Friday 29 December 2017

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:



Sunday 24 December 2017

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.

Sunday 10 December 2017

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:


Saturday 9 December 2017

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.)


Monday 4 December 2017

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!

Sunday 19 November 2017

Cairn Wraith

I wanted a Cairn Wraith as a leader for my warband, but having used the (admittedly brilliant) original model for 2 or 3 conversions already, I wanted to try out something different. One of the Skeletons from the Shadespire pack already has a scythe and some kind of hood, so I had a plan...

I used the "dress" from the Tomb Banshee as the bottom of the miniature, cut the skeleton in half and pinned them together. A bit of dremel work, some tattered cloak bits from the new Death Guard and some green stuff, and I have what I think is a nice take on a cool character.



Saturday 18 November 2017

More non-40k... What is this madness?

I really enjoyed painting the spirit host from my last post - so much so, that an idea started brewing in my head. Ideas are dangerous that way. Before I knew it, I was furiously browsing the web for inspiration, and I got inspired to start dabbling with AoS skirmish - using about 250 pts for each warband. The concept is brilliant for me, since I am a notorious hobby butterfly, so a small warbands are a manageable task, which I should (emphasis on SHOULD) be able to actually finish. Also, I've always had a thing for skirmish gaming - it often makes for better stories in my experience, and the task of setting up and playing isn't as big as it is for a 2000 pts. standard 40k game.

Anyway, here is my Vargheist conversion - I wanted him to have arms, since I thought they looked weird without them - I also shaved off a little of the top of his head, giving him a little less cone-head look:




I also got hold of the Sepulchral Guard Shadespire pack today - what a brilliant bunch of models. Best plastic skeletons I've seen, that's for sure:


The plan for the warband is a follows:

Leader:

Cairn Wraith

Units:

1 Vargheist
1 Spirit Host
1 Black Knight
2 Grave Guard
4 Skeleton Warriors.

I might exchange the black knight for another Grave Guard and a Skeleton Warrior, but we'll see.

As I told you, ideas are dangerous; I've started rummaging through my embarrassingly big bits collection, and I have A LOT of bits for Fantasy, since I've always liked using bits from that range for 40k conversions. I found a Stormfiend kit, and an idea started coming together.

Skweek was born a runt of the litter, which is the same as a death warrant in the Skaven community. Not only was he very small, he was almost hairless, hunchbacked even by skaven standards, and had stumpy deformed limps. He was abandoned, and left to die. By blind chance he managed to survive his first years in the tunnels, scurrying in the shadows and learning the skaven tongue by listening to the chatter of others, though he was still a deformed and measly excuse for a clan rat - by this time some of his teeth had grown through his palate, the way rodent's teeth tend to do when not used enough - and food was a rare luxury for Skweek. He heard the legends of Skweel Gnawtooth whispered and he realised that Skweels story was not unlike Skweeks - although Skweek sorely lacked the legendary packmasters affinity for beasts and giant rats. Still he dreamt of becoming more than just prey for a giant rat in the tunnels...
In time Skweek found the workshops of Clan Skryre, and was amazed at the wonders they produced. When the workshops were mostly abandoned in times of war, he would walk the floors, and marvel at the incredibly technology. He stole small knick-knacks, cogs and whatever else he could get his hands on - as the next few years went by, he built small mechanical devices, and discovered that he had an affinity for technology - and he kept dreaming. 
One day, an opportunity arose, as Skweek saw a slumbering sedated stormfiend awaiting maintenance and upgrades. He knew instinctively that this was his one chance. He patiently awaited till the workshop was empty and acted quickly - his theory was that the shriveled pilots on the stormfiends back depended on his bigger partners vital fluids, but the Stormfiend much less so. He acted quickly and stabbed the diminutive pilot with a shard of metal from the floor and promptly removed the husk from it's seat. Skweek was ecstatic, this was his shot-chance, this was great, nothing could stop-stop him now... Except that he had not thought his plan through. The sedation was rigged to the pilots brain, and with the pilot very much dead-dead, the giant Rat Ogre began to awaken. It rose, and blinked a few times, and Skweek, who had seen the carnage these creatures could cause when running rampage, knew he was done for. It rose above him, 8 times his height, and looked upon him, Skweek readying for the deadly blow. He closed his eyes and... 

Nothing. Nothing happened. He dared to look and saw the rat ogre studying him, sniffing, and then turned away, walking towards a tunnel. Skweek was dumbfounded, even more so when the Rat Ogre suddenly dropped to one knee, then to the floor. He slowly approached the gigantic creature, and when he came close he saw a small dart sitting in it's neck - he had seen these before, a tranquilliser dart Clan Skryre used to avoid... Unfortunate events. A shadow formed behind him, and he turned to run, but was quickly grabbed in a mechanical claw, his throat squeezed hard, he struggled for air and passed out. 

When he woke he was chained, and the Warlock Engineer from the workshop, known as Critch Cinderborn, stood before him. He demanded to know what Skweek was up to. Skweek knew that he was a good as dead now. He had the choice of telling the truth and dying quickly or lying and dying in the torture chambers, so he chose the truth. He told his story as quickly as he could, while the Warlock listened. 

The warlock had watched the entire spectacle from afar, and was intrigued - for some reason the Rat Ogre had not shown agression towards Skweek. This was interesting - could it be that his diminutive size rendered him as little more than the vermin and rats frequenting every corner of every skaven tunnel? No matter what, this was an opportunity to further evolve on the Stormfiend project - the diminutive pilots were a hassle to breed, install and had a tendency to burn out in the midst of battle. Could tiny skaven handlers be the answer? He would have to study this pathetic little excuse for a skaven, and his interaction with the Rat Ogre. 

Much to Skweeks surprise, he wasn't killed immediately after his explanation. Even more surprising to him, the Warlock made him an offer - if he would be part of a new experiment, and train with the Rat Ogre as it's handler, his life would be spared - for now. He took the offer without blinking, yes-yes, for sure, no hesitation, and spent the next months in the training pits of Clan Moulder, learning to handle and steer a Rat Ogre, using bait, simple commands and his spiky stick for getting it's attention - and learning to get out of the way when it grows tired of being bossed around. 

Critch watched the strange symbiotic relationship between the two develop during Skweeks training, and was intrigued at the development - this could surely be a breakthrough in the Stormfiend program, but he would have to make further research, and test the subject in the midst of battle to see if the bizarre partnership would be useful in the heat of battle-battle. As such, he would bring Skweek along on the next few upcoming missions, of course-course with a bodyguard of some his finest StormVermin, should the situation get out of control. 

Skweek was happier than he could have imagined. He had it all; food, a place to sleep, a 10 feet tall bodyguard to fend off any unwanted afflicters - and as he lay down beside the slumbering (though admittedly very foul smelling) Rat Ogre he had affectionately named Rat Pitt, he dreamt of ripping through the enemies of Skavenblight, riding the back of Rat and squeezing the trigger of the gigantic Ratling Cannon on it's back. 

With that wall of text overwith, I hereby present the start of another warband;

Skweek and Rat Pitt:



WIP of course, with the models concept shamelessly stolen from the Trollbloods Dire Troll Blitzer. I'm not sure what the rest of the warband is going to be yet, but I really like this guy.

All comments are welcomed as usual. :)

Sunday 12 November 2017

Well, this isn't 40k related in the slightest...

... But sometimes you gotta follow inspiration.

Man, I sound like a broken record player, but I've been really busy lately. So much so, that I haven't touched my Nurgle guys in a few weeks. I sat at my computer last night, and got a sudden urge to paint something not in power armour. I rummaged through my bits box and found 5 of the "Data Daemons" from my shelved Dark Mechanicus project, and suddenly inspiration struck - "I want to paint ghosts!"

I glued them back together (I had originally separated the spirit hosts, and put one model on each base - counts as daemonettes for Dark Mechanicus) to the best of my ability, using LOTS of plastic glue, gave them a quick Corax White spray, and went to town with Nihilakh Oxide, Coelia Greenshade and black and white. It came out pretty good I think, especially considering I only used 3 hours including building them, and I like that they have a bit more contrast than you usually see.

What's it for, you ask? An idea is brewing, which may or may not happen. We'll see. :)


Sunday 22 October 2017

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:


Wednesday 18 October 2017

Improved Blight Lords and Plague Marines

I received my second box of Death Shroud today, and promptly tore into the sprues, snickering manically and swinging my scalpel, saw and cutters... Well, not exactly, but I was very excited, since I had some cool ideas for them.

This next batch almost put even more of a fight than the first batch - as I told you in the previous post,  they are NOT easy to convert - everything fits together in one way and ONE WAY only; which is great if you're a beginning model builder, and you don't want to make mistakes. Lord knows I've assembled many kits the wrong way, only to find out the plastic glue is dried solid and there's no way to pull it apart without destroying everything.

Anyway, this quality is not so much of a quality, when a madman such a myself wants to do unspeakable things to said kit - so I used a lot of cutting, measuring, cutting again, a bit of greenstuff and some weird parts to make it work - but in the end it is so satisfying to "beat" a conversion - to pull off something that looks almost hopeless.

I'm really satisfied with the unit, and they look and feel soooo much better to me than the regular kits. Granted, it is a really expensive unit to build - but hey, this is the guy that once bought 8 (!) Chaos Lord in terminator armour kits, to build a Berzerker terminator squad with lightning claws. ;)
In the end, I'm a one-army-guy. I don't play much, modelling and painting is my main hobby, and I want this to be the best army I've ever done, with all of the models looking awesome - so it was worth it. :)


Also a shot of the new Plague Marine unit I've assembled - only very small conversions, but I wanted to show off how great a kit it is:


Monday 16 October 2017

... Blight Shroud Terminators?

As promised, here is my progress on the "Blight Shroud Terminators". I'm much more happy with this, than the standard Blight Lord Terminators. They just don't feel or look right to me. These however - these I feel give the massive, hulking feel of 1.5 tonnes of armoured decay, evil and ceramite that I want them to have.

I will warn anyone attempting do these however - these are NOT simple arm swaps or easy conversions. They involve very complicated removal of arms, sockets, etc. and some quite complicated cutting to get the new arms to sit right. However, I think they're definitely worth it, and I can't wait for the other box of Death Shroud (which seems to be sold out almost everywhere in Denmark at the moment) so I can make another two combiplas/axe guys and a Mace of Contagion carrier. More to come soon...


And a size comparison; even though it's the biggest of the Blight Lord Terminators, the champion (second from right) is still dwarfed both in height and girth by the new conversion - and the Grey Knight just seem to have lost all hope. ;)


Saturday 14 October 2017

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.

Monday 2 October 2017

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 30 September 2017

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!


Thursday 28 September 2017

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.


Wednesday 23 August 2017

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.

Sunday 20 August 2017

A hunt of the perfect tabletop miniature

Some time ago, right before Age of Sigmar was officially announced, I painted a few skaven models. AoS was rumoured to be a new warhammer fantasy skirmish game, played on round bases, with few models on the table. They had me at round bases. I quickly painted 10 test clanrats, but they were  poorly designed in both colour choices and painting technique, and I abandoned them soon after.

These guys are just boring to look at


I have never really given up on trying to find the perfect colour scheme for skaven, but unlike what the rumours said, the game actually requires quite a few models (for most armies). This is bad news for the people, who want to paint a skaven to a certain standard.

A few days ago, while looking around the internet, I found this beautiful fella' over at https://reaktorminiatures.files.wordpress.com. I instantly fell in love with the colour scheme, and I knew at once, that I had to steal it.

For me, there are only two important rules in painting a good tabletop miniature.
1. It has to pop on the table. This mostly comes down to bright, clear colours and heavy contrast.
2. You have to be able to paint an army in the chosen colour scheme. This seems obvious, but most gamers I know, have abandoned a project after painting the first 1-2 units, when realizing how daunting a task it would be to paint a whole army that way.

The above model does this to an A+. I think it is beautiful in every way, and most colours are only 3-4 layers. Simple and elegant, and I want an army like that. I don't know if I can actually do it, but after painting my copy model (with a few personal tweaks), I feel pretty confident.
The green warpstone could probably have been pushed a bit more, but all in all I'm really happy with the result. Unlike most other armies I have ever painted, this model just owns the table. I want to look at it all the time, and I want to paint more... In fact, I'm just going to do that right now.


/Andreas 2.0





Thursday 17 August 2017

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. :)