Looking back I think this project has run close to the 12 month mark. There’s still the temptation to tweak the paintjob, especially the wings but I don’t want to risk going too OTT. Effectively this guy is ready to be varnished. The little glass health potion on his belt is just tacked on at the moment because varnish would probably ruin its appearance, so after varnishing I’ll attach it properly.

I’m very pleased with the finished model, the white armour looks great and I finally got to add a Tzeetchian tattoo to his upper arm as a finishing touch. I’ve considered adding other tattoos, maybe on one side of his face, but honestly don’t want to run the risk of screwing it up at this late stage.

So there we go, one model down, 180-ish Beastmen to go…

If the rest take as long as this one I should have a finished army ready for Warhammer Fantasy 53rd Edition.

So what’s next for the Beastman army?

Well for the moment I’m going to resist the temptation to work on the other characters and get some rank and file done. I happen to really like the Ungor and Gor plastics as they are and there’s really nothing that stands out that I feel needs changing. The Bestigor are nice models but I think I can tweak them a little to match their army book entry artwork a little better. I also dislike the notion of having all members of a unit in the same pose, it’s ok for elves but not so much for Beastmen. Of course this will lead to issues getting the models to rank up so that will require a fair amount of extra effort.

I also bought an Empire Griffon model on a whim the other day. It is without a doubt my favourite “big kit” that GW has released. Perhaps I’ll save it for a Warriors of Chaos allied contigent, or maybe even use it as a Jabberslythe proxy but that doesn’t really feel appropriate. I do feel an overwhelming urge to find someway to convert it, at the moment I’m mulling over the idea of adding an extra layer of detail to the feathers to make them more ruffled looking, but otherwise it’s pretty close to perfect.

One nice detail I found in the kit is the wizard’s eagle headdress. I’m going to use that as a starting point to making my Harpies, which will be bird like Beastmen rather than actual Harpies.

Other than that I’m still working on the Artscale Terminator Tutorial which I hope to have finished real soon.

Although I was inspired by a Tzeentch themed Doombull from an ancient White Dwarf issue aswell as the Tzeentch themed content from Warhammer Online when I began this project I’ve felt rather stuck when it came to painting it. Because of this I’ve ended up falling back on the colours I always like on miniatures and feel comfortable painting, black, reds, browns and yellows.

Now although I really like how this is coming along, I hadn’t intended to make this a Khornate themed Beastman army. I’m very strongly focussed on the idea that an army isn’t just a collection of models you want to make effective use of in a game, but is also an aesthetically cohesive collection. So, I want the whole army to share the same colour palette, even the characters and the centrepiece models like this Doombull. Stupidly though I start with the models I most want to make and paint and always tend to leave the rank and file stuff till last.

At the moment with the red and gold armour this guy definitely looks aligned to Khorne and I could certainly imagine that an entire Beastman army decked out in these colours looking very nice on the table. However, with a little photoshop jiggery-pokery I’ve mocked up some alternate colour schemes.

Of these three I have to say the white-ish colour (I’m imagining a NMM steel) is most interesting, and I can see that working as a colour scheme for a Tzeentch themed force (polished steel and gold!). On top of this there is also the option of painting some subtle patterns on the armour plates, and I’m also really keen to add some bold tattoos, particularly to that bulging upper arm.

Other than my complete lack of ability to make decisions for myself this guy is very nearly finished and I’ve placed an order for a Beastman battalion box set (hoping that arrives tomorrow) and been searching ebay for some OOP beastmen models too.

Because my focus on building armies is the aesthetics, I like to create a rigid army list beforehand so I know exactly what models to buy and what conversions I plan on doing. This is my current 3000 point list:

Great Bray Shaman (General & lvl4) – Hagtree Fetish, Crown of Command, Obsidian Lodestone

Doombull – Wings, Heavy Armour, Shield, Warrior Bane, Talisman of Preservation

Wargor BSB – Battle Standard, The Beast Banner, Gnarled Hide, Shield, Heavy Armour

Wargor – Sword of Anti-Heroes, shield, heavy armour, Ramhorm Helm, Luckstone

Wargor – Shield, Heavy Armour, Hunting Spear (Champion with huge bow or crossbow)

Bray Shaman (lvl2) – Dispel Scroll, Ironcurse Icon

50 Gors – full command, extra hand weapons

30 Gors – full command

30 Ungor – full command

10 Ungor Raiders – full command

9 Chaos Warhounds

40 Bestigors – full command,  Standard of Discipline

1 Razagor (converted from SW Thunderwolf into a giant Chaos Warhound)

9 Harpies – Scouts (bird/eagle beastmen rather than Harpies)

I may swap out the Great Bray Shaman for a Beastlord and just keep the level 2 Bray Shaman for defensive purposes, but that’s a small alteration.

I’ve always had a preference for infantry heavy armies, both in Fantasy and 40k, so not only should it look really nice on the table top, most of the army can to built by buying just 4 battalion boxes, nice and straight forward. For conversions, the characters, Razagor and Harpies will be getting the full treatment, but I’m also tempted to resculpt some parts for the plastic Bestigors to bulk them up a bit, I’ll have to wait and see when the battalion box set arrives.

The exclusion of other troop types is mostly down to the look of the models, no Minotaurs for instance, and I’ve never been a fan of chariot models.

Anyhow, back to the model in question, I need to decide to either keep the red armour and paint the force as Khornate aligned or repaint it white/steel and follow the calling of the Raven God. Whichever I choose will also influence the future Warriors of Chaos allied contingent I want to collect, as I don’t like the idea of mixing patrons.

Decisions, decisions…..

Starting with this Space Marine Combat Squad. I thought about posting an update on this squad last week but procrastinated over it and decided to just finish them first. As you can see each model uses the same resin cast bodies I had made for a previous Primarch project, but with each heavily remodelled.

The brief was for a 5 man combat squad in Mark VII armour with all the trimmings. I used my standard approach to making Artscale Space Marines, most of which can be found in the Tutorial. Beyond that I don’t think there’s anything unusual worth mentioning. The shoulder icons, chapter badge and chest eagle where all sculpted once and then replicated using a Blu-Stuff mold. It’s not exactly an easy thing to do but the results are certainly satisfying once you know what you’re doing (it’s mostly about using a really delicate touch).

The client wants to base them himself, hence the absence of bases.

(My fave, reminds me a little of the plastic second edition Space Marine).

So I’ve got a new product to compliment the original Blu-Stuff molding putty. This Liquid Blu-Stuff (I may yet change the name) is just as easy to use as the putty, is non-toxic, and cures incredibly quickly compared to many other silicone rubbers (at least that I know of). Unlike the Blu-Stuff putty which is great for casting clays and putties because it cures firm, this new Liquid Blu-Stuff cures into a soft rubber, making it better suited for casting resins and plasters.

I’ve made an introductory video to show just how easy it is to use.

One of the first things I tried with the Liquid Blu-Stuff was molding the series of feathers I had made for the Doombull project. I began by building a simple container from Lego in which to pour the Liquid Blu-Stuff.

Liquid Blu-Stuff comes in two capped bottles (100g each) which are very simple to pour from.

In this instance I did a test run with water in the lego mold container to check what volume of liquid I would need. I then simply poured in equal amounts of Liquid Blu-Stuff into a pot I had handy (product is supplied with two measuring pots) and mixed with a wooden stick until one consistent light blue colour.

This is then poured into the mold, letting it fill up slowly from one end.

The great thing about this stuff is it’s really easy to use and only takes 15 minutes to cure. It’s too soft to be used with epoxy putties like Green Stuff, but works wonderfully with resin (another post coming soon about my use of resin).

This will be available very soon (just want to get a surplus stock before I put it on sale). Anyone interested in reviewing it somewhere online should email me for a sample.

On the recent Alpharius and Omegon project I sculpted some very tiny chains around the icons on the shoulder pads. The client has asked for a tutorial on how these were done, so here goes.

This tutorial is for chains details that might appear in a decorative fashion (go Alpha Legion!) not actual chains.

Start with a piece of Green Stuff rolled out into a thin sausage (note in this example I’m making the chain fairly large to make it easier to see, but the same principle applies when making them tiny). Press this sausage onto a piece of plasticard or the model you are decorating, in a neat a fashion as possible.

Next use a scalpel to trim away the edges of the Green Stuff so that it is uniform and tidy. I use this approach for all kinds of things from shoulder pad trims to iconography. Then cut away gaps at regular intervals to leave a series of tiny Green Stuff rectangles.

The next stage I did by using the scalpel blade to score down the centre of each little rectangle and push the Green Stuff to form a gap in the middle of each. Allow the Green Stuff to cure before proceeding to the final stage.

Finally the links to fill in the gaps are added. Roll another thin sausage of Green Stuff (thinner than before) and cut it into little pieces slightly longer than the gaps. These are then positioned careful to complete the chain. I used a flat edged clayshaper to clean up some of the edges but a scalpel or metal tool will work fine too.

Nothing fancy, just a simple series of steps.

It’s been really nice to do some painting for a change as it’s been so long since I’ve really sat down and painted pretty much anything. I expected my collection of GW paints to have dried out long ago, but going through them I only ended up throwing away 2 that were beyond use. I was planning to invest in a fresh set of Vallejo paints, and even though I don’t necessarily need to now, I still think I’ll give them a go.

To start with I undercoated the model white and then undercoating the wings after in black. I know I want the wings to be very raven-like and because they essentially just need to be dry brushed I’m leaving that till last, as I don’t have to worry about rubbing paint off as I handle the model.

I wanted to give him a greyish brown skin tone. Using a combination of Bleached Bone, Bubonic Brown, Chaos Black, Skull White, Badab Black Ink I worked back and forth to to find the right mid tone, not too grey not too brown. This is the thing I enjoy about painting, working on highlighting and shading, especially in things like skin tone.

I’m pretty happy with the skin at the moment, maybe needs a bit more work but it’s close to finished. I’m a little unsure how to paint the armour plating other than I wanted all the armour the same colour. This guy is aligned to Tzeentch, but I want this alignment to be subtly done. At the moment the armour is painted Boltgun Metal with a liberal coat of Black Ink (the old GW ink). Not sure about this “Dark Iron” effect yet, as the shiny finish on the old Black Ink is a bit off putting. I may give the model a thin coat of Testors Dullcote to get rid of that shine before I do anything else.

The model definitely needs more colour as it’s a bit monotone at the moment. One thing I am considering is some kind of pattern either etched onto the armour or tattooed onto the upper arm. This image (I’m very excited about Guild Wars 2) is my main inspiration for the colour palette I wanted to use on the model originally.

Finally managed to attach the first pair of cast wings to mu Doombull conversion (two pins in each to be sure). Now that I’ve finished all the sculpting on this model, I’ll begin painting this long overdue project. Still a little uncertain how I’ll be painting it (colour choices), but I’ll probably opt for something in natural tones rather than the often used blues, yellows and reds of Tzeentch aligned creatures. I really liked the Warhammer Online game’s interpretation of Tzeentch aesthetics so I’ll probably go in that direction.

I’m extremely happy with the final result of this conversion. It’s going to be the centre piece of my fantasy army (maybe a small warband, let’s not to ahead of ourselves, eh?).

I have two dozen pairs of casts of these wings available now that are up for sale in the Store. Each wing is 100mm tall, 50mm wide and averages 10mm thick, making them very nice and chunky. There is almost no flash to clean up on them, a testament to the skill of the caster (ie: not me). I’ve priced a pair of wings at £11.99 each, with £1.99 to cover shipping costs (to anywhere in the world).

With the exception of the bases the Primarch twins Alpahrius and Omegon are now finished.

This has probably been my most challenging project to date. The whole thing is about 90% self sculpted with a few bits used as armature to sculpt over. Alpharius especially is one of my favourite ever and I’m tempted to model a Space Marine Captain for my own collection based on him.

Starting off from where I left off last update, I detailed the back of the cloak with similar hydra iconography that I’d previously added to torso, three on each side. After this I then molded the cloak with a big chunk of Blu-Stuff ready to make a replica for Omegon. There is just enough flex in that mold to remove it from the model even though it is partially wrapped around it.

I then filled the mold with soft Green Stuff, smoothing it out with a large round cup soft clayshaper on the inside of the cloak. I waited 1 hour for the Green Stuff to firm up a little but not too much. This allowed me to carefully remove it from the mold without wrecking it and also fit it to the Omegon, shaping it more to my liking.

I wasn’t entirely certain how to pose Omegon so I was going to just see how it evolved. After attaching the new cloak I thought of doing somthing similar to GW’s Master of the Fleet model where he’s gripping his cloak in one hand (sort of pulling it back. Whenever a model has a cloak, purity seals, banner or other fabric item I always try to imagine wind blowing in a specific direction. In this case the wind is blowing his cloak from behind and to keep it out of the way he’s pulling it back with his free hand.

Next up was shoulder iconography. The client specifically requested a design for the shoulder pads to emulate this piece of artwork he forwarded to me. As you can see Omegon differs from Alpharius in that he bears the Omega symbol. Because the icons appear on right and left pads I made life easier on myself and molded both in Blu-Stuff. I then filled the impression of each icon with Green Stuff and pushed it onto the opposite pad (rather than letting it cure and gluing it in place after). The tiny chains around the outside of each icon were added later on. I did these chains in sections, doing the loop parts first, and after they had cured adding the tiny links between each of the loops. Anyone sculpting tiny details like this might want to ensure a more yellow than blue mix to keep the Green Stuff extra sticky and help it adhere to the plastic/resin surface better.

The final element was to replicate the head (again using Blu-Stuff) and redesign the backpack into something more akin to Mark 6 Power Armour. To replicate the head I made a cast of the face and after it had cured re-scupted to rest of the head. For the backpacks I used my standard approach of cutting the ends off of two backpacks and gluing them together to make one wider backpack (an alternative is to cut one in half, add a plasticard spacer and fill the gap with Green Stuff). I sculpted the layered style of armour on top of the plastic one layer at a time, starting at the bottom. After I had done this and added an extra layer of armour to the top and made a copy using, yes you guessed it, Blu-Stuff. The copy needed a little cleaning up but nothing major. The final step was to add rivets (from the Grandt Line product range).

This final pic is kind of how I imagined the finished models in my minds eye when I started the project with Alpharius in his commanding pose and his secret twin brother skulking in the background. I’ve not done anything more to the bases than provide platforms (supposed to be discarded/wrecked metal of some kind) for them to stand on. I may detail them up but at the moment I’m assuming the client will want these to match the bases on the rest of his army. On the subject of which, when these two models are stood next to regular Space Marine minis they do look suitably “Primarchy” (see previous update for size comparison pic).

I was slightly concerned at the beginning of the project as to whether I could pull off that “Primarchy” look without super detailed and stylised armour. I can’t help but admit I’m very pleased with these, and I’m rather looking forward to my next Primarch (Sanguinius) and some very ornate and detailed armour, I think that’ll step up the challenge to new heights.

I’m sure I’ve left out huge chunks of detail and obvious stuff so if you have any questions about this project please leave a comment and I’ll do my best to answer them.

Just a quick update on the casting of the feathered wings I made for my Doombull Champion. Here we have a photo direct from the caster (Battlecast service at Anvil Industry) of the first production casts. Even though the master was very difficult to mold and cast the quality looks to be top notch.

If anyone is interested in purchasing a pair of these wings I’ll be pricing them at £11.99 and £1.99 for shipping and I’ll be putting them up in the site’s Store. I’ve placed an order for a small number of casts in the first run because they are expensive to produce, but if they are popular I’ll certainly order some more.

These should be in next week and I’ll be working to finish my own Doombull just as soon as I can.

In other news I’m a bit behind finishing the Primarch twins (big surprise, eh?) but I should have the final post in the next couple of days.

Apologies for  the lack of posts so far this year. I had the pleasure of being hacked last week (this site and a number of others) which is one of the reasons this post is so late. Although the actual damage incurred was quite minor and cleaned up within about 3 hours I decided to tidy up and remove any other vulnerablilites. Unfortunately I mistakenly deleted the wrong database, effectively destroying this site. It took me a further 2 days to repair the damage I’d done myself but thankfully I was able to recover everything.

Anyhow back to the work at hand…

I don’t have any work in progress shots of the arms and shoulder pads being added so the best I can do is describe my methods. I first opted to use a sword from the Grey Knight Terminators kit (great kit!) with the power generator bit carefully removed from above the hilt to make it a bit more traditional looking and also make it the correct height for the pose I wanted. The sword was re-assembled from 4 bits: the blade, the guard, the right hand and the handle (grip & pommel). The handle was pinned on but the rest of the parts glued with liquid welding glue to make sure the bond would be clean. With delicate parts superglue can be a nightmare if you’re not careful. I cut out a little gap in the base to rest the tip of the blade in and filled this with Green Stuff to make sure the tip would have a perfect fit when pushed in.

The arms started out as standard plastic arms. I basically use them to ensure the size of the arm is always accurate. Spacers (about 1mm) were adding to lengthen the forearms, and the upper arms were replaced with wire (paper clip wire is perfect) which I used to pin the arms to the torso. I then began the process of sculpting a thin skin of Green Stuff over these arms, trying to keep edges as sharp as possible. The forearms, hand, elbow pads and upper arms are all done separately and allowed to cure before moving on, otherwise you are guaranteed to mess something up.

The shoulder pads are resin casts of a single pad a made some time ago. They are pretty much a perfect size for this conversion although I had to do a little repair work on the corners. Whenever I try to repair imperfections in smooth armour I always use a soft mix of Green Stuff (as much as 3:1 yellow to blue). This helps to smooth the Green Stuff into the existing shape to keep it as clean looking as possible. Positioning of the pads took sometime to get right. It might sound like a simple thing to attach shoulder pads but the pose of this model can make them look awkward. I did a lot of trimming and shaving of bit of the model that wouldn’t be seen to get the fit just right. Now might be a good time to mention dry fitting. One of the reasons my conversions take a long time is the shear amount of testing and dry fitting of components I do during the build process. I probably spend more time looking at and thinking about a model than actually making it, but (at least for me) it’s all part of the process of getting things just right.

At this point I added some more detail to the head, an ear on one side and the usual space marine headset/plugin set up. I knew when I started the project that the swords position in the pose would likely cause some problems obscuring the face. The simple solution was to very slightly angle the head to be facing to the side. Essentially the direction of the head determines the front of the model as it’s the automatic focal point (it’s a human thing for the eye to look to the face first).

Next up was the cloak. I’d been playing around with using some wax sheets to help me with the cloak making process but it just wasn’t panning out as I had hoped so I reverted to a more standard approach. I took some of the plastic that Green Stuff comes supplied in and mixed a large amount (2:1 ratio, yellow to blue). After pressing onto the plastic as best I could with my fingers, I took the handle of my large clayshper, wet the handle and used it in a rolling pin fashion to spread it as thinly and evenly as possible (as shown above). I left this for about 1 hour before applying it to the mini.

Leaving the plastic in place I pressed it into the back of the model and tried to shape it into something well “cloak shaped”. This was then left for a good few hours before peeling the plastic off. I deliberating made this rough cloak too large, because at the end of the day you can always trim is down, but adding new Green Stuff is a lot harder. Even though this was pressed into the back of the model once it was fully cured I was easily able to remove it and the dry fitting process began.

I slowly whittled down the edges of the cloak with a scalpel making sure the overall shape was what I wanted by continually testing it on the model. Once I got the shape right I then set to work on it with “wet & dry emery paper” under a running tap, cleaning it up and sharpening edges.

Looking at it so far, I’m at the stage now where I can start detailing up, I just want to be careful not to go overboard. The back pack definitely needs work to make it more fitting for a Mark VI suit. I think the cloak needs some more work for sure, either decoration like the hydras on the chest plate or maybe more folds and flowing shapes (or both).

So far I’m really really liking how this is shaping up.

Also, here’s a quick pic of Omegon (Alpharius’ twin). As I’ve said before, I want to try and make Omegon a bit more stealthy/shadowy posed. At the moment I see him in a sneaking forward pose with him in the process of drawing his sword from a scabbard. However, we’ll have to see how that evolves.