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Drool, awesome sculpting/scratchbuilding as always.

This is excellent, I wish I reach this level of skill scrachbuilding stuff.

Gotta admit I was skeptical all the way until you showed the way you were dealing with the engine. I actually can't believe you pulled that off. It looks great! You actually made a grav-rhino that makes sense for the Sisters. Impressive.

WOW that end result looks amazing! The door shutters, the front sigil, the psyker coffins are all wonderful details on top of making a flying rhino make sense

It's gorgeous, quite frankly. I love the rear view and the psyker holders. Great details on the antennae and I really like the oculus-style side door

Just catching up on your blog, awesome stuff! Awesome conversions, the transport looks superb.

Thank you for the kind comments all - it is appreciated! Really enjoyed working on a vehicle for once, might have to find another excuse to convert something weird...



Onwards to a timely update for once!



I am Become Death, Destroyer of My Own Free Time

Or: a Big boy and a Good boy



Let's start with the BIG. Terminators! I have been eyeing up FW's Perturabo for a while now, but couldn't really justify the cost for something I'd want at least 3 of... Then, a week or so ago on ebay:



£86!!! That is still a lot of money. But for TWO unbuilt primarchs??? It's fine I can skip meals. Very confused by this listing though - how does someone end up with 2 full primarchs without either base and missing only 1 of the heads and 1 of the weapons? And why would you sell them together as one lot? Who would want 2 in a bundle? Well, me I suppose - but I digress...


I have been excitedly working on these Peturabo bodies all week, mainly focusing on blocking in the scale, posing, and general attitude. It's so hard to properly capture the slow, lumbering, inexorable tread that I picture a terminator having. A big reference here was this classic Karl Kopinsky piece:



I've also made some tweaks and additions to the existing Custodes: New belt buckles, new soles on their boots, a slight increase in height at the waist, and finally getting around to resolving the look of the rear of their armour (something I have slyly avoided photgrpahing in the past but shh):









I think I will keep the Terminator's helmetless head, it helps emphasise his bulk. And it's an excuse to use the old Lugft Huron model's head; such an expressive sculpt and I think the expression really matches this model's feel. Scale-wise he is a little shorter than Perturabo - I had to take a little out of his waist and legs to get him to match my Custodes. He is already pretty chunky, but I intend to bulk him up even more. Below is a big reference for the level of MEAT I see terminators having:






Now for the Good Boy


I have been doing a LOT of fur work for a while now, trying to get it as good as possible. I am aware that it is often unconvincing; "wait until it's painted", I say. And I do believe it will fit in well in a painted context, but I really want to make it stand up on its own as well.

Since I am looking at modelling fur cloaks and mantles, there's always been a kind of unavoidable nagging in the back of my brain: animals aren't just fur you know, they also had heads and faces. Wouldn't this all look a lot better if you could have in scale heads? The other day I finally cast away my fear of actually trying this out, and a 14 hour fever-dream of a day later, I had an actual result (super hard to get good photos apologies):










He is based on this little bit from Leman Russ:



...Not much remained save the teeth and nose ring, everything else had to be rebuilt from scratch. I was forced to use some interesting new techniques here which I might end up using elsehwere. In particular, I used black and white coloured Apoxie Sculpt to add details and highlight areas, respectively. You can't work too close to the fur with paint, as paint will wick straight into it and ruin the fur. It's really helpful to be able to use coloured putties to accentuate parts and do detail work. In particular, the shape around the eyes is just raw black putty, which is a detail I don't think I could have achieved with paint. Here you can see what it looked like pre-paint:



Super happy with this little guy. I find him quite cute and I am sad that [spoilers] his eventual fate is to be modelled as a corpse :[ Maybe I will magnetise his head and make a body for him someday...




Let me know what you think!! Have I converted any fur sceptics yet? Still work to do but damn it I am determined to prove that this can look good! Feedback and abuse is appreciated as always [:

Chuuuuunky termies, love it. A full unit would cost you quite a bit though, haha!

Primarch bodies are great for these types of conversions but daym, that doggo is looking great as well.

That terminator is something, but the dog head steals the show!

New Year, sort of new army? Being pretty disenchanted with the current state of 9th edition, and with a lovely new pair of army lists for The Talons in 30k, I will be pivoting to Heresy for now.

Contrary to what I feared - and expected - The Sisters of Silence did not get thei 30k list gutted in the new edition. In fact, the army roster was greatly increased. On top of wide variety of new units, there was also a strong element of flavour added in special rules for the new 'Chambers' of sisterhood. These chambers have quite different roles, and I have been putting a lot of work into designing a range of miniatures is that can look unified as one army, but also have a range of distinct characteristics that are representative of their parent Chambers. This is excitign stuff for me, but also requires a ground-up reimagining of the Sisters as a force as if I needed this project to go any slower...



There are three Chambers in the fluff, and they are as follows:

Vigilance: These are described as garrison units and ship crew. These make up some of the more core and generic units in the army. I will be modelling these as a sort of baseline that sits between the two other chambers.

Oblivion: This is the chamber that includes a lot of the familiar units: The Knights Centura, Oblivion Knights, Vigilators. The signature units of this chamber fit well with the classic image of the Sisters of Silence; Knightly, greatsword-welding Exeuctioners. I will be focusing on these being the more high-fantasy, idealised, golden, hyper-feminine versions of the sisterhood. Closely aligned with the aesthetic of the Custodes.

Judgement: This is the most new and interesting chamber, building on the fluff of the old Excrutiatus Squads and Silent Judges. This chamber has a much more sinister feel to it, made up of interrogators, torturers, and kidnappers. These ladies often come with spectra cloaks, items of wargear which obscure them and make them difficult to detect at range. They also tend to be armed with weapons designed for crowd control and subjugation of civilians, such as flamers and grenade launchers. The HQ units also come with torture engines, known as the Excrutiatis Armatus. All in all, these ladies are much more unpleasant and sinister. I will be leaning in darker, more understated, stealthier direction.


I am visualising the look of the army as a spectrum, made up of these three Chambers. Vigilance models are the baseline, from which all others will deviate. Gradually getting more distinct as they move toward to HQ end of their Chamber's range:

Oblvion HQ > Oblvion Veterans > Oblivion Standard > Vigilance > Judgment Standard > Judgement Elites > Judgement HQ


The chamber of Judgement will be the subject of this post. I am still working on finishing up my Vigilance models, so bear with me as I talk about some details that I will not yet be showing. I am basing the Judgement look heavily on the below image, a classic piece from Sam Wood. The black-clad sisters will represent the most 'basic' form of the chamber, closer in colour and armour to the basline units. The more elite units will adopt the deep red and more detailed coats.



In their armour and clothing, the Judgement sisters will generally be wearing more obscuring, covering garbs. Leather boots and armoured kneepads will be common across all of the sisters, but here in the chamber of judgement, the boots are taller strappy, thigh-highs. The same is true for their gloves, again, which will be common among the other sisters in the shorter form, but here are expressed as longer, more covering items. More generally, they are wearing more fully enclosed letter suits, with little to no bare skin showing. Including often wearing full face masks and hoods.The more elite Judgement sisters will build on this more covered up aesthic, with full trenchcoat-like coverings. And their seniority will be symbolised by higher quality, red plate armour.





I have focused my efforts thus far on 2 units: The Seekers (the mopst basic of the Judgement chamber's units) and The Questora (The command squad unit for Judgement.) I have gone with Flamers across the board, as I love the aesthic in Sam Wood's piece and general unpleasantness of the weapon.









That's all for now! Much more to come in time. Let me know what you think, cheers!

These all look incredible - stunning greenstuff work here, im super envious!

The judgement sisters look incredible!! Looking forward to seeing updates. That particular artwork I always found so great and sinister.

Aww hell yea! everything here is amazing. And the rhino is just chef's kiss. Keeping my eye on this thread for sure.

Very cool conversions, looking forward to seeing more

Nailing it once again. This is a golden deamon quality army

Awesome to see someone actually pulling off 28mag tier modelling on his board!

Subscribed & Exalted

My oh my, master sculptor here! Looking forward on seeing updates here, those look stunning.

Stunning work.

I love the rhino in particular, but I'm not sold in the lady in the shorts on p1 (with the sword) tbh.

It also occurs to me the Ad Mech ruststalker masked heads might work for the sisters in that last piece of art?

She is not in shorts, she is in high boots.

Yes, Judgement stuff is great. It only gets better the more one can lean into the sinister aesthetics of it all and you sir certainly can do that

Hello hello.

I return after a bit of a hobby hiatus, feeling a bit burnt out in the New Year so I took a bit of a step back.

 Illumini wrote:
Nailing it once again. This is a golden deamon quality army

Too kind! I would need to get some damn paint on them for that

Cypher226 wrote:
Stunning work.

I love the rhino in particular, but I'm not sold in the lady in the shorts on p1 (with the sword) tbh.

It also occurs to me the Ad Mech ruststalker masked heads might work for the sisters in that last piece of art?

Thanks! Also as Illumini pointed out - boots not shorts. But yes! I do agree she could be improved. I am currently reworking her as I build up the look of the Oblivion chamber ladies.

The ruststalker heads are a good idea - I did originally sculpt onto some cut down death korps heads to get something close to the artowrk, but I saw the below piece by Lassi (@accipiternidum on instagram), which makes the resin Delaque head look so sinister, the way it's fully blacked out with the beady, glossy black eyes:




I now return with the resolution of a previously half-completed model; big boy Custodes terminator.

This guy took a pretty gargantuan amount of effort - possibly the most work I’ve put into any single miniature. I think I underestimated how much difference the sheer size of the model would make when it comes to time. I also didn’t hold back in creating unnecessary details and putting in the kind of work that I would usually tell myself to not bother with.











His big fur mantle is based on Horus in this classic masterpiece by Adrian Smith:


He is 99% complete, with the exception of his gun - the twin Adrathic Destructor - which is a bit of a placeholder, as I am not particularly happy with the direction it took. It's something I am going to reflect on and have another go at a later date. In general, I’m very happy with how he has turned out. I would very much like to make a score of three, but that is going to be some real work...

Up next: Some Oblvivion ladies and HOPEFULLY.... some test painted models.


Let me know what you think as always. Cheers!

Looking forward to a painted Perturabo, err I mean the terminator Custodes. All the small details are insane. :O

Wow! SO jealous of your sculpting and those are some incredible conversions!

The SoS conversions are very inspiring, as I have been working on some truescale SoS conversions recently as well. And those truescale Space Marines and Custodians are awesome, much better than the official GW models.

Subscribed, cannot wait for more!


Capt. Hodgeheg

Geez Louise....colour me impressed.

 Capt. Hodgeheg wrote:
Wow! SO jealous of your sculpting and those are some incredible conversions!

The SoS conversions are very inspiring, as I have been working on some truescale SoS conversions recently as well. And those truescale Space Marines and Custodians are awesome, much better than the official GW models.

Subscribed, cannot wait for more!


Capt. Hodgeheg

Thanks buddy. I like the look for your sword and shield ladies - might have to steal that idea......


So lately I have been working on a model for the Raptora, the command squad unit for the chamber of Oblivion. These ladies represent the furthest left end of my little sliding scale:

Oblvion HQ > Oblivion Veterans > Oblivion Standard > Vigilance > Judgment Standard > Judgement Elites > Judgement HQ

This chamber is much more image-conscious than their Judgement counterparts; they're an idealised representation of the Talons of the Emperor. While the armour of the Judgement chamber is dark, covering and more utilitarian, the armour of the Oblivion chamber is more knightly. Much like with the Custodes, there's an emphasis on functionless ornamentation here. Again, I pulling a lot from Sam Wood's art:



The classic old pin-up adjacent high heels and the massive shoulder pads add a lot to their physical imposingness. The style of armour - again much like the Custodes - wouldn't look out of place in a fantasy setting, which works with the established lore of the sisters wearing armour that harkens back to a more primitive age.






She needs her topknot, but other than that she is pretty much done. I've got a couple of ladies half done to accompany her, both with Hand Flamers and Power Fists.

Also I finally got around to making a third custodian guard, rounding out my first full unit for the army:







That's all for now folks - thanks for stopping by!

Loving the casual, yet menacing swagger that the latest Custodian has.

shmvo wrote:

 Capt. Hodgeheg wrote:
Wow! SO jealous of your sculpting and those are some incredible conversions!

The SoS conversions are very inspiring, as I have been working on some truescale SoS conversions recently as well. And those truescale Space Marines and Custodians are awesome, much better than the official GW models.

Subscribed, cannot wait for more!


Capt. Hodgeheg

Thanks buddy. I like the look for your sword and shield ladies - might have to steal that idea......

Steal away - Only fair, as my recent Knight Centura conversion was heavily inspired by your Vigilator!


Keep us updated!


Capt. Hodgeheg

Sweet work as ever shmvo! The fur is really growing on me (not literally ), but I can’t remember if you said what your plan was for priming the minis. Will you mask them off or brush on or skip the primer stage? Either way, keep up the awesome sculpting

Thanks, gobert! I'll win people over, eventually haha. The answer to the priming question is a maddening number of sub-assemblies. All of the fur elements are backed with metal, and held with small magnets. My paint steps so far are very heavily reliant on airbrush work for the gold, so painting around the fur isn't really an option.



@Sherrypie - Thanks! I've put a lot of effort into posing the Custodes. Definitely want them to have an arrogance, and as you said, swagger about them.



So I finally bought myself a Kharon Pattern Acquisitor! Shockingly expensive these days but hey. It's quite satisfying to line it up with my Rhino conversion and actually see the comparison in person. It's not quite as big as I expected, possibly close enough in size for the Rhino to be in proxy range?







I also took the opportunity to finish the final details on my Rhino, being the second set of iris-doors and grav plates. Managed to use the missiles that came with the Kharon to press-mould an appropriate looking Hunter-killer Missile too:



Okay so the KHARON. A bit of a kit review; In a word: Yikes. I am not a resin hater; as someone who loves the modelling aspect of the hobby, I somewhat enjoy the challenge and extra work associated with resin kits, but this one is a bit of a tough sell. The problems weren't really with casting quality or mould slips or anything (bar the conning tower detail, which I had to fully rebuild, but I digress), more with the design itself. Firstly, there's a lot of inherent difficulties with the shape of the vehicle. As I discovered when working on my Rhino, smooth, compound curves are a real pain. This makes even simple filling and correction work far harder than it should be, and makes fixing alignment issues a straight up nightmare. It lacks the boxy, abutting plates of most 40k vehicles, which can hide a lot of crimes when working with resin, so it required a lot more precision than usually to get faces to line up. Compounding this issue was some very confusingly placed joins in the kit. Take the seam on the tailfin part for example: to me, the join is 2 or 3 mm further out than it should be. Why would the seam be placed where it is, in the middle of a compound curve (where the little vents are) and across a rivet and other dense detail (on the top of the tailfin)? There is already and edge line at the end of the fin and at the collar part of the vents, why not put the seam there? Such a minor adjustment would have saved a huge amount of time.

There's also a real problem in the centre of the main body, you can see it where I have rebuilt a panel with plasticard:



There is a seam right around the edge of that panel, but the angle of the panels is all wrong; when assembled, they jut out from what should be a smooth surface. This isn't a casting error or heat expansion either, you can see this issue on the studio model too, if you know where to look. Utterly strange to me, and impossible to rectify, hence me cutting the panel away entirely and rebuilding it.

There's also some strangely soft areas and lack of definition. These are again evident in the studio model, and aren't a result of cast quality. You can see I rebuilt the tip of the folded open nose, as it very soft and not sharp as it is suggested to be in the closed nose. The closed nose itself has no grooves to separate the 3 folding leaves, making it look a little like it can't actually open. I didn't take any good photos, but that was a least a couple of hours of very careful carving to add that detail. Curiously, carving in these grooves actually also fixed a strange, out of place bit of geometry in the curve of the nose; suggesting to me that maybe there originally were grooves, but they were hastily removed - possibly a casting exigency?

All in all, a beautiful design, but the kit isn't for the faint of heart. You can build it pretty quickly if you aren't bothered with little misalignments, but I think the smooth, stealth aesthetic really demands precision to look its best. Again, not so much an issue with most other 40k vehicle designs. It also should come with Multi Meltas. They can have them in the rules and it'd be an easy addition. I kitbashed some of my own for the open nose:



That's it for now. Any fellow Kharon-builders out there? Interested if anyone else ran into the same issues as me.