Iron warriors Praetor

I'm a bit late to the party but finally getting around to painting my Praetor Tribune I picked up like 6 months ago.

Some minor conversion work to turn the weird long handle paragon blade into a more brutal looking hammer and some replacement shoulder plates gives the model a very different aesthetic.

Still working on my trench mud basing.

Muzzle flashes

Many thousands of years ago I remember seeing a blister with pewter muzzle flashes. I have never seen them since, so I am beginning to think I imagined them.

Either way I thought they were kind of cool.

So I made my own.

Turned out alright. Could be better but could also could be worse. I am still unsure of my colours though.

And my object lighting could use a lot of work.

Tried some scaled up versions too.

Technology is hard.

I had to get a new phone. I might of accidentally completely destroyed my old old one in a black hole.

It happens, dont the judge me.

I figured I should work out if I can post from it. Maybe that will push my post frequency up from almost never?

In other news, I started painting Iron Warriors. This colour scheme might stick out of sheer ease of batch painting.

Though free handing skulls not so much.
Let's see how long this one lasts.

Sanginius

Have been kind of on a primarch kick since building Rogal Dorn.

I just happened to have a pair of featheredwings lying around and a pile of blood angels doodads in my bitsbox.

Sanginius it is then.

People who tell you metal models were better are lying. Shaving down the top of the metal Nightbringer torso so it would fit against the bottom of the BA chestplate took literal days

I think the wings were from a pegasis knight. I wish I had more of them whatever they are from.

Another liberal use of Stormcast Eternals arms. 

I think I tried 20-30 different shoulder pad combinations before I decided on the two I used.

Connecting body to skirt to base also too all kinds of drilling and filing. Thanks, metal.

More Stormcast bits to round out the model. Sanginius doesn't have rules yet so it's a guess as to what he will be armed with. That said, swords are a pretty good bet with HH characters.

I think he needs a bare head with hair but I couldn't find one I liked.

As with Dorn, I'll never get around to finishing the paintjob. Threw him up on eBay too. Hopefully someone else will finish him.

What will Bel's next unfinished project be?

More space wolves? Silent hill dark eldar? A (second) series of published romance novels? Getting a real life? Tune in next time.

Rogal Dorn

I accidentally picked this up on eBay the other day

What to build from a primarch? Well another primarch obviously.

Since Imperial Fists are currently my go to chapter tactics, Rogal Dorn seems like a good choice.

At the time of the Horus Heresy Dorn rocks up with a bolter and a chainsword. Making vanilla look good I suppose.

I didn't take pics at every step due to a combination of being too lazy to get my camera but also not being lazy enough to stop working on it.

The arms are cobbled together from an assortment of oversized parts from stormcast eternals sets. Their arms and weapons are actually too big even for space marines so they fit well enough.

I sculpted a couple of passable aquillas, though I fear the one on his chestplate is more recognisable at a distance than the leg.

Dryfitting the shoulders (Again more stormcast eternals bits) the fist icons are all press moulded from a forgeworld shield of some kind. You cal also see the gorget bit better here. It was carved off a spare betrayal at calth terminator torso and helps cover up some of the cog iconography from the top of the torso.

Filled up some gaps and affixed the shoulders proper here. More aquilas, purity seals and scrolls. JUST ADD MORE THINGS.

A regular boltgun was just not fancy enough so I built a bigger one out of yet more stormcast eternals weapons with a scope and barrel thrown in for good measure.

 Finally has his hands attached. The giant chainsword is an eviscerator from the assault marines box.

Turns out I forgot to add that backpack aquilla. (Yeah I know, just not enough aquillas without it right?) OOPS.

This is as far as I got with painting him before I fell back on space wolves.

I just could not be bothered to paint yellow. So I guess he's going back to eBay.

Burning down the heretics

Word Bearer's are doing well as my current favourite legion. (we'll see how long this one lasts)

While the glue on a big pile of tactical legionaries finishes drying I decided to try my hand to some of the Ashen Circle.

To those out of the know, the Ashen Circle are a Word Bearers specific formation who's job is to murder your culture. They are not nice people have have reasonable interesting rules.
What they don't have is nice models.

So I made some of my own out of spare scraps lying around.



They're okay. Still need to decide on a power weapons colour and a basing scheme. Then we can get back to spreading the primordial truth of Chaos to the unknowing galaxy.

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.

I have had a few things on the go at the moment. Here's a selection of the more interesting ones.

Chosen Chaos Space Marine.

(Note the lovely flayed skin tabard.) 

The Space Hulk Blood Angel terminators still look good, even compared to the newer ones.

I am trying really hard to not start another marine army. Every now and again I accidentally paint a pre-heresy Emperors Children. Like this Praetor.

Space Wolves: Test Models

The following image has inspired me to start a space wolf army. Well... that and the new codex.

My take on space wolves is a bit more plain than the actual space wolf range for the most part. I think a little too plain. These guys are going to have some blue tattoos or some other freehand to liven them up.

Wolf guard veterans and the like have a bit more decoration in terms of gold trims, honour badges and the like.

Thunderhawk: Part 5

I am not sure what is says about my bits box when I have enough weapons for a Thunderhawk just lying around....

The front heavy bolters are a pair of re-purposed Leman Russ sponsons. The heavy flamers were trimmed off and replaced with some scratchbuilt heavy bolter barrels.

Some stormraven lascannons solve the lascannon problem.

I threw together the under-wing heavy bolter mounts from some hunter killer missile brackets.
The missiles are from the Taurox (leftmost) and the Valkyrie (rightmost) kits.

The main cannon is built from the same plastic tubing I use for everything.

And here's a scale shot with a Stormtalon.

Almost finished. Next up it needs riveting, and then painting.

Thunderhawk: Part 4

We have wings and engines!
Though I did go completely off script with both.

The template would have given me two multi part hollow wings. For something that should be a gaming piece this would not have been solid enough.Instead I just used the outer surface pieces over foamcore board. The result is much sturdier while still being light enough that it wont stress the connection point..

The engines were an odd combination of good and bad luck.
Bad luck in that this exact moment I ran out of the cheap glue I was using to glue the hull layers to each other (hence the peeling corners you can see in the photo).
However it's good luck to end up with two identical perfectly sized tubes. I glued the cap on upside down, added some card bands to the outside and glued in an intake fan from some cheap toy or another.
BAM, engines.

Next I need to source armaments.
According the the Thunderhawk datasheet I'll need to find the following.

• 1 main cannon. (Scratchbuild from the ol' plastic tubing.)
• 2 lascannons (Maybe some IG players have spares?)
• 4 twin linked heavy bolters.... so 8 heavy bolters. Which need to match each other. That one is going to be the most difficult I think.
• 6 missiles. Possibly more difficult than the heavy bolters. What has spare missiles on it?

Thunderhawk: Part 3

It is starting to look like a Thunderhawk gunship now. Vaguely anyway.

I have had to go off script a bit, this is not the easiest template I have ever followed. The wings are a little stubby and I have yet to work out what I am doing about engines.

Do not ask me about arming this thing.