Helbrute remix

When grabbing a bunch of starter boxes to get a nice cultist mob going, I also picked up some helbrutes. The starter box models are really nice, but with their fixed poses they are easily recognizable and look like they are dancing in sync in a formation. For the cultists, their siluette is easily broken up with some determination and a saw - but the helbrute ist a bit more tricky to modify.

My basic approach was to saw off one or two arms and reposition then either as they are or extend them. Especially the power fist sticks out, so I wanted to move that. To get some freedom, I extended the arm using some pieces of sprue and then filled in the void with green stuff.

 

I bulked up the green stuff in there to something vaguely beefcake like. A daemon prince shoulder armor pad fits on top nicely. Here is a rear view of the modded model next to a regular one.

 

Messier than the arms are the legs. They are connected only with some strands of plastic, which are the leftover bits of the original cybot hips plus the daemon flesh growing over and around it. To modify the legs I cut them off and then capped them with plasticard, which I then trimmed to the shape of the piece as well as I reasonably could. That gave me to flat surfaces that I could angle as desired and get a very strong glue bond. This model here is in full run while shooting and ends up running on three limbs. I hand-cut a Khorne icon from plasticard for the gauntlet and had just glued it in place when I found back one from the Chaos Rhino spure. Ah well! =]

Here are the four brutes side by side. From left to right the original, arm moved, arm and legs moved, arm extended and position changed to slip a casualty in.

I mounted two 4mm round magnets into each brutes right wrist to be able to swap the weapons as needed. The laser cannons on one of them are too big of course, but I didn't have more of the smaller ones at the time.

Stripping paint from plastic miniatures

When looking for advice on how to remove paint from miniatures, I found many different opinions. Here you find what worked for me and what I will continue to use unless I stumble across something better.

For the bulk of the plastic miniatures I used Sterilium. This stuff is made as hand disinfectant for medical use. The alcohol in it reliably breaks up the binding agent in paint and turns it into a rubbery mess. A firm brushing of the model will slide that mess right off it in the best case or flake off in the worst case.

While fishing for models at first, I then found a really handy way to do this. I beheaded thick walled PET plastic bottles so that the lid of the glass jar fits even though the bottle is in there. I cut a bunch of small triangular holes into the bottle about an inch up from the bottom. With these openings, the liquid can flow into the bottles as they are submerged and out of them as they are removed without trouble. Note: Please don't stab yourself if you do this, the bottles are quite slippery.

The picture shows an Iyanden army ready to take the plunge into the blue Sterilium. After leaving the minis in the stuff for half an hour, paint may already be loose and come off with some brushing. I pull out the bottle and drop it's content into a sink with the drain closed. Then I brush the parts off with a nylon brush. If the parts are clean, I put them into another container, if paint is remaining I put them back into the bottle and that later back in the jar.

Note that Sterilium is supposed to return fat to the user's hands, which of course isn't wanted for the miniatures and the paint in their future. So I hit it with a bit of dishwashing detergent and warm water. I like to do this in an ultrasound cleaning gadget. The vibration shakes paint bits loose from spaces you just cannot reach with a brush.

I've left miniatures in this stuff for a month by accident, without harm comming to the plastic or its details.

Anyway, maybe this helps someone. =]

Chaos Heldrake Magnetized

For this model, the weapon change modification is minimal. Yet, being able to make the head, neck and wings moveable is something I really like. Note that there isn't enough material in the rump to hold the neck joint properly. I beefed it up with some sprue to securely hold a magnet of satisfactory size.