Warriors of Chaos conversions and scratch built bits.

I am going for as many conversions as I can imagine in my Chaos army. Although this will prolong the length of the project I think the reward will be worth it.
So this is a Tzeentch bsb, the sword is intended to represent a daemon sword that's in control as much as the champion wielding it is. His head is getting turned in to a hawk/eagle mutation.

The next is a pretty straight forward addition to the excellent plastic Tzeentch sorcerer, I wanted to create some movement on the model as he will be mounted on a the scratch built disc (the middle object in the pic below). The flames seemed like the most obvious solution after trying to model a piece of cloth and failing miserably :(
He is in the aerly stages so it will need much more work before I'm happy with him.

The three pieces above are the Tzeentch warrior units standard, the disc and the Tzeentch bsb.

The finished unit looks like this, shields are off for painting ease, the Chaos stars are so bloody boring! which is why i filled them off. The shields will instead have homemade decals added to them.

Also the imminent release of Forge Worlds Tamurkhan The Throne Of Chaos has got me thinking about possible conversions on the Dwarfs I have lying around, more on that in the future.

Tervigon

This is my attempt at a Tervigon, it took what seems like ages. I have no idea about how many hours I spent on it? The carnifex kit was widened and lengthened with extra plates added, and all the 'eggs' sculpted one at a time. It was a real labour of love and I learnt a lot about using greenstuff whilst I was doing it. I wish I had more wip pictures but alas I never thought about it when I was working on her.
Oh and due to the colour scheme my wife labelled them smurfs :)

Doom Of Malan'tai.

I know I know, over powered and then somewhat 'nerfed' as they say on the forums. But I had to make one because it offered the chance to make something cool. So here he is, again this is an older project but I thought it was worth adding it.

Tzeentch unit filler

Got this finished last night. The aim will be to paint the fire so the light can be seen on the warriors ranked up around it. I could be making a big mistake, but time will solve that mystery I guess ;)
I also started work on a sculpted banner for the same unit and a scratch built disc for my Tzeentch sorcerer lord. Pics of them should be up at the weekend.

Blood Angel characters

Just a few models from when I started my army. I have every intention of returning to them at some point, but I'm thinking about changing the look of them and going for a very heavily weathered look. I like the idea that they are on campaign without much logistical back up, maybe even stranded on a death or traitor forge world.

Dragon Ogre conversion (finished)

Got him done late last night, I started work on the other three so hopefully they will be done in a week or so.

Magnetised Space Marines

We all know GW charges a premium for it's models, so I decided to get as much value for money on all their kits as I could. As Blood Angels get a nice discount on Rhinos etc if they take them rather than jump packs I magnetised them so i can get the best of both worlds allowing me options in list building.

Vanguard vets got the same treatment, but this time the packs didn't need doing but the arm options did. I think I covered most of the weapon combinations that you would need, although I found getting enough lighting claws pretty hard. I did have plans on doing a full 10 man squad for big games (maybe one day)

Land Speeder wip

Just what it says on the tin. These are all magnetised for all the weapon options, they have been sitting in my to do box for about 6 months and until 6th Ed is released I suspect that's where they will stay. Someone did comment that it looks like the pilot in the bottom speeder looks like he is having a good time :D

Basing your models.

Over the last few months I have been fortunate enough to receive several compliments on the basing of my miniatures. So I wanted to discuss the reason behind why I take the extra step and go into the stages involved.

For me the base is the background that reinforces the story of the army, whilst I'm not one for 'fluff' in general, I do like to give my miniatures a context. For example when I started my British Para Troopers for Flames Of War I had a solid idea I wanted them to have a late summer, early autumn feel.
The Warriors Of Chaos I have started work on will have a winter theme running through it, so lots of frozen water and snow.
Most of us spend ages painting our models to only stop short at the end, which seems a shame. Imo a good base will enhance the model just as much as a good paint job.

I get all the materials I need for the basing at the start of the project so I can maintain consistency in the finished force.

99% of my models get the traditional pva and sand treatment, but recently I have started to use Vallejo coarse pumice to great effect (I will post pictures in due course) I highly recommend giving it a go. Onslaught are selling it for those that are interested.

The extra stages only really involve a few seconds on each base using grass tufts and ground cover.
For my ground cover on 15mm models I use a mixture of flock, static grass and fine turf from Woodland Scenics mixed together in a container. I have long forgotten the colours but they all match in pretty easily. I use watered down wood glue to stick it down.
Once the ground cover is dry I follow it up by super gluing on the Silflor/MiniNatur tufts that i get here. The end result can be seen on my Para's.

The Flames of War players out there may be interested in these bases from Kerr & King they offer most of the popular environment's. I love the extra details such as the cows. They needed very little prep work on them and painted up very easily.

On my 28/31mm models I avoid the ground cover but I have started adding Woodland Scenics Underbrush in small clumps in addition to the tufts.

Dragon Ogre conversion

With the left overs from the Mournfang box sat around I was looking at the Chaos Knight box next to it and it struck me that maybe I could make some Dragon Ogres from the two kits, an unholy alliance if you will.
Now a centaur Ogre wasn't what I was after but a brief look on the good ol net came up with this excellent tutorial on making claws on warseer.
I really wanted to avoid the cold one body as it never seemed armoured or bulky enough. So here he is, once I start work on the other three i will post a stage by stage going in to detail about what I did.

Counts as chariots for a Warriors of Chaos army finished mounts

The mounts are 99% finished I'm sure some areas need cleaning up a bit and gaps in the kit need filling. I'm still struggling with ideas for the riders, they are suggesting Slaanesh due to the their smaller frames, so I'm thinking that they are Dark Elves chained to the beasts until they die in the service of chaos. Admittedly I'm not really one for 'fluff' but I want to put a narrative in to this army.

Counts as chariots for a Warriors of Chaos army part 3

I have nearly finished the mounts, just need to add some grisly trophies etc then I can move on to the riders.

Tyranid Prime conversion

I finshed this around 8 months ago but wanted to post it as GW still seem unlikely to post an official model for it.
First off the collection of bits, these are from various kits in the range mostly warrior and ravener, with some other bits thrown in for good measure. The bone swords and lash whip are from paulsongames

 The first step was to beef up the head, which is basicly a ravener head and a shoulder plate. Using greenstuff to blend the join.

The legs were widened and the tail lengthened with a ravener one. I also cut the legs at the joins and pinned them to lengthen the legs.

I thickened the tail out with some greenstuff and made the plates wider to bulk it out    

 A ravener torso was given some shoulder plates and the top gap filled to allow for the head to be better positioned.

The large bonesword is a monstrous creature arm with a paulsone games whip 'hand'

The other weapons are pretty straight forward with re-modelling bits where needed and using greenstuff to cover bad joins etc.

The finished model has been magnetised for every in game option.

I'm pretty pleased with the results. Here are a few pics of it for size comparison and in different configurations. The Shrike is a warrior body with the body and wings of a gargoyle with some ravener talons and some small paulson bone swords. It is also magnetised for using with rending claws