never thought I would say.

Hmm, I can make people say things that they wouldn't normally say?

"You will cut Ailaros a check. You will cut Ailaros a check. Come on, do it."

Alpharius wrote:I love it but the base isn't finished, so back to P&M it must go!

Still, PM a Mod when the base is completed, and we'll happily move it back!

Wait!

No, this is done. It's a commission work for the client. The client didn't want me to base it, because he wanted to base it in his own way. This isn't an incomplete work - it's all I'm putting into it. This thread is for me to show off what I've done, not to ask questions about how to finish it.

What in my OP would lead one to believe otherwise? Can it please be moved back?

Excellent work. Much improved.

Great conversion, I also really enjoyed the way you wrote the post. Maybe one day ill be brave enough to try my hand at converting!

Thanks for the fun read!

In my neck of the wood's we have a saying,"you can't make ice cream out of crap."My friend you have made a fine sorbet..You have put me in my creative happy place.Kudos.

I love it! It's an actually intimidating hellbrute!

My only "complaint" was it were would be that the hellbrute seems to be day dreaming. He is just looking off into space. The pose isn't great, but to be far, that's the normal hellbrute pose. I guess he could look where his shot is going, but I don't think that helmet would allow for that.

None the less, excellent job!

Freaking awesome.

HOLY COW.
You actually made a Hellbrute look like something I'd buy. If you made a Khorne hellbrute like that, I'd be all over it. Very well done, sir.

I wouldn't have bothered. The Helbrute is perhaps the laziest thing Games Workshop ha-wait, nevermind. Finecast/Liquid Greenstuff is perhaps the laziest thing Games Workshop has ever done. Still... it's really really lazy. What nonsense---replacing the Chaos Dreadnaught with something that only fits the fluff of some of the legions some of the time, and excluding it's other half, the Dreadnaught (which are seen and heard a lot more often than Helbrutes). I just don't get it. And to add insult to injury, they only give Helbrutes 1 click-pose model, that you can't buy individually---it's so half haphazardly thrown in it just doesn't feel like it belongs at all. All of the new CSM engines are like this, to date, I consider the CSM update to be the worst, laziest, and least thought out update in the history of Games Workshop. They just shat it out, and the people who play 40k for the game were happy, but if I wanted to play a tabletop game purely for its game mechanics I would have abandoned 40k a long time ago. The writer (or even lead production designer) behind this clearly did not like Chaos, and maybe even wanted to do this as some spiteful joke... Oh, yeah, let's give the kids some dinosaurs to play with...

Nicely done good sir! I am not a bit fan of the DV version either, although I am keen on trying some tactics that includes Hellbrutes.
This thread have definitely given me some ideas on how to remodel mine, even if it is quite down on my rather long painting list atm... ahem.

Excellent work.
You cleaned up just the right amount of detail to look Tzeenitch. The colours draw the eye nicely.

I had the same problem with this beast. I had removed the side horns and had cut both arms at the shoulder and filled everything in so the arms were removable with magnets to change weapons if needed.

This is great since it looks like a go-between for the old metal dreadnaughts and the new organic looking hellbrute. I am always looking for ways to create a "transition" model between differing styles of old and new models to "explain" the varying age of them.

Really good job. Like you I hate how organic and un-dreadnaughty the hellbrute is, as well as its terrible pose, this goes a long way to fixing it. The grey is very nice too, makes the mouth on the claw look like a shark

Very nice conversion. Skin could've used more saturation, though.

Oh, and one more thing - why do people take the stuff projecting from its side for horns? Those aren't horns, those are tongues! Lashing out from a demonic maw.

What is the white material you used around the head and on the shoulder area called?