Lord Gaudinzor, the hunter paret 3

So we have the running body from the Dark Vengance aspiring champion, with the faceless head made by shaving down a Tau helmet, that is connected via a half dozen cables to a lascannon backpack.

Well, that leaves the arms, and by extension the weapons. I've decided to give him a pair of extending swords mainly for the modeling potential and the dynamism. Having two whip like weapons requires the entire body to be in motion in order for them to be of use, other wise the on-attack weapon is held back by the counter force of the off-attack weapon.

The swords are still going to be segmented with the coil whip sections between the bladed sections. Previously I had done this by cutting the Raptor power sword into sections, drill a hole in each section, and then passing a length of pewter power cable through the segments. This works... visually... but not for gaming purposes.

The problem with this for a gaming piece is the general abuse a gaming piece will be exposed to. The stresses of being picked up and placed on the table. Being stuck into and removed from foam. Being pressed against other models, the list goes on. The pewter cables look very good, but they are not terribly strong and over time, the stresses placed on it will cause it to break. If used in a way where the cable is placed against something, like the hull of vehicle or the hips of a space marine, the stresses are greatly reduced as the majority of the stress is taken by the model. In this situation the pewter cable is free standing, or rather free flowing, and is out in the open exposing it to the full stresses with out anything to brace the cable.

So I needed to figure out a way to address this problem, while still keeping the visual appearance of the segmented sword with the whip coils. I hit on the idea of making several sections of power cables, using the Green Stuff Industries Tentacle Maker, and then drilling out a section through each segment so I could pass a thicker gauge wire through the power cable. Beyond this is was just a matter of sliding on each segment of sword blade and gluing the parts into place. Once all the segments were in place, I just had to bend the finished weapon into form.

Of course I still had to make the second weapon:

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Lord Gaundinzor, the hunter part 2

So last time I talked about the prototype version of Lord Gaundinzor. With the prototype I used the normal Chaos Marine legs and a Raptor Torso for the body. While this provides a solid base for the model it doesn't provide the dynamic range of motion I really want the character to convey. So I went back to the drawing board and worked to plan out the model some more. I knew I wanted to have the model showing a fair amount of motion. I also wasn't thrilled with using the multi-melta back pack. It looks less like it houses a cogitator array and more like it;s carrying a supply of promethium. So I wanted to change that as well.

The backpack actually turned out to be simpler to deal with then I first though. Just a power plant back pack from a lascannon devastator marine. I had to cut off the power feed that would normally go to the lascannon, but even this actually helps with the character of the model. The entire thing about Gaundinzor is his 'inhumanity' and 'unreal' visuals. He's a space marine so he's around the 8 feet tall mark. He's faceless, yet he can see. In fact he can see better then someone with eyes. He wear this heavy armor, yet he's a master swords man as if the armor isn't a problem at all. He's got this massive backpack, yet he doesn't fall over and pulls off moves a circus acrobat. Everything about him physically is challenged by his actions, and now he's hunting you. He is supposed to be terrifying. So I wanted to make him terrifying.

The first thing was the head. With humanoid characters the head, and more specifically the face, is a focal point for the model. It's really a human instinct, we look to the face for expressions of emotion and intent. How do you tell if someone is being hostile? Or if they're being serious? Or really any other range of human emotions for that matter? You look at the face. The face is the 'human' aspect of a model. It conveys emotion, or conveys the lack of it in the case of helmets. So there are the two options right? a face or a helmet? Well, sort of. There is one other option though in reality it's the absence of other options. This what I wanted to go with for Gaundinzor, the absence of a face. See, we're conditioned to see 'human' in even abstract objects. Don't believe me? Look at this:

It's an electrical outlet. But can't you see a face too?  The ground port is the mouth and the positive and negative ports are the eyes. Now look at the shapes of each part. The negative slot is larger then the positive while the ground port is shaped like a tunnel opening. Looking at all three elements combined produce a visual suggestion of a face making the 0.o look. This is why the helmets on space marines draw so much attention from painters. Ever tried to paint the lenses on a space marine helmet red and accidentally over paint winding up with what looks like the space marine is bleeding out of his eye sockets? Suddenly your trans-human super-solder in futuristic power armor looks like they're trying to perform a bad kabuki theater production.

But like I said, I've elected to go with a 'faceless' design with Gaundizor. That is I want to completely remove any semblance of a humanity from the face... well head. Why? Because it looks freaking creepy! What? Don't believe me? Ever see Pirates of Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest? Remember when Will Smith turned the sailor over who had his face sucked off by the Kraken? Admit it, you were shocked too. Why? Because it's so far removed from 'human' we have no basis of comparison to it. No eyes, no mouth, no eye brows, eye sockets, nose, cheek bones, nothing. There is just no face what so ever for us to relate to. This is why that kind of thing is so freaking creepy. Now take that image and combine it with someone who stands 8 feet tall, has armor comparable to a small tank, moves faster then any human let alone one that is 8 feet tall should be able to move, and is hunting you. You have no means to see if any thing is effecting him. Did that shot to the chest even hurt him? Will that door even remotely slow him down? Think about it this way. Imagine you are playing a video game, and you come to a big boss fight. And the boss has no health bar and makes no reaction to your attacks. You land hundreds of hits with every gun in your arsenal only for the boss to continue attacking until finally you're dead. How close to beating him were you? Were your attacks even having an effect at all? Is there another trick to beating him? You can't tell. You may have been completely wasting your ammo firing at him or you may have been exactly 1 hit point away from beating him. That's the sort of inhuman terror I want to have this model make. So what did I do to get this?

I took a Tau helmet and removed all the detail from it leaving it smooth. There are no optical components on it. No camera, no lenses, no scanners nothing to indicate where he could actually be looking. To help carry the idea that Gaundinzor doesn't actually use eyes, but rather is fed a digital manifestation of the environment, I drilled out a series of holes along the edge of the helmet mounting and inserted a series of small cables, again from  Dragon Forge. These cables will be attached to the back pack.

So next thing, showing more motion. How can I do that? Well change the model position. What space marine models typically show the most motion? Models with running legs. So assault marines and Raptor legs were what I looked at first. But the assault Marines and Raptor models didn't have the... what's the word.... the right detail level for what I wanted. So I did some more looking and finally settled on the body from the Dark Vengeance aspiring Champion.

Here's a shot of the version 2.0 along side the original prototype. Please excuse the 'cyber whiskers'. The head is attached to the back pack and effectively free-floating at the neck. I have some green stuff in there and until that dries I don't want to try and move the other cables to attach them to the backpack. So that's going to wrap things up for today.

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Lord Gaudinzor, the hunter

So, it's that time of the year once again. You know, that one that starts with Thanksgiving and culminates with January 12th. Yes, I am referring to the holiday season for retail. We've already had Black-thanksgiving, Black Friday, Black-saturday, Pre-cyber Monday (Sunday), Cyber-monday, and Cyber-monday Follow-up (Teusday). I truly hate this time of year. 50% of the sales are crap sales that were better two weeks prior, while half of the products being put on 'sale' are crap made specifically for this period to be cheap so stores can sell them for $40 and people will think their getting a $150 item. Anyway, I still work in retail so I have to deal with it all. Friendly suggestion, don't go shopping on Black-friday and please don't buy stuff on Thanksgiving. The more money companies don't make by being open on Thanksgiving and not selling stuff, the more likely it is that retail workers will be able to get Thanksgiving back as a holiday.

Anyway all of that out of the way, today I am returning to Warhammer 40,000 with a new Chaos Lord for my Chaos Space Marine army. My view of a Chaos Space Marine is one of varied and loose alliances. A Chaos army isn't an 'army' the way an Imperial Guard or Space Marine army is. It will be a force made up of multiple groups that has been talked into working with the other groups through one means or another. Typically the focal point will be the Chaos Lord himself. He or She will be the one that is able to offer something of interest or value to the other groups to get them to cooperate. Perhaps the Lord can offer lost relics from an ancient world to get a Thousand Sons War Coven's cooperation, or maybe He will swear his warbands services to helping a Crimson Slaughters lord's efforts to hunt down an offending daemon lord. The possibilities of payment are long and varied.

What am I going on about? Well the justification for building my Chaos Space Marine collection the way I have been. I have an Iron Warrior Squad, a Night Lords Squad, Dark Mechanicus war constructs and I have plans for other groups I'm intending to add to my army. Each of these can become the core of an army onto itself. Or I can mix various units to form a unit, justifying it fluff wise by way of the loose alliance I just explained. This project is a perfect object example of this approach. I crafted the character before I worked to craft the model.

Functioning as Lord Roth'Gar's Lieutenant and direct liaison to Dark Magos Bargose, Gaudinzor has subjected himself to numerous experiments by Bargose that have resulted in enhanced combat abilities, deadlier weapons and an increase in his own sadistic tendencies.

Gaudinzor is a sadistic individual ever seeking to prove his superiority but he takes it further then most. For him, it's not enough to simply best them in a fight, or kill them in a duel. He wants to utterly destroy them, in every way it possible. He will purposely draw out a fight for the purpose of psychologically breaking his opponent before killing them. Rather then a swift strike to decapitate, or a thousand minor strikes to inflict pain, or even a targeted strike to incapacitate, Gaudinzor will serve feints within feints, toying with his opponents, drawing the battle out for hours even days only landing telling blows as examples of how futile his opponents attacks and defenses truly are. Stroke by stroke, Gaudinzor will tear down his opponents until there is nothing left and they beg him for death. And then, only when there is nothing of the proud warrior left, will he kill them.

Honestly the genesis of this character was a random image I ran across:

Thanks to the internet I learned the image is a rendition of the character Ivy from the Soul Calibur series. After some reading I learned that her sword was effectively 'alive' and reacted to her commands. That was really the first thought that gave rise to this lord: A Space Marine with a living sword that extends to become a bladed whip.

As I thought about it more I developed more details. A featureless visage. A large back pack to house a cogitator array. he doesn't use his eyes, rather he is fed tactical data from the cogitator array. He would be viscous and cruel killer. Ultimately more thinking lead me to the fluff passage I post earlier.

So with at least a rough idea in mind, I worked on a first effort for the model. I knew going into this, that I was likely not going to finish this particular model as it was intended more as a development of concept project then a final project. Still, have to start somewhere.

For this prototype effort I used normal Chaos Marine legs with a Raptors torso and a multi-melta backpack. For the sword I used a Raptor power sword cut into 2mm long segments with a hole drilled through the center of each segment. I then used a length of small diameter cable from Dragon Forge and passed that up through the sword segments. This gave me a semi-flexible body to work and tweak. It works but has problems. First off the pewter cable is fairly weak and with time it will break off from being flexed by being put into foam and taken out. Also the entire model looks very 'static'. He's not this viscous killer using super swords, he's a guy with ADD waving his cool sword about. So the model itself doesn't work visually for what I'm trying to produce. As a protoype effort it works, but I know I can do better. So that is what I will talk about next time. Version 2.0 of Gaudinzor, the Hunter.

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Project: Chaos Knight of Blood Part 1

So I'm embarking on a big project. Well okay, another big project. This is a little different then my normal 'big projects' like the Epyon project for instance, which I need to get back to now that I think about it. Anyway, this project is for my Chaos Space Marine forces, I want to add something big to it. Like Lord of Skulls big, 'cept I hate the Lord of Skulls model. I really want a Knight titan, but I don't want to deal with the allies chart. I want something that I can have right next to my regular Chaos Marines and I don't have to worry about both of them standing around for a turn. So what's a converter to do? Oh right, he converts. In all honestly, my interest in under taking this project was truly sparked when I saw Virtual Strangers scratch built paper hammer Knight Titan over on In The Grim Cheapness. He did a really outstanding job on it and it's inspired me to add something on that scale to my own army.
 
So short version, I'm going to convert a Knight Titan into a Counts-as Lord of Skulls. This is a bit more involved then my normal projects so I really need to start out by getting some kind of visual approach down on paper for it. One thing I knew I wanted to do with was I wanted to have it's leg crushing down on something, something is normally fearsome and dangerous. A Carnifex seems to fit that bill. I also wanted the finished model to have the same number of weapons as the Lord of Skulls. This was a little tricky since the Knight titan has 2 big weapons while the Lord of Skulls has 3. I also knew I wanted to have this model mounted on one of the Goth Tech bases from Dragon Forge designs, so that it would fit the base themes with the rest of my army.

So the first thing I needed to do was to put some digital pen to paper and get a better idea of what I was going to do. With a $115 for the basic kit before I get anything else this would be an expensive project to have an "Oh, that won't work that way" result come up. So went to the Games Workshop website and grabbed a couple images of the Knight Titan and the Carnifex and dropped them into Photoshop. After a little tinkering and moving around, I came up with this:

So I'm going to convert 2 weapon arms, one will be the Hades Gatling cannon while the other will be the Gorestorm cannon. Mounting a Chain Saber under each gun will allow the pair of them to count as the Great Cleaver of Khorne. The other thing I want to do is I want to wire up some lights in this thing so it's eyes will glow red. But there's a sub-point to that statement: I want the eyes to glow, but I don't want them to have lights in them. There is a difference though it is a subtle difference. I don't want to have a pair of LEDs sitting behind the mask putting the light out. I want to have the light glowing from back in the head. So to accomplish this I'm going to pass segments of fiber optics up into the back of the head. I'm hoping this will allow the light be brought up to the head, but disperse in the eye sockets giving it a more sinister look. Now powering an LED requires... well power. Which in this case means a battery. So I will need to add a spacer of some form to the bottom of the base to provide space for the battery pack and switch.

Stay tunes for updates.

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Project brief: King Ghidorah HelDrake

As I said in the post about the Nurgle Mecha-fly, I truely dislike the HelDrake model. And like the Nurgle Mecha-fly I discovered a bit of inspiration for a new HelDrake conversion, though this bit of inspiration did come from a... somewhat different source then the last one. This source of inspiration... well was Godzilla. Yeah I'm a Godzilla fan, but seriously is anyone even remotely surprised by that? So am I going to build a Godzilla style HelDrake? Well.. not exactly. Rather, I'm looking at this guy:

So for the Kaiju fans out there, yes this is King Ghidorah. Arguably Godzilla's archenemy. His origin has varied from series to series, ranging from being a Space Dragon under the control of Aliens, to being the deliberate development of time travels to being an immature Tiamat Dragon. Origins aside, I like the three headed Dragon and I want to build a HelDrake inspired by him.

So what am I planning on doing? Well obviously I'm going to need 3 heads and necks. The larger wings without a question. The tail... that one I'm a little less certain about. In order to accommodate the scale and size, think I'm going to use the the body from a Forge Fiend. In order to get the curved necks into it, I will have to completely scrap the neck from the kit itself and build a series of 3 new ones. But I think I know how I'm going to do that.

It all starts with a length of wire coat hanger that's been built into the approximation of the curve of the neck in question (how often is it I have to take about more then 1 neck?). Anyway, starting with a length of wire coat hanger that's been cut to the desired length. I can then attack wooden/plastic balls of the appropriate diameter to one end of each section. This will give me a foundational armature to build up the rest of the neck around. I can then build up the details of the neck by laying in lengths of cable and wires and the like. Once I have the wires and such down and secured, I can come back with either stripes of kneadite or maybe strips of styrene and afix them around the wires and cables. With those in place, I think I can fashion a series of armor plates from styrene and then affix those over the back of the neck. With the plates in place I can cap off the entire neck with a second ball of the needed size.

Actually, this might make more sense. It is a little animation I put together showing what I am talking about.

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Chaos Rapier platform

So the Hades autocannon and EctoPlasm cannons, yeah those are real nice options for fire power. Putting them on a daemon that's BS3... eh. Putting them on a daemon that's 175 points... yeah. It can work, but with the release of IA13 from Forge World there is a better option. And that's the Chaos Rapier heavy weapons platform. So I'll just hop right over to the Forge World website and order a set of three of 'em for... $120. Ouch for $30 more I can get a Spartan assault tank. So the Rapier is a bit cost prohibitive. At least the official model for on is anyway. Well I was skimming over some images and I happened across the Taurax for the Astra Militarium and I noticed something.

The treads on it are fairly small. It got me thinking, maybe I can take those, turn them upside down and build a platform between then to mount the weapons on. So I quickly ordered a set of the treads from a Bitz Seller to give it a shot. Well, sadly they are not assembled the way I thought they were. See, I had originally thought it was something like the Rhino Chasis where you laid the treads down and then had a section that covers the treads. Well... that not how these are built. The tread mounts themselves including the covers on top are 2 halves that join together. The respective treads then attach to those halves. So.. yeah. Can't do what I originally thought I would be able to do.

But, didn't give up. If I can't turn the treads upside down and build a rapier maybe I can just build the platform with the treads right side up. Which, I think I did pretty well:

I used 2 sections of 1/4" styrene square tubing to build a base connecting the two tread units. This gave me a foundation to build the rest of the platform from. To help with the detailing some I used a section of diamond tread plate on the standing ramp. I then came back in and edged it out with some 1mm striping to the edges around the diamond plating. This give the platform a much more solid and rugged look to it. A fitting appearance when you realize these things are meant to mount heavy weapon systems.

In order to allow me to swap weapons on it I put a magnet on the base. You can just see it in that first image. As long as I put a matching Magnet in the weapon itself, I can just swap the weapons. God I love magnets some days. For instance I used an extra Ectoplasma cannon, added some styrene mounting to it and then placed a magnet in it.

I had to shave down the sides of the cannon and remove some details. Like there's no space to accommodate the tubing that run along the sides of the cannon. I built a quad heavy bolter by taking 2 pairs of the Dark Angles Twin-linked heavy bolters and affixing them atop of one another.

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Something gribbly...

I've made no secret of my disdain for the HelDrake model, here after to be referred to as the 'Helturkey'. It's always struck as being 2 half thoughts that were mashed together into one model, and with neither idea flushed out leaving us with this... half formed, incoherent... thing with wings and a mouth. It's kind of a dragon... sort of, but it's a fighter... 'cept it's not. Yeah, I just can't stand it. So I've been very keen any time I heard "HelDrake conversion".

I found one super great example of a HelDrake conversion that was just a home run for me. It was such a well thought out conversion that is perfectly executed to the model. It was done by a member of the DakkaDakka community who goes by the screen name of GuitaRasmus. He doesn't open many threads, rather continually updating one thread with whatever he's working on. He's got some really amazing conversions, but his Nurgle fly buzzer thing, that he built before the release of the HelTurkey mind you, is what caught my eye.

Built from a conversion based around the Warhammer fantasy battles Arachnarok Goblin monster, it's a flipping daemonic mecha-fly of chaos! It looks utterly creepy and disgusting! Both big pluses. As soon as I saw this I was like "I WANT ONE!!!!" So I've started work on my own Mecha-Fly.

Here you can see the slightly converted Arachnarok model. The body and head are all standard built from the kit. The legs I had to shave down the locking stubs in order to reposition them. But honestly, that's the extent of the conversion at this stage. I am debating about getting a second set of mandibles and affixing them to the lower section of the mouth area, just to give it a sort of Prederish look and to help carry the 'Warp Spawnedness' of the monster.

The rotors were an interesting challenge. I wanted to get the same circular fan blade sort of look that GuitaRasmus did on his model. Thankfully GuitaRasmus did provide a partial explanation of how he went about making his. So I was able to use that information and then extrapolate out from there. I started with cutting a circle of styrene that was slightly less then 1 1/2" across. I then cut out a second one. I then measured out 6 points around the perimeter of the circle at equal-distant points. I used the second circle to mark out curved lines from the center the circle to each of the points. I then repeated the process with the second circle using the first as a guide. I then cut out each of the 12 blades. I glued 2 panels together to form each individual blade. Once I had the blades made I was able to affix them to a length of styrene rod.

For the rotor housing, I used 1 1/2" PVC tubing. I just cut off the junction pieces and used those as the actual housing. I mounted a section of styrene plate to the side of each of these. I had to use a rasp to gouge up the space on the pvc to give the super glue something to adhere to, so once I had the space prepared just a couple drops of super glue was all it took to hold the plate in place. From there I used a pin vice to drill out 2 holes and essentially pin using 2 lengths of styrene rod. This was all in preparation for mounting these rotor assemblies on cut down defiler arms.

Here is an image of the model with the rotor housing mounted on the defiler arms, which are in turn mounted on the body of the Arachnarok. In order to secure the arms to the body I had to go a couple levels of crazy with pinning. I used a series of 8 pins in each joint and then used plasti-weld cement to fuse the plastic of the Arachnarok body to the base of the armatures from the defiler. And even then, I used a drop of super glue to help

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Chaos forces - Dark Adeptus Combat Constructs

I've been shifting some focuses in the past couple months, in terms of 40k projects and have been working on my Chaos Space Marine forces recently. One of the central concepts in my view for my Chaos Forces is that it's not a single unified army that answers to a single leader. Rather it's a loose conglomeration of different groups that for today, have agreed to work with one another for whatever reason. This gives me lots of conversion possibilities and separate modeling options by having different squad from different legions and war bands. I can have a squad of Night Lords along side a unit of World Eater Berzerkers advancing under fire support of Dark Mechanicus Servitor Slaves under the command of a Renegade Nova Marine turns Chaos Lord.

So, this particular entry is a Count-as Obliterators unit. The idea is that they are Combat Constructs, heavy combat machines akin to baby dreadnoughts. The Dark Mechanicus are given prisoners, which it then cuts their brains apart, wire them into a Servo-matrix that consults the brain for creativity and then applies what the program decides is good to the battle field. This gives the constructs greater adaptability in the field then a pure machine spirit controlled unit. The end result are large, heavily armored constructs plodding across the battle field bringing an assortment of heavy cannons and dark energy weapons to bear against their designated targets.

The models are based on Centurion models with a few minor modifications. I got the core idea from a conversion done by Dave Taylor as an addition to his Adeptus Mechanicus forces. I could have sworn he was also where I got the idea the idea for the domed heads but after breezing back through his blog I couldn't find it. Anyway, I had the idea to instead of using heads to put domed helmets on them to help carry the idea of face machines. I accomplished this by taking space marine shoulder pads, cutting off the bottom rim and then shaving down the sides just a bit to allow it to fit in the space on top of the Centurion bodies.

In order to remove the more Imperial looking designation from the shoulder pads I had to use a combination of an exacto blade and sanding sticks. I used my exacto blade to cut a hard line along the edge of the rimming on the shoulder pad. I then came in and very carefully carved away the imperial insignia and details from the shoulders using the cut line as a sort of break point so I would be less likely to accidentally cut through the rim edging. Once I had the majority of the insignia cut off I cam back with sanding sticks and smoothed out the remains. I did a similar removal of the insignias on the chest plates as well.

The rest of the conversions were largely on an individual model basis and largely based around mounting different weapons on the arms.

To carry the "old style tech" sort of look I raided my supply for Pre-heresy Forge world heavy weapons. Here I had to cut off the back shoulder padding and brace and then mounted the Multi-melta to the under side of the right arm. I was able to flex the cables from the Centurion kit enough to meet up with the side pressure chambers of the Multimelta. I still need to come back and use a little green stuff to join up the connection itself.

For the second Obliterator I used the plasma cannon and again had to cut off the back of he shoulder mount. I used the tentacle maker from Green Stuff Industries to make a pair of cables. I cut small segments of styrnene tubing and affixed the green stuff cables to those slices and then glued the slices to the back of the Centurion body and the Plasma cannon body respectively.

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The Perfect Space Wolf insult

This is an idea I originally came up a couple years ago for a counts as Thousand Sons unit. The idea is pretty straight forward: Enemy marines that have been captured have been handed over to the Dark Mechanicum and converted into combat servitors. Then in agreement with their Chaos Marine allies, they lead units of these lobotomized marines into combat. The AP 3 bolters is explained by saying they are using Vengence rounds in the bolters while the 5+ invulnerable is explainable by saying they use some sort of force field when in combat.

I sold the original servitor-wolves a while back when I sold my last Chaos army. But I'm starting another one and the whole servitorized captured space wolves that count as thousand sons.... god I just love that irony, I'm putting models of the space wolves on the table that count as thousand sons all it really needs is for them to be lead by a Dark Angels Librarian (hmmm....).... anyway. Sorry ADHD kicking in there. I really love this idea so I'm revisiting it. Last time I got hung up on the counts as aspiring sorcerer model. Well I think I've got it hammered out:

The Adept of the Dark Mechanicum counts at an aspiring Sorcerer.

The mecha-axe is way bigger then I originally thought it would be, but after building the model and looking at it I've found I like it more like this. Gives this look of an over-burdened menial level worker. Like he pissed off his magos so he got assigned to lead the combat servitors into battle in agreement with whatever Chaos lord we're serving this week.

"But master, I am no warrior. I have no weapons." he pleads.

"Error! Condition: No weapons. Rectified." The Dark Magos tones in his digital logic influenced speak as he shoves the Atomic Glave at the menial.

"But... my lord... I can not wield such a weapon." The menial whines.

"Statement: Unable to wield weapon. Condition: True. Subject: Verehnass Omicron Psi 91168. Conclusion: Learn. Communication status: Terminated!" The Dark Magos replies coldly.

Anyway, the model itself is based on the Cairn Wraith model, though it's been rather extensively modified. The only parts from the model I actually used were the cloak and skull face. Everything else was added. I stuck a big wad of Green stuff into the empty cavity to give me a body to work with. Then I took a pair of mechanical legs from Anvil Industries Bionic Legs set and cut the legs from the groin and use wire to mount the legs into the green stuff. I had to cut and chop down the length of the cloak on the model to allow it to accommodate the fact that it's not going to be floating any more. Once the legs where mounted I went to work on the mecha-dendrites. I used a set of Servo Skulls from Forge World  and added the small tools to the end of the tubing I got from Dragon Forge Design. Bending the tubing proved to be a new exercise for me. I used a series of pen bodies, and tool handles of various sizes to provide a form to bend the cables around that way it would 'coil' as opposed to bend. For the left hand... er.... thing, I decided to go with something a bit different and took a small section of medium sized tubing, drilled out a hole in the center of the tubing and glued in a set of three segments of small wire. My intent was to make it look like the adepts hand disassembled and this data connection/micro manipulator/whatever extended out of his wrist. Not sure I succeeded or not.

The weapon was a whole different ball game. I got the axe it self from Max Mini's Steam Punk weapons line, cut down the length of the shaft to better accommodate the size of the model and went to work on the head (jesus that sounds like a lead in for a bad porno). The Emitter Matrix is made from a cut down section of a Necron sniper rifle and then attached to the back of the axe head.

Wow, I just listed off parts that I got from 5 separate companies. I gotta say that kinda surprises me. Anyway, I'm gonna try and base it later today.

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Jain Zar!

So I ran across a partial conversion a while back where the converter had used the Lylith model as a base for an Eldar styled gladiator of some form. Looking at it I was struck by the fact that Lylith would make a great base for Jain Zar model. I was somewhat shocked to learn that the Jain Zar model hadn't been switched over to FineCast, yes it is still metal! Still, that worked out to my advantage somewhat:

Jain Zar! The Phoinex Lord of the Banshee!

So the first thing I did to create this conversion was I used instant mold to create a cast of the face and head of the Jain Zar. I didn't need a total cast, just of the mask and from of the hair. The rest I felt confident in being able to sculpt to match up with the details of the model.

While I waited for the instant mold to cool I worked on shaving down the spikes and more angular armor pads on the model to remove much of the Dark Eldar feel from the model. I then used a portion of green stuff to both cast up a green stuff copy of the face and fill in the sections on the segmented pads. This again helped to move the model away from its Dark Eldar origin and closer to the Eldar Phoinex lord I was aiming for.

With the mask casting cured I removed it from the mold and worked to cut away the extra material in the hair and neck of the cast. I just needed the mask itself. I used my dremal to shave down the face of the Lylith model and to carve out a section in the mask casting. Once I felt the mask would sit properly on the model I used some super glue to attach it.

From there it was a matter of re-sculpting to hair to go from the Mask to the hair plum for Lylith.

Here you can see how the mask joined with the head itself.

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The Death Watch assemble

So I've got the infantry members of the Death Watch like 95% complete. I can do more work on the paint jobs, highlighting and picking out details, but as far as table top worthy go they are such.

The first Death Watch Squad

The Second Death Watch Squad

The Death Watch Captain

I tried to build each marine to be diverse and different but still part of a unit. That's the big appeal of the Death Watch RPG game. You might have a Dark Angels Marine playing alongside a Space Wolves Marine along side an Iron Hands Iron Father being commanded by an Ultramarine. But they are still a unit. So there are lots of little conversions like the addition of a strap to some bolters, or the use of pieces to give some marines the Marksmans honour. I did something with the paints to mark out each squad. Can you see what it is?

I have decided to expand the force by adding a Dreadnought and probably 2 rhinos. The Dreadnought I've been working on by dipping through my bitz boxes. It sometimes shocks me when I manage to find nearly complete kits in there.

The Dreadnought thus far.

I've followed a similar approach to building the dreadnought with what I did for the infantry, subtle conversions to change the model but not re-design it to be something else. In this case I wanted to give the dread some dynamism and reposed the legs to better adjust to the terrain of the base. It's a bit difficult to see from the front the conversion work on the legs, so here's a different angle of the model:

A side on view of the dread on the base

The base by the way is from Dragon Forge Design's Ancient Ruins series. If you're looking for super high quality bases with fantastic detail I would recommend you check out his sight. I have never been disappointed by his bases.

The Dreadnought is going to be the Dreadnought version of Brother Quintus. Yeah, remember him from way back when? So in order to carry the story of Brother Quintus forward I'm going to arm the Dreadnought with a heavy bolter and explain it as being master crafted so I can play it as being twin-linked. If my opponent raises an issue with Dreads not being able to take Heavy bolters out of the current regular codexes, fine. I'll let it count as an assault cannon.

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Death Watch detachment

And construction of the Kill Team Detachment has been completed (You know baring the possibility that I want to build a Death Watch Dreadnought just because I can, or I have that Land Speeder I could build. And a Storm. A little speedy transport wouldn't be unwelcome for a Death Watch team).

Anyway. 20 Death Watch marines with a watch captain:

 Placed in command of the detachment is a Death Watch Captain:

 Each Squad is lead by a Sergent. In this case, both Sergents are from the Ultramarines Chapter.

 Covering the heavy fire part of the detachment is a Quartet of heavy bolter armed marines:

4 Heavy Bolter armed marines provide the heavy support the rest of the detachment needs.

As with all Death Watch Kill teams, the detachment is comprised of Marines from various chapters. Here we see the 4 Fists (2 Imperial Fists, 2 Crimson fists).

2 Imperial fists along side 2 Crimson Fist marins

 2 Blood Angel marines:

2 Blood Angels serving in the Death Watch

 The members of the Death Watch detachment who come from the Aurora chapter

Aurora Marines serving in the Death Watch

The Ultramarines have 3 Brothers serving this detachment:

a trio of Ultramarines serving in the Death Watch

 While the Dark Angels have likewise provided capable team members

Dark Angel Death Watch members

The children of the death world Fenris, always eager for a fight, have provided members to the detachment:

2 Space Wolves in the Death Watch team

Honor bound to destroy those that would endanger the Imperium of Man, the Black Templars have a presence in the Death Watch.

With the cold methodical logic that makes them so dangerous, the Iron Hands provide fire support for their Death Watch Brothers:

I use very simple conversions through out the entire detachment to keep it as uniform as a Death Watch can reasonably be. Mainly part swaps. the Iron Hand marines are good examples of this as I use the torsos and one set of bionic legs from the Iron Hands upgrade kit for the pair of them.

There were only a hand full of 'free form' conversions through out the entire detachment, and by free form I mean I didn't simply decide to use a different part to accomplish the effect.


This Sergent is the first example. I use a pin in the left Wrist to angle the sword outward to signify him declaring a charge.

I angled the wrist to tilt the chainsword forward, as he signals a charge.

Another example is basically every one of the Heavy Bolter armed marines.

The right shoulder of the Heavy Bolter set up has the ammo belt coming right across the edge of the shoulder pad meaning the shoulder pad is actually one piece with the ammo feed and a couple cables. So I couldn't pop on the shoulder pad of the respective chapter. I had to literally cut away the old shoulder (minus the shoulder for the Black Shield mind you. He can just be a flat shoulder pad). I then had to use should segments from other arms (I used the shoulders from the tactical marines for reason I will explain in a bit) to replace the upper arm and then added the shoulder pad to that effectively rebuilding the bit with the chapter iconography.

Through out the entire detachment I wanted to keep the various little accoutrements and symbols that so characterize space marines. These include:

The Servo Skull on this Heavy Bolter Marine

 The bolter strap on this Iron Hands Marines
 

The tooth on the grip of the bolter of the marine on the right

The Templar on the left as been awarded a Marksmanship honor

The Marksmanship honor hanging from the barrel of the bolter on the left.

So, I mentioned I used the shoulders from the Tactical marines arms for replacing the shoulders of the heavy bolters and I alluded that there was a reason for this choice. Here's why:

In the new tactical kit, the hands are built into the bolters while the arms are separate pieces. You attach the hand and arm at the wrist. Nice option for conversions, but in this particular case it created a little bit of a head ache as it means I had to cut out the hands from the bolters, and then attach them to the Death Watch Bolters. 15 times... It gets a bit boring after a while. Anyway, This now means I have 15 arms, that I don't have hands to go with. So I further canalized 4 of the arms to rebuild the shoulders of the Heavy Bolters.

And there we have a 21 man Death Watch Detachment complete and ready for paint.


... you know, I do have all those extra Dreadnought pieces. I might just do a Death Watch Dread.

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