The State of the Hunt — Week 45
So, like I said, I was at a conference last week, visiting the PLAY 16 festival at Hamburg and spending a couple of days in the city. I think I have mentioned previously that, in addition to being addicted to cutting up little plastic men, I am also a huge videogame nerd, and the subject also happens to factor into my professional background of working in the field of media literacy. So allow me to begin this week’s post with some comparatively off-topic rambling:
PLAY is a festival dedicated to the artistic, creative and educational purposes and potentials of videogames, and this year’s subject was “Let’s get physical!”, so the various events, workshops and presentations dealt with the representation of bodies in games, ranging from the design of characters, archetypes and player avatars to the interactions between the game world and the player’s actual body, be it in the form of motion contol or even virtual and augmented reality. The festival was fascinating and fun, and certainly not short on highlights: For instance, I had the opportunity to try out Triangular Pixels’ VR game “Unseen Diplomacy”, which was a truly stunning experience — I hadn’t expected VR to be so, well, immersive at this comparatively early point!
Another highlight was the fact that the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg (MKG) is currently running a huge exhibition on the history of videogames, with many, many playable classics from 30+ years of gaming culture (I was appalled at how badly I was doing when playing OutRun on an actual vintage arcade cabinet). In addition to the actual games, the exhibition also features lots of concept artwork from modern classics like Shadow of the Colossus or Ico:
I was particularly delighted when I discovered a whole wall of brilliant concept art from DoubleFine’s Psychonauts, a personal favourite of mine:
So if you live anywhere near Hamburg or should find yourself visiting the city in the near future (or until the end of April 2017), and if you’re even the slightest bit interested in videogame culture, you should definitely check out the Game Masters exhibition! It’s very educational, but also great fun! Plus the museum also has many more exhibitions for you to discover, of course. I was sadly unable to check out the exhibits on Art Nouveau due to time constraints, for instance, so I might have to plan another visit soon…
Let me wind up this part of the post by showing you the room that housed the last workshop I participated in before travelling back home. This room is also located at the MKG and was once the cafeteria of German news magazine Der Spiegel:
It also provided the perfect photo opportunity for getting material that should make for suitably psychedelic desktop backgrounds:
Anyway, before we veer completely off course, rest assured that I did of course do something hobby related as well while I was in Hamburg: It goes without saying that I took the opportunity to drop by one of the local GW stores. Now what really impressed me was the level of painting on display at the store, courtesy of the staff and some regulars, so I snapped inspirational pictures left and right:
DISCLAIMER: This should be fairly obvious, really, but none of the following stuff is mine, and I don’t claim any kind of credit for it! If you should recognise one of your models and would like to be mentioned, just give me a holler and I’d be glad to edit your name into the post!
Anyway, my first port of call was this very awesome Khornate Daemon army painted by one of the store’s regulars:
Possibly my favourite conversion was the Bloodslaughterer-based Soulgrinder:
And while it wasn’t part of the same army, I also really love this slightly converted Maulerfiend:
My favourite parts are the Bloodletters leading it to battle by a chain and that delicious brass recipe!
The biggest surprise was to discover something that I first considered to be a cool recreation of an iconic – and rather well-known – piece from the internet, but which almost certainly turned out to be the genuine article upon closer inspection:
And because you can never have enough Inquisitor-scaled Astartes, there was also this beautiful 54mm Librarian (cheers to Inquisitor Mikhailovich for correcting that oversight!), based on the same vintage Captain Artemis:
So yeah, brilliant stuff all around!
Of course I couldn’t leave the store without making a sizeable purchase. So yeah, this happened:
The good folks at the store were nice enough to reserve their last copy of The Burning of Prospero for me, so there goes my next hobby year, I suppose 😉
Seriously, though, I am pretty sure I’ll be talking about the contents of the box in more detail sooner rather than later. For now, suffice it to say that I am actually awestruck by the quality of the casts: GW’s plastic models have been rather spectacular for quite a while now, but it really seems as though each boxed set sets a new benchmark for crispness of detail. Very nice! You can also find my thoughts on the models contained in the boxed set here, should you have missed them.
Speaking of which, I actually kitbashed one particular model as a kind of preparation for the release of The Burning of Prospero, incidentally:
As you may already have noticed, I really enjoy building 30k versions of my 40k World Eaters characters. Now back when it didn’t look like I would ever create any 30k models of my own, fellow German hobbyist AgnostosTheos created a 30k (pre-interment) version of one of my characters, Khoron the Undying:
In the 41st millennium, Khoron has been a Dreadnought for several millennia, yet he has also been an invaluable adviser to Lord Captain Lorimar since before the Heresy, as he was already a veteran of the 4th company even before Lorimar won his captaincy in the fighting pits.
Khoron actually already has quite a bit of backstory – at least somewhere in the back of my head – so I do have a pretty specific idea of what I want his model to look like. With that said. there’s a lot I still love about AgnostosTheos’ version (especially the lined face he chose, making Khoron look like a grizzled veteran), but it’s obvious the model doesn’t fit my World Eaters colour scheme, so instead of painting over AT’s paintjob, I thought this would be a good occasion to build an updated 30k version of Khoron. Now I see him as a hard-as-nails veteran of the legion, so I chose an archaic suit of armour for him — plus I had already heard rumours of the new boxed set at that time, so it seemed like a cool idea to give Mk. III a try:
The model was created by combining World Eaters’ and Iron Hands’ parts (I loved the chainmail loincloth on the IH legs, so I just had to use them). The weapons have also swapped hands when compared with AT’s version, in order for the model to mimic Khoron’s eventual Dreadnought ironform. The model has only been tacked together for now, and I think Khoron will be needing some additional gear here and there, but by and large, I am already pretty happy with the new version. So here’s Khoron next to the previous version of the character:
So yeah, that’s it for this week. It goes without saying that I would love to hear any thoughts you might have! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!
eternalhunt 
November 8, 2016 at 12:44
Looking good Krauty, and sounds like a good time was had in Hamburg!
November 9, 2016 at 13:45
Cheers, Alex! And yes, definitely! My only regret is that there was just too little time to wedge everything I wanted to do into my schedule 😉
November 8, 2016 at 14:33
Holy cow, I went to that Hamburg GW a couple of years ago, and remember that exact 54mm “Space Marine painting a Space Marine” diorama! Cool beans man!
November 9, 2016 at 13:46
Haha, yeah, it’s awesome, isn’t it? The real surprise, however, was to discover a piece that is fairly well-circulated online had actually originated in one of the German GW stores.
November 8, 2016 at 15:28
Funnily enough I too spent last week at a conference – hope yours was as useful as mine was 🙂 Liking what you’ve done with 30k Khoron, in some ways he almost reads as en evolution of the AgnostosTheos character, with the former being pre-Istvaan and your version somewhere in the Shadow Crusade/March to Terra era. My only complaint with him – and it’s a minor thing – is that the heaviness of the armour conspires to make him look a little squat compared to the AT version (and thus presumably to other space marines as well). I’d suggest either doing some subtle ‘part-truescaling’ – adding in little spacers to make him a little taller without making him so big he towers over the rest of your collection, or perhaps working in a little more bulk to make him look like a specialist with a uniquely heavy suit of armour. Really like how he mirrors the dreadnaught version already (the arched crest, the chain tabard, the shield buckle, etc) so perhaps I’d lean towards the latter. Then again – perhaps I’m just being picky! 🙂
November 9, 2016 at 13:47
Thanks, mate! I think you raise some excellent points about Khoron — and the idea of making him into an even more bulky looking specialist while ensuring he mirrors his later ironform even more closely sounds like an excellent idea! Cheers for that!
November 8, 2016 at 21:08
Nice new model!
My only thought is that that 54mm Marine looks like a Librarian: It has a Dark Angels knee pad but is blue everywhere else, which is a standard sign of the Librarius, and it has a psychic hood and no Narthecium.
Not to nitpick a great post, I just wanted to point that out. ^-^
November 9, 2016 at 13:48
Oh, you’re totally right: It’s a Librarian alright, I just got the two mixed-up! Cheers for pointing that out!
November 9, 2016 at 22:06
My pleasure!
November 9, 2016 at 16:53
Khoron is looking good so far! I like his solid, determined stance and how you’ve brought his weapons in line with his 40k form. I do think he seems a bit squat, almost Ninja Turtle-like in his proportions. Maybe a bit of a spacer to raise his torso up a bit will help?
The festival pictures look like it was a great time! I really love the concept art you are showing here. I tend to think that the concept art for a game is a purer showing of the theme of the game than the game itself. The art can be whatever it wants to be, before graphic constraints and deadlines and “tone-it-down” comes into play. To me, Morrowind was the game that stayed closest to its concept art, and I’ve always felt it was the most visually compelling and immersive game I’ve ever played (relative to my experiences at the time, of course).
Also, I’m really looking forward to see what you do with Kharn!
November 12, 2016 at 15:48
Cheers, Dexter! I think I have already found a pretty good solution for tweaking Khoron’s pose, so look forward to my next update involving the model 😉
I really appreciated the option of being able to look at some of that concept artwork from up close, and Psychonauts in particular is a game with a very unique and creative art style, something that really shows just from looking at the art. If anything, it’s surprising how little they’ve had to compromise their original vision in the final game, what with it being a game from two hardware generations ago.
As for Kharn, don’t expect too much: I am pretty happy with the model, plus I already have that custom Kharn I built last year, so I think I’ll just tweak one or two small parts that I don’t like about the model (those chains dangling from the left arm!!!).