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Smashing work!

Indeed, good job!

Alrighty, this blog has taken a long hiatus. It seems university life took over as well as personal things that arose that have kept me out of the gaming and blogging scene for almost 2 years now. I didn't touch 7th edition all that much since we had no gaming groups around my area, but with the recent arrival of a gaming and comic store in town, my interest in 40k arose once more.
Coupled with this and the arrival of 8th edition (which I thought was amazing value for the models and the great big book of everything) I purchased a box of new models and have been pouring over them for the last few weeks. However, I had left all of my modelling supplies back home until a recent visit. Now with everything in hand, my passion for the hobby has been reignited and maybe not in what this blog so far has entailed.

For now, my interests seem to have switched allegiances from the Ultramarines to the Death Guard!~ I've always loved the colour schemes and rough gross rusting appearances that often DG models follow. With my last adventures into painting finding my own techniques starting to create rougher battle hardened marines, I've decided to take a stab at painting DG and some wonderfully rusted industrial style bases for a little while.

But, this first update is just a taste of getting back in to the hobby. Upon getting everything back to my own place from the folks, I set about creating bases. I didn't think I would stay attentive to the models but 8 hours later I had churned out 20 bases for the Pox Walkers (constructed, but no painting yet). With the cold environment around here Ill have to wait a day or so for some proper sunshine to let me spray. But for now, Im using a dodgy phone camera to get these pics done.

When my set up is more secure, better pics will follow.
Hope you all enjoy.

With my space for modelling restricted to my room due to my housemates cats often enjoying the game of 'push this new thing off the table or destroy it', Ive had to come up with a mini battle station from which to build and paint which can be packed away at a moments notice.



Everything has so much glare due to not being familiar with my phones camera, hopefully this will change over time of usage, bare with me

Minor update time~

I finished all 20 Pox Walker bases and now got them glue tacked down for spraying tomorrow. Some minor conversions might still be done to the models as having two of the same of each model seems a bit boring to my tastes.

This is only big thing done so far, switching out the hammer for a chain glaive from Anvil Industries. Some shaving and cutting of the hand as well as drilling out some of the robe enabled this conversion to work, although looks a bit clean at the moment.




Now just some models on their bases.

So another minor update. After looking over all of the Pox-walkers I decided on something. They all looked far too alike, having 2 of the same each in a 20 man squad made for dreary repetitiveness. Because fo this, I decided to stay up and concert at least 10 to 12 of all of the Pox-walkers to make each unique in the squad and to stand out. Ill go through and show each change and talk about how I did it.



The knifey bros have had one of their weapons switched to a hook. This was done by cutting off the blade at the handle. Afterwards, I found a hook from the chaos bits and pieces collection of chains and skulls, there was a hook attached to a small mounting mechanism which I cut off and then filed to attach to the end. The other Poxwalker just has an incense burner attached to his back hip simply for style points and because they often are associated with Nurgle anyways.



As for what I did with the removed blade, I decided to create a makeshift double bladed gun handle. The ingenuity of the Pox-walkers to make anything a weapon is amazing I used some GW barbed wire to attach it to give it a mangled put together look and also applied liquid greenstuff to the other model to create scaring down the centre of the bloated stomach. This is more for aesthetic reasons but will be more prominent when painting commences. I might do this to more models as it's a simple fix to the clone like appearance of a number of them.



With one of the caped Pox-walkers already converted to have a chain glaive instead of his hammer, I set about remaking one of the weapons for these guys. I cut off the hammer head from the spare part and attached it to one of these guys instead. Still fits well too. I also cut and filed down the spikes on the arms and backs of these boys because they were already accidentally getting bent and storing them would be a nightmare once painted so I decided to cut my losses and keep them to a minimum. The guy on the left has some spare tyranid armour sprues bits that I got randomly from a friend and wanted to try and armour him but also make it look natural like growing his own chitinous armour through his gifts from Nurgle.



Now it's time for the Hammer Bros~
These two are relatively simple, just filed down one end or the other and attached various chaos bits including a small hook the flat mounting point of which was then glued to the other hammer to give it a bit more fierce a look which I just found looked cooler anyways



These bladed Pox-walkers were the hardest to try and do something with simply because their pose and weaponry didnt allow for much that would end up mutilating their figures beyond what I could manage. Short of cutting off hands and trying to greenstuff something, I endedup using a chaos possessed bit (one of the horns) and through the power of filing and liquid greenstuff mounted it the shoulder to create the illusion of a 4th arm starting to sprout out.



I have a major soft spot for the gun wielding stalker Pox-walkers. They just look so cool to me. First I started by cutting off the little spikes on their right shoulders pads for storage and aesthetic reasons since it looks more menacing being one sided spike heavy to me. After that, I started to cut and file away at one of the walkers heads and using a spare guardsmans helmet, I slowly managed to fit it in to place. He looks dorky and well protected. The helmet also has been scratched and drilled to look worn and slowly decaying like the rest of the armour on the unit.

Wicked conversions. Looking forward to seeing some paint on these dudes.

EDC

Sweet! I love the barbed-wired blade and the dude with the Guardsman's helmet

Cool stuff here, subbed!

Nice work! And a very helpful presentation, too: it's wonderful seeing just how/where you've done your tinkering. Inspiring stuff.

Thanks for the kind words guys, I really appreciate it

So with the bases fully assembled and the models ready, i got bust and primed all 20 at once. I then proceeded to obsess over how much I loved painting and set about getting all 20 bases finished in record time (and fueled by copious amounts of coffee until 4 in the morning). The end work is pretty spectacular but the photo quality of dakka doesn't quite do them justice. Still, here they are in all their glory, Industrial, rusted rotting bases. Possible last things to be done to them would be the odd blood splatter but they would be determined by which models are mounted on them or if it would be needed at all.











Hope you guys all enjoy~

One thing I have done that is very Nurgley is cut tiny strips of plasticard and press them over your greenstuff scars to look like stitches/staples. Very gruesome!

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:
One thing I have done that is very Nurgley is cut tiny strips of plasticard and press them over your greenstuff scars to look like stitches/staples. Very gruesome!

That sounds pretty interesting, what thickness of plasticard do you use for that? And how hard does it get to cut strips that small to look like stitching?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
With all of my Poxwalkers base coated, I set about painting them to my style before realising that I didnt have all the necessary paints. After order some new stuff, I instead chose to base the largest model in the Dark Imperium set, the Blight Drone.

I wanted the base to be slightly elevated and a bit over the top in details with the platform that it is based on being completely rusted through but also still intact, if barely.

First I chose to split the platform in to two with a gap down a little bit of one end, giving the impression of a drain. If I had the chance to go back, i would have placed a thick piece of plasticard underneath the pipes to elevate them a touch more so they stood a little bit above the gutter. The pipework was a bit tedious but luckily the I beams match up perfectly in height to create the support structure to the base. It will have the main open topped gutter and then the 'sewage' line running across and underneath the panels.









Here are some shots taken of the Blight Drone sitting on the base in mid progress before I decide to try and up the anti and make it a bit more ostentatious, which seems to be a catch phrase for making more work for myself.





After a few more hours of drawing up designs I realised what was missing. I went with a line of bracing with rivets across the main gutter line and debated doing the same on the other or leaving it bare. At the very least I was thinking of adding a chaos spiky bit line of spikes from their tank lines but am not convinced. I decided instead I wanted to focus the other side on making it more rusted through and almost breaking down so I focus on chipping and damaging the edges along the gutter. As well as this, I needed something to break up the monotony of the drain gaps leading under the metal sheeting so i quickly created some bars to place grating over the main entrances. You, to stop the gibbly bits from clogging things up.









The two top panels are not glued down at the moment and wont be until I've finished painting it. This is so I can easily get at all the details underneath since there will be a fair bit of rust and verdigris on the pipe-works, as well as allowing easier access to the gutters underneath and between the grating pipes.

I still want to add more, I can think of extras to add such as some chunks of different things down the drain since it will mostly be made to look like either a dried river bed style or thick with some sort of oozing sludge to give the impression that the sewerage is actually deeper than it appears. That would also include adding some extra bits to the top platforms since I feel they are a bit plain even with the weather and bullet and rust holes applied. I'll have to decide on these later since even as I type this up ive added a a few holes to the visible pipes.

I hope you all enjoy and Ill hopefully have some painted models in my next pictures when the supply drop arrives later this week.

MWH.

Alrighty, another small update time.

With the paints still MIA I turned my attention to building some of the plague marines isntead, their bases still to come.
These models are festooned with details and seema bit bulkier than the regular marines I generally build. With these details, there was a bit of difficulty in deciding how to convert them to be unique.

Ive managed to get 4 of these first 5 to be different from their Dark Imperium counterparts. Some of these conversions have been minor and some a little more major. With so little inspiration going around at the moment it's a little hard coming up with bits and pieces to change about them that aren't simply adding a little incense burning or some grenades or ammo pouches to the models, despite my adequate bitz box.

But for now, here they are.



First on the blocks are these two. The man on the left, plasma-chain-man has had both a head swap and his left pauldron cut down to a smaller bladed horn (honestly I the only thing I dislike about these plague amrines is how many delicate and super long spiky bits they tended to put on them. I love the details but just starts to move more in to the Lord of Change's territory). Gives him a more compact feel whilst the helmet is from the SM Veneral Dreadnought kit, plus some studs I added on top.

His partner Belly-McBellfast (seriously, he is COVERED in bells! We get it, you love the enemy knowing where you are at every moment in a fight!) For this warrior I actually cut a lot of his bells off from the wrist and the gun as well as cut off the burner on his pack. This was replaced by a skull that will later have some rotting flesh added to it via greenstuff. Im still tempted to cut off the bells hanging from his knife to replace with other bits.







I was a bit stuck with what to do with Mr Pipes here. After looking through some bits, I chose to cut off the gun magazine to be replaced with a drum mag from Anvil Industries (I love these things, just wish I had more to do everyone with them). Afterwards I needed a bit more and took the burner that cut off Belly Mc-Bellfast and after shaving down the large pipe placed it on top.



Spike is probably the most converted of all. He is one of the two marines that have the same pose, legs, left fore arm and backpacks. His original head was supposed to have curling thorn horns that created the symbol of Nurgle, these horns were cut off and the head shaven to look more like its original helmet. I debated whether or not to give him his brother marines proper helmet (Plasma-chain-man) but realised I liked the older pattern of armour more, and the helmets look really cool. His backpack was replaced by a part from the chaos possessed kit. On top of that, both of the horns on his shoulders were shaven and cut down to a more reasonable (and safer to store and travel) sizes that make him look a bit more even sided.



These are the 4 that have been converted. I have a few ideas but they generally involve changing their magazines out or cutting extra bits off of them because of how over the top their decorations can appear (I'm looking at you Belly!). Any thoughts or critiques are much appreciated, I am always looking for inspiration to create wonderful different marines.

Hope you all enjoy.

MWH.

I noticed a trend amongst a lot of other builders that the plague caster is considered a bit of an ugly or clunky model. I am one of these people, and so after a bit of inspiration and stalking through some of the blogs on here, I came up with a quick and simple solution to make the Plaguecaster more appealing, or at least to myself anyhow.

First things first was to cut the right arm to separate the arm from the leg of the model, this allows for move-ability of the joint and for the next step to be even easier. After the arm is cut off, I cut and shaved the arm at the end of the vambrace to be able to hold another weapon (goodbye noxious cloud!). The caster has been given a plasma pistol from the the khorne berserker kit with a small tentacle added over the wrist to hide the ugly cut and give it a bit more of a nurgly feel instead of an ordinary arm. The idea of doing this came from Krautscientist and his conversion for the Plague caster was extremely well done.

The left arm holding the staff is left intact, instead cutting bits and pieces off the top of the staff (Which just looks really fantasy but child-like) so that needed to change. The Scythe component is one of the scything blade arms cut off a possessed unit backpack bit. These were combined with some liquid greenstuff but will require a bit more attention to make look natural. I also took a small Nurgle charm and added it to the bottom instead of the usual piece. There are some extra things I could do, such as adding an incence burner or some bells (cut off from the bell marine) to give it a bit more flavour.

The last part was an idea that I could have sworn I had seen somewhere on the internet but my searches had been fruitless. The garb used to cover the Plaguecaster's mouth is actually the front tabbard of the Horned/bolter plague marine from this set of models. I cut the tabbard off when building because it just felt too out of place (not sure why, cloth just doesn't seem like something Nurgle would want everywhere), plus I needed some extra changes to make the model look unique.
The tabard actually has the perfect crook and design to it that it fit almost perfectly into the little gap between hood and face. After a little cutting and shaping I realised I had cut too much but the tabbard works well to cover the ugly cherub face and gives a sense of motion and magic being cast. A little greenstuff helped to fix up the mistakes.








Following on from that, my paints finally arrived and I set about painting up a Poxwalker to get my bearings with the paintscheme.






Im going with heavily rusted weapons and dark green clothing (might change some as I go along). He still has some way to go until I am completely happy with the model but it's nice getting back in to model painting

Comments and critiques always welcome, I hope you all enjoy.

MWH.

I am one of the few people who actually like the plague caster, but your conversion is absoulurly awesome! Great work!

 EmberlordofFire8 wrote:
I am one of the few people who actually like the plague caster, but your conversion is absoulurly awesome! Great work!

Thank you, I actually love most of the model, it's mainly the toy staff and the cherub face... Although the old action of spewing a cloud of noxious death onto his victims seemed pretty cool. Another little dislike though is all of the streaming bits of cloth on his body, makes him look a little fatter than he needs to be in my opinion.

Alrighty tiny update:

I've been inundated with university assignments so I've been turning my attention to those instead at the moment. Some painting has been getting done between essays so I will have something more concrete later this week when I finish the last batch of work on a bunch of the Poxwalkers.

When your working with green stuff, you wet your tools right?

 sennacherib wrote:
When your working with green stuff, you wet your tools right?

The only green stuff I've used so far has been the liquid stuff from GW. When using it though I use toothpicks to move it about and then later shave or trim bits and pieces down with a hobby knife when it dries.

For regular greenstuff then yes I would have to wet my tools when using it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As promised here is some updates on the models. Painting the Pox Walkers is a delight if also a time consuming adventure. I've never painted models like this before, having only ever built and painted marines in clean power armour or battle damaged.

I've gone through and started painting models almost in pairs. Im displaying them to contrast one another as I have randomly selected some models to have more tan skin tones and then some to be extremely pale. If I could go back, I would have made all of the Pox Walkers have extremely paleskin as I just preferred the look of it and makes sense since the models are supposed to be walking corpses of pestilence.
I have also painted up some dark skin Pox Walkers but I'm undecided how to continue on their skin tones since I've never done it before. The 20 will be a mix bag of colours to resemble a shambling horde, sometimes devoid of cohesion.

Ill be reposting new shots later on when I get time to finish painting them all to their proper standard, as currently only 2 or 3 are actually finished out of the 9 here.



















The final Pox Walker is a skin tone that I really enjoy painting and found it came out extremely well considering greeny pale skin seemed like a bit of a challenge at the start. Some schemes are based on GW's PW (such as the final pale skin tone) whilst some are jsut my own amalgamations of colour.

Hope you all enjoy this little update~

MWH.

Lots of brilliant poxwalkers these days, but yours really stand out, congratulations ! This is some skin tone mastery here.

 KernelTerror wrote:
Lots of brilliant poxwalkers these days, but yours really stand out, congratulations ! This is some skin tone mastery here.

Thank you, KernelTerror

I only hope I can get through them all before the burnout sinks in. I go through different stages of either wanting to paint or wanting to build new bases or convert models so we shall see how I go

So I became distracted and went and bought some new bits and pieces... Long story short I have 3 new marines and 5 new poxwalker models and some extra bits and pieces including the new 340 skull set from GW.

After some random conversions, i've slowly been working towards turning the 3 easy push together marines into unique models.



This guy has taken a head swap from the chaos terminator lord kit wehich had the symbol on the mouth shaved off. Along with a magazine change to a drum mag, I'm not really sure what else can be done for such a compact model but I knew after seeing the bloated face that that had to go.



The blight launcher marine was also a bit tough to do. I hated the tentacles (seriously why does nurgle have so many noodley appendages??) and so it was cut off. Being unsure what to put in the right hand isntead I decided upon a spare a ammo box that was trimmed a bit. Only a bit of a shame I didnt have any round drum mag ammo boxes which would fit the model better.





Third marine has left me at a cross road. One pose has him wielding the traditional fist sword combo (cut off from some of the Dark Imperium models) to give him a little more menacing pose over the standard stock position.

Then there is another alternative arm choice on my mind.



A spare arm from the Possessed kit gives him a forboding and tempting pose and honestly suits the model pretty well as well. Combined with the different head taken from one of his brothers, he model can work just as well. This model I am needing some feedback with to see which pose/arm combination looks the best (rule of cool must always apply when converting)


Finally I bought one more model (that I'm willing to show ) in my last supply drop.



The Plague Lord is a wonderful model that I've always wanted to own, and now with my love for Nurgle, I am thinking of ways to convert him into a slightly larger marine since his size now matches the scale creep that GW has implemented lately in their new sets.

As always, comments and questions are always welcome

MWH.

I'd like to see that mutated arm from another angle, and maybe see a shoulder pad on it before I can be sure.

 EmberlordofFire8 wrote:
I'd like to see that mutated arm from another angle, and maybe see a shoulder pad on it before I can be sure.

Ask and you shall recieve!





The model is just stuck with glue tack at the moment so the arms can be swapped at a whim. if neither option looks good, what would be some other arm/weapon swaps thtat could look good as well?

The marine is run as a plasma gunner because of the weapon strapped to the models backpack (standard with the push fit model) so different weaponry isnt really a concern.

MWH.

I love this fall from Ultramar! The conversions, bitz bashing and elite level base creation are epic!

My suggestion on the last figure is that the possessed hand becomes the new 'power fist' as it looks like it burst out of one. Then swap the rear arm to a bladed weapon/firearm to balance it out. The angle and model definitely lend itself to the possessed arm more, but double power fists is a little clunky looking IMO...

Monkeh wrote:
I love this fall from Ultramar! The conversions, bitz bashing and elite level base creation are epic!

My suggestion on the last figure is that the possessed hand becomes the new 'power fist' as it looks like it burst out of one. Then swap the rear arm to a bladed weapon/firearm to balance it out. The angle and model definitely lend itself to the possessed arm more, but double power fists is a little clunky looking IMO...

At the moment that back powerfist is kind of already glued down... I had cut it off from a dark imperium champion and glued his green one on him instead, like a little swap around. I could probably tear the arm off if I really wanted to, Ill have to have a fiddle around with my bitz box to see if there could be any suitable candidates to change the back powerfist arm

Well, I have to say the sword one looks more marine-y, but the claw one really captures the DG's gurgle side. So tell me, are your dudes Space Marines with a touch of nurgle, or Nurgle's Minions that were formerly Marines?

 EmberlordofFire8 wrote:
Well, I have to say the sword one looks more marine-y, but the claw one really captures the DG's gurgle side. So tell me, are your dudes Space Marines with a touch of nurgle, or Nurgle's Minions that were formerly Marines?

I was actually thinking about this when I read your comment last night. After mulling over it for a while, I did come to realise that the model was more marine than monster and that perhaps the arm would be better suited on a different candidate. After looking at some of the other models, I did find a new home for the arm on a more Nurgley corrupted monster marine and it actually seems to work really well. Images will be coming later of the conversion.
Suffice to say that I'll be running him with the sword combo instead.

I keep flitting between different models, doing bits of some, completing others but never quite fully finishing everything or being one hundred percent satisfied just yet.
So to help fuel this insane asylum of creation, I ordered a large batch of bitz from Anvil Industries so hopefully the supply drop arrives in the coming days to fuel the ideas I have running in the my head.

When through converting a couple of models that felt a bit bland to me.

I resolved the issue of which marine gets the possessed 'powerfist' count as put it on a different DI marine that seemed more corrupted and monster like than a marine.





Then there was the marine with the demon dagger weapon thingy. Wasnt the biggest fan of it, looked almost out of place amongst everyone so I decided to replace the blade with the spare I had cut from one of the 'twin' marines abckpacks earlier. The large weapon fit pretty well but the handle has had some sort of a curve added which can be straightened if people think that it looks a bit off putting. As well as this, the power fist was replaced with a little more menacing an arm.





I felt like the Blight Bringer has too much going on the model. It's good, I love it, but it just feels far too busy. That and the pose is ugly and attrociious, doesnt really make sense. So I cut a lot, trimmed a lot and reposed some stuff.







Now he has the feel of striding forward and putting a plasma round through some still moving target. This is much better than the previous pose of having both his arms leaning forward which gave the model a clumsy stance. Im still undecided on the front cape apron part. I want to cut it back dramatically since it jsut feels out fo place being part of the Death Guard. Why so much cloth???

All comments and critiques are welcome.

MWH.

After a brief run in with constant asssignments that kept my focus on work rather than models, I have an update!

I ordered some bits and pieces from across the web to try and fuel the ideas I had running around for the Dark Imperium models. After browsing through a few ranges of stock, I also picked up some new tools and basing equipment.

The first supply drop comes landing in from Anvil Industries. I've used a bunch of their stuff before but Im really loving some of the new gear that they've been making lately which really lends itself to conversions.

Never let it be said that Anvil doesnt care about their products, the box was so tightly packed with the foam that i wasnt even sure my items were in there





Next there were some bits and pieces to help with basing that I ordered from Mighty Ape including some secret weapon panels and fencing. Included in this bundle was a couple paints to help flesh out my collection after leaving a bunch of important ones at home.

And fear not, there has been some times to build and create some stuff in amongst the university schedule. i went through and built all the industrial bases for the plague marines and painted them.







Enjoy~