Sons of the XV - 30k & 40k Thousand Sons WIPs

[Soldier of Dorn]

Looking brilliant so far. Keep up the superb work. :tu:

[Skits]

@The Psycho: Thank you! :D I certainly intend to, heh. Once this guy's finished I think I'm going to start on the Slaughterpriest from the September White Dwarf, just for a change of pace!

[Pearson73]

Really nice work painting the blade.

[Cretheus]

That gold.. is actually awesome. I love it!

[Skits]

@Pearson73: Thank you! It was a bit of an experiment, so I'm glad it turned out so well!

 

@Cretheus: Thanks! :D I really like painting gold like this, it's pretty easy and turns out really nice!

[Pyroclast91]

there's been a lot of TS popping up here recently and I think these have got to be the best I've seen In a while. Your conversions are amazingly well executed. And I've got to echo everyone else on you're red recipe is amazing the purple base is brilliant I'll definitely have to give that one a try. Keep up the awesome work I can't wait to see more.

[Skits]

@Pyroclast91: Ahh, thank you so much! :D Yeah, I've definitely noticed an uptick in the number of Thousand Sons armies I'm seeing around! Especially once Forgeworld finally released the pre-Heresy Sons bits. It's great to see the XV Legion getting more love, heh. Good luck with the red, and let me know if you've got any questions! :D

[Magos Kasen]

Wonderful paintjobs and conversions.

[Skits]

@Magos Kasen: Thank you! :D

[Skits]

Update time! I didn't get to do much more on the Praetor this week, since I got a request to do a tutorial on how I sculpt my chains. So I spent most my hobby time working on that this week! If you're interested, here's the tutorial on how to make a book and chain for converting your model into a Librarian or somesuch!

Here's the model I used for the tutorial:

I also started working on the other leader guy from the BaC box a bit, since I had some leftover millistuff - I've removed the head of the crozius and will attach a glaive type blade once I get around to carving it. I've also scarab'd up his cloak clasps so far:

I'll be modifying the helmet as well, of course. Not sure what else I'll do to him yet though, if anything. I'm still trying to decide if I want to leave him with the pistol, or remove it and give him an open 'casting psychic powers' hand or something. Thoughts?

[Skits]

Okay, next update! I think I've finally finished the praetor terminator!

I'll get some proper photos of him eventually, once I get around to setting up the lightbox.

Now that the praetor's done, one of the next models I'll be working on is painting the Slaughterpriest, just for something different. I'm building a base for him out of spare sprue and greenstuff/milliput; here's the guts of the base before I put the coating layer of millistuff over it to properly shape it and finish it off:

I've also started designing/building the weapon for the commander guy from the BaC set. Here's some weapon sketches I did while trying to figure out the particulars:

First rough cut out of the plasticard:

And the blade so far:

I'll also hopefully be using this guy to finally do a step by step on how I customise the helmets.

Let me know what you think!

[Dosjetka]

Terrific work so far. Not sure how I managed to miss this for so long. :blink:

 

Is there any chance you'd be willing to do a tutorial on how you sculpt your bases? The picture of the "guts" you posted is very intriguing and I'd love to know how it works. If not, then no worries!

 

Last but not least, do you always mix your GS with milliput? Is there any particular reason why you do/don't do this?

[Skits]

@Dosjetka: I can do that, no worries! I'll get some better pics of the current base and go from there - I should have something done for you by my next update! :D

 

As for the greenstuff/Milliput - it depends on what I want for the end product! Greenstuff by itself tends to be a little flexible and almost rubbery when it dries, I've found. Which can be useful for parts that I want to have some give, like cloth tabards and stuff. But it also makes it more difficult to sand and carve down, and it's harder to get sharp edges and really fine detail with straight greenstuff, in my experience.

 

Milliput by itself dries rock-solid, which is great for carving and sanding and holding sharp edges/fine detail. But I'm not fond of what it's like to work with - it's more clay-like than greenstuff, this weird mix of crumbly normally and slick/slippery when you use water to keep it from sticking to things. So I combine the two and get the best of both worlds - it works more like greenstuff, which is much more to my liking, but still dries rock solid like straight Milliput, which means I can carve and sand it much more easily, too. 

 

I've also got two types of Milliput at the moment - the standard yellow/grey, and the superfine white. I use the yellow-grey for things that I don't need fine detail with, like bases and larger areas. I use the superfine white for more detailed stuff, like chains and armour detailing. So that's why some of my millistuff is a really pale green-white, while other times it's more of a brighter yellow-green. 

 

I hope that helps! :D 

[Andvarr A]

I like that chib...very chibby...Very nice to be almost pointy...nice axe

[Skits]

@Andvarr A: Hehehe, thank you! It's his glaive. ;) Although since they don't have specific rules for glaive type weapons on tabletop it could probably count as an axe! Or a GK halberd. Hmm.

[Skits]

@Captain Brown: Thank you!

@Dosjetka: Here's an album of a tutorial on building bases out of sprue and greenstuff/milliput! I hope that helps out, and let me know if you have any more questions!

Okay so now that I've finished painting the Praetor, I'm back to my 'augh what do I focus on now' indecision. XD So here's what I've been working on lately...

Customising this guy from the BaC set into a Thousand Sons Librarian:

Here's his weapon:

I still haven't actually glued the blade on yet because I want to work on it a bit more. Does it need more detail?

Also doing a bit more detailing on the terminator guy from the BaC box:

Better look at the cowl detailing (though I've cleaned it up a bit more since this pic):

And finally, the custom base for the SLAUGHTERPRIEST with HACKBLADE is finished!

I'll most likely be painting the SLAUGHTERPRIEST next because reasons. XD So that's what I've been up to this week - let me know what you think!

[Soldier of Dorn]

Damn, that Librarian-chaplain conversion is sexy. Nice work! Blade's fine as it is, honestly, but I'm certain with your skills it could only look better if you added to it.

 

Might want to edit that AoS heresy out before the moderators come down on you, though...

Edited October 10, 2016 by The Psycho

[Skits]

... He's a TSon who's fallen to Khorne. Totally. Yup. ¬_¬

[Dosjetka]

The Forge Mods will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's fine for the purpose of showing the custom base he's on. Any more pictures will be removed though.

 

Skits: Thanks for the tutorial!

Edited October 10, 2016 by Dosjetka

[Skits]

@Dosjetka: Ahh, righto! TBH I'd completely forgotten about the whole Imperial/Chaos only stuff, since I crosspost these WiP posts across a few different forums. From what I saw of the rules here, it was only really Xenos that would get nuked - the slaughterpriest isn't xenos, he's just a chaos warrior of Khorne who could most likely be proxied as something in the 40k system. XD Fine line to walk there, I suppose. Fingers crossed!

 

And no worries! I hope the tute's useful - sorry I don't have any earlier pics of the first step of the base, but hopefully you get the idea. :D Let me know if you've got any more questions! 

[Skits]

Aright, update time!

Think I've finished this guy's weapon, finally! Rivets make everything better.

I think he's just about ready to paint, unless I decide to make him a little taller somehow. Would be a pain to do though, so I'm still pondering how exactly I'd go about it, if I do at all.

And the reason I'm pondering it in the first place is because I gave the terminator a bit of a height boost! Here's the two side by side:

Cut him in half just above the belt, added a 1.5mm thick piece of plasticard between the two halves, and I'm currently in the process of re-sculpting his midsection. Did the front hoses and was waiting for those to dry before I did anything else.

Of course, making him taller means that his cloak now looks a little short, especially from the back...

I'm tossing up between leaving it as is, extending it with millistuff, or making the bottom edge look all torn and ragged and damaged to help explain why it's shorter. Please let me know your opinions on this!

Finally, for anyone interested in following the progress on the slaughterpr-- I mean Khorne Chaos Champion

[Skits]

Sorry for the radio silence, haven't had much to post here since I've been busy with painting my Slaughterpriest, but at least he's finally done!

I've also been working on magnetising an Imperial Knight!

Here's the battle cannon/melta cannon all magnetised up:

And all the various bits and sundry:

Still trying to decide if I could be bothered magnetising all the different face plates, heh.

I've also cut up the left leg for some re-posing and started building the base:

Everything's still just blu-tack'd in place atm. I think I'm going to need to do some more adjustments to the left ankle to straighten up the leg a bit so the knight's not quite so splay-footed. Thoughts?

And I've started on the character models out of the Burning of Prospero box, to nobody's surprise ever. XD The height of Ahriman's nasal crest was seriously bugging me, so I shortened it. XD Still needs a little bit of cleaning up, but I'm happier with it this way.

Gotta admit, I'm kind of tempted to leave Bjo-- I mean uh Geigor in pieces like this... maybe scattered over Ahriman's base...

It would've been really cool if GW had put Othere Wyrdmake as the other character in the BoP box instead of Geigor. Ah, well.

[thamier]

this is exelent work, i like it, alot of work in every model, im guessing like me the building takes a long time not as much time to paint it all, but the results are worth it. really looking forward to see them completed!

[Skits]

@thamier: Thank you! :D Sometimes building can take quite a while, but I think painting always still takes me longer overall. So many thin layers/washes, so many little details, it all adds up! The main thing that takes up time in building for me is mostly just waiting for the greenstuff/milliput to dry, heh. So I'll usually do some building work, then set it aside to dry and spend the rest of my hobby time painting. 

[Skits]

Only a small update this week - I've started painting Ahriman, yay!

I'm still working on the red (it does NOT photograph well, ugh), need to darken some areas and up the contrast a bit.

And man, with all the Thousand Sons-related releases coming out soon, I think I might need to start trying to squeeze in more than one painting session a week... XD