State of the Hunt, Week 37/2018: A time to build…
After another week or so without any hobby time to speak of, I was finally able to make some time for cutting up little plastic men last weekend, and all the kitbashes I have wanted to do for a while – and couldn’t – seemed to just keep bubbling to the surface, so to speak π So for today, allow me to share what is currently on my desk:
I. Iron Man
Back in April, when I picked up the AdMech part of the Forgebane boxed set fairly cheaply — and mostly in an attempt to get my hands on the Armiger Warglaives (in order to, eventually, do stuff like this and this). This also had the side effect of giving me another set of Skitarii Rangers/Vanguard, and also another Tech-Priest Dominus. And after a while, I started to experiment with parts from the latter, in an attempt to make yet another high-ranking member of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Here’s what I came up with:
As you can see, the two main ideas here were to turn around the lower body (for a fairly different look, interestingly enough) and to swap in some Kataphron bitz. Both of these ideas weren’t exactly new, but at least it felt as though I might be on to something. The model still seemed a bit too unbalanced, however, and maybe too much like a ship plowing through the waves π
But last week I finally had the time to make some serious tweaks to the Tech-Priest and try to work out all of the various kinks. Take a look:
I tried to make him look a bit more grounded in his pose and composition. Plus I had wanted to use that alternate Magos Dominus head with the mitre for quite a while now — and I think it works really well with the more upright pose, compared to the standard Dominus. The top of the staff/axe has also been replaced, mostly to add yet another way to distinguish the new model from my older, mostly uncoverted Tech-Priest Dominus:
I really like how the models share at least half of their parts, yet still look fairly different π
In fact, I have made even more tweaks to the model, adding a piece of parchment and coming up with a slightly better setup for that secondary set of arms:
And I think the model is really starting to come together. Some people on the forums pointed out how they thought the new axe blade wasn’t a good fit, but I respectfully disagree with that notion: If anything, that blade always seemed like a poor match for a Space Marine weapon to me, because the blade has this slightly weird look. At the same time, it does seem more at home with the weird arcane tech of the Adeptus Mechanicus to me, plus that censer bit at the center fits the priestly nature of the AdMech pretty well, if you ask me — but this is totally a question of personal preference, of course.
II. Shark Attack
Since it felt so good to be able to get in some hobby time again, I built yet another model, the – provisionally – last member for my true scale Deathwatch killteam, a member of the Carcharodons:
Where the rest of the killteam is Primaris-based (for that look somewhere between classic Mk. VII and the more hi-tech looking Mk. VIII [?!] Deatwatch armour), I wanted this guy to be wearing a suit of bulky, archaic armour, as a shout out to the chapter’s history of long isolation and drifting through the farthest reaches of known space with next to no contact with the rest of the Imperium, so I used parts from one of the plastic Tartaros Terminators, spliced together (rather cleverly, if I do say so myself) with Primaris parts. To give credit where credit is due, however, some of Doghouse’s seminal truescale conversion work was very much on my mind when building the model.
The original idea was to come up with an approximation of Mk. V armour, but I really ended up going for a more general pre-heresy look, to show how the armour might have been repaired and patched up with different parts over time. So touches from several different armour marks are now present, from the Mk. III backpack to the slightly Mk. V-ish legs, leading to a generally archaic look.
I also wanted to convey the feeling that this guy is very much used to wading into the fray of melee, swinging his weapons and making a huge mess as teeth and claws are shattering against his massive warplate. All in all, I am pretty happy with the kitbash so far, with one caveat: In spite of my best efforts, he’s a tad shorter than the Primaris-based models, something that I’ll hopefully be able to distract from with some deft basing π
In addition to the guy’s size, there are two small touches that I am not perfectly happy with yet: One, the left shoulder pad is only a placeholder until I manage to source yet another one of those spiffy “new” Deathwatch pads π Two, everybody seems to be hating that shark jaw codpiece, so I might have to reconsider that element — it’s actually a bit frustrating, really:Β because it seems like the perfect part to add some chapter-specific decoration, yet the placement is very much the problem: My original plan was to use it on the Marine’s collar, but it seems that would overclutter the head area quite a bit. If anyone has a smart idea, I would love to hear it!
III. Going feral
And finally, another kitbash I have wanted to do for quite a while: A feral worlder based on the AoS Darkoath Chieftain:
It occured to me a while ago that we don’t get to see nearly enough feral worlders in Inquisitorial retinues (I was also heavily influenced by all the sweet “tech-barbarians” appearing in Horizon Zero Dawn, admittedly), and the chieftain just seemed like the perfect base model — there’s a fair bit of a SlΓ‘ine vibe about the model, and that really made me want to work with it:
When it came to the actual conversion, the stock model was so detailed and delicate that I had to pay attention to carefully bring it into the 40k setting without going overboard, so I limited myself to adding a slightly futuristic touch here and there, via weapons, ammunition or wargear. As a nice side effect, this strategy also allowed me to exchange my least favourite part of the stock model as well – the slightly weird blade of the sword – and replace it with a nice, vicious chainsword courtesy of the CSM Raptors π
Seeing how tall this guy is, I think he would make a good follower for the – equally imposing – Inquisitrix Elianu, especially since she looks like she might have come from a warrior culture of some sort herself:
I think the various tokens and trophies scattered around the model also lend themselves well to a bit of a Daemonhunter vibe — I also chose the left hand gripping a severed Tzaangor head for the same reason, as it just seemed to hint at an affiliation with the Inquisitional Ordo dealing with the more daemonic servants of the ruinous powers. There’s also a tech-barbarian style character in John French’s latest book for the Horusian Wars series who was on my mind when I converted the model.
So yeah, that’s it for today. Any feedback you may have is welcome, as usual. And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!
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This entry was posted on September 10, 2018 at 17:19 and is filed under 40k, Conversions, Inq28, Inquisitor, Uncategorized, WIP with tags 40k, adeptus mechanicus, arch-magos, art scale, astartes, carcharodon, conversion, deathwatch, feral worlder, INQ28, Inquisimunda, inquisitor, inquisitrix, kill team, killteam, kitbash, korhold, ordo malleus, primaris, space marine, space shark, tech-barbarian, tech-priest, tech-priest dominus, true scale, WIP. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
20 Responses to “State of the Hunt, Week 37/2018: A time to build…”
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September 10, 2018 at 19:10
With respect to that shark-jaw bit: is there any way you can attach it to the rim of a shoulder plate? It might be a bit chunky, or require some deft bending, but I think having it along the lower edge of a pauldron might look cool enough to offset it.
Alternatively, you could try placing it behind and above his head, almost like an Iron Halo? A few carefully placed teeth, or even stylized Carcharodon paint, on the gorget would even give him the “terror effect” of giant jaws framing his face. Suitably totemic!
September 11, 2018 at 10:20
I came here to suggest the pauldron idea but the Halo with teeth on the collar sounds like a great idea.
All in all your on form with these, I barely noticed the chain sword on the chieftain and had to carefully go looking for the other 40k upgrades which I feel shows just how smooth and well executed they are.
If we play Dark heresy again you’ve also solved how I’m going to model my Tech priest with turning round the bottom half of the model. Thank you.
September 16, 2018 at 02:58
Cheers for the kind words, Daniel! π
September 16, 2018 at 02:57
Cheers for the suggestions! I really liked the idea of putting the jaw on the pauldron — alas it ended up looking very unbalanced. And the Iron Halo style setup just seems a tad too barbaric for the slightly sleeker SciFi Deathwatch look — I ended up shaving the jaw down a bit and attaching it to the collar after all. Pictures soon π
September 10, 2018 at 20:12
That techno barbarian is simply great, and the weird chain sword really fits his look perfectly. I think you will have to be careful when you paint him to avoid “chaos” colors though, so keep that in mind. He might also benefit from a fur cloak, or half cloak.
September 16, 2018 at 02:58
Hm, good point about the colours! As for the half cloak, I fear the model is already busy enough as is π
September 11, 2018 at 14:41
Great stuff mate – looking forward to seeing how you resolve the shark jaw issue! It’s too good a part not to include somewhere…
September 16, 2018 at 02:58
Cheers, Alex! Don’t worry, I ended up finding a place for it on the collar, after all π
September 11, 2018 at 15:05
A fantastic trio of kitbashes this post. Very impressive!
For the shark jaw, it seems too large for the shoulder pad(s), you could still go with the gorget idea or even keep the codpiece – perhaps the key is to cut it down at the edges a little so it’s less oversized? A halo (to me) would look …wrong for a Carcharodon
Techno-Viking(!) might just need a simple addition of an inquisitorial rosette to tie him in before paint. He’s a very busy sculpt, otherwise I’d have suggested something like a Very Imperial Kneepad or something, but it really doesn’t have any bare space on the sculpt for something like that, so perhaps just a rosette or other icon.
September 11, 2018 at 17:21
I’ll admit that having a halo could easily look a bit odd on a Space Shark; really, I’m hoping that it can be tied in with the gorget to create an oversized mouth surrounding the Marine’s head. But it might not work well in practice!
I was just leery of suggesting using it as the gorget itself for fear of making the gorget too bulky.
September 16, 2018 at 03:00
Thanks, mate! Excellent idea regarding shaving down the jaw a bit to make it fit the gorget — that’s just what I ended up doing π
As for the feral worlder, the guys on the forums suggested a similar thing, and I ended up adding an aquila symbol to his sword. An inquisitorial rosette or symbol just seemed a bit too much, considering one of the best parts of the stock model is how its allegiance seems slightly ambiguous…
September 13, 2018 at 12:27
As already said by others, the conversion on the chieftain is almost unnoticeable, which speaks greatly of the high level of said conversion! I really like the others, too, but the chieftain definitely wins the day for me π
September 16, 2018 at 03:01
Cheers, raff. I am really fond of him as well! π
September 13, 2018 at 15:32
Wow man some really fantastic work here. I especially love the Ad-Mech and Feral worlder gear. I completely agree with you on the axe too. Well done man
September 16, 2018 at 03:01
Thanks, mate! π
September 14, 2018 at 00:33
On the barbarian, what helmet did you use? I can kinda see it on the back picture but not clean enough to get a good view.
September 16, 2018 at 03:02
It’s a gas mask (with attached pouch) from the Necromunda Goliath sprue. Hope this helps! π
September 23, 2018 at 10:13
These are great once again. The Tartarus parts really work for the charcharodon. Was going to suggest trying the collar once more but can see you have, look forward to that.
The barbarian guy is brilliant. Itβs such a great model it would be a shame not to have him in the 40k universe somewhere. Your touches are just enough, Iβm a sucker for shell straps. The Goliath helmet is great for techno barbarians, youβve thoughtfully picked a helmet with space for his hair. I can see youβve used a rock to rest the chainsword on, would his arm bend a tiny bit to bridge the small gap so it reaches the ground?
Great stuff. Par for the course with you.
November 19, 2018 at 12:00
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November 28, 2018 at 17:50
[…] Having completed two more members for my Deathwatch kill team last week, I was only one model away from finishing the project: Last in line was this gentleman here, a Watch-Brother from the Carcharodons Astra I converted earlier this year: […]