Heldrake conversions part 4

The long awaited 4th installment...

I'd not done anything on the heldrakes for a while as I'd been waiting on a Tentacle Maker from Green Stuff Industries (which actually arrived a few weeks back). Which of course, in true Tony of Nurgle style, I then left untouched for several weeks.  This is a) a great blog, and b) a great tool.  I'd highly recommend it. The only minor quibble is that the shipping to the UK is currently hella expensive, but the good news is, they are working on getting this tool stopped in indie stores in the UK (I've been asked by GSI if I know of any reliable outlets and recommended Element Games and Dark Sphere).

Anyway, long story short, last night's game got cancelled, so I thought I'd have a couple of beers and roll out some tentacle goodness (not a euphemism).  As you can no doubt tell, I've still got a fair way to go on this one. There's a lot of vacant space on this here Vargheist body that I will try and disguise by adding more cables. I do still want lots of gaps, but at the moment it's looking a little too "wasp-waisted" for my liking.

Death Guard Possessed Chaos Marine #7 and finished unit

This has been a long time coming, to say the least... But now the unit is finished, so that's kind of good news!  Apologies for the dodgy iPhone pics!

By Daemons be Driven

Death Guard Possessed Chaos marine #6

Here he is.  All was going very well indeed until this morning.

Something went a bit slightly wrong, although it does look worse in the photos than it does in  reality.  Yes. His lips look a bit orange.

Nevertheless I will be doing something about it, and will post up once the problem is sorted...

Death Guard Possessed chaos marine #4

As promised earlier, here is the one that somehow got away.

I have noticed that the base does need finishing up on this one, though.

This one interestingly has fingers like the legs of a giant prawn. And a crab's hand. And a rat's face.

Death Guard possessed chaos space marine #5

A good while ago, the three regular readers of this blog might remember that I was working on some Death Guard possessed chaos marines. I'd completed 4, but then that little project got a bit side-lined.

Possessed #3
Possessed #2
Possessed #1

In fact, I got that sidelined, that possessed #4 never even emerged into the blogosphere (as the internet-faring dick 'ead might call it).  I may even try and rectify that later.

Well, here is the 5th possessed marine from a squad of 7 (predictably), that of course being the number sacred to the old scabrous one himself, papa Nurgle (may the rot of Nurgle be ever bountiful).  And it was the first one I've tried to do in Death Guard colours for a goodly while. I don't think he's turned out anywhere near as well as the others. Particularly the horns erupting from his right shoulder.  I'll have to have a think about how to fix them.

This is a "brightened" version of the first angle.  The head is
from the Skaven doomwheel kit. I actually reversed the hose that
comes out of the gas mask type affair that he's wearing and
connected it to a grill in his chest plate. It seemed like it might be a
practical bit of kit with no real purpose. Erm...

It's a large purplish crab's hand. The flash is a bit strong. Sorry.

This is a bit closer to the actual colour.  The purple has
a much greyer quality.

Death Guard possessed Helbrute / Dreadnaught - Work in progress

A while back I got a £5 eBay voucher on Facebook, so I immediately put it to use and picked up an extra Helbrute for myself. Why not? It was only £2 in the end, plus I thought it might be quite good fun to mess about with and try and convert.

Obviously, with my limited skill set, any conversion work is not going to be ridiculously extensive, but here are some shots of what I've managed so far...

This is the top of the close combat arm. To which I have
decided to add an attempt at the mark of Nurgle using
the heads of some poor unfortunates. 

I was attempting to make them appear to be pushing their
 way out from below the surface of the armour plate.

I've given it this head from the new Plague Bearers kit.
I really like the bizarre rotten proboscis. It looks quite
unpleasant.

This was midway through what I've done so far...

I then started to add a couple of trimmed down trophy racks from the Chaos
Terminators kit. I didn't add them to my terminators as I thought they looked
a bit crap on a terminator size model. Particularly as I'd used the Death Guard
upgrade set that Forge World make. Including the trophy racks would have
made them a bit too busy. As well as crap. 

T'other side.

This is some sort of plague censer from the Skaven Plague Furnace.

Why wouldn't it be vomited forth from a mouth in the
palm of a power claw? That's normal, right? 

The Battle for Avignon Primaris (part #237)

T'other day, I met up with Chris for a pre-Xmas game of 40k. Fairly small scale. 1250 points of my Death Guard & Word Bearers chaos marines vs his Snakebite orks. It was a great bit of fun.

Here's some pictures of what went down on the mean streets of Avignon Primaris...

Two boar trukkz careen down the streets of Avignon
Primaris

I love these trukk conversions - great fun!

A squad of Death Guard marines discover "nothing of note" for 3 Victory
points in the shell of a bombed out building.

In what is now a traditional face off in our games, my
Possessed brace themselves to face off against a trukk-
load of Ork Nobz and accompanyin Pain Boy.

Another squad of Death Guard marines shelter by an abandoned
Bane Blade.

The Pig Mek's Cyboar Riderz roar through the wreckage of a downed
Valkyrie. Unfortunately, several of their number fail dangerous terrain
tests while attempting "jumpy trickz".

Captured by servo-skull, here we see a Death Guard squad guarding a Grav
Generator for 3 Victory points.

Euphraxes, Word Bearers exalted Lord of Chaos advances, supported by
a squad of Word Bearers marines and two chaos spawn.

The Possessed champion has been forced into
throwing out a challenge to Ork Nob, 'Ard Barry.
Alas, neither his power armour or invulnerable
save were up to the task of surviving a blow from
'Ard Barry's Power Claw.

The Fly Blown, Daemon Prince of Nurgle (until I think up a better name) and
the possessed mix it up with some Orks and a Pain Boy. Check out his witch-
doctor mask and 'urty needle.

Euphraxes challenges the leader of the Cyboar unit to single combat. Unfortunately this "puny beaky"
swiftly ended matters in a rather decisive manner, earning multiple Boons from the Chaos Boons table.

Death Guard possessed chaos space marine from start to finish

I actually sat down and did some painting yesterday afternoon and this morning, after what has seemed like ages.

Some of you (well those that have had the misfortune to be following my misadventures for a while at least) may remember this chap from quite a few months back...

Handsome sucker, no?

Well, for the first time I've decided to try and do a bit of a from start to finish type post on the painting process.  Here goes:

1. I started off air brush priming him with Vallejo model air black primer.  Once that was dry, I airbrushed him with  Vallejo model air (can't remember the exact colour...) dark green or something.

2. For the next bit, I gave his head and neck a heavy dry brush with GW Gretchin Green.  I also started on the shoulder, using a 50/50 mix of GW Dheneb Stone and Vallejo off white.

3. I then continued to do the flat areas of the armour with the Dheneb Stone / off white mix, before then coating the metal areas (or the areas I perceive to be metal areas) with Tin Bitz

4. I then gave a rough stipple of of Formula P3 Pig Iron on the metal areas, and a rough dry brush of Formula P3 Thrall Flesh to the head and neck.  The whole model was then given a wash in my own "Murk" wash mix.  This was left to dry over night.

5. I then mixed a bit more off white into the Dheneb Stone / off white mix, so that it was roughly 1 part Dheneb Stone, 2 parts off white, and proceeded to go over the flat armour areas by roughly dabbing the paint on kind of Van Gogh style. Obviously with nowhere near the finesse though. The idea was to try and create a fairly uneven effect that would give some illusion of grime and / or texture.

6. With this bit done, I then went to work on the metal bits, starting with a reasonably heavy but patchy over brush with GW Scorched Brown. This was followed by a rough and randomly spaced stipple with GW Calthan Brown, and a further stipple with a 50:50 mix of GW Calthan Brown & GW Macharius Orange (or whatever it's called. I think the label fell off, and you can't get it any more anyways...

7. To finish, I gave the head and neck a wash with GW Hormogaunt purple, and then worked the teeth back in with pure Vallejo off white.