Rats!

Been working a bit more on the rat warband - it's starting to come together. I think I've solved the issue about the Warlocks claw - I really wanted him to have a mechanical claw, but the first iteration was to orky and big. This is cobbled together from some Dark elf spiky things, and a Kataphron servitor claw. He also got an extra mechanical arm with the warploque pistol, just because:

I also made the second rat ogre for the warband - just a IoB rat ogre, with an extra arm added and another head - and a bit of a repose. I really like those rat ogres, but I wanted to tweak it a bit. I'm also contemplating giving him a warpfire gun and a mechanical claw on the lower left arm, but I'm a bit stumped about what to use for the warpfire gun.

And a group shot, also including my gutter runner with a little gas mask:

What's this then... Scenery?

I hope you've all had a happy new years eve, and gotten a good start on 2018. :)

I've been really busy on the wargaming front, but there's little to no progress on the warbands though - for the past two weeks I've been mainly focused on developing and playtesting the AoS skirmish rules I'm working on ( http://aos28warband.blogspot.com - please check them out) and getting a wargaming table and terrain done for the man cave at Casa De GuitaRasmus. 

I've always really liked the Warhammer terrain GW made about 5-6 years ago, but at that time I was only messing with 40k, so I didn't buy any. Fast forward to Age of Sigmar, where GW, for reasons unknown, decided to stop producing some of their coolest stuff - and the prices on ebay are atrocious. 

Still, I've managed to get my dirty mittens on some different stuff on various used warhammer stuff channels, facebook groups, etc. for reasonable money, and I've gotten my hands dirty (literally - there's SO much paint on these houses, compared to miniatures) stripping them of paint. 

I've got a watchtower and another chapel still in the stripper, but I'm working towards getting some cool stuff: 

The Temple of Skulls is from an old project, an Armies on Parade board for my Khorne Berzerker army that never got done, and it had been saved apart, so I had to painstakingly glue it back together, and sculpt a lot of seams - good times. 

This is an experiment, I wanted to do a mansion of sorts, but a bit more elaborate than just the fortified manor - so I took another chapel, chucked it on top of a watchtower base, and made the little sentry house a part of the house. I kinda like it, it seems fittingly ramshackle. I still need to make some stairs for the door on the top house, and some kind of walkway around the top house. 

I also really wanted a Skullvane Manse (and a Dreadstone blight as well), but the used kit prices are absolutely insane - 300-350 pounds on ebay - so I had sort of given up on them. Imagine me squeeing with joy, when I saw the Malign Portents video, featuring the Skullvane Manse and the Dreadstone Blight - they're coming back!! I'm definitely getting both. 

*Warning - bitter old painter's rant incoming*

On a side note, it really bugs me when people act like scalpers - for example trying to sell a used Skullvane Manse at grossly inflated prices on ebay. Sure, I get the whole supply and demand thing, but seriously - you are just holding plastic hostage.

You are the war-games equivalent of the guys who fill their spare rooms with Dinky Toys still preserved in their antique packaging. The people that care are an ever decreasing circle of like minded hoarders who all dream of turning up on Antiques Roadshow with a blister or box that will pay for your dream retirement village.But thats not going to happen. Because GW is re-releasing the kits and you are left with a pipe dream of a wallet full of scalpers money.

There - that was good to get off my chest. ;) 

This weekend I put my shop teacher skills to work, and started work on my foldable 5x4' table - the base is done, and it folds neatly in half, though I still need to figure out what to do for legs. I'm also considering making it a 4x3' instead, for size reasons, and because skirmish/kill team battles seem very doable on 3x3'. 

Why the extra feet in width then? It dawned on me that it would be a necessity to have somewhere to put ones warscrolls, dice, slain miniatures etc. 

Fatemaster and Curseling

Hi guys - small update today; I was originally convinced that I should have a Curseling as my Tzeentchian warband leader, but during the last few days I got an idea that I had to try out - a Fatemaster on Disc conversion, based on the Stormcast on Dracoth leaders torso and a couple of Retributor legs.

I'm kinda torn between these two - which is the coolest, what should I use? They're obviously more like sketches at the moment, the Fatemaster needs some more Tzeentchian detailing, and the curselings helmet is giving me a bit of grief - I'm not sure what bit to use - but I'd still like your opinions.

Update on the Curseling:

The Changer of Ways sends a chaos troll - and a merry christmas to all!

Hi guys - It's been exceptionally busy in our house, this christmas being the first time the missus and I are hosting for both our families - so the last week has been all about shopping, christmas decorating, cooking, cleaning, etc etc - we're pretty beat, but tomorrow night is the night!

Anyway, enough of my everyday dribble - I've managed to get the Tzeentchian troll almost finished during the last couple of nights - a few touchups and the base is all that is needed to call him ready for paint (now. that'll be a whole different challenge). I'm very pleased with him, I think I managed to pull off him being very mutated and fluxating, without him looking like a troll dipped in glue and thrown into the bitz box.

For the narratively minded of you lot, I've also written a small bit of background on him, posted below the pics. As always, comments are much appreciated, and a merry christmas to you all. :)

The tale of Vlorg the Novence Blessid.  

“HurtFeedPainHungerKillRunFeedHurtPainHun… “

A maddening stream of emotions constantly crashed against the shallow mind of Vlorg. Vlorg was very angry with the voices. Vlorg hadn’t previously felt much - hunger, once in a while, when he’d slept so long that he hadn’t fed in weeks, and not much else. Often anger, rarely pain, never fear. All that had changed when he’d found that strange creature in the mountains - it was so brightly coloured, moved so quickly and strangely, and Vlorg had never seen anything like it before - lots of teeth, arms, and the weird noises it made… He had gotten curious and had to see what it was. As soon as the creature felt his presence, it was afraid - Vlorg knew when something was afraid - things were always afraid of him. It hissed, spat and screamed at him, as he lumbered closer, and cornered it against the rocks and sniffed at it - it smelled strange - like the sulphur lakes of the mountain deeps. As he loomed closer, the creature got desperate, feeling it’s own doom approaching and lashed out with several malformed arms, tentacles and limbs at Vlorg  It lashed out with a talon, and cut a deep wound on his belly and he got enraged - he bellowed his anger and lunged at the thing. Vlorg dropped his axe, and began tearing the creature limb from limb, while it screamed, sang and whirred in it’s maddening sounds. Soon, Vlorg stood in a pile of malformed body parts and a pile of bodily fluids, grasping one the creatures heads in his hand, a strange lump of flesh with several fanged maws and no eyes. The maw opened and closed, and Vlorg was about to throw it to the ground and stomp on it, when a voice was heard through the snowstorm: 

+Go on, Vlorg - you’ve defeated it. You are victorious. Eat the flesh. It is your right, your spoils of war.+Vlorg looked around, but no one was to be seen. +Yes, Vlorg - eat it.+

Vlorg was somehow compelled to take a bite out of the head of the creature. As his gigantic teeth crunched through flesh and bone, he found it tasted bad, like sorcery, like chaos. He hated the taste of Chaos. He was somehow compelled to take another bite. It tasted bad, like the armoured warriors of the northern tribes. He took yet another bite, and he began devouring the rest of the steaming carcass… 

Soon Vlorg had eaten it all. As he began to make way back to his cave, he felt a strange sensation in his belly - as if something was trying to get out. Suddenly, fingers poked against his belly from within, pushing against his skin, pushing further, his skin impossibly stretching as an entire arm formed from his skin. He roared and ripped the arm away, only to see that maws were appearing on his skin as well, along with other limps. Suddenly he felt a snapping sound, and fell to the ground contorting as his spine snapped in half and twisted inside him. Blinding pain ripped through him, and he roared at this invisible enemy, making him hurt so much. As he slipped out of consciousness, he heard the voice again;

+Yes, Vlorg. You are changing. You are mine now. For I am Tzeentch and you are the puppet that dances to my tune…+

When Vlorg awoke, he was covered in snow from the blizzard. He felt… Different. As he rose and reached out for his axe with his right arm, two arms reached for it. Puzzled, he began to look at his body, and seeing arms, limps and gnashing maws emerging and disappearing from his body, constantly changing. He heard… no, felt, a voice inside his head, screaming bitterness, babbling madness, crying out in pain, screaming for bloodshed, and for the first time in his life, he felt fear. He screamed his rage and terror out into the mountains, and the gnashing maws of his flesh followed suit. The spawn and he had become one. 

*********

Khezaon Nethergaze had never seen such a marvellous manifestation of his Masters will before. Spawns, yes, but they had a tendency to burn out within hours, days or weeks after their transformation. This was something else entirely. A trolls legendary healing powers, combined with the constantly mutating power of the Puppetmaster - Khezhaon was almost excited at this unexpected turn of events, this running into such a magnificent creature. Yes, excitement, a feeling he hadn’t felt in a long time - such was his masters blessing, the future was often hinted at, if not known. He watched with his one baleful eye, a nimbus of light, visible only to the blessed of Tzeentch, swirling and circling the raging troll. He had to act quickly, for his Tzaangors and warriors could only hold onto the chained troll for so long. 

He focused his mind as so many times before, but this was a … Challenge. He needed to not only break through the walls of a trolls shallow but stubborn mind, he had to soothe the insane part of the troll too - the sputtering mad mind of the spawn. 

+Be calm+ Khezaon pulsed.The troll turned while snarling - +You did this too me! You are the one that made me hurt!+ The trolls reply was more a whirl of thoughts and emotions, than a an actual reply. +I did not do this to you. My master did, and he can do much worse things to you. Now, be calm.+The troll struggled against his chains a few more times, but was finally at ease. +I can make the voices stop. I can make them quiet. Serve me, and I shall. Do not, and I will make them even more unbearable.++Serve you? How?++Destroy my enemies. Whenever you hear the voices, those before you are my enemies. Kill them, and the voices will stop. They are the ones who cause you fear, pain and anger. Follow me, and you shall be freed from the maddening voices.+ +Vlorg serve you+ The troll replied. 

With a last strain of focus, Khezaon pushed the spawn back to the furthest corner of the trolls mind, although he left the magic wall around the spawn with a few cracks and chinks, ready to be broken down at a moments notice, when the trolls rage was needed against an enemy. “An exciting turn of events indeed.” Khezaon thought, as he walked towards the troll in the middle of the warriors, it’s chains slack and at peace for the first time in weeks.

More updates - troll and Warlock

Some more updates - a Kisufisu on the TGA forums pointed out that the upper right arm was sort of off - and having looked some more at the troll, I agree. So I have two different versions, I'm happier with, but I'm having trouble deciding - any opinions?

Just a shot to show how creepy the faces and arms are - I'm really getting a "The Thing" vibe here, which I love:

Also, I've been working slowly on a Warlock Engineer for the Skaven warband - here's a sneak peek of him so far:

The more things change...

... The more Tzeentch likes 'em!

A few updates from my friday evening - the wife was exhausted and the kitten got neutered today, so they both went to sleep early - meaning hobby time for me!

I've been working on the Troll for my Tzeentchian warband - I've wanted to make a downright FUBAR'ed chaos troll for some time, and what better chaos god than Tzeentch to FUBAR something? His background story, which I'll come around to soon, is that he was a nice, regular, barbarian-eating stone troll from the north, who somehow had the misfortune of running into a spawn, eating it and the rest... Well, it was a meal that didn't end well.

I know it's a mess right now, but I promise it'll start to make sense, once I get some greenstuff on him - or not, which is probably good, since it's a Tzeentchian Troll. ;)

There's so many different parts involved, that I can't even begin to make sense of them - mad props to anyone who can name them all.

The other update is a couple of simple conversions - a Chaos Warrior of Tzeentch (based on a blood warrior) and a Pink Horror from the Silver Tower box, with a couple of arms added (to get rid of some of the "blister pack syndrome" he suffers a bit from.)

WIP update!

Hi guys - I've definitely not been idle since my last post, in fact I've been incredibly inspired by this new project, and I've been converting and building like crazy - only problem is, that I'm so inspired by this thing, that I'm actually working on 6(!) different warbands at the moment - Undead, Skaven, Greenskinz, Tzeentch, Slaanesh and Sylvaneth - and I've bought some miniatures for a Kharadron warband as well - that I haven't actually really finished anything. Story of my hobby-life. Oh well, always follow inspiration.

I got hold of a lot of cool bitz from my buddy Allan, and amongst these was a vampire queen torso - it looked so cool that I had to do something with it, so I made a new leader for my undead:

Her background story and a more finish conversion will follow soon.

I also made a somewhat chunkier than usual Grave Guard for my warband, the second in command of my Vampiress:

He's bases on a blood warrior, with all the detail scraped off and his armour dremeled to hell and back. 

Also, I've got a bit of progress on my Greenskinz warband. The idea is that the little Shaman, Giflip the Magnificent (he has titled himself, btw) has somehow found a special brew of madcap mushrooms, that gives him the ability to control the minds of other greenskins - which he puts to good use, by assembling a little army of VERY nasty looking big guys. 

Giflip himself: 

His bodyguard, Gulg the Stone Troll (needs a lot of stones sculpted, obviously)

And some 'Ardboys thrown in for good measure - I've also got two Orruk Brutes on the way: 

Hopefully more updates later this week!

Something big is approaching...

Inspired by the ever inspiring Biohazard (http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/234115-world-eaters-warband/) I saw a Redemptor Dreadnought conversion, and I saw that it was good. Actually I started out really not liking the model when I first saw it, but after seeing Biohazards version, I got so inspired that I had to do one myself for my DG.

Here is the humble beginnings of my Leviathan Dreadnought. It's obviously very WIP, and it's only mockup stage (I'm not sure about the sarcophagus or front armour - the shoulder pads obviously need some work as well), but the basics are starting to form - I knew it needed to have the front armour rounded, as well as the shin armour, to match my existing Daemon engines - it would look out of place to suddenly have a lot of square edges. I'm also pondering how to do a Grav Flux Bombard - any ideas?

It's only really when you see it in real life, that you appreciate how big this fella is - but I've included a scale shot, so you can get an idea:

Blight Lords? Back to the drawing board.

I've had an epiphany. Well... Okay, maybe not an epiphany per se, but a realisation.

The Blight Lords just don't cut it. They're okay models at best, but the whole idea of me selling my old Death Guard army, and building a new one, was that it should showcase the concept of my ideal DG army, no holds barred, full throttle, and modelled to the best of my ability. I've learned so much since 2011 when I built the old one, and I want this army to be the best I've ever done.

And the Blight Lords just don't cut it. I realised this when I started to paint them. They're too mish-mash, too many weird mutations, bad anatomy and weird stuff. So I'm scrapping them.

The good news is that I think I can make some awesome Terminators. The bad news is that they'll be made from Death Shroud, which will make a hideously expensive Terminator unit, since I need two boxes. But let's look on the bright side; the unit will have 6 models, which, when combined with Typhus, will bring them up to the number 7 - Score!

Expect to see some mockups and progress very soon.

On another note - I just got hold of the Plague Marine kit today (2 packs), and they. Are. Beautiful. Well, not really, but holy crap, even without having put one together yet, it's such a great looking kit, that I can easily forgive GW for not putting enough options in the box. I'm looking forward to putting some together tonight. :)

Last thing - I've decided that I want to share some of the great stuff I find on my interwebz travels - some of it being great inspiration, and some of it is just plain awesome - this time it is a combination. Unfortunately, I can't give credit, since I found it on the pinterest with a broken link, but if you know whose it is, please say so in the comments so I can give due credit.

It is a (looks like it) quite simple conversion of the Typhus model, but rethought in such a refreshing and cool way, that the previously comical pose seems incredibly threatening - it's just such a case of "Damn, why didn't I think of that?".

Please note - NOT MY WORK, I'm just sharing it.

Progress on Typhus and the Blight Lord Terminators.

I've gotten a bit further on the Typhus conversion. I've tweaked his pose a bit, thanks to some suggestions I've gotten - his stance is changed a tiny bit, and his right arm is a bit more relaxed, while his left arm has gotten reposed quite a bit, making it more forward pointing - a major improvement to me.

While I disliked the cloud of flies, not having them left him a bit bare - so I'm experimenting with adding some creepy insect legs, to make him seem more of a living insects nest, waiting to burst open.

I'm still contemplating if I should make him completely my own character, an old favourite known as Pandemion. 

I've also made some progress on the Blight Lord terminators. I wanted to love the kit, I really did, since I adored the blight kings kit - but I don't. 

A few of my dislikes; 

1) There's not enough weapons. Only 3 axes, 3 swords, and 1 of each type of combi weapon. Come on, GW. 

2) There's next to no options regarding torsos, arms, poseability, etc. I really disliked the "fly" while the rest of the DG community seem to adore him, and I hated the flabby fat guy. I had to do some pretty heavy conversions to get rid of them. 

The kit really needed another sprue. They're more expensive than the blight kings, but with far less options. 

Anyway, here they are - very WIP, but getting there. The champion with the flail is made with combining parts from the Lord of Contagion and the BL bits, and the lower pic is showing some conversions I'm doing for combiplasmas, and making the Blight Launcher a bit more impressive, by combining it with the plague spewer: 

Saturday is Release day!

Hi guys.

Like a lot of other Nurgle fans, I had been looking forward to the new plastic Typhus, and was somewhat... Underwhelmed when I first saw it. It suffers the same malady as a lot of GW's recent offerings - incredible detail (perhaps to the point of being overdone) but a poor pose. However, when I got a chance to look at the sprues last saturday when Typhus got on preorder, I saw that the things I disliked about were pretty easy to fix - for me that is the Nurgling on his side (I HATE nurglings - I don't want silly, I want scary!) and his "Whoah, Nelly!" pose. 

As soon as I got home from my plastic pusher today, I started cutting him apart. The conversion isn't very complicated, and doesn't require any additional bits other than what's in the box, but it does require some very careful cutting of his left leg, and reposing both of them, so he's not leaning back - he's almost doing the limbo on the original. Then I cut off the tab on his neck, allowing the head to be reposed. Lastly, the right arm is carefully cut off, cut down a bit, and reposed into another position. And of course, the stupid nurgling is cut and scraped off. ;) 

All in all, I'm pretty happy with the transformation - he has gone from "meh" to "pretty darn intimidating" IMO. Let me hear what you think. :) Not quite sure if I like the top photos casting spell pose of the left hand, or the bottom "come at me bro" hand - opinions?

PS: I also got the grinder PM elite thingy guy, a box of Death Shroud and the new Blight Lords - more stuff coming soon!

Very small update - but I think I've finally got the paint scheme down.

I apologise for the lack of updates recently, but I've been incredibly busy with work, music, in-laws visit, etc.

Still, I think I've finally managed to get the paint scheme for the army down; I've been through 10+ testers, and not really being satisfied with any of them. However, I saw this pic online:

... And it inspired me. It has the cold, otherworldly feel of something utterly wrong, and being light enough to "pop out" on the tabletop, while still feeling dark. 

I won't go so far as to say that I've nailed it, but I think my version looks pretty good, is not to difficult/time consuming to paint, and has some of the feel of the image: 

 I apologise my mittens getting in on the pic - for some reason this colour scheme is very hard to photograph.

Decimator Concept refined...

I've been messing a bit with my Decimator idea, which has to started to distill into a concept;

I don't dislike the Decimator per se, but it just doesn't really fit in with the current chaos aesthetic of 40k - the armour plates are angled instead of curved, and it is extremely top heavy, where most of the Daemon Engines now have most of their weight in the body.

I've used a Blood Slaughterer torso (scavenged from my Maulerfiend conversion from years ago), stripped it, and mounted it on the Decimator legs, with the shin guards replaced by Maulerfiend arm guards, for a nice curved armour look. I thought long about it, and decided to make an armoured belly, instead of a fleshy one - fleshy stuff just seems to me like the easy way out. I made it from a blob of milliput, roughly shaped, and when it was dry I filed and scraped it into the right shape (much easier to me, than sculpting armour with sharp edges) It obviously still needs trims and detailing, perhaps some teeth sticking out from it.

The head is a rough mockup, just an idea I'm trying out - very interested to hear you guys opinions. :)

Also, the cannons (soul burner petards) are a bit of a pain - I've tried making some on my lathe (more on that on the bottom of this post), but I'm not quite sure they work - maybe they just need detailing, maybe they need to be bigger, or maybe they just shouldn't be curved, or maybe I just need to cough up the 24 pounds for the originals. Let me hear your opinion and ideas.

A side shot, so you can se the rather bizarre profile - I kinda like it, it's very different from most other walkers and Daemon Engines.

Update:

I wasn't happy with the tubular cannons, so I was sitting on the FW webshop, credit card in hand, ready to press "check out", when I got an idea. I have loads of Ectoplasma cannons lying about (since nobody wanted them for the last two editions), so I decided to do something with them; I glued them together with some plastic spacers between, giving them a gap of 5-6 mm, to broaden them quite a bit. After this I used LOTS of milliput and Milliput/greenstuff mix to fill in the gaps, cover the plasma coils, and make a new look for them. After this was dried I filed, scraped and sanded them smooth, and sculpted on the trims, and added some teeth were the gap was. They're obviously not finished yet, needing minor detailing work, and perhaps some spikes and/or tubes, but I think they look enough like petards to justify using them, and far enough removed from ectoplasma cannons as to not be confused - but let me hear your thoughts. :)

The lathe;
I was in the fortunate situation that one of my students father (I'm a school teacher by day) knew that I'm somewhat of a woodshop/workshop fanatic (I also work a lot with wood and metal, besides plastic crack) and one of his neighbours was widowed some years ago - her husband used to be a machine worker, and had a lathe in her basement, which was just collecting dust - I could get it for free if I would just come get it. I joyfully drove to her house with my dad (who has 40+ years experience with lathes) to inspect it, only to find that it was freaking enormous. I had hoped that I could just take it in my car - that was not going to happen. Anyway, I talked to my dad (and the missus) and concluded that I would never get a chance to own a machine like that again, and since we had the space in our garage (where I have my workshop), I got some professional movers to do it for me. Good thing, that; they were 3 gigantic guys, who struggled with it for 2 hours. It weighs 450 kg (about 900 pounds), and IT. IS. GLORIOUS. It has all the accessories and tools with it, is handmade in Denmark in the 1930's, and he has kept it in great shape:

It is a great tool to have at ones disposal and something I'll enjoy for many years to come.

A drastic - but good - decision.

Yup - I've made a drastic decision. It was made for two reasons;

First being that I wasn't really loving the Defiler. It wasn't bad, but I wasn't loving it either, and I need to crazy in love with my work for me to really enjoy it and be satisfied. When I make something like that, I can't stop looking at it from different angles, and I felt that the Defiler was lacking in several ways - the scourge wasn't really what I wanted, the pose was sort of boring, etc.

The second being that my Forgefiend, which I really liked, couldn't make it into the Death Guard army list - for some reason DG doesn't like them. I know it could be made into a secondary detachment, but then the Detachment wouldn't be DG, and it just... Didn't feel right. Also, the legs seemed kind of small for it - it bordered on the comical. I want the theme to feel steampunkish, but never comical. I want scary, dammit!

So the decision was to rip both Forgefiend and Defiler apart, and make a rocking Defiler from the best of both worlds, and lo and behold, I think I did it - this, I REALLY like:

The tendrils are meant to be the Defiler Scourge - I reckon they work, but comments and critique are welcomed. :)

I'm still wondering if it should have some of the Forgefiend exhausts - I might experiment a bit.

The legs took a lot of time - first, all the necron pattern crevasses had to be filled, then filed, and then put through distressing/corrosion hell with my dremel - well worth it, at the end. I still need to do corrosion on the armour plates, but that'll get done, once it's put completely together - that way I know where it'll need to go.

On another note, my Daemon Prince's missing leg has arrived - hopefully an update about that later tonight.

Update:

I've started cutting up the legs, to repose them, and blocking in the pose; I think I've finally found what I was looking (cue U2) - they obviously still need a lot of sculpting to rid them of the tyranid look, and give them armour plates, but the basic shape and pose are pretty much in place:

I've also done a bit of work on the Decimator I found in a bag lying about - I've ground down the square leg plates, and have plans to do the same to the shoulder pads, since they don't fit at all with the "rounded armour daemon engine aesthetic" (they were also made before Chaos was revamped), but for some reason I don't think it works as all - it just seems... Lego-ish, like a toy? I'm a bit stumped, because I'd really like a Decimator for the DG army, with dual Soul Burners, but right now it looks like I need to go back to the drawing board.

Update #2:

I've made a VERY rough mockup of a Decimator idea, that seems a bit more "nurglish" - the small bottles are placeholders for the Soul Burner Petards I've yet to make:

And a quick comparison between the different "monsters" so far:

Oh, and a word of warning - a couple of nights ago, I was cutting a piece of plastic with my plastic cutters, and it had some dried superglue stuck to it. The dried superglue is very hard, and a piece of it was launched into my eye, embedding itself into to cornea of my left eye - now, that hurt.
I tried flushing my eye and and I thought it was okay, so I went to sleep. The morning after it was even worse, so my wife (a nurse) gave me a scolding for ignoring it, and sent me off to the emergency room. They managed to dig it out, it had managed to go a little deep, and given me some antibiotic eye drops. It's much better now, thankfully, and my eyesight don't seem to have suffered, but I'll be sure to get some safety goggles when working on stuff like that in the future - and you should too; we only get one set of eyes, and they should never be taken for granted. :)

More Defiling and ... Helbruting?

A small update on the Defiler and the Helbrute:

I've begun bulking up the defiler - and please note that not all of the parts are final (especially
the engines), so it's more like a sketch than anything - but I could use some feedback, since I'm a bit knee deep into doing it, and sometimes I lose my focus when I get there - is it working, or should I go in a completely different direction?

Also some more details on the Helbrute - I gave him some extra exhausts (once again, those Fiend stacks sure come in handy), and I've given him a chainmail loincloth, which help the wide stance a bit. I've also glued on the insect legs on the sarcophagus, and a large spike on his left shoulder:

Bits have arrived! But alas, the warp storms are affecting the bitz store...

Hi guys - my bitz order arrived from bitzbox.co.uk today, and I frantically tore open the nicely packed envelope, and basked in the glory of the new body parts for my Daemon Prince, his means of motion, his grotesque, mutated... Two left legs?

Dangit. They've sent me two left flying hive tyrant legs by mistake. To their excuse, they've immediately answered my mail, and they'll send me the right one promptly. So, the prince will have to wait a bit longer for his legs. On the positive side, they seem to fit really nice, and they seem to have the right dimensions - I've made a few cuts, and mounted on the giant hooves, to see how it fits, and I suspect that they'll look great, once they get armour sculpted on. Please excuse the picture - he really is a mess of non finished green stuff, blutack, and plastic parts as he is:

As you can see, I'm also toying with giving him a mutated, extra right arm.

I also grabbed the chance to order some useful bits, while I was browsing their website, so I got a few mkIII helmets and every single exhaust they had - one can never have too many exhausts!

I wanted to take a shot a converting mkIII helmets into Plague Marine helmets, and with a very small grinder bit, my dremel and some patience, I think it works pretty well (still needs some cleanup, I can see with the closeup):

I've also gotten some more green stuff on the Helbrute, and with the exception of some small details and tubes, he's about ready for paint - really satisfied with this one:

I got another idea, while rummaging through my bits box last night - there lay the wreck of my old Dark Mechanicus mauler fiend, which I was never really satisfied with. I had used the body of a FW Blood Slaughterer, and looking at it, I found some Necron Stalker legs, an Aracnarok body, and the gears started churning; I'm gonna do a defiler. It's only on the sketching state at the moment, but I think it has potential:

(Very much inspired by the Grievers from Maze Runner on this one - obviously needs another head)

Lastly, I'll just leave a small teaser of my project for the army, that's being worked on, on the side - it WILL get done, but I want to take it slow, enjoy it, and do it right. Any guesses?

Update:

I've been working some on the Defilers battle cannon - I wanted to make it into a combiweapon of sorts, combining it with the reaper auto cannon; still needs the bayonets, but I'm kinda digging it; It might not seem like much for a few hours work, but I always find mechanical stuff time-consuming - everything has to be straight as an arrow.

I also added some detailing to the Helbrute; some plague censers where the eyes used to hang on the sarcophagus, some insectoid limbs on the right side of the sarcophagus, a few spikes and a couple of extra exhausts - better?

A quick bad pic of the Defiler as a mockup - barely held together by blutack