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I missed that guy you did on page 11 before that gas mask mutant is fantastic, so creepy.

Maybe its because his robotic arm looks kind of insectoid, but I think this little guy is the scariest thing I've seen you make. Just imagining him focusing on the skull scraping rapidly at it with that claw, turning it round, scraping some more, examining it to see if there's any meat still left. Then it pauses and lifts its masked head in your direction and drops the skull..

Unfortuantely I agree with the others on the pose so far for the sunny ma'am. At the moment i'm rather reminded of a morris dancer, especially the second to last pic! However if the pose is changed slightly I think it will be perfect, lovely use of the sanguinary mask btw, its one of my favorite go to bits when i'm stuck for a head! Just because I havn't commented on your other exploits doesn't mean I havn't been following, its all just flawless, and there are only so many times a month I can come on here and praise you without running out of adjectives. (I may have to start making them up) Your female psyker is, for the record, flooping amaze-balls.

Thanks for the feedback, guys!

 Two Spartan wrote:
I missed that guy you did on page 11 before that gas mask mutant is fantastic, so creepy.

Maybe its because his robotic arm looks kind of insectoid, but I think this little guy is the scariest thing I've seen you make. Just imagining him focusing on the skull scraping rapidly at it with that claw, turning it round, scraping some more, examining it to see if there's any meat still left. Then it pauses and lifts its masked head in your direction and drops the skull..

I originally wanted to answer that this guy would never ever drop a skull, but then the realisation hit me: The only circumstances under which he *would* actually drop a skull would be for a far more desirable specimen to appear. Brrr. Great job, mate, now you've made me afraid of my own model

Regarding the sun cultist, I'll happily agree that the model needs much more work, pose and all. I am, of course, slightly limited by the pose of the legs, so she will be dancer-like and dynamic by sheer necessity. I'll work on it, though.

Before that, the guys over at the Ammobunker pointed out how the proportions of her face were ever so slightly off, the face underneath the mask not matching the mask's proportions and suchlike. I was very tempted to just dismiss it all, but those perfectionist madmen were right, dammit, so I shortened the mask a bit to sort out the facial proportions and take some of the masculine hardness away from the mask:





While it's not even milimetres we're talking about here, it still has a huge impact on the plausibility of the face.

The next step will be to figure out which weapons to use on her: Though I like the DE whip (and am tempted to keep it), just going for DE weapons all the time is maybe a tad too lazy. Here are all the possible weapons for her I've managed to find in my bitzbox. I would love to hear your thoughts about which weapons I should use, since I am pretty much stumped at this point:



I also have a buckler with a sun on it that would be a great match for her, but it doesn't appear in the picture. Anyway, would love to hear your ideas!

I think she could look interesting with one of the pikes or long handled weapon in her right hand, buckler on left and standing in a completely upright position so that she is looking forward instead of down.
I think she should look ready to strike with her leg up, like a cobra about to strike. Because if her head is stuck to the torsos direction, it will be hard to have her look as though she is running.


Edit: also good work on the helmet, I looked at what is was before and you have made a big difference fitting it to the face

Hmm, that's an interesting idea! Just a little mockup while I am figuring this out:



Please ignore the hokey area on her midriff: I had to cut away the lower part of her torso to make it more freely poseable, and will have to rebuild that area with a bit of GS later on.

She looks good with spear and bukler, but I would point the spear more directly in front of her.

Nice hoplite amazon thing going on their as well. How about some sort of orb mace or circular axe painted as a sun as well to run the theme through?

If she's a death cultist assassin or something of the like, I really cant see her murdering people with something as unweildy as a spear.

The cultist axe on the other hand might work? I like the sun Buckler though, it's a cool image!

I agree with ghosty and llama, that axe would fit right in.

I was imagining her even more upright than you have her, standing like a peacock with one leg up. And the end of the pike on the ground. I'm not with my bits at the moment though so I cant tell if that pose would look awkward or if the bottom foot would be wonky. But it may be an option if you couldn't get a natural running pose.

I think this pose is good though.

Cheers, guys! I appreciate the well-considered feedback!

Not totally sold on the spear myself, to tell you the truth. While I appreciate the classical quality about it, it just seems to clunky and unwieldy a weapon to use in a fix. I did do a mockup of her with the axe, as some of you suggested:







The pose is slightly awkward for now, of course. And I had to use a flagellant arm as a stand in.

Anyway, what I love about the axe is that the serrated blade seems to be picking up the sun motif. On the other hand, I dislike the way the hand is gripping the weapon at a seemingly awkward point of the haft -- in fact, that's the reason I originally removed the axe from the cultist champ. But I think there might be something there warranting further exploration. What do you think?

If you were going to try to wield that beast of an axe one handed, that is where you would grip the haft.

Personally, I think the double-bladed short spear and the buckler would look great together.

I like the changes you made to the head. It is subtle but makes a difference. Also, twisting the torso to be more to the front was a very good move.

~Eric

You can always shorthen the lower part of the haft. Tbh i always found axes to be more of a barbarian type weapon wielded by the more bulkier individual. Personally i would go for the straight serrated blade, more suitable for slender persons with a more graceful fighting style.

I love the axe! What if you rotated the axe/hand combo at the wrist towards the shield? Then it would look like she's delivering a wicked backhand

Love the axe, because of the sun ray look... but what about a two handed swing? The shield can be strapped to her left forearm.

I have to say, I prefer the spear, though it may need a small amount of shortening (does still work at that length, just looks a tad awkward)
The axe just doesn't look right to me, probably because it isn't sleek enough.

Also on a totally unrelated notr, my computer thinks axe isn't a word, damn spellcheck

I like the spear, but I agree that it's too long... what if you swapped the axe head with the spear head? It would look sleek, and the awkward grip would make more sense.

Just my 2 cents

Thanks for the suggestions, guys! I guess I'll have to take my time with that sun cultist -- after shaving tiny little slices off that mask for so long, I won't mess up the model by going for the wrong arms and weapons

In the meantime, I've done more work on some of my other models. Most importantly, I have started painting my Xenos Inquisitor, now named Titus Alvar:







He's not nearly finished, of course, but I am rather happy with the overall colour combination. You may also have noticed that I went back to the original tie I had planned for the model (I feel I let myself be talked out of that too easily). And after seeing how well a Dark Elf sabre worked on Bruticus' Inquisitor Tsengir, I added the same weapon to my own Xenos Inquisitor: I like how it looks decidedly alien without being too on-the-nose Eldar-ish.



I also did some work on a couple of models for Inquisitor Fiegmund's dark and gothic Hereticus warband.

First up, thanks to the suggestions of several people, I replaced the purity seal on the Death Cult Assassin with a more organic looking version to emphasise the sense of movement:



And I used two cultist conversions I had started earlier as hyper-religious nutjobs working for Fiegmund as a means of basically enforcing their zeal on others. Meet Practicals Pask and Gretsch:



These will need some more work, obviously, but I do like the slightly medieval zealot vibe they have going on!

Let me know what you think!

Amazing thread updates, ones that actually inspired me to work on my own =I= stuff ^^
I like how the wych makes a proper DCA with a few simple swaps and bitz additions, and same goes for those cultists. Though you may want to file off Chaos trim on the last guy's shoulder

Looking forward for more!

 KrautScientist wrote:
Thanks, guys!
Anyway, due to her powers, she has been secreted away from other people for most of her life and grew up very shy and demure as a consequence. Her secret was only uncovered when Inquisitor Gotthardt visited the planet as part of some investigation. And for some reason (which will need to be pretty good, I suppose), he chose to make her a member of his retinue.

He could have made her part of the reunite because of her isolation, she has had no contact with Chaos. Her only knowledge is the Imperium making it harder for her to be corrupted.

Lovely colour choices on Titus - very debonair! Looks like he's got a touch of the peacock about him, but would gut you for saying so. Can't wait to see him finished

Glad You kept the head on Titus.
He looks awesome.

Nice work on the Inquisitor Can I also add my voice as a +1 for the sun buckler and axe combo for the assassin, I'm grateful that ghosty pretty much said what I wanted to about it.

All I would add though is that maybe removing the studs and the spike from the axe head will help with its appearance and separate it from the original model. You may also want to consider shortening the shaft too. It does look a little like she is trying to wield a two handed axe with a single hand

heers, guys! Thanks for the feedback and suggestions!

@ Dreadclaw69: Regarding the Sun cultist, I believe getting her just right will still require a bit of work, and also possibly the acquisition of some additional DE Wych arms, just to be on the safe side I am reasonably sure that the buckler is in, though. At the end of the day, I would rather take my time with her to get her just so -- she'll have to hold up to Bruticus' fantastic sun cultist, after all!

@ DRommel: Cheers, mate! Yes, those Wyches are perfect conversion fodder for creating female cultist types -- so much so, in fact, that I have to be careful not to use them all the time and become lazy and unimaginative Honestly, though: They take surprisingly few alterations to make them look more imperial! Looking forward to seeing what you come up with, btw! Those last models you posted were stellar, as usual

@ tundrafrog1124: That's certainly a good starting point for finding a good reason for that particular plot point! Thanks a lot!

@ Scarper: That's exactly the effect I was going for! My basic idea with Alvar was to have an Inquisitor who is also a bit of a snappy dresser and, indeed, a socialite. Still working out the specifics in the back of my head, but I think it makes a nice contrast with all of the shadow war stuff without straying into "golden power armour and burning torches" ostentatiousness

@ SelvaggioSaky: Cheers, mate! It's surely been quite a bit of work, but I finally like where the model is headed now!

I think that the buckler is really what adds to her, and shows her identity

Feeling the short prong-spear and buckler, for my part. (I think that's vote #2 for that) The axe looks pretty sweet too, though, and I can see an awesome theme of the "sun" running through the figure. (Face mask, buckler symbol, half-sun axe), so either way.

As to the Inquisitor, I love the paintjob - the face is especially good with that sexy tie. Reminds me of an Inquisitor Jason "Transporter" Statham. Sexy beast.

New Assassin looks great too - very awesome true-to-grimdark version of a Callidus.

-Remi

 KrautScientist wrote:
heers, guys! Thanks for the feedback and suggestions!

@ Dreadclaw69: Regarding the Sun cultist, I believe getting her just right will still require a bit of work, and also possibly the acquisition of some additional DE Wych arms, just to be on the safe side I am reasonably sure that the buckler is in, though. At the end of the day, I would rather take my time with her to get her just so -- she'll have to hold up to Bruticus' fantastic sun cultist, after all!

@ DRommel: Cheers, mate! Yes, those Wyches are perfect conversion fodder for creating female cultist types -- so much so, in fact, that I have to be careful not to use them all the time and become lazy and unimaginative Honestly, though: They take surprisingly few alterations to make them look more imperial! Looking forward to seeing what you come up with, btw! Those last models you posted were stellar, as usual

@ tundrafrog1124: That's certainly a good starting point for finding a good reason for that particular plot point! Thanks a lot!!

here is a good website for getting the right bits http://hoardobits.com/cgi/hob/shop.pl?cat1=Bits&cat2=Warhammer%2040k&cat3=&cat4=&page=24
No problem glad to help!

Good work, KrautScientist! The Death Cult Assassin sure has that certain Blacnhian vibe in her - and I like that a lot!

- Kari

Cheers, guys! I really appreciate your feedback!

Got some more work done today. First of all, here's the finished build for Inquisitor Zuul, the character I'll be sending off to PDH and Mol for this year's Inqvitational:











I mainly smoothed out a couple of rough spots, and after a last bubble bath, I'll undercoat the model and hopefully get it painted over the weekend. Whatever's horrible about him will have to be covered up by paint

Here's a detail shot showing his hand holding the Inquisitorial rosette on a cord:



I also built a base for him, using pieces of an old telephone card, some brass basing material and some cork:





And, finally, here's a test fit with both the model and base:





Expect an update on him soon!

I also worked some more on Inquisitor Alvar (who, from a painting perspective, will serve as a bit of a test run for Zuul -- I would love to paint Zuul in a similar manner). The model's still not finished, but I added some new touches:







I also really like the base I built for him:







And, to wind this up, a couple of detail shots of the model on its base:





As always, any and all C&C are welcome!

Looking good, I can't wait to see some paint on Inquisitor Zuul

Great stuff man! Looking forward to seeing everything painted.
I can't wait to see what you'll do next.