# Soul Drinkers - new modelling diary



## Saxon (Jun 23, 2008)

having just finished the sould drinkers omnibus I've decided I'd like to make a soul drinkers 1500 points force.

The army will have the main protagonists from the books in their semi-mutant states, with the purple heraldry and chalice Icons. I plan to mould chalice icons onto the shoulder pads using a grail knight shield as the template.

The List:
all infantry marine force, no jump packs, no vehicles, dreadys bikes etc - drop pods are going to be fielded

Has to be led by a librarian as chapter-master sarpedon - I'm planning a conversion with the top half of the space marine librarian in termi armour and 7 insect legs (maybe genestealer scything talons?) and one bionic leg

Chaplin - chaplin Iktinos - no conversion really needed here - standard chappy

other characters - Sergent graevus - with his power axe and mutated big hand - maybe off the old mutation sprue

Captain Luko - probably an assault squad sergeant with lightening claws

list rules wise I'll probably run them using the blood angels codex to take assault troops as troops - dropping their jump packs and giving them the free drop pod

The other thought I had was to then field the death company as Sergeant Tellos's bunch of nutters - not sure how to model tellos - marine legs, need a muscled torso - maybe old plastic ogryn? and dual chain blades for hands... alternatively good use khorne bezerkers with the icons field off to represent them

so that's it so far - I've got a couple of squads of SW blood claws to use as the de-jump packed assault marines. I'll post some more thoughts and pics up when I get further into it


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## Saxon (Jun 23, 2008)

well I've painted my first test-mini - the free terminator from Septembers WD.

I must admit I'm not overly impressed with the quality of the sculpt - it really doesn't seem as crisp as the box-set termis - but a free mini is a free mini!

Front view









side view









I'm not happy with the chalice icon, I still think it needs to be 3D but I'm not too sure hw I'm going to get that to happen.....

if I do decide to paint them I don;t think I'll use metallics - probably yellows is the way to go


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## Saxon (Jun 23, 2008)

here's a pic of the color scheme post inking and without the flash - its actually quite dark.










I also had a go at sculpting a shoulder pad with the chalice Icon - not sure how it will turn out as an item I can make a mould from, unfortunately my greenstuff ability isn;t too great.


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## dirty-dog- (May 14, 2008)

don't put your self down about sculpting, trust me you don't know bad till you see my first atempt


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## darkreever (Apr 3, 2008)

Any thoughts to how you'll make Sarpedon list-wise? Many people give him a jump pack on paper, but some (myself included) go with a bike because it more accurately reflects him. (Increased toughness against most standard fire, a bolter that he is a very good shot with, and a really fast move if you have to.)


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## STATIC (Feb 11, 2008)

Soul Drinkers?
You know the funny thing?
About an hour before you posted this, i was talking to a guy in a GW store in Castle Hill about this very army.

For your bionic leg you could possibly use a leg from a Necron Tomb Spyder.

Pics look good!!!!
Would love to see how these turn out.


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## STATIC (Feb 11, 2008)

PS. Where abouts in Aus are you?
I have a billion scything talons laying around. k:


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## Saxon (Jun 23, 2008)

I'm in melbourne mate, I'm waiting for a box of genestealers to arrive and I'm hoping the scything talons in them will be appropriate, I don;t want him to be to huge, but I'm thinking the warrior sized onces might be the go.
Once they get here I'll post some pics, otherwise I might hit you up for some of those scything talons

@dark reaver - I'm planning on using the blood angels rules for the army - so will probably field him as a "counts-as" mepheston - T5 and FNP seems about right - plus with wings of sanguinus he can move quick and with transfixing gaze - could be simialr to the hell.

the other benifits of the BA I've mentioned above - defintiely will be using drop pods though


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## Casual_T (Jan 2, 2008)

You said you'd take drop pods. From what I got from the book they don't have the facilities to launch pods so... Nice Idea though.


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## Talos (Aug 4, 2008)

Well they do, they use drop pod and assault pods alot in the book. If I am not mistake they use drop pods to go to the navagtors guild's house and then to also droppod onto the daemon planet.


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## hephesto (Feb 24, 2007)

Looking good, the shoulderpad turned out quite well I'd say!


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## Shogun_Nate (Aug 2, 2008)

Howdy!

Looks like a good start bud. The greenstuff sculpt looks ace as well. Remember the old maxim: "painting covers a multitude of sins". Even if it doesn't look perfect, with a little paint it'll be great :biggrin: 

Good luck and good gaming,

Nate


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## Saxon (Jun 23, 2008)

well another day, another update (who loves being on holiday.....)

anyway I've painted a couple of test marines just to see how the theme would go. I;ve stuck to the same purple method as before. I've included the bone color on the trim, elbows just to add some contrast - here's what I've come up with (first mutated soul drinker in there too)




























I agree with tony, it still needs a certain something... not sure what though. Intially I wasn't happy with the bone trim, but with the ink I think its actual muted down a touch and come up well.

I've also been giving some thought to sergeant tellos - I've been considering ideas of how to get him mega. mega bulked up - I've had a play using a confrontation formor fiend and marine legs:




















Personally I think the legs look a touch small, bu I'm thinking a set of terminator legs might do the trick quite well - giving that extra size.
What I'm planning for the fiend is to cut off the hands and replace with chain blades (or chain swords? the book states chainblades - is that the same as a chain sword?)
I'll also cut off the horns and sculpt long lank hair (as mentioned in the book) matted with gore to cover the caps.

I'm not sure how I'd do the white, translucent skin - perhaps a very very pale grey....


I;ve alos finished my first "named character"
Sergeant Graevus - descriped in the book as having a "huge mutated hand allowing him to field his massive power axe one handed" I've used a black orc 2 handed axe and cut off the second hand. I've seen a few people use the mutation sprues for this model - but I like to think it would still be a massive gauntleted hand (reminds me of that guy from the simpsons)


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## humakt (Jan 2, 2008)

Sergeant Graevus looks very good. That is one big chopper. I think you right about sergeant tellos, and terminator legs would be a better option.

Nice start to the army. You coul always make transafers for the shoulder pads, which is waht I did for my Sisters of the Poisened chalice.


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## STATIC (Feb 11, 2008)

Depending on how big you want sarpedon to be, i'd consider using Hormagaunt or warrior talons. The Genestealer ones look chatty.

All the gaunt ones are the same size. But the warrior ones vary a touch and each set of warriors only come with two of the heavy talons (Which look more suited to an arachnid) but are quite big.

I'll try and get a pic up with something for scale comparison.


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## Saxon (Jun 23, 2008)

STATIC said:


> Depending on how big you want sarpedon to be, i'd consider using Hormagaunt or warrior talons. The Genestealer ones look chatty.
> 
> All the gaunt ones are the same size. But the warrior ones vary a touch and each set of warriors only come with two of the heavy talons (Which look more suited to an arachnid) but are quite big.
> 
> I'll try and get a pic up with something for scale comparison.



cool thanks for that - would love to see a size comparison of the talons- I want sarpedon to be big - so I guess the warrior ones are the way to go


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## STATIC (Feb 11, 2008)

Left to right:

Gay Genestealer talon, Hormagaunt talon, Standard warrior talon, Heavy warrior talon.


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## Saxon (Jun 23, 2008)

hmmm - not as good as I was hoping - those stealer ones really do look a bit crap - I might have to go the shelob route for the legs....

thanks for the pic mate


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## Shogun_Nate (Aug 2, 2008)

Howdy!

Have you thought about looking at the possessed chaos box set to make Tellos? With a little greenstuff work you could really bulk out one of those torsoes. The torso you're using now seems way to big. Even if you use terminator legs, I don't think you'll quite get the scale in proportion. 

Your test marines look very good. I like the colors you've used. Sergeant Graevus is also ace. I'll be keeping an eye on this tread.

Good luck and good gaming,

Nate


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## Otep (Mar 18, 2008)

if you feel up to it you might be able to make some true scale termy legs (i've never done it but it comes to mind for this beast of a character!) it should be able to look acceptable for your uber huge torso man...

hope it helps O_O


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## STATIC (Feb 11, 2008)

Saxon said:


> hmmm - not as good as I was hoping - those stealer ones really do look a bit crap - I might have to go the shelob route for the legs....
> 
> thanks for the pic mate


No probs mate :good:
Good luck with it all. Seems to be coming together quite well.


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## Saxon (Jun 23, 2008)

OK another update. First off shoulder pads:
I made a mould from the previous shoulder pad that I sculpted and have been using it to churn out the shoulder pads - due to the sculpt and the moulding the flames on the top of the chalice haven't come out well, so I usually take them off as I trim and clean them up.
The mould was made out of the lid of a wild turkey & cola bottle (who said drinking doesn't help you)










Here's a shoulder pad fresh from the mould (still covered in vasaline) usually I'll let them set O/N and then give them a clean up










Next up sergeant Tellos.

I used a set of terminator legs instead of the marine ones (thoughtfully donated by the first terminator I painted!) The body is still a touch to big, but I personally think it looks good - he's supposed to be a mutant space marine lost to the blood god after all.
His chain blades are described in the book as ".. old pattern chainswords with broad, curved blades like machetes" (The Bleeding Chalice, Soul drinkers omnibus, pg407)
So I used chainswords from the khorne bezerkers sprues which seemed to have the right shape, I went for a "flesh fusing metal and skin" look as I wasn't sure how to do the koin - the other option would have been for bandages holding the swords on (similar to WHFB rat ogre arms) but Tellos isn't the sort of pussy to wear bandages!




















I've tried to model the lank, long hair - I was going for dreadlocks originally, but that didn't quite work - as I've mentioned green stuff isn't one of my strengths (and its even worse since I lost my glasses this week!)


I've also been working on the color scheme - I've tried highlighting the gold with a really bright silver which makes it stand out a bit. I also realised I used brown ink instead of black for the first test models :armata_PDT_04: so this model is washed with the black ink, and I think has come up better.










As always, comments always welcome.


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## Caponey (Aug 19, 2008)

The schemes looking pretty solid. I like that someones publicly trying this army. I have always wanted to do this but the fact that you're actually doing it is awesome. Keep up the good work!

-Tanner


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## Saxon (Jun 23, 2008)

Caponey said:


> The schemes looking pretty solid. I like that someones publicly trying this army. I have always wanted to do this but the fact that you're actually doing it is awesome. Keep up the good work!
> 
> -Tanner


thanks for the kind words mate, much appreciated.
I just loved the books and the fluff of the soul drinkers so I knew I had to do them
cheers


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## dirty-dog- (May 14, 2008)

my freind suggested that i try out this chapter for a force i was gonna go, but i thought it would be too much work, and because i prefer the blood god i have chosen a mercenary force of loyalist and khorne warriors.


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## Infael (Aug 19, 2008)

The face on the Plasma pistol guy is very well done, really lifelike, fair play dude!


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## screaming skull (Sep 10, 2008)

I like what you have so far after I get my Black Templars up to speed Soul Drinkers are next. Keep it up!


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## Saxon (Jun 23, 2008)

Well here we have another update - I've been doing work on this when I've had time (which has been infrequent of late)
anyway

Sergeant Graveus' assault squad - I've really gone to down on these guys with extra adornment, in my mind this is the pure "heart" of the chapter, those still loyal to sarpedon - Depending on the rules I use to field the army these will either by honor guard or vanguard veterans











Sergeant Tellos' assault squad (the nutters) - I've used bezerker and chaos bits for these guys to represent their slip over to the blood god - when it comes to painting them they'll be very blood stained










The main man!










Well I finall got off my butt and completed him, for me this model was the inspiration to do a soul drinkers army - the books really are all about sarpedon - I based the model on the termi librarian as I just loved the pose with the hand out in front of him. I also decided to use the LotR shelob model for the spider parts.
The first challenge was trying to take the legs of the librarian without damaging the robes at the front, basically this involved carefully clipper cutting and a lot of file work.

Attaching the legs was the next dilema - in the book he's desribed as having legs sprouting out of his torso - but that was proving really difficult to achieve as there was little room to add all the legs - eventually I made a concession and used the thorax segment from shelob (which had all the ready made leg insertion points on it - little tip, if you're ever assembling shelob DO NOT cut the little tags off the legs that indicate the leg pairings - took me friggin ages to get that sorted out!)

I cut the head of shelob and just used the thorax and green stuffed any gaps



















It still needs some work on the base and to tidy up the back end where the last set of legs are moulded in, but otherwise I'm happy with it.

I just need to make a heap of shoulder pads now - plus I got my AoBR box set and I'll have to sculp shoulder pads on those models too.

Constructive feedback always welcomed


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## Johnny Genocide (Mar 4, 2008)

I really like this thread, and I'm on my way to starting Soul Drinkers, but I may have to take your idea about using the Blood Angels codex. It seems like the only way you can accurately represent the Chapter.

I just have to get a bunch of Assault marines now...


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## Shogun_Nate (Aug 2, 2008)

Your work continues to amazing me. Your painting is outstanding but your conversion work is magnificent LOL. Keep up the awesome work bud!

Good luck and good gaming,

Nate


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## Saxon (Jun 23, 2008)

thanks for the kind replies guys! just have to motivate myself to get painting and to get sculpting all those shoulder pads!


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## The Wraithlord (Jan 1, 2007)

This is some really good stuff here. Going to keep an eye on this. I will leave the thread here for now but I am thinking that Ongoing Projects will be in the future for this thread.


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