The Steel Skulls

The Steel Skulls are models I began working on two years ago, I think. And in some cases the quality of painting is showing. But I still like them, so I'll leave them as they are until I'll work on the rest of the squad - then I'll update the others.

The Steel Skulls are an underhive gang of tech-scrappers. They are adept at salvaging and repurposing. They all show some form of technological augmentation, more or less extensive depending on rank and role. Implants vary from a simple bionic eye to rebreathers and cybernetic limbs. Most notably, all Steel Skulls have implants on their heads, trait from which derives their name: head augmentations are the symbol of gang membership, and the first ones to be grafted upon induction in their ranks. 

The Steel Skulls dwell under the more populated layers of the hive. From there, they launch raiding parties to pillage more technology, hoarding tech to become more and more powerful. They are extremely talented technicians, and their most expert members serve both as field medics and engineers, repairing both their comrades' flesh and tech. For all these reasons, Techpriests despise them, seeing them as heretics, and actively hunt them down at every opportunity. At the same time, though, a Techpriest is a prized prey, for in the eyes of a Steel Skull it's like a bag full of shiny toys.

They favor fighting in environments that put others to severe disadvantage. Their favored tactic is striking in pitch black darkness: their enemies usually don't realize they're being stalked, until they see a pair of glowing green eyes in the dark - but then it's already too late.

This is one of their medic-engineers. As you can see, he's equipped with a multipurpose tool, that can work either as a medical or technical tool, and a case which is surely full of shiny gadgets to keep everyone (or everything) alive. Plus the ubiquitus head implants.
You can also see that skull dangling from a chain: it's a literal steel skull, that serves as the gang's badge.

The colour scheme is simple, favoring black and dark grey together with steel and grey-ish skin, so that the only focus was on the many green lights.

More mutants!

More than one month since the last post, wow. University sure does know how to drain your desire to work.

Anyway, here we have more mutants! Not much background for them, at least not now, but we can all make some assumptions from their appearance. They're just like animals, hiding most of the time and just coming out to hunt - or to scavenge food.

It looks like someone experimented on them. Are they discarded models of servitors? Some grotesque creations of a mad  scientist? Did they escape from a Mechanicum lab? Something even more sinister entirely? Time will tell...


The paint job is the same as Uncle Istvan and the other mutant, but I tried to give a feeling of illness and dead meat even stronger using more purple. I'm also quite proud of the poses!

Uncle Istvan

Welcome to another day of mutations!

Uncle Istvan is a deranged, cannibal hermit. He lives alone in a hidden shack among the ruins, down in the underhive, surrounded by the skulls of those he ate. Despite his fragile, ill appearance, he wields his massive axe with impressive strength, stalking his prey from the shadows until he leaps out of the darkness screaming and laughing, trying to chop heads off. Uncle Istvan lost his sanity long ago, age mixed to loneliness and starvation, and now he's loyal only to his stomach: anybody is just meat, be it human, animal or mutant.

The crazy hermit is a feared figure. Stories are told of a skinny old man, hunched around a massive axe, cackling like a maniac. Even the most boastful gangers fear to travel through what are considered Uncle Istvan's hunting grounds, and patrols tend to travel squeezed together, hands clutched frantically to their weapons, everyone trying to stay in the middle of the group. And then a laugh echoes...

To be honest, I like this model a lot. I'm not a good sculptor, hence the fact that I managed to make this, even with all his flaws, makes me happy. It's also one of those models that suddenly come out together in a single go: the name and background came while I was building him (points if you get the name reference).

There's lots of greenstuff: I glued the arms to the body in a precarious position, and then filled the spaces with g.s.; same for the neck. The upper and lower half of the body are kept together with g.s. too, and in fact the rope that holds his rags and the skull are all there to cover the ugly mess of the joint.

So, what do you think? Critics, suggestions, opinions?

See you next time!

Mutants

“I tell you one of those foul things ate Bob! They only found his gun and some drips of blood.”

“Stop trying to scare me, Gus. I’m not a kid anymore.”

“Sssssh! Quiet! Then stop acting like one and listen. These places are dangerous.”

“Yeah, yeah. As you say, old man. I’m sure we’ll OH GOD SHOOT IT! SHOOT IT!”

Down in the underhive, in the darker domes, amid the ruins, mutants find shelter. Some form packs, some lurk alone; some still retain traces of humanity, others devolve into mindless beasts. But whatever crosses those territories is doomed to attract many a hungry mouth. Thus they’ll look like a group, while the truth is every mutant is racing to secure the juiciest bits.

Tales of horror and gruesome death are told by the other gangers around campfires, like one would a ghost story. Tunnels are sealed and guarded. But some still try to venture in those places, and not everyone return.

Mutants are not actually a “gang”. They are a ragtag collection of mutated, deformed, deranged individuals that all happen to be hungry. So I’m trying to shape each of them individually, make every one of them easily recognizable as a character. Many of them won’t even have names. 

This one, for example, wears what remains of a hazmat suit. Once a worker, mutations wracked both his body and his mind. Now  his only instincts are killing and eating.

I built this guy from an Acolyte Hybrid body. The forearms and the head come from the Crypt Ghouls, and the bludgeon is made of two pieces of a banner of the Empire Flagellants. I swear Warhammer Fantasy AoS is a goldmine when you want to make Inq28 conversions!

The hazmat suit is painted with abundance of washes and paint splatters here and there. The skin is something I like doing with all my mutants (yes, there will be more, hopefully soon!): I start with Rakarth Flesh, and then I begin adding thin patches of colours: Kislev Flesh, Slaaneshi Grey, Cadian Fleshtone, and some crevices darkened with Reikland Fleshshade. Everything extremely thin, to simply provide different tones to the skin, trying to make it look ill.

Now, I need to choose how to make the base. Since the mutants live in abandoned areas, amid the ruins, maybe I could make them like the Techpriest’s one. Let’s see.

Mechanicum Explorator Squad

Under the city... below, below, in the depth of darkness of forgotten vaults...


The Imperium of Man, in its ignorance, built upon itself, burying its past, forgetting, one might even say purposefully, its power and its danger.

Words have been whispered in blurred static, echoed through the noosphere. Of something buried deep under the city. Something powerful but, most important, something old.

And the Mechanicum covetes old things above everything else.


One of the many warbands I'm slowly building is an explorator squad of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Their mission will be investigating if the rumors are true, and that will necessarily make them clash with the other gangs.

What I want to strive for with these models is to recreate what I have always felt the Mechanicum was: cloaked figures, cables, creepy retro-futuristic technology, shining eyes in the dark. Something along with these lines, which is one of my absolute favorites:

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/32/ed/f0/32edf09934de8f7619401bbdac74abb5.jpg


Let's see the first model of the squad!

I wanted the colour scheme to reflect the Mechanicum of old: red robes, black-yellow danger stripes, brownished steel. I didn't like the idea of using blue or green  for the lenses, so I went back to John Blanche's works and noticed he used white, which I tried to replicate here (though I should retouch it to make it brighter). Black for the gun seemed an appropriate colour; no energy effect on the coils for the same reason of the eyes, and didn't fit the model anyway. 

Since the theme was a squad exploring old vaults and crypts, I made the base to look like an old stone pavement. Had so much fun creating it!

The only complaint I have is that my camera sucks, and does horrible things to red. The robes have been painted with Mephiston Red, and it doesn't look like that.

So, what do you think? 

Typhus

Hello everybody!

Today no conversions, sorry.

One of the armies I'm working on is the Death Guard. I started playing Death Guard when 6th edition came out and a friend of mine bought the Chaos Space Marines codex. At that time I had only experimented with Necrons, and looking at all those wonderful unit customizations and variety (which Necrons had none) sparked my creativity. Nurgle caught my eye for two reasons: first, I have a penchant for tough, footslogging infantry armies, that can grind my opponent down instead of just smashing it; second, to me it had the greatest potential for painting.

For some reason, though, I never managed to make a real army, just a few models.

Fast forward a few years, and GW bestowed on us a Death Guard codex full of new models. The XIV legion was also featured in the Dark Imperium set, and I managed to snatch an old Dark Vengeance box for peanuts, and had a friend playing Space Marines to split everything with. So I suddenly found myself with an entire army ready - and played Fate of Konor with it too!

Now, I'm a slow painter. I like to devote time to each detail. It's a form of zen to me: some grow bonsai, I paint. What I strive for is not a tabetop army, but a showcase army. And I don't have a lot of time to begin with. Add the fact that I jump from model to model and from project to project, and you'll understand why I have so few models completed. Today, I'd like to show you the first model I actually completed: Typhus, Host of the Destroyer Hive.

As you can see there are a few personal variations.

First and foremost, I didn't assemble the clouds of flies on his back. They made the model too clumsy in my opinion, distracting the eye from Typhus itself.

Second, there's more brass than it should be. If you look at GW's image for Typhus, you'll notice that almost all the metallic should be steel. That though clashed with the rest of the Death Guard, since I'm using the traditional copper and green colour scheme.

I must say I'm pleased with the result! I think I achieved a dirty yet sober look. What do you think?

Ogryns are soooo Necromunda

What's a grimdark, Necromundan setting without some abhumans?

Meet Gork (not to be confused with Gork, or maybe Mork. He's brutal, but not so kunnin').

Gork is an ogryn pit fighter, and a damn good one too. His natural tendency to violence, paired with a brutal saw-axe and a towering slabshield make him a fearsome opponent. He's not so smart though, so cunning opponents are always a problem for the big guy. Until they make a misstep and get cleaved in half, anyway.

Now, you see, at first I was thinking about making a trio of pit fighters, using the other two ogryns from the box. I can imagine the three of them as "colleagues" in the arenas, sort of official attraction of the pit. "Come see the deadly trio!" But now I am tempted to include Gork in the Company of Rust. I can imagine him listening with rapture to the Old Man's deranged sermons, even if he only understands half of what he says. Ah, choices, choices! I must think carefully about it. 

Just in case, maybe I'll add a bit more rust around. I'll also switch the base, since it won't fit neither the arena's dusty floor nor the desert wastes of the Company. 

My favorite part of the model is the shield. It really fits in the whole "scavenge and make weapons" look. It's gritty and ruined the right way. I had too much fun painting it! Weathering and aging models is my passion XD

Expanding the Company of Rust

Hello everybody!

Let's continue with the Company of Rust.

I have not made many models for this gang, actually. Strangely enough, they need much more thought than other models. I think it's the fact that I'm trying to make "common people" (if we can describe them this way) in a setting that's not really known for common people. Even the lowliest guy is either a soldier or a mutant, while I want to give the gang the Mad Max feeling of normal humans trying to survive.

Here are two gangers in the later stages of assembly.

Left one is still a wip: I need to refine the green stuff on his chest, give him a torn sleeve for the naked arm and possibly a way to distinguish the neck from the shirt. Rifle guy I think is complete, I just have to decide if I want to stop thinking about him.

They don't have names yet, though the poses suggested me their personality. The guy with the knife is aggressive, and embraced the fatalistic credo of the gang to the extreme, rushing into fights without care. The guy with the rifle, instead, is extremely wary and anxious: you can see from the pose that he's not really sure about this gunfight, maybe not even sure about the safety of his own gun, and even managed to make some pieces of armor to feel protected. Not that covering his shoulders would do much, but we all know in Warhammer universe the bigger your pauldrons the tougher you are. Just believe it. Poor guy, this whole "enthropy" thing must not really be his thing. Also, I feel the urge to call him Bob.

I also need to say that Genestealer Cult's neophyte heads are one of the best things GW ever made.

See you next time with a larger model.


Cheers!

The first step of the journey

So, let's talk about background, shall we?

When I first begun converting models, I didn't think about a backstory. I just needed an Inquisitor and a few Acolytes to use in my games. We're talking about years ago, when you still had to use 5th edition Grey Knights codex to play the Inquisition. My only plan was having some different models, still focusing on the gaming aspects.

Then though I began looking at what other people made. They had references to obscure games like Necromunda, Inquisitor, Inquisimunda and other things lost in time. I realized people were making models because they were cool, and screw the rules. Then I discovered the Blanchitsu style, and I was hooked.

What happened then is that I began building my own gang, and from there I conceived a full scale project: as I slowly refined what I wanted my first gang to look like, other ideas popped up, and now I have seven factions.

Dramatis personae:

-the Company of Rust

-the Adeptus Ministorum zealots (in search for a name right now)

-the Steel Skulls

-the mutants

-an Adeptus Mechanicus Reclamation Squad

-the Royal Guards

-the Inquisition

Setting: the industrial world of Gorgoth (though I might change the name later on), polluted and desert, with hive cities jutting from the wastes amid the sand and the industrial slag.


The Company of Rust

Let's start with them.

The Company of Rust is a nihilistic, fatalistic gang, set in an outpost outside the hive cities. They believe that since enthropy is the ultimate fate of the universe, then it must be embraced and spread. They let their equipment get old and rusty, hence their nickname. A weapon that fails under the weight of the years is cherished as much as that which strikes down an enemy. They raid and pillage as much as for resources as for just sowing ruin and enthropy, and sometimes someone from the raided settlements follow them as new recruits, embracing their way of life.

 They follow the preaching of the Old Man, an old hermit who has survived alone in the desert wastes, and who has recently been welcomed in the gang. Nobody really knows who he is, as he’s always covered in rags and an old gas mask, but his deranged preaches stoke a fire in the gangers' heart.

The induction of the hermit had also been a political move. The gang’s leader, Iago, doesn’t entirely believe the Old Man, and he surely sees a high degree of madness in him, but it was Iago himself who brought the hermit under the gang’s protection: in doing so, he tightened his grip on the gang by sheer fanatical devotion. Having to listen to the crazy hermit’s ravings is a minor price to pay for power.

The first model is, of course, Iago himself, which is the first model I completed for the gang too, and helped me setting the mood for the others.

An autopistol, a chainsword, grenades, a knife, and even a shotgun for good measure. I liked the idea of a more relaxed pose for a leader, as it gives him a feeling of importance and control in the middle of the fight.

I used drybrush to tie everything together, even metals. In this case, it's the dirt and dust of the desertic areas. No highlights on metals, as the equipment is dirty and used. I also played with the clothes: I gave quick, dirty highlight on the leather just to lose the feeling of flatness; the pads, the boots and the cloth were stained in a completely random way, letting washes and drybrush tie the colours together. And I must say I like how it came out.

(my favorite part, though, is the skull hanging from his belt. I didn't actually painted it: I let paint randomly stain it, and I love the result!)

Cheers!

Hello ladies and gentlemen and welcome!

Sorry for the rough blog, but being new at this blogging thing I still have to learn, create and refine. This post itself is an experiment.


So, who am I? I'm a Warhammer 40K enthusiast. I love the setting and background, and I love working on the models.

What will you find here? Well, 40K models of course! You'll see both normal models - usually Death Guard and Mechanicum, although I usually like to dabble in other armies as well - and conversions - which I love to do. You'll also watch me as I struggle to improve my paint style and sculpting abilities, as well as my ability in taking pictures.

As an appetizer, here's a preview of a model for a Necromunda gang.

Let's see where this adventure brings me!

Cheers!