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The scarred man and butcher are awesome. Can't wait to see more.

Love that Valkar, though he seems to have got less efforts into the painting, or am I too harsh ?

The conversion job is fantastic as usual, and I don't see anything wrong with the cloak of chains...

Also took a look at the Manticore Rider / Traitor Sorcerer : that's a clever conversion !!

Haha, ok about the title, though leading the Forsaken into battle might actually be a nice way to explain this . As for the lances I actually only meant to swap the tips, not the whole lance, cause you are damn right both about the fact they're in th wrong hand, and that they are too static. Oh and btw where does the lance you used actually come from??

@ M138: Cheers, mate!

@ Yggdrasil: Hmm, I don't know, mate: Everyone's entitled to their opinion. What I can tell you is that I certainly spent a lot of time painting this guy, and didn't cut any corners, so make of that what you will.

@ Legio Ultra: Ah, well, maybe I was a little too afraid of the lance tip ending up misaligned with the rest of the lance there The lance I used is also from the Chaos Lord on Manticore kit, btw, as is almost the whole rider model (except for the backpack, the plasma pistol and the mark of Khorne on his chest).


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Just a small update: When I picked up my brand new Dark Vengeance boxed set, back when 6th edition hit, I realised the nose of the Chosen champ had been flattened a bit by the sprue of stuff lying above it in the box. So I have wanted to "repair" the model for a long time now. So during an idle hour yesterday, I carefully cut off the head and replaced it with one from the FW Space Marine Praetor. I also replaced the maul with a sword, while I was at it. Tale a look:



Both the head and maul were kept intact as much as possible during the cutting, and both will be used on further conversions. As it happens, the head was used on a INQ28 Navigator kitbash today

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Wow. Your stuff always impresses me Kraut.
The scarred man and Raas both look phenomenal, especially the greenish-blue Juggernaut.

The chosen champ is also shaping up really nicely, but his pose looks a little off- a little too ceremonial and inspiring. if you rotated the sword at the wrist (through ~90 degrees, pointing forwards), he would look like he'd just done a powerful outward slash, rather than exhorting his fellow marines to victory. He does look good though- I reckon he'll be an excellent piece regardless of sword position.

These are cool man. Im planning to make a mixed chaos warband of lords/champions to go with my abaddon.. This is inspiring

Interesting chosen champ, i prefer the new head though it looks quite calm (butchering thousands of people just doesn't seem to affect him..... ). I agree with 4oursword about the sword position as a slashing move better suits the dynamism of your later conversions. I have one question: do you think it would be actually possible to actually make this guy wear his helmet or is it too much trouble to cut it from the hand?

well, it turns out I can't get any more chaos warhounds (I only have one) and I wasted it's head on a failed attempt. sigh. well, im going to try and find a cheap crypt-thingy to use, and a fenrision head should look nice.

Wow I like what you did putting the Praeors head on you DV model and with the raised arm, its almost like he's about to swing it forward in an "Unleash hell" kind of way.

That Praetors head though, its as if he's giving you that 1000 yard stare, like you are below him and he will squish you like a bug. I'd hate for him to be staring like that at me...

 KrautScientist wrote:
@ Yggdrasil: Hmm, I don't know, mate: Everyone's entitled to their opinion. What I can tell you is that I certainly spent a lot of time painting this guy, and didn't cut any corners, so make of that what you will.

Sorry mate, I didn't want to be rude or anything, just that the picture (probably) doesn't do the paintjob justice ! Your models are always inspiring & epic, that one just seemed a bit *less* awesome than the previous ones !

Keep it up though, don't you worry about my opinion

Thanks for the feedback, guys!

Regarding the Chosen champ, I see where you are coming from regarding the pose. However, what you don't know (yet) is that he is wearing a backpack with a Bolter chained to it This will be the Huntmaster in command of the company's Havocs (Teeth of Khorne, in the old fluff), so I think the pose does work after all (imagine him giving commands to his shooting brethren, like the "Unleash Hell!" command dantay_xv mentioned.

I am also really glad the effect I intended when choosing the head seems to have worked: He looks utterly disillusioned and frighteningly intense at the same time, doesn't he?

@ Legio Ultra: Getting rid of the hand on the helmet would be really easy, and there are several instances where people have used it as a helmet (on this model or another). You'll just need a sharp knife and take a deep breath beforehand The biggest challenge actually isn't to get rid of the hand, but rather to turn the mostly hollow faceplate (because that's what it actually is) into an actual head: Either you add some GS to round out the shape of the head, or you selectively shave off the Champ's face in order to then put the horned mask over it -- both approaches should work.

@ Yggdrasil: Oh, don't worry: I didn't take it the wrong way at all! I just wanted to point out that the model was painted at the usual speed (or lack thereof) and in my usual recipe. So either the photos aren't that good, or the photos of all the models up until now were too good, not showing the rough areas in the paintjob

Well, then I can't wait to see your "average" paintjob on that nicely converted Chosen !

Well thanks for the help, all I need now is to get to doing it (or actually first getting the DV set ). And since I am a quite persistent thorn in people's sides, now you do have a great maul for your MKI converted terminator (unless you plan to use it for something ever more awesome). Cant wait to see what you'll come up with next

Awesome work! I just signed up today as a new user in this web, but I've been following this post for a long time. I can't (and I won't) tell you what I like of each model you've done, because in that case this post reply wouldn't probably never end
So I'll simply congratulate you for your meravelous models, as I said they're awesome

Agree 100% on the Scion with Eisenkern headswap, that's how I'm doing mine up. I like the Eisenkern guys but they feel... weird to me. The additional bulk on the legs of the Scions feels more right somehow, so I have a couple boxes that will get pillaged for heads.

Great blog, love all the stabby!

That converted chosen guy looks pretty sick so far. I can't wait for an update on him.

Thanks for the kind words, guys!

Alright, guys: Time for another update! I've got two things to show you today:

First up, a rather small kitbash that nevertheless makes me rather happy: Thanks to the generosity of fellow hobbyist PDH, I finally managed to get my hands on a Dreadnought rocket launcher, so I could start to convert the last Dreadnought/Helbrute weapon still missing from my collection, transforming it into a suitably chaotic weapon:





Certainly nothing mind blowing, but rather a nice and simple bit of kitbashing that eased me back into the regular flow of things — still, having an entire set of fully exchangeable weapons for my Chaos Helbrutes will feel enormously pleasing once it has finally been accomplished


But the rocket launcher is not really the star of the show today. That role falls to the second model I would like to show you. So, what is this about?

You may remember that my attempt at coming up with some Obliterators that didn’t look like Chaos Terminators covered in meat wastes turned into a rather protracted conversion project. I ended up with three custom Obliterators that I was reasonably happy with. These:





Some of you may already have been wondering why I hadn’t yet managed to get these painted. The reason, apart from my egregious lack of painting discipline, is that fate intervened and I discovered a recipe for building Obliterators that I liked even better:

Thamier’s wonderful Balefire Legion has been a constant source of inspiration. But what really blew me away more than anything else was his approach to sculpting and kitbashing his own, completely customised Obliterators (whose creation you can witness starting here )!

Maybe the best part about these is that while they are perfectly in line with the look and feel of GW’s other chaos models (almost moreso than the official Obliterators, in fact), they forego the fleshy, mutated look in favour of something more mechanical and imposing.

I was really blown away by the sheer awesomness of these models, but alas I could only gaze at them from afar and hope that one day I might be able to come up with something just as cool.

Well, that day may have come, because – while Thamier only made these awesome bitz for use in his own army – I was actually lucky enough to get my hands on some of them as part of a bitz swap between the two of us. This is a really exciting opportunity, of course, so it goes without saying that I immediately started assembling my very own “Thamier pattern” Obliterator.

Now Thamier had warned me in advance that the castings weren’t of the best quality, and that the parts would require some work. And indeed, there was quite a bit of flash to be scraped off. But all in all, the parts really cleaned up rather nicely. Here’s a look at the cleaned and prepared parts for the Obliterator:



As you can see, a full set consists of a torso (in two halves, in fact), a pelvis, two thighs, two (rather massive) lower legs and two feet. The parts were cast from Thamier’s original master model, as far as I am aware, and considering the pieces have been entirely sculpted from scratch, the amount of detail is rather nice. Of course these are not as crisp and cutting edge as a factory-made GW kit, but I am in fact even more impressed with the sculpting that went into these after having made some first hand experiences with the parts: Not only do they take all the right design cues from GW’s own chaos models, but they also come with amazing little touches like the profile on the Obliterator’s armoured boot:



That is true dedication, ladies and gentlemen

Like I said, scraping off the flash wasn’t a big problem, and even a bit of rough texture or damage here and there actually work towards the effect that these guys are ancient veterans of the Long War, so no problem there.

Here’s my first mockup of the whole model:





As you can see, the model is really rather massive, which makes it clear that this guy is not just any standard chaos Terminator. And while the overall shape and construction may recall Tactical Dreadnought Armour, there are several visual shout outs to the new Helbrute design, like the armour panels to the side of the head, the slightly more elaborate armour trim and, of course, the pelvis area that looks very similar to that of the Helbrute.

I used a Warp Talon head as a placeholder, which should show you that the sculpted torso will accept pretty much any (Chaos) Space Marine or Chaos Warrior head without a hitch. The comparison should also give you a rather good idea of the model’s rather impressive size and bulk!

Working from there, I had to get a bit creative, because – unlike Thamier – I cannot sculpt for toffee. So where Thamier sculpted his own upper arms and shoulder pads, I defaulted back to my usual approach and solution to any hobby problem — glorious kitbashing!

In this case, though, the task of actually finding suitable arms that scaled correctly with the rest of the body almost drove me crazy: While natural looking proportions are not exactly a priority for a hulking monster like this, many arm setups that seemed promising ended up looking too short and undermining the sense of threat given off by the model.

In the end, the solution was found in the most unlikely of places: I was messing around with the magma cutter bitz from the fiend kit when I realised that these could actually work as arms for the Obliterator! So I combined them with some Chaos Terminator fists and a couple of leftover Centurion weapons (it’s a good thing you get LOTS of leftover weapons with the Centurion kit), and my Obliterator really took shape. Take a look:



As you can plainly see, I took a lot of inspiration from one of Thamier’s own models when it came to the pose, but then I thought it looked really awesome and wanted to replicate some of that coolness

For the shoulder pads, I chose Centurion pads, as you can see. I also added some Ogre armour plates to the hips to bulk out the model’s middle a bit. As an added benefit, these will also create some visual consistency if I ever want to use this big guy alongside my converted Centurions, as they are using the same armour plates for decoration.

I still needed to bulk out the upper arms, since they were looking a little scrawny. Plus the clean and loyalist shoulder pads needed some chaotic love as well. So I added another round of bitz, and here’s where the model stands at the moment:













While some additional cleanup along with a spiky bit here and there may be required, I am really rather happy with this guy! I think the design works really well as a less-mutated but really impressive and utterly chaotic Obliterator! And I am also reasonably pleased with the solution I came up with for the arms!

One thing I need to point out again is that this guy is absolutely MASSIVE, with much more bulk than a regular Terminator. In fact, like I said, he’s the perfect missing link between Terminators and Helbrutes, not only in design but also in height and bulk.

Provided the temperature outside stays agreeable enough, I hope to be able to paint his guy rather soon. Afterwards, I’ll have to consider which way to go with my overall strategy for the Obliterators: Will this veritable beast be used as a “unit champion” of sorts, leading the other, Centurion-based Obliterators into battle? Or will I become so addicted to the Thamier-pattern that any other kind of Obliterator just seems like a cheap travesty to me?

For now, I’ll just try to build the biggest, baddest Obliterator imaginable. Thanks so much to Thamier for letting me have some of those bitz to mess around with! And if any of you have any suggestions or criticism about this guy, let me know!

And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

I thin I just pooped. That is AMAZING!
So kraut, I just ordered 36 inches of greenstuff off eBay.
And, with my birthday in a few weeks, I plan on ordering bitz for the first chaos spawn (I would have got them earlier but I got caught up buying skyrim legendary addition),
Anywho, I just wanted to thank you for being such an awesome inspiration!

Wow that guy's a beast!!! Great job man he looks truly threatening. Though it seems to me he might need some bulking up around the waist. Cant wait to see more from you!!!

Currently the chaos bits on the centurions look hastily slapped on. Hopefully painting will make it look better. Everything else looks absolutely awesome.

Cheers, guys!

@ the shrouded lord: Glad to be of service

@ Legio Ultra: Hmm, those Ogre armour plates were originally supposed to take care of that, but maybe it's not enough...?

@ YourIntestines: Hmm, at the very least, building those Centurion conversions took quite some time and deliberation on my part, so while the chaos parts may have been slapped on, they were indeed slapped on slowly instead of hastily

Anyway, another update regarding my Thamier pattern Obliterator: Added another round of spiky bitz yesterday, worked a bit on the right foot in order to make it look more natural and plugged all remaining holes and crevices with GS. Here's the model, pretty much ready for a last bubble bath and then some paint













I also realised that the model needed something to clearly show its allegiance to Khorne, but regular bunny ears were right out due to a lack of space around the collar. So I improvised, using an icon of Khorne instead. I also tried yet another head, although I might actually like this one the best so far: It just has a subtly feral quality that I think really fits the bill.

Anyway, let me know what you think!

Try a terminator head?

Wow that is a really awesome looking model, the only thing I would say is that left arm...

The right arm with the Lascannon looks great because it looks like he could move his forearm around, probably because of the weapon mount on his elbow holding the gun a little away from his arm.

The left llooks like he has lost all mobility, as without the weapon mount it is grafted on and his hand will always be palm facing upwards.

Besides that minor minor thing, an awesome looking obliterator and much better than the GW models!

The shoulder plates could have the same trims as the rest of the armor and no ogre plates. But of course we know you don't sculpt. Maybe you can try some helbrute shoulders.



Still a great model especially for a obliterator.

Those obliterators are excellent - I admit, my World Eaters are going to get a set of chopped up centurions too. Keep up the awesome work man.

Could do something with the wrists- right now, it's pretty clear that it's a kitbash- one part just sorta put on another. It's mostly the pistons on the arms not having anywhere to 'go', but also the scale- the hands are much bigger than the ends of the arms, so there's a little ledge there.

You might get a better look if you just covered the forearms with GS and smoothed it out, or possibly added cables around it- The smooth arm could also have cabling added.

I actually think that might improve the model as well- increasing the idea of "Chaotic mess of machinery" that you seem to want to be going for instead of "Chaotic mass of flesh" that normal Obliterators are.

Cheers for the feedback, guys!

@ the shrouded lord: The problem is that Terminator heads are just too iconic: I even tried the helmeted head from Lord Zhufor, and while it looked nice enough, it instantly made the model look like an attempt at a true scale Terminator. So I'll just stick with that last Raptor head for now, I believe.

@ dantay_xv: Hmm, while the effect you describe certainly wasn't planned, it almost feels like I should embrace this rather than try to avert it: After all, it's a pretty cool thought that the suit did change over the millennia, slightly mutating and being added to by the the company's Warpsmith: I mean, what would this huge guy need his left hand for anyway?

@ livanbard: Trying Helbrute shoulders would probably have worked well enough, but even I won't pick up a whole kit just for a couple of shoulder pads

@ Anvildude: See my reply to dantay_xv above: Maybe the "unplanned" look would actually fit the background for this guy rather nicely -- but then I am also just too lazy to change anything big now


Anyway, while the big guy is taking a small break on my painting table (I have actually begun painting a model! Go me! ), I have something new to show you: Working on that Helbrute rocket launcher also gave me the motivation to try something I had been thinking about for quite a while: Building an Ursus Claw for my Chaos Helbrute(s).

For those not in the know, an Ursus Claw is a weapons system typical of the World Eaters Legion: It is effectively a harpoon that can be fired at an opponent (preferredly a retreating one), in order to impale him, possibly already creating critical damage, and then reel him back in for the finale. The World Eaters used this weapon system both on their flagship, the Conqueror and on the allied Titans of the Legio Audax, so I thought arming a World Eaters Dreadnought with one of those systems probably wasn’t all that unrealistic. More on the Ursus Claw here, in case you are interested.

Now when I started planning this conversion, I looked around for inspiration and found an image from a conversion by fellow hobbyist sheep, nestled away deep within my inspiration folder (check out his amazing Khornate models on his blog. :



The picture actually provided a perfect starting point for my conversion: The psy-weapon CC arm from the Furioso Dreadnought kit. And since Marax the Fallen had been converted from that very kit, I still happened to have the arm in my bitzbox.

The second piece of inspiration came from Forgeworld’s Blood Slaughterer Impaler, because that model is, for all intents and purposes, armed with an Ursus Claw as well. The weapon gave me a pretty good idea for building the chain winch that makes for the truly nasty part of the weapon, allowing the harpoon to be reeled back in.

So with those two ideas in my head and a couple of bitz on my table, I got to work.

And here’s my own WIP Ursus Claw, already provisionally mounted on my model for Marax the Fallen:







As you can see, the arm is pretty much the stock bit, whereas the harpoon mechanism is a combination of the two sources cited above. I fortunately had a perfect chain winch bit from some Ogre Kingdoms kit in my bitzbox, and it was ideal for this conversion. The chain came from another Ogre kit. The housing for the winch is a shaved down part of a Predator Lascannon turret weapon. And, to make things suitably chaotic and to tie in the weapon with the look and feel of my army, the housing was decorated using two Chaos Marauder shields.

Here’s the weapon arm on its own:



One thing I kept going back and forth on is the actual harpoon, because I wasn’t sure whether it needed to be more ostentatious and/or claw like, like the one on the Blood Slaughterer. In the end, though, I decided that a more clawlike appearance would mean that it would be harder to actually recognise the weapon as a harpoon constructed to be launched at the enemy, so I stuck with the simpler design — what do you think?



Anyway, once this Ursus Claw and the kitbashed rocket launcher arm are painted, I will have a pretty exhaustive collection of Dreadnought/Helbrute weapons — as a matter of fact, I built this last arm mostly for fun anyway, rather than for added tactical flexibility. Still, I think it’ a fairly cool option for featuring an element from the World Eaters’ recent fluff in my army!

As always, let me know what you think!

Just finished reading betrAyer myself, good book.
Sad for argel tal :(
You do the Amber queen justice with that urea claw my friend.

That Ursus claw is sweet, I was wondering, could you use it like a magna-grapple from the BA codex?? Sounds perfect for the Ursus claw, you hit something with it and winch it in for an assault!!

Lovely kitbash