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Well we are of course running our Geek Nation tour to AdeptiCon in 2014 and I needed to start a new army. This has been a challenge to myself since we started going to AdeptiCon and this year instead of creating a new 400 point Combat Patrol army I wanted to do a 1000 point (with an additional 250 point side bar) Zone Mortalis army.

To do this I started thinking about what I have in my closet (been trying to get those minis in my closet painted before I buy more... Very hard to do btw... the urge to by more is very hard to resist) and I came across my CSM collection. I generally stick to the Eastern Fringe armies (Lamenters, Eldar Iyanden, and of course Nids) but I have wanted to do an Astral Claw army for some time (plus it would accent last year's Slaaneshi army). I noticed that I have collected enough bits to do an army over the years and "poof" I had my inspiration. An Astral Claw army and no need to purchase anything further (well kind of).

First off I shipped my CSM to Iron Heart Artisans to do the basic building and beginning stages of painting for me. Yup I caved here but with them doing the grunt work I could finish the detail and make them mine.... I was worried about how I would feel about this (first time to really do this) but I was very excited to get the minis back and start painting. To my surprise I found it was a pleasure to paint the details and watch the minis come alive all the while with someone doing what I think is the most tedious part of the painting process (plus the ACs are nasty to do because the black and red bits on their armour change from mini to mini - "Thank you Iron Heart for all your work" was my mantra as I did my first squad)....

Anyway I wanted to make "Three shades of Huron" to go with the army. A slightly modified Huron painted as closely to the GW one as I could manage, A Daemon Prince Huron and of course a Chaos Spawn Huron... This is the start of that blog (BTW I will also talk about the other parts of the AC army...so you get a clear picture of what I intend to bring to AdeptiCon)

Here I go..

Here are the parts I am going to use with Normal Huron (NH).... Notice the Armorcast flame bit...



The build was fairly straight forward with only the placing of him on the chaos symbol and the Armorcast flame giving me any issues. Here is what he looked like pre-primed



Primed and first layer of red...



More red and first layer on the flame. BTW this is the first time I have tried painting fire in a big way and am very happy at how it went. For an excellent tutorial go visit http://hot-lead.org/advance/fire_prac.htm



Here he is with more red still and the fire almost finished



Here he is with the first Astral Claw squad (post detail added)... Note the power sword/dark sword on the left. This is also a new one on me. I wanted to hop away from my normal blue power weapons and try something different. For a tutorial on how I painted the dark blade go to: http://www.heresy-online.net/forums/showthread.php?t=6438 Not sure if it is heresy to mention another forum or not....



And finally a finished Huron and squad. Note that I clear coated them prior to doing the gold. I find that clear coat really ruins that nice gold finish and so I think I will do this with all my minis with gold on them from now on...



Here is a close up of him only... Notice the red. First time I used the two brush blending (or spit) method... Very happy with how he turned out. This was my match of the GW mini... Not exact but close. Man was that a crazy hard mini to paint. The chaos symbols on the armour are nuts! I have to disagree with Rick and Kyle that all the regular CSM should be like the Chosen minis. That would be an insane amount of work for the grunts....





Now for Horus Ascendant... Coming soon!

Hope you enjoyed so far...

Teras
Geek Nation Tours

That Amourcast flame looks really cool. Nicely painted too - can almost feel the heat!
Might have to get a couple but it looks metal which would topple my plastic minis - do they do a resin version?

Thanks bubber!

No I don't believe ArmorCast has a resin version... I really didn't have an issue with the weight though but my Huron was metal so I am not sure what would happen to a resin Huron...

It was a pleasure to paint the flame up... This was my real first try at fire... Glad you like it...

Teras
Geek Nation Tours

Now for Horus Ascendant.

I wanted to try to match Huron as close as possible.. The vision was to create a Huron after he has attained Daemonhood. I wanted him to retain similar features but of course to be a Monstrous Creature. Of course I had the old Daemon Prince mini in my closet and was very happy to see how well he matched Huron with no conversions necessary. I briefly considered switching the arms so that he would have the weapons on the same hands but that would be way too much work for what it was worth. Anyway this is what I started with...



I wanted to attack the backpack first. I hoped to reproduce the cage spikes on NH's... Here are the options



I chose the lower right one





And the spiky bits attached



Next I had to do the axe. This picture shows Normal Huron's axe and the bits I will use to make it...



Here is the end result. If you look closely you will see that I accidentally put the wrong chaos spikes on the wrong side of the axe and thus the skull is upside down... Grrrr.... I decided to not risk removing them and instead cut off the skull icons.



Huron Ascendant build complete...



And here is a comparison photo....



Here is Hamadrya - all grown up... attached to the base as it is on NH's base



And here he is primed and a bit of paint on him... Notice the leg wet brush blending....



This is him finished with Hamadrya also all grown up and painted.... I want the Hamadrya to look similar to the small one on normal Huron but while painting I was kind of grossed out by the colour choices... After finished however it looks like something straight out of the warp. Wrong colours and not really from this reality.









Now to start "Huron Cursed"......

Now to start "Huron Cursed"......

So now is the time to start the biggest conversion work of the project. I really want to build something the graphically shows what happens when you mess with Chaos… Sure sure like every other junkie Huron says “but I can handle it”… However this is what happens most of the time… You end up warped and screaming “Please kill me……….”
Anyway this is what I started with….



I have no idea where those legs came from.. Don’t even know if they are GW minis or not….If anyone recoginizes them please let me know…







First I had to bend the main body around to make it face forward… So I split it in half and turned the front of the mini so it faced backward.





Then I wanted to make sure that the faces of the Chaos Spawn bulged out a bit so that one could see them a bit better. Note that I have both Huron mutated and the Hamadrya forced into the same body by the fickle gods of Chaos….That right! Not only cursed but now you really are part of a daemon… Oh and the Hamadrya is doomed too….





Here they are joined with some green stuff and several of the legs put on….









After some work I’ve gotten the mini to where I want it…







Here are some badly focused close up shots….









The “holes” I made in the green stuff here are where I hoped to connect the guitar string to give a sense of how the power armor was also warped into the body of the Chaos spawn



More holes….





With cabling…







And finally with a coat of Khorne Red on it washed with Druchii Violet



More soon….

Awesome work!!

That Spawn is beautiful! Reminiscent of The Thing. I often though about how cool it would be to do something similar but for a whole Chaos Daemons army of horrible, mutated Chaos Spawn. maybe one day...

Here is the back after a dry brush of a 50/50 mix of Blood Red and Ushabti Bone… Further you can see the base of pure Blood Red added to only the boils….Then I added Golden Yellow and Bone White heads to all the boils….





The more boils the better





I wanted the Hamadrya to have its skin warped into the body of the Chaos Spawn but also for us to know that it was a separate Identity









I added the bone and the white to the eyes and then did my best to paint the eye… I was going to make it red but changed my mind to blue to make it look like it was the most human aspect of a warped Huron left.



Then I added the Nurgle’s Rot paint to the belly section and coming out of the mouths…





I then tried to add some Nihilakh Oxide to the gold areas but I didn’t like the look so I covered it up with more Nurgle’s Rot…If you haven’t tried that paint you really should give it a go…





Here are 4 shots of the finished Huron Cursed mini…









Now just waiting for some gloss paint to cover the eye and I am done.

Please let me know what you think! I would love to hear your feedback… I hope return with some pictures of my progress with main body of my Astral Claws….

Teras I. Cassidy
Geek Nation Tours

Got my Gloss Finish and applied to the eye... Here is what it looks like now

They all look really good! The boils on Huron the Cursed are so lifelike (and repulsive). It's really good work, I look forward to seeing some more of your models when they're completed.

Good work , nice to see people make their own models for mutation.

Thanks guys! At one point I thought I had bitten off more than I could chew but it was a fun project. I will post more pics after Adepticon!

Teras
Geek Nation Tours

Teras you sly dog, I didn't realize you were such a good hobbyist! Flames and base on huron look great, and the GS on the nurgly thingie also very nice.

You need to attend my color theory class at adepticon though, you are ready for a next step I think!