Now would you look at that — it has been almost another year without update again… This keeps happening to me, it seems. To be fair, though: I did warn you all that the updating schedule might be…slightly spotty going forward 
But hey, I have a few small things to share with those of you who still keep watching this space, so I might as well post an update, eh?
I. Chonky Boi Mk. III
Most of my hobbying is dedicated to single kitbashes and conversions for the time being, as I can – and will – spent ages idly plinking away at a model here or a model there. One tiny project that has been sitting on my desk is yet another World Eater based on those rather massive, Mk. III-wearing plastic Plague Marines. Some of you might remember another conversion in the same vein from an earlier update:
See, I enjoy running and leaping World Eaters as much as the next guy, but I think another really cool visual archetype is for them to be massive and menacing, covered in slabs of spiky armour and sizing you up from across the battlefield. This concept makes for a great contrast in between all of the blood frenzy — so I thought I might have another model like that in me. And here’s the earliest mockup for that model.
As you can see, the body is still all Plague Marine at this point, with all kinds of pustules and gribblies (as an aside, underneath all of the superficial decoration, it seems to be the EXACT same base sculpt as the one used in my other conversion above).
I mostly used this stage to get an idea of the pose I was going for, as well as the general parts. Two things that worked especially well, even at this early stage, were the very gladiatorial-looking shoulder pad on the Blood Warrior arm (even though I wasn’t as sold on the rest of the arm) and the vicious Mk. VII Forgeworld helmet (very much a Sarum pattern helmet in my head canon).
So the next step was to shave off most of that Nurgle-y detail. I decided to keep some of the wear and tear to the armour, as it seems rather fitting for a member of the XII legion as well. But the tentacles and gooey tubes had to go. I also sorted out the arms at this point, even though I had to nick a new left arm from a previous conversion
Anyway, here’s what I have right now:
The model still needs quite a bit of cleanup, but I am really happy with the core concept! You can just imagine this guy slowly, purposefully advanving towards you on the battlefield, with wild mayhem reigning all around, yet there he is, just oozing menace: He WILL get to you, even if he’s taking his sweet time about it
When it comes to possible additions to the model, I think I’ll want to add some chains to him, maybe even a loop of it running across his breastplate. Some dangling skulls would be cool as well — although the challenge here will be not to overclutter the model or mess up its silhouette. But I think I may be on to something here…
II. Meanwhile, on Nuceria…
Readers, I have suffered a relapse…
Long time followers of this blog might be aware that I may have developed a certain…fixation on building models representing the XII legion Primarch.
…
To wit, so far, I have built four of the rascals:
And yes, I am aware of the fact that I was kinda, technically already messing around with a potential number five this time last year, so that was bad enough right? And that official Daemon Primarch Angron will also be happening, eventually, although I am yet able to resist its pull. And then…
Then I saw fellow Reg‘s latest Angron conversion earlier this year, and all my discipline went to hell in a handbasket, as I knew I just needed to build a similar model, mostly using Eightbound parts — in fact, to be quite honest, the thought had been knocking around in the back of my head every since I realised that one of those breastplate designs from the kit looked almost like Angron’s armour anyway…
So, I threw together a couple of bitz, using an approach very similar to (and heavily inspired by) Reg’s. This was my first mockup:
The brilliant idea at the heart of Reg’s conversion was to replace the – very Spare Marine-y – lower legs of an Eightbound model with the contoured armour of a Stormcast Eternal. And seeing how I still had quite a few 1st edition Liberators from the AoS starter box knocking about, I replicated that approach. It’s an incredibly quick way of changing a silhouette that instantly invokes an Astartes look into something much more like the unique armour of a Primarch.
From there on out, it was mostly a matter of cleaning up the conversion and choosing the right bitz to approximate Forgeworld’s “official” Angron design. So here’s what I have right now, after a rather fruitful recent conversion session:
As you may be able to tell, Eightbound parts are doing most of the heavy lifting here: The torso, head, arms and upper thighs are all stock Eightbound bits. The right hand weapon is an Eightbound axe, too, although it was grafted onto a different hand and weapon haft (from the old Dark Vengeance Chosen, if I remember correctly — although the only important thing was for it to be a right-handed weapon). The axe in Angron’s left hand is actually one from the latest plastic Khorne Berzerkers — those things are freaking massive!
The shoulder pads are shaved-down Eightbound leg armour — another very clever idea nicked from Reg (who is, it has to be said, the uncrowned king of Angron conversions, with more than 20 Angron models under his belt at this point…). The cape is from the old FW Lord Zhufor model — I have had that piece in my bitzbox forever, and now the time has finally come to make use of it. It fits rather well, too!
So, what remains to be done? I am currently experimenting with adding vambraces to the model. And there will be chains, of course. I am also planning to add a layer of greenstuff fur over Angron’s shoulders — this should also offer a very nice opportunity to cover up some rough spots.
What I already like a lot is how closely this model follows the design of the “official” Forgeworld model: He even has the bigger and smaller axes, and on the same respective hands as on the official model, too! All in all, this seems like a rather feasible way of making your own plastic Angron!
III. In a city of neon lights and perpetual rain…
One last thing, before I tune out for today — yet hopefully not for another year: I fear I’ll have to plug my latest game-design shenanigans yet again, as I have been creating another short game, using Media Molecule’s software “Dreams” on PlayStation. It’s called ][ REMEMBER
And while it is still not 40k – or tabletop wargaming related – it’s set in a Cyberpunk world this time around, so maybe that’ll interest some of you.
You see, I grew up heavily influenced by both 80s and 90s Cyberpunk content as well as with the classic graphic adventures and video games from the same time — in some cases, such as games like Flashback, Beneath A Steel Sky or – obviously – BLADE RUNNER, those two spheres even overlapped. So I had this idea for a game that would pray tribute to all of those treasured memories and classic games, and once again, Dreams has allowed me to simply create it (with the help, it must be said, of both some brilliant cyberpunk assets from the Dreams community as well as my fellow Dreamers VectorSlinger and Camian, who solved some rather tricky programming questions for me).
In the game, you are searching for an escaped artificial human in a rainy Cyberpunk city. Does that sound a bit boilerplate to you? Welllll, I am confident that I’m taking the story into some interesting directions. But I’ll let you all be the judges of that, as the game is freely available to anyone who has both a PlayStation and a copy of Dreams. Here’s a trailer for you:
And here are some more impressions from the game:
If you want to check out ][ REMEMBER – and it goes without saying that I would like that very much indeed! – you can find it here.
And while I won’t wax poetical again on the qualities of Dreams as a creative tool – if you want to read up on that, check out the last part of my previous post – I will say that it’s still a fantastic piece of software to own. Alright, end of sales pitch!
And end of blog post, too, incidentally. Let’s hope it doesn’t take me another year to come up with something new! Until then, 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!