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 43/2020: Blood on the tracks

Hey everyone, I have been sitting on this next update for quite a while, but it has been an “eventful” couple of weeks, so you’re only getting some new content now. It’s also nothing special, really — just a few more kitbashes I have been working on recently. But anyway, here goes:

On the one hand, I am currently still working on a couple of additional kitbashed World Eaters, bringing what was originally planned as “The Hateful Eight” to something that would be more correctly dubbed “The Hateful Sixteen-ish” — but I already suspected this might happen, so yeah… 😉

First up, here’s one of the models I shared with you during a previous World Eaters-related post a couple of weeks ago:

I only messed around with his pose a bit (as his arms and head have not been properly glued in yet) and added some some gear to his belt:

But messing around with the model again gave me an appetite for kitbashing yet another World Eater. And when I ended up looking at some of the unbuilt Blood Warriors from the 1st edition Age of Sigmar starter box on my pile of shame – these gentlemen here…

…I came up with an idea for the model in the in the top left spot and created this jolly chap:

Believe it or not, what actually kicked off this entire conversion was my observation that the little round vent from an old CSM backpack would neatly fit into the middle of that breastplate 😉

I really love the brutish, overgrown look of this guy — it’s also why I gave him that almost neanderthalian bare head from the Blood Warriors kit (minus the “Abaddon-lite” topknot, that is). Oh, and he’s wielding a proper chainaxe, too — in fact, the head of his axe is a venerable bit from a really old plastic CC weapons sprue, even predating the plastic berzerkers — hard to believe, I know 😉

Here are both models in a comparison shot:

An interesting conversion note for these two models is that they also serve as examples of two approaches to converting Blood Warrior legs into CSM legs: In both cases, the Blood Warrior lower legs were carefully removed from just above the knee down, then to be replaced with Astartes greaves: The first model uses plastic Mk. III legs that, while completely appropriate from a design standpoint, are maybe just a fraction too small and slender. They still work reasonably well if you don’t scrutinise the model too closely, but in an ideal world they’d just be a bit bigger.

Meanwhile, the new guy uses greaves from the new vanilla CSM kit, and they really do perfectly match those Blood Warrior parts — at the same time, they make a conversion that was already hilariously wasteful even moreso 😉

In other news, something completely unexpected happened to me while I was working on those kitbashes: I suddenly found myself setting aside hobby time to work on a freaking RHINO!

In my defense, it was all a reaction to seeing Apologist’s incredible Blood Angels Rhino that actually almost works as a character in its own right. And discovering that brilliantly realised model made me think of something I had wanted to try for quite a while. So I took one of the Rhinos I own (I put those together cleanly and meticulously, but without much flair, years ago, mainly because Rhinos were something you needed for a World Eaters army, but not something I was all that interested in). Anyway, here’s what the model looked like when I started:

It doesn’t show up in the picture above, but everyone who has already worked on a Rhino model will be aware that there’s a tantalisingly huge bit of empty space where the driver’s compartment of the APC should be. And if you have been following my blog for a while, you may remember that I’ve developed a bit of a thing for adding cockpits to models.

Now adding a fully realised driver’s compartment to a Rhino is something I had been thinking of every now and then, but it was Apologist’s attention to detail that finally took me over the edge, so I started to look for reference material that would help me.

This article over on Spikey Bits gave me a good idea about where to start. Even more important was Captain MAGpie’s conversion of a Command Rhino. And there were some “official” illustrations that proved to be an invaluable resource:

A Predator poster that came with an old issue of White Dwarf (in the early aughts, if I remember correctly). If you take a closer look, you’ll be able to make out some specifics regarding the cockpit/driver’s compartment:

And there are the schematics for a Damocles command Rhino — from a Forgeworld publication, I believe?!

So here’s an early mockup of the driver’s compartment:

The driver actually uses a torso from the new CSM kit as well as a head from the Havoc kit — the latter seems like a brilliant fit for a Rhino driver, what with all the cabling and bionic eye. And I did want to bring the model in line with the new CSM models.

There’s also a lot of emergency gear stashed in the driver’s  compartment — such as some extra CC weapons (in case the driver gets to join in on the action), some extra promethium and some spare pieces of tank track to allow for field repairs:

With the basic shapes blocked in, I next made some tweak to the driver and the area surrounding him:

And here’s what the whole ensemble looks like with the front armour in place — getting this all to fit together smoothly was more work than I thought!

Several people online suggested adding some kind of basket or platform below the turret hatch on the left part of the driver’s compartment. And while I didn’t manage to throw together an entire basket, I think this might be a pretty good compromise:

As you can see, there’s now a little metal platform directly underneath the hatch. It hasn’t been glued to the Rhino’s roof yet, though, and on second thought, might work even better if turned around by 90 degrees:

From a utilitarian standpoint, this whole conversion is completely pointless, obviously. But it has been a lot of fun to delve into exploring an area like this that doesn’t normally get shown, and come up with a believable setup for it. I imagine I’ll be working on this for quite a bit, and of course I’ll also be thinking about some additional decoration for the rest of the Rhino, in order to turn it into more of a character, so to speak.

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

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

28:3

Hey everyone, just a quick post for today — and one that mostly works as a shout out to the fine folks over at 28 Mag who have managed to release another issue of their incredible mag earlier today:

If you are already familiar with the mag and the people behind it, 28 will need no further introduction. If you haven’t looked at an issue yet, let me just say that the mag is a veritable treasure hoard of fantastic models, conversion and painting tutorials, insightful essays and brilliant art, all crammed into one irresistible package.

Given the quality of the content on display, it almost seems unfair to call favourites, and it also has to be said that I’ll definitely be going through the new issue many more times — there’s just that much content! But on a first readings, some things really stood out to me right away, such as…

…Mikal van Leeuwen’s absolutely incredible Eternity Gate diorama:

Seriously, I cannot even…

…Jacob Petersson’s fantastic models that beautifully straddle the line between 40k/INQ28 and Mordheim:

…Isaac Tobin’s/weirdingway’s “Pantheon of Urumet”, created for Jeff Vader’s “The Fifth Chaos God” challenge: Those models look both completely unlike Isaac’s prior work AND completely unlike anything else you might have seen so far:

And I have also instantly fallen in love with Stepan Samosevich’s Dark Mechanicus and Death Guard models that appear as part of the Hazmat gallery feature:

But seriously, this stuff is literally just the tip of the iceberg. The latest issue of 28 comes with a whopping 224 pages –and it’s ready to download right now, so what are you waiting for — head over there and click on that button 😉

 

To my absolute delight, there’s actually an article I wrote in this latest issue: I talk about what INQ28 is really about for me and how it feels like a fascinating way to explore the 40k universe. I am really happy for my contribution to have made the cut, and on the off-chance that anyone should have come to this blog after reading my article, I have compiled a small list of posts that deal with the models and warbands I talk about, should you wish to learn more about them:

 

Inquisitor Gotthardt and retinue

Head here to take a closer look at the warband and its members.

Redactor Orlant and his Ordo Scriptorum warband

Find more about what happens when some archive clerks have a really bad day in this series of posts:

Part I: In principio erat verbum, et verbum erat scriptum.
Part II: The Office – grimdark edition
Part III: Grimdark Librarians of the 41st millennium
Part IV: The State of the Hunt, Week 18/2018: Bad Bank
Part V: More Grimdark Librarians of the 41st millennium

Incidentally, the second-to-last post in that list also takes a closer look at Countess Mandelholtz, another character mentioned in my article:

The Bloodbriar Syndicate

The posts corona and here talk about the Bloodbriar Syndicate, one of my more recent warband projects, still very much WIP at this point.

 

So anyway, congratulations to the 28 team for another spectacular issue! I think we all have some reading to do this weekend! 😉

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!