Wednesday 17 April 2013

Slaves to Darkness Beastman units

With all the OldHammer and Realms of Chaos stuff going on at the moment, I've been flicking through my copy of Slaves to Darkness, when I spotted this:

There's something about those units of nearly identical beastmen that I really love. Somehow they've made a unit of uniform models look ace. They're all painted slightly differently, and if you look closely, there's a few head swaps. Plus the banner bearers are simply conversions of the basic model.

I've decided I want a unit like that!
(Ultimately I want an ARMY like in that picture!)
But with the price of original metal beastmen, forget it. Plus there's no way I could source enough of the same model even if I had infinite ebay money....

The solution is obvious, make plastic copies of the one original model I do have! Purists will probably be recoiling in horror at the suggestion, but there's really no other way. And as with all the things I duplicate, they never go beyond my possession. That's a line I don't cross.

Anywho, having silicone moulded the original beastmen, the results were surprisingly good.
The flash doesn't help, but the detail is pretty good. There's the occasional airbubble, but they came out a lot better than I was expecting (especially the weapons). Now it's just a case of duping up about ten of each to start with, and painting them in a similar fashion to the ones in the book!

9 comments:

  1. lovely, I am intrigued but you better hold you tongue there ;-)

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    1. What about? Making plastic copies? Verging on heresy I know, but its really the only way!

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  2. Nice work, I agree with what you mean about the charm they have when they're all ranked up like that. Will you go as far as goblin green bases though?

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    1. Of course! Goblin green bases and crappy green flock!

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  3. Yeah, we're at the limit of the taboo here but I guess you do it for good reasons (the oldhammer way is the right way).
    I've also used this sort of copying method because of missing parts in old kits (dragon ogres) and I have to say it saved my life to be able to copy the tail and foot part to give life back to 2 of them...

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    1. By the way, I have the same exact issue since I'm the happy owner of 12 red redemption monks and I would like to make them 20, 25 or even30 without having to buy them 30 quids each on ebay (got mine an honorable way).
      would you mind PMing me for a few tips?

      asslessmanatgmail.com

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    2. Although it's not the ideal solution, if we want large units of these old models (to fight the epic battles we see in those old 80s photos!) and aren't prepared to sell a kidney or remortgage the house, then this I think is the only way.
      Did you want me to just PM you with my experiences of casting or was there some aspect of casting in particular you're having trouble with?

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  4. did you ever paint any of these guys? I would love to see one

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    1. Actually, I did paint up a few. Not as many as I'd envisaged (other things have kind of put this on the back burner), but they came out looking quite good. I'll have to dig them out and take a photo. :)

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