Vox Stellarum: FOR WHOM THE GREAT BELL TOLLS THRICE

[Ryltar Thamior]

 

So awhile ago, Umbral and I started doing some Adeptus Mechanicus bits and pieces for my Adamanticores project. We'd pretty much filled out a surprisingly diverse complement of tech-priests, various armed laity [the Data-Recovery team], and even some hulking brute 'praetorian'-alikes; and then put all this to the side as other projects of more pressing immediacy came once more to the fore.

 

And then part-way through last week, we both kinda wound up - completely independently of each other - playing around to do a few more, of evidently rather *different* feel to what'd come before. 

 

So with that in mind ... behold, our latest exercise in Hobby ADHD. Not quite sure what we're going to do with them - or which of our various projects they'll fit into as yet. So they'll no doubt continue to expland slooooowly as one or more warbands of more 'traditional' AdMech flavouring than the stuff we've done thus far. 

 

The three chaps in the back are quite likely heavily armoured and hulking 'elite' Skitarii - with an obvious Warlord in the person of the middle chap with the axe and skull, and two escorts for him. These're largely [but not entirely] Umbral's handiwork - we had a few spare Sigmarines and had been wondering what to do with them...

 

The two in front are all my own. I decided I wanted to try and put the "priest" back in "Tech-Priest" and assemble a pretty standard [if low-ranking] member of the Clergy that really brought back that 'classic' 3rd ed AdMech kinda vibe [don't get me wrong, I've loved the 'offbeat' ones we've done for the Adamanticores, and the modern GW AM range is pretty cool ... but I want to see more Medieval sometiimes!]. 

 

 

Hence the chap on the left, who's evidently been captured mid-rite - what with the swinging incense censer, and the illuminating torch. Also quite a contrast [and a welcome one, I feel] for him to be comparatively unarmed [with hte exception of the pistol at his side - this *is* the 41st millennium, after all!]. That's kinda what i meant by bringing it back to "Priests" rather than militants.

 

 

 

 

 

 [Partsmix is a Bretonnian Men-At-Arms body, Skitarii head, Censer from the Scions' servo-skull plus a miscellaneous bit of sprue, arms also from the Scions kit, and hte torch is made out of the lower half of a Scions banner with the staff-topper from the Empire Wizard kit, and a pistol from the Cadian Command]

 

The chap on the right , the Machine Cultist, i didn't really set out ot make *at all*. He just kinda came together spontaneously when i was looking at some Skitarii arms and a flagellant body that I happened to have sitting around. From there, a large bald head to possibly suggest some vat-grown or otherwise not-entirely-organic-human [kinda like the Hitmen iwth hte red ties and abominable movie franchise you may have seen around], and some long dangling cables were all that was needed to 'complete' the look - a data-tether that runs directly into his spine, and a more 'generic' cable into his side [which'll hopefully hep to convey a sense of 'motion']. The bionic arm won't be out of place, either!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 [Partsmix is Flagellant body, Cadian Command head, Skitarii arms & weapon, cabling from a Cadian Command servo-skull and a Skitarii backpack]

Now as for the three warriors, from left to right ...

 

 

 

On the left we have a mixed close-assault and ranged warrior - a heavily modded chain-fist and lightning claw for the former, with a hellpistol and MIU grenade launcher for the latter.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Partsmix: left hand fist is from Tyberos [plus a servo-thing from a scyllax and a pistol from the Scions kit], head from Sicarans, Sigmarine body, and Marine lightning claw. The backpack .. which was my contribution to proceedings, is a Cadian Command vox-caster, parts from a Marine arm, a Guard grenade launcher and magnoculars, Grey Knights purity seal, Guard HQ gas-mask and banner topper, and I thnk the cabling might be from a Skitarii special weapon? hard to remember. The grenade-launcher WAS aligned with his ocular unit - but after a breakage and reattachment, haven't been able to get it back *quite* to the same positioning. Oh well. Close enough. ]

 

Middle is the Skitarii Warlord. He gets across vibe of a battle-hungry, highly experienced, and heavily modded mortal frame in immortal armoured shell quite nicely, I reckon.

 

 

 

 

 

 [Partsmix: Head and surrounding area from a Scyllax, axe-head from a Tech-priest Enginseer; Volkite [*CHOOM!* *CHOOM!*] from the Magos Dominus with a resin barrel [umbral has a thing about actually having barrels that have space in 'em, you see]; and Sigmarine body]

 

 

On the right, a much more exclusively close-assault oriented warrior - twin lightning claws, but also a servo-arm that may indicate this particular soldier has been pursuing with some success an ordination and greater technical competency.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 [Partsmix: Marine lghtning-claws, Sicaran head, Enginseer backpack, and Sicaran taser-goad thing]. 

[Kilofix]

I like it!

[Ryltar Thamior]

So, two new ones from me over the last night. First up, a Tech-Guard Veteran [perhaps where the Machine Cultist from the previous postage will wind up in a few years or decades]; and next, a sort of 'town cryer' kinda figure whose job it is to march in the vanguard of devotional processions blaring prayers and wardings and invocations in both binary and various forms of Gothic. I noticed just before photographing them that i'd inadvertently used exactly the same Bretonnian Men At Arms body to make both ... and am pretty pleased tbh with just how different/distinctive they nevertheless came out from each other :D 

 

 

Now, the idea with the Tech-Guard veteran was to get across the idea of a hard-bitten 'crusadery' type [but not so much the wild enthusiasm as the "has been at war/on campaign for years upon years in service of a cause that's slowly robbed him of body-parts and suchlike]; and at the same time, start sketching out my own thoughts on an 'alternative' to the 'conventional' Skitarii miniatures that we've been given that conveyed the more "Medieval" vibe without going *completely* low-tech. 

 

 

With that in mind, his primary armament is a chain-glaive of sorts, although he's also got a side-arm and a grenade to emphasie the more 'conventional' sides to his militancy and kinda convey a Guard-equivalent vibe, sorta. I also attempted to give him a bionic left arm made from the lower portion of a Tomb Kings skeleton archer arm - guess he's been "lending a hand" in combat, so to speak.

 

 

Now head-wise, i'd been going to put a Guard gasmask over the lower half of his face for that menacing, re-breather look ... but it wouldn't fit over the Flagellant head's rather pointed nose, and in the end i decided that rather than giving him some *ahem* plastic surgery of the rhinoplasty variety, that I'd just go with the stitche-shut mouth he's got. .... although that left some questions as to how he was communicating [maybe it's a mark of censure?], and so a spare Guard vox-caster unit was attached to his shoulder, and cabling [iirc made from a hellgun ammunition feed] was run from his cerebro-spinal neural-jack to the speaker. I'm pretty pleased with how that turned out! 

 

 

Meanwhile, in place of the bulky backpack units you see on Skitarii [ok, so they're not *that* bulky - but you know what i mean.. i'm running low on them, anyway :P ], two simple cables sprouting from further down his spine seemed to 'tech him up' nicely while also conveying a bit of motion forward.

 

 

The sort of beady, furtive, and yet rather more than vaguely malicious expression is pretty excellent imo - and the more 'haggard' and thin-face adequately conveys somebody who's been living hard for quite awhile now ... the youthful brashness of the Machine Cultist's face eroded by time, so to speak.

 

Top-shot:

 

[Ryltar Thamior]

Next up, the chanter. [Remind me to look up an appropriately Medieval church term for this]

 

 

As you can see, he's not exactly armed - I wanted ot keep going with the theme of putting the 'Priest' back in 'Tech-Priest' and keeping armament to a minimum in favour of functionality within a religious hierarchy. Although no doubt he's quite capable of bashing in some skulls with that bell of his! Meanwhile, i'm picturing some sorts of Tech-Sigils on that parchment-on-stick of his - maybe if i'm feeling particularly overconfident with my ffreehand, i might try doing the Windows logo or something. Vox-caster liberated from a Scions kit over his shoulder helps convey the uh .. "loud" of things; while a Skitarii head which *also* has a bit of a speaker-thing vox-grille over his mouth. [i might continue to explore this style of unit with future miniatures, using some of the trumpets and such from Fantasy kits that i've got sitting around for Heralds - AHA! THAT'S IT! *HERALDS*! !!!] 

 

 

Now,just in case he wasn't noisy enough with his hand-bell and speakers, he's also got some additional bells attached to his backpack unit. Helps to keep malevolent machine-ificarum away dontchaknow. 

 

 

 

Oh, he also had a bit of a 'gap' on his neck on his right-hand side because at four in the morning i couldn't *quite* be bothered properly trimming down the neck of the Bretonnian base-miniature ... so instead he wound up with a part of a Guard gasmask running out and down to his shoulder which imo really helps to continue to place him in the 41st Millennium. Maybe it's another speaker :P [ another part of a Guard gasmask on his right wrist perhaps represents .. .volume controls :P [whereas on the chain-glave of the previous miniature it's proably on-off and chain-velocity controls]].

 

top-shot:

 

[Ryltar Thamior]

One of the features that's [also sometimes a bug] with my psychology is occasionally I'll get an idea in my head .. and it'll "niggle" me until I attempt to put it into practice ['immanentize' it , i suppose would be the technical term]. Now, this uh ... this doesn't always nor even especially often work out as being "sensible" - either in terms of time, or other resources used. And in all honesty, there's a few Skitarii arms that're rather messily hacked up possibly beyond easy use from another such "idea" that is yet to come to fruition. 

 

But every so often, things manage to come together well enough for me to say "Ok ... proof of concept, established!" And usually *right* before somebody points out "you know there's [x] *far easier* way you could have done that ... right?"

 

In this particular instance, I had another idea for the Tech-Guard concept i've been kicking around in my head - which deliberately sought to recall some of hte *older* fluff about what Skitarii are and are equipped like [the good ol' Huckleberry et co fan-made 3rd/4th ed codex, for instance]; while at the same time doing the whole "Medieval" thing. 

 

Now, I *had* toyed around with just arming up some Tech-Guard kinda like Cadian guardsmen , or even Scions ... but i'm still getting a 'feel' for what 'looks right' with the hacking and slashing of arms and waepons to fit the Men-At-Arms arm-slots . 

 

In the mean-time, there's a Tech-Guard veteran I'm yet to show you that's got the 'balance' mostly right, i feel - except with the arms i've given him, i suddenly realized there's no space to put a lasgun or hellgun. So I started wondering about how to construct a shoulder-sling for him to be carrying his ranged waepon on his back - not least because this helps to de-emphasize the "combative" nature of the miniature in some ways, whlst still nevertheless indicate he's an active-duty soldier. [Translation: I felt that arms free to have Medieval stuff like swords, flaming torches, candles, devotional bits and pieces, and banners was quite handy; but still wanted ot represent Guard-style equipment].

 

But rather than try out the concept I'd come up with on that miniature ... i thought i'd mock up something 'fresh' [and in any case, the aforementioned Tech-Guard Veteran is now going down a potentially different path *anyway*]. 

 

And bceause these are both i) Adeptus Mechanicus [and therefore 'dehumanizing' as a matter of course], and ii) Medieval a.f, instead of a 'conventional' shoulder-sling, I decided to make it out of *chains* instead. 

 

Cue me spending several hours this afternoon attempting to bend chains from the Empire Flagellants box to fit in the right shape from lasgun, around shoulder, down across chest & torso, and then around hip and back up to the lasgun stock. 

 

Cue me realizing that bending wasn't going to work, and that the only way forward , for the most part , was going to be cutting and shaping. 

 

Cue me realizing that this left several basically unfillable with the requisite chain-lengths gaps, and deciding that hte most logical thing to do was to start *making my own chain-links* replete with openings to link up with the extant ones so as to produce something resembling a realistic drape and such. 

 

Cue me then losing at least one of these in muh carpet , breaking another , and basically having to start over several times [while also realizing that i should probably have acquired modelling tweezers rather than using my (oft-superglue coated) fingers, and then a knife-point + 1:100 scale Jagdtiger cannon as chopsticks]; until eventually taking a break and coming back to it a little after midnight maybe, throwing up my hands, and 'fudging' the last part of the join on the implicit understanding that a good paintjob hides a multitude of sins. 

 

And, of course, cue Umbral pointing out that i could probably have done most if not all of the thing by simly acquiring a resin length of chain and using the heat from a lighter to make it malleable enough to shape in the desired ways *without* having to cobble together like nine bits of chain including the hand-resculpts that just wouldn't stay in :P 

 

Anyway, it's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination [which'll arguably add to the whole 'medieval' vibe] ... but the fruits of my afternoon's worth of labour [minus some stuff for *yet another* project that's recently caught my imagination that i'll start posting up shortly ] 

 

 

 

 

 

Next step'll be working out what to equip *this* one with in his hands. And sorting out anothr few Tech-Guard ot go with. [Considered attempting to equip him with a Hellgun from the Scions kit - the ones in their wrappings that're hands-free .. but that seemed a bit 'overkill' and would anyway require power-supply ] 

[Dragonlover]

Why not just get a length of modelling chain? I'm pretty sure they sell it at Green Stuff World.

 

Dragonlover

[Ryltar Thamior]

Why not just get a length of modelling chain? I'm pretty sure they sell it at Green Stuff World.

 

Dragonlover

That is an indubitably sensible suggestion. 

 

In the unlikely event that I decide something needs a chain-sling in the future, i'll look into it [although i don't do online shopping due to a lack of facilities at my end, but i'm sure one or more of the local places'd do something along those lines] 

 

Still, valuable lessons were learned over the course of this effort ... so i suppose that's something. 

[Tortirioan]

Really cool looking, the only thing that struck me really quick was that the fire on your torch bearer (or whatever he is called) is going in 2 different directions, the staff has the fire going back over his shoulder, while the stuff in his hand is going forward away from him.

[Ryltar Thamior]

Really cool looking, the only thing that struck me really quick was that the fire on your torch bearer (or whatever he is called) is going in 2 different directions, the staff has the fire going back over his shoulder, while the stuff in his hand is going forward away from him.

Churr for positive feedback :D And yeah, fair comment about the different directional of the pyro-effects in his various hands. In my head, i guess I kinda rationalized it on the assumption that he was swinging the censer from his left to his right, hence the path of the smoke as a trail; whereas the flame from the brazier-staff was going upwards and slightly to his right on grounds that fire naturally heads upwards with a bit of flickering in the absence of prevailing winds. 

 

But at the same time, i can see what you mean. 

 

Although due to a cat-related breakage, the staff-head is now detached from his hand, so perhaps I might try something different in re-attaching it :P 

[Ryltar Thamior]

 

Latest output, Some of the more .. effort-intensive conversions I've done [took a number of days to get right each because some of these bits were particularly niggly].

 

 

Two more Machine-Cultists; this time armed with special weapons.

 

 

The chap with the flamer, i wound up giving a rebreather-mask and goggles to, because i figured that'd be helpful with his weapon of choice; the heavy stubber operator [good *grief* that took a lot of work], was partially wired into his gun to cover some join-work etc [and coz, you know, AdMech], and i figured that he'd have the hammer on his person as a 'luddite' "un-jamming device" for his gun :P

 

 

But good grief these were frustrating to put together! Mostly done other than really small but vitally necessary stuff [the goggles, for instance; or the cerebro-spinal wiring on the heavy stubber operator] uncompleted so i couldn't start painting. Frustrating!

 

 

 

[Ryltar Thamior]

 

Now, this miniature's something that's been on a slow buildup pretty much since I started this project. Partially because he organically 'grew' with time [it was initially just me seeing how wel a Cadian HQ powerfist would go on a Men-At-Arms arm-socket ... followed by a whole series of "if he's got X .. then that means he should proobably have Y"], and partially because some of the assembly was *seriously* fiddly [i had no idea just how complicated it was going to be to get that tiny connection-tubing between his backpack and his back to a) be the right length and shape and then b) sit still, for instance!]. 

 

 

He also single-handedly caused a halt to activities after some over-zealous cutting action on my behalf left my trousers a most appealing shade of maroon due to sanguine-spray that uh .. just kept going and going and going lol, leaving it difficult to type let alone do any serious modelling [not that that stopped me from trying regardless]. 

 

 

Now I *did* previously [i.e. as recently as about 2, 3 a.m this morning] have plans to do a few more things to him - like extending out the cabling on his back into a cradle-crane thing for an uplink cable hanging down across his front [in contrast to the back-mounted ones on the other Tech Guard and Machine Cultists ... the idea is that he plugs into combat cogitators *in front of him* because he's putting in orders and suchlike, rather than simply receiving them]], and possibly extending the port on his back out further into eithr an exhaust or another auxiliary data uplink. 

 

 

But after careful consideration as to a) whether i could actually come up with not-too-difficult ways ot make this happen which would still b) look good rather than ruining the effect of the mini as-is, I decided to c) just leave him [for now, perhaps] and save those ideas for future Tech-Guard and combat overseers. 

 

 

All in all, though - even though it's taken *quite some time* [and if i'm honest, the desire to acutally put some paint on him was a consideration in not continuing the modifications!] to get him assembled, I'm reallly quite pleased with how everything's gone together. 

 

 

I think ther's just the right relative levels of 'tech' and 'medieval' on him to make for an excellent [if I do say so myself] 40k figure - things like the grenades and power-fist helping to tie him to 'conventional' warfighting; even as the unpowered sword, heraldic device and clothes go back twoards the Dark Ages feel. Meanwhile, the flashy banner leaves no doubt  that he's a command element of some description; while the backpack being properly wired into him - and also at teh same time supporting a comms antenna and some form of visual device, helps to make everything an 'integral part of the miniature' rather htan just 'tacked on' [which was my initial fear - another reason for the power-leads running from the power-fist to the backpack, as well], and further support his function on the battlefield. 

 

He could PROBABLY have used a pistol in holster as well, but it turns out i'm fresh out of those. Although at the same time, it's kinda adding to the 'Medieval' vibe imo for him to be lacking such a ballistic weapon. Another idea was to give him an MIU postol mounted over the shoulder, but I decided agains that as it would be *too* techy. 

 

I may yet wind up adding some stuff around the neck in terms of cables and suchlike - to hide the join, give 'rationale' for the low-key giraffe neck [not nearly as 'bad' as on one of the 'prietsly' types forgunately!] , and other such thngs - but that'll be a future endeavour.

 

For now ... i've just undercoated him, so PAINT is the next step!