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.

With my Marine army getting some closure, I was looking for a gaming army that I would be proud to game with and discuss methods with.

Now come the Guard.
Inspired as ever by Dan Abnett's books, I felt a little homage, (emphasis on the 'age' please) was in order. And with a large chunk of greenstuff padding my painting box, an outlet was needed. Here we go then. My Sons of Sek force, starting with a Command squad. This would be an entire 'counts as' army, with every single one having some form of conversion or adaptation.

The distinctive feature for the force comes from Dan's motto/rallying call/cursen curse 'We Serve the Anarch, Whose Word Drowns out all Others'.

Without having modelled much in the way of greenstuff before other than some shells and some simple mechandrites a whole army without an open mouth of any form was (is) fairly daunting. So with a lot of mouths to cover, and at a detail that I'd not rendered yet down to, the first few attempts took the best part of a day to get looking close to right. Thanks to the greenstuff guides in the http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Articles

First up, a suitable Etoguar. Militarily imposing like a Colonel but with a physical presence of near-Ogryn stature, hello Krell the Undying.



The mini was fantastic enough, but I felt it needed a 40k update. First up, I shaved any particularly Vampiric wings and details, trimming off the shoulder plates, and the helmet horns.Coupled with a plasma gun and a smattering of medals, the beast took its shape nicely.

When this guy is painted hopefully he'll tower over the other guardsmen, within the Command Squad he should also be particularly prominent.

Next up, regimental advisors. One; a Commissar model from a Baneblade kit that will take some chopping, combined with the dual option Warhammer Wizard Kit. (I do love the Amber Wizard head still). Stick with some Mechandrites and an ambiguous sensor module for the Master of Ordnance, some mutated eyes on the rear of the masked Astropath with a book, and some questionable cloak smoothing upon the Master of the Fleet we have a fledgling Command squad!



Let me know what you think, whether you think this is going in the right direction as every Traitor Guard is nice and different.
Soon to follow, Stormtroopers, Cyclops, Gaunt!

Looks great, I'd love to see more of the Sons of Sek. Huge fan of Gaunts Ghosts so love to see it all on the tabletop but only ever really see the Ghosts and Blood Pact.

It's hard to see detail on your pics though, any chance you could upload larger ones to your dakka gallery?

I have edited as per your suggestion, thank you.

Next up was a Cyclops, not for any other reason other than me thinking 'hmm, what bits you got?'



So this is primarily the pintle mount operator for the Baneblade, coupled with some greenstuff legs, and some other bobs lying around, crudely defaced so that they can be suitably painted. The Cyclops itself is a 35/scale Tiger I believe. As crudely put together as possible, then with any spikey ork bits lobbed onto the top as the bomb blast element. Some mines on the front, some 'wire' (which i'll redo) and done. Crude but apt.



Its larger than standard, mainly to give my opponents a little favour to let me use a FW element.

Next up;Stormtroops

So, with me still working on my Marines whilst I waited for the Christmas rush of Guard boxes I felt the burning need to convert something. Oddly, searching for 'Metal soldiers' on Ebay popped up 9 Stormtroopers, including backpacks sergeant, flamer and grenade launcher troopers for £5; bargain!

Like all of the old metal kits, without access to a particularly hefty craft-knife or serious files, the large details of the Stormtroopers would be relatively hard to change. Instead, I focused my efforts on overloading this elite inception force with an abundance of smaller details.

Firstly, all of the Aquila's were sliced off, or hacked to illegibility, or covered with plasticard 'plates'.



Secondly, a greenstuff mask, or flayed face was added to their shoulderpads to define their allegiance, these were much easier to make than I had initially thought and I'll be adding more throughout the project.



Simply roll a flat section, then define the shape over the shoulderplate and tease apart the pinholes made for eyes, adding stitches and a downturned mouth as needed.

After this, other details were added, miniature axes and picks were made with plasticard, loops of wire and rope from greenstuff, some mesh over the flame troopers mask, a tentacle here, a few press-moulded weapons there, and they were taking shape nicely.



Now onto the Sergeant. My hazy memory of the Gaunts Ghosts books seemed to remind me that the Sons had bulbous goggles, so a greenstuff strip was added with 2 bobbles from a water filter cartridge. As well as some more skinned faces and a slightly curved hanger blade he looked the part. Sergeant shot below.

Some more conversions starting up, wanting to get some form of a force on the battle(cloth) and get shooting.

So first up I combined the Cadian and the Catachan boxes, stealing and meddling like many a traitor guard does. I definitely like accessories for my units, giving them some accoutrements to cart around. Add in some heavy weapon squads.

As before, removing an average of 4 aquila's per guardsmen takes its time, thank god for a new box of scalpel blades. Trying not to have too much iconography going on as well.

Still learning green stuffs foibles, but having used the (better than expected) GW sculpting tool that was also an additional 26 more tiny cupping hands and at least one other little sculpt per fig.

So, here we go.
A Sergeant



Some regulars;



(Note-tube charge)


(My personal favourite);


And group shots





Heavy Weapon squads






Love to get some feedback on these badboys as I'm still very new to all this, wilful hatred permissable!

I love them! Now I can't wait to see them with some paint.

Nice conversions, you've captured the chaotic feel very nicely.

And some more, finally with some paint attempted.
So, time to attempt some colour. First things first, basic palette. Again, teasing data from the books shows that the SOS have yellow ochre uniform, with glossy black body armour, which rose over their mouths into a hand cupping into a gorget.

(For some reason though, a paragraph lodged in my memory that indicated that the SOS wore 'acid yellow' uniforms, and whose belts, bindings, and accoutrements was formed from the flayed skin of their enemies. However, without being able to find this in the fiction, I went for the option which I could guarantee I could find.)

Lellow! (Averland Sunset). Brun (Mournfang Brown) Black (Imperial Primer/Abaddon Black) Skin (Cadian Fleshtone)

As with my entire 40k mentality keeping to a budget was key. This crept into the painting style as I refused to buy any of the recommended layers sold by Games Workshop. Because of this, my paint collection barely stretches to more than 15 pots of paint (3 of them duplicates).
Any highlights or secondary layers would be mixed using White Scar to give a very cold feeling miniature, darker colours with Abaddon, depth would be Agrax Earthshade or Nuln Oil

I'm very aware that far superior results could be attained with a wider collection, but like many people, space and money is a premium. My painting kit, conversion kit, bits box and gaming supplies all fit into an old Champagne magnum box and I (and my wife) would like to keep it that way thank you very much.

Firstly, an (unprimed) and relatively unconverted mini had the the four primary colours applied, then washed.


Nothing too jarring here but equally not too Chaos-y, the yellow stands out on the table and if I need to do a large section of these guys in bulk this can be accomplished in about 20 minutes per mini.

After this I then go back over the yellow with 2 highlights with increasing amounts of White Scar in the Averland Sunset.
The flesh gets a highlight of pure Cadian Fleshtone, then a second with a little White Scar, before a light wash of Agrax again to tone it back down. (Mental note to go back over the baldies with a little stubble).

All the detail was added after, with most items getting a single highlight. Bronze metal was picked out for a bit of variance and the pilfered and defaced water bottles and the backpack were given a Cadian Camo-colouring, some tattoo detail here.




The blood was Tamiya's clear red, which i'll comment on later. Finished shots below.



Overall, I like them. My hasty painting (around 7 hours total for this first batch) aside, means that the detail is there, the feel is there, the intent is definitely there.

Things learned

1. I'll only sparingly use drybrushing again. The SOS were given a Leadbelcher drybrush over weapons and armour and not only did this mean that the glossy black body armour wasn't glossy at all.
It also meant that the finish across most of the models surfaces was poor, and unfortunately shows through on the few flat surfaces visible.



2. Dilute, dilute, dilute!Still not impressed by how much paint I use. Must improve.

3. Tamiya clear red is very good between the teeth of chainswords and when pooled, everywhere else it needs darker tones for realism!

4. Better tatoos!

5. Softer skin tones.

And finally, don't paint the SOS with brown cupping gorgets and then paint them black afterwards, start as you mean to continue!

This is the redone shot with darkened armour



Next up, Primaris Psykers!

Time for tanks!

I noted a several things from research that I felt to be key to making these tanks of the Sons feel unique and specific to me.

Demands include;

1) A single USP which would make the vehicles feel specific to me, and to the Sons.
2) The Sons have excellent regimental coherency, one that the vehicles should adhere to closely.
3) Whilst appearing captured and damaged, vehicles should NOT look ramshackle and cobbled together.
4) Chaotic allegiances should be clearly shown.

So first up in the goodie bag was a Hellhound. One of the convincing factors in me beginning this army was a complete burn-fest that an opponent treated my marines to with one of these. Easy to wound? Bypasses Space Marine armour? Ignores cover? Hello Banewolf.

For the moment, minimal conversions were made. Aquila's were removed, bullet holes were added, scratches scratched, and patches patched. (Demand 3 met!)



This was them primed black, drybrushed with Leadbelcher. Then, 5 layers of thinned Averland sunset were applied over the course of a day to give a rich yellow, in keeping with the uniforms of the Sons. (Demand 2 met!)



Following that, I washed the entire thing with Nuln Oil, and retouched any areas which the wash ran into again. I went slightly overboard on the chemical tanks on the tanks rear, I wanted a faint first wash to give the effect of staining and corrosion but my mix was too heavy and the effect stuck. I'll live however.



After that (for the first time ever on a tank) I neglected to edge highlight it. I considered trying it but the finish was clean and the detail may have got slightly muddied if I attempted to do so.

For more weathering I then went over the tanks most exposed areas with a sponge and a brush to simulate chipping, then over the angular areas with a plain pencil to good effect (my own version of line highlighting)



So, onto the detail. The USP I wanted was something that was easy enough, but would look detailed and different.

Tank graffiti; Chaos-y, to scale, and esoterically interesting. (Demand 1 met!)



My take on this would be that the Son's would be scrawling devotional text over their newly consecrated tanks, and sadly the language would be alien, oh noes! I managed to flick and weave my brush into some oddly scripted and non-linear writing, adding various flourishes as they came to me. The only recognisable words within the text would be their namesake ('namesek'?), the word of the Anarch; Great Sek.




Following this was a few randomly looping lines and swirls, some more Chaos iconography as Khorne icons (Demand 4 met) and then the heat burn detail on the main weapon (s).



After this stage was a new one for me, oil weathering. This was something I've seen touted pretty much everywhere and was something that I wanted to try, basically you heavily dilute Burnt Umber oil paints. Allow them to dry slightly, then go back over the part-dry paint with some white spirit, which gives the nice impression of water staining upon the rivets.

Penultimately, the snow. Bicarb, PVA, Water. Bosh.

Finally the Tamiya-mixed-with-black-blood on the running track and the rear of the tank. Gush.



All finished (and two other tanks still to add to this slightly later on)

I love your progress on this stuff mate, you've done a great job of chaos-guardifying this stuff. The graffiti on the chimera is perfect.

Yeh the graffiti effect is spot on, its etched and scratched enough to not need to resemble actual words or letters, but obvious enough as to what it is Keep up the word man! and keep posting

Thanks guys, other peoples perspectives always help when doing stuff like this.

I've been cracking on with things over the last few weeks, getting tanks churned out at a pace. Generally these take about 5 ish hours each, dependent on how complicated the details can be. More detail on all of these on me blog, but I get more inspired here by other peoples works so am sticking around. Now for a Chimera/Salamander.

Probably should have read a little more about swapping Chimera chassis' to get their full use, but I didn't, so I went for the simpler conversion. Its a little too low, and definitely needs some crew. But its still fun to pop the top off and use it as a Scout Salamander in Killteam games. I'll probably magnetise some passengers and also something to upgrade it to a Command Salamander too.

See above for method;




And the droptop Salamander.




I must say its awesome doing a Guard army, for many a reason but also because you get so many spares!

A really cool project, beautifully executed. The Sons of Sek deserve a cool army like this

A couple of notes that you might find handy – Victoria Miniatures do separate metals goggles and respirators. These might be handy for you; in particular the respirators, as they'd provide a flat base for you to work your (extremely good) greenstuffing skills before putting them in place.

Secondly, I've found a nice way to get more realistic looking tattoos is to cover them with a thin layer of your skin basetone. It helps them blend in to the overall skin effect and helps to make them look underneath the skin.

Thanks Apologist, have had a play with that but I need to do before/after comparisons + be better with brush control etc.

Tried a little bit of this on some of my heavy weapon teams, but haven't been happy with my photography skills (Need to invest in some daylight bulbs/take photos actually during daytime)

Have to finish the fine detail on these but for the moment, here are some overhead shots of the teams.

Missile launchers (fixed minis)



Interchangeable heavy teams.



And their arsenal



Also, this time around I tried adding about 5 layers of gloss varnish to just their body armour, which seemed to help with the thematic feel of the Son's of Sek, whereby their armour is glossy and new.



And I also kitbashed a Primaris Psyker from a few spares and bobs, am most happy with the way the skinning knife came out.

God damn, that's a great conversion! Nice use of bits, nice greenstuffing, do I spy a tentacle/hose maker in use for that right hand? Got mine not too long ago, it's great. I imagine you did a press mould for that khorne symbol? It looks good. That's one seriously custom mini!

God damn, that's a great conversion! Nice use of bits, nice greenstuffing, do I spy a tentacle/hose maker in use for that right hand? Got mine not too long ago, it's great. I imagine you did a press mould for that khorne symbol? It looks good. That's one seriously custom mini!

I must confess Yonan that I've not got one!

All I've done is get a nit-comb from Superdrug (see below), and then rolled it over some greenstuff with fairly hard pressure.

I love the idea of a tentacle maker because this is inconsistent (I've only used the better results) and I'm genuinely going to get one when I do a Mechanicus army, but this was a cheap 99p comb for the interim.



I'm going to whack a tutorial up later this week as well as after taking this picture I managed to break off a bunch of these with some careless storage

 Yonan wrote:
God damn, that's a great conversion! Nice use of bits, nice greenstuffing, do I spy a tentacle/hose maker in use for that right hand? Got mine not too long ago, it's great. I imagine you did a press mould for that khorne symbol? It looks good. That's one seriously custom mini!

good work considering you dont have one! I must admit, I bought the masq-mini one and its definitely a major tool in any conversion work I do worth the investment.

On topic: I really like your psyker conversion. The hands and tubes look really good and hes got a nice pose to him

It might be a copy of the original, but I bought my hose/tentacle maker from forgeplanet, run by "buypainted" from youtube. Was ~$10 instead of $30, and he had some other tasty bits to pick up too. It was made of resin FYI but seems to work fine. Nice MacGyvering getting that result without one!

Genuine appreciation post alert!

Just so happened that I listened to Apologist when he said;

a nice way to get more realistic looking tattoos is to cover them with a thin layer of your skin basetone. It helps them blend in to the overall skin effect and helps to make them look underneath the skin.'

I tried that out, and wanted to say thanks! Here's some more evidence that we really need to listen to our more learned members

Tatoos' without skintone layer (and sunshine from outside)



And then maybe 2 minutes later, in near Stygian darkness as the clouds closed over me (hence poorer photo-sorry)



Tip taken and rolled into repertoire, much better and looking good.

Also finished the little details on the Heavy weapon squads, a summary of favourite details here, including cuts and grazes, bloody knuckles, some first attempts at blending on backpacks, and Macklemore-trooper.

Some more bods finished, plus some command elements.

First up, Platoon Commander

Yay blending!


Then a converted Gaunt;


Some more bods for my first troop choice;




And some crazy tattoo details, because why not!



Should be soon moving onto the Stormtroopers that I have, and possibly the Company Command, hope you enjoy!

And some more vehicles thrown into the mix and am rehoming some of the thread as well. Blog with more goodness http://grudginglyread.blogspot.co.uk/

First up, some interchangeable Leman Russ's (I make sure now never to permanantly attach sponsons or main weapon mounts for ease of use)

So, Executioner




Vanquisher (note icicles on the front turret) which I'll be using a command vehicle, with some disreputable dragging of guard flags as well.




Standard Russ



Chimera (note nod to Abnett's books above the heavy bolter)




And latest fellows to the mix, some hunting Sentinels




Group shots!




I've just made a quick calculation and this looks like the painted force is coming out at about 1295 Points. Ugh! So far to go!

Once you start painting tanks, the points will increase faster ^_°

Steam. I think Steam is seriously missing from this. If you could find a way of adding very thin wafts of steam radiating off of the hot burny things, that'll take it to 11. The snow is really cool. I like the presentation, I think it nails it on the head.

And finally got some paint on those Stormtroopers, and then they had their name changed while waiting. Scions it is...

Not 100% sure these look Chaosified enough for a Traitor Guard force, but they'll do.



My first real foray into massed OSL and its time consuming but I can see the benefit of it.

So I figured if I were to do an update, it might as well be with a big update indeed! Superheavy!



So this beastly Baneblade is mainly run as a Hellhammer.



I’m tempted to tidy up the snow still further, and I need to show its Chaos-scavenged nature slightly more but for the moment its fit for tabletop purpose, though I expect more work on the flayed skin will happen at another date, tidying faces and getting tattoos in etc.





As well as this, I've got myself a Hades Drill, a Forgeworld Cyclops, a Wyvern, a set of Stormtroopers, Cadians, Catachans, Warhouds and a Chimera to add to the collection. Many more to go!

Nice work.

And appearing through a floor near you...the Hades!

So a little update, small and inconsequential of course.

Sons of Sek reinforcements; I picked up some heavy weapons teams as you can always get more gun, and I had a plan in mind for some of the bits that came with them. I also wanted to try and vary the look of these very much supporting troops, so I felt I could use some slightly less imposing bits that I had to nick their legs for some ‘counts as’ Ratlings.

Here they are the little scamps, a Sons of Sek Sniper team with individually made sniper rifles. Great distraction unit.



The borrowed legs were replaced with Mantic Zombie legs in places and green stuff in others, I tried to play with the weapons mounts as well but that didn't go so well. These will do.



I’d also picked up some of the new Tempestus Scions and managed to make six partially magnetised guys who still need greenstuffing obviously. They did bulk my section enough to have a full 15 guys, so enough for a Tempestor Prime, and in three 5-man squads.



Nicking some of the bits I made a badass Platoon Leader, as well as throwing some extras onto his supporting platoon squad. These I gave some boarding shields as a way to identify easily amongst everyone else.





Now needing some guys to yell at I also converted every single trooper in another platoon, here they all are off the production line and here are some of my favourites.

-Carries a torso around guy


- Demo trooper made from the 5man clam-pack snap guys.

- Smackbeth himself! Alas!

And the Rest.


From those mantic bits I also made a bunch of Primaris/Priests, the only way really to tell em apart is currently guesswork, so I’ve just acquired a bundle of power weapons and will be defining the Primaris with their Ap 2 Power Axes!

Vehicles now; A Leman Russ Demolisher with Tinkery-bits on the rear and a pile of corpses.

A Wyvern/Hydra with additional crewman and parka-wearing gunner.

A command Chimera for my Commander to yell out of.

And my favourite, a diddy Cyclops to scare everyone from charging me.


As this stuff has been completed at various stages I decided to make a start with some easy batches of guys which were these, my Commanders buddies.



Next up, 20 goddamn individual Sons of Sek guardsmen and everyone in black!

Some more grunts painted, a lovely 21 step process that I now hate myself for sticking to.



Platoon Command

Detail on shields used to identify these guys as opposed to the others.

Faces and favourites




Tat-tastic tatoos

And too-heavy OSL Commander
#

Plus (mid-hack), some Ogryns to proxy as AM Ogyrns, Bullgryns, Heavy weapon Bases, or Heresy era Dark Mechanicus Charonites, or Myrmidions!




Next up, finishing my advisors and Psykers and priests etc.

Played a little bit of catch up with these guys, ploughed through some more characters and troops quite quickly, and now only have the ‘non-core’ stuff.

Firstly, Psykers and Priests. Primaris mainly (don’t know why I needed 6 of em!) and a couple of Priests too.


Worked on getting them some dirty prison fatigues, as if they had broken their way free and been rounded up by the Sons. My favourite of them all is this guy, replaced his mechandrite hand with a blade as the tendrils were far to flimsy for my transportation methods. (i.e bag, box, no padding)


Then onto Commander, remember him? Started this whole debacle? Well he fell over and lost some of his skullrack.


Otherwise unharmed I tried some capillary washing to get the axe grooves nicely blue.


This wasn’t my best green stuffing ever (actually it was my first!) so the medals don’t look particularly fantastic, they are fairly lopsided and not at all flat. I might skin a Commissar and let him wear his chest. How apt!
[url=http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/723524-
.html][/url]

As this was the boss it was also fairly tempting to do some OSL on his eyes, but to be honest I’m just ok with him being the biggest guy in the army.

Finally some Snipers, or Counts as Ratlings. Intentionally duller than normal Sons, they were also given a couple of light blue washes to indicate how they’ve been sat in the cold for some time.


A couple of recent army shots too, as I’ve built them that’s all only 2773 points, with about another 590 odd in a Chimera, Leman Russ, Hydra, Heavy weapon Squad, Cyclops, and Stormtroopers left to go! That leaves Ogryns and Dogs, Spawn, and Giant Spawn left.




Thanks all!