Beasts of Chaos

 

It's been a little while, hasn't it? Just in time to avoid a full six months of no posts, here's a new project I've been working on. A weird Beasts of Chaos army for Age of Sigmar. More pictures and lore below the jump.

The goal for this project is to produce a couple units of Ungors, a Herdstone, and a Bray Shaman. I aim to make them look truly unsettling, drawing from cryptid imagery, the work of several horror artists, and maybe a bit of folk horror.

I had the idea for a spindly Chaos star a long time and this was the perfect project to try that idea. I made this banner from a section of brass rod and trimmed paperclips superglued together, with a coating of Vallejo Liquid Putty.

For the first time I'm working with Aves Apoxie Sculpt. It comes in bulk for a much better price than Green Stuff, so it's ideal for a project with a lot of sculpting involved.

This bird was made from the eagle I had left over after using Korsarro Khan in my Space Wolves army. Its head is sculpted from Aves Apoxie. I'm aiming for a mix of unearthly creatures in each unit.

The champion uses legs from an Ungor kit and the torso from a goblin. The head is scratch sculpted. The legs give it enough imposing height to mark it as a unit leader. The severed head is another leftover bit from Korsarro Khan (never waste anything!)

These Ungors are based on the excellent Goblin Town goblins from Games Workshop's Hobbit range. It's a mainstay in Inq28 kitbashes, and I wanted to see what I could do with it. The kit is nice - 18 unique monopart goblins with unique poses - but frustratingly many of the limbs are repeated between sculpts. I chopped up most of the goblins and added a lot of scratch sculpting.

This almost quadrupedal creature is clambering over a rock. I aim to scatter a few more interactions with the environment. That's gonna be necessary with another Ungor sculpt (in a future post), which will be firmly attached to its environment. I think "blending" a design element like that across multiple models can help to make a disparate group of models look more connected.

This one was the first model I made in this project, and is the most simple. A goblin with the head of a Necromunda mastiff (an excellent dog sculpt).

Another Ungor part. I carved away at the head and drilled its eyes to make it mask-like - and then I had the modified head unused in my bitz box for months. This Beasts project was the ideal project to finally use it. I'm very happy with the bendy arm, which looks just exactly wrong enough.

A kind of melon-head guy. I think I'll need at least one more Ungor with a big head in order to "blend" this idea into the group's aesthetic as a whole.

An experiment with a different body plan. A very long torso (from a Kroot), no arms, and a crocodilian head.

This guy is tree-like and drags a severed human head by its beard. In developing the overall "tone" of these guys, I decided early on to avoid skulls and instead include a few severed heads. I think it helps emphasise the fleshiness of these constructs, and also draws attention by contrast to their own weird heads. It also implies a mysterious ritualistic element.

Some of the sculpts tread a fine line between horror and absurdity. In my opinion a small amount of bizarreness can really underscore a horror aesthetic.

Thanks for sticking with me! More Beasts of Chaos are on the way, and you won't have to wait so long for my next post. In the meantime you can always keep up with me on Instagram.

Hek