Seventh Day Herald of Slaanesh Conversion

Alright, it seems like I really don't get a lot done any given day, but I am plugging away at it consistently.  I've probably only managed a hour of "work" on average I'd say.  It is coming along nicely though I think and some things take time to dry properly before I'm willing to move on to working on the model.

Here you can see that spike that I added to the back of the model.  I like it and it'll be staying for sure.  You can also see the work that I did today, which was to modify a daemon arm that was holding a standard so that it doesn't of course have the standard.  I also wanted it to be a bit more out stretched.  I did this by cutting the arm at the elbow and adding a paper clip between the two portions of the arm.  I then bent the paper clip at about where the elbow would be if the paper clip were its arm.  Tomorrow I plan on green stuffing that, the spike at the back and the arm again.  I'm going to pin that arm first though.

John

Sixth Day Herald of Slaanesh Conversion

Sorry, but no photos yet today either. The camera's batteries are dead so I'll either post them in the middle of the night if I get woken up enough to not be able to easily fall back, or tomorrow after work. Basically I cut off the upper portion of the dorsal fin, found a portion of dragon tail that fits well in the same spot and with a little green stuff work (that I am decent at) will look good. I also joined a Nid forearm to a daemonette claw, it's drying but once it's ready I imagine a little bit of green stuff in the cracks and it'll look perfect. I also found a high elf head and chopped it into an appropriate shape as to be rubble on the base. Another thing I got done this evening was to sculpt an elf ear onto a decapitated head, because there isn't much in the way of decapitated elf heads floating around. I will have to do the other side tomorrow because I don't want to chance messing up the "work" I've done already. Anyhow, pics tomorrow!

  Here's a photo of what I did yesterday that can be focused on by my smaller camera.  What I've done now after having a bit of an idea for it to be holding dead elf heads is to combine the nid arm and the daemon claw which I think works just right.  I've taken the other arm off in anticipation of doing the same thing with it.  I'll get a side shot on it when I've gotten further along in the sculpting.

Here's a photo of the elf ears sculpted onto the decapitated heads.  Not a hard job.  shave the tops of the old ears down, roll out some REALLY thing green stuff and then put it into place on the head.  I used a hobby knife to get the sharper angles.  Easy stuff, but will be a nice touch in the end.

John

Fifth Day Herald of Slaanesh Conversion

I didn't get a whole lot done on the model today I suppose. I green stuffed around the arms and neck where there were gaps, used green stuff on the top of the "dorsal fin" to try and give it a better transition on the figure. I'm not really sure I like it though. Probably go sifting through the bits box for some of my extra dragon bits. Also debating using two sets of daemonette arms instead of the Nid ones. It isn't that the Nid ones look bad, but I think the daemonette ones might look better. That's about it today, I'll post a photo later.

  Here's the pic of what I worked out last night.  I was just too tired to stay up long enough to post up the photo.  This is what I figured out on my own with some green stuff, which I think over all would work, but I think there's a piece I can pull out of my bits that will look better.  It might take a little bit of work to get it looking right, but I probably need more practice with green stuff before I try something like this for a permanent solution on something I'm trying to get looking as smooth as I can.  I am also still considering switching out the Nid claws.  As I said earlier in the blog, I think they work, but its possible that true daemon arms or daemon claws on the Nid arms will just look more natural on this piece.  I am really leaning toward adding the daemon claws to the Nid forearms.

John

Fourth Day Herald of Slaanesh Conversion

Ok, so as well as base coating a riptide I was also able to get some more "work" done on this model.  I got all the mold lines, and most all the excess paint off the plastic daemonette pieces I'm going to be using on this conversion.  I had to actually scrap most of the paint off with a dull hobby blade.  I'm willing to do this for this model because I want to make sure it looks as good as it can, but I'm definitely not going to be doing this for future models.  It was just way too time consuming.

  After that I had to hack down the upper portion of the main body some more to get it down to a level where the daemonette torso would look natural sitting on top of it.  I used a saw and new hobby blades to do this.  The new hobby blades work really well, but for the amount I had to actually remove the saw was able to take more off at a quicker rate.

 Here's one view of the model coming together in its basic shape.  I had to cut the neck of the head off because it was to thick.  That took a little bit of doing without cutting myself.

Here is another view showing the front.  I do have what I would consider to be a fair amount of green stuffing to do, but really it is close to being finished from a construction stand point.  I maybe able to get more done today, or I may not.  If I do I'll add more onto the end of this post.

Ok, I did a little repose with one of the lower arms.  I'll be able to paint it more easily and other smaller daemons will be able to suckle at the teats easier.  I'm not going to mess with it anymore tonight.  It needs to dry well so that I can get into green stuffing it.
John

Third Day Herald of Slaanesh Conversion

  So, much like the previous day I didn't get a ton of stuff done, but progress is progress and I like what I did manage.  I guess what I really did was to assemble the model and use green stuff the way it should have been in the first place.  Cleaned all the old green stuff out of the sockets, which was globbed in there like it was going to actually hold the model together on its own.  Then scored both sides of the sockets with the tip of my hobby file, glued it with super glue and hit it with some accelerator.

  After that had set for a few minutes I went over the areas where the joins were with some liquid green stuff by citadel, smoothed it out and manipulated it with a chump paint brush.

  That's pretty much all I got done.  I did save some of the plastic bit I'm going to be using from the garbage disposal too.  My wife had thought that the cup of discolored water on the counter next to my coffee pot was just old paint water and tossed it out.  I walk into the kitchen wondering if I'm going to get to clean the pieces off and start using them, only to find the cup empty!  I asked her "did you... throw this simple green in this cup out..?" and she replies "oh yeah, that dirty water on the counter, I tossed that."  She was a bit worried that I'd be really upset that they had been destroyed once I told her there were actually pieces I was using for this project in it.  I suppose at the moment I was upset, but truly it wouldn't have been a deal.  I do have some more models shipping to me soon with the same parts and they are just toy pieces anyway.  I find myself to be more relaxed than some regarding situations like this I suppose.  The good news is that she doesn't have the same knee jerk reaction I do after tossing something into the garbage disposal, which is to flick the switch and clear it out immediately because the pieces were still in the drain.  One of them hadn't even made it past the rubber catch.  Fortunate story I suppose, anyway that was day three.  After this is up it'll be time to make the kids some breakfast and then I'm going to start working on it again.

John

Second Day Herald of Slaanesh Conversion

  So I've been able to get the main body of the project cleaned of all the paint that was originally on it.  All I used was a bath of simple green cleaner.  I've been told that they've changed their formula recently and that the new one doesn't have the ingredient in it that removes paint anymore.  I wouldn't really know if that was actually true because I bought this stuff quite a while ago and just re-use it every time I need to strip paint.  After getting the paint off I was also able to break the model down into its component pieces, which happened to be 12.  I was pretty surprised there were so many, I didn't really think it would have been so intricate.

  I'm pretty sure the arms that were on the model when I received it were originally from a Nid model.  I can tell because the main body where the arms were do not have any sockets where they would likely attach.  This is all fine with me though because they do fit with the Slaanesh look, and I'll be able to modify them more appropriately than they were when I got them.
  This is really all I was able to get done on my second day.  I had to go to work, the hawks game was on, and my best friend's boy was having a birthday party.  Getting this much done counts as a success to me with the time available.

John

First day Herald of Slaanesh Conversion

 Starting my new project to enter into a conversion contest.  I think this event should bring quite a bit of competition and if the organizers keeps it up on a yearly basis I definitely think it will draw a lot of attention from the community for them in the future.
  I got the package in the mail today, just barely getting it out of the office because one of the maintenance guys happened to let my wife in to pick it up.  Probably took about a week for my order to get to my door from purchase to delivery.  There was one broken model and unfortunately it was a piece that I want to use too, but it should be fine.  I can either glue the piece back, or just sculpt a fix myself with green stuff.
  The main piece that I got was an old out of print "Champion of Slaanesh".  I'm going to be converting it into a Herald of Slaanesh that can stand in as being mounted or unmounted and I may also get another conversion out of it for just a Herald of Slaanesh on foot.  I picked this model out and decided to pick up the Codex: Daemons because it is in direct juxtaposition of both my favorite army the Eldar and my other favorite the Gray Knights. I would have gone with something from the Eldar, but there wasn't anything up on the webstore that I would have really wanted to convert and that my army would benefit having another of.
   I'm not entirely sure the model hadn't already been converted by somebody else with some Nid bits, but I'll be finding out when the simple green gets done striping the 1/4" of paint off of it.  No joking I had to take a hobby knife and pick at this thing just to see if it actually had metal under it.  It felt like I was excavating the model out of hard pack earth.  I'm still not sure if there was a huge layer of paint, or somebody had just slathered on a ton of green stuff trying to do their conversion.  I was thinking perhaps somebody had actually just green stuffed this thing together on their own. I did some careful scraping as to not ruin it if that was the case and can tell that it is definitely a pewter model.

 This is the rubble that was left after trying to figure out if this was a solid pewter model, or if somebody had actually done their own conversion work to add details to some model to make their own Slaaneshy model in the past.  Turns out it is almost all pewter, and I do believe most the parts are original to the model.  I actually did quite a bit more digging after this photo was taken.  The larger chunks in the upper left I think are actually Nid armor bits and the only plastic on this model when I received it.

 

 This photo shows where I have cut the model to try and make my own conversion.  I'm probably going to have to do some more cutting to get it to look the way I have envisioned.  I'll also probably still be using those Nid limbs on it as well, though with Daemonette claws instead of Hormagaunt ones.

This is my base that I'm going to be using.  Green stuffed this up today while I waited for the simple green to take its toll on the sediment on the main body of the model.  This is my first real attempt at green stuffing an actual base and no those aren't finger prints in it.  I was able to get a bit of texture on it by pressing another base up against it.  Guess I'll see how I like it after its been painted, but I think it will work well just by looking at it.  I'm going for a defiled Eldar ruins look and am pretty happy with it right now as a basic shape.

 

This is what I have for the fist day after having received my package from Blue Table Painting.  I say first day, but really it was only about a couple hours "work".  Have about another month to work on this.

 

John