Adeptus Sororitas - Alternative Sisters of Battle - Squad #2

Hello all, thanks for dropping by, before the drop of the new Sisters of Battle line of plastic miniatures I felt I really had to get my alternatives painted and done before the release hits! 

Here is my second squad of my take on some puritan Sisters of Battle. I envisage these being a rather puritan and devout Order, more practical and substance, less baroque and myth - I know not to all tastes as the ornate bonkers bits makes 40K unique, but I got bored of waiting for plastic sisters. These are made using 3rd party Dreamforge Games Eisenkern Valkir Heavy Troopers and some Statuesque Miniatures Heroic Scale Female Heads.

I had to get these painted and out of the to-do list before the release of the much anticipated Sisters of Battle release next week! I will of course add to the ranks of my two squads with some of the new models as and when, I still have two Executioner Tanks of the older design to construct and build yet.

Again, I varied the heads with the Valkir Helmets too, to save painting so many faces and to give the more militaristic practical vibe. There are three styles, a Knightly Helm, a Vampish Helm and a Gasmask Helm, these were the Vampish Helms. I also found a really decent chap on Reddit to commission the faces, so I really lucked in and he did a great job on those. Thank-you Reddit user u/kooperkape. I think he did a great job compared to my efforts at the bottom of this post with the squad leader.

Here you can see I added some purity seals to link back to my other Sisters, the newer 'blinged up' range and the GW Bolters are from Betrayal at Calth Horus Heresy plastics.

A converted Melta Gun, using the muzzle from a combi-melta and the Dreamforge kit.

Here is a heavy Flamer, using the Dreamforge kit with the barrel subbed out for a SM Flamer nozzle.

And just looking at the Squad #1, I realise that this is the squad leader should be the original Battle Sister I converted way back when I bought the kit in Feb 2017! Well, I finally got around to finishing them before the new plastic release! Haha

Thanks for dropping by and go check out the new Plastic Sisters of Battle range, its very Gothic Grim Dark, looking great! Cheers, Siph. (9 points, one  done in 2017)

Raging Heroes - Alternative Sisters of Battle part 2 (Picture Heavy)

Hi All,

To follow up on my last post about my potential Sisters of Battle/Inquisitor/Necromunda force using models from Raging Heroes. Below are pictures of the models as requested. I will be starting the build of these in the new year.

The casts are really nice, and the detail is crisp. These models are 'mono pose' however the poses look individual.

The 'characters' have a load of details.

My only question looking at the models is how would I justify a 3+ armour save, when they aren't wearing any!?

Raging Heroes - Alternative Sisters of Battle

Hi One and All,

I took delivery this morning of an order I place with Raging Heroes..

I've previously ordered from them and the models are excellent quality, the plan with these at the moment is unknown.. Initially I thought Necromunda, then maybe some form of sisters of battle...

Also picked up the 'monster hunters set- which will be used a an Inquisitor and retinue!

#MonsterMarch - Facehugger Week 3(ish)

Hi everyone - the final week of #MonsterMarch and I can unveil the last steps and finished work. For everyone else's updates, check out the Swordmaster of Hoeth blog here.

So when I left off, I had gotten down a base layer, initial wash and first over/dry-brush. From there I then gave the model a wash in Agrax Earthshade to add more shadows and darken the overall scheme.

Then it was back to the drybrush steps, first up a dry brush of Tallarn Sand again to take us back to the primary base colour.

Then a lighter dry brush of Karak Stone.

Finally a very light drybrush of Ushtabi Bone - just for some highlights. At this point the skin is pretty much done. I used some thinned blue wash to paint on some veins on the bladder-y bits (??? no idea what else to call them) and brushed again over them with Ushtabi Bone just to make them look like they are below the layer of skin. Not completely sold on the effect - but it looks ok.

For the 'mouth' area, I had been drybrushing the same as everywhere else and just gave it a wash of Crimson Carrionburg and Reikland Fleshshade - which is my go-to wash recipe of red fleshy bits.

The nails were painted in the same body colours - loosely blending into each other.

Once everything had dried, I hit it up with a matt varnish and then gloss varnished the 'mouth' and nails to give the a wet and shiny look.

Job done!

Thanks for reading - hopefully this will get me back into painting smaller models now - we'll see...

#MonsterMarch - Facehugger Week 2

Into week 2 now of #MonsterMarch and all is going well so far... You can check out other peoples updates on the Swordmaster of Hoeth blog.

Last week I managed to get the facehugger model all built, filled and prepped for painting. Normally in the past the painting steps I have gone through this week would have been done in an hour or two - but a) I'm still not back into my rhythm yet and b)painting something of this scale is pretty tricky - it takes about an hour to do one complete pass of the model - and then there are difficulties like trying to hold the thing. Also - soooooooooo much paint is being used (which isn't cheap when it's all GW stuff...)!

So I started out by giving the model an undercard in Zandri Dust - I have a paint recipe for fleshtones using 'sand' colours, so this was an ideal start.

Next up was a base coat in Tallarn Sand.

At this stage I got a bit confused and forgot my paint recipe - I know all the individual colours, but can't remember the order of some washes/coats - so from here on out we'll see how it turns out...

Gave the facehugger a coat of Reikland Fleshshade and wow - the detail immediately popped and the model started coming into its own.

After the initial wash, the entire model got overbrushed with Tallarn Sand again and that is as far as I've got. Looking pretty good so far though - don't you think?

Next up is another wash and then a few drybrushes and most of the flesh will be finished.

#MonsterMarch - Week 1

Week one of #MonsterMarch - check out the Swordmaster of Hoeth blog for all the community updates.

Ok - a bit of background about this model - I got it from a Thai seller on eBay a while ago - I've always wanted a life-sized Facehugger and they are only about £20 - so thought it was taking a punt on.

The quality is hit and miss - I definitely wouldn't advise for a novice builder; the model is made out of vinyl and is hollow, so can be easily heated to reposition it and trimmed, but being hollow means that joins can be an absolutely nightmare to fill if there are gaps (and there are gaps!). The sculpt is pretty good, plenty of detail where you would want it and but obviously not GW standards here. I can imagine lots of these get bought, put together badly, sprayed once and then get binned - but with some TLC, I think they could look pretty good.

Typically - I jumped straight into assembly, meaning I had no unassembled pics - so I will share this one from the seller:

As you can see - the body is in two parts, with eight complete fingers, separate nails and the tail is split into four (understandable - the tail is about 3 feet long...).

Issue one...everything is very straight...not very organic or posed.

The body went together first, a hairdryer was required to heat the parts to get everything meeting and even then, there was a good 5mm gap in places that had to be filled, so out came the greenstuff. Luckily, most of it was around flat areas that I could smooth in, with only a little sculpting required around the 'mouth'.

The tail went together fine, but I left that off until the end.

I attached all of the fingers and nails as they were, before heating the knuckles and bending them. I wanted the Facehugger to look like it was about to pounce, so played with each finger one at a time until I was happy.

Finally, I attached the tail in one piece before heating it and bending to give it a bit of life. I hardly had it kinking round, but even the positioning I gave it was pretty tricky - the vinyl is pretty thick and being hollow, wanted to 'fold' more than 'bend'.

The other good thing with the model is that I should be able to gently heat it once painted and reposition it if I'm not quite happy. Saying that, by the end, I managed to get the model into a pose I was happy with - I have a super secret place I will be placing this once finished - so tested the poses on a few bits of furniture and it doesn't look half bad.

Next update - painting begins!