Gaunt the Chaos Commissar and Platoon Number 1 finished

Just had to share this first, my father went to visit the Royal Armouries Collection at the Tower of London and took a few snaps of a particularly epic Warhammer (subject-matter-tie-in wahey!) with a six shot revolver built in to the hammer face. I think it looks suitably esoteric enough to suit an Inquisitor as his weapon of choice, cheers Dad!

So smash someone in the face and then blow their head off? Or answer that age-old question 'Why did you bring a mace to a gun fight?'


Aside from finding a new weapon for my Chapter Master I had a fairly productive weekend on the painting bench (literally) with two characters that I've put together, the Platoon Commander, and the Platoons attached Commissar. 

I had a lengthy discussion with my friend 'Den' almost half a year ago after finishing my Marines off to a suitable complement and decided on the Guard, which Guard however was a thorny issue with me. 

Ghosts. Pact. Sons?

You've gotta love the Ghosts, a brilliantly characterful bunch with a fair number of possible conversions, mainly through cloaks and the characters from the books. 

The Pact are another fun pack of crazies, with enough convertibility in their heavily scavenged and Khornate nature to keep you fully occupied for a good bunch of time. There was also the possibility to convert a few Stalk tanks which would be an extremely fun project. Unfortunately, the Pact had been created beforehand, by better people than I.

And then to the Sons, distant enough from the Guard to have a bundle of conversion options and close enough to Chaos to add in even more.

Then this guy popped up on Ebay that I just had to have, not for the model, but for the personal significance to win. Did I want to use him? Would he suddenly become the bullet magnet that I feared? In the end, it came down to the quality of the model itself, and for me, it was just...meh.

This is Gaunt for me, 

Big, tall, uncompromising, already a veteran.

His sculpt unfortunately is just a bit too young-looking and skinny for me.

So my choice came to be the Sons of Sek. Which would mean that he had to be changed, drastically. Somewhere within the army I wanted nods to the original models out of respect. But Gaunt as he stood had to go.

Being a White metal model, the best I could hope for was some bending and breaking. So, I removed the obvious bolt pistol, and the aquila. I then bent the models pose into a more upright stance, tucking the bolt pistol under his cloak, and added a Sons of Sek cupped hand (not one of my best it must be said), along with some goggles. I then carefully removed as much of the peaked cap as possible, curved his sword, flayed his cloak to give a more ragged appearance, added some rags about his hands and legs, and then added a skull for final effect.

This looked like this;

Which when painted looks like this;

Generic Star tattoo of course and the detail of his sword;

 Some more attempts at blending below on his cloak.

I'm not 100% sure of this still as the clothing upon his front is very Imperial, so I may go back and redo the added items again, as he also still feels skinny!

At the same time I began painting up my Platoon Commander. The guy that only goes to the gym on 'shoulders day'. He started out like this;

Which when painted looks like this; 

 And on the rear, much more successfully blended the colours on his back than his front weirdly enough. I wasn't sure whether to encrust his chainaxe with gore either...

And with him finished, the first Platoon of the Sons Of Sek rolls off the production line. Three long months (not counting the other tanks of course)