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.

Calculating...

My little faceless Magos is coming along nicely. 

He's still not as tall as the actual Dominus model though.

Command Tank

Once again I abandon the concept of camouflage and paint things yellow. 

You can tell it's a command tank because it is impractically festooned with radio equipment.

Dunecrawler 2

The Onager Dunecrawler is an awesome kit. So I am pretty happy when people commission me to make them.

Still not sold on the official Mars colour scheme though.

Bigger Guns

I felt my Mechanicus troops needed a little artillery support. 

A little work with an Earthshaker cannon some tubes, a handful of matchsticks and a couple of jawas later, the first of three Earthshaker cannon emplacements was completed.

Knight: Part 1

Picked up a knight titan still on sprue for cheap(ish) from eBay.

For the most part it's a really cool kit to build. The whole upper half has tons of pose able connections. The legs however need a lot of cutting for even quite simple pose changes. I'll leave that for some future project.

Still not entirely convinced that chainsword is big enough.

With a bit of tweaking I did manage to make my knight left handed.

Not quite finished build. It's still a bit too built according to the instructions for my tastes. I have left all the armour plates separate for ease of painting so I might make a few adjustments before I start.

Menial servitors

I have seen these little guys in a couple of places now. I have a big bag of unwanted goblins so I thought I'd make some mini-servitors.

More to come, I just need to source some tiny machine deailes for them.

A friend and I had a recent conversation about the messed-uppidness of servitors when used for normal tasks. A mindless fusion of flesh and machine mopping the floor or doing the dishes is so much scarier than using them for battle.

Onager Dunecrawler

The mechanicus dunecrawler is a cool kit chock full of converting possibilities.

Which I ignore and build it by the numbers.

Still not convinced by the radioactive atomic winter snow.

All glory to the Hypnotoad: Part 3

Part 3, where Bel realises you should always test things before just trying them on my crazy projects.

Thankfully I managed to drain out the resin before any lasting damage was done. Had to make a new transparent tube but better than making a whole new space frog.

My Mechanicus infantry are slowly coming together.

Crab-spider walker thing

Through means I wont disgust you with here I have recently found myself in possession of an old robotech spider walker thing.

It quite clearly cries out to be converted into something cool.

 Though exactly what cool thing currently eludes me.

Started work on a pair of heavy duty repair claws for the front.

Thought maybe build it as a mobile command platform. The tech priest in the back will be surrounded by monitors and all sorts of comms equipment. 

Or a radar dome of some sort. This one would be covered in scanners and the like.

HMMMMMMMMMMMMM

Space Wizards

A pair of 2nd hand Empire battle wizards have been turned into a pair of tech-priests for my slowly growing Mechanicus force.

Shame the new codex doesn't actually contain tech-priests of any kind.

They are awfully yellow.

All glory to the Hypnotoad: Part 2

Scale shot my space frog Primaris Psyker in his now floating tube.

Threw some paint on it.

80s sci-fi tells me that bright purple is the colour of psychic things.

Still deciding if the tube should be empty or if I should try adding some clear water effect resin.

Mechanicus Vanguard

For anyone who hasn't seen them. The new Mechanicus kits are stuffed full of cool bits. Particulary useful is that all weapons come with their own arms.

This means that I can use the spares from my Rangers to build a box of Vanguard.

...because I am cheap like that.

Using some ordinary Cadians, a little work with a file and some greenstuff power cables I ended up with some passable Vanguard.

Gonna have to order more of the cool helmets. I seem to be using them on everything in this army.

All glory to the Hypnotoad: Part 1

I recently accidentally obtained one of these fearsome creatures:

It's the frog from the terradon kit. Now I could just throw it into some dark corner of my bitz box and never think of it again. But then I'd be missing out on a cool conversion opportunity.

Instead I decided it would make a good Primaris Psyker.

I plan to mount the frog inside some sort of psychic amplifier bio tube kajigger (TM).

I'm sure this is not a new idea but I like it anyway.

 Base platform made of a tank hatch, some wire and some short bits of plastic rod (Rod not tube this time).

Made a cap for the bio tube out of another hatch some, coiled wire and some plastic tube. These two sections fit into either end of a clear plastic tube.

next I need to add more details and decide if the whole thing is going to have spindly spider legs or if it will float along using creepy psychic powers.

Mechanicum Kiros: Finished

My scratchbuild Kiros is finished.

Okay, it'll never pass for the actual model but it turned out well enough regardless.

And yes it is yellow instead of traditional Mars red. I'm a Rebel.

The back of the Tech Priest's control alcove is covered with ports.
Partially because I didn't want a blank space.
Partially in-case I go completely insane and build an Ordinatus to connect to it.

Mechanicum Kiros: Part 2

Most of the actual build work is finished.
The tech-priest is housed in his own little pulpit.

The actual chassis is pretty sparse.

I built a gun housing out of an earthshaker gun shield and more plastic tubes. I made this one up pretty much as I went along so I am lucky that it worked out well enough.

The whole kit-n-kaboodle.

There is a bit of detailing work left and then just a coat of paint.

Mechanicum Tech Thralls

Still working on my Mechanicum force.

This time we have my first try on some tech thralls. These troops are a little more cyborg than the Skitarii foot soldiers but are not full fledged battle automata.

Here you can see my (probably terribly inefficient) creative process from start to finish.

Most things start with a drawing.

Typically these are done when I should be doing much more important things with my time, and will detail a project way beyond my abilities. This time I was lucky and was almost somewhat sensible.

Then I start throwing bits at it.

I started with plastic Cadians (because I had some lying around already).

The chest plate is filed smooth. Onto the front I added a little stamped Adeptus Mechanicus icon. I dropped the crotch-plate because I forgot about it until after I finished painting the first guy.

I made the heads using a little bit of round plastic tube and some greenstuff to round off the top. When cured I filed the join smooth and added a simple lip along the bottom.
The backpacks were just lying in my bitsbox, no idea what they come from.

For arms I am using servitor arms trimmed down slightly and yet more plastic tubing (I use it for everything).

A coat of paint and it is ready for basing.
Easy to make and they look pretty unique. Not a patch on the real forgeworld ones but good enough I think.