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Loving the additions mate, your work is really along, can't wait to see this Decimator painted. The legs are a PITA to work with, I found the same issue with my Lasher Fiend model.

Sweet Decimator Kraut.
The blood on the third forsakens mouth looks great.

Cheers, guys!

@ lone dirty dog: Phew, mate, that's a tough nut to crack. The crocodile might make a nice Loxatl, I guess?

@ Biohazard: Yeah, there's a teeny tiny window of opportunity for doing something more interesting with the legs, and then it closes before you even realise it. Nuts!

@ Igandris: Cheers, mate! You know, I actually am rather pleased with those blood effects


And another small update today: I managed to paint the new World Eaters gladiator I posted a while ago:









As you can see, I stuck to my regular recipe fairly closely, save for one important difference: A red, warpaint-like tattoo was added to the gladiator’s forehead, harking back to Angron’s own facial markings:



A brilliant idea that was “borrowed” from fellow World Eater Szczur22′s thread over on ToS . I think I’ll add variations of this to all the coming models in the squad.

Here are the two gladiators together:



And here they are, together with the Forsaken I completed earlier. I took this photo for no other reason than the fact that those guys look great together



It’s fun little projects like these that will keep you interested in an army, even if you haven’t got the time (or motivation) to finish a tank or a whole squad. Sure, this guy didn’t bring me much closer to finishing the next 500 (or even 50) points for my army, but he offered me the opportunity to add some character to the force and to explore the background lore of my chosen legion — and as far as worthy hobby endeavours go, that has always been good enough for me! I also think there may be more models where those two came from — maybe each of them wielding a different set of gladiatorial weapons? And some of those models will also have to be quite dynamic, come to think of it…

Anyway, let me know what you think!

Great addition and I totally agree on the little things that make an army unique and interesting (like my koptakanz, built for the same reason )

If You do a squad of gladiators with a few dynamic poses it will be moar awesome, if possible

Cool posing on the gladiator looks evil and aggressive perfectly fitting, the tattoo adds to the character as well nice addition.

I am sure you can crack that nut good cool on the crock.

Cheers, guys!

@ SelvaggioSaky: Having built two of these already, an entire squad (albeit a small one) is pretty much a given at this point -- I am already collecting bitz, as a matter of fact I'd love each of the coming models to have an individual set of gladiatorial weapons. More on this as it develops.

Nice work as always, the tattoo really adds to the character. For the gladiatorial weapons will you be taking any cues from the Heresy range?

Those Gladiators look brutal, I like the one with the Angron-esque warpaint the most.

Do you count them as anything? I know you've said that you're more interested in creating stuff that looks awesome rather than tying it to the rules directly, but i'm a curious beast.

 KrautScientist wrote:
Cheers, guys!

@ SelvaggioSaky: Having built two of these already, an entire squad (albeit a small one) is pretty much a given at this point -- I am already collecting bitz, as a matter of fact I'd love each of the coming models to have an individual set of gladiatorial weapons. More on this as it develops.

Waiting to be amazed again mate

@ Dreadclaw69: Possibly so. As a matter of fact, I kitbashed a squad of berzerkers long before the FW Rampager models were released, and they still ended up looking pretty similar, weapons and all. So for the gladiators, expect a mix of classical gladiator weaponry and HH style weapons, I guess. With the odd chain-glaive thrown in for flavour

@ Medium of Death: Even though it may not be the most important consideration, I do of course think about a possible use for the models I build. In this case, the models are probably quite versatile: They could be berzerkers (DUH! ), CC focused Chosen or possibly champions for different squads. The one restriction is that they shouldn't be used to represent a shooty unit, I guess...


Anyway, who knows: I may even kitbash some new gladiator models during the weekend. Keep your fingers crossed

In the meantime, to celebrate the fact that my blog, Eternal Hunt managed to attract 100,000 views, I made some new photos of the painted part of my army. Take a look:



Even though I may have been rather lazy since showing you the last family portrait some time ago, the army still fills me with pride (click on the following picture for a huge, zoomable version!):



I only really painted some 15 new models since the last set of photos was taken, but at least some of them were pretty huge. The army also ends up looking rather imposing lined up like that, if I do say so myself!



The biggest addition to the army since we last saw it was of course the Hellrazor, my converted Heldrake:



But I also managed to paint some more lords (a lasting addiction of mine) and fellows in terminator armour. These three gentlemen can already make up a small Termicide unit, if push comes to shove:



And there’s an equally large collection of Chaos Lords in power armour, of course. Among them my converted Dark Apostle (shown on the left):



Then there’s a small collection of champions and models I painted just for fun (among them the starts of a dedicated gladiator squad). While several of those concepts may be spun off into an own squad, all of these “stragglers” together can almost make up another berzerker squad:



And finally, there’s the beginnings of Joras Turnpelt’s small detachment of traitorous Space Wolves, to be used as regular CSM, if the battle plan so requires:



As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Love the family photo! Great lookin' group. The spawn look great tucked in there.

It is really nice to see them all together. I keep seeing each guy by them selves and keep telling my self that wow, you put a lot of care into each dude. Then I see them all and go WOW, you put a lot of care into EVERY guy. Thanks for making my Friday morning great =)

Very, very luvverly! And pretty damn impressive photography as well. That first shot must have been a difficult one.

Outstanding!

Simply amazing! Beaitiful work, KS.

Great use of bits love the mix of chaos warhammer and 40k kits really gives that heresy feel outstanding work

Thanks for the kind words, everyone! I really appreciate it!

@ LeadLegion: Well, getting them all to actually fit in the picture was a bit of an exercise in patience, to be honest I could also really kick myself for not using a tripod to take these pictures Oh well, maybe next time...

Hey everyone,

a small update, because I could use some feedback Instead of kitbashing some additional gladiators, I tackled another conversion project, one that has been a long time coming:

For a long, long time, I have had the idea for one Huntmaster Deracin, Keeper of the Forge and Techmarine to the 4th assault company. The character has been at the back of my head since even before the release of the 6th edition codex actually gave us the option of fielding a Warpsmith. I knew that there had to be someone to maintain and construct all the wargear and daemon engines used by Khorne's Eternal Hunt, and Deracin is that guy. Instead of a twisted Dark Mechanicus Priest, I wanted him to be a World Eater with several attributes of a classical blacksmith: Stoic, physically imposing, you get the idea.

I've also been kicking around ideas for a model to represent Deracin for quite a while: I knew that I wanted him to sport at least some augmentic implants as a sign of his procession. So he started out as a Huron Blackheart conversion. Only I never got around to actually work on it. Then the new codex was released and brought with it not only the option of actually running a corrupted Techmarine in a game, but also a dedicated Warpsmith model in Finecast -- and the model is truly great. So I considered just getting the model and doing a simple conversion - a headswap or something similar - to give him a bit more character and tie him in with the rest of my army. But as much as I loved the model, it's a fairly complex build with lots of rather big components, and to tell you the truth, I didn't really trust Finecast as a material to come out the way I wanted it to: For one, that axe hilt is very unlikely to ever stay straight. And then those tentacles... In short, getting the Finecast model seemed to be too much of a risk.

So only one option remained: I had to kitbash/convert my own model for Deracin. To tell you the truth, the idea was hugely appealing to me, because I just love to kitbash custom models. And already having built a custom Dark Apostle for my World Eaters, I git quite a kick of the prospect of having yet another custom model for one of the generic HQ selections.

Still, coming up with an idea for Deracin proved to be quite a challenge: I wanted him to be quite a bit taller and more imposing than your usual Chaos Space Marine, yet the standard parts just didn't cut it. I also couldn't build him as a Terminator, since Warpsmiths wear "regular" power armour. And, of course, there would be the matter of having to construct some mecha-dendrites and/or servo-harness.

Anyway, it took me a lot of time to come up with a suitable idea. And even when I did, once I sat down to actually build the model, it turned out that this would be a supremely fiddly conversion. So, here's what I have so far:

1. The body:

Like I said, I wanted Deracin to be a giant of an Astartes, even when clad in regular power armour. So I used parts from several WFB chaos kits to build his body and give him an imposing frame as well as a generous helping of gothic ostentatiousness. Take a look at this very early WIP:



You can see Deracin on the left. The gentleman on the right is another small project of mine atm, but was mainly included for scale. As you can see, Deracin is quite a beast. I gave him a head from the GK Terminators which has quite extensive bionic augmentations. The body was constructed by combining the legs of a WFB plastic chaos lord with the torso of a Skullcrusher.

2. The arms:

The next thing to figure out was how to build Deracin's arms. After a bit of thought, I decied to use arms from the Skullcrushers and chaos knights kits, because regular CSM arms would just have looked to puny at this point. Regarding the equipment, Warpsmiths get an energy axe and bolt pistol, and I did indeed want Deracin to wield a huge axe/wrench thing as a sign of his office. But that would have to come later. For the other hand, I decided to use an auspex and have it look like Deracin is looking at the screen -- he is a World Eater, to be sure, but he is also very much a mechanic, and I wanted to show that. Here's the model after that step:





As you can see, the position of the left arm is already prepared for receiving the axe weapon (more on that in a minute).

3. The servo harness:

Ah, well, this is pretty much the hardest part. I decided to build a rather conventional servo-harness, partly because I am to cheap to buy a tube-tool in order to be able tp produce my own cables and mecha-dendrites, partly because I thought the tentacle look didn't really fit the look of my army. So I started kitbashing a servo-harness, using a GK backpack and a couple of Necron limbs. It goes without saying that aligning the extra arms so that they don't interfere with the rest of the model proved to be supremely fiddly, and I am nowhere near finished. Nevertheless, here's an early mockup of the backpack:





The position of the servo-arms is not finished, of course: Everything's just tacked on for now. I'll also be adding two "smokestacks" to the servo-harness, to make it resemble that of GW's original Warpsmith. As for the weaponry on the servo-arms, I guess I'll go with a melta, a flamer and some visious chain blades (among them possibly a sentinel chainsaw).

4. The Forge Sceptre

And finally, I started to build a suitably impressive axe/hammer/wrench as Deracin's main tool and sign of office. Here's the mockup with all the elements combined:



As I said, the model is far from finished. It is also *very* rickety at the moment, because the only thing permanently glued down is the hand with the sceptre. All the rest is just being held together with putty and good faith.

So yeah, that's what I have got so far! Would love to hear your feedback on this guy! Am I on the right track here?

C&C always welcome!

Looks amazing!
The mace head on the scepter might be a bit much imo
But otherwise a great model.

Wow, he looks awesome. However I do think he needs more mechandrites/arms/whatever. Overcome the lazyness/cheapness and buy yerself a tube tool!

I agree with bot of you.
He looks awesome and really characterfull. But his axe is to large. If you wanto to keep the power maul to maybe shorten the shaft of the ace bit and bring it back down a little.

Also if you don't like the power cable look why not use more different necron bits and build mechandrites out of more than one limb. Also i wouldn't use the backpacks teleporter thingy to attach the arms. Just use two limbs for each arm and attach them directly to the backpack.

I have to admit I was really excited about the idea of him fielding a Wrench. The Body and Torso is excellent although the back pack could use a beefier base maybe a Devestator backpack instead.

Cheers, guys!

Since the earlier images showed a rather early build of the backpack, I guess I'll have to ask you to give me the benefit of the doubt here Anyway, I have put in some more work (and added a drop of glue here and there, which si great because now he's far less likely to fall apart at the lightest touch). Here's the model test-fitted with the backpack:





He now has a flamer, melta and chainsaw and is still missing one additional arm -- and a lot of bitz, of course. Expect the backpack to get yet more bulky along the way.

Regarding his axe/wrench/staff, I do realise that this thing is quite OTT, yet in all its earlier iterations, it somehow felt incomplete. I can't help it, I like the superfluous mace head

Anyway, keep the criticism coming, even in those cases where I chose to ignore it It still helps, you know!

My one issue is the mechadendrite sporting the combi-melta. The arm just seems to spindly to support such a huge gun, and the motion isn't very dynamic.
Unlike, for instance, the flamer arm, which gets away with having a small limb and a big gun by nature of how both the huge wire and the angling of the gun and arm joints generate a smooth, sweeping curvature.

See, I quite like the Combi-Melta. I think it needs an extra cable, but that aside it looks good.

That guy looks great, however I would agree with some of the other posts that he could maybe do with some more mechanical parts to get across the whole techmarine feel.

Thanks for the feedback, guys! You're quite right regarding the melta in those last pictures: When I took those photos, I was happy that everything held together, and I wanted to give it more time to dry before doing any additional work.

Today I added some more detail, and also built the fourth servo arm, while I was at it. Here's a detail shot of the backpack:



As you can see, the melta received that additional cabling some of you suggested. And while I originally wanted to equip the fourth arm with some kind of chainblade, that ended up looking rather lame, so I repurposed one of the Heldrake's "chicken feet" and built a vicious looking claw.

And here is Deracin with his backpack:







Once again, it's clear that the arm with the claw will need some more work, additional cabling etc., because it's looking too spindly right now. I'll deal with that once everything is nice and dry

Until then, let me know what you think!

Looks suitably Khornish. Excellent!
His chainmail covered butt looks a bit off, maybe sculpt some armor on it?

Fantastic, KS. Really love Deracin's pose, and the servo-harness is beautiful.

Cheers, guys!

@ Igandris: I am considering adding a cape made of chains dangling from his backpack. This would obscure the "chainmail ass", so it would be a rather elegant solution to the problem you pointed out We'll see.

Right, I do realise you're probably already sick of the sight of this guy, but I did yet more detail work. I added some bitz and bobs (which no one will notice -- a surefire way of knowing that a model is approaching completion). Also, someone who is far more of an artist than I am pointed out a problem with the mace head to me: While the fact that it's OTT may not be a problem, it is drawing attention away from the model's face. And that is very much a problem. So while I loved that beautifully ridiculous weapon, I did get rid of the mace.

So yeah, here's Deracin again, pretty much finished: