New England . . . if you don't know is a collection of states in the northeast corner of the United States. If you don't know there are six of them. It is cold in the winter, warm in the spring and fall, and can be downright disgusting in the summer. Currently we are in what we consider a heatwave. The temperature has been 85+ for more than a week, which wouldn't be all that bad if the humidity didn't make the air feel like a wet sponge. These are not ideal conditions for spray priming or seal models. So painting has had to take a backseat to other endeavors.
What does all this mean for today's episode? We get to take a look at the Nephilim that I have been converting.
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| Inspiration Strikes . . . |
The first book released after Hordes: Primal (MKI) was evolution. Within its pages, we were introduced to a new type of blighted warbeast, the Nephilim Soldier. It was featured prominently on the evolution cover. In MKI the Nephilim Soldier was murder incarnate. It loved to glide over the enemy during Rhyas' feat turn, thank you no free strikes for wings in MKI, kill, place (thanks Rhyas), kill (thanks massacre), place (what? again? oh, yeah), kill (thanks Rhyas), place . . . and then start buying attacks. It was real easy to get this beast into melee with the enemy Warcaster or Warlock with its 2" reach. I loved this model.
Way back when, I had two Soldiers. One was the stock pose, not very dynamic, the other was converted, as best as I could, to look like the cover art. It came out alright and I received some nice complements on it. Then MKII came out and let's just say I didn't like what was happening to MY Legion during play testing. So trades were made and I started up a new faction. I kept some models. Always thinking I would build a new Rhyas army for fun. The Succubus is a part of that army, but I had to bring in the Nephilim and I had to try my conversion again.
I've gotten better at my converting over the years. I didn't, however, take some early progress shots. So I am going to rely on the PP parts store to show you what I did in the early stages.
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| Shiny New Toys |
My LGS was able to get me a Nephilim Soldier and Bolt Thrower, the Protector wasn't available at the time so I had to go online for that and it didn't make it into the family group shot. All the pieces were there, no miscasts, no missing pieces, and I was able to get a Sentry Stone from the PP parts store. I began with the basing. I use cork trivets that you can get at AC Moore as a rocky base for all of my important characters. So I start by gluing some cork to the base and roughing up the edges. Then next step for the Soldier was deciding on where to put the Sentry Stone so that it resemble the cover art as closely as possible. I clipped off the tab and broccoli-base and the cut off a portion of the side to give it some lean.
I didn't know it at the time, but there wasn't enough room on the base for the Soldier to do his think. That was no problem because it was easy enough to pry the Sentry Stone off of the cork and reposition it with the Soldier on the base. The base is done for now, flock will come later. On to the Soldiers body.
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| Don't worry, it's all cosmetic |
To start I had to cut off the soldier's left arm. This could have been much easier if my hobby saw hadn't decided to go to pieces on me. So out came the clippers. It's a pretty thick piece, so I was as careful as possible not to damage the areas around it. After that I used my hobby knife like the good wedge that it is to separate the forearm from the waist. This is going to damage the armor on the Soldier's thigh. It was at this point that I decided to file down the thigh armor and try to sculpt some with green stuff. That would turn out to be a mistake. In the end I had to file off the armor on the right thigh as well to keep things from looking disproportionate. I also had to clip a little off of the right shoulder muscle.
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| My, what a big sword you have |
Here I needed to extend the arm so it looked liked the Nephilim was about to lay wasted to its enemies. To do this I cut the hilt of the sword in three places. First, just under the blade to remove it for later use. Then I cut just above the hand and finally i cut away the bottom because in the end the positioning would be wrong. Then I removed the forearm from the bicep. I tried to be careful here in order to keep the armor on the forearm intact, it didn't turn out so well. I also drilled through the remaining hilt in the hand so I could insert some rod later for the new hilt.
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| Ready to pimp slap someone |
I wish I had photos of trying to piece this together. In the end it went together fairly well. There was some green stuff here and there. I also received my Protector in the mail and was able to cast some armor plates to use on my Soldier's legs.
Holy Nephilim Batman!!!
Here we have the front and back of the Nephilim Soldier with his new thigh armor. I also cast some shoulder armor for the left and right arms. After the debacle of an attempt to do the thing armor I just let the fine sculptors at PP do my work for me.
Who wants to play football?
With the should pads on, it was time to add a little more green stuff to fill in gaps and make it look a little more natural. (Really, because we're talking about a monster born form an elf.) Just go with it, okay?
Now to add the wings and spines. I was smart enough to predrill these holes *pats self on back*. I cannot remember how many times I've put together a model, only to realize I need to pin something and then have some of the earlier pieces fall off while I'm drilling.
Say hello to my little friend
With the wings and spines on I attached the blade to the VERY long pin I put through the Nephilim's hand. The hilt isn't that long on the finished model, but I wanted the sword to look like it could really be wielded with two hands.
Next week Episode 4 A New Hopelessness
woof
-Darth Murphy, Dark Lord of Puppies
This is AWESOME!!! posting this!
ReplyDeleteVery cool man! Snip snip!
ReplyDelete