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Hi all!

Long time lurker here, finally decided to have a (proper) go at an actual thread. I started a few threads years ago when I was a load less involved in 40k, but after 3 years of Uni in Nottingham, and going to Warhammer World at least once a week, you could say that I'm a bit more competent with the whole thing. So I'm counting this as my first actual thread...

Right. So. Loads of people are doing Custodes, and due to the new releases, I've decided to join that comfy looking bandwagon and start my own army of Custodes and Imperial Militia/Guard (depends on if I'm playing 30k or 40k). Right now I've basically just started and only finished 2 of the Custodes for the (admittedly small) Custodes side of the army. The aesthetic I'm going for is a darker gold, trying to make the armour look truly ancient, as I believe it should. This, along with the Webway-esque bases is supposed to make it appears as if they exist during the War Within the Webway (you have ADB and his Master of Mankind book to thank for this). So to stop myself from rambling for too long, here is the first few finished Custodes. I enjoy the idea that each Custode is basically a completely unique Character, so I plan to at least partially convert each one and write some (kinda bad) fluff for each. Do note, however, that these first few guys are just basic Custodes, not actual characters. The only discrepancy between these guys and basic Custodes in the planned list is that these guys *technically* have Adrasite spears (I know FW have/are going to release an actual kit for them soonish, but I've already built the first few guys, and I'm not really going for full WYSIWYG, as can be clearly seen with the second Custode, who rules-wise has an Adrasite spear, but model-wise clearly has a form of axe, so yeah...)

Custode 1 - Tribune-Hasatari-Castorum Adolfus Devante Ahisamach, The Wolf’s Tooth



In his time as Custodian to the Emperor, Ahisamach has earned many names. The one he is most fond of was earned during the Ullanor Crusade, where he fought alongside the then Luna Wolves. During the celebrations at the end of the crusade, he was gifted a white wolf pelt from Horus for his feats on the the battlefield that impressed even the Primarch, and he would wear this pelt with great honour in the years following.
Ahisamach fell during the War Within the Webway to the Sons of Horus, those he had once called friends. The white pelt made red with their blood as he took many of them down with him.

Custode 2 - Gloriarbiter-Securis Aloeius Ysbadden



Famed amongst even the Custodes for his fears of pure strength, Ydbadden towers over all men, reaching nearly the heights of the blessed Primarchs themselves. So large is Ysbadden, his armour is that of an Allarus Custodian’s, heavily modified just to fit his frame. With his mighty castellan axe, Secouri, Cleaver of Fates, he has laid low many a terrible warrior that wished to defile the hallowed Emperor.

This guy is really quite massive thanks to the Slaughterpriest legs (standing at 45mm v. ~40mm of a normal Custode)



Custode 3 -WIP



This guy is next on the table, and still needs a fair amount of work (cape and additional greebles). Any thoughts on him for both looks or fluff would be greatly appreciated.

So there you have it. The 'first' thread of mine (ignoring the ones from 2011/2012, when I was nowhere near as competent in 40k as I am now). Please feel free to leave your comments and criticism as I am always learning and would really like this army to turn out as best as possible. You should expect this project to be a real slow burner, however, as I'm a slow painter at the best of times.

Thanks!

More WIP pics of the third Custode. This guy's cape was a right pain in the posterior. It took way too long to get it to work (and wasn't helped by a sore thumb), but I eventually got the basic shape done yesterday, and finished it up today with the over the shoulder part. There's still more to do on him (such as clean up the ammo drum, and add a few bits of rope with tassels), but he's on his way and I'm pretty pleased with how the cloak has turned out.

Front view, showing the over the shoulder part, with a small broach (made from the skull from the bottom of a sword) to 'keep it attached'



Rear view. Here you can see the fabric creases, which, whilst in no way perfect, are a fair bit better than most of my other attempts to do fabric, so I'm happy with how it's coming along.



Please feel free to give C&C, and any help on making capes easier (but still with GS to keep everything in line) would be super useful.

Thanks!

I'm currently a bit stuck with the third Custode, as I feel he isn't finished, but for the life of me I cannot figure out what else to do. I believe I want to add some rope and tassels, like those on the first and second Custode (might not be totally visible in the images above, but they're there. You just have to believe me, ok?), but there's no real place to put them. Any ideas for completion, or if I should just leave him as is, would be greatly appreciated.

However, to stop myself from stalling this project thanks to a minor issue with the third mini (which has happened too many time before), I've gone ahead an started on the fourth. This fella is also WIP, but mostly just needs a bit of (obvious) gap filling. I'm probably going to leave this guy basically as he is, as whilst the conversion is very minimal, I like how it has turned out. I might add a few smaller bits if I find them/they work, but unless anyone has any major suggestions, he'll probably not change much.

Custode 4 - WIP



Again, and comments or criticism on any of my guys would be super useful and help make them the best possible.

Thanks!

The fourth Custode has now been finished, but the GS still has to dry before he can be painted. I added a few greeblies and some lenses to the falconry hood to make it look like the bird has gotten a little too close to a member of the Mechanicum, which to me makes it fit a load better into the 40k universe. The hood will be painted up to look like a metal case around the head, with the wee ties at the back made to look like some wires going into the back of the bird (the bird is probably supposed to be a falcon, but to fit with the Custode theme, it'll be painted up as some sort of eagle).

I'm still a bit stuck with the third Custode as I feel there’s something missing, but I don’t know what. However, at this point I might just say to the Warp with it and paint him up anyway as he stands. I also have bases for these two guys to do, but that's not terribly hard.

Custode 4 WIP



Close up of Bird



Other side of Bird



I'm fairly pleased with how it has come out, but I think the large left side lens might be a touch too big. However it was a right bollocks to get to where it is now, so I doubt I'll readily change it. Any C&C welcome as always.

Thanks!

Your conversions are clean and your painting is excellent. The detail with shading and highlights on faces is impressive. Very well done work, glad I checked it out.

Thanks loads Skalk! The faces might look a bit different in real life as I'm using a pretty cheap lightbox for most of my finished photos, which just has a row of LEDs at the top to light everything. Not perfect, but good enough for me.

So its been a wee while since I've shown anything here. Not because of any outside reasons, just because I'm one hell of a slow painter. So, to keep this thread alive, here is part of the fourth Custode that I've finished, his wee bird friend!
For this army I plan to mostly try to keep the speed up in terms of painting (which for me is reaaalllly slow). However, I also don't want to get burnt out on just doing the same simple thing over and over again. I also tend to enjoy painting things with a bit more detail, and in my opinion it's always a good idea to paint certain focus points in a bit more detail. I like to think of is as how you see people speed paint on computer software, where the majority of the body, and especially the legs, tend to basically just be scribbles, but the head or any other point of interest is slightly more detailed.
This draws the focus, and means if anyone looks at my army, specifically the less usual parts, they'll see higher quality art than what the actual army is like, and as such the army seems better painted overall. This is normally the faces, as humans are naturally drawn to faces thanks to evolution and all that, but other points of interest tend to be those that are particularly odd (I can't really describe why a certain area is a point of interest, it just is).
In the case of this Custode, the bird is a fairly obvious point of interest, and as such I decided to have a go at making it a bit better than just basecoat > wash > highlight (also I sometimes like just painting something to a higher quality to change things up a bit. I dunno if I've said that already, but I'm not really going to read back through all the nonsense I've just written to check ). The main inspiration was Golden Eagles, simply because they seemed fitting for an army of guys who serve a being that really likes skulls and eagles, but the model is that of a falcon (or something like a falcon at least), so it's not entirely perfect.

I don't have much more to show on this guy yet as all I'v really done is the armour and leather (and that wee tasselly thing), so I still need to finish his cloak and weapon. And head. And base. And probably something else I'm forgetting right now.

Anyway, here's the WIP of the current guy

Front of robo-bird


Back of ro-bird-toe the robot bird


(also, sorry for the kinda shittilly lit photos, but it's just a WIP pic. There'll be more better photos when its actually done)

So that's it for today. Please, continue to give and comments or criticisms as they are always welcome and helpful (unless they aren't)

Thanks!

Very cool! All painted up the lenses look appropriate and functional.

Some lovely conversions and painting here, great work!

Thanks Wolf_in_Human_Shape and Apollinaire! Always nice to get positive feedback.

So rather than work on the actual Custode like a normal person, I decided to do up his base (I like to do bases separately because I have less 'bad habits' and more 'bad everything').To keep it tied in with the War within the Webway, I've added a wee spare Mk III Space Marine helmet from one of the Legions that fought there, in this case a World Eater. I may add more helmets to other bases in the future (or maybe even full dead guys on some of the larger bases (looking at you jetbikes when I finally get to you in the year 2099)), with a few different schemes from different Legions that fought there (Sons of Horus, World Eaters, Emperor's Children, and Word Bearers), and I may add some more daemon-y stuff if I can find any in my assorted bitz boxes.
Back to the base, I enjoyed painting this up, as I really like trying different schemes, which the World Eater allowed for, with a mildly off-white look. I also applied more effort to that helmet than I have to the armour of my actual Custodes (4 layers and 3 washes v. 2 layers and 1 wash).
"But didn't you just say that you should really only spend time painting up things that will be points of interest, and not just a random helmet on the ground? Especially since this is supposed to an army you're painting faster than normal?"
Well why don't you shut up me.

Anyway, here is the base now ready for the Custode to stand vigilant on with his little bird friend



Again, please feel free to tell me what I'm doing wrong (ie everything), or any suggestions to make it less wrong.

Thanks!

No love for the base? Well how about if there was something on it! Yes, that's right. I've finished the fourth (technically third) Custode! I truly am just speeding through these guys.

So here he is (with a wee bit of fluff)

Magister-Nuncio-Onithos Vireiis Corveydettum



Vireiis is an accomplished philosopher amongst the Custode’s ranks, having learnt many things from the books of the Old Earth. Amongst the books studied was one on the ancient art of Falcorii, the altering of feathered beasts to work as the eyes and ears of their masters. Vireiis keeps a large collection of personal creations that he has spent many hours carefully crafting.

And a few more angles for you lovely people

Left side


Right side


And his back


I didn't really do anything fancy with his cloak, mainly to try to actually get him done (I was having a bit of a painter's block on the cloak. No reason for it, I just was).

I feel I need a better lighting setup, as the colours never really come out correct with the kinda gakky lightbox I'm using at the moment. It might also have something to do with the camera (iPhone 6 camera), so I'll see if I can borrow a few fancier ones and see if they work better. They might also give a higher quality picture so you can actually see what's going on (although I'm not sure I'd want that). It might also just be compression from me sending from one device to another, or from dakka itself. I'll have a wee play around with everything to see if I can fix it.

But anyhow, I'm now 3 Custodes in (out of 5 for this squad, and 12-ish for the entire Custode half of the army). I'm probably going to start the guy I've been putting off for a while before I build another one, so please feel free to go back and look at him and tell me how to improve upon him.

Thanks!

Hey all,

Not many updates recently thanks to Uni taking up all my time, but I thought I'd better try to keep this thread alive rather than just having it die on me, so here's a pic of the most recent work I've done, which I did longer ago than I'd like to think (you may note a wee bit of dust on the model. Just ignore that...).

Custode 3 WIP


I'm not sure how I feel about the armour on this guy and the last 2 if I'm perfectly honest. The very first Custode ended up with the dark-old gold I really wanted, but each subsequent mini has had fairly significantly different colour. The two recently finished guys are a lot lighter than I'd like, which I'm putting down to too heavy of a drybrush with the lighter gold, Auric Armour Gold. The armour on the guy above is different yet again, and I believe the reason is that I was actually able to drybrush the model with the Auric Armour gold. Every other time I've used the gold, it was incredibly thin, making it hard to get an actual drybrush with it without it looking like nothing is actually coming off the brush. This ended up making me go too far with the drybrush and making Custode 2 and 4 too light. For Custode 3, I somehow got some gloopier paint on my brush, meaning I was actually able to properly drybrush (after wiping off most of the paint obviously), but that then resulted in really strong highlights, which is different to the subtle highlights of Custode 1.
All in all I' just finding the drybrushing a bit of a pain in the rear end. For now I'm going to explain it away by saying that each armour has its own individual history, meaning they look very different now. For future armour I'll try to get back to what I had originally, which I was most pleased with.

Either way, I hope you like what you see here. Any comments or criticisms are welcomed with open arms, as you can never stop learning.

Thanks!

Hey guys!

So the next Custode is now finished, bringing the squad up to 4 out of the final planned 5 for these guys. He took quite a while thanks to Uni work, but that's basically out of the way now, and I was able to sneak him in amongst it.

I'm quite pleased with how the conversion work came out o this guy, but I know can do better. This is just a good stepping stone on to something actually good, and a great practice piece for realistic cloth (you really don't want to see the dogs frak I made of the second Custode's cloak ). I'm also quite happy with how the base turned out, as I've been having difficulty trying to keep the Webway aesthetic with the minimal amount of Eldar/Elf bits I have. So overall quite chuffed, and ready to move on to the next guy.

Immunes-Mortia Golgotha Veritus Satius



A warrior of few words, Satius rarely joins his brothers in conversations on philosophy and the arts, preferring to simply listen to what others have to say. Thanks to this, he rarely leads others into battle, but has been known to work particularly well with the Sisters of the Anathema Psykana.

Left side


Right side


Back


I still need to figure out a better setup for my photos beyond just a phone, but the ease of use makes it quite tempting to just stick with what I have.

So with this guy down, I have one more to do before I go over to the more exciting side of the army, the Imperial Militia. I'm kinda waiting to see if anything more comes out for the Custodes in the next wee while before I continue on with them. I already missed out on getting the actual Adasite Spears for them as I started building them a few weeks before the spears were up for sale (doesn't help that I forgot they were coming out ), so I'm going to give it a bit on the off chance that some of the other stuff I want comes out for them (for example, I prefer the plastic GW Allarus Custodians over the Aquilon Terminators, but I want to arm them with Firepikes, so I either have to find a bits place that sells them, or hope that FW will maybe make an upgrade kit for the Allarus at some point in the distant future). Hopefully you guys will enjoy what I have planned for the Militia however, as I know I'm excited!

Please feel free to give any C&C, as there is no useless help.

Thanks!

These are great Custodes, much more character and individuality than maybe any I've seen. Excited for whatever you've got coming up

- Salvage

@Salvage, thanks! That's exactly what I'm going for for these guys. I love the idea that each Custodian is their own fully fledged hero with a history of mighty feats left behind that are worth countless poems and sagas each.

So I have the 5th and last Custode in the super preliminary stages of work, with only the basic conversion work done, but no GS yet. There is still a fair amount of work to be done to him, as I want to give him the skirt(?) thing you see on the Custode Wardens (mostly to hide the conversion of the leg). I also plan to add a fair few more tassels and things on this guy for no other reason than I feel like it. The base he's currently sitting on isn't going to be his final base, just a spare I had lying around to get the feet in the right position. His head also needs a fair bit of work done to get it into scale with the other Custodes (it's just a Marine head from the Mk III kit. I need to thicken up the neck a bit and I was thinking of altering the hair in some way. Maybe a short floppy mohawk, sort of in between the 1st Custode and the one with the bird). But other than that, it's nice to get back into the Custodes as I have a bit of time off Uni.

Custode 5 WIP


A bit of sad-but-good news, upon completion of this Custode I won't be carrying on to the Militia. However, before you get all annoyed as I said I'd be getting on to them, this is because I was able to get some Vertus Praetors on the cheap (I say cheap, bu they were just £10 cheaper, so not a massive bargain, but enough to not pass it up)! So they'll be up next, with conversion to fit them in better with the planned 30k loadout for them, 2 Adrathic Devastators and a Twin-Linked Corve Las-Pulser. I'm probably going to use a few spare lascannon pieces I have lying around for the Las-Pulser, but I'm not quite sure what to use for the Adrathic Devastators, so any ideas would be of great help!

Anyhoo, please feel free to butcher my conversion work and tell me strigh just how bad it looks and what you'd do to salvage it.

Thanks!

Progress continues on the 5th Custodian! I've gotten a fair bit underway with his GS-ing, but there is still a bit to do. I wanted to fancy this guy up in a bit of a different way to the rest of the guys so far, who all basically just have capes and that's about it. So, to get the alternate fancy-ness, I browsed the interwebs for assorted Custodian images, and came across a few bit of inspiration I really like. To start with, he has some weird cloth things on his shoulders (well, one cloth thing and one tassel-y thing). He's also getting a Custodian Warden-esque skirt that is currently still WIP, as I need to let the back dry so I can actually sculpt something there without it just collapsing in on itself every time I apply the smallest amount of pressure. When that's all done, and the top and bottom are glued together (currently the body is just sort of resting on the legs. Not exactly secure, but it allows me to actually get to the leg areas to sculpt stuff) I'm planning on adding a couple of streamer things to the chest (sort of how the 30k Ahriman from the BoP set has them), and I still need to sort out an actual base for this dude. Also, I've done the head too.

Custode 5 WIP 'Golden Angle'


Front


Back (? It's kinda the side but also the back. Good thing facings aren't a thing for infantry models )


Again, apologies for the rather potato level quality of the pictures. I'll get better ones some day...

I'm quite pleased with how this guy is turning out, and the whole process of these guys is really teaching me a lot about how to sculpt cloth, which is great!
Hopefully I'll have him fully made and painted before the month is done (and my studies start up again).

Please feel free to leave any comments or criticisms. The ones people have been leaving already are an absolutely great motivator for this project.

As always, thanks for looking!

Hey all!

I've finally finished the last member of the first squad! I'm really happy how hes turned out, and I feel I've already learnt a fair bit over the course of making this squad which I can hopefully carry over to the next models in the army.
So here he is in all his painted glory

Peunator-Luvenis Abinav Fridusius


A recent addition to the ranks of the Ten Thousand, Fridusius is quite hot headed for a Custodian. Preferring to show his mastery with the Guardian Spear than join his brothers in discussions of philosophy and art, Fridusius is often found at the front lines in combat. His superiors had reckoned that this fire would eventually die down, but Fridusius still fights with the same passion and zeal from his initial inception.

'Side' view


Other 'side' view


Rear view


There are plans for a group photo, but I'm currently trying to tackle with the DSLR to actually take it, so that may only be up tomorrow, alongside some higher quality photos of each guy if people are interested.
Now that this squad is done, I'm going to start on the Vertus Praetors, who I'm going to run as an Agamatus Jetbike Squadron in 30k, mainly because I prefer the models (and they're a helluva lot cheaper ). They probably won't be as heavily converted, but I have a few plans to make their bases interesting, and am aiming to try to make them all without flying stands. After that, I really want to get into making a few of the Imperial Militia guys, maybe starting with the HQ choices before anything else just to have a bit of a change (unless I happen across any of the Custode stuff for cheap elsewhere ).

Anyway, thanks for looking at my stuff, please feel free to give any C&C as it's really useful.

Thanks!

I really enjoy the little bits and pieces of fluff that you make for each individual Custode. Just really nicely done.

The gold is amazing, so much better than GWs chosen shade. Adds so much depth and interest to the models.

@War Kitten, thanks loads! I'm sort of using this project to basically try to fill in all the gaps I have in my abilities when it comes to the hobby. I like to think I'm a fairly competent painter and converter, but I can usually take weeks on a single model. This army is sort of my go at 'fast' (for me anyway), as well as allowing me to increase my sculpting skills. But alongside that, it gives me a chance to have a go at writing little bits of fluff, as I'm not really that good when it comes to creative writing in general, so this project allows me to practice that. It's great to get positive feedback on it!

@TheEldanariPrince, thanks also! It's actually quite a simple process that I came up with for speed more so than anything else, but I really wanted to get a dark and old looking gold rather than the shiny new stuff you see in most other Custode armies. My thinking behind this is that in 40k (which these guys will be used in alongside 30k), the Custode's armour is at least 10,000 years old, which even for something well kept is really damn old. I wanted to make the armour look like it has existed for every one of those 10,000 years (and I'm also a fan of darker colours in general, alongside a lot of Inq28 and Blanche stuff). The actual process, if you're curious, is simply a heavy drybrush of Gehenna's Gold over a black undercoat, a fairly heavy wash of Agrax Earthshade, and finally a light drybrush of Auric Armour Gold (I'm still trying to figure out just how light a drybrush I want, but I feel I'm getting closer to the desired effect with each new model)

I finally got round to taking the pictures with the DSLR earlier today, and ran them through Photoshop to get them looking pretty (hopefully they look like they actually do irl, but it's near impossible to really get the exact colours). I'm not really an expert on how to use Dakka, so I don't really know how to get you guys the highest res images possible (I believe the Dakka Gallery compresses photos, so the ones you see here are probably not as high res as the actual photos are, sorry )

The full squad, ready to put down some heretics


Immunes-Mortia Golgotha Veritus Satius


Tribune-Hasatari-Castorum Adolfus Devante Ahisamach, The Wolf’s Tooth


Gloriarbiter-Securis Aloeius Ysbadden


Magister-Nuncio-Onithos Vireiis Corveydettum


Peunator-Luvenis Abinav Fridusius


Hopefully you guys enjoy these models. I'm really happy with how the entire squad turned out, and am excited to start the Jetbike dudes next. As always, please feel free to give any C&C you want

Thanks!

You should be happy with how this lot came out, as they look really, really good!

I'm nowhere near as good of a painter/kitbasher as you are. Matter of fact there are days where I feel I can barely put together a tactical marine!

Now I want to buy some Custodes. Dang it.

@War Kitten, thanks again, and without trying to sound vain, I'm quite pleased with how they turned out too. As for your own skills, there's only really one way to improve and that's to practice! You really don't want to see some of my early GS attempts, less still some of my first models. They're kept hidden in boxes that are themselves hidden under more boxes. But how good you are now shouldn't stop you for aiming high, and you'll eventually reach where you want to go. I'm still on that road myself, but with every step I get closer to where I want to reach. Also, if you want to get some Custodes, remember that you don't actually have to start an army with every miniature you buy! You can easily just buy Captain-General Trajann Valoris and have fun making him and painting him up to then have just sit on a mantelpiece as a wee sculpture. I have a few of my own non-army models that I really enjoyed painting up, and it allowed me to try different colour schemes and such. At the end of the day the aim of the hobby is to have fun, and how you get the fun out of it is entirely up to you.

So it's finally time to move on from the Custodes squad, and what better way to do that than with the Vertus Praetors (or as I'll be calling them from now on, the Jetbike Custodes, because I don't need to stick to the trademarking stuff GW seems to love using recently). These guys are going to be run primarily in 30k as counts-as Legio Custodes Agamatus Jetbike Squadron, equipped with 2 Adrathic Devastators and a Twin-Linked Corve Las-Pulser. I'm still a bit stuck for ideas on how to represent the Adrathic Devastators as there's nothing they're really like in 30k/40k that I could easily convert, so I started with the Twin-Linked Corve Las-Pulser, which is essentially a type of lascannon. To this end, I've nicked the nose off a couple of lascannons that I had sitting around (I planned to replace the ends with some of the Chaos vehicle equipment daemon head-things anyway, so no loss there) and sort of jammed them in the place where the bolters/missiles would sit. The first guy is still in the early stages of conversion ad needs all the GS work to be done yet, as well as actually getting a base.

Jetbike Custode 1 WIP 45 degree 'Golden Angle'


Apologies for the sight of my ungainly hand, but as previously mentioned the Custode has yet to receive his base and cannot currently stand up on his own.

Jetbike Custode 1 WIP Front


This front view better shows the angle of the jetbike. The aim is to get it to look like he's doing a bit of a turn rather than going straight ahead. From this angle you can also see the pillar that I'm using as the flying stand for this guy. The plan for the squad it to have no obvious flying stands, and I'm looking forward to some of the ideas I have around that...

Jetbike Custode 1 WIP Rear


Here you can more easily see the pillar I'm using and even the small bit of wire connecting the jetbike to it. It's currently not glued (just surprisingly well balanced), so when I'm finished you shouldn't be able to see it at all.

As I said at the start, he's currently a WIP as he still needs GS-ing, especially where I changed out the weapons and in all the gaps in the model.

Unfortunately with these models, when they arrived at my ouse in the post, my young pup got to them before I did and chewed her way through the box. Fortunately the sprues themselves weren't too damaged and I am able to make the models without too much additional work, but unfortunately there are a couple of small bits missing, primarily the right-hand rear tail fins for 2 of the jetbikes. For now I'm probably just going to leave both tail fins off util I can come up with some sort of solution (my current ideas are either to press mould the one right-hand tail fin I have, or try to find them on some bits site, but I've come up short on that second idea so far). If anyone has any ideas as to how I should get around it, please suggest them as it's a real shame the pieces got lost.

Anyway, expect a few more photos of this Jetbike Custode within the next few days when all the GS-ing has been done and he's ready to be painted. He's currently in 4 separate parts (Jetbike, Body, head, and base) for painting, but sits very nicely.

Thanks!

I quite like how that jetbike came out. He does look like he's going into a bit of a turn, or perhaps trying to get a better angle to impale someone with that lance of his...

@War Kitten, thanks! The exact angle of attack is still not set at the base and bike are still separate and being held together with basically friction alone, so between the previous WIP pics, these newer WIP pics, and the final piece, there may be a bit of variation.

As I've just mentioned in my reply to War Kitten, yes, there are indeed new WIP pics for the first of the Jetbike Custodes. I now have his base finished and all the GS done, so he's ready to be painted starting tomorrow. I initially wasn't too certain on how to do his base, but I went for a fairly simple thing that I think currently looks decent enough to pass. It's not going to win any awards on its own, nor be the centrepiece base, but it fulfils its job. Bar that, there's really not much more to say about this guy as most of the GS was just filling in gaps really. I still need to figure out how I'm doing the right tail fin, but I'm probably just going to procrastinate on that for now and wait until I can think of a decent solution/find somewhere to buy one. Anyway, here's the pics

Jetbike Custode 1 WIP


Jetbike Custode 1 WIP, other angle


Jetbike Custode 1 WIP, tertiary angle


This picture and the previous are really he best angles to show off the base. As I said, it's not really anything special, but it works for what it is.

Jetbike Custode 1 WIP, final angle


So there you have it, the last WIP pics of this guy. If you have any suggestions for him, now would probably be the best time to suggest them before he becomes fully painted.

Thanks!

These all look amazing. Wow

Some nice work here Solid conversions and lovely paint, bravo.

I don't really have any suggestions for him. He looks great right now

Wow! Super cool conversions and indeed the gold you paint looks really nice.

@McMagnus Mindbullets, monkeytroll, War Kitten, and Crimson_, thanks guys!

I haven't really done that much in the past few days, thanks to Uni starting up again and just my general laziness when it comes to everything, but I suppose that's why I added the 'slow burning' part onto the title. But rather than just respond to people, I always like having something to show for myself, so I've got the completed base for the first jetbike Custode. Nothing massively fancy, just a little thing that I'm relatively pleased with as it fits in with the rest of the bases without being too extreme (and I've been having trouble recently trying to come up with ideas for bases as I'm running out of 'Eldar' bits ).

Jetbike Custode 1 base


You can see at the top of the pillar the wee pin coming out that attaches to the jetbike itself. There's also a bit of verdigris on the copper sections that's a bit hard to see in the picture. The quality of the photo is a bit bad overall, so it might not show everything as exact as it should be. But it was taken just as a quick update rather than a proper photo of the model.

The actual Custode will be coming in a bit, but I've had a bit of inspiration that I think will make my guys look a bit more unique and cool (if it works ), so he'll still be a bit yet as I get round to actually implementing said inspiration.

Thanks!

Tremendous work with these Custodes! Nothing much to add other than kudos and keep it up. Looking forward to seeing your color choices on this jet bike

@genom.cor, thanks, I will, and you won't have to wait any longer because the Jetbike is done! (bar rider...)

It's been a while, but here's the Jetbike minus the rider. I kept it quite simple to fit in with the rest of the Custodes, but I feels some of the gold turned out really nicely so I'm happy with that (although I messed the back up a little and have become a bit to burnt out on this model to properly fix it. I did the best I could to save it, and I don't think it ruins the model, but it was kinda annoying that it happened at all ). The angle might seem a bit extreme, but that's mostly because it is. However, I think it should all work out once the rider is added, so don't worry. Also, I was a bit inspired, so the rider looks a wee bit different to the last time you saw him. But you'll have to wait until he's painted to see what I did . Anyways, here's the jetbike attached to the base.

Jetbike front


Jetbike back


There is quite a lot of silver/gunmetal on the model at the moment, but when the rider is added he should cover up the majority of it with his assorted colours, so it'll be fine (hopefully). Feel free to give C&C for this, and expect to wait a bit longer than usual for the rider thanks to a slight bit of burnout on my part mixed with Uni.

Thanks!