Space Wolf Conversions...Progress Shots, Part 2

 More conversions using the Chaos Warrior bodies.  Above and below you can see that I left the knees of the warriors in place.   The other thing you can see on these is that I used my dremel to remove the chaos warrior body elbow sockets.  Just another way of attaching the arms.

 So some progress.  As you can see on the one above I had to really blend in and smooth the GS on the leg.  The best way to blend that is by initially using a wet finger gently pulling across the GS for the general shape.  Then I use a colour shaper to finish smoothing and shaping the GS.

Never been a fan of all of the models must stand on rocks basing technique, but that is personal preference and what the client wanted.

Space Wolf Conversions using Chaos Warriors...part 1

 I've done quite a bit of converting of Chaos Warriors into Chaos Spacemarines in the past, but what a lot of people do not realize is that they make pretty cool looking Space Wolves.  Matt Gubser, who sculpts of Reaper Miniatures and a number of other manufacturers, was one of the first people that I saw do this style of conversion.

All this work is on commission, so I will not be painting any of it.  I'm instead painting Warriors of Chaos and Vikings at the moment.  The conversions require spacemarine legs and bits and Fantasy Chaos Warriors.  What I am doing is removeing the chaos warrior legs with a jewelers saw, and then adding the space marine legs in there place also cut with a jewelers saw.

Anyways, the models can be kind of stale, since they are based on the rank and file chaos of warriors.  So to make up for that lack of dynamics you need to overload them with detail.   So I've added a bunch of furs, beards, hair, claws, chain, and drapings, I recommend clicking on the collage photos to enlarge them.

The basing is something I normally do not like to do, but sometimes that is what is required, big rocks to stand on.  In this case the slate rock is faked by a large chuck of bark.  The miniatures above are just temporarily pinned to the bark at the moment.  Some of the hands are simply pinned for the addition of pistols and such later.

Above another view of the model on the right in the previous pic.  One thing I need to be a bit conscious of while doing these is to watch the knee knocking on the one on the right.

More Viking Accessories...

 Ten Vikings and ten Warriors of Chaos Chosen have been primed and moved to my painting table.  As I get started painting, I needed to get some more of the movement trays ready, above is the second one nearing completion.  Again added casaulties for the eye candy may add a couple broken weapons and such also.

 Above you see one of the hapless saxon victims.  Below is another of the victims, and close up of the rocks, some of which are fake and some are real.  You can also see underneath the rocks and ballast the apoxie sculp was imprinted with some real slate and an old tooth brush to give it some texture.  Also on my Tutorials page you can find my movement tray tutorial, great for ancients and fantasy.

And below are the shield wall markers.  This is an idea that I've borrowed from Mike Butcher, you can see his blog in my blog list called the Butcher's Bill.  I've seen Mike's saxons and teamed up with them a couple times and he always comes up with some cool ideas for accessories.

So getting closer.  I still need to build the Saga models, I have another unit of hirdmen that I'm finishing up, Clash of Empire's command models, WAB captured standard markers, and a longship.  Three game systems and one army.

Space Wolves are coming....

Teaser.

Viking Eye Candy....

 Some eye candy for my vikings.  I like to added bits and pieces to armies, especially incorporating things into the movment trays.  I first started doing this with my 2008 Chicago GT Khorne Demon army. 

In recent years I decided the best way to do this is to make/convert a number of casualties with various parts that can be changed out.  Then make a mold of those conversions and cast them up.  I make the molds using Smooth-on OOMOO 30, a two part mold product, then I make casts using Smooth-on's Smooth Cast 300, which is also a two part product.  I do end up with air bubbles because I'm not using a pressure tank.  On these wounded and casaulties its mostly the feet that I have this issue with. Sometimes that random air bubble ends up in good place for a nice gory wound.

The one above is simply a GB Plastic viking that I molded in this downed pose.  This is one of the few casualties that I did complete with a head, but even with this one I can simply cut off the head and put a spare GB head on it to change the look.

 Above you see the poor saxon, that will be painted bleeding out.  Below another above view of the movement tray with the goodies added to it.

Below you can see the one Viking on the four wide infantry base.  I will have two more vikings that I'm painting separately that I will apply to the base afterwards.  The downed viking is simply one of GB Plastics that I have modified and flattened out his backside.  The other thing I did with this one is I left off the head and both arms.

So there you have it the first bit of viking eye candy for my movement trays is modeled up.

A new Khorne Herald and a gor

 Been awhile since I built another Khorne Herald / Bloodletter.  I Think I have build close to 150 of these guys for myself and on commission.  I have parts left for one more after this one and then that is it, no more of these guys.  This one will go up on Ebay.

 I once again corrected the posture of the model, and then added the beaten armor look to him.  Both of these techniques can be found on my Tutorials page. 

 Next up, a gor for my chaos warrior mutant marauders.  And no James this is not your gor, but I did do these two conversions while building the piece for the Lost In The Warp blog crossover.

 I have quite a few beastmen bits left over also, but supplies are dwindling.  One of the things that I am nearly out of is horns, so I kit bashed some from a different model line.

 The plate armor technique again can be seen in a How To in the Tutorials page.

Added a few straggly strands of hair to cover up the joins of the horn kit bash, and done.

Next up Viking Eye Candy.

Old Stuff Wednesday...August...A Chariot

 Somehow I missed July's Old Stuff, did not realize it until I went to post this.  Back to my old Beastmen Army from 2003, one of two chariots.  Don't remember everything about this one, but I did convert the gor rider with the great weapon. 

 I painted him in red face paint, because at the time I was marking things with Khorne.  The horns at the time I think helped the old boar bodies.

The red gor's weapon arm appears to be a centigor arm.

Since I missed July for some reason I may do two Old Stuffs this month.

Prospero Burns....

The Wolves are unleashed.  I recently finished reading this book, not sure how I had time to read a book with everything going on, but I started it a long time ago.  I read A Thousand Sons previously, and I must say I'm not much of a fan of the Space Wolves and feel for the story of Magnus and his legion.  I generally read all of Dan Abnett's Horus Heresy books as I like Dan's writing.  That said I could not really get into this book.  These two books further my dislike of the wolves, and this story while well thought out was not paced at my likening.  I struggled through the first 300 or so pages, and trudged on like I was moving through the deep snows of Fenris.  The story finally got better, quickly peaked and then slowed down again.  Definitely not a Dan Abnett novel that I would recommend, too slow and plodding, it does however have more tidbits about the developing Heresy and poor Magnus the Red.

Eye candy for the Vikings...

Didn't do a whole lot today, but I did model up some casaulties or maybe I should also say victims for my Vikings.  These will be added to my bases and movement trays as eye candy for the army.  This is something I started doing back in 2008 for my Warhammer GT Best Appearance Khorne Demon army.  I think it adds a bit more dynamic look to the whole army by adding a bit of a downed opponent.  Plus its a whole lot of fun to do.  I didn't take any photos of the stuff just yet, but I will get around to it.  For the models I used some left over Gripping Beast Plastics and some of the War Factory Games torsos.  For most I left off arms and heads so I can get variety of different bodies with a limited amount of time spent modeling.  I just got done pouring the molds, using some Smooth-On molding products, its a 1 to 1 type mix.  Depending on workload tomorrow, I may cast some of them.  We'll see.  I also sat down and made up some shield wall markers, completely stealing that I did from Butcher.