Pimple my ride - Nurgle Palanquin for Rogue Trader

Hi there, I'm in the final steps of my tale of several gamers so still trying to finish as much as I can for my Chaos renegades. I've only realized last month I haven't painted a single character in this challenge and thought I could use some leadership. Now of course I couldn't settle on something simple could I ?

And that's how I remembered I had this Nurgle Palanquin with no less than 3 potential riders, all fitted with Magnets !

Best part of which being one is pretty neutral and could be your regular undivided chaos lord.

Since I didn't have enough corks to put the riders on, I had the best idea in the world (aka worst idea ever, don't do this at home) and pinned all three on the same cork !

Scatter terrain - Munitorum armoured containers

An unsual for me this time : terrain. Or to be more precise, terrain of the scatter kind. 

See I have a gaming WE in a couple of WE and I have offered to bring terrain to make a table for some 40k skirmish action. Problem is, I'm quite poor in stuff to populate my tables still.

That's why I decided to finally get this kit done.

The Galactic Bastard, rogue trader extraordinaire

Today's entry is one that has had to wait for a long time to get completed. This model has been made for a facebook Hobby group called the Emporium of Rogue Dreams, focusing on wargaming in retro sci-fi universes like Rogue Trader, 2000AD publications, Starwars and others of the kind.

The Emporium keeper Mark has kindly had this model sculpted by the excellent Shane Hoyle as a group special miniature.

Now I've had the chance to get my hands on an early cast but the model came with 4 different heads :

All of them being excellent, there was no way I'd leave any aside so I decided to magnetise both heads and body in order to be able to change heads as I saw fit. 

My history with magnets is an old one as you can see with my Chaos army or my Kaleb Daark.

Problem was I was short on magnets so I ordered some and painted the body meanwhile... that was back in August !

Long story short : I finally got my magnets the other day and could finally complete the model !

Cocorico pour la Bresse ! - The proud bretonnian Rooster knight

Ok, I finally took the time to give this model the attention it diserved.

You may remember how this project started on the old hammer forum from my will to make a regional knight to represent the diversity of the community. I started this oroject here and followed here.

I decided to make a bretonnian since I have a bretonnian army and that I love them. I decided to take my region mascot being the "bresse" white rooster.

I won't rephrase everything but you can see the little story behind my bretonnian army here, which explains a bit my choices for this project (you can also see that every detail counts in this project).

Hugues-Edouard de l'Ain, Baron de Bresse in all his glory

Here are some shots from different angles and with the optionnal arms available since the right shoulder has a rare earth magnet which enables me to change its gear as I will.

 I have to say though I began this project with very naive intentions, but now I can't look away from all the innuendos and possible jokes about such a concept. Knowing that some people might be looking for some huge cock on the net and get dragged here (Google stats proved this happened more than once...), I don't want to fool anyone so here are some "in situ" shots of Hugues-Edouard in his every day life so you can see our knight here is nothing else but virtue made flesh...

Hugues-Edouard, a true Gentleman :

Hugues-Edouard is always prone to helping ladies in thge most honorable way, he insists on escorting all the ladies of the court when they go in the woods.

"- Oh please mesdemoiselles, rest assured and don't be afraid, as true as I have a huge cock between my legs, I'll take good care of you and won't let you be harmed whatsoever !
-...
- Come on mesdemoiselles, what are you afraid of?"

Hugues-Edouard hunting :

Hugues-Edouard insists on training his men for the hunt.

"- See ! Look at how my cock is standing firm ! This is how you hunt and how you win battles, always stand proud. You understand ?

- ...

- Alain ! As my squire I would like to know why you're hidingyour face in the palm of your hand? Is there something you'd like to tell me?"

Hugues-Edouard against Evil :

Hugues-Edouard is always taking the side of the weak and he will always lend a hand when his people are in danger.

" Ahaha my poor Tristan, when you said "Monsters" I thought you meant REAL monsters like dragons or wyverns ! I see no monsters here, some corrupted and lost creatures at best. Come on, let's show them how great the lady of the lake is with some well-placed sword hits ! EN AVANT!

Hugues-Edouard fights eviler :

 "- Oh I'm afraid you're misinformed about my mother Mr Black ! And I don't see why on earth I would let you mess with my organs as you said.

- (some horrible curses in a mix of old worlder and dark tongue I can't write here)

- Well, if you want blood for your blood god, that's a thing but I don't see how on earth this sordid idea of yours about your axe and my anus is relevant. Prepare yourself to fight for your honor ! I challenge you !"

and so on and so on...

You see, I already like him a lot...

Oh and Happy new year to you all, guess what I did on my new year's eve? Yep, blue-tack kitbashing for my venators (heads to be changed)...

The fabulous "enchantier" - the WIP post

Well, to make things clear I'm neither a level 15 Bretonnian wizard nor an "enchanteur" (which would be the proper term to describe a magician in french). I'm just using this little pun from warhammer armies (3rd ed) to describe myself since "en chantier" means something very close to "in progress"

I do paint a lot these days and I've even had the time to complete some things but a lot is at a "near completion" state. It's why I'v decided to complete everything I could to empty the painting range a bit.

The following will just be a quick glance at my latest projects to show how far they've gone. I have to say though I tend to dislike filler blog posts of poeple jus saying "I didn't do anything but I'm telling you anyway" I actually do paint a lot and feel like sharing it and it also give sme the extra motivation to finish things since I don't like to show unfinished models for too long.

Anyway here we are :

Kaleb Daark (2013 version)

This one is moving slowly, I've begun metallics and will only add mithril highlights here and there when the rest is more advanced. I'm actually very motivated for this one since I finished a lot of red models lately and I'm getting the hang of it.

 

I'm painting the trousers red because I want my new Kaleb to wear red tartan. Don't ask me why, I have no idea why, it's just the way it is (apologies in advance for any tartan fan if I shamelessly copy a cool device).

 

The doomed one rising from the bits box - Battle chaos part 19

Last time I showed you Kaleb's new embodiment he was just a pile of bits roughly assembled with blutak and some magnets.

This time I'm going to show you a little more.

The next step after drilling and placing the magnets was to create a joint of both receiving parts (the legs) so that the chest fits nicely on them. I started from this :

I added a big putty roll around each receiving part and pressed the chest part on them the way it would be when assembled (I also used saliva to be sure the fresh Duro wouldn't stick to the wrong part). This gavec me the print of the chest part. Once dry I only had to cut off all teh exceding material and do a nice putty blending to reach this state :

The very same was done with the heads.

Once this part was done, I could go on with the actual building process !

The building process happened yesterday night and nothing nor anybody was there to stop me so I guess I overdid it a little... I found so many bits I wanted to try I may have used too much.

(I had to use the wolf cloak, giving a mini something sculpted by Jes always reassures me since it can't be a total failure with JG parts)

 You can see on the picture above I've started to alter the axe to give it teeth, the next step being the lower jaw.

Another great interest in using magnets to assemble parts is that you can paint less parts (the chest goes for both mounted and on foot versions) but you can also give the mini different attitudes :

Dreadaxe, you're my weapon and I will always love you, you know that?

Morning everyone, my name is Kaleb and this is Dreadaxe, my daemonic axe aiming right at your skull.

 This magnet strategy also allows me to give an alternate head to represent Kaleb after a long time romaing in the wastes, his vital energy being drained from him by his powers (needs hair but you get the idea) :

 And at the end of his journey, I can even assemble him as a chaos fiend in a "Pete Taylor way"

Next time I'll do the base and show him aside his oldschool version just to have a laugh.

Cheers

Kaleb will live again !

I've recently been lurking in my bits box and found a few things that teased me...

Someone dare tell me this is not our beloved DREADAXE, the pterodactyl axe given to Kaleb Daark by Malal himself.

I might want to add some green stuff under the blade to make its lower jaw.

Thanks to Orlygg's fantastic article about Malal, I've learnt many things on Kaleb and his brief journey amongst us. I should have mentionned it in my first post about Kaleb Daark and the chaos brothers but I simply didn't know this brilliant post at the time.

There seems to be remnants of Malal's existence in many ways amongst the fluff and minis of recent GW's productions, a few hints here and there. Maybe it's just fanservice or is it a clue about the love designers still have for the doomed ones...

Anyway, now we have dreadaxe and other epic 28mm pieces, what do we do?

You got it, we're gonna make a brand new model. The aim here is to use every bit I have to try to match the best I can to the original mini but with recent plastic bits.

Here are the ones I've selected so far...

And since I'm lazy as hell, I've even decided to use the magic power of magnets to build only one torso of the guy. This way I'll just have to stick him to the proper legs (mounted or on foot) whenever I want...
I'm also planning on doing the same for the head but I have an issue so far being I can't really find the right helmet. I do have the bat wings to put on it though. I might find what I'm looking for amongst the new High Elves release.(if anyone can help me with a spare shadow warrior helmet?)

I'm also tempted to build an older version of him like if he never had died or like if he had come back from the grave , thus giving him an old or ruined face instead (his powers drain a lot of his energy). Or shall I go for a clean one to match the original mini?

Seriously, magnets are soooo good. It's like playing LEGO but making Malal champions out of it, how good is this?

I'll make updates about this one to show the evolution and to keep me motivated to finish it.

I would appreciate any thought on the matter  regarding the bits to add or the old/original choice and even on the painting style, hardcore oldschool, modern realism or just my regular style.

Shall I cover the base with corpse of champions form the 4 gods?

Any idea...

Magnet magic and heavy support - 40K Chaos part3

I've recently had the opportunity to go looking in my deadlead box and found 2 more chaos traitors (from the Perry twins) amongst which one is the heavy weapon bearer with the mk6 helmet.
Since his multimelta was not an option with the codex and the weapon itself looks like shit, I decided to give him one of these wonderful chaos heavy weapons I have left. I actually chose an autocannon more for the conviniency of the conversion than for the rules of the weapon itself :

Chaos traitor with autocannon

This guy still needs some green stuff to merge the weapon with the rest but nothing impossible here.
Amongst the other treasure that arose from my search was a converted Ahriman that was just the base I needed to start with a sorcerer. A simple change of head and staff (both used for a terminator tzeentch champion) and the hand from a missile launcher bearer to make him look like he's catsing a spell and bob's your uncle !

Chaos space marine sorcerer with force staff

And since it was Christmas a few days ago, I also had a wonderful touch to add to this army in the form of a ferrocentaurus. The mini is reaaly imposing and since I'm not planning on waiting for next christmas to get a new one, I wanted mine to be as versatile as could be. I've aleady tested rare earth magnets on smaller projects but this time was a debut with mounting huge arts like these.

I use cylindric magnets which are 1mm thick and 2mm in diameter. I drilled the holes before mounting the hole mini to have as much acces I could and to help me fix any problem. Sinc rare earth magnets are really powerful, I estimated only two magnets would be enough to stand the weight of the weapons and to make sur they're placed the right way. Three would have been good though but I was lacking room on the parts and getting 3 drills aligned on both parts was a too much pain the neck.

Magnets are in place

Pas de bras, pas de chocolat...

Since I decided to give some attention to the ectoplasma cannon head by adding the askull part from the apocalypse cannon, I realise two magnets are the absolute minimum to hold such heavy pieces, yet , the head doesn't fall when I hendle the mini and unless i shake it, it won't go away. Now at least I can get all the option from the 'dex just by removing bits in th eblink of an eye! How much cooler can it get? (Yeah I know, I could had boobs to it but it would be waaaaaay too cool...)

I removed the tongue from the bestial head since it looks silly to me, I'm actually considering adding green stuff flames instead...