Kaiju Soze's The Firebringers CSM - On Wings of Blood

[Kaiju Soze]

Working on my Chaos Marine army is slow-going for a bunch of reasons, but progress does happen (and hopefully soon so will more actual games).  I'm currently focused on assembling/converting a couple of extra HQ choices.

 

Firstly, a new Chaos Lord based on an Aspiring Champion from the original incarnation of my army.  Tentatively named Kayne Firebringer.  There's a good chance the name will change at some point (or possibly just the spelling).

 

 

Based on a Primaris Reiver to get the extra stature the original version was supposed to possess.  I'm trimming down the right-hand shoulder pad to add a regular CSM shoulder pad over it, and I need to remove the left hand/forearm to replace it with the CSM power fist for "I'm coming for you" effect.  I'm also waiting on some Necromunda Goliath parts to give him one of the masked heads instead of the head shown in this image.

 

Next we have Angelica, Exalted Champion of Khorne or, as I like to think of her, the Khornate Murder Princess.

 

 

She's waiting for me to work out what I'm doing for her shoulder pad and to fill the gap from the cloak piece I decided against using.  I have a right arm for her, with a massive blade weapon, but I think I need to sort out the torso before I can start trimming the shoulder on the arm to get it to fit.

 

And finally, for now, the third Helbrute for my army.

 

 

 

Unfortunately I couldn't get my camera to focus on the Cold One Head properly.

 

All it really needs at the moment is a bit of gap-filling, but I'm tempted to add spikes and blades to the spire for the extra Godzilla factor.  The heavy flamers use the spare cannisters from the Helbrute kits and nozzles from the Sister of Silence kit.

Edited August 6, 2023 by Kaiju Soze

[Pearson73]

Nice pose on the Lord, the converted heavy flamers are a great idea nad you've pulled them off well.

 

I feel the Lord might not look majestic(?) enough to be the overlord of a warband, however, he could well be just a rank and file trooper or squad champion in my eyes.

[Kaiju Soze]

Nice pose on the Lord, the converted heavy flamers are a great idea nad you've pulled them off well.

 

I feel the Lord might not look majestic(?) enough to be the overlord of a warband, however, he could well be just a rank and file trooper or squad champion in my eyes.

 

Thank you.  The pose on the Lord isn't the originally planned pose but I had purchased a second Reiver body as a back-up plan and it turned out to look quite good posed on that rock.  As for the heavy flamers I wanted something more obvious than just the nozzles on the palms that the kit includes.

 

One thing I will say is that, while he may not be the most ostentatious Chaos Lord ever, he certainly stands out from his troops (largely by towering over them).  There's little way he's passing for a regular trooper.

[Pearson73]

Could we perhaps see a comparison photo between the Lord and regular marines?

[Kaiju Soze]

Could we perhaps see a comparison photo between the Lord and regular marines?

 

How's this: Comparison with Greyfax, an Aspiring Champion and a Possessed Marine.

 

 

The Lord now has his power fist and other shoulder pad.  Unfortunately the Goliath parts I ordered haven't arrived yet so he still has his stand-in head.

[Pearson73]

There certainly is a differentiation due to the size difference there and I get that not every warlord will be super ostentatious and blinged out, but I feel that even still he's lacking that extra something, even more trophies to match the skull collecting, martial pride of a hardened champion of Khorne, perhaps?

[Kaiju Soze]

Oh, hey, it's been a while.  And not a great deal of progress (or playing) was made, but a few things have finally moved forward of late.  So start us off (again), my Chaos Lord, Kaine the Firebringer:

 

 

 

And to follow up, Scarlett, Sister of Blood and Master of Executions:

 

 

 

 

And finally (for the moment) the still un-named Master of Possessions:

 

 

[Bjorn Firewalker]

I appreciate the effort you put in your models. Scarlett looks best, in my opinion; the fiery wings on her back help distinguish her.

 

As for the unnamed Master of Possessions, may I suggest the name "Legion of Tacitus", after the AI Kane used in Command & Conquer 3: Kane's Wrath?

[Kaiju Soze]

I appreciate the effort you put in your models. Scarlett looks best, in my opinion; the fiery wings on her back help distinguish her.

 

As for the unnamed Master of Possessions, may I suggest the name "Legion of Tacitus", after the AI Kane used in Command & Conquer 3: Kane's Wrath?

 

I missed the connection the first time I saw this, and that connection makes the suggestion make a whole lot more sense.  Tacitus on its own may make a better name.  I'll have to give that some more thought.

 

Otherwise, it's been a largely unproductive week due to covering shifts for an absent co-worker, so here's the Maulerfiend I painted last week.  I need to go back and clean up the underside, as well as adding some glow to the small sections on the chest that I hadn't paid enough attention to.  And, obviously, it still needs its base.

 

My camera was unusually kind to this one, the skin portions look a lot messier in person.  I was testing the Idoneth skin tone paints scheme from the Citadel Colour app and it didn't work quite as intended.

 

 

 

 

Edited October 19, 2020 by Kaiju Soze

[Bjorn Firewalker]

The Maulerfiend looks most promising. Don't forget to add bloodstains to his tentacles.

[Kaiju Soze]

I might need to invest some appropriate effect paint for blood on weapons.

 

Haven't had much chance to get painting done, but I have done assembly for two more corrupted sisters that will serve as either Chosen or Aspiring champions in the army.  For the first Sister, this may be a promotion.

 

 

 

This looks like a simple conversion (and the gun swap certainly was) but giving her a sword also meant swapping out the entire left hand in the process.  I had some difficulties not accidentally detaching the replacement hand so some of the detail there got lost due to excess plastic glue.  The sword is from a Sylvaneth kit, and the shoulder pad came from a Nercomunda Goliath sprue.

 

Secondly, we have this lady.  I'm probably going to go with a regular SoB head for her (as an update of an older figure in my collection who was also unhelmeted) but I incuded the images of how she looks with a Corpse Grinder Cult helmet because, frankly, it's a good look and I'd be tempted to go with it for a future conversion.

 

 

 

 

Next, we have a test run Khorne Berzerker.  Mostly just standard CSM pieces, but with a CGC helmet and a shoulder pad taken from the Chaos vehicle accessory sprue.  The pile-o-skulls shoulder pad felt necessary.

 

 

 

Continuing, we have the most WIP miniature so far.  This will be another Champion, but she needs a lot of work and some parts that haven't been released yet (Flayed One claws).  She'll have a tail made from part of a power scourge once finished, and possibly some extra arms taken from the tool arms on a DE Talos.

 

 

And finally (for this post) an overdue update on something from the first post: Angelica, Khorne Murder Princess, assembled and partially painted.  Expect quite a bit of black to be added to this.

 

 

A quick question: I'm cropping out large sections of the backdrop because it's empty space in the image but it leaves the final images odd sizes sometimes.  Would it be better to continue with the cropped versions or go with uncropped images and a standardised size?

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Impressive work on the Chaos-tainted Sisters.

[Kaiju Soze]

Thank you.  These are the last ones for a while, I have something in the region of 50-60 other infantry models that need painting at some point, not to mention the tanks and helbrutes.

[Kaiju Soze]

Testing out the army's primary colour scheme on various units.  First, some basic marines.  Painting is a bit rough, but the scheme seems to work out overall.

 

 

And a slightly different version on a Possessed.  This one uses metallic reds because those were already painted from an earlier, discarded scheme.

 

 

Then on to one of my three Helbrutes.  The head is currently troublesome as I'm struggling to determine what colour to make it.

 

 

 

And finally, another non-standard character model, a sorcerer with jump pack.  Or sorceress with wings.  Whatever woks.  I should probably find her a spell book at some point.

 

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Good job on the models. The blood red and dark gray color scheme looks great.

[Kaiju Soze]

In today's release from the depart of obvious conversions...

 

Very early steps on a Warpsmith made from Iron Father Feirros.  Really waiting on a Greenstuff World Roll Maker to add mechadendrites to the backpack instead of the servo arms.  Oh, and a new axe head.

 

 

And secondly, Khorne Berzerkers made from the regular CSM box and Corpse Grinder Cult heads.  Waiting on an order for some Khorne icons before proceeding any further with these.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And a small lesson learned: Pay more attention to posing, so you don't end up with 3 berzerkers in a "leaning back and shooting" pose.  Oh well, we move on.

[Tallarn Commander]

Really nice conversions and painting! I especially like the Scarlett model.

 

I hadn't thought of kitbashing CSM and Corpse Grinders. I might have to steal that idea at some point. :)

[Kaiju Soze]

Really nice conversions and painting! I especially like the Scarlett model.

 

I hadn't thought of kitbashing CSM and Corpse Grinders. I might have to steal that idea at some point.

 

Pretty much everyone seems to like Scarlett.  I've seen a few "that's so simple but effective" responses from people outside of B&C, so it seems I found a winner there.

 

As for the CGC, I'm surprised I haven't seen it more.  Some of those heads pretty much are Khorne symbols (or parts of it) and the kit includes chain cleavers that could easily be used as or modded into axes if that's your weapon preference.

[grailkeeper]

That warsmith looks ferocious.

[Kaiju Soze]

So progress has been slow, for a variety of reasons (including waiting for parts that turned out to not be suitable, and being too cautious about wasting green stuff).  I'm currently working out how to mix green stuff for mechadentrites/tendrils that will actually hold up the servo arm equipment.  However, I have made a small measure of progress, including the Warpsmith's combi-melta and incorporating the flamer into the end of the axe.

 

[Surreal Cruelty]

So progress has been slow, for a variety of reasons (including waiting for parts that turned out to not be suitable, and being too cautious about wasting green stuff).  I'm currently working out how to mix green stuff for mechadentrites/tendrils that will actually hold up the servo arm equipment...

 

Get some higher gauged copper wire to sort of "wrap" the green stuff around before putting it through the rollers.  After rolling it for the texture, let it cure, then it will hold just about anything you need up that is made of plastic.  You should be able to get some relatively high gauge at any jewelry crafting store.  You might even be able to find plenty at a hardware store too.

Edited December 1, 2020 by Surreal Cruelty

[Kaiju Soze]

 

Get some higher gauged copper wire to sort of "wrap" the green stuff around before putting it through the rollers.  After rolling it for the texture, let it cure, then it will hold just about anything you need up that is made of plastic.  You should be able to get some relatively high gauge at any jewelry crafting store.  You might even be able to find plenty at a hardware store too.

 

 

As someone who knows very little about jewelry crafting, what should I be looking out for?

[Surreal Cruelty]

I'm not a jewelry crafter either (I do hobby blacksmithing), but my wife does jewelry, and I went with her to take a look at the tools they have to see if they would be useful for minis.  The answer to that is yes across the board...they use the same tools we do for a lot of things, and they have a much wider variety for many different purposes that can also be useful situationally when working with mini conversion/kit-bashing. 

 

 

I use this mostly for pinning models together, and a few other minor things. I got tired of using paperclips, most of the paperclips here are steel. There used to be a lot more of it.  This particular wire is probably too thick for what you would want to do with it.  I don't remember what gauge it is, but I would guess either 16 or 17 gauge..it might be as low as 14 gauge...it's between 1mm and 1.5 mm thick.  I am not sure if UK is still using the Standard Wire Gauge system, or the international standard.  With the SWG and the AWG the higher the "gauge" the thinner the wire.  International system uses sq. mm of the cross section of the wire.

 

I don't know how common the shops are where you live, I found a few in UK just checking Google for them, but I didn't check hours or status, and I didn't see that many probably because I was searching the entire UK.  You can also buy supplies online and have them shipped to you (especially right now with all the lockdowns, and might be a lot of them are completely closed down).  Any jewelry or bead crafting supply will have all the wire you could want, in as many metals as you might want.  If some of them are open, they probably have a display with spools that you can actually see how thick the wire is, and it will have the measurements listed on the packaging.  I don't recommend steel, it will eventually destroy your clippers & you're going to hurt your hands clipping it.  I suggest brass or copper.  As base metals, both are relatively cheap.   Probably about 20 gauge (roughly .5mm) or 21 gauge (.4mm) wire...thin enough that your mecha-tendrils aren't too thick & will roll easily through your greenstuff cable maker.  I have even seen wire available that is about the thickness of the cheap stuff you find in twist ties, but it will likely be too flexible to hold a position/shape.

 

I will also admit, that while the wire is the first thing that came to mind, I could be overthinking or "over engineering."  I have seen a number of green-stuffed tendrils, tentacles, etc, on the B&C, so you could also try asking some of the folks who work with greenstuff a lot more than I do how they get the mechadentrites to stay in shape if they don't use some kind of wire.  Brother Chaplain Kage comes to mind as one, and I think he even has a warsmith buried in that gigantic WIP log of his.

Edited December 4, 2020 by Surreal Cruelty

[Kaiju Soze]

I've used paperclips for supporting green stuff before, but they're a bit more awkward to work with.

 

I did know of a jewellery crafting shop, but that seems to have either closed down or moved during the lockdowns.  So I've taken a gamble on some 0.8mm copper wire from a craft store on ebay, and I'll see how that works out when it arrives.  I don't mind having a couple of slightly thicker mechadendrites for the big stuff (like the claw or cutting torch) and if it proves promising I can always try some 0.4 or 0.5mm wire in future.

[Kaiju Soze]

Success.  The jewelry wire seems to be holding.

 

 

Of course, now I've started adding the mechatendrils I realise the space where the exhaust/servo fixture used to occupy looks a bit empty.  Might need to find a solution to that now.

Edited December 13, 2020 by Kaiju Soze