Knights of Old Caliban - Second Squad of Dark Angel HeresyTerminators

Hey peoples of the internet,

So using the pride of the legion rite of war in the 30k Horus Heresy ruleset you can take both terminators and legion veterans as troops (I think you have to take them to fulfil the compulsory slots actually) so I have been working on my second squad to fulfil the troop requirements for a 30k army.

Unlike the previous lightning claw squad these guys will be armed with chainfists represented by chainswords of huge proportion and also have a thunder hammer as well instead of a ranged special weapon. This squad will be called the Bane of Caliban, and are old knights given Astartes retrograde augmentation that defied the Lion on Caliban. As a last redemption they are sent a suicidal squad into battle as the face of death.

With that bit of fluff I decided to make them look more chaos-y than the others (so more like the old school knights of Caliban) and gave them helms recommended by D Power on google+ and also used a chaos shoulder pad as a death mask with sculpted hair coming out of the back for the sergeant.

I'm actually really happy with how the greenstuff hair turned out, though its by no means perfect but the turn of the hair as it folds on itself really pleased me! I'm generally happy with the mean eclectic look they give off as well, I think when painted up they will look pretty cool. And as I get more used to the zenithal painting technique I hope to have these done fairly soon.

I cast a few copies of the chain swords as I only got 2 of the design I wanted in the pack. The casts aren't great but I hope to disguise there shortcomings with the paintjob so they should look OK when I am done... Maybe...

Peace out,

Rob

30k Dark Angels - Zenithal undercoat attempt 1

Hi Readers,

So I am going to be painting my 30k Dark Angels Black with silver armour trim and red/bronze worn on fancy details such as the lion pauldrons. I am happy with how my Death Company are painted but its very much a stylised black as opposed to a true style black. To this end I did a lot of reading and chatting with various Deities (Henry South being the major Deity of this worship) and have decided to try and use zenithal undercoating followed by layered washes to achieve the softer more natural black that I am after. 

I have decided to just run cloaks on my sergeants, so barring any massive change advice from you fine fellows as a community I think this guy is done! I want to get this force looking tip top, so the most anal comments on how he is painted are more than welcome as long as they are constructive :)

I took pictures at most stages of this process so if there is interest I may post that up as a guide to how I got this guy looking like he does. Just let me know!

Peace out

Rob

Converted Blood Angels Chaplain - Painting begins

Hi readers,

Today some early work pictures on my Blood Angel Chaplain that I converted from the age of sigmar priesty-me-bob. I've decided to go with a strong red black scheme to make him look a little bit more gruesome perhaps. I think he should come out pretty snazzy when he's completed!

Peace out,

Rob

Updated Cloaks WIP for Knights of Caliban

Hey all,

I had a little stab at cloaks in a different method at the weekend and here are the two that I managed to get done. They are made of the mesh with pva and superglued paper on top. Once dry this was cut out of paper to form a cloak shape and just bent and wobbled to look cloaky... I hope! I tried just layers of PVA over paper but I found this hard to work with, I think I'm just a bit clumsy and brutish with my manipulations. I found the mesh easy to bend and move without worry of destroying the whole thing with one slip of the wrist.

Thoughts? There are a lot more bends in the cloak than are really showing up in the pictures but I was thinking of smoothing putty/greenstuff over these to tidy up bends and creases in the cloak, particularly around the shoulder areas.

Peace out,

Rob

Knights of Old Caliban - Cloaks for 30k Dark Angels - WIP

Good morrow fine peoples,

So I want to really go for it with my modelling at the moment, so on the back of what seems to be my popular age of sigmar conversions, I thought I would try to add some more flavour to  my 30k Terminators/Veterans as I build them. These cloaks were inspired by Watheverable on google+ linking me some cool pictures, so thanks man!

To make the cloaks when I am rubbish at sculpting, I decided to make an armature that I could just apply milliput too. Normally I prefer greenstuff but milliput is freely available in multiple shops in Bristol and a lot cheaper overall. As it turns out, it was much easier to smooth once I got it on to the armature as well compared to my usual experiences with green stuff. 

These are just my first go with the cloaks and mostly just general principle, overall I'm not happy enough with them to put them on the miniatures but I'm hoping your thoughts and feedback will help refine their look. I'm hoping to utilise the cloaks to mitigate the fact that the heads aren't sunk as deeply as I would like. 

Above you can see the mesh used as an armature. I quite like it as a component as it makes the cloaks look reinforced to provide extra protection. I am debating deliberately keeping this on show as a theme. Comments, as always, most welcome,

Peace out,

Rob

The Knight Commander Cometh - Mounted Praetor/Company Master

Hi all,

I received my Lord Celestant mounted yesterday and I just had to put him together and convert him. Below is my work so far, chaos bits again used like in my Knights of Old Caliban conversions, but also a mortarch head swapped on to the mount and I've tried to cyber it up a bit with leg mechanics a power tube on his face as well as a cabled tail with a chain sword at the end. He's equipped with a power fist and either a relic blade or a paragon blade. I also plan to mount a storm shield on the side of the saddle so it looks like he could just un-holster it.

Thoughts always welcome :)

Peace out,

Rob

Knights of Old Caliban - 30k conversion from Age of Sigmar

Bonjourno,

So I was chatting on one of the 40k communities on google+ the other day and the subject of my 30k aspirations came up. I had considered Dark Angels as a possibility (along with virtually every other playable faction as they are all brutally fantastic) but because of the lack of legion specific rules this time I had put them to one side. 

However my recent foray into 40k as truly stoked by inner unforgiven and one night, whilst unable to sleep, I was poking around with my spare bits and the stormcast sprues I had picked up dirt cheap from the Age of Sigmar release set. The following is the result of a bit of kit-bashing and converting - pretty intense converting by my standards but nothing too big really. 

The reaper autocannon conversion with a wee bionic leg...

And the sergeant because he has the coolest pose I think...

I used a lot of Chaos Space Marine bits in the conversion as I like the overly baroque nature of their armour and I felt it fit the 30k aesthetic and Sigmarite aesthetic better as well. I am particularly pleased with the sergeants pose (the one without the top knot) and also the converted reaper autocannon from cotton bud tubes a flamer and some random chunk of dreadnought plastic. I am also surprisingly happy with the little bionic leg too. I like how it looks a bit weedy, in my head that highlights how bionic tech was a bit less developed... perhaps?

Anyway, I only gave him a bionic leg because I couldn't find his actual one...

Thoughts on these guys and if you would be happy to face them as 30k terminators would be much appreciated.

They still have plenty of clean up work to do and I will either have to purchase some brass dark angel decals from forge world or work some DA specific icons on them some other way, but they are pretty much done regarding the bulk. I also have a load of little waist items to add to modernise them up a bit and the like.

I have plans for another 5 man squad using up my final 5 liberators but these will have volkite pistols and power swords instead of lightning claws, but will still have the reaper autocannon. 

Peace out,

Rob