Leoparden's Imperial Addiction

[Leoparden]

I've cast a resurrection spell on this project!

That is some stunning stuff!! The tattoo type freehand additions on the armour are amazing!

ElTanko

Thank you! It's nice to hear that the tattoo freehands are a good addition seeing as how I spend so much time on them and sometimes they felt a bit touch and go. Over all I think they break the colours up just enough to make the miniature more interesting and also add depth to the character(s) on a whole, making the marines individual parts of a larger machinery - savages but at the same time not completely brainwashed automatons.

That Tyberos is one of the best models I've seen. I've seen more complicated conversions and better painting (not saying you aren't top notch!) but this model actually looks scary! The way the colours go together gives this guy some intensity that I don't see in most models. Excellent work!

That is high praise indeed. I like the miniature a lot myself. I'm only slightly concerned that I didn't get the right angle on the miniatures right arm (the angle is a bit off from when you look at the miniature from different viewpoints) but that's probably just me nitpicking (and learning for future projects). Thanks for the comment!

yeh I agree, that Tyberos is really good. REALLY good. You're one of the few artists here who really inspires me!!

REv

Funny coincidence since you are one of my biggest inspirations when it comes to miniatures! I'm happy I could give something back to you!

So jealous!... must resist... urge.. to make... bird marines...

The birds are calling, luring you in...

Wow...these are awesome, that Tyberos has to be the coolest termie character I have seen in a while.

High praise, thank you! I'm happy my idea came to fruition and produced something I can inspire with!

Could you PLEASE give us a tutorial on how you did his claws! they look stunning.

your work is inspiring, never stop.

maggot out.

Hm. You'd have to wait a while for a tutorial with pictures (I'm making some custom claws for my other terminators which I can make a picture tutorial on). The rough rundown is:
Basepaint them with a brown colour.
Add thing layers of yellow to your liking (either a warm yellow or a cold yellow) covering most of the claws but most importantly around the edges.
Add skull white to the mix (1:1 white:yellow mix) in thin layers around the edges, if you want you can draw tiny lines from over the blades.
Add skull white again (2:1 white:yellow mix) in thin layers around the edges, again over the previous thin lines you painted (if you painted them)
Add one thin layer of skull white at the very edges.
The glow effect around the claws where painted similarly (apart from the brown base) and where given a thin wash of Asuremen blue to dull the yellow down a bit and tie it into the armour on the blue glove and leviathan purple on the black glove. Be careful not to paint the yellow glow on places that wouldn't be hit by the glow (takes practice and I'm far from a master so I messed up quite a lot on the way).
Add spreckled blood mix (tamiya red+chaos black/badab black and possibly leviathan purple (experiment on something else)) for blood effect.

Something like that at least...

I second that request for the tutorial on the claws.

As for the icon - Having now seen the finished model, I think it provides a good contrast to the rest of the figure so I think you should keep it as is.

Great model though and it fits the background very well

I'm keeping it as it is for now, I might go back later and do it as a freehand in white then (when the miniature has sunken in a bit and I've completed more marines and terminators for the army).

----

There isn't much to show lately, mostly because I'm torn between my different projects and interests right now. Trying to juggle far too many projects at the same time can do that to you. Right now I'm desperately trying to come up with some kind of plan for which order to finish things in just to be able to sit down and actually finish something (and most importantly get rid of the non-warhammer projects so they taking time away from me realizing my warhammer related crazy ideas). At least progress has been made on the Void Sharks (albeit a small one).

Here's a pretty much finished marine. He has his dagger and his extra equipment in his belt (notice the grenades I've shamelessly stolen from the Grey Knights, I like them better then the average grenades). He is still bluetacced together to enable easier access to some parts for painting:


This guy is a spur of the moment decision. When I was shuffling through alternate arms for some other miniatures I came across a Grey Knight hand (or Sanguinary Guard hand, they are almost exactly the same if you haven't noticed yet) and I remembered a miniature I've seen on another forum with a marine tossing his emptied weapon and rushing into the fight again. At first I was considering having him tossing away a bolter but I found the miniature was unevenly distributed in weight so I went with a bolt pistol instead. The pistol is attached to the hand with a steel wire running through the body of the pistol, then the handle, then the hand and finally the arm (which also happens to be pinned to the body). I did this in order to make it sturdy enough to withstand gaming conditions:


And here's WIP piece I came up with by accident today when I had some time over for modelling. I was just sorting through bits and legs to come up with a second meltagunner and suddenly it all made sense and now I just need to finalize it with some more green stuff additions and extra equipment like the ones I've gotten further along with:


Finally I have made some progress on my Contemptor. I've now made enough progress to do some battle damage and other details on the body to see where it's going. The paint is starting to get thick though so I can't do more experiments soon...

The damage is hard to make realistic on the black parts (still going back and forth on the process) but the blue parts are looking sweet imho.

[Leoparden]

More progress has been made on the contemptor, the right arm is now finished and ready for action. It's somewhat darker then I had imagined (the varnish did that) so I'm holding back my own judgements till the entire piece is varnished (which is after it's completely painted:

[Monsterzonk]

Those Marines are really well posed. Love the one dropping the spent bolt pistol! And the Dread's coming along nicely. Looking forward to seeing that finished.

Cheers,
Monsterzonk

[-BoBo-]

Fantastic stuff as always!
You wouldn't plan on playing in a tournament with these modells so the rest of us could study them irl?
/BoBo

[Leoparden]

Those Marines are really well posed. Love the one dropping the spent bolt pistol! And the Dread's coming along nicely. Looking forward to seeing that finished.

Cheers,
Monsterzonk

It will be a while before the dread is finished, I managed to drop it on the floor and it broke down into it's basic components more or less. I'm in the process of repairing the damage and while I'm at it I'm also taking time to paint details I couldn't reach when it was assembled. It will be completed sooner or later, right now it's leaning towards later though. I want to take my time with it and not rush it so some other miniatures are getting priority right now.

Fantastic stuff as always!
You wouldn't plan on playing in a tournament with these modells so the rest of us could study them irl?
/BoBo

I usually don't enjoy tournaments since I'm not particularly competitive in my mindset. Every now and then I play a game with my friends down at Playoteket on Djärknegatan but it's been a while now. I'm also far from finished with a playable army with the Void Sharks (not troops painted in particular) so I couldn't even enter a tournament if I wanted to

I'd like to meet more people that are into warhammer 40k in the region though since I find it's always nice to have people to talk about the hobby with!

----

Small update. I was looking at my Tyberos conversion and I decided that some details had to be changed to get a better look. So I tore off the arm and removed the sculpted icon and painted on a stylized maori pattern shark instead. Once that was done I felt there was something wrong with the general pose of the miniature. After a bit of shaving on the arm socket I got a better fit but I still wasn't satisfied so I decided that a slight adjustment to the head might be do the trick - and so I changed it and I feel it's a lot better now compared to before!


I've also started on my landspeeders for the Void Sharks (3 Tempest/Typhoon conversions). So far I've only just begun on the black side of the vehicle, hope you like it:


That's it for now!

[punkfish]

I'm liking that Tempest!

I like the changes you've made to Tyberos, I liked your original version a lot but I think the little tweaks you've made really make the model stand out.

Shame to hear about the Contemptor, I hope the damage to the paint and the model wasn't too bad.

[Satan]

It will be a while before the dread is finished, I managed to drop it on the floor and it broke down into it's basic components more or less.

Noooooooo! Reading that makes ME want to cry...

I usually don't enjoy tournaments since I'm not particularly competitive in my mindset. Every now and then I play a game with my friends down at Playoteket on Djärknegatan but it's been a while now. I'm also far from finished with a playable army with the Void Sharks (not troops painted in particular) so I couldn't even enter a tournament if I wanted to

I'd like to meet more people that are into warhammer 40k in the region though since I find it's always nice to have people to talk about the hobby with!

Which part of the city do you live in? I'm out in the Western Harbour, but I rarely (well... practically never) visit Playoteket (haven't got the time really). We play Apoc games a few times a year up in the northeastern part of Scania though, and loads of WHFB with my friends from around the region and we also partake in a few tournaments each year.

The Tyberos pose is looking really fierce now, like he's in an attack stance and focused on the stuff he's about to punch his claws into. Land speeder's also looking great - I can't believe how great these miniatures look wtih your freehand!

Cheers!

[Leoparden]

Noooooooo! Reading that makes ME want to cry...

Which part of the city do you live in? I'm out in the Western Harbour, but I rarely (well... practically never) visit Playoteket (haven't got the time really). We play Apoc games a few times a year up in the northeastern part of Scania though, and loads of WHFB with my friends from around the region and we also partake in a few tournaments each year.

The Tyberos pose is looking really fierce now, like he's in an attack stance and focused on the stuff he's about to punch his claws into. Land speeder's also looking great - I can't believe how great these miniatures look with your freehand!

Cheers!

Thanks!

I live near the Swedbank Stadium. I rarely visit Playoteket these days either, my "playmates" have been away from Warhammer for a while for different reason so I haven't taken my miniatures out for weeks myself. My parents have a summerhouse in the northeastern part of Scania so I'm there from time to time. Always interested in meeting more/new people interested in the hobby, if nothing more then to keep my interest in the hobby alive and well. I'm slowly branching out into WHFB, starting up a Chaos Dwarf army and adding to it when I have funds to spare. I should up my painting time on these marines first though, got a huge load of vehicles to paint (6+ drop pods, ouch).

I'm liking that Tempest!

I like the changes you've made to Tyberos, I liked your original version a lot but I think the little tweaks you've made really make the model stand out.

Shame to hear about the Contemptor, I hope the damage to the paint and the model wasn't too bad.

Thanks, I'm a lot happier with Tyberos now, he doesn't but me anymore which is the best sign I can get, hehe!

He survived without any major damage, I just had do glue him together again

----

I've realised I'm a glutton for punishment. I've recently ordered the Rapier Laser Destroyer, the Minotaurs special characters and a set of Mk III marines to.. Add to my project pile. I have some nice ideas for the Rapier (Thunderfire counts as, never used that unit before because it was completely made in metal) and I'm going to see if I can make something useful from the character parts (spears as counts as thunder hammers for some Void Sharks assault termies perhaps?). The Mk IIIs I haven't decided on yet.

As far as painting goes I've continued my long process of highlighting the land speeder tempest/typhoon and I'm now almost done with the top side (woho!). Time is running out so I need to get a move on!


I've managed to find all the poses I wanted for my first tactical squad for the Void Sharks. I also gathered enough pieces to equip them all with the correct shoulderpads to give them a unified feel (left shoulder charges, yarr!!). Anyway, here's a quick image compilation to show them all. They still need minor details added (pouches and grenades) as well as minor greenstuff work (armguards and soft armour additions).

Heavy w. Multi-melta / Sgt. w. Combi-Melta & Powerfist / Meltagunner:

Crazy Void Shark Marines 1-3:

Crazy Void Shark Marines 4-5:

Void Shark Marines with Silencers 1-2:


Other things to come is this Siege Dread I put together for the Void Sharks (scavenged the dread from Brethren of the Phoenix project) with Multi-Melta and Drill:


Till next time!

[MaxSigmund]

Nice dread! Fine work all round, but that machine is really gnarly...erm, yes. Good work

[Nostro]

Can people stop cross-linking to other awesome project logs, in posts or in their sigs? I had to spend hours of catching up with whatever inspiring logs went under my radar for the past year or so. I'm quite demanding when it comes to logs, my subscriptions are almost only 5 stars (in my mind some deserve a 6th) because usually 4-rated ones tend to be found wanting in either ideas, converting or painting. But this time I've kept adding subscriptions to my lists, and this log probably has to be the most "how did I miss that one" of all.

Top notch free handing, as somebody said you managed to run amok with it while keeping the 40K feel to it, which is too easy to lose. That said, I think my favourite part is the depth you gave to the dark blue and purple, with stone veins and maori tattoos. Tyberos is amazing. Scary mini, all the more impressive because the simple conversions serve the purpose and are not "OMFG look how much I can tack on this mini".

[Satan]

Thanks!

I live near the Swedbank Stadium. I rarely visit Playoteket these days either, my "playmates" have been away from Warhammer for a while for different reason so I haven't taken my miniatures out for weeks myself. My parents have a summerhouse in the northeastern part of Scania so I'm there from time to time. Always interested in meeting more/new people interested in the hobby, if nothing more then to keep my interest in the hobby alive and well. I'm slowly branching out into WHFB, starting up a Chaos Dwarf army and adding to it when I have funds to spare. I should up my painting time on these marines first though, got a huge load of vehicles to paint (6+ drop pods, ouch).

Cool, get in touch if you're up for a game or two! Been too long since I took my Daemons for a stroll. I play mostly WHFB these days - going to Gothcon next week (last time I went was in... 2004 or something like that) to play in the WHFB tournament with my wood elves.

Great choice - the CD are a beautiful army. Given your talent at this I expect nothing less than comically-jaw-dropping results. Land speeder's looking great as are all the conversions - I take you've been casting your own shoulderpads and helmets?

[Warpetrie]

i havent been updated through my email about your last 2 pages...but now im all cought up and cant wait for more ^_^

[Leoparden]

Sooo, apparently I've forgotten about my project log here for quite some time. Not that I've gotten a whole lot done the last few months. There's just been way to much going on lately to provide me with any real time for modelling (illness in the family, helping my grandmother move and a break-up amongst other things), I have however survived and I have somewhat rekindled my interest for the hobby albeit with new projects and trials.

There was a sale on Maelstrom a while back which prompted me to buy some fantasy miniatures that I'm going to convert into 40k miniatures. Right now I'm thinking for some kind of Henchmen unit for GKs but nothing is set in stone completely (more on that below). For now I'm doing them mostly for the modelling challenge to build up motivation to return to my many Space Marine projects (well, the two of them). It all started with a conversion I spotted based on the Winged Vampire lord which inspired me so much I made this:

I've been calling him the "Krieg Inquisitor" (because of the mask) and I've been eyeing through the GK codex looking at options for Inquisitorial units and I've then tried to combine the rules with the miniatures I have in mind. I think I've come up with a pretty tasteful inquisitorial henchmen unit that will be totally worthless in the game, but interesting visually, consisting of the following (if the links (for example click "Isabella") don't work (i.e. you are taken to the page where you choose language on the GW page), choose a language and then it should proceed to the correct page).

I know for sure that I want to use Isabella as the second Inquisitor. I'd like to try and just add a gas mask to her face (and maybe sculpt some straps going in to that enormous hair which I'd like to keep as much of as possible (because Inquisitors are usually that pimp and arrogant). Her accessories are passable for 40k miniature but I might remove some details and add new, small, ones. The Isabella warband will be mostly handmaidens and some acolytes. The handmaidens will be constructed out of the vampire and vampire handmaidens from the Coven Throne, the only problem with that is that I'll probably have to resculpt the dresses or find new legs for them since they are sitting down on the Throne but I'll deal with that problem once I get the pieces (and you might ask why I would even try to do this, the answer is - because I can).

The next conversion will be based on the WoC Sorcerer (being plastic that's a nice bonus) and he'll represent an imperial advisor (navigator perhaps, he'll be a psychic at least). That should be a pretty straightforward conversion with a head swap and some minor detail adjustment.

Then we have the Imperial Enforcer from FW. I was pleasantly surprised that his head is a separate component (no need to gut anything off!) which enabled me to do a quick test fit with a DKoK head. Surprisingly the head looks very nice just blue tacced on like that and the proportions of the entire miniature comes together well. The miniature is a very nice sculpt and does not suffer from a bloated gut as much in person as it does on the pictures that FW put up:


The cyber-mastif (that comes with the enforcer) will of course be used in the unit as well (probably as an arco-flagellant or death cult assassin stand-in). If possible I'd like to get my hands on more dogs somehow (would be a pretty nifty really). It has a lot of dog features which gives it a convincing vibe but it also has a cool cybernetic spine showing through the skin on the back which is a nice touch. It's quite big though (as you shall see below) so I see why they'd be pretty nasty creatures to meet in a dark alley on some hive world:


For a more human touch I'd like to add the Acolytes and the light wizard from the Hurricanum kit as normal Acolytes to the Inquisitor. Just shave of some details and add pistol holsters and grenades to them + a head swap for gas masks and they would meld right in that unit no problem. Also fills out the unit nicely with pretty simple conversions.

I've also had this idea for Imperial Guard Soldiers (Acolyte henchmen for GKs if you prefer that) ever since I saw the Autogun conversion on Warseer. Finally I decided to dig some guardsmen out and try it for myself. I also shaved of the shoulderpads (because I think they are a tad to big) and replace the helmet with a respirator head (because frankly it looks better and the DKoK heads are too small to fit on these guys, which is ironic...).

The good thing with these guys is that I can add special weapons and flesh out the unit with more bodies as needed for different games.

The final idea I have is also the most complicated one (I think). I'd like to make a servitor unit counts as combining 3 miniatures into a complex unit of two smaller servitors controlling a bigger one. Rule wise they will count as 3 imperial servitors with a multi-melta each but visually they will be two servitors walking behind a bigger one with wires connected between them (magnetized so that they can be removed). This conversion would be based on the Firebelly (with a huge amount of conversion work) and the GK Acolyte and a third servitor which I haven't decided on yet (tips?).

Here's a size comparison shot between the miniatures I have thus far. They are all wacky compared to one another. The imperial guardsman is shorter than the enforcer yet the Krieg head the enforcer has looks correctly scaled on him but waaay to small on the guardsman. Then there's the Inquisitor which, even though he's standing on a rock, is still larger than all of them and his head is actually bulked up a bit so it looks fairly decent over all. You also get a nice perspective on how big that dog is:


Oh, I have also started painting the Krieg Inquisitor with my new Citadel Paints (I've made a deal with myself that I'm only going to use the new colours on these guys, just so I can try them out). As you can see I've chosen a yellow paint scheme - mostly because I haven't painted much yellow before and it's supposedly easier now with the new paints (so I had to try it out, right?).


Hopefully you like what you see and I'll have a nice update within a few weeks!

[superdupermatt]

Gah! Wonderful as to be expected. You git.

How did you find the yellow paints?

[razormasticator]

Gorgeous work in this log, with some amazing ideas and the concepts are being executed to perfection!

[DapperAnarchist]

Damn, I had plans for that Vampire Lord... Ah well, still gonna do it Especially now I can see how the cloak works... It just will never be as awesome as that... With that bare skin, are you going to try tattoos?

[ArcticWolf]

Fantastic additions as usual. I second the question of how you are finding the new paints?

[Satan]

Wow, that is one sweet inquisitor! The headswap also worked wonders for the enforcer, I wish they could make him a regular w. a squad to go along... Gorgeous yellow, would you walk us through it?

[kublai]

Fantastic henchman ! You are a really creative fellow

[folketsfiende]

Wow! Super high quality of both conversions and painting! ******* excellent!