DarkVen's Octavia Obscura [30.04.2017]

[Dragonlover]

I'll settle for three. Custom Obliterators always look awesome.

 

Dragonlover

[Isengrin]

Fantastic job, man! I really like how you've painted the gold. 

 

As for your next project, I'll vote for obliterators. They should make for a bunch of interesting models, especially if you convert them in the vein of the warpsmith.

[DarkVen]

Well then, I guess I'm going for oblits. I will think a bit more, but if nothing happens, then the obliterator cult will be my next project. Just so you can imagine for what I'm aiming at, you can search for the former metal daemon prince miniature ;)

But it will take me quite a while just to get the concept work done right, so until then I'm going to continue with painting my old stuff - dreadnought (which still requires a freehand and polished gold), Lucius, a classic raptor squad etc.

[BrotherJim]

My vote is for troops. You have to start with a HQ and two troops choices, don't you know? That's how all the epic armies start. But I suppose the oblitorators could work seeing as your HQ is a tech marine... And what a tech marine!

 

You've painting is sublime, I love the gold helm, I just spent my whole train trip staring at the pictures. He's such a tank! Gotta go!

[DarkVen]

Well I already have 30 marines, so another squad of 10 can wait just a bit besides that, 10 models would take much more time for me to complete, while 3 different oblits (I have already accumulated ideas more than enough to make them look absolutely different) could be possibly a good warm up.

So, because I'm again far away from my painting/converting station, I think I can provide another quick update. I thought that since it is some kind of mark of my new stage in collection, it could also be my attempt at writing short fluff pieces for each unit, to flesh out my army a bit more. So without further ado:

"Let my words be sooth. Let my deeds be history".

- Tarantula, warsmith.

After the events of M37 known as the Fall of Sasharim little was left of the Night Lords' 8th company. Resulting from all out battle with Word Bearer's 37th host and came upon warpstorm due to failed summoning of the Fateweaver, scattered survivors partially fled, partially were hiding in desolated wastelands.

The head command of the warband formerly known as the 8th company vanished. The Warlock, the Destroyer, disappeared after the betrayal with no one able to track him down. The Warlord, Azanael, evaporated in a blast of the Baneblade possessed by a witchcraft of the Word Bearers. Every other high officier either was dead or took his subordinates and flew away in search of bounty and fortune.

Every except for one.

Sabar Nakhim, the Warsmith known as Tarantula, survived the last battle but slipped into stasis. He re-emerged few centuries later, awoken by shadowy whisper, bearing the book of Octavia Obscura believed to contain the information on every crooked heretech ever touched by Chaos. His ultimate goal was to bring the Warlord back from the Realms of Chaos.

His first objective was to gather every scattered unit left on the planet to aid him - either by conviction or by force. But this would be just the beginning. Ultimately he had to glimpse into the ever-changing pages of Octavia Obscura to find the right consequentia of deeds and entities to mark the path from the Warp.

Thus the 8th company was no more. By Sasharim, by Chaos and by Tarantula will it be reforged into parade of Octavia Obscura.

[KrautScientist]

Oh boy, that finished Warpsmith is just incredible! A conversion and paintjob to be very proud of indeed! What I possibly like best about him is how he instantly reads as a Warpsmith, yet there's also something ponderous and deep sea diver-esque about him, due to his bulk, the helmet area and that lantern he carries. Spectacular stuff! Plus I can only repeat myself here: Every Warpsmith should be a custom model, but you have really raised the bar with this guy!

 

In other news, another vote for the Obliterators, as I have just finished my own custom Obliterators (thanks to Thamier) and would love to see your take on the subject!

 

Keep up the amazing work! :)

[DarkVen]

Many thanks Kraut! Glad to know he turned out to be that characterful :) 

Well, I think I definitely go for oblits. Have already scavenged bits for them. And them 10-men squad of csm will probably be next on my list.

[DarkVen]

AVE DOMINUS NOX, ladies and gents.

So time has passed, I was away from gs and my computer for a while, but now I'm back, ready to continue my timeless efforts.

I figured there wasn't update for quite a while, I am still working on obliterator concepts, trying to figure out the best design for their weapons, so I thought I could post the latest concept of a sorcerer for my warband just to keep this thread on the surface.

The inspirations sources were primarely the old sorcs back from the 2 edition of 40k, with small additions of my personal thoughts and ideas. One miniature that I took a huge chunk of ornaments and ideas from was this guy:

He was the first HQ unit in my CSM collection - a terminator sorcerer with a fist (sic). But I thought he had some potential for revival, so I used his head and ornaments on the shoulder pad and on the knee as a starter point. As I never used him on the table, I think he deserves a chance to fight once more, even as a some kind of reincarnated Night Lord.

Sorry, nothing much to show you guys right know. I know some of you are still waiting for my painting tutorial - it'll happen, but a bit later. Next on painting schedule is the dreadnought and then Lucius. Hopefully I'll manage to finish them before the end of August, because in September I start my classes, so time and possibilities will get limited for me. But I remember everything I've promised. And I will do everything I've promised, I swear so I'll post concepts of the oblits next time, hopefully with the finished dread.

Anyways, thank you for coming by!

[Kizzdougs]

Amazing work, dude! :tu:

[Vairocanum]

The helmet design looks amazing! Can't wait to see you bring that to life!

[BrotherJim]

Duuuuddee!!!!!! Your first HQ is so awesome! I love it!

 

That's so rad! Look at that he's got the powerfist combi storm bolter with the trophie, and the halberd/staff!!! And the horned shoulder pad ;)

 

Brilliant! I want to build one. Really excited about your upcoming work, but thanks for the glimpse into the past.

That's a cool scheme too.

[Midnightmare]

Wonderful creation with your Warpsmith, DV, mind blowing! Great paint job too :tu:

[DarkVen]

Thank you very much guys! Giving your feedback, the warsmith turned out to be rather good, and I hope to achieve the equal level of quality with my next projects

BrotherJim

Wow, I haven't thought somebody would like my ancient conversion I assembled him waaay back in 2007-2008 I think, so this one is really old. Simple, yet having some potential.

I also think I will rewind my old works for Night Lords and previous stuff, just to re-introduce my work to those who haven't been able to see it earlier.

SUDDENLY another AVE DOMINUS NOX, ladies and gents!

Or "Everybody hail the Prince of Lust and Princess of Pleasure" shall I say?

HELL YESSS!!!

Say "Hi"! Oh please say "Hi", sugar. C'mon: "Hi"

I wanted these bad girls ever since I got into Chaos. They're just so pretty yet menacing, just what daemonettes are described to be in fluff. I adore the sculpt of these miniatures. And the fact that they were sculpted way back in the dark times of the 3rd edition, with no fancy new technologies like 3D sculpting makes them even more cooler nowadays. And now, after more than 5 years of collecting and painting stuff I've finally managed to get my hand on these 10 femme fatales made of metal (can it get more old school than this?).

They are one of my favourite miniatures, so I thought I could take a picture with another unit I like - Chaos Raptors:

The beauties and the beasts indeed. These are my top-2 favourite models in the Chaos model range ever to come to light (if not in the entire model range of 40k), followed by Defiler, old metal Daemon Prince and old metal Pink Horrors. And now I have them all, mwaha-ha-ha-HAAA

Raptors are still being painted though, so now close-ups for them. But soon...

Anyways, thanks for looking and reading guys! I hope I will provide some new finished stuff soon enough!

[DarkVen]

AVE DOMINUS NOX, ladies and gents!

 

I've redone my terminator champ. Previously (before painting) he looked like this:

 

Now, with a bit of gs and spare bits I've decided to update him:

 

And a lightning claw option in case he will lead a 10-men force into battle:

 

Another update for my army is the last (but obviously not the least) cult character - Lucius the Eternal:

 

And a group shot of the four:

 

Hope you like them.

I will try to post the finished and updated dreadnought before September.

 

Comments and criticisms welcomed, as always.

 

EDIT: updated Lucius pictures, now the pics are a bit more closer to the reality.

[Elazar The Glorified]

I love how vibrant the pink is on your Lucius. Great work!

[Chandrian]

There is a lot of detail going on with the Term Champ! He looks really cool but my fav part has to be the braid coming down the side of his helm :P

[DarkVen]

Many thanks guys! For a second there I thought I made wrong decision with my midnight clad and should have picked pink rocknrollas when I just started. Pink chaos space marines... there is definitely some psychological warfare in this.

 

The braid was actually inspired by DtD terminators. I wanted to pay tribute to him and comehow connect this champ to his vision of Night Lords.

[KrautScientist]

The updated Champ is looking great, although I will say that I preferred his old base: The added verticality made it a bit more interesting. The model itself is top-notch, though.

 

Lucius is looking excellent! I think you could have gone even further with the scars on his face, though, as they seem to fade away a bit, giving his head a slightly washed-out look. Maybe a careful addition of some more red/purple wash in the recesses would add some pop without having it look over the top?

 

The family picture of the four named cult-characters is absolutely beautiful -- your paintjobs beautifully bring out the models' strenghts, and I think each of them still holds up rather beautifully!

[Soldier of Dorn]

Perhaps it's just me, but I find myself preferring your old Terminator Champion to your new one: even though your technical skills have advanced a lot since then, there's an air of menace, I find, in his pose that's just not there in the new one. This isn't to say that the new Champ is a bad model: far from it, he does look well deserving of his role, but my personal tastes simply lean towards the old character.

[gezabutla]

Damn, your work is a goldmine for inspirational source material! I love the personality you're working into these minis.

[Isengrin]

Hey, I know that guy. Your old Terminator Lord never really worked for me, although he had his share of great components. The new conversion looks much more focused and sharp and I especially like his weapons.

I wish I could like the pic of your Big Four more than once. Your blending on Lucius begs the question why you've never painted an old school squad of noise marines. Ten Marines painted with that pink would look killer.

[Kizzdougs]

Damn! I love how vibrant Lucius is! Also the skin tone on his head is great :tu:

[DarkVen]

Thank you for your replies guys!

 

KrautScientist

Many thanks Kraut! Well, about the scars on Lucius - I always thought that Slaanesh, being much about sadistic stuff, is more about twisted beauty. Thinking in this direction I came up with the idea that any scars Lucius has (and also his armor and so on and so forth) should be true to the original, but yet look somewhat alluring. Thus I didn't want his face to look too disturbing because of the scars, so I blended them with the rist skin tone a little bit.

Speaking about the base of the champ - I wanted to make something similar to what I made for my warsmith, so he could be easily identified with my new part of the army.

 

The Psycho

It's always good if you have different opinion than mine, it helps me to look at my work at a different angle and to see other possibilities that I can use in the future :) 

Well, I admit that these champ looks quite more humble than his previous incarnation, but that was actually what I was striving to achieve. My idea was that if one is the terminator champ - the champion of champions - then one could allow oneself to look a bit reserved. Because that's where the true power and menace lies. But again, that's just my thoughts on that.

 

gezabutla

Many thanks! I try my bests to make every model unique in one way or another, as if it was a true character with his own backstory. Glad it turns out well so far :)

 

Isengrin

Speaking about noise marines - I actually want to build a noise-band inspired by the very old models and paint them this way. I actually think to make them wield guitars, microphones. I'm also considering to give one of them a drum machine, though I'm struggling to come up with somewhat logical and cool design. Any suggestions?

 

kizzdougs

Thank you :) I think I will use the similar skin tone for my daemonettes when I'll get to painting them.

[Brother Ambroz]

Very pretty warsmith and I like the new warband name.

[DarkVen]

Tanith Ghost

Many thanks brother! How are your Night Lord doing?

 

So, AVE DOMINUS NOX, ladies and gents!

 

It's been quite a while and I don't have anything new and finished to show you sadly. But I thought I could post an update just for the sake of showing that I am working on stuff. So first - my original melta-raptor squad...

 

 

...required the 3rd melta (because we could take 3 (sic!) meltas during the times of 3.5 dex):

 

 

Well the conversion is obviously not as high-skilled as my Warpsmith, but it wasn't my intention for him anyway: I wanted him to easily blend in with the rest of the squad in order for the unit to look solid. I must remark though that now it took me only two days to fully assemble him from scratch, while the previous ones took me about a week to build (I guess).

 

Next I'm painting another squad of old metal raptors, so I wanted to post one of them also mid-process of painting:

 

 

His armor and bronze are pretty much done, mainly there are just few small touches I want to add and that'll be it.

 

And so just you don't think I've forgotten about my next mega-project - oblits - here is an early concept of one of them called "Doom":

 

 

Obviously one of his hands will be replaced with mutated guns, but that'll come later. I think one can get the general idea of the direction I'm taking with my Obliterators.

 

And the last question for all of you guys. Considering I'm an epic slowpoke and usually it takes me eons to finish something, would you prefer me to make an update for this thread at least every weekend with anything I've done during a week, or should I keep it at the current pace?

 

Cheers!