Alright, I have a couple of small updates for today — nothing spectacular, but let’s keep this thing going while it lasts, shall we?
I. Put on some armour, it’s freezing!
First up, on the matter of my recent Angron conversion, I already said last time that I wanted to experiment with adding some vambraces to the model. And after looking at quite a few options, I realised that the armour plates from the Mk. VII Legion Praetor with power axe might fit the bill, so I made a quick mockup:
What was great about these vambraces was that they had the right size and, courtesy of coming from an actual Horus Heresy model, came with just the right Heresy era design, too. It also quickly became clear, however, that they would need some work to sit flush against Agron’s arms — and I was a bit nervous about committing to them, as that meant I would have to shave down those manacles on his wrists. In the end, however, I went all in — here’s what the model looks like right now:
As you can see, the armour plates now sit flush against the arm/wrist area. I have also pulled them down a bit, so they cover the back of the hand, as the design of the plates suggests they should. I think it works pretty well, all things considered!
My plan is to use some chains on top of the whole assembly, both to suggest the way Angron’s axes have been chained to him, and also to tie the whole thing together even more — compare Angron’s official FW model, where the chains actually run around his wrists on top of his vambraces.
II. The Brawler and the Paladin
I won’t lie: I did mostly get that second box of Eightbound to create that Angron conversion above. But at the same time, the purchase also left me with enough bits for two more Eightbound, so I experimented a bit…
The problem here was twofold: One, the Angron conversion proved to be rather wasteful in that it ended up damaging two sets of Eightbound legs (one for the actual legs of the model and one for the shoulder pads). So I had to whip something up. The other challenge was that, in spite of the kit’s surprising versatility, it’s still easy enough to end up with repeated poses and silhouettes. My idea was to create two more Eightbound with strong-ish visual archetypes, in order to make them look suitably original.
The first one’s codenamed “The Brawler” for now:
Going through the Codex again, I liked the idea of a massive, brutish Eightbound in a slightly crouched pose with two massive fists — the kit totally supports this right out of the box, so it was mostly a matter of choosing the right parts and getting the pose just right. As you may be able to tell, this model’s original stock leg armour was used when building Angron’s shoulder pads, so I grafted parts of the lower legs that were used to make Angron’s legs to these. It took a bit of shaving and cutting, but it works well enough now, with only a few gaps left to fill. I rather like this guy, to be honest!
The final model, meanwhile, threw me in for a loop, as it ended up looking far too similar to my existing Eightbound models. I went for a twin-sword setup, which made for a cool start, but the thing that really turned the model into something slightly more original was to swap in a new head, courtesy of the old Age of Sigmar starter box Bloodreavers:
All of my Eightbound are using the more mutated head options, but I didn’t want to reuse any of the faces within the same squad, so I already had the idea of swapping in a helmeted head. In the end, the one I chose ended up working really well, leading to an almost knightly look. This is definitely an archetype that works!
III. Fully armed again
And finally, just for the sake of completeness, I also worked out a new left arm for that Berzerker I stole the arm with the two dangling heads from (to be used on the chonky Mk. III World Eater from my previous post). Here’s what the model originally looked like:
And here’s the “refurbished” version:
Nothing fancy, really: I just used a slightly tweaked vanilla CSM arm. The pose was opened up a bit, and I also shaved down some spikes on the back of the chainsword to make the whole thing look more like a blunt weapon of war — and less like something straight out of Masters of the Universe 
And that’s it for today, basically — like I said: nothing spectacular. Even so, it goes without saying that I would love to hear any thoughts and suggestions you might have. And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!