MORE MARINES

Hi again!

The summer wasn't a particularly productive period from a hobby perspective, but once the cold autumn winds started to blow things have picked up somewhat! 

In September and October I've been trying to get the marine-y stuff from the Indomitus-box painted up - aiming for a patrol size force of Metatron chapter Astartes. So far I've finished:

The three Eradicators. Who are awesome models - there's something very old-school Jes Goodwin-esque about them I really like. They're just bad-ass. Especially the sergeant - he reminds me of Wayne England's classic Deathwing terminator-sergeant from Space Hulk.

A six marine squad of assault Intercessors.

A Lieutenant, based on one of the Blade Guard models. 

It should be noted I really like the Blade Guard in general. However, I feel the models are somewhat ruined by the ludicrous and misplaced holster between their legs. It looks highly impractical (even for 40k) and furthermore like they're trying to compensate for something... Also the placement of the tilt-shield on the chest instead of the shoulder pad looks off and, again, impractical. Let's hope the multipart models are more customisable. In this instance I managed to get rid of the stupid holster, but removing the tilt-shield was a different matter so it had to remain where it was. 

On to the miniatures:

ERADICATORS

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ASSAULT INTERCESSORS

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LIEUTENANT

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I've also done some simple, but quite serviceable new terrain for Warcry out ot cork-sheets and some left over terrain kits. Dead cheap, lightweight and looks quite nice on the battlefield.

Next up are the three Primaris bikers from the Indomitus-box, plus a Chaplain converted by mixing parts of the chaplain from that kit with the body of the Judiciar. Plus some other odds and ends from my ever growing bitz-box. 

That's it for now. As usual - if you want more regular updates, and more pictures, check out my Instagram: www.instagram.com/the_convertorum/?hl=sv

WHAT I'VE BEEN UP TO

Right.

So I as usual it's been kinda quiet on this here blog for the last couple of months. If you want to keep track of what I'm doing I'd recommend following me on the instagrams, as I actually update that account pretty frequently.

Anyway, to get this blog up to date, I thought I'd just make a big ol' dump post with all the stuff I've been working on.

To begin with I did a few more sisters, including a Shield-maiden converted from the awesome Triumf of Saint Katherine set. A set which the nice people at Warhammer Community kindly sent me.

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Then there were a bunch of new Deathwatch models. I just love doing these - I'm aiming for a small, patrol size army.

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After the Inquisition I made a 180 and turned to Chaos. Inspired by the 28 MAG Mhorrigot competition, I finally, after years and years, completed an actual Mhorrigotii-daemon. Pretty happy with the result. I added wings as that just helped sell the model as a daemon, and distance it from the original nighthaunt model.

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And finally, a few weeks ago, out of nowhere, I got a very large and heavy box in the mail. What could it be?
Well, it turned out those previously mentioned fine people at Warhammer Community had sent me nothing less than the brand new 9th edition 40k box!

Here's what I've done with it so far. The assault marines (whom I love) are of course painted up as Metatron marines. The Necrons are test-paints - still haven't quite landed on a scheme for them, but I do like the one with the red lights...

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And... that's it for now! I'll be back in another few months. Or not.
Again - if you want to keep up please follow me on https://www.instagram.com/the_convertorum/

Take care and stay safe!

FRAG YOU, FRAGGING FRAGGER

Finally the Metatron Deathwatch squad receives some much needed heavy support. This in the form of Battle Brother Korngold and his trusty frag cannon, with which he frags things up.

This sonuvvagun took ages to paint for some reason, but at least he turned out alright. The kill team is slowly, but steadily, growing...

BLACK KNIGHT / WHITE KNIGHT

Happy new year everyone!

I kicked off 2020 with another Deathwatch astartes for my growing Metatron killteam.

This guy is called Battle Brother Steiner, named after the Austrian-American composer Max Steiner who, among other things, wrote the score for original King Kong. He's the second in the unit to wield one of the awesome, and borderline comically over-sized, heavy thunderhammers. I just love them in all their over-the-toppy warhammeryness.

The contrast range has really helped upping the saturation levels of my paintjobs and they're amazing for painting faces. I went for a slightly slicker, 'eavy metal-esque, look than usual, just to see if I
could do it.

After Steiner, which took me two-three nights to paint (so around ten hours of work) I wanted to do something quicker.

So, I set myself a challenge and tried to paint a marine in two hours. In the end it took me three hours to get the whole model finished, base and all, but I'm still pretty happy with the result. I just made up the chapter on the fly so there's no real thought behind it other than I wanted to experiment with painting off-white. Maybe it's a successor chapter to the Metatron.

Here's what the model looked like at the two-hour mark.

And here's what it looked like after basecoating. I started with a solid coat of Zandri Dust after which it received a lighter semi-zenithal coat of Wraithbone. This gave me a nice creamy bone colour to work from.

I'll be back soon with some Adepta Sororitas!

MORDHEIM, CONTRAST AND SPACE MARINES

July saw an meet-up of epic proportions when twenty or so hobbyists clashed in Helsinki in a celebration of Mordheim's 20th birthday. It was an absolute blast and the terrain and miniatures on display had to be seen to be belived. Huge thanks to Alexander Winberg for arranging this crazy endeavour, and to Mordheim's daddies Toumas Pirinen and John Blanche for participating.

I managed to play two and half games over the day and my nefarious vampire Graf Sugismund did rather well for himself (though he lost an eye in the proceedings). The last game turned into more of a moody photoshoot than a proper game when Kari, of Iron Sleet fame, brought along his nifty smoke machine. And then we had to break for dinner and beers. Lots and lots of beers.

Here's a few of my cruddy pictures from the event, but there's many more and better ones at that, at various other blogs:

Head over to Echoes of Imperium to have a look at all the participating warbands: echoesofimperium

Greg Weir has a brilliant recap of our first game over at Between the Bolter and Me: mordheim-2019-witch-hunter-games and Eric does a more general recap of the event at the same site: mordheim-2019-recap

Tammy covers our last game, among other things, over at Tears of Envy

After event I needed to do something completely different, so back I went to the good old 41st millennium. I picked up a box of Intercessor space marines and started testing various colour schemes using the contrast paints. Here's two of them:

The process is rather simple. After spraying the model black and then with either grey seer or wraithbone, I sponge the model with dark brown to add texture and battle damage. Then I drybrush the whole miniature with pure white to provide highlights. After this the contrast colour is applied (in this case gryph-charger grey). This approach works for basically any colour scheme and due to the contrast paint's translucency the drybrushed highlight is subtly visible through the basecoat.

Just painting for it's own sake was a lot of fun, but after a few random marines like these I decided to go back to my beloved Metatron marines and see if I could replicate the colour scheme using contrast paints. It turned out I could.

Contrast painted Metratron to the left, original colour scheme to the right

As there's lots of new marine stuff coming out I'll try to turn these guys into a proper army, by adding more Intercessors, a few hellblasters, a dreadnought or two and perhaps some vanguard - so there's plenty of hobbying to do.

And then we haven't even mentioned Warcry...