Tuesday 9 December 2014

Works In Progress and Action Shots

Through extremely poor planning, I found I had no models undercoated and ready for painting last night. Instead I decided to dedicated a few hours to converting up some figures that I've been planning, ready for the next painting opportunity.

I envisaged this first pair as Imperial Agents or Arbites Detectives. They will be accompanied by a squad of Arbites in due course. They're very simple conversions from Rogue Trader era Commissars - the heads came from a pair of old Citadel Paranoia troubleshooters.


Imperial Agents
Next up are a pair of Chaos Cultists who will eventually belong to a Slaaneshi cult. The two-headed mutant is a classic beastman. His club and mutated snake hand were replaced with a pair of pistols from the Dark Vengeance cultists. His buddy is based on a Rogue Trader Kev Adams Ork (courtesy of Evo over at Port Imperiale). The original head was removed and replaced with a head from yet another Kev Adams sculpt - an Egyptian Eunuch Guard by Dark Fable Miniatures. I like the 'not-quite-rightness' of the figure - he's clearly felt the mutating touch of chaos and his body is subtly distorted with his over-large hands and feet.

WIP adherents to the Cult of the Silken Veil
Finally, I added a few finishing touches to my horse-skull oddity - a couple of lengths of trailing cables ensure that its firmly in the 40k universe, and not just a strange fantasy interloper!

Wire wrapped cables from Zinge Industries. It was my first time with them and I strongly recommend them - much easier to work with then guitar strings.

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Seeing as there's no new painted figures to show you, I thought I'd share some photos I took a week or so ago when I had an hour spare to visit Warhammer World. I spent my time mocking up some scenes on a couple of the more interesting tables (hoping that none of the staff would come over and start quizzing me on the 2 or 3 non-GW models I was taking pictures of!). Anyway, here are the results:

In the lower levels of Palatine Spire, the cocky youths of the Sutter Dukes Brat pack attempt to negotiate with hard-trading Guilder, Yakob Pento for new supplies of Spook.

The Brats start getting nervous as negotiations reach a tricky stage; Pento's hired guns losen their weapons. The Brats retreat with a tip off that Ash Wastes Nomads might have a fresh consignment.

Elswhere, in the mining sumps, a gang of Bounty Hunters track down Ash Waste Nomads seeking a new smuggling route into the hives.

The Nomads flee, laying down a hail of bullets to cover their retreat!

As the Bounty Hunters trudge back to the hab-levels, they encounter the Guilders.
Some of Pento's hired scum have a price on their heads, but the Guilder talks the Bounty Hunters down with the promise of lucrative future contracts.


Outside the shell of Palatine, the Sutter Dukes lie in wait to ambush the Ash Wastes Nomads as they emerge from the hive.
The Nomads are caught unawares
There is no escape
The Magpie Dandy laughs "Harken, fine baggy-pantalooned wanderers! Let us converse on the subject of Spook, and how you will make a fine and delightful gift...in return for your lives!"






9 comments:

  1. Great conversion work!

    The Commissar's head swap on the right mini looks three goods. And I actually just finished painting up that ork guy you converted too! It's something I haven't come across often, converting orks/orcs to use as humans, but I think it's an area that shows some merit. Might have to give it a try.

    That "horse head zealot" is gunna look ace when his all painted up!

    Cheers.

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    1. I think orks > humans is probably a bit of a selective process - it needs to be one of the more erect orks with longer legs. Definitely worth attempting for an interesting body shape :)

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  2. Splendid ! Those conversions at the beginning are really top-notch ! You really have that thing to see the potential of models we thought we knew.

    The horse skull oddity is just perefct the way it is, a nice blanchitsu PJ on it and it will be a classic or maybe you want to go another route painting wise?

    It's really great to see your warbands on proper scenery, we had already seen the dukes in Ferrograd but here they reach another step. Thanks for the eye candy, a pleasure to see really.

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    1. Thanks JB. The agents were just one of those things that worked. I actually tried the heads the other way round, but the glaring one looked better on the chainsword body.

      Still uncertain on the horse skull painting. I need to have a long think about it :)

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  3. Good job as always Jon, keep um coming :)

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  4. Nice work on the photo shoot, very evocative.

    For horse-skull, I see a dirty orange color (with checks of course), got to go Blanche with that sort of figure.

    Also, it seems like he needs some sort of bag or pouch in the back to balance out the figure a bit... the horse skull is naturally quite large and it focuses the model's balance quite far to the front.

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    1. Orange and checks sounds good to me. Personally I quite like the unbalanced look (I imagine those cables stretch beyond the base perhaps)...to my mind it keeps the odd nature of the figure ;)

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  5. Those are looking sweet! Such a creative, inspiring work! The scenery pics are absolutely awesome!

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