6Plus' WIP Log ++ Night Lords, Deathwatch, INQ28 ++

[6PlusPainting]

Hello all,

I've decided to start a thread dedicated to my WIP projects in the hopes it will actively encourage me to be more proactive and to get more minis out of my pile of half-finished shame and onto the table. I'm more of a convertor/painter than I am gamer, mainly due to the lack fo friends who actually play the games, but my current projects revolve around building viable Kill Teams, namely Night Lords and Deathwatch, as well as dabbling in the creation of some INQ28 war bands.

I thought I'd start off with one of my conversions I am most proud of: Inquisitor Gregor Eisenhorn, made from a second hand Warhammer Fantasy Witch Hunter from eBay and a myriad of other bits and pieces.

These are the most recent images I have of Eisenhorn and capture the tone I was going for with the mini. I created him after reading Dan Abnett's Eisenhorn and Ravenor trilogies and was inspired a lot by the work featured in the first volume of 28 Mag. Below are my initial iterations of the inquisitor, with his original green stuff shoulder pads that have more recently been replaced with a pair of cut to size Cadian shoulder pads. His rune staff was originally a thin piece of metal rod topped with a Tempestus Scions servo-skull, but was eventually swapped out for a re-sized Grey Knights staff.

Edited May 5, 2020 by 6PlusPainting

[6PlusPainting]

I am currently working on completing a Night Lords Kill Team, having just finished Aaron Dembski-Bowden's brilliant Night Lord's trilogy. I have seen plenty of minis online converted to represent the characters from First Claw, but I've decided to create my own characters for this Kill Team, albeit heavily inspired by the characters from the books.

The first is Balakh, 'The Confessor,' leader of my Kill Team. Rules-wise he is armed with a plasma pistol and power maul, the latter represented by a combat knife and a pair of claws welded to his right gauntlet.

I'm using this Kill Team to refine my skills in creating true-scale marines. I think the new Chaos Marine sculpts look great on their own, but compared to Primaris Marines they still seem slightly disproportioned, so my Night Lords will be built using parts from the Cataphractii kit to bulk up their legs and torso. I'm also a big fan of Heresy armour, namely MKIII, so where possible I'll be using that too, specifically on the power pack and gauntlets.

This below image shows what I am aiming for when building true-scale heretic astartes; I want to capture their sheer inhuman size and the bulk of their armour.

These are some photos of Balakh. I have since swapped out his head for a ForgeWorld Night Lords upgrade helm, whilst his left arm holding the knife I've also replaced as I felt it didn't quite fit the sense of motion I was going for with this mini. The straightness of the arm also clashed with the parchment hanging from his pauldron as they followed one another in the same direction.

I'll have new photos of the updated mini uploaded soon, along with some WIP shots of his fellow squad mates.

Also! If anyone is aware of a better way of uploading my photos - currently they come out as rather small on thread itself - and could let me know, that would be a great help. I've seen other threads where the featured images are much larger and don't require you to click on them in order to see the image fully. I'm currently uploading via B&C's own gallery system.

Edited May 5, 2020 by 6PlusPainting

[Isengrin]

Nice work man, keep em coming! Regarding pics, I usually upload mine on my B&C gallery and then paste them in a post with the image function in the toolbar.

[6PlusPainting]

Nice work man, keep em coming! Regarding pics, I usually upload mine on my B&C gallery and then paste them in a post with the image function in the toolbar.

 

Thanks a lot! I must say your own Night Lords have been a real big inspiration for my own, probably some of the best examples of truescaling I've seen.

 

Also, I've given that a go and it seems to have worked, only when I go to post it says the picture extension is not allowed on this site. 

 

I'll keep trying anyway, thanks for the advice

 

Edit: Nevermind it seems to be working now!

Edited May 5, 2020 by 6PlusPainting

[BadgersinHills]

Good work! He looks very nice, well painted. Sinister fellow. 

[Isengrin]

Ah great, that's much better.  I hope to see the Balakh dude with his new helmet, those FW upgrades rock!

 

P.S.: About the art pic, very good choice for inspiration. That's how chaos marines are supposed to look.

[6PlusPainting]

Good work! He looks very nice, well painted. Sinister fellow.

Thanks very much. I've made some alterations to him and will try and get him photographed properly some time this week; I think he looks much better now.

Ah great, that's much better. I hope to see the Balakh dude with his new helmet, those FW upgrades rock!

P.S.: About the art pic, very good choice for inspiration. That's how chaos marines are supposed to look.

Yeah they're great. I had another helmet on the way from eBay but it was taken from the envelope en route. I don't think the thief was expecting a bat winged helmet when he got at it!

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Thanks to a timely haul of bits from BitzBox I've been able to pretty much finish the building of my next Terror Marine; Carnas. Obviously inspired by Uzas from the Night Lords trilogy in as much as he's the chainaxe wielding mad man of the squad, albeit perhaps a little more restrained and less interested in blood for the blood god as his literary counterpart. At the time of the photograph I was waiting on some fists and open hands to come in the post which have arrived this morning, so he once that is attached he'll be ready for priming and painting.

I was a little worried his pose would be too similar to Balakh's but I've ensured he is leaning forwards giving the impression he is about to lunge at an enemy.

I have also been lucky enough to grab a full set of metal old school Raptors for pretty cheap on eBay so began planning out how I would get to creating truescale versions of those. My current plan is to continue using whatever Cataphractii or Tartaros terminator legs I can get my hands on and alter them into much more dynamic poses. I'll add the iconic backpacks and then replace their feet with the Raptor's claws (if I can bring myself to cut up such lovely miniatures). Below is a quick mock up of a pair of Cataphractii legs in a dynamic pose; I'm usually quite precious about my heresy terminator legs as they're difficult to get hold of these days, but I had a duplicate pair so didn't feel too bad about potentially hacking this one to pieces.

My biggest worry though is he'll look too similar to the Terror Marines, having used the same Cataphractii parts to build him. Hopefully clawed feet and some other subtle additions can set him apart well enough. If anyone has any suggestions please let me know!

As always any comments or criticism are more than welcome!

Edited May 10, 2020 by 6PlusPainting

[hushrong]

Awesome minis! Eisenhorn and the night lord are sweet!

[Isengrin]

Yeah I think the pose is different enough from Balakh's, subtle changes can have a big impact! I have made a few truescale raptors so far, two with legs from Grey Knights paladins and another one from the chaos terminator lord, which I'm pretty happy with. But it can be difficult to get the style of raptors right, the sleek and avian predator feel, so that they don't look like berzerkers with jump packs or something...I'm more and more getting away from the bulky terminator look for them and use lengthened limbs to capture their vibe and some other stuff. That's just my preference though and I'm sure adding the typical raptor claws and a few more bits can do the trick. 

[6PlusPainting]

Awesome minis! Eisenhorn and the night lord are sweet!

Thanks very much!

Yeah I think the pose is different enough from Balakh's, subtle changes can have a big impact! I have made a few truescale raptors so far, two with legs from Grey Knights paladins and another one from the chaos terminator lord, which I'm pretty happy with. But it can be difficult to get the style of raptors right, the sleek and avian predator feel, so that they don't look like berzerkers with jump packs or something...I'm more and more getting away from the bulky terminator look for them and use lengthened limbs to capture their vibe and some other stuff. That's just my preference though and I'm sure adding the typical raptor claws and a few more bits can do the trick.

I agree with the avian predator aesthetic; I'd wanted to make sleek Raptors but not sure my sculpting skills are up to the task so for the time being I'll see what I can do with these Cataphractii legs as a trial run.

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I managed to get some updated pics of Balakh. Firstly I swapped his head for a Forgeworld Night Lords upgrade helmet as I think his original one looked a little too 'alien,' and I felt the leader of the kill team should probably look the most menacing. I also changed his left arm from the pauldron down; originally I had used the pointing bionic arm from the Space Marine Devastators kit, with the hand being replaced by one holding a knife. The composition of the mini, I felt, was thrown off by how straight his arm was and his posing didn't seem natural, so I used the knife from one of the newer Chaos Marine kits and attached this to a MKIII forearm. I'm much happier with how he looks now, the slight bend at the elbow and the angle of the knife looks a lot more natural. I also added a few Nostraman runes to his armour to add more character.

Next up are two builds I have been working on. First is a renegade guardsman, possibly a well-trained slave of the Night Lords. He is built from Catachan, Cadian, Genestealer Cult, Skitarii, Space Marine, Kroot and Scions bits, with the axe and head taken from Dark Vengeance Cultists. He was originally meant to be the leader of a separate renegades Kill Team, but I think he fits in aesthetically with the Night Lords so I'm figuring out a lore friendly way to have some cultists mixed into their roster.

Second is another addition to the Night Lords Kill Team, a very rough mockup held together with blu-tac. Still a lot of work to be done before he is ready for painting but I'm content with his posing at the moment. I'll begin working on him once I have painted up Carnas from my previous post.

As always comments and criticism are more than welcome

Edited May 10, 2020 by 6PlusPainting

[hushrong]

Balakh looks fantastic! The pose and colors really show off a sweetly built mini. I also love the renegade guardsman!! The use of the masked face makes me think of Bloodpact and I am smitten!

[BadgersinHills]

Guardsman looks really good! I like how he seems adequately geared for any missions. 

[6PlusPainting]

Balakh looks fantastic! The pose and colors really show off a sweetly built mini. I also love the renegade guardsman!! The use of the masked face makes me think of Bloodpact and I am smitten!

 

 

Thanks very much! I've been reading the Sabbat Worlds Crusade history that was released at Christmas and the artwork for the renegade guard forces are really inspiring, so he's definitely got got a hint of Blood Pact in there somewhere! Just a struggle to replicate the look on other guardsmen

 

 

Guardsman looks really good! I like how he seems adequately geared for any missions. 

 

 

Thanks! I wanted him to have a specialist look, rather than being a fanatical robed cultist.

[Brother Dallo]

Really liking the Guardsman conversion. Are those Scion shoulders on GSC Neophyte arms? Looks really well.

 

Dallo

[Doghouse]

Those Night Lords look amazing, really nice work.

[6PlusPainting]

Really liking the Guardsman conversion. Are those Scion shoulders on GSC Neophyte arms? Looks really well.

 

Dallo

 

They are indeed! Took some fiddling but on the whole it was a relatively painless process. Only real issue was attaching the right hand with the axe, some minor work required to remove the cuff of the Neophyte glove but nothing a sharp blade and some miliput couldn't solve. 

 

 

Those Night Lords look amazing, really nice work.

 

Thanks very much!

[6PlusPainting]

I got a bit carried away over the weekend after receiving an assortment of Mechanicus bits from eBay and ended up building a Tech Marine/ make-shift Apothecary of sorts. Being part of a Night Lords war band I imagine a lack of resources means he's called upon to perform some rudimentary surgery on his battle brothers from time to time; amputations more often than not.

For the time being, while I wait on the arrival of some bits in the post, he is without legs. I'm planning to attach him to some Tartaros legs as they suit the Primaris torso better than the Cataphractii ones I already have. They will also serve to separate him from the battle brothers in his Claw and highlighting his specialist role.

As a character I imagine him being cold and merciless, partial to experimenting on prisoners or the war band's mortal slaves for both research purposes and simple sadistic pleasure. I'm also toying with the idea of converting up some personal assistants, be it servitor thralls or something a bit heavier, maybe something based on the Ambul kit. For now, however, I'll focus on getting his legs attached and painting him up.

I'm not completely convinced by the equipment on his chest, so if anyone has any alternative suggestions I'd love to hear them!

[hushrong]

That is lovely!! I love it as it is. I wonder if you can snake some wires from the device on his chest onto some equipment you can attach to his waist in the future.

[6PlusPainting]

That is lovely!! I love it as it is. I wonder if you can snake some wires from the device on his chest onto some equipment you can attach to his waist in the future.

 

Great idea! Once his legs arrive I can have a look in my bits box to see what can fit on his belt. 

[6PlusPainting]

Some Tartaros legs arrived in the post yesterday afternoon so I was able to finish Puram, my tech marine. Some cutting and filing on the ball socket of the Tartaros hips allowed me to slot the Primaris torso in easily enough, with any gaps being covered by equipment placed on his belt.

His arms and head are held on with blu-tac at the moment to make the painting process easier, but I may go back and replace the item on his belt that's connected to his chest piece with something that looks somewhat more functional.

As always comments and criticism welcome!

[BadgersinHills]

Nice job. Chest device looks better connected to another part of the armour, seems more cohesive. 

[hushrong]

That's nice! Really nice! What do you have connected to the chest piece at the moment? Interested to see what you will swap out.

 

Other than that I am excited to see some paint on this beast! 

[6PlusPainting]

Nice job. Chest device looks better connected to another part of the armour, seems more cohesive. 

 

Thanks! Not exactly sure what it's supposed to be but I think it looks tech-mariney enough to pass.

 

That's nice! Really nice! What do you have connected to the chest piece at the moment? Interested to see what you will swap out.

 

Other than that I am excited to see some paint on this beast! 

 

Thanks! At the moment its just a piece cut from a Mechanicus weapon I got in a big bag of bits off eBay full of random pieces, I think it was taken from a Kataphron Breachers weapon.

 

I think I need to find something a little bit bigger and boxier. I've got countless bags of bits here I'll just root through them until I come across something that will do the job. 

[Isengrin]

I really like that you deviate a bit from established templates for archetypes like the tech marine. Nice job!

[6PlusPainting]

I really like that you deviate a bit from established templates for archetypes like the tech marine. Nice job!

 

Mainly due to a lack of bits available! I do prefer the stripped back look however and the chance to bring some ambiguity to his role. Thinking of replacing his pistol with someone actually legal for Kill Team though, perhaps a flamer or melta.