Non-40K Character homages: Harmless fun or cringeworthy?

[Evil Eye]

Wow, I never expected this topic to get this much attention, thanks guys!   A lot of very good points being made, and I have to say that Stormtrooper Primaris Marine actually looks really nice. Helps the paint is super-clean.

 

As far as ideas I myself have had, here's a couple (both inspired by Japanese anime because I am nothing if not predictable).

Sucia of House Mamba: An Inquisitorial acolyte in the service of Inquisitor Vivian Draskette of the Ordo Hereticus. A member of the highly secretive Adeptus Biologis dynasty known as House Mamba, she is a strange young woman with sickly pale skin, lilac hair, crooked posture and oddly pointy teeth. She also keeps one eye covered at all times for reasons she will not divulge. Standard attire is a tatty robe with various bits of equipment strapped to it. Obsessed with biochemistry, toxicology and pathogens of all kinds, she is an expert on poisons, both using them against the enemy and protecting against them. She is one of the few people in the galaxy with the skill to cure or vaccinate against Drukhari concoctions and Tyranid venoms, even going as far as to develop a compound that works to some degree against the dreaded Tyranid phage cells. Whilst an undeniable genius, she is also something of a sadist who is more than a little eager to use her "truth serums" in interrogation, and generally she is considered an unsavoury character- Vivian keeps her around because of her incredible skills, but she has an eye on her. In addition, despite her sickly appearance and constant exposure to all manner of pathogens and toxins, she never seems to suffer ill health...

Inspiration is obviously the mushroom-mad Sucy Manbavaran from the anime Little Witch Academia (a show about as far removed from 40K as possible admittedly, but Sucy is too good a character to not homage IMO).

http://u.cubeupload.com/Squigsquasher/Sucy.jpg

 

Aa'Skhaa the Gorebride: Khornate warlord, Aa'Skhaa is something of an enigma. She is extremely youthful in appearance yet has been terrorizing the galaxy for over three centuries, and whilst she is fairly diminutive, she is strong and fast enough to outmatch even seasoned champions of Chaos. With flowing orange hair and bright blue eyes, she is strangely attractive with the only visible signs of Chaotic corruption being a pair of small red horns. However, this is likely because she literally never removes her bulky brazen armour, which likely conceals further signs of mutation. Nobody knows if she is an experiment in implanting corrupted Astartes gene-seed in a female host or if she is simply favoured and blessed by Khorne, though nobody is foolish enough to ask. Despite being extremely skilled in combat and influential enough to command a warband known as the Company of Meat, she is despised by many (including her fellow Khorne worshippers) for her obnoxious attitude. She is arrogant in the extreme and convinced she is the greatest servant of Khorne to walk the galaxy, with hubris more befitting a follower of Slaanesh. She is particularly disliked by the Legion of Vice's overlord, Patroklos the Half-Breed, who absolutely detests her and longs for her to meet an unfortunate accident and end up on the operating table of his Apothecary, Ophidus the Skinmaster.

Of course, Aa'Skhaa is a fairly transparent homage to the red-headed braggart Asuka Langley Soryu from Neon Genesis Evangelion (except without the karmic excuse). Whether she meets a similar fate to her inspiration depends on whether I can make an MP Eva homage model.

http://u.cubeupload.com/Squigsquasher/AsukaSoryu.jpg

Seriously. Just look at her. That right there is the face of someone that could make Khorne himself at the very least wince.

 

[Panzer]

Yeah well I guess anime homages are the least liked ones. Even among T'au players. Most people won't give you :cuss for it but you'll probably get many raised eyebrowes if it's clearly anime inspired.

[Doghouse]

If that is what you want to do go for it. :tu:

[Vykes]

-laughs- hey Squigsquasher, yeaaah it all depends. Honestly I'm one of the sort that wouldn't give people much for whatever it is, ain't here to judge right? Besides, I'd be lying id I said I didn't know 'em or didn't see em. Do it well and it's all well and cool (C'mon, knights and knight pilots are begging for reference material in my mind, an Evangelion ain't the greatest sin I've seen... not in the least).

As an aside: Sucy amped up a bit is still essentially Fabius Bile or any number of Magos Biologis genator, and I ain't got an issue with that.

Dude, sfPanzer, trust me there's some waaaay more incendiary source materials out there than anime -laughs- Well, we broke the picture barrier so why not.

Those in the know, know. Those that don't, well they blend in really well with a Sons of Horus/ Cthonian militia army.

Some other references are just fun though. I'm just starting to build a group of tankbuster "War Boys" made from Savage Orks, for example. Aesthetically it fits and in general it's the kind of 'aura' that the Orks already possess, so no harm no foul.

[Panzer]

 

Dude, sfPanzer, trust me there's some waaaay more incendiary source materials out there than anime

 

 

Not going to deny that. I just said how it is lol

[Indefragable]

At my local club there's a guy who plays Team Canada space marines using White Scars rules. Think White Scars paint scheme, but a red maple leaf in place of any chapter iconography with power hockey sticks (axes) and all the characters have famous Canadian hockey player names. It's so cohesive and uniform that you might mistake it for something genuine in-universe.

 

It's glorious!

[Lord Raven 19]

I have a primaris librarian with a phosphorescent lightsabre force sword counts as

[Evil Eye]

 

As an aside: Sucy amped up a bit is still essentially Fabius Bile or any number of Magos Biologis genator, and I ain't got an issue with that.

Great, now I'm stuck with the image of Fabius Bile cackling nasally whilst picking mushrooms.

 

FWIW I wouldn't be giving their models big sparkly anime doe-eyes (they'd be modelled/painted in the same style as any other miniature in their respective force) as quite frankly that would be too silly even for me.

 

Another idea I had was a small Zerg-based Tyranid force (which is admittedly probably not a good idea given I already have a burgeoning Tyranid army...), with some fluff changes to make them a bit more than "Tyranids but brown and purple".

 

Specifically they'd be a splinter fleet that was temporarily displaced and regurgitated by the Cicatrix Maledictum, which IIRC happened canonically to some hive fleets. For whatever reason, this splinter fleet ended up cut off from the greater Hive Mind, unable to rejoin (possibly due to mutation caused by prolonged warp exposure)- whereas most Tyranid forces would simply whither and die without access to the Hive Mind, this splinter fleet took an unexpected turn- it evolved to survive on its own and in the process gained some form of autonomy and formed its own separate, smaller hive mind. Evolving in this way not only allowed it to function on its own but also gave the Tyranids within the fleet something completely unique amongst the species- individuality and separate personalities. Each individual creature was no longer a mere extension of the Hive Mind, but rather gained the capacity for independent thought (albeit still predominantly governed by base instincts in the case of the lower creatures). Even the Swarmlord, an unusually autonomous Tyranid entity, is ultimately slaved to the will of the Hive Mind, whilst this fleet possesses actual free will.

 

This came with upsides and downsides- on the one hand, this granted the creatures of the fleet problem-solving and tactical capabilities unheard of in Tyranids, and most critically of all allowed them to function relatively well outside of the influence of synapse creatures. In addition, the introduction of individualism and personality allowed the fleet some understanding of the concepts of culture- whilst they see no need to adopt culture of their own, their understanding of it allows them to engage in psychological warfare with prey. By making cosmetic alterations to bioforms beyond mere functionality, they can make them more intimidating to prey, for example. Most terrifyingly of all, there are reports they are capable of creating bioforms that mimic other species for the purposes of infiltration, even replicating individuals. In addition, most of the bioforms in the fleet are "nulls"- they do not have souls per se, and thus are immune to a lot of sorcery and psychic attacks.

 

On the other hand, they did not escape this change unscathed. The presence of individuality will of course allow for conflict within the fleet, though due to the shared ancestry, survival instincts and simple common sense, this is almost exclusively limited to differing opinions between individual leader-beasts on the best course of action for destroying the foe. In addition, due to possessing free will of sorts and thus being capable of making decisions, there is the potential for disobedience within less intelligent subspecies; the presence of synapse creatures ameliorates this due to the psychic dominance controlling the lesser beings, but outside of synaptic control there is a risk that broods may desert or otherwise perform undesirable actions (though due to being neurally "programmed" to perform battlefield roles it is highly unlikely they will actually "betray" the fleet). It is also worth noting that the psychic abilities of the fleet have been severely diminished and their Shadow in the Warp is borderline nonexistent. Finally, whilst still linked together by a form of "pseudo-hive mind", permanent death is a possibility for the individuals of this fleet- whilst they can still "reincarnate" with relative ease in the event their physical body is destroyed, if they are slain whilst somehow psychically isolated from the rest of the fleet, or if their hive ship is destroyed, then they will be unable to resurrect.

 

The behaviour of the fleet is radically different to other Tyranids. Rather than a nomadic existence spent moving from planet to planet, devouring them as they do so, their behaviour is territorial; instead of consuming all biological matter on a planet they will instead "infest" the world, corrupting all biological organisms on the planet with their genetic code and making the world into a spawning ground from which more bio-ships and creatures can be developed and birthed. They will then defend these infested worlds from any and all attack. From these worlds they will expand outwards, claiming more worlds and building an "empire" of infested planets. The final goal of the fleet is unknown, if it has any beyond animalistic survivalism.

[Ficinus]

I had always wanted to do a Spaceballs themed guard army. Dudes with the white outfits with the big ball head. Maybe a little Colonel Sanders with an Inquisitor or Commissar Dark Helmet. I'll probably never do it.

[Gederas]

Okay Vykes, I'll bite. What's the Escher supposed to be?

 

Yeah well I guess anime homages are the least liked ones. Even among T'au players. Most people won't give you for it but you'll probably get many raised eyebrowes if it's clearly anime inspired.

You say that, and yet most of the people I know who play T'au play them because of anime (Gundam specifically)

[Vykes]

Trust me, Gederas my dude, those who are in the know are already afflicted and those who aren't are blessed by the Warmaster himself. 

 

Heh, yeah, you aren't wrong about the Tau either.  We know, we judge.

 

 And a fair number of us  have owned at least a one offs of some of the cooler battle armour...

 

Heh, turst me Squigsquasher, the image of cackling Fabius the Fungal Father ain't out of my head either.  I know someone who's doing some candy coat nid groups based on pokemon colours but in keeping with nids being nids.  I'll confess to being an ignorant waif when it comes to that particular franchise, though so I couldn't tell ya much. 

[DanPesci]

My Tempestor Prime is modelled after Sharpe, since my Tempestus are painted (or, they will be, I'm a busy man!) to look like the 95th rifles. He carries an Ad-mech rifle and powersword. I've also replaced the Volley gun on one of my command squad with the Kharadon Overlords Volley gun to represent Harper.

 

 

 

this is quality stuff right here :D

[Trevak Dal]

How Knights played in 7th (I haven't owned one before but I played with a friend's) was as close to playing an Armored Core (with crisis suits and Riptides being like the MTs from those games which were lesser than AC and were fodder for Karasawa laser cannons and such)

 

If Farsight Enclaves got a boost in close combat and could take fusion blades as standard equipment and got long range high strength plasma rifles...

 

Knowing not much about Tyranids:

 

Couldn't you do "count as Zerg" with a Warlord (Kerrigan) being a Genestealer Cult Patriarch and then have the rest be Tyranids? You'd need a suitable Kerrigan model though.

 

Or maybe have a daemon princes(ess) model (size wise) modeled up REAL GOOD like Kerrigan and have her be the Swarmlord? (She's got those back spines and leads the hive mind and all right?)

[Panzer]

If Farsight Enclaves got a boost in close combat and could take fusion blades as standard equipment .

 

 

Oh don't you start with that ... I'd build a full FSE army on the spot just because of rule of cool. I don't think they should but it would be awesome if they would. :P

[Slan Drakkos]

Honestly, 40k is a game that was invented by nerds for nerds. Their tagline is essentially 'it's your army, make it whatever you want it to be'. Personally, I'm just fine with someone making a reference to something non 40k with their characters/army (I'm currently considering making some totally not Autobots for an upcoming Imperial Knights army).

 

GW used to make a lot of friendly references to other characters and universes and they still do even today. Just take a look at Konrad Curze, Sly Marbo, and the new snazzwagon buggy.

 

Also, it's really not cringeworthy unless you're referencing something so obscure that you're the only one that gets it.

[N1SB]

Hi Brother Squigsquasher, thanks for sharing with us.

I took most of the day to think about this. Of the 2 references you made, I'm more familiar with this one.

Aa'Skhaa the Gorebride: Khornate warlord, Aa'Skhaa is something of an enigma. She is extremely youthful in appearance yet has been terrorizing the galaxy for over three centuries, and whilst she is fairly diminutive, she is strong and fast enough to outmatch even seasoned champions of Chaos. With flowing orange hair and bright blue eyes, she is strangely attractive with the only visible signs of Chaotic corruption being a pair of small red horns. However, this is likely because she literally never removes her bulky brazen armour, which likely conceals further signs of mutation. Nobody knows if she is an experiment in implanting corrupted Astartes gene-seed in a female host or if she is simply favoured and blessed by Khorne, though nobody is foolish enough to ask. Despite being extremely skilled in combat and influential enough to command a warband known as the Company of Meat, she is despised by many (including her fellow Khorne worshippers) for her obnoxious attitude. She is arrogant in the extreme and convinced she is the greatest servant of Khorne to walk the galaxy, with hubris more befitting a follower of Slaanesh. She is particularly disliked by the Legion of Vice's overlord, Patroklos the Half-Breed, who absolutely detests her and longs for her to meet an unfortunate accident and end up on the operating table of his Apothecary, Ophidus the Skinmaster.

Of course, Aa'Skhaa is a fairly transparent homage to the red-headed braggart Asuka Langley Soryu from Neon Genesis Evangelion (except without the karmic excuse). Whether she meets a similar fate to her inspiration depends on whether I can make an MP Eva homage model.

http://u.cubeupload.com/Squigsquasher/AsukaSoryu.jpg

Seriously. Just look at her. That right there is the face of someone that could make Khorne himself at the very least wince.

lol, ya, someone here made reverse proxies of Tau battlesuits as Gundam (as in, again, all GW components, looks like a really exotic Gundam kit as a result). Both the player and that army are very popular. I think you should consider taking her in a Renegade Knight resembling her Eva unit, one invokes the other.

The body proportions and posture are similar to the Knight models, particularly the Armigers, because they look slightly slimmer. Just to show you I myself am committed to that belief, I made 2 Armiger Helverins resemble a Plaguebearer due to their slouch and long limbs.

It's slightly different with the Eva units, as where I put the Plaguebearer underbite, you'd probably have that thin, Egyptian-like chin. As I recall her Eva had that that strange boxcutter weapon, maybe that'd be a conversion for an Armiger Warglaive. Finally, that "umbilical" cord they have (on their backs).

Just sharing some experience.

[alfred_the_great]

I have a primaris librarian with a phosphorescent lightsabre force sword counts as

Inquisitor Eisenhorn, is that you?

[Evil Eye]

So in a fit of madness I booted up Autodesk Sketchbook and drew the "Totally not Sucy" Adeptus Biologis acolyte.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Sucia of House Mamba:

http://u.cubeupload.com/Squigsquasher/SuciaofHouseMamba.pngAimed for a pastiche of Jes Goodwin's pencil sketches (not that I'm anywhere near as talented as Jes Goodwin of course but I do love his "rough but detailed pencil" style, so it seemed fitting to at least attempt to emulate them). Trying to make it recognizably a Sucy homage (she has a unique design even amongst the already diversely-designed cast) whilst still looking quasi-realistic in that classic 40K way was tough- realism is hard! Quite pleased with it though, now I just need to think how I'm going to build her as a model...

[Slave to Darkness]

My Slaaneshi Cultist 'Munda gang are all based on Hellraiser Cenobites, and a lot of my Space Wolf minis are nods to characters from Vikings.

 

I think its fun when you look at someones army and see a cheeky lil reference to something cool staring back at you.

[Elzender]

My Slaaneshi Cultist 'Munda gang are all based on Hellraiser Cenobites, and a lot of my Space Wolf minis are nods to characters from Vikings.

 

I think its fun when you look at someones army and see a cheeky lil reference to something cool staring back at you.

Talking about that, Grieux has a SW legion topic here in the forum where he has also replicated some of the Vikings cast as the officers of his company, and they look awesome.

[Xenith]

At my local club there's a guy who plays Team Canada space marines using White Scars rules. Think White Scars paint scheme, but a red maple leaf in place of any chapter iconography with power hockey sticks (axes) and all the characters have famous Canadian hockey player names. It's so cohesive and uniform that you might mistake it for something genuine in-universe.

 

It's glorious!

I have to see this. Are they online anywhere?

[Gederas]

My Slaaneshi Cultist 'Munda gang are all based on Hellraiser Cenobites, and a lot of my Space Wolf minis are nods to characters from Vikings.

 

I think its fun when you look at someones army and see a cheeky lil reference to something cool staring back at you.

Talking about that, Grieux has a SW legion topic here in the forum where he has also replicated some of the Vikings cast as the officers of his company, and they look awesome.

His A Skjald's Tale of the Days of Darkness threads? I thought he was just referencing general vikings and stuff. :lol:

[Aqui]

My DIY 21st "Cursed" Founding Raven Guard successor Chapter, and their eventual twisted form as a war band, is named after an NFL football team. Their two main characters named after two very well known footballers :lol: My DIY Sisters Order's Canoness has parts of names from two characters from the sci-fi series, Firefly.

[Beams]

My grey knights are all named after Knights of the Round table, or Saints. The apocethary also has a drill instead of a hammer, because it reminded me of big daddy from Bioshock, and I've only got positive feedback back on that haha

[plastic_slug]

I remember when this 40K army was catching attention a few years back - 

http://gmmstudios.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-deadpool-army-themed-imperial-guard.html