Final ideas for my counts as thousand sons needed. - Or: "How to model silence?"

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**btldoomhammer**

I have this cool idea for a slaanesh style counts as thousand sons squad but i need a few final ideas.
The basic ideas is that they took a vow of silence while they perform ongoing rituals to empower their voice with warp energy. Speaking before the rituals are finished would not only disrupt the rituals but also unleashed the stored warppower in a destructive burst that either would kill them or overtakes their body warping them into spawns and possessed. (Not everyones favored liefe-choise)

My question is now how to represent their silence. I thought on using/converting special helmets for them and maybe sculpting faces with a sewed shut mouth on their shoulders. But i can't think of a good design for the heads.
The bodies are already ordered and i will use anvil industry legs and torsos. But that doesn't mean that i'm open for different ideas or conversions that would make them special. What i need the most are ideas for the heads.

Throw your ideas at me or what you think would be cool thousand sons for a slaanesh themed army.

edit:
I've just assembled one of them. Arms and shoulders aren't glued jet and i probably have to repose the arms slightly to align them better with the weapon. But it should give you a good impression of where i am right now.

**cerbrus2**

I had an idea to use Anubis Heads as thousand sons helmets. As they have that egyption theme. And found some on Puppets war

But the only thing I could fined was these sort of death masks, but they still dont scream out at you (poor use of words) We are silenced.

http://puppetswar.com/product.php?id_product=23

**Badger_Bhoy**

You could just green stuff over the mouths of the heads/helmets and make it smooth. That's kind of creepy.

I also though you were making a Doctor Who reference.

**btldoomhammer**

Those masks are interesting. But i have to say that i only like two of those heads.

That reminds me Sanguinary Guards had some death masks too. Maybe they are an option. Or i could try to sculpt my own masked heads.

Badger_Bhoy wrote:
You could just green stuff over the mouths of the heads/helmets and make it smooth. That's kind of creepy.

I also though you were making a Doctor Who reference.

That also might be an option and would allow me to use more than the two i like. And i never watched Doctor Who so i couldn't make a reference even if i wanted to.

**Ap0k**

Dark Eldar Wracks heads with the slots in the faceplates filled in? Or if that's too costly, something similar could probably be sculpted into place. Generally the idea being a completely blank faceplate, devoid of features.

**btldoomhammer**

Ap0k wrote:
Dark Eldar Wracks heads with the slots in the faceplates filled in? Or if that's too costly, something similar could probably be sculpted into place. Generally the idea being a completely blank faceplate, devoid of features.

I have a box of DE wyches on my desk to be converted into slaanesh cultists. But looking at them they might be to small to look good. Or are the heads you speak of larger than those?
The idea on the other hand is a good one. I'll add it to the list.

And maybe i could add both ideas together. creating nearly featureless death masks with only a hint of human features. What do you think of that?

**Flinty**

A blank face plate would look pretty cool, all faceless and menacing. Alternatively use a normal marine helmet and smooth out the mouthpiece grill bit? Why have an external vox link if you can't tank anyway?

**Ap0k**

btldoomhammer wrote:
Ap0k wrote:
Dark Eldar Wracks heads with the slots in the faceplates filled in? Or if that's too costly, something similar could probably be sculpted into place. Generally the idea being a completely blank faceplate, devoid of features.

I have a box of DE wyches on my desk to be converted into slaanesh cultists. But looking at them they might be to small to look good. Or are the heads you speak of larger than those?

I'm honestly not sure what they're like for size. I haven't handled any of the mini's, but I'd expect the Wrack head to at least be bigger than a Wych head, simply due to the added bulk of the faceplate alone. How much bigger though, and whether it's suitably marine-scaled, I'm not sure.

To take Flintys idea a little further, you could take inspiration from the three wise monkeys, and instead of simply filling in the hole at the front of their helm, sculpt very tiny daemonic hands growing out of the side of the helm and interlocking over the grill. Would retain the chaos theme of things, and hands covering a mouth is pretty universally recognised as the subject being silenced in some way,

**btldoomhammer**

Ap0k wrote:
... sculpt very tiny daemonic hands growing out of the side of the helm and interlocking over the grill. Would retain the chaos theme of things, and hands covering a mouth is pretty universally recognised as the subject being silenced in some way,

This also is an interesting idea. I probably have to create an example of every idea and descide on that basis.

I also found this bit of the chaos warrior knights that might work as a blank faceplate helmet. But it's probably hard to get hold of 10 of those. And i would need to remove the horns as i don't think they would look good on them.

**Lint**

You should definitely check out the WHFB WoC lines for helmets. I've used them to great effect in my own CSM army, I cut all of the horns off too - made the effect even better.
Check out my gallery if you want to see some examples.

Spoiler:

**btldoomhammer**

Lint wrote:
You should definitely check out the WHFB WoC lines for helmets. I've used them to great effect in my own CSM army, I cut all of the horns off too - made the effect even better.

Well to be honest i think that most WoC models are way to bulky and massive. This is normally a good thing and looks amazing for most CSM but for my slaanesh themed army i prefer a more "lighter", a more sleek and agile look. That beeing said there are a few helmets in the fantasy line that are interesting. I used a few wood elf heads here and there, bitz from dark elves and a few WoC helmets here and there.
And i also have a box of chaos marauders on my desk that will be turned into a bunch of harem-guard style counts as plague marines.

But back to my thousand sons. I have grabbed my tools and GS and started to work on a few ideas you provided. They are obviously not finished and the horns will also be removed. But i think it is a starting point.

**Badger_Bhoy**

They all look great! I think the upper left, and the two right most on the bottom work best with what you're going for.

**Lint**

Wow, that helmet with the hand over the mouth looks fantastic.

**Chancetragedy**

Lint wrote:
Wow, that helmet with the hand over the mouth looks fantastic.

+1!! Your tiny greenstuffing skills are impressive!!!

**Flinty**

All 3 are nice but the tiny hand is truly awesome!

**poda_t**

absolutely no to helmet number 3.

that to me looks like a marine that's allied to Anakwar Sek. , which doesn't strike me as what you are going for.

**Devoted-to-the-machine**

Your work is simply amazing and I find all four of them absolutly awesome!

**Depraved**

Google some images of Vic Rattlehead. He has an interesting way of keeping his mouth shut.

**btldoomhammer**

Thanks for all the reply.
I still haven't decided what to use, but at least i can exclude the hand idea as i don't like it. It doesn't fit with the rest of the model. And the small closed grill helmet is also not to my liking.

I haven't worked at the helmets themself but i set my two favorites up to get a better feel for them. The mask needs something around the neck area and the faceplate ... i don't know if i really like it or not. Maybe i need some other approaches, try out different ideas to finally decide.

**Verd_Warr**

Check out the WFB Empire Flagellant heads. IIRC there are a couple of those that have their mouths stitched shut.

**btldoomhammer**

Thanks for the idea.

But firstly i haven't imagined them with stiched mouths. Secondly i wanted helmets or helmet-like stuff so that you can't see the faces. I think that is better with the thousand sons "all is dust" kinda concept - a bunch of slow unified marines that are bound to the sorcerer that does the rituals for them.

**btldoomhammer**

Okay, i made the mask into an actual helmet. I need to redo the whole thing later as i realized the mask doesn't sit straight on the head but it is enough to show how it would look like.

What do you say?

**Valhallan42nd**

I was going to suggest these:

http://www.puppetswar.com/product.php?id_product=111

...but it seems you have your project well in hand.

**btldoomhammer**

Wow, These are nice as well. I could add something similar to the mask i made. Because i still think that the helmet is missing something.

**AustonT**

btldoomhammer wrote:
Thanks for all the reply.
I still haven't decided what to use, but at least i can exclude the hand idea as i don't like it. It doesn't fit with the rest of the model. And the small closed grill helmet is also not to my liking.

I haven't worked at the helmets themself but i set my two favorites up to get a better feel for them. The mask needs something around the neck area and the faceplate ... i don't know if i really like it or not. Maybe i need some other approaches, try out different ideas to finally decide.

I really dig the one on the right. The one on the left kind of makes me think of EC.

**btldoomhammer**

While i'm not playing EC i' have a very similar color scheme with mostly purple and gold and decorations similar to noise marines. So referencing EC isn't that bad.
But i think that both helmets are missing something. I'll probably try to set up some more mask variants because i prefer that to the more flat faceplates. But despite that the faceplate idea is still on the table. Si i might also whip up some variations on that theme as well.

**AustonT**

Perhaps if you reproduced the head on the left about 1/4 larger and then put stiches where the lips would be?

**btldoomhammer**

That was my idea as well once i saw the puppets war helmets Valhallan42nd posted.

**Badger_Bhoy**

Another couple ideas I had were to do them up like the Slenderman, though I'm not sure how one would with helmets, or to have the mouths or lower halves of helmets melted, like scarring.

**poda_t**

I just remembered this...

M

There wasaguy once who said allhe did to represent the silenc e of his sons was to borea hole in the neck and throw the head away, but this is just plain disturbing, expressive masks without heads...