Not only has it been ages since my last update, for which I apologise, but it’s also THAT time of the year again — how did this happen…?

Seriously, though: Given the slew of current events (and the fact that the RL version of Nurgle’s Rot is, unfortunately, still very much on the prowl), it probably shouldn’t be a surprise that Christmas has once again managed to sneak up on me. But oh dear: Now I don’t have anything prepared for the occasion — what to do, what to do…?

Wait a second, though: Christmas is all about men in red with bags full of…er, shall we say “offerings”, right? Excellent, I can do that! The emotional side of Christmas is also about the fuzzy feeling of nostalgia, of remembering a time when everything was still much easier — so let’s check two boxes at the same time here:

For today’s update, allow me to share a recent project of mine that definitely deals with a man in red, and is also slightly nostalgic, if only because it revisits one of the very first characters I built and painted for my then-new incarnation of Khorne’s Eternal Hunt: One Huntmaster Bardolf:

Bardolf was originally created back in 2010, or thereabouts, fairly shortly after I got back into the hobby. From a modern standpoint, the model is a really dodgy conversion, but back then, it felt like a very important step: Bardolf was one of the first models where I really stepped beyond my comfort zone and seriously cut up a model (a plastic warrior of chaos, for the record) and put it back together in a way that seemed new and exciting to my less discerning self from back then.  So even if the model looks all kinds of weird today, it still marks a pivotal moment in my personal hobby journey. I also have to admit that I still think that the pose works rather well to make the character seem relentless and unfazeable, like a true implacable men.

The other thing that’s interesting about Bardolf is that he has actually earned himself his own battle history, as he used to be my go-to Chaos Lord for small, 500 point-ish games. So he actually saw quite a bit of action on the table and led my World Eaters to victory a bunch of times during our short-lived campaign for the fate of Haestia Primaris, back in the day.

Which is why I have kept thinking about giving the character a re-imagined model at some point every once in a while — even moreso since I have begun to build some new, updated World Eaters since the end of 2019.

Now whenever I thought about a new model for Bardolf, Obsidius Mallex came up as a possible starting point:

I think you can already see a certain resemblance.

But alas, I kept putting this off, and I didn’t really go for it until I saw fellow hobbyist Master Umbra really taking the Obsidius Mallex model through its paces over at The Bolter & Chainsword. This gave me quite an appetite to finally tackle my own conversion, so I quickly made a mockup and began to turn Mallex into Bardolf:

A fairly straightforward approach, as you can see: The most important part was to carefully dig out the head and breastplate with a hobby knife, then replace them with a suitably Khornate piece from the AoS Blood Warriors and an old bare berzerker head, respectively — I am aware of the fact that the latter, with its somewhat tacky fangs, is a bit of an acquired taste, but I still like the sculpt, with its grizzled features and the gruesome looking plugs and implants, plus I’ve come to think of it pretty much as Bardolf’s face, for better or worse. The head also comes from the now-ancient plastic berzerker kit that started this whole army to begin with, so it seemed like a nice tribute to the days of yore in that respect

The next step was to tidy up the conversion work and change the pose a bit, in order to get a bit closer to the original model:

Regarding the pose, the problem was that you can only do so much with Obsidius’s arms: I could not rotate the hands or forearms any further, both because it would have “broken” the model’s anatomy (if you take a closer look at the arms and the elbow armour, that severely limits how much I could tweak the pose). And you get even less leeway than usual, due to all of those tubes and cables sculpted onto the limbs, one of the main design elements about the stock Obsidius Mallex model.  That being said, I don’t think the pose is all that bad, to be honest — he still looks like he’s relentlessy advancing, maybe even singling out his next opponent?

I also decided to keep most of the cabling, especially on the left leg, because I like how it makes the armour look ancient: Like it has been field-repaired a million times. This seems very fitting for a true veteran of the Long War!

After getting most of the basic elements in place, it was mostly a matter of tweaking the details: I had to re-sculpt some of the fur on one side of the breastplate, and I also wanted to change the design of Mallex’s stock shoulder pads:

As you can see, the left shoulder pad was converted to replace the Black Legion’s Eye of Horus design with what’s supposed to be a representation of the World Eaters’ legion badge. It may still look a little hokey right now, bit I am pretty confident that it should work rather well once it has been painted. I also decided to tweak the weird, lumpy shoulder pad design on the right side, and we’ll be taking a look at that in a second.

Before that, let my just point out that there wasn’t just a previous 40k version of the character to take into account when building this new version — because I also built a 30k version of Bardolf a while ago:

With traitor legionaries, I actually think it’s great fun to imagine them both before and after their fall, especially if they are important players in your armies and warbands. At the same time, as with my re-design of Lord Captain Lorimar, this also added the challenge of making sure the re-imagined model worked as a shout out both to the original 40k version as well as to the 30k interpretation.

Here’s a comparison picture with all three models:

While the 30k version has a slightly closer resemblance to the first 40k version, I think they do all read as basically the same guy: The new conversion makes him look like this ancient monster, swollen with the powers of chaos over ten millennia — at least that’s what it looks like to me.

Anyway, I think I am fast approaching the point where my new Bardolf conversion should be finished and ready for painting:

So yeah, about ten years later, I have re-imagined one of the first characters from “Khorne’s Eternal Hunt”, my World Eaters army — how’s that for a warm an fuzzy feeling of nostalgia!

Seriously, though, I hope you like the conversion, because that’s basically all I have for you today: In recent weeks, I’ve only really managed to squeeze in a couple of World Eaters kitbashes here and there:

But I think I’ll be addressing these gents in a future post. Don’t fret, though: In a few days, I’ll be returning with this year’s “Eternal Hunt Awards”, both in order to take a look at a few hobby projects that really stood out to me this year, and to give an account of my – pretty meagre – 2020 hobby achievements.

For now, however, all that remains is to wish you a very Merry Christmas – inasmuch as that is currently possible, that is. Please make yourselves comfortable at home, stay healthy (above all else!), and we’ll hopefully be seeing each other for some new content sooner rather than later!

Until then, please feel free to let me hear any thoughts and suggestions you might have. And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

…Okay, let’s finally get down to brass tacks, so to speak: Time to show you some of the kitbashes I have been working on recently. Be ye warned, though: There be lots of unpainted plastic and crude WIPs ahead

Now when the World Eaters release was first teased by GW, I was relieved to see that all of my most recent, painted World Eaters stuff – from back in 2019/2020 – would probably still make the cut when placed next to the new models. It’s good to know that “The Hateful Eight” have not been made obsolete by the new release!

But of course my first action was to go through the as-of-yet-unpainted models and see whether I might be able to tweak and improve them a bit. To be perfectly honest, not only did I do this to bring them up to the level of the new models, but also as a substitute for actually getting to work on the new bitz, as I was still waiting for my first box of new Khorne Berzerkers to be delivered at this point

First up on the table were these three gentlemen:

All of these have been tweaked a bit, but without using any of the new parts. This was really mostly about bringing the existing conversions up to snuff and about straightening out any remaining kinks and areas I didn’t like. Let’s take this model, for instance:

I must have tweaked and re-tweaked this particular kitbash half a dozen times by now, but now I am finally happy with the conversion: The model combines the head, torso, upper thighs (and half of a weapon arm) of an AoS Blood Warrior with the lower legs from the plastic Mk. III Marines. I threw in shoulder pads from the vanilla Chaos Space Marines and the old FW World Eaters conversion kit. What really sells the conversion, in my opinion, is the left arm (from the Age of Sigmar first edition starter box Blood Reavers): I knew I needed at least one berzerker to carry some freshly taken heads, and now this noble task falls to this particular gentleman.

Next up is a model I was already very happy with back in 2020:

The original plan here was to build a World Eater wearing massive, archaic & spiky Mk. III armour, and the plastic Plague Marines presented me with the perfect body for that look. The shoulder pads and left arm came from the vanilla CSM; while the right hand gripping an axe came from the Blood Warriors included in the old AoS starter box. The one tweak I chose to make was to exchange the somewhat dodgy FW Red Butcher axe the model had before…

…for the Chaos Space Marine chainsword you can see above. I’m not quite sure yet whether I want to keep this version — we’ll see.

The other fun thing I did for this model was to convert a helmet for it: I found myself wondering what a suitable helmet for this massive set of warplate might look like, and then inspiration struck. Here’s what I came up with:

The blunt, brutish helmet from an easy-to-build plastic Plague Marine made for an almost perfect design, with an ancient, Mk. II-ish look, and the bladed crest added character to the helmet, making it suitably vicious and gladiatorial for a World Eater. And while I will definitely keep the bare head for the model (it’s from the plastic Custodians, but I think it just works so well), I am now thinking about maybe keeping the head exchangeable — my original plan was to merely put the helmet on the model’s belt, but it actually seems much too cool for that. So maybe I will just keep both heads optional, so I can swap between them whenever I feel like it

Finally, there’s this gent here:

Another 2020 conversion, this one. This is what he looked like before I worked on him:

Granted, the model seems cool enough in that photo, but the proportions were really all over the place, with a right leg that was MUCH too long. The model seemed cool at first glance but became dodgier and dodgier the longer I looked at it. So the right leg was shortened, leading to a slightly different pose. The infuriating thing is that it’s now much harder to find the right angle to show off how the model has been improved, as the legionary is aggressively thrusting forward his chest. It works really well when seen firsthand but is a lot of trouble to photograph right…

The conversion was, once again, based on one of the Blood Warriors from the AoS 1st edition starter box, and I think the armour works really well for a World Eater, looking much more archaic and gladiatorial than standard Astartes warplate. In this case, I didn’t replace either of the shoulder pads, because I really wanted to embrace the gladiatorial look.

The one thing I added to bring the model more into the 40k universe was to add some GS Butcher’s Nails to its head:

Granted, compared to the new stock heads, these nails seem pretty crude, but I think the model still works pretty well overall. The model still needs a bit of cleanup and gap-filling, but I think the look I want for the character is clearly there now.

Then there’s this converted Khorne Berzerker champion, built around some parts from the – somewhat problematic – Wrathmongers/Skullreapers. It remains a slightly dodgy conversion, but I am still fond of the sense of brutality it exudes. I’ve added a Blood Warrior shoulder pad to the left arm which definitely makes a big difference, even though it’s such a small detail.

And I also built one additional model, mostly by combining CSM and Blood Warrior parts in the already well established way. However, this model was mostly conceived as a vehicle, so to speak, for one particular bit: Its head:

This particular head was a gift from fellow hobbyist Drone21c — and from all the way back in 2015, if you can believe it! I’ve had this part in my bitzbox for so many years that it was finally time to build a model around it. The helmet itself was converted by adding berzerker “bunny ears” to an old Chaos Warrior helmet, I believe, with some customisation and GS cabling making the design look even more original. The body, meanwhile, was my usual combination of CSM and Blood Warrior parts, with arms from the CSM Raptors.

My idea for this character was a legionary who takes a moment to aim a bolt pistol shot at the enemy while advancing, and I think the pose sells that idea well enough:

The next two models were also originally built in 2020, but in these cases, I actually tweaked them by using some parts from the new berzerker kit:

The guy on the left, with his Corpse Grinder Cult circular saw (a bitz donation from my buddy Augustus b’Raass, by the way) originally used a rebreather head from some Primaris kit or other:

Nice enough in its way, but I think you’ll agree with me that the model has really been transformed simply by giving it a “proper” new World Eaters head:

There’s an added element of viciousness to the model that was really missing before. And there’s something subtly feral about those fanged rebreathers that I just love. This is definitely a case where a single bit has managed to enhance an entire model!

The second model was already really close in concept to the new Khorne Berzerkers, albeit converted from CSM and Blood Warrior parts:

I only really swapped in a different sword arm, as it turned out one of the Berzerker chainsword arms worked a bit better than the vanilla CSM arm I had originally used — although this also has the cool side-effect of leaving the model with one of the rather vicious, hacksaw-like Berzerker chainswords now:

Which invariably leads us to the models that were built using only (or mostly) the new Khorne Berzerker bits — but I’ll be saving those for the next update. Before we wind up this post, let me show you one last fun thing, though:

While I am very much in love with the new Khorne Berzerker kit (more thoughts on that will follow in a future update), I have a few small, almost microscopic, gripes with it. For one, I think it’s a bit of a shame that the new kit doesn’t feature a modern interpretation of the “Arx Death Helm”, as it was called in the 3rd edition Codex:

The helmet design wasn’t only a throwaway line in the Codex, however — it actually existed in model form: You might remember the berzerker helmet with a skull-shaped faceplate, as seen on this older model here:

Granted, the design may seem a little hokey by modern standards, but I still think it was a bit of a shame for it not to receive an update. Which is when I came across the model for something called an “Aspiring Deathbringer” in my bitzbox. I picked it up when I bought the one-off game “Gorechosen” at a very good price a couple of years ago:

The model itself is easily the dodgiest, most awkward sculpt from that box, and not easy to completely convert into a 40k character, not least due to the enormous lenght of its legs But upon closer examination, the head definitely warranted a bit of attention: I couldn’t help wondering if I might be able to turn this into something really cool…

So a few precise cuts later, I had this:

A simple enough conversion, really: The lower part of the head (i.e. the mouth and neck area) were carefully cut off and replaced with the lower part of an Adeptus Mechanicus Skitarii Vanguard helmet: I could have used a CSM head as well, but the Skitarii heads have the huge advantage of being really easy to cut apart cleanly right above the breathing apparatus. Afterwards, the two parts were carefully glued together, and I must say I am pretty happy with the result!

I don’t even have any plans for the head yet: The truth is that I sometimes just enjoy making involved conversions on one small part that I then just keep around until its big day comes. Which may be next week, in four years…or never. Here it is on a “borrowed” body, though:

As you can see, I decided to get rid of the massive amount of dead space in the middle of the helmet crest by gluing on a medal from the old Khorne Berzerker kit.

Oh, and one of my favourite parts of the head is how, even though it’s originally an Age of Sigmar bit, it does have those grooves running across the top of the head that really look like an artistic representation of the Butcher’s Nails:

Anyway, so much for taking stock of my existing models — and of bringing them into the year 2023. Next time, we’ll be looking at the first models I have actually built from the new Khorne Berzerker box. And we’ll be meeting another old aqcuaintance that has received a rather substantial makeover.

For now, however, I would just love to hear your feedback or questions about these models, so please feel free to let me hear any thoughts and suggestions you might have. And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Another round of World Eaters conversions for today, although I’ll be focusing on the actual new berzerker kit a bit more. At the same time, I also have some converted characters to round out the post. We’ll be getting to that in a minute!

For the sake of completeness, let me point out that I actually treated myself to the limited edition of the World Eaters Codex, during the ridiculously short period of time when it was up for grabs:

I cannot (and will not) really say anything much about the rules, mostly because those concerns are mainly behind me these days. As for the flavour text and production values, I’d say it’s a rather nice little book: Where the army background is concerned, it offers a pleasant enough collection of texts, containing a nice, concise (and newly written!) writeup of the World Eaters entire legion history so far, plus enough little vignettes and warband descriptions to serve as inspiration and food for thought — even if Gladiator Cadre 331 basically cribs half of the backstory of Khorne’s Eternal Hunt, if you ask me…

I said I wasn’t going to talk about rules, but one thing that stuck out to me is how, in its background text, the book actually goes out of its way to allow for all kinds of variety in the shape and form of World Eaters warbands, describing warbands holding on to a concept of personal honour, or those strongly based on vehicle use or on heavy weapons, when the actual rules present in the book only really allow for one type of army: One that does allows for nothing but close quarters combat. I certainly hope that a future wave of releases may yet round out the army a bit more, or at least open the way towards some of the interesting options that already appear in the fluff.

But I am honestly rather happy with the way “my” legion gets presented in the flavour text: There’s enough craziness and bloodshed, yes, but there’s also no small amount of hints at Angron’s and the legion’s tragic backstory. Oh, and I also really LOVE the cover artwork, especially since it features all kinds of interesting characters. Not something we sell too often these days, when a lot of GW’s artwork is strongly geared towards showing off only those characters and units that have actual kits, and precious few of the crazy, intricate and inspirational tableaux of yore.

And seeing how I had already gone all-in on the Codex, I also made sure to pick up the World Eaters collector’s coin during a recent visit to my local Warhammer store:

An indulgence, certainly, just like the limited edition codex. But on the other hand, I have been playing, building and painting World Eaters for almost thirty years at this point, so it would have felt even more stupid NOT to add these items to my collection…

So, anyway, on to the actual models: Here’s a look at the Khorne Berzerkers I have been building using the new berzerker kit:

I might have to write up my thoughts on the new kit(s) in a more detailed shape and form at some point, because there’s really a lot to talk about. For now, suffice it to say that I like the new Khorne Berzerkers kit a great deal, especially the many shout outs to the earlier plastic kits AND the metal miniatures that came before. At the same time, the look of these models has been thoroughly modernised and nicely refined.

I do have some minor quibbles with the kit: For one, while it is more versatile than many of GW’s recent kits, it is maybe not quite as versatile as it seems at first: The bodies only ever really go together in one specific way, for instance, although that is not such a big deal, given the fact that you actually get ten unique bodies in the kit. A more immediate problem is the fact that you get two different types of gloves on the hands – standard CSM gauntlet and a modernised version of the classic berzerker leather gloves (looking far less clownish this time around) – and while I love the inclusion of the latter, this also means that you cannot simply combine any two arms from the kit without the result ending up looking a bit dodgy.

But anyway, I am still feeling my way around the kit, which is why the first couple of models have been mostly built “by the book”, so to speak:

Sure, I have subtly tweaked a pose here and there, but so far, the models are still fairly cookie cutter, which is really the biggest problem right now, as I still want them to feel like unique characters. So I will yet have to make a few tweaks and adjustment, find the perfect heads and helmets for these,… all in an effort to make them more unique. But I think I’ll be getting there in the end.

Then there’s this guy that I keep coming back to:

The original plan was to build a model stepping forward in a challenging way and bellowing out a challenge. I really wanted to use one of the shouting, bare heads for this, but as it turns out, they are not entirely unproblematic: Due to the way they are built, they can end up looking a bit strange when used on actual models (the open mouths resulting in a bit of an elongated neck). So I’ve fallen back on using a rebreather head for now, but of course this means you lose some of the intended viciousness.

One smaller breakthrough was to actually ditch the stock Berzerker backpack and swap in an Mk. III backpack: I think its more concentrated bulk works a lot better with the outline and mass of the model. But in any case, expect the pose & bitz on this chap to still change quite a bit before we are done

The one case where I have already committed to a slightly more involved conversion is the squad’s vexilla/icon bearer:

Look, I am old skool to the bone: Backpack mounted banners and trophies are strictly for champions in my book. The icon bearer needs to be lugging around an actual icon: I love the idea that even the World Eaters will take it upon themselves to carry banners and icons into battle, all in an attempt to bring more glory to Khorne — they absolutely need to look suitably vicious, of course, so they could believably be used as weapons in their own right, should push come to shove.

I also like it when every squad has their own, original icon, so I am working towards that goal as well.

The icon bit itself came from the 1st edition Age of Sigmar Blood Reavers. I really liked its vicious, barbed look, and it has a lot of skulls, which is always a plus. I had to shave off the – slightly too reedy – Blood Reaver arm holding it. That area was covered up with yet more skulls, and a Wrathmonger arm was swapped in for its added mass:

So that’s how far I have come with the new berzerker kit so far. On a more general note, this should not come as a surprise, but the kit, and the models resulting from it, work very well alongside the more recent chaos kits, like the vanilla Chaos Space Marines. Here’s a quick side-by-side comparison with two berzerkers, one made completely from the new kit, while the other one almost exclusively uses Vanilla CSM and Blood Warrior parts:

Granted, the new berzerkers may be slightly taller (and wider!), but not too noticeably so. By the same token, all of the bitz can also be safely mixed into other conversions: Here’s a guy I just quickly tacked together from leftovers, using bitz from the berzerkers, vanilla CSM and Blood Warriors:

Works pretty well, doesn’t it? Alas, the poor chap has already been torn apart again, in an attempt to create an extra World Eater wielding a two-handed eviscerator for one of the old squads. Another kitbash made purely from leftovers, so to speak. Take a look:

The body is one of my usual mixes of vanilla CSM legs and a Blood Warrior torso. The arms are those of an AoS Slaughterpriest of Khorne (actually the very same model I used to build my gladiatorial version of Angron). I think the leftover weapon works fairly well as an eviscerator. The arms are maybe a bit too long, but I think we can just chalk that up to mutations

Beyond that, there’s a backpack from the Dark Vengeance Chosen, a head from the vanilla CSM kit, a Blood Warrior shoulder pad on the left arm and an old FW World Eaters shoulder pad on the right.

My original idea for the axeman was to use a set of legs from the – supremely ungainly – Wrathmongers/Skullcrushers kit, but while the pose worked really well, the proportions were completely off, making the model look almost twice as tall as its intended squadmates. But I wasn’t quite done with those Wrathmonger legs yet, so I tried using them to build some kind of Raptor champion:

(Yes, I realise that Raptors are no longer an official part of the army — but frankly, who cares?)

The legs arguably work much better here. The scale problem is still there, but you can explain it away with the model just landing, so it almost, kinda works…

Before I tune out for today, I promised you some converted characters, right? So here goes: Two old acquaintances:

First up, some long time readers may remember the Terminator Lord wielding twin lightning claws that I built a long time ago, then kept tweaking for years:

I always wanted the model to be in something resembling a very classic “Wolverine” pose (you can almost hear those claws going “SNIKT!”, am I right?), and I was still pretty happy with that part of the model. so I really wanted to salvage this guy for the latest incarnation of my World Eaters. However, the slightly dodgy old Termie Lord legs no longer worked all that well, in my opinion. Well, some problems call for drastic measures. So here’s the reborn version of this particular model:

Yes, I tore apart two models to make a tweaked, new one — completely normal, nothing to see here. In my defense, the new legs (originally from Forge World’s Lord Zhufor model) work much better, wouldn’t you agree? And while this change may seem supremely wasteful, I would argue that both models had just been sitting there unused and unpainted for years, so some bold action was needed!

Yet another rebreather head from the Khorne Berzerkers is also doing a great job here — those heads are, in fact, one of the high points of the kit for me.

Funnily enough, while comparing the model to one of the new Khorne Berzerkers, I realised that the new berzerker torso pieces are actually wider than the older Terminator chest pieces! So I added those small pieces of swinging chain links, not only to support the model’s sense of dynamism, but also in order to visually stretch the torso — it’s a cheap trick, admittedly, but I think it works well enough.

And here’s one last WIP model for today: A long time ago I painstakingly created this model here. Huntmasker Alrik Skarn, Captain Lorimar’s second-in-command:

Back in the day, the model was inspired by a fantastic conversion on a – now defunct?1 – hobby blog called “Prophet Miniatures”. Come to think of it, the model must actually have been built about ten years ago, give or take, and it seemed like such a towering achievement back then. But I didn’t get around to painting Skarn, as is so often the case for me, and then the model’s time kinda came and went: I did make a couple of attempts to tweak him and bring him back in line with the rest of the army, adding different helmets and swapping in new chainswords, but for some reason, the magic spark had just gone out of the model. I still kept thinking of a way way to re-create or update the character, though.

This character was also on my mind when I started to work with the new CSM kits, back in 2019/2020, but I have held off on building a new version of Skarn until now. Well, no longer! Here’s what I have so far:

To be fair, this is still a fairly early build, but having danced around this particular project for years at this point, I finally had this “Eureka!” moment, and I already like him quite a bit! What do you guys think?

And with that, today’s kitbashing extravaganza concludes. Once again, I would love to hear any thoughts and suggestions you might have. And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Yet more conversion and kitbashing hijinks for today’s update — I know, I know: I will eventually have to get back to painting! Bear with me, though, I have some pretty cool things lined up for today’s post.

Let’s begin with a bit of an “appetiser”, if you will: You’ll probably still remember this conversion from my previous post:

I have finally committed to the conversion for good, gluing the Blood Warrior mid-section to the Skullreaper/Wrathmonger legs (the actual torso remains only tacked-on for now, but mostly to make the painting process easier). I have also thrown together a belt buckle/belly plate with a leftover bit from an AoS Slaughterpriest and the dangling skull from Abaddon’s loincloth (the thing just snapped off, so I thought I might as well use it here):

Some cleanup remains, but I am fairly happy with this conversion! From a background perspective, I want this guy to represent Syrax, a shampion of the Harriers – the fourth assault company’s own brand of Raptors – and right-hand-man to a certain character named “Charun, Lord of the Harriers”, if anyone should still remember him from the earlier days of this blog…

As for today’s “main course”: You all should know by now that I have never learned to resist the utterly dreadful “Ohh! Shiny!” syndrome, so working on this model…

…really gave me an appetite for working on some more updated Terminators. Ultimately, I decided this with an impeccable sense of timing, buying a box of the “new” Chaos Space Marine Terminators just a week or so before the re-scaled loyalist Terminators were announced. Oh well…

But anyway, I was still looking forward to my first experiences working with the new 2019/2020 (?!) Chaos Terminators. They are a great update on the older kit (which, let’s face it, does seem slightly dodgy from a modern perspective). The updated kit is not without its quirks, but its more organic shapes and bulkier armour really do a great job when it comes to making Chaos Space Marine Terminators like lumbering, threatening behemoths (even if, as seems to be the standard with GW’s modern kits, each of the bodies only goes together in one specific way).

At the same time, the conversion standard for these models has become rather crazy while I wasn’t looking, with many hobbyists coming up with brilliant World Eaters Terminators! One source that I found particularly inspiring, if not downright intimidating, were fellow hobbyist RocPSU’s fantastic Terminator conversions — so I knew I would have to up my game for this project

My objective with the new Terminators was threefold:

• turn every one into an individual, because these are ancient veterans of the Long War and deserve to look the part
• believably turn each of them into a World Eater
• have them still read as Terminators: Now this sounds like it wouldn’t be a big deal, but you can really end up converting Terminators so much that you lose a huge chunk of the classic look that actually clearly makes them come across as Terminators, so I needed to keep a balance between creating cool conversions while maintaining the iconic look.

So here’s what I have so far:

You have already seen the gentleman with the twin lightning claws, of course. For my first “test model”, I tried to hammer out the general look I wanted to achieve, in some shape or form, for the whole squad:

Nothing too crazy here, just an attempt at making the model clearly read as a World Eater: The addition of a rebreather head from the new berzerker kit already did most of the work, and adding a Caedere Remissum crest to the top of the armour (courtesy of the blades from a weird Skullreaper/Wrathmonger weapon) was obviously the first oder of the day. Apart from this, I exhanged the head of the stock power maul with an axe blade from another Skullreaper/Wrathmonger weapon. And I added a small World Eaters legion symbol-like medal as well as a Khorne rune to the breastplate. Oh, and a heraldic tilting plate is a bit of an experiment for now — although I really like the idea that some squad members would be holding on to some remnants of their personal heraldry and/or squad markings from the Heresy…

Next up, the heavy weapons guy. For me, the silhouette of the massive autocannon is so very iconic of Chaos Terminators that I knew I had to use that gun. Beyond that, it was, once again, mostly a matter of adding some visual flourishes to make this guy look like a World Eater:

The (Forgeworld) World Eaters shoulder pad is the most obvious addition here. The helmet crest came from the Skullcrushers this time around, and was added on top of the armour, rather than being stuck directly to the neck seal. The shield is, once again, a bit of an experiment, but it’s an element that keeps appearing throughout my army to represent the World Eaters’ gladiatorial leanings, so I think it might be a cool little detail here. Oh, and I also did some work on the model’s breastplate:

And the final model so far: What is probably my least favourite body pose from the kit ended up turning into my favourite conversion:

Another helmet crest, this time from the Blood Warriors (arguably the best and most consistent source for this kind of bit at the moment). The small, Khornate tilting plate is another touch of personal heraldry (and came from the Skullcrushers). The power axe was spiced up a bit by swapping in the blade of a two-handed Necromunda Goliath chainweapon — to be perfectly honest, I’ve been looking forward to using that weapon ever since the new Necromunda came out

Oh, and I carefully shaved off the little air intake/exhaust from the centre of the breastplate and replaced it with a legion symbol.

All of these changes were not my favourite part of the model, however: What is perhaps most noticeable is the helmet:

I had this weird desire to find out whether I might be able to re-create a plastic version of the vicious-looking, slightly Predator-like, mawed Terminator faceplate that can be seen on Forge World’s Lord Zhufor model:

I used a skull from the box of plastic skulls for this, carefully shaving and gluing until I had what I would say is a pretty promising prototype:

That was not the end of it, however: Fellow Reddit user Money_Cost6121 suggested maybe using an ork skull for that grafted-on faceplate conversion, and while I originally discarded the idea as possibly ending up looking …too orky, I was still intrigued. So down the rabbit hole I went and created two more options. Here’s a comparison shot with all three versions I made:

Not going to lie: In hindsight, I feel a bit foolish for only trying the most obvious option (using a Bloodletter face) last…

They all have their merits: Personally speaking, the Ork-version seems almost too monstrous, ogre-like to me. The Bloodletter probably looks like the most natural and refined option, although I have to admit that it ended up being just as finicky as the other two, and really mostly came together through sheer, dumb luck.

That being said, the conversion process is really not that complicated: For all three versions, you bascially just cut away the “face” from any given skull at a slight angle, starting at the bridge of the nose and cutting down. Then you carefully cut and shave away the lowest part of the faceplate from the Terminator helmet, trying to create a soft, concave curve. And then it’s a matter of careful test fitting, shaving and gluing — I might have to write up a mini-tutorial for this in an upcoming post…

In any case, I think the results so far a pretty promising!

Oh, and because this question came up regarding the twin LC Terminator Lord in a comment to my previous post, here’s a scale comparison with one of the new Terminators:

As you can see, they work fairly well together: The older Terminator body seems a bit lankier (with a weirdly narrow torso piece), while the new Terminators are much bulkier and seem more ponderous. Even so, the models should look quite alright together, once everything has been painted, in 2034 or so

And that’s another update in the bag! Once again, I would love to hear any thoughts and suggestions you might have. And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

The kitbashing train has no brakes! In all fairness, though: I still had that World Eaters Terminator squad to complete, so…

While the first three Terminators, along with the “salvaged” model wielding twin lightning claws, appeared in the previous post, there were still two more models left to go. So here’s what I came up with:

First of all, let’s take a look at the squad champion (although I really want them all to look equally impressive, so he doesn’t stick out quite as much as he possibly would in a less customised squad):

The most obvious addition here is the left arm from the Lord Zhufor model — I thought this would be a really cool alternative to the model’s standard bolter arm. The – slightly dodgy looking – standard sword was replaced with a weapon from the AoS Varanguard kit. I rather like its blunt, brutal and slightly daemonic look. And I added a helmet crest (from the Skullcrushers) and a World Eaters rebreather head, to round out the WE look.

And of course I couldn’t resist the temptation of turning the last model into an icon bearer:

Now this guy uses the actual Lord Zhufor helmet (although I have had to replace the tusks, due to a small accident). The banner pole and the hand holding it came from the AoS Blood Warriors — the bit was carefully grafted onto the existing Terminator arm. The Caedere Remissum crest once again came from the Skullcrushers.

Now this guy actually made for an interesting challenge, because I had to find the right banner for him: I wanted him to be carrying the IVth assault company’s battle standard, and none of the options I found in my bitzbox completely managed to win me over:

The first option was a Skullcrusher banner — a lovely piece in and of itself, make no mistake. But it’s also very monothematic, with that Khorne symbol on top AND that massive Khornate rune dead centre. What I was looking for, however, was more of an old company standard, complete with a legion symbol, and maybe some of the IVth’s battle honours, and the only way to create that from this bit would have been to to painstakingly shave off the rune, with a very high probability of ruining the piece altogether.

The second option was an actual, blank Space Marine standard — a real rarity these days
What I really liked about this was how it would have allowed me to actually make the standard look like an age-old relic. But the main downside was how very, very clean it looks — and I wasn’t quite sure whether I would be able to make it look suitably distressed and brutal for a World Eaters standard.

The third option – a Bloodletter banner – had quite a few things going on in its favour: It’s suitably Khornate and chaotic. It’s also suitably tattered, while still leaving enough of a “blank canvas” for me to get creative. What wasn not really sold on, however, was the somewhat organic look of the crosspost. It also seemed like a very safe choice — and I guess that’s what I ultimately found the most off-putting about it.

And then there was this final option:

A WFB plastic Minotaur banner, if I remember correctly. I had actually wanted to use this as the IVth’s standard before: The way it seems like a mix of banner and trophy display really ties into the theme of the Eternal Hunt. But also maybe seemed a bit too big, a bit too much: I was afraid that it might overpower the model and cover up too much of it.

Ultimately, the feedback I received over at The Bolter & Chainsword supported my assumption that the minotaur standard really deserved another chance. So the next step was to turn it into something that would make for both a suitably grisly, Khornate banner for AND would still read as something that had, at one point, been an Astartes battle standard. So I carefully chose some elements to add to the banner:

I really wanted some kind of shout out to (Pre-)Heresy times, and in the end I realised that actually using a (shaved down) 30k Vexilla piece might just do the trick. It even has a little space for an obvious Heresy callback, such as a red WE symbol (or XII numeral) on white — or maybe even a War Hounds icon? Beyond that, I added some skulls and talismans. Not everything had been glued in place at this moment, and in fact I would end up making a few smaller tweaks down the road — as you’ll be seeing in a minute.

In the meantime, the entire Terminator squad also went through another round of detailing: While I like the sense of bulk and menace about the “new” Chaos Terminator kit, it is also incredibly vanilla-flavoured, so my main challenge was to really, really make these guys read as World Eaters. Good thing I found Wade Pryce’s notes on his own Terminators in the – fairly recent – issue of WD that had the preliminary World Eaters Index/Codex, and he talked about shaving off some symbols off leftover Blood Warrior parts and gluing them to the Terminators. Brilliant! So that’s what I did.
I also made some smaller tweaks to other areas, such as the headcrests on the champion and icon bearer, for example. Here’s a look at all the squad members as they are looking at the moment:

I’m not going to lie to you — I am pretty darn happy with the way this squad is shaping up!

And as for the icon bearer, here’s what he looks like with the finished (?!) banner provisionally tacked on:

I will still need to tweak it all a bit and make sure everything lines up correctly, but I am pretty happy with the model — in fact, one small touch that makes me almost stupidly happy, even though it is of small consequence, is the fact that the icon bearer is now actually wearing his gun mag-locked to his armour (and doubly secured with a little chain):

I carefully carved a concave shape into the inner half of the weapon casing, to make sure it conforms to the curvature of the armour underneath and doesn’t end up messing up the model’s entire silhouette.

So that’s it for this week! Before I started working on these Terminators, I actually feared I might not be able to put an original spin on them, given the crazy cool conversations floating around out there. But I am actually pretty happy with the squad so far:

And, of course, I would love to hear any thoughts and suggestions you might have. And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Just a small-ish update for today, as I keep taking the smallest, most absurd baby steps on my way of slooowly inching closer back to painting and something resembling actually finished models — and holy heck, I had certainly forgotten how difficult this can be!

But we’ll be getting there in a minute. Before that, let’s get into the swing of things by showing you some fiddly little things I have been doing — and not all of them have been a success. So let’s bring in Exhibit A in the the ongoing series “Conversions I hoped would work”:

I thought I had this really nifty idea for an – optional – helmeted head for one of my Chaos Lords, Bardolf, Lord of the Huntsmen:

The thought at the core of this micro-project was that it would be cool if, in an army where almost everyone is wearing a helmet with one of those bunny ears crests, there’s one commanding officer who goes against the grain. I still wanted the helmet to match the style of the army, though. Anyway, take a look:

The Unmade facemask from Warcry has this wonderful, almost primitive look: You could really imagine it as some kind of deathmask made from hammered bronze, I wanted this to work so much — but I cannot shake the feeling that the actually faceplate is just a bit too small, even after I went through the trouble of grafting it onto an actual CSM helmet:

It’s a bit heartbreaking, really. The helmet would be perfect for the model, if only the mask were a bit bigger. Oh well…

But while we are on the subject of spliced-together helmets, I ditscore a smaller success elsewhere: I painstakingly spliced together an Mk II helmet with a slightly Khornate look, just because I am sometimes completely into dumb detail stuff like this…

And while this was a bit fiddly to pull off, it’s a pretty simple conversion, really: I shaved the helmet crest off a Skullcrusher helmet, carefully scraped away the part between both eye slits, creating the iconic, cyclopic Mk. II visor look. And I grafted some “ears” from a bog standard Space Marine helmet to the sides of the head, bulking it out and creating a shape very close to an actual Astartes helmet. The horsehair crest came from the plastic Mk. III Marines sprue and seemed like a fitting addition for such an ancient armour mark. Here’s what the helmet looks like when added to an actual model (this particular guy just cannot seem to catch a break… )

And I spliced together one more helmet: I’ve always wanted to do something with one of the “Easy-to-Build” Primaris Reivers helmets I still had in my bitzbox, what with the skull faceplate and everything, so I went for a fairly obvious solution:

The stock helmet itself is maybe a bit too clean, but with the added helmet crest and dangling little skulls, I’d say it almost kinda works — in fact, I really wanted to see whether a paintjob would tie it all together, so I chose this part as my first test run on getting back into painting. Take a look:

It’s nothing special, to be sure, but it’s a start…

And in order to at least keep practicing, I next painted up one of those converted Terminator helmets I posted recently — the orky one:

Again, I think the paintjob at least manages to do a fair job at pulling the different parts of the conversion together, making it look like a unified whole.

Oh, and I also did something I had wanted to try for a while: Adding one of the new GW World Eaters decals to one of my 2019/2020 models:

I know, I know: Not exactly riveting stuff, but really just tiny bits and pieces. Bear with me, though — I am trying to get my mojo back here, as well as my hand-eye-coordination…

I would, of course, love to hear any thoughts and suggestions you might have. And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Hey everyone, sorry for the short break, but I do have some new Khornate odds and ends to share with you, as my work on the World Eaters’ 4th assault company in its latest incarnation continues apace:

For starters, I have made an adjustment that I am pretty happy with to an older model of mine: “Argus the Brazen”, one of the now out-of-print World Eaters Castraferrum Dreadnoughts that were produced by Forgeworld at one point. I received the model from my buddy Augustus b’Raass a couple of years ago, and it was actually one of the first models – if not THE first – to be painted in my updated World Eaters colour scheme:

While I’ve always loved the design of the model, the one thing I was never quite happy with was how squat the top of the model looked in silhouette. It’s especially noticeable at a slightly lower camera angle:

So my plan was always to add some kind of trophy rack/banner on top of the Dreadnought chassis, only I never found a bit that felt just right. Well, I think I have now:

It’s the back banner from the Khorgos Khul model that came with the 1st edition starter box of “Age of Sigmar”, and it seems like a pretty ideal choice, if you ask me — although, as one Reddit commenter jokingly remarked, poor Argus will no longer be able to participate in boarding actions, as it seems. Alas, such is the price of being absolutely fabulous…

In other news, I have recently managed to get my hands on what seemed like the last box of Eightbound in Europe (found it at my local Warhammer Store), and I picked it up mostly because I was curious and wanted to explore some conversion and kitbashing options.

It’s a …strange kit: There are such awesome parts to it (the general idea of massive World Eaters legionaries, swollen with chaotic power, the crazy amount of unneeded detail, such as the fully realised bare torso pieces, even if they are missing the obligatory “Triumph Rope” scars, for some reason.)… And then there’s the dodgy stuff, where it feels like the sculptors took things just a hair’s breadth too far, such as the somewhat overwrought designs for some of the weapons.

It’s also truly baffling how the kit seems very limited when it’s really not — I am probably the last person to realise this, but are you guys aware that basically all of the arms are interchangeable between models? You can basically use each left and right arm that comes in the box on each of the models. By the same token, all of the armour pieces are at least roughly compatible, so if you want to use a certain combination of breastplates on your models, you will be able to make it work with just a bit of tweaking and cutting.

You certainly wouldn’t know any of that by looking at the instruction sheet, the box art or the photos in the Codex, though: GW’s official photos of the models are doing a very poor job of advertising that fact, as they always go for the exact same combination of parts, even on duplicate models…

Anyway, my mission with the models was to choose my favourite combination of parts, add a few tweaks here and there and straighten out some of the parts of the stock models that I don’t like.

In that spirit, here’s my first test model:

This isn’t even a massive conversion: I just chose some bitz I liked, tweaked the arms a bit, shaved a superfluous pointy bit off one of the chainswords (and lengthened one of those short, stubby ones, by splicing in parts of an old Khorne Berzerker sword and adding that spike I had just cut off). The shoulder pads are still a first test fit, but I actually like the way they complement the armour that is already present — and there’s still enough of the bare arms on show so as not to interfere with the general, gladiatorial look of the models.

The second model presented a slightly more involved conversion: I tried to open up the pose a bit more by tweaking the model’s right arm:

The stock model is holding that axe at a weird, low angle — and partially across its front, no less. However, seeing how these guys look so much like massive, chaotic gladiators, I really wanted the pose to look as openly challenging as possible — as though the model were facing down a prospective opponent. This was easily achieved by cutting the axe arm at the wrist and re-attaching the hand at a slightly different angle.

Messing around with the axe arm also had the added benefit of allowing me to have the axe chained to the model’s wrist, via one of those chain manacles that I spliced in while I was tweaking the arm. I do think it looks pretty good, to be honest, and not all all like a conversion.

When it came to the model’s face, I once again chose one of the more daemonic visages. And I swapped in an extra shoulder pad — mostly as a placeholder for now, but I really like the way it complements the model’s silhouette: The head with its crest of Butcher’s Nails seems to emerge as though from within a shell in a reptilian, almost saurian way. And, again, the heavily muscled, bare arms are still visible enough to sell the gladiatorial look.

As for the third model, I mostly went with the stock options in this case:

I really liked the rebreather head, so I wanted to include it in the squad. The most important change I made was to replace the somewhat hokey original sword with something that looked a bit less like a softball racket and more like an actual chainsword (it was converted from the chainglaive that comes with the kit, with a few tweaks and changed parts)

And here’s what my little squad looks like so far:

One thing many people dislike about the Eightbound is their – frankly, undercooked – fluff, but I’d say that part can happily be ignored. I am in the somewhat fortuitous situation that these guys perfectly fit my army’s existing fluff, in that I already had come up with the “Lost Brethren” (basically my army’s moniker for Possessed Chaos Space Marines), those members of the 4th assault company so swollen with the powers of chaos and/or covered in mutation and chaotic gifts that they are separated from the “saner” parts of the force, and basically expected to go out in a blaze of glory and find an honourable death on the battlefield before they collapse under the weight of their corruption.

The original interpretation of the Lost Brethren was converted by combining the old Khorne Berzerker kit with chaos mutation parts and Ork Boy arms:

And I think you’ll agree with me that the small squad of Eightbound above seems like a very fitting replacement for those old models, only they have been suitably modernised and upscaled — because the Eightbound are, in fact, massive! Check out this scale comparison picture:

Incidentally, for any further Lost Brethren conversions, I think I’d throw some of the new Possessed Chaos Space Marines into the mix. I really like some of the sculpts — and the ones I don’t like would certainly be improved by splicing-in some of the leftover bitz from the Eightbound — because there’s quite a bit of stuff left from the kit!

In fact, I have already started messing around with some of the leftovers…

Right now, this is just the loosest, earliest mockup you could possibly imagine, but I think there may be something there: As you can see, I combined an AoS Slaughterpriest body with some leftover Eightbound parts, and I do think the general look so far is rather promising.

And there’s also a bigger thing I would like to do at some point, something I have been thinking about ever since I realised that one of the Eightbound chest armour pieces is conspicuously reminiscent of Angron’s own armour — maybe another version of the Lord Primarch might be in order…?!

In fact, it’s absolutely baffling to me how almost nobody seems to have considered the Eightbound kit as a source of a possible plastic Angron conversion so far — except, of course, for the true master of Angron conversions, REG, who is already hot on the case…

So, as you can see, I am still happily hacking my way through the new World Eaters kits — and also slowly, ever so slowly edging closer to actually getting something painted again. We’ll see how it goes

Meanwhile, it goes without saying that I would love to hear any thoughts and suggestions you might have. And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Aw, man, I’ve let this blog lapse once again — I am so sorry, guys!
But hey, at least I do have something to share with you, even if it’s just a small project.
Remember this gentleman from my previous post?

This was a very early and loose mockup of my attempt to turn a leftover AoS Slaughterpriest model into another Eightbound of Khorne.

Now this particular Slaughterpriest is such a strange model, in many ways: The scale and anatomy seem so different that not only does the model stand out from the rest of the Blades of Khorne — it could almost be from a different line of models or manufacturer altogether. I also nearly did a spit take when I realised that the character’s looks is basically almost identical to the “Uber Immortal” from the film “300” (go ahead, google it!)

But it is a great source for conversions, with its almost Primarch-like physique, and it happens to be surprisingly close in stature to the stock Eightbound models. So let’s check out how this particular conversion has shaped up since we last saw it, alright?

The first thing to do was to clean up the overall assembly quite a bit:

This step also included the decision as to whih bitz would be used on the final conversion: I slipped in a weapon muzzle from the Forgefiend kit to approximate the “toothy maw” that appears above the head on the stock Eightbound models. The effect is a bit more pronounced here, but it worked well for the overall look of the model, so I decided to keep it. I also chose an old CSM champion backpack — which had always felt just a bit too tacky for regular models but ended up looking a bit on the tame side here, when compared to the stock Eighbound power packs

Up until this point, everything had just been crudely tacked together with poster tack, so it was finally time to break out the GS — not normally my favourite step of the way, but it could not be helped…

As you can see, I started by sculpting a neck portion for the model — although “sculpted” is a somewhat misleading term in this case: I was feeling slightly clever, so I made a quick GS copy of some actual Eightbound shoulders and spliced them in. The stock Slaughterpriest neck portion was carefully shaved away directly above the pectorals, and the Eightbound shoulders and neck – which turned out to be an almost perfect fit – were added on top. This also had the added benefit of working together very well with the actual Eightbound head I used.

As you can see, the copy could have been just a bit sharper — but it’s certainly a lot better than anything I could have sculpted from scratch! Even the attachment points for the arms were better than expected, although still a bit dodgy. Since I knew the upper arms would end up being covered by the model’s pauldrons, however, I decided to leave them that way for the added benefit of being able to take off the arms and weapon during the painting stage.

So the next step was to put the armour back on and use some more GS to start and build up the model’s back. Here’s a first rough mockup:

And here’s what the whole thing looked like after I had built-up the back of the armour:

Look, it’s definitely not brilliant GS work, but it gets the message across. I used some GS cabling to hint at the armour’s – corrupted – underlying functions. And the whole thing works well enough with a backpack and the shoulder pads attached. Take a look:

So here’s a look at the mostly finished conversion:

All in all, I would say the model makes for a pretty convincing Eightbound, wouldn’t you agree? The leg armour is the one area where the model obviously diverges from “true” Eightbound — the Slaughterpriest is an almost ridiculously lean model to begin with, but at least it’s easy enough to suitably bulk up his upper half. On the other hand, this Slaughterpriest version already has a very gladiatorial look to it, which is definitely a good fit for a World Eaters army. That being said, I have seen quite a few conversions of the model where it never really ended up looking enough like an Astartes due to the difference in build — the Eightbound parts are pulling a lot of weight in this respect!

So here’s another look at th “squad” so far (no longer legal by 10th Ed. standards, I gather — but, frankly, who cares, eh?

In other news, one more thing before I tune out for today — and it has nothing to do with my World Eaters, the world of Warhammer 40k — or even with tabletop wargaming altogether. So what is this about?

Some of you might remember that I have mentioned cutting my game-design teeth using Media Molecule’s software “Dreams” on PlayStation.

I have, in fact, created several games & art pieces using the software, and if you have ever wanted to check them out, that is now easier than ever before, because Dreams is currently free to download as one of the PlayStation Plus Monthly games for August 2023 (for everyone who has both a PlayStation 4/5 and a PlayStation Plus subscription of any tier). The offer lasts until the start of September.

After that, the game will still be available for free to members of the higher subscription tiers. But if you fulfill the requirements listed above, you absolutely NEED to get this software. I am normally quite wary of endorsements like these, but I’ll make an exception here because I don’t think I have ever made a better investment when buying a game — and to get the same game, potentially for free, makes it even more of a no-brainer:

Dreams will offer you access to a massive wealth of fun, quirky, fantastic, often plein weird playable content including games, animation, music or everything in between. You’ll also provide you with a set of incredibly robust and playful creation tools that you may just ending up loving as much as I do…

And hey, like I said, you’ll be able to finally play my game CITADEL, eh? I am just leaving a trailer and some images here for your perusal

Also, be aware of the fact that, proud as I am of my game, it is probably towards the lower end of the scale of what can be accomlished within Dreams, so if you thought that looked at least kinda neat, you’ll be in for a world of delicious, indie gaming slurry!

Full disclosure: This is NOT a sponsored endorsement. I’m just a fan of the platform & REALLY think you should take a look!

Anyway, that’s it for today! Let’s hope I’ll be able to get back to my hobby desk before long, and have something more substantial to share with all of you. Until then, it goes without saying that I would love to hear any thoughts and suggestions you might have. And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Now would you look at that — it has been almost another year without update again… This keeps happening to me, it seems. To be fair, though: I did warn you all that the updating schedule might be…slightly spotty going forward

But hey, I have a few small things to share with those of you who still keep watching this space, so I might as well post an update, eh?

I. Chonky Boi Mk. III

Most of my hobbying is dedicated to single kitbashes and conversions for the time being, as I can – and will – spent ages idly plinking away at a model here or a model there. One tiny project that has been sitting on my desk is yet another World Eater based on those rather massive, Mk. III-wearing plastic Plague Marines. Some of you might remember another conversion in the same vein from an earlier update:

See, I enjoy running and leaping World Eaters as much as the next guy, but I think another really cool visual archetype is for them to be massive and menacing, covered in slabs of spiky armour and sizing you up from across the battlefield. This concept makes for a great contrast in between all of the blood frenzy — so I thought I might have another model like that in me. And here’s the earliest mockup for that model.

As you can see, the body is still all Plague Marine at this point, with all kinds of pustules and gribblies (as an aside, underneath all of the superficial decoration, it seems to be the EXACT same base sculpt as the one used in my other conversion above).
I mostly used this stage to get an idea of the pose I was going for, as well as the general parts. Two things that worked especially well, even at this early stage, were the very gladiatorial-looking shoulder pad on the Blood Warrior arm (even though I wasn’t as sold on the rest of the arm) and the vicious Mk. VII Forgeworld helmet (very much a Sarum pattern helmet in my head canon).

So the next step was to shave off most of that Nurgle-y detail. I decided to keep some of the wear and tear to the armour, as it seems rather fitting for a member of the XII legion as well. But the tentacles and gooey tubes had to go. I also sorted out the arms at this point, even though I had to nick a new left arm from a previous conversion

Anyway, here’s what I have right now:

The model still needs quite a bit of cleanup, but I am really happy with the core concept! You can just imagine this guy slowly, purposefully advanving towards you on the battlefield, with wild mayhem reigning all around, yet there he is, just oozing menace: He WILL get to you, even if he’s taking his sweet time about it

When it comes to possible additions to the model, I think I’ll want to add some chains to him, maybe even a loop of it running across his breastplate. Some dangling skulls would be cool as well — although the challenge here will be not to overclutter the model or mess up its silhouette. But I think I may be on to something here…

II. Meanwhile, on Nuceria…

Readers, I have suffered a relapse…
Long time followers of this blog might be aware that I may have developed a certain…fixation on building models representing the XII legion Primarch.
…
To wit, so far, I have built four of the rascals:

And yes, I am aware of the fact that I was kinda, technically already messing around with a potential number five this time last year, so that was bad enough right? And that official Daemon Primarch Angron will also be happening, eventually, although I am yet able to resist its pull. And then…

Then I saw fellow Reg‘s latest Angron conversion earlier this year, and all my discipline went to hell in a handbasket, as I knew I just needed to build a similar model, mostly using Eightbound parts — in fact, to be quite honest, the thought had been knocking around in the back of my head every since I realised that one of those breastplate designs from the kit looked almost like Angron’s armour anyway…

So, I threw together a couple of bitz, using an approach very similar to (and heavily inspired by) Reg’s. This was my first mockup:

The brilliant idea at the heart of Reg’s conversion was to replace the – very Spare Marine-y – lower legs of an Eightbound model with the contoured armour of a Stormcast Eternal. And seeing how I still had quite a few 1st edition Liberators from the AoS starter box knocking about, I replicated that approach. It’s an incredibly quick way of changing a silhouette that instantly invokes an Astartes look into something much more like the unique armour of a Primarch.

From there on out, it was mostly a matter of cleaning up the conversion and choosing the right bitz to approximate Forgeworld’s “official” Angron design. So here’s what I have right now, after a rather fruitful recent conversion session:

As you may be able to tell, Eightbound parts are doing most of the heavy lifting here: The torso, head, arms and upper thighs are all stock Eightbound bits. The right hand weapon is an Eightbound axe, too, although it was grafted onto a different hand and weapon haft (from the old Dark Vengeance Chosen, if I remember correctly — although the only important thing was for it to be a right-handed weapon). The axe in Angron’s left hand is actually one from the latest plastic Khorne Berzerkers — those things are freaking massive!
The shoulder pads are shaved-down Eightbound leg armour — another very clever idea nicked from Reg (who is, it has to be said, the uncrowned king of Angron conversions, with more than 20 Angron models under his belt at this point…). The cape is from the old FW Lord Zhufor model — I have had that piece in my bitzbox forever, and now the time has finally come to make use of it. It fits rather well, too!

So, what remains to be done? I am currently experimenting with adding vambraces to the model. And there will be chains, of course. I am also planning to add a layer of greenstuff fur over Angron’s shoulders — this should also offer a very nice opportunity to cover up some rough spots.

What I already like a lot is how closely this model follows the design of the “official” Forgeworld model: He even has the bigger and smaller axes, and on the same respective hands as on the official model, too! All in all, this seems like a rather feasible way of making your own plastic Angron!

III. In a city of neon lights and perpetual rain…

One last thing, before I tune out for today — yet hopefully not for another year: I fear I’ll have to plug my latest game-design shenanigans yet again, as I have been creating another short game, using Media Molecule’s software “Dreams” on PlayStation. It’s called ][ REMEMBER

And while it is still not 40k – or tabletop wargaming related – it’s set in a Cyberpunk world this time around, so maybe that’ll interest some of you.

You see, I grew up heavily influenced by both 80s and 90s Cyberpunk content as well as with the classic graphic adventures and video games from the same time — in some cases, such as games like Flashback, Beneath A Steel Sky or – obviously – BLADE RUNNER, those two spheres even overlapped. So I had this idea for a game that would pray tribute to all of those treasured memories and classic games, and once again, Dreams has allowed me to simply create it (with the help, it must be said, of both some brilliant cyberpunk assets from the Dreams community as well as my fellow Dreamers VectorSlinger and Camian, who solved some rather tricky programming questions for me).

In the game, you are searching for an escaped artificial human in a rainy Cyberpunk city. Does that sound a bit boilerplate to you? Welllll, I am confident that I’m taking the story into some interesting directions. But I’ll let you all be the judges of that, as the game is freely available to anyone who has both a PlayStation and a copy of Dreams. Here’s a trailer for you:

And here are some more impressions from the game:

If you want to check out ][ REMEMBER – and it goes without saying that I would like that very much indeed! – you can find it here.

And while I won’t wax poetical again on the qualities of Dreams as a creative tool – if you want to read up on that, check out the last part of my previous post – I will say that it’s still a fantastic piece of software to own. Alright, end of sales pitch!

And end of blog post, too, incidentally. Let’s hope it doesn’t take me another year to come up with something new! Until then, it goes without saying that I would love to hear any thoughts and suggestions you might have. And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Alright, I have a couple of small updates for today — nothing spectacular, but let’s keep this thing going while it lasts, shall we?

I. Put on some armour, it’s freezing!

First up, on the matter of my recent Angron conversion, I already said last time that I wanted to experiment with adding some vambraces to the model. And after looking at quite a few options, I realised that the armour plates from the Mk. VII Legion Praetor with power axe might fit the bill, so I made a quick mockup:

What was great about these vambraces was that they had the right size and, courtesy of coming from an actual Horus Heresy model, came with just the right Heresy era design, too. It also quickly became clear, however, that they would need some work to sit flush against Agron’s arms — and I was a bit nervous about committing to them, as that meant I would have to shave down those manacles on his wrists. In the end, however, I went all in — here’s what the model looks like right now:

As you can see, the armour plates now sit flush against the arm/wrist area. I have also pulled them down a bit, so they cover the back of the hand, as the design of the plates suggests they should. I think it works pretty well, all things considered!

My plan is to use some chains on top of the whole assembly, both to suggest the way Angron’s axes have been chained to him, and also to tie the whole thing together even more — compare Angron’s official FW model, where the chains actually run around his wrists on top of his vambraces.

II. The Brawler and the Paladin

I won’t lie: I did mostly get that second box of Eightbound to create that Angron conversion above. But at the same time, the purchase also left me with enough bits for two more Eightbound, so I experimented a bit…

The problem here was twofold: One, the Angron conversion proved to be rather wasteful in that it ended up damaging two sets of Eightbound legs (one for the actual legs of the model and one for the shoulder pads). So I had to whip something up. The other challenge was that, in spite of the kit’s surprising versatility, it’s still easy enough to end up with repeated poses and silhouettes. My idea was to create two more Eightbound with strong-ish visual archetypes, in order to make them look suitably original.

The first one’s codenamed “The Brawler” for now:

Going through the Codex again, I liked the idea of a massive, brutish Eightbound in a slightly crouched pose with two massive fists — the kit totally supports this right out of the box, so it was mostly a matter of choosing the right parts and getting the pose just right. As you may be able to tell, this model’s original stock leg armour was used when building Angron’s shoulder pads, so I grafted parts of the lower legs that were used to make Angron’s legs to these. It took a bit of shaving and cutting, but it works well enough now, with only a few gaps left to fill. I rather like this guy, to be honest!

The final model, meanwhile, threw me in for a loop, as it ended up looking far too similar to my existing Eightbound models. I went for a twin-sword setup, which made for a cool start, but the thing that really turned the model into something slightly more original was to swap in a new head, courtesy of the old Age of Sigmar starter box Bloodreavers:

All of my Eightbound are using the more mutated head options, but I didn’t want to reuse any of the faces within the same squad, so I already had the idea of swapping in a helmeted head. In the end, the one I chose ended up working really well, leading to an almost knightly look. This is definitely an archetype that works!

III. Fully armed again

And finally, just for the sake of completeness, I also worked out a new left arm for that Berzerker I stole the arm with the two dangling heads from (to be used on the chonky Mk. III World Eater from my previous post). Here’s what the model originally looked like:

And here’s the “refurbished” version:

Nothing fancy, really: I just used a slightly tweaked vanilla CSM arm. The pose was opened up a bit, and I also shaved down some spikes on the back of the chainsword to make the whole thing look more like a blunt weapon of war — and less like something straight out of Masters of the Universe

And that’s it for today, basically — like I said: nothing spectacular. Even so, it goes without saying that I would love to hear any thoughts and suggestions you might have. And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

No sooner did I manage to get back into the swing of things – a bit, at least – than my hobby butterfly affliction reared its ugly head again. And the insectile simile seems quite apt here, as I have been sidetracked by Grandfather Nurgle and his flyblown followers — but it’s ultimately all part of the Great Work, innit? So let me at least share what I have been up to:

The important thing to tell you before we tuck in is that I bought a box of the – then brand-new -plastic Plague Marines a couple of years ago. And I’ve been fiddling with the kit ever since, dryfitting and assembling these models, then taking them apart again – almost as a meditation, if you will – never settling on a finished build — in that sense, I’ve been getting A TON of bang for my buck out of the kit

Now what provoked me into working on them again was the compulsion to build a Death Guard icon bearer, after seeing a fantastic inspiration on Death of a Rubricist (one of my favourite hobby blogs, itmust be said).

I’ve always chafed at the fact that you actually have to pick up a separate (and not too cheap) model if you want a Plague Marine icon bearer, for one. And I loved how Apologist came up with a cool idea that uses both one of the more awkward Plague Marine heads AND one of the SUPER-awkward snapfit Plague Marines. So I used his conversion as a starting point and made some adjustments, based on the bitz I had:

What I like about the model is that this guy looks as though he’s barely holding it together: At any moment now, something vile and monstrous could crack his armoured shell and emerge from it. Or he could have been teetering on the age of change for millennia, never quite succumbing — we will never know. But there’s a crookedness to the character that I quite enjoy. I will have to adjust some elements, like the little bells, though, putting them at a more correct angle — the icon itself has just been tacked together for now.

Now with that model mostly assembled, things started to cascade: I started browsing through Chris Wraight’s “The Lords of Silence” again — one of my favourite CSM Black Library books, and definitely an indispensable resource for those interested in the Death Guard, for the fascinating and believable way it characterises the members of that legion.

That, in turn, made me mess around with those Plague Marine bit more — only this time, I ended up with a configuration that I felt I could commit to. So here’s the squad I made, a mix of older and newer models, incidentally:

The overarching theme with them was to get them really close to the “classic” Jes Goodwin Death Guard concepts from the 2nd edition of 40k: Bloated, faceless and heavily armoured figures with an almost WWI-Trencher like brutality to them:

That’s why I used all of the spiked “Pickelhaube” helmets for the models, with a heavy focus on the classic early-to-mid 90s Death Guard template. I also dialed back the excess of the models in many bigger and smaller ways: The Plague Marines parts are so covered in gribbly detail that it gets a bit much at times. As I’ve done with my starter box Plague Marines before, I carefully shaved off a tentacle here or a horn there, or chose the less flashy parts for a more grounded, if still clearly Nurglite, look.

Let’s take a closer look at the models in turn:

First up, the champion and the aforementioned icon bearer. The icon bearer is new, as you know. The champion is a slightly older conversion, and was assembled to closely resemble an actual Jes Goodwin sketch from the early 90s (and the seminal Jes Goodwin metal Plague Marine shown further up in this post). My favourite part of the model is the area where I removed lots of tiny tentacles and replaced them with a cluster of ribbed pipes and cables — that makes the model far less goofy and brings it closer to the dilapidated horror of the Death Guard for me! It’s also a perfect match for the champions warped facemask.

The Plague Spewer guy on the left is an older conversion, based on one of the – rather dodgy – snapfit Plague Marines. I’ve recently replaced his head, though. The guy on the right was assembled using stock parts, but really channels the trench warfare look I mentioned above. He even has a raggedy half-cape, which I love.

Two more stock models. My proudest achievement on these is how the Plague Belcher and bloated breastplate shouldn’t quite fit together, but I managed to pull it off. That means the chest piece’s high gorget can work together really beautifully with the blunt Mk. II-ish helm. I am often to reluctant Astartes wielding two-handed guns, preferring to go for a CC weapon and sidearm (probably my World Eaters heritage), but for once, I have created a model that I really like! Regarding the guy on the right, I was debating with myself whether or not to turn his flail into an axe, but the flail seems so quintessentially Nurglite that I wanted it to stay. The only problem is that I didn’t use the body “intended” for these arms (more recent GW multipart kits can be pretty weird that way), so I’ll have to figure out the base (extend it a bit or use a bigger one). But I really like the overall look of the model!

Now the final model took ages to come together — mostly because, quite frankly, most of the coolest parts had already been used up, and the legs I had left had a slightly pidgeon-toed look. But in the end, I have found a cool angle, I believe: The final model for today works REALLY well as a re-imagination of the ancient easy-to-build plastic Plague Marines from the early 90s! Take a look:

Also, check out the amount of scale creep here — it is quite something, isn’t it?

And seeing how I was already working away, I also started improvising on a different Nurglite model:

As some of you will probably realise, this model is one of the smaller brothers from the WFB/AoS Glottkin kit. It was a pickup from a bitz exchange or an ebay lot (the details escape me at the moment), and felt like a great match for an older – pre new Death Guard – conversion project of mine that used the AoS Putrid Blightkings (old photo):

All of these look very bloated and more fantasy than 40k, obviously, so my common visual idea for them was to make them look as though they had all grown so bloated over the millennia that most of their armour had been cast off or distended beyond recognisability — but I wanted to feature hints of Astartes armour here and there, to hint at their origins as Death Guard Marines. So the new guy should make for a pretty cool addition to this squad, maybe even as its leader.

I am still thinking about adding a few more cracked piece of armour, broken cabling — stuff like that. In any case, he and his brethren will always look decidedly different from “standard” Plague Marines, but that is kind of their thing, seeing how the squad was originally assembled long before the new 40k Nurgle plastics were released.

As you can see, I’ve added the shroud/insect wing bit from the Malignant Plague Caster, and I think it makes for a cool little addition.

And here’s how the model looks with its – prospective – squadmates:

As I’ve said, the idea with these is that they should almost read like an entity unto themselves: These huge, bloated Leviathans, far removed from the Astartes they once were.

I may yet have a few more Nurglite bits and bobs to share with you in an upcoming update — as long as the fancy has taken me, that is.

Until then, it goes without saying that I would love to hear any thoughts and suggestions you might have. And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

A quick detour from my recent Nurglite shenanigans for today, as we jump back to the XII legion for a bit: because I have a couple of kitbashes/conversions that I would love to share with you:

Ever since the release of Codex World Eaters, I have been searching for an excuse to convert a Master of Executions for the 4th assault company — mind you, there has been an executioner in my army background longer than this has been a thing in the official fluff. This gentleman here, dear Huntmaster Torus:

But as long time readers of this blog will know, I will always jump at even the flimsiest excuse for creating yet more characters, right? And a sinister headtaker seemed like the kind of project any self-respecting World Eaters aficionado could get behind.

After all, there were quite a few cool modeling options available to me: The actual Master of Executions model from GW, the fantastic World Eaters lord bitz that come with the Lord Invocatus kit — or, indeed, a particular Mk. VI Legion Praetor with a massive, two-handed axe from the Horus Heresy line of models who seemed like he had been made for the job. So I slowly managed to get my hands on all of those models, but then…did absolutely nothing with them.

You see, the stock Master of Executions is serviceable, but also very cookie cutter. The Chaos Lord bitz from the Lord Invocatus kit are awesome, but they alone were not enough to come up with the right kind of model? And that Mk. VI Legion Praetor? Suffice it to say that A LOT of people have been using him as their Master of Executions. In fact, kitbashing a Master of Executions itself has almost become a bit of an in-joke, and it seemed like every hobbyist in the world already had one, and all the cool ideas were already taken: Everybody and their cousin were coming up with all of these sweet conversion ideas while I was floundering.The various possibilities just canceled each other out in my mind, and I ended up doing nothing with them…

Well, no longer! Because the other night, I had an idea: I dug into my bitzbox, and after a short while, I had this:

I really wanted to put my own spin on the character archetype, and I am pretty happy with what I have so far: The torso, arms and backpack are all from the Lord Invocatus/Lord on Juggernaut kit (they are all from the “lord” side of the kit). I combined them with legs from the AoS Khorgos Khul model (marketed as a vanilla “Mighty Lord of Khorne” these days, it seems): I love how the leg armour has that little round indentation that just seemed perfect for the World Eaters belt buckle!

The helmet, meanwhile, came from the AoS Skullgrinder — I really like that helmet and had been waiting for ages to put it to good use!

As you can see, I went for a sword over an axe. It’s because I really fell in love with the massive chainsword — it also gives the model a very particular look, almost like a dark knight or paladin, which I really enjoy. Also, the ring on his right hand is just a placeholder for now. I imagine he’ll be holding a clutch of dangling skulls before long…

But wait, there’s more: With the Master of Executions out of the way, I was free to use some of the leftover kits/bitz to make this gentleman:

Now to give credit where credit is due: I did not come up with this idea myself, but it’s rather a recipe that I’d seen at least once or twice on the internet. So it was mostly a matter of adapting it for my own use. But I loved the idea of a very gladiatorial World Eaters officer, and one with a decidedly Heresy-era look to his armour. The body is from the aforementioned Mk. VI Legion Praetor kit, while the arms are chaos Terminator arms. The twin Lacerator swords came from the Eightbound. And a berzerker backpas adds a certain “je ne sais quoi” to the model.

I haven’t decided yet whether he’ll be 30k or 40k — he does have a Heresy-style look to him, but I’m pretty sure he’d also look terrific in 40k red and brass. I can already say that I’ll be adding some chains to his wrists, both to attach them to his weapons and to blend the arms and hands together a bit better (on top of covering up a bit of shaving I have had to do on one of the lacerators).

Now my favourite part about these two characters is how they almost embody opposite interpretations of the consumate warrior archetype:

Sinister but weirdly regal swordsman on the left, bulky, menacing pitfighter on the right. Quite a pair, aren’t they?

But wait, that’s still not all: Before we tune out for today, I still have one more piece of bonus content for you all:

Maybe you’ll remember my long-suffering Terminator Lord wielding twin lightning claws? He started out like this:

Then I gave him quite the workover after my last longer hobby hiatus, using some new World Eaters bitz and a leg swap to turn him into this:

This poor chap has been tweaked and re-tweaked to within an inch of his life, and yet it looked like I still wasn’t done with him:

You see, my one gripe with his latest incarnation was how the old Terminator chestpiece was quite a bit too narrow. I tried to distract from it with some dangling chains, which worked pretty well… — but then I found myself wondering whether one of my leftover Eightbound breastplates might fit — and it slid right over the chest piece!

Seriously, it was almost ridiculous how well the bit fit over the existing torso piece. The most complicated thing was to take off and reattach those chains and tilting plates I had added to the model.

The new breastplate adds a lot of bulk to his torso and makes him look bulky and overmuscled — which, I would say, is a perfect look for a genetically engineered XII legion madman What do you guys think?

So, once again, that’s it for today. Three massive, bulky XII legion slaughterers, all converted-up and ready to fine-tune for another year or so

Seriously, though: It goes without saying that I would love to hear any thoughts and suggestions you might have. And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

After my previous update saw me working on two new officers for the World Eaters’ 4th assault company, today it’s back to Nurgle for a spell, as I find myself messing around with a potpourri, as it were, of smaller Death Guard related projects:

I. Swelling the Ranks

First up, there was still some kitbashing to be had with my remaining Death Guard bitz. And for the most part, this involved some touchups on older models. For instance, back when the box of three snapfit Plague Marines were released, I ended up converting one of them into a model wielding a Plague Launcher:

The spliced-together weapon was indeed the most clever thing about this conversion, as this particular weapons option wasn’t really available anywhere else before the release of the multipart Plague Marines, and only one of the weapons featured in the snapfit box. So I made my own version. Beyond that, however, the model was hampered by my not having access to any more Death Guard conversion bitz back then, so the poor chap ended up with an Iron Warriors helmet (which is an awesome piece, in and of itself, but its use here never sat quite right with me). So as part of my recent Plague Marine shenanigans, I thought I might as well spruce up the model a bit:

I’d say the “official” Plague Marine head is a much better fit for the model! And while I was at it, I also replaced the Plague Knife (the original one was held at this weird, rigid angle).
I am also still pretty pleased with the Plague Launcher conversion, if I do say so myself, even if these are now a far less valuable resource than they used to be

And while we are on the matter of snapfit Plague Marines, there was actually one more old model in my bitz box, waiting for its day in the limelight: The original plan was for the guy to be wielding a two-handed Plague Cleaver, but the model never quite came together the way I wanted it to.
And then I realised that I would still need another icon bearer for my Plague Marines, so I re-tweaked that same model into this:

I wanted to achieve two things with this model: Make it look both quite medieval and baroque (hence the choice of bitz and the use of an old Chaos Knight standard) AND subtly forest-themed, hence the twisted wooden branches atop the icon. You could almost say that I was going for a twisted take on a “Green Knight”-like character archetype. And I really like how brooding and massive he seems.
Looking at his shoulder pad, backpack and helmet, someone over at “The Bolter & Chainsword” pointed out how they felt reminded of a Cordyceps infection (that ghastly fungus that will hollow-out ants and control them from within until they have moved to an ideal location, then burst out of their shells in the most opportune spot), and I rather liked that remark because it all really matches the overall theme of these guys as keepers of Nurgle’s One True Garden.

Of course I will have to come up with something cool to put on that banner of his, once the time for painting comes — which takes me to my next segment for today:

II. Actually painting something again — holy heck!

Believe it or not, but more than a year after my last small painting session – and actually four years after my last complete painted model – I have actually managed to pick up those brushes again and put them to use. I figured that Nurgle is always fun to paint, so I chose two lowly, already undercoated Poxwalkers for this little exercise:

Here’s a picture of a the first model, mostly painted. Unfortunately, it turned out that a few rather crucial paints from my collection were too gummed-up to use, so I was only able to get the models to a mostly finished stage at first, with some crucial additions still missing:

Fortunately enough, I was able to swing by the local Warhammer store and get some replacements, so that gave me the tools I needed to tweak the paintjobs and finish the two models. Take a look:

My idea for these, as outlined in one of my earlier posts on the matter, is that they started out as the staff of an agricultural laboratry, trying to genetically tweak plants so they would end up being far more fruitful, in an attempt to boost production on an Imperial agri-world. Then Grandfather Nurgle took an interest, and the whole thing went to hell– but I like the idea that you can still see their origins on some of these models. At the same time, they are all at different points of transformation, with horns and, ultimately, brambles erupting from their mutating bodies. In this particular case, the model on the right is still fairly close to the “human” end of the scale, still wearing most of a hazmat suit. The other poor guy, however, has been fully claimed by Nurgle’s Garden…

As you can see, one element that really stands out on these are the disgusting boils — some thinned-down Blood for the Blood God is the most important ingredient here. It’s such a small detail, really, but it adds some visual punch to the models and also draws the eye: These poor creatures basically ARE their disease at this point, so it makes sense that your attention gets drawn towards the gribbly, disgusting parts of the models. Also, I do realise that these are just some throwaway Poxwalkers, but hey: They are the first proper paintjobs I have pulled off in quite a while, so bear with me here, okay?

Here’s the entire group of Poxwalkers I have so far:

Again, the overarching idea is that these creatures are former denizens of a research lab on an Imperial agri-world , so you can still see the remains of their former stations in life on them (white lab coats and orange hazmat suits used during their experimentation). And since their backstory includes agricultural experiments gone awry, their mutations seem treelike and plant-based.

Here they are, together with a bloated member of the Death Guard:

Please ignore the completely unfinished bases for now: My ultimate plan for them is to try and channel something like the “Sea of Corruption” from Nausicäa, but I am still in the concept stage on this particular detail, so the bases will have to remain ugly for a bit

An ambitious goal, to be sure! For now, I am mostly happy about having managed to dip a toe into painting again after all these years…

III. Supply Drop

As our last item for today, let me share some recent arrivals to my collection. First up, I was aching to get my hands on some more of those sweet, Death Guard-specific Mk. 3 helmets, as I think they make for the perfect, classic Jes Goodwin look. But shopping for bitz has become a bit of a nightmare in my neck of the woods, with awfully inflated ebay prices and many bitz simply not available to begin with. So imagine my delight when this little collection arrived:

Thanks to fellow hobbyist beetlemeier, I now have all the spiky Death Guard helmets I’ll be needing for a good long while! Thanks so much for your generosity!

Also, I couldn’t help myself and had to pull the trigger on an ebay auction recently: When GW originally put out a Death Guard-branded line of models as part of their, somewhat Gacha-inspired, Space Marine Heroes line, I did take an interest, but the element of chance scared me off. But I recently found an ebay listing that had quite a few of those Death Guard models — with one caveat: They were already built, painted and based. This is what I got for my trouble:

Now these pose an interesting conundrum: My original plan was to just strip the paint off them right away. But they don’t look half-bad in that picture, right? So maybe it would be better to just tweak the paintjobs?

And yet, the problem is that their previous owner has painted them to a standard that I would call “almost decent”: Lots of washes, contrast paints, weathering powder and slime — which is great. But it’s all been caked on with such abandon that it’s, frankly, a bit much:

With just a bit more restraint, these could have been quite stunning. But I keep going back and forth on whether or not I want to tweak their paintjobs or strip them altogether. There’s also that idea with filling the bigger holes in their bases – originally intended for Nurglings – with these cat’s eyes. A cool idea, but it does look a bit tacky…

I think the “maximalism” at play here is what bothers me the most: LOTS of washes, LOTS of weathering powder, LOTS of texture buildup. Them not matching my painting style isn’t even the main issue here, as a slightly different scheme can always be explained away on a single squad or a killteam — it’s more that the special effects get in the way of the actual sculpts so much. I’m currently feeling more inclined to strip them, but we’ll see…

And that’s it for today’s update. It goes without saying that I would love to hear any thoughts and suggestions you might have. And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Just a really quick update for today — but I am committed to keeping this place up and running, so that has to count for something, right?

Not much time for hobbying lately, but I did take a moment to tweak some of my recent conversions, adding detail to them and cleaning up some of the conversion work.

First up on the chopping block were this beautiful pair: The WIP Master of Executions and Gladiatorial Champion from one of my previous posts:

Now the look for the models was already mostly there, so it was all a matter of adding some well-considered detail to them.

On the Master of Executions, one area that obviously needed work was his right hand: That ring is normally attached to the back of a juggernaut of Khorne, suggesting the way the mounted World Eaters Lord gets to somehow steer and control the daemonic beast (or at least has something to hang on to for dear life, as the mountain of daemonic metal and spite keeps barrelling towards its next prey). In this particular case, I wanted to use it as the base for a little trophy collection that the Master of Executions is carrying around with him, fittingly enough, so I chose a few skulls and carefully attached them to the ring bit:

This would have been easy enough to overdo, so I had to stop myself before going over the edge. But I think the – mostly – finished look works pretty well.

The other part that needed some attention was the model’s backside, as it seemed quite barren. Fortunately enough, the Jugger Lord comes with some pretty cool stock bitz that worked really well when I simply stuck to the model’s belt:

I think it’s an excellent match for this character to have his armour festooned in skulls — even moreso than your average World Eater, that is…

I am mostly prepared to call this conversion finished at this point. What do you think?

When it came to the gladiatorial “Arena Champion” archetype, the model had mostly only been tacked together so far, so the first order of the day was to carefully glue together the different parts that made up the arms into one sub-assembly for each arm. While I was doing that, however, I also came up with a cool little detail to tie the arms and the body together even more:

You see, there’s quite a bit of chainmal draped over the Mk. VI Preator’s breastplate, so I thought it would be a cool idea to replicate that effect on the arms: This also had the added benefit of covering up some slightly dodgy areas where the shoulder pads met the arms. So I carefully shaved some chainmal pieces off a couple of AoS Blood Warrior bitz and glued them to the arms:

Oh, and I also got rid of that little, aquila embossed on the gun holster — for obvious reasons

So here’s what the model looks like right now:

I rather like the look of this model as well, but it’ll need a bit more work: As you can see in the pictures above, the entire back of the model is very plain — a consequence of the stock model actually wearing a massive cape that normally covers up all of those unadorned armour pieces. I also want to continue the chain motif a bit by adding chains to the model’s wrists and weapons. But once again, I think the look is already there.

And finally, I couldn’t help myself and add yet another round of detail to that poor Terminator Lord I have been tweaking for ages…

You see, after my last round of changes to the model, I posted this version:

But then fellow hobbyist Knight-Pilgrim pointed out a problem: It looks a bit weird how his right clawed gauntlet is just so flat on the front: That little “ledge” you see on the left fist doesn’t exist here, so the fingers just kinda start out of nowhere, right? Now I was a bit miffed at never having realised this. And once you have seen that, you cannot really unsee it, so I knew I had to fix it.

After much hemming and hawing, I came up with a solution: I cut off the front from one of those “claw shields” wielded by the AoS Blood Warriors. It took some doing to find the right bit, but the gauntlet now actually looks way more like a gauntlet, if you ask me:

HOWEVER, once that was done, it became clear I would basically have to tweak the other gauntlet as well
And this actually took some doing, because none of those “shield gauntlets” really look quite the same, and many of them wouldn’t fit the Terminator’s fist. But I persevered, and here’s what the model looks like now:

Granted, the left gauntlet now looks slightly different from the right one, but since both gauntlets also feature different details on their backs, I don’t think it’s much of an issue. I’m actually happy to have gone back and fixed this.

That being said, I honestly don’t think I can make any more tweaks on this guy: I keep knocking off bitz and pieces whenever I go back in to change something — I have been tweaking and re-tweaking the poor fellow for many years at this point, if you can believe it, and it has been quite a journey for him…

Talk about the Ship of Theseus, eh?

So anyway, that basically wraps up this short update. Here’s our three candidates for today, all together in one picture:

It goes without saying that I would love to hear any thoughts and suggestions you might have. And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!