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I’ve been waiting for this update! Nothing against ogres, because yours look superb, but for me, your Tyranids vs Guard in the jungle is just about as good as it gets. Great job on the sneaking lictor. The terrain and background work is excellent, too. The extra effort to add the mountains and sky is appreciated and the angle looking up at the men in the tower is just so immersive. This made my day.

Still keeping it brilliant!
Absolutely loving the background and the cool action pictures!

I'm not sure I knew this Lictor existed? Guess he's that sneaky Looks grand in your scheme, love the staged shots too, especially up in the parapet with the lads

Those poor stormtroopers will never know what hit them... Great mini and the scene looks great!

Really like the Stalking Lictor scene, really looks the part.

Hes behind you!!!

Man, this took a lot longer than expected. I found that I bit off a bit more than I could chew with a batch of 12 Stormtroopers at once, and got sidetracked repeatedly by other hobbies and real-life obligations.

Upon reviewing these photos I notice I forgot to gloss the lenses on the gas masks. Oops. Easy fix though.

I'm particularly pleased with the officer conversions. I adjusted one of them since the WIP photo earlier in the thread, carefully carving off the model's face and attaching it to a copy of one of the Stormtroopers' heads. I also reworked the arm proportions slightly, adjusted the pose, and replaced the Space Marine plasma pistol with a Death Korps one. All in all I'm much happier with this version.

I now have a decent platoon- 30 Stormtroopers and 2 officers- so I think it's time for some scenic group shots later this week.

Awesome work on the Stromtroopers catbarf, nice to see you back Those converted rifles look really cool, I may have missed it in a previous post but what are they/how did you make them? And the two sergeants look really good, super flawless conversions. I don't know how you managed to do a face swap on the helmet one, those old model's faces are cramped as.

 zahnib wrote:
Awesome work on the Stromtroopers catbarf, nice to see you back

Thanks mate!

 zahnib wrote:
Those converted rifles look really cool, I may have missed it in a previous post but what are they/how did you make them?

I think I posted an unpainted WIP, but they're intended to represent hot-shot volley guns, which didn't exist back when these models were sculpted. I replaced the muzzles of their hellguns with the muzzles of the plastic volley guns from the current Tempestus Scion set, added a piece of plastic rod to the top of the receiver to bulk out the connection, and replaced the magazines with guitar cable reaching back to the powerplant-looking part of the backpack.

 zahnib wrote:
And the two sergeants look really good, super flawless conversions. I don't know how you managed to do a face swap on the helmet one, those old model's faces are cramped as.

It was tricky for sure. I started with one of my resin duplicates of an existing head, and trimmed off as much of the face as I could. Then I carefully sliced the face off the plastic head, sanded it paper-thin, and glued it on.

Surprisingly, no additional sculpting was needed after that.

Excellent work on those, I do love the old stormtrooper figures!

Oldschool stormies are the best! Yours look fantastic. The officer conversions came out ace!

 catbarf wrote:
Then I carefully sliced the face off the plastic head, sanded it paper-thin, and glued it on.

I'm always excited to see more of this generation of stormtrooper, particularly tasty conversions like these Pumped for that platoon shot!

Thanks guys. Here are some quick pics of all the infantry so far- I couldn't fit the Vulture in the shot; oh well. Next step on this force will be getting my two Valkyries done, but I think I might do a Tyranid tutorial and then switch back to Mechanicum for a bit.

 catbarf wrote:

 zahnib wrote:
Awesome work on the Stromtroopers catbarf, nice to see you back

Thanks mate!

 zahnib wrote:
Those converted rifles look really cool, I may have missed it in a previous post but what are they/how did you make them?

I think I posted an unpainted WIP, but they're intended to represent hot-shot volley guns, which didn't exist back when these models were sculpted. I replaced the muzzles of their hellguns with the muzzles of the plastic volley guns from the current Tempestus Scion set, added a piece of plastic rod to the top of the receiver to bulk out the connection, and replaced the magazines with guitar cable reaching back to the powerplant-looking part of the backpack.

 zahnib wrote:
And the two sergeants look really good, super flawless conversions. I don't know how you managed to do a face swap on the helmet one, those old model's faces are cramped as.

It was tricky for sure. I started with one of my resin duplicates of an existing head, and trimmed off as much of the face as I could. Then I carefully sliced the face off the plastic head, sanded it paper-thin, and glued it on.
Surprisingly, no additional sculpting was needed after that.

Awesome! Thank you for the detailed reply ☺️ The hotshot volley gun conversions look so clean and really fit with the model's aesthetic. The guitar wire cable is a nice touch. Also love the group shots, its a great looking force you've painted up. The yellow plasma coils are a really nice spot colour

The storm troopers look so good, the detailing and skin tone on the faces is fantastic. Really awesome stuff.

That's a nice group, catbarf. A sharp, cool scheme to contrast your tyranids so they are easy to spot from the pict-captures in their last moments before being eaten by the swarm

 catbarf wrote:

Spoiler:

Those look absolutely fantastic. And such a variety of special weapons, all just in time for GW to no doubt do this to Scion weapon options. At least they look cool.

Thanks guys, really appreciate it.

Sherrypie wrote:That's a nice group, catbarf. A sharp, cool scheme to contrast your tyranids so they are easy to spot from the pict-captures in their last moments before being eaten by the swarm

That was part of the intent, more or less- it was a happy coincidence that the scheme I made for the Death Korps translated so well to them, fitting both the naval theme and providing some blue-orange contrast.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Those look absolutely fantastic. And such a variety of special weapons, all just in time for GW to no doubt do this to Scion weapon options. At least they look cool.

Hah, you are not wrong. I know it's coming, but I'm not sure it'll be a huge issue- Back In My Day I wasn't running four identical special weapons per squad anyways (it capped at two, IIRC), and since the current Scion box is a 5-man it might allow for two of each special in a 10-man. If such a spaghettification of the options comes with more fun, thematic rules options I can live with it.

But since it sounds like a new Guard codex isn't coming this year, that gives me plenty of time to work on other projects and paint my Valkyries.

Those Stormtroopers are still some of the coolest models GW has ever made. You've got a beautiful collection of them. Nice work!

Edit: Haha! Sand dollars and starfish?! That's fun.

Now I want to see what you could do with the (IMO) far superior Kasrkin sculpts.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Now I want to see what you could do with the (IMO) far superior Kasrkin sculpts.

Them's fightin words H.B.M.C

These look amazing!

Taking on a slightly different project, I'm using an Anycubic Photon S I got on sale to print up some Battlefleet Gothic minis. I'll be doing some space-borne Hive Fleet Karkinos soon, but first a 1000pt Imperial fleet. Here's the first half of that effort- a Lunar, Mars, and a Gothic.

Nothing fancy here; these paint up super quickly with just drybrushing and washes.

Your storm troopers may be the best looking version of those models I have ever seen done anywhere. The conversions and the excellent, old school paint scheme with perfect edge highlights just works so well. I really, really like the end result.

Also very cool to see some BFG. I have never played it but I have always love the look of the models and the game.

Thanks Riddle. I'm very pleased with how the Stormtroopers came out.

With a trio of Cobras and a Dictator I've finished the 1000pt Imperial fleet for BFG. In the close-ups I'm now noticing in addition to the usual unwanted hair in the primer (price of having cats) there's a little bit of delamination from imperfect support during printing. I'm still getting the hang of my 3D printer, so that's something to address moving forward.





Next up are the Tyranid ships.

 catbarf wrote:
Next up are the Tyranid ships.

Oh goody!

Brilliant looking ships ! 3d printing is really a bliss when it comes to BFG

Wow superb work on the ships, are they all 3d printed? Really lends itself to BFG.

 Olthannon wrote:
Wow superb work on the ships, are they all 3d printed? Really lends itself to BFG.

Yep, even the bases. I'm using an Anycubic Photon S, and the fragile detail it is capable of rendering is spectacular.

That said, printing the bases may have been a mistake- I'm using an Anycubic resin intended for detail rather than structural stability, so the stand that the Hive Ship is on is starting to sag under the weight. I've already found a cheap solution using MDF bases plus nails for the pegs, but waiting on more bases to arrive may impose a bit of a delay, plus I'll have to rebase the ships I've finished so far.

Fortunately, this means I can stop using my printer to make bases, which will free it up for more ships.

The fleet looks superb, really solid prints and clean paint. Dig those green launch bays!