H'rud Infestation

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

I've been working on sculptin' up some Hrud (an obscure background race who're pretty awesome! (http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Hrud#.T8LucHlYs4o)) for a while; here we go! They're all entirely scratchsculpted, they're the 3rd generation of sculpts I've worked on, but the only ones I've been happy enough with to make press moulds of and paint. Their weapons are integrated into their arms - muzzle at the end, ammohopper on the shoulder.
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4ot2ngMeD1qe00iwo1_r2_500.png

[fuzzbuket]

wow they are really cool! :D they remind me a lot of the newborn from alien ressurection :D (which terrifies me but i feel sad for it :/)


yeah and youve also given me nightmares...... thanks for that. :P

-fuzz

[Black Hydra]

What are you using to make the original sculpts? Greenstuff? It's coming out really good. If I do the Hrud fandex, you'll be set! :)

[Brymm]

Those look great! Totally scratch building lets you make a completely unique and cohesive FEEL to the models that you can't get any other way. If you tried to kit bash guys like these, you'd get too much Tau or Imperial or Necron or Tyranid. You get all Hrud this way. Good job!

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

wow they are really cool! :D they remind me a lot of the newborn from alien ressurection :D (which terrifies me but i feel sad for it :/)

yeah and youve also given me nightmares...... thanks for that. :P:P You're welcome! Yeah, they do look a lot like the Newborn, never really thought about that (underrated movie, not fantastic, but definitely underrated). Part of my inspiration for these guys was the hatchet fish (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ckBlasgNSzg/SVgBV9OZibI/AAAAAAAAKN0/GLsN15DMtg4/s400/Deep+Sea+Hatchetfish.jpg), but I thinnnk I might also work some Newborn into the 4th Gen. H'rud.

What are you using to make the original sculpts? Greenstuff? It's coming out really good. If I do the Hrud fandex, you'll be set! :)They're greenstuff sculpts which were pressmoulded and assembled! The cloaks are made from frayed tissues set with superglue, but I'm looking into ways to improve that. Assembling/painting these gave me a lot of ideas on how to improve 'em, 4th Gen.'s coming along at a decent pace - I have an internship coming up in the middle of nowhere for a month, so I'll probably get a fair bit of sculpting done then :P

Ruleswise, these are Necrons, but I have some H'rud fanrules kicking around, I'll put 'em online when they've been cleaned up a bit. I've tried to make rules which encourage having a messy mixture of diverse models in the same squad, rather than rules which favor units focused to a particular task.

Those look great! Totally scratch building lets you make a completely unique and cohesive FEEL to the models that you can't get any other way. If you tried to kit bash guys like these, you'd get too much Tau or Imperial or Necron or Tyranid. You get all Hrud this way. Good job!Thanks! The "different but cohesive" thing was definitely a goal, reminded me of some of the Tyranid design documents about common visual themes between the different creatures. Glad they managed to stand out, I was a bit worried the segmented carapaces would look kinda 'Niddish, but the structure's different enough to avoid it. The way I view H'rud, they "construct" bodies for their "young" from engineered fungi/plants/bacteria which function as muscle/bone etc under the control of a H'rud nervous system, so that gives me a lot of room to play with their designs - hence the cyclopic and quadrapedal H'rud.

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

Busier than I thought in the middle of nowhere, but here're some shots of the WIP 4th gen Hrud bits. 4th gen's on the black card, 3rd on the white. These are assembled using press-molds.
http://i.imgur.com/vyYLy.png
http://i.imgur.com/TGT0X.png

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

http://i.imgur.com/vZwvg.png

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

And here's the completed 4th generation Hrud, on the right! (My fave 3rd gen. on the left.) I'm redesigning the gun arm a bit, but other than that I think I'll stick with this look for the rest of 'em. I tried to play up a spinal-cord kinda feel for the limbs, think I'll try and work that motif into future stuff.
http://i.imgur.com/ag5oj.png

[Black Hydra]

Well this project is coming along great. I'm thinking of doing my own sculpts for something eventually. Any tips on pressmoulding? What materials I should get? I found this site a while back and he started selling this cool material:

http://anvilindustry.co.uk/index.php?route=product/product&path=79&product_id=112

Would that work just fine?

[DarkDesigner]

Really awesome scratch-builds, well done! You can really see the improvements from the 3rd generation to the 4th, which isn't to say the 3rd gen weren't great in their own right! Really looking forward to seeing some more 4th gen :)

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

@Hydra: Yup, that's the same stuff I've been using for the Hrud! Tip: it CAN be used to make double-sided molds if the thing you want to mold is split in two halves and you press 'em together while it's drying. The pressmoulds only play nice with very flat stuff, though - say, you'd have trouble moulding a space marine leg, but a torso-half would be relatively easy. A fair bit of how I designed my Hrud was actually focused around playing to pressmoulding's strengths and avoiding the problems.

@Designer: Thanks! Yeah, I learned a lot from assembling Gen. 3 - what to focus on when I sculpt 'em and what to not worry about. For instance, Gen. 4 actually has a much simpler groin design than Gen 3., but this allows for better posing and the choppy area should always be covered by their cloaks.

[Black Hydra]

Hey I forgot the most important question. Is this cheap-ish? I want to make Barghesi models and might go green stuff all the way. Might.

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

Hard to say, I have yonks of greenstuff lying around from over the years. Grey stuff miiiight be more cost effective? I haven't tried other putties since green stuff's ability to be bent around without ruining the detail when it's half-dry is very important for making the Hrud. As long as you get your green stuff from a cheap supplier it won't be a big deal.

One thing; when you're sculpting, you'll crawl through green stuff, using less than a quarter of inch of a strip a day and so forth, but when you start filling in the molds you go through it pretty quickly.

What design are you thinking of for the Barghesi? Tentacles, or limbs with joints? Hard carapace or flesh? Clothing and/or armor?

[Black Hydra]

I'm actually drawing them up first. My drawing skills are a bit rusty but this is the perfect workout to get me back in the game.

I was thinking about some guy's conversions. His HQ looks awesome but the regular troops look really crappy. He made them too scrawny. I just googled "Barghesi model", and it seems a lof of people have come up with more this past week. Before there were only a couple models out there. It seems there is a codex as well, which is kind of depressing but not surprising. Add: codex is unfinished, hopefully I'll be the first with a complete Barghesi codex. :D

Overall my thoughts for the Barghesi was they would look like Sammael from the Hellboy movie, but standing rather than crawling. They wouldn't be stand straight up, but that gait walk Sammael has. As for the heads, I was thinking that they would have the same basic shape as the mentioned creature, but with a skull helmet with an axe-like blade coming out of the front.

The bone exoskeleton is important. They won't be wearing armor (except clothes) so this is their natural defense. While it would only be a 5+ armor save, it grants them Feel No Pain. When they get Fury (their special rule) they can reroll failed FNP rolls among a few other things.

I want them to be as imposing as possible. You don't screw around with these guys in close combat.

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

Having clothes is good, it's a good way of covering joints. If they all have a tabard/loincloth then you can not worry about the pelvis, letting you pull off a greater variety of leg poses. Largely organic is good - small variations in the greenstuff casts means each piece will look subtly different, despite being made from the same master.

Any thoughts on their wargear, if any? Visually, Sammael reminds me of the Predators and the Cloverfield monster - Predator tech might be a good model, shoulder/back-mounted weapons would leave their monstrous arms free, and arm-mounted claws and blades would serve an obvious purpose :P

[Black Hydra]

I was originally going to use a gauntlet gun with a long blade attached to it. So basically the Barghesi soldier has a sword and the gunsword gauntlet both counting as CC's. But now that you mention Predators, it might be the perfect chance to include them somehow in the 40k verse. Shoulder mounted weaponry could free up both hands for double claws counting as CC's. Still going with the Sammael stance though. It's one of m favorite creatures.

I'll keep you updated on it. Though I don't want to hijack your thread either. Eventually I'll start a thread on modeling Barghesi.

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

Don't worry too much about the hijacking, gone quiet for a bit due to having to move cottages every few days :P

Definitely stick with the Sammael design; I only mentioned the Predator/Clover since those have a similar aesthetic, so their tech/biotech "equipment" would probably match up well with Sammael.

Start thinking about how the Barghesi will handle mobility on the tabletop. Try and avoid Transports, if possible - those are pretty overused, and an army which substitutes something else in will immediately feel very different.

[Black Hydra]

I was thinking about the transports a lot. For a race that is hyper violent, standard transports don't really seem to fit their style at all. So I took some inspiration from the Orks' Roks and Space Marine drop pods. Basically it's a drop pod that crashes into the ground like an Ork Rok and creates a blast radius wounding any models nearby, friend and foe. It would fully scatter, but it seems that terrain can be destroyed in the new rules. So if it lands in terrain, it's basically removed. Models would have to pass an Initiative test if they are underneath the drop pod to escape the worst of the hit (either ID or S10 hit only invul saves allowed).

That's the fastest way of delivering Barghesi into the battlefield. Some other transports could be a speeder transport that can carry 5 models instead for an MSU style army. The Barghesi would have a bunch of attacks, especially when Fury is activated. So 5 models won't be a disadvantage.

I do want to give them Fleet, even if it's slightly nerfed. It's still very useful. Also instead of technological weapons, why not go Tyranid style and have the Barghesi shoot out piercing bones out of their bodies. Here's a sample statline:

Barghesi Otomi:
WS:4 BS:3 S:4 T:4 W:1 I:4 A:1 Ld:8 Sv:5+

Wargear:
- Bone sharder: S:4 AP:5 Range:18" Profile: assault 2
- 2 Close Combat weapons: either claws or basic swords
- Assault grenades

Abilities:
- Fury
- Feel No Pain
- Fearless

Fury can be activated anytime by doing a Ld test with the majority Ld of the squad with no modifiers. If the unit took an unsaved wound (FNP doesn't count) then the unit has to take an Ld test for Fury with a -2 to their Ld.

Addendum: When they get Fury they acquire Furious Charge and Rage and can reroll failed FNP rolls. All of this lasts for one turn. Forgot to add this in. Silly me.

More on it a bit later. But I'm also working on the Squat rules since they won. Iron Will and Dwarf Grit are 2 rules I have planned for them.

[Meph]

Daring project you've got going on, mate. But you're doing a damn good job, that's wot!

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

I was going to do a Barghesi depiction myself, they were going to be a mix of HP lovecraft's Shoggoths, "Bio-Tanks" and The Thing - but I decided the concept was too awesome for 40k and added them into my own game as the Karuthrax Arcadian instead.

Quit moving cottages and do more Hrud. I'm impatient. You're practically the only one doing anything worth looking at with 40k these days.

[Black Hydra]

I was going to do a Barghesi depiction myself, they were going to be a mix of HP lovecraft's Shoggoths, "Bio-Tanks" and The Thing - but I decided the concept was too awesome for 40k and added them into my own game as the Karuthrax Arcadian instead.

You know I'm kind of struggling with that thought as well. I'm working on my own wargame myself, but I want to do a badass fandex for 40k too (not counting the Squat fandex, that's by popular demand). The Barghesi have apparently already been done to some extent, so I might change my mind as to what species I'll sculpt.

What is your game by the way?

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

You know I'm kind of struggling with that thought as well. I'm working on my own wargame myself, but I want to do a badass fandex for 40k too (not counting the Squat fandex, that's by popular demand). The Barghesi have apparently already been done to some extent, so I might change my mind as to what species I'll sculpt.

What is your game by the way?

If you're planning to sculpt your own miniatures for it, it might be better to keep them for your own game. For a fandex it might be better to have them convertable from existing kits. Eg, my Ulumeathi can be easily made from the tree's from the downed rhino kit. Theres plenty of named races, if you don't want to use Barghesi too - so like I did with the Ulumeathi, you could just keep all your ideas intact and "adopt" another named minor xeno faction.

My game's Primeval Abyssian, still working on it (a year and a half so far!). It's about alien-warfare in an extra-dimensional setting (didnt want any humans or even anything that walks, most things slither or float!).

[Black Hydra]

Well, I'm taking a stab at sculpting because I want to get some 3D experience in. I won't be taking the traditional route for miniatures for my game. I'll most likely use Z-Brush and I'll definitely use the 3D plastic printer (Thing-o-matic) for printing out minis. It's far cheaper and I don't need to hire sculptors. Plus having 3D models allows for changes to be made without need for recasting the models. That's definitely the way I'm going.

As for the conversions, I'm away overseas right now with no access to any bits whatsoever. I only have my greenstuff I brought with me because I wanted to practice modeling. So any rules or xenos race I use is subject to change until I find something unique enough no one's ever done before. I've been looking at the Dracolith or the Viskeon because both have basically no fluff, but the Viskeon seems to have a model already. A lot of interesting stuff to look out for, such as Viskeons being able to regenerate. Or for the Dracolith I was thinking of using this guy as inspiration:

http://metroid.wikia.com/wiki/Sylux

So for now I'm going to keep looking for an interesting Xenos race. I'm narrowing them down but I just found out the Koronus Bestiary is coming out soon. They have Xenos of the Koronus Expanse profiled there and even a Xenos generator! I'm just giddy with Xenos fever.

I want to find out more about your game. Sounds cool! Anything trying to break away from human centric design is definitely something I look out for. I still like human options though, so there's one human faction in my game with the other having become a pure machine race. That is a really distilled description though, as for example Dropzone Commander can claim the same races. Difference is my human-to-machine race is truly machine, while DC's is transhuman. Big difference.

I have a blog going on in the general scifi section here. The game is called "Astral Conquest" and the blog isn't up to date. I've changed a lot of things including the timeline and mechanics. I planned to release a pdf very soon for playtesting, hopefully within the next month. I also have a super powered squad based game in the planning stages called "Herofall".

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

@Asymm: Three more have just finished basing, hopefully'll be painted tomorrow :P Once I've got an altered colorscheme nailed down on 'em I'll start speeding up production. Picked up your suggestion about nailing the robes to the bodies, adds a fun little bit of brutality.

@Hydra: "Shoots bone fragments" feels like a bit of a cop-out - not very vivid. Look at how much detail's lavished on 'nid bioweapons, or check out the pistol shrimp (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pistol_shrimp#Snapping_effect), temporarily creates a bubble which is only 800ºC below the surface of the sun, although it's more reliant on sound/pressure to attack. On the technological side of things, the back-mounted weapon reminded me of Mass Effect's Elcor, which mount A.I. controlled turrets on their back. Maybe something like that - 40k Sentry Guns have a short, simple "program" dictating what they fire at - apply that to a back-mounted weapon. Upside; the Barg can charge a different unit to the one they shot at, downside; the weapon will only shoot at the closest "appropriate" target.

@Both: :P I also have a larval game concept kicking around, Caverns of Ragnarök, although I find that ideas I have tend to slot into either "40k ideas" or "CoR ideas". Rather than 40k's "grim sci-fi allowing for high fantasy", it's a bit more "pulpy fantasy allowing for fragments of sci-fi". Sort've like Symphony of Ages, sans soap-y romance with a bit more tech.

[Black Hydra]

I think I'm going to look into the Dracolith more. Crystalline aliens goes a lot further than hyper violent Barghesi in helping me out. You're right about the shooting bones, though. Won't use shooting crystals for the Dracolith in that case. The guns would be incorporated into them more than likely. And there are plenty of Barghesi conversions now that I dug further in. Do any of you guys know if there's anything on the Dracolith in the new BRB? I can't get my hands on one...:( I have better ideas for them and might go that way.

Either them or I'll just go ahead and do a chaos mutants dex. They're always fun.

Astral Conquest is going to be more scifi than 40k is. There are 5 races so far with 3 of them being alien, one human, and the other robotic. I have 2 more races in the backburner, but they're for later story expansions.

Basically Astral Conquest is more along the lines of 40k where you have the main rulebook and the army books. I originally thought of going the Privateer Press way with all armies in one book. But then I realized that adding in new armies would have to wait 3 to 5 years as a new edition comes out. Also having players buy new books every year seems far more expensive than just buying a new army book/rulebook every once in a while.

Herofall is squad based where you get to customize your own super powered squad of heroes/villains/rogues or anything you want. Model count is far lower than what Astral Conquest will get to.

In this case all the information is in one book with no army books. All the skill trees and powers are listed in the main rulebook and you can kitbash minis however you want.

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

@Asymm: Three more have just finished basing, hopefully'll be painted tomorrow :P Once I've got an altered colorscheme nailed down on 'em I'll start speeding up production. Picked up your suggestion about nailing the robes to the bodies, adds a fun little bit of brutality.

It also allows you to add a bit of Hrud blood too, you could even have nails dug into the backs of them that create splits going down their torsos exposing vital organs . Might be something better saved for a Veteran or something - i.e. maybe the larger nails and cuts are a sign of strength.



I want to find out more about your game. Sounds cool! Anything trying to break away from human centric design is definitely something I look out for. .

Heres a faction breakdown :
http://outsidetheuniverseitself.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/primeval-abyssian-faction-breakdown.html

The logo :
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-V8E4TwZ_vm0/Tkzs5_7lS8I/AAAAAAAAAB4/Zak5ESktXuw/s1600/PA_Logo.jpg

Master Of Unlife :
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Gkyg9CtzN3U/Tm4VeY6dXFI/AAAAAAAAAB8/KA91kH6ptBY/s1600/MasterOfUnlife_01.JPG
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WX2OdGyuG1c/Tm4Ve6pHQ7I/AAAAAAAAACA/T_uKV0GpcLw/s1600/MasterOfUnlife_02.JPG

Some of the Tolathian sculpts :
http://outsidetheuniverseitself.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/primeval-abyssian-tolathian-kits.html

Some (then) WIP Luuran sculpts :
http://outsidetheuniverseitself.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/primeval-abyssian-luuran.html
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-noe8F536A8Y/Tm4Vf9fP2eI/AAAAAAAAACM/VSdfFy6JJLI/s1600/Luuran_EyeOfJudgement_01.JPG (has textures on the plates, and the eyeball on top looks a lot better now)
*the high seclorums crappy staff was replaced by an organic eyeball cannon.

It will all be in hard plastic (Trollcast) eventually. The rules are dead-simple and cover a few pages. There is resource management involved and Commanders can build barricades, traps and even factories and gun-turrets in higher point games. I'll stop here though as I don't want to get too much into it on the Rev's thread!

[Black Hydra]

Yes I agree. That's why I created this thread here: http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/showthread.php?p=212832#post212832

I don't want to invade Tiberius' thread either, so we can keep talking over on that new thread. Hey Rev, if you want you can join in anytime. I do want to encourage others to come up with their own games because Dark Gods know we need the variety. And why not right? So come on over and share your larval game with us.

@Asymmetrical Xeno: I'll take a look at the links and comment on them in the new thread.

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

Had another cottage-move, but got 'em painted. They all have divergent paintschemes, but the camera's having issues with 'em beyond my colorbalancing ability to fix :/ Probably basing future paintjobs on the central one with the Tolathianesque (http://outsidetheuniverseitself.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/primeval-abyssian-tolathian-kits.html) head. Probably sticking with the pink eyes. Not quiiite sure what's up with the head on the left, think I might've let a bad cast slip through. Going to go for bulk now I have a set of variant molds I'm happy with - thinking 20/25 H'rud Warlets before I move on to different types.
http://i.imgur.com/MR61y.jpg

[Black Hydra]

My favorite one is the one on the right. It kind of reminds me of the Quarians from Mass Effect. Are you using inspiration from the current gen of Hrud or going with your own interpretation? Can't remember if you mentioned it or not. Also those bases, are they cork?

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

Wasn't intentional, but I guess they do have a similar profile. It's a head design I've had kicking around in my head for a while, nicknamed it "Lantern" for some reason.

The current Hrud models are still pretty close to the picture of them in Xenology (http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/mediawiki/images/3/3b/Hrud.jpg), but I've added some limb/head variants, integrated the weaponry into the arm and brought the robe back from the Skavenier designs.

And yup, the bases are cork! Love that stuff. The 'sand' on the latest bases is actually salt and pepper, it's been too wet here to get some out've the driveway :P

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

Those look good. The pink eyes work really well, glad you didn't go with my suggestio of white now as I think that would of been boring. The pink gives them a eerie alien yet intelligent feel.

[Black Hydra]

Yeah, I see cork in a lot of custom bases. Might eventually try it out myself. I actually bought some really cheap sand used for decorating or something of the sort. Part of the reason I didn't get plain old beach sand is because the granules are too big. The stuff I bought is really fine and works with the scale of 40k. Eventually I'll get all my Necrons on their proper sandy bases.

And no worries on the head design. I really love the Mass Effect aesthetic and it fits with the Hrud. Though I have to admit I made a huge mistake when I said Quarians. I meant Geth. But the hood threw me off and Quarians sprang to my mind. Either it's coming out great. It's one of the benefits of a ragtag race, no one has to look the same.

Man, I'm still on the fence as to what race to choose. The Barghesi conversions I saw were too close to what I had in mind, so they're out of the picture. The Dracolith had me interested for a while, but I don't know how "crystalline" they are. It just describes them as so. Are they like the Ben 10 Diamondhead or more like Emma from Wolverine Origins in diamond form? Not the Emma Frost from First Class! Gods, that diamond form was so gaudy!

So I'm bouncing between Dracolith, Thexians (have some sweet ideas for them), and Slann. And to make matters worse, the intense cold here has made my greenstuff much harder. No, that's not what she said last night.

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

@Asymm: Well, I originally got the idea of using pink from your suggestion about the cloak! In the end getting the pink fade/glows on the cloak just didn't look right and got toned down heavily. It's still faintly present, but doesn't show up much on camera.

@Hydra: Yeah, I've been checking out some of the ME design vid.s recently, good stuff. One thing I need to emphasize more on future models - the "hood" on the lantern-style Hrud is actually a meaty/carapace crest, part of the body. It probably grants the critter some minor capabilities it uses to support its squad, like a comms guy in a fireteam (not significant enough to affect gameplay, though).

Perhaps try doing up some rough sculpts of bodyparts of the different races, see what feels the best. For the Dracolith, I'd say make them very inorganic looking - after all, the loosest definitions of "life" recognize crystal (and fire) as living things :P A very "modular" design might be interesting - each part of the body distinctly divided from the others and designed for only a single task, all connecting to a central node.

40k Slann might be the simplest to do, though, since the older designs were "Lizardmen in SPAAAACE". Still, they're the one single time I'd rather an alien be MORE humanoid, since they often seem to be the "Old Ones" which created most of the humanoid races in 40k, presumably in their image. I've always loved the theory that the Necrontyr were originally a non-humanoid race, but the C'tan created skeletal humanoid bodies for them to intimidate the Slann.

[Black Hydra]

I really want to find out what is cheaper, kitbashing or going greenstuff. While kitbashing is certainly easier, many sites overprice the bitz to gain a lot more. TheWarstore is one such place. Good selection of bitz, but god lord are some of the rarer bitz extremely expensive. I went to Bitzbox from the UK and many of the same bitz were a full dollar less than the warstore. The trade off? Since it's so cheap, everyone buys from there. They almost always are cleaned out with 5/6 of the respective armies' bits not being available. Truly insane.

The reason I mention bitz is because of the Slann. Lizardmen bitz would be so much better to use. But I have no idea what direction to go with them. The fluff for them isn't helpful not including the Old Ones theory behind them. It says they actually still exist with primitive societies bordering their space. But that they aren't very social so little contact is made with them, even when trading. So not much to go on with their technology.

The bit about the C'tan giving Necrontyr humanoid bodies is interesting but alas not true. The Necrontyr gave the C'tan their necrodermis bodies first. And as we see they are humanoid which means the Necrontyr were humanoid as well. So that whole psychological factor is reduced to the skeletal look Necrons have, not trying to psyche out the Slann with humanoid soldiers.

I'll look more into the Thexians and the Dracolith. My Squat fandex is partially on hold since I want to play 6th ed before fully developing them.

I like that your Hrud's hoods are a part of them, not just superficial. What I really want to see from you though is the Hrud's vehicles. Are you going to make some eventually?

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

I'd like to see Hrud vehicles too. Allthough it might be better to get all the infantry/footsloggers out of the way first.

I've found vehicles to be the hardest to sculpt though, and those were inbetween jetbike/rhino scale-wise. I used a mix of GS and plasticard.

Some suggestions for vehicles would be to give them a similar ridged pattern to their own limbs, for some reason I'd imagine their tech to be very dark in colour - rusty reds and such. Perhaps mining/digging machinery would be one option, allthough I quite like the idea of unmanned drones/vehicles too.

[Black Hydra]

Plasticard is the way to go with vehicles. While difficult to do, because a lot of measuring is required (unless you're doing Ork vehicles) it yields the best results. I would never use greenstuff for the base of a vehicle. That's insane. That being said here's something I found that might help out.

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=158&efcid=3&efidt=282950

Head down to the Hrud section. He made one vehicle type, an artillery unit, and cavalry.

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

Wall o' text time, put on yer mask and snorkel and abandon all hope.

Keep in mind that building jointed creatures from molds will be incredibly tricky and time consuming than this thread might make it seem - the Hrud work very well with this method since jointless limbs bending at weird angles completes their look.

I'm pretty familiar with uber_kroot's stuff; love his K'nib and using 'nid guns as heads, but his Hrud never really struck a chord with me.

Hrud "Vehicles":
This part's something I've been considering for a while, but I've been trying to avoid sculpting up anything but the most basic, ragtag troop models so I can work out the look for the army on them before doing any noticeable centerpieces.

The more I think about it, the more vehicles seem un-Hrudlike. The Hrud are bendy, stealthy, squishy etc, vehicles are not. Instead, most Hrud large 'vehicles' and big-tech will be beings known as Slivers and the Warshaped.

Quick fanfluff summary: Hrud are not whole, complete beings like humans/cats/tau etc. They are "born" as a barely mobile net of maggoty nerves attached to a shadowy orb, the Umbral Node. A body is constructed around this from various alien fungi and bacteria. Adapting to bodies takes time, but is often leveraged to integrate their weapons and equipment into their bodies. This is considered distasteful, but necessary; the Hrud shy from war after the damage the War in Heaven did to their god.

While most soldiers have only a weapon or two installed, some particularly unhinged veterans volunteer to be reconstructed into more massive beasts to serve important battlefield roles - such as a large, fleshy horseshoe crab-like creature with heavy armament. Things such as these are the Warshaped.

As for the Slivers; there are three "deaths" the Hrud can suffer - Obliteration, Severance and Splintering. Obliteration is severe damage to the neural net and Umbral Node, killing the Hrud. Severance is the destruction of the Umbral Node while the neural net survives, severing them from the link to their god and the shock of death rendering them incapable of using the fungi/bacteria bodies. Their neural net deforms into a massive, writhing maggoty mass - a Slaugth.

The third death, Splintering, results from severe damage to the neural net while the Umbral Node remains intact. As with Severance, the experience prevents them from controlling their bodies. These "Slivers" are installed into resin constructs of a variety of forms to power and control them, such as small Dune-esque worms used for tunneling, nautilus-like butcher-machines or small humanoid marionettes - Watchers in the Dark (heh heh, silly Dark Angels).

---

Also, 11 new Hrud are near birth! Made a few more molds and went for mass production.

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

That's some very nice fluff.You're actually making them -feel- alien. Most tend to fail at making their aliens "feel" alien IMO as they often make things too earth-like in terms of society, structure, biology and culture.

I like the idea of the constructs - especially the Dune-worm type one. I guess for larger models, things like that would be more alien and interesting than conventional vehicles (which I don't think would fit them at all).

Another idea would be Umbra constructs/variants.

I had an idea of there being a "yog-sothoth" type Umbra "lead" construct, that was a mass of black bubbles merged together around a "core" that was shaped like a half-eaten apple, as well as large shadow-based constructs which could look like anything really - the ideas I had were very similar to the (ironically) Shadow vessels from babylon5. So stuff like that could be an option too, would certainly add flavour.

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

Oh, shadow-constructs are very much on the to-do list!

When planning out future units, I often let the 'dex I'm counts-asing with offer some vague direction (although some of the planned out stuff is getting a bit off the rails!). While the Monolith is thematically linked to teleporting Necron hordes, it's more tactically suited to slinging C'tan around. Since I'm using Umbra as C'tan (still trying to get that molten styrofoam method to look good), this has me thinking about making some sort of semi-sentient Umbra Hive. Still thinking about how it'd be handled visually, though.

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

Oh, shadow-constructs are very much on the to-do list!

When planning out future units, I often let the 'dex I'm counts-asing with offer some vague direction (although some of the planned out stuff is getting a bit off the rails!). While the Monolith is thematically linked to teleporting Necron hordes, it's more tactically suited to slinging C'tan around. Since I'm using Umbra as C'tan (still trying to get that molten styrofoam method to look good), this has me thinking about making some sort of semi-sentient Umbra Hive. Still thinking about how it'd be handled visually, though.

You could also use polystyrene balls. I actually did something with them myself, the problem with them is the mould-lines are difficult to get rid of, but you could cover them up or "melt" them into the shape. I made a huge model of Yog-Sothoth out of them and it came out pretty well.. So that maybe one method. Polystyrene balls are dirt-cheap too, so you should be able to afford a lot of them and be able to experiment too.

[Black Hydra]

I think it's all great, but one thing that stands out and I just don't like is making the Slaugth degraded Hrud. Both have nothing to do with each and the Slaugth are too cool to be the dead parts of the Hrud. Now I know you're working on Slaugth models as well, so maybe you want to integrate them together, but the Slaugth are supposed to be this terror beyond imagining. So I would change it but otherwise everything else is great.

I have to agree on vehicles for Hrud. It either turns out they salvaged something or they are just monstrous creatures. Armored vehicles of any kind would be too regimented for their fluff, though they must have some method of space travel given that they are space faring.

Either way I can't wait to see your bigger creatures. Who doesn't want to make one?

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

though they must have some method of space travel given that they are space faring.



They might not have vessels for space-travel of their own.

I mean there is fluff indicating they are sometimes in imperial starships or space-hulks. They seem to be parasitic in that regard.

One Hrud Migration was described as manifesting at the vanguard of a temporal warp-rift and trapped within the rifts event horizon. It also describes the Hrud coalesced from the shadows and appearing when fighting the Star Phantoms. I always found that bit particularly interesting as well. Allthough it maybe a purely unique way - it sounds like the Hrud don't have a set way of migrating and instead use whatever means they can.

I think if there was a uniform way for them to migrate, I think starships of their own would be too boring. One option could be to use large stellar life-forms like Void-Whales - this would go nicely with the parasitic aspect. You could give them a tidbit of fluff describing them nurturing some form of star beast and growing them so oneday they can use the lifeforms to migrate en-masse. Perhaps even litterally converting parts of the star beasts own body to house the Hrud.

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

@Asymm: Heh, whoops - I meant polystyrene, not styrofoam! Still working on an Umbra concept model, but it's taken a backseat to bulking out the Hrud Warlet horde, got eleven of the buggers with head/torso legs now, just waiting for the arms and cloak tomorrow! Also, any thoughts on how to differentiate an Umbra from its shadowcrafted sculptures? My current thoughts would be either have them be similar random shadowybits with maws etc, but the Umbra has a central body while sculpture has a void in the centre, or to base the shadowcrafted things around various bits of abstract sculpture, since it's an eldritch mind trying to reflect itself on a stable object.

@Hydra: The Slaugth stuff goes a fair bit deeper than that, I'm trying to avoid them appearing dependent and/or inferior, just deeply... different and opposed to the H'rud. It's worth pointing out the following is a short(ish) summary, and makes the concept sound a lot more "human" than I normally think of it :P Will probably write out a more detailed version later.

The "Death of Severance" is a H'rud concept which a Slaugth would find laughable - for the H'rud, the Umbral Node joins them with their god Q'ah who directs them to work as a compact, efficient community, using no more than necessary and creating more and more Umbra, to the supposed benefit of the Q'ah and the H'rud race.

Now severed from the "mind" of Q'ah, the Slaugth think of their original life as an enslavement, and believe the H'rud to be brainwashed thralls, pitiable, but disgusting. They follow their whims, devouring human cattle, insinuating themselves in intersystem crime syndicates, hunting for sport and so forth, all actions that would be considered wasteful and risking exposure to the H'rud "connected" to Q'ah. H'rud use humans as slaves, a practical approach that helps them build and expand, Slaugth eat our brains to get high, is the gist of it.

---

Also, I'm thinking that between their ability to flit from shadow to shadow, bolstered by the Umbra, most H'rud interstellar travel is done by stowing away deep in labyrinthine Imperial ships (they've been referenced doing this here and there), any ships they're forced to make in hours of need probably being quickly abandoned salvage.

Bigger critters are probably off in the distance, but I've sculpted up some Blight Drones before, so I think the big'uns will turn out alright.

Edit: Hmmm, hitching a ride on Void Whales does sound pretty awesome, definitely worth including. Perhaps some of the Warshaped H'rud might be "installed" in Void Whale-spawn... then again, that'd still probably be a Titan-sized beast.

On the note of the temporal warp thingy - since the H'rud normally have time/shadow-related abilities, I'm thinking that's some sort of special incident which hugely magnifies these inherent traits. If I were to write rules for it, I'd probably centre it around a H'rud "Prophet" HQ which leads a monumental migration.

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

@Asymm: Heh, whoops - I meant polystyrene, not styrofoam! Still working on an Umbra concept model, but it's taken a backseat to bulking out the Hrud Warlet horde, got eleven of the buggers with head/torso legs now, just waiting for the arms and cloak tomorrow! Also, any thoughts on how to differentiate an Umbra from its shadowcrafted sculptures? My current thoughts would be either have them be similar random shadowybits with maws etc, but the Umbra has a central body while sculpture has a void in the centre, or to base the shadowcrafted things around various bits of abstract sculpture, since it's an eldritch mind trying to reflect itself on a stable object.

Edit: Hmmm, hitching a ride on Void Whales does sound pretty awesome, definitely worth including. Perhaps some of the Warshaped H'rud might be "installed" in Void Whale-spawn... then again, that'd still probably be a Titan-sized beast.

On the note of the temporal warp thingy - since the H'rud normally have time/shadow-related abilities, I'm thinking that's some sort of special incident which hugely magnifies these inherent traits. If I were to write rules for it, I'd probably centre it around a H'rud "Prophet" HQ which leads a monumental migration.

What id do is this :

for the basic Umbra-

1) use the polystyrene ball or even any plastic ball really as the "core". Infact the smoother the surface of the ball the better.

2) I'd then sculpt over it in GS over various areas, purposely leaving areas of the ball plain. I'd build this up a bit so there is a nice constrast between the spherical "Core" and the organic mass covering it.

3) I'd have various appendages and such coming out at random angles (mmmm asymmetry.....) You could use tyranid or chaos bitz for this and just use GS to merge the parts. If you don't have any of those bitz though I'm not sure what you could do though.

- doing it this way you can paint the plain areas in the hot pink colour which would make the "core" of the Umbra visible and distinct, while the rest can be painted in black (with things like teeth, tongues painted in white or bone ect).

This way you get your "core" Umbra. If you are going with C'tan - I guess you'd need somewhat large plastic balls though. Personally I think 40-60mm scale ones would be the best.

---------------------

For "shadow constructs", I would not make them anything like the Umbrat at all. Afterall they are Nightmares taken form, so why should they be limited to the form of the Umbra? I would personally have a few "Types" of shadow constructs : one would be a swarm of smaller constructs, akin to tyranid rippers and necron scarabs, then id have typical 28mm scaled constructs, id make these more like Pipers of Azathoth/Tzeentch Flamers/Shoggoths - stuff like that, then you could have a third tier which would be more like monstrous creatures.

For reference, here is a Piper of Azathoth :
http://a2.ec-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/25/5f67fd501aafc46e7cb34fb1267061ab/l.jpg

------------------------

You could potentially have smaller vehicles based on void-whales, perhaps newly born ones which are smaller and litterally carved out using warp-plasma cutters - would make some severely disgusting looking and disturbing open-topped transports. You could even visibly show the pain and agony on the Void whale spawns faces to add that element of horror.

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

Hmm, the smooth core would probably help, the pure-polystyrene attempts isn't quite working out. C'tan are only mounted on 40mm bases, which seems reasonable for the Umbra judging by that one piece of them fighting ultramarines.

I guess I was planning on having the more "squishy-eldritch-horror" niche be filled by the higher ranking Hrud, who've had the resources and time to body-mod in supplication to Q'ah, adding on maws and eyes in honor of His unimaginable form, although there'd certainly be room for the Umbra to produce things along those lines too, due to their connection to the god. Unsure if the overlap would work out or not. Regardless, that piper design's probably getting referenced somewhere down the line :P

The voidwhale spawn's reminding me of this delightful skaven boat (http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m1970115a_60011999001_Skabrus01_873x627.jpg), probably the first time I've considered working skaven imagery into the hrud :P If I went down this road it'd probably replace the Warshaped Hrud 'vehicles', but it'd also give me a good opportunity to sculpt up some spidery deep sea fish, which is an (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ckBlasgNSzg/SVgBV9OZibI/AAAAAAAAKN0/GLsN15DMtg4/s400/Deep+Sea+Hatchetfish.jpg) overall (http://animalnewsthepodcast.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/9christmaslights.jpg) win (http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2111/1750229989_6090753836.jpg). The Warshaped thing would pretty easily shift to one or more Hrud who've been "integrated" into the beast, after all.

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

When I was going to do my Umbra force I had a look for smooth plastic-balls and found these : http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/311765538/PTFE_ball.html
They are dirt cheap, allthough I'm not sure what "self-lubricating" means in the description but it makes me wonder if they'd be paintable or not.

Yeah, it is ironic - I forgot the skaven ship lol. It isnt very good though. I think a fish-type thing with litterally it's upper half carved off with the Hrud standing inside would look way more awesome than that skaven unit...plus you could have warp-formed weaponry added into them. They could make for good counts-as ghost arcs since you are using necron rules.

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

"These are my Umbra. They have the Self-lubricating USR!"

Yeah, the Skaven fishboat suffers from the scale - a Skaven crewman would be smaller than one of the eyes, so no room for any good gribbly details. Replace one eye with a maintenance hatch, the other held open by a clockwork-orange type of thing, large stakes keeping scraps of leathery fabric in place etc. For the Ghost Ark, thinking it'll be some sorta Warshaped Hrud/Voidspawn with a spawning pool on the back, with a H'rud Birther creating and repairing Warlets with its supply of neural nets and spare bodyparts.

[DarkDesigner]

Your paintjob puts me in mind of the Flood from Halo, which I hope you will take as a good thing. It's certainly something that I've thought would be an awesome conversion but never gotten round to. Still loving the army, keep up the good work :)

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

Thanks, I can see the similarity to the Flood, might have to work a bit of that into my paintscheme, thinking about it.

Quick WIP pic:
http://i.imgur.com/oFztc.png
Same design as the last three but with an updated weapon arm, including the return of the ammo-hopper.
I've used up most of my bases, only going to do a couple of character models after these guys are painted until I can pick up some more.

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

Welp, finally got these painted. Got home from the cottages last week, been pretty busy.

11 Hrud Warlets; I'm thinking that eyes and maws will be important symbols to the Hrud, and thus the Warlets will have fewer of them - hence more cyclopean and/or mouthless heads in this batch.

http://i.imgur.com/IAHRa.png
http://i.imgur.com/sVPcs.png
http://i.imgur.com/qeSVT.png
Next in line are a couple of character models, which are going to take Hrud body-modding to a lovecraftian extreme. Hoping to get a bit of Umbra involved, easier to do now I'm in a building without smoke detectors.

[Black Hydra]

Top notch! I especially like the one with the elongated downward face in the 3rd pic. Looks so unlike the rest and yet feels like he belongs. That's good design work IMO.

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

Oh man, those look AWESOME. It's great to see them painted, I love how you did the eyes. They are basicly what I thought they should of looked like if they ever had an official range too, so it's sort of surreal seeing them come to life like this.

Looking forward to seeing the characters and especially Umbra stuff.

[KrewL RaiN]

The paint job just brings out the creepyness even more. Keep up the awesome work!

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

Thanks! I was wondering how the new variant bits would look. I've done a groupshot with some other models to get a sense of scale (the tall one on the left is a WIP Plaguebearer, pinks one are converted Pink Horrors). Hrud are mentioned to be slightly shorter than an average human, but I couldn't get decent details in at that height :P
http://i.imgur.com/ZzMnI.png
Here's a WIP character - a H'rud Knower (three-legged, one's hidden behind its body). I'm building up layers of "organs" on it before I add peeled back (and nailed down) skin to the borders. It's drawing a lot of its design from the Piper of Azathoth on the previous page - although in this case, the pipe will be drawn from its own organs. The guitar wire's waiting for the organs to dry before I add some fleshybits - it's a shadowy symbiote which protects the Knower.
http://i.imgur.com/J05wF.png

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

I like those tzeentch horrors from what I can see, they look squiggly and random...far better than those wretched things in plastic now.

the character looks good so far, and the three legs and guts hanging out instantly reminded me of some of the depictions of Nyarlathotep out there.

Maybe this could be of some inspiration :
http://www.sotatoysonline.com/images/Nyarlathotep-cropped.jpg

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

That's an awesome sculpt, shame it's so pricy (although it is pretty big). One of the other two WIP characters does have a multitude of tentacles, so that posing'll probably influence that :P
Here's the near-complete Canticler, missing only a few details on his back and symbiote. Right now he's an exercise in eyestrain, but it should be a bit easier to look at once his organs/eyes/limbs/flute-intestine are picked out in different colors :P A lot of the fun, farther back organs are pretty much completely hidden now ;o;
http://i.imgur.com/oaGTw.png
http://i.imgur.com/pnrMr.png
http://i.imgur.com/XXi7m.png

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

That is really weird and "WTF am I even looking at". :confused:

In other words I like it a lot! :D

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

At last, here's the Canticler all painted up. To help makes sense of this - it's peeled its torso open (the metal stakes hold the skin back) so it can play some mad jams on its "intestines", to drive away the sun. Yup. The cluster of pink orbs over the front leg are the eyes. The fifth photo was taken with a flash - overemphasizes the colors but makes the detail more obvious.
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m8s3dllBYb1qe00iwo1_r2_500.png
The other two Hrud heros (a quadrapedal placenta-creature which incubates an infant Umbra and something along the lines of a jellyfish wearing another jellyfish as a hat that "assembles" Hrud) are on hold, disliked how the first attempts came out.

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

Can't believe this hasnt had any responses yet? whats wrong with you people!

the Canticler is truly the twisted abomination of grimdarkness 40k really lacks. Perfect unholy mix of gory dead-space/the thing and nyarlathotep meets piper of azathoth.

love the ideas for the other two heroes as well, especially the Jellyfish-esque thing - I look forward to seeing how those end up when you are happy with them. I find I sometimes resculpt things as well so I hear you on that (took me 4 attempts before I was happy with the Tolathian thunder-drummers!).

Do you have any monstrous creature plans?

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

Thanks :D I was hoping to wait until I had something more substantial to show before replying, but the workload's amped up too much to really allow for that :P

Plans for a Monstrous Umbra keep on jumping up and down hoping for some free time! The Glue Horror experiment (http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/showthread.php?23602-Warp-Rift-Jackhammer&highlight=) was very much a practice for doing Umbra, and now I've got my hands on two finer detail glue guns (one lo-temp, one hi-temp) I've got higher hopes for the technique.

On the note of compulsive resculpting, the concept-sketchbook managed to flood itself with Gen. 5 H'rud designs. Interested in adding more varied bodytypes to the mix.

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

I definitly look forward to seeing the Umbra realised, I've seen one person do it before - I think they are good but not quite twisted enough IMO :
http://hephesto.webs.com/40kwordbearers.htm

http://www.freewebs.com/hephesto/umbra%20wd1.JPG

Probably my favourite 40k alien species, which is also probably completely unsurprising to people here. :rolleyes:

[kyfer]

Only just found this blog. So happy to see someone delving into the weird part of 40k, and I have to say your sculpts are very impressive, especially liked the 4th Eds :) Top job, very inspired to sculpt some things myself. Who knows how many gribblies could be spawned from this lol.

However, this might have to take a back seat to several things- I'm thinking one step ahead when I'm really ten steps behind lol. Still, looking forward to see those characters, I expect them to somehow be more freakier than I imagine them already from your description :)

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

Time for an act of Necromancy! While job/college things have slowed own production, here are some Umbra;
http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/photopost/data/500/Umbra1.png
These two are based off the illustration from Xenology; particularly pleased with how the guy on the right came out.
http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/photopost/data/500/Umbra2.png
This fella's an Umbra that's split off parts of its "body" to form a swarm of shadow-things.
http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/photopost/data/500/Umbra3.png
Group shot of the three Umbra; Chaos Cultist is there for scale, not worship.

They were made from green stuff, apoxie sculpt, hot glue, solder, and a 3d-printed core for the three Umbra.

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

oh my F**king god they all look really awesome! Love them! That was well worth the long wait...

[miteyheroes]

Oh, those are some cool umbra! Quite tempted to make some myself now...

[Veteran Sergeant]

What a cool looking project. Love the way you've managed to creat some really cool models that really are alien.