Ages and ages ago (at least a decade) my friend James got me some strange alien heads. I'm not sure who made them: it was a big company like Kromlech or Puppetswar, although neither of them seems to carry this product anymore. (If you do recognise them, let me know!) They remind me a bit of Giger's Alien, and the Borg queen from Star Trek. I like the design, especially the creepy blankness of their faces. They look like some kind of mixture of human and alien DNA, or maybe something very evil making a bad attempt at fitting in with the normals.
Anyhow, I've had these for ages and have never really found bodies to go with them. I happened to see a box of plastic House Van Saar Necromunda gangers going cheaply on ebay, recently. I've always liked the design of the Van Saars, as they have a sleek, techy feel unusual in Warhammer 40,000. I bought the plastics and stuck the weird alien heads on them.
After making loads of North Star plastic models, the Necromunda kit was a bit of a surprise. For one thing, there's very little option for converting or even adapting the models: you're meant to assemble them in one of two poses, and doing much else would be fiddly and difficult. For another, the legs and bodies go together and there's no real way of changing that. What this means is that the models are very "fixed", but they're also in very dynamic positions, especially compared to the North Star ones. You trade variety for dynamism. I've mixed feelings about this.
The heads worked fairly well on the new bodies. I decided to paint them in a vaguely "cyber" way, but without bright or healthy colours. The armour was worked up from dark grey, mixing in purple and crimson. This is a new style for me, but I really like the way it's come out. The faces were worked up from a sandy brown, adding bone and white, and not using any flesh tones so they would look pallid and unwholesome. I wasn't sure about the blue pads and the green details, which felt too bright, but I think they work overall.
And after all that... here they are.
Oh, man, these are sweet! The heads work perfectly and make a total reinterpretation of the minis, I do love these. Besides, your palette is ace, that purple and all its hues are wonderful. I think the blue pads also work well, and maybe it's the bright green on the weapons the only thing that breaks the palette. But anyway, I find theme pretty refreshing and interesting, good job!
ReplyDeleteThanks very much! It's interesting how much a head swap can change and improve a model. I really like how that purple came out (I copied it from a Moebius picture). The bright green is a bit jarring - I wanted a brighter colour, but not a "healthy" one like red or yellow. I might attempt some conversions on the next five!
DeleteThese are brilliant! I could imagine them in a Guardians of the Galaxy film, or perhaps a new Gates of Antares faction. The heads do all the heavy lifting, but the colours really do change the vibe.
ReplyDeleteThanks, I'm glad that the heads fit with the bodies. Finding something to work was tricky. I see what you mean about Antares: I've got a few of their plastics, but I just felt that the GW ones were a bit better. Cheers!
DeleteThose are great! The heads fit perfectly.
ReplyDeleteAnd you are correct about the Necromunda plastics, they are limited in poses, although this is ameliorated a bit by the expansion boxes which generally have at least two bodies that match up with the original sprues. Of course then you are in for 2-4 boxes of miniatures, which seems like a bit much for a single gang.
Thanks very much! That does seem to be the way that GW models are generally going these days. You're right: you can buy more bits for extra variety, but that is a lot for just a few miniatures.
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