Grgobart needs to do some converting and painting again

[Grgobart]

Looks gorgeous, might add some weathering or charring to the edges. But only if you felt you had too, very very nice.

I'm afraid such witchcraft advanced skills are well outside my realm of capability! I had to realise early on in my painting career, that even layering and blending are skills I would never master to any useful degree. I tried long enough, but the best I could muster, was getting it done on one model, by the third of fourth try, which was at times not enough to not lose details on the suffering model, but more importantly not nearly enough to paint an entire army with any kind of consistent results. The only thing it's enough for is painting Flames, as those are ok to look somewhat different from case to case.

Call me lazy, but I do not intent to go through the potentialy frustrating process of learning to weather my army. There are more than enough areas of my life I can go to, if I need get my fill of frustration!!!

And only weathering some models and others not, is not my thing. I like my sisters to look consistent, which is enough of job, as it is!

So, sorry, no weathering or charring, wear or tear from me.

I hope, people might still enjoy the finished model, even if it's just painted by poor old me and my humble painting skills.

[dracpanzer]

Looks fantastic, and like I said, you could add to it ONLY if you thought you had too.  That banner is fine by me, thanks for sharing!

[CaptainHelion]

That banner is look absolutely fantastic

[Pr3Mu5]

This is absolutely stunning...

If you wouldn't be too offended in me stealing your idea I might have to give this a try for my own Order.

[Grgobart]

This is absolutely stunning...

If you wouldn't be too offended in me stealing your idea I might have to give this a try for my own Order.

By all means, please do. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, is it not? So, thanks and good luck!

[Pr3Mu5]

 

This is absolutely stunning...

If you wouldn't be too offended in me stealing your idea I might have to give this a try for my own Order.

 

By all means, please do. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, is it not? So, thanks and good luck!:)

That's true. My attempt will likely pale in comparison but I'm wanting to make my sisters a much more personal army so I'm lining up some conversions for my seraphim pinning them in the backs of the legs and covering the metal rods with green stuff made robes and purity seals and scripture rolls. This however is beyond anything I dreamed of but seeing it I'd love to make something like this a big part of a centrepiece command squad.

[jacqualine47]

I love your banner art - absolutely gorgeous and a wonderful update to the Order of Our Martyred Lady banner (which happens to be my Order).  Did you make the digital art file yourself or commission it?  If you made it yourself, would you take commissions for Banner art - or give permission for someone to alter/use the one you posted?  If so, PM me :) 

[Grgobart]

I love your banner art - absolutely gorgeous and a wonderful update to the Order of Our Martyred Lady banner (which happens to be my Order). Did you make the digital art file yourself or commission it? If you made it yourself, would you take commissions for Banner art - or give permission for someone to alter/use the one you posted? If so, PM me

I did create the the emblem myself, but since I'm no artist "assemble" might be the more appropriate term here. I did get quite a few parts done myself, only drawing inspiration from other pictures. Some parts, like the hands for instance, I chose to straight up copy from a suitable source and scale them to my needs, before my desperation grew too great, trying to get them done to any acceptable degree myself. And then there are the Symbols involved, the Fleur-de-Lys and the Ecclesiarchal 'I'. Now those are one to one copies of GW symbols, for the sole reason of looking exacly like the ones on my other models and thus fitting in with the rest of my army.

With that in mind, I feel, I might not be the person to actually give permissions in this matter.

Apart from legality though, I generally don't have a problem with people using my designs and ideas, as far as the hobby is concerned. In fact, I find it rather flattering.

I might be a bit pissed, if someone were to take my emblem, just re-colour the red parts into green and claim it to be his design, however.

Not to discourage you from using mine, but if your Sisters are from the Order of Our Martyred Lady, why not use their existing emblem? It's what I did for my old Banner (although coloured a bit differently):

I'm also a bit confused as to what you meant by "update to the Order of Our Martyred Lady banner"?

As far as commisions are concerned, sorry but no!

I am not an artist and I have no intentions of becoming one. And I'd like 40K to stay what it is to me, a hobby.

I created the emblem for my DIY Order, as an opportunity to get to know and exercise my skills with GIMP.

If you or anyone else, might be interested, I can share some of the insights I gathered creating the emblem. It was surprisingly easier, than I had initially anticipated!

Furthermore, I might be persuaded, to share the original GIMP file (.xcf) of my emblem, with all the different parts of the emblem seperated in layers, in exchange for a general outlook of what you have planned with it and a solemn vow, to present the results in this forum. Just PM me.

[jacqualine47]

Yours is a much higher resolution, and it still thematically resembles the ideas behind the Order of Our Martyred Lady (Image of St. Katherine).  I'm custom printing banners on an MD-5500 ALPS printer for proper decal sheets, so the original banner art is too low-resolution and pixelated to do the medium justice.  With some recoloring and rearranging, yours would be a good start to a reasonable facsimile. 

[Servant of Dante]

Oh my! That is stunning! 

 

Amazing stuff!

 

(I should have checked back sooner)

 

Edit: Just . . . wow.

[Grgobart]

So, it's been a while again and I would really like to present some progress. The problem is, I really don't have much to show for. The only progress I got done on the exorcist, is filling out the indentations on the side of the Chassis. Which is hardly enough to justify taking pics of!

On the other hand, just posting "Just want to mention, there is progress being made, but not enough to mention it!" seems a bit strange as well. So, how to flesh out the post?

I could present some of my already finished works, like my Repressor conversion here:

Looking back at this thread, I nearly posted half my Gallery already, anyway. So why not get in the rest in too?

I could also present some of my other planned projects, like the plan I have for my Repentia:
Shouldn't Eviscerators look like overall bigger verions of regular chainswords, rather than regular sized chainswords, with just the grip being enlarged? I'd think so, which is why I carved (granted the skull is glued on) my take on what an Eviscerator should be sized, out of plastic, a while ago.

Now the only thing, keeping me from switching out these on most of my Repentia, is replicating enough of those.

Any thoughts on the matter?

[WarriorFish]

How about using a few, to add variety to the unit?

[dracpanzer]

I don't find the Eviscerator size to be an issue on fully painted Repentia.  Just saying.

[Grgobart]

I don't find the Eviscerator size to be an issue on fully painted Repentia. Just saying.

At first I didn't either, until I one day wanted to make a Sister Superior with a eviscerator, for which I cut of one from one of my Repentia models, glued it on the Superior and realized, there is hardly any difference to make out compared to a regular Sister's Chainsword. Ever since it's been nagging me!

Which doesn't mean I think it should worry anyone else. Be glad you don't!

How about using a few, to add variety to the unit?

Variety in arms, which should all represent the same weapon, is a bit counter productive. It is possible and nice to a certain degree, but not what I had in mind. Except, I had something like that in mind once, when I was writing a Sisters Fandex. Inspired by the notion of "Ceremonial Eviscerators" in their 3rd Edition entry, I thought it would be nice for Repentia to have Ceremonial Eviscerators rather than Proper Eviscerators as their standard weapon, with the proper ones still available as upgrades. With the Ceremonial Eviscerators attacking with "only" Str 4 and no second D6 against vehicles but without unwieldy, I deemed it to be a good way to make Repentia cheaper and more useful against regular light infantry.

But enough of me and my crazy thoughts from years ago, what did i get done? I now have a Chassis with smooth cheeks! Stupid but tedious work and the result still not enough of an eyecatcher to upload pics. Now working on pieces to make a frame for each flat area. The result should look similar to the side plates of the official GW Exorcist and leave enough space inside to enable me to use all my intended decoration on my Exorcist.

[CaptainHelion]

I use the chainsword from the Canoness for my eviserators. It's double sided, so looks different enough for my liking.

[Grgobart]

I use the chainsword from the Canoness for my eviserators. It's double sided, so looks different enough for my liking.

Again, not saying my problems should be problems for anyone else, but I personally don't like the double sided chainsword design all that much. Secondly, for me it seems an awful lot of money (and leftover Caonnesses) to equip all my Repentia models. And most importantly, the Canoness chainsword is still no bigger than a regular Sister chainsword!

From my crazy quirks to good news on the Exorcist front. I finished the frames for the decorations areas of the Chassis. Since I realised, I didn't include a pic of the backside of the previous state of the chassis until now, I included a shot as well. The extension over the rear sloped area over the tracks was and still is neccessary, because of my organ design, the rear groups of three pipes on either side to be specific.

I hope the ongoing correctional work, is acceptable for a WIP pic. To me, taking pics is work enough as it is!

Funny story about the "liquide" green stuff. I don't like liquid green stuff, bought it once to try it out, didn't like it. I instead usually used an acrylic paste to do correctional work. Due to the long pause since working on my stuff though, that paste had sadly dried up. With some luck and GW's new "speed dry" pots though, the once liquide green stuff also dried up and now has just about the consistensy of my old paste.

What do you people think? Will those framed sides look out of place, when next to a GW Exorcist, or not? Mind, that there will be rivets added at the end of the conversion work. I carefully removed and saved all of them before I started working on the cheeks.

[WarriorFish]

I think it looks really good, probably won't be able to tell it was custom made when painted :tu:

[Grgobart]

Aaah yes, reaching the point of "not being able to tell it was custom made when painted" was one of the most crutial reasons, why I ultimately started posting pics online.

From the very first weapon swaps on my Superiors and attaching wings to St Celestine, that goal was, what I wanted to achieve with my conversions. With me being "THE Sister Player" at my FLGS and barely anyone knowing much about the Sisters' model range, let alone having seen the models in person, it was quite easy to determine, when I had reached that standard.
But at the same time, it also kind of pained me to see, someone being just as impressed when looking at an unconverted model of mine, as they were, when looking at my most challanging conversions, which was of course, because that someone had never seen either of them AND I had managed the above mentioned goal!

With the overall scarcity of sister players, forums like this were the only place to go, to find out how my work would hold up, when looked at by people, who know the basic models. After struggling a bit, afraid that what little pride I had in my work, could stem from being too full of myself, rather than actually having produced good work, I started posting pics of my models. And I'd think, it's not much of a confession, that besides this "reasurance on objectivly being capable of assessing my own work" and the classical "contributing to and inspiring the communitiy", another bit of reason for posting pictures of my work online, is hoping to get some appreciation, from people who actually realise, what has had to be done on a converted model. A rather vain reason, no doubt, but sadly true. And who of you people, doesn't like the good ol' emotional pat on the back, that is a positive comment about some creation of yours?

With that said, I'll probably seem even more of a peacock, when continuing to post some of my older works, in order to compensate for my lack of presentable progress with my Exorcist Conversion. But I'll hope at least some of you might enjoy my Canoness converted from an Immolator gunner(, which I technically already showed here, as part of the Order of the Blazing Grace heraldry picture, but...):


And my Conversion of an alternative Jacobus Priestess:


Anyone else tried to convert himself a Jacobus and being surprised at the amout of wargear, that model is supposed to carry around?

[Servant of Dante]

both of those are amazing conversions, and awesome paint jobs!

 

If that canoness was an actual sculpt for sale, I would buy one in a heartbeat.

 

Personally, I don't like the idea of using a model and name for a special character other than the correct one, since they are no longer unique once others use their rules. I feel like there shouldn't be just a bunch of priests who all fight exactly the same as Jacobus, but all of this is beside the point. It's a beautiful model that you've created.

[Hod]

Some really amazing conversions. The sister kneeling with the sword is fantastic. I see that you sculpt a lot of it, but for the bits you do use, what bits are they?

[Grgobart]

Some really amazing conversions. The sister kneeling with the sword is fantastic. I see that you sculpt a lot of it, but for the bits you do use, what bits are they?

The only parts I did myself from scratch, are the top Fleur-de-Lys and the ribbon under her cloak. Most of the rest, are turret gunner parts from the plastic Immolator set. Apart from some minor alterations, like adding the Fleur to her helmet and freeing her hands/gloves from the joysticks they were originally holding, most of the work went into extracting and reposing the legs. The back of the collar and the cloak are also from the Immolator set. The backpack was a Space Marine one, with some parts cut away and the former exhaust-spheres re-sculpted into SoB-style. That metal part above her backpack, was once hanging underneath the male pilot piece of a Penitent Engine. The sword is a bit of a patchwork, but I definitly remember at least grip and crossguard coming from the model I converted into the female Jacobus model (Warlord Crusaders Kristianna from Reaper Miniatures, incase someone's wondering).

The really interesting part of this conversion was the skirt/loincloth part, though. I had tried my best, to repurpose as much of the gunner's legs as possible, but there was only so much (in fact barely a milimeter more then can be seen on the finished model) I could manage. The rest being little more than scaffolding, which had to be covered utilising the Sisters' signature skirt/loincloth, modeling it, so only the presentable parts of the legs would peek out.

Now I'm generally not good with Green Stuff and rather prefer carving needed bits from plastic. So, not deeming myself capable to sculpt the neccessary folds into solid Green Stuff, I instead made very flat bits of Green Stuff, in the size I reckoned the laid out pieces of cloth I tried to sculpt would be, for the front and back parts of the skirt/loincloth and carfully folded those until they covered as much of the legs as they needed to. And to my great surprise, it worked well!

Apart from two or three spots of course!!!

But that's where purity seals came in handy!

I just covered up the spots I didn't like on the skirt/loincloth with Forgeworld purity seals. Put another purity seal on the sword, where I didn't quite get the connection between two parts right and a few more purity seals spread around the model to achieve a somewhat equal distribution.

To this day, I don't quite know whether to feel bad for my lucky shot with the Green Stuff and basically cheating with the legs, skirt/loincloth and purtiy seals, or being proud of myself for making the most of the skill set available to me?

[Grgobart]

So, it's been too long again! Life, that big ol' bully, is being quite mean to me, at the moment.
And rather typical for such circumstances, what little time I did spent on the hobby, resulted in more frustration than results. I'm stuck with my Exorcist conversion, not sure how to proceed. That's why, I decided, that in order to get my much needed diversion out of the hobby again, I'll set aside the Conversion and just do some simple painting, for a while.
The problem is, I don't have that much to paint anymore, aside from the big endevour of re-painting the majority of my Sisters, which I'm not too keen on starting right now. My Repentia, I want to switch Eviscerators on, befor painting. The three or four unpainted Superiors, miss at least one weapon each and these vacancies I intend to fill with bolters, which I don't have (And in light of the potential upcoming Sisters, I might as well wait, to see if anything might change my mind about that).

So all I'm left with, that's paint ready, is some inquisitional stuff. Now I'm usually playing pure Sisters, but I did get into the Inqusition first when I started playing 40k during the Witch Hunters era and and again later, around the transition from 5th to 6th, when I was playing alot and started suffering a little, from the lack of variety/choices in our army.
This means, I will be painting an old Witch Hunter Inquisitor and my alternative Vindicare Assassin next. And propably re-paint the old Callidus Assassin as well, while I'm at it!

So, sorry for the contiuing lack of progress and also sorry for whining so much! (it just feels good letting it out sometimes)

All I can offer as consolation, is the last Item in the ongoing series of me filling this threat, with my older works.
Saint Celestine, with her added wings, being my first conversion ever and the flaming sword tip added much later:

Hopefully I'll be able to post something new here, before my thread is pushed back too far to find it again, since I wouldn't dare to post Inquisition stuff here, rather than in their own thread in the appropriate Inquisition sub-forum. I'm just curious, how folks over there will react to me explaining, most of my inquisitional stuff is converted with the intention to look more fitting with the Ecclesiarchy rather than the Inquisition?

PS: I still need a transport/presentation box for my new(er) Banner Bearer. So if the moderators, don't deem it out of place to post pictures of such a custom made box (or rather the Banner Bearer in said box ) here, I could do that next.

[Drider]

These all look fantastic! 

 

I don't supposes you could be talked into writing up a step by step guide to successfully accomplishing this look.

[Isolia]

Lovely, very Blanche-y paint scheme, looks great !

[Grgobart]

These all look fantastic! 

 

I don't supposes you could be talked into writing up a step by step guide to successfully accomplishing this look.

Thanks!

I'll gladly explain how I do things if someone's interested. I do however need to know, what exactly you'd like to know about "this look", so I don't write a whole essey from unpacking the model all the way to taking and uploading pictures, when for example all you're really intereseted in is the part about basing the models.