INQ28: Unfinished business, pt. 4

Alright, time to show you something that’s actually painted again, even if it’s just a …something small, so to speak. So what is this about?

As you know, I have been slowly working my way through Inquisitor Alvar’s Ordo Xenos warband as one of my recurring hobby projects of 2019, finally painting one of my long-neglected warband projects:

With the end of the year coming up, I found myself with just two members of the warband left to paint:

As it turned out, I was missing a crucial paint for the hive ganger on the right (GW’s Doombull Brown, as I want to give her a dark skin tone), which left me with the gentleman on the left as my next project: Skuldi Kulva, member of an enclave of squats hidden away somewhere in the Velsen Sector and now a member of Inquisitor Alvar’s retinue. Just to remind you, here’s a look at the unpainted conversion again:

Now I went into this paintjob with lots of ideas, but lacking a fully formed strategy. My original plan was to just go with the official “Barak Zilfin” colour scheme and call it a day:

There are several elements of this colour scheme I really like: The contrast created by the blue overalls and bronze armour plates. And, possibly most of all, the off white parts of the helmet, looking almost like some kind of ceramic material. At the same time, however, just adopting an official AoS colour scheme for a 40k character did seem a bit lame, so I tried to incorporate a couple of ideas from the Barak Zilfin scheme while also moving away from it in other respects.

My idea for the Velsen Sector’s resident squats is that they are focused on heavy industry, so I wanted a workmanlike look and feel to them — which is why the highly utilitarian look of Adam Wier’s Kharadron conversion for his character Freyvid Hafnar became another chief inspiration for me:

I would also like to think that LarsonicMiniatures’ work was yet another big influence, both because Lars is incredibly good at using drab, earthen tones to fantastic effect on his models, but also because his blog has been one of my main inspirations this past year.

Anyway, throwing all of this into the blender gave me this model. Meet Skuldi Kulva, everyone:

I chose to go with a rather drab colour for the overalls, while still using the bronze armour (and white elements) of the Barak Zilfin colour scheme. The bright blue glowy parts have become a bit of a recurring element with many of my models, yet they seem to fit really well here, hinting at the fact that, in spite of its medieval/early-modern trappings, Kulva’s suit is actually quite high-tech — maybe even moreso than standard Imperial tech.

The “K” on his shoulderpad stands for “Kombinat”, the German (and, to my knowledge, also the Russian) word for “combine”. It seemed blunter and more 40k-ish than the English word 😉 I also tried to suggest the Adeptus Mechanicus cogwheel design — or rather an evocation of it, to show how these guys are different from the AdMech, yet there may be some shared heritage.

One thing that I have used to strengthen the 40k feel of the model was the combination of white armour parts with orange markings and a suitable decal. I think this is another small step towards bringing the model more firmly into the 41st millennium:

All in all, I am pretty happy with the finished model, even moreso because I went into the painting process with some disparate ideas and have somehow managed to bind it all together into a coherent look — or at least that’s what I think. I would be happy to hear your opinions as well!

So that’s one more member for Inquisitor Alvar’s warband:

Just one more to go. Wish me luck! 😉 And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

State of the Hunt, week 48/2019: Something stirs…

Hello everyone, and *phew*: It has been quite a while since the last update, hasn’t it? To be honest with you, the last weeks have gone by in a blur, due to all kinds of RL related shenanigans, and it is only this week that I once again find myself with some hobby time to spare. So consider this just a small heads up to show you that I am still alive and kicking — and while we’re at it, let me also share a few small things I am currently working on:

I. Eating worlds, one spoonful at a time…

I don’t have that much progress on my new World Eaters models to share, to be honest, but have been able to sneak in a bit of kitbashing here and there. Like working on a couple of World Eaters helmets, just to build up a reserve of possible heads:

The two helmets on the right are vanilla (new) CSM helmets with added “bunny ears” from the AoS Blood Warriors, whereas the helmet on the left is an attempt at grafting a (old) CSM mouthpiece to a Blood Warrior head, approximating an approach I have seen fellow hobbyist ElDuderino use recently. This exercise has only added to my appreciation of his conversions in this vein, as the process of making it all fit together is a rather tricky one…

With the head finished, however, I couldn’t help myself and tried to come up with a model to fit the converted helmet:

Another marriage of CSM and Blood Warrior bitz, this one — it took me a while until the model finally came together:

I do hope that I’ll be able to get him and one or two of his buddies painted before the end of the year — wish me luck 😉

 

II. Meanwhile, back at the Inquisitorial fortress…

Another project I have been chipping away at for most of the year is the retinue of Inquisitor Alvar, of the Ordo Xenos. While this is definitely one of my older warband projects, I was happy to make pretty good progress on the good Inquisitor’s operatives earlier this year, leaving me with a growing collection of characterful – and, more importantly, PAINTED – individuals:

At the moment, there are just two more models left to paint before I can call this long-running project finished. Here’s a picture of the last unpainted models from back in October:

Now the Magos Xenobiologis and Research assistant are already done and dusted. Which leaves me with the squat engineer/explorer and the female hive ganger:

I have wanted some kind of squat character ever since I first laid eyes on the Kharadron Overlords for AoS — even as stock models, they are basically the perfect 40k squats, if you ask me, with more of a steam/clock-punk-ish angle and less fantasy dwarf goofiness.

While the model you can see above already worked pretty well as a proof of concept, I did subject the little guy to a bit of fine-tuning. And here’s what I came up with:

Meet Skuldi Kulvar, the penultimate member of Inquisitor Alvar’s retinue:

Granted, for the most part, it’s still a stock Arkanaut model. But I have added some visual clutter and some techy bitz to bring the model more firmly into the 40k universe. I am seeing Skuldi as some kind of explorator/collector who has fallen in with Alvar. I have some ideas in the back of my head for a squat enclave somewhere within the Velsen sector, a rather reclusive group that is focused a lot around heavy industry and organised as some kind of industrial combine. There’s also some technology transfer between them and the local Adeptus Mechanicus, although it’s mostly strictly below the counter (I’ve tried to subtly hint at this fact by using an AdMech barrel on the pistol, though).

Many of the ideas I have for the little squat enclave owe a debt of inspiration to Thomas Plischke’s novel “Die Zwerge von Amboss” (“The Dwarves of Anvil”, unfortunately not available in English, as far as I am aware):

While the series does get less interesting as it goes, the first book provides a really fascinating look at a dwarven empire with a definite late 19th/early 20th century feel, completely build around the ideas of building something of lasting value and performing your work to the best of your abilities, all rolled together with more than a hint of early capitalism. It’s a cool angle of bringing the classic dwarven tropes into a more modern, quasi-industrialist setting, and the book was very much in my mind when I tried to come up with an angle for the squats that would interest me (and move beyond the “fantasy dwarves IN SPACE!” approach). Anyway, you may get to hear more of the squar combine before long, as this model actually doubles as a test model for a squat warband project that may or may not happen at some point in the future — don’t hold your breath, though…

The last member for Inquisitor Alvar’s retinue is this charming lady here: Shiv Korlund, former hive ganger:

This model has been attached to the project for quite a while, and she’s basically just an unconverted OOP metal Necromunda Escher ganger from back in the late 90s. Painting her should be fun, though…

Talking about painting, having built the two models’ bases, I’ll actually be taking these along to my next scheduled painting session at Annie’s place later this week:

Maybe I’ll be able to show you the finished models before long. I’ll be giving it my best shot…

 

III. Surprise supply drop!

Oh, and one more thing before I tune out for today, as this was such a lovely surprise:

I backed MOMiniaturas’ “Mercenaries” Kickstarter earlier this year, mostly because his wonderful, retro-Warhammer-styled mercenaries really scratched my HeroQuest itch when I looked at them:

In addition to the twenty-ish mercenary models that were part of the actual Kickstarter, however, I also used the opportunity to pick up a bunch of additional fantasy models at a discount from MOMiniaturas, then forgot all about it, and was pleasantly surprised when a massive pile of miniatures arrived on my doorstep last month:

I expect we’ll be taking a closer look at these in a future post — it’s anyone’s guess when I’ll actually have the time to paint any of these, but they have such a lovely retro appeal that I’ll try my darnedest to sneak in one or two of them before the year ends…

 

So yeah, that’s it from me for today. TLDR; I am still here, chipping away at my various projects. Is anybody alive in here? If so, I would, of course, love to hear your thoughts!

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