Heavy Gear er Crisis Suits

Everyone loves giant robots.

That said... the basic crisis suit model needs some serious work.

Firstly it is missing two main points of articulation.

1. A waist.

Having a waist allows the suit to twist. This increases the posability a hundredfold.

This takes quite a bit of cutting as the upper and lower halfs of the main torso pieces were not intended to be cut through.

The two halves are rejoined by a thin plastic circle. Allowing the wait to turn.

(This suit was from my bits box and was missing feet. I had to make some new ones out of plastic tubes.)

2. Wrists.

Crisis battlesuits don't really have hands. This is a not a problem if you intend to build them as is in the box.

I am compelled to convert everything so there is no way I could leave this be.

Googling around I found that Grey Knight terminator hands are perfect for Crisis suits. Luckily I had a few lying around. I'll have to find a Grey Knight player at my FLGS who has some spares.

Note: reposing the arm at the elbow is easy enough. Just a little cut.

I had to rebuild the arm joins too. Due to breakage rather than as part of the conversion.

I also added a few extra little bits like the knee-guards (to cover damage to one of the knees) and the torso vents.

The little scanner is from a Skitarii Ironstrider or something. I wanted some kind of hand scanner...

...ended up looking like the dragon radar.

It's ALIVE... sorta

The necron pylon is a fairly recognisable structure .

In my last post I fixed the curve of the main structure. Now I need to make the base work.

I had to cast pieces from the few intact sections. I'll admit it doesn't look just like it should...

...but once it is painted it looks good enough.

It look some careful sanding and balance but I managed to retain the same points of articulation as the proper model.

I think it needs a few extra bits, but in all it is a serviceable super heavy hyper death weapon platform.

Rehabilitating the Pylon

It took some serious mad science but the pylon ring is somewhat repaired.

The main gun was missing too many major components to be rebuilt. Fortunately the Necron kits have plenty of extra giant space guns.

I like a challenge but...

This time I might have bitten off more than I can chew.

I accidentally started Necrons.

Yes that is most of a necron pylon. The massive death platform.

And yes it has been hacked into bits.

I am going to turn this pile of parts back into an acceptable pylon.

You might wonder why someone would cut up a pylon in the first place. Well the person I bought the parts from nicely answered that question by including this impressive converted flyer.

Looks like a good night shroud bomber to me.

Swamp Dragon

Everyone loves Dragons in Age of Sigmar. Although they are much more killable.

Based on a heavily converted Dark elf Black Dragon I found cheap on eBay.

A mane of static grass (above) and some antlers (below) complete this stage of building.

Ranger

I had a dwarf leftover from some old project or another.

It was pretty damaged so I had to sculpt a beard along with the hood.

...beards are hard.

I found a much more characterful pipe arm to replace the blank one from above.

Ghost Rider

My "local" GW is having it's 20th birthday this weekend. They are celebrating (No, not by playing classic games like Blood Bowl and Necromunda) with a series of mini games. One of which is a race based on bastardised Formula D rules.

To enter one needs a racer.

So I made one....

A hut in the heart of the swamp...

With my dark/wood/high elves (or Aelfs or whatever) getting steadily more and more swampy 

I decided to just go whole hog and make them Swamp elves.

Yeah it has probably been done before but fuck it, not by me.

When I start a new project I like to throw the idea at my non-wargaming friends to see what they come up with. One of them game me

"I don't know some sort of treehouse?"

This garbled panicy response triggered something in my brain.

Some kind of Baba Yaga swamp hut. Yes I can almost see it now...

My highly detailed planning stages for new projects are the very stuff of legend.

From humble beginnings (the middle of a roll of selotape) the project is born.

I coated the outside in milliput and scratched vague wood surface patterns into it.

Huzzah!

Once cured I added a door and a couple of windows.

Now it is starting to look like it is supposed to be some kind of dwelling.

More on the way.

Okay Nurgle, all these gifts are starting to get awkward.

Fisnished 2 more Nurgle Knights.

This one started as an excuse to try scuplting a maw where the pilot hatch should be and turned out not too shabby.

By contrast my diving suit Crusader is a bit of a flop.

Alas my Chaos knights project has fallen out of favour and these 2 will join the others on eBay.

Finding Ways

Wayfinders continue to be quite good in Age of Sigmar. However the models are not. I am going to fix this using the nice High Elf Shadow Warrior models and a bit of elbow grease*

Firstly I had to cut down the armour. No more scale mail and pauldrons.

Then I forget to take pictures of the next few steps.

Greenstuff hoods (over spare daemonette heads but shhhh) and a fur shoulder trim gives me a decent enough Waywatcher.

Paint brings it together and makes the greenstuff less painfully obvious.

9 more waiting for greenstuff to cure ready for painting.

* Elbow grease now OOP.

Too Many Gifts

Oh Plaguefather Nurgle if you keep being this generous with your gifts, people are going to talk.

My other car is a Mammoth

Forgeworld have released the scrolls for their Tamurkan book. This seemed like a good time to start working on the mammoth howdah. 

I have decided to go for elves. Warriors of Chaos would have been easier as it wouldn't need so many curved sides. The model will be the throne of a particularly ostentatious Dreadlord. 

The deck level needs to house bodyguards, crossbow troops, maybe a bolt thrower, some treasure, a sweet throne and some concubines.

On the advice of one of my many mortal foes it was suggested I add a second floor to make it more opulent and give me more space to work.

Not sure how to attach them yet.

Subtlety and Guile...

...are not important with mammoths.

It's more of a fire and forget creature.

Next I need to build some sort of howdah to house the marauders and/or Dark elves crewing it.

Maybe some armour plates too.

Master of the Signal

As part of it's Pre-Heresy series Forgeworld makes a Space Marine "Master of the Signals". From the model, which you can see below, it is clearly some sort of vox trooper.

Photo from the forgeworld website.

I have no idea what it does, but I knew I wanted one. So I threw a little something together.

It isn't too bad. I was lucky to find an old set of kneeling legs. Apparently they don't make them any more.

After a quick base and my weird take on the Blood Angel colours I have my very own Master of the Signal to do whatever it is they do.

  

Angels of Blood

Back into my comfort zone of painting marines. I decided that the new Blood angel models were really nice so I bought some.

Then immediately said "FUCK IT!" and converted them. 

Mixing in the occasional official Blood Angel part with spare scraps of ordinary marines = Pre heresy Blood Angels? Sure why not?

First trooper to get some arms. The left shoulder pads will have some semblance of the chapter badge. Still deciding on the right shoulder guard.

The squad is slowly taking shape. I am much more interested in rule of cool than it being a legal unit.

I'll just steal some space wolves rules to make everything work out.

Showing me up.

A friend of mine "threw together some minis from the Age of Sigmar set.

He has not painted in almost 200 years (give or take).

I have to pull out some extra stops if I am going to keep up with this.

In the time it took for him to paint all of the above, I painted one guy.

...and I am not particularly happy with him.

Mechanicus group shots

I got some group shots of an army I painted on commission at a time.

To keep them all uniform the client chose to base them all himself. Which is why they are so clean and neat.