Conradt the Crazed...the newest Marauder

There are some miniatures that are aptly named, and "the Crazed" is very fitting for this Red Box Games, Tre Manor miniature.  Just look at that face.

This along with the previous two are perhaps my favorites of Tre's sculpts.  You cannot help but have an evil smile on your face while painting this miniatures melon.

Like the rest of the Helsvakt line and some of his Reaper sculpts, I really love this armor and its what I would envision Chaos Marauders wearing to battle, spiky and gladiatorial like.

 The basing is typical of my Chaos Warriors army.  HO Scale RR ballast, the rocks are fake, and just broken pieces of cured Apoxie Sculp.  The base painting is five different dry brushed/stippled colors. 

A fall like burned out static grass from Woodland Scenics and a likewise burned out arid Grass tufts from Joefix.

There your are Conradt the Crazed!

A pair of New Chaos Marauders Painted...Tre Manor miniatures

Since I've decided to expand my Warriors of Chaos army with lots of new and different models and away slightly from just Games Workshop models, I have had absolutely no regrets.  I rarely...let me repeat that...I RARELY just paint models out of the package that that I have not converted in some shape or form.   The models below are two that I have not done any converting too, and I absolute love the looks and the detail to them.

This model is one of Tre Manor's Red Box Games, Helsvakt, miniatures and it is absolutely stunning in detail and a blast to paint.  There is so much detail on it.  The skulls on the cape in the back is really cool looking.  I'm really loving all of the stuff Tre is doing for his own company and for Reaper Miniatures.

The shield below had a bunch of scars in the surface sculpted into it.  So, I thought I would accentuate that in my color scheme and make the shield sort of glow a little.

The musculature is awesome, I'm a huge Bart Sears fan and his drawing style and this sort of reminds me of this style but in 3 dimensions.

Next up is another of Tre Manor's sculpts, this time from Reaper Miniatures.  This model is huge.  The Helsvakt is about 25 mm, this model is probably around 32 mm.  Which is fine by me, humans are not all the same size, and I'm already mixing GW Gors, Ungors, both new and old with both new and old GW Marauders.

I believe the name of this miniature is Kord the Destroyer.  The face detail just screams at me, I love it.  The model itself is very reminiscent of his Helsvakt models. 

I'll be using both of these models on the extreme flanks of the units.  I'm very much looking forward to assembling the units in whole.

The Blue and Burnt Orange paint schemes are getting carried all the way through the army.

Both of these models are really going to influence me in my conversion and sculpting work in the future.  Tre's technique for doing fur is definitely making me rethink how I have been doing it. The detail is top notch in my book.  I'm putting final touches on a whole slew more of the marauders, so much more to follow on my Warriors of Chaos.

Khorne Chaos Space Marine Conversion...Chicago GD News & Go-Kart Racing Report

Another Khornate Space Marine conversion.  I do like this look.  One of things I did on this model was to not use the cone head or have a tongue sticking out.  I'm not a big fan of the tongues anyway.

The possessed legs dow mix well with other bits and the arms are cool also.  Added a tattered tabard to the model also.

 

You can tell I'm beginning to run out of chaos bits in my bitz box, as I dipped into the loyalist box.

A very straight forward conversion.  As is the Slaanesh one below.  Which basically just got a tabard of leftover greenstuff.

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Friday Racing Report.

Not much to report on the Go-Karting front.  I managed to get to the track, made a bunch of adjustments to the kart, got it down to a pound over minimum weight.  They split us into two groups.  Went out in the first heat with 4 of the fastest karts in the class.  Started second to last and finished last, my set lasted good for about 2 laps, after that I was so loose that I thought I was going to hit the wall and porta-pot outside the fence every lap.  The flagstand could see my side panel number for most of the laps as I tried to save it and still run as fast as possible.  Terrible heat.

Heat 2, major adjustments in air pressure and moved in the left rear tire about a half inch.  They inverted the field, I and another clone engine were on the front row.  It's disgusting how much more torque the Animal 206 and Flathead Briggs makes, as they were lined up behind the clone on the pole and pushed him past me before we got to the green flag.  So a restart this time the clone on the pole did not even get on the gas and they still pushed him past me to the point that the kart in third was equal with me at the green flag.  They threw the green anyways, ridiculous.  I drove it super deep into turn 1 and 2 and came out side by side with the polesitter.  Ran this way for a couple laps, got around him after pinching down in the corner to scrub his momentum.  Ran in first for a couple of laps, one of the faster flatheads caught me, ran side by side with him for 4 laps.  Lost the lead and then lost another spot with a lap to go as I was getting super loose again.  Better but not good.  Made more adjustmenst in tire pressure, and went up a gear to see if I could get more straightaway speed.  Wouldn't matter as the screw job was on and they called me for a 3-wide penalty that was B.S. in the corner and sent me to back about 6 laps in, the B.S. part about it was I was not the person that made it three wide and was under someone else, the guy that made it three wide stuck his nose under me and hit me in the left rear in the corner.  They also sent my old man to the back a couple laps before me.  Complained about the call after the race, and the track official I can tell does like me for whatever reason.  And I did it nicely, basically asking for the reason, all he did was yell at me, so I got pissed and pushed him for an explanation and kept pushing for one until he just walked away shaking with anger.  It was actually kind of funny, because I never even raised my voice, and I never got an explanation, other than it was a judgement call.  Maybe its because the guy that hit me sponsered an event for them a few weeks ago. Doesn't matter, now I know the politics.  lol.

My sister jumped in my dad's kart for the pit crew race, had 12 karts on the track.  She took second in that after leading every lap except for the last one. Really good job for her first time out on the track, beating all of the guys.  Take that guys, most of you got beat by a 38 year old girl.

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Chicago Gamesday Golden Demon News

• I was unable to attend, recieved some emails from a couple of guys through our Yahoo group, but its cryptic in nature, I'm thinking something along the lines of the return of Vincent Hudon to competition, not sure though.
• I don't have anything to report, other than Gamesday-U.S. will be in Chicago again next year as they had to sign a multi-year deal with the convention center to get a better rate from the Chicago Mob.  Yay mob!, maybe I'll actually be able to attend next year because of this.  Its within driving distance, must clear my calender.

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Next up.....Pictures of some freshly painted Chaos Warrior marauders.......hopefully.

Old Stuff Wednesday - July...Pre-Heresy Iron Warrior

Gamesday Chicago is coming up this weekend.  There should be lots of cool miniatures there, and I have already plugged the talent and the tutorials that they have planned.  Back a few years ago, a group of talented people all got together to do a Pre-Heresy theme Chicago GD.  I was contacted a bit later to help fill out the entries.  There were a whole lot of others that committed to the project and which Primarch or Pre-heresy model they wanted to do.  When I got involved Perturabo of the Iron Warriors was pretty much the only one left.

The above pic shows everyone that managed to complete their models.  Top left was Angela Imerie's model, going clockwise from there was Chris Borer, James Craig, Tom Schadle, Nathan Commanse, Mike Butcher, Joe Orteza, mine, John Schaeffer.  I can't remember the number golds, I know all made first cut, and honorable mention at least.  Chris Borer's won him the slayer sword again.

Below are pics of my entry.  I've never been happy with this model.  The converting just was not my best.  The paint was a sort of a turning point in becoming a much better painter.  When I was contacted about doing this, I was the only one in the group that had never won a Golden Demon.  I'm an army builder not a one off display piece maker.

 Some more close-ups.  Rather than do a complete sculpt of bigger-ized space marine, I elected to do a conversion.  In hindsight that was the wrong thing to do.  I do really like how the face turned out, as well as the sculpted crew cut.

I did custom build the shoulder pads, the mail tabard, and the Iron warrior skull on the greave.

I also built the large power hammer.  For the backpack I wanted something that added that Iron Warrior feel, so the chainsword and bolter were just obvious choices to make. 

The Iron Warrior skull icon on the shoulder was another piece that I sculpted, and also on the helmet.  The blood effect on the sword bionic was a splatter and stipple effect with a tooth brush splatter and a paint brush stippling.

The base seemed semi-uninspired.  By the time I was done with this miniature, I quite honestly hated it.  So there you go.  Old stuff infamy...not my best work, at the time it was pretty good for me, and most certainly not Golden Demon worthy.  The best thing about it though was the respect I was shown by all of the higher level competitors, I was quite shocked by it.  Many thanks to those guys for inviting me to participate.

A new Nurgle infested Chaos Space Marine...WIP

As with the Word Bearer, I'm getting better at doing Nurgle.  The Beasts of Nurgle demons that I did on commission a while back using the Forgeworld Nurgle Ogryn, really opened my eyes as I mimic'd the FW sculpting style to blend in the parts.

This is a work in progress (WIP).  I still need to finish up the head, adding the gas mask look.

So this is another of the Nurgle infested ones.  Used a possessed bit for the conversion.  The tabbard I think adds quite a bit to the model conversion.

The picture below shows the little puss blisters on the shoulder, that was done with the Mechanical pencil.

And if you want what looks like an popped blister,  as shown on the leg below, use your tooth pick tool to prick it.  You really need to have nasty thoughts when doing nurgle.

Normally when I do Nurgle I like to do some tentacle like things coming out of the back pack, but this time I elected not do so.

 

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Another Friday night has past, but no Kart Racing report as I was unable to get to the track in time to race last night.  So I just helped out with some of the other racers and my dad's kart.  And the old man may have sold one of our home-made frames last night.  What some of the karting companies sell their karts for is pretty outrageous when you sit down and think about it.  And those karts are not any better than what we made in a garage.  The old man finished second in our engine class last night in the Feature.  But the Animal engines continue to dominate the racing.  The mixed engine classes are not working, but I think the goal of the track is too get rid of the Clone and Briggs engines and get us all into Animals.  Its kind of like watching a Grand Am or American Le Mans race with the different classes all running at the same time.  Well there is always next week.

A new Word Bearer...In gray and green

As I build various things, I will often assemble a Chaos Space Marine leftover from 40k never played nor built in my bitz box, and use up left over bits of GS or other types of putty.  I'm still a fan of 40k models and the fluff.  So this is my latest creation, meant to be another in an endless line of  Word Bearers.  I do like the possessed bits, lot of fun those are.

This is sort of a primer of sorts.  I'm planning a return to 40k, building a new "Insert Color Here" Templar army.  I've been working on the vehicles this past week, and they should be interesting, as I'm attempting to recapture the sort of ramshackle look that my Cerulean Templar motor pool had.  My new breed of 40k Templars will certainly not be Black and White and will not even be Blue and White. 

The drapings on this marine are something that I will use with the Templars.  All the new Templar bitz, will definitely make me sharpen up my game a bit, so that my sculpting won't look completely out of place. 

40k Chaos though does beckon me, but having done Fantasy Chaos since 2003, I think I need a bit of break from chaos.  Once my Fantasy Chaos Warrior army is mostly done then I will completely move onto Orcs and 40k Templars and Vikings and back to my WAB Crusaders now that Conquest Games has announced that they are going to do Plastic Infantry.  That should give me the break that I need from Chaos, and take care of the next few years of Hobby time. 

Skaven War Litter III Conversion...done

I've done two other conversions of Skaven Warlitters.  While I thought they were good conversions, I was not as happy with how the litter looked.  The model below is stuck to the base with some poster putty.

 The primary reason for not really caring for the way the litter turned out, was the poles were upright that the Storm Vermin carrying the litter were holding on to.

So for this one I decided to fix that.  And that fix works very nicely.  This is what I envisisioned in the first place. 

For the Lord model I used the one out of the basic boxed set.  Its a very cool looking model, for a simplistic two piece miniature. 

The Lord model does lean way forward so I knew I need to compensate for that by leaning the entire platform forward.   Did this by building up the base with Apoxie Sculp.  

 Below is another angle of the litter.  The Lord model is also on this big rock, I removed that with my dremel and then sculpted in the wood grain of the platform.

This one I'm happy with.   The base and big rat are one piece.  The front bearer platform and Lord are another piece.  The storm vermin in the back is separate.  And the banner is brass tube and removable, pinned to the platform.  Doing it in pieces like this will make it much easier to paint.  Assemble after painting.

All the lessons learned are being applied to an orc palanquin that I'm building from my new fantasy army.  It should look pretty cool when I'm done.