Mawloc!

So after a brief absence I return with gloriously crappy pics of the mawloc and termagants. After a lot of hesitation in painting the armour plates I must say I really enjoyed painting this guy,though the magnetised arms were somewhat fiddly (though having said that I'm glad I did magnetise them as it would have been very difficult to reach a lot of spots with the arms in way).

The sensory spines on the head were a last-minute addition as i felt the model was beginning to look a bit bland, so I blended them up to the old GW warlock purple with a few coats of quick drybrushing which turned out nicely considering the few minutes it took to do them. I'm trying to think of other models/areas where I can use this effect. perhaps the lictor feeder tendrils when i get round to making one.

I also had my first game of 40k in... 4-5 years a few days ago, against my best buddy's IG. a mech list with 3 leman russes, 2 basilisks, a hellhound, 2 storm trooper squads, 2 vet squads and a platoon. My army was slightly less coherent with a hive tyrant (2x twin linked devourers and old adversary) with 2 tyrant guard. 3 carnifexes, the mawloc, 2 units of 4 shooty warriors. 2 units of 25 termagants 2 hive guard and 2 units of 4 burrowing rippers.

the idea with the army was to use the rippers to DS in front (or behind, set-up permitting) of the opponent causing him to waste fire on them, and to DS right in the middle of the enemy's force, causing casualties and disruption while the rest of the army approaches.

the mass of tanks wasnt helpful, with all my monstrous creatures having died on the enemeies second shooting phase (the mass of high s/low ap ordnance and emperor-knows how many rapid firing plasma guns left the monstrous creatures dead or close to death) and the presence of a regimental advisor that reduces my DS rolls by 1 left me missing the mawloc until turn 4... by which point it was too late. 2 mawlocs will offset this and changing the old adversary rule to hive commander and perhaps taking a lictor or 2 to add further disruption might help.

im not giving up, as i feel this is one of the hardest armies to come against as the armour-14 leman russes are a bitch to shoot up with 'nids. I was impressed with the hive guard and toughness of the warriors tough will probably swap them for raveners and if i keep any of the carnifexes ill probably cchange their bl devourers for stranglethorn cannons or heavy venom cannons.

conversion-work on the hive guard continues and im looking forward to getting 4 of them painted. im also thinking of a lictor or 2 to add to the army, though am still thinking of conversion ideas for them and will likely go with something lictor-like but more akin to a praying mantis, with the large scything talons on  the front of the thorax and somewhat longer and spindlier than the talons we're used to seeing. another conversion based on by beloved plastic warrior sprue :)

the Fleet Grows

I haven't been posting as much as I've been busy with work and starting work on some boring conversions
(at least, they're boring for now...). I have managed to start work on some more gaunts (repaints of some older ones I had lying around which I cleaned up as best as I could) and a mwaloc (the first of 2 planned ones), though I have tried magnetising it so I can use it as a trygon/mawloc. I've so far done the head and still need to do the magnets for the arms... In hindsight I'll do the magnetising on the second one before I start painting next time..,.

I'm very happy with the way the blue turned out (excuse the pics, I'll take better ones once its done), though am really not looking forward to painting the back plates, a fact that is probably responsible for the week of inactivity on the painting...

the gaunts are in the same state of progress, though finsihing them off will take a lot less time than the mawloc, though then again they only account for about 50 points (6 fleshborers and 2 devourers). the Fleshborers have had their old arms (spinefists) removed and changed with new fleshborer arms. the rest of the models were cleaned up as best as I could (you can still see painted bases on some of them).

next up are three zoanthropes that I'm working on as a commission. looking forward to finishing these off.

And finally, I'm working on the first 2 of 6 planned hive guard. They're coming together nicely and are being built in a similar way to the tyrant guard, though using the larger tervigon crushing claw as a tail rather than the smaller carnifex one. their weapon is built from a warrior venom cannon stuck to the bottom of the torso, with middle arms made from the large warrior scything talons. the upper arms are atrophied and are part of the weapon. the upper carapace is extended, its shape changed, with milliput/GS. I wont post any pics until after they're done ;)

say cheese

a quick group-shot (note the unpainted guardsman - still waiting for my regular opponent to decide on a colour-scheme for his guard. once he makes up his mind, i can paint this guy)

I am ripper...

so, a stop-gap unit to give me something to do whilst waiting for bitz and kits to arrive (i had a bit of a mix up with wayland games, though everythings' settled now and I should have a few orders on the way, including 4 boxes of warriors, some gaunts and a tyrant and tervigon).

Anyhow, this is the first of 3 batches of rippers that ill be working on to add to the army, giving me about 15-20 bases-worth (depending on how many i can get out of forthcoming kits and what I can find in my bitzboxes). I doubt I'll be using these guys much as theyre pretty crap (though I'd still like to try 20 deep-striking bases, if nothing else, deep striking close to the enemy will cause him to devote quite a bit of shooting against them, giving my other units a turn of freedom in which to advance, at least that's the idea...)

you'll have to excuse the rather crappy pics though my lightbox is out of action for the moment, explaining the low quality balcony pics etc!

I'm also working on some zoanthrope commissions at the moment (pic below) and am starting work on some spore mines (another left-field tactic id like to try is a battery of biovores and spore mine clusters, with hive guard and warrior support).

And now, for something completely different...
Well, not that completely different... My tentative second project, a Tzeentch marine/daemon/IG army. of course, I can't use all 3 options in the same game (though luckily, the addition of cultists and dark apostles means I can sort-of use IG traitors as standard in the army, with daemon allies).

The plan is to have a core of thousand sons and/or mark of Tzeentch marines - I'm envisioning a core of 2 thousand sons units, with some marked marines, chosen, havocs, raptors/warp talons, all in the style of the new Dark Vengeance chosen models. To that I'll add Tzeentch daemons (I have an idea for a Tzeentch flying circus daemon army with fateweaver, 3 lion-headed feathered-winged daemon princes and lots of screamers and flamers) and imperial guard units, the latter of which will be heavily converted, with lots of highly individual character models; making a sort-of fallen =][= lord and retinue... though that's in the future...

For now I received 18 chosen from the DV box (to add to the actual box I'd like to get by years' end), forming a good core to the army; 24 'chosen' (likely to be converted and used as standard marines), 1 lord. 1 helbrute and 20 cultists (to add to the considerable fallen guard models and bitz I already have - always fun to model!) looking forward to trying this army out, and experimenting with converting the chosen into different poses and equipment.

Also on the agenda is finishing off the Howling Griffons and (likely when the marine codex is re-released in hard-back) the Angels of Censure... though I wouldnt hold my breath if I were you!

the tyrant guard are coming along nicely.

this is actually a slightly older pic, and theyre almost done - all thats left now is the imperial guardsman and the eyes/teeth. ill take more pics once theyre done.

ive started work on the rippers and have made 6 bases so far, ready for basing and highlighting the armour

WIP

Here's a quick post, just showing you that I'm still working on this army. I've started painting up the tyrant guard:

and am converting some older warriors and gaunts that I'm recycling from my older (pink) tyranid army - where available I'm repalcing parts with new unpainted ones (arms, heads mostly) and will be priming them soon. im hoping to finish off work on the tyrant guard over the weekend

Prime time

I received the parts I ordered for the Prime yesterday, and started work on work on him today.

I cut down the hive tyrant legs (reducing the size of the ankles and shortening the thighs) and scratch-built a bug-like abdomen to match those of the other beasties I've converted. the abdomen still needs the addition of armour-plates on the top and work done to the tail tip.

I'm looking forward to starting work on the thorax - I'm imagining a larger bulkier version of a warrior, with the head nested inside a hollow surrounded by plates. We'll see how that works out!

also, to anyone interested in the abdomen's basis, it's just made from 7 layers of plasticard (not sure if its 1.5 or 2mm) roughly carved into shape:

Vorropohaiah's musings

Not so much a modelling post, but rather an introspective on the hobby in general.

I'm 29 years old now and first got in the hobby with my fried Paul in the summer of 93 ('twas a good year, Jurassic Park and the Nightmare Before Christmas came out that year; two films that, alongside my introduction to GW that same year, had a large impact on my life), at the tender age of 9 and 360-ish days. My first glimpse of the hobby was a blood bowl and 40k (2nd ed) flyer with the old-style egg-shaped blood angel and ork dreads. I was instantly hooked!

From there it was a solid 5-6 years of gaming, primarily 40k, though dabbling in Necromunda, BFG, epic and Warhammer quest, before the onset of 4th edition saw me largely leave the hobby, due largely to my regular group disbanding after the closing-down of our haunt ( a great indie-store that I basically grew up in and spent most of my days skiving school it to paint and game...). It was then that I became interested in world-building and, perhaps naturally, I moved on from wargaming into roleplaying (though never grew too distant form the hobby, keeping up to date with new releases and the general goings on in my areas of interest).

Though I was a decent painter (I was never very good at gaming and spent most of my hobby time converting, reading fluff and painting, in that order), I became obsessed with worldbuilding and have spent the better part of the last 7-years of my life creating (and getting ever-so-steadily farther away from finishing) my conworld of Elyden, which also has a blog: http://vorropohaiah.blogspot.com/. Over the months i tended to concentrate more on the worldbuilding aspects - cartography, history, conlangs - rather than writing fiction, and that's where I decided I needed a break.

This is where my obsessive personality comes into play. I find it very difficult to multitask, in that I can't spend my free time on different hobbies. i tend to obsess over one thing for a period of time (ranging from months to years), before burning out and naturally moving onto some other long-neglected area of interest. I find myself moving from conworlding to hobbying again, and the transition took little more than 2-weeks.

What does this mean? I have lots of ideas, least important is the continuation of my tyranids. I hope to finish off the Howling Griffon squad that features earlier on. I hope to finish off a nurgle warband composed of ransom converted models. I want to carry on converting individual chaos 'guard. And I hope to start work on random retinue-ish models, which will allow my to exercise my converting skills. I envisage lots of strange quasi-imperial characters and roguish figures coming to light over the coming months - inqusitiors, rogue traders, strange xenos beasties, and, my favourites... worshippers of chaos. And the number of plastic models have greatly increased in the years I've been AWOL.

Well, watch this space and see if this hyperbole actually leads to anything...

So the converting is pretty much done on the tyrant guard (just need to fill in some gaps on the hapless guardsman (tm) and they're ready to undercoat, just after i buy some spray). I'm going to try a slightly less quick and easy painting approach on these (largely because they're bigger models than the gaunts, but also because i want to try make them a bit more complex - as they are now, the painted models are just drybrushed, with proper painting on the armour plates and flesh/eyes).

It's been a while since I've touched any GS, though I'm pretty pleased with the carapace - relatively smooth and will look pretty seamless once its painted black. I could have done a better job on the weird part above the head, which is one of those things that comes about through interesting shapes done with the sculpting tool that in hindsight I should have worked on. As it is that area looks too random and unfinished. I'll try add something to it before i prime them (hopefully over the next few days).

I just ordered a tervigon, 3 boxes of warriors, tyrant and some gaunts as well as parts to start converting a prime and 4 hive guard (all of which I'm really looking forward to converting...). I also got some magnets to magnetise the gaunt weapons - fleshborers for tervigon spawned beasties, and devourers for the others, interchangeable; and I hope to be able to remove the scything talons from the carnifexes without damaging the paint-job, so I can magnetise them to swap between devourers and talons. Here's some random pics of the models so far:

and a group shot:

tyrant guard... or warriors... or lictors

so here's some WIP shots of the tryant guard im working on. theyre based on the ubiquitous tyranid warriors (they are to me at least - love em! if the rules for them werent such dross id have an all warrior army, but thats a rant for another day).

they use carnifex crushing claw arms for the main limbs, with the addition of spare carnifex carapaces to bulk them out and make them look tougher. the claws are monstrous creature rending claws, the arms of which were used as the base for the secondary limbs, which in turn use warrior scything talons. this makes both pairs of arms larger than those on normal warriors. the legs are unconverted for now (might bulk them out, not sure. i quite like the top-havy look tbh). the abdomen is made from spare crushing claw claws (much like the zoanthropes, leading me to think that this hive fleets' variant warriors have that sort of abdomen (so expect lictors and hive guard to have similar tails, should i make them).

here's a close up of the claws, both sides. the ones with lots of GS on them show the underside. im thinking of painting them in the normal blue/black of the rest of the fleet, though blending the blue into black on the forearms, sort of softer carapace giving way to hrder, or just painting them black, to convey the thicker armour. possibly the latter (easier to do, as well).

as theyre converted model im free to use them for a variety of roles, most obvious being tyrant guard (meaning ill need to get me a tyrant!) though at a stretch i can also use them as normal warriors with talons/claws, or maybe even as counts as lictors (maybe a stretch, but i think the idea of these hulking things skulking around enemy territory is pretty cool).

im hoping to finish off the GS by the end of the week. I still need to finish the carapace (whats visible behind their heads is just a skeleton so the proper sculpting has something solid to adhere to), the arms and the waists, and possibly bulk out the legs in some way.

let me know what you think

'well, I'm back,'

as a mr. Gamgee once said.

Impossible, you might say, he's been gone for far too long!

he's back? IMPOSSIBRU!

After a long absence (real life, other commitments, burnout, you know) I think im back. that's the plan at least. got some more tyranid conversions on the go (tyrant guard made from warriors, carnifex carapaces and lots of GS), an entire tzeentch daemon army (my first army in a long time), random traitor guard (i just love making traitor guard models), chaos marines (those chosen from dark vengeance sure are nice) and a few other bitz and bobs (lets forget the 12" marine thing, shall we... getting the parts together for that was a nightmare).

Spurred on by the release of 6th 40k (not sure what to think of the rules to be honest. i think their intentions were good, though the execution is a bit meh. random charge is fine. new rapid fire weapons rules are a huge improvement over the old rules (perhaps too good). though the new meta seems to favour shooting far above assaulting/combat. ill see soon enough i guess.

expect picturey updates over the next few days, including C.I.P (conversion in progress) tyrant guard and P.I.P (painting in progress) traitor guard

hello there,

well its been a long time since i posted anything here, though ive been lurking, mostly on the rumour and M,P & T threads. my last projects were tyranids and 'true-scale/art scale' (call them what you will ) space marines, though theyve been put on hiatus for some time. I know there's a lot of marine haters out there, particularly with this new slew of horrendously-written background in recent codex books, though theres just something about the dichotomy and juxtaposition of knights and technology, as well as their 1-3rd edition background that really appeals to me, and their artwork (mostly by paul dainton and karl kopinski) has always inspired me.

to that effect i, a recent ultramarine image by karl kopinski caught my eye:


that picture, to me, is the epitome of space marineyness (is that a word? lol), the scale and proportions are spot on to me, and the colour and design of the armour (the ornateness and baroque design married with the techiness of their weapons and equipment) is just perfect.

ive been wanting to make a large scale marine for some tyears now, though real life and mojo-drainage have cursed me to never realise the project. originally, the idea was to do something around 6" tall, though recently ive wanted to go for something far more abitous = a 1/6th scale marine (about 12 - 14" inches tall). now, im no master-sculptor, but i feel confident enough in my S and general model-making skills to pull off the model... save one thing; the head.

ive been scouring the internet for heads that i can use to shirk having to sculpt a (inevitably) crappy head, and its that search for fitting pre-made heads that led me to change the scale from 6" to 12", as i found some very lifelike heads available on ebay:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Hot-1-6-Ac...#ht_3726wt_952
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Hot-1-6-Ac...#ht_3726wt_952

not perfect for maines, but good quality i think, though if theres other heads (maybe cheaper ones too as those are pretty pricey though obviously good quality
) id be very grateful, particularly if you can link me to high quality smaller sclae heads that would fit a 6"ish model.

the rest of the model will be made with a tried-and-tested silverfoil/super sculpewy with milliput and GS detailing and pieces stolen from a whole myriad of kits and manufacturers. the original plan is to make a facsimilie of the central character in the pic, though if i have enough fun making him (doubful) i might take a shot at making the other two characters. we'll see... 
thanks for any Feedback!

This

This is the reason for my 'comeback' (if i can be bold-enough :p). I've been away for a long time, working on my graphic design, swearing at Adobe indesign, illustrator and photoshop and chiseling away at the unformed mass of my conworld (hoping to one day sculpt it into a viable world in which i can base my short stories etc). My minis have been packed away for some time now, my paints and sculpting tools secured safely in storage, awaiting the stroke of inspiration to strike once more.

Ive been keeping an eye on GW's developments over the months; the gorgeous is stylistically odd ogres, to the lovely necrons and the new vampires, everything has been impressive, to a degree, but it took an unsourced piece of Karl Kopinski artwork to get me started again.

The ideas are bold, the plan as yet unformed... but the intention is to make 3 large-scale models based on that gorgeous piece of art. there's no WIP's yet, and little more than an idea percolating slowly in my mind. dont get excited, as its likely that nothing will come of this, but, fingers crossed... wish me luck! ill need it