The Emperor vs. Horus - Homage to Mike McVey

                                         

If you're over 40 and played Warhammer 40K I bet you recognize these models. Back in the days of second edition, one Mike McVey headed up the painting crew at GW and what a talent he was. One of the amazing projects he undertook for the Studio was a diorama based on an Adrian Smith illustration, "The Emperor vs. Horus" from back in 1990. I've put a pic of the illustration at the end of this post.

So ever since then I've wanted to have these models to paint for myself. This desire was only reinforced when I saw the original diorama at Warhammer World in 2019. Unfortunately the models in the diorama were one-offs converted and sculpted by McVey - he said in an article in White Dwarf #183 that the Emperor model had parts from eight other models and some sculpted detail too. Horus was similar.  I even tried my hand at a Horus conversion myself, so desperate was I.

Fast forward to this year. I'd seen some 3D prints of models sculpted by a man called BigMrTong, a fellow who's also an enthusiast of the Golden Age of GW. In fact I bought a set of amazing Rogue-Trader-style skeletons in spacesuits (wielding RTB01 bolters no less), and needed to know more. So I joined his Facebook group...

...and nearly lost it when I saw this model, painted by one of the group's members. I hoped it was a 3D print but was quite deflated to learn that it was a metal sculpt produced (along with Horus) in a limited run by BigMrTong. He picks up the story of their origin: "a guy was finding all the parts used in the original conversions and I found the final few bits and then tracked down all the original parts, then resculpted the custom parts, finally casting up a few sets with that base for display." 

Sadly (and unsurprisingly) they quickly sold out, but after I reached out to him, BigMrTong came to the rescue by offering to sell me a set he'd held onto himself. I couldn't get out my wallet fast enough, and after a week or so the parcel arrived with the Emprah, Horus, the 3D-printed diorama base, and a smaller bit of stair for the Emperor to stand on. 

What can I say about these models? They're fantastic and were super-fun to paint. I'd always wanted a set of these models and BMT made it happen.

                                       

Freehand here on the shoulder pad and power fist [pats self on back]

Here's Horus, looking mean and moody. A word about the painting. Having only a fraction of Mr. McVey's skill, I painted the armour in straightforward red and white. However, if you've seen the original models, you know that McVey painted the armour in a very detailed freehand filigree style, it just looks stupendous but like I said, well beyond my skill level.

I cheated a bit on the freehand here, the base was a decal from "Chaos Decal Sheet 1" from the 1990s. I painted the white around it and the colours on the eye.

As you can see here I've actually magnetized these too. I ended up sinking one small neodymium disc magnet into the bottom of one foot on each model, then putting a somewhat larger disc magnet in the appropriate positions on the diorama base and 32mm round bases.

That way Horus and the Emprah can actually take part in a tabletop game if we want - however unlikely that is.  

Supposedly the original head here was a part from the old Leman Russ model, with the hair carved off. Looks scary.

Here's a pic from the White Dwarf of the original diorama, just in case anybody needs a reminder of how good it was. 

And here's the picture it was based on. So good.

I know that the world of GW has moved on some in the last 30 years, but I miss metal models and the original lore, before everything got so serious. Let us not forget that the "Horus Heresy" was only invented because Space Marines were the only models made for the Space Marine (epic scale) game and there had to be some reason that Space Marines were fighting each other. But that was before there were 200 books published telling the story of the Heresy. Whatever.

Anyway I had such fun painting these models. Gotta say a big thank-you to BigMrTong for the sculpts and for selling me these models from his personal collection. If you like RT-era GW please check out his stuff (Facebook or Google works) and support his work. You'll probably see more of it on this blog!

Dallas

Skeletons in Spacesuits!

Well how about this for something different! Skeletons in spacesuits! These are the product of talented digital sculptor "BigMrTong", nom de guerre of Mike Tongue out of the UK. I was poking around on Etsy one day (as you do) and spotted these - wow! What an awesome Rogue Trader vibe they have, as you'll see...

I ordered all of the variants available. This clearly is the former captain of whatever doomed spaceship these guys crewed, and two bodyguards equipped with giant-f***-off spanners.

Note that they are equipped with boltguns straight from the RTB01 Space Marine sprue, I love that!

My painting inspiration for these was the ACES suit - that stands for "Advanced Crew Escape Suit". It's a full-pressure suit worn for ascent and descent of the space shuttle, but it's not intended for extra-vehicular activity (EVA). The point of the ACES is to keep crew safe in the event of sudden decompression of the spacecraft.

So unlike EVA suits, the ACES is "International Orange" in colour - the idea being to aid visibility if the crew have to be recovered from water or light-coloured terrain.

The models have lots of detail, including some cool-looking tanks and hoses. I prepped the models with allover Celestra Grey, then Corax White. After that I painted the suit bits Army Painter Speedpaint "Fire Giant Orange", then painted the tanks The Fang (ugh) highlighted Thunderhawk Blue and Russ Grey. The hoses were washed with Nuln Oil and Drukhari Nightshade. The skellie parts were washed Agrax Earthshade and highlighted Pallid Wych Flesh, and the helmet interiors were washed with some old Chestnut Ink I had around. Boltguns are Leadbelcher washed with Nuln Oil of course.

They pair pretty well with old Space Marines don't they! I can see using these guys in a skirmish game (Kill Team?) using Space Hulk boards, they'd fit that vibe really well. Maybe half a dozen Space Marines against 12 or 15 of these dudes.

I really like these models and if you do too, you should check out BigMrTong's prints on Etsy, or have a look at his Facebook group. As for me, I've gotten some amazing metal models direct from him that you'll see up here soon.
 

More Astronauts, Cosmonauts, Craters and Squats!

                                         

OK so I've got a little bit of painting done - mostly on the new hotness here which is Black Site Studio's Lunar. Today I've got my last two models (astronaut and cosmonaut) plus some craters, and a vehicle from an unexpected source!

Here are the two spacefarers. They're from the "Heroes and Icons Vol.1" pack from Black Site, but each has been converted... the cosmonaut (left) originally carried two geology hammers, and the astronaut (right) had two pistols... that didn't make much sense to me, so I did a bit of converting to give 'em a pistol and hammer each. I also had to replace the shafts on the geology hammers as they were twisted resin that manfully resisted all attempts at straightening. Worked out well I think.

I used the last small CCCP decal from the sheet on this model, I like the look of the tan suits with white helmets and boots. I used GW Rakarth Flesh as a basecoat, highlighted with Pallid Wych Flesh, washed with Agrax Earthshade. The helmet is Corax White with Vallejo pure white on top.  

The NASA astronaut is painted just the same as his colleagues too - basecoat Celestra Grey, highlighted Corax White and Vallejo pure white. 

The stars-and-stripes flags on the sleeves are done by hand. It's easy - paint a few long parallel stripes in Mephiston Red and then the canton over top in dark blue. Even in this larger scale, I call that done.

Recognize this? It's the Escape Pod from the Star Wars: Legion "Crashed Escape Pod" Battlefield Expansion. I couldn't imagine when I'd be using this in a Star Wars game but the style and scale seemed perfect for Lunar, so that's how it got painted!

The model was basecoated Celestra Grey then Corax White...

...then the Vallejo pure white over top. The Soviet flags are Mephiston Red highlighted Evil Sunz Scarlet.

The decals are from the Lunar decal sheet and really finish off the model well. I reckon this space pod looks a bit cobbled-together and janky so that means Soviet to me. I did some sponge chipping with German Camo Black-Brown, despite some misgivings... if this pod is going straight from the Earth to the Moon, how does it get weathered in a vacuum? I suppose there will be some bits of space dust to chip away at the paint, but I imagine that the Soviets with their sense of economy may get these things back down to Earth and reuse them.

 

Here are all the models I've painted for the game so far. You can see on the Soviets that I've repainted to give white helmets and added the CCCP decals, I think they look much better with that contrast.

I've also painted some craters this week. These are all vacuum-formed plastic items that have been kicking around for years, but they did take a bit of work. The vac-formed plastic is pretty thin and tends to warp at the edges - remember that these were all originally cut from a sheet, there was no 3D printing back then! So I cut some plasticard to shape and superglued the craters down to it before painting them. I reckon that's half a cube, the ruler is 6" long.

Lastly here's a couple of models that have been around awhile - they're Squats in Exo-Armour, metal models from the old days of 40K.

I wanted to get these dudes painted to round out a squad of five - I had already painted three "Termineggs" from Wereweevil for my Squat army and these guys fit that bunch to perfection. They'd been sitting primed on the painting desk for ages so it is good to get them up in the cabinet.

There will be a bit more Lunar terrain coming soon (Conscript Byron has printed some for me from the Black Site Studio STLs) but once that's done it'll be time to have a game!

More Squat Bikers!

More Squats! These are some resin bikers from Curtis Fell of Ramshackle Games. 

I like these models much better than the old GW bikes, for a few reasons. Not only are they much less expensive to buy (especially if you can take advantage of a Ramshackle sale - these were literally only a couple pounds each), but mostly I like 'em better because they look better! I really dislike the "Harley custom chopper" styling of the GW Squat bikers. If your army is gonna have bikers, much better that they're reasonable looking "kettenkrad" style half-tracked bikes that look like they can support a heavy weapon and gunner.

I selected a variety of weapons for these models, including a couple wicked-looking heavy flamers.

Here's a big gun of some kind, autocannon maybe?

Lascannon here for sure.

The second heavy flamer.

And lastly, a heavy stubber.

The models are all really good and scale decently to the old GW Squats. Sometimes Ramshackle's resin doesn't play well with superglue so a helping hand from some greenstuff or two-part epoxy is required, but they're nice models with very little flash. Arms and heads are separate so you can mix and match.

Here they are with the rest of my Squat army. I have a ton more bikers (just on regular cycles, not half-tracked ones) and a couple more metal models and exo-armour suits to paint, but what I'm working on now is bigger, much bigger... stay tuned :-) 

Commissar Snow White and Her Six Squats

After returning from a week's vacation in Florida I returned to painting for the Challenge! Here are some models I've just finished for my "vintage" Warhammer 40K Squat army. If you like, you can read all about the origins of this crazy project here. 

Anyway even though I painted a Squat Commissar, I felt like a human female commissar would be a great addition to this army, kind of a Disney vibe right?

The model is a 3D print I got off eBay... I really like the "Anneka Sage" model from Victoria Miniatures, as well as the "Severina Raine" GW model, but they are both crazy expensive. Maybe someday.

I also painted six "command-type" Squats for the army - these are (Lto R) Grom Atchison, Vollmer Adams, and Lisle Sterling, all from the ancient GW metal range.

They're Perry sculpts if I recall correctly, and really nicely detailed. I added a moustache to Lisle with greenstuff as I didn't care for the neckbeard look.

The giant power fist and packs are great too.

The other three are Colt Stoner, Roth Bergmann, and Mauser von Dreyse.

Strangely, Roth (centre) had a stud in the middle of his back, like there was supposed to be a backpack there. So I added one from the bits box.

These Squat models are super-fun to paint and go up surprisingly quickly. I have a bunch more metal models from the old range and I'm sure I'll get to them soon!