Here are a bunch of WIP shots of more Mutants and Traitors. They are all really early on in the process, and haven't been cleaned up at all.
Even CSM's can have a bad day... this guy ended up a Mutant in a Lost and the Damned Army.
This handsome fellow needs some putty work on his shoulder. The arm isn't quite right, but it is good enough; I don't feel like doing another major arm surgery.
I saw someone else do this conversion (on the web somewhere? maybe in White Dwarf...) and thought it pretty cool, so I stole the idea.
Another angle.
Hey, whaddayaknow! Necromunda plastic Goliath's look crappy as Mutants, too.
That Marauder shoulderpad makes a good mask. I think I'll do something similar with a Space Marine head... cut off the back, hollow it out and put it on a Catachan head as a mask.
Another assault-oriented Traitor.
...and another.
Another shot of the guy I made the other day.
aaaaand, a new bad shot of my Chaos Lieutentant. The black figure and light background trick my camera's exposure every time. I stopped this shot down by 2 stops and it still has the background overexposed.
# posted by Andy : 12:12 PM
A key part of my Lost and the Damned army is the Icon-bearing Traitor squad in a Chimera. The Chaos Lieutenant will ride with them, and combined with the Daemonettes they will form the backbone of the assault portion of the army.
I want to kit them all out with LasPistol and CCW. Fortunately, the plastic Cadians have a CCW sprue; I'm a couple short, but I'm sure I'll be able to scrounge up the extras I need.
Okay, here's a stock Cadian Chainsword. Note the nasty Imperial iconography. It had to go.
First of all, I used a sharp hobby knife to shave the Eagle off the Chainsword.
There, much better. Note there is still a bit of leftover Eagle.
To get rid of those leftovers, I used the same knife but this time I held the blade perpendicular to the plastic surface, and scraped it from side to side. This did a good job of removing the extra plastic without scoring.
Had to do the same thing with the Sergeant's Chevrons -- ranks means a lot less to those who have Seen The Truth About The False Emperor.
I took a lot less off by shaving. I didn't want to risk scoring the arm, there's a lot less material there if I made a mistake.
Scraped away the rest.
Voila! But that sleeve sure does look flat and two-dimensional now, doesn't it?
A roundfile did a great job of creating "folds." I just filed it back and forth to make a few shallow grooves where folds would naturally form.
Much better -- it doesn't show up so well in the photo, but it really does look pretty good. It doesn't have to be perfect, I can help out the look when painting.
Hey! More Imperial symbols! Off the come.
This is the most useful hobby knife I have. I got it years ago, and haven't found a store nearby that sells them (note that there is a *similar* one that scrapbookers use, but it's blade rotates freely. You don't want that one..). Micromark carries them, and spare blades too.
Here's why it is so useful -- small, sharp blade that is very easy to control.
Problem. Here's a shot of another model I did previously. See how he's holding the Chainsword in a ready stance? The tip of the chainsword is angled outwards, as he give a Chaotic "Come get some" look to the opposition. Looks great on this guy, but it won't work for the "charging" pose I'm looking for -- it'll look like the Traitor is flapping the sword out limply above his head. Slaanesh doesn't like limp.
The solution? Chop, chop, chop. I cut the arm into 3 pieces, so I could rotate the arm into a more assault-y pose.
First, the shoulder went on.
Next, I drilled a hole for the pin. Always pin converted joints, they'll break if you don't. Guaranteed.
I pinned the chainsword-holding hand as well.
I glued the pieces together with a gap-filling CA glue (and accellerant), then used the roundfile to smooth out the joints. There were a few sharp angles where the arm segments didn't quite line up, but they filed down nicely. The CA filled the gaps well, so no putty was needed.
Done. Scary, eh?
# posted by Andy : 5:45 PM
