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 - 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.

Nurgle Lord Conversion

I have had the fantastic Brian Nelson plastic Nurgle Lord model from Games Workshop sitting on my painting desk for a few months now, partially assembled and waiting for some attention. The problem was, I knew I wanted to convert him - I can't seem to not convert a model these days - but I didn't know what I wanted to do to him and was hesitant to start cutting him up only to regret it.

Anyway, I had some extra time off from work over the Easter weekend last week and I decided to just sit down and work on some models since I had been in a bit of a lull of late. Shrugging off my earlier hesitations, I decided to start working on the Nurgle Lord figure, despite the absence of a clear idea in my head for how the finished piece should look.

While this is quite unusual for me, the process was quite liberating as I wasn't frustrating myself by trying to work too precisely towards an image in my head.

The end result of a few hours work is what you can see below. I clipped off the horns on the shoulder pad and turned them into disease ridden pustules. I added the crow from the Empire General kit, with a little conversion and tidying up, to return some height and attention to the area and also to create some visual lines through what is otherwise quite a 2D pose.

The head received the most sculpting work to create a hideous face, half covered by a helmet with horn bursting through. The rest of the work composed of adding some rivet detail to flat armour plates (rivets always catch rust well so they would help work some contrast in when it came time to paint) and to tidy up areas of soft detail due to the limitations of plastic casting.

All in all, I am pretty pleased with how he has turned out. While not radically different from the original sculpt (I don't think he needed to be anyway - the original is was an instant classic) he is different enough to be unique, which is what I was going for.

I used a mix of ProCreate and Milliput putties (about 50:50) for the face/helmet sculpting, ProCreate on its own for the horn and Milliput for the armour plate fixes.






All in, not bad for a few hours work I think. I will be painting him up in the coming weeks. I picked up a few of the new GW paints to test them out so will try to provide my thoughts on these two in the next few posts as I work on the model.

As usual, feel free to let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

First and Only (Part III)

It's been a little quiet on the blog front over the last 3 weeks or so but I have found snatches of time here and there to progress this project. I'm finally at the end of the sculpting and converting stage (excluding a little bit of gluing) so painting and work on the base is up next.



The arm holding the weapon and the cape were probably two of the things I was kind of dreading having to do, but in the end they were actually a lot of fun to do and turned out quite well.

All in all I am very pleased with how he has turned out and I'm looking forward to slapping some paint on him. I've learned a lot during the converting and sculpting process on this figure, including finding a putty mix that I am really enjoying working with - hopefully this will carry over onto future figures too.

Feel free to let me know what you think, or any questions in the comments below.

First and Only (Part I)

The Tanith are coming. A few years ago I converted up a couple of Blood Pact warriors inspired by the fantastic Gaunt's Ghosts novels by Dan Abnett. At the time I had always intended to get round to doing some Tanith and that time has finally come.


While there are metal models for Tanith guardsmen released by GW a good few years back now, these don't fit with either the cover artwork for the novels by Adrian Smith (below), or my own personal mental image of how they should look. Therefore, the majority of the models I will be putting together will be sculpted.

At the moment I'm pulling together inspiration artwork and bits and pieces for the models. I do have a question for any of you more knowledgable readers though...

Does anyone have any good descriptions for appearance of the following characters and their tattoos:

Ceglan Varl
Hlaine Larkin
Brostin
Oan Mkoll
Elim Rawne
Beltayne

Any descriptions would be much appreciated!

More on this project soon!

Warhammer (etc) Figure Sculpting Tutorial - The Basics

Realised I never posted this here. Had originally done the tutorial for my good friend Grey_Death over at The Painting Corp (great blog, go check it out if you haven't already!), but thought I'd re-post here for completeness sake seeing as I'm trying to catalogue tutorials here.


Following his recent acquisition of some clay shapers, coupled with his first forays into sculpting with Green Stuff, Grey_Death was kind enough to ask me to contribute a tutorial or two on sculpting. Having never written a proper tutorial before, I hope you will all forgive the inevitable mistakes I will make along the way!

This tutorial will cover some old ground and hopefully a few new insights as well. First, the old ground:

Tools

There are a few core sculpting tools that all sculptors should have. Below is a list of the tools I use along with their uses (See image 1. below).

• 1. Pin Vice - Used to drill holes for pinning and creating holes (for mesh, gun barrels etc).
• 2. Jewelers Files - Nice, small files for filing down plastic/resin/metal/cured putty. Good for making sharp edges in cured putty.
• 3. Clay Shapers - Used to shape putty and smooth surfaces. I mainly use the white chisel headed one to do most of the shaping and smoothing, with the bullet headed one being used for concave shapes and creating folds etc.
• 4. Metal Sculpting Tools - These are from a cheap Gale Force 9 set. The tool with a half round on one end and a blade on the other gets used a lot to blend putty into other surfaces (cured putty/resin/metal/plastic etc). The pointed tool is used to create fine details and small holes, hair, rips etc.
• 5. Scalpel - Used to cut plastic/resin/cured putty into shape and to remove any excess putty.
• 6. Paper Clips - Used as pins for pinning figures and as armatures for sculpting over.

Above is also a list of a selection of putties I use for sculpting (Image 2.):

• 1. Fimo (Champagne) - I haven't actually used this yet, but it comes highly recommended. A good material to practice with as it doesn't cure unless baked. When working with it, keep your work sealed in a jar in a shaded area to avoid any dust getting on the putty, or any accidental smudging.
• 2. Green Stuff - The putty of choice for most sculptors. A 2 part epoxy resin that requires mixing before use. Can be mixed in different ratios in order to achieve a variety of sculpting times. The more yellow, the softer the mix will be and the longer the curing time, the more blue, the harder the mix will be and a shorter curing time. Knead thoroughly to ensure no lumps of yellow or blue otherwise they will ruin the finish as they won't cure properly.
• 3. Brown Stuff - Like Green Stuff, but a much firmer putty and more solid when cured, making it better for doing hard edged surfaces and mechanical parts.
• 4. Milliput - Super Fine - Used to bulk work on bases and also for making "Milliput washes" (milliput mixed with water), which are used to fill small impurities in resin and metal sufaces, and also in putty work. Washes can also be used in a thicker mix to fill small gaps and seams in sculpting and conversion work.
• 5. 1200 Grit Wet Dry Paper - Not a putty, but another tool used in conjunction with the putty. Used to sand surfaces to get a super smooth finish. I tend to sand all surfaces with this before painting in order to have a perfect surface to paint over. When sculpting, it can be used to sand out and seams and get a flush surface between putty and plastic/resin/metal/cured putty.

Now that, that is out of the road, on with the sculpting!

The Subject

The subject for this tutorial is a Victrix plastic Napoleonic Frenchman (example 1. below) which I am converting into a Rogue Trader. As the Victrix figures are a good deal smaller and thinner than Games Workshop's plastic figures, I will be using Green Stuff to bulk the figure out and to sculpt new feet in order to add some height to the figure.


The Sculpting

As can be seen in example 2 above, I have started by creating a rough base shape to work over for the feet. This was created by removing the original figures feet and putting two paper clip pins into the legs, running all the way down into the cork base. The rough shape of the feet was then built up over the paper clips and left to cure overnight. I always use a cork as a holder for sculpting projects as it is easy to push the pinned feet of models into, providing a nice large surface to hold onto that keeps your fingers away from the putty while you work on it. Champagne corks are best as they are nice and wide and have a nice flat, wide base to provide a stable surface for your work to stand on when you leave it to cure.


Putty is then added to the base work (See example 1 above) in order to add volume to the shape along with some basic details. The putty is then shaped and smoothed to form the shape of a booted foot (See example 2 above). No folds or creases are added on the boot at this stage as I find it easier to add these seperately once the shape is formed and cured. Where the freshly applied putty meets cured putty from the previous stage, the edges are smoothed into the previous layer using the half round end of the metal sculpting tool (See example 3 above). This is done with the metal tool as clay shapers aren't hard enough to press the putty flush, therefore leaving a fine seam that can show up in painting. The result of the smoothing with the metal tool can be seen in image (See example 4 above).


I began bulking out the legs, applying putty to one area at a time in order to provide room to work (1). The edges were smoothed with a metal tool before the bullet tipped clay shaper was used to add some folds around the knee and groin (See example 2 above and 1 below).


There are a few small imperfections in the putty on the thighs (See example 1 above), these will be filled with a milliput wash later and then sanded smooth. Putty was then applied to bulk out the jacket, pressed on into shape first with fingers (See example 2 above). The putty was then shaped as above, using the chisel tool to shape and smooth, the metal half round to smooth the edges into the plastic, and the bullet tool to create some light folds (See example 3 above).


As you can see, there is still a lot of work to do before the figure is finished, there is still a fair bit of shaping and volume to be added, along with the all important details, however these will be covered at a later time in a future tutorial on sculpting details.

Thanks again to Grey_Death for the opportunity, and thank you for reading. I hope that whether you are just starting out at sculpting, or if you have been sculpting for a while now, you will have picked up something of use here.

Cheers,

Dante

Worth A Look

Just a quick blog post this one. Just wanted to point out some great blogs well worth a look. I know I've been admiring the work on them lately:

First up:- Little Green Monsters - Some truly amazing sculpt work on show from this man and sound advice about tools and putty mixes too, check it out!

Secondly:- The Painting Corp - Amazing collection of tips, tutorials and advice on all things modelling. The frequency of updates mean there is always something new to read and the community around the blog ensures valued discussion. Run exceptionally well by some great guys.

Thirdly:- Dave Taylor Miniatures - Great guy and a fantastic modeller. His production rate is so high that in the space of a week he will have finished a new army in time for the next post! His blog also seems to send a lot of traffic my way, so thanks for that Dave!


There are a load more sites and blogs I intend to add to this at some point, these are just the ones I've been admiring lately, so go on, check them out!