Some shoulder pads and some resin casting

One detail from my Tyrant miniature that I was really happy about was a shoulder pad with an androgynous character sculpted on it (or a badly sculpted female character - if you prefer to view it from another angle). Ever since I've wanted to resculpt it in the regular space marine scale. So, I've managed to do so and it seemed to look good enought that I've decided to cast it in resin (with an idea of using it on multiple models from my expanding collection).

Well, only after taking some pictures of it I've noticed that the sculpt have some flaws and generally speaking, it doesn't look as it should (be honest - it looks awful). Anyway, it is already casted and probably some greenstuff here and there should make it a right (while enforcing some diversity, if I decide to really use it on multiple models).

It also seems that I've made myself a habit of retouching my "old" unfinished miniatures - this time I am working on a... space marine with a bird mask. As a sneak peek - an old photo:

In a few days, I will try to post some more recent WIP pictures, hopefully along with a longer comment about the whole concept of this miniature, inspiration and whatnot. Take care!

The Tyrant is here...

Cheers!

P.S. More pictures here!

Tyrant's Coat of Arms

This is yet another post about the Tyrant miniature I've been working on. Some paint is already out there. In the meantime, I've started designing the coat of arms for the quasi-shield that the mini has on it's right shoulder pad. This is a little bit tricky as I want to create something visually appealing while keeping it consistent, on the on hand, with Wh40k gothic aesthetics (via using more or less traditional elements from European heraldry) and on the other hand with the quasi-barbaric style of Chaos Marines and whatnot. Fortunately, thanks to the modern technology, one can test his ideas on the miniature without actually painting it. Digital tools are really much better than just a pure imagination. So, let me show you some designs I came up with.

The green colour here is something similar to feldgrau with bleached red being just a regular burnt sienna. Black circle (as well as the disk on the of the other shields) is supposed to symbolize a sun eclipse (or just an evil circle - you name it). Sun eclipse seems like a good personal totem for a tyrant*, especially for one that have something to do with sorcery and black magic, but than again - those coats without black elements seems to look a bit better. Tought choice. Triangular shapes here and there might be considered as resembling fire - which is probably an universal symbol that fits almost every theme.

If you like some of the above much better than the other - let me know in the comments. Thanks!

*For those of you who don't see any connection between tyrants and sun eclipse - I encourage you to watch the classic Polish movie "Pharaoh" by Jerzy Kawalerowicz. You can watch it on YouTube (legally, I believe).

The Tyrant 3

The Tyrant is almost ready for painting. I've decided to say farewell to the face-leg. I have also extended the cape, added a hand blade and some other stuff. Still, there is a space for some more details, but I have no idea what to fit there, so I'm probably going to just leave it as it is right now.

The Tyrant of Idius 2

For the last week, my mind has been occupied with anything but miniatures. Still, I have managed to sculpt some details on the Tyrant. He has got a cape now, some fur on the back and more importantly - he has got two hands (which is really a good thing on the battlefield). I plan to put more details in his waist area, probably a grimoire of dark deeds, to hint at his parapsychic skills. Also, expect more spikes here and there.
I am not sure about the face on the right leg, so I might end up cutting it out.

We also have a new header on the blog, I hope it matches your aesthetics as much as it matches mine. Cheers!

The Tyrant of Idius

This particular project is very special to me. About a year ago, I've accidentally started browsing hobby webpages, blogs and forums and suddenly got interested in it (again), probably in much more mature way than I've used to be as a child. Since, back then, I was not very well, financially speaking, I could not spend too much on some shiny new miniatures and instead I decided to make some myself. I've been looking at some of those astounding FW miniatures and I've thought: "well, I can do that!". If it was only so simple... Anyway, this one was my first attempt at sculpting a whole miniature from scratch. It supposed to be an chaos space marine in terminator armour. From now on, let's just call him lord Thurm, the tyrant of Idius.

Now, those of you who are accustomed to regular GW terminator marines will notice that there is something wrong about this guy. Those armours are supposed to be bulky (rule wise), but this is just too much. I myself have not realised that until one of those stock miniatures came into my possession and I had a chance for some comparison. As the result, I've just left this one in some dark corner and tried to forget.
But then it turned out that I need a terminator guy for my chaos warband - it just fits my army list very well. But no, I could not just use this one. It would be shameful. Instead, I've decided to honour lord Thurm by cutting him and using some of the remains when converting a new, not so bulky, miniature. In fact, I think that some parts of him were not so bad. In particular, I really like the face-bolter.

To be honest, I've tried to salvage almost everything from it that would not look stupid when combined with regular terminator parts. So far the new lord Thurm, the tyrant of Idius, devourer of the thousand worlds etc. looks like this:

The new left hand is almost done as well. I am trying to achieve a similar posturę here, but no power fists this time.
What do you think? Is the new Thurm going to be a better one? Or maybe you prefer the old bulky one? It certainly had some style...

P.S. I've decided to further honour this grim warlord by renaming the whole blog after him. Behold the Tyrant of Idius, devourer of the thousand worlds!

Non omnis...

After a few months of break, I think I'm back... There are even some WiP pictures!

As you can see I'm still building those damn CSM, but there is more to it than that.

I also hope to finish at least some of the conversions/minis I've started months ago. There are plenty of those, damnit!