First let's prepare our workspace...


Ugh that's a mess. That's no good. Time to clean up!


Perfect!

In the interest of recycling an old model, I chose one of the first models I ever painted, this trusty old defiler. Oooh boy, that thing looks terrible, and is in need of some repair work.


So, what can I do with this guy? Obvious answer is "Let's make a Soul Grinder!". Obviously, I'll need to give this thing a box-ectomy? .. a .. cannon tuck? a... umm... screw it. Let's cut. Time to bust out the trusty Gee Dub saw and get cracking. You can see I took the easiest route possible to avoid damaging the legs, which is to slice the thing off at the "waist" which is a statically glued joint.




Perfect! This leaves me with usable legs for my soul grinder. We won't be needing the excess


Whoa hold on...


That gun is totally reusable. Score! All we have to do before we can start building is to strip paint. Time to break out the Old Bay


Oh who am I kidding, time to break out all the SImple Green... all of it.


Some of the joints popped, and I used this opportunity to place pieces in an ultrasonic cleaner with some Simple Green and water to further loosen things up between soaks and scrubbing.


Here's what I had left and how they reassembled. There are still some spots with a bit of paint and primer, which I scraped off offending paint with a hobby knife as I proceeded to build over the next few days. As a bonus, I was able to reclaim a pair of 1/4" disk magnets!




During this process, I needed to learn some airbrushing techniques. Being the pro I am, I spent minutes Googling and found some decent tutorial videos on how to airbrush nebulae. After some planning, I picked up some paints and set up some materials to do a few practice runs. Using some cardboard reclaimed from the Amazon, I made a simple cardboard canvas, which I primed black. I then cut out a clear piece of flexible plastic with randomly cut edges to form a simple stencil. Perfect! I made two attempts. The first was... alright. The second much better.

My canvas!


My Stencil!


My first attempt!


And the second attempt! I'm confident enough at this point to move on.


So, I've got a sweet chassis at this point, what am I going to do to beef up this model? ... to take this project by the horns? ...Moo moo. Moo!
How about kitbashing one of these slick Ghorgon kits? Shazam!


Uhh. I've never built one of these before. It looks cool, but how does this work?


Oh screw it

Thanks for the photobomb, Fire Marshal Bento.

So I started building. The kit, I have to say, has some really great bits to use for this and some others which will be great for future projects. The torso went together smoothly and I chose a head and horn combination from a number of options.. The body looks super creepy with the tongue. The head will slip on afterwards over this, thankfully. I even gave the chassis a tail, which we'll revisit later. Dry positioning the torso shows I have achieved what I wanted. I used paper clips to create a three point brace to lower the torso on for stability. I added four arms to this beast, saving the optional shoulder caps for later, and reused the previously saved cannon to act as my Harvester Cannon.








Again, the torso is dry fit at this point. And planning for the next steps, I need a bit more plastic to work with to really integrate the two models. I can hide a lot of this, but some scultpting will be exposed. This is the point at which I added and then removed legs to the might Mechataur within minutes. How cruel...



For the sculpting, I opted to use Milliput for this project. To connect torso to chassis, I used a fairly large piece sculpted to the bottom of the torso pressed down over the bracing pins, piercing the Milliput along with a few spot welds of super glue and plastic cement. Afterwards I scultped a spine ridge down the chassis to join with the tail to give it a more organic look.




Now at this point, I of course let the initial work cure before continuing. Next step, this guy needs some flair... and an ass. I picked out some random bits from the Ghorgon kit (hook hands, skeleton, loin cloth, and the shoulders), some pipes from a Dakkajet kit and some tusks from a Battlewagon kit, and some bass guitar string to use as ribbed tubing. The ass I sculpted out of the shoulder caps (I 'member the long long ago) and more Milliput. I combined the hook hands and pipes to form .. something.. for the sides. I think they look like these are part of the anchor used to bind the daemon as well as sweet exhaust taht any self respecting bullgod needs. The loin cloth and tusks were added to the front for flair. Added a cool skeleton, and inserted some paper clip pins and cut guitar string to integrate flesh and machine. Finally, I did some repair work with green stuff and liquid green stuff to smooth out some gaps and mold lines.









Hey and look! We now have a Soul Grinder! I've added another half finished Soul Grinder for size comparison. Close enough for gubmint work.



And then I primed. For this, I used Badger's Stynylrez black primer for the first time. I have to say I really like it and plan on using this in the future, as it layered on smoothly.





So now it's time to start the airbrushing. Remember that practice I did earlier? I want to do that effect over the flat panels on the legs. Each panel, and the backs of the hook hands and the cannon panel, got a bit of stencil work. I layered two colors (VMA Blue and Minitaire Green) over VMA white. The star pattern was done with a toothbrush and toothpick splatter with a bit of Createx Opaque white. I coated with Testor's gloss coat from a rattle can to protect the paint.







Next, I fashioned booties (adorable, I might add!) out of plastic bags and masking tape to begin airbrushing the body. I used progressive coats starting with VMA Olive Drab and mixing it down with VMA White and VMA Gold Yellow to airbrush the skin and hair and horns. Different areas and parts were layered in different amounts and angles to differentiate between them. I finished up with another coat of Testor's Gloss.









Booties off! Sexy!


Now for the most tedious thing I have to do: paint the chassis. This was done with traditional brushing (as all further painting will be) using VMA Aluminum.





And on to layering, washing and drybrushing. I won't get as detailed here, but I will show you the work as I progress. You may have noticed things coming out of the back of the cannon. I have since removed these as I could not get them to glue properly and they kept breaking. Unfortunate, but not needed. I should also add that I attempted heat stress washing for the first time using this tutorial. It came out... acceptable. I am using a random assortment of Citadel and Vallejo paints and washes for this project. The aluminum in the previous steps is slowly being washed black, accented with Runelord Brass and drybrushed with Necron Compound to tone down the brightness. Skulls was layered with Karak Stone, washed with Seraphim Sepia and drybrushed with Praxetti White. Body hair is being washed with Seraphim Sepia... he uh... has a happy trail. So weird to paint...