Never Ending WIPs (Random Updates)

[Myriad]

After years of people getting his name wrong, Johnny Pneumatic has developed an attitude problem.  looks a bit unhinged certainly, lots of potential.

Great mutant quota as always.  Love the beastman model, and the accompanying background.  Another cool conversion of the navigator model.  Gotta get me one of those.

[Alyster Wick]

A few quick updates.  Did some modeling work before I do some writing, decided to post the results.

I'm up in the air about the Angel of Iron, I'm considering renaming him the Iron Maw (I'm planning to model a giant steel jaw and a guitar wire tongue) and giving him more steel plating.  I do like the contrast with the angel wings though, it also helps drive home how other-worldly it's supposed to be, I'm very concerned that it not look like something that could have been produced by a Dark Mechanicus in a lab.  Anyway, substantial green-stuffing left to go.



Now with the more metallic parts:






Also working on an Acothyst for the Commorragh project.








I was also lucky enough to snag one of the Alien Commander models.  The plan is that he'll be part of an advance missionary/ ambassadorial team that maps out potential area for the Tau to advance to spread the greater good, mapping out civilizations that are either ripe to be absorbed by them or need to be conquered by force.  This guy has obviously had some contact with tyranids.  The explanation for his martial prowess is that the group he was part of encountered a species with a highly evolved consciousness who were under siege by a small tyranid splinter fleet.  Tau intervention saved the civilization and they were brought into the Tau empire.  As their contribution to expanding the greater good, one of their greatest warriors merged their consciousness with this model to become part of the advance team (the civilization is anchored to its home system, I'll post more when there are rules). 










Do you think the tyranid bits are excessive? 

[Myriad]

Do you think the tyranid bits are excessive? 

Maybe the part rested between his shoulder blades, but they do add a certain drama to the model. 

The iron angel is shaping up to be another nicely twisted looking model.

[precinctomega]

Maybe a teeny bit excessive on the nid parts.

The Iron Maw is cool, but you shouldn't have organic-inorganic-organic in his right leg. I know it's Chaos, but it repels the credibility.

The use of the Fabius Bile torso, however, is pure genius!

R.

[Alta]

The Acothyst looks like it will turn out well.

With regards to the nid parts, the shoulder plates look really good. But the warrior heads look a bit excessive, and a bit small. For warrior heads, they should be about twice that size and may even need to be a bit bigger to be gaunt heads.

[Heroka Vendile]

The use of the Fabius Bile torso, however, is pure genius!

Agreed, I couldn't figure out what on earth you'd used there. Looks like a great basis.

[DapperAnarchist]

Tragically I lost that Archon claw-hand... its a lovely piece.

[axiom]

The Acothyst looks great even at this WIP stage. I like the look of the mask already!

Personally I'd go less with the Nid bits on the Tau - a few fangs on chains would be sufficient to give the look without bolting stuff all over him in my view

[Ynek]

The Iron Maw is cool, but you shouldn't have organic-inorganic-organic in his right leg. I know it's Chaos, but it repels the credibility.

Actually, I think that with some clever green-stuffing, it could be made to look 'believable'. If you green-stuffed organic veins and arteries, complete with hair-like capillaries and lymph nodes on the outside of the bionic (to feed the foot, I suppose...) then it would add an extra level of gribbly horror to the model. However, such a look would probably be a bit of a hassle to pull off convincingly, as it would require careful sculpting and painting to completely 'sell' what it's supposed to be.
So, if you feel confident, give it a try. Worst case scenario - you scrape it off and go with a robofoot.
On the subject of the tyranid parts - I think the one between his shoulder blades, coming up behind his head is just a little bit much. the parts on his shoulder, however, are a nice touch.

[Stormgrad]

to be honest i think less is more with the tyranid parts the shoulder guard is a inspired idea that i feel maybe was taken to far with the heads on his back and hand, however i do love your Acothyst and Iron Angel.

[Alyster Wick]

The Iron Maw is cool, but you shouldn't have organic-inorganic-organic in his right leg. I know it's Chaos, but it repels the credibility.

Actually, I think that with some clever green-stuffing, it could be made to look 'believable'. If you green-stuffed organic veins and arteries, complete with hair-like capillaries and lymph nodes on the outside of the bionic (to feed the foot, I suppose...) then it would add an extra level of gribbly horror to the model.

That's the plan as of right now.  It will be one of the more ambitious projects I've undertaken so we'll see how it turns out.  As you said, worst case scenario is scraping it off and starting again.


As for the Tau, as the general consensus is that less is more (which I was leaning toward) I've already knocked off the heads.  While I do like the idea of a tyranid head-shield I think I'll try and dig up something more interesting.  I'm keeping the shoulder pad, throwing a tyranid fang hanging off the back as a "knife" and may subtly place some smaller trophies from different races to show the variety of species he has fought (and to reinforce the more feral 'other' in his head).

As for the Acothyst, I was staring at Bile's torso one day and thought, I wish I could have a character like that at 54mm.  One day it just clicked after seeing multiple space marine torso's used to great effect as carapace armor for more slender characters that perhaps the torso was the right scale.  I held it up to a few 54mm minis and lo and behold, it was a near perfect fit!

[RobSkib]

As for the Tau, as the general consensus is that less is more (which I was leaning toward) I've already knocked off the heads.  While I do like the idea of a tyranid head-shield I think I'll try and dig up something more interesting.  I'm keeping the shoulder pad, throwing a tyranid fang hanging off the back as a "knife" and may subtly place some smaller trophies from different races to show the variety of species he has fought (and to reinforce the more feral 'other' in his head).

I tried that myself on my D-99 veteran, you'd be surprised how fat 28mm tyranid scythes actually are! I couldn't get anything to look convincing. I did find, however, on the genestealer sprue, there is a 'dead' genestealer skull that I drilled some holes in and hung from his belt that looked pretty authentic.

[kierkegaard]

You have far too many works in progress. 

I wish you would finish something. All the models in this thread look interesting, and I would very much like to see them completed.

[Heroka Vendile]

The Iron Maw is cool, but you shouldn't have organic-inorganic-organic in his right leg. I know it's Chaos, but it repels the credibility.

I'd say green stuffing some ligaments around the mechanics between the organic areas a'la Soulgrinder would be a good solution to this.

[Alyster Wick]

You have far too many works in progress. 

I wish you would finish something. All the models in this thread look interesting, and I would very much like to see them completed.

You're right, I get hung up on 2 things: painting and bases.  As of right now this is the first day I've gotten "off" (aka working from home) in a loooong time.  Work is insane at the moment, but I am planning to save some cash to go out and get some good paint a some basing supplies before sitting down for a marathon of basing/painting, but that'll have to wait until real life slows down.

Until then, I managed to lock myself in a room and do a little work today.  I won't say I got a ton done, but I decided to post some pics before I do some GSing.

Here's an update on the Angel of Iron/Iron Maw, first, his HUGE iron weapon!  Also, I settled on using the LoC wings on him as I loved the contrast between the crude mechanics, bestial daemonic parts and the pretty feathery wings.



His face, which is hard to see detail-wise, but you see what I'm going for.  The nose is just basically like an ork nose with one nostril.  Very basic, but it works (and it got the slannesh symbol out of there).



Also wasn't loving the left hand, so I gave him this instead:




Now this next guy is new.  I know, I know, I shouldn't do anything new before the old stuff is done, but when I trimmed the hand off of the ork arm for the Angel of Iron/Iron Maw and was suddenly inspired to attached the orky pistol hand, which naturally had to go with the torso and fit well with the spare breacher bit lying around.  From there it was just a matter of slapping it on a set of legs.  I'll find a head some day...



Left: http://i744.photobucket.com/albums/xx83/alysterwick/015-4.jpg

Right: http://i744.photobucket.com/albums/xx83/alysterwick/016-2.jpg


And last but not least, here's a preview of my next steps on the Necron Lord.  As a point of principal I do want to explain that this Lord (currently dubbed "The Architect") is basically a Bronze Level Lord charged mostly with upkeep and expansion of the empire and the sole survivor after a race the Necrons were killing unleashed a lethal virus that consumes matter at a molecular level.  This Lord survived by merging a resurrection orb with his chest and (after centuries of slumber) has reawakened to try and slowly rebuild the empire.  I'm thinking that he'll have a small following of Mechincus who revere him as a God, seems like a reasonable plot device (those are just the cliff notes, when the model is closer to completion I'll write it up fully to be torn down )