These just keep getting better! Sheeeeesh

This is awesome thanks for sharing! Man I miss drop guard.

Damn, he's one tough and grizzled looking colonel. Every time I look at him I notice some other little detail.

Thanks for the recipe on the blue. I may have to give it a whirl on a titan casualty

The tau looks excellent, love the Colonel's bolter, he looks like he means bidness.

Many thaks folks!

So Easter is here and I've managed to avoid eating any chocolate eggs whatsoever... Ah life without kids... its great you know...

I got a start on four of the Filey droptroopers too.
Alas, I've had to stop, as running out of Steel-legion-drab has thrown a spanner in the works for now.
I got a lot of them done but I'd previously (and foolishly) bought some paint on ebay.
turns out it was steel-legion-drab Equivilant. SIGH...
t'was in a strange bottle but I simply decanted it into the dregs of the S-L-D I had left...
Its a 100% colour match for sure but the opacity is pathetic, so, no coverage over black.
I could do several coats for sure but I'm in no mood for that and you just know that it'll end up obscuring too much of the crisp resin detail if I do. SO let that be a lesson to you all to rember its not just colour, but coverage to consider...
I can still use it for my highlight stages of the wood/leather for sure, in fact its probably better for this in truth but just no good for the fatigues themselves...

So yeah, nothing painted today...
However I did make some changes to Riley I thought I'd share though...

Decided I didn't like the helmeted head and I felt the GL needed work.
You know me, right? got to have something special or different about everything I build...
This time I decided to reference the old 2nd Ed style grenade launcher design.
you know, this 'un:

used by valhallan, tallarn, mordian, pretorian and even that one catachan girl that had one, the arbites of the time also had a version as did the cawdor,redemtionist and goliath gangers of necromunda.
Ironically the cadians never had one till the 2003 plastics... odd that.

still, I digress...
To do this I used some aluminium tube (and a bit of gs to fudge the joins) and replaced the original barrel with this, leaving the ammo drum as-is as its very integral to these arms on this mini and I felt it unnecessary anyhow...
A bit bulky yes but it matches the old ones some and should look pretty good when all done...

Colonel Sumner looks great, that bolter definitely looks like an issue weapon now.
New guy is looking cool, the GL modification helps take away from the almost stock look to the model...

Yeah, that was the problem... too Standard issue and not cool enough! LOL

anyway...

coming soon...

What year is it?

Yup, new project, Rogue Trader themed Crimson fists for 30/40k


Inspired by the original art for RTB01 and the excellent work buy Curis/Ninjabread. (see here https://www.ninjabread.co.uk/)
This conversion was a simple matter of swapping the head out for one of the ravenwing beakies as they look so damn RTB01 boxart it would have been a crime not to on this model.
I raised it with a bit of GS at the neck and the proportions now look spot-on.
As aforementioned, the paintjob is inspired by ninjabread's blue-grey scheme he's done on his actual RT era marines. I have a memory of the gw studio army looking that way too but that might just be the effect of nostalgic fog colouring my memory to all but his marines...
I know not how he did his, but mine is simple as can be:

Basecoat The fang.
recess wash nuln oil.
Cleanup with The fang again.
Initial highlight/weather with Russ grey
Secondary highlight/weather with fenrisan grey
dot highlight with white ink.

the red for the fist is just as simple:

basecoat Gal vorback red
initial highlight/weather with khorne red
secondary highlight/weather with MeFISTon red
then dot with an orange (pick one, I had to mix one up!)

did the orange eyes suggested at by the old RT era swatches of marine colourschemes and as also used by curis.
I was tempted at one point to simply do them black with gloss like on the RTB01 boxart but decided against it as I'd done this already on my spacesharks and with the detailed almost cartoonesque vibe I was going for the proper eye-lens' seemed appropriate. these are a simple transition from red to orange to yellow and a dot of white in the red bit.
The freehand classic fist icon was a must.
t'was all we had back in '87 as it was a little while before the transfers came to 40k. plus, this way I got the lovely yellow background I wanted and it's just better to paint it on anyway. I used the foundation paint (inyanden yellow? I dunno) I'd previously used on the tau conversion for this but any will do I suppose
Now, I know these icons don't feature on the shoulders in the box-art either but I felt it needed on this one to make it clear his loyalties and I fancied the challenge. I weathered the hell out of it too, as well as the rest of the armour. Using my classic edge-scratches, I always do on armour, but also the HH studio army stipples too, as its a nice finish I fancied replicating. These three "blues" I chose made the highlight transition easiest yet on any armour I've ever painted. They really are perfectly formulated to work together.
I added the 'kill markings' to reference the old minis that had these on that you always saw back in the old WD mags of the time, just as Curis has done...

The base was done in ad-mech grey sloshed on with steel legion drab whilst still wet. Then washed with agrax earthshade and then drybrushed zandri dust and then ushabti bone
This was all with the intention of matching that boxart some. not easy in truth as its a bit vague but its a nice counterpart to the desaturated blue and is a pleasant change from my dingy old brown trench-mud.
rt-era crimson fists always make me think of dusty enviroments anyway...

more to come?

youbetcha!

What a sight for sore eye!

Can't go wrong with the OG Crimson Fists. If you will be doing more of these, please consider making at least one with an edgy text written on the armour a la Kevin O Neill comics

Ooh, liking the Crimson Fist paint scheme.

Wow what a cool idea for an army. First mini looks fantastic, looking forward to seeing more.

The beakie looks really excellent, beautiful send up of the most classic of marines. I'm surprised by how simple the paint recipe is but maybe that's part of why he's got such a great tone going on.

Many thanks indeed fellas, yes I can confirm there wil be more and yes, 'edgy' graffitto with spelling that'd make an ork blush will also be included! some classics from the period and some personal favourite puns and quotes will make an appearance, methinks!
as will some stuff very specificly inspired from the rtb01 art and earlier metal marines of the time period.

Talking of which, here's the latest one at the WIP stage:

greenstuff and a savage pillage of kits gets results...

this project will not take itself too seriously and, as such, will have some humor amongst the conversion and painting. as you will all find out soon enough...

Stunning work as always OSJC! Not to mention inspiring! I might have to nick the paint scheme if/when I get my hands on mk6 models... That freehand icon came out brilliantly.

thanks man!

Got a second painting sitting on those four droptroops in today, so thats just four more troopers to do and and then four of the drop-grenadiers to do and thats the Filey 42nd done.

nothing special by any means but items worth of note are the mix of carbine and full-length rifles, the bino's and the tiny knife on the grenade thrower's chest from a catachan arm...

I've also still got six of the 151st infantrymen to do too though so there's still plenty of guard to share the thread with the new crimson fist's project...

Talking of which I've got more wips to show on the marine front too:

used a mk4 marine missilelauncher on one for that RT look.
Is a nice rebuild of the rt era gun and has a lot of nice design features that fit with the new stuff very well, too; the size/shape of the missiles, the vents ports and symbols all look contemporary but the overarching theme of RT is retained.
was a bit of a cowson to get the pose witht he backpack as the mk4 one uses the oddity with the cut-off backpack vane, but thats why I had it held it low, also looks like hes posing up a storm and thats always fun too...
The other guy uses a chaos belt fed bolter pose and tor garradon's head to evoke some of that box art some more. The one handed gun pose was all the thing back in rogue trader days and belt-fed weapons are so 80's action hero
was quite the job to splice a mk6 bolter to the chaos one to make it umbra pattern... you cant see it here but you'll see more once hes painted and I get more angles. he also has his lid on his waist.
But most of all, that flat-top? man could you be more 80's?

Awesome work on the drop troopers and I love the poses of your Crimson Fists, the lad with the ammo belt looks bad ass.

thanks bud!

So, last week I decided to get my head out of my ass and finally go through a bunch of my metal-minis-to-strip box.
within was this gem (and more than a few of his brethren too which will likely feature soon).

Shotgun scout.
Anyone who knows me or follows my work will tell you I have an unhealthy passion for third edition Space marine scouts that borders on the obsessive.
Ok scratch that, Its looking at the obsessive border in the rear-view mirror. I just love 'em! This one in particular. This and the other scouts, In my opinion, the very best work that Jes Goodwin ever put to Greenstuff...
Its the model that got me from casually buying/trading old minis here and there from buddies and actually going into a GW store and buying a blister pack of them.
I first saw it when I bought my first WD mag 227 back in november 1997 and I was instantly smitten!
Dispite its obvious casting error on the chest eagle (which in hindsight I suppose I could have fixed but chose not to as I wanted it classic, all casts of this mini had it anyway.), I love it nonetheless and have painted this mini in some form at least nine times over the years. often as doomguy! LOL


The RT inspired CF scheme translated over to a 90's mini quite well. I decided on the same three tones of brown leather I always use on my guardsmen for extra realism against the cartoonesque blue armour and went for a cool grey for the fatigues to keep them rather neutral.
I did the banolier in olive green for the same reasons.
As he had no helmet I did the lens on his shotgun (light? scope? camera? you tell me) in the orange gem.
The shotgun, I went for the studio-army black with metal bits as i feel that scouts look good this way. Sorta standard issue gear for the new-kids.
I nearly went blind trying to paint the tiny chapter badge and added a RT inspired 'KIL', because Rogue Trader... thats why...


And here he is alongside his full battle-brother. This is a great way to show off his smaller stature/the beakie's larger sature (the raised neck joint helps there). Also, It shows how the scout's armour have a LOT more in common with beakies than they do with mk7 marines. I mean, Chest eagle aside, the smooth pads, the pipework (around the neck/rebreather not the chest, but still its there isnt it?) and the ribs onthe back matching the ribs on a mk6 backpack? its perfect really.
Now, I know he's not the same era as the RT beakies, being introduced in 97's 3rd edition, but have you seen the older scouts, sheesh...

Aww yeah! I've got that model as well. Hadn't even realized that with the MKVI rescaled, the old metal scouts actually look great scale-wise! Time to scour ebay for more metal scouts methinks.. Regarding the first SM scout models, I can understand why you'd not want to use em LOL, IMO they always looked more like Necormunda gangers than anyone having anything to do with Astartes..

Thanks Man, nice to hear that I'm not alone in that sentiment.

I think that next, I'll d. .ome.. ore mari..s an. then get on with ..me mor.

++++OSJC signal interrupted!++++

++++ ...processing.... processing... please wait... ++++

++++... Incoming ... faint Astropathic message from Rynns World... ++++

++++Text reads; "He is coming..." ++++
++++...end transmission... ++++

Hmm, not sure what happened there, lost comms there for a bit but rest assured that the OSJC is back in control for now...

anyway, Next one done.

You wanted edgy graffiti, you got it
The delightfully misspelt kill in the 'kil 'em all' is a clear reference to the old RT days stuff but the CND badge on the opposing pad was intended as a deliberate absurd irony in counterpart, a joke shamelessly nicked from full-metal-jacket, as I'm sure you all remember. If not go watch it. You should anyway, its a great film...
Actually now I think of it, it also works as, of any of the astartes chapters, the Crimson Fists should definately be one for nuclear dissarmament, having accidently nuked their own fortress-monastary and all that...

More RT box-art references include the round bulge on the pad, the earphone-like ear sections on the helmet, the oldskool looking bolter (made from a tigrus pattern with an umbra bloter's magazine on the foregrip position and the pistol grip moved forward) and the bandaged hand, made from a corpse-cart hand and some greenstuff bandages.
I used the corpse-cart hand as it has thin splayed open fingers which both made it easy to apply the bandages and also made it a better match the the artwork as much as possible:

Awesome! The scout looks really good and I love the graffiti! The red olive branch is such a good choice. Love it

Heads keep on nodding over here. Great stuff!

Just for the sake of adding at least a bit critique, accessories such as nades, extra clips etc, seemed weirdly absent this time..? I've just come to expect them on a OSJC build is all I guess

 Olthannon wrote:
Awesome! The scout looks really good and I love the graffiti! The red olive branch is such a good choice. Love it

Thanks but, What in hell's atrium is a red olive branch when it's at home?

 tauist wrote:
Heads keep on nodding over here. Great stuff!

Just for the sake of adding at least a bit critique, accessories such as nades, extra clips etc, seemed weirdly absent this time..? I've just come to expect them on a OSJC build is all I guess

Ah, yes this has been noticed at last... I Can honestly say It's an intentional absence due to the distinct lack of pockets etc... In the original box art. However after these initial box art inspired firstborn are done and the project evolves, I can't rule out primaris intervention, leading to tacticool levels of kit hoarding and pocket bestowing upon the resultant minis there onwards... But we'll just have to wait and see...

 osjclatchford wrote:

 Olthannon wrote:
Awesome! The scout looks really good and I love the graffiti! The red olive branch is such a good choice. Love it

Thanks but, What in hell's atrium is a red olive branch when it's at home?

I meant the CND badge on the left pauldron.

I always thought it was meant to look a bit like an olive branch and when I looked it up it's because it's Semaphore. Every day is a school day!

I really love OG marine graffiti, got that wonderful Space Nam flavor. Two more great entries, scout is a classic sculpt and appreciate the marine's wounded-yet-still-crimson fist

Gloriously old school. I love it so dang much - utterly embodies the old rule book cover! The badge on the shoulder pad - us tgat part of the current kit it did you graft the plastic on from something else?

Brilliant painting dude!

many thanks folks, the appreciation for the comments and support is great indeed, let me assure you! Drives me to do better...

 Boss Salvage wrote:
...appreciate the marine's wounded-yet-still-crimson fist

yup, worked out well in the end. in fact if you look closely you can see the rim of the actual red gauntlet still in place (its a different colour red to the bloodsoaked bandage.

 Ragsta wrote:
...is that part of the current kit it did you graft the plastic on from something else?...

the CND badge? just a section of sprue cut from the upright on the mk6 marine sprue (you know the bits that point upwards) all I did was slice off a sliver and plasti-glue it on as the badge, then paint it neon pink for 80's flair...
If you meant the big bulge on the 'smooth' pad, thats GS and paint-lies to make it look like there's a reccess around it when it is in fact just slapped on the surface...

 osjclatchford wrote:
many thanks folks, the appreciation for the comments and support is great indeed, let me assure you! Drives me to do better...

 Ragsta wrote:
...is that part of the current kit it did you graft the plastic on from something else?...

the CND badge? just a section of sprue cut from the upright on the mk6 marine sprue (you know the bits that point upwards) all I did was slice off a sliver and plasti-glue it on as the badge, then paint it neon pink for 80's flair...
If you meant the big bulge on the 'smooth' pad, thats GS and paint-lies to make it look like there's a reccess around it when it is in fact just slapped on the surface...

I love that CND slice! Thank you for confirming. I may have quite a lot of these in my shed after a disgustingly well priced score. Maybe some decade soon I might harness your idea...

Next guy done:

totally ready to Kick ass and chew bubblegum...

Now you can see all the work that went into slicing the chaos bolter in half along its length and grafting the umbra one on from the mk6 sprue.
Its +/- seamless so I'm happy, I did the foregrip wood as it was sculpted that way but, in truth, its a nice additional colour and texture so why not?.
The Tor Garradon head was a blast to paint, so much character, you just know this guy is definately going to win next years 'galaxy's grimmest chin' competition.
Decided to do the chaos glove/gauntlets as full-red (both, so hes a super-duper veteran and all that) as it matches the artwork really nicely too, the onehanded pose helps with that too...

Absolutely spot on mate! That chin could have saved the Titanic. It's funny how much a simple thing like the wooden foregrip makes it scream retro 80s.

Are you going to recreate the marine waving the Ork head about?

Great attention to detail with this one!

Wow, He looks awesome. Pose, Conversion and Paintjob. Already said I loved that blue and this is no exception. Love the spent casings on the base. They're really nicely detailed and add a sense of "this is MY spot".

Brilliant! So much awesomeness in one model. I was wondering what you were going to do to the Chaos arms, but you've pulled it off!

 tauist wrote:
Great attention to detail with this one!

thanks!

 Lord Borak wrote:
Wow, He looks awesome. Pose, Conversion and Paintjob. Already said I loved that blue and this is no exception. Love the spent casings on the base. They're really nicely detailed and add a sense of "this is MY spot".

cheers, this blue is a little less saturated than the cap mini as it comes from a basecoat of the fang instead of Macragge blue
the casings? thats anvil again... https://www.anvilindustry.co.uk/Empty-Ammo-Casings

 mcmattila wrote:
Brilliant! So much awesomeness in one model. I was wondering what you were going to do to the Chaos arms, but you've pulled it off!

 Olthannon wrote:
Absolutely spot on mate! That chin could have saved the Titanic. It's funny how much a simple thing like the wooden foregrip makes it scream retro 80s.

Are you going to recreate the marine waving the Ork head about?

hmm... https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/300/798025.page#11525585

So I upped and did a full squad of scouts to go with the shotgun one I did earlier.


Hudson


Frost


Drake


Sgt apone

well what a trip down memory lane this was.
As aforementioned, these scouts are among the first minis I ever purchased from GW and TBH, with the right paintjob, barely show their age.
Ok, there are a few idosyncracies in the designs that show the limitations of the metal casting process (I mentioned these before when doing my Steel legionaire conversion, see here - https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/798025.page#11179777 -) but on this occasion I think they've been done in a way that compliments the pocket-laden tacticool design the scouts favour. Ultimately requiring very little black-lining to hide soft-joins and a good variety of surfaces for shades to do their stuff on.
The sgt's pose is a little 2nd/3rd-ed single-pose mould-limitation looking but I chose this mini as I wanted the squad to look classic so, in turn, wanted the ubiquitous sgt's pistol/chainsword combo but this mini is a much better pose than the original 'aaarrrgh!' with sword overhead that the original sgt had.
not very covert that, eh?
but then a chainsword isn't anyway is it?
Noteable details are the variety of skintones, because I like that in a squad and the yellow pins on the nades which add colour and keep them more 80's comic-book and less of the ultra-militaristic look that my guard tend to sport these days...

...and here's the whole squad alongside Neophyte Hicks from before...












yes, I named them after some of the guys in Jim Cameron's 'Aliens' because the scouts have always reminded me of colonial marines somewhat...

They look lovely. I agree those sculpts were great, it's a pity how have they been treated gamewise in the last years.

Love those old Miniatures (I have loads of them myself!) and you have done a splendid job on them.

I do think the old models, 2nd ED era, have a lot more character in them that the modern day models. Especially those scouts and the Metal guardsmen. Although there are somethings best left forgotten from those times as well (Nagash, I'm looking at you).

 muette wrote:
They look lovely. I agree those sculpts were great, it's a pity how have they been treated gamewise in the last years.

Scouts still see some play in KT21. They are quite decent for a Compendium team AFAIK

SM Scouts certainly have that Colonial Marines thing going on, so the names make sense. You could use the new Arbites stubber on one model to make the appearance even more alike

thanks a lot guys.
do apprecite the kindness.

now from some great old sculpts to a damned fine new one.
A little side project reached fruition today:

Gideon Sumption reborn...

you may remember the previous incarnation of this mini (from my royston rifles thread) was based around the gideon lorr mini.
This time I looked to cursed city's Jelsen Darrock (or whatever his name is)
First thing to do was 40k this bad-boy.
A quick chop and the rifle became a lasgun with the simple addition of the muzzle and mag from a dkok trooper's lasgun.
the hammer was swapped out for a suitably sized 40k alternative (the gsc range) that featured power-coils and what have you...
next up was the absurd gandalf hat. A quick snip with the clippers and shave off that chaotic looking arrow with a stanley knife and graft on a tiny skull in its place (I honestly cant remember where this came off of but any this size would do I suppose.) In a similar fasion, the sideways-skull buckle/stud on his belt was shaved off of a third edition bolter.
Finally the obvious addition of an astartes-sprue purity seal to seal the deal (pun intended! )

As you can see, I went for a selection of excessively weathered leathers for the overall colourscheme, accented with equally weathered bronze, steel and brass, a few red details hith and yon and a bit of olive green for the riflestrap/pocket to further cement the intended 40k setting.
I know that the vampire stakes kinda shatter this illusion, as thats not really a thing in 40k, but I figured he looks like gabriel van-helsing in 40k so thats good enough for me!

By the way he's huge. I mean one huge MF, man. he's taller than a gravis armoured marine and thats just damned stupid but you've heard me rant about gw's scale issues before so I shant start with all that mishigos again.


I nearly lost the faith in this early on as I was painting those yellow leather gloves though.

you know, cos it looks like he's burnng witches and washing dishes...




Yup I've lost it haven't I..?

Nowt wrong with a bit of housework


The conversion's subtle but cool. I've tried lifting those skulls of Bolters before and that's some damn fiddly work. You must have childlike sized fingers. The painting is your usual sickeningly top notch standard.

Bigger than a gravis marine?

Must be an Alpha legionaire then

Awesome work on the scouts and the AoS guy. Really clever bit of work to 40k him up a notch. He looks extremely bad ass.

Many many thanks folks.

well, alas nothing painted to show this week.
bit of a busy weekend , however that being said, my (aparrently tiny and childlike ) fingers have been hard at work on more astartes for the rtb01 CF project


Yes, I know I've +/- done this conversion before for the space-sharks but I fancied another go at it on these guys before the current Sternguard kit is gone forever.

the HB and backpack is from the sternguard kit. first thing to go was the absurd cross on the front of the HB. this was replaced by a simple skull (taken from a centurion purity seal)
Head is from the ravenwing sprue (allbeit with an extended neck to improve the posture some degree).
The pads are the HH mk6 sprue ones.
The body is an amalgamation of some intercessor legs (with shaved knee/shinguards to emulate mk6) joined to a torso from a phobos armoured marine. (not that it matters which, but, reiver I believe)

Like many, I used to get all bent out of shape about the size of marines, truescale, firstborn primaris , 40k, 30k all that jazz and, you know what? who even bloody cares anyway? marines are marines! end of...
This project is inspired from a time when none of this crap existed and its been real cathartic to return to this sensibilty with my modelling.
As long as he's still clearly a beakie, and an inscrutible bad-ass, I dont really care about the rest...

I feel it makes him look a big-assed marine that towers over regular humans, but looks the right proportions to lug that heavy-bolter around with ease. Yet still fit in with the other marines...

He also features a spare hb mag and a holstered boltpistol as a backup weapon. but thats out of sight onthe back.

The spent casings are, again, from anvil and are actually shotgun shells but will look fine once painted the right brass tone.
regular casings just looked too short and too thin. these look a good match for what's in the drums...

oh and why even do this mini at all?
well I got some inspiration for it recently:

(see what I mean about the shotgun shells as heavy bolter casings too?)

more soon, I promise...

Looking cool! Ammo shells on a base are never wrong. Never.

Couldn't even tell you what game that's from. I don't do these silly combobulator things.

That mini is fantastic, the shells on the base look great. I really need to play Boltgun.

I've not played it either, I watched Gmanlives and CV11's reviews and tbh, felt that it was an over-amped visual and audio assault on the senses that is clearly a modern shooter game in a poorly animated and rendered 'shell' in order to call it 'retro'.

real retro games use a limited engine and then make the visuals as good as you can using the limited resources. thus:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/562860/Ion_Fury/ (uses the build engine (duke3d, shadowwarrior, blood) but made fabulous with good level design and cage's sexy sprite/texture work)
boltgun is the opposite. they've all the resources and engine power in the world available but have tried to emulate the look of retro by doing crappy blocky graphics...
I dont get it.
and before any of you say it, I was there when doom was first released. I am an actual vintage gamer and still mod for doom today, see here:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/osjcs-doom-major-crisis
so I feel i know what I'm talking about on the subject.

however, my savage judgement aside, one thing that stuck out to me was the heavy bolter that looked and sounded very satisfying...

anyway, back to today:
Been a while...
Although I'm half-way through some filey droptroopers this weekend, I've not anything 100% done to show at present.
Mainly because I've been somewhat busy of late so minis time has been quite short.

however got more astartes built, including this one:


I wanted a cool pose that shows a way to hold one of the rt-style bolters in two hands.
These arms (converted from an infiltrator primaris guy) manage it in a way that looks both unfeasable and absurd, but then thats 80's space marines in a nutshell isn't it?

I will say now, that I also have three characters on the go too.
one very rt era inspired and two very crimson fist and RT inspired, all converted and fully built and awaiting paint as we speak but until now, I've been reluctant to share as I didn't want to spoil the surprise till they're painted.
However, as me getting anything painted is a chore at present, I wondered if its worth relenting on this and sharing them as they are for now.
so, that being said, if there is enough interest here to see them thus, I'll show them in WIP pre-paint shots first and paint them up whensoever I do get a chance.

so do let me know if you want to see them or wait till they're done...

oh, yeah, almost forgot.
As I do this crappy meme on here every year:

alas leviathan did not happen but then at £150 , why would it? LOL

Happy birthday!

no stress with the photos, you'll get to them when the time is right. Enjoy the summer, worse weather isn't far off and then you'll have plenty of time to spend indoors again..

thanks man, thats very true.

finally got round to finishing the Filey droptroops:


Bayonet trooper, featuring fullstock rifle.


Grenadelauncher specialist. Using the nucadian launcher, which, it turns out, fits in rather neatly with the DKoK arms
also has a gsc backpack to make him stand out more and also features the now oop oldcadian ammo-drum bag.
(yes, I forgot to paint the metal loop on the strap holding the dynamites on the backpack, But I've done it since taking the photo...)


running reloading trooper. the pose works but it still looks like he's scratching his arse to me... can't unsee that now


Sgt with bolter. featuring 30k bolter ammo pouch and DW bolter ammo on chest.


groupshot with the first of these guard I did for comparison.

Damn I got bloody sick of these. I did have another four stormtrooper filey minis to do but I've decided I'm done with Filey now so have broken them back down into bits in a fit of pique.
I could have saved them for later, but they're just boring and I've moved on since I started these.
Hell, I don't even know why I've even done them as a full infantry squad of ten anyway, I don't even game anymore so there's no need for it really.

my lacklustre energy has coloured the work on them (or my perception of them? I can't even tell anymore), I just couldn't be bothered and did these four as three sittings of around four hours of work. (not including drying times and coffee and lunch and that)
however the twelve hours of work has resulted in something thats a bit meh if I'm honest...

one thing's for sure, I will not be batch painting anything again. I had to keep changing the order I was painting them in because as I finished one stage at a time, by the fourth mini, I could see how slap dash I was getting after doing the same thing on the other three.
no more than two minis at a time for me I feel. its the only way I can keep up the quality and still maintain my interest

gah! it was just grind and I guess it might just be my mood of late but its not what the hobby is supposed to be is it?
supposed to be fun, enjoyable and a bit of an escape from the hum-drum and the tedious.
its not even the old; "bored of this because I want to do my newer models now", thing
no, not at all.
I feel just as meh about those too at the minute...

I've felt like this on occasion, changing my mind on my painting plans for a day and coming back to it later but not as bad as this. its been a month or more I've been like this now.
usually this feeling is only a day or two.

you guys ever suffer from this model writers-block like this?

I know others must get it. usually those with more money than sense that buy set after set after set and never paint them, creating a pile of shame. but I've always assumed that they are gamers that get caught up in the hype.
I can say I'm certain I don't fit in that catagory though...

Somehow I missed your last entry! A belated happy birthday to you! You don't look a day older than 40!!

The Marine looks very cool and I instantly know which marine that you were trying to recreate. I am equally impressed by the conversion and the fact that my memory has worked!! lol.

The new guardsmen look ace. Despite what you think of them. Hobby burnt out is a serious thing. Especially if you've been painting the same thing, or the same style of thing, for ages. Painting a guardsmen no matter the model is still just a guardsman. Maybe swap it around for a bit? Do some scenery or a different scale? Plenty of new stuff to look at, especially with Epic rearing it's head. Even doing some 'easy' drybrush work on a BFG ship or something can help.

I had burn out with my World eaters. I was just sick of painting marines so I just started painting some scenery for Titanicus. Completely different scale and a nice easy style of painting (dry brush). I haven't managed to get back to the World eaters just yet but I've gone onto some titanicus instead. Maybe one day I'll get back to them but, eh, I've kinda given up on 28mm gaming and was only doing them to join in with my mates games. Which is never a good reason to paint something but there it is.


We don't talk about my Room/cupboard/barn/desk shame pile.

Nice work on the troopers, the guy with the bolter is my favourite, does the stock come with the gun? It looks like it's from the old "mp5" style bolters...

I feel you on batch painting, there's a reason I haven't finished my enforcers, or delaque, or breachers...

 osjclatchford wrote:
I've not played it either, I watched Gmanlives and CV11's reviews and tbh, felt that it was an over-amped visual and audio assault on the senses that is clearly a modern shooter game in a poorly animated and rendered 'shell' in order to call it 'retro'.

real retro games use a limited engine and then make the visuals as good as you can using the limited resources. thus:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/562860/Ion_Fury/ (uses the build engine (duke3d, shadowwarrior, blood) but made fabulous with good level design and cage's sexy sprite/texture work)
boltgun is the opposite. they've all the resources and engine power in the world available but have tried to emulate the look of retro by doing crappy blocky graphics...
I dont get it.
and before any of you say it, I was there when doom was first released. I am an actual vintage gamer and still mod for doom today, see here:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/osjcs-doom-major-crisis
so I feel i know what I'm talking about on the subject.

however, my savage judgement aside, one thing that stuck out to me was the heavy bolter that looked and sounded very satisfying...

anyway, back to today:
Been a while...
Although I'm half-way through some filey droptroopers this weekend, I've not anything 100% done to show at present.
Mainly because I've been somewhat busy of late so minis time has been quite short.

however got more astartes built, including this one:


I wanted a cool pose that shows a way to hold one of the rt-style bolters in two hands.
These arms (converted from an infiltrator primaris guy) manage it in a way that looks both unfeasable and absurd, but then thats 80's space marines in a nutshell isn't it?

I will say now, that I also have three characters on the go too.
one very rt era inspired and two very crimson fist and RT inspired, all converted and fully built and awaiting paint as we speak but until now, I've been reluctant to share as I didn't want to spoil the surprise till they're painted.
However, as me getting anything painted is a chore at present, I wondered if its worth relenting on this and sharing them as they are for now.
so, that being said, if there is enough interest here to see them thus, I'll show them in WIP pre-paint shots first and paint them up whensoever I do get a chance.

so do let me know if you want to see them or wait till they're done...

oh, yeah, almost forgot.
As I do this crappy meme on here every year:

alas leviathan did not happen but then at £150 , why would it? LOL

That marine looks AWESOME!!!

Many thanks folks, I feel that now I've got past the Filey droptroops I hope I can get enthused again.
As Lord B said, with those kind of troops no matter how you cut it. once done in the same colourscheme all you get is another guardsman.
Hell, they might as well be the exact same guy in the different poses! LOL
Its what I was going for but it did burn me out nonetheless...

the nucadians I've converted have more character so Im looking forward to those again now. each one has its own identity and is not lost in the faceless-troop-syndrome of the others I've done...

also got a bit of a ringer thats likely to be a contriversial choice, to go with the CF's coming next so watch this space! LOL

oh, btw the stock on the bolter is from and old second edition marine bolter. felt it fitted the mini well so I used it.

So. got another Crimson Fist done:

Lt. Gabriella Sanchez-Ramerez
Once asked by a biggoted planetary govenor why he was being given a report by a woman she was heard to reply, "because only astartes women give birth to real men..."

Yup, Thats a female space marine. Get over it...


The inspiration is clearly from Gabs;

One of the old Rogue trader era female marine mini of yesteryear, but bought up to the 21st century.
An experiment in making female astartes armour set that is unquestionably female but not over sexualised, nor homogenous or gender-neutral.
not an easy task but possible I knew. The stormcast have that nailed in my opinion. bodyform of the chest, hips and legs is definately female but somehow a LOT more practical than, say, the sororitas armour. much more how the female eldar are against the male, but not how the female cadians are done. Im sorry but slappng a female head on a male body is not only anatomically incorrect but insulting to all the beauty of the female form, in my opinion.
Ok not as insulting as some of those teenage-power-fantasy, practically pornographic 3rd party printables and fanart out there, but you know what I mean.
For examples of other good stuff, look how vikky lamb or anvil does female guard to see what I mean about how to do it properly. they're spot on.

My other inspiration came from a certain deadly little lady in power armour that rocked the look back in the nineties;

Samas Aran of Metroid. (shown here in metroid3, aka super metroid)
This got me thinking; braced pose, looking cool/at-ease, big shoulder-pads, perhaps helmet in hand, and a suitable female head to finish the look.
With this in mind I based her on one the latest stormcast, so, yes, this one has had quite a makeover.
I first cut her into two parts, torso and legs seperate.
then I mated the front of her torso with the rear of a mk6 astartes one.
this had the effect of not only featuring the arse-plate to cover the leg join but also made fitting a mk6 backpack a doddle.
next I used a few offcuts of ribbed piping (from meltaguns I believe) to make up a more 40k style belly area. the abbs were nice but the pipe cement it in 40k more.
The resultant gaps on the thighs were Greenstuffed away and a few pockets added from the infntrator/incursor set to hide a bit of fudging and to round the model out a bit.
The front half of the belt was from a phobos armoured marine, basically because it has a nice 'V' shape to it that amplifies the feminine look on the waist area of the mini.
The arms are from the old marine biker's, one holding a hollowed out mk6 lid and the other featuring a primaris hand on one of my tigrus/umbra bolters I've done on all these so far. the pads are straight up mk6 and that just left the head.
this one is from the anvil female private contractors range.
I chose one with the aviators for added 80's flair and because her hairstyle matched samus's when she's in her zero suit... see here:

(this is Anya Ichios' cosplay for those intersted)
A happy coincidence that the blue of the CF happens to hark back to this too, eh?

Painting was the same as the others. the only difference was the pockets, which were done as on the scouts and the cloth parts at the back of the knees and heels which I could have GS'd but decided that one, I didn't care (so nither should you ) and two, its another a nice throwback to the scouts, matching their battle-fatigues nicely.

More graffiti. this one is actually a quote from Delen from Babylon5, as its a bit of an in-joke with me and the mrs.
works though, so on it went and done!

heres an old WIP I never did get round to showing you;

shows off how I did it all I suppose so possibly usefull for those who wish to recreate.

What a badass female marine. The armour looks excellent, a really nice conversion. Quite enjoying the rogue trader crimson fists.

Also reloading guardsman: well when you need a scratch, you need a scratch...

Fantastic thread, subscribed.

I mean Astartes are named after a woman.

Extremely rad conversion and smoking paint work as ever. Big fan of the RT Fists run too

Many thanks guys.


had this one on the go at the same time as Gabby. just finished the highlights/this-and-that, up this evening so its an unexpected midweek mini from me!

He's got a different head from last time, I swapped it out for a primaris ravenguard one instead, just for a bit of induviduality that marks him out from t'others.
As for the painting, I kept it simple, but added one of the old rogue trader marine 'specialist' symbols to the pad. as far as I remember this one simply means 'bolter specialist'. however it has been many years since I've actually seen one of these logos so the shape/colour could be completely wrong now I think of it, LOL.
I'll have to have a check in an old rulebook/whitedwarf or have a squint online and come back to you on that...
anyway, I felt he looked kinda tacticool so it fit nicely with his theme...

Both of these look fab as always! Yupp, that's the bolter insignia from RT, here are the references I've dug up for the weapon markings

Ah! thanks tauist.

can't belive that I got that right after all these years!
guess my memody is only shot on important things, not on trivia of spacemarine insignias from over 35 years ago!

Will be using the yellow cross one on my heavy bolter guy then...

this is most usefull bud! lots of inspiration to be had methinks...

Happy birthday for the other day mate!

Awesome work as usual, the lady marine is absolutely bad ass. Love the 'no mercy' on the shoulder pad. Nice work on the drop troopers too!

Looking good! Love the conversions - they are very dynamic.

many much thanks guys!

Got round to getting some more CF guys done:


Karlos Banderos-Assantos-Alamontanos
Heavy Bolter specialist


Martinez
The Steely-Eyed missile-man

An interesting experiment in heavy weapon specialists.

The ML was intended as a close-to-rtb01 in plastics as I could and uses the ML from the mk4 set. Allbeit reposed at-ease.
This is the first mini in this group that actually uses one of the new mk6 helmets actually on his head, the rest either carried or alternatives helmets altogether, and on this one, I find it makes him look a little smaller, nicely emphasizing the absurd hugeness of the weapon, I mean who uses mag-loaded rocketlaunchers, seriously! MAD! but great and also pure 80's cheese. I added a couple of spares on the belt (to reference the old kit) and did those in appropriately 80's cartoon rocket colours...
I could not find reference of or honestly remember the RT era symbol for the missile specialist so I just used the contemporary astartes devastator logo instead and freehanded a yellow one on with some added weathering for added detail. I also added a boltpistol as a backup too because, missiles tend to run out fast on rynns world (ohhh, too soon? )
yup, he does have mismatched arms, but if I'd not have mentioned it, would you honestly have noticed?


The heavybolter takes the conversion in the opposite direction. He uses a primaris marine as a base (phobos torso on intercessor legs) to make the heavy bolter seem a little less ubsurdly large and somehow more man-portable. (well, space-marine portable...)
as aforementioned the conversion is the same as one I did on the spacesharks but this time using beakie head and pads, as well as shaved shins to round out the look.
I went for the sternguard heavy bolter for the ease of conversion and went to town on the extra mag-boxes (using a spare on the belt and the sternguard backpack) and a backup boltpistol.
again, the casings are anvil shotgun shells.
note the heavy bolter specialist badge on his pad, just as promised tauist!
I know its quite 3rd edition looking with this bolter and that, but I love that asthetic. It just looks so brutally uncompromising...




this primaris conversion was good practice for the characters to come...






Nope, I've already said too much. You'll just have to wait and see

osjclatchford, exceptional. These are great man and loving your explanation and thought process you've added in, great work

well thanks Baz! thats very much appreciated!

anyway...

what could this mean then..?

hmm, no clues regarding the backpack then?
well.
wait and see, it'll reveal itself in time I'm sure...


anyway, got three more selby 151st infantrymen done today:



I decided to do spence with his watchcap in green to differ from clint's dark one from before.
I wanted clint to look dark and moody as the stealthiest and darkest operative of the team. spence is much more no-nonsense front and centre kinda guy. for a bit of brightness and to have him tie in with col. sumner's bullpup boltgun, I did the stock of the shotty in synthetic green to add a bit of tacticool feel to him. I feel it makes the weapon seem more modern and less oldskool. remember, I used these shotguns with wooden stocks on my 39th sappers so I fancied a bit of distance between the two forces but perhaps a suggestion of a shared ancestry of kit.


Ford is a much more allround standard-issue looking member of the crew.
I wanted him thus so its why he has such a standard pose, providing cover for the others as they advance.
for a bit of character I decided the badge on his backpack should be a smiley. because why not?
In truth I'm not happy at all as to how the arms have failed to line up as well as they did prior to painting. I dont know what happened there but perhaps I had more bluetack between the arm and shoulder than I realised... nevermind done know.
I'll never stop noticing it but there it is. but then, there's always one mini in a squad you're never 100% with.
if this is it then I can deal with it! LOL


Not much to say about O'neill other that somewhere between underccoating and finish he's lost his cigarette somewhere.
ah, well perhaps he's in the process of reloading or reaching for the blade at his belt...
just have to use your imagination...


so, still three more of these to go and a couple of real characters for the crimson fists to get done to finish these two current projects off.

but worry ye not, I've another inquisitor on the go, this time ordo malleus and a whole new bunch of armed bastards hailing from the Eoforwich system, soon to grace the thread with their presence...

so, yeah.
it never ends, but I mean that in the best possible way of course!

The shotgunner is my favourite

Working on some DKoK now? If so, can't wait!

Thanks. He's my favourite too, so far!

And no. Not kreigsmen. Kinda got the trench guard theme covered with my engineers and that.
No, this upcoming group will be clad in carapace and brimming in 3rd edition references and will be hard as nails, of course... hint, It's what that backpack is going on...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Decided I couldnt stand the arm position on ford so I've adjusted the join so that the hand on the foregrip is back where I had it prior to undercoating.

You guys probably wont even notice the change but then I'm sure you're not as ocd about these things as I am (remembering the pocket fiasco with the 39th infantrymen).

anyway, still not perfect but a damn sight better now.
I mean, before, his index and middle finger were past the end of the foregrip.
now they are siuated right onthe end of it.
his thumb is still floating off into thin air but, you know what? shucks, its done now and is as it was prior to paint if nothing else! LOL

That backpack is for stormtroopers isn’t it? The first metal sculpts have the same style! I love mine, got them off a decent chap around here somewhere…

He sounds like quite a stand up guy.

Not the sort of bloke who sells all his 3rd edition stormtroopers to a fellow guard hobbyist and then waits two or so years just to send 60 or more quid on kits and bits to recreate the design of said classic metal minis in five savagely converted plastic and resin minis... In the new official gw approved scale for guardsmen of course...

Not at all.

Still, I'm sure he's the sort of guy who relishes the fact that said metal stormtroopers went to a good home, got a great paintjob and didn't break the buyers wallet, and most of all, snookered any would be scalpers on eBay from taking the piss out of any other pleasant hobbyist wanting to add some third edition chunkiness to their ever expanding guard army...






* gold star to the gentleman who remembers the 3rd ed st backpacks.

Fantastic updates, awesome looking guard.

More very cool guardmen, Spence is my favourite
Looking forward to seeing your take on the stormtroopers, I wish they brought out a modernised version of them...

Love the guardsmen and the Elysian-style rifles

 Guardling wrote:
More very cool guardmen, Spence is my favourite
Looking forward to seeing your take on the stormtroopers, I wish they brought out a modernised version of them...

Like these? Not quite everyone’s cup of tea I imagine, but nice to have the parts.

https://madrobotminiatures.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=19&products_id=635

Yeah, thanks guys...

Ragsta's on the right track here:

Strike at zero hour, With overwhelming firepower...

First of the new stormtroopers done.


As you can see I have indeed used the new madrobot irdoni heads, arms and weapons on the body of a nucadian kasrkin.
specifically the demo-trooper torso variant as this armour is the best mondern analogue to the classic ST armour. I mean, just look at it? its clearly heavy duty stuff but its still guard issue. cloth covered flexible flak-jacket type armour.
I personally can't stand the aesthetic of the scion minis, what the hell was that amour about eh? no, I love me some 3rd ed goodness and this is firmly where this conversion was going.
For a bit of distiction I decided to paint the carapace plates (his helm, backplates and gauntlets) in the armour colours used on my filey 42nd and Eoforwich 39th, but do all the chest armour and extra plates in in the darkangels green amour (caliban green in new money?) that I've been doing on my Selby 151st.
Although intended to go with my Selby troops, which are also based on the nucadians, I figured I should show a mix of amours to enforce visuals of the whole up-amoured nature of a stormtrooper.
Also, 3rd edition stormtrooper colurschemes tended to feature matching camo on the arms, legs and bedrolls, so I figured that the good ol' Eoforwich Peadot could come back to the fore on these, leaving the shin/leg armour rig the perfect place to utilise the grey scheme used on all troops of the Eoforwich system, but also including the darker grey on the kneepads, as on the selby boys.
The vest itself (you know, the bit visible under the armour but over the top of the legs), was done in the simple two-tone green camo as on the 151st.
A choice made necessary by the fact that original ST's did not have these type of fatigues on.
Another thing that had to be changed on the fly was, as I'd used the steel-legion-drab that I usually do the gaiters for the selby guys on the main camo, I figured I could simply do the gaiters in death-korps-drab instead, doing the front shin 'plates' as the soft dark-angels-green armour as on the chest.
when building him, there were obvious 3rd edition refenences that just had to be there (alongside the irdoni heads, arms and guns of course) these being; the oldcadian waterbottle, the bullets on his shoulder (taken from the deathwatch sprue), classic big third-ed grenades (from the nowold sternguard kit), the big holstered pistol (from the heavy intercessor kit) and the converted DKOK backpacks you've seen already as WIP.

the pose is based on this peice of art:

I've managed that nicely I feel...

If nothing more than a proof of concept I think it works, and creates a design that is clearly heavily inspired by the third edition era guard but feels more like the natural evolution of visuals that the current nucadians are from their earlier 2000's predecessors.
mostly thats down to the madrobot parts, but also all the bits I've chosen have clearly hammered-home the image too.
The bomb-vest is also a major feature that I'll need to replicate on any and all further conversions. so FYI I'm on the hunt for more of those for the rest of my kasrkin asap!


here he is next to one of the nucadians I've recently been converting.
Yup, suitably bigger but not absurdly so.

still if you want a laugh, here's a shot of him next ot one of his metal predecessors prior to painting...

LOL... what a joke the old proportions look now, eh?

more soon I hope, as soon as I can get hold of an actual box of kasrkin (I bought this guy as a single mini on ebay as a test peice) and also I'll need more of those bomb-vest to complete the look...

sigh... this is going to cost a fortune isnt it... ;D

Just keep on chipping away at the bitz aquisitions, sooner or later you'll have enough for what you planned for.. Although, if these torsos only come one per a box of 10, its going to take a while..

He looks fab by the way!

thanks.

to be honest I'm still not 100% sold on it.

I thought it was the camo making it looked cluttered? so I ditchhed it for plain tan-brown

yeah, it is better but, as I say not 100% sold on him.

Perhaps I'm just done with green-brown-grey combo I've been at for so long...

I've something more colourful in mind as well but as I say, not totally sure yet...
time will truly tell when I get my mits on a box of kasrkin and get kitbashing...

Nice work on the storm trooper!
I don't think there's to much difference between camo and plain pattern, although at first glance it very difficult to differentiate between him and your "regular" troops

What does make him weird in my eyes is that he's not in Inquisition colours haha

Ha! Yeah the old red and black became the go to colour for the classic stormtroopers once the kasrkin and then the scions kit supplanted them as standard stormtroopers.

Fyi, I've got hold of the kasrkin at last. Had a play about and decided that it's not enough just to use the bomb vest to make them look 3rd ed inspired. The neck/collar area is still missing that iconic look...
As such I've started the butchering of a perfectly serviceable plastic kit and the always exciting, injection of anvil industry parts to seal the deal!

Also, it turns out I oddly prefer the kasrkin hellguns over the madrobot classic style, mostly due to the chunk of them over the sleeked-down madrobot ones.
Those are very visually 3rd ed but the scale seems more on par with fw resins. Think elysian or dkok lasguns. It's the mag that shows this most. They feel like they'd be perfect if printed just 10% bigger than they are, if you know what I mean? I bought these as cast not prints so, yeah. I guess I'll use them on something else...

However the resultant mess of parts I have on the go is actually a damn good mix between the two styles, all the best of both worlds, 3rd ed and kasrkin all in one. But you'll have to wait till I've got one done and dusted to see for yourself...

I love that stormtrooper, mate. Great use of bits, and an excellent homage to that nice piece of art. The current Scions don’t do it for me.

I need to get those old metals into a game now…

The new Cadians, I find, are pretty much a perfect update. Looking forward to your further conversions.

thanks guys.

In truth, I've not been motivated enough to get anything else painted of late.

In fact I've still a Crimson Fist character I'm more than half way through painting at the min just sitting there waiting.
but with good reason.

I've been using my hobby time one these:


97th scions, 3rd battallion, Currently seconded to the Selby 151st infantry division, Eoforwich system

so as you can see I've reworked my previous attempt at kasrkin based stormtroopers.
As aforementioned. Ive dug into my anvil bits and gone for the tried and tested OSJC method of doing carapace armour, anvil's heavy torso.
these with the madrobot heads and the dkok backpacks are the perfect mix to get that 3rd ed look I wanted.
It has been mentioned that my initial scion currently looked rather too similar to my regular troops.
In hindsight I tend to agree.
For one, the colours are overly cluttered, which I will fix on these, but its the lack of shoulder pauldrons (although faithfull to 3rd ed) that reduce the overall uparmoured look they need, this as well as the overly slimline madrobot hellguns also hinder the look of an elite trooper in carapace armour.

well no longer.
I decided that what was needed was a firm blend of the kasrkin and 3rd ed st's with a little flavour of the scions added in for good measure. all the best bits that make them chunky-bad-assed sons-of-bitches that are armed to the teeth and taking no prisoners.

for those willing to replicate these, I can say that, unless otherwise stated below, all minis use grenades taken from the vanguard marines kit, waterbottles are from the old cadian minis (but catachan infantry/command kits have a ideal ones), holsters and pockets come from heavy intercessor, infiltrator and regular intercessor kits hith and yon with some pockets actually being from the kasrkin kit itself.
The backpacks are made from dkok packs with the canister trimmed from the bottom and the trio of canisters on the 'bar' made from plasticard rod and glued on.


The first mini I decided to do in this new style was this guy, loosly based off of this artwork:

I started by trimming away the existing torso just past the belt and grafted the anvil one in place. just as I'd do on all the others.
this has actually resulted in an even taller stature to the minis. yes even taller than the kasrkin are already, but its fine. I mean look at them, they're not really strange looking or oddly proportioned at all.
the only trouble it brings is having to remove existing pockets/nades and kit and replacing with alternatives to hide the uglier joins etc...
but thats kinda my jam so I had no trouble there...
I chose the radio operator arms for the cool at ease pose and simply whittled a cigar from 1.5mm styrene rod and glued this in between the fingers onthe right hand.
the hellgun uses a magazine from an old cadian kantral lasgun in place of the wires, the cables being something I've always disliked on stormtroopers.
This does two things, makes conversions like these a doddle and also gives a nod back to the old 3rd ed hellguns, which were also mag-loaded, yet preserves the ultra high-tech looking hellgun aesthetics which I decided I preferred for the added chunk it gives the mini.
The tiny knife on the chest was lifted from a catachan' arm.


Next up was this guy wielding a 'judge-pump' from the new arbites kill-team kit.
I simply had to have this shotgun (or similar at least; scout, deathwatch or breacher's kits have similar for those interested) in order to replicate the shotgun guy in this classic stormtrooper art:

yes, a bit of a struggle to get on kasrkin arms but I managed by using the flamer arms and some gs to join the handplate on the left arm back onto the wrist properly.
aded details include the shells on the chest (from the new ork snaggas I think?) and the stun grenade from the palanite enforcers kit.


next up I wanted a demolitions expert.
This guy uses the medic at ease rifle arm (shaved clean of its logo) and the meltabomb wielding arm is one of the plasma gun support arms.
Aside the meltabomb, he also includes the 'special' grenade bandolier from the dkok kit and some dynamite charges on his belt which are actually musket powder charges taken from the empire handgunners kit.
I feel he looks suitably encumbered and burdened... although with glorious purpose, I'm sure...


Next up was a gunner/specialist.
Its no surprise to anyone here that I love grenade-launchers and the arbites 'justice launcher' is no exception.
It's just so damned chunky and brutal looking, hell it looks like it fell out of one of the quake games!
again, a cowson to graft onto the kasrkin arms, but I managed it with a set of plasmagun arms and, as with the judge-pump, greenstuff on the left hand join/backplate.
added kit includes the grenade shells from the long-suffering atalan jackals kit (not visible on this shot), a facemask from the old cadian command set (one of the new kasrkin ones would have done, I suppose, but it would have neede more work than I desired) and this was an experiment to cover one of the annoying shouty heads that I'm never a fan of and it worked so well he made it into the squad!
the final addition was his custom backpack, again from the atalan jackals kit.
I chose this for its slightly bigger appearance to suggest that its loaded with 'nades and the obvious aliens reference of the stubby shotty, tucked in the back, "for close encounters".
All I did to it was shave off the gsc logo and add on the canisters/bar, albeit slightly askew to show where the shotgun had displaced it somewhat when tucked in.


finally a squad of ultimate bad-asses needs a real hard-as-nails leader.
I chose to use the medic body (well, legs I suppose ) and pocket opening arm and then use the scions jacket with a radio hand taken from the nucadian set. I felt it looks like he's either just got it out or is putting it back.
to further seal the deal on the command nature of the figure, I opted to add the medals from the dkok kit...

yes, there's still a ton of cleanup, general tidying and bases to finish before painting begins but its a hell of a start...

finally some scions I'm happy with...

more soon...

Such a great use of that cloak bit - probably one of my favorite Guard pieces. From a fellow guard infantry nerd - love all of this! amazing conversions, can't wait to see the stormtroopers painted up.

They look extremely sexy. Please put paint on them.

Very nice stormtroopers!
I think they definitely look a bit meatier than the first one, looking forward to seeing them painted!

Aww yeah! These will look stunning once painted

Great work on those Stormtroopers, different weapona look great. Gives them more of a spec ops vibe.

Great looking stormies. Love the last one too, very true to the originals.

Such nice comments, thanks guys!


Corporal Kowalski of the 97th Scions, 3rd Battallion
yup, it works.
keeping the colourscheme much MUCH less cluttered has resulted in a neater and more succinct version of the stormtroopers I was trying to create.
I kept all the carapace armour the same dark green as my infantry, the only exception being the mollee sections on the chest and back which I simply used the same green camo as on the flack vest and trou.
talking of the trousers, I decided to put the same camo as on the vest and sleeves on them, instead using the knee pad webbing to place the grey in there. As you can see I also put the grey on the packpack's bedroll, at this point I felt the mini had quite a bit less grey than the regular infantry does and, as I'd decided not to use the tan on these, was the ideal place to add more.
I did, however, use the same light green I did the eoforwich 'hard' armour on the canisters on the backpack and this felt fine as I'm also doing the frag grenades this colour on these stormies, so its not out of place or anything and, being green amongst green, not too cuttered.
The mini was starting to look pretty dark so instead of doing the gaiters as armoured panels I elected to simply paint them the same cloth as on my regular selby infantrymen.
This, and the last minute decision to do the wooden stock on the rifle helped to lighten him up a bit.
So glad I did the wooden stock, the gun looks that little bit less sci fi, matching my eoforich system's diespunk theme and its a nice visual sparkle on the mini, showing off a different material to black steel and plastic.
To be honest, it looks kinda like an fg42, which is never a bad thing...
The pockets, packs, holsters and webbing were done in my usual two brown tones I do leather in...
so yeah, one down, four to go!

while I was at it...

sgt Riley, explosive specialist, Selby 151st infantry division
Riley was simply done as I've done my other 151st troopers.
I used the light tan colour on the rank designation pad and I also added a bit of red in there on the grenade to suggest at an AN/M14 incendiary grenade or what-have-you.
His launcher was done in simple battered black/steel finish to make it look its age. I wanted it to look as old as the second edition mini-designs its based off of and as such should look like an old relic of the armoury that riley is too much of a sentimentalist to part from.
Again, as on the commander's bolter, I decided to do the stock in synthetic green (not only to match) but also because it would make sense that something that huge would need a plastic stock to keep the weight down!

I painted these at the same time so that I could visually better feel the differences betwen the infantry and elites. something i'll likely do as I paint the others...

Now, before you ask, here is a pic of the two together:

A perfect way to show off the scale oddities between the cadians and kasrkin.
now, you've got to remember that my tinkering has added slight height to Kowalski but, look at the legs, definately bigger. these models are the same faction and were released within a month of each other.
so yeah, gw is definately a bit hit and miss on the scale these days.
I've got over it though and its not really a problem as, as gaming peices, they are easily distinguishable on the table, the base size helping thus also.

my poor old crimson fist is looking at me half painted in the cabinet and weeping you know...

so, yeah more soon!

Kowalski colorscheme looks spot on from here! Kasrkin next to a nuCad looks almost as if the Kasrkin was an Astartes tier beefcake..

Stormtrooper looks ace!
Looking forward to seeing the rest of them.
Also love Riley's launcher, great conversion

Well, in their defense, the Kasrkin are supposed to be the equivalent of historical grenadiers...

Lorewise, kasrkin are recruited from the ranks. They're all guardsmen who have showed excellence and have been battle proven, they are not supposed to be bigger, they are just meant to be certified ass kickers.


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Love the scions. I really like the classic style helmets and torsos. They really capture that 3rd Ed look but brought to the level of detail of a modern miniature.
I also appreciate mad robot minis 'aquiline features' for the faces.

thanks guys!
something a little different today, yup, I'll admit it. 

I got a little impatient waiting on anvil's upcoming expedish-team minis so I scoured my bits from the anvil regiments range and came up with this!

It's a prototype for the private military contractors in service to yellow-line trucking company. 
You know, the same yellowline tucking co. as my bfg merchant fleet...

he's also an exercise in painting yellow!
I knew I wanted to use some yellow in a future project and I had three to choose from:

zamesi desert, averland sunset and yriel yellow.
cloth, hat/straps and armour panels respectably.
all highlighted and shaded the same way but a good way to find out which I liked and disliked.

I've used zamesi desert before and have been +/- pleased with it.
The Averland sunset was a nice solid base, not that dissimilar to the zamesi desert but a bit redder/orangier a yellow to zamesi desert's more tan/brown yellow tone.
Yriel yellow can go back to the hell it came from. never ever again.
the only worst yellow I know of is the old sunburst yellow from the 90's... urgh... perhaps its just me but man did it suck.
8 coats regardless over white, yellow, grey or beige. otherwise its a streaky mess... no no NO! and please don't offer sugestions. I'll just use one of the other yellows in future.
or even end up using white undercoat and then use contrast imperial fist... that seems to yield nice results these days.

Anyway, as I say, its just an exercise really and any other 'truckers' I may or may not do would (as my wife suggested today) be based on anvil's pmc minis wearing civvie clothing, but feature the odd yellow item; ballcap, tshirt, hoodie or whathaveyou, to show the alleigance to yellow-line co.
So, no. not a bunch of militaria-bananamen on the way.

however, I'm dead happy with the colour on that p90 mag.
looks the biz if I'm honest and was a doddle, its just steel legion drab with a smidge of cadian fleshtone and bugmans glow in it and then a dot of abaddon black mixed in to 'grey it down' a little bit.

parts used:
-  Anvil D day american torso
-  Anvil Fatigue legs
-  Anvil P90 Arms
-  Games workshop cadian head, marine grenade/pocket and necromunda base

more soon.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
meanwhile...

He's back!

Captain Alessio Cortez
come on now, you didn't really think a little thing like being dead was enough to stop Captain Cortez, did you?

No, not even hardly.


When lost in an eldar pirate raid, Captain Cortez was given up for dead.
The only evidence of him to be found was a rather large amount of blood and his crux terminatus chain, which kantor now carries.
Apothacary Jonas remarked upon the worrying volume of blood, that even for a spacemarine, his survival was most unlikely.
Kantor's response was simply "you don't know him, brother..."

He was later found by Guilliman during the Indomitus crusade.
Guilliman and his primaris troops found Cortez in the burning ruins of an eldar slave-camp, little to no armour, his bionic arm missing, riddled in cuts, wounds and holes and surrounded by untold scores of xeno corpses, many of which appeared to have been literly torn limb from limb.

He was recognized immediately, leaving no doubt as who was responsible for the carnage that surrounded them.
Cortez, at near death and bearly able to open his remaining eye, smiled in recognition of the primarch towering over him.
Dispite his hideous injuries and in more pain than even he had ever endured, he slammed his mighty clenched fist over the pitted and scarred remnants of his chestplate; the Astartes salute.
To his surprise Guilliman bowed and returned the gesture.

glancing around the battlefield at the destruction Cortez had wrought, Guilliman knew that he had to act fast.

leaning in close to Cortez' ear he offered him an even greater sacrament than honourable death in the emperor's name, the chance to stride the battlefields once again, with more power and fury than even one as belligerant and die-hard as Cortez could even imagine.

Cortez would cross the rubicon and return home...


As you can see he's mostly an assault intercessor, allbeit with the chest and knees shaved away to be beakifiyed some, just as on my heavy bolter dude.
This time, however, as the chest was fully exposed I elected to graft on the chest detail from one of the new HH beakies.
As Cortez has always been a lead-from-the-front, just-one-of-the-boys type of guys, I decided to keep his kit as standard-issue as I could, using simple beaky pads and backpack and one of my basic bolter conversions as on the other marines I've done so far.
the powerfist arm was chosen for the pose, as it looked like he was discarding the damaged helm, but this left his right arm (which is bionic) needing an appropriate dipiction of bionics.
for this I chose one from the new khone berserker set. it had nice tubes and wires in the flesh and the gloved hand was a very luke skywalker way of hiding the robotic arm!
It also added to the visuals of that of a die-hard front-liner with litle or no consideration for the damage occuring to him in his ferverous zeal to get stuck in.
With this in mind I added some bullet holes, dinks, chips and scratches physically (at the modelling stage) as well as at the paint stage.
all that remained was some sculpting on the head (also from the assault intercessor sprue) to add that iconic, fearsome, flatop.
I mean, damn, man you could park a thunderhawk on that!
As well as this I gs'd a chapter symbol on his pauldron and fixed his trigger finger, adding a new mag-release button to the bolter too...

The painting was done as on t'others with the only extra features worthy of note being the scarred and dead eye, the infamous white stripe (yes it looks absurd, but he's cortez and that's how he rolls) and the addition of tamiya's x27 glossy red for the bit of gore coming from the particularly nasty whole in his abdominal-armour plate. this I felt helped to sell the whole "in the thick of it/die-hard bastard" vibe I was going for.

You'll note his iconic crux terminatus necklace is missing...
so more on that next time...

oh, and here is a WIP shot as I know many like these:

That Cortez build is phenomenal! Never seen MKVI mixed in with Tacticus as fluently before. Well done sir.

Regarding the trucking Co guard, his gun turned out super crisp!

Guard looks neat, I feel the pain with painting yellow, Zamesi is pretty much the only yellow I actually use now, just with different undercoats and highlights.

Cortez looks fab I like the mash of primaris and beakie bits, may have to try myself

Absolutely top both paintjobs! Really enjoyed reading about Cortez's rescue.

I (foolishly) did not think we'd be seeing the return of Cortez, that is extremely badass Really savvy modeling as ever, the Skywalker glove bionic is a fun touch on top of everything.

Props on the yellow merc too, that dude is very yellow

That Cortez mini is just fantastic. The pose, the paint style and the hair. All spot on!

Had quite a bit of catching up to do but glad I did, great work all round and love Cortez!

Oh thanks guys, really glad this one went down well. put a lot into it and it heartens me to read nice comments!

so I decided to get my head outa my arse and finally get on with this project thats been languishing in hobby limbo for a couple of years now:



Yellowline Trucking Co. Goliath recovery vehicle AKA "peggy"

yup its a goliath. yup its yellow. VERY yellow.

This was originally going to be done in the drab grey colourscheme of the Eoforwich 39th artillery, tugging the massive scratchbuilt earthshaker into position as a trojan counts-as.

however I got sick of painting the grey armour after I finished the 'Badger' excavator.
so back on the wip self she went.

fast-forward to now, and the idea hit me, hey, this yellowline trucker is missing something... A truck!

noteable conversion points include the exhaust stack replacement, made of slightly curved sprue sections (from the tamiya barrels sprue I believe) to represent some age to the vehicle, they do look very classic RT rhino this way and also cement it in the real world/industrial setting a bit more.
I added an original rhino hatch for the same reasons and the old chimera window-plate on the door completes the look of something thats definately in imperal hands and not the heretical claws of a genestealer cultist.
to cement this even further, the imperial guard skull-eagle was added to the front and an imperial jerry-can added on the top/front panel.
the little gsc symbol that hangs on one of the rigging straps in the back was simply shaved away and a dkok backpack-cup stuck in its place.

I wanted this to be a civillian vehicle. a workhorse, not a warhorse. as such all the guns had to go. in its place I used fine jewelry chain and a tiny hook (from chaos spikey sprue) as a tow-hook/chain mech.
between the bumper lugs on the front (that hold the epicly absurd dozer-blade on a rockgrinder) I decided that a winch was an ideal way to make sense of this decoration. made from sprue-offcut and some fine weaved brake cable and the little addition of a crank handle from something else (either this or another gsc kit, cant remember which now)

painting required something new from me.
NO not an airbrush, don't be silly! as if I could afford such things. no this was time for the technique I now call:

"mungey-drybrushy-stipplizing".

ok that name needs work.
but its simple; a start of a black undercoat, followed by a heavy, I mean HEAVY, overbrush of rhinox hide then let it dry. properly.
next, using a crappy old drybush (the shitest the better) do a mix of stipple, drybrush and munging the paint onto the mini in successive shades of: xv88, then averland sunset and finally yriel yellow (HA! found a use for it afterall!) in a way that leaves a bit of what preceded it in the recessess as you go. keeping the lighter tones at the top and edges and the darker at the bottom/ recesses...
At this stage, it will look atrocious.
you'll question the method, you'll curse me. you might even want to quit in a fit of pique, but then you finish the look with the simple addition of the weathering.
this is nothing special, believe me, its just skavenblight dinge applied to the extreme edges as wonky, blobby highylights with the odd scratch added hith and yon where damage would occur as naturally as possible..
once this is done you'll likely breath a sigh of relief as it will instantly look like something other than a child attacked an expensive mini with a brush 6 times too big for the job!
now do your metals and cloth details as you would usually and apply some light washes to recesses or as drips/runs as you see fit. done!

I did the metals in a mix of plain steel and rusty metal, the latter done as bestial-brown, stippled with xv88 and finished with some steel metallics over this.

All the glass was done in black with gloss over it and the bumper 'plates' were done in black with grey highlights/weathering to replicate plastic vehicle bumpers from the 80s/90s.
the tyres were simply drybrushed with rhinox hide then washed with steel legion drab (as were the wheelarch undersides).
the cloth details were done in kahki (steel legion drab with the usual highlights and washes) so as not to stand out too much.
all the wraps on the bars were done in skavenblight dinge and give two coats of nuld oil to represent black electrical tape. I think it worked...

Both the jerrycan and fueltank were done in greens using the same method as the 'armor' as I felt that using standard methods on these would make the model look odd and break the forth wall of the illusion.
its also a good way to show that the technique can work with other colours too. the fuel can is; caliban green, waagh flesh, loren forest, then strakken green.
the fuel tank is; death korps drab, castellan green, deathworld forest then deathguard green.
I used rhinox hide to do the chips on these as they are (being green) a cool colour that requires a contrasting warm colour to stand out on them, wheras the yellow, being warm, need the cool of the grey to contrast on those chips. get it?

with this in mind I may yet use this method on something again. trying out another colour.
I mean, hell the whole thing took less than 4 to 5 hours work. (excluding drying times).
The stipple stage was the longest as you want to take your time to get the best transition of coverage to fake that 'sprayed look'. but I'm sure I could do it quicker next time. I know what I'm doing somewhat now. this was an experiment afterall...

oh, an if this method already exists under a proper name, do let me know

more weathered armour soon..?








we shall just have to see...

Very nice finish on the truck, appreciate you sharing the details as well

Thanks...

and tanks!
curiosity got the better of me and I fancied another go at the vehicle layering/weathering technique...

no, not a teaser shot of something upcoming, just me testing out a green variation of the painting style on the side part of an old broken landraider that was given to me amongst a bunch of stuff a few years back.

twas previously painted but I just sprayed it black, then did the rhinox hide base.
then the stipple; first wih death korps drab, then castellan green, then ligher one with deathworld forest and eventally the final edges with death guard green.
then the chips and edges with rhinox hide again, followed by nuln oil recess and 'drips', then a lighter recess with steel legion drab and some orange hith and yon for dust and rust.

I think it works.
bear in mind, the colour in the pic was all over the place though. had to tweak it to get it to look +/- 'as-is' in the 'flesh' after the fact.
this was due to the fact the light was poor and thusly yellow-shaded here. but you get the idea nonetheless...

Very nice work on the Goliath!
Does this mean we can look forward to seeing some civilians to crew it?

Perhaps... ;D

Peggy the Goliath looks excellent. I definitely want to try out your minge* technique on my next admech vehicle.

* I tried to write munge but it autocorrected to minge and I laughed so hard when I read it back I thought I'd leave that in

So, I got round to doing the finishing touces on this one done at last.

been started for over a fortnight now and I've only just got round to finishing it today.

added some shells for his shotty on his chest and another pocket around the back.
I also tried out a red-dot effect ont he pop-up sight.
came out alright in the end...


I also finally got that vehicle I intend to use the peggy-minge technique on.
I'll say right now that its full of rogue trader goodness and my stormtroopers eagerly await its completion!
still on the sprues in the box at the minute...

got another secret project on the go that will reveal itself in time so perhaps a little while before you get any more from me on here for the short term...
just fyi...

Awesome!

Looks very bad ass, nice idea with the red dot sight.

Another top notch work!

thanks guys.
I think I'm done with my aforementioned and somewhat clandestine modelling/painting obligations of a week or so ago for now, so its back to regularly schedued programming from the osjc again!

Today is WIP time;

yup, an unexpected vehicle has joined the ranks.
extra tea and medals to Ragsta, for making this one a possibility...

...and, no, this is not the vehicle I was talking of last time... thats still to come too...

Some artillery coming up? Can't wait

oh yes... when in doubt, there's always some artillery coming up at somepoint from me!

So here are the results of that little job I was so busy with t'other day.


Anvil sent me a few of the new Astral Warriors prints a bit early so I could get them painted up for them.
I went for a sg1, serpentguard of chulak theme.
Yes, I switched out a lot of the metals for greys, but thats only so the models had a bit more physical contrast to the colourscheme, yet retained the theme.
All the weapons were done in weathered bronze and the spot colour of metallic purple was used on the gems on both the weapons and armour panels.
(this was the old amethyst purple metallic from citadel, that I've had in my collection since around 1993!)
the zat 'not' katels (as I call them) are very similar to the trans-phase eradication rods (you remeber those right? jacob/selmac bought them over to deal with a reetou problem at the sgc one time) making them familiar looking yet not quite specifically either. Which is good in my opinion.


First up was tek-ma-te Bratac, I mean just look at that face, its totally Tony Amendola and theres no way I could have painted him any other way.

Next, after the master comes the apprentice, Teal'c of Chulack first-prime of Apophis. Again, fantastic job anvil have done sculpting such an excellent likeness to Chris Judge.

Next I went for a female Jaffa and decided to use a bladed weapon for a bit of variation.

To finish up I went for another female jaffa, this time in a basic cover-fire pose and with the full serpentguard lid engaged.

Really happy with these. outstanding sculps and a breeze to paint.
my first go at 3d prints direct from anvil. damn fine quality I'd highly recommend to anyone on the fence regarding buying the printed to order stuff.
you will NOT be dissapointed...

Wow! Great looking Goa'Ulds!

Jaffa Kree!
Nice work, here's hoping for some rules somewhere to use them!

Latest storm trooper looks great a well, can we expect a rhino as transport?

Kill team?

Wow these are really cool mini designs, great work on the paint job as always!

SO, I've been ill with covid for the last week or more now.
(I can't honestly tell how long its been anymore, but I'm testing negative again at last, lol)
Its given me time to think and think I have.

Its come to my attention that I have a lot of model stuff that I'm simply not going to have the time, inclination or general interest to paint or model any time in the near, not so near and damn long-way-off future.
my house is too small to store all this and I can't warrant getting any new stuff till the old is gone.
so its time for it to go.

Hence!
The OSJC's :
Great Christmas giveaway 2023!

so for your chance to win:


anvil's big dog

anvil's astral kingdom warrior 3d prints

a chimera top

some cluedo player people (a dr who metal Abraham Lincoln is also hidden in there)

an epic thunderbolt

leftovers fromt he goliath

some 1/35th scale jerrycans (look ok against gw ones scale wise)

a jumbo bag of anvil stuff (with some other bits too)

leftover ogre/ogryn bits

palanite enforcer leftovers (from my shark scouts)

scout bits

3d printed spaceshark symbols for astartes kneepads

a half converted sigmarite

some other sigmarites

anvil's deamon hunter sister


spacenam bits and sprue

witchhunter leftovers

and, the rest.

all you need do is come up with a colourscheme for me to paint this guy:



simple, right?

now, think carefully, something crazy, something legit, different styles different chapters whatsoever you think might be a winning entry. it need not be amazing or stupidly challenging or whatever, just something you think you'd like to see me tackle.

you've got untill new years eve to come up with a winning idea,
whereupon I will choose a winner, announcing it new years day, and then the haul is yours!

so do look at what, if any, have been suggested before you post, as duplicate entries mean the first in of any duplicates gets the vote first.

Now, the only terms and conditions are that its UK only guys as I can't afford to float a massive international postal charge so bear that in mind.
The lucky winner will be contacted via PM to swap postal details after they are announced here on new years day!

Then I'll paint the termie in the new year! (which just to confirm is NOT part of the giveaway)

Good luck!

What a fun idea! I know you have a retro heart, so my suggestion would be the RT era Salamanders scheme. It's not something you really see and I think you'd make an excellent job.

The obvious choice for terminators is Blood Angels!
But given you have a lot of RT themed marines already, I shall suggest the 80s yellow and red (that's almost orange) colour scheme

Edit:
I had a look around to see if I could find some pics that were appropriate but everything seemed not as epic as I remembered untill I found this guy:
Clicky

 osjclatchford wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

He's back!

Captain Alessio Cortez
come on now, you didn't really think a little thing like being dead was enough to stop Captain Cortez, did you?

One of my favourite all time GW characters and you've done the character proud mate, well done!! Funnily enough, we were talking about this character a few days ago and then I see this! (I'm a bit behind, I know)

Sorry to hear about the Covid. It's not particularly nice.

Thanks lordB.
rather pleased with him myself.

So, its sanguinalia!
and new recruits for the 151st are in;

A continuing source of inspiration. Looking forward to the dogs turn out. Lovely idea with the paw prints in the mud.

Actually that's my usual bootprints I put on all my trench bases... But thanks nonetheless.

Figured the tiny pawprints would just get lost once the Debris and crackle is added...

But yeah, looking at mastewieler colours on the sniffy pup and perhaps Grey or even traditional mastif tan/brown on the alert doggie. But that might change later...

Those are some lovely little pooches. Where are they from?

I also thought they were paw prints at first glance!

They're a couple of the hounds from the wildercorps from the hunter and hunted warcry set...


meanwhile work continues on getting the last (minus the dogs that is) of the 151st done:


that's the last two guardsmen and the other three of the 3rd ed style stormtrooper conversions.

yes, I know I said I wouldn't be doing batches again, but call this an exercise in patience and discipline.

In all honesty, my back is a bit knackered again, and this coupled with how busy I am with family etc... and the lack of good daylight hours at this time of year means I only get about two or so hours of good painting time in any one session.
So I figured I'd do these over a longer period, getting stage at a time done and also generally taking the pressure off myself to get models done.
the clearout of t'other stuff is helping on that , no end and these being the last minis of a particular faction make me feel less ocd about cracking them out fast. (Not sure why I get like that anyway)

I've already a new regiment in mind for this coming year's painting and of course, theres the competition termie to do, not to mention two vehicles, an inquisitor conversion and those two dogs to do too. As well as the final character for the 80's crimson fists.
so yup, 2024 will be off to a busy start methinks...

The OSJC's :
Great Christmas giveaway 2023!
Results are in;

The winner is... Guardling!

Well done to you sir! Classic blood angels is an inspired idea! They were the original termie colours afterall. But as you say, the definitive blood angels are second edition's scheme, as such the terminator will be the classic bright red and yellow scheme. God what a challenge for the purveyor of darkness and grittiness I've come to be known for eh?

Will be worth the challenge though and a great start to the new year.

Now this is where I'd normally commiserate the losers but as I've only had two entries, I figure that a beakie painted up in the classic RT salamander scheme should hit the spot for our runner up.
So, well done olthannon for the fantastic suggestion. A colourscheme destined to drive me insane, I can only conclude you are punishing me for not getting enough of my models done this last year!

Don't feel you've missed out. As there were only two of you in this, I've decided to send you a consolation prize (you'll see when it arrives)

check your pm inboxes for details guys.

Thanks again for participating!

So not only a RT camo beakie (love me them beakies) but a BA in OSJC's style?

It's like christmas all over again!

Thats a nice thing to say!

heres a WIP/swatch of some camo schemes I'm playing with for the new regiment for 2024!


Autumn - is bugmans glow, deathkorps drab and jokero orange.
Spring - is bugmans glow, deathkorps drab and loren forest
Splinter - is zandri dust, waagh flesh and mornfang brown

who can it possibly be on the way to the Eoforwich sysytem now, then?

All those schemes look brilliant. Great brush control!

Can't wait to see them on some minis.

Looking forward to seeing them on a model, especially the autumnal pattern. Your conversions are always a treat to look at.

thanks guys.
to be honest, this new project is a bit of a return to peadot, but done properly.

the three camoschemes above are based on proper german camo. not just inspired by but actually copied as closely as I can in form and colour.

the peadot on the 39th was a bit of a copout. A quick way of replicating erbsenmuster camo. The colours were there but they were really just a bunch 'o' dots on a plain background. which is fine bause I wanted it to look like it was painted by hand onto the fabric. just like how the first real camo patterns were done many many years ago, in fact quite some years before erbsenmuster was even invented...

however, with the 151st I wanted a better shaped and formed camo that was predominantly green but indeterminate as to which of the two greens was the basecoat. somewhat loosely based on us 'duck hunter' camo (just without the brown tone or the specific overlap/gap pattern) this was achived with a big 'cowprint' splotch pattern of loren forest over castellan green, then highlighted with deathworld forest and zandri dust.

this time I've combined both methods. simple three tones only. (for ease of paint and less redundant mess on the eyes) do the slotches of colours over the basecoat , then the dots of each colour over the other colours to replicate the integral design.

both peadots are intended to replicate the german waffen oak reversible tunics for spring/autumn. hence the matching tones in all but the light green and orange which swap for the season.

the splinter is another matter entirely, and will likely be saved for large areas like camo-capes or bedrolls or whathaveyou, essentially whererver I want something thats camo, but not a peadot! LOL

you'll see soon enough. not sure I can resist doing a test-piece soon, dispite the current backlog... time will tell...

I recognized the autumn pattern as the SS autumnal camo gear. That pattern has always stood out to me from others for some reason. It's a very unusual colour mix, but works really well.

indeed it does...


"we heard you have a trench or two here in the Eoforwich system in dire need of some reinforcements..."
- Commander Kessler of the 22nd Krieg Sappers.


Yes, as a guard collector, its about time I got some kriegsmen done, I know.
This is Vogel, combat engineer of the Krieg 22nd.

you probably all knew I'd get round to them eventually, but in order to sate the conversion demons that prowl in the darkest and most depraved crevicies of my deranged mind, I could not just do fw resins or the plastic 'veteran guardsmen' and be happy.
Instead, I went for the cadian/krieg conversion kit from https://tinylegend.eu/.
What a fabulous set of 3d printed bits they are, these being parts from the engineers conversion bundle, on a cadian shocktrooper. (only the hatchet is from the plastic krieg set)
It gives all the vibes of a forgeworld engineer but with the sensibilities of the new krieg minis (minus the fugly new masks, the classic FW styled ones are much better) and also the added size and proportional improvements that are the new cadian bodies!

more will most definately follow soon.
I aim to flesh out the engeineer's squad to a five man team (any more and I'll likely loose interest, LOL) and also will be doing some infantrymen, but not the usual krieg you know in the full winter greatcoats.
No, these will also be based on nuCadians but will feature the krieg lucius lasguns allbeit mostly as carbines (just like on my filey 42nd) to keep with the cqb theme of the engineers.
Essentially they will be an extention of the engineer theme; short-coats, close quarters, its a sapper's regiment afterall, but that doesn't mean its comprised solely of shotgun-sporting combat-engineer squads.
The 22nd also features a riflemen company or two, it's just that these guys will be somewhat designed to match.
To visually differentiate the minis (engineers/riflemen) the line-infantry will be wearing their smocks the other way round, sporting the greener toned spring colour variant of the peadot camo.
A little odd, I know, to feature both autumn and spring colours in one army but this is 40k, not bolt action, as such the reversible jacket's colourschemes made a bit of sense somehow, plus, it fits with the obvious need (as gaming pieces) to be obviously different on the table.

To be honest, the whole project its a cool way of showing what krieg wear when not being constantly used in winter-like conditions off-world.

"springtime for Krieg and the Emperor!"

As with my other armies, I will delve into all the wartime movie stereotypes i see fit and also lean heavily for inspiration from rtcw. That game left a hell of mark on my memory and I like to hark back to it's ott themes of occult, sci-fi and world-war-wierd that combines to make it the ideal muse for 40k guard armies everywhere...

hmm, even as I write this, visions of Kasrkin's converted to resemble the paratroopers from rtcw are swirling in the old brainbox, drop-lids, goggles and fg42 inspired hellguns, all wrapped up in black carapce armour and peadot camo...

...ubersoldats!

...venom troopers!

...Helga's Elite guard!








...emperor's guts, what have I started this time..?

 osjclatchford wrote:
"springtime for Krieg and the Emperor!"

Superb first Krieger, very in line with your other guard but with plenty of Krieg flair. Speaking of, awesome bits from Tiny Legend! I've not seen these before - great webstore too.

He looks fantastic.

Excellent IG Army and vehicles mate.

Very cool, the autumn camo is very striking!

osjclatchford wrote: I figure that a beakie painted up in the classic RT salamander scheme should hit the spot for our runner up.
So, well done olthannon for the fantastic suggestion. A colourscheme destined to drive me insane, I can only conclude you are punishing me for not getting enough of my models done this last year!

definitely not a punishment! I thought you'd be able to do a brilliant job.

That autumn camo is fantastic, great work!

Thanks guys!

@olthannon, I jest of course but in truth I'm rather looking forward to both your yellerun and guardlings bloodangel I've also yet to do.

however, time has been a premium of late, its a case of everything going on and nothing happening.
also daylight hours are still not quite up to scratch for me to get a good long modelling/painting session in, in one sitting, yet.
This, in conjunction to my obligitory duties, mean that I'm not able to dedicate the time needed to work on these minis and do them justice.
Thats also the reason I've still not done the last crimson fist.

however, on my guard, which at this point are all but a 'paint-by-existing-standard' method, I'm able to do the different sections at a time, batching them in fours/fives and getting bits done as and when I can. As I've said, not somehing I usually enjoy, but this time I've found my comfort zone and its ok.

the only exception to this was, of course, the preliminary kriegsman, of which I was too desperate to see in the colourscheme and-all-that-jazz not to do it. but they are surprisingly fast to knock out, faster even than my other guard so I shall get those done in no time methinks...

anyway, what has the longs weeks of chipping away hith and yon got me?


Major Sterling



sgt Basilone


yup, the last of the Selby 151st troopers! seems like an age since I started them and there's only ten troopers! came out really nice in the end.
Simple conversions that ended up looking really effective and managed to evoke that second era flavour but all brought up to modern standards... yummy!
can't say we've entirely seen the back of these though... a few one-offs may yet still occur, the same can be said for any of the previous regiments you've seen featured in here!





but that's not all:


Stormtrooper with Shotgun



Stormtrooper demolitions expert



Stormtrooper Commander


Geez, these were a long haul getting done, but damn if it wasn't worth it.
They scream 3rd ed stormtroopers and yet still have all the cool of the new kasrkin and even some references to the 'actual' scions kit. very very happy with these guys.









have a groupshot of all five as a parting gesture:


what next? who can say... I don't want to say the other krieg as I feel I should really get the competition minis done first.
but the dogs might still happen first...

because they're good boys...

Looks fantastic imo. Really like the leather jacket.

Hi guys.

sorry its been an absolute age since I posted but my dad died on the 31st of January and as you can imagine, ive been tied up with all the obligatory duties and paperwork that comes with a death.
His funeral is this thursday, much of the mess of paperwork is behind us and with my wife and my sisters to help me with all the munitorium rubbish that's needed for us to help my mum in this situation, life should return to some semblance or normality as of next week.
unfortunately my job is likely to be coming to an end as they are being forced out by their landlord and are moving a distance I just cant get to... so that sucks too...

look, I'm not fishing for sympathy or wallowing in mire of self-pity or all that junk, just letting you know why I've STILL not started the damn blood-angel terminator!


This weekend I started a bit of construction on some of the troopers that were to accompany the kriegers.
They were originally going to be suitably germanicly themed, with anvil's biker helmets for the goggled rtcw paratrooper look, painted in the spring variant of the peadot camo I showed in the test in the earlier post.
however, on saturday, I started playing around with the mad-robot cdf heads I had used on my Filey 42nd droptroopers from way back, now. I coupled these with the vansaar pads and my 'york' pattern bullpup lascarbines on some anvil arms (biosuit arms I believe) and some mad robot irdoni arms and I found I had some neat looking proxies to the FW elysian guard. Just better scaled due to the nucadian bodies.
I knew I couldn't let it lie and played about a bit further.
heres two of them in wip:


I do have more but they're still in even more of a wip state than these are. so these two will have to do for now.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

today (sunday) I had three hours stright to hand so I decided I'd pick up the ol' paintbrush and get one done to try out the colourscheme.

corporal Seb of the Filey 87th, during the Kugelstat cleansing

well, Im rather happy with it.


Much like the krieg test before it, this one is also only recess shaded on the camo and armour not all-over wash, resulting in much cleaner, vibrant look to the finished mini, much less of the grubby vibe so many of my guard have had over the years.

I decided to give the torso the green of the selby 151st and the rest of the armour the same black as on the krieg.
The camo has had one change since the test peice on the base. I decided the loren forest was just too dull, too dowdy in comparison to the camo I was trying to replicate. I decided to swap it out for an old gem I had in my box for the last 30 years, Goblin green!
I had two 3/4 full pots of it stashed away and found it to be in mint condition!
I've since decanted it into one new pot and found it was just the colour I needed to get that look to the camo.
I did the trou the same grey as the krieg and the leather and other gubbins was done in the usual way I do it.
decided on orange goggles as it was a way of getting that orange from the krieg camo in there and I also felt a nice gem effect would be better than the plain black gloss that I usualy do goggles.
I decided to add the camo to the helmet too as I felt it would look nicer, I think it does.
I've been in touch with Steve over at mad robot and I've some more cdf heads on the was to continue this, including a variant with just the goggles. I felt these would give an further reference to the elysians, whilst retaining the classic cadian round helmet look these cdf heads have...

so... the poor old future Blood angel is starting to develop abandonment issues now... must start him next...

Sorry to hear about your dad passing away and your job. Hope things perk up soon.


Great work on your guard.

Nice to see the Filey 87th back to recruiting!
He does look rather Elysian themed which I suspect is going to be popular again thanks to that new buggy...
Good luck with IRL

Sorry about your dad, hope you and your family have been doing alright since. Job woes are the icing on that cake

All the same, Seb looks great, as does his WIP squadmate.

Really appreciated guys, thanks.

so, Ive been working on building this griffon for some time now, just getting the dander to paint it this weekend.


*try right clicking and selecting open in new tab to get a better view
Now, I can confirm I did start on the bloodangel termie, and while his initial basecoats were drying, I picked this up and then never went back to him *blush*
look, you know how it is; when the urge flows, so does the paint. forcing myself to continue on the marine, when I clearly fancied doing this would have likely resulted in a rush job, and if I'm honest I wanted to get this done before I lost the will again and it sat around for another month or three!

Again, using the tried and tested "peggy minge technique" (emperor's guts, I've gotta get a better name for that) this time in green, this old girl has clearly had a hard life.

Those who remember my 111st Royston rifles might be interested (or not) to know that this was built on the chassis of my old stormtrooper chimera for the "dark-eyes" grenadiers I did, back in the day.
yup, broke her down then rebuilt as this grif, using a frontplate from a plastic hydra/wyvern (ebay) with the window from the gloiath truck put in place on the front. Also adding another panel from the goliath to lok like an extention for the drivers compartment (better legroom? emergency release hatch? take your pick)
The side hatches are actually the top chimera hatch repurposed where the previous incarnation of the mini left it without such vitals...
Similarly, as I did not have/could not get a hull heavy bolter, but had a hull heavyflamer I converted it using a HH marine's heavy bolter.
Yes, I know having the ammo hopper on the outside of the vehicle is absurd. sue me.
It's the only hb I had to hand and if building a model of a unit/tank thats been out of favour/print since like, I dunno, 4th ed? 5th ed? isn't absurd enough already I can be forgiven this surely.
The main gun was a purchace from my old buddy Ragsta (thanks again pal!) and origially comes from here:
https://www.modelsandminis.com/browse/cat2965328_893168.aspx
This made the mini a possibility at all. without this I wouldn't have bothered at all.
The sandbags and rear-interior are all from this kit. however I've converted it A LOT!
The bags were tweaked to better fit the hydra/wyvern curved plate, looks like it was made for it, lovely!
on the gun, I added the rear plate from a basilisk gun to the ass-end and an aluminium insert (I turned on the lathe at work) down the muzzle to reduce the calibre a bit. It was looking a little huge, almost madusa sized and I had those shells, now in the back, in mind.
These came from anvil and have been simply added to the rear on a shelf made of angle plasticard and a couple of boxes stashed beneath.
The stand-plate is made from a bit of rhino side door as the one that came with the resin kit is a bit megahoosive! this is suitably much more subtle, its asymetrical design further referencing the old resin vanahiem grif from fw.
To push this further I created a range periscope from one of the headlamps from the goliath on a stretch of plasti-rod (painted to look like telescopic tube) simply drilled and placed in the side-wall of the rear compartment.
To make more sense of this, I used a bit of panel from a deimos rhino and another next to it on the inside wall to make it look like workings connecting the panel and periscope in a funcional and logical manner. I added the grab rail here too, as a step-up for the periscope operator.
I decided to also add a krieg wireless-comlink on the inside panel too. you can just see its aerial sticking out of the port-side in front of the gun.
Its too obscure to get a shot on the camera but you can see it if you tilt the mini about some, bit like a little secret to find! (how does the operorator get to it? dont ask things like that, it incurs the wrath of both the ad-mech and the inquisition...)

not bad for a morning of furious stippling/drybrushing and a second morning/afternoon of detailing and weathering!
note the effect on the tracks, previously learnt from playing about with those barrels (back on page one!) I did a while back.
Quite happy with the look on this. Although savagely weathered, its a pleasant way of referencing the events in the gaming world being reflected in the minis themselves; the griffon has been retired from codexes, its models consigned to the ledgends then the scrap-heap, as such this mini represents an old, formerly decomissioned/abandonned, vehicle thats been sitting in an old warehouse/garage complex in the industrial sector of kugelstadt, collecting rust and dust and more than shows its scars of a lifetime of urban combat prior to this undignifyed and ignoble an end for such a workhorse.
now lovingly adopted by the filey 87th to provide close-artillery support often lacking in a drop-unit... who, knows, maybe one day they might even get round to giving her a fresh coat of paint and or even a jetwash, should it survive that long!

Automatically Appended Next Post:

...talking of the 87th, I guess I should show what sort of model doodles I've been getting up to in the week with these guys eh?


points worth of note; the alterations to the heavy bolter to make it more accatran looking yet also second edition inspired by using the ork-shoota magazine assembly and spare mags on both the gunner and loader.
good opportuity to see those new heads I suggested to steve over on mad robot. glad he went ahead with these, they are indeed a great way of adding elysian flavour yet retaining the nice round helmet.
breacher shotgun in pumping pose looks so convincing and took surprisingly little effort in the end. he also has a bandolier of shells on his back made from bits of the bullet bits from the ork snaggas sprue.
decided to add a strap to the sgt guy's lid, it looks kinda cool and also added a coms aerial to the crouching guy's lid (next to mortar) sliced from one of the new cadian helmetless heads.

another thing of note to many will surely be the miliput/greenstuff shoulderpads.
no I've not suddenly gone up leaps and bounds in sclupting, but instead invested in some bluestuff to make a press mold of those pads.
not really that cost effective, as the greenstuff/miliput itself is not exactly free, is it? but finding enough of those pads is almost impossible all of a sudden. so, mold!

The bluestuff is HIGHLY reccomended by me here at the osjc!
get a small bowl, put the bluestuff block (or blocks) in the bottom and place a teaspoon on it.
boil the kettle and then pour the water till the block is submerged, using the weight of the teaspoon to keep it submerged. when the weight of the teaspoon dents the stuff underwater, its ready.
get it out quick, wipe off the water, munge it up and form it over the the item (or press it down flat and push the thing into it)
you can either let it cool naturally or whack it in the freezer for a min or two (I did) and bingo, +/- instant press mold.

now, I've used epoxy siligum to do the same in the past. It was great, BUT once mixed it's done and then thats the mold. thats it. so if its bad, tough luck old boy, you wasted it.
bluestuff? no such limitation. the mold's no good? back in hot water and do it all over again. wonderfull. well worth thte investment...
go get some. and do ask any annoying questions. I'm happy to help as its a real game changer for me on stuff like this...

So, yeah, I decided that heavybolter was bothering me after all! LOL



this one was taken right off of my old 111st basilisk, literally I just snapped them off and swapped them over, so the old basi now has the silly HH HB with the external mag.

the griff looks much better imho with this now...

so...

Got the bloodangel done today.

The delay was mostly lacklustre desire to get it done but then the secondary delay came from the pigging-cowson of a bast that was painting the yellow... man I hate yellow in the traditional method... so I wouldn't hold my breath for that salamander anytime soon if I were you...
not ruling it out completeley but jeez, this got me sick of yellow. well, as I say, in this method anyway...

Averland sunset simply proved too chalky in the end so I ended up going for untold layers of zamesi desert over three good coats of xv88 basecoat then highlight up to white as usual...
The red was a doddle, using the same method as the red on the ol' crimsonian fists! and if I'm honest is something I'm rather stoked about how it came out on a full mini.

The overall goal was to replicate the colourscheme of the '93 era marines but through the OSJC filter, so to speak.
This explains the pads, knees and flame icons, inspiration all taken from the 2nd ed rulebook cover and, of course, the goblin green base rim.

However, the weathering and general 'scumming-up' hith and yon is pure osjc, so I'm told...
I was not even aware I had a style till it was described and pointed out to me.
lives and learns eh..?

I do hope he matches up to your expectation, Guardling!

So... anyone for Maccy-Dees?



anyway, anything else to report?

yup;

Who said a drop-unit cant have vehicles..?

Great griff, and a crisp high five for circling back to swap out the heavy bolter. Loads of nice details going on with that tank

Speaking of nice details, WOW that og scheme on that very new terminator! Flame foot probably takes it for me, but dig all that chipping throughout. This dude has seen some stuff!

Cheers.

Really happy with the griff. The new paint job deserved a 'perfect' model. Hence the post-painting heavy bolter swap out. I'd have never have been properly satisfied if it was not modelled as best as I possibly could...

Lols, re the termie, yeah he's had a hard life.
With the classic colours and all that, I figured the weathering was another way of pointing out that 1993 was over 30 years ago now.
He's that weathered because he's been wearing that armour for a thirty year campaign!

Also, I know I said that I might not do that salamander, but I've got over my little hissy fit, muscled-up, and got him built and I'm going to come up with an alternative way to do the yellow. Wish me luck

So in other news, Seems that Jago Kane (of yellowline trucks) has been back to the Eoforwich system and has finally found a price that the 39th were happy enough with to part with their "Badger" Excavator.


The trenches on Eoforwich prime have been dug for so long and are so fortified with pre-fab bunkers, weapon emplacements and out-buildings they're practically permanent structures!
As such the Badger haddn't moved from its last-used position for nigh-on a decade now and it sitting there collecting dust, grime and rust was a crime that Kane could simply not allow to continue.
Not when there's asteroids to mine, that is, and certainly not when he's after a bargain to make that happy buck a little easier and a little happier to come by...
As it happens, the cash changed hands rather swiftly, leaving Jago the proud owner of a Subterreanean excavator, the 39th no doubt soon to be in possession of some snazzy new uniforms and lasguns...
A quick jet-wash and re-spray to Yellowline's trademark colours and she was good as new...
well, that was until the next day, whereupon she was put to work in the mines and rest is history...


So yeah, after the success of the peggy-minge-technique on the griff, I was looking at my older vehicles and feeling how lacklustre they seem in comparison. LOL (only natural, we all do this when finding a new, sucessful technique, right?)
The tunneller being the one leaving me most lacrymosal to think of the wasted opportunity that is the heavy weathering of the peggy-minge-technique, was not used to really sell the idea of a subterranian vehicle.
well, funt it, said I, I'll just redo it as another yellerun! If anything made sense as a excessively weathered yellow industrial vehicle it's the Badger!

as you can see its come out rather striking and feels very industrial and as such is much more authentic looking as a mini. I feel the cat/jcb colours make it seem more like something that could actually exist somehow, the weathering obviously helps there too.
This time I went for almost no weathering at the back of the vehicle (well, significantly less, anyway) and this is also true of the backs of the drill-heads, reasoning that these areas would not get such a shellacking of debris and grime, being almost completely protected by their very positions.

The sides, however, are a different story, these would surely be scraped, dinked and scratched to within an inch of their lives by the resultant tunnel walls the machine creates as it operates.
hence the directional scraping along the sides and also on the frontside edges of the rotating 'iris' ring just aft of the drillheads and on the plate directly behind the topside track-mech on the ass-end plating, to show where debris and that has dinked and splattered these areas over time.
The tracks (drive-assembly and topside tracks) and the drills themselves were done in that reddy-brown rust patina effect I did on the griffon's tracks and barrels before this and for a bit of visual difference the tunnel-rifleing ring and track-clearing plows were done in a simple iron-rust effect achived with rhinox hide, stippled with mornfang, then xv88 and then the front of the plow weathered with the same skavenblight dinge as the rest of the vehicle.
Unlike the truck that preceded this, lots more gleaming metal was added to these grey areas this time and I feel the visual contrast it gives suits the size and function of the vehicle nicely, this old girl's had a hard life...
fyi the weathering on the black stripes is steel legion drab. remember, with this tecnique, cold colours require warm weathering, warm colours cold weathering.
likewise, dark cold colours need light warm weathering (and vise versa) thats why its steel legion drab, not rhinox hide... trust me it makes sense if you try it...

yes the interior is unchanged from its original grey... like hell I was doing all that again! LOL

oh, and no, this does not mean I'm going to redo all my old tanks and artillery minis. I'm not completely insane!
no; I've a classic rhino, a mk2 rhino, a scratch built heavy mortar and a highly converted basilisk in the the plain olive green of my 111st royston rifles, the earthshaker carriage and bombard in the 39th's dusty drab grey, a rhino from my spacesharks and now two yelleruns of Yellowline trucks and the griffon (and what will be another transport vehicle) in the green peggy-minge effect.
The older tanks etc... are fine as-is and represent what goes with those old collections. its a snapshot of my abilities and tecniques of those times, not to be shunned but to be kept as both reference and as part of the OSJC history!
The griffon and the 'Badger' were just too good an opportunity, each, to be ignored!
hence this...

parting shots and 'codex' description, for those that missed it the first time around

The Imperial 'Badger' excavator
An STC design from the first days of the Imperium's colonisation of the galaxy, the 'Badger' excavator is a sub-terrainian drilling and tunnelling machine.
Although similar to the Adeptus-Mechanicus' 'termite' drill or the Krieg 'hades' assault drill, this device outdates them both and is, to all extents and purposes, considered a civilian machine, oft' used by terraformers and colonists to create tunnels for pipework and underground faclilities, mine for materials and even demolition of condemned structures.
Armed with the ferocious and highly destructive high-torque adamantium mining bits there's little it cannot chew through.
however, should a particularly stubborn vein of mineral-ore or crystaline structures slow progress, the tri-multi-melta, nestled amongst the drill-heads is sure to plough through a path...

(orginal paintjob and conversion notes here: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/60/798025.page#11220574 )

oo, Badger looks dope! What kit is that even? A kitbash?

its built from the mantic games 'veer myn' tunneller model, see here:

https://www.manticgames.com/firefight/veer-myn/tunneller/

Of course, theres the addition of some bits with aquillas (from the valk missile pods) on the sides and an aquilla in the slot on the back made sure that there were no sugestions of divided loyalties.
The basic kit has a great second edition 40k feel to it. a certain 'je ne sais quoi' like the same level of detail as the classic chimera and russ sets of the time, not to mention the classic rhino variants.
As the weapons that came with it are designed for skaven like critters, they are rather absurd looking. as such they were a no go.
you can see I instead added a melta, the one from the new primaris speeder, purely because it has three barrels, making it seem like it blongs on the model.
It just needed inverting and the original topsight clipping off and a new one added on the new top edge. (formerly the bottom)

A few things to mention should you get one: the model goes together insanely easy. it practically clips together but I'd advise glue tbh.
however worth mentioning that the drills and the front 'plough' blades are made of pvc not styrene, requiring superglue not plastic cement there.

Back to Rynns world with a vengeance!

"With greater power comes greater responsibilities...
We cannot sit in satisfaction of our petty victories any longer.
The liberation of our homeworld is but an empty gesture, the scouring of the greenskin hoards a pointless act, the very salvation of the Crimson Fist geneseed a hollow and meaningless deed, if we allow the same fate to come to others.
Guilliman has shown us the way! He has given us the tools we need to truly execute the Emperor's blessed vison!
I stand before you as proof!
Follow me into hell itself, cross the Rubicon Primaris and join the ranks of our great purge!

come brothers, we have xeno skulls to crush..."

Pedro Kantor, Capter Master of the Crimson fists addressing his charges upon his crossing of the rubicon primaris... Captain Alessio Cortez's own 'speach' after crossing the rubicon primaris was rather succinct in comparison and in truth a great deal less dramatic;

"somebody fetch me a bolter..."




So yeah, this is the final mini I shall be doing for the crimson fists and as such I figured I should go all-out!

clearly based on tor garradon and inspired by the big bugger in the middle of the rogue trader art (who it turns out IS kantor!) I wanted a big, bad and terrifying beakie to lead the charge.

As with cortez and the heavy bolter guy, I shaved and trimmed the knees and chest clean, then added piping detail to the chest.
This dipiction of dorns arrow (the storm bolter) is based off of the old SM commander plastic stormbolter, allbeit with barrels from bolt-rifles, a magazine assembly from a chaos bolter and the targeter is lifted from a gsc's heavy stubber. I simply couldn't be funted with ammo-feeds and it matters not IMHO.
The helmet is from the darkangels ravenwing sprue but I greenstuffed a more prominent crest to better match the old artwork.
With the artwork in mind I knew I needed the appropriate left pauldron. this also came from the classic plastic commander set and was ideal to give the look I needed.
The plumbob thingy on the crotchplate simply had to go, I mean whats tor garridon doing with this anyway? wallpapering the bunkers? come on!
no a simple swap for a crux terminator (again from the commander sprue) and this helped with the whole backstory I'd created with Cortez going missing and Kantor carrying this in his honour and in hope of his return.
the backpack was a simple swap for a regular heavy intercessor one and does the job.
now, I'm traditionally a "NO CAPES!" kinda guy but this mini has one 'hard-sculpted' in and I had the idea that this has been fashioned from the remnants of the old banner from the dude in the boxart.

now, I will point out, that its not that I didn't want to add the severed ork head, its just, I didn't want to....
look, its just silly looking! and as much as I wanted to replicate the feeling of the art my sillyness will only stretch so far... LOL
however, to show the ork hatred and further suggest at the passage of time I added the ork skull underfoot (taken from an old metal vindicare assassin).
I feel it really makes the pose, he's not resting, no way it would take the weight or fury of those sexy cuban heels.
No, he's right in the middle of crushing that skull to splinters!
A few empty shells from anvil and jobs a good-'un...

Heres a WIP that shows off the build/gs elements.


To sum up, this was a great project and a real nice nostalgia fest, making models that 8 year old me would have loved to see at the time.
one of the benefits of getting better at the hobby as you get older is that you can take these journeys and get some real catharsis out of it.
It's also taught me that I should not be so pedantic about primaris/regular marines/horus heresy. if its cool, build it and paint it.
does it spark joy? if the answer is no its time to move on...
A conclusion it seems that GW has taken under its wing at present with the axing and re-releasing of marine kits of late...

Now that's a fist I love Garridon conversions, makes for solid badassery to end your CR run with. Glad to hear he's stomping that skull, because I certainly had the thought that Ork bones are tough but not that tough

EDIT: The tunneller looks great! An unexpected model from you but fits right in with the construction yellow crew.

I've always loved your Marine kitbashes, never seemed to matter much which torsos you'd use, Primaris, Phobos or firstborn, the results always turned out looking great. Just keep going and leave purism for the purists. You have a knack of making everything look coherent enough.

thanks guys. you keep looking at em, I'll keep converting and painting them!

Kriegers are done!


First up the sgt.
Using the tinylegends kit to its best to replicate that classic pose of the fw resins!
gave him the boltcroppers from tiny legends and an astartes meltabomb and krak-grenade. (yellow because Im trying to force myself to get more comfortable painting it, as you know its a bit of a dread colour for me, much like white...*shudders)
My oft-used shells from the deathwatch kit and the chest light from the plastic krieg set. to prevent the ol' subterrainian-homesick-blues creeping in...


next up is this guy in a fancy tiny legends field-cap.
As he has his cap on, his helmet is on his back (this is from anvil's stahlhelms from the trencher regiments range) as well as a lovely rtcw/where eagles dare reference in the form of a dynamite bundle from the gsc acolyte sprue (yes a bugger to remove the monster claw, but worth it for the colour and character it gives the mini you'll surely agree?
Also featuring a DKOK chest light, this time the lens in a orange gem rather than grey to show it's on. (mainly because he was lacking an eye lens, I figured the gem on the chest would balance this out on the mini.)


Then the most aggressive of the squad, this guy shooting and advancing.
I went to town on the kit on his back, using a cadian body with a shovel on the backpack, I added the pickaxe, boltcropper and a bundle of rope/cable, all from the tiny legends kit.
The grenade comes from the anvil trencher range as is the knife with the brass knuckels on the hilt. I wanted this guy to look like the solid warrior of the group. He's a soldier, there to shoot and stab stuff. Yeah, he carries the excavation gear, but hes not messing about with bombs and charges and all that jazz, he's there to provide cover and carry stuff... simple.


Then another field-cap dude, this time in the camo for a different look.
His gasmask required some alteration to get the head-pose as I wanted, the tube carefully removed and a canister from a spare anvil brodie/gasmask head. not a bad look. one now rendered obsolete by Tiny ledgend's latest kits that contain flexible hoses, making coversion much, much easier.
His grenades are from the grey knights, the skull grenade suggesting at perhaps something chemical or special in some way?
The positively huge melta-charge is from the new plastic krieg. I say huge as the ones in the fw kit or tiy legends kit are about half the size! LOL and again with the chest-light lens for the splash of colour it gives.

heres group pic with t'other one from before:

Not by any means done with the krieg 22nd just yet.
I've a plan for some heavily armoured and heavily armed guys in stalhelms and gasmasks to go with these fellas that'll provide cover/support whilst the engineers go about thier business of doing sneaky explosive thingys and setting up sappy-trappy doo-hickies...

more soon

-REDACTED- no longer relevant

bit of an odds and sods weekend.

so, firstly I got the dogs done:

Donnie is Col. Sumner's (of the Selby 151st) personal warhound.
After the Colonel was awarded the Aquila Imperialis medal for his actions in combat, he promptly removed the medal from his own chest and affixed it to Donnie's harness, stating; "Without him, I'd have never got more than fifty yards through those trenches..."


Vinz, is Commander Grant's (of the 97th scions) tracking hound.
Of vinz, he was heard to remark; "Neither heretics nor xenos can hide from vinz's nose. he sniffs 'em out and we take 'em down..."


Donnie was painted in the blue-grey of a great dane. A simple task of basecoating skavenblight dinge and subsequent lighter drybrushes of admech grey and dawnstone, finishing with some extreme edge highlights of admin grey to his muscletone and face.
Also paying attention to blend some skintone into the ears, around the underbelly and mouth areas, as well as under the eyes and his scars.
His webbing is done in my usual black and brown leather with some green added on the 'wadding'.
Vinz was done as a Masteweiler, a curious breed that can often result in what is essentially a giant rottweiler.
vinz's coat was tackled by a simple drybrush of skavenblight dinge over pure black and a very VERY light drybrush of admech grey over this.
The brown was tackled with tiny layered stippling and highlighting of rhinox hide, mournfang brown, xv88 and lastly zandri dust to achieve the desired blended effect.
For a difference to Donnie and to contrast his dark fur, I did his collar red with brass studs and then, feeling he had enough brown on him already, I did the webbing green with tan 'wadding'.
The noses are simple gloss varnish over black.
The eyes were done with zandri dust and black pupils.
Now, most important; Never do white eyes on dogs or horses. It just looks weird. Trust me, just substitute the white with a tan or light brown of your choosing and It'll look normal.


next I fancied something mechanical so I did this auto-mortar for my Filey 87th:


yes, I know I did one before for the 39th pioneers but that was rather blandly painted in the dirty grey of the artillery and vehicles I had done for said force at the time.
This one references the green and black armour of the Filey 87th and I also added some goblin green on the mortar shells in the drum for a bit of 'pop' (any excuse to use that now!)
I also paid more attention to the direction of the weathering on the drum this time, suggesting rotational scuffing.


finally onto something I ordered from Spellcrow:


everyone knows I love me a good barrel and these are no exception. I went for a less rusty metal approach and a more weathered plastic instead.
using stippling highlights and the contrasting weathering I've been doing on the vehicles of late. so yeah, it works on smaller things!
Going for blue water-butt, propane orange and a yellerun for yellowline trucking co. I've more of these to do so I'm sure I'll get around to them soon...

I had ordered some of the blitzkrieg heads that they have too, intending to use them on some kasrkins as reinforcements for my krieg, but alas they came out way too small for my intended use. Guess I may end up using them on regular guard in the future? who knows...
Still as there's not much enthusiasm for the krieger's now I suppose that's not a huge loss
I'll Just have to rethink those stormtroopers now...

Spellcrow are great by the way, operating out of Warsaw, Poland, they offer a great range of full minis and conversion parts in hand-cast resin and are of a great quality and very affordable. the postage was also surprisingly low. they were also kind enough to throw in some random bits in amongst my order. most likely as a bonus for being a new customer. A very nice and unexpected 1+
Lovely guys. but don't take my word for it, go see for yourselves:
https://www.spellcrow.com/

more soon.

Loving those Kriegers! Especially the camo scheme is fab

Great work on the Puppers!
Also very late reply to the 90's Blood Angel Terminator; he looks great and the "OSJC filter" makes him better than I was expecting!

thanks folks!

Today I got my biker from the Filey 87th done:


Based on an atalan jackal, this uses the bike, legs and left hand from this kit.
The rest is a torso form the valkerie kit, the arms are anvil regiments as are the grenades.
The stowage is a pack fromt he krieg kit, the rope from the tiny legends krieg leftovers and the bedroll on the front is from the nucadian sprue.
obviously, his head is the usual cdf head from madrobot, the pads vansaar (or in this case blue/green stuff press-molds of vansaar pads) and the 'York' pattern lascarbine (made from mk4 marine flamer and lasgun buttstock, muzzle and mag assembly) that all my Filey 87th have.
The big pocket comes from an astartes mini (can't remember which, but a relatively new one, I'm sure)

Dispite the alternative parts used to construct him (compared the footsloggers I've already built from nucadians) I'm pleased with the way that the colourscheme, coupled with the use of the helmet, pads and lascarbine have combined to make him fit right in. Any obvious visual differnces (armoured shins, short coat, rubber crotch and kneepads etc...) can be explained away as specialist equipment due to his recon/outrider role.

special note to the bike camo which is actually a recreation of yet another german camo (to fit in with the spring pattern peadot on the fatigues), this time "ambush" armour pattern.

this was achived with zandri dust, then blobs of waaagh flesh and mournfang brown. then dots of zandri dust on both the brown and green blobs, then a few waaagh flesh dots on the zandri dust.
just right!
all it needed was a targeted shade of brown and black (inthe deepest recesses) then a edge weather (in place of a highlight) of mechanicus standard grey (tried skavenbright but it was too dark). much like the peggy-minge technique, used on my most recent vehicles, just a little simplified as this is a very small surface area and doing camo always slows things down anyway.
not sure I'd use this on a big mini as I feel it would need an airbrush application to look good on that scale but for the bike its fine.
But in truth, even with the colour differences, is not even really that discernable from the cloth peadot.
still its another 40's camo and it makes a lot of sense on this application, alongside the peadot in the force, so I'm not at all bothered.

I don't think I'll be doing any more bikers as this was just a way of using what I had left over from the atalan jackals kit. But this was fun nonetheless.

I've noticed these pics look a little off, colourwise, so I may try to get better ones tomorrow when the light's better...

He looks excellent. Genuinely one of the best conversions that you have done. Great work, as always.

Cheers Jim, thats good to know, considering he was really an afterthought of leftovers!
one of Bob Ross' "happy little accidents" I guess!

Got this done today:


Jago's got stuff stashed all over the galaxy, got to have proper places to stash it, right?

A scratchbuild I made at work from corrugated card and spare gasket card cut into strips (for the ribbing).
the door-lock "rods" are cotton earbuds with the buds cut off and the hinges are bits of wire off-cuts.
The welded effect is greenstuff and the tiny eagle on the front is sliced from a nucadian lasgun

here's the WIP shot on the bench at work:

Working hard or hardly working, eh?

Alas, my camera had no joy with Filey rider again today, but my mrs gave it a snap with her smartphone on some portrait setting or some such:

not sure if its better, or what, but its another shot, so enjoy!

just realised, that I've failed to show a shot of the container from the front!

now you can see all the details in the door side!

also this shot is a little less overexposed and over saturated, better showing a true representation of the colour on this. the other pics almost made it look like its just weathering over plain yellow base.
With this shot, I think you can better see the transition of colour in the stippling layers...

Logged into Dakka for the first time in years to simply say...wow.

Holy Moley. Amazing work.

Cheers man, anything in particular or just the whole shebang?

So today I decided to turn the old clock back with a bit of 20-20 hindsight!

You'll remember me saying that the Eoforwich 39th sold their badger excavator to Jago Kane of Yellow-Line Trucking Co. and that some new uniforms and kit were likey in their future?

well, what else do you think was coming into the Eoforwich system in that shipping container?
Yup new kit and uniforms for the boys in brown!

and it seems the troops approve!

I've returned to the 39th and given them a fresh perspective, in the wake of the nucadians and plastic krieg which were not orignially available at the time of my original anvil based builds.

As you can see, he still has the same brodie-lid/gasmask combo, as well as the simple, slim-line back-webbing (astartes leg-pockets from the infiltrators sprue), to keep his design familiar.
The changes are, obviously, the fact that his proportions are greatly improved due to the base being a nucadian and the use of Krieg rifle/arms.
His armour was tackled in the same way as the original 39th albeit with more darker areas added (bellyplate and smaller underplates on shoulders) for interest and contrast.
The trousers/knees are done in grey, much in the style of my selby 151st (with the darkgrey pads) as that works nicely.
The gasmask and gaiters are done in olive green but much a much darker base than the old 39th, so I could go a bit extra with the highlights, again giving more contrast to the mini.
A spot of colour in the form of the red thermite 'nade and some nicley highlighted black areas, incuding the eyes which are now done as black/grey 'gems' as opposed to simple gloss black finish of old.
The smock/coat is the biggest difference as far as paintjob is concerned but probably not that noticable to the layman viewer: It's another peadot, much the same as thecamo the filey 87th currently use (deathkorps drab and gobin green on bugmans glow with zandri and ushabti highlights) but the bugmans glow swapped out for steel legion drab. which was the basecoat of the old 39th minis. These were painted to look like the old 1st world war hand painted camo whereas these look much closer to mass produced, machine printed camo. Which is good if they're supposed to be new uniforms. its a way of adding to the force without making the old minis obsolete. Those original minis are now a representation of an earlier time in the regiments history.
Fluff aside, It's a much more simplified, and as such, cleaner looking camo than the original 39th, but the new way of painting the shapes/dots (as well as only shading the recesses, not an all-over wash) leaves a much nicer overall finish to it.
With it being brigher, greener and shorter, perhaps this is spring uniform?

The pose itself is a nod to the old pathe news reels that showed our boys going off to the war, all pith and vinegar, jolly and confident. Many with no idea of what they'd truly be facing.
The irony was pushed a step further on this model by the sandbags, suggesting he's not just off to war but also going stright 'over-the-top', albeit casual and nonchelant:

"were off to purge the heretics mate, You coming or what?

Got that mystery (was it though?) vehicle done at last.

The delay on this was anfortunate accident in march when a large and unyeildy object fell from a high shelf and bludgeoned the build rather nastily.
since then its been sitting looking sorry for itself and I've put it off in a fit of irritation at the accident.

Damage to the righthand runner and lefthand front exhaust, as well as several damaged track-links has now been repaired/cleaned up and generally goes unnoticed unless pointed out. much of it looking like fair battledamage. the peggy-minge/weathering goes along way to hiding much of this too!

anyway, heres my stormtroopers' venerable and venrated ride:


Those of you old enough to remember the heady days of rogue trader will remember that prior to the creation of the chimera kit, guard armies had access to the rhino as a transport.
Well you know me, love a bit of 80's nostalgia and this is of no exception.

remembering the following artwork from an antiquated White dwarf:

I set about converting a Horus Heresy Legion rhino into a gaurd-issue transport of yester-year, allbeit viewed through todays modern miniture aesthetic!
First up I got myself a Deimos Rhino.
I've coveted these since they were FW exclusive and now its in plastic, let alone cheaper than the 40k mk2c rhino kit it was a must have item for an old-soak like me.

First up were the grabrails and door handles. A must have as they scream rt era rhino and its a travesty they were ommitted from the otherwise rather splendid Horus Heresy Deimos kit.
Said siderails were made from plastic rod, heated and bent and then set into drilled holes with polycement to permanently secure them. (not wanting snapped rails on this-un!)
I chose to simply put them in between exhausts, not around them like the original kit did it (and the zinge industries conversion kit does it).
This was partly because I feared snap-off damage over time and also because, although nostalgic, I realised it served absolutely no logical sense for them to be there. The running boards are limited to the width of the exhausts, so the grabrails should be also.
The handles on the doors were created out of bent solder and a couple of plastic tube offcuts and were simply glued on with GP cyannoacrylate.
Next thing on the list to recreate from the old kit were the oftimes snapped-off rear aerials.
These were sourced from the primaris impulsor, being a marine kit, the visual sensibilities matched 100% and the solid chunk of them felt much more secure than anything I could have scratch built to serve the same purpose.
While I was at this I also elected to add some extra comms-equipment in the form of a stubbier aerial and a tiny dish taken off of the comms-backpack from the Kasrkin kit.
A nice way to reference the stormtroopers that ride in it and add a bit more detail that didn't take it over the top or cluttered...
Another mostly overlooked detail was the rear hatch.
The 30k rhino simply uses the same flat hatch from the 40k mk2c rhino. This would simply not do for me.
When I did a similar conversion for my spacesharks I had used an original mk1 rhino plate for this section. Now, obviously I didn't have another of those knocking around and although I could have got out a mortgage and bought one from ebay (or simply knocked one up from plasticard or regular card I suppose), I was filled with a desire to make this out of standard kits available, that way its easily replicatable for anyone else, or myself in the future for that matter!
So I simply used the new Deimos Predator front hull , inverted it and slapped it on the back!
To make sense of the window thats now +/- at floor-level, I covered it with a handle bit cut from the door of a landspeeder (so much for available kits eh?, in my defence this was still available at the time, use a vent from something else nowadays?).
Another thing I fondly remember from the old kit was the pair of stowage boxes. To create a modern analogue for these I used the boxes from the new sentinel kit.
They are a nicely high-detailed alternative that fits the bill and also further cements this as an Imperial-guard rhino.
Now, this kit does not have the windscreen and wipers detail that the 40k one does, so I set about sorting that out by cutting some off the 40k one's front plate and setting them behind the deimos window ports. Unfortunately the plate I had only had one window on it (the other had been trimmed off and used eleswhere) so I made a bluestuff pressmold and made two greenstuff replicates instead.
Other details on the front include the spare track (taken from the mk2c kit) held on with a spare handle from the Goliath kit. This was a reference to the spare track on the old SOB mk1 repressor kit. (remember those?) I had previously used this on my old mk1 rhino conversion for my royston rifles and its a nice detail that allows for some heavy weathering a rust effects. As such, I thought it would add a bit of further visual interest to the front of the vehicle. I didn't do the dice because, one its not a lucky 7s rhino and, two I didn't want to!
Further details are the alternative headlights, made from cut-down missile pods from the landspeeder kit (as I did on my spacesharks RT inspired rhino). These can be considered optional, the standard ones are fine TBH but its something I liked so did it.
Now I'll say that I had toyed with the idea of the front ram but I just dont like them and never have. As such (again, like my spaceshark rhino before it) I simply added two tow-lugs from the russ kit instead.
I suppose I should mention that damage on the front of the right runnerboard. I replaced the missing bit with simple plasticard offcut (actually cut from an old tank plate leftover from the bits-box) but rather than attempt to recreate the chequerboard texture I simply modelled it as the hasty repair it was. Fiction mirroring real-life! I painted it in grey rather than green as if the quickly welded on plate never got more than a spray of primer before use and its stayed that way ever since.
No. I did not paint the interior. I figured the internal side doors were enough and thats good enough for me! The top hatch is glued down but the bolter-hatches are free for poseability. Because I painted them seperate anyway so why not!
I'm most happy with the colour gradients and weathering on this-un, especially on the internal beige areas too, they went much better than I thought they would.
Unlike the Griffon I did in the same scheme, I was much more carefull about where I put the successive highlights this time, creating gradients on the panels, which is easier on an astartes vehicle as the plate-design lends itself to this much easier. I also ommited the initial basecoat of rhinoxhide then stipple up from DeathKorpDrab up the greens. Instead starting from a base of DeathKorpsDrab and then stippling up. I felt this would make it greener in appearance and, although heavily weathered, somehow a little less disrespected and neglected, yeah its old and dirty but its loved. As a rhino in guard hands would be, it being so rare.
I also like how the red of the artwork's exhausts has happily manifested as the rusty ones on this model. A happy accident if I'm honest but a good one nonetheless...

Nice weathering and the color modulation looks great! I thought for a minute you actually used an airbrush on this one. Nicely done man. Also, considering the og plastic Rhino used the exact same piece for the rear hatch as this one, that aspect is very faithful to the original

Cheers Tauist,

Nice to hear re. the paintjob; really starting to get a feel for the stippling now. glad its paying off visually...

As for the hatch; yeah, this was a real nostalgia fest for me, having built more than my fair share of mk1 rhinos over the years, I just knew I wouldn't be satisfied with less as far as references to the old kit goes!

you know, the Imperial Guard forces could take landraiders back then too...

Really lovely new/old rhino, you've pushed the mix of design styles even further and refined it further than FW even did (the back hatch for example). One enthusiastic guardsman thumbs up

(Said guardsman is a treat as well!)

Thanks BossSalvage

I think it helps that the hatch gives a bit more chunk to the ass-end of the rhino too, on some subconscious level, it makes it's silhouette match the older one a bit better...

as for the 39er, I'm glad someone likes him!
He's only really a one-off for curiosities sake but I can't absolutely rule out any more of the updated 39th boys completely...

Very nice! It seems that I have blinked and missed loads. The new 39th trooper is looking great as is the Filey soldier on the bike with his autumn camo!

 osjclatchford wrote:
Cheers Tauist,

Nice to hear re. the paintjob; really starting to get a feel for the stippling now. glad its paying off visually...

As for the hatch; yeah, this was a real nostalgia fest for me, having built more than my fair share of mk1 rhinos over the years, I just knew I wouldn't be satisfied with less as far as references to the old kit goes!

you know, the Imperial Guard forces could take landraiders back then too...

Dude, even Eldar Harlequins had Land Raiders back then! Ubiqutous to a fault, it was

@ guarding blink and you can miss loads from me, yet other times I'm quiet for a fortnight or more.
I'll say its been fun to play with the tones in the camo on each of these forces; orangey krieg, pinky green for Filey and browny green for the 39th.
To be honest I'm tempted to do something completely off the wall with the same tonal values but completely different colour. Less realistic references from wartime camo and a more cartoonesque scheme. Like a blue shade peadot or the like. Kinda like Serbian police camo. (Damn I always find the real world references, even when I'm trying to be whacky!) perhaps that's a possibility for those five stormtroopers I'm yet to model/paint?

@ tauist, re. Eldar landraiders; it was a crazy time in hindsight, but seemed quite normal at the time. Tbh, I got properly stuck in with second ed, but was fully absorbed into the 40k settings vicariously prior to this by mates and thier brothers and buds who were most passionate about roguetrader, back when I was still doing wartime dioramas...

Today I decided to repaint earthshaker carriage I'd done for the 39th.


Taking my hand to the opus artis drybrush again, I revisisted the peggy-minge technique, this time going back to the rhinox hide basecoat start, as was done on the griffon.

As you can see, it translated well on this mini, making it a great sister-piece for both the Griffon and the Rhino.

The brown basecoat gives an extra layer of dirtyness to the whole thing. Not something I really wanted too much on the command Rhino, for reasons aforementioned, but ideal on an old trenchgun like this'un.

Details include the rust effect on the tow-chain, as on the tracks on the other vehicles, the toolbox in rhinox hide with grey weathering, as the ammo boxes on the Rhino and the dark green cloth detail on the bag/roll on the front, matching the heavybolter canvas on the Griffon.

I shant bore you with the full build/conversion details, as you can simply read the original build from when it was done for the 39th in this post:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/798025.page#11182717

More soon

Very cool updates, the rhino looks awesome.

Is that earthshaker carriage a FW one or the Victoria Miniatures one? I love the painting you've done on the guard - you're spending more time on each guardsman than I spend on the characters. Impressive

@olthannon thanks, dead happy with it myself.

@blockade23, yeah I suppose that to many the amount of effort on each guardsmen compared to what you get out of it is a little absurd, but I'm no gamer, just a collector and painter so. To me it's worth it.

Also re. the cannon, it's a kitbash;

"Years ago, when I first planned the bombard conversion, I had purchased a earthshaker cannon sprue on ebay for a very low price (snapped it up!) purely to get my mits on the cannon support struts.
I figured I'd get round to making a carriage for the leftover cannon eventually and somehow, so 12 or so years later and 'eretiz!

the wheels are the make or break of this conversion, they come from lego technics range and I've had them since I first bought the lego kit they came off of when I was a mere whelp of a boy! (single figures!)
once I discovered 40k (I had also been doing wartime vehicles and dioramas in my pre-teen days) I realised the wheels were suitably 40k looking and would be ideal for one of those 6 wheeled chimera jobbies that was often in the wd's of the time.
however, I never got my hands on a second set of wheels so this conversion never happened.
years pass, and in the box they reamain. the tyres long since lost to the mists of time.
however, the design is perfect for representing artillery-wheels to mimic the dkok early 20th century industrial warfare asthetic.
all I had to do was add some 'trench-tyres' which, during the wars, were little more than thin plates of dense vulkanised rubber that soften the footprint of the wheels somewhat, preventing damage to the actual wheel itself, keeping the gun standing true. just like the ork artillery wheels show them and I've also seen them first hand on similar weapons in the imperial war museum etc...
I simply used cereal box card superglued on for this but a better/more patient modeller would have sourced some abs pipe the right size and cut it into even segments and glued that on.
I figured, as It was going to be filthy and old looking, this would not be worth spending money on. spacemarine bike (or ork) wheelhub finished the wheels off just fine.
yes, I know the fw carriage has four thin wheels a side but these are twice the thickness so, funt it, it'll do...
the gun was altered by adding the muzzlebrake from the leman russ canon, the rest of the russ battle-cannon used either side of the earthshaker-gun as a mount. to this I added to trimmed down bits of imperial dozer-blade as a stubby, almost vestigial, blast shield.
as I'd used the original breach-plate on the bombard, I simply used a valkerie rocket-pod end with a little styrene railroad valve-crank I bought a bunch of at the engineering exhibition a few years back (one is on my autocannon conversion in the royston rifles thread, if you're that interested).
couple of pistons from the imperialguard dozer chassis, and a crank made from the searchlight mount on one side and a heavybolter mount bit from the valkerie sprue on the other side and the gun was done.
this was then mounted on a frame made of two predator/whirlwind plates (top/bottom) and some more of that long-suffering valkerie kit for the sides, a couple of track-guard bits at the back end and two rhino doors.
one as the back beneath the breach area and one trimmed down and put on the left side as a stand-point.
this last bit also has a handle off of something I cant remember and theres a grabrail made from a
tow hook (like I did on the nebelwerfer). also on the left side is a control panel made from a cut down auspex with a gungrip from a gsc heavy weapon positioned like a joystick.
on the right side there is the stowage section from the russ (fixed up with trackguard leftovers) and a towcable from the imperial guard tank-sprue.
the rear outrigger/platform is made from the dozer chassis with step-platess from the landspeeder-storm added. also on here is a towhook and a nifty little loading-crane, made from the servo arm from the long-suffering atalan jackals sprue with a reiver grapnel claw mounted on it (looks more like those annoying fairground claw-games than a shell-loader, true. But tis a nice detail nonetheless.)
this is then finished off with a swizzels plastic lollystick axle (no longer available these days, they are all compressed paper now, so use styrene or brass/ali rod/tube) with a pair of wheels made from the plastic basket drain holes like I did on the nebelwerfer. however, instead of leaving them plain metal with weathering, I decided to make trench-tyres for these too as it would match the others nicely and also suggest at the weapon's great weight.
oh, yeah, all of the outrigger is liked to the rhino plate under the breach-area via an upturned space marine bike pedal-section.
the front of the carriage-frame is finished with a pit of artboard (plasticard would be better in truth) with the storage-box from the predator kit and two of the chimera skull plate bits 'hung' under this to represent further amour to prevent grenades et being thown under or whathaveyou.
onto one of these the 'canvas-wrap' from the imperialguard tank-spruewas added, if for nothing but a difference in colour and texture and also to hide the twinned nature of the two chimera plates on there..."- quoted from my previous post when I first did it.

 osjclatchford wrote:
Today I decided to repaint earthshaker carriage I'd done for the 39th.


Taking my hand to the opus artis drybrush again, I revisisted the peggy-minge technique, this time going back to the rhinox hide basecoat start, as was done on the griffon.

As you can see, it translated well on this mini, making it a great sister-piece for both the Griffon and the Rhino.

The brown basecoat gives an extra layer of dirtyness to the whole thing. Not something I really wanted too much on the command Rhino, for reasons aforementioned, but ideal on an old trenchgun like this'un.

Details include the rust effect on the tow-chain, as on the tracks on the other vehicles, the toolbox in rhinox hide with grey weathering, as the ammo boxes on the Rhino and the dark green cloth detail on the bag/roll on the front, matching the heavybolter canvas on the Griffon.

I shant bore you with the full build/conversion details, as you can simply read the original build from when it was done for the 39th in this post:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/798025.page#11182717

More soon

Fantastique finish on this earthshaker! Feels like the modulations are really coming to their own now

IMPULSE 100

Cujo is here!


Yes Cujo.
But not directly based on cujo as in the 1980's stephen king book/movie but instead, based directly on Cujo from the 1996 quake mod. Which, of course, was entirely inspired by said book/movie. get it?

this guy:

He was a dog-helper bot mod that was a simple reskin of the rottweiler model to represent a St. Bernard. hence Cujo.

so, why quake's cujo then?
well, aside having fun memories of that mod, the face of the 'hexbane hunters' dog has all these scars up it and it reminded me of how quake's dog model had a screwed up skin on the left side of the face and as I'd already done rottweiler colours on one of the other dogs, I went for Cujo's colours!

simple...

Wow, that's some very impressive brushwork on that Good Boy.

Somebody's been snacking in the strawberry patch

Some nice work on the previous page osjclatchford, especially the rider.

Cheers,

CB

Great looking pup, and love that it's a Quake reference (by way of King)

thanks guys, most appreciated!

INCOMING!

whats this then, a dropppod in grey? surely that should be in the spacesharks thread, no?

































HA! fooled you!

It's an Imperial Navy supply pod!

The best way to get droptroops the equipment resupplies they need without fear of interception or targeting of enemy aircraft/artillery.
Unlike the more vulnerable gravchute-drop-containers, the supply pod is simply launched from high orbit directly from a starship, spending most of it's time at terminal velocity untill within range of the LZ.
Based on designs used by the adeptus astartes, although much smaller and less sophisticated, the supply pod is an unusual sight, its expense and rarety limiting its use to the most dangerous combat-zones, or the most desperate of cargo.
Each must be protected then reclaimed after the battle. So more often than not, are only used in situations where the need is great but the likeliness of success upon recieving said cargo is equally high.
Thus, the use of supply pods by drop units in a conflict is considered to be a point of pride, often involving unit-citation badges to be awarded post conflict. Quite simply, command has to have full, unwavering, confidence in the unit, as such only the toughest, the most resilient and the most resourceful units will ever warrent their use.

clearly made from the legions imperialis (epic) dreadnought droppod, this was a little experiment in doing the peggy-minge technique in grey. I think it works. Consider it an objective marker.
Yes, its a little utilitarian and somewhat boring looking but then, its supposed to be. To the navy its just one of thousands of standard torpedo-like ordnace, to the administratum however, their worth and value are listed, checked and billed to the regiment should the pod be lost or destroyed. 40,000 or not, some thngs never change...
It also shows that Legions imperialis stuff can work for stuff in 40k too. Within reason.
Just a damn shame its just that bit too small for the troops eh? otherwise it'd have made a great one man droppod, but then, anything alive and less than an astartes would end up liquified on impact anyway right?

I suspected you'd attempt to fit that LI pod into a 28mm setting somehow.. The finish looks great, although I think you missed one mold line on the pod (visible in the first pict)?

Your lore reasoning for the use of these sounds about right.. There's a reason why escape pods typically attempt to land onto an ocean IRL (even with their chutes and things), anything short of an Astartes would experience severe impact trauma, and there isnt enough space inside for adding enough "cushion"

 tauist wrote:
...I think you missed one mold line on the pod (visible in the first pict)...

To be honest I caught that and fixed it about forty seconds after putting the image online, but figured, meh, who'd notice or bother to mention if he did...

It is amazing what close examination of a project and arms-length range misses, that becomes immediately visible in even a poor photo. I do the same thing: catch what I can during the build, but take photos from time to time to see what leaps out as needing correction.

Very nice work and supporting lore.

Well to be fair, I was rushing it a bit, had my cousin's funeral to attend Thursday when I was painting it and took the photo.

I uploaded it Friday and saw the seam, fixed it, but as I say. Couldn't be that bothered to reshoot it...

all good sir, just thought it odd since your works are usually flawless in the "build & cleanup" dept. Should have known you posted an outdated reference pict

Cheers. To be honest I'm really dissatisfied with it. Don't get me wrong. It came out EXACTLY as I intended it. The grey colour with subtle transition, weathering, chipping dirt etc.. all exactly as it was intended.
But in the end, just very underwhelming all told.
But yeah.
It's a service pod.
Little more than one of red-dwarf's post/garbage pods... Just without the quagaar warrior inside

Got another one built, this time with the doors openable.
Was going to have it crammed with kit, and controband and do it in the yellow of Jago Kane's yellow line trucks. The idea being that if there's something you wanna get in a real hurry, without pesky customs and controls getting involved and if Jago has a ship in the system, for a premium fee he'll launch a pod in for you. You pay an extra deposit for the pod and the next time there's a yellow line shuttle on official biz on world, they go pick up the pod. Bit like how the blue pallet people do with real world couriers
But somehow I just can't be bothered now. Meh, it's another mini sitting in the box of disappointment. Alongside an inquisitor conversion I can't come up with a colour scheme for and a few odds and sods that were failed ideas or stuff I've ended up generally utterly lacklustre for... Sigh. And for shame too if I'm honest. I mean, that's why I had to do the giveaway over Xmas...

And now I'm just adding to it again. Stupid too as I can't really afford to be so wasteful...

Dont worry mate, I'm sure inspiration will return if you give it a lil time. Some days the hobbying just doesnt flow, I'm sure we've all been there. Dont beat yourself up about it

Maybe it could do with some colour from some symbols, hazard lines, etc. 'Only open if you love the emperor' decal.

Very nice regardless.

Cheers,

CB

The old school (converted ones) strom troopers are awesome!!

Drop pod is a neat idea, but it does look a little like it was placed rather than fired at the ground, maybe that's what you're disappointed in?

Well it's been ages. Battlegroup Artemis has taken up all my hobby time of late but I'm soon to finish off some guard I was batch painting and put on hiatus to do the bfg stuff...

But I've some WIP Filey troopers to show you today!


Demolitions expert


Squad dedicated marksman


Com-tech with Auspex


hard as nails leader with boltgun

forgive the absolute gargantuan images, I did this on my phone (never again...)

All being well, painted stuff soon...

some more filey droptroopers today:


front and back of each guy, so you can see all those details I mentioned when I first posted the WIP builds a while ago...


starting to look good, en-masse, now...

incoming!


Commissar Nixon - assigned to the Filey 87th

The Filey 87'th Drop, is not short of officers filled with both courage and capability.
However, this does not exempt them from assignment of regimental advisors from the commisarriat.

Rather than have their Commissars landed by valkery after the fact, the Filey makes pride of their very own, homegrown Jump-Commissars, not only commisarial political officers, but fully fledged droptroops in their own right, following their men in from orbit to surface...


For this conversion I decided I wanted to show what a commissar in a jump unit should look like.
First up the jacket; the greatcoat simply had to go. no way you'd last ten seconds with that flapping around all over your face, mid-jump.
Same applies to epulettes, braiding and other nonsensical, dress uniform shennanigans you see on 40k officers.
No, this guy is a practical officer, commissariat to the core, yeah, but practical nonetheless.
Instead, the look I've gone for is BDU's and a short, flight/bomber jacket variant of the Commissar coat.
A fair compromise that suggests at the black leather coat, but has tonnes of droptrooper style and just a bit of fly-boy swagger to it that fits perfectly for a cool-customer like this guy.

This was achived with an anvil industry special greatcoat body and arms from both the D-day range (right) and a ksg shotgun support (left), with simple greenstuffed epulettes to add detail but to also suggest that perhaps he's personally removed the fancy braid stuff out of practicality.
The hands are kreig and have a pistol grip hand on the right, with a scout boltpistol (for that chunky but, not-too-chunky third 'ed look) and the reload hand from the grenadelauncher (with nade removed, obviously) for the cool at ease pose it gives.

To keep the 'standard issue' look going I went for the cadian field artillery legs (also for the bad-assed pose) and also to show he's wearing simple jump gear. (trou, pads kit etc...)
For extra political officer flavour I relented and the sash was added, sticking out from under his bomber jacket and was made from a bit of old WHF imperial pennant, with GS detail for the braid. It adds that cool windswept-cape look without going too far into absurdity.

The head was the obvious choice of an anvil officer cap head.
This specific one because it was the only one to hand with visor-goggles moddled on and, so far, I've made that a thing with all the 87'th.
As the gasmask is a bit different in design to the usual ones (the ones on the madrobot cdf heads), I elected to paint the main-plate of it white, to not only add a nice spot colour, bit to also suggest at a simplistic, skull-like visage.

The ammo-canister on the base is a bluestuff/greenstuff cast of one from the new sentinel kit (original now sitting on my stormtrooper's Rhino!)


"Death from above!"

Nice to see the Filey back, great take on the commissar!

 osjclatchford wrote:
some more filey droptroopers today:


front and back of each guy, so you can see all those details I mentioned when I first posted the WIP builds a while ago...


starting to look good, en-masse, now...

Absolutely loving these! thanks for sharing

Gorgeous troopers, and of course that glorious Commissar of Maximum Swag.

The Filey camo scheme with their blackened weapons looks so good.

thanks guys!

a little wip shot of whats awaiting in the wings...

That is a great commissar, so rare to see them customized to their regiment / deployment. Inspiring stuff.

VROOOOM VROOOOM!!!

So much attention to detail. It's always the little things that make a conversion come to life.

Vroooom Vroooom, indeed!


The Filey 87th's Tauros Venator hits the streets!
Yup, the filey got sick of footslogging everywhere and having no armour/heavy support.

As you can see its based off of the necromunda one with some noticable differences.
First up was the pilot and gunner, the trickest part for both was swapping out the palanite torsos for regular cadian sized ones. I used the valkyrie torso for the driver (as I had on my biker conversion) and the field ordnance torso I had left over from the commissar conversion for the gunner. Both were piggers to fit in place, requiring removal of the rear half of my replacement torsos and then fusing them with the rear half of the existant, palanite torsos, to ensure maximum fit in the bucket-seats and also to ensure that the arms would line up and fit true.
Greestuff helped here, blending the sleeves to the shoulders. I also removed any solid shoulder armour and covered the resultant joins in casts of the vansaar pads that all my Filey use.

Next was the armaments. I needed Lascannons, not autocannons or shockgunthingamyies...
Although I could have gone for heresy era lascannons from the deimos predator or something similar, these being closest in design to the original fw elysian venator's weapons, I instead opted for the lascannons from the stormraven (apparrently, I got 'em on ebay and found out where they came from after the fact).
why? well, I felt that the turret redesign on the new venator had changed the look too far to attempt to go back to how it was, the weapons are akimbo not centrally twin-linked, thus looking more like a tarantula sentry turret, albeit with an actual gunner, but still, very reminiscent.
So, it was partly the small size but also the design, they do look very third edition and, although vertically slim (which was a precedent needed for the conversion), are also quite chunky and boxy; reminding me of the third edition styled lascannons of the marine and guard releases of the time (think steel legion lascannon or the lascannons on a 40k landraider or predator).

The blast shield was also trimmed to be shorter, just to distance it from the standard issue a little more...
Unusually for me, I kept stowage to a minimum if not null entirely. the only exception being the converted 'york' pattern lasgun next to the driver.
This is the only one of these I've made from a new mk6 flamer, this time modelled with an underslung grenade launcher made from round sprue and the grip from a grapnel launcher. A necessity made by the fact that mk6 flamers have the marine hands grafted on, forcing me to have to remove the foregrip...

The paintjob uses the same weathered ambush-pattern camo as on my biker, notable points of mention include the weathered tyres and the muzzleburn discolouration effect on the stainless-steel muzzles of the lascannons (as on the exhuast muffler on my aforementioned biker). I did the barrels black, simply for a break from the eye-watering camo!
Although I neglected to get a shot of it, I'll mention that all the screens and dials are done in the same red gem of the filey dust goggles for the sake of interest and visual continuity.

I will say now, although fun, I will not doing any of this camo again in a hurry...

What do you think of the kit overall? I have a FW version of the Venator and it was fiddly as hell to put together (several years ago at this point).

Still hoping the guard get access to the kit as a new speedy option at some point.

it might well be the best gaurd vehicle kit not currently in the gaurd codex, LOL

its very simple to put together, only made complicated by my insistence of converting the crew and weapons, thus making it harder to do subassemblies of these parts as easily as I normally would.
The driver, dashboard, rollcage and entire turret were all seperate.however in the ideal world you'd also want the driver's chair seperate (but this wasnt a big deal) and also the gunner in his seat as a seperate part for painting. as well as the weapons. other than that, keep the wheels in subassemblies before you glue it all and jobs a good 'un.

today I cobbled together some spare parts into a panzergrenadier, purely to test the splinter camo's viability for a future bunch of minis I have planned.

panzerfaust is the command squad bannerpole with an ork stickbomb head for the charge.
The rifle is plastic krieg, the head/mask tiny-legends resin and the body, obviously, nucadian.

consider this particular loadout of parts a one-off mini, but the coulorscheme may yet find itself on a future project...

glad I tried this now. the camo is not too tricky at all, bar three coats required to get zandri dust over black. perhaps I'll undercoat the areas steel legion drab first next time...

should of done that on the damned buggy too, would have made life easier...

I really like your style, and the background bits you write for models. Especially like the jump suit commissar, and the drop pod. Excellent, inspirational stuff; i'll go back through the thread further if I get the chance.

please do, and enjoy pad!

Got those four of the Filey 87th done today.

This represents the last of the Filey 87th I'll be doing. but worry ye not more stuff is on the way...


Commander - with casual cigar and chest-slung Boltgun.
Made from the field ordnace crew body, SOB boltgun (with chaos pistol mag), anvil beret/goggle head and the ususal greenstuff vansaar pads.


Comm-tech - with auspex and a bad attitude! (state of the bad-ass art...)
This one uses kasrkin/anvil hybridised arms for the auspex and then the other side to match, obviously.
includes the usual mad-robot cdf head and the york pattern lasgun.


Demolitions expert - Heavy weapon kneeling body, cdf head, mad robot rolled sleeve arms and the gsc dynamite bundle (a cowson to get the niddy claws off of but worth it nonetheless). also gs vansaar pads.


Squad dedicated marksman - upgrade sprue body, head is mad-robot (allbeit a fieldcap/goggle/balaclava combo) and an old scout sniper silencer and boltgun scope on a york pattern lasgun, held in anvil arms... and other stuff you all know on sight by now...


While I was at it I made up this CLE style drop container from two of those barrels I got from spellcrow, I added the rhino D-hook to show where the grav chute connected and the eagle was cut and placed to show where it would open (I cut along its length on the container to make a groove that better shows this too) its a 40mm base, before you ask.
Done in the ambush camo as a last hurrah for the 87th, but dont count this camo out completely in the future!

Great work dude, absolutely splendid results on these guys!

That is some ridiculously good stuff, you need to enter those into some painting contests!

You already know what I'm going to say - Impressive!

Wow, stunning work. Now let's see everything together in one shot.

cheers guys.

Painting contest? HA back in the late nineties/early 2000's maybe. nowadays I'd never stand a chance. all that nmm krap, fine-art level freehand and crazy sixteen-month + paintjob nonsense people do that ruin it for anyone either without an art degree and classical training or simply not the skill/time to devote that much to the hobby.
These kinds of people are proffesionals and should have their own seperate division to give other people a fair chance. There are some outshanding artists out there (much better than I'll ever be) who, time and time again, get overlooked for this overblown tosh and its a constant thorn in my side and gouges that chip on my shoulder ever deeper.
No. I've too fragile an ego these days to do competitions anyway. I mean, why do I need someone else to critisize my work anyway?
Don't get me wrong, we all love positive comments, all the stuff I get here is a lovely boost and is truly everso appreciated, but thats not the only reason to do it, is it? for me its about sharing technques and general love of the hobby, sharing an interest with like minded induviduals.

as for a group shot. well, aside from not having the room, the lighting is abysmal for photos for me at this time of year. so thats a long way off if at all...

anyway, for now, here is Brin:


Ogryn bodyguard, currently assigned to the 87th Filey Droptroops.


Fancied one last hit of ambush camo and figured this guy was the perfect candidate!
I figured it was the best way to one, get camo on him and ,two show off his size; hes so big they've painted his armour like their armoured vehicles!
points of detail include his "GOOD JOB!" badge, presented to him by Commissar Nixon for single handedly destrying a captured leman russ in heretic possession.
Also his alternative shield, which comes from an ambot's amour panel (that he "ripped off wiv 'iz own 'ands") as I felt the standard bucklers look a little too ornate for an ogryn weapon. This still looks like a powered shield, just a little more utilitarian.
where it joined to the gauntlet section, I simply greenstuffed a welded effect around it.
These kinds of hasty repair effects look fine on ogryns and orks, due to the slap dash nature of the creatures themselves.
For a bit of fun and as a reference to the old second edition ogryns, I sculpted on a crossed plaster and added some chain to his carapace armour. I always think of chain when I think of ogryns because of those old minis being festooned with it!
I decided his grenade should be a meltabomb (again to show his absurd bulk) and set about it by simply adding a big ringpull to the top in place of the handle. Again, I used a bit of spikey sprue chain for this.
I went heavy on the weathering and texture, but tried to stick to the pallette youve seen on my filey and other regiments of the Eoforwich system, so far.
I chose this specific head so he had goggles to match the troops and the mask was another surface to continue the colour scheme on.
The observant among you will note that, in his zeal to get to grips with the enemy, he's dragged a length of barbed wire out from their defence line on the way in. Yup, He hasn't even noticed...
This is my usual hand tied stuff with cadian sandbags, greenstuff and textred paint as on all my bases...
ok. now I'm done with filey!

Woo, caych up time!
Very cool work on the Filey boys, love the colonial marine vibes they've got going on!
I'm currently experimenting with NuCad bodies myself for Stalker themed minis and I think I'm going to start stealing your ideas...
Your new drop container is great, I think its a better fit than the repurposed drop pod you used before.

Ogryn is beautiful, his little badge is a great detail to bring out their childish nature and the ambit shield looks miles better than the original.

Looking forward to seeing more!

Thanks Guardling!

were going back to Selby today.

But not the 151st infantry division.
they were the Selby's specialists; using the better equipment and weapons, stuff usually used reserved for the Filey 87th, No, these new guys are the 9th Selby Regulars.


These three represent the first of a more basic rifleman company, Also hailing form the Eoforwich system, specifically Selby.
These guys are the standard troops.
As you can see, they have a strong ww2 American theme to them. Evident, not only from the helmets and gasmasks, but also the duckhunter/frogskin green camo I went with.
This is simply a deathguard green base with regular looking waaagh flesh and mounfang brown splotches, highlighted with zandri dust and ushabti bone for that worn edge look. this does tend to make it seem a bit more beige than the green it really is but thats fine as far as I'm concerned.
To continue the theme, I ditched my usual grey trou and went for green there and for a bit of life decided to lift the theme with some yellowy-orange lens' on the m3 gasmasks. which is technically accurate, as m3 lens' did have yellow tinge to them. ok, maybe not as dayglow as these came out but as I say, its a bit of life to an otherwise bland scheme...


I used the Anvil dday M1 heads that you may remember Sgt Basilone, from my 151st Selby killteam, is wearing.
These have the gasmask for the extra, "another faceless guard" look it gives...


To keep the standard issue look I went for Tiny legends' basic lucius lasgun arms on cadian bodies.
I chose the "veteran" pads because, well look at them, they're so 2nd ed! and you know me and my nostalgia


This guy got promoted to sargeant because I dropped one of the pads and it dissapeared into the warp portal that apparently lives under my table when I model (seriously its just GONE!). So I figured I'd just use the cadian rank pad instead! great!
He also has the biker scout grenades for the simple reason of; I've had it for ages and wanted to use it.

I also have two more to add to this squad once the paint's on.
I'd started the painting on these before I built these other two, they have a little more 2nd ed flavour to them with the weapons I've chosen as well as the old rolled sleeve look for a bit of variation, I know, supposed to be standard issue? But I just can't help myself...

Love 'em. Beautiful conversions as always.

Excellent, full of character, paintjob as always top.

Thanks guys

got the last two of the Selby 9th regulars done.


Confidant with bolter.
I decided on using a sister of silence boltgun due to its smaller stature and its roguetrader looks.
By simply shaving off the support hand (re-carving the grooves on the stock back in) and grafting it onto some madrobot rolled sleeve arms it looked the part.
As a nudge to the second edition bolters I added one of these bolters' frame-stocks to it, makes it look much more guard issue as well. Much easier to handle.
heresy set spare mag and half an infiltrator's leg pocket as a simple backpack and thats his kit done.
to match in with t'others he has an anvil d-day m1 head and the shoulderpads from tinylegends' veteran kit (which seem to fit perfectly on ANY arms, YAY!).


Trooper with Galaxy pattern Lasgun.
Again, rolled sleeve arms for that 2nd ed feel. This time the right is madrobot and the left is actually one of anvil's cyberpunk ones (no special reason, it just fit ok).
Again with the tiny legends pads and an m1 helmet/m3gasmask head.
not sure why, but I just fancied a Galaxy lasgun in the squad. It's a third ed catachan one and looks so, SO crude next to the tinylegends lucius ones! but its a nice bit of nostalgia. I seem to have a few of these in the box so figured I'd better start using them...
his backpack is altered, simply for the sake of difference between the cadian bodies I seem to keep using for everything, I swapped out his "heresy detector" for a triplet of explosive carges, lifted from a GSC mini...

Don't ask me why, but I really dislike the pose of this cadian body. The only conversion I've done with it where I'm 100% happy with it was the Captain Stevens mini I did for the selby 151st a while back. There's one of these in the filey 87'th too, but I'm not sold on that one either...


Here's the fireteam all together.
A fun dive into (yet more) second edition inspired yumminess, this time with an American flair to it.

A nice as my extensive collection of guard units, realistically sporting varing shades of camo and kit is, all this green brown and beige standard issue is starting to wear a little thin for me in the whole creative department of late...

Don't get me wrong. Its mostly my jam, and those who follow this thread probably dig it too.
And yes, I've definately got more units planned, but every so often you need a break from the same ol' same ol'.
In the past thats led to, admech, inquisition, eclesiarchy, Tau, RT crimson fists and whole threads devoted to Fallen angels, spacesharks and Battlefeet gothic.

So, perhaps something in Yellow and black that a certain Mr Olthannon is still waiting on...?
Whats that? A year late? yeah... tis...
But whats a year's backlog in this hobby, eh?

see you soon!

A year's backlog is nothing. Keep going man!

cheers

Great work on those troopers! The basing is really nice.

Yes, what about that certain yellow striped soldier??

Great work on the camo!

Great work as always!

The articulation and animation of these figures is top flight- I'm looking at the one you call out and either your paint job hides any awkwardness or the basing does, or both. Great squad!

Poses look great - background is delightful. I think one of the better new guard kits is the ordinance battery for all the new leg and body options. You could also check out the Jackals khorne kit for more running bodies (They're almost all running bodies) but they'd need some serious imperial-ification to make them look less rag tag and more serious like. You could make them into Catachans or militia style units more easily than cadians.

he's done;

I'll say now. I really did not enjoy doing this.
It was an absolute slog.
Though it shows you that you can, in fact, paint a yellow mini up from a black undercoat this should be taken as an example of what not to do.
Starting from a basecoat of xv88 (sevaral thin coats), following with Zemesi Desert (sevaral more thin coats) blending a few layers of the armypainter's ancient honey for a gradient of colour and then blending back to zemesi at the top of the panels.
Then highlight with ushabti bone and incremental additions of white ink.

I started by painting the head on its own to test the plan.
no problem.

then the body... sigh...



Disasterous.
The sheer number of layers required got to the point of obscuring recess detail.
on top of this, several of my paints and shades for no reason at all other than being out to ruin my day have dried shiny. and some simply terrible things happened.
Like, where did that massive lump/divot come from on the base rim?
why was my zemesi desert apparently full of grit?
why did the layers streak, dispite the hours (sometimes days) left between coats?
why did the ancient honey act completely arbitrarily different each time I used it?
Why was I seemingly unable to paint the black camo with any consistancy to the form and sizes?
Why did I ever even decide to attempt this..?

the more it went on and the more things that kept resisting me, the more irked and sick of it I got. At one point, it got very close to getting binned, not finished.

perhaps my personal expectation was far too high, but I can say now, that this has been a real kick to my aforementioned fragile ego.

I'm putting it all down to my new job. Its stupid hours all over the place and its really not doing much for my sleep patterns, making me most irritable and to be honest quite excessively emotional. So, I can't even really tell. My judgement is scattered. Worst part is, it doesn't even pay enough, but theres nothing else around at the min. I know I need out though...

gah.

anyway, digression aside, Yellow; Never, EVER again...


Still, the derpy skull icon came out ok though...

It has been pointed out to me that my ocd's are forcing me to only see my own perceived flaws in the mini, rather than to judge the model as a whole in it's finished state, but I guess that's just the way it goes sometimes... Wood for the trees and all that...


Anyway, it's done!

Onto the next!

I'll salute your struggle, the end marine is a great throwback to a weird scheme. Derpy skull and all

cheers, bud! appreciated...

hang on...

whats that smell..?


This is Boyd... he's having a bad day.
Firstly, he's dead.
Secondly, he's been dragged from his eternal rest on the battlefield, after dying for the Emperor.
Thirdly, he has no idea where his jaw is...

Figured it was about time I showed off just what my guard have been up against all this time in the trenches of the Eoforwich system!


He's one of Wargame Atlantic's new zombies. A wonderfull kit that allows you to build thirty(!) zombies.
I've recently got a single sprue of the five repeated sprues the set comes with, allowing me to build six.
They have an excellent generic look to them and can also be further customised by the 75(!?) heads on each sprue!
civilian, military, ww2, napolenic, tricorn, ballcaps, roman legionaires, all sorts!
I've gone for the generic heads on mine.
The minis have excellently sculpted generic ragged clothing on them that can be painted to represent whatever uniforms or clothing you wish it too.
The torsos and legs are set on each six but the arms, like the heads, are fully swap-able.

I'll warn you now though, they are truescale 28mm, NOT gw's heroscale 28mm. making them quite short against nucadians or krieg, I suspect so that they'll blend seamlessly with their other minis, but consider yourself pre warned...

So, although a little short against guard, if used as poxwalker alternatives, they really help to make your accompanying deathguard look even more imposing




more of his rancid buddies will follow soon...

I'd point out that since they look civilian like, civilians would likely be shorter than military forces just based on lack of shoes (and appropriate food!)

I love how you're trying to make spin/excuses as to their dimished size, LOL, just to make it work!

Right, they're done!



I've gone for a real mix of skintones.
dark skin is mournfang brown base, the light ones are cadian flestone basecoat and kislev flesh (for boyd).
Mr. Pink was done with bugmans glow as a basecoat.
The Jaundice yellow was actually the old GW bronzed flesh!
The grey was tricky to get feasible. I used cadian flesh to highlight it and then it made it more convincing. After this I took a similar approach to highligts for the other tones, adding white ink to the mix on the lighter tones.
Everything was first highlighted then shaded with my usual nuln-oil/agrax mix then highlighted up again after the fact.
they have all been treated to glazes here and there with either draganof nightshade (or whatever its called) or reichland fleshshade to either add warmth or cooler tones where needed.
The base of the dry blood is gal-vorbak red and khorne red and then the Stringy gory drool around the mouth and hands was achieved with uhu type glue stretched over areas and hit with a liberal coat of tamiyas x-27 red gloss to both areas (bloodforbloodgod in gw?).
All the eyes are done in plain milky white for the creepiness factor it adds...



Here's the finished 'herd' of plagueslain on the prowl...

now where'd I put that shotgun...

I can only apologise for putting you through such horror and misery but the end result is absolutely rocking!! That RT Salamander is absolutely mint. Full marks there!

The zombies look brilliant too, that blood effect looks awesome.

Hope your job goes a little better / can find a better one!

I love those zombies, I think the size is just fine as they will make their brave opponents stand out more I would happily get a box myself if I had space at all!!

The Salamander looks mint. I can sympathise when hating one’s own creative process but the end results are what keep me going. Nothing more satisfying than that final seal of varnish!!

Thanks for sharing the Salamander, it's going to be a useful reference for me going forward. The only thing I dont like about it is the goblin green rim, otherwise its a solid one.

I wouldn't personally even try to paint yellow or red models without using a yellow/red primer on it first. Working from a black primer? Unless you are airbrushing, fuggetaboutit!

 tauist wrote:
Thanks for sharing the Salamander, it's going to be a useful reference for me going forward. The only thing I dont like about it is the goblin green rim, otherwise its a solid one.

I wouldn't personally even try to paint yellow or red models without using a yellow/red primer on it first. Working from a black primer? Unless you are airbrushing, fuggetaboutit!

I know... you should undercoat lighter for yellow but, Yup. I only ever undercoat black. Cos that's my jam.

And yeah the goblin green rim? Purely for oldskools sake , bud.to tie it in with the bloodangel termie as part of the same project I suppose. Certaily not something I'd do usually

 Olthannon wrote:
I can only apologise for putting you through such horror and misery but the end result is absolutely rocking!! That RT Salamander is absolutely mint. Full marks there!

The zombies look brilliant too, that blood effect looks awesome.

Hope your job goes a little better / can find a better one!

Really enjoyed the zombies, so I can forgive you for the salamander! As I say it's my mood that's coloured the feeling of the salamander. Looking at it, some time passed now, it's fine isn't it.
Got to separate myself from what I'm doing a little more I suppose.
Or failing that, try to get some damn good sleep. That wouldn't hurt too... Lol.

 Ragsta wrote:
I love those zombies, I think the size is just fine as they will make their brave opponents stand out more I would happily get a box myself if I had space at all!!

The Salamander looks mint. I can sympathise when hating one’s own creative process but the end results are what keep me going. Nothing more satisfying than that final seal of varnish!!

There's always room for undead! Especially these tiny little minis! I like the way you think, too. Guess they do make the guard look even cooler.
Yup. With the salamander, suffering of the process aside, he is fine. Like Bob Ross always said "hope you're plagued with dissatisfaction..."
Guess it makes you do better next time? Perhaps.but don't look to me to paint yellow marines again anytime soon. Lol..

Anyway, I've nothing to show at present but rest assured, I've some krieg engineer themed kasrkin/stormtroopers on the go made from leftovers of some anvil stalhelm heads and the last five kasrkin bodies from those oldskool stormtroopers I converted last year.
They'll be in the orange camo and are the heavy support crew for my krieg engineers that I did...
Pics as soon as they're done...