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Original thread start from here. First posts are copy-pasted as regard 40k content, the rest will be running updates. Welcome! This is the log where I'll post anything which I've converted and/or painted for others. Most of my hobby work is not done for my own armies, but rather for my brother's and our friends' collections. It's a great way to experience modelling and painting all miniatures in Warhammer without buying them. Background might be added later on as my friends work that out. This update is however not about something as lethal as cats. It's about something pathetic in comparison, namely a Maulerfiend conversion I've been working on-and-off with for a Skaven-collecting friend of mine. It's based on a sketch he drew. My buddy magnetized a rectangular base so that it could be used as a K'daai Destroyer. He was so eager about the conversion that he managed to sneak it past other projects in my queue... Still, the sculpting was surprisingly quick work and was over before you knew it. Couldn't have done it so fast three years ago: And here's the painted version, alongside his brother. Not painted by me (though the Squats in the foreground are): The CSM-collecting friend, let's call him J.A.B, inspected the newer starter kit Chaos Space Marine lord and Khârn, as well as the new Primaris Marines and probably a few older Space Marine character sculpts. He concluded that hip armour looks good and solves the silly look achieved by the thin thighs of plastic Space Marine legs. Some weeks ago, he visited his parents, brought a gaggle of heretical Marines and asked me to make hip armour on them. Quicksculpted, without time-consuming rivets, difficult spikes or suchlike. He was content, and after returning home to his study town he sent down Berzerkers to receive like treatment, and a FW Necron centipede which needed replacement antennae. I've tinkered with them since they arrived yesterday. Below are the results. Note "KIL KIL KIL" on the knife Berzerker's segmented plates. Also see his painted Lord of Change. http://i.imgur.com/6BKPi38.jpg WIP for my brother's little power armoured collection. Grey Knight legs and helmets and Sanguinary Guard shoulder pads and torsos. Hip plates added to remedy thin thighs syndrome. Cloaks from Anvil Industry to be added later: A Dark Eldar turned into an Eldar Fire Dragon converted for my brother. He thoroughly checked the Dark Eldar sprues back when they were new, and meticulously came up with ways to turn all manner of DE weaponry into Eldar Aspect Warriors with a little converting. More to come: Converted Slaaneshi Daemonprince for a friend: My friend told me to axe the @$$ and instead go for a lean Daemon Prince of Arrogance look, not Lust. As per his instructions, there is now also shin armour plates with images of Elf torture: What else? I also added two lone flowing pteruges dangling from its belt. I'll show you the painted end result whenever he finish this creation: Kill Team A mate of ours has moved back home after years of studying abroad, while a friend of my brother have returned to the hobby after a long break. Combine this with the recently released Kill Team, and we've got a hobby frenzy cooking with making characters, goons and terrain for a mash-up campaign between Kill Team and RPGs. Here is the first harvest of quick-sculpting and conversions, soon back to commercial sculpts. Kastellan Ironstrider, a mate's cyborg: Badoom! Broadbeard, a loudmouth one-Dwarf illegal radio station sending live from his heists and battles. My character: Gnorke Radfizzle, a Gnome sharpshooter with rad weapons, for my brother's friend: The gang so far: Gnorke Radfizzle's car: The friend who has written all the rules and organizes the whole effort has had me convert a gaggle of goons. Here's psyker Spikeskull: And Badoom! Broadbeard's hateful rival, Adman: And finally Gnorke Radfizzle painted by said friend (I had nothing to do with painting). My brother's mate is in for a treat! I've painted nothing of the Kill Team stuff, only converted it. All painted by Johan von Elak, for your display here. Badoom! Broadbeard: During most of our Kill Team-RPG games we've actually had music playing to represent both the immediate sonic barrage emitted by Broadbeard's loudspekers, and the music he transmits across hacked radio channels (with comments of media moguls jumping from windows as their enterprises gets destroyed by Broadbeard's escapades). He obviously also report live from the field, and is the lousiest sneak, at skulking up on enemies, you've ever encountered. Clearly, the audio-disturbed mister Broadbeard has ruined many lives through his noisome adventures. Which leads us to...

Greetings! Long time lurker of this part of the forum. I have my lair in the Dark Angel-section, but I've been working on various projects unrelated to them. Since I'm not interested to keep making new threads for every new faction I delve into, I'll concentrate them all in this place. Expect projects on Dark Angels, Consecrators, Goliaths (Necromunda), Guardsmen (KT) and some Imperial Knights (for fun). More projects depend on how bad my self control is. Since it's the start of a new thread, some pictures of the current collection are in order. I'll post them up when I get the chance to make some pictures. I'm a mediocore painter and a terrible photographer, so please don't be too harsh First up, the lads who started it all. I haven't painted Dark Angels for years. My side project of the Consecrators grew out to become my main project, dwarfing my current force of the Green Lads. They're still in my collection as extra's, but they're more or less finished, since I have no intention to paint more Dark Angels. My very first model! All of the Greenwing. And my Deathwing More to come!

Hi folks, Last post of the series introduced the reasons behind buying a GSC Patrol box (the old one) in order to get the base for kit bashing IG infantery squads. The fact that I have a sweet remember of these guies is probably not completely disconected to the selection of Neophyte Hybrids models instead of Orlocks gangers as a starting base. Even if after a carful look, As for using Sktarii heads on other bodies, I had already tried it, more or less successfully, on Wannabe Kaserkins last year: But getting 20 Neophytes in the Patrol box wasn´t enough from an economical point of view to justify the investment vs. individual boxes at retail price. Second incentive was getting the Truck, to be used either as a Proxy Taurox or as an interactive scenery element ("Last Stand in Glazer’s Creek" batRep and its reboot in WD are also some how ones of my fav pieces of junk). Doing the math, 2 squads and 1 vehicles at retail price vs. Patrol, and Patrol gets a win.* But let´s go back on the footsloggers. Using 20 bodies, sorry 23 bodies counting the crew of the Goliath truck, requires decisions and carefull weighting of what to do with them. Initial part of the plan was rather clear: I had an IG HW squad box in my Pile-of-Shame waiting to be used. Trying to sort out9 teams out of the usual 3 mounted sound feasible. I love autocannons since the time SM scouts could get one (this time has passed a long time ago), so getting 3 autocannons was no negotiable. For the rest, without tripod available, and not wishing to enter into to complicated scenic bases, I went on the easy side: Missile launchers (shoulder mounted, so no pod needed) and Mortars. And here we have 12 Neophytes converted into IG heavy gunners. And here are the 3 units of HW. As an interesting fact I n oticed that the ooP cadian HW squad was mounted on larger base than the 50 mm marked on the product decription for the newest set.. Some close views of a spotter, with cult icon mask by a flask; A Mortar, as kneeling minis are polite enough to keep the pose while I took the photo (all will be glued in place once painted) And another closer view of a hooded servant, which allowed me noticing I forgot to remove his cult emblem. Surely more of his chaps have the same kind of heretical marking left... To be solved when they will go to the hair dresser and pass under the paint brush. To see what happened with the 23-12=11 remaining boys and Truck, let´s see you in next instalements of this Blog * And this is how I end up with Aberrants, Acolytes and a Magus... But may be the Magus will be a good base for a Ynnari aligned Farseer in a next kitbash???

... Or almost one year later, what is the status of my "legalizing" effort to adapt my armies to 10th? This used to be one of my first entries in this blog and I feel like it is worth setting a kind of progress report. Remember, last year, after launch of 10th, the state of my armies was more or less: - AdMech (New Year / New Army 2023) - to be redesigned. - Eldars - requiring a big refresh. - Death Watch, - claiming for love for the Veterans One year (or almost) later, what is the state of the revamp? Let´s start with AdMech - the easy part in fact. At the time I barely aligned 1 and a half patrol box. So "legalizing" was not really the most appropriate term, as, indeed, I could not even pretend that I was able fielding anything playable at the time. Now, the Army has grown in a rather, let´s admit it, significant manner. It is in its maturity time where adjunctions are more intents to diversify the tactical options than required investments. It is still a challenge to face these points drops (see balnce dataslates) every quarter, but in the end I can get a good and stable core at 2000 pts with nice posibilities for variations around. And more to come. Then the Aeldari. They haven´t had any love since 3rd Ed so, anyway, 10th did not bear any guilt into their derelict status... But , hey!, it is easier to borne the responsability on rules reedition, nope? Call to Arm 2023 put me on the way of "redemption" and I managed painting almost everything I had. Then I Ebayed some stuff to get legal Guardian squads and jetbike unit a full strenght. I added everything that was needed so far 2 Serpent platforms and 1 HW platform, plus the 2 bikes that were missing to reach 9 riders. Great, nope? Well, nope. Ebay being Ebay (or rather Bouargh being Bouargh (aka a compulsive buyer)) I bought more stuff. Another HW platform, just in case, as I still have enough legs and torsos for 1 or 2 additional guardians squads, another extra bike (converted into an Autarch), 2 warlocks, a D-cannon and an old ooP Spirit warrior, for a proxy wraithlord. Plus plastic kits for Rangers on foot and on bikes and more guardians. I don´t really know why for the latter. Most has gone to a rejuvenated Pile of Shame and will be involved, hopefully, in the resuming CtA 2024. Finally DW. I did not do anything there. The 2 boxes I would require to redesign the Vets squads are still at GW warehouses. For a good time, at least untill getting a new version of the 2024 Roadmap and entering in sheer FOMO panic... But "finally" was not a real final: I indeed forgot to include, last year, my armoured fist company of Astra Militarum (SW auxilliaries). Legalization was quite small here as it consisted into adding the 2 regimental advisors missing on the rooster (fly guy and blind guy). Ebayed too. It makes me think that I´ll need a command squad may be, and building this HW squad sitting at the bottom of my Pile of Shame ever since before COVID too... I was planning last year a very limited amount of investment, excluding AdMech. I went out of control. Litterally. Eldars saw an increase of some 800 pts, considering what I disclosed here, more stuff and even more if putting into the equation DE stuff affiliated to Ynnari that joined the frey. Astra Militarum also have a potential of 200 pts and something waiting to be converted from GSC sprues I grabbed by "accident" + recycling some of these AdMech bitz accumulated. I largely recomposed my Pile of Shame while on Feb 24 it was reduced to 6 wolves, two kitbashed Rhino and Land raider and 3 ooP Rhinos chassis only. All of these still remain to in the waiting zone of course... A "consolation" I have is that all of the stuff was obtained with discounts between 15 to 30%. Even considering Ebay and comparing what I paid vs. the charged price for equivalent stuff on GW webstore. Let´s say, in a more positive way, that I was preparing myself actively for the CtA 2024 event (without knowing it). So, see you there, for sure.

Rogal Dorn #1. Casting Defect Texture. Previously I laid down the Tamiya putty texture, and added some brass handles. I lost my metal files somewhere... so the flame cuts still need re-working. Using various files, sandpaper, and a hobby knife creates a varied texture. This is too uniform. I'll either re-work it, or hit it hard on Rogal Dorn #2. In law, legal briefs are never done, just due. Just the same in Hobby, there's always more to do--but, I need an army ready for 10th edition upcoming this summer. But, this might be an easy enough fix. Also, I should have made more brass handles. More customization is always better. In some ways this is just an opportunity to experiment and figure out what should be on the next Dorn. Yes, I bought 3x. Under coat/Primer. Since I'm using Tamiya, which has great coverage, I'm not really anticipating much of the black and white from an under coat will show through. I've seen some use a splotchy, uneven black/white/grey as an undercoat. This creates a very interesting complexity to the paint job. I went instead with white on the raised surfaces, and black in the recesses. I used vallejo white and black primer. I suppose I could have also just went all black or all white. I see lots of youtube videos doing all black and it just seems like a tremendous waste of time to build up color over it. But, what do I know - talk me into it. It's all a learning experience. Main Paint. I went with Tamiya Medium blue this time. Usually I do the medium blue followed by a zenithal spray of mixes of progressively lighter blue. Here I just experimented a bit with the undertone to see what it'd look like. It definitely reads much more blue than grey. Interestingly on camera here it looks all grey and doesn't pick up the transitions. Hmmmm. I can modulate that with the oils too. But, I did want to push a bit more contrast on this model. One hard part is being impatient - I should be taping off every panel for each airbrush spray. In failing that there is a lot of imprecision in my light sources. Another hard part is getting the values right. Let's say we've got a nice square panel, and I'm working from light (almost white) blue, down to a dark (almost black) blue at the bottom. Should 80% be the normal blue, with 10% transitions at the top and bottom? Hard to say. The classic misstep is seen in painting black. A sharp edge highlight of grey/blue and you've got a model that reads to the eye as black. But, if you add too much highlight, the black doesn't read the same and you just have a grey model. Oil Paint Rendering. Following Rinaldi's tank art book is what needs to happen next. Little dots of varied oil colors, subtley wiped down with odorless turpentine create great varied surface effects. It also helps smooth out the 'airbrushed look.' It's amazing to me that the 1/35 scale modellers use yellows, magentas, all kinds of colors to subtly change the hue. Anyway, Forgot this step, and going back for it. Also, some white can really help push contrast. It can also help make an aged paint look. It can also do rain streaks (well, an off-white anyway). Lots of fun to be had here. We'll have to separate out various oil stages to make sure the paint doesn't reactivate and ruin the effect. Decals. Ok, Decals these days are awesome. I use microsol and microset, but I see Ak, MIG and other companies all have their own proprietary version now. Maybe they're better. I don't know. Again, I guess this is a warm-up Rogal Dorn. The oil paint rendering/modulation needed to happen before the decals. I got too excited and didn't follow the process. Also should have slowed down for the lore - what specific brigade/battalion are these guys supposed to be from? Then again, uniforms at Vraks don't dictate uniforms in every environment. Chipping. I just used a sponge with some Rhinox Hide for a quick heavy weathering. It's far better with a brush, but very slow. It's also better to use instead of brown, a lighter version of the paint color - here I've got Tamiya medium blue, and I could have made chipped paint with the light blue. I do typically do the hairspray technique for chipping instead of brush or sponge, but again, I just wanted to move this thing forward. Oil weathering. I'll do a wash/pin wash of burnt umber or some such in oil across the whole thing. I also like to add black oil rather thick in controlled points around various panels/parts that might have some oil leaking. Some light rust color also helps blend the chipping. Multiple colors is much more realistic. Pigment powders. I'll be handling the model a lot. Powders will wipe off. They're also hard to see if you apply a clear coat over them--they never look quite right. I think powders will come into play more with mud and dirt in the tracks. Also the exhaust right now is just rhinox hide with a light rust wash. I'd like to stipple lots of oranges, reds, and browns on there. Mud on the tracks. I'll slow down for this. This is a big step, and one people usually go way too far on. Right now I just have some browns on there as a base color. I'll add a lot of vallejo mud effects, then probably a lot of pigments, static grass, and sand to get the right variations in the texture. Maybe I should add some barbed wire too. Tank commanders. I got out an old 1999 tank commander. Man, I don't even remember this guy, I think he was pre-krieg lore. Been in the bits box a LONG LONG TIME. Even if he doesn't look great, it's good to finally use him. He needs some wash and some detailing, but he's on his way. Very tight fit. Uniform 143rd I went in with some tan and black to get some contrast going on the mask. Obviously still a lot of work to do, but it's starting to read a bit better to the eye. I stippled some brown and silver on the helmet New Project. Servo skull. I wanted to improve the display board in everyway I can. Part of that is the overall presentation. I've long thought Candles, symbols, and daemonology books would be great alongside an Inquisition army. Test tubes and medical charts might be great for Tyranids. Maps and operations orders I think are on point for for astra militarum. But, I want to make it more in universe. So, I'm working on a servo skull. If I knew more about Arduino and programming I think some really cool things could be done with special effects on this - motion tracking, lights, sounds, etc. I even found Halloween tutorials! But, realistically if anything went wrong, I wouldn't know how to trouble shoot it. It could be another $100 dead-end. Still, there's something to be said for pushing my abilities and trying new things. In fact that's a huge driving force of my last two years at Adepticon. For now I got cheap pipe fittings, hoses and cables, and fake plastic spikes for a halo. Lots of completely unanswered design questions here. No idea how to make the eye-pieces yet. Is this going to be much more difficult than I thought? Maybe. I need to look up some tutorials on servo skulls. IF I can figure out a servo sweep program for Arduino, I still have the laser line from my aliens project last year that never panned out. I was thinking I could have the laser line sweep over my army list, like the skull is reading it or something. Of course I'd still have to figure out how to fit the laser and servo into the skull... The problem is the skull I bought is much more detailed and awesome than I anticipated (very cheap on amazon). And, to have such detail, it requires thicker harder resin. So it'll be a pain to mount things on. Lots of heavy drilling work ahead. A cheaper plastic skull would be much easier to work with, but this thing nearly looks real. I wonder if I should try scribing latin phrases into the skull?

Warhammer 40k Zeppelin... So, the Rob Hawkins blog entry from 2013 (appropriately entitled "Oh the Humanity") really remains the key inspiration. Length You can see it's actually fairly big. It's also then a pain to transport on it's own. Lots of fiddly bits on the bottom. Unfortunately I also wanted double heavy stubber emplacements on the top, matching old WW1 artwork. This doesn't really work for transport. It needs to lay on one side. And though it does stand upright... I also wanted to add a left to right rudder (presently I only have up and down). I suppose again here that if I were to keep the project sectionalized/modular then separate pieces could be transported and put together at location. If (a big "if") I make a bigger one, I'd certainly figure out a way to make it in separate sections. Texture Here is one area where I departed from the inspiration. I tried to paper mache a texture, or more specifically a cloth mache. So I got some cheese cloth and used wood glue. The cheese cloth was too unwieldy. It streches when cut, and doesn't like being cut to the point it clings on stretches out in unexpected ways. In short, it worked, but was really uneven. Fixing it was going to be a terribly long endeavor. On a whim, I'd previously thought to look for athletic/cloth tape, thinking that would make it easier to cover gaps. This however turned out to be the better solution for the whole blimp. It's hard to cut really uniform lines on the curved rear and front sections, but it's good enough. Also, 100x easier than cloth mache. 100x. Lines. I wasn't sure that I really needed to run a pattern of supports like the Hawkins blimp. Also it was going to take a lot of time. I decided to just run a few lengthwise, and abandoned the plan to run them widthwise too. In the immediate run up to Adepticon there just wasn't time. I used evergreen #175 styrene strips (square shaped). I did this instead of balsa, as I found much the same as in the Hawkins blimp that balsa just didn't bend well. To be sure, styrene also doesn't like to bend too much. It was a pain to glue. With more time I'd have run some caulk down each lateral styrene strip to blend it in more with the texture (glue spots are obvious at present). Engines. Part of where this project came from was seeing the engine bits on that new ork buggie. Shokk jumpa or whatever. I saw that and thought I could make a blimp engine. An odd thought, but it stayed with me. Notably, styrene is not really that strong, so this design is not recommended. Some kind of brazed brass cage would be much better. The Sharpie marker design isn't necessarily what I wanted, but it was in the ballpark, easily reproducible, and saved me several hours of custom fabrication on each engine. I'd imagine many household items might have stood in here just fine - small bottles or travel bottles. The fins are from RC/drones, I found on ebay for fairly cheap. Steering. The old WW1 artwork had some really cool designs for steering, that wouldn't make much sense with modern innovation. But, 40k isn't about engineering efficiency, it should look a little crazy. So we're doing four fins - elevators controlling pitch, up and down. I'm not a pilot. I'm learning this. This was a bit of a catastrophe to get straight and aligned. Brass rod and plates might have been much stronger and reliable. Also, it still needs a lot of detailing. I'm not satisfied, but i'm out of time. Painting. I wanted grey, I think, but didn't have any on me in the time crunch. So, I went green. I then realized I had created a giant pickle. Facing a literal and metaphorical pickle, I went and found some brown and black. So, camo it is. In hindsight I should have sealed the whole thing with a spray varnish first as the cloth didn't take paint well at all. Also, since it's so big, I just used craft paint through the airbrush. This is not really a great way of doing it, cheap though it may be. I think a couple of cans of spray paint would do just fine. I should mention since this is foam... I did worry it would melt with spray paint so that was a limiting factor I did consider (but I'm not sure what all melts this particular foam and it certainly could work - I just couldn't risk melting my project this far in and days before the tournament). Burning the midnight oil!

So I’ve been working on some Krieg recently, and I thought I’d share my progress! I’ve gone back to a green and grey scheme accented with black and red (nothing revolutionary but is striking!) I’m starting this thread to help keep the momentum going. I’m aiming to update this thread regularly so please keep an eye on this! That’s enough preamble, here’s the pics: Death Korps of.Krieg Deathriders Death Korps of.Krieg Deathriders Death Korps of.Krieg Deathriders Death Korps of Krieg Grenadier Centaur Death Korps of Krieg Grenadier Centaur Death Korps of Krieg Grenadier Centaur Death Korps of Krieg Grenadier Centaur Death Korps of Krieg Grenadier Centaur Death Korps of Krieg Squad at Ease Death Korps of Krieg Squad at Ease Death Korps of Krieg Squad at Ease Thanks for getting past the wall of pics! Please leave a comment.