Sunday 1 February 2015

Hey guys!

Spent a lot of the last two weeks modelling up this Predator. I wanted to go for a more traditional feel for this tank, and so avoided the usual Chaos symbology that would normally adorn Chaos Space Marine tanks. The idea is that this is a Chaos tank, but is not necessarily "tainted" by the warp.

This won't extend to all of my army, as I do have a Defiler that I'll be converting up as much as will make it look good. I just wanted something to fit in with my Night Lord Chosen that was anti-chaos, but also anti-imperial.

This tank has a lot of trophies and grisly parts, fitting in with the Night Lords quite nicely I think. I also "borrowed" Brother Heinrich's idea on having a loyalist Space Marine on the front of the tank. You can see his thread on Bolter And Chainsword here. It is absolutely worth checking out, even if you aren't a fan of Chaos Space Marines.


I stripped the entire tank again when I found stronger nail-polish removed. The results were exceptionally good!

Thinking of bulking up the front of the right arm more, to make it more realistic. I also want to sculpt some armour around the remains of his left leg, and put some spikes through his limbs to explain how he's pinned to the tank, as I don't think that blu-tack is an acceptable answer to that question...

The main parts on this still aren't fully glued together yet, as I still want to do some modelling on the interior.


This is a cultists head from Dark Vengeance. I figured that this is actually something the Night Lords would do, so why not?

I'm quite happy with the turret, even though it isn't very converted. It just looks really nice to have it finished I guess!

This is from the corpse cart I think? I ordered three of these before Christmas, planning to use two on the Predator. I ended up just using one, as I thought that these trophies should all be unique, lending to more realism.

An Elf head, probably from some Ogre Kingdoms box set. I can't remember, but it looks sweet.

The main prize himself, his hands taken, his torso flayed and his legs removed. He is having a bad day.

But at least he didn't lose his head over it, like this guy. Or the Eldar. Or the Ork below.

Speaking of orks, this is a regular fantasy Ork head that I combined with green stuff to make a trophy on a spike. There's some gore around his neck that you can see too.






So there you go peeps, this is the current incarnation of my Predator tank! There's still some work to be done on it before painting can begin. I want to have an interior with ammo stores, and whatever else some be in a Predator tank. Any suggestions or ideas on that would be appreciated! 

I also want to smoothen out the lines between parts of the model, such as the gap you can see in between the two parts that make up the twin-linked lascannon above. I also want to magnetise the Lascannons, finish off the marine trophy on the front, and fix up the green stuff that's holding the main Lascannons in place. I couldn't stand how they were able to move up and down, as they would always point downwards for obvious reasons. Bleh.

I'll likely be putting a similar effort into my other tanks before I start painting them. I figured that there's no reason to not customise all of them, as they are big centre pieces of my army. I'm also currently painting up my Hasslefree Clint and going through 21 Night lords again, this time painting up their eye-lenses with a technique I saw in one of GW's painting books and going over any areas I missed when highlighting. The latter isn't taking as long as you'd think and is yielding awesome results!

Anyway, until next time, g'luck!

4 comments:

  1. Nice Marc, works for putting the fear on now go & finish it. LOL

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    1. Thanks Frank, there's still a bit of spit and polish to be done on the modelling side of things, but this should look awesome once it's finished!

      I hope I don't run out of ideas before I get to the two Rhino's... Or the Land Raider... Or the Defiler...

      Nah, be grand! I have plans to add the torso of the Ultramarine captain from the Assault on Black Reach to the Defiler. He'll be all mutated/attached to the Daemon Engine, as a form of torture or something. The Defiler will also have some Daemonic muscle-y parts to make it looks more mutated too. It's not much of a traditional Night Lord thing to have Daemon Engines, but this is Chaos we're talking about. I hope to build my warband to encompass all elements of the Night Lords, chaos-y and not.

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  2. Like the Predator, looks more like a butcher's front window than vehicle! I look forward to you finishing it.

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    1. Thanks man, it's been a long time coming now! The tanks will take some time to sort out, but I hope to spend a good bit of time modelling each of them too. Bitz sites are a godsend for this stuff!

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