State of the Hunt, Week 21/2023: Banners & Brutes

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:

From left to right: Khorne Berzerker (new kit), converted Chaos Terminator (2019 kit), Eightbound, Big Daddy Lorimar (based on Abaddon)

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!

State of the Hunt, Week 18/2023: Baby Steps…

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!

State of the Hunt, week 37/2020: Slow and steady…

I keep chugging along, messing with World Eaters models, but as it turns out, several little things can make for a rather sizeable post when combined, so let’s take a look at what I am currently up to:

I. Number Nine

First up, I have managed to paint the ninth model for my “Hateful Eight” project — and you don’t need to be a maths wizard to realise that this probably marks the beginning of another squad of eight 😉

While my original plan was to focus on the two heavy weapon-wielding legionaries next,…

…another model actually managed to jump the queue. Take a look:

Another older conversion, this one, originally converted all the way back in 2014. The model may be a bit rough around the edges, and also slightly shorter than some of the other squad members, but having waited so long on my pile of shame, the poor guy definitely deserved his day in the limelight.

The blunt, brutal look of the helmet was a visual touch I really wanted to incorporate into this project, and the pose is obviously at the halfway mark between “Come at me, bro!” and “Are you not entertained?”, which seems like a pretty good match for a World Eater 😉

This model may, admittedly, not be the star of the show, but he still looks cool with the rest of the guys — and he’s too customised to just read as a vanilla grunt, in any case. I am weirdly fond of him, to be honest, and it definitely feels good to finally have painted this piece. Here are some more pictures:

II. World Eaters painting tutorial

Speaking of World Eaters, since several people wanted to know about the tweaked recipe I have been using for these last models, let me take this opportunity to share it with you, lest I end up putting if off even longer. I have been sitting on this for a while, so the photos are actually of a previous model, but they should still work well enough for a tutorial.

So here goes, my current and – hopefully – improved recipe for painting World Eaters in nine-and-a-half pretty easy steps:

Step 1: Undercoating

I use GW Leadbelcher spray paint to undercoat my World Eaters, which might seem a little strange to you — I’ll admit it’s a little quirk of this particular recipe, and one that probably originated in the fact that the first models I painted using this new approach, especially Argus the Brazen, had some rather large metallic areas.

I’ve stuck with the Leadbelcher undercoat, though, because it actually has a number of advantages:

• some of the parts you actually may want to be silver on the finished models, such as the chainmail or the flex fitting in the armour gaps, are usually one of the deepest layers of the sculpt. So they can be hard to reach with a brush if you want to block them in. Plus they really do end up looking more convincing if you paint the rest of the armour “on top of them”, as it were.
• the silver is a pretty bright undercoat, so it works rather well for a paintjob that’s predominantly based on different red tones. It would probably be even more useful when painting Word Bearers, because you wouldn’t even need to paint the armour trim in another colour.

When the undercoat has dried, the areas I want to stay silver on the finished model (the aforementioned parts as well as the knives, weapon blades or some of the spikes, get a healthy dose of Army Painter Dark Tone wash at this point to shade them.

Step 2: All of the red armour plates are now blocked in using GW Mephiston Red: There’s absolutely no need to be too careful at this point — just try to keep the red off the already shaded, silver areas mentioned above.

Step 3: The bronze/brass areas (mostly the armour trim) are picked out in a 60:40 mix of Vallejo Tinny Tin and Vallejo Brassy Brass.

Also, if there are any areas of bare skin or bone on the model, these are picked out using GW Rakarth Flesh. For the skin, this creates a pale, caucasian skin tone, so if you are looking for a different colour, you may need to change the recipe accordingly (for instance, I have found GW Doombull Brown to be an excellent base colour for dark skin). Experiment a bit with this! The World Eaters are described as an ethnically diverse legion in the fluff, so this is a great opportunity to experiment with a number of skin tones!

Step 4: The grey and brown parts are painted using GW Skavenblight Dinge and GW Mournfang Brown, respectively.

Step 5: The red areas are washed with GW Seraphim Sepia, and the bronze areas receive a generous wash of Army Painter Strong Tone:

Step 6: I then higlight the armour trim, using pure Vallejo Brassy Brass and, if the model needs a little extra pop, Vallejo Bright Bronze — careful with the latter, though! It is really bright. I mostly try to stick to just using Brassy Brass, unless I want some areas of the model to really catch the light.

Step 7: At this point, the red areas may require some cleanup, so I go back with the original Mephiston Red here and there. This is also a good way of laying the foundation for the coming highlights, so you may want to hit some of the ridges and elevated areas with a touch of Mephiston Red as well.

This is also the time to wash the skin and bone areas. I use GW Ogryn Flesh, which is now OOP, but I still have some left. GW Reikland Fleshshade should really work just as well. The bone areas are washed with Vallejo Strong Tone.

Step 8: Here’s the really crucial step that will make sure the red has a lot more depth: I use progressively lighter red and orange tones to paint scratches onto the armour and add some edge highlights on the most prominent areas. I start with GW Evil Sunz Scarlet (which isn’t all that noticeable in the photos below)…

…then use GW Wild Rider Red, making sure to paint a smaller higlight than the one that came before,…

…and then finally create a last, very small, higlight/scratch with GW Fire Dragon Bright. You can see the finished effect below.

Step 9: This is also the time to add the highlights to all of the silver, grey and brown areas, using lighter tones of the respective colours. I use GW Mythril Silver for the metal (now OOP as well; GW Stormhost Silver should be an excellent replacement), a mix of GW Skavenblight Dinge and white for the grey areas (GW Stormvermin Fur works as a straight-from-the-pot solution, although it has a slightly brownish tinge. GW Dawnstone also works) and a mix of GW Mournfang Brown and GW Steel Legion Drab for the brown leather. Oh, and I use some fine highlights with the original GW Rakarth Flesh to add more definition to the areas of skin, particularly the face, at this point.

And that just about covers everything, I guess. You can still add some glossy blood effect (GW Blood for the Blood God or Tamiya Clear Red) to either the weapon and/or the armour at this point, if you are that way inclined — just make sure not to go overboard! And try to create a mix of darker, more clotted blood (by mixing some brown or black wash into the blood effect) and fresh, bright red blood (by adding some pure blood effect on top or around the edges of the darker patches). A blood effect can quickly overwhelm the miniature, though — even on a follower of Khorne. So take it slowly!

And here’s a look at the finished model, painted using this recipe:

I hope you’ll find this helpful when painting your own, bloodthirsty madmen! The recipe is still a work-in-progress in that I think it could possibly be improved (still not entirely happy with the bronze part, for example), but it’s as close as I have come yet to figuring out an ideal recipe for painting World Eaters without going crazy during the process 😉

III. Next up on the chopping block…

Before we wind up this post, I do of course have another kitbash to share with you: I noticed how virtually none of my recent World Eaters conversions were wielding actual chainaxes, so I created this guy:

He still needs a bit of fine tuning and some additional gear, but I am pretty happy with the model. As you can probably see from the pictures, it’s basically another AoS Blood Warriors/plastic Mk. III/vanilla CSM hybrid.

Here he is, next to the icon bearer from my previous post:

And here’s what the second squad of modernised may look like:

The roster is still likely to change, of course — for instance, those Havocs technically aren’t even allowed, and even if I ignore that fact, I would probably want to put one of them in each of the squads. But hey, I am slowly hammering out what a second squad might look like, so bear with me 😉

 

And with that, we have come to the end of today’s update! It goes without saying that I would love to hear your thoughts and feedback, so drop me a comment!

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

The Hateful Eight

Hey everyone, today marks a bit of a special occasion in a – so far – otherwise thoroughly unproductive hobby year, because I can actually announce the completion of a project — at least in a way, that is… So what is this about?

Back in May of 2019, I finally caved and bought some of the – then brand new – updated Chaos Space Marine models. I didn’t want to update my entire World Eaters army, but the new kits were just too cool to resist, so I came up with the idea to limit myself to a Kill Team sized project, tentatively named “The Hateful Eight”, a squad of new World Eaters, where every model would be heavily converted and customised to match, as closely as possible, my ideal version of what a World Eater should look like in the year 2020 . I also wanted to paint them to the best of my ability — or at least, using a heavily tweaked recipe.

It has taken me over a year, but I have finally managed to complete eight World Eaters for this project. So please meet “The Hateful Eight”:

It’s a bit pathetic, really, to have taken more than twelve months to come up with this squad, considering other people have used the Covid19-induced downtime to chew through dozens or even hundreds of models. But if nothing else, this squad comes closer than any of my previous attempts to encapsulating what I think World Eaters should look like — or rather, what my World Eaters should look like. And in that respect, at least, this definitely feels like a triumph!

At the same time, I have also used this project to come up with some models that serve as shout outs and tributes to particular pieces of artwork or to classic World Eaters models, which also turns this project into a bit of a historic showcase. So let’s take a look at the members of the Hateful Eight in turn, before we finish with the latest member and some more group shots, alright? Step this way:

 

This was the model that started it all, and it wasn’t really inspired by any classic source. The model was rather a test for how the new CSM kits could be used to build convincing World Eaters, plus it also served as a proper opportunity to try out my new and tweaked colour scheme. I am still pretty happy with the finished model — that tusked helmet, in particular, is really cool, and the added bunny ears actually make it look even more badass, wouldn’t you agree?

Another model that wasn’t really inspired by a piece of artwork or an existing archetype. Then again, this guy was actually “salvaged”, so to speak, both from the pile of shame and the earlier incarnation of my World Eaters — in fact, the model was originally converted allll the way back in 2013 (!), back when Dark Vengeance was released and blew us all away with its (then) revolutionary CSM models!

Which makes me all the happier that this guy’s story has at least come to a happy conclusion! Plus the model has also provided me with the perfect opportunity to finally experiment with some variety in skin tones for the members of the 4th assault company, something I’ll definitely be repeating on some of the future models!

The third model uses one of the excellent Blood Warriors from the First Edition Age of Sigmar starter box. The model is actually one of my favourite models in the squad and comes very close to my idea of a quintessential 40k World Eater: massive, clad in vicious, baroque armour, and full of the wrath of Khorne. Oh, and the model also very much serves as a shout out to some of the rather excellent, mid-90s Khorne Berzerker champions, like this one:

Those were actually some of my very first World Eaters models (after getting into this whole mess with a box of plastic berzerkers that had just been released back then — can you imagine that?). Those metal berzerkers and champions were pretty tough to get hold of back then, at least if you didn’t live close to a GW store, and I actually bought the gentleman you see above during a trip to Cologne back in 1999 or 2000 or so. Ah…good times… 😉

This next model was very much intended as a shout out, too, as it was an attempt to channel one of the most iconic pieces of World Eaters art, courtesy of Mark Gibbons:

Artwork by Mark Gibbons

A shout out must also go to my fellow hobbyist ElDuderino, who supplied the excellent, spliced-together helmet that seemed just perfect for this conversion. In his honour, this particular World Eater will henceforth be known as “Brother Orsca of Skandia” 😉

The next member of the Hateful Eight is another holdover from my “old” World Eaters (and another conversion based on one of the Dark Vengeance Chosen). At the same time, however, this model was actually inspired by a very cool piece of artwork courtesy of Diego Gisbert Llorens:

illustration by Diego Gisbert Llorens

Next up, a model that wasn’t really inspired by any source, but rather served as an attempt to explore one of the main archetypes defining the World Eaters as a legion: its gladiatorial traditions.

The massive, archaic armour was supposed to hint at the fact that this legionary used to belong to the “Triarii”, the World Eaters’ famous boarding troops. I also really wanted to include a squad member with an Mk. III helmet, for an even more archaic look. The ball and chain weapon was added to evoke the “meteor hammer”, another weapon choice that has its roots in the legion’s gladiatorial traditions.

Next up, the provisional squad leader, and definitely one of my favourite members of the Hateful Eight:

This model basically started out as an attempt to do something with the somewhat hokey “twin axe” bit that came with the Age of Sigmar Blood Warriors. The result is a character that embodies yet another core archetype of the World Eaters legion — that of the executioner or headsman. In fact, it has repeatedly been pointed out to me that this model could really work as a Master of Executions, and while that wasn’t the original plan, I definitely agree that the look is there.

Which leads us to the last member of the Hateful Eight, and also the last model to be completed. This icon bearer from my previous post:

It has been ridiculously hot around here for the last ten days or so, but I finally buckled up and finished that model.

What you see above is an almost finished paintjob. It was at this point that I was feeling a little adventurous, plus I also had a cool little fluff idea for that icon: You see how each and every part of that thing seems to be barbed and serrated, right? And it stands to reason that the icon itself could be wielded as a weapon in its own right. But what if that icon is actually a minor daemonic artifact and not only wants to draw the blood of enemies, but also of the warrior carrying it into battle? What if being chosen by the artifact to be its bearer is, at best, a mixed blessing, and you actually have to be careful not to become the artifact’s victim? Anyway, with those ideas in mind, I grabbed the bottle of blood effect…

Here’s the finished icon bearer:

I was a bit nervous about that icon, to be honest, but I really think it works! While I used quite a bit of blood on it, I was careful to vary the tone and glossiness a bit, to suggest that the wicked thing is covered in layers of blood, some of them older than others. I also made sure to paint some blood onto the icon bearer’s hand — like I said, the artifact, like the War God himself, does not care whence the blood flows:

Interestingly enough, this also provides a reason for the bare right hand (which was really just a coincidental choice) and the length of chain (that was included to repeat an element that appeared on the classic model that inspired this guy).

Speaking of inspiration, here’s a comparison picture with the new icon bearer and the classic metal model that served as the main inspiration for the model, because this was basically an attempt to recreate the classic design (albeit horizontally flipped 😉 ):

So yeah, it has only taken more than a year, but now, the Hateful Eight are finally ready to march to war and reap skulls for Khorne. Take a look:

Incidentally, because the project so far has been focused mostly on the converting and painting angle, most of these World Eaters still lack a name. So I would be happy for you, my readers, to suggest some names for the members of the Hateful Eight!

I must give fair warning, though: My eventual selection will be purely based on my personal taste.

That being said, I would love to hear any suggestions, so if you want to name one of these gentlemen, let’s hear your ideas!

Oh, and here’s a photo of the eight models alongside “Euron Hearteater”, who could probably be considered a honorary member of the squad by now, on account of finally seeing some paint during the same period of time 😉

One thing I might still have to tweak is the number of skulls present on the models: Right now, there are 35 skulls across the entire squad. Plus, y’know, the eight that are still attached to their respective necks, at least for now… And I would like to bring that number up to 40, for fairly obvious reasons — then again, the composition of the squad could still change, so maybe I’ll a bit.

Because you didn’t really think this project was over, did you…? 😉

While I may have the first eight in the bag, there’s an entire batch of possible aspirants for a second squad. Take a look:

So maybe we’ll end up with “The Hateful Sixteen”, after all?! If all goes well, these two gentlemen should be next on the painting table:

For now, though, I am really happy that I have managed to complete this first tentative squad before GW actually releases new Khorne berzerkers/World Eaters models. I’ll also be a bit cheeky here and consider this my entry for Azazel’s (extended!) “Jewel of July” event, if for no other reason than the fact that having managed to finally paint and convert this squad certainly feels like a personal hobby jewel to me — oh, and I also wanted to finally participate in one of Azazel’s community challenges again, so there’s that, too 😉

I would also love to hear any thoughts and feedback you may have, so please leave a comment!

And that’s about it for the day. Blood for the Blood God!

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

Pieces of Eight

What a time to be alive!

What is it with the world lately? Racism and right-wing populism on the rise again, factionalism and nationalism at an all-time high, and now Nurgle’s Rot as an actual real-world-thing…? The mind boggles…

Against this background, spending time on this hobby of ours can seem almost frivolous — and yet, amongst its many rather more frigthening features, the novel Coronavirus weirdly enough provides many of us with ample extra hobby time. What a weird feeling of disonnance…

Then again, I have often found that turning to the hobby as a release can actually keep you sane, and I hope it will do that this time as well. With one marked difference: In years before, it seemed that our lives – at least in the first world – were so rich and peaceful that we could afford to turn to a fictional universe full of hardship and murder as a hobby — and surely, that’s ultimately a good thing, right? These days, however, what does it say about the world that turning to the very same, grimdark galaxy for distraction seems like entering a happy place?

Meanwhile, this blog’s eighth anniversary has quietly passed me by back in late February — yeah, Eternal Hunt is actually eight years old now:

And I don’t even have anything special prepared for the occasion — not a surprise, really, all things considered. All I can offer you are some new World Eaters — but then that seems all to fitting, when this blog was originally started, allll the way back in 2012, to showcase my World Eaters army – Khorne’s Eternal Hunt – taking shape. And here we are, back where we started. If nothing else, there’s a nice sense of symmetry about it all…

So let’s actually turn our minds from the dark thoughts of everyday life to the – grimdark – thoughts of the 41st millennium where, in spite of all the murder and bloodshed, at least things still make sense 😉

For starters, we have this gentleman from my previous post:

Feeling enormously fond of the conversion, it was clear to me that I would want to paint him next. As an aside, I even remembered to take pictures of the different painting steps this time around, which I’ll be using for a step-by-step in a future post (I just don’t want to overclutter today’s update, what with the anniversary and all).

Anyway, I was able to get the model to an almost finished state relatively quickly:

After this, it was, once again, mostly a question of adding some finishing touches (and, of course, some blood…) and creating a base.

So here’s the finished axeman:

In a definite case of subverted expectations, this is probably the one model in the squad whose base actually *doesn’t* feature a skull. You can still see his last opponent’s breastplate, though (that head probably flew quite a ways when it was lopped off…):

Oh, and in case anyone was wondering, here’s a scale comparison shot for the model:

The closest thing to a standard Cadian I had was my older conversion for Inquisitor Antrecht, but he’s mostly based on Cadian parts, so it should work. I think the model’s size – while not really true scale – works well enough in setting it apart from a regular human. In addition to its size, the proportions are also pretty sound — for instance. the model features an actual abdomen, something that is often missing on standard-scaled Space Marines 😉

It has been pointed out to me that, with its two handed axe, the model would actually work as a Master of Executions. And while it wasn’t originally planned as such, I agree that it could definitely fulfill that role! [As an aside, I’ll have you know that my World Eaters actually had a headsman-type character before that was even a thing, so yeah…]

Anyway, I am actually really happy with the way this model has turned out! Here’s the squad so far:

And if I count my counts-as Huron, those are actually eight finished models, perfectly in keeping with the festivities! Yay! 😉

The forced downtime has also given me the opportunity to mess around with some additional models, so let’s take a look at those as well:

There’s my converted icon bearer (also from my previous post), for one. The one that was supposed to channel the look and feel of an older metal icon bearer:

One of my favourite parts about the old model were always the cables and tubes visible underneath the shoulder pad: I loved how those hinted at the inner workings of the armour. While messing around with Greenstuffworld’s excellent tentacle/cable maker (borrowed from my friend Annie), I took a moment to recreate that element on my modern interpretation of the character:

I have also decided to turn the pistol arm downwards, because the composition seems to work a bit better that way. This, in turn, also lead to my replacing the bolt pistol for a different version, because the ammo feed on the previous weapon no longer behaved in tune with gravity 😉

Oh, and there is one more WIP I would like to share with you today: Any ideas what this is supposed to be…?

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Seeing how my latest World Eaters project is also about creating models that are inspired by seminal artwork or classic sculpts, I have been thinking about a model to represent Lheorvine Ukris, from Aaron Dembski-Bowden’s Black Legion novel series, for a while — another model, that is, seeing how I already built a first version a while ago:

“Guest stars” like this are always a bit of an iffy affair, because they don’t really fit into the narrative for a homegrown warband. But I couldn’t help myself, I had to use the excellent new kits to build another version of Lheorvine. So here’s the artwork I used as my main reference, once again:

And here’s the conversion I came up with:

With the exception of the Primaris breastplate (used for the “Imperialis” symbol) and a head from the AoS first edition starter box Blood Warriors (I simply *love* those helmets!), the conversion is mostly based on parts from the new vanilla CSM (with maybe a Havoc bit added in here and there). With the basic conversion out of the way, I then tried to cram in as many elements from the artwork as I could while also not wanting to make the model seem overly busy. Anyway, here’s the finished conversion:

The latest additions include that additional skull above the gun barrel as well as the various pieces of chain dangling from Lheor’s armour. I did consider adding some more spikes to the helmet crest, but ultimately decided against it: That helmet seems ostentatious enough as is.

So yeah, if nothing else, I have been keeping myself busy, as you can see — in fact, you should see some of the stuff I have been building for INQ28. Alas, that is a story for a future update! 😉

For now, while this hasn’t been your standard anniversary post, I do hope you’ve still enjoyed the look at some of my current projects, in spite of everything awful going on in the world.

To any and all readers, commenters and my friends throughout the blogosphere: Thank you for reading, commenting, sending bitz or models and for being a vital part of my Eternal Hunt! Please stick around, and please feel free to share any thoughts you might have!

And please, please stay safe and healthy, and look out for those close to you! Khorne demands it — I’m sure of it 😉

As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!