Showcase: One Strange Warriors of Chaos Army

As promised I'm back this week to show off a chaos army you're probably not used to seeing on the table top.  This project stretches all the way back to September when I received a commission from long-time customer Michael P. to do weapon-tail and helmet conversions on a squad of Fimir.  The project kept rolling from there, and after Michael added two demon princes to the list and a lamassu, it was finally complete!  

I put the finishing touches on the lamassu last week and it's time to show off the entire army, let's take a look!

The lamassu's head is a conversion bit from Raging Heroes.  They call it a sphinx head, but it fits perfectly with the chaos dwarf look of Warhammer fantasy and the lamassus they employ.

The body of the beast comes from the chaos Manticore kit for Warhammer fantasy, and its tail is that of a Skaven Hell Pit Abomination.

By definition a lamassu is either a bull or lion with the head of a man and the wings of an eagle.  Warhammer depicts theirs as the cloven type, so Michael was keen to have the rear feet converted to hooves (the kit comes stock with what can be roughly described as reptilian feet).  A bit of grey stuff later, and voila!  Full frontal lamassu.

Having already seen the pics of the rest of the models, you're probably wondering what the whole army looks like together...

What a great project to work on, it was truly a blast and I'm excited for Michael to wreak havoc with his models on the table top.

That's all for this time, come back next week to see what else is brewing at the Monster Lab!

What's on My Desk: Another Look at Two Favorite Projects

This week I'm revisiting two projects, one from a year ago and another from only a few weeks back.  

I'm excited to show off a revisit of the extreme Ghetorix conversion that I originally did for long-time customer Michael P.  Kevin M. saw the conversion I did for Michael last December in the galleries and knew it was the next piece he wanted for his Circle or Orboros army.  I really enjoyed working on Michael's E.G. and was eager to give it another shot.  Let's take a look at the work!

The extreme warp wolf model is a full pewter piece, which brings a whole list of challenges when attempting to do even the simplest manipulations to the model.  We live in a resin and plastic age, but there is something to say for a stout pewter model, it has a certain gravitas.

The E.G.'s right arm needed repositioning so that it could hold its axe with both hands.  A move of 1/4" was needed to bring the arm back and away from its body.  Since I was working with pewter there was only one thing that would do to get the job done, the bone saw.  After cutting about a 1/8" into the top of the E.G.'s shoulder I brought out another heavy duty tool (one that I have only used in this conversion), a pair of adjustable Irwin toothed pliers.  The teeth on the pliers do a moderate amount of damage to the arm, so a good amount of resculpting is necessary to bring the arm back to form.

Some expense was shaved off this piece by bending the extreme warp wolf's existing fingers to hold its axe instead of resculpting each finger for a perfect grip.  The one I did for Michael was a complete resculpt of each finger, which is great, but this method is excellent when trying to keep costs low.

When all is said and done, this version of the extreme Ghetorix conversion takes seven hours and is a piece that I'm proud to put the Monster Lab stamp on.  I even like the way the left hand is lightly gripping the axe haft, it's like the force behind the swing is so great he's having trouble holding on!

Last month I showed off my second original sculpt for casting, a dragon chariot base.  I'd like to take one last look at the piece and a few castings that were made of it before it leaves for the Netherlands and becomes a part of the client's product line.

Jeremy G. over at Prairie House Miniatures did a fantastic job casting and resculpting the base, creating four test casts.  I was really pleased with how the piece turned out, it looks even better as a single cohesive resin sculpt.

It was a proud moment packing the dragon base and its copies away for mailing to their owner, and another exciting step down my road as a professional sculptor.  I can't wait to do more!

That's it for this week, come back next time to take a look at Michael P.'s Fimir themed army which contains two nasty demon princes and a custom Llamasu!

Showcase: X-Wing Miniatures, Millennium Falcon and Slave 1 Alters

This week I have something a little different than what I usually show off here on the blog, X-Wing minis!  The X-Wing miniatures game has taken a lot of game stores by storm, its popularity due to its ease of play, complexity, and of course, the Star Wars universe.  Another probable factor contributing to its success is that the minis come pre-painted.  But, just because a piece is pre-painted that doesn't mean it can't be altered!  That's exactly what I did for new customer, Donovan, who requested a fresh look at his Millennium Falcon and Slave 1.

Both the Falcon and Slave 1 are duplicates in Donovan's collection and he wanted models for "vanilla" versions of those ships, ones that don't represent the craft popularized by episodes IV, V, and VI.  

With a little bit of art direction I was ready to go and broke out the airbrush for a base coat.

The classic M. Falcon uses a red palette, so I wanted to go in the other direction and use a blue based gray and rich royal blue.  Yellow was my choice for headlamps and cockpit glow, a nice natural contrast color.

I mentioned to Donovan that a "bomber babe" on the cockpit would be a nice touch and he jumped on the idea, eagerly requesting that she be a Twilek.

"Trudy the Twilek" now graces the newly re-christened "Trudy be True!"

Can you guess what inspired the design for Trudy's paint scheme?  You might just push one at home or work every day...

I stuck with the classic sky blue engine glow for Trudy.  Some times you just can't beat an oldie.

It was definitely a blue week, as once again the Slave 1 draws upon a red palette.  I happily used the chance to paint with my favorite color hue again.

I stayed on the dark end of the blue spectrum, inspired by the idea of a "stealth" coloration, perfect for hunting down bounties and committing space piracy.

Though the paint scheme was a stealthy one, I still wanted to add something bold to the design.  Alien-tribal seemed like a fun way to add some complexity to the repainted Slave 1 while not breaking with its subtle approach.

I used my Badger airbrush for both base coating each ship and adding their engine glow.  I went back with a bristle brush and added more highlight to the effect, and was done in minutes!

I hope you enjoyed checking out my X-Wing alters, come back next week to see what else I'm working on here at the Lab!

Elder Horrors for the Warhammer Universe

There's the faintest foul hint on the fell north wind.  A thrum, a pulse, the suggestion of alien voices chanting in unison.  The strangeness of the sound is abhorrent, but in it lies a truth begetting something more.  A piece of primal suggestion tugs at the soul recalling bygone eras of immemorial past.  It is the ancestral memory of an elder horror which stalked the world before man raised his first monument, and now it seeks to return!

Yes, I have been reading a lot of Lovecraft lately.  The Shadow Out of Time, Mountains of Madness, and of course Call of Cthulu.  I've really enjoyed stepping into Lovecraft's universe, where a daring scientific expedition or even a simple backwoods can be the setting for mystery, suspense, and horror.  It just so happened that a returning customer, Michael P., wanted a commission that fit perfectly with the great stories I've been reading.  With inspiration readily on hand, I set to work crafting a pair of horrors that would make Lovecraft proud.

Let's take a look!

The job was to convert two demon princes for Michael's fimir themed warriors of chaos army.  The basis for the conversions came from the Dark Lands collection with a few bitz from Warhammer and Warhammer 40k thrown in.

A lot of the work was original sculpt conversions done with Procreate (grey stuff) and green stuff modeling epoxy.  Procreate works really well for details that you want to hold a crisp edge, like this Cthulu prince's face tentacles.  Procreate also performs better than green stuff under an xacto blade or file for when you need to fine tune details or make adjustments.

To build the Cthulu theme on this piece I sculpted barnacles clinging to his shoulders, back, and appendages, and made ribbons of seaweed dangling from his horns and loin cloth.

Michael wanted a scythe hand for this model, so a bit of green stuff and a tyranid scything talon later.. and Cthulu prince was packing some serious stabby action.

I had the idea to make the tail have a mouth and teeth (chaos tip #1: add extra mouths, eyes, and teeth to increasy chaosy-ness).  After some thinking I came up with the notion to make it a blind snake as serpents are classic nautical beasts.

The demon prince plastic kit's wings fit excellently with the sculpt and scale of this piece.

The whole thing came together quite well, as it gets the theme across but doesn't ride the Cthulu-idea too hard.  I'm excited for Michael to add this to his force!

I did say that there was another prince in this commission, one that is certainly no less horrific than the last!

The theme of this one was definitely "eyeballs."  Which once again comes back to chaos tip #1 in stunning fashion.

I've done a stomach mouth before on a soul grinder project and was looking forward to take number two on the design.  For this one, the direction was stubby "frog" teeth (I know, frogs don't have teeth, but the descriptor strangely works).  I wanted a series of eyes low-set over the mouth to give a strong facial impression and a long forked tongue to drive home the amphibious nature of this grisly mutation.

Eyeballs are everywhere on this model, mounted on two shoulder tentacles, on its tail, on its fingertips, head, shoulders...

Technically this prince is a biclops, or two-eyed cyclops.  Yes, there is a difference, he has two eyes, but one is aligned over the other!

This giant got converted three-toed "fimir" feet as he is a mutated fimir champion.

And in case a slew of extra eyes wasn't enough, this prince has four more on the tips of his fingers; probably for use as a strange hand parascope or looking into finger-sized cracks.  Come to think of it, that would be quite handy, though you would have to be careful not to stub your eyes!

That's all the horrific and eldritch terror I have to unveil this week.  I'll be back next week with a look at some X-Wing minis that received new paint jobs!

Until then, good gaming and happy hobbying!

Showcase: Sorcerer of Tzeentch

I'm wrapping up a conversion project this week and it's not quite ready for pictures just yet.  I'm excited to show you the completed project using Darklands Miniatures next week!  Until then, let's take a look at a quick 3.5 hour paint I did a couple of weeks ago for a new customer David D.

David wanted the codex paint scheme for the sorcerer and I was happy to oblige.  The combination of regal blue and gold are fantastic.

I used Valejo's Old Gold, which has a rich dark color, for all the gold pieces on the model.  Old Gold is one of my favorite paints and is perfect for the time worn and chaos weathered armor of the Thousand Sons.

The sorcerer's sword blade was a major contrast point and I had fun digging out a color scheme from a previous commission to do his.  The sorcerer's and the backpack's eyes were another minor contrast point, simply done with Goblin Green and Scorpion Green.

After a few hours I had a model I liked and was proud to hand over to David.  Both the Abaddon he commissioned previously and this sorcerer have been rampaging across our local game store's table tops claiming glory for chaos!

Thanks for stopping by this week to see what's going on at the Lab, come back next time and check out two unique demon prince conversions for a fimir themed fantasy army!