Emo Vamp Blood Angels Continued.

Today I want to talk about how I made my Emo Vamp Blood Angels.  Pictured below is the unpainted first tester model I converted from a Warhammer Fantasy Chaos Warrior, Night Lords Chaos Space Marine head from GW, and Blood Angels arms.  At first glance you would think this is an easy one right? Well not so fast! First of all, my conversion skills are minimal since I have always been completely happy with the models available to me. But in order to get maximum painting points at GTs, I need to have heavily converted models.  So I relent.  

Looking at the second picture, you can see where I encountered problems. Unlike easy conversions, like swapping out IG bodies for something from the Fantasy line, and simply putting on Lasguns, these here models come in a near state of completion. The shoulders, elbows, cloaks, every thing but forearms and heads, are all part of the mold.  That means that if I want to add Chain Swords and Bolt Pistols, I need to do some cutting!

First things first. I need to scrape off all the Chaos symbols.  Luckily there are some models in the kit that have very few.  It is a matter of cutting off the arrow points, stars, and other chaosy parts.  

But the picture above shows the real problem. These circles are where the forearms of the chaos models are glued into place. This is great for the chaos regiment because you need to have 20 or so in a tight formation. These circles keep the models pose and well, regimented!  I wanted to try to "action up" the pose a bit.

So I used clippers to cut out the circle, and my blade to shave em down, and also trimmed the arms to fit at nice angles.  The shoulder of the Chaos model provides a decent sized Space Marine shoulder pad, so I was able to cut the marine arms just below the shoulders and above the elbow pads, and fit them into the available spot with relative ease from there. But it was not without casualty! My Emo Vamp claimed his first bloody victim.  A lapse in attention and a slip of the knife had my blade swiping through my finger tip like Luke's Lightsaber through a catwalk handrail. 

(These pictures are actually from a few different models I am converting. You will notice that the painted model has a skull on his chest while the one I was cutting just a pointy design.  

In the finished picture I painted them very dark red, with some extreme orange highlights, but more importantly, I venture into battle damage!  Using the technique from the recent Blood Angels White Dwarf I layed in some Blazing Orange blobs, then painted them with 50/50 black and codex grey shapes, then took it one step further by touching them with mithril to show pure metal showing through the deepest spots.  This will be the final touch that I work into all of my tanks, to bring them all together.

My furioso Dread gets his battle damage make over, and a new base while a Blood Angels Scout hides his head in shame at never being allowed in a Jawaballs army.  (By the way I have a squad of 5 painted BA sniper scouts for sale if any one wants!)

There you have it! Tomorrow I will be posting up pics of my painted Mephiston, Chaplain and Priest.  Enjoy!

Jawaballs