Harlequin Carnival - La Danse Macabre

alrighty folks, are you ready?

Get those bananas out!

Oohooh ahahaha........












And with his pal, ready to join the beast pack

Those are some of the craziest conversions I've seen so far - outside of Blanchitsu, where they wouldn't even look out of place!

Very nice. Very very nice.
I assume these are Tali (Taloses, whatever) and that you're working towards a Corpsethief?
( You know you want to?)

Love the monkeys!
One thought, however: as they're on top of these balls, they have to walk backwards in order for the balls to roll forward. Shouldn't they therefore be placed a little further back on it? Their center of mass as it is now would make it difficult for them to walk backwards.

Its impossible not to! Your army really takes me back to the days of the old White Dwarf where you'd see this kind of stuff and absolutely lose your mind. The army has range too... from the funny and whimsical to the grotesque and eerie. This is the 40k hobby as it was meant to be

@Rokuro. Thanks, I really like John blanch's stuff, so I take that as high praise indeed

@Squidmaster. Cheers. They are counts as kymerae for my beast pack. I do intend to do the corpse thief formation for sure though, as it is so awesome

@Kinnay. Very true. Tbh I did not even think about that, just went with the running pose (although te unpainted one is kinda launching himself off the ball, so could get away with the more forward pose. I will bear that in kind for the next one I do

@Cavalier. High praise indeed! Thank you good sir . I used to read WD back in 2nd ed. my fave issue and the one that sticks in my mind was te battle for orks rift. Dang that was just so awesome! I read it so many times, and bought a praetorian army as a result. WD back in those days was just pure gold

Well I've decided that a lot of my DE are about to become Harli's. Can't afford the models so since the4y look a lot alike, some well placed paint and Shazam. Some inspiration from you good sir.

spellcheck2001 wrote:

@Squidmaster. Cheers. They are counts as kymerae for my beast pack. I do intend to do the corpse thief formation for sure though, as it is so awesome

I just had a thought regarding Taloi:



Doesn't it remind you of an elephant's head from that angle?

(Pardon my nonexistant Photoshop skills. )

Oh wow I love your Monkey Beast Pack!

@Black Death. Awesome man, glad to have given you a little inspiration I look forward to seeing what you come up with

@Rokuro. That is a great idea. Elephant man for my next talos conversion. I have been scratching my head about other ideas, and that one will work a treat

@Ciirian. thanks, they both were a treat to convert tbh. I really enjoy off kilter projects like that, as you can produce some fun one off pieces that are just a lot of fun to make up and convert.

What do you use the monkey as, a Clawed Fiend?

spellcheck2001 wrote:

@Rokuro. That is a great idea. Elephant man for my next talos conversion. I have been scratching my head about other ideas, and that one will work a treat

I was imagining a herd of five lanky, Dali-esque biomech beasts, but that would look cool too.
It's your circus after all.

The Carnival continues! Lets get the party started!

Nearly pulled my eyes out painting this lot but I am sooooo pleased at the end result. I think it all works really well together.

I planned to do very little to the chassis of the venom in terms of conversion, concentrating more on the patterns to make it fit in with the carnival theme, but saving the conversions for the crew.

I went with the base colour of red, as this is the tie in colour over all the army. It can be a bit jarring to have lots of different colours on one model, or over a whole army, so I wanted a large portion of every mini to be red, and this would form the base for every modelVand be the consistent base colour. It certainly makes them easier to paint, as it gives a good starting point, and colours can be added on top one by one as needed. The funnest part of the venom was painting the lava lamp effect on the sides. It was a new pattern for me to do, but I enjoyed choosing the colours and then painting the patterns on the side. I think it really brings the venom to life












The crew were converted after I had finished the paint job on the venom. I wanted them to be a little different to the stock models, so used a mix of parts to make a more wacky trio. The ballon girl is a witch elf, with wooden beads greenVstuffed into balloons. My idea was to have her look like she was being blown off the back of the venom , as it accelerated forwards towards the enemy. The other is a kitbash of parts, such as a scourge head and dark elf horn. I really quite like how he turned out. The gunner dude I wanted to be a bit more ostentatious, as he is the most static of the crew, so he got a flowing pelt and lion head for a hat. They work great I think, and add a nice bit of character to the venom. Painting all 3 was very laborious, but totally worth it for the character added! Right at the end I managed to cock up attaching the balloon girl to the chassis, snapping the pin off at her foot, and then drilling right through it when I tried to put in another pin (after gauging a massive slice out of my finger trying to dig it out with my scalpel......not a good idea). I have repainted the foot but it does not look as good as before. Oh well!

Pure genius, love it!

I admire your creativity, honestly, your models are some of the most beautiful/characterful conversion I ever saw ... *wiping tears of joy*

Looking forward to what else you have on your table

ps: Just one question, do we ever see a group/army shot?

Thanks very much man

Yes you will see one. I have an aim to get a number of models done before I do a full shot. My army looks surprisingly unfinished at the mo. Before I do the full shot I need to do:-

5 kymerae, 1 monkey & 2 beast masters
X5 kabalite warriors
X1 raider

After these are complete I will do it for sure

Hey Spellcheck, how did you paint the skin on the wytch elf falling off your Venom? It's beautiful!

hilarious Venom.

BTW I hope you'll be adding some harlequins to your force, which already ressembles a harlequin force lol

@Kinnay. Thanks I am planning to do a little tutorial about it fairly soon on my blog. Will post it up in the painting section but will give you the recipe now if you like the skin is actually fairly simple to do. I start with a base of dheheb stone (old foundation paint) followed by a watered down wash of purple wash (you dont want the recesses to be too dark, so about a 50/50 mix will do). Then re highlight with the dheheb stone (everywhere except the recesses). Mix 50/50 dheheb stone with skull white and do a lighter highlight on the more raised areas. Finally a pure skull white highlight on the very raised parts. Job done hope that helps. Also if you want to convert the paints I mention into new gw paints see this chart http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Paint_Range_Compatibility_Chart

@Khain Mor. Cheers . I have a box of the new harlies sitting on my shelf at the mo. Me being me I want to convert or kitbash them so mulling a few ideas around in my head. So far my plan involves meshing a scourge kit and the harlies together as I think that couod look awesomly wacky

HEy Spell! long time no see, I haven't checked in on your stuff for awhile, but glad to see its still rolling out! no pun intended.

Your next monkey should most definitely be falling off the back of the ball as if its rolling too fast arms flailing! Your venom is outstanding as always! So funky and so lively, great colour choice and stylisation. Loving the altered crew, horn dude looks totally badass, the pink vs green feathered head works wonders, as does his leggings. The general level of painting on the whole unit/models is fantastic, wish I had the painting patience.

I've started work on my harlie force finally, which is a total blast I'll send you a link once I get some stuff up.

Oh one thing I did want to ask. Your scary ass clown made from the necron god, I absolutely love what you did with the face, could you give me a run down of how you managed it? you mentioned that you used oil paints I believe?

Hey Solar, good to hear from you man

Thanks for the compliments, glad you are still enjoying my stuff. Great idea on the monkey, I will definately be doing that. I am already mulling over ideas for my next venom crew, as I have enjoyed the finished product (although painting the whole thing was a little painful).

The mask was not too complicated to do, but a little fiddly. I would love to claim it was a great feat of skill, but alas, it was not really . I got a picture of a clown face I liked, bought some laser jet transfer paper, and then shrunk the image to size and printed it onto the paper. A few gloss varnishes over the image later and I could the put it onto the mask. Once it was dry I repainted over the whole image, as it loses most of its features, as the background is so dark.

Would love to see your harlequin stuff. What you had done before was great

AHHH, PFFFT! That is just well, I got no words. Mini truck graphics and bright pastels, win win. And the witch getting ready for the KABOOONG!!!

Hey thanks very much it was alot of fun to paint the lava lamp bit on the side, but the crew really bring the whole thing alive imo (although they were the most time consuming part believe it or not)

spellcheck2001 wrote:

The mask was not too complicated to do, but a little fiddly. I would love to claim it was a great feat of skill, but alas, it was not really . I got a picture of a clown face I liked, bought some laser jet transfer paper, and then shrunk the image to size and printed it onto the paper. A few gloss varnishes  over the image later and I could the put it onto the mask. Once it was dry I repainted over the whole image, as it loses most of its features, as the background is so dark.

Whoa whoa whoa, how ye horsies there mate

you what now? You printed the image, then applied it like a decal, glossed it and then re did the detail? That sounds extremely ingenious! Hmm I will have to give that a try, I really like how well it turned out and the fact it looks like a soul trapped within a void. Thats the look I want to go for on my wraithguard basically. An imprisoned nightmare! Also, what paint did you use? just standard stuff?

Hehe thanks . I used a gloss spray at first for the decal, but it did not work too well, so just applied a Vallejo paint on gloss (2 coats). For the actual mask painting I used standard gw paints, with another gloss varnish over the top.

There is some great stuff for applying decals you can buy that will really help. It is called micro sol and micro set. Check it out, tis good stuff

Love the Venom, particularly the witch elf whose balloons got caught in the slip stream

Can't wait to see what you make of the new harlie models.