Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Lovely stuff. All of it. Great paintjobs and your conversions are top notch.

What a cool stuff we have here ! Fantastic job on your "poor" marines, you really gave them something unique !

I can't wait to see more of this !

That is all awesome.Most people who are good with the greenstuff are less so with the painting, or vice versa, but you have both skills in abundance.

Love the way you've painted the skin on that last marine posted.

Thank you all for the words of encouragement!!

 Fifty wrote:
That is all awesome.Most people who are good with the greenstuff are less so with the painting, or vice versa, but you have both skills in abundance.

Very kind of you! Though I assure you that it is more that I have far too much time on my hands!

Not Online!!! wrote:
Actually, the answer to your psyker is probably no, they are not worth more then their traitorguard buddies.

Rogue psykers are untrained, unstable, tendency for possesion, are frowned upon still, the marines will probably also be afraid of them / hate them from previous experiences, have a nasty tendency to blow up allies instead and are cuckoo crazy.

So if your warband here is not tzeentch then they will be stuck mostlikely at the bottom as your mutants.

Hmm I see your point... You've made me think of something from the excellent Gardens of Hecate:...Maybe that's the way to go? As filthy and hateful as possible. I've always wanted to do something inspired by the follwoing Beksinski piece, too: Somewhere between those two images there could be a really cool idea for some Psykers I think? Definitely an idea to mull over...




Today, another poor and filthy astartes! This time with a special weapon. I've always been a little irked by space marines with special weapons being completely indistinct from normal marines. Take one guy's Flamer and give it to another guy and bam, the role is passed on. Devastator marines are a little better, with their optics and big backpacks, but they're still lacking I think. I wanted to push the boat out a little with this concept; take the guy's weapon away and it should still be abundantly clear what weapon he is supposed to be wielding.

I went with a Flamer because... Flamers and tubes and little fuel tanks are cool. I started out with the obvious respirator head, then I considered going with the aforementioned backpack approach, (with the addition of a gratuitous number of tubes) but it just felt a little stale to me. However, I have not ever seen all the tanks and gribbly bits strapped onto the front of someone before though, and that's an interesting visual departure I think. The Foul Blightspawn model has a weird crank handle thing on the side of the marine (an easy detail to miss on a miniature so overcrowded!), and for a while that's been in my mind; there's something quite off-putting and creepy to me about the idea of him turning his little crank handle on the side of his armour while he lumbers towards you... Unfortunately the model itself doesn't much capitalise on that, opting for his hands to be elsewhere occupied. Inspired in part by the crank on the Blightspawn, I thought it'd be fun to have him tinkering with valves and levers on his little array of tanks. I think it does look pretty weird. I can't really explain why but it makes me deeply uncomfortable lol... Probably something Freudian.





Definitely shaping up but there's still a bit of work to do here; the Flamer is obviously not done, there's the odd gap to fill and another tube going into the weapon to sculpt. There was a lot of fiddly work done on this guy, and I butchered 5 different kits for the tiny details of the tanks alone, but I had a lot of fun with it. At the moment there's nothing special about the backpack but I may add another tank there for good measure. I am a little concerned about the torso area getting slightly overcrowded, but I am hoping by keeping the rest of the model pretty spartan I can mitigate that somewhat.


Thanks for looking folks, please let me know what you think!

Just a little progress this time around:

Yet again, my mind has moved onto another idea. Seeing the Kill Team Elites announcement really made me want to make a Terminator for some reason... Obviously terminator armour will be extremely scarce among my little group of astartes, and I don't plan to make more than maybe 5 or 6. For now though, it'll just be the one.

The scaling for the terminators will be based on the Custodes Aquilon Terminators; they're pretty perfect size-wise for Primaris scaled Terminators. That being said, there's definitely changes to be made. The armour of the Aquilons is way too CUSTODES to be usable; the couters on the arms, the venting on the back, the shape of the gorget, etc. The legs are the only component that are suitably neutral to actually be usable (with a little scalpel work), which is just as well because the kit is ******* expensive!!!!!!!! The arms will come from Primaris Inceptors, as they are obviously very well scaled with the other Primaris kits, and have a lot more bulk to them than the normal Mk. X armour. I have tried working with the standard Terminators before and I just don't like the kits - awful for conversions - so I'm staying Primaris. That leaves the torso, which I don't really see an option for other than mostly building it myself. My main reference here is Simon Egan's beautiful Horus sculpt, which has just the right shape and feel to the torso armour. I want to bulk out the torso a little compared to the standard Terminators; even the Aquilons seem to have rather skinny torsos, instead making up the extra bulk in the huge shoulder pauldrons. Bringing more bulk to the torso itself is true to most artwork of Terminators, and I think makes the armour look a lot more cumbersome and brutish - definitely the direction I want to go.

With the power armour torsos I have sculpted so far, the defining visual feature is definitely the top edge, with the line of studs below. I wanted to carry that element through to the terminator armour to give a little visual continuity between the two armour types. I repositioned and reproportioned a few elements too; I lowered the arms a little so they look more natural in respect to the head (a frequent criticism of the current Terminator design) and I made the cowl bit of the armour less wide than the main chest piece - something common to the Horus model and many of the art depictions of terminator armour.

Here's what I've got so far, with a couple of friends in shot for scale:



So that's the basic frame for the armour, but I want to add a decent amount to it. Obviously I want it to be in keeping with the rest of my marines, with a lot of scavenged and damaged parts. In order for it to not look silly though, I think I'll have to avoid there being entire chunks of armour missing, so it will mainly be stuff stuck on top of the armour. I think I'll be forgoing trophy racks, though if I get around to a unit champion that might be something fun to experiment with.


Thanks for stopping by, comments/ criticisms/ beratements welcome!

Some brilliant conversions, and I really love how clean your GS work is! Looking forward to see more progress with your army!

Hmm I see your point... You've made me think of something from the excellent Gardens of Hecate:

Glad to be off help, i think these would kinda fit the bill, kinda because you allready have a Mutant type established.

A little progress! Flamer dude is more or less ready to prime:



Terminator is shaping up:





I've been sculpting on this guy more than I've ever sculpted on a single mini before... it's a lot of fun but damn is it slow. I've got a newfound respect for people who do this much sculpting on a regular basis. I feeling the temptation to do more Terminators, purely because the size gives so much freedom to add details. The guy I've got on the go currently is looking a little sparse detail-wise to my eye, and there's a lot of little things I've been wanting to add to my astartes but as of yet I haven't found the space. I am definitely excited to paint it to, I've got an itch to try a little object source lighting for the first time...

That's all for now, thanks for looking.

That Flamer Dude is amazing! So much character. Just Brilliant

These are some really well done conversions on a fun theme. I dig it.

Thanks for the comments folks [:

Been slow progress still as of late, but I've got a terminator and my flamer dude finished and primed:



And a couple of pre-priming shots with a normal human for scale:




Thanks for looking and let me know what you think!

That terminator looks awesome. I like the skull for the pouldron, the chain through the eye is a nice touch.

Intriguing backstory, excellent conversions, and a bang on paint job. I'll look forward to your updates.

These are amazing!

Very nice. I like the randomness in their equipment. Especially the damaged parts.

It has certainly been a while!! No-one cares about reasons so let's get talking models.

#1 - A half-painted thing from months ago:









I really like the track the termie is on paint-wise, but I took a bit of a hobby hiatus after getting him to that state... so finishing him may be a challenge...



#2: A slight refocus



Time off hobbying means thinking time, and I want to refocus a bit in certain areas of this little project. Bit of a recap/ clarification; this little force of mine (that probably needs a name) has 2 main components, Astartes and humans. I've got a few Astartes projects on the go but they are slow-burns; I'll save them for another time. I want to focus a little more on the human side of the army and consequently more on VOLUME. More goddamn models. I am way too slow at modelling Astartes.



Drilling down a little further into the human side of the army, the intention is for it to be subdivided into civilians and soldiers. Initially, the civilians were what I was most interested in, but honestly after finishing my mutant workers I'm a little tapped out on that front for the time being; I spent FAR too long on just building those 20 miniatures. So that leaves us with the militarised portion, which I've gotten quite excited about lately.


Rules-wise - for the Renegades and Heretics - Cultists have higher BS and WS than Militia and Mutants; so they do a good job of representing actual trained soldiers, rather than a civilian rabble. The intention is that they represent a small planetary defence force; smaller in number than the civilians, but still significantly more numerous than the Astartes. I have some Traitor Guard models from Blackstone Fortress, and while they are great models (that I plan on finishing up the conversion on soon!), the squad leader model is pretty boring. So, to ease myself back into things, I've converted up a little Cultist Champion.











He's based on the Necromunda Scabs model (incidentally, I am looking to offload the Kal Jerico model if anyone is looking!), with some old empire head. I really love Scab's tattered coat; very fitting for a filthy renegade that has torn it off a dead commissar. I've not done a whole lot of conversion work here; most of it was reposing the legs so he wasn't sprinting, which required more sculpting than I had bargained for but hey ho... I may do a little more work on him; I might replace his pistol with a Las one and give him some boots to match the Traitor Guard.

In other news I had a moment and bought a Forge World Mars Alpha Leman Russ... Living in the UK I definitely get the right end of the stick pricing-wise but damn, £70 for a Leman Russ is still a tough pill to swallow... I can nearly get 3 for that price from the FLGS. Unfortunately, the model is so lovely (like anything from the siege of Vraks range, really) that my heart overpowered my wallet :[

I'm normally a very meticulous planner when it comes to hobby stuff, but I'm making myself be a little more free form with these planetary defence soldiers, so I'm not entire sure where I'll go with the tank in the end. For now, all I've done is modify the sponson guns so they sit inside the hull, rather than protruding out. I am really not a fan of the boxy sponsons, and they look particularly out of place on the Krieg tanks because of the redesigned front hull.

Full credit for the conversion idea to >>> https://beyondthetabletop.com/converting-a-leman-russ-adding-internal-sponsons

...I basically just copied his design. He sells resin conversion kits if you wanted to buy them, but I just made mine out of plasticard, since it's not an overly complex job.







I think they're looking pretty nice, some details to add and gaps to fill but a good start. The profile is low enough that with the gun removed the side of the tank is totally flush; I may make a magnetised panel to go over the gap for if I want the sponson guns removed.


Thanks for looking all and I hope you saw something of interest! Let me know what you think.

Welcome back shmvo! I still can’t get over how cool your Space Marines look. The whole premise of them scanvenging anything they can is just great. The scabby renegade sgt is going to look awesome all painted up. I agree his boots don’t look very military at the moment, so a swap might help there.

Keep ‘em coming

I think that would look great with a magnetized armour panel to go over it! But perhaps if you rivet it up and make a "plug" to go in the gun socket, you may not need to. As is I think it looks a little empty without the gun. But I love the idea of the inset gun rather than the big bulky sponson!

shmvo,

Terminator progress looks quite nice, you have captured the ruined feeling of Chaos.

Cheers,

CB

That cultist champion is outstanding!

Finally, altough i'd skip the cultists and go directly for Disciples, especially since the R&H cultists also got a pricehike even tough they are worse then CSM cultists

Great work as always.

Thanks for the comments all!

Not Online!!! wrote:Finally, altough i'd skip the cultists and go directly for Disciples, especially since the R&H cultists also got a pricehike even tough they are worse then CSM cultists

Yeah I was thinking I'd probably just run them as CSM cultists for this reason; there will be a detachment of marines anyway so it wouldn't be hard to slot them in. Disciples is a good idea though; if I were to run them as solo R&H at any point.

Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll wrote:I think that would look great with a magnetized armour panel to go over it! But perhaps if you rivet it up and make a "plug" to go in the gun socket, you may not need to. As is I think it looks a little empty without the gun. But I love the idea of the inset gun rather than the big bulky sponson!

That is a much better idea and I did just that - with a bit from the back of a sponson gun. Thanks!





So I've made a little progress on my first PDF squad:







A few new guys and a few older models in the mix, all (barring the champion) based on the Blackstone Fortress traitor guard. I really like the original models, and I wasn't really trying to change them drastically, just modify them enough that I can run a full squad of lasguns without duplicates. I've done most the hard work; I've got a heavy stubber guy still to make but then I'll be able to add the 2 lasgun guys as they are out of the Blackstone Fortress box without modifcation - which will be a first for this army lol. The champion now has 1 boot! I haven't been bothered to sculpt the other yet but I think it helps him look a little more military. He also has a laspistol in place of his old stub gun. A quick note about the las-weaponry: For the most part I want the PDF to have lasguns rather than autoguns; they're identical in game terms, but lore-wise autoguns represent a much more crude and low-tech approach to weaponry. Lasguns on the other hand are more sophisticated and reliable. It follows, then, that actual trained soldiers would be armed with the superior lasguns, whereas the civilian rabble and mutants etc. are left with the more basic autoguns and slug-firing shotguns.




I've also made a lot of headroom on the Leman Russ; there's still some rough patches that need filling, most notably on the resin turret gun, but I'm pretty much done with the important structural stuff so it's on to adding details next. This is the first vehicle I've built since returning to the hobby, and uh... I really could spend months tinkering with it. I will have to stop myself at some point though so I can do something else with my life. I need to buy some magnets but I've been working on the interchangeable weapon options and side panels:














The plastic turret took a bit of modification to make it work. The pivot point is positioned further back on the original plastic kit, which means the unmodified turret sits too far forward on the resin body, so I altered that to be in line with the resin turret. The cupola is way too big and bulky in the plastic kit, so I modified that too. It may be a little silly to have interchangeable weapons AND 2 different turrets but eh, I like the slightly different look of each turret and I can do different things with them when it comes to painting.



Thanks for looking all! Next up I should have a couple of astartes-relating things to share that I am quite excited about...

Hey, lovely updates! Very nice paintjob so far on the astartes, and the champion looks cool as well. Looking forward to see what he looks like painted up.

Thanks Flapjack [:


I have finished another Astartes! Building one, at least. I've tried something a little different with this guy; I feel the previous marines I have built do a good job of locking down the general feel and overall character that I am going for, but I want to drill a little deeper into in the individual aspect of each marine. The army as a whole has got a pretty low count of Astartes, so I can afford to spend some extra time on making each on a little unique.

First up is an idea I've had floating around for a little while. I really like the idea of power structures breaking down and rebuilding when armies and individuals turn to Chaos; a lot of the hierarchies and chains of command in loyalist forces are based on things like experience, age, respect and other more tradition-based values. These sorts of qualities, I imagine, hold much less importance for selfish, power-hungry renegades. Raw martial might as well as cunning and manipulation are probably the chief driving factors of rank for these heretics; those that might previously have held high ranks as loyalists are not guaranteed to hold the same influence when going renegade. I think there's some nice irony in this idea; older, more experienced warriors lack the hotheadedness and ambition of younger ones, and in the transition to Chaos they get somewhat left behind, despite the fact they were perhaps very respected and high ranking individuals in the past.

This is where the next miniature picks up. He was once a Chapter Ancient; a rank of great honour afforded to particularly exceptional veterans. Ancients are bearers of a Chapter Standard, which in itself is an item that is greatly revered. As this individual turned renegade, his position - as well as his once holy artefact - quickly became insignificant. Now just a regular battle brother among his fellow rebels, he uses the remnants of his old chapter banner as a shawl, and what's left of the banner pole as a walking stick. Any reverence for the old artefact is now gone; it's nothing more than a scrap of cloth and a stick. Using the standard in such a way also ties in with the broader theme of my Astartes, scavenging and making do with what meagre supplies they have.

A little pre-priming shot; did quite a bit of sculpting on this one:



Not all that easy on the eyes with all the different coloured parts, so here's the primed version with a size comparison:














I had a lot of fun modelling this guy. I really wanted to try and sell the idea that he was a really old veteran. I guess canonically the Astartes don't age, but I figure his elderly form is more metaphorical than literal ...Or it's just the warp. 40k's get out of jail free card; blame it on the warp. His hands and arms are a lot smaller and skinnier than a normal marine (bits from necromunda), which is again intended to make him look old and frail in comparison. He's based on the intercessor kit, and I tried to make his armour look old too. I carved the greaves so they resemble Mk II armour and went with a very simple, bulky chest area. Then there's the more obvious details like the old-style power pack and the studded shoulder pad.

I think the level of detail has been lacking a little in my earlier marines. In part this was intentional; I wanted there to be plenty of plain panels to do weathering and striping on. But reflecting on what I have done, I definitely think there's room for some more densely detailed areas. For starters I made sure to represent his full suite of wargear; bolter, bolt pistol, frag/ krak grenades. They're placed on the back of the model, which is definitely an area I am very guilty of neglecting in the past. I also added some studs, bits of trim, and plenty of copper wire pieces. I am very much liking how the copper wire bits look; it's a level of fineness in freestanding bits that you just can't get in resin or plastic. I have plan for the little shield on his backpack, which will be common among most/ all of the Astartes, but I'll save talking about that until I've got some painting to show.

There's some iconography on the banner that's sculpted quite roughly and faintly (just there as a vague guide for the painting stage); it's a Soul Drinkers Chapter symbol, betraying his heritage. Why Soul Drinkers? Well, really just because I wanted the banner to be purple. But it turns out that the Soul Drinkers are kind of heretics anyway, so it's a happy accident! I am very much looking forward to painting this fella.



It feels a bit weird putting so much thought and modelling effort into just a standard marine with a Bolter, but I'm really happy with the result. Let me know what you think!

Looks great, the Mk2 style legs fit the old styling well.

I love everything about this. Keep it up!

Sweet that’s a great model you’ve put together shmvo. He looks to be striding forward to battle a minor foe, calmly reloading his Bolter. Just as an ancient would, being sure that they were out of harms reach and preparing to open his can of whoop-ass!

Keep the amazing coming!

Ohhh fancy..

This has got to be my favorite blog on dakka. Each update you post is even cooler then the last. Keep up the good work while I eagerly await your next update.