Gutplates and Hive Minds

[Azendral]

So, after having read through a couple of logs over the last few days I thought I would have a go at posting some of my projects as well.

While the Title says "Gutplates and Hive Minds" there's a large risk that I will stray from posting only Ogres and Tyranids as I have a tendency to overestimate my own free time when it comes to deciding whether to pick up a new game or not.

I've started with both the Tyranids and the Ogres fairly recently, the Tyranids maybe a year ago and the Ogres shortly after their new army book was released, maybe six months ago or so.

Any and all feedback is appreciated, while I have painted for some time I have had a long period of inactivity recently and am still in the process of learning. I've converted a bit, not much before but have recently, in the last year and a half maybe, started to convert more and more. Feedback, hints and advice on that is also much appreciated.

[Azendral]

I seem to have underestimated the time it would take to prepare the pictures but anyway, I'll start off with some Ogres I finished recently and if there is time I'll post a couple of ongoing projects.

I'm not overly fond of the available Butcher/Slaughtermaster models available for Ogres so I decided to make my own.



I chose to make my Butcher into more of a Chef instead and I just couldn't resist trying to go for a likeness to a certain angry chef. The coat and stitching is made entirely out of green stuff, and the cleaver's made of plasticard. This was my first time making stitching and here is what I learned. Do NOT wait until the "cloth"-green stuff has dried before making the stitches, it's a lot easier to do when you can actually just press the "string" into the cloth intstead of cutting out holes first.
I also learned that it's a lot harder to paint white than anticipated, which I've only tried on one or two occassions before and then on much smaller areas.

This was also my first time using resin for blood, I've used resin before for slime and as water and I think the blood could have been better. I've used resin with a clear red enamel paint mixed in, (I made to much lava, more on that below), and then washed it with nuln oil and then some Tamiya Clear Red on top of that.


So, one Butcher down, how about a Combat Character? I kind of don't like the Bruiser/Tyrant miniatures GW makes either but luckily Avatars of War has one that's really nice.



Since we are playing Warhammer Warbands Escalation at my local club now I was in a bit of a rush to get this one finished and so he was painted in two evenings and I might go back and fix a couple of things on him, but any advice is still appreciated.
I had to build him a fairly large base as he otherwise poked the other ogres in his unit in the face. Since I wanted him to look like he was going to jump onto the enemy in front of him I put him at the very edge of the cliff and angled a bit forward, I did not think that through though as this makes him prone to well... tip forward and faceplant. Luckily I magnetize all my bases and put them on a metal movement tray to that helps a bit. He has only fallen over twice so far... Might need stronger magnets.

Oh, well. That's as far as I got tonight, workday tomorrow so I'll have to catch some sleep. More updates to come.

[Brother Muninn]

I'm sure you're referencing Gordon Ramsey, but my first take was that he looked like Curtis Stone. Fun conversion though!

~Muninn

[Azendral]

I thought I'd post a Tyranid or two as well, I've more or less decided on a color scheme although I haven't gotten around to naming their splinter fleet yet. I did a couple of Warriors to start with but the pictures I took of those a while back got really flooded by my camera flash so I'll post them later on, probably in a group shot with my Tyranid Prime-conversion when I've managed to paint him. (Yet another unfinished project...)

Anyway, I recently finished my Trygon Prime, only took me 3-4 months mostly because I got fed up painting the carapace. I've used a method I read about some time ago called streak painting, and so the carapace is painted Necron Abyss and then, in individual streaks with a size 00 brush and severely thinned paint I've layered on a mix of Necron Abyss and Hawk Turquoise, finishing with pure Hawk Turquoise and then some white mixed in.



This is the fourth miniature I've used this method on and the largest by far, it's still a bit hit and miss, and a lot more time consuming than I initially planned but I think I'll stick with it. The base is made from regular DAS Modelling Clay, glue, sand and some small pebbles thrown in. I wanted it to look as if the Trygon just emerged from beneath the soil.

[Azendral]

A year ago when I started with my Hive Fleet I decided that in low point-battles I couldn't really use a Hive Tyrant as it would cost too much in points, I didn't really like the idea of having to buy a metal Hive Tyrant either. (I've now gotten both the Hive Tyrant plastic kit and the Tervigon kit) I got a bit annoyed that there was no model for the Tyranid Prime, (and at that point the Tervigon and Harpy as well) having taken for granted as in Warhammer Fantasy that everything gets released at once, when the army book is released. Anyway, I decided that this was a good time to fix my own Prime.



He is based on a regular Tyranid Warrior, although I've used the arm-part of a pair of Monstrous Scything talons as the lower two sections of the legs, increased the size of the feet with some grey stuff. I've also put in two layers of 1mm plasticard in between the back and front torso to make the body larger and sculpted it a bit wider with some grey stuff. The head is from an old Ravener I got off a friend and one of the head carapace parts from the regular Tyranid Warrior-kit.
The arms are, as you can see, entirely magnetized. I've armed him with, Lash whip & Bonesword + deathspitter as of now. The Lashwhip is the off-hand from the Barbed Strangler weapon option, I sawed off the tubes, drilled in a piece of wire and then sculpted some whips. These were made in grey stuff, just rolled into tentacles, loosely wrapped around the handles of a brush and left to dry.
The Bonesword is made from plasticard, I've always been partial to tonfa blades so I went for that kind of look, then grafted it onto the arm with some grey stuff.

I might have forgotten something, it was some time since I did the sculpt even if I haven't gotten around to finishing the paint job on it.

[Azendral]

I'm sure you're referencing Gordon Ramsey, but my first take was that he looked like Curtis Stone. Fun conversion though!

~Muninn

Can't say I've seen Curtis Stone before but looking through his Television history I'm not entirely sure any of those have been on Swedish television, except of Iron Chef. He is indeed supposed to be an Ogre Ramsay of sorts.

On a sidenote, I got my first reply! Yay!

[Azendral]

Finished my Firebelly last week, used him as General in a 500pts Warhammer Warbands battle yesterday, I didn't get to use his Fire breathing but he burned a Fell bat with a Fireball and took out 10 skeletons with a firestorm, he didn't destroy himself or his unit either on the Irresistible force/miscast he did on the Firestorm either so all in all he performed ok.



The model itself isn't modified at all, but the base is custom made, mainly cork painted like volcanic stone and resin mixed with red enamel paint as lava. The lava "waves" or spurts are made using thin sheets of plastic, like from PET-bottles or an old blister pack, cut in a triangular stripe, glued onto the base and then covered with the resin. Since lava isn't just red I've used wash-thin jokaero orange mixed with either red or yellow and on some places just yellow and some white.

[Azendral]

One of the major sell points of the Ogre Kingdoms army for me was the Maneaters, being able to go make each and everyone unique just felt fun, especially after realizing all my Wood Elf conversion was making bark and branches...

So here is my first Maneater project:



Just felt right, he will lead my scout Maneaters, I've been making an Ogre Bow and converted a Wood Elf spear into an arrow, will update with those later.

[Azendral]

Made a bow for him, after having looked through some of the other logs here I realize it's a lot rougher than the other work I've seen around here but anyway.



First I made the basic shape in fairly thick steel wire.

Then I used a thin layer of Green Stuff followed by a thicker layer of Grey stuff, let dry and then trimmed it a bit and added some details with green stuff.



Of course the bow needed some implements allowing him to hit people in the face with it as well. Added two blades made from plasticard before the green stuff plates dried.

[Jormi_Boced]

That maneater looks like it is going to be sweet.

[Azendral]

Thanks! My first real conversion project when it comes to the Ogres, and so far I'm fairly happy with the result even if I forgot to make space for a quiver when I made the cloak so for now he is going to have to run and get his one arrow after each shot... Might make a Gnoblar arrow caddie for him at a later point.

Managed to get some painting in tonight, and started on his base.



And since I can't just be doing one project at a time I've started on another. I got an Ancient Scar Leader Kroq-gar for cheap when my local store sold out their metal minis and thought I was going to make a Mournfang champion out of it. Just added a saddle, drilled and fitted some wire for hoops in the saddle to fasten the straps to. Just doing a little bit a day, waiting for some Lizardman bits for the rider.

[Azendral]

Wednesday is arts & crafts at our local gaming club, well, it's the day of our two days a week that we meet in which we're actually supposed to paint or armies. That we mostly paint on the other day we meet as well is beside the point. But since we started playing Warbands we've actually managed to play almost every sunday, I can really recommend it. Alot faster and a whole different game almost than regular Warhammer.

Anyway I actually managed to finish my Waywatcher Maneater today, at least enough that I'll let him mature a bit before I decide if I need a couple of more layers of paint anyway.



Since we've decided to play some 40k over the summer I think I'll try and finish my Genestealer squad, so far I've made one...



I kind of thought that since they are infiltrators, and in the 40k computer game they can actually "cloak" when standing still I built a prototype with scenery on his back so that when he is lying down he'll be harder to spot, kind of like a Ghillie suit. Too bad that my friends Realm of battle board is desert themed. Considering doing different scenery on them, not sure yet though.

[ModernKiwi]

Ha, I really like that Waywatcher - I can just see in my mind the wood elf mini he's based on. Brilliant idea.

[juicytomatoes]

The Waywatcher is excellent! I do wonder how he fares on the stealthiness aspect

[Azendral]

Thanks! I'm happy with the result and I realized while doing this one, and the butcher earlier, that doing conversions really are a lot of fun.

Mostly just added some minor stuff on my earlier models, like foliage on my Dryads or adding a shoulderplate on an Ogre. I'll still have to speed through a lot of regular non-converted stuff to get my army playable but I'll absolutely make more of these. I've already got plans for 8 more Maneaters or Ironguts, a Mournfang or maybe two. I also just decided to step up the Genestealer Camouflage plus I've got a Tervigon, Hive Tyrant, a half built battery-powered Carnifex and loads of Gaunts that need painting.
Guess I know where I'm going to spend this years vacation... ;P

And about the stealthiness of the Waywatcher Ogre, he's mostly going to go after enemy cannon crews and they´re all half deaf anyway...

[Bellygrub]

As the others said- That waywatcher came out fantastic. I'm looking forward to see what other man eaters you come up with.

[Azendral]

As the others said- That waywatcher came out fantastic. I'm looking forward to see what other man eaters you come up with.

Thanks! Maybe I should warn you though that several of the upcoming ideas for Maneaters are not entirely from the Warhammer Universe, I don't want to say more than that at the moment as I'm not so sure if I'll be able to do all of them. I usually come up with ideas I'm not entirely sure how to put into reality afterwards.

Anyway, I started on a couple of Genestealers now and I realize that most people seem to opt to embed their pictures instead of attaching the image so I'll switch over to that.



I've mostly just sawed off and repositioned arms, legs, hands as needed. Unfortunately I had already glued them before before I decided to convert them but it wasn't so bad.

Here is a view from the side/back as well.



Next step is filling in gaps with Green stuff and adding some actual camouflage to them.

[Azendral]

Played a game of Warbands today and we had three forests on the board, now, we've been talking of making some markers for the randomly selected forests for a while now but never actually made any. I had a couple of ideas when I got home and decided to make a couple while I watched TV.



First is two mushroom forest markers, then a wildwood followed by a blood forest and lastly a venom thicket marker. The blood forest marker is going to have lots of Tamiya clear red on it and I've just tried soaking some clump foliage in clear red which looks like it's going to work out. For the Abyssal wood I'm not sure, maybe a ghost?

[juicytomatoes]

Oo, I really like those markers. Very quaint! And I'm looking forward to seeing more of your maneaters!

[Azendral]

Managed to get some spray on the markers and the genestealers but then I got distracted, or is it focused as I went back to an earlier project?

Actually, since I shifted focus because I got the bits I ordered for the Carnosaur-Mournfang Cavalry in the mail today it's probably neither, more like "I got new toys! Lets play with them before I think they´re boring!".

He's mostly held together by Blu-tac but I still got a lot done on him today. A helmet, a shield arm, the hand weapon some more work on the saddle and a gut plate. Mostly assembly, some green stuff work and adding on smaller bits like armour plates or sigils left.



And a side shot to show the back of the saddle:



Not sure about the weapon, the black "edges" that sticks out are going to be obsidian and I'm going for a variant of one of these, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macuahuitl, but single edged and made of gold. Should I add more obisidan blades? I kind of made the topmost one too narrow but it would be a major hassle to replace as it's already glued in place. Any feedback on this would be greatly appreciated.