The State of the Hunt, Week 35/2018: Back in the green — at least for a bit…

Hey everyone, my every working hour last week was given to working for an international youth and media participation project with people from all over Europe in my hometown, and while it was all an incredible blast, it left me with very little sleep and, arguably worse – literally no hobby time to speak of. On a more positive note, however, I had squirreled away a bit of new content for a rainy day, so to speak, so I do have something new to share with you all:

Remember the little Goblin Nurse my friend Annie gave me for my birthday?

Well, I actually managed to get some paint on the little guy a while ago. Take a look:

Seeing how there’s a bit of a vintage Kev Adams look to the model, I decided for a couple of slighty retro painting touches, such as the purplish lower lip and the extra gnarled look for the skin. I am actually really happy with the model, and it gave me a bit of an appetite to do a bit more Blood Bowl related stuff.

For instance, while I was at it, I also added a couple of tweaks to the Blood Bowl balls I had finished earlier, adding some patches in a different leather colour as well as an Orkish decal or two, just so the squig ball doesn’t entirely steal the show:

And I also built some markers and reroll tokens for my team. I could probably just have picked up the “modern” versions from ebay, but I wanted to get a bit create with some of my old greenskin bitz. So here’s what I came up with:

Painting these tokens should be quite a bit of fun, so I have already prepared them for for whenever Annie and I have our next shared painting session 😉

All of this was great fun to make and paint, as Blood Bowl related things tend to be. I also have one more, mostly unrelated, thing to share with you for today, though:

When Azazel unveilded his idea for a “Technical August” community challenge, that is a challenge focused around techniques that one has not yet mastered, I had such lofty ideals: I wanted to finish the next two members for my true scale Deathwatch Killteam…

…namely these two guys, a Castigator and a Lamenter:

And just to make sure things would be properly “technical”, I decided to go for an effect I really haven’t mastered AT ALL: Freehand painting. I was going to freehand both of their chapter icons — yay, go me! 😉

Alas, that was basically as far as it went: I did manage to finish those left shoulder pads, freehands and all…

…but the models still look just like that, and seeing how there’s no way I’ll be finishing them before the end of August, this will have to be my meagre contribution to Azazel’s hobby challenge this month: two shoulder pads 😦

So yeah, that’s it for today! It goes without saying that I would love to hear any feedback you might have.

And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more! 🙂

 

The State of the Hunt, Week 33/2018: The Ordos are recruiting…

Hey everyone, I am pretty busy at the moment, but I do have some new models for you to look at — just a couple of INQ28 kitbashes for today, however — that will have to suffice 😉 So what is this about?

The first pair of models I want to share with you has actually been around for a while, but I don’t think I have posted them over here yet: Last year, fellow hobbyist BubblesMcBub was amazingly generous enough to let me have most of the Death Guard models from the Dark Imperium boxed set, and as a way of paying him back for that great kindness, I promised to convert some models for him. I already sent him a converted Iron Warriors champ late last year…

…but Bubbles also wanted me  to build him an Ordo Xenos Inquisitor.

Now it did take me a while to do this, both because I wanted to come up with something cool, but also because I couldn’t quite decide which general approach I wanted to go with: A massive, towering monodominant Inquisitor of the “Suffer Not The Alien To Live!” school of thought? Or a rather more subtle, sneaky and shadowy Inquisitor who is not above using the odd Xenos artifact himself? Both are pretty cool angles, and I realised in the end that the only right way was to actually build both 😉

So here are the Inquisitors I converted for Bubbles:

 

First up, the hulking monodominant Inquisitor:

Now this guy is actually a refurbished model of sorts: He began his existence as a champion for my old, kitbashed Legio Custodes army, but with official Custodes models now available, he wasn’t likely to be used for his intended role anytime soon. I rather liked the kitbash, however, which is why I made some changes to him (adding a different sidearm, backpack and shoulder pad) to make him look even less Space Marine-y. And I think that, after a final round of minor cleanups, he should work as a fine puritan Inquisitor for Bubbles’ collection.

The second guy, on the other hand, was built completely from the ground up, and represents the more subdued (and maybe ever so slightly radical) side of the Ordo Xenos. Take a look:

The Inquisitor uses a Genestealer Hybrid body, because I felt the retro-futuristic spaceman vibe of the suit fits the Ordo Xenos rather nicely (it is also heavily reminiscent of the kind of industrial design you see in the Alien films, which is another great match. I gave the Inquisitor an AdMech sword, because its very sleek, modernist look seemed like a good fit. And he’s also wielding a Harlequin’s kiss, to show how he’s definitely not above making use of Xenos artifacts.

I also have to admit that I may have taken a teeny tiny bit of inspiration from DexterKong’s excellent Inquisitor Falx, one of my favourite models of his.

So these two guy will soon be a part of BubblesMcBub’s part of the 40k galaxy, and I hope he likes them — once I finally manage to send them off to him, at long last, that is. Sorry, mate! I know I’m terrible! 🙂

 

So, with those two guys finally documented over here on the blog, I also have a current kitbash to share with you. Now you may remember my kitbash for Inquisitrix Elianu, of the Ordo Malleus, from recently:

The Inquisitrix was based on the Easy To Build Stormcast Sequitors — in fact, I only really bought that kit to get my hands on this one model. But I still had those other Sequitors, so I thought it was time for another INQ28 conversion based on the kit. So I made a Crusader for Inquisitrix Elianu’s retinue:

As you can see, it’s a rather simple conversion from a structural standpoint, although it did require some detail work when it came to picking out the right bitz to take the model into the 41st millennium — and to replace some of the more overtly AoS inconography.

One bit that I really think makes the conversion is the head, a leftover head from the Datasmith that comes with the Kastelan Robots. Nothing says 40k like a face full of cables, isn’t that right? 😉

I also went through several weapon variants and surprised myself by using the Custodes sword blade in the end — I actually really don’t like those clunky swords when they are used as swords, but as some kind of weird tech-spear-glaive thing, it really works rather well with the Crusader feel, wouldn’t you agree? Prompted by fellow hobbyist Naryn, I even included a small trigger mechanism close to the model’s right hand, to show how the integrated boltgun might be fired.

One thing I did think long and hard about was whether or not to replace the model’s shoulder pads with something a bit less Stormcast Eternal-ish, but the pauldrons seemed like such an integral part of the lines that define the model that I decided to leave them like that, as everything I would have come up with wouldn’t have looked better in the end.

All things considered, I am also rather fond of him right now, to be honest — I think it has something to do with the fact that I only really purchased the box for the female Sequitor, and the other two models were basically chaff. To see one of them transformed into something useful and cool does feel pretty cool! 🙂

 

Here he is, along with his mistress, Inquisitrix Elianu:

So that’s it for today! Please feel free to let me know what you think! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more! 🙂

A Child for the Warrior King, pt.4

Hey everyone, I hope I won’t bore you to death when I stay on the topic of converted Armiger Warglaives for yet another post — bear with me, as there are some news to be shared 😉

First of all, my finished Renegade Armiger, discussed in detail last week, not only served as an entry for Azazel’s Jewel of July challenge and as my vow for this year’s ETL VI event over at The Bolter & Chainsword — he also actually managed to win me win me a Badge of the Artificer during the latter, making the Hound one of this ETL’s standout models, which I am actually very happy with!

You see, given the incredible output by some fellow forum members – and also my own lazy pace of painting – it was always clear that I had no hope of ever winning any kind of award based on the amount of painted models. But the Badge of the Artificer is based on the ‘Wow-effect’ of individual models or vows, independent of their points worth, and I will admit that I’ve been gunning for that badge for a while now, and achieving it with a model that I am still pretty darn happy with definitely feels great!

In celebration, have a look at the snazzy photo montage I have created for the “Master Artificer” poll that will go up over at The B&C in the near future (EDIT: It’s right here, in case you want to check out the fantastic models created by the other entrants):

That’s not the only Armiger-related news, however:  Since the heat in this part of the world has been almost unbearable for the last couple of weeks, and since I was still feeling a bit drained from the last paintjob, I limited myself to some light kitbashing, trying to come up with a cool angle for the second Renegade Armiger I still need to build: I decided to start with the parts of the model that would define its personality more than any other. Exhibit one, the face:

This time around, I didn’t want the head to look like a daemon face or another “classic” skull face, because that approach has already been sufficiently explored with the skull-like face on the first Armiger. I rather wanted to experiment with something that looks like a more robotic, mask like design that has had some elements grafted on to look intimidating and sinister, When building the mockup for the facemask, my inspirations were Biohazard’s attempt to channel Darth Nihilus’ facemask on his own Armigers, a couple of the creepier bug creatures I’ve encountered during my recent playthrough of Hollow Knight — oh, and if there was one direct visual influence, it’s Volund, a creepy automaton from ADB’s and David Sondered’s very cool webcomic series “The Road to Jove”:

Artwork by David Sondered

 

Artwork by David Sondered

 

So with those sources of inspiration in mind, here’s what I have come up with:

As you can see, it’s a more robotic – almost insectile – look. The one thing I am not sure about is whether or not to use the lower jaw: On the one hand, the head arguably looks even more like a creepy insect face without it. On the other hand, I rather like the way the jaw rounds of the design of the head (and ties back into a more classic chaos look).

Maybe it’s a decision I have to make once the head has been painted…

Here’s a – very early – mockup of the second Armiger:

The interesting thing about this model will be how much it resembles – or doesn’t resemble – the Hound: On the one hand, I do want the personality of the respective pilot show in the setup, pose and decoration of their Armiger to some degree, plus there also has to be a certain amount of individuality for the models to be suitably interesting. On the other hand, both Armigers are actually men-at-arms to Baron Harrowthorne and Gilgamesh, so I do want to have certain elements of uniformity as well. I imagine this whould be a fun balance to toy around with! With that said, this also means that the model can only really take shape once I’ve managed to get my hands on another set of Bloodthirster vambraces – or, failing that, vambraces from Skarbrand.

If anyone has those bitz and would be willing to trade, please let me know!!!

Oh, and I have also started with the assembly of the cockpit and the pilot — meet “The Huntress”:

I have wanted to add some kind of female character to my World Eaters ever since Lotara Sarrin turned out to be Betrayer’s best human character, and if I even needed any more persuasion, seeing Cheex’ fantastic female corsair captain, gave me the last little shove I needed.

I still had the face from one of the Coven Throne vampires – after cutting of her hairdo for my recent conversion of Countess Mandelholtz – and I combined it with a pilot hat from the Astra Militarum Sentinel — I think?! Anyway, the original face was carefully shaved off to make way for the female face. I think I may have to get rid of that small aerial over the right ear, though, as it probably doesn’t make a whole lot of sense…

As for the body, my original plan was to build the model around another sentinel pilot, but then I realised that the Genestealer Hybrid bodies make for rather perfect pilot suits — and the models are also slight enough in build to work as a female character wearing a somewhat bulky suit.

Of course having a mockup was all well and good, but I still needed to fit the model into the actual cockpit. This was easier work than last time around, however, as I already had a basic recipe in mind.

So here’s my mockup of the Armiger’s cockpit and pilot:

This is still early days, of course, and I mostly focused on trying to at least get all the elements that need to be present in there. On the finished build, the pilot’s left hand will be turned around, obviously, and the right hand will be gripping a control stick (to hint at the same kind of interface also visible on my first Armiger pilot).

But anyway, I think I may be on to something here — I would love to hear your feedback, of course, so feel free to leave me a comment!

And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more! 🙂