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.

@Reiko - Cheers mate, they are both acheivements that require a relatively small amount on my part and a fair amount of random luck so I am happy with both

@Anung un Rama - I know what you mean but the beauty of the P&M section is that it is filled with people who just like to read about and look at peoples work, whether your last post was a year ago or yesterday you will still have people commenting which is gratifying to say the least.

Just been perusing your thread and I have to say, your stuff if pretty inspirational to say the least! That Heldrake is frickin' awesome dude! Subscribed!

Hi people, pardon the long silence! No real excuse, just Real Life(tm)

I have been working on my Chaos Marine list slowly surely and now have 40 something zombies painted sans blood and gore and will be finishing the last of them in the next few weeks.

My main modelling focus has been getting prepared for our local tournament in early May and both mine and my friend's armies have evolved a lot over the last couple of months. I have gone from a termie heavy nurgle list to a mix of chaos marines and Plague marines backed up by a ton of Havoks to at one point a list containg a mix of the above and 4 chaos bikers with a pimped out Khorne Lord ,weird!

My final list is pretty much locked down now and looks like this



Yep thats right, 3 Heldrakes! The cheese will rule !

So I have had to construct a couple more and decided to build them in the same lines of my Nurgle drake from last year ( google search heldrake conversion, mine is sixth just sayin)

Of course the first thing I thought of was the alternate Terrorgheist head for the Zombie Dragon, unfortunately with the change in the USPS prices lately have meant that my normal Ebay route has got very expensive ( or thats the excuse they have anyway) the only seller I could find with the head I wanted didn't have the torso and tail so I decided to work with what I had.

I have used Compressed foam board for the wings for it's ease of use, the Terrorgheist bat head and neck and a glow in the dark human skeleton I had lying around















I had built pretty much all of this guy before the head and neck arrived and the neck just fit perfectly, all it took was a it of GS on the neck to meld the long hair on the neck and upper back.

Then I had a dilema, what to use for te base of my last Drake! I was rummaging through my bitz box and found 90% of another glow in the dark skeleton ( I have been using them for years for scenery) this time a Trex. I flipped it upside down and really like the curve of the spines on the upper side of the tail section and had this vision of a front heavy beast with tiny Trex arms and it's back half literally rotted away to nothing but bone, but I really didn't want to use the Trex skull and it was pretty underwhelming as it is a mass produced plastic model with very little detail, so i got to searching on the 'Bay again....

... and found the Slaughterbrute!

(this pic is from a blog called "jambot Industries" by the way, he does some nice work, really nice work)

So I thought I had found head, and he also had those great little Trex arms sprouting from his nipples ( an evolution in GW's nipple fetish methinks?) so I order the toothy head and the little arms and...

... turns out the head is massive and the arms are big enough to mount on a Daemon Prince :( I have gone ahead with the sculpt but I reall wish the head ws about 90% to 75% of its actual size and that the arms were proper small but hey, he still looks pretty tough

















So there they are, two more rotting, plagueridden Nurgle Drakes to join the first.

C&C welcome as always guys.... those of you still subbed anyway!

@Elnibbus - Thanks!

Cheers,

BLACKHAND

Totally still subbed and good to have you back! Build looks great, will have a proper read later as off to do school run.

Okay, so the first one looks just great. The head fits really well with the rest. I'm curios about how bat-like it will look once you're done painting.

The second one is... hilarious. I'm sorry, that was probably not what you wanted to read. The huge head is quite scary on it and I wouldn't call it to over-the-top. I've seen beasts like that in D&D books and Final Fantasy games. Though the head does look a bit out of place next to the almost flesh-less ribcage. Though I am currently out of ideas on how to counter this.

The bat one is just horrific... with the skeletal legs and all... yech!

@Graven - Thanks bro.

@Anung Un Rama - I am pretty happy with the Bat too, will be using the green from the rest of the army as well as dark brown on the fur and more bone then last time. I am still building up flesh on the back and shoulders of the Brute-Drake and will fill in the chest cavity with organs and machinery ( which the bat drake has as well) and then will see how he looks.... may still add hip bones and hind legs but it is dissapointing how far from my initial vision he has gone.

@Gitsplitta - Cheers bud, I shouldn't reveal my secrets but the back legs are just the arms from the human skeleton with the hands switched


So here are my thoughts on the Brute-Drake,



* Build up the back and chest with GS muscle ( did some of this last night)

*Add in the exposed guts and internal machinery of the drake, will still leave the bottom of the ribcage exposed to show the organs.

* Perhaps switch out the front arms for some smaller ones that will help reduce the amount of weight that is hanging off the front, right now he just doesn't seem very aerodynamic.

* Perhaps, reluctantly, add hip bones and a pair of skeletal back legs. This would be in keeping with the other two but not with the idea I had for him

Suggestions and C&C is very welcome at this point, I still have a month or so but would like to get to the painting stage soon!

Cheers

BLACKHAND

Hmm. How about Landing gear/ robo legs? I'm thinking the ones off a sentinel.

Great looking beasties dude! As always your creativity really shows in your models.

 inmygravenimage wrote:
Hmm. How about Landing gear/ robo legs? I'm thinking the ones off a sentinel.

That sounds like a good idea.

It really needs something below the waist line. I don't how how and if they land, but IMO it should have legs that at least look they could carry the weight of that giant head. Sentinel legs might be a good idea. The one's from the Forgefiend might work as well.

I like that he has engines under the wings, but they could be better incorporated into the model itself. Though you're probably already working on that.

@Commander Cain - Thanks!

@ Graven & Rama - I am starting to think legs will have to be added, The Heldrake fluff has them latching onto Chaos Carrier hulls while they travel through warp and then detaching when they arrive at a planet to wreck the place so they do need some kind of clawed appendage but not so much "legs" for walking. I will scratch through my bits box tonight but my current thought is to add a proper T rex hip arrangment then some bony legs with the hands from the current "arms" as the feet. I will then sculpt some new smaller arms for the front in an effort to even out the sillouette. I want to stay clear of robo legs for now because they don't fit my idea of Papa Nurgle "blessing" random alien creatures and daemons with the ability to fly and creating his own style of Heldrake but I do have a pair of sentinel legs spare if I need them.

Cheers,

BLACKHAND


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh and yeah the engines will be connected to the wings and body with various tentacles and pipes , maybe even a piston setup that mimics where the muscles in the "wing" might go, but that is all waiting till the body of the drake is done so it is easier to handle

How about four legs? The two smaller ones in front and the two large ones in back to balance the model?

Possible... will have a look at some leg concepts tonight.

I have always loved the sillouette of the T Rex though. A complete, uncompromising, design for killing. The whole "screw arms and claws that can grab prey, I'll just evolve a long heavy tail to counterbalance my huge skull and jaws and make do with these stubs for arms"

Was kind of what I was reaching for in my first design, What would a daemon who's only aim to kill and eat be shaped like? I first thought of a whale as they are just a mouth with a propulsion system ( a tail ) but I kept drifting back to the TRex model I had, and was hoping to pull it off without looking goofy....

.... and it looks like I didn't quite get there


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So after a flurry of cutting and pinning ( helped by my two year old) I have a rough draught of the back legs. Oh and don't worry the Nid arms are just stand ins to give you an idea of the scale and placement of the T Rex arms not the shape.











I initially had legs with a "human" style knee and ankle set up but it looked weird so I cut up the legs and added the elongated ankle bone to resemble a dog or cat leg, they may be a bit long compared the legs of my first drake but in order to balance the head they need to have a bit of heft.

C&C welcome

cheers,

BLACKHAND

Very cool indeed, and exactly the shape I had in mind.

too ... much .... win .... urgh *collapses*
but really this thread is fuq'n haxs.
1) dat dreadknight, WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY better than the baby carrying gw alternative, that is how dreadknight should look like. I fuq'n applaud you sir.
2) dat(dems) helldrake, i love it when people successfully put whf models into 40k, and holy mary sh*t did you do it well.
Love this thread, subscrived.

@Graven - Thanks bud!

@Novelist47 - Thanks for reading! I am not actually as happy with how the Dreadknight came out in the end, the shape is pretty much right but I wish I had built it in a more dynamic pose with heavier legs, but hey what can you do?
Oh and yeah I like bringing WFB models into 40K as well, its been my thing for a while

I like it. Much more balanced.

Good to see you back up and running....

Batdrake is outstanding, very cool indeed.

Brutedrake is improving, and the shape you have now works, but that head just looks a little too large at the moment...hopefully once the build is finished and colour is applied that won't be such an issue.....

O yeah BH is back! Great work as ever, the new Drakes are as much (if not more) intimidating and bad-ass looking that the first one!

I have to say the Dino-Drake still looks a tad overbalanced to me, sorry...Just Googling a couple of pictures of T-Rex and i can see that the neck and even torso could do with a bit more....well, muscle! (odd i know, but its the head itself that appears overbalancing as opposed to just the front half of the model)

I do think the tail, even skeletal, is amazing and a great addition! Can i just mention again how much i love your plasticard wings as well?

Good to see you back BH.

@Gits - Thanks Gits, even if he is a filthy Heldrake huh?

@Monkeytroll & Reiko - I know, the Brute-drake is a real dissapointment and I will do my best to bulk up the torso but at this point I am stuck with what I have as I don't have the time or budget to start again.

I will be doing a bit of sculpting this week but not too much as I am still waiting on my new glasses to arrive ( broke a lens a couple of weeks ago, gotta wait for a new lens to arrive from germany) in the meantime I am wearing contacts that are a couple of levels below my prescription and I can't focus for crap, really don't want to look back on a ton of work I have done and realize it needs redoing!

Woah Woah Woooooooooooah! i wouldnt say disappointment at ALL! I love it, i think it would just...do well with a bit more bulking out thats all, keep doing what you are doing and i can see it coming together nicely

Also, i love that you got your kids involved in this, inspirational...

That Drake looks immense! I for one cannot wait to see this one finished!

Frantically trying to catch up on everyone's blogs, but my .02 cents is that it's the rib cage that's throwing you off.
The balance is the major skew factor. I would flesh out the cage a little to bulk it, then drop the baby trex arms, then put in larger/bulkier hind legs section only.. Think muscled reptilian bald eagle style. Once that balances add your tiny trex arms back in. Keep the bone elements of the centre section and tail to nurgle it up still but I think it's just too short to be missing back legs entirely.

@Reiko - No worries mate, I am just a bit jaded by the whole thing, the other two came together like they were meant to be and this fella just didn't come off they way I wanted. Add to that the fact that the people I am playing against aren't really loving three Drakes on the table and I am pretty sure he will get one outing at the tournament and then spend a lot of time on the shelf

@ Knightley - Thanks bro, I know I should post more often on your blog I still follow it daily but your consistancy puts mine to shame

@Monkeh - Thanks for your 2 cents bro, they are all welcome. I will be getting more muscle and flesh on the toroso soon and hopefully he will get to a point where I am happy to bring hi out to play

Cheers

BLACKHAND

Yeah i know how you feel, sometimes you can see something so clearly it should be easy to replicate....but it never is

I dont think 3 Drakes is the worst thing people will have seen, Necron air wing is still a lot tougher (afaik, i havent been keeping up to date with 40k recently), it might not be nice as such, but i doubt it is the worst thing lol

Hopefully once the (amazing) sculpt comes together then you will fall back in love with it, i have confidence in you.

Ok people, I took a week out to assemble some Infinity models ( Steel Phalanx Whoop!) and came back to the Heldrakes a bit refreshed. I have layed about 95% off the paint on the BatDrake, he just needs a few more splashes of wash, get him a bit more oily and grimy. With the BruteDrake I decided to add a Keelbone to his chest, thats the bone that anchors the chest muscles on a bird so I though it would suit and it helped deepen his chest and give me something to build the neck skin onto.

Like this!





And I had a play around with some postules on the under side of the wing, somthing to meld the engines, wings and body together.... may have to add a couple to the skin I have sculpted as well though





I know he might be kinda a bit all over the place but I decided to enjoy the sculpt by trying things that come to mind rather than agonize over him not being exactly what I first envisioned.

C&C welcome

Cheers

BLACKHAND

That's much better.

Agreed, more coherent. How did you do the pustules?

Ahh...definitely improving there...

@ Gits and Monkeytroll - Thanks guys!

@Graven - The postules are a mix of GS that I pressed various sizes of tubing inot while soft and a bunch of hemispheric stick on pearls that my wife uses for cardmaking and doesn't know I stole from her bitz box