Wednesday, 17 March 2010

First Thousand Son - Project Change XXII

I'm continuing my focus on the Thousand Sons with the classic 1990 Jes Goodwin Thousand Son.

Jes Goodwin's first Thousand Son

I've got ten of them! It's taken months and months of trawling through eBay, buying one here and one there and now I finally got enough for a complete squad without paying more than a couple of quid each. They've stripped back beautifully too. In fact, I have one too many (the last auction I won was for a group of four) so I can test a second scheme out before deciding how the squad'll be done.

As I've just started reading A Thousand Sons, I thought I'd try implementing the colour scheme on the excellent Neil Roberts cover artwork.

A Thousand Sons

As you can see, Neil's interpretation of the Heresy-era Thousand Sons features quite understated headpieces, leaving plenty of scope for them to get corrupted by the time the Battle of Terra comes.

This is an awesome model. The early 1980s Chaos Renegades were sculpted by the Michael and Alan Perry and Kev Adams. This was at a time when Chaos had a yet undeveloped visual identity, and so most models were unique mindfracks with crazy bespoke armour. They involved a lot of cross-over from the design of the 1980s Chaos Warrior, with elements or H. R. Giger thrown in. Though the sculpting quality was a tad primitive, they were full of a vibrant creativity. Here are two. (Hell, I've been whining about doing red without it looking Khornate too long now so I just went and painted a World Eater.)

Retro Renegades

Then, in 1990 a young Jes Goodwin came along and produced a renegade model for each major Chaos God. At about the same time Jes was working on the then-new mk7 Space Marine armour (which endures through to this day), and he took a lot of the design elements through into these Renegades. So much so they'd not look out of place in modern 40K armies, despite being 20 years old.

Jes Goodwin's cult marines

Interestingly, this is the first type the Egyptian motif appears for Tzeentch. Prior to this, Thousand Sons were just gribbly fungus bird marines.

And finally, I'm not sure if I'm cheating the terms of Project Change here (i.e. no conversions), but rather than model the first of the Marines with the Chaos Renegade backpack, I chose the mk7 Imperial backpack. Neil Robert's illustration doesn't feature the debased stabilser jets of Chaos backpacks (which I've written about at length here). Ah well, I've got another nine to paint with the correct backpacks.

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Posted by Curis at 3:44 PM

Sunday, 31 January 2010

Tzeentch Doomwing - Project Change XVII

Another foray with the teeny-tiny aircraft. I think it's because I saw Top Gun recently.

Doom Wing - Daemon Engine of Tzeentch

The Doomwing was one of the three Dave Andrews Tzeentch-specific Daemon Engines released in March 1993 - the other two being the Fire Lord and the Silver Tower. The concept of welding technology and warp creature together was never introduced properly into 40K-scale until a decade later with the plastic Defiler kit in 2003.

The Doom Wing was a small interceptor armed with a Flame Cannon. Quite how it shot down other aircraft using forward-firing gouts of fire puzzles me, but both fire and flight are Tzeentch's trademarks. It also carries over the horse skull vibe from the earlier Tzeentch-aligned 40K and Fantasy models.

The colour scheme was inspired by the cover artwork for Queen Rocks.

Queen Rocks Cover

It would have been perhaps more fitting for the larger Fire Lord model which has more flat surfaces to have fun blending, and also the word "fire" in its name. Oops.

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Posted by Curis at 9:09 PM

Tuesday, 26 January 2010

Thunderbolt Fighter Squadron

We're faster than evil! We're faster than crime! We're faster than love! We're faster than tiiiiiime! Oops. That was Ring Raiders. I always get flashbacks when I play with Epic aircraft. Especially with those transparent stalks.

Epic Thunderbolt Squadron

So, these Thunderbolts are the 3rd and 4th aircraft from C Squadron from the 1337th Imperial Navy Fighter Wing, in the colours of the 1st Ager Hominis campaign where they famously supported the Grand Master Obtusius of the Dark Angels Chapter (DEFFWING COMPANY).

These guys are glued to the stalks, but the stalks aren't glued to the base so I can swap them between standard flying bases, retro hex flying bases and Aeronautica Imperialis bases. Heck, I should go scour eBay and mount them on actual Ring Raider rings. Though sadly I doubt they'd fit my adult fingers.

I also decided not to base them to match the army (like my Ork Fighta Bomberz) so I could recycle them for other Imperial armies.

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Posted by Curis at 10:45 PM


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