I've long been in love with the warhammer 40k setting. Something about the fusion of high and low technology, wonder and madness, realism and fantasy, historical and fantasy inspiration and general craziness. My interest tends to be less about cinematic battles and more in gritty, low end conflicts like Taros and in exploring the possibilities of the setting. I have five main goals in this project:

1) To share the civilian 40K stuff I've already done in one place.
2) To keep track of websites with suitable miniatures so I can collect them over time as budget allows.
3) To develop a stockpile of 40K civilian figures, partly for use in "counts as" armies (militia), partly for roleplaying games, and partly just as "aahhrt".
4) To represent a feudal world in the early stages of contact with the imperium for a future campaign.
5) To do several "minor xenos" forces for the same reasons.

A note on scales: To make this more practical I'm pretty much not worrying about scale. I'm imagining that is takes place in the Argo Cluster, (campaign here: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/524342.page) an area with a wide variety of human variants from tiny 25mms to hulking 35mms due to genetic manipulation. After all, small people consume less resources...

One of my principle sources of ideas is this article: http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Civilian_Life_in_Warhammer_40%2C000_AD

Lets start with #1


A wheel chair bound noble and her retainers.



Very poor picture of some figures assembled for a ball.



Closer up. Since battles and rpgs generally involve fighting, most figures will be armed civilians. Here we have an eccentric minor noble.



And a couple from a quasi japanese culture. I'd like to do several cultural variations. I like it when 40K references real history, particularly if it is obscure.



WIP shot.



Farmer and his Grox.



WIP. Important safety tip - plastic animals don't take craft paint (or sometimes any paint) very well.



Revered earth mover "Pulgax".



Armed civilians in hazard conditions gear.



Rogue trader crew or militia rabble.

Brilliant! Love the variety and quirks of the civilians. The earth mover is fantastic!

What's next?

These are really neat! I especially got a kick out of the revered earth mover.

Why thank you! Being someone who is kind of bad with machines but has to interact with them a lot, I pray to the machine god a great deal. I can really feel the machine spirits, especially when they are angry. : ) So revering machines makes a great deal of sense to me. I do think Pulgax needs more purity seals. I'm going to post my genestealer cult stuff here and then figure out my web page list while they are fresh in my mind.



Couple of cult characters



Cult truck. For typical imperial vehicles I favor interwar soviet stuff.



Armored Limo. Generic so it can be used for general roleplaying. I expect to do another at some point, as I see the wealthy using them quite a bit. Probably use one of the super stretch german armored scout cars. I know I'd want one on any 40K planet!



Cult Convoy. I see the Rhino as near universal in the imperium, with lots of civilian use, plus the arbites of course. Some rhinos I might do: Hostile environoment tractor, fire fighting/riot control/pesticide sprayer, traveling minstrel/religious mystery show, Mobile shrine, mobile hospital (for the necessary and deserving of course).



Cult Earth Mover Type 1. Needs more black hash chevrons I think.



Small trucks (actually wooden). Armored windows help give a 40K look, and cover non detailed interiors. I'd like to do an armored wasteland bus.



Cult leaders.



Cult Gun. I have a fascination with towed artillery on the tabletop and plan to do several as part of militia forces and such.



Cult beastmen. As much as GW has tried to squat the imperial beastmen, there will be a place for them in my version of the Imperium. Homo sapiens Verablis. Besides, good mutants are hard to find.



Though not in any way civilian, here are the patriarch and genestealers for completeness.

I love the idea of a small farming town being slowly infiltrated and taken over by a Genestealer cult. The limo is great! I thought about the Town Mayor being one of the first to be infected, or being coerced by a Magos in some way! Great work.

Amazing. I love the armoured limo.

What did you use as the starting point for that?

D

 evildrcheese wrote:
Amazing. I love the armoured limo.
What did you use as the starting point for that?
D

It looks like a ww2 Russian BA-3 or BA-6 armoured car with the turret replaced?

These all look brilliant. It is always a pleasure to see a cult in action

I bet we'll see cult from GW fairly soon, now that they've done admech. Still, I'm glad to have mine. Glad you like it too! The Limo is a BA-6 IIRC. The main issue with working with 1/35 armored cars is that they are very far off the ground compared to 28mm heroic figs. I've lowered this one somewhat, and if I had it to do over again I'd lower it even further. I think I will do this one as well:
Substantial lowering of the chasis and building up of the back will be in order.

Ok, now I'm going to start indexing the miniatures lines I want to use, since this will take a while.

First we have the attempt to make "suitable for 40K civilians" - Colony 87. I missed the kickstarter, but I'll get some eventually I expect.



Now on the subject of vehicles, I want to do at least 1 coach for the nobility - something huge, strange and bizarre, driven by a servitor perhaps. The way I see it the imperium retains low tech solutions in many situations.


These are by westwind and might do, but probably it will involve scratch building. Wedding toppers offer a starting point, pity they seem to want you to buy 12 at a time.

Now we come to the question of how to represent the masses of the imperium who probably work mostly in factories or farming combines. I was looking for some kind of "soviet worker's battalion" type figures, but nothing really came up. There are some partisan figures, but the clothing is too recognizably 20th century Europe. So what I am thinking is Sailors with greenstuffed modifications to their hats to make them them look less recognizable and a few purity seals and such. The idea being to convert this:



Into This:



Here are some from pulpfigures.com that already have the right cap:

Though they are not as uniform as I would like.


More uniformed. One question is color of their uniforms. Grey or brown makes the most sense, but I have a lot figures painted both. Hmm. Maybe olive drab.

Perry miniatures has a naval brigade:


Hinterland makes 28mm female sailors that are a close match:



TMP link on the subject of 28mm sailors for future reference: http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=268028

I would also like to figure out a way to "grimdark" the rifles. Maybe add scopes. Power hose to a backpack is better, but alot more work.

Subscribed and will be checking back often for inspiration! One thing that always bothers me about the majority of 40K games/terrain is the lack of "everyday life" flavor.

Even a city that is a blasted warzone would still have abandoned vehicles, hiding/trapped civilians, roving gangs, etc. Looking at something like Stalingrad, in some instances a sense of normalcy would even creep back in at a certain point.

Looking forward to seeing what else you put up.


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Also for the worker uniforms I would recommend a medium blue. Works well for North Korea! Other than that my vote would be for a nice drab gray to match the general drudgery of what I imagine an Imperial workers life to be like.

I like where this is going. Subscribed.

For vehicles, I can recommend Heller's 1/43 scale Citroen 2CV and 11CV kits. They scale well and are fairly inexpensive. I just need to get around to finishing off the ones I've started working on.

Good cars are really hard to find, and I totally agree about the current GW ruined city terrain. It is impressive, and I think maybe the administrative center of an Imperial city would look like that, but I much prefer the old "scratch build" city with terrain with plenty of rubble and trash. It does take some work to make sure models can stand where they need to, but it works a lot better for me. I have a big cityfighting day coming up soon and I will probably put in some work upgrading some of my urban terrain. One thing I plan to add is more scattered paper. I picture the imperium as crushed under the most ridiculous bureaucracy ever conceived, and I imagine that an artillery hit on any non residential building would scatter meaningless forms over a huge area....

I also plan to do a message board. I found the board where people posted messages for loved ones in the enemy at the gates movie one of the most poignant parts of that movie.

Vehicles are certainly one of the tough areas. I'd love to have burned out vehicles around (though I think more imperials use feet, busses and bicycles than cars), but so few kits work that that would get very expensive very fast. Thanks for the 1/43 idea Zogg, I will definately check it out. 1/35 has been a constant struggle, and with some 25mm figures in the mix, smaller scale sounds good. I've used some wooden vehicles, but really if I want a lot of them I will need to get back into scratch building and casting.



I have some denizen figures ready to post up and some greenstuff joygirls as well, and my explorator/miners part way done. Ordered these guys as part of the Sanitation Militia. Or maybe Hygiene officers?

weird and wonderful stuff. You should totally get some plague doctors. Hell I should totally get some plague doctors too.

Free shipping on those plague guys until 2015.... Just sayin' I think 40K really does push my "weird and wonderful" buttons. It is, if you think about it, really, really bizarre, but also familiar because of the historical aspects. The plague doctors will need some power cables (to what? We don't care!), some purity seals, and maybe some hoods or signs warning others not to approach. I think I'm also going to do a disinfectant sprayer (or flamer), guy who has a horse to carry around his fluids....

In the meantime, here are three citizens of the Argo Cluster from the 25mm strain of humanity: Mutant Crimelord Zaphod Bonepart, Mongo Salivare, local militia Man, and Anges Day, retainer of house something or other. (I'm going to paint her in black and yellow particolor like the retainers above, and give her a feather in her cap).

Feathers for hats are always a good move.

Subscribed, now that I actually know how to do that.

Digging both the Plague Docs and Mutants. How do they compare size wise to a SM?

D

This sort of imaginative stuff, unique and original takes on things is what it's all about. Great fun, great stuff, keep it coming.

Great stuff always enjoy your work!

Thanks all!

Size wise I don't know about the Plague Docs, which is part of the reason I'm getting them to see if I want more from that range. The two headed mutants and the other figs in that pic are tiny - 25mm. He'd come up to about a space marine's chin. Maybe. But I can easily see humanity varying a great deal in size in the imperium.

Here's a few things in the pipeline. I'm better at acquiring and converting models than actually painted them, though I've wound up with quite a few painted armies over the years.

First a Minor Xenos - the Kif. I always liked CJ Cherryh (well, Ok, I often liked her stuff, sometimes it seemed like one breathless political intrigue revelation after another). I liked the Chanur book's treatment of aliens - they seemed really Xeno without being OT. So when I say Denizen Miniatures was selling "not Kif" for $1.50 each I got them.



Here's what I got primed and washed:



The books described them as grey skinned in black robes, (and blood drinking vampires), which fit in pretty well with Imperial ideas about what Xenos are. But I have a ton of grey figures, and will probably get more during this project. I like grey, but it is overkill. Also, they looked very military and efficient with the squad leader signaling, various special weapons, etc. So I've decided to recast them as more decent, or at least less sinister, xenos troopers. The robes will be Camo smocks - not sure what exactly, maybe mottled woodland, maybe some kind of tigerstripe, maybe a more exotic aplenflage. That will add some variety to painting them. They are small, but on the big side of 25mm, so they look kind of like fighting bipedal shrews. Or something.

I don't have them yet, but I want some of zombiesmith's stuff. The quar are nice, but a little too WWI humans with long noses. The to'ok on the other hand, are awesome. Odd, quirky but believable if you think 40K is believable. I mean clearly, shields and guns and bright colored plate armor must work great. I like the heraldry. Very rarely do I see stock painted miniatures and think - "I want them just like that", but in this case I do.

Here's a bit of work on an explorator team or hostile environments miners. The vehicles are from my IG but I think I may repurpose them to this. I think I will do the team in somewhat garish colors. They have more of a chance to express their individuality than most imperial citizens, plus I have a ton of grey and brass stuff already. The ground vehicles I can convert by adding more domes. 'Cause nothing says space like domes. The heavy track I like, but I may do a full on model tank conversion in stead. The smaller tracks are 1/35 french mortar carriers.











The team will be joined by a few Cobalt and Blue Moon figures:







With clear plastic Helmets!

Plus maybe reaper's Dee Dee:



Some of the guns will need to be converted to power drills, laser cutters, auspex surveyers, etc.

Yes to clear plastic helmets! That's how you know that you're in space, after all.

Woo-hoo for that Genestealer cult. Those guys look awesome.

Yup, clear helmets is where it is at. Here's a quick and dirty piece of construction equipment. Paint windows blue, cover them with bolted on metal sheets, wash brown and dry brush a bit. I'd like to do a squad of construction workers with hammers and such. Probably off of Catachans.




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Heres some other interesting figures from blue moon manufacturing: heavy weapons crew, but they might be useful for lots of things.

Painted one of the 25mm retainers to House Vauren (the yellow and black lot). The picture shows how incredibly crude the highlighting is. : ( Looks better in typical wargaming light and distance.



Lord Vauren's Aunt Lucidia and some servitors:



And more retainers:



Test Kif Painted



Squad Progressing.

Amazing paint job on the not kif!
Really enjoying this blog so far!

A little bit behind in saying this, but... the To'ok look like space turtles! I love it!! Your work is great, liking the creepy clown-ish look the cultists got!

Thanks! Yeah, the to'ok have a very original look. I get the impression that the guy who makes them has trouble sculpting humans or super elaborate stuff, but he does a great job coming up with ways around that with things that really look great but not too hard to sculpt (though still well beyond my ability). One thing I like about the To'ok is the variety in the squad - you get a grenade launcher, some kind of heavy stubber, a standard, medic, variety of others.

Speaking of which, here's Bella the Lady of the Evening so to speak. I figure women dressed mostly in parchment is probably a thing in the seedier parts of the Imperium, so I started with the reaper Bella figure and GS'd some parchment, purity seals, and boots. Still a bit rough in places, but I'm going to try to smooth out the bad bits with putty. Still, it is some of the best GS I've done, which I attribute to doing only a tiny bit at once then leaving it for a day to harden before adding another piece.

Looks like Ironclad Miniatures in England will be supplying the Scavenger types:



5.5 pounds for 4 dudes is a good price too.

They also have some martians who would fit with some of my ideas for desert dwelling imperials.

Got the Plague beak guys. They scale well with the usual GW stuff and seem sculpted to a reasonable level of quality.


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Need this dude from reaper too:


(Dr. Totenkranz).

Each day he rises before dawn, performs the ritual worship of his power broom to appease its machine spirit, then shuffles out onto the streets and walks two hours to where the inhabitants are wealthy enough, or powerful enough, to care about clean streets. Head down he labors, nursing his hatred of the Master of Curbs who oversees him and occasionally bullying his Twentyfiem'em shovel man. One among uncounted billions, his only break in labor is the rituals the Emperor demands. Philosophers sometimes say the human spirit is unquenchable. Does he dream and aspire to more, or are the soporific additives to his diet of synthetic protein and reclamation stew enough for him?

Lol - power broom... master of curbs... brilliant!

Loving the power broom, brilliant idea.

EDC

I will probably need to rise above justing adding power cables and purity seals to things to make them "40K', but for now it seems to work fine. Maybe I need to branch out into skulls. : )

Here's the Kif painted:





At some point we will need the clergy. They should be pretty strange and gothic, but perhaps the lower rank ones might use these guys whom I like quite a bit:

From West Wind. They make some other figures in the line as well.

Maybe these will be the more righteous rural clergy and there will be a more over the top, john blanch, decadent gothic urban clergy group. Always thought the Vostoryans would make great cathedral guards.

Picked up these two to go with the Clergy at some point. I think I may do a squad of very gothic, Over the Top, city clergy, and a squad of more simple/humble country folk.



In the meantime, the Plague doctors have been converted. I might try to do a banner for them to lug around, and possibly a bell ringer to announce their presence. I need a name too - Sanitation Fellowship?





They have a horse to lug around their antiseptics. Alternately it can carry fire retardants, or even flamer fuel...



Painted Napoleon Zaphod. Gave some thought to basing. Some kind of urban pattern I suppose.







The Exporators are getting their first dedicated vehicle. Bulldozer with dome and chainsaw arm. I think they will currently be in the process of looting a world consumed by Tyranids. Lots of good stuff left behind I imagine, but you would need hostile environment gear and heavy equipment. Pro tip - I used a plastic dome shape from a vending machine (held a toy ring), then painted the INSIDE of it blue. Gave a very smooth finish.

Here is my current painting backlog for this project - 19 figures and one almost done vehicle.



There are some lightly converted reaper bones for ship's crew in there.

Those West Wind priest models are really cool.

That vehicle is just fantastic, really thematic.

EDC

Thanks EDC! Other than paint, I was thinking the vehicle that it needed a flag, although I'm not sure what the flag of an Imperial mining/explorator outfit should be like. I was also trying to figure out what a priest or other imperial minder would look like in a space suit. I figure they'd have somebody along to keep them in line.

I have some other ideas I want to get down before I forget.

Factory Militia - I think I will add a heavy chopping blade to their rifles - that should make them pretty "40k".


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Also, I want a priest for them as well, and a husband and wife team of factory owners to lead the group. If it is going to wind up as a proxy IG platoon it needs a command squad.

I was also thinking about the feral worlds I want to do -

1) A "Feudal" world recently contacted by the imperium. Knights with lasguns and armor made to look like space marine stuff. Designed to work with my existing Bretonnians. I'm also going to do a ton of paper fold terrain - there are lots of great medival/mordheim type buildings in paper fold. If I'm feeling particularly motivated I'm going to do many of the building in destroyed form as well so you can blow them up during games.

Two figures I want to get - keep mostly fantasy, but I feel they somewhat fit: (from Gamezone)





I think he's a tax collector for some reason. She's the herald of a noble house.

Not sure if it will fit in the Fuedal world, but I'd also like to get a bit of a Nausica of the Valley of winds vibe going. Especially these guys:



No existing figures it looks like. Might need to cast my own. Overall, a world with guns, armor, giant insects, and planes would fit very well with my version of 40K. Perhaps it should wait for a full on Nausicaa Dorok imperial guard regiment...

I also have a general yen to do a Barsoom type world - humans with swords, rayguns and a general lack of clothing, various aliens, ancient tech and flying ships.

I'd also like to do a semi stone age human world. In the Taros campaign it mentioned the preimperial humans who had somehow survived the incredibly harsh conditions only to be wiped out by the first imperials. I always asssumed that anyone that tough didn't go gently into that dark night so to speak. I'd like to do stone age humans, but with some kind of edge that might give them some kind of chance against more advanced forces. Maybe they are Ogryn. Maybe they have some special material. In the old Dark Star games Outpost Gamma there were primatives who had crystal shields that were almost impenetrable.... Could model them in clear plastic. Only thing is I kind of want to do that for one of my minor Xenos squads.

Another project I'm considering - the Warhammer 40K smart car! I'm thinking I'll create a little commuter vehicle, sort of a cross between a smart car, a Johnny Cab and a kubelwagon, get it cast and use it to populate my city streets.

I'm kind of surprised there's no Nausicaa type figures out there; it's a really neat aesthetic.

weetyskemian44 wrote:weird and wonderful stuff. You should totally get some plague doctors. Hell I should totally get some plague doctors too.

We all need more plague doctors. And Rennissance Italians with SMGs.

I can't tell you how much I'm enjoying this blog.

Some suggestions. You might want add some of West Wind's Roadkill Brotherhood and Sisterhood to your priests.





And if you're looking for more techno primatives for Barsoon, well...

http://www.bronzeagemin.com/








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Oh and for vehicles I found a company doing tons of 1/43 interwar stuff.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/670605.page#8263241

Loving the Plague Monks!

Well thanks! I've solved a nagging basing problem. I'm going to go with a rough green base drybrushed grey with bits of trash, rubble and occasional straggly plants. I hereby declare the streets of my sector of the imperium paved with a kind of greenish asphalt (used to see this in tennis courts around here), allowing my urban bases to fit in with my country tables and my more traditional figures to fit in with the city. I'll post some test pics soon.

I will want some bikers someday, and I like those ones the Kid posted, because they are not quite what one expects for bikers. A sort of pro imperial biker gang led by a wild haired priest biker would be cool. I recently read a story about an imperial priest who gets assigned to a mutant slum neighborhood. I really liked when he declared it was time for him to "Protect the flock" and pulled out his bolt pistol and went to town. "They may be mutants, but they're still my parishioners!" or some such. I think most imperial priests would be horribly corrupt and twisted, but there should be some people of simple faith just trying to do their best and exemplifying what few virtues the imperium actually has. I'll check the vehicles too.

That Tax Collector model is cool. Is that an Aquila on his saddle seat?

EDC

Not sure - I don't have the model yet.

I remembered another line you might want to check out, Meridian Miniatures just did a KS for Steam Punk Militia.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2004599158/steampunk-militia-miniatures/description

Hopefully they'll be up for retail soon.

Hmm -definite possibility. I would want to redo the hats since I find those too "familiar" with another genre for some reason, but it wouldn't be hard to do. The "steampunk gorget" look is something I'm fond of and having figures of both genders is also a plus. Hadn't seen that one - thanks!

I've done some painting:



Explorator Vehicle "Hemit". It was originally going to be "Hematite" but A), that was too big and B) apparently I can't spell. I have lots of Grey/Black/Antique gold figures - I thought about tossing the scheme entirely, but then decided that I would add some color instead. Orange and Blue is definitely new to me. I didn't care for it at first, but I am starting to warm up to it. Alternately, each figure may have its own accent color. I figure they are more independent and flamboyant than your average imperial outfit. Here are some more pictures - I still haven't really gotten the hand of realistic rust patterns. I don't want to cover the whole thing, but it looks more splotchy than it should. I may paint the tracks bronze also.


I seem to have missed some greenstuff there.





Here is the street sweeper. Mageknight figures don't paint up that well for me, so I didn't spend that long on him.





Fairly pleased with the basing scheme. I will adjust my greenstuff on the bases to look more like cracked pavement.

Here we have some citizens from the 25mm minority.



Worked pretty hard to the Joy Girl, but once again I made the mistake of using flesh wash. The mistake was compounded by getting interrupted in the middle of it, which led to a heavier coat than I was going for. I need to remember to use only thinned flesh washes on character models. Also botched up the face a bit. May repaint, partially or in full.

I love what you did with the plague docs and the horse. I think "the brethren of the cleansing" has a nice ring to it.

Brethren of the Cleansing it is. I like it. Sort of a fraternal order/hereditary job.


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An idea that just came to me -
I want a few xenos vehicles and I've always thought the Drop Zone Commander UMC light tank was brilliant. It is described as an ultra low chasis vehicle operated by a single pilot lying down with a cherry picker turret capable of extending up to 15'. I've been wanting to do something like that in 28mm scale, but it seems too clever and techy for the Imperium, so perhaps I will do it for the Kif. It seems to suit their stealthy style. I will probably base it off a 1/72 8 rad german armored car. Or maybe 1/48?. Even the 1/72 should be nearly 9 cm long... I'm just concerned that the wheels will be so small as to look silly in 1/72.

I changed tracks and jumped over to a previous project that fits with this theme - the crew of the Tourjours L'Audace, a tramp freighter operating in the Argo Cluster: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/524342.page

They come from the remote world of San Bastionne, which lies in a very difficult to navigate area of the cluster. San Bastionne has extensive orbital facilities, including an ancient orbital elevator which gives them easy access to space. Consequently they produce many spacers and Void Born. The people of San Bastionne, who call themselves the Bakulaire, seem strange and disturbing to the people of more mainstream imperial worlds, and with good reason. The Bakulaire frequently practice a hybrid of the Imperial Faith and the worship of other powers who are probably chaotic in many cases, although often mixed with the worship of imperial saints. The most commonly revered entities are the Man God King, the Winged Saint, and La Sirenne, the fickle maiden of the void. This is a terrible idea of course, and many Bakulaire wind up falling to chaos or being executed by the Inquisition. The Bakulaire are also more tolerant of mutants and psykers than most Imperials, especially the psykers known as Pilots who are able to function as navigators in a limited way. Freighters from San Bastionne are common, slipping through the less travelled spaceways with dubious cargos and occasionally dabbling in Piracy. Still, they are well armed and do help facilitate valuable trade, moving faster than the lumbering Slow Haulers who can take a generation between stops. The Inquisition purges San Bastionne periodically, but the old ways always resurface.



Here we see WIP Diago the Pilot, and his sister/bodyguard Annalise. In the front rank several officers with Sasha Dubois, mistress of ordenance and shuttles in the center, and Mamzelle Pythia, Lex Mechanic. Captain Jean-Dan Gbwe will probably be the Chaos Cult leader from the Dark Vengence set, but I am not sure about that. Base coated blue is first officer Adrian M'boko, who is the public face of the freighter, being much less likely to be hauled away and summarily executed during shore dealings than his captain. He carries the best wargear, including the ancestral ship's power fist.


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Here's a possible priestess from the more decadent side of the imperial cult from reaper: (pathfinder Iconic Oracle)

Test Painted one of the Brethren:



The yellow and grey I like, but it is maybe a bit close to the yellow and black I'm using for the noble house. Might think on it a bit more. I like the blue green antiseptic fluid though...

Test paint hob on the Brethren looks great. Nice mix of grim.dark in a bright hazard suit.

EDC

I think I'm going to do some terrain, hopefully this weekend. I want to do habs, but I want to something more like the ancient roman apartments, and less like soviet era housing. My goal is to have enough "Middle ages of the 41st millenium" touches that I can use it in Mordheim/frostgrave in a pinch, but still be identifiably 40K.

I love that reference photo for your terrain. Also really dig the idea of unarmed civilians.

 kestral wrote:
I think I'm going to do some terrain, hopefully this weekend. I want to do habs, but I want to something more like the ancient roman apartments, and less like soviet era housing. My goal is to have enough "Middle ages of the 41st millenium" touches that I can use it in Mordheim/frostgrave in a pinch, but still be identifiably 40K.

The IMEX chemical plant is great for this. Just add some mysterious tanks and pipes and any historical building becomes grimdark.

Cool ideas. Any kits in mind for the aesthetic you want to achieve?

EDC

Going back to the civilian vehicles, an old short story had a medieval world which had renounced wheels as being ungodly and leading to the horrors of the Dark Age of technology. So they used ... horse-drawn hover wagons! If that doesn't sum up 40k, I don't know what does.

As for other suggestions, Wargames Foundry has a selection of ancient and medieval civilians:

http://www.wargamesfoundry.com/ancients/civilians

(I was originally going to mention the Jolly Monks, which will do for just about any setting from 500 AD onwards, but most of the other sets could be useful, too.)

Oh, and there's these:
http://www.wargamesfoundry.com/our-ranges/egyptian-adventure

Perry Miniatures have a couple of packs of Japanese peasants and civilians, too.

There's some good ideas there AndrewGPaul. The Egyptian Priests could be all sorts of things, and the other civilians look useful with some conversion. One thing that always puts me off about Foundry and some similar custom is the weird dark line musculature. Is that an artifact of painting or are they sculpted that way? It always looks really odd, maybe it looks better a tabletop range. I'll probably scratch build mostly, though that chem plant looks like it would save tons of labor and be more durable than most scratch built piping.


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I did kind of like the hover carts in Starwars as it happens... Though I'd see them more as a ritual conveyance than a farmer thing. Ancient sacred machinery and such.


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One thing I plan to think about is how to do servitors. I find the concept essential to imperial 40k, but don't love GW's figures in most cases.

It's the painting. It was first done by Kevin Dallimore, but now I think Foundry are relying on lesser mortals. It's basically three layers - dark base, mid-tone over most of the model, light highlight. It looks odd up close on individual models, but if you're painting several hundred troops, the overall effect on the tabletop looks good, and more importantly, it gives you a fighting chance of actually getting them all done!

As well as Servitors, I've got a couple of Watchers in the Dark from Azrael and the Dark Angels Terminators to become weird Jawa-esque assistants for my tech-priests. Oh, and servo-skulls and gothic cherubs (Wargames Foundry used to include a couple of cherubs in all their packs of Elves, but those haven't been on sale for years) and Caryatids (like cherubs, but bat-winged and blue. Native to Necromunda and a sign of luck).


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I'm told that Foundry will sell stuff that's not listed on their site, if you give them a phone. Not amazingly useful if you're in the USA, I suppose. :(

Random afternoon photos, just because the light was pretty good.

Cool pics. Nice to see some group shots as a refresher.

EDC

Lovely stuff


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Zombicide Survivors worth a look?

Maybe... Just using basic modern figures doesn't float my boat in most cases these days, but with proper "grimdarking" they make good starting points.

There are quite a few interesting possibilities on this page:



The "zombivore" versions give you a more ragged, downtrodden starting point for conversion, and I like the ones with axes. Ever since seeing the EMS guys in Infinity I've wanted to do a fire fighting squad in 40K. Something like these two:



Inspired by this:

Problem is, I don't see any way to get just Zombicide figures, let alone choose which ones one wants.... And they need plenty of fiddly bitzwork to fit in.

On the other hand I feel this lady fits in perfectly (Maybe with the odd purity seal):




Meantime, I remembered who I was thinking about using for the rank and file crew on my tramp Freighter, or at least a starting point - Wargames Foundry Darkest Africa Ruga Ruga:

With a few googles, masks, grenades, and so on (mostly from Victoria miniatures) they should look the part. I'd like a few more jackets though, and a bit more Hatian/Voodoo look.


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Cat Lady Edna by Reaper.

Actually, looks like Foundry's Tribal warriors has some with hats and coats that would work better for freighter crew:




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Victoria also makes Epaulettes for the coats. I don't love the hats - they don't make a ton of sense in spaceship crew.

What are you going for with the space ship crew? Ragged remains of uniforms after decades below decks?

Might Empire Flagellents or WGF Native Americans work?

Maybe they could all get a head swap to some sort of cyborg heads? WGF greatcoats come with a grill face that should be pretty cheap for bitz but might be too big on historical models.

The crew are more low tech in my mind, a kind of rabble of space brigands with no particular uniform, while the officers can afford a great coat naval aesthetic, each according to their own taste, sort of like 19th century south american elites. There are some parts I really like from the WGF native americans, like this guy:



Gun shaped clubs seem like a totally reasonable thing to me in 40K. But if you can't mix and match the parts, you wind up with miniatures with two different "factions" in the same unit. The africans have some european style clothing mixed in which makes them fit a bit better with the officers, while the indians would have a totally different aesthetic. Gasmasked heads make anything 40K of course, and I have access to both the WGF ones and the old Warzone ones, which are quite small and should fit "true" 28mm well. Of course, I missed Foundry's new years sale, so who knows when I will get the crew done. Empire flagellents would really help out with the bits situation. If I do pilgrims they would be the starting point.

Of course, nobody can beat these guys for native americans IN SPACE from mega minis - always sad I didn't buy them and now I think they've vanished.



Top hat guy would be perfect for the crew.

While looking for those, I found these:



Some kind of Ratskin figures, but the page is in Spanish. I do like them though.

In the meantime, here's Captain Dan Gebwe - I want to add an aquila or two to bring out the crazy "worshipping chaos and the emperor at the same time" thing. I was going mostly for a rasta feel with him.





Another officer - from the Toughest Girls in the Galaxy. I got a few, but decided to split them up to various projects rather than keeping them as a unit. She doesn't fit the feel very well - I may try to sculpt a short naval jacket onto her.

I've finished the Brethren, or at least the first five. I've decided that in addition to removing bodies and sterilyzing the area in event of a disease outbreak, they are also first responders to fire and other emergencies. They're a secret society which is why they wear masks (as well as offering some respiratory protection). Their priorities are quiet a bit different than 21st century earth first responders of course, which is why their identities are secret - you have to be a child of a member of a society or invited to join. You don't want them triaging you, and they set fires too when it's warranted. They are also capable militia squads, since they can with, a relatively simple machine spirit ritual, convert their sprayers from disinfectant and fire fighting foam to spewing flames or acid. They also have a strong esprit d'corps and a fair amount of guts. I'm going to do a couple with axes and helmets (full turnout gear for fire for higher ranked members), and also a couple ragged and subservient ratlings who will be converted from night goblins.





With them is Vladimir Dax and his Horse, Skotha. Dax was a 35mm breed, a borderline abhuman, but he was able to join the PDF where with other 35s he served as in special flame platoon. Unfortunately, he injured his back and was not considered worth while for bionics or advanced treatment. Unable to carry the heavy tanks, he was mustered out and faced a bleak fate. However, using his savings he purchased a horse and used his knowledge of the rituals of pressure to construct a sprayer rig. In the summer he drenches the agri-flats with pesticides, at other times he sprays fire retardant or disinfectant, or hoses down the rare street disturbance. Alas, Skotha is growing older, and though Dax has tried to protect himself and his horse from the chemicals he sprays with cloth wrapping and purity rituals, they are taking their toll. He hopes to be invited to join the Brethren for the stipend, and has even dared to start using some of their yellow and grey heraldry along with his tattered PDF coat, but it is unlikely they would take a 35, who are considered clumsy and untrustworthy.

Lovely models and fluff.

If you really want the Mega Minis/Shock Force guys try dropping the owner a line, I'm sure he has some available even if he's not doing retail at the moment.

Very cool stuff as ever. Real shame those native Americans in space are no longer available, they're pretty interesting models.

EDC

 kestral wrote:
I've finished the Brethren, or at least the first five. I've decided that in addition to removing bodies and sterilyzing the area in event of a disease outbreak, they are also first responders to fire and other emergencies. They're a secret society which is why they wear masks (as well as offering some respiratory protection). Their priorities are quiet a bit different than 21st century earth first responders of course, which is why their identities are secret - you have to be a child of a member of a society or invited to join. You don't want them triaging you, and they set fires too when it's warranted. They are also capable militia squads, since they can with, a relatively simple machine spirit ritual, convert their sprayers from disinfectant and fire fighting foam to spewing flames or acid. They also have a strong esprit d'corps and a fair amount of guts. I'm going to do a couple with axes and helmets (full turnout gear for fire for higher ranked members), and also a couple ragged and subservient ratlings who will be converted from night goblins.

Man with fluff like that you really want to make my buy these.

Or maybe the ones with the hats.

I've decided against buying more because I hate duplicate figures, but I am going to keep my eye out for models in the right kind of cape. After all, the beak is easy to greenstuff.

In the meantime, here is a rather random project: The Chronument. As noted in "The Star Pilgrim's Guide to Pentegrad", the Chronuments are mechanisms constructed in the form of imperial heroes that rotate slowly through the day, their sword pointing to parchments indicating to the citizenry the appointed hour of their labor, prayer, and rest. Children are taught that the Chronuments will come alive to protect or punish them at need. Indeed, there are advanced mechanisms concealed within the statue, they are known to change their position, and their eyes are seen to glow. The parchments are changed at need, on festival days, or when the populace is called to labor more than the customary 12 hours daily, which is often.





Built from a kitchen timer, the Chronument actually rotates and you can see the gears moving. Sadly, it also means there wasn't any good way to change the colors of the gears from white. On the plus side, you can keep track of time in your games with it.


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I find that Agrax over top of the Nihlac oxide cuts down on the "blue" to a reasonable level and makes it look a little more green.

 kestral wrote:
While looking for those, I found these:



Some kind of Ratskin figures, but the page is in Spanish. I do like them though.

Those are Ratskins - released by Specialist Games for Necromunda Underhive. OOP now, though.

I like Vladimir, too; It's been a long time since I saw a Chem-grunt.

Vor the Maelstrum had some good stuff going. I'm sorry they never did the full range of undead space mummies. I liked the art and concept on those. Pharon, IIRC.

Been working on terrain a little bit. Also Insurgency Walker gave me a fine new piece of construction equipment - I'm going to do it up as the centerpiece of the Earth moving Fleet. I need a cool name... Maximus? Imperiator Labro? Munitoria Terragran? Lady Ferrus?







Let us now consider the mutant labor gangs who do the dragging of stone, pick axe work and such. The bottom of the barrel, they can hope for little in their short wretched lives before being sent to the fertilzation plant. They are a fairly consistent strain, who are selectively bred for endurance, fecundity, and low intelligence by unscrupulous munitorium masters. Unlike more variable mutants (perhaps chaotic) who are likely to have pure relatives and at least some pity, they are truly hopeless. Few imperials like to think about them, though when their desperate, brutal rebellions break out, the violence is terrifying...

They have a lot of applicability for wargaming, so I want to do some. They have to be cheap, easy to paint, and not TOO mutated - the more wild variations are cool, but too chaotic. At at the moment I'm leaning towards the LOTR goblins, though I'm not sure about the scale. Give them some tools and grimdark bits, and I think they could do very nicely.









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Probably should round the ears.

I'm really liking your "first responders". I'm curious to see how the LOTR goblins turn out. I have a suspicion that they might look a wee bit delicate compared to regular 40K models.

I really appreciate other people who think about the background of 40K. Your stuff feels very 1st edition Rogue Trader to me, and that's one of the highest compliments I can give. SUB-scribed.

Why thank you! I imagine the early days of 40K as a time when people found clever ways to make a galaxy where all their miniatures could fit in. I know of rouge trader only as a legendary time when skimmers were made out of deodorant containers, but I love building my own stuff, and the scratchbuilding and converting I saw in early white dwarf issues were my inspiration to get into the hobby in a big way. I also always like to think about the whole picture - in a period movie, its the details of street scenes and extras that I often find more absorbing than the main plot.

Here's Og the Ratling. Og carries the Brethren's banner to proclaim their heraldry, but he also has the less pleasant duty of directing traffic using his light wand. Many Ratlings have perished in this role, but there will be another of Og's family to take up the mask and tattered robe if that time comes.











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WIP of course.


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Naturally, Og needs some traffic to Direct. This car actually belongs to Insurgency Walker, but I'm painting it, so I thought I'd show it here. Its the new inquisitor car. It has a great deal of homage to the original genestealer cult limo conversions, so I started out painting it purple, but then decided to focus on metallics and gloss black. It is a solid model, though there are some odd asymmetries from left to right - odd in what I assume is a computer 3-D model. The cast is very nice though, and comes in three well thought out pieces. The windows and doors are the only parts that really stretch beleif. I like the little skull shrines. I figure they are the car's past mechanics. A vehicle like this, if you don't want to go through the mechanicus (and what inquisitor wants to do that?) requires decades of training to be able to understand the machine spirit canticles, memorize the catechisms of Voltage, care for and update the librarium of documentation accompanying it, be able to machine new parts as needed, perform the painstaking crafting of holy circuitry, and buff it to a perfect shine. Absent any theoretical knowledge, everything must be understood by rote. Accompanying the inquisitor will be a family of mechanics who have served the car for generations, each knowing that someday their skull will join their forebearers in watching over the machine.









I have to say this is my first large scale use of GW metallics and they are very nice indeed.

For the mutants have you considered Skaven plague priests with a head swap?





I played with it for a long-abandoned Genestealer Cult idea, they take human heads and arms pretty well the main problem was the rat feet which you can either leave, cut off entirely (which makes them very short) or replace (if you have a ton of feet lying around or feel like sculpting a few dozen).

Also I just came across Lead Adventures site and had that wonderful 'where have you been all my life' feeling of discovery.

Their 'The Last Project' line is full of post apoc gangs and such, but, more importantly for my interests merchants and other civilians. Lots of rags, gasmasks and madness.

http://www.lead-adventure.com/index.php?cPath=1

I love the Chronument. Great idea. Also that pimp mobile car is excellent.

EDC

The cronument is brilliant! Hilariously distopian.

Glad you like the Chronument - it was one of those weird projects that you sort of pick up then can't put down even though you're not really sure what its for.

The plague monks look really good with the militia arms and head swaps! Greenstuff masks might work too. They have the overall "hunched and ragged" look, and I'd really like to do them eventually. I actually bought the LOTR goblins though, so they are up first. I think there's room for both. They seem to scale pretty well:

The ghoul is of course the prototypic hunched mutant from GW, but they are actually kind of hard to work with in my experience, good for bits but not so great as a starting point.


I'd love to do a market scene, and the lead adventure stuff looks great for that. I especially like water and books. One of my main modeling challenges is how to do good tents and awnings, such as a market would have. There are lots of things I want to do that need them, but I'm not sure how to go about it. Some kind of paper mache maybe, or perhaps draping a sheet of thermo plastic over a frame?



I was thinking the other day about one of my favorite episodes in a Dan Abnett book - I think its in Ravenor. Generally I don't like his inquisition stuff as much - the characters are too superhuman, it just doesn't work for me. But many of the portrayals of society and locations are awesome. Anyway, they're look for chaos drug dealers on a herd world where there are lots of huge planes roving bovines and such, and they're at a big festival/market. The descriptions of the people there were very evocative - badass butchers, shepherds, and such, with kind of a little bit of a Siberian cossack vibe. I especially liked their meeting hall which was covered with giant fish scales. I think that would be an interesting project. Anyway, I was thinking you start with the Dark Age nomads, specifically these folks:




Mix in a few Khador odds and bobs, especially my favorite, the wandering Lexmechanic known as the Old Witch, who travels from place to place healing corrupted data sprites, soothing machine spirits, and uploading official notification of weddings, births, deaths and so on. Her ability to divine a wide range of information when properly paid, as well as send messages over a distance is much sought after.



Dark age has alot to offer, though in a large scale I believe.

Good water seller:



A favorite of mine:




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Also, weren't imperial knights originally for hunting huge beasts fluff wise? Maybe some kind of early protoknight might be in order.

 kestral wrote:



I'd love to do a market scene, and the lead adventure stuff looks great for that. I especially like water and books. One of my main modeling challenges is how to do good tents and awnings, such as a market would have. There are lots of things I want to do that need them, but I'm not sure how to go about it. Some kind of paper mache maybe, or perhaps draping a sheet of thermo plastic over a frame?

In Guyana and Trinidad I've seen a lot of market sheds with wood front and posts and a tin roof. Easier to model, and much more Grimdark.



I'm adding it to my theoretical project pile... someday.

But first I want to try a Soylent Green food truck.

Those Darkage Nomads are excellent models.

EDC

Hmmm - I do have a good technique for doing corrugated sheets - I seperate a certain type of cardboard into two pieces, one of which has a corrugated surface. Its a bit painstaking, but it is free. The only tricks with corrugated market stalls would be to avoid making them look Orky, and make them sturdy. Or I could embrace the ork, and try to make it duel purpose...

I just suffered a knee injury, which sucks, but the up side is much more time for miniatures!

Spent a day knocking away at stuff, and here's what came of it:

First off Mother Superior Kristianna and her novice Alyce. Frostgrave figures, and very nice, very realistic. I do enjoy the occasional break from space cheese cake in my female figures. Anyway, Kristianna is in the process of chastising someone by hurling a scroll with a large scarlet letter "R" on it for "Repent" at them. Alyce looks like the perfect pilgrim, wandering the streets of Pentegrad with guidebook in hand, looking for the famous chronument of Brother-Sergent Capulus in the Ludus district.



They look better on the table than in the picture. Stupid photography. Someday I'll figure it out and do glamor shots of all my stuff. At this point is is established that the country clergy shall be green in vestment.

Next are two Explorator Team members. I'm using a lot of Orange and White with them, in honor of astronauts and cosmonauts of course. Generally, since I have lots of different models I'm sourcing them from, I'm painting them as individuals, very flamboyantly. More color means more visibility in a difficult environment, and they are far enough from imperial authority to have more leeway in such matters.



Stared working on my Magos. That is an awesome figure. I gave him a little scanner instead of the huge axe to make him fit in with the civilian theme better, and to make him different from everybody else's. I will probably give him a bodyguard holding the axe, since it is awesome.



Couple of WIPS:



Finally we have the awesome earth mover (Insert cool name here) which is mostly ready for painting:





Conviently, at least one loyal factory worker usually dies during the construction of such a monster, so it provides a guardian soul/skull shrine for the vehicle. Reports of workers sacrificed at the completion of major projects for this purpose are wholely without validity and should be reported to the Arbites.



There are two main issues when working with toy construction equipment. One is the smooth finish of the model with is hard to paint (I am going to try dullcoating before painting - its my new thing), and one is the small size of the cockpits in the usual scale.



Unfortunately I put the fuel barrel on before I remember that I had planned to do a backhoe on this one. Now I need at least one more vehicle.










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Now the question is, who is going to drive these construction vehicles? Who is going to be the crew? I was thinking of some conversions based on Catachans, but I've worked with catachans enough for one lifetime. What if they were driven by Squats? It would make sense, and it would explain the small crew compartments. The grunt labor can be done by "indentured" mutants. The question is, which squats? They need more tools than guns. I'd like an Ogryn on the team too.

One possibility is the Microsm Digger and Og figures:



Most their stuff is too military, but these could work:



Also, while I'm thinking of it, Statuesque Miniatures has a lot to offer, such as their asylum figures....

Painted some more Explorators/Rockjacks. I wanted an Ogryn in a space suit, and when I happened across a Karman model from AT-43 I thought it would work well. The long armed, bow legged frame seem appropriate for "Ogrynn in SPAAAAACE". Generally pleased with the variety of colors:





Og the Ratling painted, but no banner yet:



Captain of the Freighter Crew:





Thunderhawk blue is my new favorite color. Looks great for cloth with a little blue ink and a minimal highlight. Might have found the color for my Factory Worker's Uniforms...., athough they might look too much like freighter crew.

Did a banner for the Brethren. I'm going to try to sculpt the combination fireman's helmet/plague beak, or possibly even commission it.

Painted the Dominus Dio, though I think I'm going to try to fit in Dominus Dicto instead, "dicto" is a better nickname than "dio", not sure what I was thinking there.







Plus one of Insurgency Walker's figures painted in Tramp Freighter Crew colors. Apparently she lost her hand in some long forgotten conversion. Now she uses the stump to appear helpless....

Have you tried google latin translator for names? Ventilabis Terram or "Push Earth" works nicely.

I did try some translate, but unfortunately I didn't hit upon Ventilabis Terram - that's rather good.

I was thinking about my firefighting squad, and here are some of my ideas -

Ancient firefighters relied mostly on demolishing buildings, burning or near burning ones to stop fires. I think one of the firefighters will be a "demolitionist" with explosives, who blows up your house in the service of the imperium if need be. At least one other one with some kind of long pole weapon, also for pulling down burning stuff.

Also, you had to have a "fire mark" on your house in some eras to show that you had paid your dues. No mark = your house burned down. That would make an interesting little sculpting project in a press mold.

Those Frost Grave minis looks great. I really like the earth mover too, you made it very appropriate for the 41st Millennium.

EDC

Why thank you!

I got the goblins and the scale is fine - the largest of them is as tall as a space marine, so GW jumped the 25mm scale requirement for lord of the rings stuff there I would say. They are a little more delicate than typical 40K figures, but that is fine. Conversion will consist of a few tools swaps from their weapons, and some greenstuff hair to cover the elf ears. I'm going to speed paint them, and some of that will involve giving them patches of the Argellian earth technical paint for cracked, nasty skin.

Before I forget, I want to do these guys - scavengers of the waste sumps:

kestral wrote:
Also, you had to have a "fire mark" on your house in some eras to show that you had paid your dues. No mark = your house burned down. That would make an interesting little sculpting project in a press mold.

Not just back in the day...

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2011/12/07/9272989-firefighters-let-home-burn-over-75-fee-again

In the U.S. in some rural areas your fire dept fees are voluntary, but if you don't pay, you burn.

Of course in the Grimdark future this may be even more so... "That's a nice shop you have, sure would be a shame if anything happened to it"

Have you seen these nice ladies from Lead Adventure?

http://www.lead-adventure.com/product_info.php?cPath=2&products_id=282



Maybe with a gasmask head swap?

How are you going to do the waste sump scavengers.

EDC

I think the waste sump guys will be original sculpts/scratch builds - with so much of the anatomy covered I think I could pull it off.

Fire Angels of Whitechapel look awesome. I think they have a place in the Brotherhood. After all, back burning is a thing, right? And I think there is definately some "Nice house you've got there." going on.

When I get a good chunk of stuff done I want to do some staged scenes, probably a lot of it set in a city recovering from war. I took a few concept shots, although nothing is close to good enough to really show off yet. As always, better photography is needed too.

The ravaged streets of Pentegrad....





Lucidia Vauren tours the damage with her servitors and retainers in tow.





Father Ikos and a tech priest aspirant confer on the subject of how best to restore the Fulgam Prævaricator Manufactorium to functionality. Electrical talismans are in short supply to reconnect the city's electro web.





Meanwhile, the Vigilant Brethren have discovered a body lodged in the mechanism of the Chronument.



A heated discussion begins on the subject of how best to purify and appease it. Vladimir Dax and Skotha wait impatiently, though not really daring to voice their opinion.



A farmer returning from selling his crop of Algae, Mealworms, and Millet to the hungry cityfolk pauses to listen.



Bella flirts with a local militia man in front of their miraculously intact but still WIP hab. Life goes on, after all.







Alone, the street sweeper slowly and laboriously pushes the smaller debris inside a damage cathedral into piles.





A sort of a rough draft, as it were.


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Alkemy makes scruffy alterboys for their templar range:

I love your style and interpretations of the less militaristic parts of 40k.

Very inspirational!

Glad to hear it - reading Dakka blogs has really given me a sense of what is possible...

Here a few figures:

Og the Ratling painted:



Og tries to explain to the inquisitor that the road is closed... (not the smartest move).



Vassal Mechanic (going to do a set of these - mix of reaper, Privateer press figures).



Schoolgirl. I've decided that the children of Pentegrad, at least those not running wild, wear green Scholia caps and a large placard with their pertinent information on it, thereby facilitating return to their parents, kind of like the train tickets pinned to English children being sent to the country during WWII. Always found that an evocative image.

Nice stuff, hey are you getting the Colony 87 Kickstarter seems right up your alley.

And oddly, I just ordered that same reaper mechanic...

Nice action shots. I trust you were making powerbroom noises as you took the pics of the sweeper gathering the debris?

The Inquisitors car is very cool.

EDC

I think it kind of makes a "vroom-swish" sort of noise. He's got it set on low due to the sanctity of the ruins. More pathos that way. The mechanic (Rosie) is a good figure in bones, though I cut away the gun. Alot of weapons have issues in bones and it didn't fit very well. I'd have preferred the wrench.

I'd really like to support Colony 87, but I'm on a miniatures buying time out. : ) I'll certainly pick up a few of my favorites when they hit retail.


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I think Guildball could wind up providing some of the figures - who knows, they might do a firefighter's guild!

Some of the proportions are not to my taste, but the Fishing guild could make a great boat crew, or even herdfolk slaughtermen with a little conversion:

I think this thread is great - I have only just stumbled across it! Your references to the old Rogue Trader days are close to my heart - I have drifted away from the 'current' 40K world and started looking at the old stuff more.

I really like all these marvellous creations of yours! I like the different cultures Abnett creates too, though his writing is irritatingly hit and miss. Have you read Emperor's Mercy by Henry Zou? Some good reading about the culture of some remote Imperial worlds in that one.

Thanks! Emperor's Mercy was awesome - I'd say Zou "gets it" even more than Abnett in some ways. And having just read "I am slaughter" I definitely agree about the "Hit or Miss" part.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/687808.page#8596087

Link to a nice line of MDC or MFD or whatever it is vehicles and wagons that could be very useful.



Picture it with some skulls, a couple of downtrodden horses or grox, and some imperial propaganda pictures.

On the other hand, I did get my wooden genestealer cult truck for a dollar each and their detail isn't that much less. Of course, now I can't find them any more, got mine at Walmart.

 kestral wrote:
Why thank you! Being someone who is kind of bad with machines but has to interact with them a lot, I pray to the machine god a great deal. I can really feel the machine spirits, especially when they are angry. : ) So revering machines makes a great deal of sense to me. I do think Pulgax needs more purity seals. I'm going to post my genestealer cult stuff here and then figure out my web page list while they are fresh in my mind.





Cult truck. For typical imperial vehicles I favor interwar soviet stuff.

Do this BA family armored car and utility truck have the same size as Taurox?

I think they'd be a bit smaller than a Taurox. I don't own the Ox but I do have a lot of BA's, they were small for military vehicles and even at 1/35 are smaller than a rhino.

A nice opponent would let you get away with it, especially if you bulked them up somehow but they would be lower and narrower.

Love those trucks - the bulking up with storage really helps the look.

I wound up pledging the Toughest Girls in the Galaxy Kickstarter in a moment of stupidity, and some of the fruits of that will wind up in this project.

A high Theocrat of Pentegrad:



And her Bodyguards/Assassins/status symbols. I always loved the Gun Kata stuff from Equillibrium and it fits very well in 40K.

Only just found this thread; awesome stuff! love the real-world to 40K conversion stuff especially, will be stealing some of these ideas (if that's cool with you of course)

Nice. When are the TGitG due to arrive?

EDC

Steal away! Dakka is one of the main reasons I'm in this hobby and I steal all the time. They seem to be turning this kickstarter around much faster - supposedly the freebees will be going out this month if I read it correctly.


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Found some more Freighter Crew from Hinterland miniatures - they'll need greenstuff shirts though, or *ahem* breast reduction.

(NSFW)


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Hinterland Miniatures.

Heresy Miniatures has a sale going on now and with the pound low it's a good time to look at their trenchcoat gangers and other Sci-Fi types.

Had a look, but I kind of favor Denizen for my Genestealer Cult needs.

I've roughed out the Mutant Labor Gang and their overseers.

I took the LOTR goblins and gave them various tools or gear to carry. Their overseers are from Black Hat miniatures. I'll probably do a leg shackle for each to go with the shock implant on their humps. One carries the labor platoon banner, and one a scroll as a sort of priest. Not that he can read it. I'm thinking about how best to speed paint them.

Those overseers have got swag. Nice work in the goblins, they look very slavish.

They do, don't they? Sad that they are overscaled compared to older GW figures, or I'd use more from that range.

Eureka is putting out a comic chaos line, but it has some good "Mutant Civilian" type figures. I'll get some at some point.



http://eurekamin.com.au/index.php?cPath=87_126_838&page=1&sort=3a

Where those slave drivers from again? They're ace.

Cobalt Miniatures from Black Hat, also available from Scale Creep (no pictures on that page though, so you have to look them up on Black Hat's page.

http://www.blackhat.co.uk/product-category/28mm-miniatures/28mm-miniatures-cobalt-1-sf/28mm-miniatures-cobalt-1-sf-cobalt-1-characters/

Scale is a little odd - some of the figures are huge like those overseers, some are more reasonably 28mm, especially the female ones.

The TGG2 freebees and a few others, like the familiars, arrived yesterday - much sooner than I expected.

Painted another War-games Exclusive car for Insurgency Walker:









I like it better than the inquisition car. It is more restrained, but still cool and gothic. Fair warning - the casting had some issues. There were strange spider web cracks and odd texturing in the resin.

Work in Progress on the Mutants - I did the skin by painting white, then washing with GW flesh wash followed by Agrax Earthshade. Not bad for speed painting grubby flesh. I would still like them to be a bit less "fleshy" and more "grey", but I;m not sure how to do it.



Here we see Overseer Galthor using his Mutant workers to extract "donations" from a passing motorist.

Thanks Kestral. Looks cool!


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Must play 40k again soon.

Awesome work on the car and the mutants. I don't think the skin looks grey, I think the tone you've got works well.

EDC

Glad to hear it - though I wanted it to me MORE grey. : ) Still, I'm happy overall.

Well, I pretty much finished them, but the Camera suddenly stopped taking close ups for some reason, so all I have is the group shot. There are a few unfinished bits, but I'm ready to work on something new. They'll get spruced up and re photoed again at some point. I painted the second overseer so that he could work with either chaos or gene stealer cult as well, those being the main battlefield homes for those poor mutants. My one regret is that the overseers are SOO large. The rest of that company's range is large, but not that large. The moria goblins do scale well with 40K figures.




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Indentured labor platoon #23!

Very interesting thread!

Thanks!

So, probably everyone here has seen the Lord Inquisitor prologue. Now the actual inquisition part leave me cold, but the procession - wow! Very inspirational. I need me some floating skull parades!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZc6cr6G2E4

In the meantime, I painted a crew woman and some supplies. She is a 3D printed model from shapeways, which have kind of a grainy texture I'm afraid.

If looking for an odd bunch of starship crew and whatnot, this Kickstarter may be what you're looking for: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/822163699/astropolis

This is a very character full thread, i have spent an hour this morning just looking at your denizens. Bravo!!


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Having been an enginseer in real life, i can 2nd the feeling of angry machine spirits, annointing oils to ease pain was my bread and butter.

Nice work on the crew and supply dump.

What's up next?

EDC

Astropolis does look sweet, low brow and quirky! There are also a bunch of figures in the add ons I happen to want as well. Hmmmm....


These two are my favorites.

Not sure what is up next really. Possibly a few scratch builds. I *think* the only unpainted/unbuilt stuff I have for this project at the moment are explorator figures and their command vehicle. I still want to do a couple of scratch build firefighters in full gear, and I was eyeing sailors for conversion to factory workers.

Guildball caught my eye again. Butchers seem neat:

You wouldn't want to tangle with the sausage guild in your typical imperial city I imagine!

Nah they are softies its the Soylens Viridian crowd you want to avoid.

mmmm... ...soylent green.

I did a little surfing on the subject of the crew. If I go with the fez look, there are a variety of options. I also thought about what I would want besides basic crew. They should have some kind of support weapons (Maybe a mortar and stubber, or a pair of both) and a priest/doctor. I'd also rather not have a ton of them - twenty would be plenty.

Empress Askari



I've found some new stuff on Foundry



In the Pirate Line



Still would like more wearing coats.

There is a whole company called "Askari Miniatures" as it happens.

Oh, and before I forget, the officers really need this gal:

Found a cool Truck from Company B in 1/56




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And Armored Trains! Oh the joy - but much of it seems to be sold out. : (




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And a recovery tank!




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And people on Bikes!



And some cars that are not tooo expensive...

Love the work with those LotR goblins! I need to remember that trick, and track some of those little guys down.

Keeping an eye on this one!

Getting ready for an Apocalypse game I had some time, so I shot some civilian figures in the all but deserted resort city Meindrith, jewel of the Sobayid, just before the Tyranids attack. The city overlooks tidal flats and hot springs, much of it built on a massive crystal of bonded salt. Here the wealthy come to relax in their traditional style cottages on the city outskirts.
The twin suns of Luceron in their current orbital configuration give it a UV saturated, harsh light in the day.

Cool snaps. I anything in the city survive the Tyranid attack?

EDC

That which didn't get crushed under the tracks of super heavy tanks was ultimately consumed. A victory because escaping was the loyalists only goal. The game set up can be found in the Argo cluster battle reports.

"They came for our flesh but we gave them our steel, and didn't let the door hit our a** on the way out."
Col. Helstrom

Well said. : )

Here's a few random bits. First is the blind seer from the toughest girls in the galaxy kickstarter. I discovered to my annoyance that what had been strips of parchment in the concept art was sculpted more like scarves, so she's kind of gone from "sexy blind seer" to "random mostly nude lady" which is less useful. Maybe she's a model promoting the car. The Tgg stuff does suffer from the "whole army of supermodels" issue which is a bit much.





Insurgency Walker gave me the sample blood thug or whatever from the recent white dwarf, and I've turned him into a pit slave gladiator. I'm planning to do a gladitorial set as part of this project as well.








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Remaining Unpainted at this time for this project I have:

1 Mechanic
10 Xenos in Power Armor
5 Space Explorators
1 Heavy Explorator vehicle
5 Tgg Familiars
2 other Tgg figures.

I like what you did with the Bloodskullblood or whatever he's called. Good use of a backpack!

Nice job on the sexy seer too.

Nice conversion of the Slaughter Priest into a Pit Guard, he looks really amazing.

EDC

Thanks!

Now here is a really awesome project - I'd like to "get on his level".

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/703924.page


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It's a whole rogue trader era settlement.


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Found another officer for the Crew: http://www.matakishi.com/apps/webstore/products/show/1924238


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Another reference page: http://magpieandoldlead.blogspot.com

 kestral wrote:
Thanks!

Now here is a really awesome project - I'd like to "get on his level".

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/703924.page


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It's a whole rogue trader era settlement.


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Found another officer for the Crew: http://www.matakishi.com/apps/webstore/products/show/1924238



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Another reference page: http://magpieandoldlead.blogspot.com

He looks kinda like Idi Amin Dada

Idi, Idi, Idi Amin most incredible man dat der ever been
He general, he comadant, he king of the sea
Idi, Idi AmIn

Pretty sure it's intentional. The page has a sort of "1950s african dictatorship" line of miniatures. Which, now that I think about it, is a very "40K" esque moment in human history. Mad dictators, high and low tech mixed, religious extremism, predatory Xenos....

Painting some more Wargames Exclusive Cars for Insurgency Walker ATM, but I've been thinking about my minor Xenos Detachment. I think there will be 3 groups

Kiff - stealthy Infiltrators
To'ok - low end power armor folks
Ithorians (These Guys )



The Ithorians will be ambush specialists who use remote controlled combat vehicles, mostly small cherrypicker tanks and Goliath type obstacle clearance bombs. Terrible shots due to their odd eye placement, they will otherwise be close combat specialists.

To tie things together they will all be fairly gritty - all wearing camo for example, using relatively low tech weapons. I'd been looking for some interesting camo schemes that looked fun to paint without much luck, until I happpened to spend a hour or so playing my son's Battlefield 1 video game, which reminded me of the off WWI tank schemes with the blue in them. Those would be fun to paint:



I had wanted to do my walkers in some kind of WW I look anyway.

I must admit I have been haunting this thread looking for pictures.
I will get going on my Dakka jets.

Need to get that LR to you.

Well, I assume you saw it this afternoon, but here's some pics: (Work in Progress - what do you think about the red?)







Here's my first To'ok:





And the mechanic is coming along:

The car is looking good! I thought it might be on your shelf, but I didn't look for it, I just dropped off the tank. I do have the parts for the regular turret if you want 2 turrets, or three for that matter. I think red works, but I would request the same chrome color as the fender rams. Although I had originally envisioned red wheels, it is too much red. Thanks for painting the little bugger. Do you like how I turned it into a fast back? The servitor was just a little too creepy.

The mechanic is looking cool.

Re did the wheels in silver and I agree it is an improvement. The limo is about 33% done along with some more explorators. Not sure how an inquisition car can be tooooo creepy.... : )


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Here's a few things passing through the Dakka Dakka News and Rumors section:

From Shangri LA: (Wreck Age)





From Blind Beggar



Also:

Sisters of the crucible - nice color scheme. Didn't know they were out yet.

Sisters not painted by me obviously.

Cars are done - here's the interceptor with silver wheels:

And the Limo:

Those cars are very nice looking once painted.

Who makes those Sisters of the Crucible? I need to add them to my harem- I mean army.

Sisters are by Raging heroes, really interesting line of models

Well, a 28mm harem is better than none I suppose. They are by Raging Heroes. They were Kickstartered this year and I haven't gotten mine yet... ....which me think we're seeing a promo set of some sort.

In other news I've been working on my Explorators kind of randomly so as to have something easier to paint.




Surfing Cool Mini Or not's discontinuted stuff I found some things for the Explorators (Because really there should be a small army of them in case I ever get to play a force with no rules what so ever)

Finally would provide a use for some Hassalfree Grimm's



Fire Support!




Solidly Grimdark space suits.....



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Some other odds and ends:

Those space suit guys are quite nifty.

Thanks! The pink suit is a little un grimdark, though my thought was that each explorator can do whatever the heck they want with their own suit. Here's the other bits I've worked on:

Found the perfect buildings as it turns out - the streets of Venice by Carnevale from Table top Combat....





Extremely cheap too - not much more than a figure's cost for a whole building! Not real big it looks like, but that is fine with me.

One problem I've been having is what color should buildings be? The obvious choice is grey, but that is rather boring. I'm using lots of green on streets and roof sections already. I'm doing two in black at the moment. Probably stick with tan if I can make it work.

The Port Imperiale guy also has a great design for market stalls with tutorial:



Did up my Explorator Heavy Transport. I've wanted to use a BTR-70 for something in 40K for a long time, but I have decidely mixed feelings on the subject. First off a 1/35 BTR is HUGE - much bigger than the soviet armored cars I've been working with. Secondly the hatch arraignment is really... ...odd I couldn't really work them into my vehicle plan. I'm not sure about my conversion choices either. I knew i wanted to use domes, but it might have looked better with a single small dome in place of the turret or even no domes at all. I might do more on it at some point - recognition stripes, interior detail you can see through the domes.

Damn how did I miss this thread.....

Just spent a good hour or so pouring over this, I didn't particularly want to be up before 6 in the morning on a Sunday but I guess it turned out to be a good thing.

Really inspirational stuff here, I haven't really played 40k since 5th ed (ok I played like 2 games of 6th and that put me off) but this thread has really reignited my old love of that crazy universe. I don't need more project ideas but you've given me a huge pile of them kestral, I guess it's a good thing that I won't have any money to spend on more plastic/resin/metal crack until next year.

Seriously though keep it up, this sort of thing is far truer to the spirit of the 40k universe than anything GW has done since the late 90s.

Loving the bubble car. The painted limo looks rad too, great work.

EDC

Just read through this blog, love the concept, and the models you are collecting together are awesome, really inspirational stuff. Thank you.

Thanks! Reading other people's stuff on Dakka really got me into the idea that you could really be creative with the figures - kind of like being a set designer for a sci fi movie or some such. Which has proved to be much more interesting than playing the game these last 3 or 4 years unfortunately.

I might also embellish it with some "Nose art" type pinup - Explorators being a freewheeling lot, and girls in space suits being pretty neat....







But for now I'm pretty much tired of space suits. Time for some buildings!

How about traditional Mediterranean style for those buildings? Red tiled roofs and painted walls.

Hmmm, Mediterranean would work well with the Roman elements of 40K - and greek orthodox elements would be cool too! In other notes Wargame Print from Wargame vault has some great paper fold stuff I've been looking for - really nice middle eastern buildings, tents, and some Russian stuff. http://www.wargamevault.com/browse/pub/6198/WargamePrint/subcategory/19749_24551/WHFB-Kislev

I've been painting buildings with some mixed success. Green, Grey, black and gold aways works for me in terrain, color, not so much. But the propaganda posters help. I did have one thought - Arbites. Don't really plan on doing a bunch as there are friends with them if they were ever needed, but I do want one on a horse. Because horse cops are awesome, and I like the role of the horse in 40k.


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I've been painting buildings with some mixed success. Green, Grey, black and gold aways works for me in terrain, color, not so much. But the propaganda posters help. I did have one thought - Arbites. Don't really plan on doing a bunch as there are friends with them if they were ever needed, but I do want one on a horse. Because horse cops are awesome, and I like the role of the horse in 40k.

Here are some buildings. I've decided to focus on a Port city with canals on the edge of an ancient ocean that has swallowed a half dozen civilizations. Then I can use some Innsmouth figures too!









Here two of the Arch-Cannoness' Minaiphim inspect some proclamations....

Nice buildings! Are they cardboard based? Did you make those posters yourself?

Thanks! The buildings are plastic sheet salvaged from the back of some cheap mirrors. The window and door frames are hand drawn and then copied on a odd silver metallic cardstock Staples has. They covered up the cut outs for the doors and windows which were quite rough because of how thick the plastic was. I figure anything I build should be rugged, or it won't last. The propaganda posters are some from here on Dakka, some just googled as propaganda images from around the world and shrunk down and printed.

Checked out a bit of your Dregs and Strays Blog - excellent work! I particularly like all the cyberlimb work and the Jugger Team - that is one of my favorites, under the name Blood of Heroes over here. Very 40K movie, especially the underground city parts.

Wow, for hand drawn those details are really impressive! Thanks for the kind words - if I'm honest I've been following your blog for a wee while, I'm just a bit rubbish at commenting when I should.
I really like the wide variety of models you've used, and the fact that you're covering different echelons of an Imperial society. You've also got some great terrain to shoot them in, which I'm very jealous of! Somewhere on my ever growing project list is a few buildings, at least for a backdrop if not gaming purposes

I don't comment as much as many threads deserve really - bless the hearts of those who do. : )

Note for self: If I ever desire to do interiors, apparently 1/48 doll house furniture can be used with 40K:

http://www.atriflesmall.co.uk/148th-scale/148th-scale-furniture

The buildings are extremely effective, and your detailing really works.

Yeah the buildings are looking really cool.

EDC

Thanks! I just repainted two of them in more of a slate blue but the set of three (one damaged) should be done soon. I've just been inspired by Scarper's blog to do a Messengers guild using some Empire plastics. Two of them will be on a WW2 Motorcycle I have and one will be a "blade runner" with amputed cybernetic feet.

Some Baracades by Proxie models:



Used to block off areas made dangerous by the unpredictable tides. Also to display motivational messages from the feared Commissar Kyoto!



Building redone in slate blue - needs weather and aging, especially the posters:



It occurs to me that instead of attaching the posters periminantly I should just blu-tac them on, which lets me change a building's purpose. For example, here is the side door of Lady Meliset's Home for Loyal young ladies:



Lady Meliset finds her selective collection of patriotic posters quite useful.

Nice to see the old propaganda posters!

I like the barricades, i need to point mine one of these days.

I like the propaganda art forms myself. Two modeling notes: When I say "Hand drawn detail", what I mean is that I draw them quite large (the windows were drawn on a full sheet of paper), then reduce it using a photocopier. I've also found how to age the posters which look way too "crisp" printed from the internet. I'm sanding them with a very 'soft' piece of sandpaper, then washing with sepia. Seems to work well - the key is the right sort of sandpaper.

Excellent and creative stuff, as always.

Why thank you! The buildings feel a bit tame compared to converting figures, but I want to be able to do whole scenes...

Random Surfing -

If Pentegrad is a port city, it needs some Boats. There is a 1/48 coast guard rescue boat that seems to be available for about $25. It might also be worth considering a "flying boat" if I ever do the harbor. I need some way to do water effects that is easily stored and preferably cheap. I wonder if it might be possible to do something with clear plastic sheeting over a painted surface for passable water.



Hey, there is a 1/48 fire engine! Very tempting.



My main projec for the near future t is going to be a bridge though for the cool Cardboard Scratch Building Contest Thingy....

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/709936.page

So I should probably hold off on the fire engine. : (

I like the buildings and barricades. Looking forward to some bridges and potentially boats.

EDC

Here's the start to the Bridge- although the contest is to showcase cardboard, all the cardboard will be on the surface for detailing. The actual structure like most of my stuff will be wood, plastic and gorilla glue. My terrain needs to be able to survive pretty rough handling.

My original concept was a very elaborate bridge that had a house built on it so the bridge keeper could live there - charging tolls, fishing, netting salvage out of the canals, that sort of thing. However, the contest encourages one to do stuff that will "Fit on a CD", and that is good advice. This will ensure that I finish it.

So it will be a small bridge, the sort that might join two minor neighborhoods in an area where the canals are too narrow for all but the smallest boats. The bridge includes a tower and can be gated. This allows Arbites, militia, or whoever to seal the bridge, forming a natural barrier to criminals, mobs, invading armies, etc. The tower and bridge will make a natural strong point (or at least choke point) for gaming, and be designed to house at least a small squad during play. The second story will be ideal for heavy weapons teams, though the current "6" base" weapons teams won't fit. I swear GW's end game is for terrain to be irrelevant as model bases will cover the entire gaming surface. Anyway, here are the pieces cut out and being glued (excess glue will be trimmed away with a knife).

This is looking like it is going to be epic, great stuff, looking forward to progress.

Thanks! I was feeling it was a bit un-epic actually, but I have an idea. The bridge is very low in the current configuration. So I'm going to make it so it will lift up on giant hydraulics to let boats pass under. That will also require a steam boiler, with smoke stacks. The boiler can also provide electricity to the local neighborhood. I figure the Imperium runs mostly on DC.

Found some useful things:

CP models has a nice set of 28mm sci-fi civilians - maybe tugboat crew or something?



And Gladiator heads:



Speaking of gladiators, these figures from Zombicide - one of the expansions, haven't figured out which one - these are from C'Mon, NOT painted by me -



By "biggiesminis" are perfect. While some gladiators might be glamorous, others would be misshappen, comic, or just ordinary. The arena needs plenty of fodder after all, and the audience probably likes to see all different types getting killed. If the guy down the street fights three homeless people, that's a cheap show for the pit master.

Here's some progress on the Bridge:

Trying to step things up a notch I've added interior detail. Unfortunately some of it will be covered by the corner pillars it turns out. I've been doing a bit of gladiator themed graffiti "Lydia has no equal" and "Corax will win" have been cropping up on my ruins and buildings. Clearly they have a match coming up.



Since it is a project showcase what cardboard can do, I tried out a technique I've been meaning to give a whirl to make the roadway. I took thin cereal box cardboard, crumpled and tore it, then flattened it out and glued it down to plastic.



Then painted and drybrushed it. Good for a weathered and battered road I think.



Now on to assembly of the basic span.


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I've also been distracted by an extremely random side project:

Behold the Mortuary Stupa of the Void Ogryn! After the Ork Incursion of M40.93, the ecclesiarchy in Pentegrad conducted a careful review of their flock to determine if proper levels of fervor had been displayed during the defense of the city. Father Orthinian found that citizens of East Wavelock street had been distinctly lacking. Only a handful had volunteered in any capacity, tithes and donations had been minimal, and a drop off in cathedral attendance during the fighting was also noted. Accordingly a penance was in order. In pouring over the records of the conflict he discovered a large number of Void Ogryn had perished in defense of the city and buried without comment. The somewhat smaller, longer limbed and more dexterous Void Ogryn shared their planetary cousin's simple faith. The less than motivated denizens of East Wavelock were assigned the task of exhuming the bodies and constructing a suitable monument. This they completed in approximately three months. Bespoke mechanisms were requested from the Mechanicus (with an extra tithe to fund it), adults performed the heavy labor, children were given the job of cleaning the bones (which most enjoyed at first). The Void Ogryn bones and skulls were somewhat misshapen, but the best were selected for construction. Now the street maintains the monument to the cities's faithful defenders and it has become a minor pilgrim's stop.



It started life as a $1 halloween gazebo. Originally I was going to go for some kind of creepy playground, but the skulls were clearly not basic humans. I was inspired by Dan Abnet's Sabbat novels which based the imperial faith more on Tibetan Buddhism than Catholicism, which I thought was a nice change. Here's what a traditional Stupa looks like:



Here's a visiting missionary from my Barsoom type lost world:



Painting with Reaper Master series paints, which are cool but very, very flat. WIP.

Sprang for the Zombicide Figures. Working on the bridge: The roof is one of my favorite uses of Cardboard - corrugated roof.



Note the use of Sprue as a railing and with the "spikes" where models attach sticking out. Also considering some round sprue as pipe.



Interior showing ladder.

Bridge is looking cool so far, keep it up.

Love the creepy bone gazebo too, really characterful.

EDC

Gazebo is excellent, stealing that idea.

Bridge work is fantastic, really looking great bud. The road way and the use of the card with scrunching it up and adding texture is genius.

I have a couple boxes of zombie survivors they make for good civilians, but they are much more accurately scaled than GW so they look a bit skinny. By the time you have finished with them they will look great I am sure.

That bridge is looking fantastic! Haven't seen card used so effectively before, and it's giving me lots of ideas. The roof in particular is surprisingly effective!

With regard to the colony 87 minis you mentioned a while back, I just bought a few off the guy who ran the kickstarter over on the lead adventure forum. Would you be interested in me PMing you his username?

Funny you should mention that - I think I have a line on it. : ) But sure, I'd love the name I might be confused about who is who.

Thanks for the props folks!

What makes the Stupa work is that you take a plastic toothpick and thread beads onto it to make the top. I plan to use that technique again...

Here's the bridge in elevated position. Not sure this will actually articulate. The challenge of making something "the best I can do" as opposed to "Good enough" is a bit taxing, but enjoyable as a change of pace.










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Now for the next step - this is a cardboard tray, natch, from my son's Cafeteria. I'm going to try to use it for texture. After all, cardboard in interesting texture is another reason to use it!

Nice texture on that, the bridge is looking stunning, really nice work bud.

It is a very good tower bridge! i always look forward to your updates, there's always something new and interesting

Yeah, those three CP models minis look like a small ship crew indeed. Other stuff is also looking good!

Well thanks! I celebrated the weak pound by ordering from CP models - their shipping is actually very reasonable. Bit of regret though - I wish I had bought their fish swarm for my bridge instead of more heads.
Interesting updates? That's very flattering! How about some... ...vegetables?



Found these on E-bay. Someone's home project I assume.

Here is my missionary with a few more Red People from her homeworld (my vaguely conceived 40K version of Mars/Barsoom/Skaith). A swordsman, a noblewoman, and a space marine recruited from that world. I do enjoy painting terracotta skin and taup hair and hope to bring that world to life some day. I love the idea of ancient worlds that have seen many races come and go... My thought is that there is an imperial mission there but not much else, trying to bring the local humans into the fold as a prelude to conquest.



And some work in progress imperial shrines with their humble offerings. I'm sure the imperium only wants people praying to saints for the strength to work harder and die bravely, but I'm also sure people would start invoking them for all kinds of things.

I like those shrines they remind me of little shrines in India or Japan

Love the little shrines, and the Red People

Their skin-tone is fantastic, and I've never thought of doing a Barsoom-style 40k faction. Loads of potential there

Lots of great stuff there

Thanks! Here's a little better picture of the Terracotta People (Need a better name).

"Children of the public domain"?

Took me a second to get that one. : )

Carter Johnson of Ares?

Very cool project you have here.

Nice work on the peeps, nice feel about them. Love the way the guys are all "Stay back or I'll gut you!" and the lady is totally "Waiting on the number 5 bus, always bloody late!"

Just another day on (Not) Mars. : )

Idea for future note: If I do create a red planet, I want to figure out a way to peel bark off of overgrown trees, flatten it and glue it to plasti-card to make terrain - stuff like this would be great for the surface of an alien planet, and well, we have a lot of trees here:






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Took a brief stab at it with this piece of firewood, but didn't get far.

I've finished the shrines and ecclesiarch assistants:



Plus my vegetable collection is complete:



What's this? A car! My car! Thanks Insurgency! The original model was a bit small, so I've "stretched" it a little to give at least the possibility of a back seat and transporting a 5 man unit:

Here's some work in Progress for the Car and also a Raging Heroes sister scout.

Many good things! But i think the vegetable are my favorite of all, due to my love of tiny ordinary things

Nice work on the car.

The fruit and veg stalls are looking good too. So great to see the the little details that aren't really explored in 40k.

EDC

Nice variety of things, as usual! That car is quite unusual, where's it from?

Kurnost wrote:
Nice variety of things, as usual! That car is quite unusual, where's it from?

Check out Wargame Exclusive you will not be disappointed.

https://wargameexclusive.com/

It is the "Hive Runner" if I remember correctly - stretched of course.

Here are my first few gladatorial skum ready for painting:




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Couple of explorators painted. I figure the silver guy is from an order of space suited knights who go on quests out from the dome cities of their moon...

And here are some street scenes:





The world of Rossak, on which the city of Pentegrad stands, is a world of deep oceans and small rocky continents, which has been a crossroads of the galaxy for millions of years. It possesses three moons which create complex tidal systems. Penetgrad, built upon pre-human blocks of massive stone, possesses an elaborate system of canals. At times the tides fill them with torrents of water that clean away all filth and pollution. At others they sit stagnant, or drain away completely leaving tainted pools of heavy metals in which dwell species from a dozen worlds. Through them stalk the stiltwalkers. They swath themsleves in layers, both for protection and to hide frequent mutations. At times they salvage debris, or sift for metals. Here one fishes for Cadmium Crab, a toxic delicacy trapped in certain pools by receding water. Despite the high rate of mutations, stiltwalkers are a respected community in the city, who take their place with pride in the various processions. Once each year the chief of their tribe portrays the doomed Primarch Angron who liberated Rossak during the great crusade from a cabal of aquatic Xenos....

Both the photos and text are a real treat.

Thanks!

Brilliant! Really captivating stuff.

EDC

Thanks! I'm trying to get to the next level on both Photography and Fluff, so I appreciate the encouragement.

Very nice I like the fluff, especially about them venerating Angron who liberated them during the Great Crusade.

I bet there's thousands of worlds who still venerate traitor primarchs, with no knowledge at all of the rest of their actions.

As for photography, one of the things that really works nicely with miniature scenes is to get the camera right down low on the level of the miniatures themselves. It really helps bring them to life, rather than a scene viewed from on-high (which is still good to get an overall picture of course).

The 'Little Camera; Big Results' thread over in General Discussion (I think?) is what I hold to be the gold standard of that idea

Thanks for the tip - I'll check out the thread!

That is amazing bud, love the fluffy stuff, and the scene looks outstanding.

Please don't get me wrong on this, but seeing a real improvement here, you have a really great style and aesthetic going on, and those last pics are definitely next level stuff, keep it up.

Thanks all - I really appreciate the encouragement all! I hope to do more "semi diorama" set ups in the future. In the meantime, a quick note on where to get a candleseller someday:



Alionas miniatures in Germany. Also carries a line of what can only be described as "Elvis Elves".




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Perhaps some of my gladiators will stray from "Roman" themes...

I like that candle seller, a proper bit of madness fits in well with 40k/the Olde Worlde (RIP).

Haha that space Elvis is hilarious.

EDC

Cardboard bridge has come out beautifully. Love the bold colours - a much more interesting pallet than the completely muted stuff you often see. Really like the fluff for the stilt walkers soo, really fitting for a grimdark kind of planet - I can picture the John blanche art!

Edit: quoting your post for the rollover

 kestral wrote:
And here are some street scenes:





The world of Rossak, on which the city of Pentegrad stands, is a world of deep oceans and small rocky continents, which has been a crossroads of the galaxy for millions of years. It possesses three moons which create complex tidal systems. Penetgrad, built upon pre-human blocks of massive stone, possesses an elaborate system of canals. At times the tides fill them with torrents of water that clean away all filth and pollution. At others they sit stagnant, or drain away completely leaving tainted pools of heavy metals in which dwell species from a dozen worlds. Through them stalk the stiltwalkers. They swath themsleves in layers, both for protection and to hide frequent mutations. At times they salvage debris, or sift for metals. Here one fishes for Cadmium Crab, a toxic delicacy trapped in certain pools by receding water. Despite the high rate of mutations, stiltwalkers are a respected community in the city, who take their place with pride in the various processions. Once each year the chief of their tribe portrays the doomed Primarch Angron who liberated Rossak during the great crusade from a cabal of aquatic Xenos....

Thanks! Still planning on doing a Messengers guild based on your bladerunner figures, but with more puff and slash.

Things I want to do someday:

Put together a DIY galaxy of everyone's creative projects as a sort of travelouge - like Port Imperial, my Pentegrad, custom marine chapters, space hulks, etc. using the splash pictures and fluff people have created. It would be tremendously inspirational I think. Sort of an extension of the official universe. With clickable planets.

Do a Space Slann group. I really like the lizard men in fantasy - use the current Slann as a starting point, but with lots of custom sculpting and lobotomized humans.

Get on that expanded universe immediately! Seriously that sounds awesome

 kestral wrote:
Thanks! Still planning on doing a Messengers guild based on your bladerunner figures, but with more puff and slash.

Things I want to do someday:

Put together a DIY galaxy of everyone's creative projects as a sort of travelouge - like Port Imperial, my Pentegrad, custom marine chapters, space hulks, etc. using the splash pictures and fluff people have created. It would be tremendously inspirational I think. Sort of an extension of the official universe. With clickable planets.

Do a Space Slann group. I really like the lizard men in fantasy - use the current Slann as a starting point, but with lots of custom sculpting and lobotomized humans.

That sounds utterly awesome! I'd gladly contribute my various creations to it

Hey, there's some great stuff here! Nice work, Kestral! I especially like your gladiators

I too have a deep interest for civilian life in the grim darkness of 40k (even 30k, too). I'm a sculptor myself, and have been meaning to sculpt some sic-fi civilians for a personal project. Out of interest, what civilian characters would you like to see produced that you perhaps can't get the models for right now?

Kurnost wrote:
Get on that expanded universe immediately! Seriously that sounds awesome

My web skills would need to improve a fair amount (although I'd like to get better), and there might be some IP issues. Wouldn't want to do a big project only to get a C&D letter in the middle of it. Perhaps it could be done as a system of links to forum pages in a standard format. It would be great as a resource for RPGs I think.


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 Ynneadwraith wrote:

That sounds utterly awesome! I'd gladly contribute my various creations to it

Your stuff is super sweet - I'd love to bring all the great stuff you can find by hunting through various blogs and forums into one easily accessed page of awesome. Sort of a travelogue perhaps, or a gazetteer.


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 chilledmonkeybrains wrote:
Hey, there's some great stuff here! Nice work, Kestral! I especially like your gladiators

I too have a deep interest for civilian life in the grim darkness of 40k (even 30k, too). I'm a sculptor myself, and have been meaning to sculpt some sic-fi civilians for a personal project. Out of interest, what civilian characters would you like to see produced that you perhaps can't get the models for right now?

Thanks Brains!

There are a few things I went looking for and came up empty. There was a request for more servitors in the Victoria Miniatures thread which made me think there's lots of space for more interesting servitors - like what about a Rickshaw servitor? Or melee armed bodyguard servitors in fancy dress. Those could probably be done with conversions, but they mostly tend to be kind of clunky. Are there no thin servitors?

I also searched to no end for some generic overall type factory workers. Really just a torso and legs would be great, especially if it came in a couple of sizes and had females too. I will probably wind up doing mine from sailors if I ever get around to it.

Miners and hazmat types was kind of a need, but the new genestealer cult guys cover that pretty well.

Something that would be awesome and really need custom sculpt would be 40K themed figures based on less commonly shown styles of dress and ornamentation. I like how 40K draws on lots of recognizable Terran cultures and tropes - makes it more accessable. I'd really love to do an imperial noble/inquisitor based on this kind of look with some aquilas and skulls and tech bits:

Thanks man! Likewise!

I'd love to hear a story of 'The Imperium's first tourist' travelling around writing a travel guide to various places. Especially if the eponymous tourist has a Twoflower-like naivety to them

Hah! That would be pretty funny. Shape changing Alien? I was thinking of Talislantia or the flavor text in the Sheila Calpurnia books. Or some kind of rogue trade or pilgrim's guide.


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I've actually made some progress in painting, trying to clear the paint shelf for new things. Right now I'm thinking space ships actually. But here's what I've finished:




Close ups on the Car - rather pleased with it. This year will be known as my "Thunderhawk blue" stage by my biographers. That color can do no wrong as far as I'm concerned.





Here is the Gear House and it's keeper:





Handsome devil. Might repaint him as an old man. Need more old men.

With some of his friends:





Checking out a car. I am quite pleased with CP models figures and hope to patronize them again. The detail is plentiful and more thought out than, for example, the stuff on Black Cat figures, but not crazed like some of the modern figs. I am going to do water effects on their bases I think. They work down on the docks, so lots of puddles there, right?



Low end part time local gladiators without access to fancy gear, vat grown muscle, or plastic surgery. I gave the big guy a farmers tan so that A) he'd be more like me, and B) it would emphasize he has a day job.
I also gave him my space marine colors. I like playing up the cult of the Astartes among the common people.







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Note to self - need this guy for the Arena:

Lovely guys and dolls, nice work, car looks amazing, and gear house is really great.

Had a look at that mini company, they have lots of nice models.

The potbellied gladiator is my new favorite in this thread. He might not have much going for him, but i like him anyhow

Really loved the Black Plague models for that a huge variety in body shapes and fantasy styles. Far more than you usually see.

 amazingturtles wrote:
The potbellied gladiator is my new favorite in this thread. He might not have much going for him, but i like him anyhow

Well, he is about 9 feet tall in 28mm... so that is something.

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 chilledmonkeybrains wrote:
Hey, there's some great stuff here! Nice work, Kestral! I especially like your gladiators

I too have a deep interest for civilian life in the grim darkness of 40k (even 30k, too). I'm a sculptor myself, and have been meaning to sculpt some sic-fi civilians for a personal project. Out of interest, what civilian characters would you like to see produced that you perhaps can't get the models for right now?

Thanks Brains!

There are a few things I went looking for and came up empty. There was a request for more servitors in the Victoria Miniatures thread which made me think there's lots of space for more interesting servitors - like what about a Rickshaw servitor? Or melee armed bodyguard servitors in fancy dress. Those could probably be done with conversions, but they mostly tend to be kind of clunky. Are there no thin servitors?

I also searched to no end for some generic overall type factory workers. Really just a torso and legs would be great, especially if it came in a couple of sizes and had females too. I will probably wind up doing mine from sailors if I ever get around to it.

Miners and hazmat types was kind of a need, but the new genestealer cult guys cover that pretty well.

Something that would be awesome and really need custom sculpt would be 40K themed figures based on less commonly shown styles of dress and ornamentation. I like how 40K draws on lots of recognizable Terran cultures and tropes - makes it more accessable. I'd really love to do an imperial noble/inquisitor based on this kind of look with some aquilas and skulls and tech bits:

Can't believe I didn't comment on the grimdark African tribesmen!

That's an utterly stunning idea. That sort of slightly bizarre body modification fits in sooo nicely with the whole Grimdark 40k thing, and the idea of incorporating non-Western cultural ideas into 40k is one that really appeals to me

I love that gear house, the different rust and corrosion patterns are fantastic.

Nice, great work on the keep house and keeper (and his friends)

EDC

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
I love that gear house, the different rust and corrosion patterns are fantastic.

It is not hard to do - I think I will do more metal buildings to contrast with my rather staid grey concrete ruins and blue grey buildings. The only trick is coming up with enough surface detail to make the ink useful.

Rogue trader Kickstarter sounds great - I look forward to seeing it. Any teasers?

 kestral wrote:


Rogue trader Kickstarter sounds great - I look forward to seeing it. Any teasers?

Haha, not yet. It's a case of slowly working on it in the background whilst I do the jobs that pay the bills. I'll probably post some more WIP pics on my MOTU Dakka blog at some point...

Admiring my civilian vehicle fleet (and this isn't even all of it - soon I will be able to do traffic jams!)



I've been bitten by the Gladiator bug, so maybe spaceships will wait. I'd like to have a small gladiator army at some point - something like:

2-3 leader characters
1 Medic
Maybe 20 or so gladiators broken out by style. I want to keep some of the Roman influence, while at the same time adapting 40K themes. For example, there could be a type of fighter who wears armor vaguely resembling a space marine's, but without tech.
5 or so bikers or cavalry for some speed. Is it wrong that I want to use these guys from Ramshackle games?

A couple of brutes/monsters, maybe a beast handler and pack.
This guy for heavy support!


I took a crack at painting some I have, but I was using Reapers Flesh tone triads - and I gotta say, so far Meh is the word. I loved the idea of a premixed set, but I just don't like the shades they chose.

Urban Mammoth has a lovely range that is very convenient for those of us that want something else than those old Cadians. I cannot but approve !

M.

Metropolis/Urban War/Void has some great models but I've had trouble with their multipart metals getting them to hold together.

A shame really because their stuff is gorgeous.

Love the urban war stuff. Oddly there is something going on with their range - there are figures I know they have that I can't find for sale.

Dark Age has some great offerings in the Gladiator line:













Sadly, all very expensive. Bronze age miniatures also has a cool new site - with greatly increased prices. : (

I have enough gladiators already to start painting - question is, what scheme?

Gladiators wear red - classic, khornate, doesn't show the blood.
Gladiators wear white - unexpected, shows the blood.
Gladiators wear metal and leather colors - classic, works more metals into the project.
Gladiators wear heraldric colors - shows association with noble houses, but makes them less recognizable and unified. Fits the quasi fantasy feel I like, but army lacks coherent theme.
Most gladiators don't wear all that much anyway...

Any votes?

Light brown leather, classic, shows blood, Maybe with one splash of color to show their house loyalty?

IE a few get a yellow glove, a few more a green loin cloth etc.

Bronze. You need to use bronze.

M.

I like Kid_kyoto's suggestion of combining small dashes of heraldry with a more unified theme (personally think the white has potential!) Would allow for a lot of personalisation for each individual whilst still keeping them cohesive.

A wee word of warning about Ramshackle - I've purchased quite a large order from them in the past and the cast quality was dire. Brittle, unworkable resin covered in thick mould agent and riddled with bubbles and overflow. A lot of them weren't even rescuable due to overflowed resin in high detail areas. It was several years ago to be fair and they may have cleaned up since, but something to think about before ordering...

Thanks for the tip - I have heard mixed things about Ramshackle casting, but I'd probably take the chance just because I like what the guy is doing. Someday.

Bronze is certainly in for gladiators, and I have painted some small heraldry on one already if it comes to that. Hmmm. See what the figures wind up looking like as a group I suppose. I've painted one in Reaper tanned flesh and red already but didn't care for it.

Image number 997:

Tibetan themed 40K buildings. Paper patterns by 40kaddict blog - great stuff. The domes will light up and I'm adding some skull beads. Sort of an inquistiional fortress to form the backdrop to more detailed terrain I think.

Odd - double post.

I just found this blog and read the whole thing from the start (it took me a couple of days!) and I have to say this is great stuff. So much inspiration here. Thanks for sharing all thus goid stuff and all the ideas and sources of models.

Of course not everything appeals to everyone when you have such an amazing variety of stuff here, but the Brethren really stood out to me as an exciting, interesting concept with cool models and flavor.

Keep it coming! The creativity here is inspiring.


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And I would love if you could somehow start collecting and linking the best 40k fluff and flavor blogs together. That will really inspire me to continue to develop the non-combat side of our campaign in order to be a worthy addition!

I think everyone involved would get a kick out of it if you created a unique traveler/guide-writer. He/she/it would need an interesting voice/perspective and, of course, his own model! People would love to see what he wrote about their planet. Very original idea! And very inclusive, too. People will find it very cool to see that their creation gets tied in to others' creations and the bigger universe and the community here.

Well thanks Riddle!

A traveller (or small group?) to frame the whole thing seems like a great idea, and certainly a bespoke model seems appropriate. Who would they be though? Rogue Trader? Some eternal pilgrim? A hapless bureaucrat? Who can travel everywhere in the 40K galaxy? When it comes to writing their commentary, I have to say my choice would be Dakka's Number one Fluff Generator (for my money anyway) - Kid Kyoto! Although it might be better to spread it out over several people (and thus several characters?)

Format wise you'd have to come up with what kind of content would be suitable and what wouldn't. Locations and Characters not included in the "official" lore? Not sure how to articulate that. I was thinking you would't want say, ultramarines, but maybe you would. If someone has a great Ultramar diaorama or their Ultras shown exploring an alien world, why not include it I guess?

I'd say you'd want pictures with fully painted terrain and models with some kind of backdrop/photoshop. Doesn't have to be "Professional" (no judgements on people's modeling/painting), but does have to be your best Finished work, with a link to blogs or forum threads by the creator where more information could be included. A limited amount of background text.

Then you need a way of bringing it together - big clickable galaxy map/searchable database, plus a form that people could fill out to submit content. To be practical the form would need to translate directly to the page without much work.

The IP angle has to be considered too, though there seem to be plenty of experts on that around. : )

It will have to wait at least a little while though, because I'm on a huge gladiator kick at the moment. Pictures soon!

Still working on gladiators, but briefly it has to be noted that at some point I should like to have a lady with a ship on her head. Ideally two, one with a sailing ship and one with a space ship. Maybe one with an Aquila. Eventually I want to do two noble houses - the black and yellow House Vauren I've got a pretty good start on, and a more steampunk/vampire/goth house with black white and purple type colors. Then we can have "Two great houses, each alike in dignity...." Anyway, I think there are a few around - this one is from Signum the game in Europe.

I'm amazed that you were able to find a lady with a ship on her head.

i'm amazed and inspired that such a thing even exists.

i may have to wear a ship on my own head from now on.

There are at least TWO other 28mm ladies with ships in their hair I've seen, as it has been a bit of a trope for centuries:



If you do wear one yourself, bonus points if your hair resembles a kracken devouring it:



Maybe I should do a large scale bust with a battle fleet gothic ship in her hair... ...although I tend to do only at least somewhat game usable miniatures.

I decided against buying gladiators at least to start with and bought some gladiator heads very cheaply on e-bay instead. The ones from CP models in metal were a bit large on most figures unfortunately, but the (I think) Anvil Industries ones in resin work out very well. This let me use up figures I had "lying around", and also I generally enjoy scratch building more than painting.

I determined that each gladiator would have at least SOME science fiction element to them. I have a fair number of regular gladiators in my "Beauty and the Beast" army (although their basing is off), so that angle was covered. I also tried to think about what their "Style" would be and how they would function in the arena. I think the gladiatorial events of Pentegrad would, like those of Rome have their roots in (corrupt) religious rituals - a kind of morality pagent that originally told the cautionary tale of how the world's liberator, the primarch Angron fell from grace, but that part is now pro-forma no one watches, and instead the focus is on gladiators killing each other with a thin religious or historical veneer. I always liked the part in the Gladiator movie where the announcer shouts "the Barbarian horde!" and twenty or so gladiators straggle out and "The invincible legions of Scipio Africanus!" and out come three chariots driven by women.









Here we see several independent gladiators of middling status. They have fairly decent equipment and armor and are hoping for the big break that will make them celebrities. The Flagellum in the center carries a a retractable ball and chain. To his left a fairly standard Secutor with a chainsword. Behind an Ignatrix, usually a female style, with sword and flame gauntlet. On the right a well armored Retarius with Electro Trident. Most Retarii dispense with the net. It is traditional for them to be pitted against the Xenodrii:



The Xenodri are closer to the imperial norm of "Pit Slaves". Usually they are cybernetically modified and of low status. They wear helms and armor that invoke the aquatic Xenos that have plagued Pentegrad down through the ages or sometimes more generically divers or environmental suits. The Xenodri Majoris are huge and usually pitted against several Retarii or used as the "boss villain" in some way. Xenodri Minoris are drawn from among the 25mm and Ratling population and are more comical - one is often sent in to enliven a somewhat static duel by forcing the contestants avoid being stabbed in the back or hamstrung.



The Chernops are a heavily cyborged style favored as body guards outside the arena. They are armed with a power sword, stake launcher, and a shoulder mounted tech weapon of some type, usually designed to disorient rather than kill such as a dazzle launcher. Traditionally they are body sculpted into an exaggerated female form, though given the amount of modification involved their original gender is pretty much moot. Expensive and rare, they are associated in the popular mind with machines and the Mechanicus.



A more common style is the Leo. Armed with a shield and a large caliber pistol, the Leo puts a premium on massive physical strength achieved usually through vat grown muscle and hormone regimens. Inside the arena the Leo's pistol fires a phosphorescent beanbag round that burns and disorients but does not kill (for the safety and amusement of the audience). Having stunned their enemy, the leo is then expected to close with them and kill them with their bare hands before the crowd gets bored. Smaller or female Leos may be given a dagger or claws for this task.



I'm doing a mix of gladiators armed as they would appear in the arena and as they would appear as hired muscle in a street fight, as militia, or during an insurrection. Hence some guns and support weapons that wouldn't be safe in an entertainment venue.



Here we see two Elcari armed with twin blades or estocs and spy helms. The spy helm provides information on the target's armor and condition designed to enable the Elcari to win with a single precision strike.

Brilliant stuff loving the style descriptions very evocative.

Gladiators are looking good!

Haha! That kraken hair boat thing is absolutely fantastic if only I still had dreads I could do that at the next fancy dress thing I go to...

Love the gladiators especially the amount of thought you've put into it, and the way you've bent the real historical setup of gladiators into the 40k universe. I especially like the Xenodri. Ancient Rome had a habit of making types of gladiators based on the stylised versions of the various foes they had fought, so it fits perfectly that the Imperium would model gladiators after the various xenos they'd fought

Sadly my hair is too fine to properly krakenify a ship.

Really fun stories for all the gladiators!

Loving these designs, all the models I never thought of using or even knew existed. Most excellent!

Thanks everyone - I hope to get them painted and ready with their arena, though I'm kind of running out of steam at the moment. Part of the problem is that I bought a bunch of reaper flesh triads in the hopes of uping the quality of my painting, but I haven't really been getting very good results from them. : ( I think it would be cool to do various "Enemy" styles of gladiator - I was trying to figure out what an Ork style would be like. I thought about using an Ork head as a helmet, painted metallic, but it just didn't work.

Side note: Zenit miniatures in Spain has some lightly mutated gladiators: