- Full heavily converted Delaque gang - Conversion status: 80%
- Full heavily converted gang of renegade hive miners (based on FW-Renegades) - Conversion status: 90%
- Full squad of heavily converted Ogryn slave miners (Renegade Ogryns) - Status: One down, two more to go.
- Huge industrial gaming table (aprox. 13.000 parts so far) - Scratch build Inquisitor plus badass retinue
- Full gang of uphive mercenaries (based on Elysian droptroops)
- True scale marine kill team
- True scale scout kill team[/size]
Introduction:
Hi everybody,
I've been lurking around the dakka dakka forum for years now, but never saw a reason to register until now.
What changed my mind, was mainly the awesome and extremely inspirational blogs by Migsula, PDH and Shockwave.
I'm a crazy converter myself and after basicly giving up playing WH40k a couple of years ago, I've now moved back to where I feel I belong: letting my imagination go postal and not worrying about rules and whole armies that much.
By starting this blog I hope to help myself stay focussed on my projects, since I'm much more creative than disciplined most of the time, which as we all know leads to basicly nothing. Apart from forcing myself to work on my projects more continuously, I'm of course also hoping for lots of C&C.
The content of this blog will be mainly Necromunda related, since I'm currently the head of a heavily narrative Necromunda campaign. Our group consists of four people at the moment and I will try to show you some pics of all gangs involved, which means at least 4 gangs plus NPCs.
In addition there might be a truckload of scenery pics coming up, since we are currently working on a HUGE project to build a bigger, better, more appropriate gaming table for our Nec games.
The first bunch of pictures will show the two gangs I'm working on atm, even though they are mostly very, very WIP, since rewriting rules, coming up with stuff for the campaign, building a gaming table and converting and painting two gangs is a bit too much right now.
Since I can't get my hands on a proper camera atm, I'll have to take the pictures with a cheap-ass cam or like this first batch of pics with my cellphone. I hope you'll excuse the rather poor quality, I'll do my best to improve it for future posts.
So much for the usual wall of text, now let pictures do the talking:
(The pics are actually not as bad as they look here, check out my gallery for a closer look.)
As you can see my main gang is a Delaque one. They are called Serpentes Obscvri and I'm aiming for a slightly changed Delaque theme. In our campaign my gang is under contract with a, so far not revealed, but definetly very powerful Master. Therefore I want them to be a little more techy, so I'm choosing tech whenever they get a "choose any skilltable" advance. Of course I also want the miniatures to resemble the slight focus on tech and their slightly superior equipment. Which you can see on the first two pics, showing one of my favorite Gangers, Radius, my two Heavies, Scloppus and Nanus and my extremely WIP Leader, Lacerus.
Scloppus is actually the only one of these four who's ready to be painted. The others need some greenstuffing and some final bits to be attached (Nanus will have goggles and a rebreather and the ammo belt from his backpack to the minigun isn't in place yet. Radius needs GS and his sheathed sword on his right thigh. And Lacerus is supposed to carry a grenade launcher I'm still working on, and the former melter on his right arm will end up being an auto/assault gun.)
These pics show the core of my gang, even though there are still some guys missing, who aren't fully assembled yet, so I didn't want to show them. Most of the gangers aren't converted yet, but I'm planning to when they advance and get the right flavor to deserve the attention. Just like Perpetuus, my favorite ganger, who is currently getting his heavily customized infraredscope-hotshot-sniper-lasgun. Muhaha, I'll show you soon...
As you can see one of the shotgunwielders has a small backpack, which is actually a medikit if you look closer. I like to make the miniatures show as much of their game mechanics as possible, so when he got the medic skill, I added the pack, and will keep on doing so as the guys progress.
Last and also least, two of my juves and a dual-wielding ganger. All slightly converted. Weapon swap on the las pistol hand, which is now magnetized. Mini-conversion to make the stub pistol become the nice little autopistol thingy you can see now. As simple and disregardable as it is, this detail always makes smile. And on the running ganger weapon and head swap, nothing finalized yet. It's freaking hard to find a suitable head for him and I would like him to go double bolt pistol in the end.
So much for today. More to come soon.
Things to expect are: Better, more detailed pics of my Serpentes. Pics of my second gang, which are rebel sulfur miners, based on the FW renegades. Pics of the other two gangs in our campaign, which are a squad of mercenaries sent down from the spire to beat down the revolution and a gang of house ko'iron gladiators who accompany one of the princesses of ko'iron venturing into the underhive.
oooh, Necromunda AND delaque? Consider me subscribed. Nice work so far, from what I can see from it. Mind taking some better pics? Maybe a close up of each converted model?
Thanks for the quick replies! Sure you will get higher quality close ups and a thousand hours of video footage in the member area... no wait this is not subscription porn.
Seriously, like I promised I will try to post better pics a.s.a.p. and I will also go into detail a bit more, individual photos, some info regarding each conversion and so on. If I find people are interested in the fluff as well, I will also happily go into detail about our campaign.
Have been working on that sniper I promised to show you, even though I'm afraid there aren't to many snipes for him to shoot in the underhive, so maybe the term "marksman" suits him better then the inflationary and kind of silly term "sniper". Aaanyway the blog already cast it's spell on me and he is close to completion. A bit of greenstuff here, some edged brass parts there and I expect him to be done before the weekend. So hang tight for some fingerlicking good necro flavor! Putting it like this it sounds disgusting, doesn't it...
Like I promised some much better pics of scloppus. So C&C can actually begin now, because you can finally "C" something to comment on.
(btw Do you normally let the gallery "auto adjust" your pics? It improved the contrast slightly and looked a bit more crisp, still not sure about it though.)
(Just asked myself another thing: Is it me, or are the pics you link from the gallery not the same as in the gallery, they should be way bigger, but there is now zoom option in the thread.)
About the mini:
Scloppus, Secundus, Gravis Armaturae One of two Heavies in my Delaque Gang "Serpentes Obscvri". As I mentioned earlier I aim for a touch of high tech on this gang. The overall paintjob will be gritty, worn, torn and weathered anyway since high tech you bring to the hive won't stay high tech for long. But I'll go for a "used, but cared for" look on guns and important equipment, since I'm picturing my spy boys to be a kind of brotherhood, chapter or order. I mean they are bald, disliked by all other gangs, they have this assassin flavor, it all screams killer monks to me. Therefore all names, ranks and terms are latin, they will probably have no names on there bases, but roman numbers on their heads and lots ot ritual snake tattoos all over their body.
As you can see, the mini is the normal heavy stubber mini everybody uses, with some modifications. The stubber was replaced by Brakhar's and got some customizations: Skulls trimmed off, barrel stabilizer replaced by a plain one. Crude looking bullet belt replaced by classy drum magazine. Simple RDS on top. New more aggressive looking muzzle. Bipod added. Streak of empty shells added for more dynamic/cinematic look (I ork sprues) and yes I drilled the shells open one by one, even thought about sculpting some smoke on them. Might also add a muzzle flash, but the stubber is already pretty long, and I still need to play with this guy.
Here you can see his backup autorifle (I do like drum magazines, who doesn't?) and another mod on his gun, a wristmounted targeter, that connects to the electronics in front of the mag. So far Scloppus didn't really get any scopes, but it looks great, and I want to be prepared.
IG back pack, catachan me thinks, knife cut off, rifle added. (If you look close you can see that I used a magnet here, because I might have to move some basic weapons around now and then. I think it won't show once it's painted. What do you think? Too obvious?)
I also added a pouched spare drum magazine, added some straps of GS as you can see...
..here.
And the last shot.
Scloppus is ready for a lick of paint, but I'm afraid that will have to wait, because...
a) I'm painting the other gang at the moment.
b) I couldn't decide on a color for the cloaks yet.
Like the links/spent cases. How did you do that please?
No magic involved, Chibi. Those chains of spent cases come with many ork sprues, like I implied. These exact ones are from the lootaz box. The tricky part was inserting a pin, to make it a bit more sturdy and drilling holes into each shell. I actually messed it up on one of the last shells, ripped it open, bit a piece out of my table and went on greenstuffing it back to normal.
On ork sprues: I bought almost all new ork plastic boxes for the bits. They are absolutely lovely and especially for my imagination of steampunk and necromunda they work great. You will see them a whole bloody lot in this blog. I think it's just important to use only very small parts of each kit, not a whole gun for example.
Which indirectly leads to something else, I was just trying to finish my sniper (can't find the damn goggles I wanted to put on his belt), when stumbled across one of the renegade ogryns, who immediately became a new project. An enslaved ogryn from the mines, who will side with the other rebels in the final battles of our campaign (which is luckily still quite a way to go).
I planned to use one of those for the rebels quite a while (btw the name of the gang is "los espantajos") and I have a full squad of ogryns lying on some shelf just because I couldn't say "No" to those sexy little buggers, buuuut I didn't have a spark of genius on this one.
It seemed to obvious and swapping one of the weapons for one of the great nob axes has been done a million times too. In addition I don't like the concept of hired guns at all. If I want miniatures who don't gather xp e.g. don't develop and which I only choose for their ingame advantages, I'm playing 40k. So it got postponed until now, but today it struck me...
It will be this one, but instead of the pick he will wield a waaghbike for a weapon. Sounds strange? You will see when I'm done, so stay tuned...
Like it, but no, not actually. When I'm done with the bike, you will hardly recognize it. The mysterious art of confusion... I mean... conversion!
(Makes me think of the crazy scottish hotel owner from "little brittain". YEeeeessss!!!)
Oh wow... great Heresy minis and the oldschool Delaques- these guys were my personal gang and favored sons during my run with Necromunda...
The work on that heavy is sickeningly good. The shells are a nice touch- I can't wait to see the paint scheme on these guys. Have you thought of a color scheme for your gang?
Keep it up- I'll be watching this thread for more inspiration!
@ Izanagi: Thank you very much for the kind words. "Sickeningly good" is quite a flattering evaluation, more so since it is not a complex conversion. If you dig Scloppus, Nanus (based on the Heresy Minigunner) will make you wet your pants. But he needs some final touches, the grip on his minigun needs more volume, his face and more prominently goggles need to be redone and there are some fotoedged parts not yet attached.
The paint scheme really is what keeps me from painting. Back in my 40k days it sometimes took me years to decide on a scheme. So I'm really trying to prevent that here and I'm very open for suggestions.
My thoughts on the paintjob so far:
1. Quality: What quality to paint the models in? Showcase or tabletop? Some of my conversions I love so much, that I feel the urge to go to town on the paintjob. On the other hand I really need to get them done and there is tons of other stuff to do for the campaign.
2. General appearance: Necromunda is pure filth! If it's not dirty it's not Necromunda. I want to have lots of weathering, washed out colors on some parts, paint chipping off, rust and all the other lovely stuff. But Delaque are not Scavvies, so I'll need to strike a happy mean here. So juves will get those badly maintained crap guns, while my Leaders custom made nade launcher looks a little too epic and mastercrafted atm. More like it's worthy of an inquisitor, so the PJ would need to follow the mini. Not sure how far to go towards that direction.
3. Flavor: Delaque neither wear bright brown suede coats, nor screaming-red ones! Looking around at CMON or googling for Delaques, I almost only found gangs that sucked. Bad choice of colors, bad paintjob. Delaque are spies and hitmen, who lurk in the shadows. Hence they need a similarly dark scheme.
4. Coats: So for the coats I consider a really dark blue or green. Plain black would be a bit boring, and is a pain in the ass to paint convincingly. Dark grey coats would look like I can't do black and it would take away the option of some dust for weathering. ("Dust, anyone? Dust? Dust? Low on fat or high on fat? Dust? Dust?)
So I'm stuck with blue or green. Painting them green I'm afraid to make them look like a) guardsmen b) woodelves, so it's actually only blue left. I started to paint a testjuve in vallejos dark sea blue, it seems quite ok, but I'm not sure yet.
5. Matrix: By which I don't mean shiny coats, but a rather pale and small range of colors. I totally dig paintjobs using just a few similar colors, but I totally lack the experience here. Just don't want them to look like 2nd edition space marines.
6. Weapons: Just like the coats, any dark color and definetely not plain "blood red". Will have a mix here, depending on the weapons style and source. Standard lasguns might get a military look. Heavy and special weapons will look like unique pieces. So I don't plan to give the weapons a common look, because I picture the gangers taking care of their armament themselves, so each weapon is somebodys baby and has a different origin. The rest will link them as gang the weapons will make them a bit more individual.
Thats it, just from the top of my head. Please comment, share your own ideas, and criticize where possible.
Busy week, but I still found some time to work on my minis. My lasgun sniper is still not finished, because I have no damn idea where I put the binoculars I wanted to put on his belt. The ogryn slave on the other hand is turning out even better than I expected. His hands have been replaced and getting them in the right position was a bit tricky, but I did it. The conversion of the waaghbike is almost done, and it looks way better than I would have imagined. Last big step on the weapon will involve some ours of plasticcard-carving, but hey someone's gotta do it.
Still no idea where this is going? OK, I'll give you a hint: "Lightyear"
Looking forward to show you, will put some hours in him tomorrow, might be enough to show you some. Stay tuned...
Right. Where to start? The first pictures I am gutted by. I can see the work that's gone into them, based on your later shots I can imagine how good the conversions are likely to be, but the zoom is juuuuuuust not good enough to see em in detail. I understand the camera issues, but it's such a tease!
Your campaign sounds like it's going to be exciting. Switching sides and complicated subplots are vital to necro, and I heartily approve of the hired gun ban. I'm excited to see how your ogryn will turn out as well!
Scloppus really looks the part, especially if you were going for a 'techy' vibe. I don't recognise a lot of the parts you've used, which I always respect in a decent conversion The only thing I would maybe consider is some kind of strap for the gun if it's looking a little long, but that's more a personal thing, and really that's just me looking for something to criticise! The spent shell casings in particular are a work of art (and a miracle of patience, too, I'd imagine), and I'm really looking forward to seeing him painted up!
In terms of the paint scheme, I'm afraid I can't really help, as I feel like it's very much in the realms of personal choice. If you don't love it, odds are other people won't. If you're interested in really well done schemes with a narrow pallete though, be sure to check out some ofMigsula'swork.
Hope some of my rambling was at least a little helpful, and keep up the awesome modelling!
Excellent blog writing style Mate, liking it so far. With regards to colour scheme i would have a quick look through the games workshop website, which models do you really like the paint scheme for? Base your scheme on that. My dark eldar were even more random, i just suddenly plumped for two colurs and it ended up looking pretty good, so my advice is; just pick something.
Always good to see another Necromunda/=I=munda log! Your conversions look really nice but I hope you can get some close up pics before you begin painting as I'd like a closer look of the work you've done so far.
As for the painting, I'm looking forward to what your take on the Delaque turns out like. I can't say blue would be my choice, but you've obviously put alot of thought into the color scheme. I think perhaps a grey-blue with a real subtle tone like the Cawdor you linked would look great. I like to imagine delaques almost blending into the mist/fog/smoke of the underhive. I think an almost ghostlike or ethereal look, if done well, could been really awesome. Anyway, whatever you come up with I'm sure it will be cool!
I understand the camera issues, but it's such a tease!
As you can see on Scloppus future pics won't be qualifying as a wallpaper, but you will be able to see what you need to see. I didn't intend to, but right now I like the teasing sneak peek effect of it, if I showed you everything on one glance there wouldn't be much reason for you to come back here now and then to leave some sweet sweet C&C for me.
Your campaign sounds like it's going to be exciting.
Once I finished some of the most urgent projects I'll make sure to translate our storyline as far as it has evolved (which is something like 15pages so far).
I heartily approve of the hired gun ban.
I'm actually just looking for a way to use hired guns on a regular basis, gaining xp, being a more or less constant member of your gang. Problem is I can already picture an ogryn bodyguard in EVERY gang participating, so it's not going to happen soon. Plus additional advances on a powerful hired gun might turn out a certain gamebreaker pretty quickly I think. Right now I think I'll just throw them in if it suits the scenario, most probably towards the final battles.
I don't recognise a lot of the parts you've used, which I always respect in a decent conversion
Thanks, thats actually a common discipline between one of the other players and me, "guess the bits". I agree that it really adds to creating a well-rounded character not to be able to say "Ah, thats an ork gun." at first glance.
some kind of strap for the gun if it's looking a little long
You found one of his weak spots. He was initially planned to wear a gyromounted harness to lighten up the mighty gun. (Think of Vascez and Reinhards smartguns from Aliens.) I actually cancelled that plan, when I was a good way into building it, because I wanted to have it on my autocannon heavy I started building for the future possibility of becoming rich. I'll think about it, you definitely got a point here.
Migsula's work
As I wrote in my very first post, Migsulas work was one of the reasons for me to write this blog and I dare say I know all of his work.
@Perkustin
Excellent blog writing style Mate
Really? I'm not fishing for compliments here (not more than writing a blog does anyways), but I'm really curious to hear what you especially like about it, since I would reckon my style was kind of random, from the top of my head writing.
just pick something
That seriously is a great advice, no irony involved. Problem is, the more I've fallen in love with a miniature, its story and conversion, the more unsure I'm about the paintjob. That's also why I had a therapy-army back in my 40k days. Plain Necrons, as little conversion as possible, only buy what you can paint up in near future, choose a colorscheme right from the start and stick with it. That was really freaking hard for me, it's against (my) nature.
@cadaver
I'd like a closer look of the work
Fear not! I hate people who just show you the finished mini. The status before basecoating is at least as interesting as the final product, in my opinion.
you've obviously put alot of thought into the color scheme
That's part of my problem as wrote some lines earlier.
I like to imagine delaques almost blending into the mist/fog/smoke of the underhive.
Me too, the ultimate goal is to combine the arrogance of delaques with their subtlety at work. For my gang leader I'm considering to have his coat two-colored, dark blackish blue on the outside like everybody else, but a bright blueish white on the inside. Fine feathers make fine birds, one has to show what he has got.
ghostlike or ethereal look
Not sure yet how far my painting skills will take on this aspect, but it's kind of what I had in mind. That's where the gangs name came from. Serpentes Obscvri, direct translation "shadowy/ghostlike snakes/serpents". I considered "wraith serpents" before going latin, but it sounded to much like eldar, plus I think the latin sounds much better.
Ok so much for the replying.
Time for an Update Put the Ogryn on hold for today, because I want the sniper to be done first. He will actually take like 30min more to finish, so I can see an awesome update with lots of pictures coming in tomorrow. With some spare GS I finished a quick berserker juve for the rebels, he might be in the update as well.
The ogryn will follow some time next week. I said it before I'll say it again, I'm blown away by how nice the initial idea turned out.
By the way, did anyone recognize my hint? Wasn't that hard to guess, since we are all playing with "toys", or was it?
Well well well....being name checked in a dakka subscription As we all know I'm quite partial to Necromunda blogs...it also helps having interesting pictures and ideas. The first couple of pictures are such a tease Baiyuan and I got totally suckered in, it was enough for me to want to see more. The picture of Scloppus really improves the blog and I'm now waiting on the painting. I like the effort you've gone to on individualising the stubber...drilling out is so important and doing all the spent cases . Consider me subscribed.
Thanks Scrazza, if I hadn't been for blog stalking you and seeing what you'd been commenting on I would have missed this.
Now over to Scarper's to tell him how cool his woolly hat is.
@PDH: Gotcha! Now I've got to catch me a Migsula, heard its one of the strongest dakkamons... (sorry couldn't resist) Thanks for the kind words, your blog being an inspiration for mine, I'm especially glad you like my stuff.
Are you ready? Are you really ready? Ok, here he comes!
Perpetuus, Quintus, Veterano My favorite Ganger, fifth member of the Serpentes Obscvri brotherhood. He was around from the beginning and already had his share of advances, which brought him BS+1, Rapid Fire: Lasgun, Marksman. His equipment consists of a lasgun fitted with infrared sights. Kind of a nice setup, pew pew.
I tried to show everything on the model, so he has a customized lasgun to show his dedication to it, hence two shots.
The scope obviously is the infrared sight, but it also symbolizes him being able to pick targets.
The extended barrel stands for his ability to shoot at targets 36" away.
The miniature also features some things he will get when they become available, most prominently the big hot-shot laspack on his back, as backup sidearm some kind of pistol.
Some things are just there for visual appeal: Clipline, Grenades, Knife, Red dot sight. If I stumble over them I'll be temted to give them to him, but I'm not planning it so far.
In general I'm sticking to the hightech style here, again the paintjob will feature lots of weathering, don't want them to look like cyberninjas.
The conversion took a lot of time. It all started with one of the two things I HATE about the classic delaques: They are all wearing fething ammo belts! So you can never have too much ammo right? But what is the use of some 7,62mm in a LASGUN??? Yeah, thats right check it out they all have that, lasguns and ammo belts, it's slowed. (btw the second thing are the huge hands, they are waaay bigger than sm hands, and marine wear armor.)
So the plan was to remove the ammo and replace it by a simple belt.
I also don't really like the classic lasguns, they look crude and in this case it didn't even have a magazine or something, so I cut off the barrel and the standard sights, just leaving body, stock and grip. I had the awesome new barrel lying around and Perpetuus just got his marksman skill, so I thought "grooovy".
The new barrel had an extra grip at the back (the trigger is still there you can see it in the pictures) so I simply sanded down the grip and made it into a connector for some type of magazine. I initially thought about using catridges like the ones of the sm needle rifles, though I liked the look, I restrained from doing it, because I'll keep that for the moment I can buy a needle rifle. (Gimme, gimme, gimme! They are just sooooo delaque!)
The idea to connect a cable came up and bam there we are putting together a hot-shot pack that deserves the name. (As an alternative to shooting he can shortcurcuit it and blow up the spiral gates. ) Who can guess what it was made of?
The rest was pretty straight forward, addes scope, looked for possible equipment, tried some binoculars, didn't look right. Did the belts and straps with GS, added some fotoedged details (fething expensive but you gotta love the touch it adds) and finally added the RDS just because I had that idea about this bit for a while. Almost forgot the last detail, it was a pain in the ass but worth it: I wanted a smaller muzzle inside the actual muzzle, so I took a cannula snipped it of, took some plyers to unflatten it a bit, filed one end clean and inserted it. (Sounds simple took 1h to get it right ) But then DONE!
I hope you enjoy:
(Please also comment on the two types of fotos. Which ones do you like better? Yellow or blue? The yellow ones were shot using autosense light setting, the others using the artificial lighting setting. No flash in both cases of course.)
I'm liking the turning on its side of the vix pack- I generally just clip some of the antennae for my storm troopers and call it good, but that's a pretty cool way to have a nice belt held power pack. And the rest of him is cool as well, especially with all that you seem to have done to that poor lasrifle.
I really want to see these guys painted. Other than being weathered have you considered what colours you plan to do the coats? Have they all been to Matalan (low cost bulk bought fashion chain) and bought the same Jacket or have they gone out individually to a variety of retailers and bought jackets in an assortment of colours to match their personalities?
Personally I think a variety of colours would look better. Light and dark browns, grey, black and maybe a nice dark navy blue? Perhaps to link the group together you could use some spot colours here and there?
I think I prefer the blue white photographs. As for Dakka auto adjusting pictures I've found I have to decide on a picture by picture basis. If it looks bad I just delete and upload again choosing the other option.
The Cadian vox unit is so good for power packs and I whole heartedly agree with your take on the ork sprues (I love the nob sprue). I recognise that vent from some place. Tau or possibly something like a baneblade kit? Or is it City of Death terrain? The lasgun is excellent, good model.
The sniper looks top , like what you did with his backpack, i have seen that done before and every time i think i should do that some day. oue got a great attention to detail ethic, and i love the fact that you hav given a reason behind ever addon.
any thought about the colour of the goggles . i was looking at monkey trolls cyberorks and noticed he has given one individual lenses 3d like or transmetropolitan style think something like that adds a lot of individuality.
He's looking ace! The wire looping his arm is a really nice touch, and the powerpack is excellent - I can't identify the other parts, but nice use of the vox caster, it looks great on its side like that. I enjoy the little details like the knife placement, and I always think those wire loops off the scout sprue really give a model a 'professional' kind of feel. Nice work all round!
As for the photos, I think the blue artificial light ones are better for showing off a conversion - the increased contrast lets you see all the gubbins a lot better. That same setting will wreck a paintjob though.
One question though - the resin bases. Are they hollow at the bottom (like the GW plastic ones), or a single block? I'm just interested in how they stand on uneven terrain.
As mentioned before I'm thinking of a very dark blue. Think "dark sea blue" as a base, flat highlights since I don't want the coats to look like vinyl or latex, so no matrix/fetish style. I've read most of the necromunda novels and Delaque coats are often described as being overly intensive black, literally absorbing the light. In miniature terms that would be awful and look bad, so I'm not going there, but I definitely want them to look dark and ghostly.
I'll post my sample juve for discussion as soon as the coat is done (trying to do it today).
assortment of colours
Nice idea, but thats more what I will do on their clothes, not the coats. I imagine that when a Juve gets his coat handed over from the leader, it is a big moment for him. Taking my latin monky brotherhood theme into account this would be more like a ceremony. Think of modern day street gangs, there always is an initiation rite. On their pants and shirts there will be a lot of variety, so they will look linked but not uniform.
I recognise that vent from some place.
Haha, the vent, no Tau, no IG, no COD. It's Orks again, sawn off of some choppa, they almost all have a ventilation at the bulk of the blade.
I prefer the blue white photographs
To be fair those also have been autoadjusted, the yellow ones haven't, cause I figured it didn't work that well on them. Maybe I didn't create equal conditions here.
Go paint!
Will do!
@Neil101
Thx for the kind words.
colour of the goggles
I've seen the green/red thing on some delaques too...
It does look diffrent, I really like that, but I wouldn't want my boys to run around with 3Dglasses on. Also I will draw a line between normal photo visors and goggles that have more impact on the game, like infrared goggles or somthing. I'm planning to give the scout goggles to some of my men and I will go for two different colors there, but those won't be red and green I reckon. I also consider changing colors for the goggles from mini to mini, it's like shades you get them in all colors. Thanks for bringing it up though, because I think it really breaks that boring routine, where its hard to tell Delaques apart.
@Scarper
I enjoy the little details like the knife placement
Glad you recognized, I thought as he is looking like a specialist, he wouldn't stow away his weapons just anywhere, he would do it for immediate access. Both knife and pistol are accessable with one quick motion while holding the rifle in his right hand. To be totally honest this didn't work out exactly as I planned, the angles aren't 100% right, but I told myself not to be too narrowminded.
Besides there is a real blooper on the pics, when I was editing the fotos, I recognized that the wire loop bit was standing out awkwardly, the pouch hanging in thin air, which obviously wasn't intended. I ran up to the attic where my workshop is and I could fix it before the GS fully cured. So now the pouch, clip line and grenades all follow the arc of the GS strap again and look like they are attached to it.
Such things happen when you are so greedy to show the world, that you don't take the time to let the putty cure.
give a model a 'professional' kind of feel
Isn't it strange? It is so often just one little piece that can steer the atmosphere of a model in a different direction. I initially didn't plan to use it, because I didn't want him to have grenades, so he looks like a specialized marksman. But when I was swapping around different equip layouts the clipline became an immediate "must-have". Everything else could have been replaced, but this part really added to the credibilty. In addition every good sniper likes wire+grenades. Always nice to have some booby traps covering your back.
Nice to see some people appreciate that kind of love for the detail.
The resin bases. Are they hollow at the bottom?
They are not, they come as one massive piece. I've put in some magnets for transportation. On difficult terrain I will have to use some plumbers play-doh (What was the brand name for that stuff? I forgot.) to make them stay in place, but thats safer anyway, since the old metal minis are perfect for rumbling through your scenery like in boulder dash and damage both their own and the scenery's paintjob.
Keep it up, this is a great blog so far
Thank you, Sir. Glad you enjoy it, I do as well.
Now for the hard part: Who can identify the last bit on the battery pack? It is the little metal part. I'd bet you've all seen it a million times before.
Also, I'm still sad nobody got lured in by my hint about the warbike as weapon ogryn. Don't make the little ork faces cry more! Come on! ...LIGHTYEAR... nobody? *sigh*
I'm thinking maybe a Toy Story reference, but I really don't see how that could fit, so I wasn't going to say anything. Still, I can't stand to see a grown ork cry...
Ah I must have missed the coat colours...oops. Your point makes sense about the gang colours and getting the coat as part of an initiation ceremony. Glad their under garments, that is under the coat garments, will be an assortment of colours.
I knew I recognised that vent! Bloody orks.
The metal part has me at a total loss. Oh well I am sure you'll put us out of our misery at some point
I'm thinking maybe a Toy Story reference, but I really don't see how that could fit, so I wasn't going to say anything.
Del Boy would say " 'e who dares, wins!" or he would say "this time next year we'll be millionaires!", anyway you are right Toy Story it is.
@c0un7_z3r0
Nice work! Love the little brass details. These are looking very cool, look forward to more.
Thanks, you're the first one to notice them explicitly. The will be more brass on my leader and the second heavy.
Is the ogryn getting a buzz-saw utilising the front forks of the bike?
Yes and No. BUZZZZ was the keyword here, so I've turned the bike into a buzz saw, but it won't be the front forks. The rear wheel is where the buzzing happens.
@PDH
under the coat garments, will be an assortment of colours
Oh yes, even though it will be quite a stretch to find distinct and different colors, while not breaking the narrow range of colors.
The metal part has me at a total loss. Oh well I am sure you'll put us out of our misery at some point.
Ok, I'll have mercy.
You cannot actually see it on the pictures, as it is covered by Abi's beautiful hair *chuckle* but it is there. It was the front of a chaos terminator's pole rack. Some of them have a small skull like on Abi's left shoulder, the others have that optical thingy I used as a charge light on the power pack.
So much for the replies.
Time for an update: I've got a flu, so I went to bed early and therefore couldn't paint last night. But I did some more conversion work in the afternoon. Ogryn is still on hold, but I feel the suspense rising here, so I will get back to him very soon. Instead I worked on my second favorite ganger, who was at a 60% done status and is now close to completion.
Some more details to do, some involving hard decisions, you might help me there!
The model is another heresy ganger, who has had head chopped off and hands and weapons replaced, now he is wielding two non standard plasma pistols. Again I went for a techy but not top notch feel, by giving him a power pack on the back, only this time it's completely different.
This is the base model:
The difficult points are:
1. His legs are kind of thin, I think he should get some armor plates for his shins to make good his twiggy physique. What do you think?
2. His new head is awesome, but it lacks goggles. I could sculpt some, but it would take away from the cool facial expression. So I thought maybe he is wearing photo contacts instead of a visor. You hardly ever see that on the models but it is ok with the backround. I might try to show it on the paintjob, so by some strangely colored eyes (I'm thinking black right now.). My only fear is to make him look daemonic. What do you think?
Well, I'd personally possibly just got with putting goggles on his forehead, as though he's raised them for a minute. Black eyes could kinda make him look daemonic- but would said contacts necessarily have to express colouration in the eyes? My verdict- I don't know.
And on the legs, it doesn't seem as though they're too thin, at least for a real human physique. Follow your nose on this one.
Daaah, I could have had that idea... Thank you very much, I didn't even think of that possibility. I'll try it, this could work pretty well.
contacts necessarily have to express colouration in the eyes
Of course nobody said so, I just didn't like the idea of not having any visible sign of his delaqueish light intolerance. But I agree it would be very hard not to have it look like possession. Even though there aren't that many inquisitors stalking through the underhive one would possible not take the risk of being clenses by fire just for some fancy contacts. Still would like to try it though, since if done correctly I think it could have a real badass look to it.
And on the legs, it doesn't seem as though they're too thin, at least for a real human physique.
I thought so, looking at the pic I linked, but on the actual mini, especially if looking from the side, it looks worse. Plus it is also about those boots, it's not really the legs, but his thin ankles in those strapped tight boots, he looks a bit like a hooker...and not in the good way.
On something else, tomorrow is painting day! One of the other guys is coming over and we will be painting half the day. So maybe, big maybe, I can show you something regarding my sample juve tomorrow evening. So hang tight...
Just to keep you guys up to date, a minor...well... update. Painting day resulted in some definite facts:
1.) The color scheme for the coats is set in stone. It's mainly dark sea blue (DSB), simple black (slightly glossy) shadows, careful highlights with DSB+Ivory and finally a tiny layer of some cruel violet in the shadows. Looks awesome, assuming my skills will be up to par with the idea. It worked on parts of the coat so far.
2.) Boy, I need practice! Last fully painted mini has been years ago. In the meantime it was just a brushstroke here and a painting workshop there. Feels good to be back though, at least if you disregard the massive frustration of having the paint not following your bidding. But must of us know the feeling, I hope.
3.) I didn't expect the fething skin tone to be that much trouble. I'm going for a really pale tone here and it's a pain in the ass. And I'm not at all sure about my approach either, ah well you will see.
Expect pics of the painted juve tuesday or wednesday. Just to make the wait a little bit less hard for you, I know you're starving for my crap...
A little preview of the leader of the Espantajos, Alejandro Castro Ruz. He is far from being ready, but this will be his right arm:
(Quality sucks, but these were actually not intended to be released, they are from the first batch of pics e.g. cellphone camera.)
Possible uber nerd reference here, but I imagine that thing firing like one of the incinerators from Fallout 3. Seems like it deserves to be more than just a flamer in game - it doesn't look like the kind of weapon to break every other shot Good to know you're working ahead
Hehe, I'm glad to see you enjoying my little interlude.
Regarding what the weapon stands for:
The Espantajos (in english "Scarecrows") are a bunch of revolting sulfur miners, who got pissed by the accelerated digging routines they were forced to use, so house Catallus can fulfill its new contract with Helmawr. These new routines resulted in a 13% increase of the sulfur harvest and in 65% increase of serious work accidents. So after becoming maimed, mutilated or at least horribly scarred scarecrows, they decided it's enough, they would die anyway so they stood up to fight for rights (not "their" rights, you don't have any as a imperial mine worker, most are slaves anyway). They threw over some dirty rags to hide their hideous faces and made for the nearest exit. This would normally have resulted in some dead miners and a nice bed time story for the members of shaft security (NO abbreviations pls) to tell their kids, but it didn't. Some strange coincidents took place, an open door here, a stabbed guard there, key codes for weapon lockers being written across the lockers and in the end some of the miners actually made it out alive. Rumour has it a certain (nicely converted) Delaque gang may have had their fingers in the pie. So now there is a growing movement amongst the abused workers of the hive, and the scarecrows are constantly growing in numbers, while house Catallus takes care none of the authorities find out, which would cost them their status with Lord Helmawr.
To not tell you the whole story, before I have properly translated it, let's cut it short here.
Crazy scarred miners, running wild, using what they find, skinning and mutilating back. An eye for an eye, so the leader of the Espantajos carries a device that sprays heated sulfuric acid, which is what you see in the pics above.
About the conversion the arm needs to be converted to look less scouty, but I'm not there yet. And maybe I will redo the whole weapon because I wanted it to be linked to a backpack and not be autonomous like it is now. Plus it needs to look a bit more improvised, without looking orky. (And yes we use standard flamer rules for it, the crappy thing also already exploded in Alejandros hands last game and made him go OOA )
That flamer is something else... Have to agree w/ PDH- LOL... holy crap, you built an entire gun from bitz rather than the standard route of just going with what the model has and doing some major body conversion work... that's what I call attention to detail. I look forward to seeing more of these guys. Your insane(ly good) weapons give the older models a totally new look while bringing me back to a time when my Delaques were sneaking and sniping the out of my cousin's Van Saar meatsacks.
Dudes! Your comments are just what I needed. Thanks for the massive props to everybody.
I just got a little depressed with my paintjob on my sample juve, sometimes being an overambitious perfectionist with a harsh lack of discipline can be frustrating.
Work is going slow on that juve since I've been messing around with a lot of ideas and techniques I wanted to try for later use. So instead of just testing the colors, I've tried to smoothen my blendings, tried some freehand and the look of a blackened blade (black oxide layer) on his knife (I will remove the freehand, as it is hardly appropriate for a juve and well because it sux monkey dick.), messed around with senital lighting, practiced painting chipped and rusted effects and so on. In the end it all looks kinda crap imo, so I'm taking a days break of painting, and go back to finish that plasma pistol toting ganger I was working on.
@the_wicker_man
Man that sniper looks just like the one in fallout 3, I like what I see!
Being compared with fallout always is a good thing. Love all the games, they have an awesome style, so I'm taking that as a huge compliment.
@PDH
I like the tiny little details on your weaponry
Details are everything! Sometimes it is just one detail that makes me fall in love with a model/novel/thing. It's that one tiny idea that seperates adorable from ordinary.
Also the details add to the credibility I hope. The 40k universe is at times to cartoonish I think and it sometimes lacks the detail a real military model would have. Things are out of proportion and very bulky. Take the acid sprayer for example, it's huge and the tip of it is way to big, but for me the valve on the upper tank and the tiny spinning gear on the muzzle make it "real" again.
@HF Izanagi
holy crap, you built an entire gun from bitz rather than the standard route of just going with what the model has
Designed my first gun in kindergarden. So I always had that passion for a nice looking weapon. Plus I think there is not much to convert about the Delaques, the poses could be more versatile, but by adding some heresy guys and removing and replacing an arm here and there that seems covered to me.
Your insane(ly good) weapons give the older models a totally new look
Thank you very much. That's just what I intended. If GW would do a new tier of Delaque models, they would almost look the same. Sure some slight improvements, but you can't change much about the look of long trenchcoats. The real difference would be the look of the weapons and equipment.
All of this leads to a general point: Weapons are SOOO important for the style of any martial fiction. Guns are style! Many hobbyists seem to overlook that.
What would Aliens (the movie) be without pulse rifles and smart guns?
What would Dead Space be without Isaacs tool-like weaponry?
What would Blade be without his personalized arsenal?
What would Batman be without his gadgets?
Answer: Anything but cool!
What is most memorable about Final Fantasy, Half Life, Fallout and the like?
Answer: The crazy weapon concepts, gunblades and stuff.
Aaaanyway, don't want to sound like im lecturing here... Sorry, teachers habits. Always broadcasting my unasked opinion. I'm off to create something else for you to enjoy.
lecture all you like mate its your blog after all. You have got an insane level of detail on your weapons fella , and like you say 40k can be a little over the top , its about striking a balance i find , outlandish sci fi elements brought down to earth with believable characters and settings. and you certainly have the knack of believeability ..is that a word? myabe you could design some nice new ig weapons for us all
btw its not all about guns , dont forget the chainswords
The parts I used for the sulfur gun are: a scout missile launcher, a muzzle of an ork burna, a pack of tau photon grenades cut in half, the handle of a meltabomb, a targeting shield from lootaz box, a fuel tank from catachan command heavy flamer, some smaller metal bits.
Stupid busy week. Did some work on Radius, the plasma ganger, and I must say he is cursed. I started working on him sometime last year and when I was done with his backpack and pistols I wanted to show him around and dropped him. The drop left a mark but more annoyinlgy the two tiny valves on the backpack broke off. It took me 30min of crawling on the floor with a 1000w lamp to find them. THE SAME fething valve disappeared today. Can't find it. Did the crawling again, no luck. GOD I hate it when that happens.
Apart from that you can expect him to be done soon, maybe even tomorrow, since he only needs some final GS work to be done on him. Some straps, some rubber edges for the goggles and sculpting a neck. Shouldn't take more than an hour or two.
Besides I bought some additional painting supplies and I'm itching to get back to my sample juve.
Again to ease the pain of waiting, I decided to give you another preview on the Espantajos. This time it is the basic build (might add some more details) of Silvestro, the first Heavy of the Rebels. Enjoy and stay tuned...
No response so far, seems like you are just as wasted as I am. Feel free to C&C on the last pics, in the meantime I'll work on something new and more appealing than those bad phone pics.
There will definitely be a major update in the next few days...
...I just got a little bit turned off by losing that stupid part of the backpack, so I didn't continue with Radius and did some mindnumbing "clean your workplace" instead, did a few layers of rust pigments on the sample juves base and put some thoughts into the next steps of our gaming table project.
We are still waiting for some bits and pieces to arrive from Armorcast, but we are basicly good to go. And as I mentioned earlier it will be huge. As soon as we put up enough to be worth taking pictures, you'll see. But so far we only put together some towers, bridges and walkways constructed from the good old hexbuilders. We got 10399 Hexbuilder parts (real number I calculated it ). We also have a load of platformers, bio hazard plants, powerplants, syberclix and loads of armorcast pipelines and fuel tanks. Quite overwhelming at the moment, but once we find the time to put it up, it will be a necro table like you've never seen one.
Anyway too much talk too little progress. Till next time...
I absolutely hate losing parts in a carpet, especially if they're tiny. One of my very first GS conversions was a facemask on a Catachan head, and I lost it in the shag carpeting that was in my bedroom at the time. Hand and knees for an HOUR, honestly, and I couldn't find the damn thing. By the end of it I would probably have melted it out of spite if I had
Silvestro is looking really good (are those parts self-cast?!), but I'm not totally sold on his left arm. The rest of your models have such natural poses, that one arming such a large assault rifle whilst carrying a missile launcher kind of stands out. I really like his big pack though - really sells the idea of repressed guerillas, always on the move.
The campaign table sounds incredible, but it's a little hard to picture without knowing the parts. I'm looking forward to progress with it though - really need to make a decent table for my own games, so I hope you don't mind me 'lifting' a few ideas
Don't worry if posts go quiet occasionally - you can tell yourself it's cause there's no criticism to give! (Hey, delusion helps me sometimes )
NOOOO! The dreaded Carpet Monster!! damn his greedy ways!
I swear I have housemaids knee from spending so much time crawling around looking for parts that have pinged into those wretched maws!!
Liking the kit bash Baiyuan Looking forward to seeing some paint/primer on and get a good looksee at that mask.
Yeah Neil's right you can wait weeks thinking no one is watching and gives a damn. In my case it is usually true *violin* Don't fret we are still keeping a beady eye on proceedings Too much yummy goodness not to!
I'm not enamoured with the lasgun. The missile launcher looks good, like he is lugging it around, defensively looking about for an ambush or a juicy target. The lasgun needs to be a pistol imo.
I don't have a carpet monster at the moment but I hate dropping things because they always end up underneath my desk drawers which have about 5mm ground clearance...so I have to move the whole desk out
The board sounds really interesting...I look forward to seeing it. The armourcast stuff looks really nice but I'm always put off by the cost...but their canal system is very tempting.
I know there's a tiny little black hole roaming around my workroom at about floor-level. Someday I'll find a way to cross over to wherever it leads and find a huge stash of bits to keep me entertained. It's definitely a black-holwe and not a carpet monster as it has claimed a couple of pieces even after I pulled the carpet up when I flooded. 'Okay, it fell straight down past my knee, I heard it bounce once on the wood and there was no skitter afterwards so it should be just about......where, how, that can't be possible. Move the chair. Move that bits box. Get a torch. And the desk lamp. Where? WHERE?'
Have to agree with the others, that lasgun really needs to be a pistol. Apart from that excellent work once again.
And Chibi's right, peeps will still be lurking, sometimes if there's nothing useful to say it can get a bit boring typing 'great stuff' in reply to all the blogs you're following
Hehe, black holes and carpet monsters... in my case, since there is bare rough concrete ground under my working table, it is especially nice to drop tiny grey things. So far I have never dropped anything I couldn't find later on, first time I had to give up. So I'll have to cut another fw elysian plasmagun to pieces just for that tiny plasma cartridge on the lower side.
About the lasgun on Silvestro: I have to agree, it doesn't look that good. I was aware of that but told myself it's part of his "armed to the teeth" look. Now that you've all mentioned it, I'll give it another thought, but I can't go for a pistol. That's not my decision, as I'm not playing this gang. It belongs to me, but I'm building and converting it for a friend, who is new to tabletop games and I offered to help with the artsy part. We are doing the paintjob together and 4-5 models are almost painted. Anyway equipment is his decision, so I'll have to find a new solution for the lasgun.
No further progress today because sundays are working days for me, so I only found some time to go through the gang rosters and battle reports again. Tomorrow will be better and I will force myself to finish the cursed Radius. Besides if everything turns out right, I'll be the proud owner of something mega-awesome in a couple of days... details will follow. Soooo excited...
If a pistol is not an option.....then perhaps add a lasgun to the back pack. Then he can have an empty hand...or perhaps a knife in his left hand. Even heavies get the free knife!
Alternatively show your friend this thread and we can persuade him to buy his heavy a stub gun for purely artistic reasons....come on its only 10 creds.
Seeing how enthusiasticly you try to change him for the better, I had an idea. I still have a shortened lasgun conversion in my rifle weapon drawer, so I'll try that one. Don't want the weapon to be on his backpack, it would ruin the great looks of that old havoc backpack. You will see what I mean once I got pics with a proper camera.
Yeeeeha! Just bought a full squad of ash waste nomads at ebay. Awesome.
Will try to supply a major update tomorrow.
Did I mention my nomads? I did, didn't I?
Thx, Vik. The bases are great, relatively cheap and they look quite cool. btw 56k anyone?
I've done some new stuff this morning and got some quick shots with my cellphone. The pics are not really good, but definitely good enough for a quick WIP.
First item is the all new Silvestro. New arm and proper base now. I tried a lot of different setups for the arm, but only two made the final cut (the other one was holding a grenade, so it wouldn't have solved my lasgun problem). I'll stay with this one now, looks both natrural and cool to me.
Second item is Doble. Doble used to be simple Mineslave, but he has fought for the revolution quite a while now and everbody fears his furious attacks. (former juve, massive flail, stubgun, berserk charge, ws+1, w+1)
Again I tried to show the skills on the mini. Berserk charge, so he has bare arms and is running. And so on, you can figure it out, me thinks.
He was really a product of a quick kit bashing, because I needed to get him done quickly after the last game. So he is not really up to my standards, but still quite adorable, don't you think?
As usual I'm happy about any kind of C&C, so feel free. Hope you like 'em. Enjoy and stay tuned.
Hey folks, next update will be coming in tomorrow. I've put some of the rebels on proper bases the last to days and improved some of the models, they were too basic.
Also I went to an arts supplier today, where I hadn't been for a couple of years and I found loads of nice wires and gak. So expect to see some sexy boullion wire on future projects.
Well thank you, I'm glad you like it. There is tons of more (and more awesome, I hope) stuff coming up, so stay tuned. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
I'm off to do some stupid housework and hope to work on my gangs afterwards, to get ready for the update I promised you.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ok, here it comes. Not as much as I had hoped for, but still worth being called an update.
Like I said I'm putting the Scarecrows or Espantajos on proper bases at the moment and did some additions where I found it necessary.
This exact git here wasn't one of my favorites to begin with, I just slapped him together because the gang needed an autogunning ganger. Most of the parts were badly cast and I had to make up at some points, but didn't want to resculpt half of the model (since it's not my gang and I still got quite a lot to do for my Serpentes, let alone the gaming-board). So after being put together quickly he looked like this:
YES, he sucked! I was especially unhappy with his waist. Some of those renegade torsos don't go with the cadian legs that well. Also he wasn't looking cool at all, which is a thing I couldn't have ruining my rep, so I decided he needed to be redone. What came out is this:
Acero member of the Scarecrows. As you can see on his equipment and customized rifle Acero is not a mere Miner like most of the other rebels from the Virago mine. Acero was recruited from Necromunda and served in one of the Emperor's vast armies, he wouldn't tell which one or where. The fact that he was able to come back to his homeworld in one piece already speaks volumes about his martial skills or his plain luck, but definitely about his stubborness.
This stubborness not only brought him back to a world most people would stay away from, if they had the chance to (we're talking hive city, not fancy spire), it also got him into an argument with an Arbites, about as soon as he set foot on the planet. Long story short, he ended up as a mine-slave quicker than you can say "Enforce this, you fething %?&*&!"
He didn't have to stay in the mines for long though, just long enough to get his skin seriously scarred and his lungs damaged like all other workers in the sulfur mines. Ever since Alejandro Castro Ruz, leader of the Espantajos, has led his men out of the mines, Acero has been fighting to free hive city from slavery and oppression.
In game terms he is a normal ganger, equipped with an autogun. He has had two advances, +1 wound and +1 ballistic skill, shown by his improved gun and his bulky look, due to all his equipment.
Nuff talk! Here he comes:
He is not perfect, even sloppy at points, but I had to keep the amount of work on him at bay. Some flaws might still get a bit of attention though, like his wrist and the side of the gun maybe.
C&C welcome, what else would I post him for.
I'm fortunate I've got a women I love and she accepts my "awesome" hobby (though she draws a line at going into a GW for more that 45 seconds at a time) and (that should be enough) .
Comments...well the last two chaps are just not as inspiring as the Delaque in my eyes. They are renegade militia with a few add ons, sorry. I think when they are painted you'll get more comments. They are well made and the changes you did to the last guy made him so much better (I really love what you do to weapons) you really need to get rid of the mould lines on his legs too. I think adding some knee pads would make them look a little more like miners too.
I'm still looking forward to some paint. When can we expect a painty update?
They are great bro. The rocket launcher dude is especially cool. About these cures to lethal diseases and how to get women.... Pray tell?
Thanks bro. Glad you like Silvestro, his charm must be in his simplicity. About the other part I didn't exactly lie, but my only universal suggestion for both problems would be a rather heavy club, helps with the diseases and the women...
@PDH
(though she draws a line at going into a GW for more that 45 seconds at a time)
Is it because of the smell, I could understand that. I actually try to go there as seldom as possible myself and never on saturdays.
Comments...well the last two chaps are just not as inspiring as the Delaque in my eyes. They are renegade militia with a few add ons, sorry.
No need for apologies, you are absolutely right and I value your opinion even if it's not purely worshipping my divine works.
As I said, you are right, the Delaques are something else. They have been in my head and shelf for years. I'll make any effort to make them as good as I can.
The miners on the other hand have been a quick and playoriented (yet great) idea. When I first laid eyes on FWs renegade range I had fallen in love and knew I had to necromunda-ize them. They are just my secondary project, I don't play them, I just enjoy to make them become alive, so it's an obvious result, that I try to make them look good, but I don't go to town on them.
An even more important reason for the Scarecrows being "militia with a few addons" is that the models are perfectly representing what I'm thinking of with the rebels. So I actually struggled here and there to even make addons, I could have left them like they were, but then again I really hope they don't look like mere militiamen in the end.
I think when they are painted you'll get more comments.
Yes, I think so too. The paintjob will make them a lot less militialike. Want a sneak peek? Ok, but just a small one...
They are PIP and have been painted by me and the guy playing them taking turns on most parts.
They are well made and the changes you did to the last guy made him so much better (I really love what you do to weapons)
I'll make sure there will be more for you to love.
you really need to get rid of the mould lines on his legs too.
I'm preeeetty sure there are no mould lines on the legs. It happens to me that I manage to ignore mould lines till the primer is dry on them. Just what happened here, I scratched them off of the legs after priming them grey. What you see there are not shadows of mould lines but the dark grey of the plastic under the bright primer, I think. If I really missed one, please tell me where, I hate mould lines!
I think adding some knee pads would make them look a little more like miners too.
Interesting idea. So knee pads would improve the miner impression for you?
I've thought a lot about how to maximize miner theme. Hence the obvious picks and hammers. I'm also still thinking about giving some of them a head lamp, but couldn't think of an elegant way yet.
A question to everybody: What details could I add to make them look more like miners in your opinion? I would really appreciate any ideas on this aspect of the project, since I'm really stuck here and keep thinking I'm overlooking things...
I'm still looking forward to some paint. When can we expect a painty update?
Excluding my sneak peek at the top from being called "a painty update" you hit my weak spot here. I like painting, but I'm not half as good at it as I'd wish to and think the models deserve. I'm not bad either , but my obsessive perfectionism keeps scaring me away from painting my favorite conversions. That's why I chose a totally unconverted juve to be painted first, so I wouldn't hesitate. Turns out I still like converting better and didn't paint for a week now.
So please keep reminding me, that I promised to paint them all, might make a wonder happen.
Ok some other stuff I'd like to share:
1. I just bought an OOP Cadwallon Doghandler on Ebay and as soon as he arrives he will be turned into a "Delaque Doghandler". I know it's madness and blasphemy (THIS IS DAKKA!!! So kick me down a dark well or any useless hole in the ground.), especially because it wasn't exactly cheap and is quite rare, but I mentioned earlier I'd make any effort to make my Delaques unique.
And this little fella will do so, once I'm done with him that is.
2. I spent some hours on the hobby today and apart from some nice barbed wire I worked on a new addition to the Scarecrows.
While most of the minis are actually half finished and waiting in my cabinet to get there final touches, like Silvestro, this one is a totally new one.
Thore, the guy playing the rebels, bought a new lasgun ganger after his last game, so I have to come up with a model soon.
I thought you might be interested in a little preview:
Here is what I did:
Took the shooter from the renegade two man stubber team as a base model and looked for a suitable lasgun.
Tried half a dozen possibilities and ended up with a simple cadian las rifle. (actually my favorite standard lasgun build)
As you can see in the picture it experienced the typical baiyuanification (that word makes me think of baiyuanics).
For his arms I cut a renegade autogun in pieces, so that the rifle stock now fits neatly into the bend of his arm and the grip in his left hand slides into the body of the gun.
After having the position of his hands I realized his left arm wouldn't supply a natural angle to the hand, so it had to go. That was after taking the photos. Next thing to do will be pinning the new arm and hands in position and greenstuffing the gaps, while thinking about any further things to convert on this already gorgeous model.
So much for today, hope you enjoy the news and as always stay tuned.
True and I'm already doing that. It's a coincidence that you haven't seen any of the guys with the pickaxes, but Acero has one of the hammers, as you can see.
Drills are a good idea I haven't applied to the guys yet, mainly because I consider it an eyecatcher and want to save it for a special occasion. Now that you brought it up, I'm thinking it could look really cool on the leader, thx.
What I'm still looking for are more ways to say "miner". Head lamps? A bird in a cage (wouldn't last long in a sulfur mine...so dead bird in a cage, I like that.)
Or like PDH said he thinks knee pads would add to the look (still wondering why...).
One important thing that came to my mind yesterday while writing my post was SOO obvious. Helmets! I've never thought of it, which shows me how stuck I am.
So keep on going, I'm desperate for your help.
That dog-handler looks nice, be interesting to see where you take him.
Helmets would be good, and there's the place for your headlamps too I like the idea of a dead bird in a cage too, adds a bit of mordheim flavour to the underhive.
A few small hand drills amongst their equipment? Dynamite for grenades?
now i have a great idea...know of the DA sprue? there are these lamplike things... in the left corner there are these hanging things normally used for "weihwasser" these could make quite good minerslamps... and what about demolition chargers? i gues a bit of TNT never is out of place^^...and i would also consider a flamer with a very large barrel... for being a "knockerman"...they lit the bubbles of miners gas to make the tunnels workable again...
headlamps by the way would be totally cool...and sooth lots of that... miners are always in the mids of dirt and stuff and never clean... and lots of bare skin... i have this vision of now i have a great idea...know of the DA sprue? there are these lamplike things... in the left corner there are these hanging things normally used for "weihwasser" these could make quite good minerslamps... and what about demolition chargers? i gues a bit of TNT never is out of place^^...and i would also consider a flamer with a very large barrel... for being a "knockerman"...they lit the bubbles of miners gas to make the tunnels workable again...
headlamps by the way would be totally cool...and sooth lots of that... miners are always in the mids of dirt and stuff and never clean... and lots of bare skin... i have this vision of
Baiyuan - Now that is a good update....I shall refer to it as a painty update for it met all the criteria. There are models with paint on them
Where to start....
I like the colour scheme you and your friend have gone for. The painting looks nicely done too. So I am sure the Delaque will be just as good. I understand what you mean about preferring conversion to painting etc. I try and follow a rule where I convert/build - paint, convert/build - paint . Keeps me motivated and means I don't get bored.
So please keep reminding me, that I promised to paint them all, might make a wonder happen.
ok
Mould lines...indeed I though they were shadows.
My reasoning behind knee pads... Having knelt in gravel it bloody hurts!
Cadwallon Doghandler will look great all Delaqued up....go on cut him up and have people here despise you Though you'll have to use a round base or it'll look wrong. I'm really looking forward to seeing what you do with him.
The Heavy stubber guy looks awesome on his own. How easy would it be to repose the left arm?
Viktor von Domm - I've not listened to Sonne in ages...thanks. Hmmm I doubt I'll get Snow White out of my head to a little while (not that I mind).
saw some snowwhite pics some time ago that would be against posting rules...this vid is as closest to what one could say as intimidating as it gets around here... snowwhite is hot^^
Excellent suggestions, exactly what I'm thinking about.
Not sure where to take the helmets from, got to look around... same for the headlamps, but I think I could improvise some from gs and bits. Maybe DKK helmets + lights.
Thought about dynamite too, easy to build, could look good, I'll try.
Again I think drills should be reserved to specialists/heavies/leader.
@vik
Not a big fan of Rammstein, but thats one of the songs I kinda liked, and it's great inspiration too, thx.
The lamps from the DA sprue could be a little big for a the fw models, but I know what you mean, and I'm sure there are other similar lamps around the hereticus range. Will look for them.
About the dirt, they are sulfur miners, so there will also be lots of yellow sulfur dust. Not sure how far to take this aspect though. Could look odd.
Knockerman? VERY interesting idea!
@PDH
The color scheme I chose is quite simple, but you can only see part of it on the minis so far. They will all have orange suits and dark/black? boots. Not sure about pouches and belts yet. Grey? I'll paint the masks depending on their material, cloth -> light brown (scarecrows? not sure though, the dark grey they have right now looks good too), metal -> well metal. Their guns will be painted individually, because they didn't have any to begin with, so most were stolen from shaft security and others were bought later or stolen elsewhere.
The doghandler will be interesting, I'm thinking about keeping as much of the original mini as sensible. So I will de-medievil him, but keep the general appeariance, just adding enough 40k aspects to make him credible. The base will have to go, I agree.
Reposing the left arm wouldn't have made sense, so I removed the whole arm. (Parts of the mask were hanging over his arm and it was clunched to his side.) Tried some new arms today since the first alternative turned out not to fit at all. Now he has a bare scarred arm with some shreds of cloth on it. Looks good IMO. Put him on a base, glued the gun to his hands and put putty where necessary. He still needs a lot of work though. I still have to rewire his rebreather (the cable had to go with his left arm) and add lots of details to him. And finalize the position of the arms, after cleaning up the now cured putty. Tomorrow is painting day, so I'm not sure when I'll be able to continue with him.
As I said I'll be painting tomorrow, I'm just not sure yet what to paint. Serpentes or Espantajos... Will see tomorrow noon.
Ok, I'm gonna catch some Horus Heresy before catching Zs, good night everyone.
After browsing through the dwarf range I just ordered a pack of these (I'm confident after scratching off any runes I will have some nice tools to equip my miners with.):
I also reactivated my idea to build a mine themed stand for the whole gang, which will later also function as a piece of scenery. It will actually be a big mine elevator, that I started building something like 12 years ago for a project in arts class back in school. Time keeps on slipping...
Damn... that teaser for the Miner squad looked pretty good! I'd like to see more, as soon as you can finish it up!
The earlier miner guy with the flail I really like... a lot. It's probably because I'm on a Spartacus: Gods of the Arena kick right now, but yea... friggin' awesome. Keep up the good work!
I just got the boxes (also ordered some ghouls, you never know what they are good for) and got to say: Man, that dwarf box is a good deal! You get what's on the picture, TWICE. For less than 20€.
A little downside is the scale of the guys, they might be short but they are ripped. Those pickaxes are huge, especially compared to the ones from the baneblade I used so far. And the dynamite looks more like runic pipe bombs from hell. Most of it will be quite handy anyway, well except the ponys, I'm afraid... On the other hand I was thinking about suitable mounts for my future ash waste nomad project the other day... Yeah, he is a nomad. They take what they need, his mount for example, he stole it from Frodo. Shot him right of its back with his long rifle.
Painting day was canceled, I had to give some substitute classes, so I got home late. Considering how much money I've been spending at ebay lately, maybe a busy week is a good thing... wait there is that one auction later this week...
Instead of painting I actually had a look at the remains of the elevator I built back then, and realized it will be a lot of work. I'll do it anyway because I'm already pretty fond of the idea, means the movie in my head is running and nobody can stop it now. (heaps of cool miner equipment...renegade ogryns in chain-harnesses pulling jampacked lorrys... )
I also made some minor improvements to the whole lot of miners, mainly some "after-priming-mould-line-cleaning". But I also had a closer look at Espaldo, the second Heavy of the Espantajos. I thought he was done, but it turned out he wasn't. After adding some kroot shoulder pads (I know, I know, everybody does that, read on anyway, it gets better) to cover up the bad looking greenstuff at his shoulders, I decided a plate on the breast could look cool... Last thing I did before calling it a day was putting together a carapace armor consisting of at least 7 individual plates. Just need to sew them together with fine wire, than I'll show you. So much for "I thought he was finished"...
Blanco, the guy from the fw renegade stubber team, didn't get that much attention today, but I improved the fit of his arms a little and it won't be long till he's ready for details.
@HF Izanagi
Thx. I'm glad you like them. Will do my very best to keep them coming!
Well, looks like I might have to grab some dwarf sprues then, those look interesting
Could it not be a pit pony?
I was thinking more of little hand drills to be found amongst the normal guys equipment, rather than decent sized jack-hammers and drills, which would be for the 'characters'. However, on second thoughts that would probably be more of an engineer vibe than miner.
That reminds me of Eddy Izzard: "I'm an evil giraffe. I'm going to eat more leafs than I need to and other giraffes may die. Haaaa. Haaaa. Haaaa."
little hand drills to be found amongst the normal guys equipment
I might throw some in, but the only one I can think of right now, is the one of the stompa grots is holding. It's in my bits box anyway, so if I find one to be needy of additional tools I might use it.
DOW2: Retribution just arrived, need I say more?...
Wow, I missed a fair few updates! Sorry, I've been offline for a while
Silvestro: Massively improved. A natural pose, with all the gear he's supposed to have, and without ruining the profile either, no small feat! The angle of his rocket arm seems to work a lot better with the headturn too.
Doble looks great too - I love the chain! What gauge is it? It sells 'former repressed slave' really well, and is his equipment hanging off it too? Nice touch Only thing I'm not 100% on is the flail itself - it maybe seems a touch too medievaly. I'm just not sure I could picture an item as specific as the head of it as part of mine machinery or anything like that. Have you considered maybe replacing the head with some other heavy object that could be easily improvised? That's really just nitpicking though, he looks very good.
The paintjob looks awesome (though again with the teasing pics!), really changes the feel of the renegade models. Looking forward to seeing what you do with the new parts too!
Baiyuan wrote:What I'm still looking for are more ways to say "miner". Head lamps? A bird in a cage ...
I saw these shoulder lamps on a squat army, they look great especially when every man has them. Made from space marine backpack vents (could you ask for a more common source?) Link
Thx, for the pic. Gives me a good idea of how it could look, but I'm sure SM backpack vents won't work for the renegades, to big, needs to much of a shoulder pad to hold it. I'll have to find a smaller, lighter solution, that I can put on the shoulder or the forehead, both.
@Scarper
Glad to have you back. As usual I really appreciate your opinion.
The chainlinks are 0,2mm thick, 0,9mm wide and 1,1mm long. Yes his equipment is hanging from the chain.
About the flail, you are somewhat right. I'm not totally convinced too, but it's not because I don't find it to medieval, it's because it simply doesn't look harmonic to me. I mean he could have bought the flail after leaving the mines, at the tradestation (which is how he got it just recently), he also could have used it to break larger crystals down (ok, I'm not buying that too...). Maybe I'll swap it for something else later, if I come by a worthy substitute.
By the way please nitpick as much as you can, I value the suggestions. I do not write this blog exclusively to bolster my already bloated ego. Not exclusively...
Tomorrow is my day off, so I hope to get some hobby related things done. So possible Update tomorrow. If I don't get shackled by DOW2 retribution, that is.
for headlamps why not use the thicker spots of sprue...the knots there? they are round and a bit long and have this curved structure... drill out the "barrel" part and then you have a small torchlight to put where apropriated...
Thanks for the info on the chain, I'll have to buy myself some And just to clarify, I love the flail as is - it's a nice, easy to make improvised weapon, and it does look awesome. I don't think the head part looks 'wrong' at the mo, it's just that I reckon if you replaced it with anything that could have had a previous use other than a flail head (a heavy rock, a machine part, even just some scrap metal) it would look a lot more like he had made it himself, which I figure would fit your theme. I may have misinterpreted what you're going for though, and that is, of course, just personal opinion, so feel free to totally ignore it He looks really really good anyway, and I wouldn't worry about it unless you like the idea ;D
The Good Green wrote:Might I suggest trimming off the bottom strap thing on the hammer? Otherwise I think these new guys look badass.
Do you mean Acero's hammer? The one on his backpack? If so, I know what you mean, the hilt with the strap/clamp dangling in thin air. I just left it because I thought it might add some structure to the otherwise plain hammer. Now that you mentioned it I'm less sure about it.
Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:re spotlights: Do you have any clear sprue?
Yes I do, I'm not sure about using clear plastic on 28mm infantry though. Needs to be done very very well to not look out of place. Anyway what is your suggestion? I will consider it, despite my prejudices on the matter.
Viktor von Domm wrote:for headlamps why not use the thicker spots of sprue...the knots there? they are round and a bit long and have this curved structure... drill out the "barrel" part and then you have a small torchlight to put where apropriated...
Can't say I can really visualize what you are suggesting. What part of a sprue do you mean?
@Scarper
Thanks for the info on the chain, I'll have to buy myself some
You're welcome, mate.
And just to clarify, I love the flail as is - it's a nice, easy to make improvised weapon, and it does look awesome. I don't think the head part looks 'wrong' at the mo, it's just that I reckon if you replaced it with anything that could have had a previous use other than a flail head (a heavy rock, a machine part, even just some scrap metal) it would look a lot more like he had made it himself...
I know exactly what you mean, the whole model is consistent and the flail doesn't break that, but it's also not the peak of coolness or narrative depth. An improvised weapon would add to the insurgent theme. As I said, when a good alternative strikes me, I will change it.
...which I figure would fit your theme. I may have misinterpreted what you're going for though, and that is, of course, just personal opinion, so feel free to totally ignore it
I'm very interested in what you think I'm going for, please explain.
He looks really really good anyway, and I wouldn't worry about it unless you like the idea ;D
I do.
I've been thinking a lot about the elevator stand/diorama lately. I might actually start that soon, it will need to be a little side project though, already got to many things going on.
I'm off now to do some conversion work, hope to get something done for an update...
Viktor von Domm wrote:for headlamps why not use the thicker spots of sprue...the knots there? they are round and a bit long and have this curved structure... drill out the "barrel" part and then you have a small torchlight to put where apropriated...
Can't say I can really visualize what you are suggesting. What part of a sprue do you mean?
Space_Potato wrote:
I'm assuming he means these bits:
Ok, that's what I thought, those lamps would be rather big then. Interesting idea for shoulder lamps, might try.
Amazing work so far!
Thanks mate.
Time for an Update!
Like I promised I wasn't lazy today, so I can now present to you the final version of the second Espantajo heavy, Espaldo (hunchback).
Again Espaldo was already done, but I decided to convert my own conversion. I originally build him some time last year when we started the gang and he was finished, but I didn't like him that much. It was a decent mini, but I didn't like the space between his torso and the shoulder pads and I also didn't like his plain chest, it didn't say "miner heavy".
Here is a pic of what he looked like initially (his hand is out of place of course, that was necessary during my conversion):
While I was generally satisfied with his looks, I wanted to improve the already mentioned weak spots. So, what is the most used bit to cover up your crappy conversion work and make it look more "jagga-naughty" at the same time? Correct, kroot armor.
Everybody does it, so why not me. Idea: kroot shoulder pads as... well shoulder pads. --> Looked stupid and out of place, plus I still needed to cover up the chest.
Logical next step, use rectangular kroot chest piece for... yeah right, for the chest. --> Looked stupid and out of place.
I didn't want to just slap pointless patches of armor on him, for me things need to make sense. I wouldn't run around with a random piece of metal on my chest, that really only covers less than half of it. I would want some real, linked armor!
So that's what I did, used 7 pieces of kroot armor and 15 0,4mm diameter wires to knit me a nice improvised carapace armor. Crude kroot carapace armor you could say.
This is how it started:
Looks like modern art, but it's just the centerpiece with the first 8 wires in it.
Next step was to shape the left and right belly plates, so that they fit under Espaldo's arms without taking him apart. After that was done I linked the guthide and added some vital protection to throat and crotch, you don't wanna get hit there, do you?
Everything linked together looked like this:
After this step it got tricky. I wanted to link the shoulder pads to the chestpiece and make everything look like Espaldo actually wore it, so there needed to be straps holding everything together behind his back. Still I didn't want to take him apart and I had to put the main piece on his chest before I linked the shoulders to it. It was basicly like putting a hyperactive kid on speed in it's best suit, except this kid was 28mm big.
The whole conversion took me almost half a day, but I'm very satisfied with the result. So feast your eyes on Espaldo, the hunchback, former heavy mining machine operator, now the strong (and heavily armored) arm of the "Libertad por la colmena!" (colmena=hive).
One last note before the merciless commenting begins (I hope) I know his legs look terrible. I tried to ignore it but the 1000w lamp made it just to clear in the pictures, the legs need to be replaced or repaired!
Ok everyone, as usual I hope you'll be enjoying what I came up with and you drop me line. Or if you don't enjoy it, please drop a couple of lines to justify why not. How dare you...
@PDH
You are absolutely right. I might try it just for having found a use for sprues, but I'm not going for shoulderlamps anyway. I'm looking for decent helmets and will sculpt some headlights on them.
@Everyone
Could use some help regarding the helmets: Does anyone have any idea where to get a good helmet from, that doesn't look to military or to medieval? Should be more along the lines of actual miner helmets oder fire brigade helmets.
If you trim the sides off of the Britonian Men at Arms helmet and do a little green stuff magic you can have a fireman style helmet. Also Espaldo looks great, might steal that armor conversion for my Orlock heavy.
That is incredibly detailed, and look brilliantly improvised. I don't know how you had the foresight to know that it would fit so well! It's also unlike anything I've seen anyone else do with the Kroot sprue (which is saying a lot, considering how often it's used), so major originality points. Very minor issue is that the shotgun looks a little 'tacked on' to the backpack at the mo, but as always, that's just nitpicking, and could easily be fixed with a GS strap or something. The wiring, of course, makes the whole thing, and shows an attention to detail that goes beyond anyone you'll fight. I hope he survives long enough to make the effort worth it!
Scarper wrote:That is incredibly detailed, and look brilliantly improvised. I don't know how you had the foresight to know that it would fit so well! It's also unlike anything I've seen anyone else do with the Kroot sprue (which is saying a lot, considering how often it's used), so major originality points. Very minor issue is that the shotgun looks a little 'tacked on' to the backpack at the mo, but as always, that's just nitpicking, and could easily be fixed with a GS strap or something. The wiring, of course, makes the whole thing, and shows an attention to detail that goes beyond anyone you'll fight. I hope he survives long enough to make the effort worth it!
As usual: Thank you for your kind words and your productive critique.
About the foresight: There wasn't much of it, try and error all the way. I could picture the final result from the beginning, but the actual fitting was "put it on, take it of, make adjustment" rinse and repeat a hundret times.
About the shotgun: YES, please nitpick, because you are absolutely right... again. I will fix that, so far I was so focused on the rest of the mini, I didn't even recognize that the shottie is tacked onto a knife.
About survival: He will live long enough for two reasons: a) We are playing with a customized list for serious injuries, that results in a little less deaths. b) We are stacking ferocity talents on those gangers and Thore, the guy who plays them at the moment, has crazy dice luck when it comes to saving throws and serious injuries. (Last game: 3 serious injuries, 3 full recoveries and one of his juves made it through two 6+ saves)
Krieg Solder 117 wrote:Also Espaldo looks great, might steal that armor conversion for my Orlock heavy.
Thanks, and feel free to do so, but be warned and advised: I warn you, that it is rather time consuming and I advise you to use thinner wire. If I did it again I would use 0,2mm wire instead of 0,4mm.
The heavy looks brilliant, for the miner look I am tempted to suggest signboards and clubs fighting riot police cavalry like in the eighties British miners strikes. High Vis vests strike me as an obvious mining addition. Brilliant work and I can't wait to see your take on the Dog Handler!
Llamahead wrote:The heavy looks brilliant, for the miner look I am tempted to suggest signboards and clubs fighting riot police cavalry like in the eighties British miners strikes. High Vis vests strike me as an obvious mining addition. Brilliant work and I can't wait to see your take on the Dog Handler!
Thank you for the compliment and for your interesting suggestions.
Signboards have a nice touch, but they would not be in line with what I'm imagining the gang to be. If you read the backround I revealed so far, you will recognize that they stole some equipment from their former punishers and are mostly improvising the rest of it. Signboards as improvised weapons have a flavor I'd appreciate, but they don't fit into my picture of the (under)hive let alone a mine and I wouldn't want the miners to look to much like a modern day thing.
High vis vests are already in the mix, the miner's overalls are (to be) painted in a quite flashing orange.
neil101 wrote:great work as per , oh and i forgot to thank you for that chain idea, its also good for covering a messy seam ;-)
You're welcome.
Me and Thore have been painting for some hours today and will be doing so tomorrow as well. Don't want to promise anything I can't live up to, but I think there is some chance I will finish one of the gangers tomorrow or at least this week. So maybe there will be the first fully painted model coming up soon.
Also I have bought some more elemental supplies for the board, so basic work might begin soon.
That armor on the Heavy looks fantastic! You'd think that adding more to the model would just kill it and make it much too bulky. But you managed to plate the guy up with wide wires and convex armor pads and he doesn't look any fatter for it.
HF Izanagi wrote:That armor on the Heavy looks fantastic! You'd think that adding more to the model would just kill it and make it much too bulky. But you managed to plate the guy up with wide wires and convex armor pads and he doesn't look any fatter for it.
You make it sound like an acomplishment, thank you. I just ask myself three questions all the time: Does it make sense? Would I wear/do that? Does it look cool?
The last question overrides the other two occasionally, that's normally the case when I start making sounds when I look at the miniature, I usually take that as a good sign.
About my progress: Spent a couple of hours painting today and two of the four gangers we're currently painting are almost finished. It's taking me forever because it's been a while since my last finished paintjob (several years) and I can't help to try some of the new techniques I learned in the meanwhile.
I might continue tomorrow, depending on whether my fiance decides to paint with me or not. She means to, but you know women, they change their minds easily.
Anyway I'm intending to finish those gangers asap. Expect at least one of them before the weekend...
don´t we all make little shooting or slashing sounds when modeling our minis?...i truly fear the days when i start having my way with tanks...the constant booooomm might let us loose our apartment^^
Viktor von Domm wrote:don´t we all make little shooting or slashing sounds when modeling our minis?...i truly fear the days when i start having my way with tanks...the constant booooomm might let us loose our apartment^^
Yes we do! The only thing that makes me feel ridiculous is when I have to test a pose or equipment layout, which normally means I climb on things with my biggest super soaker and try to look dynamic and heroic or sinister depends on the project.
terribletrygon wrote:I am liking the gunner's armour and diamond pickaxe. Though I can't help feeling the gun could do with some straps.
Thank you, I'll consider some straps, you are right Brakar's gun is huge, that's why I love it. I have to add some straps to his backpack too, so I might do this as well.
Yes we do! The only thing that makes me feel ridiculous is when I have to test a pose or equipment layout, which normally means I climb on things with my biggest super soaker and try to look dynamic and heroic or sinister depends on the project.
my kids would like that if i ever did that... probably would be rolling on the floor laughing their bums off to see their dad going to be a super hero^^
you go in character for sculpting... that has to be honored^^
I paint in the flat, but my workshop, where I do everything else, is set up in the attic, so luckily there is no chance of anybody seeing me. My daughter would "roll" too, but just her eyes. Besides I find it necessary sometimes to go in character. If I can't do it, nobody can, that's mainly because of my astartes-like physique... *cough*
Howdy folks and friends!
After being unable to do anything for a couple of days (really anything, not just hobbywise), because papa blessed me with his finest stomach flu, today I felt well enough to crawl up into the attic to do some conversion-magic.
Being frustrated about the precious time I lost on being sick I had to be extra productive today, so I worked on four projects at the same time:
Espaldo, the hunchback, received the final improvements that were suggested by Trygon and Scarper, e.g. straps for the heavy gun and straps for his backup weapon. "Straps" is actually inaccurate, since I went for chains, which felt more suitable to me. Espaldo finished.
Acero, the autogunning ganger I posted earlier, has had even more changes done to him. Even though I was totally satisfied with how he looked, he proofed to be the most viable candidate for the "give the miners helmets"-program I mentioned earlier. So I filed off most of his head and added a helmet, head lamp and a protective collar.
Blanco, the new lasgunning addition to the Scarecrows, which I already gave a sneak peek on, got some progress too. I did some greenstuffing on his shoulder and gun and glued his arms in position. He is still some steps away from completion, especially because I'm not sure yet what else to do to him. I'm considering giving him a helmet as well and will definitely give him some more equipment and gak.
Radius, the dual plasma pistol delaque and my momentary nemesis, received some greenstuff on his goggles and a strap around his upper body to hold his back pack in place. I also improved the fit of his scabbard and replaced the missing plasma cartridge from his backpack, that I had lost.
While doing so Radius showed me why he is my nemesis: I dropped that (new) damnable part again! My lightning reflexes prevented the part from actually falling to the ground this time, because I abruptly pressed my thighs together. Which of course resulted in a good and a bad thing: The part was well protected and hiding somewhere in the folds of my trousers and I gave my balls a nice and extraordinarily painful squeezing, that I had to maintain till I had recovered the part some ten seconds later. Anyway, once I'll have sculted him a new neck and some straps connecting his scabbard to his belt and thigh he will be done and the best looking little bugger you'll ever encounter in the hive.
I'm sorry for not having any pictures spicing up my "wall of text"-update, but all the quick shots I made with my cellphone were terribly fuzzy and I didn't want to be accused of teasing again. So expect a bigger picture update tomorrow. So long, guys.
Ok, people! Like I promised, here comes an update with lots of new pictures.
This new batch contains pictures of three old friends, so no fresh faces yet.
To be honest with you, I'm already saving pictures of a fresh face for a rainy day, when have nothing else to show you. (That would be Cachimbo, a juve I've finished a while ago.)
And I'm planning on finally finishing my hate/love Radius tomorrow, so there would be another fresh face coming up.
Back to what I'm actually showing you today:
Acero with his new helmet, including headlight and protective collar. Only missing proper replacement tubes for his mask, decided to break the old ones off while re-re-reconverting him. Closeup looks terrible, he is not that ugly actually, there is some resin dust on him apparently.
Next one up is Espaldo with the promised addition of chains to hold both his weapons into place. Looks crude, but thats just the flavor he is supposed to have.
Last, but not exactly least, Silvestro and maybe the biggest update today. I gave him proper lamp for his backpack and a variety of nice looking tools for his belt. Might still add some GS to blend the naked arm into the clothed rest of him.
The Helmet on Acero looks brilliant...he looks like a miner now . Brilliant idea using a death corp helmet with added lamp (though I shudder at the cost of cutting them up).
I think I preferred the hunchback without the stubber chain....he looked so muscly and hard lugging the gun about, now he looks a little weaker. The shotgun on the other hand looks better with the chain.
Silvestro looks better for the added tools and again a death corp helmet.
Looking forward to seeing some more of these guys and your delaques.
PDH wrote:No Ikit but a great update none the less.
Be assured Ikit is in the making, spent some time today sawing and drilling him to bits. I've already put a rough thing together with blue tac, he is starting to get a shape. He will be lots of work though. And like we discussed in your blog, you will still be able to recognize those very recognizable parts of him, but I'm positive it won't look like a head and weapon swap.
I cut of his legs and his "hood" so the stature of my model will be much more erect, than the bend over original. Also I recognized how small the original model is compared to a normal 28mm human, which mine no longer is, quite the opposite.
I'm looking forward to do more work on him, but I want to complete Radius first.
The Helmet on Acero looks brilliant...he looks like a miner now . Brilliant idea using a death corp helmet with added lamp (though I shudder at the cost of cutting them up).
I don't use actual dkk helmets, they are recasts for this exact purpose. I don't hesitate to spend money on a project, so no matter the cost as long as it's what I imagine, but it would be a waste of the lovely dkk soldiers to cut them up just for their helmets. So be assured "no imperial soldiers were harmed during this conversion".
I think I preferred the hunchback without the stubber chain....he looked so muscly and hard lugging the gun about, now he looks a little weaker. The shotgun on the other hand looks better with the chain.
My main concern with the chains is that they are quite distracting and take away from the tailormade armor. Hhhm...
Looking forward to seeing some more of these guys and your delaques.
Yeah, it's hammer time... I mean Delaque time. I really want to do more on my own gang soon. The scarecrows are my babies to, but I don't feel like I'm their biological father. It's my foster gang.
Scrazza wrote:Your stuff looks awesome. I rather Like Acero. But I have to agree with PDH, the hunchback looked better without the chains.
Thanks Scrazza, will think about the thing with Espaldo.
The scarecrows could be your surrogate baby gang (and cue the non-intended imagery of a gang of babies, hearkening back to that one terrible movie *cringing*). But yeah, though I liked the chains, I have the same reaction with "they distract from the painstakingly made armour on him," but you could just make the chains such a colour as to either make the chains complement the armour or make the chains blend in with the armour, making one composite piece of looking at.
@Lord Kaesar:
You make sense, I thought about the same thing, the paintjob will need to make it right.
ghosty wrote:Pre-emptive strike! I saw Radius in your gallery. That is godlike!
Pre-emptive strike and premature ejaculation at the same time it is then... Thanks ghosty, "godlike" is an attribute I, as a naturally modest person, could get used to.
Ok peeps, give me a drumroll... Yeah I know, you'll say "another update already? we're still not done gasping at the last one..." but you have to understand me, I can't wait to show you this one. Radius is finished! Finally!
He made me crawl on my knees for hours, he made me get high from hobby-happyness when I roughly put him together for the first time, he made me crawl on my knees again, he depressed me, he made me crunch my balls and he finally made me happy, it's DONE! (Could be the story of a girl...)
Anyway here we go again, update time:
Meet Radius, experienced member of the Serpentes Obscvri, equipped with a very special pair of plasma pistols, which are being tube fed by a mighty charger backpack. Which of course represents both his gunfighter skill and his 2 attacks, 4 plasma shots per round that is. He has a lot of gear, so have a look yourselves for the rest of it.
Nuff said...PICS!
The whole conversion took quite a while, mainly because of the long break I needed not to bash him with a hammer, but I think it was worth it, I love him. Hope you do so too.
Like always I'll happily answer any questions, just didn't want to address everything in advance this time. Less text, more pics!
As a little reminder, what a long strange trip it's been:
Baiyuan - Wow I'm impressed with the effort you've gone to with the photos! Oh and the model aint half bad .
I think my favourite parts are the air tank dial/screw, snake symbol and the backpack. Go on what random nob parts have you used?
One tiny thing, and I loathe myself for mentioning it, but his sword scabbard is upside down.
I'm looking forward to seeing these guys finished excellent blog and I'm so glad you stopped lurking.
Cadaver - I really like your blog and your models.....so if you're starting over and trying harder I'm really in for a treat (how's your beardy bounty hunter?)
Cadaver - I really like your blog and your models.....so if you're starting over and trying harder I'm really in for a treat (how's your beardy bounty hunter?)
Peter
Well, I won't be starting over so much as starting a new gang. The gaming group has gotten to a point where gangs are getting pretty high gang ratings anyway, so something new will be refreshing. I just need to paint what I've built so far! The beardy bounty hunter is done-ish. Never messed with reposing the head, got him based and everything though.
I guess I should stop derailing Baiyuan's thread with comments on my own gang and get some updates posted in my own thread haha.
Massive amount of reactions, I'd say. Really motivating I can tell you, so thank you all! You will be rewarded with future projects. I'm having something particular in mind, but I won't go into detail now...
Time to answer on all the feedback.
Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:Just one thing ..... needs MAOR pipes and cables! really liking the conversion!
Seriously? More cables?
Cadaver wrote:It's conversions like this that make me look at my Necromunda conversions think to myself, "Start over, dude. You're not trying hard enough."
All of your conversions are great, but I like your delaques the best and this may be my favorite one yet. The attention to detail is incredible.
Huge compliment, mate. Thank you, I think it is one of the best things one can achieve when creativity leads to more creativity, so I hope to see some of your stuff soon.
Btw couldn't find your blog for some reason. Would you care to post a link, you made me curious.
PDH wrote:Baiyuan - Wow I'm impressed with the effort you've gone to with the photos! Oh and the model aint half bad .
I think my favourite parts are the air tank dial/screw, snake symbol and the backpack. Go on what random nob parts have you used?
One tiny thing, and I loathe myself for mentioning it, but his sword scabbard is upside down.
I'm looking forward to seeing these guys finished excellent blog and I'm so glad you stopped lurking.
The photos weren't much of an effort really. What do you mean?
The snake symbol is one of the weak spots on him imo. It looked much better originally, but I was too impatient and handled it before it was fully cured, so it lost some of it's crispness. (Still not used to the curing time of my new mixture of putty)
The tank itself is from a nob's axe. Can you identify the big plasma coils of the backpack? It's a common part...
That tiny thing about the scabbard, I adore you for both recognizing and mentioning it. I'm aware of the fact and it took me some effort to do it against my instincts. (I'm a teacher of martial arts and swordsplay, so it was considerable effort. ) The guy would have to draw the sabre left handed, holding it edge up and then switch hands and flip the sword, which he could do in one move, but... yeah, he would be dead long before doing so. Still I did it out of pure artistic motivation, the scabbard followed the arc of his coat nicely and it just looked ten times better. Also the snake tooth near the hilt needed to follow gravity.
I'm pretty proud of the scabbard in general by the way, it was a lot of filing to make the clumsy catachan scabbard look that way. I narrowed it, thinned it, shortened it, changed the arc of the tip of the blade, slimmed down the hilt and so on.
Sageheart wrote:great model, I've always loved those plasma pistols, its greatto see them used! What colors will you be painting him?
Thx, yes the pistols are lovely as they come, I didn't even dare altering them.
The color scheme has been a point of discussion here earlier and it is not set in stone yet, but roughly very pale skin, very dark blueish black coat and some colors that fit into the narrow palette. Still I can't really tell till he's painted.
Cadaver wrote: I guess I should stop derailing Baiyuan's thread with comments on my own gang and get some updates posted in my own thread haha.
Never mind. And again, I want that link, couldn't find it...
logg_frogg wrote:You do some super nice conversion work! I'm loving the attention to detal! *subscribed*
Great, thank you! I'm looking forward to more feedback.
monkeytroll wrote:Another gorgeous ganger in Radius. Well worth looking after that screw for the gas-tank. The pieces come together perfectly. Well done sir.
Thank you, sir!
Scrazza wrote:I'm really liking Radius. It's another top notch model. Great work!
Thank you!
neil101 wrote:Excellent work and great details , neat barrel drilling also.
Ah, yeah, the art of drilling! I'd have gone crazy if I messed these two sweethearts up, when drilling the barrels out. So I used like seven successively bigger getting drill bits here. Also it is actually a two-parted barrel, the auto adjust took it away in the pictures, but the barrel is wide on the first 2,5mm and quite narrow beyond that point. I like the effect of that. Made the pistols even cooler in my opinion.
You can see it here:
ghosty wrote:That's right folks, the drilled barrels are the reason why the miniature is so cool! Way to go!
I HATE undrilled barrels! I even drill the barrels of pulse rifles... People who don't do it should be handed over to the inquisition or reabsorbed by the swarm or something.
Absolutely awesome! So much detail, I'm drooling. It makes such a change to see really well done delaques - so many people seem to just go for staight-out-of-the-box matrix clones with no originality. The small details just make yours
Certainly a major improvement over the original models, Baiyuan.
And just wondering- your bases... who makes them? They look really nice. I'm wondering if they carry anything in the more traditional variety, although the rounded edges are also pretty stylin'.
Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:Of course not seriously! Loving the pipes and cables! Looks super!
Alright, wouldn't have known where to put any more.
Cadaver wrote:Yeah, here they are
Checked it out and commented, good stuff mate. Thx.
Scarper wrote:Absolutely awesome! So much detail, I'm drooling. It makes such a change to see really well done delaques - so many people seem to just go for staight-out-of-the-box matrix clones with no originality. The small details just make yours
Huge compliment, thx pal. I can't wait to see the finished gang myself, I mean painted and all. And I agree with you seems like nobody makes the effort to make cool Delaque. Best thing you find on the net is a solid weapon swap here and there. Same for the paintjobs, some look ok, but none managed to amaze me (my own might fail in this point too ).
HF Izanagi wrote:Certainly a major improvement over the original models, Baiyuan.
And just wondering- your bases... who makes them? They look really nice. I'm wondering if they carry anything in the more traditional variety, although the rounded edges are also pretty stylin'.
Thx, the bases are the scrapyard bases for Eden, so they are from Taban Miniatures. They also have wasteland and techno bases. I have them all, I'm using the wastelands on the miners and the techno and scrapyard on the Delaques.
Be warned about one thing though, they are bigger than standard bases, 30mm I guess. But they look decent and I hate making bases, though I can appreciate the superiority of a well made custom base.
neil101 wrote:I saw some nice tiny drills the other day , i may pick them up i always seem to bodge my drilling up. cheap drills bah!!
My drill bits are "my PRECIOUSSS!" I've been collecting them over years. My favorite ones were from I-kore they had 0,15mm drill bits back then. Every time I use it I'm reeeeally careful not to break it off.
Also it doesn't need to be mentioned imo, but I hear about people using their dremel for drilling all the time, which I'd never do, fine feeling does the job.
tallmantim wrote:Love the conversions - looks fantastic.
I particularly like the twin air feed hose on Radius - that is great - what sort of wire is it that you were able to bend them both neatly like that?
Cheers
Thank you. The hoses are just that, plastic tubes. They are not that stiff, but firm enough to paint I reckoned, otherwise I would have put a wire inside the tube, like with Perpetuus'. For bending wires neatly just take something roughly the same size and shape and bend it around it. Bending it with tools or fingers produces sharp bends most of the times for me.
EDIT: Daaah, the power of reading. I meant the power feeds of course. The wires linking mask and tank are just two 0,2mm silverwires glued together with superglue. PAIN in the ass to fix them into the mask and tank. And the secret recipe for bending them into shape is simple, paaaaaaaatience... lots of it...seriously.
In other news...
I haven't been able to spent time on my current project today, but I will work on it a lot tomorrow.
I can actually tell you, it's Alejandro, leader of the miner rebellion. While you might know I discussed using Ikit for him and I had actually started converting him out of Ikit. This meant I kept on cutting of parts off of him, till just the claw and backpack were left. Every time I had sawn something off, I thought that's not it yet.
My alternative idea was to build some kind of industrial work exosuit for him. Now it looks like I'm doing both, using parts of Ikit and scratchbuilding most of the rest. Won't tell you too much right now, you'll see.
Also I'd like to mention creativity can be a curse. I'm so full of ideas I'd like to make become true right now, it hurts to restrain from just starting, but I know it would be the death of one of the unfinished current projects, so I won't.
I just had that awesome idea how to build a unique, never seen before, mostly female ratskin gang. *must...do...it...noooot* So that goes to my list of future gangs, together with my plans for unique pit slaves, scavvies, ash wasters, mercenaries.... argh
Anyway, possible WIP update tomorrow, we will see...
migsula wrote:I love the energy and spirit of this blog - thanks for sharing sir!
So finally the venerable Migsula took notice of my little blog, cool. Considering that your "shades of grey" were one of the factors that gave me the initial impetus to start this blog, I'm especially happy about your kind words. Will try to keep both energy and spirit up. And sharing my stuff of course is my pleasure, when I get all the flattering feedback and productive critique I got so far.
Like I predicted I dedicated lots of time to the hobby today. Despite the fact that I was very productive, unfortunately there is at best only very little to show you right now.
Reason is that I didn't spend all the time on converting and we had a little painting session with the whole family. The positive result of this is, that Rayo, one of the pip gangers, is at the very brink of completion, so there will finally be a fully painted update very soon.
On the other hand I did push the conversion on Corroero (or Alejandro, the leader of the miners) quite a bit further and solved one of the main problems of the whole conversion.
I'll push to finish him soon (I really enjoy this one, because it's more scratchbuilding than converting and I can go crazy with him.) and until I do I thought I show you some mean little teaser:
Something strange happened to certain parts of the sneak peek, sorry.
As you can see, everything that's left of Ikit is his claw arm and I'm considering not even using that, can't say yet.
Anyway, I promise you will all love what you see, once I'm ready to show you the actual thing... Just picture a severely scarred guy in a scratch build industrial exoskeleton, nuff said.
PDH wrote:Hey Baiyuan I actually really dig that update....you're such a tease! Wow there really isn't much left of Ikit!
By the way what is the component 7 squares up and 9 across (looks like a vent with some sort of tank underneath it)
Yeah, poor, poor, mutilated Ikit!
That part that caught your eye used to belong to the left shoulder of an ork loota, the guy with the fusion gun I think. The loota guns contain lots of pipes, vents, tanks, meters, valves and the like. If you cut them into neat and small pieces they can be used for anything without saying "ork".
That tank/vent piece was one of the earliest parts I definitely wanted to use for Alejandro, actually even before the stage I build that shouldermounted flamer out of the missile launcher. (...which I definitely won't use now, what a pity.)
One problem with this part is that you'd have to decide whether you want the tanks or the vents, as they are situated on the opposite sides of the part. A work around would be to attach it with one of the blank sides facing the back of the model, but that looks weird.
Atm I'm not sure I'll have the space for it on Alejandro, as the number of parts I want to use has reached an impossible level, except I decide to make a new type of scout titan.
Which leads to Alejandro's status quo:
I didn't have much time today, so I only glued together some minor parts of his exo-skeleton, still so much work to do on that crap.
The general thing will be great I'm sure, but the skeleton supports on his legs are giving me HELL . It's no fun at the current stage...
Will have some time tomorrow so I hope to be able to push past this annoying phase of the conversion.
Might even get down to finish the paintjob on Rayo tomorrow, we'll see.
neil101 wrote:Naked all female Ratskins eh .. i say do this one next and good job on keeping on track this has to be the hardest part of the hobby.
Dude, I'm pretty sure I didn't say "all" female and I definitely didn't say "naked"! Their will be some nudity of course, but less than in your average music video, so don't get carried away pal.
Just because I like the prospect of converting it very much and adore the backround of ratskins I might consider actually doing this, I don't think they'd be the right thing to play with for me though.
In other news, I just yesterday had a great idea where to get more different models for my Delaque gang from. Heresy is the obvious choice and I've been using them already, but they are quite petite. My new solution will require less explanations, since it's from GW. Wanna guess?
In other news, I just yesterday had a great idea where to get more different models for my Delaque gang from. Heresy is the obvious choice and I've been using them already, but they are quite petite. My new solution will require less explanations, since it's from GW. Wanna guess?
More news in the evening...
I'm guessing Vahallans? I just bought a few for a Delaque gang I'm starting and with some head swaps and removal of the big bedrolls or whatever they have around their cloaks, I think they're going to work really well.
lol , just my tawdry subconcious filling in the blanks then , although i have an excuse i was pretty washed out when i typed that. well clothed or unclothed i am sure you will do them justice.
Cadaver wrote: I'm guessing Vahallans? I just bought a few for a Delaque gang I'm starting and with some head swaps and removal of the big bedrolls or whatever they have around their cloaks, I think they're going to work really well.
Spot-on! Just what I thought, same proportions, the coats look exactly the same, head and/or weapon swap and they are good to go. Just ordered a whole squad and some loose ones from the weapon teams. Looking forward to delaquealize them.
Cadaver wrote: I'm guessing Vahallans? I just bought a few for a Delaque gang I'm starting and with some head swaps and removal of the big bedrolls or whatever they have around their cloaks, I think they're going to work really well.
Spot-on! Just what I thought, same proportions, the coats look exactly the same, head and/or weapon swap and they are good to go. Just ordered a whole squad and some loose ones from the weapon teams. Looking forward to delaquealize them.
Awesome! I can't wait to see your take on them. Mine are coming in from the UK so I probably won't get them for a few weeks, I just got a package of Instant Mold in today so I want to test out making bandoliers that I can mass produce in green stuff molds to put in place of the vahallan bedrolls after I dremel them off. Depending on the scale I think I'll be using the soon to be released Maxmini gasmask heads for my gang. I want to go for a very sinister looking Delaque gang. I have so many ideas for my projects it's always great to take a look at amazing blogs like yours just to keep my motivation high!
My gaming group has found a little goldmine online for rarer minis, which I haven't mentioned before, but I feel like it's worth contributing to the community as a whole and supporting a good online store that caters somewhat to the Necro crowd. You might want to check it out for grabbing specific single, harder to find minis for your projects:
Cadaver - you're lucky you live so far away because for that link I'd kiss you. (Then probably have to help Abi bury your body, after she kills you for giving me another cool website to "waste" my money on) Must not buy the Primaris Psyker.... I must not... I must not.... I must not.
Baiyuan - Sounds like you have some interesting plans on the go. Especially looking forward to the all naked female ratskins . I can tell I'm getting on a bit when I turn on the music tv station to find soft core porn (I really wish Lady Gaga would put on some clothes). Thanks for the parts advice...I'll be having a look on some bit sights at those loota's now.
PDH wrote:Cadaver - you're lucky you live so far away because for that link I'd kiss you. (Then probably have to help Abi bury your body, after she kills you for giving me another cool website to "waste" my money on) Must not buy the Primaris Psyker.... I must not... I must not.... I must not.
Peter
If possible I'd prefer not to be killed and buried in a shallow grave. Maybe just get the models sent to your office. She never has to know and I can live!
But seriously, the site is cool. It so awesome to be able to get older minis without the hassle of ebay or buying a whole box direct from GW. So if you must tell Abi, just explain that in the long run you actually are saving money buying there!
@Cadaver: Thanks for sharing that link, juicy prices, but if you want one specific model I'm sure it's awesome. Will have an eye on their stock.
Also I'm excited to see what you will be doing to the valhallans, sounds quite different from what I thought about. Hope to see two distinct, great approaches to the same idea in the end. Btw did you mean these heads?http://www.maxmini.eu/store/images/toxhead2.jpg If so I'm curious if they will look like savlar chem dogs or not.
@PDH: I'm sure you're just teasing me, but they will not be all naked. Also don't get me wrong, there is nothing bad about soft core porn music videos...
They haven't been released for sale yet, but I imagine now that the first test of the molds have been done they will be on sale shortly. I am a little worried they may be more marine sized, and not human sized, in which case I may try making something similar myself in a more suitable scale.
@Cadaver: Ok, thats what I was afraid of. I've been having an eye on those heads too (not for the valhallans) and when you mentioned bio hazard helmets I thought you can't be talking about those. We will have to wait till we see a proper scale comparison, but they look astartes sized to me. Also they are real helmets, I'd have to wait and see what you come up with, because from the top of my head trenchcoats and scuba diver helmets don't mix. Anyway hope to start our valhallan delaque "competition" soon. Cheers mate.
News:
The weekend was quite busy and I had practically no chance to work on Alejandro and to be honest I also lacked motivation.
To jolly me along I bought loads of cheap hobby stuff on ebay. And today decided to work on another project again, until I'm inspired by the muse again.
You might remember that other project, if you're a regular and long-time reader of my blog. It's the ogryn miner and I made good progress today, so you may expect a hulking and buzzing update soon.
That being said I can tell you what I am "so excited" about. I mentioned working on my buzzsaw wielding miner orgyn, right?
Well I'm almost done building the buzzsaw and it looks so damn good! (I know, tooting my own horn again...)
Considering that the saw is the major part of the conversion and that I'm only planning to make some minor alterations to the already fantastic fw ogryn, the mini is near completion.
I will take pictures of the components this afternoon and then start to glue the saw together. If I'm quick I'll be able to present the saw to you tonight and the whole ogryn tomorrow. So keep your fingers crossed...
Ok, having lunch, walking the dog, back to converting...
Hey Baiyuan. You got me... I was just teasing you about the all naked ratskins. Its actually one of the things I have a problem with in Scfi/fantasy models....the nudity often looks absurd. If I were a women in the far flung future I'd think twice before I fight off a hoard of mutants/plague zombies with at autopistol and my boobs out! Come on I've not got a problem with scantily clad but naked is just plain ridiculous, oh and you'd want a shotgun not an autopistol!
Cannot wait to see the buzzsaw armed ogryn....fingers and toes crossed.
@PDH: Great minds think alike PDH. I like women, and guess what, I also like them nude, but nudity just for nudities sake is beyond my understanding especially in fiction. I wouldn't fight mutants with my balls hanging out and the same would apply to my boobies if I were a woman. Can't find a pic of that female scifi marine with the pulse rifle, the armored legs and the bare chest. That's a perfect example of the absurdity of compulsive nudity, it's a great miniature, apart from the needless and mindless nudity. Well, maybe this is just one of the things people with an IQ above 70 can't understand, so let's not try...
News:
I'm sorry that I can't show you the ogryn yet. The saw is finished, save for some minor details, you know a valve here, some scratches there. Nevertheless I won't show it before it's perfect, which will be tomorrow. Expect a major update!
To ease your pain (or maybe make it worse) I have another teaser for you all. I know I've been teasing more than I've been releasing recently and it's getting old, but I promise Cortaro (the ogryn has a name now) will make up for all my teasing.
I hope this little shot of the project box will keep your imagination occupied until then:
btw: How can I post pictures from the gallery, so that they are a link to the gallery as well?
Damn you, imagination! Damn you, perfectionism! Long story short, I'm not done with the saw yet.
I'd have never expected it to take that much more time to finish, but I had to change some things again, because they didn't make much sense, had lots of additional ideas on the way and started adding the real details, photo etched parts that is.
Tomorrow I'm taking a day off, because of my birthday and will get up soon and have some quality hobby time until the family arrives. Which means I will complete my masterpiece tomorrow.
Until then, feast your eyes on a nice little WIP shot, most of the parts even made into the final version.
So relax your mind and let your conscience be free... and picture what I might have done with those parts...
Thank you all for the gratulations, I had a great day!
@PDH:
Thx, for cheese and dice. What detail do you mean?
Just because I like shots of people's workstations:
OK now, here it comes! Update time!
The Project:
It's been in the making for quite some time now. Now I'm done with the circular buzz saw for my rebel miner ogryn, Cortaro. I won't go into detail about the character now, since he is not done yet, just the weapon. So I'm keeping the backround for when the whole model is finished (next week I'd say).
The status of the saw is actually 99% since there are some spots that need some putty, but that's the hands and arms mostly.
The idea for the conversion started with the lovely FW miniature and the ugly looking hands and puny pickaxe he had. I felt the urge to make a major change and give him that industrial flavor I'm aiming for with my rebel miners.
The logical solution was a supersized powertool. Chainsaw? Nah, eeeeeeverybody has that and there are enough "chain somethings" in 40k. Drill? There are not that many around and it would look cool, but I would want the killa kans drill for that, so it has to wait. Well, long story short, I was looting the waaghbiker box looking for something else and came across that one specific bike and it immediately turned into a circular saw in my imagination.
The Conversion:
First steps were trimming and rearranging the bike.
Next was finding new hands to replace the oddly shaped and crude looking old hands.
After that was done I looked around for circular blades, there are a few in the orks range and I tried out the nob's ones, too small. FW boss on waaghbikes blade didn't have the right flavor, too orky and it was slightly too big. Killa kans and Deff dread I couldn't test, because I don't have the boxes, also I reckoned they might be to big, plus it would be a waste to cut them up, just for the blade.
So scratchbuilding it is. I had to make three blades to get the size and shape right and practice some carving techniques. Very time-consuming...
After a couple of hours of work the basic parts were found and I entered one of the most difficult stages of the conversion. Fitting the framework together, handle blades, tank and so on. I bet I bluetacked the components together a hundret times. Bending the handles, carving out the space for the blade (there was zero space inside the warbikes wheel housing)... Finding all the parts took forever too, they come from dozens of sources. I was well into the conversion (15h+) when I discarded the first idea of lamp and found a proper exhaust.
Fitting everthing together took me ages and at this point I thought I was almost done. The blade and the handle weren't in place yet, but that was basicly it, hell was I wrong...
The next pictures show some of the WIP stages. First an early idea for a lamp, which was crap. Why is there a lamp on that thing looking like an exhaust...
Some new details I considered using.
Along the road I had the idea of adding a safety shield to the blade, like some circular saws have them. With shield.
Without the shield.
The carved out wheel housing. Looks rough I know, but I figured that's what it would look like inside a saw for cutting ore.
New lamp with detailed wiring.
Ok, some dozen hours later, everthing was glued into place, suitable details were found and I took pictures of the final components on their own.
In the end it looked like this:
So after something like 30h+ of worktime and including more than 50 parts into the weapon alone, I had accomplished my mission, building a proper, industrial looking, (did I mention magnetized) heavy duty ore saw, worthy of the lovely renegade ogryn. Enjoy!
Ok, comments please! Praise it if you will, but don't hesitate to nitpick, we're here for the creative exchange, aren't we. Myself I'm not exactly sure about some parts:
What do you think of the blade shield? As it is, it makes the whole saw look like a lanternfish, which is cool, but maybe too orky.
The second problem also includes the shield, do you think I should shorten or even trim off the teeth of the jaw and those shards attached to the hull of the saw? Too orky again?
My work on Cortaro himself will continue tomorrow, so that he can soon say his punchline for the first time: "I saw you!!!"
You've outdone yourself yet again! I love the buzzsaw. I do prefer it without the guard. It doesn't look overly Orky, but I think it looks better without.
Now, I must nitpick a little - the model looks a little front heavy with such a huge weapon. Maybe just pose him where he's a little more centered on the base and that will help. Again, it's minor nitpicking, but something I noticed immediately in the first pic. I think that's also part of the reason I prefer it without the guard, just because it's adding additional bulk to the front of the model.
Still extremely cool and I love the end result. Little details like the lamp just put it over the top for me. Excellent work!
Just to go back to the guard.
I would remove the teeth tbh. The problem is not so much that it looks orkish, but that the serrated aesthetic is not working with the blocky bulkiness of the Ogryn now I look again.
The studded glove he has would be a better style for the guard. Hope that makes sense.
make a spare buzzsaw blade and put it somewhere on the ogryn, such as hanging in place of the cogwheel, it would look cool imho aside from that, ITS AWESOME
Hmmm if he put a spare blade on there wouldn't he also need a sprocket or wrench? Maybe some oil or a fuel can , i dont think a crazed ogryn is gonna be capable of changing the blade on that beast. I dont mind the guard as imo it is hard to avoid anything improvised looking orkish so you might as well embrace it.
Ok, That is incredible. Such attention to detail... I'm convinced you would benefit from a straight jacket ;~P
Really, incredible. I'm not quite sold on the blade guard. I think it looks cool, but it looks a little big, with the toothy bits at the top of the saw blade as well.
The ork boxes have so many good detail bits, I've been tempted to get another box of Lootaz/Burnas just to pilfer the Deff-gunz for bitz.
Well , the timing is perfect becauser i can actually here a huge buzzsaw from my writing position , the whining cough, spluttering is quite dreadfull , ( watre works ) but to have this image to go with it, is disturbing , to say the least, the chain pull is such a nice touch and the , custom blade i would have sworn was shop bought. its big and nasty like it should be , perfect for that beast of a ogryn , kudos , on all the hard work fella.
Absolutely amazing! Really! I actually had to look at it several times to find any citisizm at all, and it's just asthetics...and only because you asked us to be nit-picky! The guard looks great, and not overly Orky, but it looks like it's kind of in the way, you'd be able to do much more damage with it removed...however, it looks nastier with it on, so I'm torn...
But great job! I would say that I want to steal the idea, but I would never get it to look anything like what you have come up with! Bravo!
First things first, before I start replying to your posts individually I'd like thank you all for your numerous flattering comments, it's very motivating to see, that you people like what I do. This project was especially much fun for me so far and it seems to do the same for you.
Perkustin wrote:Why take a normal buzzsaw when you can make one out of a motor cycle. Great ogre very mencaing and brutal...
Just what I was thinking, why take a normal one, plus I couldn't think of a proper one.
Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:It is all looking jolly D mate! Those of a certain age will remember the ads:
Blackanddakkablackanddakka...and so on and so forth
I liked the ad and I have some black&deckers, I could add the logo to the saw when painting it.
Cadaver wrote:You've outdone yourself yet again! I love the buzzsaw. I do prefer it without the guard. It doesn't look overly Orky, but I think it looks better without.
Now, I must nitpick a little - the model looks a little front heavy with such a huge weapon. Maybe just pose him where he's a little more centered on the base and that will help. Again, it's minor nitpicking, but something I noticed immediately in the first pic. I think that's also part of the reason I prefer it without the guard, just because it's adding additional bulk to the front of the model.
Still extremely cool and I love the end result. Little details like the lamp just put it over the top for me. Excellent work!
Thanks for the overly kind words. I hear your words about the front heaviness, in fact the model is not properly fixed to the base yet, which was actually just a quick idea to make the ogryn look less hunched and more like on the top of a hill. I will see to it, once I build his base and decide on a final position for him. Please be sure to keep an eye on whether I solve the problem in the final version or not.
Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:Just to go back to the guard.
I would remove the teeth tbh. The problem is not so much that it looks orkish, but that the serrated aesthetic is not working with the blocky bulkiness of the Ogryn now I look again.
The studded glove he has would be a better style for the guard. Hope that makes sense.
I think I know what you mean. I haven't made up my mind yet, but I thought from the beginning, that the teeth on the saw itself have to go.
haranos wrote:make a spare buzzsaw blade and put it somewhere on the ogryn, such as hanging in place of the cogwheel, it would look cool imho aside from that, ITS AWESOME
Perkustin wrote:Hmmm if he put a spare blade on there wouldn't he also need a sprocket or wrench? Maybe some oil or a fuel can , i dont think a crazed ogryn is gonna be capable of changing the blade on that beast. I dont mind the guard as imo it is hard to avoid anything improvised looking orkish so you might as well embrace it.
Good thinking, I actually planned to do that right from the start. At first I thought I could say the cog wheel was a spare blade, but of course it's way to small now. I actually imagined the saw to be able to unlock the blade upon a button press and release it to be bouncing through anything roughly in front of it, so I planned to give it a release handle and some spare blades. Giving him a wrench seamed cool to me to and I'm still considering it. As far as I can see there won't be enough room for spare blades in the end. Not sure yet.
HF Izanagi wrote:... I bow to your insane creativity. I'm impressed that the 50-pc ensemble chainsaw is about 1 step away from being fully functional and the blade being able to spin... simply amazing!
Thank you, very flattering, I like that. Btw the only thing that made me glue the blade in place was the fact, that there are one or two teeth on it, that didn't turn out very good, so I positioned them on the inside. The blade was able to spin at first, but it felt to much like a toy and I don't like that, it's a model, so I had to restrain from the fun of spinning the blade and making "wrinnn wrinnn wrinnn" sounds.
The Good Green wrote:Ok, That is incredible. Such attention to detail... I'm convinced you would benefit from a straight jacket ;~P Really, incredible. I'm not quite sold on the blade guard. I think it looks cool, but it looks a little big, with the toothy bits at the top of the saw blade as well. Thanks for raising the bar.
I'm wearing a straight jacket, that's why I have to do everthing with my mouth and feet, my minis would turn out waaay better if I was able to use my hands... Again I'll address the teeth and blade guard soon, but I know exactly what you mean, thx.
tipios wrote:Wow! The blade is perfect, and thanks for showing how it was done Fantastic idea and conversion. Only nitpick I have, is with the handle. Just below left hand, where your plastic tube enters. Can you GS it so the original part looks straighter?
I didn't exactly show it, that was step one of many many more. If you're interested I'm willing to share the whole process. You're nitpicking is welcome, I'm not 100% sure what you mean though. On the very last picture I agree the handle looks strange, I think it slipped out of position there, it's not supposed to bend sideways and it normally doesn't, if that's what you meant. If you mean the fact that the white tube is not in line with the reception of it and there is a slight bend towards the saw, I don't mind that, It looks ok to me.
neil101 wrote:Well , the timing is perfect becauser i can actually here a huge buzzsaw from my writing position , the whining cough, spluttering is quite dreadfull , ( watre works ) but to have this image to go with it, is disturbing , to say the least, the chain pull is such a nice touch and the , custom blade i would have sworn was shop bought. its big and nasty like it should be , perfect for that beast of a ogryn , kudos , on all the hard work fella.
Hehe, I was very happy when I saw some construction workers with a big buzzsaw cutting open a street some weeks ago, when I was in the middle of building the saw. Nothing beats a real reference. About the blade I could have made ten more, because it didn't seem that good to me, glad nobody recognized.
RSJake wrote:Absolutely amazing! Really! I actually had to look at it several times to find any citisizm at all, and it's just asthetics...and only because you asked us to be nit-picky! The guard looks great, and not overly Orky, but it looks like it's kind of in the way, you'd be able to do much more damage with it removed...however, it looks nastier with it on, so I'm torn...
But great job! I would say that I want to steal the idea, but I would never get it to look anything like what you have come up with! Bravo!
Don't hesitate to try, I'll happily assist you with my experience.
monkeytroll wrote:Excellent work as always. The chain was an inspired idea, loving that. Personally I'd lose the guard, or at least lose the teeth from it, not neccesarily too orky, just doesn't gel with the aesthetics of the rest.
Overall impression - towards the high end of outstanding
Very flattering! The chain is one of my favorite parts too, it was a blast when I had the idea.
No time to update on my works now, gotta go eat with my students. I'll inform you about my progress later this evening.
Well, later is now. Recent Progress: I've been a bad boy! Instead of finishing my ogryn (I worked on him but he's not done yet), I worked on something all new and not affiliated with any of my current projects.
I accidently bought a miniature from Ebay and when it arrived yesterday I couldn't resist to start converting it. I actually had no idea what to do with it, because I had not expected to win the auction with a bid of 1€. So there it was and I thought about possible conversions, I considered something ratskinish, but it didn't exactly fit.
My next thought was Genestealer Magus and that's what it's going to be. I already swapped the head, removed any details that did not work with a magus and added additional arms.
I know, I know, Magi are 4th Generation and will normally not have additional limbs. Keyword is normally Genestealers are highly mutating and nobody can tell me it can't happen. Plus the fluff has changed in so many significant ways over the many years, nobody knows what might happen next time.
Anyway I'll try to steer away from the magus again soon, so I can continue with my other projects, but I can't guarantee. It's such a tempting quick conversion, as far as anything I start can be considered quick.
Wow i think i should congratulate you on your wonderfully written replies to so many comments as much as i should on your sidetracked Magus! Can only immagine the detailed lengths you will go to on such a project. Btw can i ask what you teach? if its not too personel a question for the forums?
Ah what a treat! Come back from a weekend of wild camping and foot destroying hill walking to find possibly the best armed ogryn I've ever seen.
@PDH:
Thx, for cheese and dice. What detail do you mean?
I meant the buzz saw blade teeth. But you have answered that with the WIP picture. Very nicely done!
Now perhaps I just wasn't paying attention before but I assumed the buzz saw was replacing his hand....not an actual buzz saw tool - which is simply stunningly! I think it works perfectly and I wish I had the imagination to have seen that final product from the parts.
My only suggestions are:
The pose. I think the ogryn needs to be tipped back. As in what he is standing on should not be flat. It should be sloped up towards the front of the base.
The blade guard. This part should go completely. Not that I don't think it looks cool but using a tool as a weapon and keeping the safety guard would make it pretty ineffective!Though it does look pretty heavy so I suppose he could just bludgeon his opponent with the guard
neil101 wrote:Wow i think i should congratulate you on your wonderfully written replies to so many comments as much as i should on your sidetracked Magus! Can only immagine the detailed lengths you will go to on such a project. Btw can i ask what you teach? if its not too personel a question for the forums?
I can hardly imagine any of my replies are wonderfully written considering my insufficient english language skills, but if you say so, well thank you very much.
I'm excited about the magus as well, must resist the urge to make a full-fledged project from it...
About my field of activity, I don't mind the question at all. I'm a teacher for two different subjects, language and martial arts. So on one hand I teach German and Chinese and on the other hand I teach traditional chinese martial arts, mostly to adults (though I also used to work with kids for some time). And if you were to ask my fiance she would say I teach absolutely everything, whether one asks me to or not.
Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:Baiyuan teaches forum etiquette and good manners Neil As well as excellent miniature modelling.
You know all the compliments could actually make me become arrogant, if I wasn't an arrogant bastard already, that is.
PDH wrote:Ah what a treat! Come back from a weekend of wild camping and foot destroying hill walking to find possibly the best armed ogryn I've ever seen. Now perhaps I just wasn't paying attention before but I assumed the buzz saw was replacing his hand....not an actual buzz saw tool - which is simply stunningly! I think it works perfectly and I wish I had the imagination to have seen that final product from the parts.
My only suggestions are:
The pose. I think the ogryn needs to be tipped back. As in what he is standing on should not be flat. It should be sloped up towards the front of the base.
The blade guard. This part should go completely. Not that I don't think it looks cool but using a tool as a weapon and keeping the safety guard would make it pretty ineffective!Though it does look pretty heavy so I suppose he could just bludgeon his opponent with the guard
Best armed eh? Thanks!
About the pose, oh yes he will be tipped back, he actually is already. That's why I put him on the landraider hatch in the first place, but the bluetack gave in over the weeks, so the original angle isn't there anymore. Like I said somewhere before I want him to climb a slope to make him look less hunched. So we totally agree in this point. Another reason for this is that one can see much more of the saw if he is holding it out over an edge.
The blade guard... difficult topic. I hear what you say about it, had that in mind at some point too, but I came to the conclusion that it makes the saw more credible overall. I have difficulties to decide what to do with it, but I'm almost determined to get rid of the teeth on the saw itself. They distract from the blade, prevent the guard from being turned to the front and just don't feel absolutely right for a tool, which maybe has been quickly altered for better combat usage. I'll see what the guard looks like once the teeth are gone and decide then.
Talking about quick alterations I had the idea to bind the guard to the exhaust with some wire, like they wanted to make it not get in the way. Hhm, thanks for pushing me there, could be funny. Some more storytelling for that model.
Hey guys,
just wanted to keep you up to date. It's been a rather busy week and I had to play through Crysis 2 (decent game). I'm done with that now and ready to get back to my projects.
I haven't been idle though, I installed a new chest of drawers in my workshop, which grants me much more space for my innumerable tools, bits and kits.
I also went back to further preparing some scenery kits for our gaming table, which is a pain in the ass.
I had a look into my Tau and Necron boxes, which both contain huge mainly untouched armies and found an old project, that is now intrigueing me to get back to. (A necron warmachine I dubbed tombscorpion something like 6 or 7 years ago.)
And last but not least I have been thinking, yeah just thinking, about how much I need to get painting more.
Anyhoo, I will have some time tomorrow, so let's see how I'll put it to use...
Hey Baiyuan!
Okay, Cortaro (Cutter? Nice touch!). First off: Wow. I'll just leave that on it's own, because that was, for around 30 seconds, my original reaction. No analysis, nothing else, just that. I have absolutely no idea how you fit those parts together in your head - looking at pieces from such eclectic sources and seeing something completely different, then putting them together in a way that not only works but works cohesively requires one hell of an analytical mind, and one that I am insanely jealous of.
That being said, I agree with some of the others in thinking that that guard should go. It looks perfectly fitting with the tool, and is definitely worth saving for another model, but I definitely think that if you've modified a saw with the express purpose of harm, keeping a protective cover on it is a little counterproductive! The binding may work though, and I'm sure you'll find a way
It sounds like I'm selling your saw short, but on of my favourite touches is the extra drive shaft (?) on his belt - it really sells the conversion, and ties his weapon to him. I'm sure you've stopped noticing all the comments on detail by now, but I can't resist
Overall - astounding. As always, any criticisms are incredibly minor, and barely worth making. BUT, I've come to understand that you're a fan of the little things, so still thought it was worth mentioning Keep up the amazing work, and sorry for the comment drought recently!
Scarper wrote:Hey Baiyuan!
Okay, Cortaro (Cutter? Nice touch!). First off: Wow. I'll just leave that on it's own, because that was, for around 30 seconds, my original reaction. No analysis, nothing else, just that. I have absolutely no idea how you fit those parts together in your head - looking at pieces from such eclectic sources and seeing something completely different, then putting them together in a way that not only works but works cohesively requires one hell of an analytical mind, and one that I am insanely jealous of.
That being said, I agree with some of the others in thinking that that guard should go. It looks perfectly fitting with the tool, and is definitely worth saving for another model, but I definitely think that if you've modified a saw with the express purpose of harm, keeping a protective cover on it is a little counterproductive! The binding may work though, and I'm sure you'll find a way It sounds like I'm selling your saw short, but on of my favourite touches is the extra drive shaft (?) on his belt - it really sells the conversion, and ties his weapon to him. I'm sure you've stopped noticing all the comments on detail by now, but I can't resist Overall - astounding. As always, any criticisms are incredibly minor, and barely worth making. BUT, I've come to understand that you're a fan of the little things, so still thought it was worth mentioning Keep up the amazing work, and sorry for the comment drought recently!
Thank you for the flattering words, Scarper! You know I'm a huge fan of your stuff and I think that shows one thing: Even if what you say about my analytical mind is true and even though you might envy me (I tell you it's as much of curse, as of a blessing...), your work shows that there is more than one way to creating something great and inspiring. So we work in completely different ways from one another, and we both see things in the others work that are out of reach for us. I'm quite jealous of the flavor in your works. I find it hard to define, but there is something in your work that is beyond me, it really tickles the g-spot of my imagination. Your warden for example even as a wip is really pulling me in.
Oh and finally someone recognized (or just mentioned) the names are not coincidence. That's true for all my gangers btw and I'm glad you like it.
Behind th Mask wrote:Just stumbled onto this thread, .... AWESOME work so far. That buzzsaw is to damn cool man. GREAT work on it.
Thanks, and welcome to my blog man, stay tuned!
About my recent progress:
This whole week was not very creative/productive, I didn't get to do a lot of what I like the most, pushing the projects. And what I managed to do wasn't satisfying, I need a fix...
I only had one short session with my ogryn and I still have no idea what more needs to be done to him. I added a double tank to his back (works perfect, but needs to be blended into the rest) and I started fitting the mask of some fantasy ork on his face (wasn't sure about it at first I just thought his masked face was to plain, but it's starting to look good), but I still feel there is something amiss. I'm still considering giving him a big wrench, but I can't find a sensible spot to put it. Same for some other pieces of possible equipment. Really not sure yet.
I also built a base for Cortaro and I have to say, I hate it! Not the base, it's boring but not hateful. I mean making bases in general! Creating a diorama would be something different, because it becomes part of the model. But bashing together parts for a base, I don't like that... Anyway save for the sand/dust/dirt it's done now and that's a good thing.
I also spent a little time sawing and filing off parts of two Valhallans to convert them into Delaques. Worked quite ok on one of them, the other will need some serious "dremel"ing and I decided to get back to more important things for the moment before I got there.
What I did the most this week, was watching Scrubs and removing moldlines from some thousands of parts of scenery. I'm sure you know those bio hazard/chemical plants from tehnolog.ru. Well I got a couple of them and it's a pain in the ass to prepare them for assembly. I think I mentioned before that we bought scenery consisting of far more than 15k parts and I'm almost done preparing all the parts. Unfortunatly I have had only very little help and I'm starting to lose the spirit. There are still three more boxes I didn't even touch yet...
thats a lot of prepping mate. Create i diorama i say . a mini one , i did one today to stop burnout. you could always think of your bases as dioramas, allbeit tiny ones.
Hehehe, I'd noticed one or two of the names, but I had to look this one up, so thought I'd mention it Thanks so much for the (incredibly!) kind words, but rest assured that there was no flattery involved - I am seriously and genuinely impressed.
It sounds like the tank will have filled up a lot of the blank space on Cortaro's back, but I'm not really sure what else to suggest :/ You could try some survival gear? Or maybe a pendant or personal item hanging from his belt - kinda falls into the "dumb brute" cliche a little, but might add a little more character.
I always find when a model or project is really frustrating me (Case in point: Murdoch), the advice you gave me is excellent: Forget it for a while until you want to work on it again, otherwise you won't even want to look at it. Or you could burn it, I guess Hope things work out more favourably for you this week!
neil101 wrote:thats a lot of prepping mate. Create i diorama i say . a mini one , i did one today to stop burnout. you could always think of your bases as dioramas, allbeit tiny ones.
Now that you remind me, I'm still waiting for those tiny rats to add to my bases to make them look more lively...
Scarper wrote:It sounds like the tank will have filled up a lot of the blank space on Cortaro's back, but I'm not really sure what else to suggest :/ You could try some survival gear? Or maybe a pendant or personal item hanging from his belt - kinda falls into the "dumb brute" cliche a little, but might add a little more character.
Yes and No. (Did I mention that English really lacks a word to say both at the same time? In German we have "Jein" which is "Ja" and "Nein" in one word...) Anyway, even though the tanks take some space (it's a burnaboy backpack put on the side), there still is some space that really needs something, but it's really hard to find something to go there. That spot is above the original tankthing on his back, close to his right shoulder...
jackanory wrote:PDH sent me this way. That buzzsaw is amazing!
Thank you, welcome to my blog! I had a look at your scavvies and got to say, they something else. Very artsy and unique! I'll keep an eye on them.
In other news, I'm trying hard to force myself to paint. I know it will just take one motivational event to get me back to painting with pleasure, so I'm finishing off one of the gangers. Rayo it is and even though I've been quite sloppy out of the need to get him done, I think he doesn't suck that bad. He is done already, I just need to finish his base, because he didn't have a proper one when I started painting. I think I can finish him this night, so expect pictures before tomorrow.
What is it with the fricking gallery? Uploaded those new pictures 6 times now and they are damaged everytime...
After trying another dozen times it finally worked... so here we go!
Update Time!
What I'm showin you this time is the first finished ganger of the Espantajos, his name is Rayo.
There is not much to say about the build, he used to be the renegade plasmagunner from the hq squad. I trimmed away the skull on his shoulder and replaced his plasmagun with a lasgun.
The paintjob is quite basic to be honest, because Rayo belongs to the first batch of gangers we started painting and is little more than a color scheme test.
I'm not exactly happy with how he turned out, but I really need to keep an eye on my standards if I want to get both my gangs done before retiring.
The scheme is like I said before: Orange jumpsuits, subtle colors for the rest of the equipment, greys, dark greens and browns.
The purple lenses on him are surely not everybody's cup of tea, but I like 'em. In the end there will be lots of different colored lenses for the miners.
One thing that might stand out is the color of the rifle and that I tried to make it look rather clean compared to the rest of his equip. The reasoning behind this is that slave miners don't normally are given rifles, so he took it from a guard after clubbing it down.
About the pictures, they are not ideal, some are blurred, some are dark, but most of them should give you a good impression of what Rayo looks like. (Although the orange of his suit for examples looks a little redder in the pics and so on.)
I think there isn't much more to say except be gentle with him, it's the first miniature I finished in more than 6 years.
I really like the subtle colors used against the orange jumpsuit. IIRC you mentioned they were sulfur miners. So my only suggestion would be to add some yellow weathering to their clothes. I know forge world sells a yellow weathering powder.
Krieg Solder 117 wrote:I really like the subtle colors used against the orange jumpsuit. IIRC you mentioned they were sulfur miners. So my only suggestion would be to add some yellow weathering to their clothes. I know forge world sells a yellow weathering powder.
Yeah that's right, they were supposed to be sulfur miners and I planned to have a lot of yellow weathering, but I changed my mind.
Even though I'm sure it would have looked good, I decided specializing on sulfur was too restrictive. There are so many kind of dangerous yet valuable ores to mine on a hive world. So not sticking to sulfur means more freedom to my imagination.
I'm thinking about using something like warpstones or psi reactive ore and the likes.
I hope you're painting at the moment and not just procrastinating online (like I am )
I like him....nice lasgun colour. The orange looks good I've lightened it on my head. I really like the purple lenses. The little details like the oxidisation on the tank/tube joins brings it together. I like how you've done the metal shoulder pad below too.
Another cursed week, meaning I didn't get to convert a lot. Instead I spent a lot of time on further prepping the scenery kits and unsprued the remaining 1100 parts and removed the majority of moldlines. My thumb is raw meat now and I'm taking a day off before I continue.
Today I actually managed to take an hours time to convert, that was too little time to actually work on my projects, so I dug up two models I have been thinking about for a couple of days.
One is a champion of Slaanesh I converted a couple of years ago and that has been waiting to get painted ever since. I like the model a lot and still intend to paint it, but he needs a proper base first of all. Since I don't play 40k anymore this will be a showcase piece and one sleepless night I've been thinking of a possible base for him. My plan is to put him on a very special wooden socket that I bought two years ago just because it looked so crazy. It's some kind of exotic root wood and the surface is full of bumps and ripples and it looks like the flow of warp to me. So I will have a multitude of hands protruding from the ripples of energy that serve the chosen of slaanesh as stairs. No priority project, but I will keep it somewhere on the shelf for moments of boredom.
The second was the one that actually included converting. I thought about building something with =I= flavor for a couple of days, it had to be either an Inquisitor or an Acolyte. In both cases I wanted to go for something more medieval, that will go well with my Vostroyan Stormtrooper conversions and that's how I got to think of Archaon the Pedestrian... Archaon on foot I mean...
He's been waiting to be used since that GD years ago, but I never found any use for him and even now that I have something in mind I've got to say, what a weird, weird miniature. Not only is he huge, but his whole pose is so incredulous and stupid. What's going on with his feet? He stands on that rock he comes with like he was glued to it, the angle is ridiculous and it looks just plain stupid. I think he was supposed to wear high heels "Archaon on heels", but they changed it last minute, sculpted a rock around his heels and took his rightful title "Archaon, Dragqueen of the end of times" from him.
Ok, let's just say I don't like his pose, which also holds true for his arms. The sword arm isn't thaaat bad, but definitely not ideal. And the shield arm looks like he is suffering from some severe kind of paralysis. All in all the arms won't be a problem, because they'll have to go anyway, otherwise he would always look like a mere 40k Archaon.
I started by removing the rock from his feet (No I couldn't find heels inside), tried some possible head swaps and thought about what weapons to give him and whether I'll keep his cape as it is, or not. So that's another side project...as if I needed any more!
Right now, apart from giving you an update, I'm painting the next, soon to be finished, miner and having some Ardbeg. Back to the painting table, Cheers!
My inquisitorial ambitions include an Inquisitor, a few henchmen and a couple of stormtroopers. The whole group will serve as some of the badass NPCs for the final stage of our necromunda campaign. So atm we are playing rather normal necromunda games (with a very customized rule set), to get the hang of it, but for the final stage I plan to have much more narrative elements and mission goals. I hope this will result in a very memorable finale worthy of our gangs.
The inquisitor is Iudex Probitas, a puritan member of Ordo Hereticus, who has come to Necromunda in order to investigate rumors of heretical tendencies amongst the noble houses of the planet. I'll write down his whole story sometime, but not now. Let's just say, that even though he is just observing and gathering evidence at the moment, he will have to take action soon and will therefore be a central element in the events to come.
I want the style of the inquisitorial troops to be very, very gothic. They will be a huge contrast to the grimy miners, the techy delaques, the military mercs and the exotic spire gladiators.
Götz von Berlichingen:
So far I'm thinking of using the soon to be converted Archaon as an inquisitorial henchman, who was born on "Berlichingen", an imperial planet with strong medieval features.
The people of Berlichingen worship martial prowess and tolerate almost any means to enhance them. Generations of bio-engineering and tube breeding the strongest men have resulted in an almost infertile (and some would whisper degenarate) caste of warriors of enormous physical dimensions, the Hiunen. On a first glance one might mistake the Hiunen for Astartes warriors, but that is mainly due to their immense size and heavy armor that looks similar to older models of power armor. In fact the Hiunen lack the versatile weapon training, advanced combat tactics and superior gene enhancements of true Astartes, yet they are fearsome warriors and their strength and endurance far beyond what a human can ever hope achieve.
Probitas once came to Berlichingen to shatter a coven of witches, that the rulers of the planet couldn't handle, due to the complete absence of psychic abilities amongst the noble and warrior casts. After a successful campaign against the rogue psykers that involved heavy losses, the lord of Berlichingen granted Inquisitor Probitas his greatest warrior as a sign of his gratitude, "Götz der Amboss". Being bound to Probitas for his lifetime by the traditional ritual of submission, Götz proved to be an indispensable addition to the retinue. When it comes to intimidating adversaries by sheer physique, taking hits to protect the Inquisitor or when a battle can be won by supremacy in close combat, nobody does it like Götz!
Now that I wrote it down, I'm quite satisfied with it and convinced it has some flavor, please tell me what you think. Too generic? Any suggestions to flesh him out even more? Anything you think the miniature must have to suit the backround?
The painting looks amazing - I've never seen orange done in a way that doesn't look cheesy before, but I really think you've pulled it off! The tone is dead on, and combined with the rusty, corroded feel of his gear, it really works. I like the idea of the different lenses too - gives everything a scavenged feel, which you may be aware that I'm a fan of Fantastic!
Don't have time to read the fluffy bit right now, but I'll do my best to give it a look over tonight
Scarper wrote:The painting looks amazing - I've never seen orange done in a way that doesn't look cheesy before, but I really think you've pulled it off! The tone is dead on, and combined with the rusty, corroded feel of his gear, it really works. I like the idea of the different lenses too - gives everything a scavenged feel, which you may be aware that I'm a fan of Fantastic!
Thanks for the props, mate! The orange was done with a wash of vermin fur over a grey primer with black shades, followed by a couple of highlights with increasing parts of blazing orange added to the vermin fur. For the final step I added darker shadows with heavily diluted black.
Looking forward to your opinion on the "fluff".
Todays update:
Managed to spent some time with my projects today.
I used that time to make major progress on Cortaro (sculpted a respirator mask after deciding the other mask wouldn't look right, sculpted missing areas of the new backpack, added a lantern, added a holster with some boomstick, slightly modified the base).
And to work on Götz a little (changed angle of his feet, continued to smoothen his chestpiece, decided on a head, decided on a more credible and dynamic pose, tried different weapon configurations).
I'm totally not sure about the last point yet, my favorite setups so far are either two one-handed hammers (from the inquisitor force weapon booster) or a huge chain halberd (maybe parts of malicants eviscerator or scratchbuild). I'm also eyeballing these:
What do you think? Maces? Hammers? Halberd? Something else? I'm sure there are tons of good options, I just can't think of any. Help!
An Inquisitor sounds interesting. Do you have a link to a picture of the inquisitor force weapon booster?
The Chaos maces are nice but I would need to see the various weapon options tacked in place before I could make a decision.
I'm really enjoying the different directions this blog goes in. The Gothic idea of the Inquisitor and henchman is great. As for the background I am generally quite easily pleased...the imperium is a massive place so anything is possible.
PDH wrote:Do you have a link to a picture of the inquisitor force weapon booster?
I'm really enjoying the different directions this blog goes in.
Picture? Sure thing! It's obviously the one that looks like a hammer.
Spoiler:
Different directions? That's easy for me, the real problem is not to freeze completely, when you are trying to go in all directions at the same time. But I have a feeling that both, this blog and the campaign, give me a general guideline to what comes next. So I hope I won't get lost. Like I wrote in my very first post there are lots of things to come and if Necromunda isn't enough, I've got the full 54mm =I= range in form of scores of almost finished, mindblowing projects lying around.
My 54mm stuff will definitely make an appearance here or in an individual thread sooner or later. There is that PIP IG soldier with a custom build needle rifle for example, that I intend to finish painting, once I'm fed up with the Nec stuff.
Man i love these munda stuff i love customizing models to make them unique.. if only people played munda around here instead of just fantasy and 40k.....
Your plans for your acolyte certainly sound interesting enough. Of course, it might be worth remembering that Necromunda is a recruiting world for the Imperial Fists - it would be easy for your Inquisitor to have one along for the ride as well.
As for the Archaon on foot - anything you can do to differentiate it from the original model would be great. A mace certainly sounds like it would be brutal/low-tech enough for a world like you described.
Howdy folks, I made some progress on my ogryn today and I think I'll give you some WIP pics tomorrow. It also shouldn't be long before I finish him, but then again I always think that before spending another two weeks on a project.
About Götz I just decided that it will definitely be double hammers for him and I will scratchbuild them, because there are no hammers around that suit my needs.
like those maces you showed are they from a khorne chaos warrior wfb boxeset?
The maces are from the Chaos Knights sprues.
No WIP shots today, I hope for final shots very soon. Cortaro is almost done, details are in place, I decided on almost all equipment choices, the only thing he needs is a lot of GS work. I'm very very happy with how he turns out to be, it does the buzzsaw justice. I would have hated it when it looked like a cool weapon on a standard dude. Well no chance of that now, let's say he' different... Muhaha, masterpiece incoming, just you wait!
So much for today, will try to keep my rambling down until I can show you something updateworthy.
Götz is on hold, as I'm working full throttle on Cortaro.
Didn't get to sculpt today, but I elaborated some details. His respirator is finished now and his Equipment is finalized.
Only things missing are some tubes and wires and the straps for his backpack.
Still there are two big questionmarks:
1. Additional armor Yes or No? Don't want him to look to much like a juggernaut. I tried a row of armor plates from the middle of his spine up to his forehead. That looked ace, but it took away from his salvaged and improvised look and made him look like a professional, which is not the right flavor, I think. I'm still considering giving him shoulderpads though.
2. 100% more postapocalyptic monkeys?! This question is new, it arose just today, I'm thinking of giving him a monkey spotter, like a trufflesnout. I can't elaborate on the background yet, but the miners could use them to find the location of certain valuable ores and crystals. I started converting the pirate monkey from the imperial musketeer box into a proper necromunda monkey. I'll finish him anyway and maybe I'll put him on Cortaro's shoulder, not sure yet. If not I'll find the right place for him on one of the other ogryns or the diorama.
2a. Actually this gives rise to another question. Maybe the monkey is too fancy for an ogryn and would require a more sensitive handler. Thore, the foster father of the gang, suggested giving him a bird in a cage. I wanted to use the gas-detecting-bird-idea on the diorama anyway, but now that he suggested it for the ogryn, I've got to admit it's a rather good idea. One might not want to give the ogryn a precious (fragile) monkey, but he's good enough to carry the bird cage on his back.
I've got to admit it, you deserve a first glance at Cortaro. So here comes a sneak peek of the almost finished ogryn miner. (One more GS session and he will be done, so maybe tomorrow.)
Oops, how did that get so small...
Start drum rolling guys! Cortaro is finished and as soon as I find the time to edit the photos (tonight) there will be 16 delicious shots of conversion madness.
Just hang on for a moment...
Quick recap for everybody who's new to the thread: I was recently building a kickass NPC for my Necro/=I=munda-gang of rebel hive miners, the Espantajos or Scarecrows.
For the final phase of our campaign I'm planning to introduce powerful allies for all gangs participating. In case of the miners that will be round about three ogryn slaves from the mines.
The first one of those is finished now, Cortaro. For details about the 50+ part buzzsaw he is wielding, go back a few pages, I've presented it in detail there.
Just as a reminder, a shot of the base model first:
And now my version:
Cortaro - "The Cutter" - ogryn slave - ore saw operator:
Don't want to write walls of text today (like all the other times). The conversion was a rather time consuming project, more than 50h. So there are scores of things I'd personally find worth mentioning, but I'll save us all time and let the pictures tell the story. I made closeups of the most important details anyway, so you can fully appreciate them. The grill of the respirator for example was a pain in the ass. It's basicly a piece of plastic card with a photoedged grill on top and a photoedged rivet band wrapped around the edge (that bloody thing went off a thousand times and had to be cleaned of glue and then reglued again, every time)
As always, if you have any questions or suggestions, ask/suggest away! Also if you enjoy a round of "where's the bit from" just as much as I do, feel free to start the competition.
The finished product you have there is awesome! The base and extra tanks and weapons on the back really help balance the model and fix the front-heavy look from the WIP pics. Really cool stuff!
The mask grill really is immense and the buzz saw looks brilliant without the safety guard. As always with your guys all the little things make it special. I like to see he is using a shotgun for a pistol....lol
Now get painting. You know you want me persuade/coerce you to the painting table.....put the green stuff down and pick up a brush. In fact I'll be a good example and paint a Necromunda model today.
Great job Baiyuan, the model exceeds the forgeworld original by a long stride . as usual your attention to detail is mind boggling. the barb wire touch is nice matey. Cotaro is a great achievement , and you should be well proud. i would love to game against him.
First of all I'd like to thank my parents... Nah crap, I am not Halle Berry. Still I'm happy you all like Cortaro and thank you all very much for the kind words!
One more time I'd like to mention, that I really don't mind you being nitpicky. So don't hesitate to leave me comments, that are not purely complimentary, but contain suggestions or ideas.
News:
Cortaro is primed and ready, but I haven't done anything else, except applying some washes to his base. Not sure what to paint first, too many minis on the painting table...
I started the next Ogryn slave! This was not planned, but when I showed Cortaro to a friend of mine and told him I'm thinking about building one or two more, which could get a jackhammer or a power drill, he said "...or a mining laser." Bloody genius! A mining laser it is!
I only spent 20min on the laser ogryn so far, but I already found the right base model, the core of the laser, a replacement hand and so on. So the core of the model is basicly there, but I will restrain from jumping into the project right now, I'll save it for later. Next up should be something of immediate importancy for the not yet finished gangs.
I mainly worked on the Iquisition troops today (another project with low priority... focus man, focus!) and they are developing very well, but numerous. I could easily come up with a 15-20 men retinue, so the hardest part will be to decide what ideas I won't pursue.
Expect Inquisiton WIPs and PIPs of Cortaro some time soon.
Ok, maybe I am. Although I think a bearded almost 2m tall, 130kg weighing version of Halle Berry wouldn't make you read my thread... at least I hope it wouldn't!!!
Baiyuan wrote:First of all I'd like to thank my parents... Nah crap, I am not Halle Berry. Still I'm happy you all like Cortaro and thank you all very much for the kind words!
One more time I'd like to mention, that I really don't mind you being nitpicky. So don't hesitate to leave me comments, that are not purely complimentary, but contain suggestions or ideas.
You know... I'd love to, but I find it extremely hard to critique a high-standard of work, perhaps when you start painting them? I feel like that'd be an easier (more level?) playing field... until you whip out a NMM, SENMM, super-blended something for a standard rank-and-file...
So for now, how about a question instead? How'd you make that butcher guy's base? It looks like bits and bobs(which I understand), but I'm interested in what it's mounted on- looks like salt/glue or MSG and glue...
Baiyuan wrote:First of all I'd like to thank my parents... Nah crap, I am not Halle Berry. Still I'm happy you all like Cortaro and thank you all very much for the kind words!
One more time I'd like to mention, that I really don't mind you being nitpicky. So don't hesitate to leave me comments, that are not purely complimentary, but contain suggestions or ideas.
You know... I'd love to, but I find it extremely hard to critique a high-standard of work, perhaps when you start painting them? I feel like that'd be an easier (more level?) playing field... until you whip out a NMM, SENMM, super-blended something for a standard rank-and-file...
So for now, how about a question instead? How'd you make that butcher guy's base? It looks like bits and bobs(which I understand), but I'm interested in what it's mounted on- looks like salt/glue or MSG and glue...
-HF Iz
Hehe, ok Iza, we'll wait till I paint him. I'm not a big fan of nmm, so no fear regarding that. Smooth blendings are what I try to master at the moment, we'll see.
Yeah random bitz from my terrain and vehicle bits boxes. I arranged them with bluetac first to get the angle I wanted. When I was satisfied with the core elements, I replaced the bluetac with GS and added more details to it.
Next step was to fill larger gaps and give the base a sensible shape, because I didn't want to much of the standard 40mm base to show. I used vallejo plastic putty for this.
Once dry I applied undiluted Ponal (Best brand around, don't take the cheap stuff.) to the areas where I wanted sand. The sand was a mixture of pebble, slate and sand I made some years ago, unfortunately there were too many small pebbles in it, which is why I later applied a second layer of pure fine sand (sand for bird cages, it's like 1€ for 2,5kg, cheap and very fine, yet irregular, best solution imo).
Well that's it! I hate building bases, but this project was worth it and I'm happy with the result.
Just one more thing, there will be one addition to the base later on, problem is the little fellas didn't arrive in time (packages from US take forever to get here). But I think the overall look of the mini will benefit if there is life in the scene.
prototype_X wrote:wow just read the whole thread. great work
cant wait to see some paint
prototype_x
Thx, some more painting would be good, yeah. I'll try to paint a little tonight...
Ok I can tell you, it's just ordinary rats I'm planning to use. I ordered some of the tiny rats from the rat ogre box. I'll place them on some of the bases to make them more lifelike. The hive is full of vermin and I'm sure it will look great to break with the industrial desolace.
Newsflash:
Now that I'm done with my first playthrough of Dragon Age 2 (Awesome game, at first I was afraid it lost to much of the rpg elements, but that's not true, they just trimmed away all the fat and improved on all the annoying aspects of the first installment.), well now that I'm through I can spend more time on modelling again. Which I already did... update incoming... well now...
Yesterday I worked on the second Ogryn a little, the one with the mining laser, you know. Despite the fact, that I'm quite positive it will be a much less demanding project than the first one (which is good), I'll not try to finish him any time soon. I'll keep him for one of those rainy days, when all other projects suck and I need some motivation.
After spending half of the day outside, enjoying the day off and the lovely weather, I came back home to enjoy my time away from all the ugly nature and oxygen and stuff and went to work on my projects a little. (One has to recover from such massive exposure to environment, my resin-dust filled lungs are not used to all the nature crap. Well not totally true, but you know what I mean.) Even though I know I should actually be painting more, or if I'm modelling I should at least work on the core projects of my campaign, I've been busy with the Inquisition over the last few days. As a reminder I'm working on a rather big retinue for an Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor, who is to appear in the later games of our campaign.
Since I'll use a lot of Vostroyan guardsmen as inquisitorial troopers (in addition to more individual henchmen of course), most of the work I had to do was sawing, filing and dremeling, which I have been doing now and then in the last few weeks. I'm not done yet, but about 5 guardsmen are ready to be glued together and receive some greenstuff. While some others give me trouble, because of their stupid poses.
Which brings us to what I did today and therefore this evenings update. I worked on one of the officers, this one here (NOT my paintjob, random picture of the mini from CMON, props to the actual painter!):
Spoiler:
While I love the Vostroyans (I'm not including furry hats into this love), some of the models are a bit strange, or even low quality. This las pistol toting, finger pointing sicko here is one of the strange ones, I don't like his pose. Sure it's the typical "Stalingrad, go here, go there I'm a mean political officer, don't mess with me"-thing we all like, but the guy is plain boooooring.
After sawing off his head, trying a million new ones as replacement and playing with the position of his head, I thought about changing his weapons (a laspistol/pointy index finger-combo is not my definition of a cool inq trooper). I considered having him look in the direction of his finger and giving him a second gun for his left hand, but that pose was boring as well and I wouldn't picture an IT (inq trooper) to wield different pistols in both hands. Next idea was to replace his original pistol with a close combat weapon, but he has a sword already and I definitely wanted to keep the cool hilt of his pistol, but the pistol itself had to go.
So he had to look to the left, keep the hilt of his pistol and somehow make sense at the same time. This was when I realized that his pose actually made more sense when he looked to the right and when I assumed he gave his fellow guardsmen a "halt" signal. The next step was logical from his body language, weight on one leg, upper body tilted back, right arm retracted... It's obvious he's taking a peek out of his cover or around the corner of a wall. Voila, now he makes some sense.
That leaves the martial understatement of the laspistol. He needed something more unique, something more powerful, something looking a bit more crude. I tried all kinds of pistols (believe me when I say that's a lot, I'm obsessed with my bitz box...), ended up trying bolters and almost settled with the custom bolter from one of the DH inquisitors, but in the end it had to be a sawn off. Double barreled sawn off with incendiary ammo, that's what I'd like to have, when I go hunting rebels in the underhive.
I kept most of his original pistol and filed down the barrel to fit in the new ones. Looks ace to me at least... Now he's almost done, he still needs some GS work and I'm considering giving him additional rounds for his shotgun, but apart from that he's good to go.
That's ingenious, I like how you've totally changed the look of the mode with just a couple of changes. Never noticed this blog before I will peruse it when I have a bit more time, nice work.
neil101 wrote:looks cool , nice find with the machinery wall too.
Thx, I dare you to tell me where it's from. I can tell you that much, it's from 40k.
Molotov wrote:I think that the head seems to be sitting somewhat awkwardly in the neck.
Really? Keep in mind, that he is hugging the wall, I actually tried what position my head would have, when I peek around a corner, before I positioned his head. Try it yourself and tell me what you think please, maybe my neck itself is awkward.
The model looks great. I don't think his neck is that awkward, though. Like Baiyuan suggested, I tried it out myself, , and I have to say, it's very realistically done.
neil101 wrote:I havent a clue, has it been recast ? looks like a forgeworld part though is the guys head from the space wolf scouts?
Forgeworld indeed. Yes, it has been recast. Even though I'm not cheap with my projects, I wouldn't want to spend 100 bucks for background basing.
Spoiler:
The head is not a SW. I have those too, but they are huge, not good for most guardsmen imho. The head is from the imperial greatswords I think. I bought more than one hundret different heads from the fantasy range for this project, so I'm not absolutely sure though.
Help needed! I would highly appreciate any suggestions regarding a good color scheme for my inquisitorial guardsmen. Let's sum up the facts, so you can start doing my thinking:
They are not Vostroyans, they are former guardsmen of the 5th platoon of the Berlichingen Lionhearts, which was almost completely killed during the battle against the witch coven, that Iudex Probitas led. The last survivors couldn't remain in the ranks of the standard troops, due to their delicate knowledge about the whole crisis. So instead of exterminating them like it would be normal, the Inquisitor decided to "promote" them into his even more dangerous services and they became inquisitorial troopers.
Their homeworld has strong feudal and medieval features, so they need to show their roots.
To paint them mainly red is out of question, they must look different from your every day Vostroyan.
The paintjob will of course include some weathering, but I'm not planning to make them too dirty. They are part of the inquisition, not some underhive bums.
If an inquisitor had saved them to be part of his personal retinue he would have had a part in their new 'uniforms' possibly complimenting his own personal colour scheme/heraldry. Also with Inquisitorial Henchmen I personally think that darker colours really suit them as they want to be able to go about their business without drawing too much attention to themselves, as they are from a feudal/medieval homeworld why not go with blacks and browns to represent the leathers they would almost certainly wear, maybe a hint of chainmail too (for a bit of bling) and use a highlight colour to match the Inquistors colour scheme. Simple and yet brooding and doesnt overpower your inquistior model by being to 'showy'
Asylum_Inmate wrote:If an inquisitor had saved them to be part of his personal retinue he would have had a part in their new 'uniforms' possibly complimenting his own personal colour scheme/heraldry. Also with Inquisitorial Henchmen I personally think that darker colours really suit them as they want to be able to go about their business without drawing too much attention to themselves, as they are from a feudal/medieval homeworld why not go with blacks and browns to represent the leathers they would almost certainly wear, maybe a hint of chainmail too (for a bit of bling) and use a highlight colour to match the Inquistors colour scheme. Simple and yet brooding and doesnt overpower your inquistior model by being to 'showy'
(edited for spelling)
Excellent reasoning. Very close to my thoughts so far. Thank you.
Only thing I'm ambigous about is making them not "showy". I'm fond of the brown tones, but I'm not sure a nice clean bretonialike color scheme wouldn't look even better.
I'm really torn here. Ordo Hereticus: Dark and sinister or Knights background: bright and heroic. Help!
Keep going guys, I'm starting painting tonight. More suggestions would be great.
I would have never guessed that , and i even looked at the baneblade good find as for the colour scheme blacks and browns all the way i think , something like this would suit both the model and the inquisistorial background.. they have always spoke musketeers to me in those outfits , even more so now they dont have the floppy hats
neil101 wrote:I would have never guessed that , and i even looked at the baneblade good find as for the colour scheme blacks and browns all the way i think , something like this would suit both the model and the inquisistorial background.. they have always spoke musketeers to me in those outfits , even more so now they dont have the floppy hats
Spoiler:
Nice refference.
Right now I'm thinking I can do both. Dark and showy: Brown/Black coats, armor obviously in silver and gold, heraldry in white and red. What do you say?
Sounds good to me, I think a strong contrasting colour to the blacks and browns will make the figures pop. Also i'm sure their inquisitor wouldnt want them to look like paupers, they would have to look like they worked for an important man without drawing too much attention to themselves.
I think you are on to a winning paint scheme there
p.s. i think Neil101 summed it up perfectly, if i knew how to put those images together like that, thats is pretty much what i was getting at in my rather rambling first post. what I probably should have done was to point out GW's default paintscheme for their witchhunter inquistors which is very similar to this
Yep Asylum, makes a good point with the inquisitors crest or emblem, i would be tempted to give them a off the shoulder cloak , but then again iam more a style than utility sort a guy is he going to be a puritan or a radical , or somewhere inbetween? because the black templars have some great servitors , if your thinking of the puritan style , the guy to the left is what i am talkin about ..
The gold and silver would be a cool addition too, maybe some free hand swirls , i have always wanted to try some but , my detail work can be somewhat lacking how many of these guys you gonna have for you inquisitor? and a witch hunter style one would suit these guys down to the ground imo.
but knowing you , it will be a bit more "CUSTOM" than a typical GW mini
neil101 wrote:Is he going to be a puritan or a radical , or somewhere inbetween? because the black templars have some great servitors , if your thinking of the puritan style , the guy to the left is what i am talkin about ..
Definitely not radical, Iudex Probitas is a character from my pantheon of individuals I've been developing over the years for my =I=54mm projects. You could call him a puritan, if by that you mean he is a hardliner and not the right neighbour to ask for some weed, but he is not an insane fanatic like Tyrus. He makes sense, when he executes you.
The servitors are a nice idea, I already had an eye on them for my pitslaves, but didn't think of the obvious use for the Inquisition.
The gold and silver would be a cool addition too, maybe some free hand swirls , i have always wanted to try some but , my detail work can be somewhat lacking
The Vostroyans have so much embroydery and ornaments on their coats there will hardly be much space for freehands. Plus freehands are a thing worthy of the more... well... worthy parts of the retinue. The guardsmen are elite, but expandable. I'll certainly have some on the many true henchmen I'm considering making.
how many of these guys you gonna have for you inquisitor? and a witch hunter style one would suit these guys down to the ground imo. but knowing you , it will be a bit more "CUSTOM" than a typical GW mini
See above: Many! Gamewise a hand full would do, but by the sheer amount of miniatures that already ended up in the project's box, there will be a small strike force.
My plans so far are:
Archaon conversion
Chenkov conversion (just because he looks right)
Female witchhunter inquisitor with minor alterations as acolyte
Bunch of guardsmen (should be about 10 in the end)
I'm also considering some minor utilitarian henchmen, which could be where the servitors fit in. I also had a look at Inquisitor Rex and his retinue...
Regarding Iudex Probitas himself I'm not sure yet. He is almost done in 54mm and looks more or less like your normal witchhunter, which is why I planned to take Gideon Lorr and convert him a little. On the other hand I would enjoy a more creative approach, so time will tell.
I stopped collecting WD some years ago, I like to browse through it, but I think it's mainly advertisement one even has to pay for, so I can't check what you mean. But I have a rough plan how to paint the black anyway, we'll see how it turns out.
About my progress:
I managed to greenstuff the guardsman to completion, primed him and afterwards spent 4 hours on painting him and that was all yesterday. He's got most of the base colors in place, except the flesh and metal.
I'll continue with the paintjob today. I'm really excited to finish him, but will take my time, as I have high plans for this one.
Boy oh boy, that miniature sure has a lot of details. I'm still painting and painting and painting.
Some seasons of Simpsons and a couple of glasses later, the "Hauptmann" is still far away from finished, but starting to look like he should in the end.
I finished his head last night.
Right now I'm getting his base done, not including the boiler thing behind him. I've started painting that too (in Vallejo green sky ), but I'm considering it an extra part of the paintjob, since it will need a lot of attention.
Now back to the painting table, smell ya later.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Painting wood grain can really suck...
I'm a bit tired of painting, it just doesn't work like I want it to, guess you know what I mean. Stupid matter resisting my will...
In other news, I've had a cool new idea, after being pointed to the high elves range by my fellow munda player and neighbour, Dennis. It's going to be for the inquisitorial guardsmen and I'm kit bashing high elf stuff with vostroyans. Curious? Good!
I think I might take PIP pics tomorrow to get me motivated again...maybe.
neil101 wrote:The dreaded demotivation , how is your terrain comming along mate? maybe building something less precise may help aleviate the pressure.
The terrain is at hold until our group manages to meet and build some, I don't want to do it all on my own.
I solved the problem by not painting for a day and instead finished "the flight of the eisenstein" and sawed some more vostroyans apart for a new conversion. Motivation is back and I'm painting again.
bra'tac wrote:THIS IS EPIC!
It reminds me of Dead Rising 2, whish you had build a plate launcher, that would have been hilarious all jokes aside, this is one amazing build, EINFACH SUPER!!
So much character, Lovely conversion!!
Keep up the good work
Cheers,
Bra'tac
Vielen Dank! I just had a look at the plate launcher gameplay and it's pretty close to what I had in mind initially. My inspiration came from Dead Space's Ripper, but I decided not to make it shoot the blades in the end, because I imagined it to be too complicated for an ogryn to operate.
Just realised my comment on Cortaro never posted! That's pretty rage-tastic - it was a few days ago now and it was incredibly long, and now I can't really remember most of it. Frig. It was mostly praise and jaw dropping type sounds (which you've had a lot of!), but favourite bits were the putty work around the eyepieces in the mask (much more aggressive than the original!),the overlapping armour plates, the myriad of gauges and all the detail in the gas mask. No criticism to share - just can't imagine how long he'll take to paint up
The peekaboo shotgunner (who I've clearly missed - crazy work weeks make me miss Dakka :() is also a work of art. I'm amazed that such seemingly minor changes can completely alter the meaning of his pose. And where did you find that awesome machine block?! Only very minor change I would suggest (and only because I know you like +ve -ve comments ) is filling out his neck a little. The angle of his head is perfect, but reveals the 'round' part of the plastic neck a little. I'm sure you were on that anyway, but just in case! Incredible work, nonetheless.
And in terms of your painting funk - I always find taking a little break to do some modelling instead rekindles the fire. You've been modelling a fair bit too recently though, so who knows!
Apologies for the comment drought, and keep it up - everything's looking fantastic!
Automatically Appended Next Post: Oooh, and in case you haven't seen this before, it might help you out on your colour scheme woes. What was the climate on the original planet? Might help with schemes a little
Scarper wrote:Just realised my comment on Cortaro never posted! That's pretty rage-tastic - it was a few days ago now and it was incredibly long, and now I can't really remember most of it. Frig. It was mostly praise and jaw dropping type sounds (which you've had a lot of!)
I can never get enough of those.
, but favourite bits were the putty work around the eyepieces in the mask (much more aggressive than the original!),the overlapping armour plates, the myriad of gauges and all the detail in the gas mask. No criticism to share - just can't imagine how long he'll take to paint up
You make a good point there, I will take ages, but then again I don't need to finish him before septembre 2012...
The peekaboo shotgunner (who I've clearly missed - crazy work weeks make me miss Dakka :() is also a work of art. I'm amazed that such seemingly minor changes can completely alter the meaning of his pose.
Thank you, I'm not taking credit for how much those minor changes altered the overall look, that somehow just happened to me, it just seemed logical at some point. I'm very happy about it myself.
And where did you find that awesome machine block?!
I actually mentioned before, but since you we're not "procrastinating online" all week (like PDH would say it), I'll tell you again: It's half of the base of the barrel of a FW Shadowsword.
Only very minor change I would suggest (and only because I know you like +ve -ve comments ) is filling out his neck a little. The angle of his head is perfect, but reveals the 'round' part of the plastic neck a little. I'm sure you were on that anyway, but just in case!
You are right in both points, it needed changing and I was on that anyway. The pics were mere WIPs afterall, just what I had put together in an afternoons work. Apart from being painted, he received a lot of attention after what you've seen in the pictures.
He got a GS collar, a strip of shells on his shoulderpad, his neck was filled with a sensible amout of GS, I added a Inquisition symbol to his scabbard and the machine block got a major touch up with GS to fill all the cavities and I also added a top valve to it.
Incredible work, nonetheless.
I'll ignore the "nonetheless", since that was just WIP and say thank you, both for your kind words and constructive critique, I enjoy both.
And in terms of your painting funk - I always find taking a little break to do some modelling instead rekindles the fire. You've been modelling a fair bit too recently though, so who knows!
True, that leads to the updates...
Updates:
Ok before I report on the progress on my guardsman, he really needs a name. Which I just decided is "Adalhard", that's an old high german (700-1000) name and means "noble" and "hard/strong".
So Adalhard is still in painting. I finished his base save for the machine block. His head is finished. His gun is almost done. The freehand on his shoulderpad is done and the metal parts are finished too.
Left to do are the pouches and straps, the coat, the gloves and boots, the scabbard and sword hilt and the machine block.
No time to paint today, but I managed to play with my new tools and worked on two new conversions.
I made a double weapon swap on the female acolyte. She wields a shield and sword now, instead of plasma pistol and power maul.
And I replaced the arm of my soon to be lion priest. WIPs coming soon.
nerdforest wrote:love the conversions!!! hope to see more. They look really good all painted up too.
Thank you!
PDH wrote:I'm intrigued as to what you're using for a female acolyte...I'm sure it'll be worth the wait. (hope I've not missed a post)
Seems like you did, I mentioned somewhere that I'm using one of the female witchhunter inquisitors as acolyte.
Spoiler:
I like the model very much and I initially didn't even intend to change anything, but well what can I say. No model leaves my table unchanged.
Lion Priest sounds interesting...though I have an awful image of him having red hair, blue Lycra and screaming Inquisitorial Henchmen Hoooooooooo!
Got to admit I don't get this one. I can assure you though, that there is no lycra involved at all. The model is one of the old priests of ulrik.
Spoiler:
Found him on CMON, not my paintjob:
I'm really happy with all those projects I'm working on recently, because it happens that I get a chance to use all the miniatures I bought years ago, just because they were so sexy. The renegade ogryns, the platoon of vostroyans, the priest, the female inquisitor, I bought them for their looks and they waited for years without having any purpose. Now everything comes together.
There are of course many more of those impulsivly purchased models, but I highly doubt that inside our Necro Campaign I'll find use for the 50 crisis suits, the orca, the tiger shark and the barracuda, I have barely touched yet.
ork sprues) and yes I drilled the shells open one by one, even thought about sculpting some smoke on them. Might also add a muzzle flash, but the stubber is already pretty long, and I still need to play with this guy.
As we all know I'm quite partial to Necromunda blogs...it also helps having interesting pictures and ideas. The first couple of pictures are such a tease Baiyuan and I got totally suckered in, it was enough for me to want to see more. The picture of Scloppus really improves the blog and I'm now waiting on the painting. I like the effort you've gone to on individualising the stubber...drilling out is so important and doing all the spent cases 
about the classic delaques: They are all wearing fething ammo belts! So you can never have too much ammo right? But what is the use of some 7,62mm in a LASGUN??? Yeah, thats right check it out they all have that, lasguns and ammo belts, it's slowed. (
) But then DONE!
Have to agree w/ PDH- 
out of my cousin's Van Saar meatsacks. 
Sorry, teachers habits. Always broadcasting my unasked opinion. 
Just need to sew them together with fine wire, than I'll show you. So much for "I thought he was finished"...
undrilled barrels! I even drill the barrels of pulse rifles... People who don't do it should be handed over to the inquisition or reabsorbed by the swarm or something.
HELL 
and some 
