State of the Hunt, Week 32/2023: Greenstuff & Gamedev

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!

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!