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.