2015 recap

While slowly digesting last nights humongous christmas dinner, I thought I'd look back on this years output of miniatures. 

In 2015 my hobby mojo have oscillated wildly and during the fall I took my first (and much needed) long break from modelling since the conception of this blog. 

Despite this almost three month hiatus I still managed to crank out a total of exactly 30 painted conversions (of which three are much bigger models than my usual fare). Not too shabby all things considered. 

The year started in the sign of papa Nurgle with a small chaos warband led by the ignominious Mawgut Gloop. It was a lot of fun going back to Warhammer Fantasy and taking cues from the old Realm of Chaos books. Later this year I also did a Tzeentchean champion. 

Unfortunately the Old World was rather unceremoniously killed off this summer - but that's another story...

Meanwhile in the world of the 41st millenium, the release of the Adeptus Mechanicus was the biggest event - and the stellar new kits have had a huge influence on most of my models with round bases. I've built a pretty large mechanicus warband (at least for inquisimunda) with two big robots, several smaller automatons, cyborgs, servitors and a rather nasty looking Magos. Recently I've started work on a Dark Mechanicvm gang dedicated to Nurgle (obviously my favourite chaos god) repurposing some older models and building new ones. 

The year started with Slaanesh and harlequins though with the three models I made for the Iron Sleet Invitational. I've also made a few non-mechanicus imperial servants and two Xenos (which was my original idea for the Iron Sleet project). 

 

The plan for next year include more fantasy as me Alexander and Erik AKA Nordic will play a few realm of chaos inspired in february using the new Chaos Champion Warband rules for Age of Sigmar. More mechanicvm of course - both loyalist and traitorous (and somewhere in between).

Then there's a big and exiting project soon to be announced...

And with that I bid you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Speaking of christmas I recieved a very special present from my buddy Kraut a few days ago. 

Head on over to Eternal Hunt to get the full story: 

https://eternalhunt.wordpress.com/2015/12/23/nordiska-vasen-revisited-the-vaettir/

Rotstalker no.II

I had so much fun with the first ruststalker that crafting another one was unavoidable. Here's a (very) work in progress shot: 

Haven't decided on the right arm...  Might use a kataphron gun arm like on the other guy, or something more organic - a mutation of some sort. We'll see...

Necrotic Rotstalker

Painted up this one in one go last night. He was an absolute joy to work on so the hours simply flew by.

Quite pleased with the result as well - probably the model I have made that comes closest in look to Karis utterly brilliant evisorators. Steal from the best!

He'll be the main top hechman in the Rotten Mechanicvm crew I'm planning. I've dusted some burnt sienna powder on some of the older nurgly cyborgs bases as they will of course be part of the crew. I like the look - the cold and neutral hues of the miniatures really pop against the warm red. They had a tendency to blend into the base previously. 

Here you can see the Necrotic Ruststalker along with his cronies and their shiny new bases. 

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Hereteks

Work continues on the nurgly techpriest. Managed to fit a cataphractii breastplate on his torso which really helps bring him into the 41st millenium. 

I've also undercoated the plagueborg with the patented three-layer technique: black basecoat, brown 45 degree spray and a final grey zenithal dusting. It's really effective and provides an interesting natural foundation for the paintjob. If used for batch painting one could finish an army in no time with this method - you'd only need some drybrushing and a few washes to finish basic troops like a clanrat or a necron off. 

Dominatus Chaoticus

Today I stopped by my local games store and left with two kits I've been eying for a while: 

Inspired by PDHs awesome slaaneshii slaughterpriest conversion (which can be  viewed here: http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/757625-size%20comparison%20.html) and set on creating a different looking Dark Mechanicus Techpriest I started splicing the two kits together. 

Here's an early bluetacked sketch:

There'll be loads more stuff added of course - vestigal arms, mechadentrites, greenstuff cowl, lots and lots of wires among other things. Obviously a muscular techpriest, however chaotic, sort of goes against the archetype, but that's sort of the point - the idea being that he's mutated and enhanched his own body using arcane technomantic  genecraft. 

I'm rather impressed by the slaughterpriest  - it's the first AoS miniature I've bought. A beautifully sculpted kit, cleverly cast and surprisingly easy to put together. 

And boy if he isn't big! Here you see him next to a human sized plague cultist:

Plagueborg pt.II

Did some more work on the nurgle servitor last night:

I gotta say I'm rather pleased with how the addition of the bayonet makes him echo the good ol´ chaos androids from Space Crusade. 

Plagueborg

Those rascally Dark Mechanicum are up to their old antics again! 

Inspired by the recent Warhammer Visions article I cobbled together yet another chaos cyborg. I never seem to get tired of bionic monstrosities with big guns for arms...

Speaking of the Dark Mechanicus - perhaps its about darn time I made a heretek plague priest of some sort...

Rotten rag

Part of my inq28 Nurgly warband is featured in this months issue of Warhammer:Visions. I really like the sense of quality of the mag conveys now that they moved to a prestige format and the photos of my minis are just beautiful. 

Incidentally, this marks the fourth time I'm featured in Visions/WD. 

The pictures were taken at last years The Fang competition here in Stockholms GW store. Unfortunately a lot of my nurglies were left with John in Nottingham at the time so there's only four of them in the W:V photoshoot. 

Some of you might like to see the whole gang all gathered so I rounded up the lot (now that they're all safely back in Sweden) and snapped a picture.  

That nurgly master of ceremonies is still one of my favourite minis...

Brokk

Brokk the mechnomancer is ready to reanimate some busted machinery. 

Here he is next to his associate the Skadiir and a human naval officer (who's probably feeling slightly nervous between the two large space aliens) for size reference.

Also: First mini painted since september! Yay!

Mechnomancer - work in progress

The mechnomancer is getting some paint slapped on him. Haven't painted in a while so things are progressing in a slowly but not very steadily kind of fashion... 

But, so far - so good methinks!

Ivaldian Mechnomancer

So... The plan was to do a mercenary xenos - a starwarsy "scum and villainy"-type who'd fit in well rubbing shoulders with your average Mos Eisly cantina customer.

Then the grimdark just sort of started creeping in and he turned into something else entirely... 

Meet Brokk - a grumpy Ivaldian Mechnomancer. 

The Ivaldians are a technologically advanced race that have attained a special form of psychic affinity with machines. They all have the ability to communicate with any sufficiently advanced apparatus (techepathy) and some, the Mechnomancers, to revive and control broken machinery. 

Ivaldians tend to have lots of bionic implants - the artificial parts seem to enhance their powers. 

Back on the air!

Hello. 

As you might have noticed, things have been a bit quiet on the Convertorum these last two months. This has mainly been for two reasons:

The first reason is that I've been trying to finish writing my next book. This has, as you might imagine, been rather time consuming ( plus my ridiculously oversized 27" iMac has occupied my worktable ).

The second and, in a way, most important reason is a general sense of miniature fatigue. I had boxes full of bitz but couldn't come up with any interesting ideas on what to make with them.  Also I've kept a pretty frantic pace these 2,5 years since the start of the blog and felt I really needed a break. That break grew longer and longer as I realised there wasn't really anything I  truly wanted to build. 

But now the book is done, the computer is stowed away and paints, brushes and little plastic men are slowly taking over my worktable yet again. 

As a warm up piece after the break I'm working on a xenos mercenary to accompany the skadir. I like the Star Wars vibe these two give off...

Kicking it old school

Hearken ye brave adventurers!


Today I can proudly announce that I´m doing the interior illustrations for the illustrious swedish roleplaying game Drakar och Demoner (Dragons and Demons). For the non-Swedish readers this game is as legendary for swedes as Dungeons and Dragons is to english speakers - since it´s debut in 1982 it has sold over 100.000 copies. 


The game will be very much a back to basics deal: black box with the old logo and Wheelan cover, the old Ereb Altor setting, ducks as a playable race and so on. 


The kickstarter is live now and the game is to be released the coming summer: 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1256540796/drakar-och-demoner

The New Realms of Chaos

Just a quick news flash to tell you that the newly started, rather excellent, communal blog "The New Realms of Chaos" has a feature about my forays into the chaos wastes. 

Head over there and check it out: http://thenewrealmsofchaos.blogspot.se/2015/09/a-special-featuring-mister-vaders.html

Thanks Manu for featuring me!

Poxgut

I did this plaguebearer as a warm-up before painting the converted blightking. 

I simply adore the plastic plaguebearers - they look exactly like Adrian Smiths illustrations in Realm of Chaos. They're also ridiculously fun to paint. 

While fairly new models, they have a lot of oldschool charm with grinning jovial faces  instead of angry ones, tiny nurglings mischievously pulling on intestines and so on. The only thing I don't like are the swords who look like pointy sticks so that was replaced.

Here he is next to the rest of Mawgut Gloops warband. 

 

Come to Papa!

The plan was to follow up the tzeentchii champion with a tzaangor, but as I was rummaging around in my chaos bitz box an unused blightking caught my eye. The lure of Papa Nurgle was simply irresisteble... 

Tzeentch may be fun but Nurgle is more fun! 

Sword and Sorcery pt.III

I spent the evening watching a documentary about Monty Python and finishing up the shield for the Tzeentchii champion. Somehow that combination felt oddly proper as Tzeentch, along with Nurgle, are the two chaos gods with a sense of humour.

I´m really quite happy with the model. It was fun painting something really gaudy and flamboyant while avoiding making it tacky. 

I used a lot of colours I don´t normally use on this one, and tried to make them more vibrant than my usual fare. Though that didn´t quite succeed in all cases - particularly with the pinks (I think I need some more practice to nail those), all in all it turned out like I wanted it. It´s really got that old school, Realm of Chaos, vibe. The madly grinning shield and checkered border helps a lot in that respect of course... 




After a quick look at the trusty old name generator table in Slaves to Darkness I´ve decided to call him Mandragore Warp-feather. It´s got a nice ring to it. I´d like to think the shield constantly argues with him. 




The shield, incidentally, is called Klaus and speaks with a slightly effeminate german accent.  

Here´s Mandragor facing of against the unsavoury followers of Nurgle led by the vile Mawgut Gloop.

Shield and sorcery

The Tzeentchii champ is nearing completion. Time to pick a shield - after some rummaging I found this classic in my drawers. 

What do you think? It's certainly has an old school charm...

Sword and Sorcery pt.II

The Tzeentch champion is coming along rather nicely, although I'm not sure if it looks quite as old school as I originally intended. I'm just making it up as I go along - guided by the Changer of the Ways no doubt...

No matter - it's a lot of fun and a pretty different palette to that of my usual output. Here's a WIP shot of him at the moment. 

Sword and sorcery

There haven't been a lot of updates recently - I've been focusing on work: drawing and writing my next big book about norse mythology.

I have fiddled around with some xenos but there's nothing to show yet. Designing new species is hard. You want to hint at new technology and different physonomies, but doing that using existing bits is tricky. 

But today I got the urge to do something old school - something nostalgic and "warhammery" as a contrast to GWs current relentless barrage of golden warrior angels with big hammers. So, I picked up a tzeentchean sorceror, gave a new bird head from an empire mini griffon and turned him into a classic chaos champion. 

While I say old school at the same time the theme is completely new for me, as I've never painted a tzeench model.

The plan is to paint it in a Realm of Chaos early 90s style and have a lot of fun with the shield doing a wierd face or eye motif of some sort.

New Blog! Get yer new blogs here!

Hello dear readers!

I´ve started up a new blog focusing on my exploits as an illustrator. Check it out here:
 http://johan-egerkrans.blogspot.se/

Now back to the xenos warband...