Archive for eightbound

State of the Hunt, Week 32/2024: Eightbound Leftovers…

Posted in 40k, Chaos, Conversions, state of the hunt, WIP, World Eaters with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 5, 2024 by krautscientist

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!

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State of the Hunt, Week 29/2024: Anger, Rain & Neon Lights

Posted in 40k, Chaos, Conversions, state of the hunt, WIP, World Eaters with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 17, 2024 by krautscientist

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!

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State of the Hunt, Week 32/2023: Greenstuff & Gamedev

Posted in 40k, Chaos, Conversions, state of the hunt, WIP, World Eaters with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 12, 2023 by krautscientist

Aw, man, I’ve let this blog lapse once again — I am so sorry, guys!
But hey, at least I do have something to share with you, even if it’s just a small project.
Remember this gentleman from my previous post?

This was a very early and loose mockup of my attempt to turn a leftover AoS Slaughterpriest model into another Eightbound of Khorne.

Now this particular Slaughterpriest is such a strange model, in many ways: The scale and anatomy seem so different that not only does the model stand out from the rest of the Blades of Khorne — it could almost be from a different line of models or manufacturer altogether. I also nearly did a spit take when I realised that the character’s looks is basically almost identical to the “Uber Immortal” from the film “300” (go ahead, google it!)

But it is a great source for conversions, with its almost Primarch-like physique, and it happens to be surprisingly close in stature to the stock Eightbound models. So let’s check out how this particular conversion has shaped up since we last saw it, alright?

The first thing to do was to clean up the overall assembly quite a bit:

This step also included the decision as to whih bitz would be used on the final conversion: I slipped in a weapon muzzle from the Forgefiend kit to approximate the “toothy maw” that appears above the head on the stock Eightbound models. The effect is a bit more pronounced here, but it worked well for the overall look of the model, so I decided to keep it. I also chose an old CSM champion backpack — which had always felt just a bit too tacky for regular models but ended up looking a bit on the tame side here, when compared to the stock Eighbound power packs 😉

Up until this point, everything had just been crudely tacked together with poster tack, so it was finally time to break out the GS — not normally my favourite step of the way, but it could not be helped…

As you can see, I started by sculpting a neck portion for the model — although “sculpted” is a somewhat misleading term in this case: I was feeling slightly clever, so I made a quick GS copy of some actual Eightbound shoulders and spliced them in. The stock Slaughterpriest neck portion was carefully shaved away directly above the pectorals, and the Eightbound shoulders and neck – which turned out to be an almost perfect fit – were added on top. This also had the added benefit of working together very well with the actual Eightbound head I used.


As you can see, the copy could have been just a bit sharper — but it’s certainly a lot better than anything I could have sculpted from scratch! Even the attachment points for the arms were better than expected, although still a bit dodgy. Since I knew the upper arms would end up being covered by the model’s pauldrons, however, I decided to leave them that way for the added benefit of being able to take off the arms and weapon during the painting stage.

So the next step was to put the armour back on and use some more GS to start and build up the model’s back. Here’s a first rough mockup:

And here’s what the whole thing looked like after I had built-up the back of the armour:

Look, it’s definitely not brilliant GS work, but it gets the message across. I used some GS cabling to hint at the armour’s – corrupted – underlying functions. And the whole thing works well enough with a backpack and the shoulder pads attached. Take a look:

So here’s a look at the mostly finished conversion:

All in all, I would say the model makes for a pretty convincing Eightbound, wouldn’t you agree? The leg armour is the one area where the model obviously diverges from “true” Eightbound — the Slaughterpriest is an almost ridiculously lean model to begin with, but at least it’s easy enough to suitably bulk up his upper half. On the other hand, this Slaughterpriest version already has a very gladiatorial look to it, which is definitely a good fit for a World Eaters army. That being said, I have seen quite a few conversions of the model where it never really ended up looking enough like an Astartes due to the difference in build — the Eightbound parts are pulling a lot of weight in this respect!

So here’s another look at th “squad” so far (no longer legal by 10th Ed. standards, I gather — but, frankly, who cares, eh?


In other news, one more thing before I tune out for today — and it has nothing to do with my World Eaters, the world of Warhammer 40k — or even with tabletop wargaming altogether. So what is this about?

Some of you might remember that I have mentioned cutting my game-design teeth using Media Molecule’s software “Dreams” on PlayStation.

I have, in fact, created several games & art pieces using the software, and if you have ever wanted to check them out, that is now easier than ever before, because Dreams is currently free to download as one of the PlayStation Plus Monthly games for August 2023 (for everyone who has both a PlayStation 4/5 and a PlayStation Plus subscription of any tier). The offer lasts until the start of September.

After that, the game will still be available for free to members of the higher subscription tiers. But if you fulfill the requirements listed above, you absolutely NEED to get this software. I am normally quite wary of endorsements like these, but I’ll make an exception here because I don’t think I have ever made a better investment when buying a game — and to get the same game, potentially for free, makes it even more of a no-brainer:

Dreams will offer you access to a massive wealth of fun, quirky, fantastic, often plein weird playable content including games, animation, music or everything in between. You’ll also provide you with a set of incredibly robust and playful creation tools that you may just ending up loving as much as I do…

And hey, like I said, you’ll be able to finally play my game CITADEL, eh? I am just leaving a trailer and some images here for your perusal 😉

Also, be aware of the fact that, proud as I am of my game, it is probably towards the lower end of the scale of what can be accomlished within Dreams, so if you thought that looked at least kinda neat, you’ll be in for a world of delicious, indie gaming slurry!

Full disclosure: This is NOT a sponsored endorsement. I’m just a fan of the platform & REALLY think you should take a look! 🙂


Anyway, that’s it for today! Let’s hope I’ll be able to get back to my hobby desk before long, and have something more substantial to share with all of you. 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!

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State of the Hunt, Week 21/2023: Banners & Brutes

Posted in 40k, Chaos, Conversions, paintjob, state of the hunt, WIP, World Eaters with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 28, 2023 by krautscientist

Hey everyone, sorry for the short break, but I do have some new Khornate odds and ends to share with you, as my work on the World Eaters’ 4th assault company in its latest incarnation continues apace:

For starters, I have made an adjustment that I am pretty happy with to an older model of mine: “Argus the Brazen”, one of the now out-of-print World Eaters Castraferrum Dreadnoughts that were produced by Forgeworld at one point. I received the model from my buddy Augustus b’Raass a couple of years ago, and it was actually one of the first models – if not THE first – to be painted in my updated World Eaters colour scheme:

While I’ve always loved the design of the model, the one thing I was never quite happy with was how squat the top of the model looked in silhouette. It’s especially noticeable at a slightly lower camera angle:

So my plan was always to add some kind of trophy rack/banner on top of the Dreadnought chassis, only I never found a bit that felt just right. Well, I think I have now:

It’s the back banner from the Khorgos Khul model that came with the 1st edition starter box of “Age of Sigmar”, and it seems like a pretty ideal choice, if you ask me — although, as one Reddit commenter jokingly remarked, poor Argus will no longer be able to participate in boarding actions, as it seems. Alas, such is the price of being absolutely fabulous… 😉

In other news, I have recently managed to get my hands on what seemed like the last box of Eightbound in Europe (found it at my local Warhammer Store), and I picked it up mostly because I was curious and wanted to explore some conversion and kitbashing options.

It’s a …strange kit: There are such awesome parts to it (the general idea of massive World Eaters legionaries, swollen with chaotic power, the crazy amount of unneeded detail, such as the fully realised bare torso pieces, even if they are missing the obligatory “Triumph Rope” scars, for some reason.)… And then there’s the dodgy stuff, where it feels like the sculptors took things just a hair’s breadth too far, such as the somewhat overwrought designs for some of the weapons.

It’s also truly baffling how the kit seems very limited when it’s really not — I am probably the last person to realise this, but are you guys aware that basically all of the arms are interchangeable between models? You can basically use each left and right arm that comes in the box on each of the models. By the same token, all of the armour pieces are at least roughly compatible, so if you want to use a certain combination of breastplates on your models, you will be able to make it work with just a bit of tweaking and cutting.

You certainly wouldn’t know any of that by looking at the instruction sheet, the box art or the photos in the Codex, though: GW’s official photos of the models are doing a very poor job of advertising that fact, as they always go for the exact same combination of parts, even on duplicate models…

Anyway, my mission with the models was to choose my favourite combination of parts, add a few tweaks here and there and straighten out some of the parts of the stock models that I don’t like.

In that spirit, here’s my first test model:

This isn’t even a massive conversion: I just chose some bitz I liked, tweaked the arms a bit, shaved a superfluous pointy bit off one of the chainswords (and lengthened one of those short, stubby ones, by splicing in parts of an old Khorne Berzerker sword and adding that spike I had just cut off). The shoulder pads are still a first test fit, but I actually like the way they complement the armour that is already present — and there’s still enough of the bare arms on show so as not to interfere with the general, gladiatorial look of the models.

The second model presented a slightly more involved conversion: I tried to open up the pose a bit more by tweaking the model’s right arm:

The stock model is holding that axe at a weird, low angle — and partially across its front, no less. However, seeing how these guys look so much like massive, chaotic gladiators, I really wanted the pose to look as openly challenging as possible — as though the model were facing down a prospective opponent. This was easily achieved by cutting the axe arm at the wrist and re-attaching the hand at a slightly different angle.

Messing around with the axe arm also had the added benefit of allowing me to have the axe chained to the model’s wrist, via one of those chain manacles that I spliced in while I was tweaking the arm. I do think it looks pretty good, to be honest, and not all all like a conversion.

When it came to the model’s face, I once again chose one of the more daemonic visages. And I swapped in an extra shoulder pad — mostly as a placeholder for now, but I really like the way it complements the model’s silhouette: The head with its crest of Butcher’s Nails seems to emerge as though from within a shell in a reptilian, almost saurian way. And, again, the heavily muscled, bare arms are still visible enough to sell the gladiatorial look.

As for the third model, I mostly went with the stock options in this case:

I really liked the rebreather head, so I wanted to include it in the squad. The most important change I made was to replace the somewhat hokey original sword with something that looked a bit less like a softball racket and more like an actual chainsword (it was converted from the chainglaive that comes with the kit, with a few tweaks and changed parts) 😉

And here’s what my little squad looks like so far:

One thing many people dislike about the Eightbound is their – frankly, undercooked – fluff, but I’d say that part can happily be ignored. I am in the somewhat fortuitous situation that these guys perfectly fit my army’s existing fluff, in that I already had come up with the “Lost Brethren” (basically my army’s moniker for Possessed Chaos Space Marines), those members of the 4th assault company so swollen with the powers of chaos and/or covered in mutation and chaotic gifts that they are separated from the “saner” parts of the force, and basically expected to go out in a blaze of glory and find an honourable death on the battlefield before they collapse under the weight of their corruption.

The original interpretation of the Lost Brethren was converted by combining the old Khorne Berzerker kit with chaos mutation parts and Ork Boy arms:

And I think you’ll agree with me that the small squad of Eightbound above seems like a very fitting replacement for those old models, only they have been suitably modernised and upscaled — because the Eightbound are, in fact, massive! Check out this scale comparison picture:

From left to right: Khorne Berzerker (new kit), converted Chaos Terminator (2019 kit), Eightbound, Big Daddy Lorimar (based on Abaddon)

Incidentally, for any further Lost Brethren conversions, I think I’d throw some of the new Possessed Chaos Space Marines into the mix. I really like some of the sculpts — and the ones I don’t like would certainly be improved by splicing-in some of the leftover bitz from the Eightbound — because there’s quite a bit of stuff left from the kit!

In fact, I have already started messing around with some of the leftovers…

Right now, this is just the loosest, earliest mockup you could possibly imagine, but I think there may be something there: As you can see, I combined an AoS Slaughterpriest body with some leftover Eightbound parts, and I do think the general look so far is rather promising.

And there’s also a bigger thing I would like to do at some point, something I have been thinking about ever since I realised that one of the Eightbound chest armour pieces is conspicuously reminiscent of Angron’s own armour — maybe another version of the Lord Primarch might be in order…?!

In fact, it’s absolutely baffling to me how almost nobody seems to have considered the Eightbound kit as a source of a possible plastic Angron conversion so far — except, of course, for the true master of Angron conversions, REG, who is already hot on the case…

So, as you can see, I am still happily hacking my way through the new World Eaters kits — and also slowly, ever so slowly edging closer to actually getting something painted again. We’ll see how it goes 😉

Meanwhile, 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!

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