Dwarves: Longbeards and Warriors WIP

Been working on my Dwarves the last little bit. I was trying to think of a good way to be able to swap back and forth between using Longbeards or Warriors for my core. I decided to use a rank of 5 Warrior models to get some nice, long, putty beards to act as Longbeards. I'd use these 5 models in the front of the unit so it could be distinguished as a unit of LB rather than Warriors. I also plan to paint them slightly different than the others as well. I also magnetized the musicians and standard bearers arms so that the front rank would either be normal, shorter bearded Warriors or Longbeards with, um, longer beards. Should work out nicely I think.

Crypt Horrors Alternative Models/Conversion WIP

All us Vampire Counts players know how awesome Crypt Horrors are in game but they are seriously expensive models. A box of 3 models will run you $50 and that's getting them on ebay for much cheaper than retail. I just cannot justify that kind of expense for only a few models and I would want to field them in units of 6-10 so that's looking at $150. Um, no thanks. A lot of people use Ogre models and other solutions for their Crypt Horrors and like many others I had planned on going with Ogre models myself as you can get a box of 6 for about $30 - $35 on ebay. Then it occurred to me, Ogres!, Ogrun! as in Ogrun Warspears from the Hordes 2 player battle box. They are about the right size, are awesome models, and are dirt cheap. 
Here's a WIP shot of the 5 CH I'm working on at the moment. I think they work nicely as Crypt Horrors with the spears removed and a few "accessories".

I actually already had a unit for my Legion of Everblight army that I got when I bought the 2 player battle box last year but they are painted and being used as intended.
Now, you could buy the warspears models for about $20- $25 by themselves but with a little bit of buying and reselling you can get them for next to nothing.

Hordes 2 Player Battle Box $70 on Ebay
Sell the mini rulebook for $15
the Circle and Legion battlegroups  for $20 each
The Skinwalkers for $20

That's $75 and after ebay/paypal fees taken out the warspears I've kept cost about $5. I'll be getting another 2 player battle box at some point solely for another 5 of these models.

Terrorgheist/Zombie Dragon Ruined Base

I'll eventually finish this model. Getting closer. I finished the base for it this week and will hopefully finish painting the model soon.

Harbinger 50 pt List

A few people have been asking me for a group shot of my models. Well, that's a lot of models so here's my current Harbinger list at 50 pts.

A Bit of Halloween Fun: Commander Riker and Deanna Troi

Fun year of Halloween costumes for my wife Jennifer and I. We had a great time planning and putting these together and watching more episodes of Star Trek: TNG than is probably healthy. Enjoy. You're welcome Internet.

Vassal Mechanik

This model finished completes my fully painted 50 pt. 2 list pairing of Harbinger and pReznik. Just need a Steamroller tourney to play in.

Tristan Durant

Been using Tristan in my Harbinger list with a Reckoner and I'm really liking it. Just have to finish painting my Vassal Mechanik and my 50 pt Harbinger list will be fully painted. Privateer Press' sculpts have really improved a lot in the last couple years and this model is no exception. Great looking model with nice sense of motion and fun to paint.

Tristan WIP

Going back to playing Menoth for awhile and need to get Tristan painted up for my Harbinger list. Here's a WIP shot from my phone.

Terrorgheist/Zombie Dragon WIP update

Been making progress on this model very slowly. It's a big model and I just haven't had the time lately to put much time into finishing it. Decided I needed a milestone in the process so I finished up a section of the model, the Zombie Dragon head/neck. I wanted to go with something other than black for the crumbling, rotting skin and I thought the blue would look different and stand out a bit. Once the entire model is finished I'll be adding some blood and gore to spice things up a bit but otherwise this is what the entire model will look like. For those that read the previous WIP post on this model, I did considerable amount of cutting and modifying on the ZD head/neck which consisted of removing the entire original saddle and 3 or 4 rows of spine. The saddle you see on this piece was added, sculpted, and made entirely of milliput. Hope to get some time to finish this model in a couple weeks after midterms are over.

Avatar of Menoth Conversion: Finished.....for now

This conversion has actually been painted and finished for quite some time now but I've never posted it because I had plans to go back and change a few minor things but after several months I just can't seem to get back to it with all the other models that need my attention. So, here it is. I think it looks pretty great and I'm very pleased with it. It's not perfect and I probably would do a thing or two different if I did it again but overall I think it turned out pretty good. Quite a few people have said that they think the mid section needs a bit more attention and beefed up a bit. I was planning on going back to pay a little more attention to that and I probably will at some point but in the mean time it's done enough and looks great on the table.

Dwarf Runesmith and BEARDS!

I recently got the rest of my Dwarf army assembled and at least for the mean time was just planning on using a couple of the more unique heads of the grunts, spicing them up a bit, and using them as my characters for the army. One night I just randomly decided to try my hand at sculpting some more proper beards for these fellas as the beards on the models are a bit on the short side, which is one of the major complaints about the Mantic line of Dwarf models. For some dumb and unknown reason I decided to use the models I'd planned to use as my Runesmith and Thane battle standard bearer as guinea pigs. I almost immediately regretted this when I first put the putty in place on the models, thinking "Oh shit, these are never going to look good." However, I pressed on and with relative, surprisingly moderate effort I managed to sculpt something pretty decent. After that I couldn't wait to get one painted to see the final product. So, here's my Runesmith all finished complete with a proper, massive beard.

I managed to forget to take a before picture of this model but here's a different model with the same head so that you can see the difference with and without the added beard.

And some WIP and before and after pics

Space Marines: Terminator Thunder Hammer/Storm Shield conversions and scratch built Cyclone Missile Launchers

I have 20 space marine terminators from the Assault on Black Reach and Dark Vengeance sets and NONE of them come modeled with the very common and popular thunder hammer/stormshield combo or cyclone missile launchers. It can be very pricey to bits shop around for thunder hammers, stormshields, and cyclone missile launchers to convert these to, so I decided to just build my own. The hammers are actually from my Mantic Games dwarfs army and while not quite as nice as the actual piece, they'll do just fine. Now the actual space marine storm shields I think just look too small so I made mine much bigger. I just used a bit of plasticard for them. I do plan on adding some decorative detail and iconography to the shields to spice them up a bit. Anyway, it's pretty unmistakable as to what they are modeled as and that's what matters.

The missile launchers I built mostly out of those red plastic rulers that come in the warhammer starter boxes and a few paper clips. I think it will look pretty good once they're painted.

Vampire Counts: Grave Guard

Had these finished for a little while now but I ran into a pretty bad frosting problem when clear coated them and had to go back and apply a solid coat of gloss by brush followed by a coat of matte by brush. That solved most of the problem and they look okay now. Anyway, nothing crazy going on here. Basecoats and a brown dip applied by brush, then matte finished. I'm using Mantic's Revenant models for my Grave Guard. I'm not in love with the models but they're not bad I have 40 of them so I'm using them.

I also made a banner for the standard bearer. I basically just took an image, in this case from the 7th edition VC army book, changed the size of the image and then printed it out in black and white on regular printer paper. I then painted over the image very carefully, washed it thinly in seraphim sephia, put a couple coats of gloss finish on the front and back followed by matte finish for durability and strength. Finally, I just cut it out with an xacto knife, painted the newly exposed white edges, and glued it to the standard.

Vampire Counts: Vampire/Necromancer

I've had this miniature kicking around for a few years now unpainted that I actually used as my Drow Sorcerer character for DnD. Finally got around to painting it and incorporating it into my Vampire Counts army to use as a Vampire or Necromancer. The miniature used is "Damar, Adventuring Mage" by Reaper and I think it works nicely.

Dark Angels: Belial Conversion

I've had my hands in a bit of everything these past weeks. Recently spent some time getting the remainder of my space marines models assembled and some conversion work done. For the Dark Angels special character, Belial I used the sergeant model from the Dark Vengeance Terminators which is an awesome model by itself and could easily stand in as Belial without any work at all. However, I decided that guys like Belial just don't wear helmets. I had a few space marine bits lying around including a few tac squad sergeant heads and thought one of them would do nicely as Belial. Unfortunately the helmet and entire front of the Dark Vengeance Terminator sergeant model is all one piece so a simple head swap was out of the question. I ground as much material away (not much) as I could with my dremel and took to the xacto to do the rest. Once I got the helmet material completely removed I filled in any gaps with a bit of putty and then put the new head in place. Here's the end result and a side by side comparison with the original model sans the decorative wings I cut off so Belial would stand out from the other sergeant model.

Vampire Counts: Terrorgheist/Zombie Dragon WIP

I've recently had the opportunity to play some games of Warhammer Fantasy due to a bit of a resurgence of interest at my local game shop. I've had my modest Vampire Counts army sitting around for the last 2 plus years doing nothing while I've enjoyed playing Warmachine/Hordes consistently in that time. I figured it was time for a change of pace and I've been devoting much of my hobby time lately to assembling, converting, and painting my undead army. I picked up the Zombie Dragon/Terrorgheist model last week and have been doing extensive work on it to make it my own.

This model can be built as either a Zombie Dragon or a Terrorgheist. My first thoughts after cutting the pieces off the sprue and cleaning all the mold lines, was that I wanted to make the model use able as either. I spent a considerable amount of time mocking the model up and working out how best to go about it. Magnetizing the two different neck and head assemblies seemed very feasible and I decided I wanted to stick to a pose similar to the stock Terrogheist pose but there was a problem with this.

The neck of the zombie dragon is a bit longer than the TG neck and is curved downwards considerably. This would be fine if I were constructing the model in an upright pose like the stock ZD pose. But constructing the model in the lower TG pose would have the ZD neck/head pretty much facing straight down. As I mentioned earlier the ZD neck is a bit longer than the TG neck; my solution was to remove enough material from the back of the neck in order to eliminate most of the curve. After much fiddling around, cutting, and test fitting, I came up with a satisfactory solution.

I did have to remove the saddle that a Vampire Lord would be mounted on, but I plan on reimplementing a new saddle on to the neck. I used 1/8 x 1/8 magnets to secure the necks in place on the body. By leaving 2/3 of the magnet protruding from the neck and embedding the magnet on the body deep enough to accommodate the other, it creates a nice, secure fit and hold.



The stock model pose looks great kind of perched on rocks but I wanted to really make the most of the massive 100 x 150 mm base size so I was thinking of having the model perched atop a ruined building instead to make use of all the room on the base and elevate the model to a more imposing posture. In the past I've always used blue insulating foam or foamcore with the paper removed for modeling stone structures. However, I needed a very sturdy structure in order to support the entire model and foam would most certainly not work at least as a supporting structure. I decided to make the basic structure out of plastic and then to wrap the plastic structure in sheets of foamcore cut to shape. That way it would be very sturdy but give me the freedom to use foam to model the stonework.

I managed to get the main body pinned to the plastic structure and then started in on figuring out a solution to magnetizing the wings in order to more easily store/transport the model. I'd seen some other ZD/TG models magnetize the wings where they meet the shoulders. This is a fine solution and I'm sure works great. I decided on a slightly different method. I ended up gluing the wings to the shoulders and magnetizing the rib cage/spine assembly that sort of wraps around the main body.

I used 1/8 x 1/16 inch magnets for this and put one set of magnets into the halves where the sternum connects and then a set of magnets where the spine meets up with the main body on the back/spine. This made for a surprisingly strong hold and works quite well. The next challenge was creating a magnetic joint at the left wrist. Again, I used 1/8 x 1/16 inch magnets and carefully drilled a pocket into the wing deep enough for one full magnet and roughly 2/3 of the one connected to the claw.

With all the magnetizing done and the main body pinned to the plastic structure, I got started on wrapping the plastic in foamcore with the paper removed. This was the easy part and enjoyable to watch it all start to take shape. I've got the basic shape of the ruined building and started in modeling the little broken archway that the model has it's front claw resting on. I'll be doing more work to the building and the base as a whole, but for now I've got a good bit done.