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Merry Christmas all!

Thanks to Christmas break, I've gotten to finish up a couple of projects that have been on the back burner.

First priority for leave was finishing up a bit of World Eaters stuff I had laying around in preparation for a tournament this weekend.

First, the helldrake. I like the rules (as does any CSM player with any sense), but I don't care for the model very much. I get that they wanted it to be a corrupted fighter, but the execution looks awkward to me. I wanted something more daemonic and alive looking. After raiding the bits box, I came up with this:




I like the look of this guy much better. I wanted to capture the bird-of-prey look to show him in the middle of a vector strike on some hapless infantry guy.

Next up I finished up a land raider:



I picked this one up on ebay. It was 90% assembled with a pile of forgeworld parts, so it was relatively easy to finish touching up and paint.

The army's ready to roll this weekend! I'll be taking:
Kharn
Hellbrute w/ plasma cannon
1 Mutilator (khorne)
1 Mutilator (khorne)
9 berzerkers
8 CSM (khorne, bolter + ccw/pistol, plasma gun)
8 CSM (khorne, bolter + ccw/pistol, plasma gun)
1 maulerfiend w/ lasher tentacles
1 land raider
1 helldrake

1 bloodthirster
10 bloodletters
8 flesh hounds

It's got everything the internet hates - we'll see how she does!

Anyway, that's all for today. Once I'm done prepping for the tournament, I'm switching back to finishing up the tau.

And in January - the Tyranids will be swarming my way. I want to start a nidzilla list with the new codex - we'll see what the rules support!

Hasta luego,

Dan

Merry christmas to you too, and that helldrake looks awesome!

Merry Christmas to you to and all your crazy creations

Awesome work.

Merry Christmas!

Thanks for the holiday well-wishing. It's my favorite time of the year for sure.

With all the extra time available, I finally finished up an old project - Warhammer Quest!

Here's the completed set in all its finally painted glory:










A few of the pictures aren't quite as clear as I'd like - taking them at night results in crappy light - but it's nice to have this long standing project wrapped up! Sadly, I think she's going to be sold after a few games - I just don't have the room I'd like to store old gaming stuff - but it was nice to close the door on an enjoyable chapter of gaming history.

More to come,

Dan

Fantastic!!! I love the old quest! I have most of the components except the basic models. Which I think i could replace anyways. Buying have the boards and doorways cards rules et al. My only complaint for you...you didn't paint the doorways!!!!!

Oh but they are! I grant that I didn't paint them too glamorously, but they're all based gray and drybrushed twice with all the skulls picked out, washed and highlighted. Maybe they aren't the sexiest doorways a dungeon keeper ever installed, but hopefully they keep the place together well enough.

Thanks for the feedback - working with retro stuff is fun sometimes.

Dan

I'm back on the tau now. I decided to revamp the look of the finished riptide & add a bit more to the next one. Here's what I've got so far:



The shield is scratch built out of plasticard with a few bits added to church it up a bit. The broadsides still need to be weathered. I'll add better pics tomorrow when I get a bit more done.

Let me know what you think,

Dan

I like that hefty shield.

Thanks. Why the hell would a suit with the size and the strength of a riptide carry a buckler? It's not as though the riptide needs to sneak through small tunnels or maintain it's dexterity in a fencing match. It didn't make sense to me, so it got a shield that's reasonable for the size and power of the suit.

I've seen quite a few zombie dragon to Heldrake conversions so far, but this one is easily one of my favourites. Great work!

I also really dig the pose of the Tau Broadside on the left! Just the right amount of animé-influence

Let's not kid ourselves, the tau are anime inspired. I figured I'd roll with it rather than trying to figure out how to fit them into the grimdark future.

Alright, so after a bit of a hiatus from photographing stuff, here are final (weathered) shots of a large portion of the tau army:









You can see the exposed magnets on the end of a few of the suits' weapons. They're all designed for easy weapon swaps.

I did a lot of work reposing and modding up the second riptide so they wouldn't look too similar. My intent is that every suit in the army be an individual, to represent the generally individualistic attitude of the Enclaves (relatively anyway).

The army is almost complete. I've got a R'vanrna riptide basecoated on the desk that should be finished up in a few days. It took a lot of work to make that awful head bearable! After that, there are only 6 more suits, an aegis line (still haven't decided which way to go with this one), and a few sentry turrets and the list will be finished. It's pretty refreshing to paint up a list that only requires 30 or so models total.

Let me know what you think,

Dan

Hey all. Thanks to the winter weather, I got a few days off work and got a good bit of painting and modeling done.

First up, here's some work on the Wolf King's boys. I've got 10 Cataphracti, 10 tartarus, and 10 standard terminators planned for a drop pod wolf wing army (30k style). These guys are great fun to work on. The mixture of old, new and chaos bits yields some really awesome looking dudes. I don't know how viable the all terminator army's going to be on the table, but I guess I don't really care. I want the guys to be completely finished before FW releases the Prospero Burns book & models (and Russ himself I hope!) so I can get it on the table as soon as the book's released.

Here are a few of the "There are no Wolves on Fenris" lads:






Next up, I finished up the R'varna suit (minus a few details and a wash on the grass) and a few more crisis suits. This army is about finished, with all assembly complete and only 6 suits to paint. Now if only I can manage to wrap it up before I get hopelessly distracted with the Wolves.

The weird drones are going to count as crisis suits with 2 launchers. They're about the same size, and I'm tired of building suits! I figure the 3rd guy in the squad is a smarty-pants scientist with a few cutting edge ideas on drone construction.

The sentry towers were just too awesome looking to pass on, so I bought 2 to count as quad cannons for my aegis line.









And that's about it for the day. Let me know what you think & feel free to toss any ideas on how to improve the wolfguard my way!


Dan

The tau are complete, so between finishing them up and picking back up the sons of Russ, I'm painting up a soul grinder for the World Eaters.

In continuing with the Battle of Skalathrax theme, he's in the process of dismembering an Emperor's Children dreadnaught. Serves him right for wearing pink! In the grim darkness of the far future, there is no breast cancer awareness.

Here are the WIP shots:





There's more work to be done before he gets painted (to include mold line removal - fear not!). I'll keep you posted.

Dan

So it seems I've been a terrible slacker at getting any pictures taken or posted lately. As a citizen of the modern age, I believe it is appropriate for me to blame this on the universe at large and accept no personal responsibility for my actions (or lack thereof).

Having said that, here are the finished pics of the soul grinder I started on before business took me out of town:




As you can see, he's wrenched the arm off an Emperor's Children dreadnaught - Khorne has no truck with that Nancy lot. I've got the rest of the dread assembled for scenic purposes, but he's not finished yet. He's dread-locked up to match the theme of the rest of the big demons in the list. As it turns out, Khorne's got a thing for Caribbean hair styles.

Next up, I've made more progress on the Space Wolves.

I've wickered down the era I'm working on. This Company will be the Wolves' 1st Company during the age of the Horus Heresy, and it'll be led by the senior commander of the legion (Logan stand in). As we all know, Wolves don't have the sense to wear helmets and have a fondness for wolf pelts. Consequently, all of my lads will be dressed accordingly. I really like the FW heresy era terminator suits. Both are incredibly detailed, with the Cataphractii suits looking the grooviest in my opinion, although they are (by design I suppose) not very dynamic. I've re-listed the pod and Contemptor pattern dreadnaught as I've added rune work and etching to the models to bring them in line with the free hand on the rest of the guys. Here are the models:










And finally, in a flash of inspiration, I've decided on the theme for the next army. I've always had a fondness for the deathskulls and their looting skills, and I believe the pinnacle of that art is the looted tyranid.

My army will be based around a tribe working under the Overfiend of Octarius. The boss is one of the rare and wonderful boyz that not only manifests the skills of a mek, but also those of a painboy. Using his wellspring of orky know-whats, he's looted the corpse of the swarmlord itself, discovered how to replicate the hive mind's control over lesser 'nids (albeit over a shorter range), and gotten his boys to work on lootin' and herdin' up an army of bugs.

Here's the first few boyz, including the PainMek himself:






The shields aren't attached to the tyrant guard being the two beefed up nobz in the phots) yet, so you'll have to use your imaginations a bit.

I'm stoked to get a new project underway, and to get the last of the Wolves finished (22 down, 10 to go!)

Let me know what you think,

Dan

Hah...I was wondering what that greenstuffed boy in the dread's background was...scroll down a little further and....hello!

Painmek is quality, looking forward to seeing where this goes....

Oh yeah - Soulgrinder and wolves looking great too....

I finally finished up all the Wolves - only 3 drop pods to go and the army will be complete.

Here are the pics of the various squads. I put some work into improving the photo quality - hopefully it paid off:

First up is the Commander of first Company (Logan Grimnir counts as) with 4 of his angriest amigos.


And here are the other squads:







And here's a clearer pick of the Dread with his ride:




There's fluff to come - today's focus was just on finishing up the basing.

All the green-stuffing was fun. I think the mix of the three armor types looks pretty good - it's not hard for me to imagine the wolves mixing and matching their gear, and I can't imagine an old wolf giving up his trusty suit of cataphractii pattern armor just because something new came out.

Hope you enjoy!

Dan

Those wolves are simply stunning, mate! Just what I think they should look like: Huge and imposing, clad in archaic armour and wrapped in pelts. The only thing I would ask is whether we could get some closeups of the different models

Sure thing man - let me get a few together.

Dan

I can't believe that I am now finding your thread. My mind is completely blown! Your 13th Comapany Space Wolves are looking great!

wonkobaggins wrote:
I'm back on the tau now. I decided to revamp the look of the finished riptide & add a bit more to the next one. Here's what I've got so far:



The shield is scratch built out of plasticard with a few bits added to church it up a bit. The broadsides still need to be weathered. I'll add better pics tomorrow when I get a bit more done.

Let me know what you think,

Dan

I would love to know how you did these Broadsides. It's making me want to pick up the Firebases Support Cadre set to convert me up a few of the new Broadsides.

Enigma: Thanks man. The key to the broadside conversions (and most of the other suit conversions) was the 1/100 mechanical hands I found on Hobby link Japan's site. They're really easy to manipulate (once you get them put together - Japanese people must have tiny, nimble hands) and bring the models to life.

The rest of the conversion is just reposing the base models and working a few head swaps, although I did cut all their weapons in half and insert magnets to enable me to swap them for missile launchers instead. If you've got any more specific questions, I'll be glad to answer them.

Dan

wonkobaggins wrote:
Enigma: Thanks man. The key to the broadside conversions (and most of the other suit conversions) was the 1/100 mechanical hands I found on Hobby link Japan's site. They're really easy to manipulate (once you get them put together - Japanese people must have tiny, nimble hands) and bring the models to life.

The rest of the conversion is just reposing the base models and working a few head swaps, although I did cut all their weapons in half and insert magnets to enable me to swap them for missile launchers instead. If you've got any more specific questions, I'll be glad to answer them.

Dan

Answered perfectly. I was thinking the hands might have been from Hobby link Japan but could have been plasticard as there are those who are masters at that type of thing.

I'm sure there are plasticard masters that can pull off hands like that, but this guy isn't one of them. Things get too fiddly to work with at that scale.

I can barely assemble the hand kits that HLJ sells, much less make my own.

That being said, I vastly prefer them to the terminator hands I've seen used. Having hands that can be posed any way you like really brings the models to life.

I ended up adding banners & streamers to all the suits too, as well as finishing a pretty slick themed ADL for the tau. I'll get pics of it up with zoomed in shots of the wolves this weekend.

Dan

As promised, I've got some better photos of the wolves and tau.

First, the close up photos of the Wolves:









Next up, I've got some new stuff on the table for the 187th Catachan boys in the form of 2 more dino-rider sentinels and a way cooler Taurox than GW produces:






I couldn't resist this Taurox.

When the chips are down, and the glory boys can't cut it, there's one squad of veterans the Colonel calls. During the last campaign against the orks, they were charged with a crime they didn't commit. Now they prowl the galaxy, turning up where they're least expected (like the legion of the damned!) to save the 187th Catachan regiment's bacon.

It's the A-Team!




The van's a WIP at the moment, but you can see the details - a removable autocannon turret, BA behind the wheel, and a few thousand tons of the Emporer's finest engineering on wheels!

Finally, here are the zoomed in photos of the tau with the banners added:





The Catachan stuff has me excited. Once I saw the new Taurox rules and model, I new I had to add a few to the regiment, but the model is the least Catachan looking truck in the world. I've got a few more Taurox alternates in mind, but the A-Team van had to happen!

Let me know what you think,

Dan

A-TEAM HELL YEAH!!

Just for that SUBBED!!!!!!

Ahh the A-Team theme song. It brings me back to the days of my childhood when I really believed a van full of yahoos with a lettuce gun could save a village of African refugees.

Innocence lost.

Anyway, I've been considering other alternatives to the Taurox, and one of them is the Tamiya HMMWV model.

After a bit of chopping up, here's what she looks like:








As you can see, the driver has been storm-troopered out to match the other equivalent fellows in the regiment.

The model was originally an M966 turtle back, but with a bit of knife-work, it was pretty easy to turn into a passable replica of the trusty SF GMV.

Enemies of the Imperium beware!

More to follow,

Dan

I would think an up armored HMMWV would be more fitting for the taurox but i just rememberd the armor value for the stupid thing.

Are taurox alowed to take a ML?

Who cares? These are looking great. I'm hugely impressed by the Wolves as well.

Cheers for the additional SW photos, mate! Like I said earlier, these guys are an embodiment of everything I like about the wolves. Plus you made each of them look like the hero of a thousand battles. Fantastic work!