Chaplain kitbash

This is a model I'm quite proud of! This is Thyrsis, Chaplain of the Minotaurs. He's a nice kitbash, with legs from a plastic Grey Knight terminator, left arm from a metal Grey Knight terminator and a torso from a Blood Angel terminator. The end of the crozius arcanum is actually a part from a very old metal Chaplain... not even sure what model, because it was just laying in my bitz box!

The key part of the model is the skull helm, which is meant to represent a minotaur. I thought it would be a nice change from the typical human skull helm and make the model unique. Of course I was worried it would look weird, but it worked well!  Thyrsis can now proudly join the ranks of my Minotaurs First Company force.

...and here is that force, as it currently stands! There is a Captain and Chaplain to lead them into battle, and a Knight of House Taranis as support. The main force currently comprises a Land Raider, Predator, Terminator squad and a Sternguard Veteran squad. Coming soon are a Terminator Assault squad, a Command Squad, a Land Raider Crusader and a Stormhawk Interceptor aircraft. All of these have been built and are at the painting stage. Obviously it'll be a while until they're all done. I'm not a slow painter: I'm a hobby butterfly, and paint a bit of this, a bit of that from day to day and week to week. Right now I have some Chaos Havocs, a Custodes Dreadnought and a Primaris Psyker on my table, so you can see the variety! I quite enjoy moving from faction to faction, so I don't get bored of painting the same colour over and over. I guess this also means you, dear reader, have no idea what's coming next week! Until then, bye!

An army of the ages

Today I revisit an old army. I'm making some videos to showcase my various armies, which you can see on my YouTube channel: CLICK HERE. While doing so, I've been taking photos of the armies, where I don't already have good photos of the army.

The Champions of Plufestea started many years ago, with some classic Chaos Space Marines and some cultists from Dark Vengeance. I created all the squads, most of the characters and the large land raider conversion, The Disilluminator, at the time of creation of the army. Some of the other models were added later, such as the Soulgrinder, the Exalted Sorcerer and the Daemon Prince, much more recently. The Lord of Change is an old model, acquired in about 2000, but I rebuilt and repainted it roughly a couple of years ago.

These are classic metal Chaos Raptors. The only conversion is on the Champion, who has a two-handed metal axe. I bought several of these axes back when you could order individual bits from Games Workshop. I have no idea what it's from, but it provided an interesting challenge to line up the hands that were on on the axe with the ends of the model's arms. I did a surprisingly good job, considering this was probably eight years ago!

This is a 'tactical' squad with close combat weapon and pistol loadout (and a flamer), who ride in the Disilluminator (counts as Land Raider) with Lord Kellus. You can see Lord Kellus standing on the dais of the Disilluminator.

This is the havoc squad, featuring many classic metal havocs and plastic space marines.

The Disilluminator is Lord Kellus's  personal transport and is one of the zaniest conversions I've ever done! Sawing a Land Raider in two places was quite a difficult thing to do! The 'torso' is the middle of a classic rhino.

 
The cultists are a nice mixture of Dark Vengeance cultists, some old metal models from Necromunda and the like, and bizarre plastic conversions. These are the close combat cultists:

 

...and these are the shooty cultists:

The cohort of characters: three Sorcerers and a Lord. Here you can see the version of Lord Kellus on foot. I painted the two exactly the same, which was a fun challenge!

The Soulgrinder, with a head from Archaon's mount, Dorghar.

I hope you enjoyed this insight into some of my older modelling endeavours alongside more recent ones! Despite this ad-hoc nature, I think the army blends together well and looks great!

More junk terrain!

This week is a little more terrain made from junk. I'm really getting into this - it's so much fun! Turning something that would otherwise be thrown away into a piece of terrain is very rewarding. The large piece is made from two beer cans, two pieces of foamboard, a Warhammer ladder and a piece of rusty metal grill. The piece of grill has a serendipitous story. I cut a hole in the foamboard top piece, with the intention of placing some grill there, but I didn't think I had any grill. Then, while I was spraying the piece in the garden, I saw a piece of rusted grill on the floor. I had no idea where it had come from, but clearly I'd left it in the garden at some point! It was perfect, because, being rusty already, I didn't need to paint it! I just glued it on after painting the model. The model really didn't take long to paint, and to be honest, that's the idea of terrain like this. It's almost free, you build it quickly and paint it quickly, and then use it. If one day, it breaks or it gets gradually damaged over time, you don't mind, because it involved little cost or effort. Of course, I have much more expensive and intricate terrain pieces, but it's nice to have these cheap and easy ones too!

This piece is made from a torch and a part from the Lord of Skulls. The right hand structure is the inside of the torch! Small and easy to paint, it should be a nice little addition to the overall look of a battlefield.

Wyz we on da net, boss?

My small warband of Orks is coming together: I now have five Nobz, who come from various eras of 40k, and thus they make a motley bunch! I hope to finish their transport soon, and possibly some Boyz! The two pictured on their own (second and third pics) are the two latest additions, and are metal models that precede the current set of plastic Nobz. The one with the blue topknot is one of the latest plastic ones, and the other two are from the Gorkamorka game, I believe.

May the hordes come forth!

I like mutants. Specifically, the kind of mutants shown in 2004's Eye of Terror Codex. They're a shambling mess of parts that vaguely resemble some sort of human-based lifeform, and I have always wanted to create something like that. I did make some early attempts, adding a some tentacles to some cultists or maybe an extra head, but I had neither the bitz nor the skill to really make them work.

So, in a way, it's a good thing that it's taken me so long to really have a go at making mutants. It's quite hard to get right: if you don't go wild enough, they don't look like mutants, and if you go too wild, they start to look too obviously cobbled together. The trick is to make them look bizarre but not like a combination of kits. I'll let you judge how successful I was:

 

This week, I've also painted up a piece of terrain that I've had laying around for years. I believe it was sold as an independent terrain piece, around 10-15 years ago. I have had it for at least half that time and I guess I didn't know how to approach it. It was somewhat damaged (most of the trees are missing) and it was painted very badly. I didn't know whether to paint it, cut it up, combine it with another kit, or what. So I left it. Eventually I came across it while sorting out my box of supplies and decided to just attack it. I covered it in a layer of zandri dust, and from there it came together quite quickly. In all, it took me about three hours and I completed it in one evening. To think of all the years it languished in a box and I could have painted it in three hours! Oh well, it's done now, and I look forward to seeing my models play on it!

 

here it is with the mutants lurking on it...

I also finished some more Black Legion cultists this week. Four are FW renegades and one is a 'Cultist of the Abyss' from Blackstone Fortress.