Without further ado, here is the latest project - Luthor Harkon and the zombie pirates!
Before his unfortunate run-in with the ancient magics of the Slann, I imagine Luthor was a magically adept vampire lord like any other. And consequently, his army would probably run a bit more like a normal vampire army, rather than the magicless, black powder saturated mess of a list that the zombie pirate list is. At any rate, that's the army I'm putting together.
First up, Luthor himself - a Vladd conversion
I chopped the hair off and filed down the wolf skin, then added a pirate hat, a layer of sea weed (ah la Count Noctilus) over the cloak, and gave him a dark elf style weapon with a bit of tentacly stuff around the hand guard. Over all, I like the look of him.
Next up, his first mate - Gorgeous George
He's an empire duelist with a pirate hat. I kept the vampiric look to a minimum on George, as I wanted him to look like a younger, more appearance focused vampire. I'll make him look properly dead with the paint job. Keen observers will notice his zombie dog is already down to 3 legs. Living on a ship full of flesh eating zombies has its price.
And the first unit of zombie pirates:
The goal for the army is 200 of these guys. Here are the first 43. I stuck with a pretty simple recipe of free company + zombie kit + green stuff on these, but I've got a bunch of mantic zombies & a pile of black scorpion miniatures on order to diversify the rest of them a bit. These guys are a blast to put together. Oh, and the cabin boy in the first rank is a tribute to the WD zombie pirate list - thank you GW, and please produce more such awesomeness!
Well, that's all for now. Stand by for a pipe organ mortis engine, a slew of dinghies, and a pack of rotten ogre-pirates. Oh what fun.
I managed to sell a couple of the armies cluttering up my display shelf, so with the extra cash I expanded the zombies and undertook a brand new project - the chaos dwarves! I've been drooling over some of the Warhammer Forge stuff for a while, and with the influx of petty cash, I could finally justify buying a bit of it.
First up, the zombie pirate progress.
Here are the first 43 zombies in all their shambling glory. You'll notice many of them are carrying a delicious looking red beverage. What is it you wonder? Why, redrum of course, the zombie pirate's drink of choice:
Next up we have the grave guard. This unit consists of Black Scorpion undead pirate models, and they're awesome. The resin is a bit brittle, and some repairs were necessary, but the mini quality is great.
And the corpse cart - I'm pretty stoked about this guy. He's a sort of an old man of the sea sort who fishes for sharks with zombie bits. Fun stuff.
And on other army fronts, here are the completed Axemen of Morr - a unit of halberdiers for my border princes army.
And finally, the beginnings of my chaos dwarf army. While I love the WF warmachines, I'm not in love with their infantry models, so I'm making my own. Here are the first 4 WIP shots:
And that's all for today - let me know what you think!
After a bit of time away from the PC, I've got another update!
I had to switch gears a bit. I've got an upcoming trip that'll keep me away from the hobby station for a while, and I need an army to go with me. Unfortunately, the zombie pirate models didn't finish arriving quickly enough to facilitate them going, so I decided to finish up the chaos dwarves and take them instead.
Rest assured the zombie pirates will be finished soon, but in the mean time, here is the beginning of the chaos dwarf list:
First up, 25 Infernal guard. Unfortunately, I was too lazy to take many pics of them while they were being assembled, but they're dwarf warriors with chaos warrior weapons and shields, supplemented by plenty of green stuff for beards, faces, and masks.
And here is a selection of heroes - 2 daemonsmiths and a BSB. They're all Forgeworld models, with more or less conversion work. I've based them on tallish rubble to make them stick out a bit.
Next up is a skullcracker. I love this model. It was a bit painful to assemble, but it really looks nasty.
And finally, the hellcannon. Again, it was a royal pain to assemble, but it sure is a mean looking war machine.
All in all, I like the Forgeworld stuff. It's really high quality, and the overall theme of the chaos dwarves seems pretty spot on. They've evil and fiery, without the nastyness of nurgle or the over-the-top-ness of Slaanesh.
Soooo, after a rather lengthy hiatus in North Carolina, I'm back home and I've gotten to work again. By work (of course) I mean miniature painting and not the ordinary drudgery of my day job. Grumping aside, the zombie pirates are coming along nicely. I'm still torn on whether they're going to be based on Luther Harkon's undead of the vampire coast or on Lord Noctalus's (sp?) dread fleet list. We'll just have to see as the project comes together. In the end, I guess there's not much difference between the two anyway.
First up, here's the first 100 man zombie mob finished. I built the bases to make it look like the zombies are assaulting out of the water, and while it's not perfect looking, the results are good enough (as they say) for government work. As you can see, I've gone with several unit fillers - a trend which is going to continue, as painting 300 zombies is a pain in the ass. In particular, I think I'm going to build a bunch more palm tree & barrel fillers, as they're both pretty easy to interchange between units. The mantic zombies mix pretty well with the GW militia and zombie kits by the way - a little cutting & putty is required, but nothing too serious.
Next up is the corpse cart. It's pretty weird looking now that it's done, but I kind of dig the necro-pirate fishing for sharks with his pile of dead guys.
Finally, here are the WIP shots of the army's crypt horrors - done in the theme of zombie pirate ogres. The leader of the unit - a swashbuckling wereshark - keeps them going in the right direction (albiet with a few fewer limbs as he gets hungry). This is going to be a fun unit to put together - the ogre kit is awesomely easy to screw around with. Expect copious barrels of Redrum!
It's good to be back to work, let me know what you think.
Holy cow how has no one commented on your things until now! This is some really awesome stuff. You take the undead pirate theme and ramp it up to eleven!
The unit literally coming out of the ocean and stepping on land is genius
Thanks guys, I'm glad you like them. I'll try to get a clearer pic of the watery assault bit, the uploaded images don't look as clear as I'd like.
I got a bunch more work done on the crypt horror/ogre unit finished tonight - I think you'll dig them. Who would zombie ogre pirates follow but a wereshark really - what's hungrier out there than an undead hammerhead? There are going to be plenty of missing limbs, that's for sure.
I finished up construction on the crypt horror / zombie pirate ogres today - there are 10 altogether. I think they'll pull double duty as a both a unit of their own and fillers for the zombies.
Here they are:
Zombie fisherman
As promised, there's an abundance of severed limbs and ridiculous pirate stuff.
Next up is getting them painted.
While the glue was drying on the ogres I finished up Count Noctilus. He's now ready to loot and plunder with his (reasonably) well preserved crew. Oh and yes, the parrot is dead.
The ogres are finished - 10 in all. They were a pretty quick unit to paint (as ogres always are), and I think they'll prove pretty durable in play. I like that they get 5 wounds back per invocation!
Next up I'm going to paint up the grave guard unit and finish the unit filler for it. Think undead giant crabs and a pile of treasure.
The black scorpion grave guard are finished - a scurvier lot I've never laid eyes on.
Now that I think about it, I'm not sure scurvy is much of a problem for animated skeletons. Maybe they'd still lose their teeth, I don't know.
Anyway, here they are, led by both a dwarf were-shark and a female vampire pirate (pirette?)
And secondly, although the picture doesn't quite do the model justice, is a nautical banshee. She's a Reaper model - a range that the army has drawn heavily on.
Hope you like them. Next up, I'm working on a Terrorgheist and a couple of unit fillers, then it's off to more zombies!
The C.O.U.S's (Crabs of unusual size) are rampant around the coast of Saratosa. The blood crabs in particular are known for their savagery.
The Count accidentally resurrected one on one of his recent recruiting drives, and the crabby crustacean has hung around ever since. He particularly enjoys hanging about his large mound of treasure and munching down overly curious investigators.
The vignette is going to serve as a unit filler in either the grave guard or a zombie unit. It's based on a 80x60mm base.
I've finally wrapped up the terrorgheist. I started to wander off on the next unit of zombies and had to reel myself back in to finish this guy up before hopeless distraction set in! There's something about finishing up the work on bases - particularly large ones - that makes my brain start looking for something else to do.
Anyway, here's one of Noctilus's pets - an undead sea-bat of gargantuan proportions. I kept the model and base fairly simple, as there's going to be a bigger centerpiece unit, and I didn't want to draw the eye overly much.
Next up is a black coach and another block of zombies - I just can't get enough of these guys.
The Count has been busy on the poop deck, and the fruits of his labors - 65 more lads - are here for your viewing pleasure! Additionally, I've painted up a few more small unit fillers and scattered them through the existing units. After another "fun" unit, it'll be back to work on more zombies. I've got to finish the last 5 ranks in these 2 units with guys coming out of the water to continue the coastal assault theme.
And finally, here's a WIP army shot. The battle line grows long indeed, and soon enough hapless coastal villages across the warhammer world will feel the Count's wrath!
That's right, flying sharks. The count has been up to his old tricks again, and enslaving the infamous flying blood sharks that ravage shipping around the vampire coast of Lustria is one of his latest antics.
Although fellbats aren't terribly potent on the battlefield, the flying sharks will always have a place on the board in my army. What war machine crew will have any hope of survival with these in the area?
In homage to the classic movie, I may convert one into a sharktopus as well - we shall see.
This army gets more fun to put together every day. Stay tuned!
Where do pirates, vampires, and sweet music intersect? Why pipe organs of course! For whatever reason, I saw the new(ish) coven throne model and immediately felt inspired to chop it into a gigantic, spirit driven, davy jones-esque pipe organ for my vampire lord. Why you might ask? Well, why not of course!
It's going to have a removable organ player (to make room for the count when he's inspired!) and a pair of removable vampiric harlots, so the whole thing can be used as an engine or a throne.
Here are the first WIP shots:
I'm on vacation from work for a few weeks, so expect updates to come hot and heavy for a while! It's time to finish up this army.
Work on the Count's Magnum Opus continues. This organ has taken on a bit of a life of its own. Every time I think I've added enough bits, I remember this thing exists in the Warhammer world, and that the world overblown hasn't been invented yet.
As you can see, all the spirits supporting the thing have been rebuilt into a scurvy crew of pirate lads!
Here she is so far:
The organ player and his vampire pirate hooker groupies are next!
First up, the flying sharks have taken to the field. Water skiers beware, winged undead sharks have taken to the skies! As you can see, they're quite bloodthirsty. I feel vaguely inspired to model a witch hunter named Quint for my empire army. We shall see.
Here are the pics:
Next up, the black coach is finished. Black Tom the wraith is at the helm, with his assistant Jim manning the harpoon. Why they have an evil monkey is beyond me, but I think he looks quite sinister.
Finally, here are more pics of the pipe organ of doom. The player, having recently escaped from a traveling rock opera in Averland, will be happily belting out odious tunes in support of the count for the rest of eternity. He's removable, as sometimes the count himself wants a go. When he does, the vampire harlots inevitably follow - I'll have pics of them up soon enough.
Let me know what you think.
I should have finished pics of the organ in the next few days!
The kit is one of the best kits bits wise GW has ever produced. Even with the whole model finished, there are more than enough awesome bits left to fill all kinds of niches across the army. I'm still trying to find a way to work the 3 flying banshee models into the organ itself.
Last night I put the finishing touches on the Coven Throne incarnation of the Count's pipe organ. With his entourage of zombie pirate hookers, horde of ethereal spirits, and atrocious selection of organ music, I think the Count will be ready to handle about anything.
I'd be interested in feedback from the forum on whether my mortis engine and coven throne are perceived as distinct enough. I like efficiency in modeling, but I can add a bit more to one or the other if the general perception is that they look to similar.
Otherwise, there will be more zombies soon enough - oh, and a counts as zombie dragon.
Love everything I have seen so far! You really have some good willpower to paint all those zombies, I know I would have given up by now!
I would say the coven throne looks quite different from the mortis engine so I would leave it at that! I may be biased though as I really want to see more zombies!
Avast! The zombie pirates have once again set sail with more recruits.
Today the count spent some time on command models. After some work, he came up with 2 standard bearer/musician combos for the zombie units, a wight king BSB, and a mimic that I threw in because a giant, angry, treasure chest has got to see some game time.
First, the zombies - I found a pile of fanatic bits, and decided they made pretty fine pirate heads with a headgear swap. The dreadfleet bits continue to make money as standards:
Next, the wight king. This model was just released by Reaper, and it begged for a spot in the army.
Finally, the mimic. Who doesn't love possessed treasure chests?
All of this, of course, is WIP! Stay tuned for updates.
Very impressed with your Undead. I enjoy the theme, haven't seen this before by anyone. Conversions are excellent and the work you've put into this army really shows. So much awesomeness to pick through here. Really well done.
Also checked your Catachan thread- Your GS work is excellent, specifically the LCE gear you have modeled. I also really like the McFarlane vehicles! That was a wicked find and they look great with your force.
Wow, thanks for the feedback - I'm glad the pirates are muy popular. I thought maybe all the love for WHFB was subsumed by the 40k 6th ed frenzy.
dsteingass - The Catachans are still my favorite 40k army. You'll be happy to know they're back on the WIP list (I'm a sucker for the 6th ed hype too I guess). I've got a pile of them ready to convert into dinosaur riders, and they're going to get an even more elite detachment attached to them in the form of power-armored catachan guardsmen (SoB or SM rules). The new guys are going to need some sort of modded out Valkyrie since the ally rules won't let them ride in a standard IG bird...
I've got to finish up the zombies first though - I'll have another update on them later today.
Very impressive man! I gotta say, I was always intimidated by doing too many conversions for WHFB since you have to do like 100+ for an army, but you have totally blown that away! Great work!
The shambling hordes have finally made it to the beach - another 100 zombies staggered forth last night to wreck havoc and wrest rum from peasants everywhere. The beach assault is a bit of a pain to build and paint as the models aren't interchangeable, but it looks pretty slick on the table.
I'm not sure what the mimic is in the unit for, but he looks pretty fierce, so I guess he can stay and play.
Here are the pics:
And with this lot, the zombie total is 217 painted and ready to go. I think one more big push will see the whole pile finished . And amen to that - as fun as the army has been, it's about time for another project.
He is RIGHT..This is definitely one of the VERY best Fantasy armies I have ever seen too! Completely customized, themed, amazing! You do good work sir! I eagerly await all of your next projects!
Wow, thanks for the comments. I put a lot of work into the army, and it would seem it's paying off.
The whole project is nearing completion - here are command groups for the 2 50 zombie blocks. The extra sprue that came with Dreadfleet has been great at providing standards.
Additionally, I finished up the spirit host. Nothing too fancy here really - just a few odds and ends models I had lying around that got a ghostly paint job.
Again, thanks for the well wishing, and I'll have more soon!
The lack of attention this thread is getting is really disappointing. Your modeling is inspired, original, and very well executed. Your paint scheme is vibrant and alive (there's a bit of irony there) and your skills as a modeler and painter are impressive.
Even if I didn't specifically enjoy the subject matter (which I do a lot) I'd still have respect for your vision and the application of that vision.
Maybe if you gave your zombies Bolt Pistols and Chainswords people would pay attention more.
I debated adding chainswords at one point - either that or the word "truescale".
I figure it's all about timing. Starting a fantasy thread in the wake (or approach) of 6th edition was bound to result in reduced attention. It's not a big deal though. I use this post as a source of internal motivation and inspiration as much as anything -although the replies often have great ideas on how to expand the army in ways I never thought of.
And yeah, the banners are Dreadfleet sales. GW accidentally tossed in an extra spure, and I've been making good use of them.
Alright, so I've got 20 more whole zombies in the works, and all the rest are going to be for summoning, and thus in various stages of crawling out of the oceanic depths. But while those mundane lads are still on the workbench, I thought I'd post my WIP varghulf and the finished (nearly) BSB.
I'm a sucker for Forgeworld stuff, so when I saw the skin wolves I knew I needed at least one for the list. I still like the ogre pirates better as a unit, but this guy makes a great Varghulf. He's further proof that a green stuffed hat and a few pistols can make a pirate out of anyone!
And here is the BSB for the Counts fleet - old Davy Bones himself. Yeah I know, hopelessly unoriginal, but it was too fitting to pass up. I still have to add one more layer of highlights and a fancy border, but she's about done.
The last land lubber zombie pirates are here! I admit, it's a bit of a relief to have all 240 of them finished.
These 2 20 man zombie units will run on the flanks and slowly grow in size with Invocation castings - great for killing the small stuff that lurks on the fringes of other armies.
Next up, the werewolf pirate Varghulf and the summoning zombies - all waterborne!
Love this thread (and your other threads, too). WFB never gets enough attention on Dakka, which is a shame, because armies like yours show what can be done, and how a WFB army can look amazing because of the way the units are ranked. Bravo!
I'm wracking my brains trying to think of anything you might have left out, and I really can't. I mean, unless it's a unit of zombies riding giant crabs or something
Thanks guys - I batch paint the zombies in units of 20-50, and it goes pretty quickly. A batch every 3 weeks or so, give or take depending on my work schedule.
As far as the giant crabs, there's one painted as a unit filler for the grave guard on page 1, but without any monstrous cavalry for the vamps, I don't imagine more will be coming. I suppose I could try to counts as the whole lot as tomb kings, but I'm not sure how that would work.
At any rate, while the water effects dry on the next 40, I decided to work on a couple of models I assembled a long time ago. As the unit is only 5 strong, I should be able to get them done before the zombies dry.
Here they are:
They're not true scale, and they aren't pre-heresy, but they are pretty fun to paint. I like my space wolves to look a little grittier than the sky blue color GW has assigned them.
They're still WIP as you can see - I need to think of something to do with their shoulder pads and shields. Eventually this is going to turn into a wolfwing drop pod army - model count wise it's the exact opposite of the WHFB hordes I usually put together, so I think it'll be a fun change of pace.
Expect 3 more to come in the near future, along with a bit of weathering and complete bases.
If he puts hazard stripes on them people will ask what spinoff Iron Warriors chapter they are. Because everyone knows that Iron Warriors invented hazard stripes.
I do love hazard stripes - especially on chainfists. If there's ever a device that needs people to be aware of it's existence, it's the chainfist. I can imagine the training injuries that young marines suffer while trying to figure out how the damned thing works. I wonder how many bionic legs the wolf priests go through during that block of instruction.
Anyway, here are the 5 wolf guard complete. The only thing I haven't included yet are the pack markings on their knees, as I'm not sure how the lot is going to be broken up yet.
While I plow through the last of the zombies, I'm finishing up the wolf guard drop pod, which will complete the first unit of the army. Eventually, there will be 4-5 of these units and a few podded up dreadnaughts, but that'll be a while in the future.
I just finished up Prospero Burns on last week's business trip, (it's a great pulpy read) and now I'm inspired to make the rest of the terminators Angry Wolves. I've got a bunch of ideas - we'll see how they turn up.
I finished up the drop pod today, although I haven't decided what unit markings to mark it with yet.
The plan is to paint the army as though it's executing a planetstrike - the pods will be weathered as though just having conducted atmospheric entry, but the assaulting troops will be clean. Additionally, the rest of the pods are going to be converted to hold 5 terminators instead of 10 power armored guys - I didn't think about it with this one, so this pack is going to have to squeeze in.
With all the Wolves I own complete, and the zombie water having hardened, it's back to the pirates to finish them up. I've got a whole mess of confrontation wolfen to get to work on after this (part of the Sylvan project I've had ongoing for a while), and I'm stoked to start something different.
Here is the latest addition to the Dreadfleet - the Varghulf.
The Forgeworld skinwolves are pretty fun to put together and paint. They're the first werewolf GW has produced that I'm satisfied with the look of.
Anyway, there he is. There will be another mess of zombies to come manana.
That particular spirit is a bit from the Mortis Engine banshee swarm - they're a great looking trio, and I didn't want them to go to waste.
I've finished building a 6th Space Wolf (I found a sprue that had the free terminator from an old edition of white dwarf laying around and converted him up) - and boy is he angry. I'll post pics later today.
Yeah, I'm not really able to stay focused on a single project for too long, so there's a little bit of everything on here. Just wait, it'll get even more ridiculous.
As promised, I finished up the zombies and the first angry wolf today - here are the pics:
First, the zombies - this takes the total zombie count up to 287, and there are another 27 WIPs to come:
Second, the angry wolf. What makes the Wolves angriest of all? Why, the thousand sons of course. This particular marine (names and stories to come on everyone - with 25 models in the army it shouldn't be too tough) found a nasty little robed cultist packing a las pistol.
Why waste a bolter round when you've got a size 18 ceramite boot?
I was really impressed by the Angry Marine stuff I found floating around, so I thought I'd capture a bit of it with my Wolves. I'm not looking for anything quite as over the top or funny - I just want to capture some of the video-game-esque action shots of the boys to make them a bit more characterful.
Expect the last batch of zombies sometime soon, as well as the finished Marine. After that, it's off to Confrontation land to finish the wolfen for my Sylvan army.
Yep. I use lots of water when shaping the putty, then rub it down with a wet finger at the end. It takes most of the prints out, and after a thick base coat, they're all but gone.
And yes, exactly like one cultist being swung into a second.
The only thing I'm torn on is the cultist's color scheme. Thousand Sons are navy blue, but I'm inclined toward black robes. Hrm.
I liked the idea to use blue to shade the black - here's what it looked like in execution:
As a Bloodclaw, Skeggi was frequently chastised by his pack mates for running out of ammo long before they'd taken the objective. In spite of his frequent assertions that this was more the result of Space Marines not carrying any extra ammunition on their person than a lack of discipline on his part, he took it to heart. Now, a few decades later, Skeggi is a member of his great Company's Wolf Guard, and he has taken it upon himself to become the paragon of munitions thrift in the Chapter.
After a rather lengthy business trip, I'm home again and back to work on warhammer stuff. This week, I've finished up one long outstanding project - a unit of swordmasters, and started on a new one - a contemptor pattern dreadnought.
Here are the sword masters:
As you can see, these guys are based in a retro goblin green style. I have an old high elf army floating around that I did in that scheme, so they're based to fit in with your buddies.
And here's the big guy:
I like the full Forgeworld did for the Space Wolf Contemptors - they're angry!
After a long weekend at home, I was able to get the contemptor finished. On the whole, it is a good looking model. I wasn't sure I liked the rounded look at first, but with a little posing, I think he's pretty solid looking. The hip joints were a royal pain to pin though. Even after putting pins in, he took a good bit of gluing to keep stable. I guess sometimes I'd rather have a slightly less dynamic model that holds up during gaming and transport a bit better. I went with the 3 weapon arms I thought I might actually use - maybe someday the twin-linked heavy bolter will be amazing, but for now, I can't imagine why a dread would take it off the shelf.
Here are pics:
After finishing him up, I decided to continue operation "clean out the drawers" - and we're not talking about an unhappy experience at a mexican restaurant. I've had a half finished sylvan army on the back burner for a while now, and I think now is the time to get it finished up. Looking at all those old Confrontation metals has gotten me all excited to paint wolfen again.
Here are 3 more:
And here are 3 characters - I've gotten them assembled and primed. Orion is going to be the satyr king, and general of the list, while the wolfen are going to be minotaur stand ins.
After a few weeks of no connectivity - iphone cable problems - I've got a few new photos to upload.
First, I'm still working on the sylvan army. Here is a hero they've found in a secluded copse in the back 40:
and here's a second pic for size comparison
I can't say enough good things about the old confrontation metals. They're incredible looking models! The only complaint I have about them as a whole is their fragility, and the wolfen get around that because they're bigguns.
Second, I finished up the chocobo knights for my empire army. The 6 that were already done are now rebased, and the whole lot will take to the field as demigryph knights.
The army has been pretty much done for a while, so any projects now are just emptying ye olde bits box of odd characters and interesting parts. As you can see, Karl Franz has been reborn as Cecil, the chapter master of the knights of the raging chocobo.
On an aside, I don't understand why the demigryph isn't a mount option for empire heroes. I hope that gets remedied some day.
They're Reaper axebeak models - they make great riding birds. They're a touch small for the bases, but a little oversized for normal cav bases. On the whole, they'll do I think.
Glad y'all like them though - there are more wolfen to come soon.
I am loving the sea zombie army. I have seen a couple of similar things floating around. Have you seen the old rules from the lustria white dwarf for a sea zombie army?
Another update for the vampires! I finally finished the last of the 300 zombies (amen), and I started the alternate pose of Luther Harkon. I won one of the (relatively) new griffon rider kits at a recent tournament (the Brawler Bash 2012), and as I already have a griffon riding general in my empire army, I decided to make it a vampire lord's mount instead. Given its size, I think it's going to count as a zombie dragon. The kit, as with so many of the recent GW kits, is incredible. I can't lavish enough praise on the recent plastics that GW has produced. They may not be the cheapest kits, but they're really a joy to work with.
Anyway, here are the pics:
You'll notice the undead ogre - his arms take up a base each. What can I say, after 300 zombies I was getting a bit tired of putting the regular guys together.
And here's the Commodore:
Again, incredible kit with a ton of extra bits. I highly recommend it.
I also finished up another wolfen this week - the BSB.
I do love these confrontation models.
First up, I've got the completed pics of Luthor Harkon on his griffon.
Next, I've started on a second drop pod for my Wolfguard list. I don't know about you, but I tend to get wrapped around the little things on a model - like the fact that the drop pod is designed to hold 10 PA guys rather than 5 terminators. With a bit of green stuff and card, I've remedied that problem.
It's still a WIP of course, but you get the gist of it. I'm surprised there weren't more of this sort of conversion floating around google - surely I'm not the first guy to address this problem?
Missed a couple of great updates! The submerged zombies look super, good idea with the ogre, he really helps make the squad more original. Griffon rider is lovely as well, first time I have seen that kit in use!
Wolven shaman is fab, I would question why he is wielding a three foot-long green croissant but perhaps it channels his magic or something?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Hmm, cunning drop pod conversion, I like it a lot!
So we're back to work on the Catachans. I pulled them all out of storage this week to see what there was, and what there needed to be. I've had ideas for these guys brewing for a while, and now it's time to put some of them into action.
First up, the Army as she currently stands:
That's:
9 infantry squads
2 veteran squads
1 storm trooper squad
1 command squad
a pile of characters
a pile of heavy and special weapon guys
3 cyclops remote demo vehicles
2 sentry guns
11 ogryn (including Meat, the ogryn bodyguard!)
1 sentinel
1 thunderbolt
2 valks
2 vendettas
6 tauros assault vehicles
Here are a few more pics:
Squads 1-4
Squads 5-9
Cyclops demo vehicles
The Ogryn:
So what I discovered is that the army is lacking (within the theme of course) is heavy weapon teams. Additionally, I wasn't happy with my Sly model, so I'm reworking him.
Here are the WIPs:
Mortar teams:
SFC Don "the Dragon" wilson and his Ammo bearer Kid N Play - a heavy bolter team:
Another heavy bolter team, Ox and his trusty ammo bearer chuckles (the 3 legged dog):
The WIP shots of Sly Marbo with his "demo charge". I ripped that idea off from someone's (no idea where I saw it) Catachan Rocket Launcher model.
And the re-armed Tauros Assault Vehicles:
That's all I've got done at the moment, but there's more to come! It's exciting to have these guys back on the bench, and I've got a lot of work to do on them, so stay tuned.
First day of vacation updates here. I've got a few weeks off of work, so I'm going to get some work done on the myriad of projects I've got floating around.
First, some updates on the Catachan Red Devils:
Sly Marbo - the one man army
Next up - Master Sergeant Frank "the Grip" Kuwalski - a Commissar Yarrick counts-as: I tried to copy the pose as much as possible to make it easy to tell what he is.
And next, I've decided that I can't get a Last Chancers/Dirty Dozen style squad with the IG rules, so I've branched out into the realm of allies. With that being said, here is my Inquisitor Coteaz counts as, with Petey, his 3 legged attack dog:
And the first parts of his retinue, a gun servitor and a deathcult assassin (Weapon X)!
And his Vindicaire assassin (old pic here):
Really loving your Catachan stuff, you are taking their original over the top design aesthetic and really running with it. I dig the afro guy and his buddy with the gheto blaster...Sly looks the gak...sorta combined the Stalone/Rambo theme with the Schwarzenegger/Dutch characterin Predator. Might have to steal your stolen idea there! (Yes, I ALSO have a decent sized Catachan army...mostly made up of the old metal 2nd Edition models.
Keep up the great work, I'll definitely be watching this project!
I finally picked up a new batch of aquarium plants and finished up 6 weapon teams:
And the finished product on Inquisitor Coteaz - still working on Catachan fluff for this guy:
And a pair of warriors for the Inquisitor's retinue. Basically, I'm stretching the Catachan model range to its limits here to include every pop culture icon that looks anything like a Catachan in the unit. Any guesses as to who these two are? It shouldn't be too hard to figure out.
And I've started on the next army project - a World Eaters list. I've had a large Khorne Daemon army that's been sitting on the shelf for a while, and it's going to be rebased while I put together a World Eaters contingent to join it on the table. The premise of the list is as follows: There's an overlap between Khorne and Slaanesh that neither likes to acknowledge - particularly Khorne. And that overlap is Heavy Metal Music! (from the year M2 Year 982 or so on the Imperial calendar).
Skulls, beards, leather pants, fire, rage, homoerotic guitar solos, and amps that go to 11 combine to form an extravaganza of hate and anger that Khorne can't resist! I'm not sure what this overlap says about metaphysics of Khorne and Slaanesh, but I would guess that the new Daemonic Hatred: Khorne and Hatred: Slaanesh rules actually have a little Attraction: Khorne & Slaanesh wrapped up in them too.
But enough theory. The army's going to be all Khorne, with Khornish noise marines thrown in for the sound track. The daemon prince in particular is going to be a badass - he's based on the forgeworld model and this model:
http://loudwire.com/slash-riff-lord-award-at-2012-revolver-golden-gods/
The first few terminators are here - I'm using lots of beastmen parts and fur pelts to capture their bestiality.
Expect more over the top skull-o-riffic awesomeness.
Whoa, this thread is really chock full of creativity! Subscrined.
Loving the pirates! And the Catachans are great too! As for Jimmy and Billy: You'll definitely need Lance and Bill (of Contra fame) as well. And an objective marker recalling a particular scene from Platoon (if you haven't done that already). And maybe a Predator as an Eversor assassin? Just saying...
As for the Khorne models: Some very nice ideas there! I especially like the guy with the Ungor head! One thing, though: As it stands, the other guy's banner pole is still clearly recognisable as an icon of Nurgle, so you might want to use something to cover that Nurgle symbol there.
Lots of crazy convertions and awesome army's in here, maybe the count as inquisitor is an catachan who joined an space marine chapter but got banned for some reason and got back to his old friends
I've got a trio of predators done up already - I was using them as antagonists in my kill team missions. I should perhaps rebase one to use as an assassin.
And consider the Contra guys done - that's an easy one.
Yeah, that is a Nurgle icon - I'll cover the center with something Khornish when my bits shipment gets here.
Here are today's updates - a trio of vending machines dsteingrass sculpted. FOB devil was getting a bit thirsty, so their amigos at Brawndo, Nukacola, and the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation installed nutrient dispensing flavor boxes. The Americana references just keep coming.
As any Doug Adams fans know, while the Brawndo and Nuka Cola machines produce a variety of things, only one things comes out of the Nutri-matic.
Hope you enjoy,
Dan
Automatically Appended Next Post: And you get a second update today - I got a pile of work done on Slash, the Demonic Frontman for the World Eaters' speed metal band. Here are the WIP pics of him and his "axe". Of note, his mike is made of the drilled out head of a Blood Angels terminator. Acoustically, there's nothing quite like it.
More work completed on Slash - He's almost complete now.
And a close up of his guitar "Intravenus de Milo"
By the way, I'm in search of ideas for the cultists for this army - I'm inclined to using hordes of female groupies. I'm leaning toward the blood vestal models, or maybe waiting for plastic GW witch elves, but both look a bit too fantasy. Any ideas?
This has been great fun - I've got a few details left and then the base, which should be arriving in the mail shortly.
Comments & criticism are welcome, except for "this is ridiculous and over the top" which is too obvious to be entertained.
The daemon prince is about done, but while the paint was drying I've put together a few more World Eaters marines:
The berserker kits are fun to work with as long as you have a decent bits box to church them up a bit. The terminators on the other hand disappointed me. The kit felt like it needed another sprue or two's worth of bits - there weren't many assembly options at all. There's definitely a huge difference between the GW kits of 3-4 years ago and those of today - much more value in the new stuff.
Yeah, the dice bag weighs about 10 pounds with 20 dice in it.
More World Eaters today - I finished up 3 mutilators.
Fun models to paint, although I didn't do much converting with them as you can see.
I'm almost finished with the first 8 marines - they were actually much more work to get together than the mutilators, as there's plenty to chop & sculpt on them.
I'm debating picking up a Storm Eagle for these guys - there's just something about land raiders I don't like - so they may be getting an air force in the near future.
More to come - the marines should be done tonight.
So I chopped up an Angron model. It hurt a little at first, but it got more fun as it went.
Anyway, I've developed my World Eaters idea a bit - it's going to be the legion at the site of their last battle on the Daemon world of Skalathrax.
With that being said, I wanted to put together a really impressive Kharn model - the original isn't much to look at - and Angron's model fit the bill. With Kharn having pioneered the rabbit-hat look, I knew the model needed one, but I didn't want to lose the Butcher's Nails or the great face on the original model. I think this helmet changes the look substantially, while still keeping the parts of the models I like. I left the pre-heresy armor untouched for the most part, except for the collar and the belt.
The collar looked a bit ridiculous, so I replaced it with a slightly expanded cloak, and the imperial belt was carved off in favor of more skulls (I'm a GW fanboy after all).
Finally, I lost the second axe in favor of a severed head - skulls for the skull throne and such.
Here he is, WIP:
I also ended up with a derth of valkyrie parts (apparently the FW vulture kit comes with a pile of extras) so I decided to rework some of my scratchbuilt thunderbolt "The Hell's Belle". She was rocking engines made of tampon applicators, and while they performed well enough, the actual engine parts look much better. In honor of her tendency to die ingloriously in most games, I've given her pilot the handle "goose".
Let me know what you think - there's more to come.
Kharn has his mouth set far too low to be natural looking. He's a also a it... Big. Other than that they all look great. Keep up the awesome painting and conversions!
I'm offering this as constructive feedback, please don't take it as critical or negative.
I feel the Khornate helm looks way too low and should cover the nose of the model. That would also address the mouth being too low. Because the rebreather is too low, the cables going to it look more like chops (as in facial hair) than tubes. The skull in his hand could be a flamer instead since you are recreating a specific incident when Kharne flipped out and started killing everyone.
Other than that it looks really good! The model on top left getting hacked by Gorechild and falling away is brilliant! I really like how both Marines he is killing are completely unnoticed and disregarded by Kharn, they are simply incidental and effortless kills as he strides ever forward. I know that is similar to the original model but I can see where you've made changes and they work very well with the rest of the scene.
Hey all - it's been a bit. I've been visiting sunny Eloy, Arizona for the last few weeks; it's is a lovely place if you like rocks and desolation.
At any rate, on to the painting.
Skalk: you (and the others) are right about Kharn - the nose looks weird with the rebreather. I chopped it up and fixed it, and I'll have updated pics tonight. Additionally, I've started putting together a custom demonic flamer that's going to be slung behind his back, as it was used at Skalathrax.
Others: thanks for the love & comments on Slash - he's been brewing in the back of my brain for a while.
Here are today's pics:
First, I finished the guitar strap on Slash, so he's done. The only base work left on him is to add some demonic grass - I figure it'd be red on one of Khorne's demonworlds:
Second, I finished the unit of terminators for the World Eaters:
Fun guys to work on, although I liked chopping up Space Wolf terminators a lot more than working with the terribly out-of-date chaos terminators.
Next up, I'm finished with the Thunderbolt. The new parts worked wonders on sprucing her up, although I'm still not thrilled with the cockpit.
And that's all for today. Next up on the list, I've started work on Sedition Wars, and I've got a pile more World Eaters to finish.
Alright, so Kharn is finished - minus a bit of mucking around with the casualties' shoulder pads and the addition of his flamer, which is still WIP. I'm happier with the face now - thanks for the C&C on the rebreather.
And one for scale - he's a big lad.
I'm stoked with the model. Characters are always fun to work with, but this guy was something else. For starters, he's huge! He really stands out in a squad, with or without the scenic base. Secondly, the quality of the model is incredible. I was pretty apprehensive about shelling out that much dough for one guy, but it was worth it. They really put some time into the details on his axe, armor and cloak, and with a bit of tweaking to Kharnify him, he's perfect - a real step up from the GW Kharn model, which is dated at best.
Anyway, I also finished up the test model for my Sedition Wars Samaritans. I opted for a Khaki color, with Marinesque epaulettes. I'm happy enough with the scheme, so I'll start work on the rest of them ASAP.
Lots of progress on the Sedition Wars front today. I'd like to get the initial load finished so I can get a few games in - I'm OCD about playing with painted stuff.
The Samaritans are finished. They were easy enough, being smallish, generally armored models, and thus not requiring too many colors or too much time. No golden demon stuff here mind you - just nice, solid paint jobs for daily gaming use.
The sculpted bases that came with the game were a particularly nice touch. I can see the Samaritans being used as excellent Imperial Guard stand-ins, if you're into the Techno sort of trooper.
I've got a World Eaters Storm Eagle drying outside at the moment - expect to see update shots of it as well as the zombie half of Sedition Wars miniatures in the near future!
I've got WIP shots of both the World Eaters maulerfiend and Storm Eagle today. The Storm Eagle is a royal pain to assemble by the way. None of the long, straight lines lined up very well, and the doors & ramps all took a good bit of work to attach in an aesthetically pleasing manner. The finished model is awesome, but it took some doing.
As you can see, the multi-melta sponsons have been redone with pieces from the forgefiend kit, the driver has been replaced with a hard-wired juggernaut (complete with feeding trough!), and the rest of the ship has been tastefully redecorated in a "skulls and chains" theme, complete with a crossed axes icon on the wing that is going to become the warband's standard.
The maulerfiend was fun to assemble. I decked him out with pelts and icons to fit in with the boys, then gave him an Emperor's Children marine to chew the arm off of. He's happy.
Well, after much work, the storm eagle is finished. It ended up being quite an undertaking.
I opted to stipple the whole thing to try for a warp-forged look, and I generally think it looks good. The camera didn't do it any favors, as it made the yellow top-coat much more distinct than it looks in real life. I guess I should invest in a shadow box. Whatever the case, the rest of the bird is done up in a Khornish sort of way, with chains and skulls aplenty.
In the end, it's a great looking kit from FW, although as I said earlier, it's a pain in the ass to assemble.
More to come! I'm working on the maulerfiend next, as well as more marines and the zombies from Sedition Wars.
I finished up a bit more stuff today - the Company continues to grow. Fluff-wise, I'm going to grow this army into an actual company, rather than the usual World Eaters warband. At the time of Skalathrax, there still should have been a pretty solid task organization in effect, albeit without any librarians.
First up, Kharn got some more love - another couple of highlights and some symbology finished on the dead World Eater. He still needs his flame thrower, which I'm almost finished with.
Next, I finished basing the first squad of 8 and added a few muzzle flashes to their pistolas, and I finished weathering the Storm Eagle. Here are both of them.
And here are a few terminator close-ups to see the muzzle flashes applied elsewhere. Heretic miniatures produces them in a translucent orange color that's pretty easy to make look awesome.
And here is the hellbrute I chopped up a while back. He's red, angry, and ready to draw plenty of fire.
And finally, here's the Company as she currently stands. There's still plenty of work to go, but she's coming along.
Well, that's all for today. I've got the maulerfiend under the brush now, so he'll be ready next, and then it's off to work on more marines.
Thats a sweet Kharn model. Nice to see Angron getting another use You have some really interesting ideas on this blog. I will be watching to see how it unfolds. Keep it up
I finished up the maulerfiend last night. As you can see, he's in the process of disarming an Emperor's Child.
The only thing that might be left on this guy is adding snow on his base - a step that would involve the entire army. I'm not sure if Skalathrax is only cold at night, or cold all the time but only cold enough to kill space marines at night. It's a fluff question I'm sure nobody can answer, so I'll figure out what looks better and go that way.
Anyway, here he is:
I'm not super happy with the warpforged look of the Storm Eagle, so the rest of the war machines (not being space-borne) will get a more traditional red paint job.
I'm glad you like them - there's more to come with the rock band theme. Just wait till you see the Dark Apostle and the 8 man noise marine squad. It's going to be glorious.
I finished up a pile of the Sedition Wars zombies and got started on a couple of Dreadclaw drop pods. It's a shame they didn't make the new codex, but at least they're in the Aeornautica. They'll be run as Dreadclaws in normal 40k or as normal drop pods in a Legio list (I think Skalathrax World Eaters can still run as a legion). 3 cheers to the guys at Dark Future Gaming for the conversion idea!
They're still very WIP of course - I solemnly vow that nothing in the legion shall deploy without chains and skulls on it. On an aside, I really like the functionality of the dreadclaw. I like the idea that in a ship to ship boarding action, the claw can dig into the side of the ship, open up at the bottom, and give the guys inside the chance to carve through the bulkhead and enter without being exposed to outer space. Groovy stuff.
More to come - I've started on the next marine squad and a champion.
Zombies look great and I love that Maulerfiend! And I'm glad people have found ways to make a Dreadclaw pod out of the regualr kit. Not many people would pay for the ones on FW.
Looking forward to whats happens next
Holy Crap! Amazing work going on here Wonko!
The blue-haired SW mini with the sniper-rifle is a great model!
The ship has the most amazing swirley paintjob! Excellent stuff!
I'm glad y'all dig the maulerfiend so much. As with most of the newer GW kits, it was both easy and fun to assemble & convert. And thanks for the love on the ship's paint job. I'm self-conscious about it. I don't know why.
After a week on business, I'm back and back to work on the Dreadclaws. I carved down the bases of the struts to make them a bit nastier looking, added a bit of chain to the edging, and I'm currently recasting some World Eaters symbology. I think that's probably okay? It doesn't trigger my moral "don't do that-o-meter" anyway. Here are the current WIP photos.
The morality of recasting would only be an issue if you were going to sell the recasts on I think once these claws are done I don't think many people will tell the difference between FW and your own the are that good
I finished up the construction of the pods last night - here they are:
I also finished up putting together the Burning Brand of Skalathrax, which is going to be added to Kharn via a magnet. It was assembled using the parts from a flamer, a heavy flamer, a bloodletter, chain, and green stuff:
No calls from any legal teams so far!
More to follow this weekend - I'm off on business for the week:
I don't know about all that - but thanks for the well wishing.
I've got a few more units finished up. The first is a unit of bloodletters that I've rebased and revitalized a bit for 40k use. Here they are:
I've also finished up 10 more World Eaters - the army needs meat for the grinder. I've been kit-bashing a bunch of sources for these guys (wolves, berserkers, CSMs, WoC warriors and green stuff), and I'm pretty happy with the results. The single piece chosen models work well as champions with only a little chopping.
More to come - the Khornish noise marines are next!
This plog is just so packed with kit-bashing goodness I don`t have a clue on where to start the praise but the Vampire Pirates and Slash does it for me
You aint seen nothing yet man - I'm working on the noise marines now. Zealot miniatures makes an awesome set of resin guitars, and they fit the metal head aspect of the army perfectly.
I've got a concept for the doom siren, but I'm still brainstorming a blast-master. Any ideas?
Here are the WIP shots.
Cool noise marines so far! And those older bloodletters just look so much cooler than the newer version, you have really done them justice with that paintwork.
Hmm - a keyboard guitar might be the answer for the blastmaster. I'll see what I can come up with.
And yeah, that generation of bloodletters is my favorite. I've added a few of the newer guys in for flavor, but I think the big hairy metal guys with axes really do Khorne justice.
The noise marines are coming along - I'm working on adding choppy stuff to the guitars atm. Here are the new pics:
And when the champion rolls dark apotheosis, Slash will step in!
FUQ YES. this blog is so win
1) ur pirate zombies, funny and awesome, i especially love that corspe cart and that model tray where you show'd the sea and the beach and how the zombies gently rose from the waters, its the little things
2) dat warthog, i approve
3) ur space wolves, i approve of greatly, especially that contemplator dread, not too many actually convert those things for some reason
4) THAT DAEMON PRINCE, "YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"
5) angron looks a lot better like that i think, i don't like his angry bald face
6) noisey zerkers, i want now
keep it up
Fender, eh... I associate them more as hippy guitars. But dude those BC Rich Beast guitars rule! I've never seen anything like what you are doing here (except maybe a distant ref to the GW Goffic Rokkers, but this is way cooler) and really enjoy the Metal theme here.
Any chance they might be blasting some Bolt Thrower?
I agree about the hippy guitar look on the bass guitars, but as they come two to a sprue, I'm stuck with what I've got. As far as the soundtrack blasting in the drop pods on the ride in, I was thinking of something along the lines of the "Dropkick Murphys", or maybe something really ridiculous like "Cannibal Corpse". We'll see. I'm sure something will jump out at me when I look at the completed army.
And that guitar is perfect for a blastmaster. I see visions of the future.
I finished up the first drop pod today. I painted it in a more traditional fashion rather than the warp-forged look of the storm eagle. I'm not sure which I like more. In the end, one of them is going to be repainted, and it's probably going to be the storm eagle.
That drop pod is simply fantastic and makes me want to build one of my own! Great job!
Personally speaking, I prefer the more "traditional" paintjob you used on the drop pod. It's clear what you were trying to do with the Storm Eagle, but the effect didn't come out that convincing, unfortunately. Plus the overall impression of the model is that it's orange, and you don't want your servants of Khorne to be orange, right?
Yeah, I've been thinking the same thing. I keep wanting to like the storm eagle because repainting it is going to be a pain, but it's got to be done.
Automatically Appended Next Post: This afternoon was game time with the boy. I dropped 50 bucks on a set of spacehulk with no models, and one of my current side projects is to use the extra half of my Bio-hazard level Sedition Wars purchase and some leftover terminators to refashion the game into Wolves vs. Space Zombies.
As you can see, there are still a few WYSIWYG issues, and the snow & ice bases have got to go, but on the whole, the Sedition Wars zombies look great, and I really hate Blood Angels (space emo!) so the Wolves are a big step up.
You might also notice that my boy's Space Marines managed to burn the control room, so the zombies were foiled today. Better luck next time. At least we ate the Sergeant.
Once the new bases for the wolves come in, I'll finish this project up!
Deep in the bowels of the brassiest castle of brass in all of Khorne's realm rocks Slash. As the front man for Khorne's demonic death-metal band "Warpstorm", his existence is spent in a screaming, fiery rage of bad-ass guitar solos for the listening pleasure of the Blood God. Once defeating "Disaster Area" in a battle of the bands that left the better part of the Segmentus Sector a barren wreck (Hotblack Desiato has quietly contested the victory for some time), Slash has been responsible for Innumerable triumphs for the Skull Throne. Notably, he once turned an entire Eldar Maidenworld into a raging, Fleshhound infested mosh pit when one of his famed, 888 day guitar solos finally cracked the planet's World Spirt open and unleashed Karnak and his pack onto the world's surface. The newly deafened wildlife of the world didn't hear the baying of the hell hounds until escape was impossible.
But Slash wasn't always a daemon prince. It's a little known fact (revealed only when the freak-seer Necrodemus the insane played the octo-platinum "Warpstorm" album "Smell the Glove" backward on his LP player) that Slash achieved his Dark Apotheosis during the battle of Skalathrax. At the the time, "Warpstorm" was the only known noise marine squad in the entire World Eaters' legion. During the battle with the Emporer's Children, their furious solos and screeching musical might had so swung the tides of war in the Eaters' favor, that the Dark Prince himself intervened. As time and reality warped and twisted around them, Slash and his brothers found themselves on a mighty stage surrounded by a hundred million screaming daemonettes. Across the stage stood a towering Keeper of Secrets and his entourage, their androgynous beauty emphasized by their spandex attire, and their long, feathered hair bound in headbands of colors Slash had never dreamed of.
The Keeper laughed, and at his command his nether-keyboard player began playing a melody of such haunting, erotic, beauty that Slash's colon almost collapsed upon itself. For secondsdaysyears the World stood silently, each member wrestling to overcome the power of the Dark Lord's band, and the daemonettes began to crowd the stage in anticipation of a feast. Finally, when all hope seemed lost, and the Blood God's hastily summoned security staff were finally being overrun, Slash arose, and shaking free of the music with fist pumping rage, struck a chord of such hateful power that the keyboard player stood momentarily stunned. In that lull, their viewing screens cleared, and their rage restored, "Warpstorm" struck back. The battle of the bands that ensued was furious, but in the end the stage had collapsed to rubble, the demonettes were all impregnated with brass babies, and the Keeper of Secrets had moved back to his parents basement. Warpstorm reappeared at Skalathrax in an maelstrom of power that shook the world to its very core, and Slash immediately exploded from his armor to be reborn as a Daemon Prince of Khorne.
Nobody knows what the record contract he signed with the Lord of Skulls looks like, but is is almost certainly infinitely long and full of clauses of such treachery that they'd make a skaven blush.
And with that, here are the final pics:
And that's all for today. That unit was a blast to put together.
I was about to post a Youtube video link and refreshed the page before I posted. I am staggered and decided to not post anything but feedback.
The fluff you offered was funny and the models... just wow.
The Slash conversion and paint job has broken my adjective list, so I'll make up some new ones- Superfantalistasomeistic!!! Amazasomesplenderific!!! Gaahhhh!!!
From there the madness continues. Right down the list each model shows the same incredible attention to detail and amazing artistry / craftsmanship.
I am annoyed that I cannot exalt this thread more than once.
Thanks man - I love this drop pod look. It's a reasonable equivalent for the dreadclaw I think, without breaking into forgeworld territory. Cost aside, I really enjoy working with plastic vehicle kits a hell of a lot more than resin ones. The plastic kits fit together in a way resin never seems to without a ton of work.
Anyway, I broke down and repainted the storm eagle over the last few days. Here it is in it's newest (and final) incarnation:
It may get a few markings added - I'm not sure yet - but in essence, she's complete.
More to come - only one day left till I'm off line for a while on business.
Alright, so I've got time for one last update before punching out.
Here are the WIP shots from a new squad of World Eaters. The heart of the army is going to be Khorne-marked marines with bolters, CCWs and pistols. I like the versatility of the squad, and I can't imagine world eaters deploying without the pistol/ccw combo. I used phobos pattern bolters with chain-bayonets to create a bit more of the 31st Millennium feel - I figure by the time of Skalathrax there is probably a good bit of both old and new gear floating around. Anyway, here they are so far - I've still got pistols, CCWs, and gubbinz to add:
(The guy on the right in the first pic is my favorite - weird how they sometimes come together in just the right way isn't it?)
Thanks for the feedback - this army has been a blast to work on.
I finished up the army's terminator lord - 3 time winner of the Legion's "beards for the blood god" competition, Kirk von Windstein, the Lord of Skulls.
He's ready to smash a squad of purple-clad Emporer's Children into paste.
I finished up the first Vulture today - reaper 64.
Given that it's got the usual (for this army) Catachan conversions, there wasn't much remarkable about putting her together and painting her up.
That being said, the vulture is a pretty impressive looking aircraft - especially with the punisher auto-cannons. It won't be long before she's mowing down the enemies of the imperium 20 twin-linked shots at a time!
I shifted gears a bit today and picked back up the sylvan army I've been working on for a few years. I'm in clean-out-the-closet mode, so you'll be seeing a wide variety of strange stuff. In this case, I've got an old confrontation wolfen hero that's counting as a 40mm lord in my beastmen/ogre/woodelf sylvan list.
Here he is:
These old wolfen models are a blast - very characterful, and highly posable for big metal figures - I've got about 15 done so far with another half dozen to go. The goal is to have 18 of them completed so I can run a minotaur/treekin/ogre horde.
I finished up a few more wolven today and thought I'd post a pic of the whole unit. I know Confrontation didn't intend them to rank up, but as usual, their models look incredible as a unit. As you can see, Orion, lord of the marshlands and leader of its peoples, is on point.
Fluff-wise, these guys are one of the stranger tribes dwelling in Athel-Loren - I'll post more pics of the rest of them as they come to life. I'd like to emphasize the fey bit of the forest people culture, with an Azerothish color scheme because I'm a sucker for colorful armies.
More work on the Sylvan army today - I finished up assembly on 18 fawn skirmishers (ungors / glade guard).
They were a ton of work for a unit that's going to run about 150 points on the battlefield, but they'll look pretty cool for the 5 minutes they're alive before they get vaporized by a strength 3 magic missile. Such is the price of a themed list I suppose.
Anyway, here they are, ready to paint:
They'll be joining these guys:
I'll have 30 or so in the end, which should be as many scrawny forest dwellers as any list needs (I hope).
Today was also clean the garage day, so I reorganized my gaming corner, unpacked all the armies in storage, and finally finished up my display shelf.
The finished product is a bit ridiculous - my pocket book hurts just thinking about it.
I've got a couple of updates today. First, the fawn skirmishers.
These guys, per capita, took more work than anything I've worked on lately. Between all the green stuffing, bit swapping, and the fairly complicated paint job, they took a lot longer than I expected. That being said, there are 30 of them now, so I've got all the glade guard/ ungors I'll ever need.
Here they are:
And while wandering around a craft store with the kids yesterday, I bumped into the toy dinosaur section. This rekindled my desire to work a few dinosaurs into my Catachan list (inspired by this guy's Catachan work: http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?206184-Beer-Guns-and-Dinosaurs-A-Catachan-Log). Here's the WIP shot of my first "sentinel" - a Catachan outrider!
As you can see, SFC "Rock" Chesterfield is enjoying a cigar as the 187th's vulture squadron delivers 4000 rounds per minute of punisher death to an ork encampment he marked a few minutes earlier.
Today I've got the finished pics of my Catachan Sentinel, the dinosaur whisperer.
The sentinel leg fit surprisingly well, and I'm pretty pleased with the way the model turned out.
Having seen the other dinosaurs offered by Safari Ltd, I'll probably paint up a few more of these guys - a unit of three would be nice - and I'd like to run one of the dinosaur hunting scenarios floating around the web.
I finished up the big unit of satyrs for the sylvan army today & got started on a pair of great eagles. These long weekends are great for getting work done on my real job (painting) - if only it paid better...
Anyway, here are the pics of the satyrs - 40 gors / dryads should be enough to get the army on the board.
As usual, there are plenty of unit fillers floating around. I think they do wonders for horded up units, and getting a model up big blocks is one of my favorite parts of 8th edition. These particular satyrs, like so many of their ilk, are getting blind drunk in the forest. Go figure.
I also got started on a pair of great eagles. I don't love the GW models (although the pair pulling the new HE chariot are quite nice), so I decided to go with something more sylvan looking - the cool mini or not birds.
Here's the WIP of the pair:
If you haven't seen the sculpts in person, they're pretty incredible. I was skeptical about them because of their price, but they were worth it. They've got loads more character than their GW equivalents.
Anyway, hope you enjoy. There'll be more to come as it's ready.
This was clean-up week (well clean-up quarter really), and I've finished up a few more stragglers from armies past, as well as completed a few more models for the sylvan army.
First up, the spell weaver for the sylvan army:
And the finished (based) shots of the giant owl:
And a lore master for my high elf list - just a weapon swap away from the blind Eltharion model:
And finally some WIP shots on a project I've had on the back burner for years - a castle for my dogs of war army:
Obviously there's still a lot of work to go on that one!
Well, I'm off on business for a few weeks - more to come when I get back.
Thanks for the praise - the dinorider was a fun one to put together. I know the Catachan generally don't get much love, but I find them much more characterful than the Cadians.
I finished up some more models for the Sylvan army today.
First up, the beastmen horde. I decided to intermix Dryads into the unit to try and capture the feel of Dryads and Satyrs partying in the woods. I'd imagine they'd get pretty ornery if an imperial army tromped into their glade during a fiesta.
Next up, the forest queen. She's a bit flimsy as models go - I foresee issues with packing here up and taking her to games - but the sculpt is wonderful. I like that they included a harp option, as I think it jives well with the feel of the army.
Finally, I finished up the giant eagle. This sculpt blows away the GW models - they really need to improve that line.
And that's all for today. I've got 12 more Dryads and a few more Satyrs on the desk, and then it'll be off to another project. Maybe the World Eaters need a bit more work.
There's always room for a few more Catachans, although the army has gotten big enough now to be unwieldy! But yeah, I want to make a trio of sentinel stand-ins based around this guy and his therapod.
I'm pretty stoked about the possibility of a Catachan mini-dex in the future.
I've always shied away from including tanks in the 187th Catachan SF regiment. I couldn't imagine why they'd be issued a huge, lumbering Leman Russ for jungle work, and I don't know how the regiment would transport them anyway.
Fortunately, pop culture stepped in to alleviate my boys problem. Without further ado, I present the M63 Straken model jungle tank:
This tank has been used in the jungle before, as I'm sure at least a few other nerds out there will remember. I'll be disappointed if at least one person doesn't catch the reference.
Forged from a long-lost STC, the Straken model has everything a guy needs to run in the jungle - all terrain treads, a small profile, and an engine snorkel for fording rivers. It's even air-liftable by a Valkyrie.
The only mods I made to the kit are the heavy bolters on the side sponsons. I'm still planning to add a bit more to the model, including a few ruck-sacks and a hop-on. We'll see how she comes together.
Additionally, I finished a tree man for they Sylvans.
Being something of a traditionalist, I like my earth elementals big, misshapen and lumpy. He'll pull double duty as a tree man in the Wood Elf list and a Ghorgon or Cygor in the beastmen list.
It's based on the Reaper earth elemental model. I made him taller and more connected to the ground, and I added branches and roots to his head to make it look a little niftier. Finally, I added an owl. I'm sure it's pretty irritating to have a large bird crapping on his head all the time, but I suppose he can meld back into the ground and clear it up if it gets too over the top.
That's all for today folks. Thanks for stopping by.
Is this a tank from Metal Slug? If so, brilliant reference! You'll need the player characters from the game, though. And maybe a blood-vomiting zombie soldier for good measure.
I simply love the fact that your Catachan army seems to be the largest collection of jungle commando-themed cameos ever!
I finished up the first of the 3 Straken class jungle tanks today. I figure it's about equivalent to the modern American Sheridan tank, which was jumpable (in a loose sense of the word). I wouldn't want to be the DZ security guys on the ground when it's landing, but I guess having a bit of armor is nice.
Anyway, although the 187th generally eschews tanks, there's a time and a place for everything, and the Straken packs a wallop for its size.
Here are the pics (I still need to add a guidon to the rear somewhere):
And for a little video game reference cross-pollination, here is the Straken jungle tank with Billy and Jimmy Lee:
Of course Col. Kilgore served in the 187th! Where do you think he learned to surf?
I also finished up another half-complete project today, in the form of more heavy support for the boys in green. The second Vulture is done! In typical army fashion, they named it El Diablo. Word around the barracks is that it means "some kind of Mexican Fighting Chicken". Who knows.
Finally, I finished up the second, half-painted World Eater's drop pod that's been floating around in the back of my work space. Once I get a bit of wind-fall cash, this army is getting another big expansion. The new 30k stuff FW has been releasing has my brain boiling with ideas on how to expand the legion. I figure an army build around the battle of Skalathrax can count as a modern force or a legion without much problem. You've gotta love the timelessness of the warp.
Pay no attention to the abandoned extra from an old Madonna video in the background. There are plans in place for him.
Great to see more Catachan, and they definitely are the best action-hero cameo army. I have Tarzan, Indiana Jones, Queequeg, and Little John ready for paint with Muldoon from Jurassic Park in the works. Looking forward to seeing what else you come up with.
Today I finished sculpting a unit of Chaos Dwarves (or the little people of chaos as they're sometimes called). I'm stretching my green stuff skills a bit here as you can see. I definitely don't do great faces, but with a dark, armor focused army like the chaos dwarves, I can do them well enough to feel alright fielding them.
I like the forgeworld range, but the infernal guard don't do it for me. I think they're a bit static, so I went a different direction with these guys. They're not big hats, but they're not the new FW style either.
They'll get some paint on them in the next few days. In the mean time, I'm working on another Metal Slug tank for the boys in green. They'll have a squadron of three in the end. The one in progress is going to have an open hatch - I've got to get a few of the Metal Slug commandos modeled up - they just scream Catachan.
I'm still working through some leftover projects. First up, I finished the second Straken jungle tank. I added an exposed crewman to this one. He's giving the classic "WTF" hand and arm signal.
I've got one more tank to finish - I think I'm going to assemble it in walker mode for variety's sake.
Next, I received the general for my newest project (the Army of Light). He's a Kingdom of Death model, and the sculpt is incredible. I searched for more than a week to find a model that represented what I was looking for, and this guy fit the bill with minimal modification (I cut off the brazier he was carrying, changed the way his arms are posed, and put together a spear).
The trick has been producing the effect I want while working with a very limited pallet. I haven't decided whether to go with NMM for the gold or metallic, but I'm leaning toward the former. The belt buckle is already done up that way, and I think the contrast looks good with the white on white skin & clothes. (Edit: after more thought, I may scrap the gold for silver. We'll see) I'm shooting for an alabaster skin tone by the way - I want the list to look inhumanly pure. Any advice anyone has on achieving this is welcome.
Here's the current WIP pics of the Archangel Gibreel:
Next time I'll include a model for scale.
Any feedback is welcome. He's going to set the tone for the whole army.
Okay I have to bite... Where in the deep bowels of the interwebs did you snag the Metal Slugs? Or did you pay for the prepainted $75 ones I'm seeing on eBay?
On the topic of oddball minis... Did you just happen to get the Warthogs when they were new and cheap-ish or did you find them somewhere online that was conveniently $9? I've wanted but never searched much for both the Metal Slug and the Warthog for a while, never found them for reasonable prices though!
The metal slugs were these guys:
http://www.hobbyfan.com/product_info.php?products_id=11838 With a bit of looking, they turn up for not-outrageous prices on ebay. (30 bucks or so) They're actually called "super vehicle 001" models, which should help.
Tragically, the warthogs don't seem to be around any more. I got them off Amazon for a few dollars, then they seemed to vanish. Maybe forgeworld had the manufacturers assassinated for making an alternate taurus that cost about 15% of the real thing?
Thanks a ton Dan, I'll most likely be grabbing a few "Straken" tanks of my own! It's been ages since I played Metal Slug... Last time I did I earned some bragging rights while my friends watched me beat the original at Circus Circus armed with 7 quarters and a HEVY MASHEENGUN.
As for the 'Hogs, you're right I can't find the ones you had... The closest I can find is a 7" (18 cm) Halo 4 version... The hunt is on!
I'd like to take a moment to say thanks for posting all this, it's very inspiring to see how good a Guard army (and the others too!) can look when some time is put into it!
Metal slug was a staple of my childhood too man - truly the king of the 2d shooters.
After looking at the Archangel for a while, I decided I didn't like the gold much. The warm colors just don't work with the Army pallet I have in mind.
Consequently, he's bee reworked. Here he is, base and all:
As you can see, his base is circle-within-square to accommodate his participation in battle wherever it may lay in the stream of time. Being a cheap person, I'm going to have this army pull double duty in both Warhammer systems!
I'm much happier with the way he looks now - the way is paved to start the rest of the list.
Thanks to the faux-hurricane that's cooking up in the gulf, I got the day off work - which means I was able to allocate a bit more time painting today than usual. Combined with the recent arrival of my Sedition Wars Bio-hazard models, this led to a productive afternoon.
First up, here are the finished chaos dwarves that have been lurking in the top of my workstation for almost a year.
As usual, I'm happiest with my sculpting work right about the time I'm finished with the project, so these guys are the best looking in the army. I guess (as in life) somebody has to be the rear-ranker.
Next, I finished up 5 of the wolves for my Sylvan army. These guys will be warhounds in a beastmen army, mournfangs in the ogre incarnation, or some sort of hound of Orion in the wood elf version. They were a simple enough project - nothing too remarkable here.
I also knocked out a test model for an upcoming monsters of the north army - a rock troll. I think I'm going to use a little less blue in the shading on the rest of his amigos.
Finally, I have a couple of the bio-hazard models finished up. As with the others, I really like what Studio McVey did with these guys, although it's pretty fiddly working with 28mm true scale kid-sized models.
I really like the aphid suit, and I might try to pick up a few more for the Catachan army when I get a chance - I can't see a pop culture reference somewhere without trying to fit it into the ole' 187th somewhere.
Oh, and I don't know about you all, but I can't even look at the Dr. Ridley model without feeling a bit of loathing for Paul Reiser in my belly.
I just love dropping in on your thread from time to time so much variation in each update, cross over of armies and time scales and the use of multi manufacturers just so interesting
On top of this the amount of colour its like looking at a stain glass window on a bright sunny day , the wolves are great never in a million years would I have thought that scheme would work but it does.
Thanks man! And here I thought my thread was getting a little schizophrenic.
The chaos dwarves are tough. I wanted to use a dark, simple pallet, but it's hard to do that and still have the army "pop" on the table. Even their gigantic warmachines look a bit drab. I guess that's just life.
The sylvans on the other hand have plenty of "pop" - I'm really happy with the way the army looks on the table. I'm sure it's out of vogue, but the color scheme draws heavily on WoW for influence. There's some weird stuff in the night elf kingdoms that looks really good in spite of its apparently gaudy color scheme.
I'll settle down on an army sooner or later, but for now, the schizophrenia will continue until my back-log is cleared out.
Never go sane mate I love the fact we never know whats going to appear, its kind of like christmas without socks or deodorant
That is a hard issue to keep a dark grim feel to a paint scheme but still make it pop, I find the best way is to keep a muted pallet and just add a small touch of bright colour to each mini.
Now those wolves do look great and I aint much of a fan of them or bright colours, but you have combined to things that would normally make me think to so thats cool on its own
I kind of like the blue tinge to the troll myself although maybe a little greyer/ purple would look cool.
The Biohazard miniatures keep coming - today I finished up another 4 or 5 of the space-faring lads & lasses.
First up, a terrorist leader, a smuggler, and Vin Diesel:
Next, a crazy kid in a dress, a hot mechanic, and another shot of Sigourney Weaver:
And finally, Commander Black in a suit of Gnosis armor:
In spite of the mixed press and the rocky start, I really enjoy the game. The revised rules have made it much more playable, and the active/reflex turn sequence keeps the game moving and the atmosphere tense (as it should be). My kids get downright emotional when their soldiers get infected with nano and zombified.
Anyway, more to follow - I'm working on finishing up some Space Wolf terminators that have been moping on the back shelf of the paint cabinet for quite some time.
Just discovered this blog, and your work is fantastic. The heavy metal space marines were hilarious genius, and I really like the Space Hulk / Sedition Wars mash up you have going. Would love to see more of that, as I'm curious about how the two miniature lines scale together. (Especially Vin. Would he fit in with your Catachans, for instance, or would he be too small?)
Overall, I'm in awe of your ability to do so much consistently inspired work AND be a father. I pull off the latter, but usually at the expense of the former.
Keep up the excellent work. I'll be staying tuned.
Thanks for the compliments, I'm glad you like my work.
Vin doesn't scale well with the Catachan models. They're heroic scale, so the heads and hands are substantially larger than Vin's are. I'll post a pic when I get a chance.
The non-human sedition wars range (the strain) does okay though - the zombies look great next to guardsmen and space marines.
And being a dad is easy - I sub-lease my kids to the local Nike factory during painting hours. Free time for dad and 6 cents an hour (per kid) toward my hobbies! Seriously though, I've subtly (or not subtly if you ask my wife) brain-washed them to love wargaming over the years. They paint & game along with me & at least the oldest one is getting alright at it. Nerds in training!
Well, i just found this blog and looked at most of it. The catachans really stood out (i love the marbo, pure genius - will probably 'borrow' that idea if i ever do catachans).
Also the slaaneshi noise marines made me laugh. Marines with guitars... awesome
So, like all hobbyists, I've got the desire to paint a titan. In many ways this not-so-miniature miniature is the magnum opus of any modeler/gamer's career - it's a gigantic centerpiece to any gaming event, as well as a huge project in its own right.
For me, being a fantasy player, this has always been a sticky issue. Sure, I've done up a Forgeworld fire dragon, but that's not really on the same scale as a titan. My warhammer shelf needs something bigger.
With that in mind, I'm going to build a to-scale model of Krakanrok the black, father of the dragon ogres. According to the Archaon story, he was mistaken for a mountain at one point, so I think he'll be suitably big.
I've found a good base model, waited 6 months on back order for production, and now it's time to start.
Without further ado, here's a pic of one of his weapons - just to give you a sense of the scale I'm talking about.
This slayer, as you might imagine, has bitten off a bit more than he can chew. I'll use him for scale throughout the build.
More to follow as the model starts coming together! I hope you're as excited as I am.
Here's a second shot of the big guy - I've cleaned and assembled the basic body, and I'm now ready to start working on exterior detail and the arms. It's hard to capture the scale of this guy - I need to post him next to a set of castle walls. He could quite easily peer down into a city during a siege.
One of the few details we know about Krakanrock is that he has claws the size of warhorses. I think this guy fits the bill.
He's a sculpt made by a guy named pkking - an obscure (in the US) but amazingly talented guy out of China. It took some digging to link up with him to buy a copy, but once I saw a picture of the model, I got the fever...
Anyway, I've decided to work a fluff theme into the model, as befits a sculpt of his stature.
"Worshiped by the beasts of the north as a god in his own right, Krakanrock the black is a being of monumental power and hubris. This is reflected, in part, by the gem, parchments, and skull adorning his chest. As has been written, he was the principle signatory of the contract made between the dragon ogre race and the chaos gods. So powerful was Krakanrock, and so strong his bargaining position, that he may be the only being alive to have ever dictate terms to the four powers. At his insistence, the contract was written on the flayed hide of the mightiest daemon prince present, the arch-fiend Xzar-cha'ruuk. The demon's soul was then imprisoned in an enormous soul stone, and set into Krakanrock's chest. Krakanrock then took the skull and contracts, and hung them along side the gem as an eternal demonstration of the dragon ogre's might. He wears them still, and it is said that as long as the gem remains in his possession, Krakanrock is truly immortal. Some sages question whether a being of his power would be immortal without the gem as well, but such matters are best left to the philosophers, as no living being will ever see his end."
Here are the pics of the progress:
As you can see, a star dragon had an unfortunate run in with the big guy.
I really need to dip my toes in other games than 40k (inc Space Hulk and Necromunda) as there's some awesome stuff out there from what I can see - I'm a big fan of alternative figure manufacturers such as Hasslefree and Heresy to name a couple, but with actual game systems I'm a comparitive newbie
I've been out of town for a few weeks, but there's been some painting done in the down time - here are the latest completed/in progress models.
First up, here are the orcs from my copy of Warhammer Quest. I've been slowly painting up the set over the last few years. Eventually it'll be done, God willing, but in the mean time, here are the boyz in green:
And here are some more shots of Krakanrock - he's going to have black skin and bronze armor. Obviously there's ton more work to do - expect to see lots more pics of him along the way.
And here's my newest project - a Farsight Enclaves army. I used the proceeds from a recent army sale to put together a pile of them. Here are the first pics:
My Commander - obviously based heavily off the Farsight sculpt. This model is my favorite battlesuit in the line, and I didn't want to do much to it. I'm going to swap the sword for a fusion blade, and magnetize his other weapon, but otherwise he's staying largely as is. I'm still working on perfecting the engine glow - I'd like to add a bit of OSL, but with such a bright pallet, I don't know if it's going to look right. There'll be a bit of weathering as well, but that's till in the future.
And here are a few WIPs of the first riptide and the first 3 battlesuits:
That's all for today - obviously there are a lot of irons in the fire, but I guess I like it that way. More to come - C&C welcome.
I spent the weekend finishing up my crisis suit commander and a riptide for the Enclaves.
I decided to go with a heavily weathered look, and an alien theme for the bases. Given that the whole army is going to be suited up, I don't have to worry about them surviving in a strange environment. I think the purple, blue and teal static grass sets off the red armor nicely.
Here's the Commander - name TBD. I decided to go with a light saber sort of look for the fusion blades, while maintaining the basic twin-linked design. You probably can't tell from the pics, but I magnetized both of the shoulder hard points with nails (great, cheap way to magnetize btw) and his under arm weapon on the shield side with a magnet. He's ready to be equipped with just about anything!
Here's the first riptide. The loss of resolution during the upload didn't do the stippled blast damage much justice, but you get the gist of it.
With the entire army numbering less than 30 models, it's fun to get to devote a good amount of time to each guy - I'm working on finishing up the first 3 crisis suits now.
After finally buying and reading the Farsight Codex, I've been working on the theme of the list. It's going to be Crisis Reaction Force Omega 9, the quick reaction element of one of the larger cadres. The Force, as with most of the Farsight Enclaves forces, consists of a relatively small number of warriors outfitted in with mostly experimental and customized battle suits. Each of the teams has a designated role - the models depicted here represent team Gamma. Their primary task is strongpoint defense and objective security, with a secondary task of light vehicle destruction.
Here is Team Gamma - all armed with 2 missile pods.
I'm enjoying working on these guys - the basic suit looks crappy unaltered, but with a little love (and hands) they look pretty good.
Happy thanksgiving to all you Americans out there - I got a bit of work done last night on a pair of broadside suits for the Enclaves.
The broadside kit is incredible by the way - it's exactly what the crisis kit should be some day. I wanted to have the versatility to use either the missile system or the rail rifle on my suits, but I don't like the look of the stock missile arms. Hence, the following mod:
I'm particularly happy with the pose of the guy on the left. He's got a good C-grip on his rifle, a nice low shooting stance, and his rifle's at depressed muzzle. In short, he's ready to smoke something.
As has been said by others before, the hands really change the feel of the suits - they're a welcome addition.
Thanks to Christmas break, I've gotten to finish up a couple of projects that have been on the back burner.
First priority for leave was finishing up a bit of World Eaters stuff I had laying around in preparation for a tournament this weekend.
First, the helldrake. I like the rules (as does any CSM player with any sense), but I don't care for the model very much. I get that they wanted it to be a corrupted fighter, but the execution looks awkward to me. I wanted something more daemonic and alive looking. After raiding the bits box, I came up with this:
I like the look of this guy much better. I wanted to capture the bird-of-prey look to show him in the middle of a vector strike on some hapless infantry guy.
Next up I finished up a land raider:
I picked this one up on ebay. It was 90% assembled with a pile of forgeworld parts, so it was relatively easy to finish touching up and paint.
The army's ready to roll this weekend! I'll be taking:
Kharn
Hellbrute w/ plasma cannon
1 Mutilator (khorne)
1 Mutilator (khorne)
9 berzerkers
8 CSM (khorne, bolter + ccw/pistol, plasma gun)
8 CSM (khorne, bolter + ccw/pistol, plasma gun)
1 maulerfiend w/ lasher tentacles
1 land raider
1 helldrake
1 bloodthirster
10 bloodletters
8 flesh hounds
It's got everything the internet hates - we'll see how she does!
Anyway, that's all for today. Once I'm done prepping for the tournament, I'm switching back to finishing up the tau.
And in January - the Tyranids will be swarming my way. I want to start a nidzilla list with the new codex - we'll see what the rules support!
Thanks for the holiday well-wishing. It's my favorite time of the year for sure.
With all the extra time available, I finally finished up an old project - Warhammer Quest!
Here's the completed set in all its finally painted glory:
A few of the pictures aren't quite as clear as I'd like - taking them at night results in crappy light - but it's nice to have this long standing project wrapped up! Sadly, I think she's going to be sold after a few games - I just don't have the room I'd like to store old gaming stuff - but it was nice to close the door on an enjoyable chapter of gaming history.
Fantastic!!! I love the old quest! I have most of the components except the basic models. Which I think i could replace anyways. Buying have the boards and doorways cards rules et al. My only complaint for you...you didn't paint the doorways!!!!!
Oh but they are! I grant that I didn't paint them too glamorously, but they're all based gray and drybrushed twice with all the skulls picked out, washed and highlighted. Maybe they aren't the sexiest doorways a dungeon keeper ever installed, but hopefully they keep the place together well enough.
Thanks for the feedback - working with retro stuff is fun sometimes.
I'm back on the tau now. I decided to revamp the look of the finished riptide & add a bit more to the next one. Here's what I've got so far:
The shield is scratch built out of plasticard with a few bits added to church it up a bit. The broadsides still need to be weathered. I'll add better pics tomorrow when I get a bit more done.
Thanks. Why the hell would a suit with the size and the strength of a riptide carry a buckler? It's not as though the riptide needs to sneak through small tunnels or maintain it's dexterity in a fencing match. It didn't make sense to me, so it got a shield that's reasonable for the size and power of the suit.
Let's not kid ourselves, the tau are anime inspired. I figured I'd roll with it rather than trying to figure out how to fit them into the grimdark future.
Alright, so after a bit of a hiatus from photographing stuff, here are final (weathered) shots of a large portion of the tau army:
You can see the exposed magnets on the end of a few of the suits' weapons. They're all designed for easy weapon swaps.
I did a lot of work reposing and modding up the second riptide so they wouldn't look too similar. My intent is that every suit in the army be an individual, to represent the generally individualistic attitude of the Enclaves (relatively anyway).
The army is almost complete. I've got a R'vanrna riptide basecoated on the desk that should be finished up in a few days. It took a lot of work to make that awful head bearable! After that, there are only 6 more suits, an aegis line (still haven't decided which way to go with this one), and a few sentry turrets and the list will be finished. It's pretty refreshing to paint up a list that only requires 30 or so models total.
Hey all. Thanks to the winter weather, I got a few days off work and got a good bit of painting and modeling done.
First up, here's some work on the Wolf King's boys. I've got 10 Cataphracti, 10 tartarus, and 10 standard terminators planned for a drop pod wolf wing army (30k style). These guys are great fun to work on. The mixture of old, new and chaos bits yields some really awesome looking dudes. I don't know how viable the all terminator army's going to be on the table, but I guess I don't really care. I want the guys to be completely finished before FW releases the Prospero Burns book & models (and Russ himself I hope!) so I can get it on the table as soon as the book's released.
Here are a few of the "There are no Wolves on Fenris" lads:
Next up, I finished up the R'varna suit (minus a few details and a wash on the grass) and a few more crisis suits. This army is about finished, with all assembly complete and only 6 suits to paint. Now if only I can manage to wrap it up before I get hopelessly distracted with the Wolves.
The weird drones are going to count as crisis suits with 2 launchers. They're about the same size, and I'm tired of building suits! I figure the 3rd guy in the squad is a smarty-pants scientist with a few cutting edge ideas on drone construction.
The sentry towers were just too awesome looking to pass on, so I bought 2 to count as quad cannons for my aegis line.
And that's about it for the day. Let me know what you think & feel free to toss any ideas on how to improve the wolfguard my way!
The tau are complete, so between finishing them up and picking back up the sons of Russ, I'm painting up a soul grinder for the World Eaters.
In continuing with the Battle of Skalathrax theme, he's in the process of dismembering an Emperor's Children dreadnaught. Serves him right for wearing pink! In the grim darkness of the far future, there is no breast cancer awareness.
Here are the WIP shots:
There's more work to be done before he gets painted (to include mold line removal - fear not!). I'll keep you posted.
So it seems I've been a terrible slacker at getting any pictures taken or posted lately. As a citizen of the modern age, I believe it is appropriate for me to blame this on the universe at large and accept no personal responsibility for my actions (or lack thereof).
Having said that, here are the finished pics of the soul grinder I started on before business took me out of town:
As you can see, he's wrenched the arm off an Emperor's Children dreadnaught - Khorne has no truck with that Nancy lot. I've got the rest of the dread assembled for scenic purposes, but he's not finished yet. He's dread-locked up to match the theme of the rest of the big demons in the list. As it turns out, Khorne's got a thing for Caribbean hair styles.
Next up, I've made more progress on the Space Wolves.
I've wickered down the era I'm working on. This Company will be the Wolves' 1st Company during the age of the Horus Heresy, and it'll be led by the senior commander of the legion (Logan stand in). As we all know, Wolves don't have the sense to wear helmets and have a fondness for wolf pelts. Consequently, all of my lads will be dressed accordingly. I really like the FW heresy era terminator suits. Both are incredibly detailed, with the Cataphractii suits looking the grooviest in my opinion, although they are (by design I suppose) not very dynamic. I've re-listed the pod and Contemptor pattern dreadnaught as I've added rune work and etching to the models to bring them in line with the free hand on the rest of the guys. Here are the models:
And finally, in a flash of inspiration, I've decided on the theme for the next army. I've always had a fondness for the deathskulls and their looting skills, and I believe the pinnacle of that art is the looted tyranid.
My army will be based around a tribe working under the Overfiend of Octarius. The boss is one of the rare and wonderful boyz that not only manifests the skills of a mek, but also those of a painboy. Using his wellspring of orky know-whats, he's looted the corpse of the swarmlord itself, discovered how to replicate the hive mind's control over lesser 'nids (albeit over a shorter range), and gotten his boys to work on lootin' and herdin' up an army of bugs.
Here's the first few boyz, including the PainMek himself:
The shields aren't attached to the tyrant guard being the two beefed up nobz in the phots) yet, so you'll have to use your imaginations a bit.
I'm stoked to get a new project underway, and to get the last of the Wolves finished (22 down, 10 to go!)
I finally finished up all the Wolves - only 3 drop pods to go and the army will be complete.
Here are the pics of the various squads. I put some work into improving the photo quality - hopefully it paid off:
First up is the Commander of first Company (Logan Grimnir counts as) with 4 of his angriest amigos.
And here are the other squads:
And here's a clearer pick of the Dread with his ride:
There's fluff to come - today's focus was just on finishing up the basing.
All the green-stuffing was fun. I think the mix of the three armor types looks pretty good - it's not hard for me to imagine the wolves mixing and matching their gear, and I can't imagine an old wolf giving up his trusty suit of cataphractii pattern armor just because something new came out.
Those wolves are simply stunning, mate! Just what I think they should look like: Huge and imposing, clad in archaic armour and wrapped in pelts. The only thing I would ask is whether we could get some closeups of the different models
I can't believe that I am now finding your thread. My mind is completely blown! Your 13th Comapany Space Wolves are looking great!
wonkobaggins wrote: I'm back on the tau now. I decided to revamp the look of the finished riptide & add a bit more to the next one. Here's what I've got so far:
The shield is scratch built out of plasticard with a few bits added to church it up a bit. The broadsides still need to be weathered. I'll add better pics tomorrow when I get a bit more done.
Let me know what you think,
Dan
I would love to know how you did these Broadsides. It's making me want to pick up the Firebases Support Cadre set to convert me up a few of the new Broadsides.
Enigma: Thanks man. The key to the broadside conversions (and most of the other suit conversions) was the 1/100 mechanical hands I found on Hobby link Japan's site. They're really easy to manipulate (once you get them put together - Japanese people must have tiny, nimble hands) and bring the models to life.
The rest of the conversion is just reposing the base models and working a few head swaps, although I did cut all their weapons in half and insert magnets to enable me to swap them for missile launchers instead. If you've got any more specific questions, I'll be glad to answer them.
wonkobaggins wrote: Enigma: Thanks man. The key to the broadside conversions (and most of the other suit conversions) was the 1/100 mechanical hands I found on Hobby link Japan's site. They're really easy to manipulate (once you get them put together - Japanese people must have tiny, nimble hands) and bring the models to life.
The rest of the conversion is just reposing the base models and working a few head swaps, although I did cut all their weapons in half and insert magnets to enable me to swap them for missile launchers instead. If you've got any more specific questions, I'll be glad to answer them.
Dan
Answered perfectly. I was thinking the hands might have been from Hobby link Japan but could have been plasticard as there are those who are masters at that type of thing.
I'm sure there are plasticard masters that can pull off hands like that, but this guy isn't one of them. Things get too fiddly to work with at that scale.
I can barely assemble the hand kits that HLJ sells, much less make my own.
That being said, I vastly prefer them to the terminator hands I've seen used. Having hands that can be posed any way you like really brings the models to life.
I ended up adding banners & streamers to all the suits too, as well as finishing a pretty slick themed ADL for the tau. I'll get pics of it up with zoomed in shots of the wolves this weekend.
As promised, I've got some better photos of the wolves and tau.
First, the close up photos of the Wolves:
Next up, I've got some new stuff on the table for the 187th Catachan boys in the form of 2 more dino-rider sentinels and a way cooler Taurox than GW produces:
I couldn't resist this Taurox.
When the chips are down, and the glory boys can't cut it, there's one squad of veterans the Colonel calls. During the last campaign against the orks, they were charged with a crime they didn't commit. Now they prowl the galaxy, turning up where they're least expected (like the legion of the damned!) to save the 187th Catachan regiment's bacon.
It's the A-Team!
The van's a WIP at the moment, but you can see the details - a removable autocannon turret, BA behind the wheel, and a few thousand tons of the Emporer's finest engineering on wheels!
Finally, here are the zoomed in photos of the tau with the banners added:
The Catachan stuff has me excited. Once I saw the new Taurox rules and model, I new I had to add a few to the regiment, but the model is the least Catachan looking truck in the world. I've got a few more Taurox alternates in mind, but the A-Team van had to happen!
Ahh the A-Team theme song. It brings me back to the days of my childhood when I really believed a van full of yahoos with a lettuce gun could save a village of African refugees.
Innocence lost.
Anyway, I've been considering other alternatives to the Taurox, and one of them is the Tamiya HMMWV model.
After a bit of chopping up, here's what she looks like:
As you can see, the driver has been storm-troopered out to match the other equivalent fellows in the regiment.
The model was originally an M966 turtle back, but with a bit of knife-work, it was pretty easy to turn into a passable replica of the trusty SF GMV.
Cheers for the additional SW photos, mate! Like I said earlier, these guys are an embodiment of everything I like about the wolves. Plus you made each of them look like the hero of a thousand battles. Fantastic work!
KrautScientist: Ironically, about 3/4 of these "hero(s) of a thousand battles" were slaughtered by plasma cannons and zombies Friday. An ignoble end to a Company of heroes.
deadmeat85: Yeah, once I realized this thing is about as well armored as an ork truck, I decided a stripped down HMMWV would work better. Plus more dudes can hang out of the back! Up-armors are a tight fit for even 3 dismounts, much less 10. And yeah, the Taurox can take a "Taurox Missile Launcher" - it's basically a cyclone missile launcher.
Thanks for the comments - I'll have finished pics of all these guys up soon enough. I finished painting B.A. Baracus and putting the van back together last night!
Thanks to some unpleasant weather in the South today, work was closed. Go mother nature.
Consequently, I was able to get a bit of work done on everybody's favorite underdogs - the Catachan 187th.
First up is the finished taurox. At 50 points, it'll get a team of hardened Catachan boys where they need to go in a hurry - with B.A. behind the wheel they get to re-roll dangerous terrain checks of course - and they'll even look good doing it. While not truly an Imperial Taurox, the EMC (emporer's motor company) series van is both reliable and low-visibility.
Next up is the first completed taurox prime. The 187th Crisis Response Force (CRF) boys don't rate the high-end taurox models the Scions get, but the regimental commander has found a workable substitute in an ancient military service vehicle still popular on Catachan for both its reliability and the uncomfortable ride it provides its owners -the Joint, universal, non-standard kill-em-all vehicle (JUNK-V). They go about anywhere, and with a much lower center of gravity, are actually a bit better in rough terrain than the taller Taurox Prime. The depicted vehicle includes C-wire for the establishment of hasty tangle-wire and a 20' assault ladder for building entry.
And finally, here is S/O team 66, a recce team out of D Co (mobility Company). After extensive field testing, they regiment has found that nothing the Imperium can put together works as well for jungle reconnaissance as a good old fashioned dinosaur. The D Co boys have gotten pretty proficient at breaking the appropriate local fauna and using them to provide mobility and a bit of fire support. The team depicted here is equipped with missile launchers and a few extra days of supply for extended ops.
Well that's all today. I've got a bunch of heavy weapon teams on the work bench. The boys are going to have a lot of sand bags to fill this weekend!
I finished up a bit of work on the boys this weekend. The final JUNK-V is finished (this one with a mini-gun!) and I put together a size comparison shot to show that one the turret weapon is removed, the 187th's Taruox models are actually Valkyrie transportable - eat it storm troopers.
Here are the pics. As you can see one of the troopers is leaning out of the truck to pull security while his gunner grabs a smoke.
Finally, I've got some WIP shots of the looted tyranids. The painmek hasn't been idle! His stuff is just on the back burner. There's still a lot to knock out on these guys.
The pain-meks are back in "da shop" this week, and they've been busy.
First up, here's a group shot of 20 looted termagants. After some thought, I decided the boss is going to keep them in line with a runtherd. In the end, a termagant out of synapse (that instinctively lurks no less) isn't much different than a grot with an exoskeleton, and that's right up old skabby's (a skarboy turned runtherd) alley. With his trusty squig-hide whip and a few friendly skull thumpsl, he'll keep the little gitz moving the right way. I may even work a few grot models into the herd.
Next up is Gabby Smashgob. He lost his battlewagon to a charging carnifex, and it made him so angry he smashed the bug's head in with an old bit of tie-rod. Da Boss was so impressed with his work, that he used the remnants to fix him up with a new ride. Sure the new wagon smells a bit in the sun, and she sticks sometimes when shifting from 2nd to 3rd gear, but when she gets stuck in she makes a fearsome mess of things. Da Boss even outfitted her with a set of 'uge exhausts to make sure everyone knows she's coming!
This is a fun project, and I've got a big bits box full of ideas to work with, so expect plenty more to come. I'm thinking about running the hormagaunts with a boar-mounted runt herd and mixing a few squigs in. Grots are to termagants as squigs are to hormagaunts?
I appreciate it Lone Dirty - I was trying to think like an ork mekboy when I started assembling her.
Thanks Kraut - I figured since the mek bashed the fex's head in, he'd need some sort of "protekshun" to keep an uppity marine from doing the same thing!
I finished my test scheme models - I've always got to knock a solid character out first to inspire me to paint the rest of the army. Here are the first few:
First up, a Deff Skull runtherd:
Next up is one of his gaunts (gitz?)
And finally, the man himself, the master of disaster, the lootiest looter of them all, Sir Izzac Looten the Pain Mek boss and swarmlord of "'ive Fleet Orkus".
As you can see, I'm shooting for a pretty bright pallet. I picked blue, because as everyone knows, blue nids are the easiest to loot. I'll post a photo that's not quite so washed out soon - the colors aren't quite as vibrant in this pic.
Next up, I'm going to get the first 20 gaunts painted (chore time).
Well, after a bit of a hiatus, I've got a few updates to post.
Most of the work in the last few weeks has been on the looted nids - these guys are a blast to work on - but I also managed to get a rockin' hellbrute finished up.
Here are the nids:
First up, the finished photos of Gabby Gobsmash.
Next up, a few WIP shots of a looted trygon.
As you can see, he's only been base coated and washed - there is still plenty of work to do on him. You can't see the driver in these shots, but he's buried under the huge iron gob.
Da Boss looted this guy a bit differently than Gabby's Carnifex. After witnessing the subterranean destructive potential of the Trygon in action, da boss decided to set a trap and loot one for himself. An old trukk, a mob of grotz and a bomb squig dressed as a ham sandwich later, Sir Issac Lootin had his hands on a headless trygon body - and a nob with a tooth ache, a bone saw and some hefty sedatives ensured he "found" a volunteer to have his head grafted to the thing. Sure ole skabby can't scratch his hind bits as easily, but he came to terms with his new life style pretty after he ate his third or forth imperial bastion.
Next, I've got the WIP shots of the second Carnifex. Da Boss was a bit more aggressive with this one.
Dork McGork always considered himself an ork's ork. After all, he punted grots, stomped humies, and flailed away with his choppa as well as anyone. All that changed at the 3rd battle of knob's knob, when he saw a full-speed carnifex smash a whole mob of kans without slowing down. Dork was hooked. Forgetting his choppa entirely, he scrambled around the battlefield after the monster for the rest of the day like a fat kid chasing a nomadic ice cream bar over a homicidal obstacle course. When the big beastie finally met its fate after stumbling into the business end of a stompa's mega-blasta, Dork was crushed. He sat on the dead 'fex disconsolately making "poop poop" noises for the hours until da boss saw the mess and had an epiphany. "What does 'fexes do best?" he thought. "an' how can I make 'em do it 'arder?" he wondered. An old deff rolla later, he had his answer.
Now Dork McGork and his steam powered veloco-fex are inseparable. The big guy doesn't have much in the way of acceleration, but once he get's moving, he hurts things good.
Finally, I got a chance to put together one of the new(ish) hellbrute kits. What a treat! I'm continuously impressed with GW's new stuff. It's not cheap, but it is great to work with.
Being one of my World Eaters, he's giving the universal sign for Rock as he prepares to administer a dose of pain and suffering to his foes.
That was a big update - but now I'm back to even keel.
Let me know what you think! I'm always happy to turn your good ideas into my awesome models!
Llamahead: you're not kidding. They give those radical inquisitors an awfully long leash. I think when ye olde veloco-fex smashes its third or fourth golden throne into necro-deital rubble he'll probably have some explaining to do.
lone dirty, soul, monkey: thanks for the comments - I'm glad you like them. My kids love the wind and the willows, and although it was indubitably unintentional, Mr. Toad was written to be a bit of a speed freak I think.
Kraut - I don't think the World Eaters would have it any other way! My boys are still uncomfortable with the heavy metal overlap between Slaanesh and Khorne though. It makes them feel strange about themselves. Fire, skulls, AND tight leather ass-less pants? What do we do?
Here are a few more guys I finished today - a mob of termagants this time:
The plan is to mix grots and termagants together in giant mobs corralled into battle by the runtherdz.
Dirt-neck couldn't help but grunt and shake his head at the sorry sight his eyes took in as he surveyed the less-than-stellar mob of bugs and grots foraging before him. "Da Boss knowz best" he thought to himself, "or at least he'll krump you good if you sayz he don't" his brain replied. This was a rare bit of sound advice, ork brains being what they were, and Dirt-neck filed it away carefully in the rubbish heap of his memory where it was promptly lost forever. Still, he wasn't sure 'erdin' bugz wuz natural. Sure they were weedy like grots, and they definitely reacted about the same to shootin' (by hidin' in the nearest hole until it was over, the weedy gitz), but they didn't smell natural at all, and after that one time the snotties rigged da drops to explode, Dirt-neck tended to trust his nose. The sluggish wanderings of his inner monologue were interrupted by a fight off to his left. A scrawny pair of grots were trying to steal one of the bugs legs - "it aint fair he gets four to walk wiff an we only gots two!" the squeaky turds asserted. The bug hissed something meaningless in reply. The jury of Dirt-neck's inner judicial system quickly convened under a pair of sloping, knitted brows, and in a few seconds returned a verdict. With a toothy smile, he made his pronouncement "You lot is all guilty of bein weedy an' dumb, an I'm goin' to sort you out proper!" The rest of the trial was resolved quickly with a liberal application of the ole' grot prodder, and as the lot wandered off muttering (or hissing) to themselves about the problems of modern justice. Dirt Neck smiled broadly. "Maybe this is gonna work out fine after all" he thought.
Ork fluff is fun to churn out - it's definitely one of my favorite aspects of the 40k universe.
I shifted gears a bit - an old WIP project caught my eye a few days ago, and I felt inspired to pick him up again.
It's such an enormous and time consuming WIP that he's evolved a bit from my original concept. Rather than strictly representing Krakenrock the Black, forefather of all the dragon ogres, he'll also serve as a Khornish archdaemon lord of the mightiest mightiness for my World Eaters and daemons.
I haven't put together any fluff for him yet, but here are a few WIP shots with chuckles the hellbrute thrown in for scale:
As you can see, he's a big lad. It's weird painting something this large, as I've had to work through him in layers. There's still an entire layer of bits that haven't been added, but he's pretty much got to be completely painted before I attach them, or it'll look screwy.
Anyway, more to come - I'm working through the big push to finish the big lug.
soulcow - Yes, I suppose it does stretch the definition of the word miniature.
Well, after a good long while, the Arch-daemon lord is finished. Without further ado:
And one final shot for scale:
He took 2 packs of green-stuff, a good portion of my odds-and-ends chaos bits, an unbelievable amount of warpstone bronze paint, and a couple of dead brushes, but he's finished. If you zoom around the first pic a bit, you can see the various bits of detail work. Apocalyptic gaming will never be the same!
I'll post again with fluff and such later - this guy's worn me out.
That is quite the model. (And it definately pushes the word 'miniature')
Congrats on finishing it. The detail is great, and its definately a testament to your perseverance
Alright, so I'm moving on to a few (physically) smaller projects.
After seeing KrautScientist's centurion-based obliterator conversions, I decided to attempt a few of my own.
The ogre gut plates were inspired, so I shamelessly stole the idea. I also had a bunch of extra ogre arms, so I decided my Khorne oblits would have big meaty arms (like Trogdor). The rest of the conversions were pretty straight forward.
In spite of the hate the centurion models get, I think they make great oblits. They're massive, ponderous looking, and armored. In short, they look the part of 2 wound demonic terminators.
Next up they're getting painted. My thanks again to Krautscientist for the inspiration!
Glad to have inspired you! Those Obliterators are looking great! The Helbrute parts seem to work absolutely perfectly with the Centurion kit. In fact, I really wish I'd had those at my disposal when building my own kitbashed Oblitz...
In a rare burst of inspired, focused, hobby activity, I finished up the obliterators today.
I guess I already said it once, but it bears repeating: I love the centurion-born obliterator conversions. They look exactly like I think oblits should look, and they dwarf the standard mutilator and oblit sculpts. Here are the finished shots:
And you're right about the hellbrute bits Kraut. The extra bits were how I rationalized spending the extra dough on the actual hellbrute kit, rather than buying a DV brute on ebay. The extra weapons are really wonderful chaos versions of their imperial equivalents.
It does seem the only feasible use for the centurion kits is as the basis of some conversion, the stock models are grim-ugly. The hellbrute weapons work really well in this context, giving off that mutating weapon vibe the oblits need.
Yeah, I'm not sure the armor-within-armor thing works too well - It sees like a very inefficient design, but it does make the models incredibly bulky, which suits obliterators pretty nicely.
Thanks to a week of vacation time, I've gotten a good bit of work done.
So far, the looted nids have gotten most of the love.
First up, here are the finished photos of Dork McGork and his Veloco-fex:
Next up, I've got the WIP shots of the most famous fighta' ace in the Octavius sector - Kaptain Killa' Killfasta'. After dozens of of dogfights with the tyranid beasties, a conundrum started lurking about in the cobwebby depths of Da Kaptain's brain. How come the nid flyin' monsta's can charge in an' crump stuff without crashin? He knew from first hand experience that the ork fighta's and bomma's couldn't pull off a similar feat. He'd tried a few times, and all he'd ended up with was a dead grot gunner, a wrecked plane, and a mouthful of busted teef. That, and it inevitably took a good deal of "convincin" to get the meks to build him another bird. How could he, he wondered, fly around and blast stuff but still get stuck in? Thinking not being his strong suit, the Kaptain decided to solve the problem in the orkiest way he could - by making the grots do it. It took a long weekend, 13 smooshed grots, 416 rivets, a dead hive crone, 3 crashed deffkoptas, and a whole keg of squig beer, but in the end he had what he wanted:
He hadn't named her yet, but after the first test run, Da Kaptain knew it was love at first flight.
I finally bit off on something I've been thinking about for a good while - a Mechanicum Army.
Yeah I know it's all Forge World stuff, which means it costs more per capita than gold bouillon, but what can I say, I'm an addict.
First up, as with every army, I had to model up an inspiring general.
He doesn't have an identity yet, but here's the Magos Prime of my Forgeworld-to-be:
[url=http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/629696-30k%2C%20Mechanicum%2C%20Warhammer%2040%2C000.html] [/url]
My concept for the model's pose was something between a conductor and a puppet master. He'll float about the battlefield on a combination of levitation tech and tentacles and direct the goings-on of his minions while dispensing copious quantities of plasma scunion.
He's an acolyte model (at core) with a green-stuffed robe, cataphracti pattern terminator lightning claws, a warpsmith's backpack and tentacles, ork nob shoulder pads, and a bunch of other odds and ends for decoration.
I should have included a model for scale, but he's pretty substantial. As an example, he stands taller than the castellax model shown below.
Next up, I've got 30 adsecularis tech thralls finished. I've modeled them with the revenant alchemistry and chain blades. They won't get invited to anyone's cocktail parties, but they should stumble around and chop stuff up pretty well:
You'll have to zoom a bit to see the real detail work, but the pics are high enough resolution to depict it pretty well.
The actual models are sedition wars strain models with a number of GW bits thrown in to tie them into the AdMech feel. I think they came off pretty well.
And here you'll see TK-421, my prototype Thallax Cohort model - he still needs weathering and a bit of base work:
These are the guys that sold me on the FW Mechanicum range. I think the Thallax models are amazing.
And here's the first Castellax class battle-bot. Again, he needs some weathering, base work, and a second shoulder insignia:
And last (but not least) here are the myrmidons. While I love the overall look of the sculpts, the way the weapons are mounted out of the package looks off to me. With a bit of work, and a few leftover 30k terminator bits, I've got them worked into something more to my liking:
I'm pretty stoked about getting these guys on the table - the myrmidons and Thallax in particular are going to look awesome.
Hey all, I've been busy lately, so there haven't been a ton of updates, but here's a fun project that's nearing completion:
As you can see, it's a drop pod mounted void shield generator.
I wanted my World Eaters and Mechanicum forces to have a rapidly deployable void shield - the building looks pretty static and doesn't seem like it would work well for a small tactical force.
Anyway, as you can see, it's built around an $11 plasma ball. I couldn't resist - they look awesome.
The rest is plasticard and bits off an old drop pod.
Thanks for the compliments bro - I finished up the void shield generator this weekend - it looks pretty sick in low-light conditions.
I'll try and get a pic that captures the weathering a bit better next time I post pics.
I kept the paint scheme fairly generic to allow it to be used for either my Mechanicum guys or the Skalathrax World Eaters army. I figure they'd still have access to some pretty snazzy stuff then as they were still task organized as a legion.
After that, maybe not so much.
Next up, I'll be posting completed pics of the Mechanicum army. Well, completed pics until they release the Triaros armored conveyers anyway, then it'll be a WIP army again!
I've got a ton on the table right now. The looted orks need finishing, I've got a couple of knights that need to be assembled and painted, and now I'm looking at those new Space Wolf flyers for my Wolf Guard army.
I'm not sure my wallet can match my obsession, but I'm not a starving college kid anymore either!
As usual, the pressure of a game tomorrow inspired me to finish up a bunch of painting this week, so I've got the Mechanicum guys done (for the most part - they're still unbased!)
Without further ado, I present the forces of the Archmagos of the Forgeworld Gryphonne IV as they were arrayed at the time of the Tyranid invasion that scoured the world during the time of Hivefleet Leviathan (one of my favorite short pieces of fluff in 40k history).
First up, here's the Archmagos Prime of the World:
And here's a maniple of the his personal Castellax bodyguard. Note that the lead automaton is equipped with a siege wrecker for "close encounters":
Here's the two thallax cohorts that serve the Archmagos personally. The green effect denotes plasma fusils, while the orange denotes a prototype multi-melta:
Here are the two Myrmidon Destructor squads. They've been modified using terminator parts to reposition their weapons. The original weapon placement was not pleasing to the eyes of the machine god:
And last (and least), here are the menials that occupy objectives and selflessly throw themselves into harms way when necessary. Their tech-priest handler is pretty low on the machine-god's totem pole.
Oh, and here's a WIP shot of one of the Cerastus Knights allied to the world. He (Ajax) and his brother (Teucer - more into the ranged weapons) commonly support the Archmagos in his campaigns.
I've got some fluff in mind for the force. I like the idea of the doomed Archmagos campaigning through the 30k and 40k storyline, only to eventually meet his end defending the world from Hivefleet Leviathan.
More to come once I get them based and get the knights finished!
The light of a thousand stars shone weakly on the bones of the shattered world of Gryphonne IV. The planet, which had not fallen silent for a single minute of the15 thousand year history of its civilization, now lay still and quiet; what remained of its airless atmosphere providing neither protection nor sustenance - not that there were any organic life forms left to require it.
As the last traces of energy faded from his mnemonic coils, the Arch-magos Theodus Machinus Rex's remains surveyed the lifeless remains of the planet's capital city - his capital city - from the top of his once mighty fortress-forge. The realization that all that remained of his once towering cyber-corpus was a twitching pile of wreckage would have caused him sadness, had he still possessed the capacity to experience emotion.
His neck servos, stripped of all organic matter by the ravenous devourer, pivoted what remained of his head to the west to take in the remains of the Bastion of Legio Cybernetica Macro-Maniple ADX00. Their mighty automatons had marched forth in service to the machine god for the entirety of the Arch-Magos's 12 thousand year reign over the world. Even thousands of years later, he still experienced something akin to pride watching the recorded vids of the machines breaking the back of the traitorous 12th legion during the latter days of the Heresy. But now all that remained was the metallic husk of an army of lifeless Castellax class warriors, their cyber-organic cortices liquified and devoured hours ago, and their Legio masters melted into pools of syrupy plasma.
I'll get more down later. I love the idea of the doomed Forgeworld, and I like that relatively little has been written about it.
I finished up a pair of knights this week. They represent House Atrides, one of the (now destroyed) Knight houses that supported Gryphonne IV during the height of its power as a forgeworld. Their crest, a grey hawk with a torch (bearing the emperor's light) and a sword (distributing his wrath) is marked with the Alpha and the Omega, signifying the families presence from the beginning to the end of human history.
Here are Ajax and Teucer. The former is a Knight Lancer and is known for his steadfast shieldwork. The latter is a famously nimble paladin armed with a longbow model battle cannon. It's got a modified flash-hider to better compensate for the recoil while shooting on the move.
With Teucer, I wanted to emphasize the mobility of the Knight. All the Knights I see are very static, but in game (and fluff) terms, they're quite fast and designed primarily to close with and destroy the enemy. Thus, Teucer was born.
I've got a 5 knight detachment planned, so working on variety with the kits is essential. To that end, I did a bunch of modification to Teucer's weapon - I like the plasma sword look.
And finally, here's a full army shot of the Mechanicum army:
That's all for today. Once the Triaros transports are released, I'll get back to work on these guys.
Until then, I've got looted nids to finish up, and I need to make some adjustments to my "Champions of Fenris" list now that the new book is out.
More to follow! Comments and criticism are always welcome.
I just finished moving to California, and my paint shop is back up and running. This area is more of a fantasy community (a good thing), so you'll be seeing more WHFB stuff than 40k here for the next year and a half.
First up, I finished a long-sitting-on-the-workbench unit of High Elf Sea Guard. These guys are my nemesis. They, being both brightly colored and highly detailed, take more time per model than any other range, and while I'm always pleased with the results, they're quite exasperating. The basing is still retro-green because the army is 13 years old, and that's how we used to do it!
Next up, I'm breaking out my first army ever (Skarsnik's night goblins) for a bit of touching up. I'm working through one unit a time, and giving each a theme and a 2014 update as I go. Here's Nibs and his beard burnas. All the boyz are armed with scavenged dwarf gear to make 'em fightier. You'll notice one of Nibs arms is larger than the others. You'll have to use your imagination to figure out why. The real answer is that a huge-armed goblin sounded like a great idea 15 years ago, and now I'm rolling with it for tradition's sake. I did add the dwarf helmet and fake beard to tie the unit together though.
Finally, I've got some more chaos dwarves (not dwarfs! Tolkien be damned.) done. Here are 2 slave units and a K'daai destroyer. The destroyer is actually an enslaved ifrit from Araby. Some day he'll break free and devour the sorcerer-prophet-in-charge, but for now, he's tasked with burning mortals in the name of Hashut.
The little people of chaos just got involved in a campaign, so you'll probably be seeing more of their amigos popping up.
Thanks, it's good to be back. I'm glad you dig the shield - it isn't as bright in well-lit areas as I'd like, but it looks pretty slick on the table.
I have a few more updates today. I'm still in the business of closing out a few old projects, so here they are:
First up, here's a land raider crusader for the Wolves. I'm still in the process of adjusting this army to it's new deployment mechanisms (since pods aren't dedicated any more for termies), and this chunk of metal is part of the solution.
Next up, here are finished pics of the looted exocrine. In the end, I love the way the army looks, but I'm not thrilled with playing it, so it's probably going to the auction block in the near future.
Finally, here are the rest of my updated night goblins. They've now been successfully updated from their 6th ed roots, and are ready to hit the table.
I'm not usually a big fan of special characters, but I do have a soft spot for Skarsnik.
Thanks man - I'm glad to provide a bit of inspiration. I know I dig through peoples pictures and lift good ideas liberally - feel free to do the same!
Here's a few pics of the last few days work - vacation is a beautiful thing:
This guy is a night goblin big boss to lead my squig hoppers. As you can see, he's recently offed a knight panther (somehow) and is leaping off happily with his new gear.
And here's the first update to my zombie pirates following the release of the new undead legions book. It's a screaming skull catapult to provide a bit of artillery support for the scurvy curs as they stumble to battle.
I'm a big fan of counts-as if they look thematically appropriate and well executed. Would anyone have a problem playing against this in a tournament? I can't see it causing any confusion, but I appreciate that not everyone shares my opinions on the matter.
Like every gamer with a soul, I was quite taken with the new Nagash model. Unfortunately, it doesn't really fit in with my undead army, the zombie pirates.
After some thinking, I decided how to remedy the problem. I'm converting Nagash into an exalted form of Count Noctilus. In the fluff, he died a grizzly death in the maelstrom while trying to gain access to its limitless power, but what if he'd pulled it off?
This model will represent Noctilus at the height of his (what-if) power.
I'm going with a heavily barnacle encrusted theme, and I'm going to borrow liberally from Davy Jones' look in Pirates of the Caribbean. He's going to be wearing a tattered old admiral's jacket and a sweet pirate hat, and the whole model is going to be encrusted with sea crusties.
He's obviously very WIP, and it's going to take a bit to finish him - more to follow.
I knocked out another couple of sculpting sessions today - here's how he's sitting thus far with some progression shots:
The last shots are a bit blurry - I'll get some better ones up tomorrow. As you can see, he's coming along pretty well - the sea theme keeps presenting more opportunities for nifty conversions. The Kraken blade in particular was fun to work on, and I've got plenty of ideas on how to finish him up!
I'm glad you like the Krakenblade. I tried to pull as much of the original model into the conversion as possible - it's a great sculpt, and I wanted to retain its overall feel.
Here's the finished shots of the big guy - now it's time to start painting him up!
I've decided to change him from Noctilus to Davy Jones, Lord of the watery dead. As the sculpt came together I veered away from the vampire idea, and now that he's done, he looks like something else entirely.
A servant of the old gods of the sea, Davy Jones was once responsible for ferrying the souls of those that died at sea to the underworld. With the advent of the end times, he has thrown off his shackles and uses his power to serve his own ends.
Or something like that - it's a work in progress.
He's going to be the centerpiece of the zombie pirates when I take them to the Quake City Rumble this summer.
So I've got most of the base model painted (obviously the sword, spirits, and armor still need work). I'm looking at basing options now, and I think I've settled on this one:
The question is, can you tell the effect I'm shooting for? I've been modeling long enough to know that just because I see it & think it rocks, doesn't mean anyone else does.
I'm looking at basing him on the deck of a ship that's being torn apart as he pulls the souls of the crew out of it. The planks will obviously be trimmed appropriately, and I'll need to add more stuff to the deck to finish the ship effect, but that's the general concept.
Does it work? Let me know your thoughts.
And here are the close-ups of Davy Jones himself. There's a bit left to do, but he's getting there.
I finished assembling the base today; he's really getting close to being finished now. What I ended up shooting for is Davy floating over the deck of an imperial ship. He's pulling the souls of the dead out of the ship (destroying the deck in the process) and animating all the sailors' remains. I'm keeping all the books and adding one to his hand, as I figure he's got log books full of all the names of the dead mariners in history (being part of his job and all).
In addition to the base I finished up the krakenblade and got more work done on the spirits. They still have a bit of work left, as do the crusty parts of his armor, but he's nearly finished.
I do like me some zombies! Forgot to mention how much I liked the corpse cart, very original!
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