I've always liked the movie Pitch Black, the Chronicles of Riddick maybe not so much despite it being the closest live-action 40k-esque movie out there at the moment, disregarding Starship Troopers.
The big draw of these movies is the one and only Riddick, as portrayed by mousy, wallflower geek-actor Vin Diesel. With the impending release of yet-another sequel due late-2013, I thought it fitting to work up a new addition to my existing armies, be it Imperial Guard, Grey Knights, etc. Thank you 6th edition allies rules!
Looking around in the world of miniatures, Heresy Miniatures do a counts-as Riddick miniature, complete with comedy tea-cup, but that isn't quite what I was looking for.
I'm intending to run my own 28mm Riddick as either a counts-as Marbo (IG), or an Eversor/Callidus Assassin. I'll probably run him as a Callidus for game purposes, but the equipment, pose, and reputation of the Eversor I felt was more fitting for Riddick.
Therefore, I present to you my new recently-painted counts-as Eversor Assassin! Apologies for the less-than-flattering flash photography which does my paint job no favours, the winter days are pretty dark.
I used leftover spares from my extensive bitz box, as well as an Ash Junker head from maxmini, which was perfect for my needs.
Please note that while I was sorely tempted to paint counts-as Riddick's goggles black (like in the movie), I felt having a reddish glow tied him more suitabily to his role as an Eversor Assassin and made the model more fearsome on the table-top (eyeshine be damned). I've even included grenades (behind model) from both the Grey Knights and Space Marine scout sprues to make the model even more battle-ready.
While Catachan bits were perfect for a Riddick kitbash, the Executioner pistol was a little harder to model. Luckily, I realised that this gun in a previous addition was merely a bolt pistol with a needle pistol combi weapon, so I set about the task by cobbling together a flamer barrel from a separate miniature to represent a 'silencer' attachment, which could also be a double representation of a flamer weapon (neural shredder).
The Dark Elf dagger I felt suited the curved blade aesthetic found in the Riddick movies, painting it green to represent a poisoned blade. It is solely Riddick's skill at arms I'm relying upon as an in-story explanation behind his superhumanly Assassin 40k stats (aka Movie Logic).
The model and paint job was never going to be perfect, but it will suffice. After all, a little kitbash project from one's plastic model remnants was so much fun, I just had to do it!
More photies:
Happy New Year everybody! Welcome 2013!