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Such an awesome idea of having 30k representations of some of you warband. That other guy's Night Lords army is simply stunning.

How many more 30k versions of your Warband is he going to incorporate?

I love seeing modelers working together on dakka. Some superb work once again! I hope we get to see more 30k versions.

Those are awesome. They paint such a vivid picture of who they are

Just wanted to pop in again to say I'm still throughly enjoying your blog. Very inspiring work for sure, and a copy cat project of my own is at the top of my to do list for 40k. Well after actually painting 1850 points worth of models I already own to actually use my own fully painted army at a tournament for the first time ever. But thats going off topic.

Seriously lovely work in this thread. Just a quick question, how different are the Warriors of Chaos Skullcrusher Jugganaughts compared to the Bloodcrusher ones?

Cheers, guys! After being thoroughly lazy for my entire Christmas vacation, I am slowly returning to hobby mode, so expect something new to look at in the near future!

@rodgers37: The bodies and poses are virtually the same, and I believe the Skullcrusher juggers are actually slightly reworked Bloodcrusher juggers Some of the ornaments on the legs are different, though, and you get some subtly different heads and headdresses. The main difference is the fact that the Skullcrusher juggers have with a saddle attached to their backs (to which the rider's legs are attached on either side to form the rider's lower body). Hope this helps!

Alright, update time, like I promised!

Having been unbelievably lazy for a couple of weeks, I have recently undertaken a couple of steps to get back into hobby mode. As is so often the case with restarting an engine that has lain dormant for a while, the first moments aren’t pretty, with lots of sputtering and grinding. But it finally feels like I am slowly getting back into the swing of things, so today I would like to show you a number of smaller projects I am currently working on:

1. The Brazen Wall – revisited

First up is an Aegis Defense line for my World Eaters. I started working on this some time last summer, but then it more or less fell by the wayside. So, time to get some more work in! Here’s the aegis as it looks right now:



While I wanted the defense line to look like it clearly belonged to my army, I didn’t want to go overboard with the spiky bitz. I basically used some spikes an armour plates from the chaos vehicle sprue to spruce up the different segments. Nothing amazing, certainly. But the true achievement was to get rid of all those pesky Imperial aquilas.



To be fair, though, after I had found the right approach for doing this, it turned into an almost relaxing task. I was able to shave off all the loyal iconography in a single evening.



And while the defense line will still need some additional bitz, mostly trophies, skulls and impaled Astartes, it’s definitely getting there! Again, not the most creative and groundbreaking endeavour in the world, but just the right project to slowly ease me back into hobby mode!


2. Death from Above

Let’s continue with something slightly more involved: I also finally found a way to make what may be my favourite model from the Dark Vengeance boxed set into a member of my World Eaters:









I always thought that the Chosen wielding lightning claws would make for an excellent jump infantry officer or lord, so I added a raptor jump pack and some clawed toes from the warp talons. It’s a rather simple conversion, of course, but one I am nevertheless rather pleased with. It also resembles GW’s own Chaos lord with jump pack (as a matter of fact, I had originally intended of using that model’s jump pack for this conversion, but abandoned the idea when it turned out to be far too unwieldy).

Oh, and I do of course realise that using a flowing cape like that directly underneath what ultimately amounts to a jet engine may not be the smartest idea in the world, but there’s always the Rule of Cool, isn’t there? Let’s just pretend it’s made from flame-retardant fabric, okay?


3. Hammer Time!

Building chaos lords is one of my favourite hobby activities, of course, and with the Raptor Lord out of the way, another traitor officer was quick to follow. I was beginning to feel more adventurous, too! But we’ll get to that in a minute.

First things first: Does anyone remember these guys?



Long before FW redesigned the whole Pre-Heresy stuff, there were a number of highly interesting older models put out by GW proper. One of them was the Mk I Tactical Dreadnought Armour, indeed going back to one of Jes Goodwin’s concept sketches for the later Terminators.

Anyway, this small scrap of half-forgotten lore was lying around in my inspiration folder. And then I came across an illustration by the ever-inspirational Greyall, depicting an Imperial Fists marine wearing an updated form of Mk I TDA.

Seeing that image made me realise that it might be interesting to build a model that took design cues from that rather ancient design, and another piece of the puzzle fell into place.

Things really got underway when I started messing around with a couple of leftover armour plates from the Heldrake kit, because they almost look like those Mk I shoulder plates, if you only look at them long enough.

So I formulated a plan for yet another chaos lord conversion: I would build a chaos lord wearing custom armour that would take inspiration from both the Mk I and Cataphractii designs. Not a straight recreation of either, but something that incorporated elements from both in order to create an armour that looked archaic and massive. And of course, my beloved plastic Terminator Lord would be at the heart of the conversion once more.

Anyway, after messing around with a pile of bitz for a while, here’s an early mockup of the model:







As you can see, it’s a fairly simple kitbash, any by no means an involved recreation of either armour pattern. But some of the elements are inspired by those seen on the Pre-Heresy armour: The shoulder pads and slightly recessed, helmeted head recall a more ornate Mk I design, while the topknot and pteruges skirt are a clear reference to the Cataphractii armour. And the decorative trim and heretical symbols clearly communicate the fact that we are dealing with a member of a traitor legion, after all.

I wanted to create a hulking character in highy archaic armour, and that much seems to have worked. And while the thunder hammer was only intended as a placeholder, I think that it really nicely complements the overall look of the model — even though it’s not really a weapon associated with followers of Khorne…

Another possibility would be to use one of the mauls from the Deathwing Knights that I have conveniently lying around:



As you can see, the model’s only tacked together for now, held together by lots of modelling putty and my prayers. But I am already rather fond of this guy, even though he’s only a rather simple kitbash and nowhere near as involved as, say, Dark Rage’s faithful – and incredibly cool – recreation of actual Mk I armour. or the attempt at building faithful Mk I armour I discovered just now in the Dakka Gallery . I can imagine this guy as one of Lorimar’s bodyguards, encased in ancient armour and ruthlessly efficient: a silent and deadly warrior crushing everything in the Lord Captain’s way…

Anyway, these are my first small hobby projects for this year! And of course, I am always happy to hear any feedback you might have! In any case, it’s good to be back in the game, especially considering all the crazy rumours about new CSM kits to be released soon-ish.

Now if I can only find my misplaced painting modjo, everything will turn out fine…

Anyway, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Man, I love both the terminator and raptor models. I like the use of the maulerfiend parts as shoulderpads - I'm going to keep that one in my kit bag for future use too!

I think the mace is alright, but it smacks of Nurgle to me. Something about the holes in the head makes me think of leaking gases and such. I'd go with the tried and true axe, but he still looks good as is.

The biggest change I've noticed working with pre-heresy terminator kits is the head area. It's very recessed in both patterns, and the head hole is small enough that a full sized head won't fit. You have to trim it down so only the nose-up is visible. That'd be the only thing that screams newer MK armor about your lord to me, but honestly I like it better anyway.

Keep up the great work man - your conversions are awesome.

Dan

Cheers, mate! Your stuff is also always inspirational, so consider the compliment returned

While you're right about the head area, I think I like the actual head to much to further obscure it though: Call it a case of "Rule over Cool" over "historical" accuracy

You may be right about the maul -- I do like the idea of a smashy World Eaters Termie, though. I suppose my best bet is to track down one of the vanilla loyalist Thunder Hammers (since the detail on those will be easy to get rid of) and suitably convert it using spiky bitz and brass etched Khorne symbols.

There's also an interesting update:

Fellow hobbyist carnosaur93 over on B&C suggested to turn the shoulder pads around to make them look even more similar to the Mk 1 look. And while I didn't believe him at first, I tried it and was amazed:



Consider my mind blown! The model actually looks 100% more like the old Mk I Termies now! It even has that slightly "alien" look to the shoulders, I don't know how to describe it any better: The curvature of the shoulders is quite unlike anything seen on modern (traitor) Astartes models.

I have yet to decide which version I actually like better, but the changed one really looks more like the older armour pattern. And it also has a certain "je ne sais quoi"...food for thought, definitely!

Oh, and because this was noticed on the other forums: The gap on the Raptor Lord's arm is actually a result of the parts not being glued together yet, so you can expect that element to disappear on the finished model!.

Wow, this terminator is looking awesome! Even more awesome now that you changed the position on the shoulder pads!
Not seen anything to do with Mk.1 armour for years model wise or even artwork wise and forgot how cool it looks

What an intimidating looking mother-trucker! This makes me want to start some chaotic antics!...*schemes*

Good idea, I think it looks better with the pads turned, although if you could fill in the gaps that would be ideal, make him look more solid. Oh and add a band of ribbing across the middle of them like the classic look.

I like that head, looks like a cylon. Where is it from?

I think you should give him a stormbolter in the mark I style, the double sickle magazines are a cool idea.

Yep, looks awesome, I thought that the Space Wolves Thunder Hammer looked great too, better than the maul anyways.

This is a truly phenomenal job, almost makes me want to turn to the dark side hahaha...

@wonkobaggins You should take a look at the Justaerin terminators from Forgeworld. They actually made them so you can fit a full head or helmet in and move it around too, seems they are evolving the models beyond the first cataphractii's limitations with the stupid sliding in the half head thing. And the spiky areas on it would suit a Khorne themed army

Loving te revised Termi Lord mate. The plates look a lot better the second way round. As for the PM. Consider my mind truly blown.

BFTBG Brother.

Personally, I think the maul works better- it should be relatively easy to either fill the holes in, and maybe put a more flanged pattern on the smooth sections instead. But the round shape fits better with the roundness of the shoulder armour- in relation to that, I feel like using GS to build out the 'cowl' of the current Termie armour so that it's smoother, rounder, and projects more to the middle of the head (rather than ending behind it) would effectively change the look to match the overblown shoulders better as well.

Thanks a lot for the positive feedback, guys!

It goes without saying that the model's far from finished. So all gaps will be filled in the end, and a suitable set of weapons will be sorted out -- although I am pretty sure it'll be a combination of CC weapons, in keeping with the rest of the Terminator bodyguard intended for Lord Captain Lorimar.

@ Bruticus: The head came from the WFB Skullcrusher kit, with the "bunny ears" clipped off.

@ Anvildude: Good point about the cowl! I am only messing around a bit, but would this work?





I have also started to slightly convert the vents on the back of the torso, bringing them more in line with the power plants on the backs of Cataphractii armour:



As always, let me know what you think!

I think the last configuration, with the cowl, looks the best. that dude certainly is imposing!!
looking forward to seeing what you do with this

Words cannot describe how slick that conversion is. That is such an awesome re-imagining of that original Terminator Armour, I hope GW is taking notes.

The cowl is exactly what I was thinking. Brilliant!

See, I think the theme here is gonna be the rounder surfaces- and something you could possibly do with the painting is to do those up as bone- bringing to mind the curved surfaces of skulls, as opposed to the flatness of pools of blood.

Thanks a lot, guys!

In just 24 hours, this guy has evolved into something much cooler than my original plan through your comments, and I really like that!

A grey knight front torso with the I details removed could have the head sitting deeper into the torso. I have to say I'm really enjoying the progress on this guy

Cheers, buddy!

To be honest, I am not really looking for a way to move the head further into the body -- the bit is too cool for that, so I'll go for less authenticity in this case. I also think that I am on a good course with the chaos knight shoulderpad acting as a cowl of sorts. It'll need some more detail work, of course, but I am rather psyched for making this guy as awesome as I can, so I suppose it'll all work out in the end

In other news, woohoo, my 1000st post on Dakka! -- and I am a Berserker BIker now? Go figure!

Damn! Your new chaos lord in terminator is....

Damn! What a fine, fierce conversion!

Hmm if your looking for a smashy maul whih I reckon is the way to go for this guy wouldn't either of the knights maul arms look even better on him. He looks excellent now but both of them would look more solid and chaotic.

Cheers, guys! Regarding the weapon, my next step will be to try and convert a loyalist thunder hammer, like I said. I actually have the chaos knight mauls in my bitzbox, but they are not 100% what I am looking for. Still, no option's totally off the table yet

So, while we wait for the Chaos Lord to take shape, let me show you something rather different today that hasn't got anything to do with my World Eaters

Among the first steps on the way to rediscovering my missing painting modjo was to do some experiments using two of the new Citadel Technical Paints. Yes, I realise that I am rather late to the party when it comes to using these, but I had picked up a bottle of Agrellan Earth and Nurgle’s Rot, respectively, shortly before christmas, and now it was time to put them to the test.

And what better way to play loose with paints than to paint a follower of Nurgle? Not only do the Technicals chiefly lend themselves to doing rather squicky effects related to decay and bodily fluids, but painting Nurglite models can also be a ton of fun — and if something goes wrong, you can usually pretend it was planned to look that way, too…

That said, I didn’t want to sacrifice a highly involved conversion, so I chose a really old, early 90s’ plastic Plague Marine as my test subject. I also rather like the slightly corny charm of these early plastic models (the Khorne Berzerkers from the same time are still one of my favourite retro designs). A missing arm was replaced with a mutated CSM arm from my bitzbox (which also gave me the added benefit of being able to paint an area of distressed flesh). Then I broke out the paints and let rip with all the effects at my disposal in order to create weathering, decay and just general unpleasantness.

Here’s the finished model:













As you may be able to tell from looking at the pictures, I went for a quick and dirty paintjob, mostly using washes and brushing techniques to achieve the effects I wanted. I wanted to make sure painting this guy would be fun and not get bogged down by intricate detail work. And it worked, I mostly had a blast — even though the resulting model is not very likely to win me any trophies

But what about those Citadel Technical Paints? How did they perform?

As you can see, Nurgle’s Rot was used to create…well, Nurgle’s Rot, actually: I added a healthy amount of it to the Plague Marine’s twisted claw, for one, to make it look like a daemonic stinger of sorts, leaking virulent fluid:



The colour was also used on the model’s backpack, creating disgusting slime leaking out of the vents:



And finally, it was added to the torso, showing where the rot is actually breaking through the legionnaire’s armour, especially around the tubes and cables:



All in all, it basically performed like you would expect it to, creating a wet-looking, glossy slime in a pretty evil green hue. It’s a really easy and effective tool for adding slime to followers of Nurgle, but I think it would fare just as well when adding puddles of toxic sewage to your bases or terrain pieces. Granted, it may be a bit of a one-trick pony, but being able to open up a bottle and just add the slime is definitely preferrable to having to mix your own stuff by combining green colour(s) and gloss varnish (or having to work in several coats). The fact that it’s semi-translucent also really helps, making it actually look like slime instead of green colour with gloss addded on top.

The picture above actually nicely leads us to the second technical colour in question: I experimented with Agrellan Earth, hoping to create an effect at least slightly similar to the corroded armour on LuckyNo5′s excellent Mariner’s Blight models. I think we can all agree that having a simple way of creating flaking paint and a general crackle texture on the armour of Nurgle Marines (or on terrain pieces, of course) would make hobby life easier and more interesting. Well, here’s how that went:

I began my experiments by adding Agrellan Earth undiluted (and in a rather thick coat) to a base. I followed the instructions given by GW themselves, and this was the result:



A rather nice crackle effect, don’t you think? In fairness, it is slighly less pronounced if you see it with your own eyes instead of having an enlarged photograph. But the effect’s pretty cool — and also proof that I didn’t get a bottle from one of the bad batches.

So my next step was to add the colour to the marine’s armour, mixing it with a different colour to arrive at a suitably Nurgly colour scheme. Having to add light brown to the green led to the armour having a slightly lighter shade of green than I had originally planned, but that was quite alright.

The problem, however, was that getting a noticeable crackle effect here was way more difficult than when working with the colour on its own: I actually used several passes, experimenting with the ratio between Agrellan Earth and green paint. But even when using only very little green (and slathering the mix on rather thickly), I only managed to get a very slight crackle effect on the model’s stomach and shoulder pads. It’s nice and subtle, but it could be a bit more pronounced. Plus it’s really hard to get the colour to perform consistently: Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, with no discernible explanation for the inconsistency.

Worse yet, when mixing Agrellan Earth with Vallejo Negro Black for the base, the paint refused to crackle at all. Take a look:



Maybe this means that using non-GW paints messes with the crackle effect somehow? Or maybe I just couldn’t get it right by that point…

To be fair, GW themselves are advertising the colour as a means for base design, above all else. So painting flaking armour with it might never have been all that promising a plan in the first place. Still, I would have hoped for the colour to be somewhat more flexible — or am I doing something wrong? Anybody out there among you readers who knows how to make the most of this particular Technical colour?

Anyway, while I am slightly disappointed with Agrellan Earth, I do believe the colour warrants further experimentation. Here’s an idea, for starters: Do you think it would be possible to paint the colour onto an unpainted model in order to create the desired crackle effect, then add the undercoat on top of that, thereby conveniently sealing the effect in place? I may just have to try that next…

In any case, the overarching goal in this small project was to have fun painting again, and that worked out swimmingly. So we can maybe look forward to some more painted stuff in the near future? Keep your fingers crossed!

Until then, though, let me know what you think! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

I do think the key to using the technical paints for texture alone will be to do 'pure' technical paint, let it dry and get the texture you want, then paint over with whatever color you want. The reason they get the crackles or other effects is because of a specific chemical mix and viscosity- mixing anything else into it will disrupt that mix and cause a lessened effect or kill the effect entirely.

Wow.

Wow. Wow! I've been gone for about a month, Kraut, and you just keep on truckin'. Lords look incredible. Termi lord, in particular, looks awesome. Nurgle guys look great too. Love those old school plaguemarines.

Thanks, guys!

@ Anvildude: You're probably right. Even so, I would have wished for the colour to be somewhat more flexible. After all, GW themselves used it on their website to create a lava base, painting Agrellan Earth mixed with black over fiery reds and oranges -- with the lava visible through the black earth after the crackle effect had set in. I hoped something similar would be achievable for armour. Oh well...

@ Moltar: Aw, mate, that's too much honour!

I have not yet given up on the subject of creating a convincing crackle effect, so the experiment continues! This time around, I kitbashed a Plague Marine, using some of the more decrepit bitz I had lying around, and added Agrellan Earth to the model before undercoating:



As you can see, the crackle effect is far more pronounced this time around. So far, so good, right?

In principle, yes. But it is rather hard to retain the effect through multiple layers of paint without covering it up. While it worked until after undercoating, the following layers of paint destroyed some of the subtlty. I tried to counter that by adding a bit of Agrellan Earth on top again, but it performed just as unevenly as before:





I'll still finish the model, because I've grown a little fond of it, but for the future, I believe I'll have to turn to dedicated crackle medium to achieve the effect I want. Still, playing around with colours again has given me a new appetite for painting, even if I have yet to tackle anything bigger...

Meanwhile, here's the status of the slightly tidied up Mk 1 conversion:





And a size comparison with another Terminator lord:



While there isn't that much of a difference in height, the shoulder pads add much more bulk to the model.

As always, let me know what you think!

Looking good how wouldthe Earthshade worked mixed in with another colour would it effect the shade too much or would it not work just some food for thought.

Love those old school termies . - the crackle paints are very effective on your marines chest -

Wicked work, Kraut!