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The Crimson Minotaurs

Blog Background

I have been very slowly working on my own chapter for about 6 months now. I have created a complete back story and set of unique characters along the way. I have also been converting, kit bashing and incorporating bits from alternative parts companies to give them their own character and personalities aside from the established chapters. Bashing parts together to make new, unique looking characters has become a bit of a hobby within a hobby for me, especially with it being so easy to get hold of individual parts from ebay now.

I have been recording my progress over on my blog for the last 2 or 3 months. I have come here to expose myself to a new audience for some more feedback and perhaps to provide some inspiration myself! Right now I am going through a lot of the earlier models and touching them up and taking better photos of them. I'll be posting up these photos as I work through them as well as earlier WIP shots too. It should not take too long for this thread to catch up with my blog and then I'll be uploading WIP and completed shots to both places. Feel free to take a look at Grim Dark if you want to get an impression of some of the other work I have done before they end up here.

Custom Chapter with Alternative Parts

I was very close to collecting a straight up minotaur force. They have wonderfully dark and mysterious background as well as having some particularly iconic looking...iconography. One look at the Asterion Moloc model from Forgeworld and I was all ready to get started. However I took a step back and realised I wanted the creative space to design my own characters and setting as well as have the freedom to get a bit experimental. So I detached myself from the official chapter but kept the iconography, merging it with my own colour scheme. To set them aside further, I utilised the bull head shoulder pads from Puppetswar which I found to be just excellent in design. I did a comparison over here when I first started building them. With that set the Crimson MInotaurs were born.









I have just uploaded a pile of photos of one of my tactical squads and rhinos. You can find several more images in this blog post.





It's only with the recent chaos release that realised my colour scheme is actually uncomfortably close to the Crimson Slaughter. Still I very happy with the general theme. I am not an exceptional painted by any means. This army was my first real attempt at any kind of highlighting. I wish I could devote more time to making them tidier and with more details. Unfortunately I think I lack the dexterity and patience to really paint exceptionally. Still, we will see if I improve over time! I also do suffer from quite consistent tennis elbow from playing squash making gripping a brush for extended periods of time an issue. Critique is absolutely welcome!

Love that Spartan looking helmet! Absolutely love it! o.o

Yeah they are great sculpts. I'm using them to designate veterans.

I have been touching up on some of my first Crimson Minotaur models which was my Vanguard Veteran Squad, Chapter Master and Chaplain. The veterans use the Puppetswar parts I described in the first post. I love these guys, the greek/spartan look works so well on a space marine imo. I only actually painted the thunder hammers yesterday, until then I had just kept them straight black. This was my first real attempt at any wet blending and lighting so it's a little rough. The lightning claws on the chapter master are a bit messy too but taken altogether they look quite strong now.

My chaplain and master are both kit bashed/conversions that use parts from all over the place. My chaplain has the body of a Forgeworld Night Lords night raptor and the chapter master has the body of an Emperors Children palatine blade. They also have parts from more standard Games Workshop kits like the veteran set and assault marine set. I'll do some more photos of those individual characters later too. I have a section of my blog that I am working on to devote completely to the back story of these characters so I want to take lots more photos for that in particular.

I have some more photos from this set over on my blog: http://grimdarkrealms.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/crimson-minotaur-elite-warhammer-40k.html

My latest character is a 1st Company Veteran who will probably be leading a veteran squad. I am magnetising his jump pack and arms for maximum flexibility as I will probably use this chap for many different roles on the battlefield. That's not decided yet, for not I just want to get as much character into him as possible. I am using some Forgeworld bits here, the jump pack is MKII I believe and the chest piece is from the Red Scorpion Honour Guard set.

These are looking great. The sculpts really set them apart from vanilla marines. And the bronze looks sweet.

This is a great army. I really like the vanguard vets.

I think that the rhino needs some more conversion work (assuming you have done any), because it looks a bit plain the way it is.

 YourIntestines wrote:
I think that the rhino needs some more conversion work (assuming you have done any), because it looks a bit plain the way it is.

I have not really done any conversion work on vehicles before, any suggestions on the rhino? I chose to experiment with masking on my rhinos so I didn't really do much else with them.

Possibly some freehand or pre-made rhino doors. Anything to break up the flat colours - mainly on the top hatch.

You could add one of your shields to the turret hatch at the front.