Dreadful moments always last too long - A Night Lords blog

[Valkia the Bloody]

Oh wow, this is stunning.

This really is a work of art.

[Noctus Cornix]

He looks so much better and more menacing with the open palm (claw?). It really adds an extra layer of life to the model. 

[Master Umbra]

Hi there!

Long time without posting here! I have been more active in Instagram lately.

In any case, I also missed your feedback, so here is kind of a big update. Turns out that I received a Chaos Raptors box for the Three Wise Men Day. So my Kitbash Ideation Engine started grinding its gears in order to make a rendition close to the previous, avian-like, clawed-footed, better-designedIMHO Chaos Raptors. You can see an earlier attempt a few pages back, but I honestly think that I am now closer to nail the feel of the originals while keeping them up in-line with the current range's aesthetics. Without further addo, onto the pics:

So here is a small fraction of the bits I have been using. Since I got the squad, I also purchased some AD Mech Pteraxii Skystalker legs (torsos and backpacks were also included in the bits order) and started chopping away. The problem was that the claws are way smaller than the original Raptor ones, so I needed to combine them with the current Raptor's feet in order to add some bulk to them. Since I also find most heads of the kit quite ugly, I ordered some Chaos Havocs heads that include a wider mouth grille and some hair-cablings (reminiscent of how Lucoryphus is described in the NL trilogy). I will have to add some GS to the cablings, but that is a fight yet to come.

Here are some pictures of the early stages of the conversion:

I had to chop the finger in half and glue it in a straight line, but you can already see part of the process here.

This step is still pending, but I need to fill that area with some GS.

So, here it is what he looks like right now:

As you can see, I also modified the jump pack. It was surprisingly easy to do. I wanted to add that bulkyness that the originals had, so I changed the angle of the turbines and also stuck in the shoulder pads of the Mummy from the Bloodbowl Champions of Death Team. They somehow help linking the model with the NL, IMO. I also added a neural spine from the Venomcrawler (or was it an Obliterator? No longer sure) and some cablings to the sides. I still need to bend all those elements together, but you can already see the overall shape.

And of course, I could not help but working on yet another helmet...

In other news, I am still running paint scheme test. Hopefully I can share something sooner than later.

Ave Dominus Nox!

Edited February 14, 2021 by Master Umbra

[space wolf]

That looks great! Fantastic work.

[Pearson73]

Really excellent work, that chap's face is terrifying and the helmet is nicely done too.

[Mandragola]

These are inspired conversions. They capture the feel of Night Lords far better than the official minis.

[Master Umbra]

Edited March 3, 2021 by Master Umbra

[LameBeard]

I’m certainly not a more experienced painter, but I think the colours look perfect. I wouldn’t switch to red lightning, what you’ve got is much closer to the art, much easier to “sell” as lightning. Ideally you could get that lightning to be a bit ‘spikier’ - ie have some sharp angled changes in direction, but I assume the wire will just break under that kind of manipulation?

[Master Umbra]

¡Hola!

I’m certainly not a more experienced painter, but I think the colours look perfect. I wouldn’t switch to red lightning, what you’ve got is much closer to the art, much easier to “sell” as lightning. Ideally you could get that lightning to be a bit ‘spikier’ - ie have some sharp angled changes in direction, but I assume the wire will just break under that kind of manipulation?

Thank you for your kind words, @LameBeard! I followed your advice and tried to make the lightning bolts spikier. Although I removed the backpack from that one and attached it to the guy below.

Beneharus Asargi felt fortunate. That night, as ashes fell with a melancholy that would suit the final notes of a lullaby, he was about to take the lives of the definitely less-fortunate lackeys of his sire’s target. That, despite the fact that Beneharus himself had committed very similar —if not worse!— sins during his mortal years, back in Nostramo.

Surely, that had happened too many years ago and now the situation was different. What mattered was that, for decades now, they had spread insidious messages within the mortal burrows of this subsector. To watch. To judge.

The trial was simple: if societies could hold the reins of order tightly and proved capable of suppressing the tempting whispers of discord and baseness, they would avoid punishment. Until now, not a single one of the more than 200 planets that had been put on trial had succeeded.

Generations were raised and herded in the hate towards others, until they made a moral tar pit out of their civilizations and blood was shed. He sometimes wondered if this was just a twisted scheme designed by his lord to justify their own actions, for Beneharus’ belief was that such a premise would be akin to asking a corpse to draw breath.

He often questioned the amount of work and patience, if not outright restraint, that their ways demanded. Humanity was too hell-bent on predating on itself. So they would watch, as gargoyles atop a temple, and deliver bludgeoning punishment when the human cattle strayed away. They would follow their father’s steps.

In midnight clad.

My first ever mini 100% finished! Yes, there are some (many?) imperfections, but I am happy with it. Specially considering that this is my 3rd mini painted in more than 15 years (and I was collecting WHF Orcs ^^). This is also the first time that I paint marble (see Legion symbol), and the second that I attempt OSL. Only 20 more to go!

Ave Dominus Nox!

[Master Umbra]

Hey!

AYTHAM SARGON

*THUD*

He had thought that he could make it. He really had. Whether it was a matter of mere ignorance about the predatory ingenuity of our hunting systems, or rather, that his survival instinct had taken full control, I could not say. I saw it all, in delightful clarity: his thermal figure fleeing in panic; a red blur with arms reaching the air pointlessly in front of him, as if trying to drag reality behind. There, his rasped breath, distorted by my aural systems—which somehow gave the pitiful sound a low-pitched rawness. And finally, the fatal trajectory of a bright flash, turned into half a shard of bluish blackness once it had dug itself deep in the red-white space between his T3 and T4 vertebrae.

He was still gurgling blood as I walked the fifty meters between us to pull the knife from his back.

Ave Dominus Nox

Edited April 12, 2021 by Master Umbra