A Bloodgor Packmaster (WIP?)

 I've more or less finished my conversion of a 40K Chaos Beastman as the Packmaster for a herd of Bloodgor (read: Khorne-worshipping Beastmen) to be allied with my CSM army at some point down the line. This 40K guy is one that I want to paint up for competiton and eventually use as a "leader" in my 40K force, but I'll likely be subbing him for a Khorne Berzerker until such time as I can model up his friends - it might be years with the time I've got to do hobby stuff nowadays.

 One thing I don't like is how far forward the stock figure pose itself leans, especially with swapping out the chest armor, but I can't really change that without changing the whole dynamic of the figure - it wasn't originally meant to be that involved a conversion. I tried to limit that some by leaning him back a little on the base, and I'll just fill in under his raised feet with rubble when it comes time to basing him. The chest armor itself is meant to look like the midsection was cut out roughly after it was taken from its original wearer, so as to allow this guy to put it on. The shoulder pad is theoretically strapped on - or however SM's mount them to their separate shoulder armor. I wanted both to look rugged, like this guy's been through years of fighting and doesn't much care about keeping his armor in top condition. (I generally do weathering and battle damage on my miniatures prior to painting, as I like the realistic texture.)

 Any and all feedback would be great! I'm wondering whether he looks good enough now or whether I ought to be adding "more decoration" since he's ideally the Packmaster of a Bloodgor horde by dominance and skill at fighting - at least that's how I'd imagine they'd determine rank. There's a skull on a chain dangling from his waist in the back that isn't too visible in this picture - does he need more "trophies" or is the "appropriated" Space Marine armor and (Old School™) Imperial Guard gear sufficient? I'd considered putting studs on the back of the plate on his pistol hand, since it originally came from a SM - I filed down the finger ridges so it looks like it could be flesh, but do I need to differentiate the hand any more from its original source? (I'm going to paint it metallic rather than the same color as the SM gear, whatever that turns out to be.)

 I'm also trying to figure out what color to paint the Marine armor, since I'd ideally like a good contrast between any blood and filth painted on it; Imperial Fists, maybe, or perhaps White Scars? Anyone have any Marine Chapters they really don't like and would want to see "defiled?"

More (unpainted) Khorne Berzerkers?

 Trying to take advantage of the "forced" motivation from a soon-to-start painting competition over at the Relicnews Painting & Modeling Forum, I'm putting up my long-untouched Berzerkers on the block as an entry to try and get them done. Most are glued and have the detail work finished (scars, scratches, chipped armor, etc.), but a few are just held together with putty for posing purposes and still need some love.

The rogue's gallery in question:

 They are a mixed bunch, with one inducted former Space Wolf (wolf-head backpack not pictured) and the stand-in for my Skull Champ w/ Power Fist (he'll be demoted eventually, when I finish a planned conversion, but does nicely for right now) - the rest are more or less straight-up "vanilla" Berzerkers aside from some conversion and reposing. With these guys done, that'll be a full squad in play for my Disciples of the Four, with the Slanneshi Chaos Lord from the last update leading them at the front.

Slaanesh Chaos Lord, leading the Disciples of the Four

Here's pictures of my finished GW Chaos Lord w/ Mark of Slaanesh and "Blissgiver" Daemon Weapon:

 For starters, I'm glad I was able to repair damage from my first attempt at using waterslide decals on a figure - his hood, specifically. It turned out a little wonky texture-wise from all the stripped paint, but I painted up the rough patches to look like more warts and scarring along the lines of the rest of the figure. (Guess this means I can now go and finish up a way-old tutorial on making custom decals/insignia, yay!)

 I painted the Daemon Weapon with a slight purple tinge, with the metal going up to a white metallic color - same as the round decorative insignia pieces on his torso. I figgered since it's supposed to be a "Blissgiver," some exotic coloration was called for (outside of the grip, which I tried to paint up as being made from tanned human leather).

 With the hood I had a hard time settling on a color scheme - I was originally going to paint it white/pale, but that was just too heavy with negative connotations in my mind (think Southeastern US white supremacist group-esque) and so I ended going with pale pink. That later changed with washes and such to more of an appropriate (in my mind) fleshy color, so I'm going with fluff that the hood is made also out of tanned human leather.

 I painted the grip of his scourge and the holster of the bolter to look like tanned human leather as well, since the orangey-reddish base balances out the other colors in theory. I'm curious to hear how folks think they turned out.

 I've been painting this guy up in fits and starts for a long while now in trying to drag my way out of a depression and a whole lot of being overwhelmed with life in general. I'm not quite there yet, but at least I've got a finished figure to show for it!

 Overall, I'd say I put the most difference in contrast in this figure compared to anything else I've yet painted - a lot of areas go from near-white (or even pure white) for highlights to near-black colors for shading. Again, I'm curious as to how folks think that turned out. He's going to be the (current) centerpiece of my tabletop CSM army-in-progress, so I figgered I'd give him some extra attention over the rank 'n' file - probably make him one big shooting magnet, but c'est la vie! (Props to Secret Weapon Miniatures, too, since I think the converted base from the older Urban Streets line turned out nicely.)

Feedback - the more detailed the better - would be appreciated!

Hobby Tip - "Making" Basing Material, Pt. 3

 Here's the figure with extra basing material added - at this point the join between the resin casting and the slottabase is seamless, where previously there were gaps. The texture itself is a match for to-scale dirt/rough ground, and provides a good contrast with the existing open areas of broken concrete that were on the original resin pre-cast base top.

 So far as any rough areas around the slottabase where there were inadvertent extra patches of texture from all the poking and prodding into final position, if you want a smooth finish to the sides of your bases (which I generally do, just for appearance's sake), then a quick touch up with an emery board or finishing stick (800+ grit wet-dry sandpaper would be a quick substitute) around the perimeter is all that's needed.

 Here are some examples of the basing material used on figures, both the fine grit "ant dirt" and the to-scale rocks and gravel. Some of these painted figures are newer and some are (literally) almost 20 years old. (See if you can guess which are which - hee hee!):

 Outside of the converted Secret Weapon Miniatures base and GW slotta beneath the figure, larger chunks of broken resin, a GW Rhino vehicle roof hatch door, the remainder of the base was textured with "ant dirt" glued to an underlying structure of cotton batting.

 This Infinity figure is mounted on a converted Secret Weapon Miniatures base (and Infinity slotta) with "ant dirt" added as texture and gap-filling in much the same way as the example throughout the rest of the tutorial.

 The base is essentially made of a cut wood block, small decorative driveway stones, and "ant dirt."

 The figure base is made from a piece of cork notice board glued to a GW slottabase, a metal bracket from the frame of the cork notice board, and a few paperclip ends stuck into the cork. The rest was textured with both fine grit "ant dirt" and small rocks mixed.

[Edit] I'll add the finished figure and base used as an example in the rest of the tutorial to the photo group when it's finished in a day or so. [/Edit]

 You can find the first part of this Hobby Tip here: Hobby Tip - "Making" Basing Material, Pt. 1

Hobby Tip - "Making" Basing Material, Pt. 2

 Here we have the application of the texture to the figure's base. He's mounted on a converted resin pre-cast base from Secret Weapon Miniatures' original Urban Streets line and I opted not to cover up any of the broken concrete details with larger to-scale rocks and gravel. In this picture, I'm essentially applying the separated fine grit with a synthetic brush (don't want natural bristles to absorb my adhesive liquid!) in the areas where I want to blend the trimmed-off resin top with the default GW slottabase the figure came with. I've also worked in some texture around the figure's feet to have them blend in properly and look natural, as well as putting a little bit of added gritty texture here and there on the top of the base just for appearance's sake.

 The liquid I'm using is watered-down Future Floor Finish. I prefer this for applying texture to bases because it lets me play around with the positioning for a longer time than what glue does, but still dries to a rock-hard finish. My mixture is more or less 1:1, but I also added some flow improver to make sure that it seeps into all the crevices in the basing material that I'm brushing on. A good alternative is watered-down PVA glue, which I would otherwise use if not for the very fine texture of the "ant dirt" - your mileage may vary.

 If I were using any added fine scale rocks and gravel on the figure's base, what I'd probably do is set those down first using CA glue and a pair of fine tweezers for positioning, and then blend in the edges once dry with some additional brushed-on basing material around them - it really depends on the appearance you're after, and in this case I want to play up the cracked concrete underneath the feet of the Chaos Lord.

 If you're wanting to use the finer grit of "ant dirt" strictly as texture material, for rust or dust effects on base debris, say, then I would suggest likewise applying the fine grit after you're assembled and put everything else down on your base - you get maximum "realism" that way and can push and prod the soaked texture material into crevices and depressions where things like rust and dust would naturally settle. (Again, I prefer thinned-down Future Floor Finish over PVA glue just because of the longer drying time that allows me to keep moving the basing material around with a brush until I'm satisfied with the appearance.)

 You can find the third part of this Hobby Tip here: Hobby Tip - "Making" Basing Material, Pt. 3

Hobby Tip - "Making" Basing Material, Pt. 1

 I may have referenced this before in past posting of my work and such, but there's really only a very few materials I use for basing my figures - one reason being is that that the materials I use are generally inexpensive, and another is that the stuff I use covers a lot of (ahem) ground in terms of potential flexibility in appearance for basing figures. Here we have the collected contents of several large ant mounds, mostly separated out - a material I like to call "ant dirt."

 The above picture is the first step in the process of "making" custom basing material - or texture material, if you prefer that name. It might actually be the second step or so, but I don't think the prior processes (read: me scraping up ant mounds from the gaps in my driveway and picking out bits of vegetation) rate a picture. What you see on the paper plate in the image is a loose pile of collected dirt and gravel from an ant mound.

 Using the mesh sifter in the above picture, I essentially folded the paper plate into a "funnel" of sorts and sifted the dirt and gravel through the mesh. I found the best results were to pour a thin stream of the dirt and gravel from the plate down through the angled sides of the sifter, which generally allowed the finer grit to pour right through and shifted the larger pieces towards the middle. Keeping the mesh over the larger container and lightly shaking, I finished separating out all the fine grit; I can later use it for a variety of effects - rust texture, moss, fine grit, loose rubble/sand, and 28mm scale dirt. What ended up left in the mesh filter were the larger (reasonably speaking) rocks and gravel, which I dumped into a separate container for later use as, well... fine scale rocks and gravel.

 You can find the second part of this Hobby Tip here: Hobby Tip - "Making" Basing Material, Pt. 2