Demon Army project: The Harrowed

[tinfoil]

Well, a demon army is too hard to resist, at least as a modeling opportunity. I think I'll spend the next few months digging in.

My working concept for the army will be a chaos-possessed IG regiment. For example:

- for horrors: converted guardsmen with melting faces and limbs; their las-guns becoming hideous organic appendages spitting lethal warpfire;

- for plague bearers, I can resurrect my mutants.

- and, for demon princes and/or soul grinders, tanks and/or sentinels, ripped asunder and reforged with cthonic ligature.

Here's a teaser glimpse (using an earlier project, a defiler conversion) to whet appetites.




Edit: This plog has grown very large and I suspect somewhat unwieldy to read, reread, and refer back to.
For the convenience of those curious about specific models, conversions, or aspects of the army, I've put together an index (which I will update on a regular basis).

Army shot
http://warseer.com/forums/showthread...55&page=11#206

Plaguebearers (from LatD mutants)
http://warseer.com/forums/showthread...0055&page=2#39

First daemon prince (would be Marked with Nurgle), sculpting/converting completed
http://warseer.com/forums/showthread...0055&page=3#48

fiends
http://warseer.com/forums/showthread...0055&page=3#51

horrors, sculpting/converting begun
http://warseer.com/forums/showthread...0055&page=4#71

horrors, sculpting/converting complete, first batch
http://warseer.com/forums/showthread...055&page=6#104

horrors, painting (mostly) completed
http://warseer.com/forums/showthread...055&page=9#168

Lord of Change, sculpting/converting begun
http://warseer.com/forums/showthread...055&page=6#106

Lord of Change, sculpting/converting finished
http://warseer.com/forums/showthread...55&page=10#191

Lord of Change, painting (mostly) completed
http://warseer.com/forums/showthread...55&page=11#206

Second daemon prince (Mark of Tzeench), sculpting/converting begun
http://warseer.com/forums/showthread...055&page=6#117

Second deamon prince, sculpting/converting complete
http://warseer.com/forums/showthread...055&page=8#148

Bloodletter concept modeled
http://warseer.com/forums/showthread...055&page=8#143

Bloodletters sculpting/converting begun
http://warseer.com/forums/showthread...55&page=14#261

Bloodletters, first batch sculpting/converting completed
http://warseer.com/forums/showthread...55&page=15#282

Bloodletters, painting in progress
http://warseer.com/forums/showthread...55&page=15#292

First Soul Grinder, converting begun
http://warseer.com/forums/showthread...55&page=11#208

First Soul Grinder, painting largely complete
http://warseer.com/forums/showthread...55&page=16#303

Bloodthirster sculpting/converting begun
http://warseer.com/forums/showthread...55&page=11#215

Bloodthirster sculpting/converting mostly complete
http://warseer.com/forums/showthread...55&page=12#230

Bloodthirster, painting mostly cmoplete
http://warseer.com/forums/showthread...55&page=13#255

Second Soul Grinder, sculpting/converting begun
http://warseer.com/forums/showthread...55&page=16#308

Second Soul Grinder, sculpting completed
http://warseer.com/forums/showthread...55&page=22#429

Army shot (sort of)
http://warseer.com/forums/showthread...55&page=23#443

[tinfoil]

Alright, for a first project, I'm going to work up a new "demon prince" model.
In the Demon codex, DPs are "heavy selections," offering one of the few anti-tank firepower options. Accordingly, I'll base my version off of a sentinel model.
This "sentinel" will have been invaded and possessed by a demon spirit, however, so I'll graft organic elements -- flesh, bones, claws, some sort of face -- onto the vehicle, to embody its demonic animating spirit.

So my two main sources of bitz, at least to begin with, will be a sentinel and stuff from the spawn sprues.


A lot of greenstuffing will come later. Right now, I'm starting by fusing some of the major plastic elements. For example:

to get composites like:


As that last WIP snapshot suggests, I'm not really working from a masterplan here. Just trying stuff out. But I'll start building from the feet up, in this case, since sentinels need the balance.

Here's a look with both "legs" roughed out, and clawed "feet" added. (Again, there'll be a lot of greenstuffing to come.)

[tinfoil]

Another angle:


And a third angle, with a better look at the leg:


And one last angle, from the other side:


So I'm underway. More to come.
And in the meantime, feedback is warmly welcomed.

[Raven1]

That is wicked cool man. It looks to be a very cool model.

[simonjedi]

the "Daemon sentinel" looks really cool so far, and i love the army idea.

Consider me subscribed.

[Cassarus]

Nice work so far, cool idea about the dp.
Think it will look great when it's doen. Can you show a better pic of the defiler?

Cheers

[Metal Fingered Villain]

This is an interesting concept and I am looking forward to seeing it progress. That daemonic sentinel looks promising, is the upper portion going to be the spawn torso with mechanical parts? Maybe one organic arm and one mechanical. I think lots of tubing off of the back going down to some power source would be clever.

[tinfoil]

Can you show a better pic of the defiler?

Well, you asked for it!
Seriously, I'll go into a bit of detail here, since a) I may well be using this model as a proxy for my soul grinder until I can get my hands on (and begin converting) the GW kit. And since b) that earlier project (hopefully) conveys some of the same aesthetics and mood I'm looking for in the new army.

Mood image follows:


So (ahem) here's a little back story:
Fielding a defiler in my Lost and the Damned army (*sigh*) seemed like a natural choice – or should I say, an irresistibly unnatural one. But I’ve never been entirely satisfied with the GW Defiler model. I love the scale of the beast, and the industrial-nightmare feel of the legs, the claws, the carriage.

The whole “dreadnought x 3” vibe doesn't really stir me, though. The model in general looks too clean, too – too many straight lines and smooth planes. The barrel of the battle-cannon is puny and nubby. And that demon-mouth stuff around the barrel is distractingly cartoonish (looking more like the entrance to some cheesy Tunnel of Horror ride at a county fair than the malevolent spirit of a demon delivering doom).

I wanted a more twisted feel to the beast. I something that would evoke its horrifying story -- a model that bore the scars of having been wrenched violently into existence. Like something that had been plundered and desecrated, bent virtually out of recognition to be enslaved in service to the Ruinous Powers.

So I decided to defile my own.

My first idea was to combine a defiler frame with the barrel of the WHFB Chaos Hellcannon (a model I love – in fact, a model that provided major inspiration for this project generally). So I bought the two kits. (Already this project was costing me $100. Sheesh.)

But I couldn’t bash them into a form that satisfied me. The scale of the hellcannon stuff was huge, compared to parallel parts of the defiler. And the hammered-metal skin of the fantasy piece definitely clashed with the defiler’s smooth surfaces. So I scrapped the hellcannon-on-defiler-legs idea and went back to the drawing board.

Sort of. Actually, I never really drew out anything on paper or planned it before I began to build it. The creature formed organically, by accretion (much as I image the defilers themselves do, in the forges of the Archenemy). Not a process that always works out, but one that eventually found its way this time.

For a basic platform, I assembled the carriage and leg structure from the defiler kit, (but without the “shin guard” armor plates). No “torso.” This machine would be more crustacean than humanoid. Then, because the legs seemed kind of blocky, I carved out some of the facings – making the “metal” work look crude and (I hoped) industrially organic.


At that point I got stuck for awhile. The project went onto the shelf, awaiting inspiration.

The next piece of the puzzle fell into place when I stumbled across GW’s bound penitent figure, from the witchhunter line. It was so perfect. A kneeling human, semi-caged or bound, bent back, writhing in what looked like the throes of either agony or religious ecstasy or some grotesque combination of both. An uncanny embodiment of possession. When I came across the figure in Rich P.’s vast and wonderful bitz collection, I knew I’d found what was needed. A bit of coaxing and wheedling and the big guy relinquished the prize. (I think Rich must have made some secret pact with the Ruinous Powers, btw. He’s repeatedly fed me arcane and wonderful bitz pieces.)

I sawed the penitent model off at the knees and affixed him to the defiler carriage (greenstuffing the join to suggest the process of melting into the machine). So this poor soul became a focal point for the model, radiating the mood I was looking for, transforming my defiler-in-profess into an unholy sacrificial altar. And by positioning the front claws to mirror the pose of the penitent’s arms, I managed to suggest the hideously symbiotic bond that had fused man and machine together.


(Sorry for the crappy scanner picture -- best I could do, at the time.)


The thing still needed a massive battle cannon, of course. By this point I had decided I wanted to use a Russ battle cannon, turret and all, wrenched off of and reclaimed for use by the ruinous powers. But where to fit it in or on?

A few days later, while I was helping one of my daughters assemble a science project for school, inspiration struck again, this time in the form of a photograph of a spider carrying her egg sac.

[tinfoil]

The moment I saw it I recognized it as what I had been waiting for. Later that night, when my daughter had been packed off to bed and was dreaming sweetly, blissfully unaware of what she had inspired, I pulled out my project and went back to work, inverting the Russ turret and slinging it beneath the defiler’s thorax.

The rest of the conversion work focused on texturing the model. I painted plastic cement over most of the flat plastic surfaces on the defiler legs, to stress and slightly warp the “skin” of the thing. I also nicked it here and there throughout – again to stress it and suggest that the metal had twisted, warped, and reformed itself. Then I applied strands of greenstuff and arcs of guitar-string, weaving fleshy sinews and snakey cabling into the architecture.

Here's what she looks like, flipped over onto her back to reveal her deadly cargo:


And here's what she looks like bearing right down on your doomed self:


edit: just found a few more pictures. It's really hard to get a satisfactory photo that captures the whole thing at a glance.

and

[G.Hawke]

Tinfoil, this is definatly a log i'm gonna be watching! Daemons FTPWN!

defiler is looking great man!

hawke

[tinfoil]

This is an interesting concept and I am looking forward to seeing it progress. That daemonic sentinel looks promising, is the upper portion going to be the spawn torso with mechanical parts? Maybe one organic arm and one mechanical. I think lots of tubing off of the back going down to some power source would be clever.

Wow, if MFV is paying attention, I'm intimidated! Seriously, dude, your GUO scratch-build was incredibly inspiring.

I am trying to graft the spawn torso onto the sentinel cabin -- with some interesting results. More WIP on that soon, I promise.

[doghouse]

That Defiler is amazing! Such an original idea as well!

Great work!

[Cassarus]

Great stuff, love the defiler now when I've got to see the whol thing!
I ginna keep an eye on this thread for sure!

Cheers

[Kraal_Lord_Of_Blood]

-subscribes-
now work faster!

[tinfoil]

Okay, progress on the demon prince. I've been blocking out torso/cabin section. First, afixing a spawn torso to the front of the sentinel cabin (after carving off the back half of the sentinel stuff), to get this:


Then, setting him on the legs, I played with the angle and proportions until I found a stance that I liked, setting the "torso" well back on the carriage (visa vi where the cabin usually sits), and slanting down toward the front, thusly:


The spawn torso does not fit proportionately with the sentinel legs, but I don't necessarily want the model to suggest anatomical correctness, and I think the conversion might work regardless. I don't want this creature to resemble a humanoid/robot construct, so much as a frenzy of flesh, crawling all over and winding itself into a doomed machine.

To which end, once I'd placed the torso/cabin, I drilled holes in the sides, thusly:


I've drilled holes because I'm anticipating planting cable/sinew arcs from the "shoulder" of the "torso" into the cabin interior -- as if the demon was not only wrapping his skin and musculature around the cabin, but also piercing and invading its interior. (This is hard to describe, and I'm not 100 percent sure it will work out visually, but I won't know till I've tried it out and seen the effort.)

Next I'll probably start working on the gun arm (probably using a sentinel multi-las arm as a base).
And soon I'll pull out the green-stuff...

[Drakon]

looking good so far ill stay to see what else you do.

[bluebugs]

Love this! I may steal the idea, but for a dreadnought. Anyway, keep it up can't wait for the finished result.

[tinfoil]

Thanks for the encouragement, everybody.
A member of my local gaming club pointed out that the ball joint on the carriage of the sentinel legs was looking like some weird huge codpiece. And once he pointed it out, I couldn't see past it. So I took out my snippers and....

Worked in a few cables while I was at it (the first of many).
And also took the opportunity to pin the torso/cabin to the legs while the back was open. (You can just see the pin if you look closely here

[Starfarer]

It's good to see I'm not the only one who had the idea to use the Daemon codex as way way to play LaTD. The Daemon codex and the IA6 release this summer should hopefully provide enough legal rules to allow most people's LaTD armies to return to the tabletop.

Anyway, as for the models I'm really impressed so far. The Daemon Prince is turning out really cool. I can't wait to see the completed model.

[tinfoil]

Progress on several fronts.
First, the head. I was originally planning to pick one of the new spawn sprue heads for this creature. Then I remembered the old spawn head, the one with like 7 sets of concentric jaws and rings of teeth.... I've always loved that image. And as it happened, I had several in my bitz box. So out one comes.
The neck is too straight for my taste, though. I decided it was worth sawing the thing in two, pinning it with a winding wire, and green-stuffing in the fit.
Like so:

another angle, this one showing why I love the bit so much

and one more angle


After a rough layer of greenstuffing, I have this:


(I'm waiting overnight for the greenstuff to dry, before affixing it to the torso.)