Friday 28 September 2018

CLXXXVII. Kill Team: Second Necron Immortal and Warrior Reinforcements


Back to my Necron Kill Team. Since the last update their number has doubled, as I converted and painted three more Warriors and one Immortal.


This Immortal was converted from an actual Immortal model. It was missing its left leg from the knee down. I'm pretty sure I used that for one of my Technobarbarians last year. I found a Skitarii foot as replacement. The weapon, which represents a gauss blaster, is a splice of a Genestealer mining laser and a big gun from Belisarius Cawl. These Genestealer hands have a skeletal look that's very fitting for my Necrons. The head is once again a human skull.





Visible from the image below, she's shorter than her cancerous friend. While the warriors are pretty much skeleton clones, I envisioned the Immortals as being more diverse in appearance, as well as a bit less bare metal bones. You may have noticed the first Immortal has ears, and this one has lips. Further up the hierarchy we go, the less skeletal and less uniform they look. This is my visual interpreetation of Necron background, which says the higher up a Necron, the less of their 'self' was lost during the biotransference. I have ideas for other Necron units, which I might eventually convert even though I won't be able to use them in Kill Team.


The three new Warriors are nothing exciting. As I said, they need to look uniform, so there is minimal variation here.

There are four models left to do: the leader Immortal and three Flayed Ones. I have made up my mind on what I'll be doing with the Flayed (or at least what I'll attempt to do), and I procured the material. But I still want to do the last Immortal first. He should be the most impressive figure in the group, and will be interesting to convert.

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There are a few new sculpts that I showed on Instagram, but they didn't get their own blog post. 


Three wooden sign posts. I love this kind of stuff and I definitely want to make more such terrain and basing accessories.




A happy little horse skull familiar. Can't wait to paint this guy. Good news is that a bunch of my sculpts, including these four, have been shipped to a caster this week. We're one step closer to having my scupts released!

Monday 17 September 2018

CLXXXVI. Inq28: Inquisitor Morbray

Inquisitrix Rosanda Morbray, Ordo Hereticus. Second model for the inquisitorial warband project I discussed in my last post.




Conversion and painting once more based on John Blanche's artwork. That one:

Artwork by John Blanche.

The main donor for the conversion was Inquisitor Greyfax. I actually left out a bunch of parts, including the weapon, backpack, shoulder pads... The original head needed a heavy makeover with putty in order to change the hat's shape, add long hair and the veil. The pistol arm came from an Escher, but the pistol itself had to be hybridized with an Empire one to get this look.

 
And I thought Vygotsky was tall... Rosanda is a frickin' amazon! The heels are only partly to blame.


Wednesday 12 September 2018

CLXXXV. Inq28: Vygotsky

Never done a 40K inquisitor warband before. To be honest, never really felt the urge to do it. Not exactly sure why. Maybe because everyone and their mother is doing inquisitors. But now I'll need such a warband for an Inq28 game in Belgrade in November, so it's time to finally give it a try. Btw, the Belgrade event is open for anyone to apply, and if you're in the region and interested you can find the FB event here: LINK.

Given how much time I have for this project, I decided that it will be a small elite group. Also, I want each character to be unique; a different archetype. That way I can have fun and include a variety of visual elements I like from 40K. Coherence will come mostly from the colour scheme and unified painting style. I have no backstory for any of them yet. Will develop it as I work on them. Three members are sketched out so far. If I come up with more, cool. If I don't, these will do. Plus maybe a servo skull. I'll dedicate a separate post to each of them. This one is about the first of my inquisitorial henchmen: a Vostroyan Firstborn Guardsman.
 

 Vasily Vygotsky


Vostroyans are cool. I first encountered them in WD 317, one of the very few issues of White Dwarf I've ever purchased. Metal Vostroyan guardsmen were released then, and the magazine featured an article about them, complete with fluff and John Blanche's concept art. I remember that I liked them the minute I saw them. From the article, I learned that Vostroya is an inhospitable planet whose inhabitants are dedicated to manufacturing exquisite weaponry for the Emperor's armies. During the Horus Heresy, they refused to send their men to battle, reasoning that they would be of better use crafting weapons than using them. When the whole Heresy thing was over, this came to light; and in order to repay their perceived debt to the Emperor, it was decreed that for the next 10K years each Vostroyan family must enlist their first-born son into the Vostroyan regiments. The Vostroyans sport a unique, archaic look based on 18th century soldiers and Cossacks. 

The first model for my Inquisitorial retinue is a big fellow recruited by my Inquisitrix from Vostroyan ranks. The model was based on this piece of concept art:

© Games Workshop. Used without permission.
The bits came from various kits... Torso from Deathwatch Watch Master, Goliath legs, Skitarii radium carbine. I have no idea where the head came from. I sculpted the fur hat on top, and the shoulder pads



Then it came to painting. Originally I figured I'd just paint them my usual style... But then I thought: hell, this is full on Inq28. I may as well push this further. How about I make him look even more like the Blanche concept art he's based on?



So here we are. Emulating the style and palette was both fun and educational. It's messier than what I normally do. I really like the result! Even made him a matching background for photos. :) I'll do the rest of this warband the same way.