Warriors of Chaos Khorne Lord - End Times (Part 4)

A short post this one. Really just to prove that I have been continuing to work on this project and even (shock of all shockers!) applied some paint!

So far I've been focusing on 3 main sub-assemblies; the body, head and axe arm (not pictured). I've mainly been working on the red (using my Scale75 paints again), mostly shading and some early stage highlights at the moment. Airbrushing on the base colour has sped this stage of the process up significantly, though a lot of time has been spent shading the base back down with brush work (go figure!). I'm still very much a noob with an airbrush so not bothering to attempt any pre-shading work etc at this stage.

The face is about half done at this point. I'm holding off doing much more on it until I have finished up more of the rest of the miniature as I will no doubt go back in and refine the lighting direction and add some more tones.

Pleased with the progress so far though. Apologies about the pics - they were taken with my iPhone 6 just under my desk lamp, so no proper lighting and all that. Though to be fair, the colours have come out pretty true and the picture is quite sharp and carries the detail. I think I'll start taking more WIP pics on my phone.

As always, feel free to let me know what you think in the comments!

Warriors of Chaos Khorne Lord - End Times (Part 3)

Final WIP on this project before I start on the painting!

After a few weeks of work on and off, I've finally completed a base for the model and finished up some of the final micro details on the model itself.

The base is intended to be a staircase in a defeated Empire city. It took a couple of goes to get the stairs right as I originally built them straight onto the plinth - but it lacked a good height.

The half arch was a piece I had lying around from another stalled project and works well to add a bit of height to the base and frame the model. The details on it were added to give a little more visual interest. The bird is from an old Empire shield sprue, while the gargoyle comes from the Mordheim building sprues. I also added a small iron ring to the inside of the half arch made from thin wire, curled and glued together, and some Milliput.

I'm really pleased with the extra level of detail I've been able to add to the model through micro detailing to make some of the blander surfaces a bit more interesting. In particular, I've added a lot of tiny studs to the armour. I also decided to replace the original sculpted trophy ring on the axes with a scratch built one made, again, from thin copper wire. The original had no depth due to the limits of casting and just looked a little odd. You can see some of these details highlighted in the image above.

Now it's time to get ready to paint (at last!) - really looking forward to continue testing the Scale 75 paints (reviewed here) on this one.

I hear Khorne have quite a big part to play in the final End Times book too, so this couldn't have worked out much better timing wise!

As always, feel free to let me know what you think or ask any questions in the comments below.

Warriors of Chaos Khorne Lord - End Times (Part 2)

Merry Christmas folks - hope Santa was good to you all!

The festive period has meant a few days off, which has allowed some extra time for modelling allowing me to continue with my Khorne Lord conversion I started recently. It's taken a bit of time and a number of sessions but I'm about ready to call the conversion work on this one done.

The main changes since the last pics I shared have been the addition of the cloak, sculpting out the left arm and converting the axe - everything else has just been surface preparation and detail work.

I decided to add a small necklace to fill the empty space on the chest and help draw more attention to the area around the face. This was done using a small skull from a purity seal piece and a little putty work.

The cloak turned out to be quite an involved piece of conversion work to get right. I wasn't comfortable enough in my own abilities to sculpt a cloak entirely from scratch so opted to use the cloak that comes with the chaos lord model the legs came from. However, it needed a bit of cutting to narrow down for a proper fit and the look I was after. I ended up removing about a half centimetre from the middle section and then pinning and puttying the two parts together.

I knew I didn't want to attach the cloak prior to painting as it would restrict brush access to the backs of the legs and the cloak, which meant making it removable. To ensure it had a nice fit to the body and wouldn't need too much putty work after the pieces are painted separately, I drilled a small pin into the cloak (aligned with a matching hole I drilled in the models back) and then applied a thin layer of vaseline to the back of the model where I would need to apply the putty to make the top of the plastic cape meet the bottom of the fur on the shoulders. I then glued the cape to the model using super glue on the pin to fix it in place while I sculpted the joining area.

Once the putty had set, I removed the cape again from the back (the vaseline layer ensured the putty hadn't stuck to the model and was easy to remove) and then sanded and adjusted the surfaces to get a smooth, flush finish between the plastic and the putty. It looks like crap in the pics but should look good once it has a coat of paint on top.

All that remains now is to work up the base and a couple of final small details and then I can get started with the painting!

Feel free to let me know what you think and provide any thoughts for the base in the comments below.

Warriors of Chaos Khorne Lord - Warhammer End Times Project

The recent End Times storyline playing out across the Warhammer universe has coincided with a spark of motivation for a project I have been planning for a few months not - namely, a Khorne lord in a sacked Empire (or Kislev) city. I'm itching to use my new Scale75 paints more and paint some red!

The core of the idea comes from a chap called Andy Wardle - a talented painter who recently took a Golden Demon at Warhammer Fest with his Blood Angel space marines. But I have decided to take my interpretation down the path of the blood god and make him an angry Khorne lord.

As you can see, it's early days right now as I am still tacking things together, finalising the idea and various elements. I still have a fair bit of sculpting to do before he's finished, but I like how he's progressing. The conversion is turning out quite different from what I had originally planned (helmeted head, shield in the left hand etc), but this is always an organic part of the process on any conversion. You don't know what will work best until you try mocking up various bits and poses!

The torso and right forearm come from the Lord on Demonic steed figure, the legs and right hand come from the plastic Chaos Lord, the heads in the (to be sculpted) left hand come from the Skaven Stormvermin set and the chest guard piece is from the Skullcrushers plastic kit. Sculpting has all been done with a mix of Milliput and ProCreate (60:40) - pretty much my usual mix.

I'm thinking of replacing the spearhead with a double bladed axe head from the Chariot Lord kit and adding a cloak (likely sculpted from scratch) along with some more details to round him out. A rough mock up of my plans below (be warned, it's rough!):

The plan is to have him standing atop stairs in a sacked Empire city, reminiscent of various pieces of artwork such as those below:

All very WIP right now though, so expect more soon! As always, would love to know what you think. Let me know your thoughts (or suggestions for improvements) in the comments below.