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Made in us
Deranged Necron Destroyer






Welcome back! I missed this project. I agree about the helms - the plumes are what make them Thunder Warriors. But the Goliath heads also look really natural on those bodies, a good source for unhelmed heads.

I really like the bumper stocks and bolter handles. Great job sculpting the chainmail also.

My painting log is full of snakes
Have any retro, vintage, or out of print models? Show them off here!
Games I play: 40k (CSM, Necrons); AoS/Fantasy (Seraphon/Lizardmen); Warcry; Marvel Crisis Protocol; Wargods of Olympus/Aegyptus; Mythos 
   
Made in us
Bounding Ultramarine Assault Trooper






amazingturtles wrote:I'm glad this project is back! (and i hope that your thumb recovered ok) The completely painted warrior upthread came out wonderfully and the new ones are looking great!


Thanks turtles! The thumb is fine, a little fatter because of the scarring though. Thanks for the compliments!



Don Qui Hotep wrote:Welcome back! I missed this project. I agree about the helms - the plumes are what make them Thunder Warriors. But the Goliath heads also look really natural on those bodies, a good source for unhelmed heads.

I really like the bumper stocks and bolter handles. Great job sculpting the chainmail also.


I missed it too. lol. Thanks for the tip, I actually have a Goliaths box and I haven't even looked at the heads in there. I like the stocks too, they're being a pain in the butt fitting with the arms though.




A good bit of progress tonight. All of the members have been kitted out with pouches and stuff. Most of the arms have been attached and weapons are in hands. All that's left for assembly is the shoulder pads, shoulder chainmail, and the heads. After that, some clean up and on to the painting.






This is what I feel is the most basic pose around. A dude just standing there with his arms relaxed and a big 'ol gun in his hands. The green blob on his shin is going to be shaped into a raptor head and I'll paint some lightning bolts on around it. For this guy, I attached the shoulder chainmail before I glued on the shoulder pads. This was a terrible mistake on my part. The shoulder pad didn't fit right and I had to do a good deal of filing. For the next one I will attach the pads first and fit the chainmail below it afterwards.







This is the next most ubiquitous pose in my opinion. Nothing too crazy. I kept his chest unmodified because I knew it'd be covered anyways. He looks pretty off balance without the shoulder pads, hopefully it'll even out after my next work session.







These two guys are modeled as more brutal line troopers. One carries a crudely powered axe and the other has a mean stick. I didn't photograph it but, the guy on the left has a pair of heads as trophies hanging from his belt and the one on the right has an unarmored arm similar to the first Thunder Warrior I painted up. I've got some more shaping to do for their lightning bolts to make them appear more integrated to their armor, but I like how they're coming along.






For the last member of the team, I haven't figured out what I'm going to do with his other arm yet. His left arm is just going to be resting on his Thundergun, a name I'm not really fond of, but his right arm hasn't been decided on yet. I've got a plan for a sling to be holding the gun up but I'm going to add that after his shoulders are done. Any suggestions, let me know.




As usual, any comments or suggestions are more than welcome. I am just making this up as I go. lol
   
Made in us
Ragin' Ork Dreadnought







These look freaking awesome!

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Made in us
Deranged Necron Destroyer






Looking good! The way the last model is sneering I want him to be pulling a cigar out of his mouth or something. He's staring down his enemy and feels contempt. Plus it kind of fits the 80s action-hero vibe I love about these guys.

My painting log is full of snakes
Have any retro, vintage, or out of print models? Show them off here!
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Made in us
Bounding Ultramarine Assault Trooper






Warboss_Waaazag wrote:These look freaking awesome!


Thanks Warboss!


Don Qui Hotep wrote:Looking good! The way the last model is sneering I want him to be pulling a cigar out of his mouth or something. He's staring down his enemy and feels contempt. Plus it kind of fits the 80s action-hero vibe I love about these guys.


That's a great idea! I really wish I had checked back with this thread before I did some work on them last night. I'll have to add that to a later model. I'm pretty sure there's actually a Guardsman head that has a cigar modeled already.



Last night I finished up most of the models. Chainmail is needed for one more set of shoulders and then it's on to clean up. I've still got some mold lines to scrape off, joints to fill, and some more odd details to finish up. For these guys I made some thinner chainmail and added it to the arms after the pads were attached. I definitely liked this method more than the other way around. I went with Guardsman heads with plumes attached. I scraped off the winged skulls from the helmets and greenstuffed some glasses for the ones who needed it. The plumes I have came from various kits, mostly Space Wolf heads.




Trooper 1 here got his shoulder pads put on the wrong sides. It bothers me a bit, but not enough for me to try to break them off and fix them yet. I reshaped his shin decor into a raptor head and am going to be painting the lightning bolts on for this one. He's got a funky foot that I'll likely hide with some debris on his base.





Trooper 2 only has a few things that bother me. The Thundergun seems to be a bit too large for the models and I feel that it is most prevalent with this model. I need to clean up the plasticard spacers on the feet and I want to shorten his tabard a bit.





Trooper 3 needs wrist work done, a pistol grip added, and some chainmail clean up.





Trooper 4 has some balance issues due to a damaged foot. He's the one who needs chainmail added to the shoulders and I'm wanting to shorten is tabard as well. 4





Trooper 5 is probably my favorite out of the lot. He's also got a funky foot that needs fixing and his lightning bolts need some fixing,




And here's a size comparison next to an old push fit and a Tartaros Terminator. He's slightly larger than both, that works out to match up with the lore.





Some future considerations:

Colors - I'm definitely painting at least one up in the traditional bronze armor with dark red accents. I wasn't a huge fan of the yellow armor I did first, I feel their armor should appear more metallic than flat like Space Marine armor. There's art with these guys wearing different colored armor, but I'm thinking of sticking with the traditional colors for a while.

Thunderguns - The base gun for these guys is from an old Eisenkern kit by Dreamforge. I added the tubing to the end of the gun to make it look like a large bore gun, but I think if I don't do something else to it it'll look too much like a suppressor. I also don't like the name Thundergun and I want these to be pre Proto-Bolter weapons. Any ideas?

Regimental structure - I need to start coming up with ranking for these guys soon too. I know Imperial forces during the Unification Wars worked off of the Principia Bellicosa, which draws heavily from the Roman military. I don't want it to be too similar to some of the Astartes ranks during the Great Crusade.

I'm thinking

Squad = Contubernium
Company =
Sergeants = Decanus
Veteran = Evocatus
Standard Bearer = Vexillarius or Signifer
Captain = Optio
Line Trooper = Preditatus or Venator
Scouts = Speculatores or Exploratores


These are Roman terms of course and must be High Gothicized. Organizational structure will have to be next. There's not much lore-wise that covers any of this so it's free game. What we do know is that the organization of the Thunder Regiments and their performance as a cohesive military force was a large contributing factor to their effectiveness. Any ideas?

   
Made in lu
Rampaging Khorne Dreadnought






Man these are really coming together.
   
Made in us
Bounding Ultramarine Assault Trooper






 Roknar wrote:
Man these are really coming together.

Thanks Roknar! I'm really enjoying this project.



Slapped some paint on these bad boys tonight. I primed them black yesterday and hit them with a coat of Reaper's Old Bronze today. I decided to paint their hands and the underside of their forearm armor the same red as their plumes. Some of the old Thunder Warrior art showed them wearing red gloves that matched their plumes. I think this helps reflect that pretty well. I'll hit up the chainmail and leather parts tomorrow and retouch the reds.

There are a few parts that I haven't decided on yet.

-Raptor Imperialis
-Raptor/Lightning bolt accents
-Powered Axe
-Power packs - I was thinking about painting them a grey, but I also like them as they are.

As usual, any comments or suggestions are more than welcome.



   
Made in ca
Grisly Ghost Ark Driver






hey look amazing painted, even just those first few coats! Are you gonna keep the chainmail in bronze or are you gonna do that in iron? Historically chainmail never appeared in bronze, but there's no reason that 30th century metallurgy couldn't have made a yellow-brown-tinged chainmail metal.

See what's on my painting table Now painting: Kruleboyz Gutrippaz 
   
Made in gb
Ancient Venerable Dreadnought






Great job on the conversions. The colours are looking great, the bronze is lovely and suits them well

Goberts Gubbins - P&M Blog, started with Oldhammer, often Blackstone Fortress and Void Panther Marines, with side projects along the way 
   
Made in gb
Nasty Nob





UK

Very nice work indeed, awesome conversions looking forward to seeing them finished.

"All their ferocity was turned outwards, against enemies of the State, foreigners, traitors, saboteurs, thought-criminals" - Orwell, 1984 
   
Made in us
Bounding Ultramarine Assault Trooper






Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll wrote:hey look amazing painted, even just those first few coats! Are you gonna keep the chainmail in bronze or are you gonna do that in iron? Historically chainmail never appeared in bronze, but there's no reason that 30th century metallurgy couldn't have made a yellow-brown-tinged chainmail metal.


Thank you! I wanted to do these first few guys in the "traditional" Thunder Warrior colors. So they're going to have bronze armor, iron chainmail, red cloths, and silver emblems. I painted one of them with gold accents instead of silver, just to see what that'd look like on these guys.
After adding these other colors though, I actually liked having more bronze on them than what they now have.



gobert wrote:Great job on the conversions. The colours are looking great, the bronze is lovely and suits them well


Thanks gobert!



r_squared wrote:Very nice work indeed, awesome conversions looking forward to seeing them finished.


Thank you r_squared! I am too. lol




Update on the work, no pictures though. I've finished with base colors and have moved on to shading. Once I'm done with this step I'll throw some pictures up here.

   
Made in us
Bounding Ultramarine Assault Trooper






The first bit of shading is done. I've got a few spots to touch up before I move along in the process. I'm not that great of a painter, so I'm just going for a nice tabletop standard here.




   
Made in us
Deranged Necron Destroyer






Hell yeah! These guys look great. I like the touch of red on the proto-bolter bayonets and stock. The helmets work really well, they and the shoulder pads add that extra bit of uniformity that ties in the unit together while still letting the individual details on each model shine.

My painting log is full of snakes
Have any retro, vintage, or out of print models? Show them off here!
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Made in gb
Walking Dead Wraithlord






Liking this

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/772746.page#10378083 - My progress/failblog painting blog thingy

Eldar- 4436 pts


AngryAngel80 wrote:
I don't know, when I see awesome rules, I'm like " Baby, your rules looking so fine. Maybe I gotta add you to my first strike battalion eh ? "


 Eonfuzz wrote:


I would much rather everyone have a half ass than no ass.


"A warrior does not seek fame and honour. They come to him as he humbly follows his path"  
   
Made in ca
Grisly Ghost Ark Driver






Agreed about the red, the use of the red spot colours for accent is really well balanced!

See what's on my painting table Now painting: Kruleboyz Gutrippaz 
   
Made in us
Bounding Ultramarine Assault Trooper






Thanks guys! I'm liking the red as well. I was originally going to paint their "gloves" a brown leather. I decided on a whim to go with red based on a few old pictures of Thunder Warriors. I'm still working on these guys but I'm at a small sticking point.

1. The proto-bolters are still very plain. What can I do to fix that without taking away from the rest of the model?

2. I haven't done anything to the armor on 4/5 of these guys. The one with gold accents has a brown wash on him. It's not a huge difference, but I think it's enough of one to warrant it on all of them. I've also since added some silver highlight to parts of his armor. Not a fan. How would you guys highlight bronze armor? If at all.

3. How do I base these guys? The prototype model I made first has a very basic desert base. I figure most of old Terra was a desert waste. Artistically speaking, what kind of base would help accent these guys?

Any comments or suggestions are more than welcome!


This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/03/25 20:02:38


 
   
Made in us
Deranged Necron Destroyer






With regards to the proto-bolters, this might be more work than you're looking for, but I imagine that they would customize their bolters over time; maybe filigree wire-work on the muzzles? This blog is super inspirational for that sort of thing.

When I was painting my Mycaneans, I did a brown wash, a heavy drybrush of the original color, and then a very light drybrush of silver.

I like the idea of a desert base, but you could plausibly have them fighting in any part of Terra. Urban rubble bases would go far, although that might be too-40k.

Sorry for rambling haha, this project's super exciting.

My painting log is full of snakes
Have any retro, vintage, or out of print models? Show them off here!
Games I play: 40k (CSM, Necrons); AoS/Fantasy (Seraphon/Lizardmen); Warcry; Marvel Crisis Protocol; Wargods of Olympus/Aegyptus; Mythos 
   
Made in us
Bounding Ultramarine Assault Trooper






 Don Qui Hotep wrote:
With regards to the proto-bolters, this might be more work than you're looking for, but I imagine that they would customize their bolters over time; maybe filigree wire-work on the muzzles? This blog is super inspirational for that sort of thing.

When I was painting my Mycaneans, I did a brown wash, a heavy drybrush of the original color, and then a very light drybrush of silver.

I like the idea of a desert base, but you could plausibly have them fighting in any part of Terra. Urban rubble bases would go far, although that might be too-40k.

Sorry for rambling haha, this project's super exciting.


No worries. That's exactly the kind of feedback I need. Thanks for that link, there's a lot of good work there. I decided to go with a light drybrush of silver and then I toned it back down with a brown wash. Of course the pictures don't pick it up very well.

These guys are about done. I need to put another coat of black around the rim and add a couple tufts to finish them off. As I said, I'm not the greatest painter and really just want these guys to look the part from tabletop distance, especially line troops like these guys. I'll put in some extra effort when I get around to the command cadre.




The boys


1. 2.

3. 4.

5.



I've already settled on wanting to do another five line warriors. I'm going to try to make them a tad more "standardized" this time.
- I liked the chest of #2 up above the most and am going to try to make a simple mold of the raptor head and lightning bolts to make it easier to replicate.
- I like how the axe on #5 came out and want to keep that going.
- The MK III arms look great in my opinion. The extra armor on the forearm makes it very easy to depict the hands as being gloved instead of armored.
- The chain bayonets worked well, but the extension to the muzzle did not. I want to keep them for the added length and girth though. Next round I'll try adding to the proto-bolters, likely chains, or wire, or just shape the muzzle into something.
- The shoulder pads were ordered from shapeways and are exactly what I wanted for these guys. I guess I'll be ordering some more.
- Heads are going to become tricky. Guard heads are a dime a dozen. Plumes are not though. I'm going to have to either find a good source for helmet plumes, or find a tutorial somewhere on how to sculpt ponytails or something.


Some thoughts for the future:

"Squad" sizes. I'm split between 4, 8, and 10. Ten is the base number in so many numerical systems it just feels right. 4 and 8 would better for tactical flexibility. I'm actually leaning more towards 4 man units.

After the line troopers are worked out I've got a few more unit types I'm thinking about.
- Grenadiers. 3 man unit armed with dedicated grenade launchers.
- Heavy weapons teams. 2 man teams toting around large, crew served weapons. Even considered large for Thunder Warriors.
- Special weapons teams. 3 man teams armed with Volatile Dark Age technology.
- Trench/Siege/Breacher squad. Armed with melee weapons, shields, explosives, and shotguns.
- Troop transport. Big. Ugly. Lots of guns.
- The ghost of all murders.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/03/29 22:43:12


 
   
Made in us
Bonkers Buggy Driver with Rockets





Houston, TX

Stupendous conversions! You really nailed the look and feel of the old art. It’s obvious you put a ton of time into them.

Xhorik 87th Drop Troops P&M blog https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/775655.page

Project log and campaign featuring Orks, Imperial Guard, Marines, Tyranids: http://www.xhorikwar.blogspot.com/
Currently focused on our Horus Heresy campaign with White Scars, Death Guard and Imperial Militia.  
   
Made in gb
Shas'la with Pulse Carbine






Looking forward to more of these!

My hobby ADHD, mostly Necromunda, with a splash of regular 40k... 
   
Made in us
Bounding Ultramarine Assault Trooper






The Riddle of Steel wrote:Stupendous conversions! You really nailed the look and feel of the old art. It’s obvious you put a ton of time into them.


Guardling wrote:Looking forward to more of these!



Thank you both for the kind words! I'm really enjoying this project so far. I'm going to call these five complete and I've decided to push forward with making seven more line Thunder Warriors. I'll be continuing to refine the chainmail work on all of the modes, try to standardize the chest pieces some more, add some embellishments to the proto-bolter/thunder gun, and do a little more research on some Thunder Warrior art.







I've already cleaned up the chests and have started adding chainmail to the legs. I'm using a different method with these guys than the first five. Previously I've added green stuff and then used a skinny tool pull holes into the shape of chainmail. I like this method for some things, the legs on these guys is not one of them. Now that I have a chainmail mold from greenstuff world, life has gotten easier.



   
Made in us
Deranged Necron Destroyer






Love the basing you ended up with, these guys look like post-apocalyptic rad-warriors. Really like the tone of bronze you came up with for their final armor.

My painting log is full of snakes
Have any retro, vintage, or out of print models? Show them off here!
Games I play: 40k (CSM, Necrons); AoS/Fantasy (Seraphon/Lizardmen); Warcry; Marvel Crisis Protocol; Wargods of Olympus/Aegyptus; Mythos 
   
Made in us
Bounding Ultramarine Assault Trooper






 Don Qui Hotep wrote:
Love the basing you ended up with, these guys look like post-apocalyptic rad-warriors. Really like the tone of bronze you came up with for their final armor.


Thank you! I really like how it turned out too. Hopefully I can continue to produce that same result.

No pictures this time. I’m still working on covering the legs with sections of chainmail and manufacturing chest emblems. The next batch is coming along though.
   
Made in us
Bounding Ultramarine Assault Trooper






Tonight I got the majority of the base models finished. I added chainmail to the legs and around the torso, raptors to the chests, began working in their power packs and started sorting through the bits for some character. Progress is moving along a good deal faster with this second batch. I made some molds that I’m hoping will keep increasing efficiency.

As usual, any comments or recommendations are more than welcome.



This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/04/04 02:08:16


 
   
Made in lu
Rampaging Khorne Dreadnought






This might be interesting for you, both in story and it has some scenes with thunder warriors:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPbqDF_Q_sk
   
Made in ca
Grisly Ghost Ark Driver






Your chainmail is looking better and better!

See what's on my painting table Now painting: Kruleboyz Gutrippaz 
   
Made in gb
Crushing Black Templar Crusader Pilot






London

Chainmail has really stepped up, and the colour scheme looks fab

Thanks for sharing



Relapse wrote:
Baron, don't forget to talk about the SEALs and Marines you habitually beat up on 2 and 3 at a time, as you PM'd me about.
nareik wrote:
Perhaps it is a lube issue, seems obvious now.
 
   
Made in us
Bounding Ultramarine Assault Trooper






Roknar wrote:This might be interesting for you, both in story and it has some scenes with thunder warriors:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPbqDF_Q_sk


Thanks Roknar! There's definitely some examples in there that I can use as inspiration. I hadn't read that story before, but I love the description of the Thunder Warriors in action!


Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll wrote:Your chainmail is looking better and better!


IGtR= wrote:Chainmail has really stepped up, and the colour scheme looks fab

Thanks for sharing


Thanks guys! I must admit, I'm cheating with the Greenstuff World chainmail plate.


Tonight I added equipment to their belt lines and attached power packs. I still have to add the vents back onto them and I'm going to add some additional cabling as well. Next big step is going to be figuring out arm configurations for them. Recommendations and comments are always welcome.




   
Made in us
Bounding Ultramarine Assault Trooper






Work is still progressing. A bit slower than usual, but forward nonetheless. I’ve been listening to Valdor again while driving in to work. I love that book. I’m definitely going to be making a Primarch for these Thunder Warriors. That’ll probably be the capstone model for this project. What I thought was really interesting from that book was the description of Ushotan’s sword. It’s described as “bleeding plasma” instead or arcing lighting or a power field like typical power weapons. That’s something I’m interested in including in my primarch model. How to actually model that though?
   
Made in us
Deranged Necron Destroyer






Second squad shaping up well!

My painting log is full of snakes
Have any retro, vintage, or out of print models? Show them off here!
Games I play: 40k (CSM, Necrons); AoS/Fantasy (Seraphon/Lizardmen); Warcry; Marvel Crisis Protocol; Wargods of Olympus/Aegyptus; Mythos 
   
 
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