a little bit of everything (but no punctuation)

so to those of you who are new to the vorro/synapse/duchotomancer/nathan experience, here's a post with a some old (and some very old...) work ive done over the years. truth be told, im not very prolific but when i do do work i tend to do a lot at once, and then fall into a laconic state (the last one of which lasted well over a year - you have my long-term GF to blame for that :p).

Other than that, ive been modelling and painting on/off since the summer of 1992, when i first discovered GW - blood bowl! i went into a toy/hobbyshop with my parents looking for a birthday present. i was torn between rollerblades (a big craze at the time) and blood bowl, based on the amazing GW leaflets they had at the store. there was also one of 2nd edition 40k with blood angels and the egg dreadnought facing off against goffs and their own, ahem... egg dreadnought! i was hooked.

but the craze prevailed and i got the blades, but there was this niggling thought in the back of my head and  couldnt stop thinking about the cool brightly coloured (this was GWs infamour red phase!) fantasy/sci-fi models. so i made a 3 mile trek in the scorching maltese sun through a foul valley of filth and a slaughterhouse to the store and bought the 40k boxed set (20 marines, 20 goffs, 40 gretchin and lots of cardboard buildings and a card stand-in ork dread. in all fairness i had some limited experience with this type of game the previous year (i was 8) when i got a heroquest clone game (similar thing but not MB/GW but it did have a cool dragon):

the box in all its glory  

i also got a box of old purestrain genestealers and the tyranid paint set. this is the result of my labours:

holy shit! paint asplosion!

that was the beginning of my torpid love affair with GW. at the time, i was foolish and young. i pronounced genestealers in a way that sounds more like general stealers and thought tyranids were immune to all pistols (and not just needle pistols) due to the tricky wording in the 2nd ed codex. ah sweet memories.

since then ive had many armies (well not that many actually).

• about 3000 points of 2nd ed tyranids - amazingly multi-coloured and horrendously jarring in their greatness.
• when 3rd edition rolled around i switched the nids to that system (i had no hormagaunts previously and needed a lot.. of expensive metal ones) and started blood angels. i accumulated about 3000 points of 3d edition blood angels.
• about 2000 points of death skulls orks
• i scrapped the 2nd ed tyranid models and began a new one with the lovely 3rd edition plastics (atill think the gaunts and warriors are amazing models now)
• i retired the blood angels round the end of 3rd and repainted them as ultramarines, which i amassed to a lovely 10,000ish size before selling them off a few years back.
• a huge nurgle lost and the damned and death guard army featuring loads of deamons, nurgle beastmen, imperial guard and death guard. this army probably came to about 6000 points (3k LatD and 3K DG). the army was never really finished as the latd codex was rendered obsolet before i got halfway through it, though the models were all purchased
• this when what i call my wilderness years began and i started to drop out of the hobby (friends dropping out due to other commitments and my group slowly starting to unravell). slowly, i started a bad moons army which i also sold off around the turn of 4th/5th edition. i think those bad moons are the army im most proud of - really looke coherent and i lvoed the colours/conversions (more on those later)
• hee we come to the current era of Vorro models: my truescale pre-heresy world eaters (again more pics later)
• the angels of censure featured on this blog
• the howlign griffons and other random models

The World Eaters
my babies, my labour of love. i always loved marines, though it was their idea, their fluff,rather than their models. these are paragons of the human race; rendered apart from that which they were created to protect. they are super-human, giants, adonic figures, clad in the armour of gods and equipped with the best that mars can produce. they are the space marines, the adeptus astates.

yet they have teeny tiny models and stats that put themto shame...

there, that's better



pity. id love for GW to take their heads out of their arses and make a proper amrine codex - where a 1500 army gives you 2 squads an hq and a small vehicle likea  speeder or attack bike or a dread. each marine should be the equivalent of another army's character, yet sadly theyre not.

I love the smell of flamers in the morning

thats what these are and, with the inspiration of doghouse and apologist who frequent warseer and bolter and chainsword, i decided to make models that live up to that ideal.

no, not the axe!

though i had made simple 'truescale' marines in the past (adding a spacer to the shin) these were my first serious attempt. and i really went off the deep end, using terminator legs, slicing each leg in two places and sculpting the chest from scratch. that first unit was a real bitch to make, but it was so rewarding (especially the comments i got on forums :p). at first i decided - no more, but decided to continue and make a whole army. the initial idea of two 10-man tac squads, 10-man assault squad, 10-man dev squad, jetbikes or land speeder, dread and spartan landraider never quite materialised though i got damn close.

in particular, though, im proud of the dreadnought (below), which was really a bitch to make - i started from the legs with no plan or drawings of any sort (usual for me actually. youd think id have learnt my lesson by now... ) and for a long time, the thing just lay on my table gathering dust, little more than the skeletal frame of legs and hips. then inspiration struck and i continued to what you see below. its a bit odd in design (the Horus Hersy artbooks are very contradictory when it comes to art, especially dreadnoughts, so i had my pick of the litter, so to speak), though if there's one thing id change it would be the width of the torso - its a tad too thin for my liking, though its nothing i cant live with. overall i get a great feeling when i turn this model around in my hand, which is the best result i can get from a big conversion like this (and, thanks to the cheesy new Grey Knights codex, i can use it as a dreadknight rather than a crappy dreadnought - result!)

pre-heresy dread

Varren? who knows

in hindsight they were far too big, a scale onto their own (35ish mm), but i do like the result. thats why i decided to make the howling griffons - to be something more in-sclae with 40k, but still conveying the bulk and gravitas of the marines.

then came the terminators.

my babies!

whose a big boy now?

and i thought the power-armoured marines were difficult. the terminators were a real saga to get made. making the masters, the trials and tribulations of RTV casting, the money wasted on dud moulds and dud casts... but i love the end result and i think it was worth it... save the fact that theyre to scale with the world eaters and NOT the howling griffons, which means when (if) the time comes for me to make howling griffon terminators, ill have to start from scratch...Grr! but the idea, even of a single griffon character makes me giddy with anticipation. maybe, who knows

groupshot

Orks
one of my fave armies, orks (like nurgle hosts) are a great army for convertors (and a great army for bad converter to hide behind :p). ive had a few ork armies over the years (three in all) all of which, oddly have been sold. my first was a death skulls army with lots of bone trophies, random vehcile and weapon parts and a  really cool battlewagon that i sadly sold (one of the few non-commissioned models ive sold that i wish id held on to). following that came a bad moon army that i sold pretty much the moment i mad it and then, about 2-3 years ago (just before i started work on the world eaters) these guys. sadly i cant find pics for all of them but heres the 'best':

Tyranids
Sadly, ive lost my tranid pics though un-sadly, i still have the models (most of which are unpainted). i have what some people have lovingly termed wasp zoanthropes (head like the old 3rd edition hivetyrant and a tail made from a carnifex crushing claw) and a bunch of warriors (about 24) and 3 carnifexes waiting paint. this is the only picture i have of the paint-scheme i chose for the army (the final product is more hawk turquoise than jade green though, though im pleased with the resultt.

Lion Rider
i think, one of my fave models. as soon as the high elf lion chariot model was released (what an amazing model and a prime example of what can be done with the 3d sculpting tech that GW now uses), i knew i had to convert a model as a lion rider. the inspiration came from the fantasy world that ive been slowly fleshing out over the years (the map-background on the blog title is one i made for that world), where one society has many cuktural links with lions. so here's the model:

Death Guard
probably my fave chapter of marines both pre and post-heresy (and the original chapter/legion i was going to use for my first truescale project that later turned into the world eaters). i love death guard and nurgle in general and have made a few TS DG models. now that ive started work on Garro what id love to do is 2 5-man squads of truescale DG - one before and one after nurglification, with before/after models in the same poses. that would be cool! anyhow, heres some pics of past DG models.

the penultimate model is not finished yet, though id love to go back to him and finish him off. still happy with the chains on the last example

Eldar
my shortest-lived army, probably to its radical departure from things i like (sloppy painting and converting - generally i dont see eldar as a converters army though id love to be proved or, better, prove myself wrong), though ironically, the only squad i painted is probably my finest squad ever... and i gave it away to a decentish bloke ive never seen ;)

 sexeh dragons

 scale shot

well that concludes my tour for tonight :p 

airbrush woes

well ive had a chance to try out the airbrush and, ive come to the conclusion that buying cheap is not always good. as is often the case with me, i tend to buy first and do research later (something im learning the hard way is not the right thing to do, as though that needed elaborating). it seems as though the airbrush i got is an unbranded one.

when spraying, the colours are always powdery and i can see the individual spots of paint. after spraying for a few minutes, it starts spitting and the flow of paint becomes very random indeed. after taking the thing apart, cleaning it (as far as i know, properly) with airbrush cleaner and reassembling it seems to be ok (ish) though very quickly starts spluttering, with the flow appearing to decrease steadily with the same amount of pressure onthe compressor producing a thinner spray.

im wondering if the paints make much of a difference. i have ordered quite a few vallejo air colours for use specifically with the airbrush though for the time being im using normal GW paints. a lot of them have been around for years and are pretty... jelly-like (thats the best way of describing them). ive thinned them down with water to a milky consistency. i dont know if thats good or bad though ive read that thats the consistency to aim for. ill try again once the vallejo colours arrive and will post my results then.

in the meanwhile im thinking of buying another one - probably badger or iwata, though i am put off by the prices on most of them. i want a dual action which seem to be more expensive than others and considering that im never permanently in the hobby (i tend to model/paint for about a year then stop for a year and so on) i dont know if its 'worth it.' having said that ive already spent 150 euro on a compressor and the current airbrush set i have so its not like i havent spent a bit on it already.

ill see how i work with the vallejo paints and then see from there...

meanwhile the Howling Griffons are undercoated (they seem ok though one thing ive noticed is the paint (GW skull white) is very delicate - a slight rub removed the paint. not sure if thats always the case or a result of the way theyve been sprayed

ok, im pretty much done on these guys now:

Epistolary Balaam

i'm really pleased with the way he turned out - the tabard, the details on the waist, the hood (which i was dubious about at first). just need to wait for the staff to dry so i an bend it back into the proper angle. 

Veteran Brother Venator, Ultramarines Tyrannic War Veteran, First Company

still missing some detail-work on the hammer and, of course, the storm shield, which is going to be based on a cast i made using an instant-mold of this:

ill be adding a chain and lots of parchment and purity seals to it, thoughthe whole head crest will be the shield, which i think is quite cool 9i know ultramarines arent much for keeping trophies but i figured it wasnt entirely out of character

Brother Vassago of the Howling Griffons, & Brother captain Nelchael of the Mentors

Vassago is still missing equipment, but is otherwise done and Nelchael is ready to be primed (really looking forward to painting the Mentor colours on this guy too. again, im pleased with the tabard on the first model - i think im finally getting the hand of cloth (to a certain extent... see below :p)

and finally...



Brother Captain Nathanael Garro; Captain of the 7th Great Company of the Death Guard

well, ive always been a fan of the Death Guard, and Garro in particulat (nothing to do with the fact that we share a name :p)


im still not too sure on the chest - apart from the fact that its description on the books is open to interpretation, i think it might have come a bit too big. though this was my third (and best) attempt at the chest i decided to keep it as is. im rather pleased with the model overall, particularly the shoulder pads and the cloak (which still requires some work on it), though ill post up pics as i mmake further progress. looking forward to painting the pre-heresy DG colours on this guy. 

update

so a small update on these; getting closer to completion. they just need some small GS details (piping on chest, filling in dents in the armour etc), and addition of equipment and pouches etc.

brother shooty (howling griffon)


quite pleased with the pose on this one. will probably add a tabard to him and the same sort of pouches that featured on the other griffons. unfortunately, though, like most of these new models, i dont think the poses are quite as good as the first batch, thats probably as i made these as more of an assembly-line rather than one-at-a-time liek the others. i tried the assembly line to save some time but think ill go back to individually making them in the future (the bodies at least - the arms and fiddly bits can always be done together)

Mentor Legionnaire


im gonna flat out say it - my fave of these guys so far, though unfortunately the pics are not coming out well - they all look somewhat squashed and the pose is not translating well to a flat image - looks a lot better when you can rotate the base in your hands. maybea vid? :p

librarian



the model with the most amount of work left to do - cloak, tabbard, lots of work on the staff, more GS detail on the torso and random gubbinz. those shoulder pads are just placeholders - ill be adding slightly more ornate ones with rims.

corvus tyranid veteran

still need to do the last of the piping detail on the torso and trophies and equipment as well as the tyranid details (head-crest shield, skull-thunder hammer and other details).