Enter The Magos II

Well, here he is. Arch-Magos Cybernetica Braetalan'Kot. Finally got the paint finished up last week and some photos snapped over the weekend Thrilled with how he turned out. Not much else to say as now he needs his retinue. First up am working on his bodyguards - a Scyllax Automata Covenant known as The Arachnae. FW models and should fit in nicely aesthetically with the Arch-Magos. I enjoyed building him so much, I'm gonna build a few lesser models to fit in as his extended retine. Servitor or two and a few wee others.

Just a few photos eh ;) Hope you like him and cheers for looking in. C&C as ever more than welcome

Cheers

Stephen/'Jan'

Magos' Progression

Last few days have been great for getting stuck into hobby. Gotta love the winter hols! Really buzzing with this Magos.

Something really satisfying about building your own unique fig, seeeing it really come together and then coming to life as the paint starts to go down. Been a fantastic start to the new year! I've got most of the metalwork done now and have been painting kinda from the inside out. The mechandrites really had to be tackled first as they get in the way of everything and as you can see, painting the meant getting metallics on just about all of the Magos' robes so I've had to leave them to last. I wanted his face to be quite recessed within the hood to give a darker and more ominous/sinister look and character to the figure as well ala a lot of John Blanche's visions of the Mechanicus so natually that also needed to be totally painted and finished before the outer robes.
I've stuck to the livery of his Achlys III forgeworld  and the methods/techniques I used on the other members of the forge I've alreasy finished - kats, dragoon, Dominus etc. However, with the Magos, I wanted to step it up a bit so to make him stand out both as being of a higher order and also much older and more senior to the rest of the collected force, even the Dominus techpriest. I needed something the rest wouldn't have. So I settled on his chestplates as been of a more archaic and rare nature. With the rest I use brass as a trim to thier weapons and armour and don't really use any golds. Here I wanted something brassy but a bit more goldy.....So I've gone with what his chestplates and cog axe now are. Comes out as a nice old, tarnished gold effect but still sits will with the ages metals of the mechandrites and the few brass trims. Very happy with how the effect came out and was very easy to achieve. Anyways - this is where we're at the now. Thrilled with how he's coming out.

AdMech Arch-Magos

I've always really like the fluff and aesthetic for the Adeptus Mechanicus/Mechanicum that GW has produced and the work of John Blanche that so often goes hand in hand with it. The FW Mechanicum models (you'll be seeing a fair bit of them coming up in the next few months here) and now the recent GW AdMech releases are all top notch and great stuff to build and paint. Their TechPriest Dominus is probably my favourite character release of 2015. However, for the Arch-Magos, I really wanted something unique and a model that would stand above and beyond the assembled forces. No two Magi are the same and are very much their own creations as they gradually augment and replace their biological parts as they rise up through the ranks and heirarchies down the centuries - becoming more and more mechanical and more and more aloof and even isolated from their peers as they get closer to their god.
And so I looked for inspiration for my Magos and found it from one of the best kitbashers out there - krautscientist and his 'Legion' model. If you haven't checked out his work yet, then do it. He doe some really amazing and inspiring work especially in the realms of the CSM, Inquisition and of course the AdMech. The 'Legion' model uses a WHFB cairn wraith from the hunched robed look so usually associated with the Mechanicum and it works perfectly. As I say, if you haven't seen his work before - go and check it out and be inspired! The 'Legion' model can be found here https://eternalhunt.wordpress.com/2013/04/13/meanwhile-aboard-the-arrke/  but have a look around the whole site.
Anyways - enough from me, time to get back to the brushes!

Cheers for stopping in and all the best for 2016

Jan

WiP Catchup 2 - Kat-man-Do!

And onto what I've been working on more recently. Adding a new squad to my Achlys III Admech force - a squad of Katraphron destroyers. When I got these tasty little fellas I remembered reading in one of the new AdMech novels from BL about a Dominus riding ino battle on the back of a Kat and decided that was a class idea and having a Kat that another fig could use as a command/transport platform was defintely the way forward. Time for some conversioning ;)

Kataphron Destroyer Conversion

Not the hardest of convs but did need a bit of fiddling. I reserved the chasis within the track units so it would jut out the front more and therefore allow for a bigger space at the back on which to build the central post(?) that the platform would be mounted (mag'd) to. The platform was then built from metal grating and thes filed and sanded lengths of sprue were bent with heat to fit around the plate shape. The underside and sides of the projecting 'bucket' into which the servitor fits need carefully cut and shaped pieces of plasticard to be made to seal it up. Magnets have been greenstuffed into all the Kats' servitor bucket so they'll be able to turn and face once painted. SO - with construction finished - onto the painting!

I started with just the lead Kat to test out how the paint scheme would work and then have a reference to paint the other two from. Needed someone to ride on the back though and the Dominus is a touch tall. When mounted on the back he does kinda take over the whole thing and it just looks a bit overbalanced. Luckily I had a box of skitarii waiting for build and paint. Skit Ranger Alpha quickly built and fits the bill perfectly~!!

 Lead Kat is mostly set. Wearing the grey armour plates of his forgeworld with the secondary blue colour on the underside of the servitors bucket and one or two other places.

For the Alpha, I inverted the usual colour scheme (you can just see I have my Sydonian Dragoon model in the background for reference) and drilled two holes into his feet into which I glued into 2 pieces if paperclip which will then attach to the magnet within the platform's post. The Skit feet are just way too skinny to allow for 3mm magnets to be used.

That done - time to paint the Alpha. His robe has been inverted to blue on the outside and grey on the inside. Markings are a fusion of cutup transfers and freehand. Happy with how he's turned out :D

The other Kats are nearly done now (all the brass takes FOREVER) and I'll pop up some finished shots when everything is done.

Cheers for looking  and C&C welcome as ever :D

Jan

An Ork, A Hobbit and A Tech-Priest Walk Into A Bar........

The ork orders one ale, the hobbit does not, the tech-priest is confused o.O
Definitely funnier in my head ;)

Anyways - some finished stuff to pop up today. The Dominus/Castellax figs'n'vig are all done and I've also finally got the GW Bilbo fig and the AOBR Warboss all done for some folk over on DakkaDakka.
Warboss was a lot of fun as it was my first ever ork to paint (how the hell have I neever got 'round to painting an ork before??!!!). Gave me a good chance to play around with metals; weathering them and so on.
Bilbo is so tiny. When he first arrived, I took one look and wondered how the hell I was going to do him justice (beautiful sculpt btw) without obscurring the seriously fine detail. Really really REALLY thin layer was the answer to that one. His clothes took about 8 or 9 layers each to do but I think he worked out pretty well. The base is all GreenStuff. He's such a nice fig I thought he deserved a base that put him in context. I wanted to give him a little private moment as he stares and grins at the one true ring so I based him as if he's in his house surrounded by books and went with a darker palette to reflect the seriousness of the moment. Anyways there we are. Hope yez like them. C&C always welcome :D

Bilbo Baggins

 

AOBR Ork Warboss

 

 

 

 

AdMech Tech-Priest Dominus Lant Dor

 

 

AdMech Castellax Battle Automata - 'Delta-17-'LostChild'

 

 

 

Tech-Priest Dominus/Castellax Battle Automata Vignette

Into The Mech - the WiPs

Crikey - has been ages since I posted. Since last time work has been a bit mad and of course had a honeymoon to go on!! Went back to Ireland and then a week in Italy with the wife. Missing Italy again already!
While at home I was able to pick up the Mechanicum Castellax Battle Automata and the weathering powders that I ordered from FW. My first resin piece - awwww!!!

Anyways - back in Korea now since the middle of August and been hard at it. Got painting on the Castellax (after a ton of reading etc on how to treat a resin mini) and did him alongside GW's Tech Priest Dominus. If you haven't got one yet - go and buy one. Seriously gorgeous figure and for once, defintely worth the nonsencical clampack prices.

Kept with the colour scheme I've come up with from my homegrown forgeworld Achlys III and tried to improve on it a touch. So here are the WiPs (I'll put up the finished stuff in the next post) starting with the Dominus; well, he is the boss after all

Everything gets mounted on their own Jenga block and painted seperately

Getting the metals down first. For this scheme I decided not to base paint with metal as I wanted a darker more deep look. So I drybrushed 3 layers over a chaos black base. First Warplock, then Ghenna's Gold and finally Ironbreaker. Much later a little light dusting of Runefang was used to give a final gleem. Some of the metal parts were washed with Drak Blue Shade a few times to give a 'blue steel' look. The edges and some parts were then painted with Runelord Brass, washed with agrax and then highlighted with sycorax

Onto the greys. 10 (I think) thin thin layers later........

 The castellax comes with a multi-melta for his should mounted weapon but I really didint like the look of it so choppity-chop, off came the melta barrels and I pinned/glued on the eradication ray that was left over from building the Dominus.

 For the metals< I did a much rougher drybrushing on the castellax as I want it to look more worn and used than the Dominus. Another 10 or so layers of grey later....

The two boys are nearly done. The Achlys III forgeworld symbol on Cass's shoulder is half decal (the cog part) and half freehand.

So, with Cass & Dom done - decided i NEEDED to make a wee dio for them. But it should match in with the basing I'd already done for the Sydonian Dragoon. I'm not gonna say much about the dio WiPs but any questions - please feel free to ask :)

Dragoons & Hulks

Finally finished the AdMech Sydonian Dragoon I was working on. The usual coour schemes from the Skitarii codex did absolutely nothing for me (esp. Ryza....I mean orange....really??!! yuk) so I went ahead and just made up my own forgeworld and respective colour scheme - Achlys II. I'll write up a full fluff about it at some other time and it will be tying into the backstory for the Freeblade Knight I'm (oh so slowly) working on. Anyhows - The AdMech of Achlys II are garbed in a mech grey and slate blue scheme with a cold brass trim. Really chuffed with how it turned out. So chuffed that I've also picked up a box of Skitarii to paint in same said scheme. And there's the Dominus Tech Priest as well, which has gotten as far as being dry built.
Here's the Dragoon -

AdMech Sydonian Dragoon

AdMech Sydonian Dragoon

AdMech Sydonian Dragoon

Orignially I did the tazer lance differently but it really didnt come out well so totally redid it. Needless to say, this guy will NOT be getting a coat of Purity Seal!!!

In other news - Saturday brought an unexpected early delivery!! Mr. Taekbae turned up with a package for me.....

 

Open her up.........

 

BOOM!!!! Sealed copy of the 2014 limited release of Space Hulk finally arrived!! Swweeeett!! $90 on ebay. Cannot sniff at that price. Torn open feverishly and barr 2 broken 'stealer hands, everythings is totally present and correct. Trying to get all the figs clipped, trimmed and built now.....more on that later as I'm getting back to it!! Happy painting folks :D