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At the end of Battle of the Fang, Bjorn was very specific that he would have destroyed the Tempering himself had Magnus not because it was not what Russ would have wanted.    Casual research has not shown anything that would reflect he would have any different view about the Ultima Founding.   My opinion is that he would have even less tolerance for the Ultima Founding considering it was pushed by Roboute and others “off-world”.  Yes, the new Primaris successors have been embraced by Grimnar, but we see how even the jarls and new Great Wolf did defer to Bjorn in the novel.    thoughts?

Thanks @Bonehead - your praise and encouragement through this project has been a big help in keeping me motivated.   As it turns out, I made up my mind (mostly) as to the front and the tongue and didn't need to post all the pictures of the funky options I tried as part of the decision process (I can still share those if you guys want).  Hopefully you guys like what I came up with.  So, asides from whatever Sitnam may convince me to do with the cannon (he suggested in the WIP forum that I add some fleshy bits to it) and if you guys convince me to go with the alternate tongue, the build is done.    So, here's what I ended up doing on the front end.  This picture also shows the flail option I built (the whisk of doom).     Basically, I decided against the eye cluster as most of the time (except when I was fielding it with the reaper autocannon) I would already have a cluster on the other side on the front gun mount (as seen here) and I wanted to avoid that symmetry.  I still thought an eye there was a good idea, though, so I made an eye stalk with the eye being held by an arm, as I thought it would be creepy.    A bunch of you also wanted a 3d melty face, which I thought was also a good idea but wasn't sure if I could really pull it off.  So I had a go at it and made the arm come out of its mouth.  Not totally happy with my work, but its probably fine with the arm sticking out in front of it and kind of obscuring it.   Here's a picture of the flail from the side - incidentally, the claws on the end are some of the oldest bits in my bit box, and come from my earliest conversions - they are knives from the plastic goliath models from the 1st edition necromunda box. shaved to put the main cutting edges on what was the back of the knife.     Here is the tongue that I've mostly settled on - building it out of a plastic twist tie allowed me to make it forked, something I don't think I could have pulled off effectively  if the tongue had been made of greenstuff.  There is some greenstufffing on the back to flatten out the ridge made by the metal wire inside the tie.  I'm not gluing it on until after its painted, so its position isn't finalized yet.     Here's the other option - if I were to use it, I would greenstuff the transition between the head and the cable to make it more natural.  Went with the above largely because the tie is a lot easier to position and deal with than the guitar string.  The head of the tongue is from the new demon prince kit - and the blue tac is obviously temporary.     I suppose there is also the option to go no tongue at all - anyway, let me know what you think.   Other than that, the final bits of the conversion were pretty minor.  I built a second eye cluster (actually, the 3rd, to replace the 2nd which went missing) as I need two if I put the reaper autocannon on it as I need one for each side sponson - don't think it warrants its own picture unless you guys want one.   The final change was carving the ejection port out of a heavy bolter and then flipping it onto the other side so both sponson heavy bolters (if I use that option) eject away from the hull.  Kind a real nitpicking thing, really.  Probably doesn't warrant its own photo, but you are getting one regardless.     One final picture of the defiler with all of its magnetising bits.     All that is left now (other than any last minute changes arising from you guys' suggestions) is the painting - I'll be making it my first vow for Call to Arms.

Thanks @phandaal, @sitnam & @MithrilForge!   Sitnam, what did you have in mind to do around the cannon?  I don't really picture anything there myself (there aren't any natural egress points like hatches and such) so I'm not sure what I would do to it if I were to do something.    As it turns out, I made up my mind (mostly) as to the front and the tongue and didn't need to post all the pictures of the funky options I tried as part of the decision process (I can still share those if you guys want).  Hopefully you guys like what I came up with.  So, asides from whatever Sitnam may convince me to do with the cannon and if you guys convince me to go with the alternate tongue, the build is done.    So, here's what I ended up doing on the front end.  This picture also shows the flail option I built (the whisk of doom).     Basically, I decided against the eye cluster as most of the time (except when I was fielding it with the reaper autocannon) I would already have a cluster on the other side on the front gun mount (as seen here) and I wanted to avoid that symmetry.  I still thought an eye there was a good idea, though, so I made an eye stalk with the eye being held by an arm, as I thought it would be creepy.    A bunch of you also wanted a 3d melty face, which I thought was also a good idea but wasn't sure if I could really pull it off.  So I had a go at it and made the arm come out of its mouth.  Not totally happy with my work, but its probably fine with the arm sticking out in front of it and kind of obscuring it.   Here's a picture of the flail from the side - incidentally, the claws on the end are some of the oldest bits in my bit box, and come from my earliest conversions - they are knives from the plastic goliath models from the 1st edition necromunda box. shaved to put the main cutting edges on what was the back of the knife.     Here is the tongue that I've mostly settled on - building it out of a plastic twist tie allowed me to make it forked, something I don't think I could have pulled off effectively  if the tongue had been made of greenstuff.  There is some greenstufffing on the back to flatten out the ridge made by the metal wire inside the tie.  I'm not gluing it on until after its painted, so its position isn't finalized yet.     Here's the other option - if I were to use it, I would greenstuff the transition between the head and the cable to make it more natural.  Went with the above largely because the tie is a lot easier to position and deal with than the guitar string.  The head of the tongue is from the new demon prince kit - and the blue tac is obviously temporary.     I suppose there is also the option to go no tongue at all - anyway, let me know what you think.   Other than that, the final bits of the conversion were pretty minor.  I built a second eye cluster (actually, the 3rd, to replace the 2nd which went missing) as I need two if I put the reaper autocannon on it as I need one for each side sponson - don't think it warrants its own picture unless you guys want one.   The final change was carving the ejection port out of a heavy bolter and then flipping it onto the other side so both sponson heavy bolters (if I use that option) eject away from the hull.  Kind a real nitpicking thing, really.  Probably doesn't warrant its own photo, but you are getting one regardless.     One final picture of the defiler with all of its magnetising bits.     All that is left now (other than any last minute changes arising from you guys' suggestions) is the painting - I'll be making it my first vow for Call to Arms.

This is a very good point and is something that I think I'm going to look to try out on the next batch I do - they'll be skitarii so it doesn't matter too much if I mess up slightly! I feel I've got the reflected glow about how I want it now, but yeah the actual source could benefit from a bit more light/dark contrast.    These are all excellent points. I will endeavour to stay strong!

Absolutely love your work! Only thing I would note is that on your blue OSL effects, you could add a bit of highlights back into the light source to give it the plasma glow. A few bright and dark highlights would really make the light source POP.   If you aren't sure about the Imperialis Models, don't buy them. Especially if work is up in the air and you've got another baby on the way, seems like the last time you'd want to be spending cash on a new project! You've only painted the one

Thanks