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It's raining here, and I'm between illustration commissions. So I threw some Monster Magnet in and decided to start a work in progress, techniques, concepts kind of thread up here to go along with the more finished storytelling aspect of the blog. I'm not posting any stories here, those are for the blog, and I most likely will mostly post work in progress pictures here as there won't be any on the blog.

Ok, so I've started painting miniatures in oils, with some ink work and weathering powders thrown in at the end. For metallic I'll be using the buff out wax stuff. Why the switch? Well I've given up on ever playing wargames. Any of them. To be honest it's just not my bag. I really dig skirmish games like Mordheim or Necro-whatever Inquisitor...you get my drift. It's the stories and characters, the universes and creatures lurking in them that gets me motivated. To that end I'm not really worried about any deadline to get an army on the table, and I can take commission work for character minis or monsters/warmachines or just building and converting for people who just like to paint without worrying about cramming it all in and the work suffering.

I will experiment more with glazing, the way I do on canvas, as well as different varnishes so that the parts that should be wet and gross look wet and gross. I've been working with glues to achieve rotting, gore encrusted effects, and basically thrown everything I thought I knew out the window when it came to miniature building and painting.

If enough people end up liking the stuff on here, maybe I'll do a tutorial or something, but for now, here's some pictures of Ancient Matiguas, called Murder Crow. So far he's just glued together with various parts, his legs lengthened because Dreadnoughts shouldn't look like scaled up dwarves, and the gore effect is done using white glue and superglue mixed.

To read more about him, feel free to jump on over to http://sworntoheresy.blogspot.com

Thanks for checking it out, comments welcome and if you have questions I hope I can answer them.

Here's a quick shot of the work table.

Ancient Matiguas has most of his basecoating done. Using oils, I can blend out deep middle to dark over a neutral, black through near white prime coat. This way I can paint in a much more intuitive way. The oils stay wet longer or shorter depending on how I thin them, and with what medium, so I don't really worry too much about mistakes, just get the color on and bring him to life as fast as possible. Some of the other guys on the table are in various build/prime/paint stages. Once Matiguas is dry, I'll clear him for the first time and start the washes. That little Possessed guy is just about ready to wash, but probably not today as the rain is keeping me from being able to do my reckless spray varnish outside.

Here's some color pics, indoors unfortunately because of the rain. Anyhow, the Murder Crow is finished as far as base coats, medium dark to light blends and beginning of rust/weathering. Tomorrow he should be dry enough for the gloss coat, then I'll be doing the deep glazes, so check back for pics of that. Of course to read his story, check out the blog below. Questions and comments are always welcome. Thanks.

Wow this is a brilliant build and an awesome paint job. Keep em coming !

Great stuff! The dreadnought looks awesome, I love the conversion work you've done and the paintjob just seals the deal

Keep up the good work!

Thanks for the kind words. Hoping to get some clear on the Murder Crow and start the oil glazes today, as well as posting the new conversion I'm getting ready to paint. Stay tuned...

So it's been a few days, but as I took on an illustration job, the miniatures have been sitting, drying...waiting for me to come back. I've finished the conversion for the first member of my...well, just started INQ28 posse. He's not heavily converted like Ancient Matiguas, but I think he will fit the bill of playing the straight to the Inquisitor, who I know will not be a super grimdark serious fellow. I've always dug the old John Blanche stuff, those sort of court jester, fool hats, and I've always liked the sculpt of whatever this book open chanting guy is supposed to be, so I gave him a loose fitting, comical hat and changed the stupid Olympic torch thing into a banner so that it can have something cryptic painted on it...with lots of checkers and stripes. I'm also planning on attempting to paint the shadows and light so it looks like he's really tiny wearing super over sized robes to make up for his small stature. Oh, and yes I left the tubes from his back pack, only now the flames come out of the skull's eyes that the tubes feed into for all you 40k purists out there. Anyway, here he is pre paint. Let me know what you think.

In other news, I've been working on the oil painting technique, and started with an unconverted batch of Possessed I had around. When I did play 40k I used these cats to roll around and murder face people. If you don't use them, you're missing out on the fun of playing chaos. Anyhow, he's just about finished and I'm probably gonna sell him on Ebay or trade him for something I want to work on or parts whatever. Anyhow, here he is minus finished basing, I'll put full on sweet art photography serious photos up with a backdrop and all when he's ready to leave here. Comments welcome I suppose.

The final update for today is the return of a super secret on again off again project I've had around a bit. I love the idea of Knights in 40k, as I have always been a fan of Epic and the Titan Legions. HOWEVER, the GW Imperial Knight kit is really kind of dialed in, and really static and boring, especially compared to the Wraithknight and the Tau Super Suit thing. That being said, there are plenty of folks doing some really great conversions of the Knights, but no matter what the basic silhouette of the kit makes it always appear slow and lumbering. Give me fast and deadly any day. So I started building my own from an old Defiler kit, inspired by Biohazard's Gorehound and some other folks. So far, this is what I've got. And yes that is a giant cannon growing out of his crotch. It's chaos dude. More to come now that I've pulled him out of the scrap heap, although it may be a while as I'm doing a deadline build of an Epic Scale Phantom Titan for a fellow Dakka user, so watch for that thread too as I'll be doing a step by step most likely. Thanks for tuning in and keep up the creativity!!

Nice! You're off to a great start with the Knight conversion. I love the way you've used the torso. Very clever. Will be keeping an eye on this for progress. As for the Gorehound it's on the back burner at the moment. I do have plans to overhaul it soon though.

Thanks Biohazard, it's always good to be complimented by someone whose work you admire. Lots of work done on it I'm hoping to get new pictures asap of the progress. Glad to hear the Gorehound may be getting some time soon that thing is ridiculously cool.

Thanks buddy. It's had a few accidents in its time so I'm looking at re designing the legs and feet so it'll hopefully be a bit more stable. Will more than likely be after Christmas now though as I have a lot of projects I want to finish before I work in it again.

Got some work done yesterday on the Chaos Knight Scout thing. I've decided that I want him to look more like an Obliterator kind of guy, so maybe he's been running around for thousands of years collecting pieces from the wreckage he causes, and even repairing himself on the battlefield by fusing still plasma heated parts of other things to himself. Totally self sufficient, he is not built to look good, but to simply do what he does, wreck everything in sight.

His body is pretty close to a finished build minus tiny details. His arms will be magnetized at the shoulders, thereby making him easier to transport as well as more poseable with different weapons. The openings on the sides and bottom of his chest plate will allow me to do some light effects, so it will look like the plasma from the reactor core in his torso is glowing through in a very menacing 40k sort of way. He's gotten planted firmly on his base, so that I could position his toes for maximum (fake) movement. So far I'm pretty pleased with him. He's got two arms in the works, one a small cannon, as I see him being more of a fast attack, murder in the dark kind of scout titan, and a lash, morning star sort of thing for his right arm. Hopefully I can get some quick tack pics of the arms up later today.

Let me know what y'all think so far.

That is a pretty cool conversion so far!

Hey folks, just a quick update today as far as pictures go. I've gotten a few different arms almost finished for the what is now called "Scout" Knight Titan kitbash. Two left arms, one with the big cannon thing and the other with autocannons. His right arm has heavy flamers and I'm thinking a giant morning star, just got to find the parts to build one suitable brutal for him. Hopefully I'll get them all magnetized today or tomorrow so I can show you all what they look like on him. I tried poster tacking them, but that poster tack gak doesn't really hold any weight so that was a no go. Oh, he's had all the gaps filled on his body and most of the arms with milliput/greenstuff mix as well.

As always, let me know what you think.

Creepy looking stuff. I really like the yellow paint scheme on your armor!

Like where this is going. Intresting canon positioning

Really cool stuff...strange place for a cannon on the knight wouldn't you say.

Thanks for the kind words guys. As far as cannon placement, I do believe that if I were a twenty foot or so tall machine/monster thing that only really ever killed things, like that's all I do, not eat, not sleep, never get to grow up never get to go to school never fall in love never get to be...well.... I'd be as outrageous, distracting and terrifying as I could muster all at once. So there you go, the love gun, or whatever you want to call it. Anyhow, hopefully the damn magnets will be in tomorrow so he can get his arms on, and I'm going to make his close up right hand face bashing weapon of extremely painful pain tonight, so look forward to more, and as always thanks for checking it out.

Oh and Warboss_Waaazag, your stuff is some of the work that kept me checking back to dakka often to be inspired, so keep it up please...fantastic work.

The magnets got here, but it's been raining again outside. So while construction of the beast is nearly finished, I can't really get great photos. These black and white indoor pics will have to do for now. I'm excited about the build, and finally have an idea for the close combat weapon right hand. Obviously the arms are magnetized.

Here he is, minus details and more gap filling...let me know what you think, and thanks for watching.

Here's a little quick pic I took to show the actual scale of the tentatively titled "Dr. Lovegun" Chaos Knight Titan. He's seen with some of the family...Ancient Matiguas, a Possessed CSM, and a Traitor Scout. I think the scale of the Knight is about right. Let me know what you think.

Ok, so I've been gone, doing a commission for another Dakka guy here, a resculpt that I will hopefully have up soon as it's done. In the meantime, while waiting for putty to dry enough to sand, I redid the 'chaos' knight titan thing. To be honest, the idea of the warp influenced chaos followers is great, I love it, but all of their engines being demon, yes I'm a fething American and not afraid of the Devil or religious people, possessed is a bit annoying. So rather than keep building the knight so that it just looked like an overgrown chaos space marine, I decided to run with the speed theme in mind.

So I give you the new and improved Dr. Lovejunk. He's been built by a bunch of punks that while not outright chaos worshippers are instead just tired of the silly oppression of one faction after another, and are unwilling to trade in one dictator for another. So they built themselves a small, fast and agile knight out of discarded parts from the various armies that have brought "NOTHING BUT WAR" to their planet.

Let me know what you think, and thanks for checking out the things from the Scrapyard!!

Ooooh that is a ballsy change of direction from your original knight design, but this works really well, I like it.
I was about to suggest that the head could use a bit more chaotfication, maybe some demon nostrils ? But is is growing on me the way it is.
Eager to see this painted.

Thanks, KernelTerror, ballsy is good. I didn't have a story in mind before, but it just didn't look fast enough. I'm digging the pitbull kind of look now, not as lumbering...plus, it's not like I can't find a good use for that super cool defiler knight head bit, it just needs a different body. Filling gaps today, hopefully paint tomorrow, although I have no idea what it will be painted like now, other than somewhere the KISS logo will appear spraypainted on him hahaha

I like where your going with the design of the Chaos Knight It really makes a change from the standard chaos version.

Alright so the commission took a turn for the, well, me being an idiot, so I'm still neck deep in it. While waiting on the putty to dry, since I'm pretty much sculpting a miniature minus some hip joints, I finished up some terrain I did a while ago for my son when he was testing the waters of wargaming. Now that he is skateboarding and hitting on the chicks, I cleaned them up, painted the gak out of them, and put them on the mighty mighty Ebay for sale. In the meantime, here's some pics of them.

If any of you are interested, let me know and you can buy them to awesome up your own tables.

Thanks for checking out the things from my scrapyard.

Liking this thread. The chaos dread is very cool and the possessed are really cool.

Liking the knight, the crotch gun makes it difficult to take it seriously, but the direction your taking is interesting. Where is that 'faceplate' thing from ?

D

Thanks EvilDrCheese...honestly, the only thing I take seriously is the execution of the work and learning new techniques. Taking a game seriously, no matter how grimdark, is like crying when you watch the wedding scene at the beginning of Dynasty. It's only different than that in your head, which is why I don't game. I've found people get really butt hurt when their uber list that someone else wrote online and they just copied anyway gets tabled in two turns by a bunch of supposedly crap units like Possessed. So I'd rather just build stuff, paint and make up my own stories where people 40,000 years from now aren't speaking in verbage that hasn't been used since the fall of Rome and is quite frankly ridiculous to consider. I mean really in the far future we will all be white guys with names that end in 'icus' or 'vinious" or even "aretes"? Please, just give me Bob Jones the Guardsman and tell a good story already instead of Bobicus Jonesinious who is just a big sexless no fun robot who lives in a cell and does nothing of any interest until he fights.

But I digress. To answer your question the cockpit, er...well the faceplate thing is from some Tau kit that looks like a jetski with two dudes sitting in it. No idea what it's called but yeah it's the nose of that thing chopped off.

More pics shortly, thanks for checking it all out!

Been gone a while, but in the meantime I scored this little metal Plague Marine guy, with a metal backpack. First edition I believe I had him way back when. Anyway, painted him up and now he's for sale on Ebay, I'll post the link here soon for anyone interested. Back to work for now, more updates on secret builds, commission builds soon. Also, I am finally taking commissions for interesting unique projects, hit me up and we can talk about it.

Thanks for looking.

You have some great stuff going here. I like the oils, though in most cases they seem too much trouble (slow drying, etc.). I've heard that oil washes dry exactly as you see them on the model though, unlike acrylics which look the best wet to me, but then disappoint when dry. Do you find them so? My favorite so far is the Foolish scribe. The cannon is... ...striking, but also very practical if you think about it. I agree the GW knight is nice, but very static and almost everyone's looks identical which is very dull and reduces my interest.