The Warforge Miniature Modelling and Conversion

Suspense!

A sneak peek of something I'm working on for you guys to speculate on. :3

Huge, major, enormous, gigantic props go to my buddy Beardrick for using his high-powered laser cutting tools to further my nefarious plans. Once I get this in my sweaty mitts, things will happen.

Blaze a trail

Started work on replacing that upper arm section, and I redid the leading leg's shin quickly.

 

The last picture of the set shows just the legs, without the torso atop them, so you can see what I did to reposition them. The right leg can be separated from the hip without too much trouble because, unlike the left leg, it's not joined to that hanging groin-plate as well. You also have to cut just behind the toes of the feet to get them to curl up and down properly, but without that, the pose doesn't really work. Still, just a couple quick slices and the model goes from boring to interesting.

I need to cap the tops of the pistons I've put on the arms off with some greenstuff, and figure out what to adorn that big bare plate up top with now that I've finished filing off the 5th border legion iconography. Part of me thinks it'd be awesome to drape a bear pelt over the top of this thing, but I know that's not really something my sculpting chops are up to. We'll see.

Pathfindin’

While I tinker with my Khadoran color scheme, I decided I'd go ahead and work on a warjack. First one I grabbed out of the pile was the Kodiak, which is interesting because I think it's tied with the Berserker for my least favorite Khador jack, aesthetically speaking. I think the hand-shields look a little goofy, and I don't like that the Kodiak, by default, has the 5th Border Legion iconography plastered onto it. I know the Kodiak's fluff says that's where the design originated, but give me a break.

Maybe most offensive of all is it's completely static pose, which most folks (Privateer Press included) seem to try and remedy by turning it's waist at some weird angle to make it look marginally more interesting.

My first order of business with this jack is to make the pose more interesting. Since it has the pathfinder rule, it can cover rough terrain without any difficulty, and I thought the model should reflect that. I went outside, grabbed an appropriate sized branch to make into a 'tree', and laid it out across the base. Then I hacked the right leg at the hip and the shin, and started repositioning elements so that it looked like it was stepping up and over the obstacles I'd laid out for it.

 

I like how the general pose looks, though I did a bit of a sloppy job replacing those front shin-pistons. I think I'm going to redo that part so it looks cleaner and joins better with the knee.

I'm also going to rebuild the upper arms, because the parts that connect the forearm and shoulder look way too flimsy to support the honkin' huge hamfists this thing has.

First Iron Fang

So I tinkered a bit more with my color scheme, and I've mostly completed a single Iron Fang, properly this time, as proof of concept.

 

It's not perfect. I did a poor job of highlighting the shoulder pads on this guy, and I'm working on correcting it, but as a general proof of concept I'm reasonably happy with my results.

I'm thinking the addition of some red khadoran lettering to one of the shoulderpads might help break up the boring, large surfaces. That, or I might leave them as-is for now, and down the road add very tiny kill markers on individual models' shoulders for very important kills like Warcasters or enemy Warjacks. That's probably overly involved, though.

I think I might also need to highlight the reds just a wee bit more, and I am really not happy with the way Citadel's golds work, so I'm going to look into other lines that might work better.

Anyway, hopefully I will be able to get through the other IFPs without too much of a headache. My work's very tabletop-level, but I'm pleased enough with it.

Khador color test

Okay, I need some critical input here.

I've been tinkering around with my Khador color scheme. The traditional red looks nice, of course, but I can't bring myself to do it. Too cliche.

I was scratching my head, and decided to draw on two sources of inspiration for general color theme: Vostroyan Tanks, and Beast 09.

Vostroyan Tank Photograph courtesy of Ifelix.co.uk

Both of them have a sort of tan-green-white color thing going on, with red as the accent color. I wanted to extend this to anything in the Khador army wearing armor - so, Warcasters, Iron Fangs, Man-O-Wars, etc. Other infantry, like Winter Guard or Widowmakers will be in a browner, woodsier scheme.

After spending some time tinkering with this, I mixed up what I thought was a pretty ideal base color by matching the color in the bottle against the picture of Beast 09. I airbrushed it on my Iron Fangs after priming them grey, and picked out one of the pikemen to tinker around with. The image below represents a quick, 10-minute color test where I just got some of the base coats down and hit the whole model with a custom grey wash I've been working on.

Don't look at it for details, look at it for color. I didn't paint the pike or the fur fringe on the cape, they didn't seem as important at the time.

I'm not entirely happy with it yet, but I thought I'd throw it up for review. It seems a liiittle darker than I initially expected, but not overly so. My problem right now is that it's just not reading as "Khador" to me - maybe not enough red accents? I'm considering maybe adding red to the gauntlets, though only one of them'll really be visible once the shield goes on. I also haven't quite found a gold I like, and I'm curious if the armor trim might not look better in brass, rather than gold.

I'm also thinking this probably would have worked better over a white primer, rather than a grey one. The grey took a little bit of life out of the paint.

Right now, I'm thinking about mixing my airbrushed base-coat color with some white and airbrushing in a downwards direction on these guys, to give their armor a rudimentary highlighting / zenithal lighting effect.

What do you guys think? What would you recommend? What do you hate?

From Khador, with love

Not a lot to say on this front, but I have gotten my Widowmakers cleaned up and ready for paint.

Warmachine isn't overwhelmingly open to conversions, and these models are all one piece, so this isn't exactly a big deal, but I figured I'd take pictures of 'em at the same time as everything else. Paint'll be the important part on these guys.

Stylin’ headgear

So, I settled on the head for Drakhun, and went with the first of the MaxMini.eu options I had. I dremelled the collar out a bit, sanded a few mm off the bottom of the helmet, and now it sits comfortably low in the collar, just like the original helmet. I added a fin to the top of the head for flair.

I'm waiting for the greenstuff to dry so I can sand it a little bit smoother at this point.

I also decided that he needed a brass rod replacement for his weapon, since PP's metals are notoriously bendy. The original axe would have been a pretzel in no time. A bit of careful drilling later, and he's now got a much sturdier weapon.

I'm not done with his overall pose yet, since I think he looks a little bit odd...

... but fortunately, everything on him is pinned, right down to the fin on the helmet, so I can fiddle with the stance a little bit. I think ultimately I may just twist his weapon hand at the wrist a little bit to make him look a bit more threatening with the axe. I'm also considering adding a bit of a collar extension around the back of his head at the moment, but other than that, there's not a lot of changes I want to make this model, since I like it a pretty serious amount right out the box.

Also, I need to finish his base, but that's not urgent.