From AlexD - Thousand Sons Space Marines (25 Points)

Hey everyone, back again with some more Thousand Sons to add to my growing roster!

Since my previous submission was heavily kit bashed (thanks for the new term, by the way!) I decided to switch gears this week and paint up a unit of unmodified, out-of-the-box Thousand Sons. For this entry I wanted to focus on keeping my lines nice and sharp, preserving the graphic, cell-shaded look but cleaning up some of the sloppy edges. After my previous submission I came to the sobering realization that miniatures look a lot different in close-up photos than they do on the table. ;)

The only bit of converting I did was on the Aspiring Champion.  His head was taken from a boxed set of Blood Angels Sanguinary Guard.  I thought the expressionless helm had a nice creepy vibe that fit well with my army’s overall aesthetic.  In a way it reminds me a bit of Mordred’s helm from Excalibur.

Anyway, that’s it for this week.  Till next time!

ByronM: Excellent work!  Yes you can really tell the difference from last weeks, these are cleaner and smoother looking.  I think they lost a bit of the cell shading due to it, but kept a fair bit, and you can see you put more effort into these, they look amazing. I like these even more than last weeks entry, this project will turn out a stunning army when all done.  

You are an evil man though, I have always wanted to do a Thousand Sons army, and have always been able to suppress doing it, I may not be able to resist the call of Chaos by the end of your project though. They are really top notch!

WEDNESDAY from AlexD - Chaos Space Marine Havocs (25 points)

Hi everyone, this is my first time participating in this painting contest. Hope you enjoy!

I've been sitting on a fully assembled and primed Thousand Sons army for some time now, but thanks to real life shenanigans and general procrastination I haven't gotten around to actually painting them. So my goal is to have the entire 1500 point army finished by the end of this contest.  A lofty task, but I look forward to the challenge!

My first entry is a unit of Chaos Space Marine Havocs.

I've always fancied the Thousand Sons chapter.  I love their aesthetic and find their lore really interesting, especially that their armor is a sealed tomb animated by magic and empty except for a handful dust - all that remains of the Space Marine who once wore it.  Riffing off this concept, I went with an Egyptian-inspired theme, and played up the animated armor angle.

I did a fair bit of converting on each of the figures in this army.  For this Havoc squad I replaced their helmets with skulls from the Tomb Kings Tomb Guard boxed set.  I wanted them to appear intimidating, but otherworldly, so I went with a blue tint on the skulls instead of the standard bone color.  Weapon wise - two of the Havocs are armed with Heavy Bolters, one has a Rocket Launcher, and other wields a Lascannon.

For the Aspiring Champion I added an Egyptian-style death mask (also from the Tomb Guard boxed set), along with a flamethrower and a banner proclaiming his allegiance to Tzeentch.

That's it for this week.  More Thousand Sons coming soon!

ByronM: Welcome to the challenge Alex and VERY nice start!  Not sure where to start on these guys, there is so much good stuff to comment on.  I really like the head swap conversions as it keeps the Thousand Sons feel, but with a slightly different aesthetic than normal.  I also really like the super hard black line / edge highlight work that you did as it almost makes it look like they are from a cell shaded video game or comic book. From table top distance those two things are really going to make them "pop".  Excellent work, I can't wait to see more!