Sprue Whispering

So what does it look like when you start assembling it all ? Well I had to fill the knee joints with a little Magic-sculpt, for some resistance in the joint, and a little more magic-sculpt in the sarcophagus to balance up the otherwise top heavy model. Here is what the preliminary mock-up looks like. And when I start adding back the Murder Claws and power plant ...   And for a bit of scale, doesn't quite make it to his knees.       Not bad for a bit of mucking about hey ?   Just need to work on the armor plates and miscellaneous weaponry, clean up any putty over-fill, clean prime, and start painting ... Oh yeah .. painting ..   More to come on this one.

 Revisiting the leg construction for the Spacewolf Dreadnought, I ended up grabbing a few Sentinel leg bits from Ebay (Black Dagger Games). After a few hours of positioning and fooling about, I settled on this configuration. Dreadknight upper leg, Defiler for the mid-leg, and multiple Sentinel lower leg struts. The foot is a plasticard and the original Dreadknight foot.       Once I was happy with the configuration, I constructed another leg mirroring the design of the first leg.     Utilizing the upper portion of the Dreadknight legs allowed me to attach the legs to the existing hip portion of the Converted Dreadknight.     Assembling the lower leg to the upper leg and hip joint turned out like this.       More to come on this.     

So I have never been a real fan of the whole "fail-cast" fiasco, perpetrated by Games Workshop. As an unfortunate side affect of this, I have never gotten around to purchasing an Arjac Rockfist. Not a problem. I thought I would go one better, and make my own. Here are a few mock-ups of  what I have in mind. The first one, below, is a straight kit-bash of a Wolf guard terminator, Long Fangs head, Dwarf Hammerer shoulder pads, new Assault marine Thunder Hammer, and both Grey Knight terminator arms.   The second one, utilizes Wolf guard terminator legs, Forgeworld torso, Dwarf Hammerer shoulder pads, new Assault marine Thunder Hammer, and both Grey Knight terminator arms.    I am still wondering how I am going to do his storm shield.  As it is round and Thundercav and Santa sleigh shields are round but too small, I am wondering if I should build one from plasticard or adapt something from a Wolfguard terminator storm shield. More to come on t...

So I got a moment to go back and look at my Space Wolves Dreadnought conversion, more importantly I started to finalize how I wanted the legs to be configured. I saw a post from an Italian site on Pinterest which featured a kit bash of the Sentinel and fell in love with the legs.     More so, I felt the short upper portions, extending to a longer lower leg strut was the right combination for the Dread conversion. I started shifting through different configurations of legs, based on what was left of the Dreadknight legs, you will even see a section of a leg from a Defiler. With a shuffle or two, I came up with a few other configurations. But I ended up settling for this configuration, based on the parts I had laying about, as the piston actually looked like to was doing something. The ankle joint is a bit of an issue for me though, as it won't fit into the Dreadknight foot.   I might try to grab some Sentinel legs from eBay and see how they...

With the Crozius completed, I started working on finalizing the posing of the Chaplain's weapon. Given the general feeling that I wanted this Chaplain to jump around with the Sanguinary Guard, for fluffiness, I felt a combi-melta would fit nicely with all the melta the Sanguinary Guard bring, and also the close combat nature of the group. My thoughts would be that the Chaplain would hang at the back of the group, bringing the smack down of the Crozius where needed, so his lack of a pistol did not unduly hamper his close combat abilities. Anyways, so this is what the dry fit of the parts and pose look like.   So I am thinking the angles frame the "movement" of the pose well, the scrolls draw the eye to the center of the model, and the arms and weapon give a forward movement feel.   A better close up of the final head choice and magi-sculpt gap filling.   

Head Choices So I put a small poll out on G+ for head choices for the Sanguinary Chaplain. My initial option was a Maxmini skull helmet (16% liked this). It ended up 3rd best option.     The Second choice was another Maxmini skull helmet. This was the least liked option (6%), coming in 4th.     Surprisingly the Sanguinary Death mask was the most liked version of helmet and my personal favorite, to be honest (59%). It was the clear winner for design, coming 1st in the poll. The original Relictor skull helmet ended up coming in second best choice (18%), 2nd, but it looked a little out of scale, too small, for the heroic sizing of the space marine. Mainly due to the expanded chest and gorget from the conversion.

So with the release of sneak peaks of the upcoming Age of Sigmar releases, a new Celestant Prime model was leaked.     Can I just say, "BEST SANGUINUS EVER!!"   Not the biggest fan of Age of Sigmar, basically more of a 40k aesthetic guy, but I would have no issues clipping the hammer and converting it to a sword or spear. Throwing on a Sanguinary Guard bare head, repurpose some hi-tech miniatures wings, or pull some bits from eBay from a winged Pegasus or War eagle, etc.  Green stuff a more Blood Angel-esque chest piece, and I think we'll have a winner.   I will even re-use that hammer head for an Arjac Rockfist conversion too, as I have been looking for a hammer with that design for a few weeks. More to come on that, as I am already assembling the pieces as I write this. Hmmm, now just to find the time to go paint all these projects!

With the basic torso and leg structure completed, I started working on the posing of the Crozius Arcanum and weapons, settling with the weapon in the right hand and the Crozius in the left. I started building out the Crozius, cutting up a Thunder Hammer and replacing with some winged left over Blood Angels gubbins. I also added the backpack topper from the Blood Angels upgrade sprue to the top. I felt it fitted with the overall theme of the ostentatious nature of the Blood Angels, gems, blood drops, halos, wings, etc.   I refitted the lower handle from the Thunder Hammer to the hand, via a pinned joint.     Initial dry fit of the assembly, some straightening of the shaft still required. More to come.

I took a break from the Wolves about the same time Age of Sigmar was released. Looking at the models, I had to agree with the general sentiment that this was the "best Blood Angels release in years!". Taking this into account, I started a conversion of an Age of Sgmar Relictor.   Got spikes ? Check. Got Litany Scrolls ? Check Got Skull helmet ? Check Got skulls and bones everywhere ? Check   And the mini even has a semi-dynamic pose. Sweet! Overall a good base to work from.   Grabbing some trusty Green Stuff, a Sanguinary Guard Chest piece clippers, knife and after some cutting and shaving, voila!         The leading/outstretched arm looks to be a great pose for a bolter or Crozius Arcanum.     More to come 

So as much as I love the Dreadnought model, and the more "wolfie" version, I decided that I wanted to make a version of Bjorn the Fell Handed that more represented how I pictured him, from Chris Wraight's novel, Battle of the Fang . I looked around online and got a few ideas, to bulk out legs and maybe swap out the sarcophagus façade, but in the end I got pretty jazzed from a few Grey Knight Dreadknight conversions.. So I had a few sprues lying about from a Stormwolf, essentially the hull plates from the Stormfang variant, and I re-purposed a Grey Knight Dreadknight chassis/torso. I had some Murderfang claws, that I added to the Dreadknight vambraces. They looked kind of bad ass, so my idea of making this purely into Bjorn fell by the way side, as the option to build this bad-boy into a more generic venerable dreadnought "plays-as" became more important. Magnetizing various options, and still flirting with how I can do Bjorn. This is how things turned ou...

Harald Deathwolf Again, I wasn't a big fan of the bulbous alcoholic nose of the original Harald model. So once again I appropriated another wolf from "Santa's Flying Chariot". I also heavily kit-bashed a Krom Dragongaze replacing the axe, head and legs.   One thing that has stumped me is an efficient way to show the Dragonscale cloak and storm shield, without obscuring his backpack. More to come on this one.

Canis Wolfborn Often referred to as "the shaggy dude on the space squirrel", I was never enamored with the design of his wolf. It was too static and "bulky" (been fed way too much kibble). So that being said, I decided to rebuild him, via a kit-bash. I altered a wolf from "the Flying Santa Chariot" (Grimnar on Storm rider) and kit-bashed a new Canis, based on a Thunder Cav body and long fang head.     I then worked in some green stuff to give him flowing locks. The pose was essentially identical. The addition of a shaved down a pair of wolf-guard terminator wolf claws and a Kromlech shoulder pad.   I then made a green-stuff press mold cloak, based on the wolf pelt loin cloth from the Space Wolf Dreadnought kit.   Initially I was going to utilize Krom Dragongaze backpack, but I later substituted the back pack from the Spacewolf Upgrade kit. Some clean up work left, but basically how he is n...

So there was a large gap in time here, where I focused on a few different projects, Scratch-built / kit-bashed Space Wolves Dreadnought, Canis and Harald proxies. I will cover more on these soon. But below is how the Iron Priests turned out. They are about 80%, I need to add some snow effects and final highlights. You'll notice the overwhelming size of the first servo arm, as mentioned earlier. I didn't think it would turn out so overpowering, as it looks quite innocuous from the side and/or rear. But from in front, I cannot see the marine! I have been stuck thinking about how to fix it up, for a few weeks. Should I build another and replace it, or re-position the wolf or just not bother? I am much happier with how the second Iron Priest's Servo arm turned out. Just the right amount of Heroic presence.