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Thanks chaps. Got a couple more painted that I will show soon, and a game on Sunday so I can maybe get some action shots of them.

I am having some trouble with their base as I used some oil paint stuff which is just refusing to dry, even after 3 days, tried coating it in varnish but didn't help really. Anyone have any pro tips? I may just wipe it off.

Bruticus man the Van Saar are great.

The choice of bits are absolutely spot on.

When you said yellow I was a little taken aback because I always assume them to be green. But it works just fine too. ]

The action shot van saar vs the gladiator is cool. I think that gladiator needs the Killer Rep skill.

Two more Van Saar:



This is Circle Breaker the heavy and Fantomex with his hunting rifle.



The bases are a bit scruffy as I am not sure what is going on with those yet. Circle Breaker's hair is all scultped by me over a bald head, while Fantomex has half a space marine scout head. He uses an original Van Saar torso (with modified gun) - I think it goes to show the Van Saar scuplts were often fine, just suffered from poor posing. My favourite thing is the way the paint on his flash suppressor has burned off at the end, that came out looking pretty good.

Your conversions never fail to be dynamic and very detailed

I originally planned to do them green to better associate them with the original models, but I love yellow too much at the moment.

Fantastic car man! I'd like to see more angles in photos of it!

I really like that missile launcher guy!, those maxmini tosos on elysian legs are great, im going to have to try that

Had my first couple of games with my Van Saar the other day... mixed results!

On the positive side, my juve shanked a downed Ratskin chief and killed him, collecting a 200 cred bounty.

On the negative side my rocket launcher heavy got jumped from behind by a charging shaman who left him with multiple wounds - a broken hand, broken arm, broken leg and shattered ribs. The next game he tried to get some payback against some ratskin braves when his rocket launcher blew up in his hands.

Oh and Diziet fired her first ever shot with her lasgun which promptly exploded in her hands giving her brain damage.

No more photos just yet but hopefully won't be long until the whole gang is complete.

Ah man, whose dice were you using? Check 'em for weights

Just sounds like it wasn't your night boss...so you rolled 2 sucessive 1s on the Lasgun right? That's really crap luck but I'm sure you'll do better next time.

I think a shooty gang will always get the upper hand vs CC gang when deloyed well.

R

I'm not sure, a lot of the advantages of a shooty gang get negated when you have so much scenery. You'd have to put out a lot of shots to take down the entire pitslave gang, who will probably all be in hiding until they near charge range. Or my friend's 20 strong scavvy gang.

Unless you take a lot of hand flamers that is, as they can auto pin a charging target with overwatch fire, but we have a bit of a self-imposed limit on using those.

I think Van Saars ought to kick arse in most campaigns just by having easy access to the Medic skill, the single most overpowered skill in the game. Winning games with an invincible pitslave gang doesn't count for much when your leader rolls a dead result after a lucky laspistol shot.

 Bruticus wrote:
I'm not sure, a lot of the advantages of a shooty gang get negated when you have so much scenery.

Yeah I guess that's the real factor...At home I play on my card stock stuff which is pretty damn open really and its only ever a matter of time before someone has to make a mad dash or a bad move and BAM!

R

Braindamage... on the first shot... this is why I love (and occasionaly hate) Necromunda!

Haven't popped in to tell you how awesome your stuff is in quite awhile, but your table is fantastic and those Van Saars are very nice as well. As much as I love the original Necromunda sculpts, I feel a number of the gangs could really do with a slight refresh, and I think your conversions show that pretty well.

Tough luck on the first game brain damage - but that's part of the beauty of Necro.

Great work! The conversions are skillfull as usual and while I might have ended up commenting on some weaker elements, the fact that you get them painted so already shut me up. The paintjob pulls it all together and they look absolutely fantastic!

And yes I mentioned Elysians as Van Saar at the beginning of my necro blog, as they are my buddy's crew. Unfortunately he was reluctant to invest a lot of time into conversions before feeling comfortable with the game. And even worse he wanted to build and create them to fit with his actual army of Elysians. So he build them as they come, apart from weaponswapping and he painted them in the khaki/black/green scheme of his army. A pity considering how skillfull a converter he is, but he's got too much going on.

Just found this thread. Great work!

Subbed.

I really like the van saar. Striking color scheme as well.

Thanks for all the positive feedback everyone.

Great work! The conversions are skillfull as usual and while I might have ended up commenting on some weaker elements, the fact that you get them painted so already shut me up.

Ah yeah I got impatient to paint them and didn't wait for any feedback on the conversions. But please feel free to give me some advice... so long as you don't make me want to pull them all apart and start again!. I do tend to do things a bit quickly - I am trying to get each of these guys painted in about 3-4 hours each as that's about how long it takes before I lose patience - but the main thing for me is having everyone painted so I can game with them.

I have already mentally moved on from the Van Saars and am planning my next gang (must try to focus on one thing at a time... must try not to end up like Ghostflame...). This one will be an Ash Waste gang (based a bit around the hired gun I posted earlier) complete with vehicles. They are going to be evil nomads, more Mad Max than the standard GW ones. The few bits I've put together so far look so cool! They will probably be exactly the sort of scum that Scarper's gang spend a lot of time trying to avoid.

Excellent work as always. Haven't posted in a bit but have been following along. You are rocking the yellow, and it's a tough color to work with. Well done.

 Bruticus wrote:
must try to focus on one thing at a time... must try not to end up like Ghostflame

Haha You see how much painting you get done when you have a kid Brut. I'm lucky to get 3/4 hours sleep ATM let alone time for anything else. However yeah what little I do get I tend to build rather than paint...I'll get around to them all eventually

R

This is an amazingly diverse bunch of models mate, the posing modelling and paint are all fantastic. Makes me want to find my ratskins.

 Bruticus wrote:
Thanks for all the positive feedback everyone.
Ah yeah I got impatient to paint them and didn't wait for any feedback on the conversions. But please feel free to give me some advice... so long as you don't make me want to pull them all apart and start again!. I do tend to do things a bit quickly - I am trying to get each of these guys painted in about 3-4 hours each as that's about how long it takes before I lose patience - but the main thing for me is having everyone painted so I can game with them.

What I meant was, that the paintjob pulled it all together and made me rethink my pov, not that I wouldn't criticise your work, because it's too late anyway. Your sniper is the best example, I would have commented on the slightly random collection of bitz he's composed of, but in the painted version he's absolutely fine, so nothing to comment on. Maybe I've just seen to many muzzles from kroot rifles...
Working quickly is fine and I admire it, especially if the balance between speed and quality is right. Yours is top notch.
Sometimes my tenacious and meticulous approach gets on my own nerves and I envy the output of some people (Neil is the best example), but it's my way and the only one that makes me happy with my work.

I have already mentally moved on from the Van Saars and am planning my next gang (must try to focus on one thing at a time... must try not to end up like Ghostflame...). This one will be an Ash Waste gang (based a bit around the hired gun I posted earlier) complete with vehicles. They are going to be evil nomads, more Mad Max than the standard GW ones. The few bits I've put together so far look so cool! They will probably be exactly the sort of scum that Scarper's gang spend a lot of time trying to avoid.

The thing is, as much as I want to, I can't even get at you for being a hypocrite, who criticises others for being fickle, because you're basicly done with the VS anyway aren't you?
Just like for pitslaves, I've got a sweet spot for ash wastes nomads and they are on my long list of future projects. I would stick with the normal style (since I actually have all of the original miniatures), but I can see this getting awesome if you do them as thoroughly as your slaves.

The thing is, as much as I want to, I can't even get at you for being a hypocrite, who criticises others for being fickle, because you're basicly done with the VS anyway aren't you?

Hah well the truth is I like teasing you and Ghostflame mostly because I am pretty similar when it comes to swapping between projects. My desk is covered in half finished models that I intend to get to one of these days... I have realised that the only way I ever get anything finished is if I either a) can paint it really quickly or b) particularly enjoy painting it. Pitslaves were pretty fun to paint, I really enjoyed painting their bruised skin and hazard stripes, Van Saars and Goliaths were pretty quick. I keep coming up with crazy ideas, planning them for a few hours and then forcing myself not to embark on yet another project. I really envy people who pick one army and stick with it until they have a giant collection of models all painted the same... I can't even imagine doing that.

Maybe I've just seen to many muzzles from kroot rifles...

Hah yeah. I am done with those now! I have to admit I am sometimes guilty of just copying a good idea I see elsewhere, but I do really hate it when a part is too easily recognisable/over familiar.

WOW those VS look amazing!

The paint burnt off the end of the kroot muzzle really blew me away, haven't seen that technique used before, really fantastic!

My new Elita model painted up, replacing the first attempt back on page 2. She changed her hair colour I guess. This model fits in much better with my image of Elita and has a bionic arm like a real techno might - you can't really see from this one crappy photo but her other hand is holding a gore-soaked bunch of cables coming out of the ruined pitslave helmet. She's made from the Sedition Wars figure of Kara Black - a Mike McVey sculpt and I really think the face is great - mind you it's rare for GW to do well sculpted females never mind female faces. Other parts include a plasma pistol embiggened into a gun (I liked all the copper pipes on it), dark eldar arm, little camera thing from an old plastic stormtrooper backpack... a few other parts. I tried some Meade style OSL that didn't work exactly but never mind.

Brilliant

You're killing me with these latest models. They look utterly fantastic.

really cool Bruticus I like the gladiator helm in her hand too! ties her in

Very nice mate...stunning infact!

R

She looks good.

I've just about finished painting my pitfighter Ogryn so will post pics of him tomorrow.

Quick question - does anyone have any tips on how to sculpt tiny studs, like piercing sized? I had heard of gluing on balls from a water filter or something.

Those would work well because they are so small. They are the pieces of activated charcoal inside a water filter. They generally range in size slightly as well. Just make sure they are dry because they stay moist for an incredibly long time.

If you can find a pin small enough, the head of it might work. The application is slightly easier since you can drill a hole where you want it and put the pin in.