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You did a good job converting the centurions. I has it's own appeal the create such massive bulking models. And with the chaos decorations they look even more massive. The sheer mass of those models looks very imposing.
But to be fair those bulky models aren't my taste. They are imposing and i can see why people like the but i would rework them differently.
In that regard i have a question. How hard would it be to cut away the chest mounted weapons entirely including their chasing and move them on top of their shoulders? Looking at the sprues and your pictures i expect the need to close off the holes where the chest weapons will be cut away.
But how doable would such a conversion be for a decent converter? While those kits seem a great source for weapon bits i don't want to buy them blindly and later realize that the conversion i have in mind doesn't work.

Hey mate,

check out Candleshoes' conversion that I linked to in my last post (you won't be able to access it right now, because B&C is down. But hopefully, that problem will be solved soon), because it should answer your question perfectly: he cut away the chest weapons in order to give the torso more human proportions, and it seems to have worked like a charm. I don't even think you'll have to close up any holes, because the holes resulting from the cuts will be pretty much covered up by the arms of the model. And since the slots for the chest mounted weapons are separate parts, you might even be able to salvage them for a shoulder mounted approach. So yeah, I guess what you propose would be very doable

Looking good, I like what you do with the siege drill housings. As for my second fella head over to my thread and you'll see the bare bones of him now

Thanks for answering my question. I noticed B&C being down as i tried to follow the link. So i didn't know that there would be the answer.

Cheers, guys!

I did manage to put in some more work on my second Behemoth. I've also had a change of heart halfway through the conversion: After putting quite a bit of work into that heavy flamer, it just ended up looking too unwieldy, even for a guy wearing an enormous suit of armour...

So I adjusted my plan and went for a Lascannon on the right arm instead, while the left was armed with a converted assault cannon. And here's the model as it looks right now:







Still missing a few bitz and bobs (and a couple of fingers!), of course, but I think you get the idea

Let me know what you think!

Loving the assault cannon where's that from? This is gonna be an awesome looking unit buddy.

Thanks, buddy!

The assault cannon is from the Heldrake, of all places. It looks extremely awkward as a (too small) weapon emerging from the dragon's mouth, but as is the case with so many of the Heldrake parts, use it for something different and BAM -- instant awesome

wow i wish i could convert like that

Excellent thanks for the tip.

While I think the newer Obliterator is better than the last, I think the mid section looks a bit strained and just a tad to thin. Still, keep up the good work. I do think the chest mounted flamer idea is pretty awesome, and the use of the Great Maw as a World Eater symbol is quite effective.

Oh.
My.
Gawd.

Dat cannon.
I love it.

Now thats an assault cannon

 KrautScientist wrote:
Cheers, guys!

I did manage to put in some more work on my second Behemoth. I've also had a change of heart halfway through the conversion: After putting quite a bit of work into that heavy flamer, it just ended up looking too unwieldy, even for a guy wearing an enormous suit of armour...

So I adjusted my plan and went for a Lascannon on the right arm instead, while the left was armed with a converted assault cannon. And here's the model as it looks right now:







Still missing a few bitz and bobs (and a couple of fingers!), of course, but I think you get the idea

Let me know what you think!

I like this second one quiet a bit, earlier you where talking about giving them clawed feet. As a couple ideas you could maybe try using lightning claws as the basis or if your want to go for something a little more bulky you could order some of the claws from the Blood Angels Furioso Dreadnought, just an idea

I think they look great, really top notch for such a crappy kit

Nice! That is one sweet assault cannon. It looks old school somehow.

Nice seeing you working on these kits which I am not a fan of. Malika2 pointed out this thread on Bolter and Chainsword of a really nice Centurion conversion http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/280117-contemptor-centurion-body-head-complete/ I really like what this chap has done to the feet, though I am not sure about the length of the torso.

Thanks for the positive feedback, people! Having that assault cannon bit left for this conversion was really a lucky coincidence: I agree that it works very well with the Centurion heavy bolter housings

@ Imposter101: You're quite right about the model's waist, although it has to be said that it still lacks a pretty volumiouns armour plate on its lower back that should at least go a ways towards solving that particular problem. That bit is a female dog to tack on, though, so I've left it off for now.

@ Warboss Imbad Ironskull: Aye, still looking for a good idea regarding those clawed feet -- it'll be a delicate balance to maintain, though: The claws need to be big enough to look good but also small enough not to make those feet look any more clunky I guess I'll just be waiting for inspiration to hit -- that approach has always suited me well so far

@ PDH: candleshoes "Contemptor Centurion" is indeed awesome, and possibly my favourite conversion of the kit so far! As a matter of fact, I have done a rather detailed writeup on both the kit and the best conversions I managed to dig up for Dark Future Gaming. Check it out here , in case you're interested.

So, regarding the Behmoths, I am prepared to call two of three models basically finished at this point.

The test model you already know:



Like I said, there may be some additional spikes, chains and skulls, but that's basically it.

And the second model (still missing its hands in the picture, but oh well...):



I also discovered that yet another of the Ogre fists from the Mournfang Cavalry kit would make a splendid gauntlet for the model:



And finally, the two of them together:



Two down, one to go -- although I might take a break working on a smaller model before tackling the squad leader

The Second Behmoth looks phenominal, keep up the good work!

Thanks Kraut, that article you posted and the documentation here is the first place to look for anyone trying to convert these kits!

Can I make a request that when you make the leader, he has plasma nipples

Cheers, guys!

@ meade: Hmm, he'll aready be wielding a plasma cannon, though... Oh well, I can at least promise you that I'll be taking a look at the option.

 KrautScientist wrote:
Cheers, guys!

@ meade: Hmm, he'll aready be wielding a plasma cannon, though... Oh well, I can at least promise you that I'll be taking a look at the option.

Obliterators are armed with a plasma cannon and twin-linked plasma guns

just sayin'

 KrautScientist wrote:
Ah, well, much as I would like to believe that the amount of followers is only related to the quality of content, I can say from my own experience that getting people to notice your stuff can be pretty hard work. In my case, it took half a year of blogging and several threads on different forums to generate a steady interest in my postings, and even now, stuff I feel very strongly about doesn't manage to attract any attention. It's hard work, and there's probably no perfect recipe to do it.

QFT.

I've noticed that many P&M blogs seem to capture the attention of a small group of dedicated followers and the random passerby (like me, I haven't been here in a long time) but there's no rhyme of reason as to what keeps people interested. Updating frequently helps but you can fall into the trap of minutia and people lose interest because your update is repositioning the head to look left instead of right.

You can try promoting your threads through other threads (which I shamelessly do from time to time... check my sig!!! No really, go check it!) but that can become counter-productive quickly if you annoy people.

Then there's the issue of general interest. There's very likely a guy on Dakka that has the most skillfully built and beautifully painted Eldar army ever, but I'll never see it because I have no interest in Spandex Space Pansies. No doubt that same idea works against guys like me that paint dirty rotten things like Plague Marines (check my link!!!) and Cultists (check my link!!!).

I've also noticed that time of day you post your updates is very important. I've posted huge progress updates with relevant descriptions and pics at 2am EST. Other than the handful of people that sub my thread (and I appreciative every one of them) I have no random replies because it was buried under the avalanche of P&M updates by the time anyone was awake to see mine. People that post do bump it to the top, but it still seems that time of day when I originally post has had an effect on my traffic.

Why does it all matter? I mean really, why? For me it's validation of effort and result. I would be doing the work anyway as I have a use for the finished models, but if no one sees the model (except from 3 ft away during a game) it 'loses' something. Dakka has provided me with feedback from incredibly talented people that have taken the time to share ideas an opinions, and as a result I've not only improved my skills by a nearly immeasurable margin but I have the motivation to keep going and keep improving. It may sound needy or shallow to some, but when a Golden Daemon winner says your models look cool it's hard to not take some pride in your work.

So there's my rant about thread traffic.

Oh, btw.... nice conversions on those Centurion models.

Personally, I post to get feedback and to give it

If you really think about it, would you pay to have other people tell you 'hey man that's cool'? I know I wouldn't, but I would actually pay for other experienced peers to give me tips or an impression of what the models make them think... that I could actually use to improve the way I do things. So in that sense it adds real value to the community and that's what it's all about.

"There's very likely a guy on Dakka that has the most skillfully built and beautifully painted Eldar army ever, but I'll never see it because I have no interest in Spandex Space Pansies"

best thing i have read in ages, thankyou very much. I also like to bother people by linking my blog (http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/549440.page... see!) but i find that if you are only writing a blog to get others attention you will end up frustrated and fail, i write mine because i like looking at my own gak showcased and it often helps my think and focus on what i am doing. then again i am reletively new to the blogging game so who knows! I also blog becaus ethe only other person i really know that plays warhammer is my brother, i live in a small town far from any large gaming groups or anything like that so getting other people's opinion for me is quite difficult.

I also love reading P&M blogs, both Krautscientist and biohazard have exceptional work that i love to follow

I had actually considered using the centurions as the base for my own obliterators, but was put off by spending £75 on 3 models when you factor in the bits I ordered (one of my ideas was to mount the cannon from the khorne blood chariot thing coming from one of their chests).

I am also glad I didn't from the point of view that my modelling skill is nowhere near as high as yours so they would likely have looked naff.

In the end I went with the hi tech miniatures terrorizer resin kit.

They are a bit fiddly to put together, but look much better than gw's obliterators imo.

Oh and I love the warbringer conversion. You can hardly tell it was originally a dreadknight. What do you use it as in game out of curiousity?

IMO the spikes on the middle of the heads are way too much. Just because something is chaos doesn't mean it has to be covered in spikes. Having read fluff, small spikes (at LEAST 50% smaller) would be much more fitting, and would probably look much better. At the very least, for the love of god remove the wider base around the spikes. How does he look up with those things there?

Thanks for the feedback, everyone!

Regarding the matter of blogging, seeing my post quoted like that makes me realise it sounds far whinier than I wanted it to: Let's be clear here, blogging about your hobby projects is an immensely gratifying activity: It helps focus your own ideas, gets you in contact with all kinds of talented artists and hobbyists who provide you with very helpful feedback and ideas you wouldn't have come up with yourself etc. And that's great.

At the same time, I agree with Skalk in that figuring out which content will be successful and why (and when) is an art form and a science all of its own. And to be honest, I just cannot be bothered to figure out when the perfect time is to post an update. That would make blogging eventually turn into a day job, and I already have one of those, thank you very much. Still, it can sometimes be frustrating to post something you're very proud of / feel very strongly about / desperately need feedback on and then to not have it elicit much of a response. But such is the way of the world, and it wasn't my intention to sound like I was crying in my coffee over it. Rather, it should be the motivation you need to step up your game and create even better content (which will always improve your army projects as well, which is always great ).

That said, after giving it a bit of additional thought, another way to get feedback is to give it: Sure, it's great if you post lots and lots of stuff, but if you want people to care, you can start with caring about their stuff as well: When you see something you think is great, take a moment to comment on it instead of just saving it to your inspirations folder and moving on. If you take the time to comment on other people's stuff, they might take time to comment on yours. And who knows, you might even get to know them better, swap bitz with them or get wrapped up in all kinds of crazy, international hobby projects -- at least that's what happened to me


Phew. So, back to the matter at hand: My hobby stuff

@ rohansoldier: Converting these models really wasn't nearly as much work as you think, mate. In fact, it basically all boils down to a spot of kitbashing. I also have to be honest with you: Those Terrorizers aren't really working for me, since they are just another iteration of the "fleshy overgrown man/machine" archetype. That said, meade has recently proven that they can look rather sweet with the right paintjob, and the most important thing is that you're happy with your models, anyway

@ Nemesor: I respect your dislike of those spikes, but I really think they help in giving the Behemoths their own identity in the context of my army. Also, with all kinds of targeting mechanisms and sensor arrays doubtless in place, who is to say they even have to use their regular eyes any more?


And finally, I also have something new to show you:

After spending so much time on my Behemoths, I wanted to build something smaller and less involved for a change. So today’s post will deal with a model I completed just for fun and on the side. But why is that even interesting?

Well, you see, for this small gaiden project, I returned to an abandoned army project of mine: When I returned to the hobby in late 2010 after a longer hiatus, my original plan had been to use the (then) brand new Dark Eldar models to build some kick ass additions to the Dark Eldar army I built during the 90s. But then I found out that kitbashing Chaos Space Marines was simply more fun (at least for me). So I returned to the clutches of chaos and endeavoured to build a Word Bearers army, the Piercing Gaze Chapter. I had a fairly complete background in place, and so I began the project in the same way I always begin my projects: By building lots and lots of characters.

In this case, I built several Dark Apostles, because I really loved the idea of daemonic preachers leading a force of superhumans into battle. Among the several models I built during this time was also my model for Dark Apostle Gemnon, built, in fact, on Christmas Eve 2010:



One of the first models I built after my hobby hiatus, Gemnon was created by combining some leftover bitz from my first Khorne Berzerkers with some old WFB chaos parts and stuff from the brand new box of Chaos Space Marines cousin Andy had just given me as a christmas present back then. I didn’t even have a suitable head in my bitzbox to represent a Dark Apostle, so I went with a Tzeentchian head, which doesn’t really send the right message, visually. Still, I rather liked the model.

My Word Bearers army, however, didn’t quite get off the ground: Looking back now I can see that this was both due to a lack of suitable bitz (never start a Word Bearers project without lots and lots of books and purity seals) and a lack of vision: I thought the Word Bearers were cool, but I didn’t have an overarching theme in mind for the army, which proved to be my undoing in the end. So, long story short, I ended up playing around with my old World Eaters model which instantly reawakened my love for the followers of the Blood God. And what had originally been planned as a mere sub-faction in my Word Bearers project quickly took over, becoming my main army and the entity you might know as Khorne’s Eternal Hunt. And so on, and so forth — you know the rest…

Dark Apostle Gemnon and his buddies kept mouldering away in my cupboard of shame, and at some point there was even a small accident that broke the model apart at the hip. So he ended up spending his days in a miserable little pile of bitz on my desk.

But even while I am certainly not about to start a Word Bearers army, whenever my gaze returned to that pile of bitz, I felt that I owed this little guy another chance. So when I was looking for a small project to serve as a distraction between building all those lumbering Behemoths, I felt that Gemnon would have his day in the limelight. So I gathered a handful of bitz and got to work.

The Tzeentchian head needed to go, obviously, and I also wanted to reflect the fact that some pretty cool bitz have been released since I built the original model, so I needed to update the model a bit. And finally, I decided that, instead of yet another Dark Apostle, I would rebuild Gemnon as a Coryphaeus, a military commander of the Word Bearers Legion that serves as the Dark Apostle’s right hand man.

So after a bit of work, Gemnon was reborn as Coryphaeus of the Piercing Gaze Chapter:





It only took some additional bitz, really: The bare head from the WFB Warriors of Chaos is one of my favourite sculpts anyway, and it’s certainly perfect for a Word Bearer, bellowing dark catechisms at the top of his voice during battle. I also thought the power sword from the new Raptor kit made a pretty awesome weapon for a war captain, and while I was at it, I also replaced the original left hand and weapon for a plasma pistol from the same kit.

The (Night Goblin) emblem on the chest represents the symbol of the Piercing Gaze chapter, by the way, and would have been a recurring visual motif in my Word Bearers force.

Oh, and the ridiculously over the top backpack is a very conscious callback to the brilliant Wayne England artwork of yore: He would always portray his Chaos Space Marines with extremely ornate backpacks, so I wanted to approximate that look:



All in all, building this model was a fun little project, and it also put my guilty feelings regarding this character to rest. And who knows, maybe the Piercing Gaze Chapter under his Dark Apostle Belzas Azalon will yet make a triumphant return? It’s definitely not a priority at the moment, though.

Anyway, thanks for listening to my rambling! And let me know what you think!

As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

This looks brilliant. If your after loads of books and skulls for Word Bearers try the Plague Monk and Flagellant kit. On the blogging motivation thing my best one currently is the number of times I've been told my paintings really improved recently. Which it has probably because of the complements and I really think you should do betters I got on Dakka Dakka for my 24th Islandlwanda

This was almost purely down to advice from Dakka Dakka.

First and foremost I want to say this:



THAT IS AWESOME!!!

I have at least a dozen of those kicking around and figured I'd never have a use for them. You just changed that for me BIG time. I see some new Raptors in my future. Wow that's cool. A lot.

Second, I didn't take your post as whining. It was a genuine discussion and I think good things came of it, specifically for me in that I've been remiss for some time checking the blogs / galleries of those that take the time to post on my threads. I'm going to rectify that.

I'm really enjoying the work you are doing and I'm really impressed with the ingenuity.

Those horns look great on a backpack, I've used them to good effect as las cannon muzzles on a Dread in the past but never thought to use them like that. Great work. I reckon you could have a lot of fun with a Word Bearer force mate. Would be interesting to see you working on some zealots.

I haven't commented recently because I'm still not really sold on the sumo-suit marines. I think you have probably improved the models but I think they are a flawed concept and however good you make the model it's still going to be a ridiculous (and arguably, from a money making perspective - cynical) idea - a Space Marine in two suits of armour. So erm, sorry. It's not just yours, I hate all of them!

Anywhoo, I just wanted to say that - regarding your blog interest post - I think there is another issue, which is that forums are just not really suited to this stuff. By which I mean, there is a limited amount of space on the page for threads and a new, carefully crafted minature only causes the same bump as any small-talk or discussion would. Ideally you'd want a different system - one where the update causes the bump and discussion doesn't, which obviously a forum can't do. Active threads stay at the top of the forum and so attract more participants, etc. And I'm not saying that discussion is bad, just that it's impossible to know if you are going to be clicking a thread to see five awesome new models or another brief off-topic comment. I'm afraid to say that on the occasions where I do browse forums I often get bored looking for the new content and give up.

I think as web software advances we will see alternatives to forums appear. I'm surprised there isn't some cool new web app alternative yet, quite tempting to have a go at one.

Well, that's my opinion anyway. I don't think it's a case of trying to publicise your work more, I think it's just a case of too many voices shouting in a crowded space - signal to noise.