I thought I was being super creative by converting Vampire Count crypt ghouls into a mutant Penal Legion, but it turns out some guys have already done this (very nicely too) so I can't claim credit for the idea. I expanded my idea from the Plague Bearers conversion who are also based on Vampire Count models. Unlike the Zombies these models are hunched over in wicked fashion and look like they are insane. They remind me a lot of the zombies from I am Legend. I might have to make an Inquisitor to look like Will Smith

Converting these were a whole lotta fun! It was a trial of "How much crap can I drill and glue into these poor bastards" and the answer is: a lot! Guitar wire cabling, small screws along their spines, and knife blades protruding from unclosing wounds are just a few of the things they have to endure. That's one hell of a fraternity pledge.

These mutants were guardsmen who were captured and unwillingly turned to Chaos. The Dark gods cackle at the ironic fate of their new subjects. Their captors and now masters rule them with contempt as they are considered the lowest rung in dark ranks, twisted fiends being little more than a slave and often times the recipient of the cruelest treatment.

To cover the load-out options, I equipped them with a lasgun and close combat weapons. This way they can count as Penal Legion or Guardsmen which will hopefully keep the beardy mouth-breathers at bay.



On a completely different tangent I re-watched the Southpark ep. featuring Al Gore vs. Man-Bear-Pig and it still makes me LMAO. I'm SUPER CERIAL! I honestly can't believe those guy got away with all the crazy shit they've said over the years. I love it. In closing I'd just like to say....

Excelsior!

Hey everybody!

I apologize for the long over-due post. My stupid pc decided to retire early which made blogging difficult. Most of my photos are still stuck on my hard drive so for the time being I'm posting what was still on my camera. Hey, it's a start right?

Speaking of starts (terrible segway I know) this was an old fantasy model I picked up a while ago from my FLGS. I thought the pose would make for a good standard bearer. Still debating on leaving the chain-mail loin cloth as-is or greenstuff in the lower half of a jacket. I fear that doing the latter may make him look pantless like one of the chipmunks. Then again he is Chaos so anything goes, right?

EDIT: Oh yeah I'd like to apologize for the cat hair in the first pick. My kitty is a master at projecting hair onto things.

More updates to follow  :)

Here's a few updated pics of the Chaos Sentinel. The spikes from the base were transplanted to the Sentinel since having the same material in two different places might look confusing. The base will have a toxic wastelands theme, littered with rubble and sealed in a coat of resin. The idea is to make it look like the Sentinels are treading and dredging through rough terrain to flank their enemies.

 Small gauge wire was added around the spikes and corpse.

 
The next step is to define the spikes some more (so they don't look so much like sprue chunks) and maybe some more brackets on the wire for added detail, but for the most part the chassis is complete. I don't want to bog it down with too much chaos-y stuff (I'm resisting the urge at least).


Time to break out the dremel and make this guy look a little meaner!

Thanks for reading :)

After recently purchasing a Valkyrie, the seller threw in an unassembled Sentinel free of charge. Score! Both models came new-on-sprue, with instructions, at less than helf retail price. If I wasn't a terrible dancer I would dance right now. Ahem, it was very cool of him to do that.

For starters the  armaments needed a little beefing up. I had the idea of running cables through the eye sockets of the skull emblem.

 A couple of guitar strings will do the trick

The normal mounting position is the hole below the cockpit, but I really wanted to try something different. I thought it would look cool with the weapon following the pilot's  line of sight.

 Pin in place and ready to glue. I also cut and refit the feet around the terrain chunks.

I was slightly concerned with the tension the strings/cables added on the weapon, but it held firm and adds a nice touch of detail.

To keep the cables tight a staple was added on the Missile Launcher. It was slightly tricky to keep in place, but that's probably because it was a last second addition.

A few more details were added like spikes and an impaled torso. I opted for the open canopy so the pilot would be more visible. The spikes are from old sprues I had lying around.

I'm satisfied with the results so far. All that's missing are more chaos-y bits (you can never have enough spikes). I haven't decided if (or how) claws will be added to the feet. They look cool on the drawing board, but I don't want the model looking too eclectic with pieces just strewn about.

More pics will be up later this week. Cya then!

Today I thought I'd post a link to a lot of great inspiring Blogs. The theme is Imperial Guard armies. There are a lot of Blogs out there, but these are just a few I've had the pleasure of finding (insert Zelda secret sound here).

Onyx's Hobby Blog 

Ever have the urge to make an Epic Armageddon Army? Go to Onyx's Hobby Blog where he has some AWE inspiring armies for you to look at. There's a whole lot of armies to drool over!

The Chaosgerbil's Lair

We can't forget the Traitor Guardsmen now can we? Chaosgerbil's blog is packed full of battle reports and insight into the mind of chaos. This is a great example of what my army aspires to be. I may have to try this out as well: Codex_Lost_and_The_Damned_ChaosGerbil_v5

Praetorian 77th

I clicked this link almost on accident while browsing the Dakka Dakka forums. To my surprise I found a great Blog devoted to the Praetorian 77th regiment. It's more than just Imperial eye-candy; there's also a lot of unique design work like the Rough Rider's conversion (which is the closest I've seen to what I have planned).

Col.Gravis' Praetorian Imperial Guard
Another fantastic Blog devoted to the Praetorians. You can find just about anything you want to know about the Praetorians here. My personal favorite is Malcador Defender "Dauntless", but I'm a sucker for Super Heavies (Aren't we all?)

These are but a few of the many great blogs out there. Of course there are so many to mention, but I'm tired of typing and really want to paint now. Please follow them if you haven't already!

Have a cool site to add? I'd love to hear about it

More pics of the Renegade IG army. This time it's of the first batch of troops to test the paint scheme.

The bodies are from a set of troopers I got a few years back. One model was chopped up to later be used as an objective marker. That project, however, was put on hold since it didn't work the way I hoped. The other four troopers I used for testing paint schemes.

Now that the Renegade project is going, nearly anything that isn't nailed down is going into this project lol. My primary goal is to build the army as creatively and inexpensive as possible. Troops, like the ones above, are fairly easy to come by. A lot of times people will disregard a model because it has a really rough looking paintjob or some wear-n-tea. Armor, like a Basilisk or Valkyrie, can be quite expensive especially when armies require lots of them.

Fortunately there's eBay and I've had some luck finding good deals. I managed to grab a few Leman Russ tanks, a Valkyrie, and a Baneblade all at good prices. With any luck I'll be able to fill in some more gaps in the list without paying too much  :)

Work continues on the Renegade IG army.

I was a bit reserved on creating this army, mostly due to the fact that GW keeps raising prices so often. Thanks to eBay, however, and some *cough* bartering with my FLGS, I was able to obtain a few good deals and get the army started.

The model is from the Colonel Schaeffer's Last Chancers set (the Hero). He is a cool model, but needed some modifications to make him a bit more ...chaos-y. Both arms were removed and replaced with a power fist and a CSM plasma gun. I don't know why I added the plasma gun. It was the only gun that looked cool so I'm going to make it work. The head was also upgraded to a cool gas mask with officer's hat (I can't remember where it's from though). Plasticard was used to make the claws, though I don't see them lasting very long without a lot of modification.

I have a lot more plastic and pewter staring back at me demanding more attention. Who am I to deny the Chaos Gods?  :P

More pics to come including the Penal Legion Mutants. Cya then!

I inherited another commision, this time it's Creed and Kell for my friend's Cadian Imperial Guard. I've never painted a standard before so I was looking forward to the challenge.

Paints used -
Red areas: Mechrite Red.
Skin: Elf Flesh
Armor: Catachan Green
Cloth: Kommando Khaki
Boots: Codex Grey
Scrolls and Seals: Bleached Bone
Rope, belt, and gold area base: Scorched Brown
Metallic areas: Boltgun metal and Shining Gold

I started out with a white base coat. From here I painted what I was familiar with first, which was Kell's armor and effects.

You might notice the red area on the flag is a little lighter. I wanted to test how well it would coat and was pleased with the results. Mechrite red is a great foundation paint as long as it's thinned out a little bit (otherwise it's like painting with glue lol).

Slowly I worked in the chaos black to the banner. I took my time around the areas I wanted to remain white (like the aquilla).

Once the black was finished a little touch up was needed. I switched to a detail brush and carefully worked the edges. It helps to water the paints a little and keep the brush clean.

Filling in the other areas such as the sword hilt and wiring. Yellow was added to the search light and rope. The Standard lettering was based in mechrite red.

After a little more detail work the base is finished and ready for a wash.

Something I learned a while ago is to base any gold areas first with a brown base color. Gold is the only color that requires this in order to get a better effect.

We're starting an escalation League here soon and it sounds pretty fun. I haven't participated in one before, but to my understanding we start at a low point army and add to it every week. This gives us a good reason to start painting a 2000 point army. With the majority of us new to escalation it'll be a little flexible this time as to WYSIWYG and probably at least table top quality on our armies.

As for my army, the Chaos Daemons are going along nicely. I've been focusing on getting the HQs cleaned up and ready for priming. This may sound fairly simple, but I assure you it's been a rather tedious process. All the models, aside from being pewter, are not cooperating in the assemble stage and required a little pinning and gap filling. It's been a slow process, but I enjoy it and it's turning out better than I expected. I'll do another post about each HQ.

The Emperor's Champion

Originally I was going to make him part of a scenery piece, but I decided on painting him instead. He's just to cool a figure to be a statue lol. I'm debating on the color scheme, though, since I'm trying to make a TinBitz themed army.

Creed and Kell

Started on these guys for a friend of mine. They each have great detail and I'm looking forward to painting them. I was going to put Kell (standard bearer) on a platform as well but decided against it. I think it will look better to have Creed showing off his pose elevated a bit while Kell gets a normal scenic base.

I had to work another weekend so I missed most of the gaming, but I did manage to get a few shots.

The aftermath of the 2v2 game. Nids barely pulled out a victory due to the Necrons phasing out. I heard the Command squads were nuked early on and prevented the IG soldiers from recieving commands.

Over at Hoot's place the other night

I continued basing my bloodletters.




Meanwhile Hoot got busy on his Cadian Squad.





While trying to liberate a soldier's arm from his body, Hoot missed and speared his Xacto blade into his thumb.


Crunch purchased two Imperial terrain pieces.





He also got busy assembling his Necron Warriors

I'm starting a new organization called Banners for Buddies (BfB). That's right! It's time to give back to the community. I wonder if I can write this off as a charitable tax deduction?

Here's a few banners for my buddy S2ua7. Let me know what you think. The last one is my favorite ^_____^














Yeah I know his eyes are crossed, lol. Who has time to focus when it's LUNCH TIME SOLDIER!

I wanted to have this guy done fast so S2ua7 could use him this weekend. Work this week, however, spared few hours to devote to painting. Determined to finish him by Saturday I decided to speed paint him Friday Night for table top quality. This took a little over an hour.


Pic1 - Started the face with Tallarn Flesh base, followed by a layer of Mechrite Red to the hood and dry brushed boltgun metal on the body.

Pic2 - Detailed the face a little with dwarf flesh followed by Flesh Wash and more DF to finish it up. Painted the rest of the cloak Mechrite Red, washed with Baal Red, then a 50:50 mix with Dev. Mud. Added Dwarf Bronze to some of the features and re applied boltgun and chaos black to the body.

Pic3 - Cleaned up some details and added Badab Black Wash in the armor. Painted the Searchlight with Hawk Turqouis followed by a 50:50 mix with Ice blue. Added a little Tin Bitz (woot) to the base and drybrushed with Boltgun/Mithril

I'm pleased with how he turned out, but like any painter I hope to get my hands on the model again to finish it up.

I've been working a lot of 12 hour shifts so haven't had much time to devote to painting :( I'll be glad to be off call Friday to get back to living a normal life again (normal for me lol).

Here's a few pics of a Ratling Sniper I've been modding. I'm planning to add a "Y" branch on the tree under the gun to make it look like he's using it as a Bi-Pod. I had some extra Green stuff and decided to give him a gnomish hat lol. It's missing something though... I think some ammo and the "Born to Kill" slogan like the helmet in Full Metal Jacket.

What do you think of it so far? Have anything to add to it?