Ovions P&M Blog: Taking part in the Mantis Maker Challenge! - Art Attack!

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.

**Ovion**

I'm Ovion. I've been playing 40K since 2001.
I'm currently working on my Dark Eldar Coven - The Coven of the Plagued Rat which is almost entirely converted or scratchbuilt models bar 6 old-style raiders (still converted some) a venom and a razorwing, have a relatively finished Dark Eldar Kabal (little used these days and probably needs a better name...) that's mostly warriors and incubi, I'm building a Skaven force that I intend to be a sea of rats and little else once done (by little else I mean a HPA or two) and have just started on a Tau Caste.

This will also be where I track my attempted conversion of a metal Deciever into a Laughing God model.

In the future I look to build up my Tau and Skaven, as well as put together an Eldar, Lizardmen, Wood Elf and Vampire Count Armies.

And so as a reminder to myself as much as anything
To Do List:
Works In Progress:
Webway Portal Markers.
Dark Eldar Gargantuan Creature: Felis Panthera
Dark Eldar Gargantuan Creature: Arrak'i Decimator

Painting -
Dark Eldar - Coven of the Plagued Rat

Spoiler:

Tau - Bor'kan Sept

Spoiler:

Skaven - Clan Morsus

Spoiler:

Done -
Dark Eldar - Coven of the Plagued Rat

Spoiler:

Tau - Bor'kan Sept

Spoiler:

Original Post

Spoiler:

**Ovion**

So an update.

I think I've lost the bulk of my initial coven forces. :( 2 Haems, a Haem Ancient, 4 grotesques, 20 wracks, 2 venoms aswell as 2 Talos and a Cronos. Annoying as none of this stuff is cheap, even if it is all converted out of plastics. And the Talos and Cronos were all scratchbuilt.

Gonna have to buy another box of Dryads and at least one-two boxes of Plague Monks to make up the shortfall in troops. Already started designs for a bigger better Toastalos. Not sure if I can be bothered making another kettle but all my pain tokens are teacups so it might look wierd if I don't...

Anyway... That aside I have 4 more Raiders, a load of splinter pistols and a bunch more devourers coming in the post, which'll allow me to convert up some more Haems, Wracks etc.

Almost finished the Haems I'm working on.
Haemonculs Ancient / Urien counts-as + 4 Haemonculus. All with Liquifier Guns. (The ancients isnt on yet.)

4 Hex Rifles

Gonna be going on 2 more Haemies and 2 Acothysts.

Do they look hex-rifley enough?

**dangerhawk**

Those are brilliant hex rifles! I cant wait to see some more.

**Ovion**

So, apart from their aprony things that need highlighting / drybrushing (which I forgot about...) the Haems are pretty much completed.

Left Front - Haemonculus w/ Liquifier Gun, Splinter Pistol & Venom Blade.
Left Rear - Haemonculus w/ Liquifier Gun, Splinter Pistol & Venom Blade.
Center - Haemonculs / Haemonculus Ancient - w/ Liquifier Gun, Splinter Pistol & Venom Blade. -or- Urien Rakarth count-as.
Right Rear - Haemonculus w/ Liquifier Gun, Splinter Pistol & Venom Blade.
Right Front - Haemonculus w/ Liquifier Gun, Splinter Pistol & Venom Blade. -or- Extended Codex Unit: Master of Shards (Liquifier Gun, Splinter Pistol & Agoniser).

5 Completed Hex Rifles

I like how these have turned out now they're painted, plus if I ever need more in the future they're easy to make.

And this is how you make them!

Ovions guide to Hex Rifles for under 50p each.
First off you'll need an Eldar Guardian Shuriken Catapult and either the left or right Dark Elf Corsair Repeater Crossbow Pistol Arm. as far as I can tell these will run you 30-50 pence overall and should be really, really easy to get.

Take your chosen Dark Elf Corsair Repeater Crossbow Pistol Arm.
It doesnt matter which - same end result - this is the right one.

Cut along the red lines with a razorknife, which produces the below 3 pieces (you can also not cut at the wrist and use the whole arm, but I like attaching the hand to whatever models arm by the wrist.)

Now take your Eldar Guardian Shuriken Catapult.

Again, cut along the red lines.

Resulting in the following pieces.

You only need this bit. Cut along the red lines.

That results in this. Again, you only need the barrel section the rest can be discarded / go in the bitz box.

Proceed to file along the sides and round off the now squared base of the barrel and where the sight used to be, then file down flat the 'gems' on either side and along where the grip and magazine to produce the following.

This will leave you with these 4 seperate pieces, the grip, the barrel, the magazine and the scope that when combined make your hexrifle.

Tada - constructed Hex Rifle, for less than 10 minutes work.

And here it is, painted up and next to a splinter rifle for scale.

**Ovion**

Found my old coveny bits

Went into my local GW and they'd found them during the week.
Not having to replace 20 wracks, 10 grotesques, 2 haemonculi, 2 venoms, 2 talos and a cronos is nice.

Can now update the old models to the new standard, ensuring that it's all wysiwyg. etc.

I've already dismantled the old grotesques in preperation for them to be rebuilt with the proper bases and bulked out.

These are my old Haemonculi, soon to be broken down to be rebuilt as grotesques:

Next to the new ones for direct comparison:

Personally I think it's a vast improvement, not only that 6-7 is better than 2 but build and paint quality too.

These are the grotesques I'm working on.
I plan to bulk them out 'backwards' adding tubes and mass to the rear of the model:

And my Wracks - mostly finished. They need some GS work here and there to add extra... modification, but that and a bit of paint and they're done:

For my birthday last saturday I got a handfull of gift vouchers and money, so I bought myself a razorwing jetfighter. While most of the time I'll simply use it as a ravager, I'm going to fully magnetise it and its options.

But that will be coming soon

**Ovion**

With the additional 4 raiders that arrived yesterday (and the bits bought over the last month) I have now aqquired all the models I've been aiming for for my current Coven. Another box of plague monk wracks at some point should round off the last.

Otherwise with my Dark Eldar it'll just be converting up extended codex units. Then onto skaven and tau.

Anyways photos:

There's:
8 Haemonculi (5 with Liquifier Guns, 3 with Hex Rifles)
12 Grotesques (3 Acothysts, 3 with Liquifier Guns, 6 standard)
29 Wracks (4 Acothysts with Venom Blades, 3 Acothysts with Hex Rifles, 4 with Liquifier Guns, 18 Standard)
2 Talos
1 Cronos
1 Razorwing (magnetised, so I can switch out the missiles and weapons to be a counts-as Ravager)

3 Venoms
6 Raiders

The Grotesques need work such as doing the 'humps' of several and adding arms / weapons, otherwise it's all been basecoated and awaiting paint.

I'm going to be going with a shades of blue scheme across the coven, similr to the one I've used on the haems.

**Ovion**

So between work and illness I really havent done muh of anything.

Though in the last few days I finally finished greenstuffing and constructing my grotesques and tonight I'm undercoating them and starting to paint my troops.
For the most part I'm actually happy with how the grots have turned out.

Fabius Bile: How I recieved him. Is this paint job good for bile I don't know?

5 Assault Haemonculi.

Drycha Convert + the 3 Hex Rifle haemonculi

Grotesques

Wracks Assault Squad with Haemonculi

Wracks Assault Squad

Marksman Squads

Marksman Squad

**Ovion**

Progress marker:
Have put the base colour on the haems / grots. Still need to do the silver on 5 more grots 'tech', then fleshmix and a blue wash, highlight and drybrush and those are done then it's just 29 wracks and the remaining detail work on the vehicles.

Also couldnt resist starting painting my Ethereal. Need to buy some Hawk Turquoise and a brown wash or two tommorow, maybe look at the battleforce and start the force early xD

**worldwarme**

on my Blog you mentioned a talos conversion you had done, (I think).
I think i saw it here, but only once and from a top angle. Do you have any other pics of it? I'd like to see more.
You have a very interesting and well thought out take on all of this. I like your Wraiths a lot. I may end up stealing an idea or two from here to try a couple of things out myself.
Thanks.

**Llamahead**

Interesting idea using Dryads for DE really like the style I'm not so sure about the Plague Monk Wracks but their nicely executed. Either ideas good but I'm not sure how they'll combine together......

**Ovion**

Small update:
Getting there with my Grots etc, wracks need flesh and cloth finishing, then metal done. Then everything needs washing and highlighting.

As for the Talos and Cronos:

**Ovion**

Have been working on some Tau stuff - currently working on a Kroot Shaper based on this guy:

**blood lance**

I cant help but look at that talos and say "Mmmm toast" as in "were toast"

:3
Imaginitive idea with the conversions, nic ealternative to the current wracks of exact sameness.

**Ovion**

So this is what I've been working on recently:
1: Overall Dark Eldar Force:

Spoiler:

2: My Tau are mostly builty:

Spoiler:

3: Made my Sg. Nicholas Angel Kroot Shaper:

4: Made some Sniper Drones inspired from this thread:

5: Webway Portal Markers (part done)

6: BIOTITAN!:

Magnatesque

Spoiler:

Want to have the Magnatesque mostly done by wednesday.

**Ovion**

Automatically Appended Next Post:
One Biotitan - Mostly donish.
A bit more work to do with it, but it's... enough for now.

**Ovion**

So. Here's my new project.

A second Titan for my Dark Eldar - this one meant to be able to go toe to toe with enemy superheavies such as warhounds / gargants / etc.

Here's the start.

It's currently 7-8" tall, and 12" long nose-to-ass, with a 7" tail (19"total length).
Through the work I intend to coat the spine and along the edge of the scales down the sides in quills, add larger claws, some larger fangs and a 'standard' grotesquey mask.

**mxwllmdr**

Very interested to see how the tiger-titan turns out. Interesting technique.....

**Ovion**

Ay, I'm interested as to how it'll turn out too...

It's kind of goign to be like a cross between the Magnatesque and a Cold One.

My initial plan was to fashion the spines out of sprue, but that would be an unholy amount of work, so I'm looking at investing in a few feet of kneadatite, and drilling holes to fill with wire, which will have greenstuff spines slotted onto em.

And for size comparison:

**Cameron Baum**

Interesting stuff... Will have to keep an an eye on this...

**Ovion**

This is what I've been working on the last few days (I'll be putting up more pics of what I've been doing over the next week or so.)
O'R'ashmya - Commander Mourning Sorrow

(see my Taudex thread for his rules / fluff etc

)

**kitch102**

Dude, that biotitan is epic! Did you make it all out of GS?

**Ovion**

Sadly my sculpting skills (and my wallet) aren't up to makign something that large out of greenstuff.

I used a toy (some DBZ thing) I spotted in a charity shop (for 75p xD) about 3 days after I wrote the rules for the Magnatesque, and was trying to figure out a suitable model - suffice to say I bought it and whisked it away to make the blue bastard above

**Cameron Baum**

Looks good to me...

**Ovion**

So, I decided I'd make an objective marker for Relic games.
Needs a bit more work, but it's certainly getting there:

**Ovion**

So, I was intending to start a CSM force months ago (bought Bile about a year ago, but didn't do much with it, then was going to actually start 5-6 months back) but with the slated release of CSM in the start kit, I decided to wait.
So roll on to now, and I've started my force in full!
A 1500pt army, currently slated to run the following:
1x Fabius Bile
1x Chaos Lord w/ Terminator Armour, Power Maul, The Black Mace
4x Chaos Terminators w/ 3 Power Fists, 1 CombiMelta +Terminator Champion w/ Chainfist
On Chaos Land Raider w/ Dozer Blade, Dirge Caster, Warpflame Gargoyles
1x Helbrute w/ Reaper Autocannon, Missile Launcher
3x 10 Chaos Space Marines w/ 2 Meltas
1x Defiler w/ Reaper Autocannon, Warpflame Gargoyles
1x Chaos Vindicator w/ Siege Shield, Warpflame Gargoyles

So without further rambling, I present the Sons of the Nightmare Child so far:

C.Vindi, start of the Big D, Converted AOBR / DV marines + Terminators.
Still waiting for my C. Land Raider :/

Close up of the C.Vindicator

Magnetised Helbrute w/ Options - Bits have arrived to make the Missile Launcher now, so I'll be making that shortly.

Spoiler:

And last but not least! The Big D!
I love the idea of the Defiler, and I don't entirely mind the standard one, but it is a bit... eh.
But I've always loved the Knight Class bipedal Defilers, and something reminded me of The Big O when I was picking up the kit - so I combined the 2 ideas meaning this:

Gets crossed with this;

To make something like this:

The final product will stand at / just over 8 Inches tall.

More updates to come later!

**Ovion**

So, with acquiring a whole ton of stuff second hand, trading, etc, I wasn't entirely sure exactly what model I actually had now xD
So I pulled it all out, organised it on the kitchen table and piled up the sprue and here's what I've got (including homebrew / scratchbuilt / wip units):

Which totals roughly, 16,000pts (including the points for stuff on-the-sprue, but not the random few hundred points of Orks / Space Marines)
In the picture is:

Spoiler:

**kestral**

Great work - Can't say I'm a fan of the toaster, but everything else is cool. The hunched over dryad wracks are particularly good.

**Ovion**

So, having tallied everything up for figuring out Foam needed, I know I have just over 18,000 points across 550 models of 40K.
I am in the progress of ensuring this is all built, painted and based, and am currently making good headway on my CSM.

HOWEVER, I've taken a slight detour and made these:

If anyone wants to use the blank templates (to just fill out in pen) here you go:

Spoiler:

I anyone wants anything more interesting, let me know.

**Ovion**

So over Christmas I acquired a whole load of Daleks.
A lot of Daleks.
So naturally, the logical thing for me is to start a Necron army with it.

And so I began the Counts-As force.
Total army list so far is 3603pts: Necrons: New Dalek Empire

Spoiler:

I'm currently waiting on the Triarch Stalker (5" Daleks) and Spyder (28mm Davros) Counts-as in the mail.

And now on to the important parts, the pictures!

The models at the front are Cyberman Cybermats being used as Scarab Swarms. (Couldn't find anything else even close to suitable.)
Just behind that are a set of 6 Character Builder Daleks, which make up the Overlord and Royal Court.
The Red/Blue/Orange/Yellow/White New Paradigm Daleks count as Immortals.
The Black/Gold/Bronze/Silver 'classic' Drones are the Warriors.
The Blue/Red/Orange New Paradigm Daleks on flight stands are Tomb Blades.
The Black 2" Dalek to the left at the back, is a C'tan Shard.
And the 9" tall Supreme Dalek on the right is a Monolith.
(This will be a little clearer once painted I think.

)

Have started painting the Royal Court, pretty much finished the Supreme Dalek (Overlord) (Though there's still some work to be done)

And the complete Royal Court so far:

The Court will be Blue Strategist Daleks (Lords)

And that's what I've got so far - more to come later!

**Ovion**

Daleks Cont;
Complete Army:

New Paradigm Supreme Dalek (Overlord)

New Paradigm Strategist Dalek (Lord)

New Paradigm Dalek Eternal (C'tan Shard)

Imperial Dalek (Triarch Stalker)

New Paradigm Dalek Drone (Immortals)

Classic Dalek Drone (Warriors)

New Paradigm Dalek Scientist (Tomb Blades)

Dalek Worm (Cyberman Cybermat) (Scarab Swarms)

New Dalek Empire Supreme Dalek (Monolith)