Khorne's Eternal Hunt - KrautScientist's chaotic WIP thread 2024: Baby steps...

[grailkeeper]

Worth mentioning Lheor has the symbol of Khorne on one of his gauntlets which he idly scratches at one point. I'm sure it could be painted on.

[KrautScientist]

Cheers for the feedback, guys!

 

I wouldn't brute force the head angle.  The helms all have computer assisted targeting, so it isn't strictly necessary for him to even look down the sight angle of the plasma gun, as long as he can see where he wants the targeting reticle.  The model is dynamic enough that he looks like he is still in motion, in the process of taking aim.

 

I would also argue, this is a case of rule of cool.  You like the muscled arms, & the pose looks good, the angle of the head mostly works, and you can claim the character is "So bad-ass, I don't even have to turn my head 90 degrees to look at you before I shoot you."

 

I would maybe change the angle of the axe, and move it a bit more inward at the wrist towards the center of the body, but still lines up with the vambraces.  Other option could be to try a heat-gun and very carefully try and repose the left arm a bit.

 

This really just about sums up my feelings about the model -- I realise there's a certain dodginess to the whole affair, as I have already explained, but I think I'll be leaving him like that and just invoke "Rule of Cool" as needed. The entire conversion was flawed enough from the start that I don't think I'll be losing any sleep over it

 

Anyway, I did spend some time adding a bit of armour trim to him, to show where his bare arms end and the armour starts:

 

 

 

 

Probably not my finest work, but hey: I am still a learner when it comes to GS sculpting

 

@ grailkeeper: Hah, I was just about to shave a tiny Khorne symbol off an old berzerker pistol after your comment, but then realised the backs of the hands just don't have the room for that particular detail. Maybe I can still get it to work -- we'll see...

 

Also, just because it was another thing I worked on this week, here's another look at a Death Guard conversion that I have been using as a bit of a testbed for quite some time now:

 

 

 

 

The model originally began as something as easy as wanting to do something interesting with a leftover Dark Imperium Plaguecaster model. I decided to turn the model into a kitbashed Foul Blightspawn and have slowly been inching closer towards the look of the "official" model ever since, only minus the weird pump and stupid garden hose

 

As always, let me know what you think!

Edited March 30, 2020 by KrautScientist

[PeteySödes]

Regarding the head thing too you’ve easily got the painting chops to maybe even imply a sidelong look with the lenses. Think it looks really badass.

[PowerHungryMonkey]

AH! Love that zerker pose! I don't know what it is about it but I love it

[Sagentus]

the adjustment you made to the champ looks great, the change of the head angle works better imo. I really like the extra trim too, really finishes it off. Loving the plague caster, it looks epic!

[KrautScientist]

Thanks a lot for the kind words, guys! :)

 

Also, @grailkeeper: Of course I had to go back and figure out a way of including that Khorne rune on Lheor's gauntlet...

 

 

I hope you're happy with yourself, mate! ;)

[PeteySödes]

Leor is such a great character too, great model to do him justice!

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Excellent work on the Death Guard member's mask and breastplate.

[Hungry Nostraman Lizard]

Very nice work with Lheor. Now wait until they unveil his model in ~3 years, will you then have to buy him too? ;)

[Mechanist]

Champion looks ace. It's like he's psyching someone out to a challenge while nonchalantly blowing their mate's head off.

The other little tweaks and changes are also looking fab.

[grailkeeper]

Cool!

[BadgersinHills]

The plasma fellow is looking good. Firefist is pretty handsome as well, great job on him. I like how smoothly you've put the heavy bolter right arm and the Bloodbound arm together. 

[Krakendoomcool]

Lheor is looking great. He'll always be unique looking because of his unusual equipment for someone who looks like a berserker. Nice icon on the hand, it's hard not to do something like that when you know the character has it. Fantastic piece of artwork to base him on. That's the first time I've ever found the 'bunny ears' to look so unsettling and creepy in that picture. So to my mind the best rendition of them.

 

Nice little touch with the wire running alongside the cable. Such a small thing but a real win in my book.

 

The latest guy does look striking. I like the bare arms, only Khârn seems to be keeping that tradition going (although the berserkers kit is so old who knows). Do you remember the set of metal world eaters with one bare arm and one bare leg (and foot!). I think rule of cool all the way with this guy. He's a real eye catching model.

[KrautScientist]

*blows dust off this thread*

 

Hey, everyone,

 

it feels like it has been ages! Unlike just about everyone else, I haven't been super productive during the Covid19-related downtime -- at least not in hobby terms. In fact, I have barely managed to paint a handful of models so far this year. There's a number of reasons for that, among them the fact that I have taken up video game design (using Media molecule's engine "Dreams"), which has seriously been eating into my hobby time. In fact, I have actually managed to make an entire game, something I would have thought just about impossible before, and if you have a PS4 and a copy of "Dreams", I would be delighted if you were to check out my game. I'll be putting a bit more info in spoiler tags below this, seeing how this clearly moves beyond the focus of this forum.

 

My game is called "Islands", and here's a trailer for you to check out, in case you are interested.

 

 

The game's page is here. 

 

Anyway, on a more hobby-related note, I have finally started to mess around with some models again, recently. Earlier this year, my buddy Augustus b'Raass sent me an awesome bitz drop, which was quite delightful:

 

 

To my great regret, I have yet to figure out what to do with most of those lovely bitz — but thinking about that is already half of the fun, and also seems like the perfect activity for lazy summer afternoons in the sweltering heat…

At least I have already started messing around with some of the stuff Augustus has sent me: Some of the heads from the Necromunda Corpsegrinder Cult seemed just perfect for some of my models, after all.

For instance, one of the bare Corpsegrinder faces seemed like the ideal piece to add some extra oomph to this 30k World Eater in Cataphractii armour I converted back when “Betrayal at Calth” was released:

 

 

 

The angry expression in combination with the tubes and augmetic plugs seem just perfect for a World Eater, yet the lack of mutations led to me using it one a 30k model, rather than a 40k one.

 

But fear not, my 40k World Eaters were also able to claim a skull, so to speak: One of the slightly more elaborate, horned Corpsgrinder masks ended up on the rocket launcher wielding World Eater I converted a while ago:

 

 

 

I kept tweaking this model for what feels like ages, swapping in head after head, but now I think I may finally have found the right part to complete the conversion.What do you think?

Oh, and speaking of World Eaters, I have finally started to paint the next member for my “Hateful Eight” project, the icon bearer based on one of the classic metal World Eaters from the 90s. I shared the conversion with you in a previous post:

 

 

This is what the model looks like right now:

 

 

 

Still some work left to be done, but I think I am on the right track!

 

As always, let me know what you think!

Edited August 8, 2020 by KrautScientist

[Augustus b'Raass]

HE'S BACK EVERYONE!!! HE'S BACK!!!!

WOOOOOOOOOOO

So good to see you back on the forum, buddy! Hurray! I was seriously missing you and the forum hasn't been the same without you. 

Now, as to your post - it was wonderful to see your 'return post' feature that supply drop I sent you. I must say the lockdown has seen my pile of shame grow exponentially and there's a couple other things I might send you. But let's start with what we have here:

 

Those corpsegrinder heads work SO WELL on both the 30k and 40k miniature you have there. I think your reasoning behind using those heads on those bodies was indisputable. I especially like the rocket guy - but being a Chaos player of over two decades, it kinda stands to reason I'm a stickler for the ostentatious and the corrupted. Lovely work!

I love that you posted that icon bearer for the same sentimental reasons. It's just a very well-renditioned nod to the classic icon bearer (which I don't know if I've already mentioned this, I probably have, but I'm going to write it again anyway, I owned back in the late 90s and converted to be a biker and gave the plague bearer for that sweet D6 unsavable wounds to be distributed by me within 6 inch - so that I could turn-one kill terminator squads. And yes, I was that guy when I was 17. I read those rules and I abused the loopholes. 15 years later and I reunited with my warhammer palls from my teens who stayed in touch playing pen-and-paper RPGs every week, and I learned that 'chiel-lezen' ('chiel' being a shorthand for my name and 'lezen' meaning 'to read' - so in terms of this forum auggy-reading - was their made-up verb to mean 'reading something in a way that is advantageous to the reader' - and YES I AM PROUD OF THAT MUHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA)

Ahem. 

Good to have you back.

Edited August 25, 2020 by Augustus b'Raass

[Pearson73]

Digging the pose of the icon bearer, the head is spot on, brutal but not berserk. I tend to think of icon and standard bearers as the more disciplined and controlled members of the warbands, so it fits well. I also approve of the extra effort you've gone to adding the cabling around the shoulder. His paint job is nicely done as well, the scratches have come out well.

[noigrim]

Yay kraut's back

[Evil Eye]

He lives! Praise be to Khorne!

The icon bearer is looking great- the icon itself needs a bit more colour breakup but it's early days so I'm sure he'll look awesome when he's done. The Havoc's new head I'm torn on- the actual head looks amazing, but the horns, whilst I like them, don't seem to quite go with the rest of the model. Just my opinion of course, and overall he's looking quite magnificent.

 

Also I really wish I had a PS4 now, Dreams looks amazing. I absolutely loved LittleBIGplanet as a kid, so anything by Media Molecule has my interest. If it were released on PC there's no doubt I'd be buying it.

[Isengrin]

Whoop whoop, Kraut's back! Looking forward to seeing the icon bearer getting painted! Is it possible to turn the terminator's head a bit to his right to align it with the combi bolter? Or does it fit in too tightly?

[BadgersinHills]

I like the head on the 30k mini, looks great! Personally I'm not too fond of the Corpse Grinder helmets on marines, but that's just a matter of subjectivity. The 40k marine looks real brutal!!!

[theNublet]

Hmm. Honestly, I kinda think the Corpse Grinder helmet is special enough to be the part that pulls your attention to the model by itself, and I kinda think the rocket launcher hides it. Feel like the helmet would be better used on an aspiring champion or some such.

[KrautScientist]

Thank you for the warm words, everyone! It is, indeed, good to be back, even though I am hardly at the top of my productivity... ;)

 

@ Auggs: Cheers, buddy: It only felt right to mention your supply drop, because even though I took quite a break from modeling and painting even after receiving it, those little bags on my desk really felt like a kind of anchor that eventually drew me back in -- cheers for that ;)

 

Also, the story of your rules-lawyering in younger years sounds truly awful -- I'm happy you had already mellowed a bit when I met you... ;)

 

@ Pearson73,  Noigrim & BadgersInHills: Cheers, gents! :)

 

@ Evil Eye: Oh, yes definitely -- that icon was far from finished in those pictures! You're going to find out what I did with it in a second ;)

 

As for the horned helmet on the rocket launcher Havoc, my original plan was to shave off the horns, but I don't know: The head just seems to complete the model in a way the previous options failed to do, horns and all. I think I'll keep it that way.

 

As for "Dreams", man, I can hardly contain my enthusiasm for the software: This weekend, I actually ported my game to VR and played it with a headset on, and I was actually *in* that world! Which felt incredible, especially since I don't have the first idea about programming...

 

@ Isengrin: Cheers, mate! And yeah, that head needs some fine tuning -- it's a very tight fit, though, so I'll still need to shave off some plastic to turn it around by a few degrees.

 

@ theNublet: I see your point, but I swore to myself that this is the kind of 'no holds barred' project where I use all the cool bitz, and I want that Havoc to be an awesome character in his own right, and not just that one guy with the rocket launcher. And I think the Corpsegrinder helmet manages to achieve just that effect -- plus it's actually fairly similar to the skull mask from the Jes Goodwin sketch that inspired the model in the first place.

 

 

So anyway, it has been ridiculously hot around here for the last ten days or so, but today I finally buckled up and finished that icon bearer -- I really needed a bit of hobby success, too, because I had a monstrous superglue mishap earlier today, nearly managing to glue the fingers of my left hand together for good o_O

 

Anyway, here's the icon bearer with an almost finished paintjob:

 

 

It was at this point that I was feeling a little adventurous, plus I also had a cool little fluff idea for that icon: You see how each and every part of that thing seems to be barbed and serrated, right? And it stands to reason that the icon itself could be wielded as a weapon in its own right. But what if that icon is actually a minor daemonic artifact and not only wants to draw the blood of enemies, but also of the warrior carrying it into battle? What if being chosen by the artifact to be its bearer is, at best, a mixed blessing, and you actually have to be careful not to become the artifact's victim? Anyway, with those ideas in mind, I grabbed the bottle of blood effect...

 

Here's the finished icon bearer:

 

 

 

 

 

I was a bit nervous about that banner, to be honest, but I really think it works! While I used quite a bit of blood on it, I was careful to vary the tone and glossiness a bit, to suggest that the wicked thing is covered in layers of blood, some of them older than others. I also made sure to paint some blood onto the icon bearer's hand -- like I said, the artifact, like the Wargod himself, does not care whence the blood flows:

 

 

Interestingly enough, this also provides a reason for the bare right hand (which was really just a coincidental choice) and the length of chain (that was included to repeat an element that appeared on the classic model that inspired this guy).

 

Speaking of inspiration, here's a comparison picture with the new icon bearer and the classic metal model that served as the main inspiration for the model:

 

 

As always, let me know what you think! :)

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Good job on the icon bearer.

[Dwango]

An icon so covered in blood it is almost oozing. A back story detailing a contained daemon thirsting for spilling blood. Nothing depicts a banner if rage better imho! Cracking job!

 

Well done on the execution too. Adding so much blood effect is a risky business.

[Gederas]

That Icon Bearer is pure badassery. Very good