Scratch Building Proxy Rhino APCs (Part 2: The Death Guard Version Reveal)

I’ll detail this build first, seeing as though I have the model on hand here, which I can’t say about the Khorne one (It’s not here!) I think it’s ok, not what I had in mind (see the sketches in the previous post) as I did want to go for the twisted mutant baby head/monstrosity, only that I wanted to get them done quicker than usual, and spending time doing some sculpting to get exactly that, I opted the simpler route. Going for the more utilitarian and toned back mutations worked, I think, the inspiration was drawn
from a more insectoid feel.

Chunky armour plates with barbed spikes poking out, the front ram spikes mimic mandibles and the grilled front (as well as a few hints here and there were meant as if the mutations were being restrained within, striving to come out.)

Like I’ve said before, I am ok at painting, but no expert and didn’t want to sink days extra into finishing either one, so I went for a looser finish, but looking back, I would do it different if I did it again. I mean, I keep going back in, adding a change here and there, still need a banner and odds and ends, but it’s pretty much done for now.

Also, since this was a “new” design, it was never going to be as detailed as the Ceros (which took me ages, as I really got into it, and didn’t want to this time) The thing is, I might have a go at knocking about 10 or so together, do them up, paint them, then stick them on Ebay for £20-30 each, just to see how they do, I can’t justify days of work on one if they only sell for that price, so it was sort of experimental as well, raiding my various bits, using what I had.

I think the only thing I bought was some big wall plugs (the front spikes) which were £1.50(about £2) but I still have a load of them left, and the side vent things either side of the door (also big wall plugs at about the same price) The pack did both this and the Khorne one, and I think I have enough to use on another if needed, so not bad, saved me having to make them from nothing!

Overall, I think the finished Rhino is serviceable enough, even so it’s not what I wanted from the build. It will be fine to fill the ranks, but the baby headed plague monstrosity design I have in my head needs to be made, then I can move on to something different. The only thing that is a problem, is I want a Rhino for my cultists, crewed by cultists (I have a few models I want to add to one, plus matching livery to match them) Plus, I NEED to make a plaguetower of Nurgle! I just want one. I feel a need to make some versions of the old EPIC scale stuff. I have no idea how I’d run it, just that I want one!

I’m calling it 95% there, I’ll still go back and add and change bits still, clean the paintwork up here and there, but it’s pretty much there. I still need a back banner adding, but with this being just a plain troop transporter, it’ll do!

Stay tuned for the next reveal!

Scratch Building Proxy Rhino APCs for pennies!

Since Well before my Chaos Ceros APC designs, it was always my intention to make myself a large vehicle detachment, so it should come as no surprise that I had to add more of such. Only thing was, I misplaced all my Ceros design templates, so I needed to either try and remake them, or start again but use a closer analog to the traditional GW rhino APC.

You should know that I am not one for carefully measuring and calculating anything. Unless I find it unavoidable, I wing it 100% with whatever I make. My way is not perfect but I hate being stifled by anything other than the creative process. But, I caved and tried harder to make the next additions more in line with sizes, shapes and style.

After a long time of trying to find easy templates in a more GW fashion, I ended up using the ones in Wyloc’s video on youtube. I pretty much only used to dimensions from his vid, just to get that Rhino classic aesthetic, so if you read this Wyloch (which I’m sure for certain he has before in the past) I send my thanks! Just that simple shape was enough to get a new set of templates made to churn out a couple at once, one for my Nurgly bois, one for my sons Khorni bois.

However, after doing this, I ended up finding the Ceros templates, so now I have two different sets. I’m thinking after comparing sizes of the Ceros to the traditional Rhino, the Ceros will be closer to a landraider in size, so generally when I get to fielding them, I’ll be using the Ceros pattern as that. (Unless I end up making a set based on the dimensions of one of the landraider designs, which I probably will!)

The new builds, are surprisingly smaller than the Ceros, very chunky in fact, but since many design parts, materials and elements are the same on the Ceros, they easily fit together in style. I do enjoy the flexibility of personalisation with these scratch builds, so much in fact I want to make a cultist one, crewed by my fervent corrupt human worshipers of Nurgle, who kind of resemble an imperial guard unit anyway, so that is coming, plus I have a separate detachment of Chaos Space Marines from the Purge Chapter which I want a dedicated transport for.

I would fucking love to do one more custom Rhino for the Death guard, but to make it into a plague tower of Nurgle, but I’d like to try making my own version of a Death Guard Plague burst crawler. We’ll see, just there are too many cool things I can think of to personalise them into, and once I’m finished with the Nurgle bois, Tzeentch beckons me to use the CP Models Bird like Avian models as Tzangor, and a pimped out glowing Thousand Sons Rhino with Sphynx accents would be a good model to make. Plus, I get to make a big floating tower model that’s bristling with guns and such, would be fun to make. No real reason behind it, I would just like to give it a go!

I do promise that when I make the next Ceros and Rhino, I will give you a full tutorial, with downloadable templates (that way I won’t loose them!) and when I do, they will be available as PDFs on DriveThruRPG and Wargame Vault. I do miss posting the tutorials like I did with Grim’s Dungeons of Doom, I know a lot of people do get a load out of them and I’ve seen plenty out there trying my methods, which is nice to think I’ve inspired some to get trying.

They do take extra effort and time, as you gotta remember to get decent photos of the stages involved, and it can be tricky to remember doing it when I’m in the zone and focused on getting it made!

Still, the process was quick as I knocked up these two in a couple of nights, followed by a couple of other days painting them (reveal in next posts) I am trying to get myself into the habit of spending less time painting minis, I have a tendency of spending far too long on even the most basic troops and terrain, so I allow myself to be a little more sloppy and hope it all comes together in the end, which I think it does mostly.

With the more limited time I have, it is a good compromise, leaving the more careful jobs to character and special models. I don’t paint for competitions, tournaments or praise, I know I’m not a top painter, but slightly above OK will do me fine.

 

Next time, I’ll reveal the finished work, starting with the Death Guard Rhino, take you through how I achieved the various looks and materials used a bit more in detail.

After that we’ll take a look at the Khorne version and analyse, then I’ll do a size comparison with the Ceros vs Rhino (I might be able to get some shots of the Khorne APCs too)

Until next post, Stay Sane, Stay Grinning, and Stay inside coz’ there’s a Nurgle about!!

Khorne Chaos Marine Ceros APC (Rhino Proxy),The prototype that started it all!

Well, I did say that I would be back for more 40K type nonsense, and since loads of you liked the Deathguard Ceros APC, I am going to show off the prototype that began it all, just so I can show the contrast and difference between the exact same base build. Like I told you before, the Ceros was made from templates so that each of them have a uniformity, which I thought added some degree of validity to it as a real thing and not a random scratch build.

Sure, its fine if you want to go crazy and create each thing completely different, I wanted that connection of familiar shapes, so when my vehicles are on the battlefield there is
no doubt these are cut from the same cloth.

This Khornate Ceros was kept plain for a reason, so when placed together, you would see that each tank would get progressively more extreme in what I do with them.
Of course you could just keep them identical and vanilla, but I think that would bore the shit out of me. Variation keeps things interesting, especially with Chaos
as this Ceros will probably end up as the most normal looking one from the bunch (I plan to make a unit of three Khornate Ceros, as well as my three Nurgle ones)

I am seriously thinking that the next one is getting a serious boost in armour, weapons and good old spikey bits. Also a big brass bull head springs to mind, or brass
daemon head. The final one will get the daemonic mutation treatment, full on spiked talons, screaming obscenities bursting out in rage as the tank is consumed by the
warp to become fused as one. My plan is to do that also to my Nurgle ones as well, just more gross and disgusting.

I’m thinking these evolution’s will get a little more ambitious, the Khorne ones might have a electronic gubbins added in for effect, or inter-changeable parts or whatever,
to me, this allows me to not get bored, try out new stuff and show off the versatile nature of these tanks. You’ll have to wait and see.
It is a shame that I don’t have any Khorne worshiping marines to show next to the tank, but I don’t know how many times I have had a Khorne force, far too many!

This time it’s fine, as this belongs to my son, so it’s all good. Maybe if I was to choose another, it would be Tzeentch so I could get really trippy and Egyptian like!
I do have a whole bunch of these Terror bird alien warriors from CP models that I would use as proxy Tzangors, so who knows? I think I’d do it just for the buzz of doing it,
I can think of lots of mad additions to the Ceros, like maybe a Sphinx thrown into the mix, or King Tut head with guns or missile launchers coming from the eyes and mouth!
If I sit down and make an extra Ceros, I’ll do that I think, just for shits and giggles! Then I would have to expand on it, with more Tzeentchy troops and daemons.
I do have the massive Dred to finish painting, that really needs doing, as I have another identical base model (Scotia Grendel war Golem) that I promised my kid, which I’ll get
the chance to Khornise it, which will be fun!

The good thing about the proxies, is that I was going to totally make a great unclean one and Bloodthirster from scratch, yes I know the newer models are quite massive, but
I’d get a real kick out of doing a good job on them, plus it would be at a fraction of the cost of buying them. The funny thing is, I haven’t even shown what else I have already
to add to my forces! Mantic future zombies (whatever they are called) are stand ins for both my sprawling cultists and proto-poxwalkers, plus loads of kit bashed cultists made
from the out of production Sci-fi Germans, gripping beast Saracens, hooded robed cultists from black cat bases, and various psychos that give me at least 80+ cult nutters to swarm
my enemies (and look cool as fook!!) I’ve more units of spawn, one of them made up from giant worms and maggots, others from faceless horrors, there is a shit ton!
I love the proxy approach, as it gives flexibility to have any cool stuff from GW, plus other manufacturers models that fit, and any customs.

Also it guarantees that your army is totally unique, stun your opponents with how fucking cool your army looks, and it cost you less than a quarter of most GW only forces! I am Win!!

Back to the Ceros. I know I said there would be three (3 Khorne, 3 Nurgs) but similar to the GW Rhino, I was planning a addition of a few extra bits to the Ceros template, and Voila! a new variant is born, a proxy Landraider! I have no idea what that would be named, something like “Battle-marauder” or “Un-relentor”, or something suitably big and destructive!
Maybe, I’ll just adapt the third Ceros of the units to that, saving me time. It all depends on how much enjoyment it brings making them, if it looks cools as fuck, then I’ll just make
the unit of 3 Ceros and a Landraider proxy (although, the Ceros could be used as one anyway, I just think it needs doing anyway! Just because!!)
Anyway, I think I’ll show off some 40k-ish terrain next time, possibly a set of Mining stuff, or Industrial towers. there is so much I can show, I can’t even remember all the stuff I’ve
made! Seriously!
Thanks for taking a look at my stuff, I do hope it inspires you to do your own things, or just gives you some cool things to look at, either way I hope you enjoy this content, I’ll be
back later, hopefully to release the PDF I keep stalling on, or show my terrain! Did I tell you that the modular industrial stuff and buildings are compatible with my “Grim’s Dungeons of Doom” scenery?

Well, put it this way, I have a hell of a lot of options for my set ups…..

 

Death Guard Proxies: Nurgle Ceros APC Scratch build. (Proxy Rhino/Landraider Build)

It’s been ages since I’ve shown off any of my Nurgle Deathguard Army lot, and whilst looking through my photos, I remembered that I haven’t shown you this build.

Given that many who read here are dedicated miniature addicts and tabletop wargamers, I thought it was time to showcase this one, as I am quite proud of this baby. May I present, the proxy Deathguard Ceros pattern APC.

May I present my scratch built Chaos weapon of mass destruction, the Ceros pattern APC. This is entirely scratch built from whatever I could get my hands on, and from my own imagination. My main aim here was to create a vehicle that would serve as either a Rhino or Land raider type troop transport for my Deathguard boys, and be easy enough to replicate at a tiny fraction of buying a genuine GW or other proxy type. It’s not meant to be flash, or accurate a copy of said APC in 40k, just a cool looking beefy armoured thing to strike fear into the enemy.

I made a set of templates for the main shape of the un-mutated vehicle, then constructed the body from foamboard, then just Nurgled it up (I know that is not a real word) to make it fit in. I had already made a less diseased looking one for my son (a Khorne version without the mutations) but I’ll post pics of that later. I’m pretty pleased with it to be honest, and given that it probably cost less than £5 to make both in total, my intention was to make a fleet of them for my plague marines. My Army has taken a bit of a respite, but I won’t give up with my plan, and eventually I will get round to completing them, at some point.

I still have the templates around somewhere, so maybe at some point I’ll release them, or may actually do a tutorial if enough of you out there want that, maybe a PDF book with them included. This one was a test to see what needed doing to it to make them as disgusting as possible, which now I made it, I can say that the next one would be even more weird than this one. I’d like to let my imagination go wild with the other two I plan, maybe some demonic attributes and things bursting out from the hull, far more complex that this one was.

With the templates it’s very easy to replicate the design, so I would love to build some more, even some standard looking ones and maybe get a small force of normal marines, just to have a bash at them. It’s just that the whole idea of being able to mutate them into unique models really appeals to me, and I’d love to do several different ones, Thousand Sons, Emperors Children, Imperial guard, or whatever, I’d like to have a go at each and everyone of them. Sadly, I won’t get round to them all, things take time, but I will end up doing the other two Nurgle ones, and another two Khornate ones, each getting more twisted as I make them. I can imagine by the last Nurgle one, it’ll be half daemon or whatever, and the Khorne ones will end up bristling with spikes, skulls, weapons and death dealing articles (well, I did promise my young un’ two more) I just thought I’d show this one off, as I’d totally forgot to do so. I’ve even got a whole heap of industrial style modular terrain already built, and I haven’t shown them off too! Very Necromunda, and again made from scratch. If I can get some good lighting to give them a decent set of shots, I’ll do it in the next week, and bear in mind that I created all these things months ago, a long time before many of the various Youtube Terrain channels did similar as well! I’ll be pinning these pics to my boards on Pinterest and would appreciate it if you frequent there, to share them about, and you can see the other finished bits of the Deathguard Proxies there too: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/grimacereaper73/

Please give me a follow and share on there, I actually get a ton of traffic from Pinterest to here, and I quite like the site no I have the hang of it! I don’t have a ton of followers there, but would be very grateful if you are a regular there to give me a follow, it helps this site, and gives me a bit of a boost to see people sharing my content, and it’ll make me more determined to put more stuff on there. (Trust me, I only show a small fraction of hobby related stuff I create, so the boost would give me the incentive to put more stuff up!)

Like I said, if there is enough people asking for a sort of tutorial type of thing that shows how to make one of these brutes, I will do it, but only if you lot ask, or it will be sporadic when I get round to it. I have too many of my fingers in too many pies, so unless there is a call, I’ll just do it when I can/feel like it! I’m thinking more like a PDF manual type thing, with the patterns in and a load of nice photos, maybe a PWYW or cheapo price, just so the effort is worth my time (I’m a busy dad of 4 sprogs, so time is precious you know!)

If you want to ask anything about how I made it, where I got the bits, how robust it is (yes, it’s quite robust enough to take being knocked about and such) then please do, leave me some likes and comments, heck, ask me to post more shots if you like, or if you want to see the prototype (Khorne) APC, then let me know, and I’ll happily do so.

By the way, if you are wondering what the name of this proxy comes from, well if it’s not obvious, Ceros is the Rhino proxy, so Rhino + Ceros = RhinoCeros! It just seemed fitting!

Anyway, hope you enjoyed the pics, don’t forget to check out the Payhip store for stuff: https://payhip.com/grinningskullstudios which is slowly gaining momentum (Thanks for all the views and orders there too!) and the DriveThruRPG pages too for loads of ever growing hobby stuff: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/8807/Grinning-Skull-Studios

(Gotta keep plugging away!!) Again over on Pinterest and our page on Facebook (Give us a like, go on, you know you want to!) If you are a linked in user, feel free to hit me up on there as well on my Linkedin profile page (I’m now a Linkedin L.I.O.N. now, so join my big network if you like! Nearing almost 6500 connections there, so if you use it, check me out there too!) I’m on Twitter too, but not that active, but a follow would be noice!

I’ll be back later with more stuff, perhaps the Khorne APC to show the difference, but for now, I hope you have a great day and may Grandfather Nurgle bestow his pungent effluent upon you (Wow, an Osric Tentacles reference…) I’m almost done finalising the latest Pointless Classics PDF, so I’ll be posting about that too, so see you then!!

Grinning Skull presents, The Night of the Living Dead Collection. (Exclusive Payhip Store Releases)

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We have a variety of digital products available around this theme, starting with the Digital Collectors Pack.

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To further break down this deal, we’ll have a look at what’s in the pack. The first component as you can see from the bulleted list, is The Night of the Living Dead PDF Printable Poster-Book.

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We have the Night of the Living Dead Cast and press-book PDF.

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Last off, if you buy the Digital Collectors Pack containing all the above products, you’ll get a bonus of our LARP LAB: Virus Outbreak Warning Poster book PDF

Another in the ever growing LARP LAB series of printable props and game aids, Grim’s Apocalypse: Virus Outbreak Warning Posters #1.

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Don’t forget to check out our most popular and up to date listings of most of Grinning Skull’s range of digital products at DriveThruRPG: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/8807/Grinning-Skull-Studios and now our Payhip Store https://payhip.com/grinningskullstudios

Thanks again everyone for your support and see you soon!