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Your kitbashing skills are spectacular, these are a real treat to look through, excellent work chief.

Weird, in the best way imaginable!
Great stuff!

Inspired kitbashing! A joy to see.
You manage to get that Blanchian eeriness to your models, great work!

These are some really awesome models. Fantastic conversions and kitbashes.

Thanks so much!

I've been having trouble making myself finish my dropship and knight and ended up starting a group of abhuman death cultists. It's always way too tempting to start kit bashing new models instead of finishing things. Anyway, I should have WIP pics of either the dropship or abhumans soon; whichever I manage to get presentable first!

I'm looking forward to the Abhumans.

Have you seen the new Imperial Guard Astra Militarum codex? It's got a heavily-armored Ogryn variant called the "Bullgryn" which might be inspirational.

PS: I've revised my homebrewed Penitent Abhumans (and other Frateris) here -- the Abhumans themselves aren't much different except for bringing them in line with the new Guard codex.

Finally, an update! Instead of finishing things I ended up starting something new, and put together a batch of abhuman death cultists. I’ve been wanting to build these since I first got my hands on the Sanguinary Guard death masks a while ago.

The idea is that this motley group of abhumans have been indoctrinated into a murder cult that teaches that any mutation is a sign of sin, and the best means of atoning for the sin is through holy murder in the name of the god emperor. When initiated into the cult members don perfect golden masks fashioned in the likeness of the emperor himself (humanity perfected or so the cult teaches). Their fanatical devotion and abnormal physiology make them sought after mercenaries, and this coven is fiercely loyal to Navigator household ******** because they consider Navigators to be truly blessed because they alone can truly see the astronomicon, and so gaze into the soul of the emperor himself.

These were inspired by a number of awesome death cultist and flagellant conversions making the rounds lately, including IzeColt’s arco eviscerators, Bad Buddha’s flagellants, and Fulgrim’s devolved Navigatorii. And another key reference was the old Rogue Trader Imperial Beastman model with the chainsword and breastplate who had a sense nobility that contrasted with his bestial form.

They're still WIP as you can see. I finally got some color shapers, and they are as amazing as everyone says! Instead of dreading it now I can’t wait mix up another batch of putty, and plan to add a lot more sculpting to these guys soon.

Can we get some close up shots?

The fluff alone blows my mind -- I love the masks, both as an idea and as you've implemented them on the models.

So where are the mask bits from?

And what rules do you plan to use for these guys on the table top? My homebrew Penitent Abhumans wouldn't fit, I think, but I'm not sure how your army would get access to Death Cult Assassins -- well, allying in an Inquisitor and fluffing him or her as something else...

I'll post some detail photos tonight.

I don't really play but rules-wise the idea is that the entire army is counts-as grey knights/inquisition, so the abhumans would play as death cult assassins.

The masks are all sanguinary guard masks except for the one on mr big arms (his abhuman breed are known as "grabbermen") who has a mask made from a death company face spliced onto a masked empire flagellant head.

Ok, here are some new detailed photos taken with a better camera.

note: these are looking pretty weirdly garbled and compressed but look good if you click on them for full size versions.

Creepy!!

What kind of a paint scheme are you thinking of?

They look really unsettling. Which is perfect given their fanatical, mutated nature. I like how you kept the variety of mutations on each of them inconsistent. It gives each one a unique flavor and character.

Not sure about color schemes. Probably tarnished gold masks and ornaments to tie in with the rest of the group.

Then one idea is doing various inhuman yet believable skin colors (grey, sallow yellow, pink, rusty orange, etc) tied together with pretty monochrome clothing (dark grey or black for the ninja look?).

Or maybe it would be creepier to give them very realistic human skin, and drive home the idea that they aren't aliens but mutants. I would give them all red clothing but don't have many pure reds in the rest of the army, tilting toward orange, brown or magenta instead, so I'm really not sure.

Love these guys. The fluff behind them is great, and as always the modeling is superb. Can't wait to see what you do with them next!

Wow, this is some great modelling, those hard suits are brilliant, I love me a good conversion. Now following.

These guys are almost too Grim-Dark. They remind me of John Blanche's art for 40k. Over-wrought to a grotesque degree but like the art of William Blake or Bosch the exaggerated qualities make them stand out. The models are really capturing that aesthetic of "Not meant for front line combat*. They lack the polished, sleek glory of space marines or storm troopers and they don't have the uniformity of the Imperial Guard. There's a derangement about them. With all their extraneous trappings and regalia though they look very much like emissaries of one of the more shadowed recesses of the Imperium.

I approve :3

That is serious kitbashing!

Thanks! I'm almost done adding finishing details to the abhumans and should have primed pictures soon, depending on the weather. Also got some new bits on the way that will hopefully lead to some crazier new members of the household.

More crazy = more awesome . We anticipate eagerly.

this is an amazing blog, wish I had seen it sooner! Your kit bashing and original concepts are about the best that I have ever seen. Keep up the amazing work!

Thanks so much!

Holy crap those cultists are amazing, love the Astartes too, background reminds me of a guy who I called the "Spacemarine Murderhobo" in a RT game I was running. Basically a guy who got seconded to a RT and kinda forgotten about and went native so to speak with the RT crew.

Wow, some kick ass conversions. cant wait to see them finished.

Thanks guys!

And now for something very different. I've finally gathered WIP photos of my scratch-built dropship. I haven't actually worked on it in a few weeks — I seem to work on it obsessively for a week every few months, and then get an idea for something new and work on that instead. This same pattern applies to everything I'm working on, which is why I haven't painted the abhumans, finished the hard-suited navigator elder or the dreadknight (or a half dozen more henchmen), and am instead currently in the middle of something new, weird and ambitious that I hope to share soon.

The household ******** is void-borne, plying the stars in a small fleet of richly appointed palace ships. These palace ships carry a variety of ferries, landing craft, and dropships of diverse origins. The Dropship Pentement / Merz / Lebbeus (name tbd) is a strange and ancient craft, the personal transport for the young and war-mad Nobilite cousins ***** and ******. A family heirloom of unknown original provenance, it has clearly been rebuilt and retro-fited countless times.

This ship was my first attempt at working with plastic card, and I started it maybe 2 years ago, before the dreadknight. I decided to try a somewhat unusual approach — instead of drawing up a plan or even crude sketch of what the ship would look like, I decided I wanted to build up the ship from collaged pieces, figuring out the design as I went. I have the most fun when I am working out what something is while making it, collaging from pieces and reacting to what's in front of me. So I started by making some random plastic forms and finding a bunch of objects in junk stores, my medicine cabinet and recycling bin, and on the street. Over many months of sporadic fiddling, I slowly pieced together the ship, at times completely changing the orientation or chopping big chunks off. This hasn't been the best way of working (somethings that should be in alignment are slightly off, I've spent way too much time on detail that's been covered up, etc) but it's a really fun and relaxing process that I hope results in forms that suggest things that I love, like the work of architect Lebbeus Woods, kitbashed movie spaceships of the 80s, or the layered aggregate architecture of old cities.

I have a lot of WIP photos I took as I was working to record particular configurations. I'm including them below in the spoiler tag because I'm not sure how interesting they are, but I always love to see other people's detailed WIP blogs so thought I'd include them.






And here is what the ship looks like today. I've finally decided on this position of the rocket nacelles, although they seem to be mounted on slightly different angles which I'll have to fix. It turns out an asymmetrical, collaged body makes symmetrical wings and engines very difficult! You can see the nacelles rotate to allow for VTOL, and could nicely represent when the flyer is in hover or zoom mode. I clearly have a lot more to add, more bulk on the wings, wing support struts, more weapons, a front assault ramp, rear doors, landing feet, more details, etc. One day long from now it should be a lot of fun to try to paint this thing!

Behold the power of TUUUUUBES

Oh, that's awesome. Quite possibly the most impressive thing I've seen in this thread so far, and that is saying a LOT. You really have captured the feel of the pre-CGI models used for special effects in movies like the original only three Star Wars movies.

Now this is some seriously awesome modelling here. Impressive build.

Very cool indeed.

And very much enjoyed the WIPs, it's always great to see the evolution of ideas...I'm a big fan of the last WIP version with the fins outside the nacelles partuicularly.

Thanks!

I've been learning how to use my clay shapers and get better with greenstuff, and have added another pass of detail to the abhumans. I think I'm pretty much done, barring an extra purity seal here and there. I also reworked the Navigator Elder a bit and gave him a tabard.



I also dusted off a psyker I put together ages ago and started building out his warp-resonating body harness.



And I realized I never posted this second crusader that I painted a while ago. He lost his weapon in a move and still needs a shield as well as some clean-up and basing. The idea here was that these two crusaders are father and son, proud members of a family that has been serving the household for generations.



I'm actually surprised they ended up so similar because the father was painted over a white undercoat and the son over a black one. I also messed up on the father and started with a winsor & newton teal wash which I thought would be fun, but proved to be a nightmare because it never truly sets and bleeds up through top coats. Still provided for an interesting texture on his robes.