Here is the fruit of my christmas holiday from work. And my first real attempt at a non kitbash conversion and first time using greenstuff for anything more than filling the odd gap (and it shows). I had bought a dkok commissar from forge world ages ago, but never ended up painting or including it in my guard because I thought he looked a bit diminutive compared to the metal commissars. I wouldnt normally have the courage to chop up an expensive forgeworld mini on a whim, but he had been sitting in my bits box for years without any hope of a posting in a guard regiment so I didnt feel as bad as I should of considering how much he cost.
I carefully mananaged to cut off his head and hat but left the gas mask and its thin hose intact. Unfortunately the brim of the commissars hat comes down over the collar of his stormcoat, so I was left with a gaping hole where the back of his collar should be ( cue loss of greenstuff virginity ) I ended up using a bare head from the cadian command sprue as it reminded me a bit of the haughty face of the old metal cadian company commander (sans monicle). I also cut off his sword arm and replaced it with the power fist from the cadian command sprue.
The gauntlet mounted inferno pistol was cobbled together from the barrel of a meltagun, a cut down scope from a space marine bolter and several Bits of feed from the barrel-less melta and a flamer. Lastly I cut the chamber/magazine off the meltagun in a thin slice and attached it to his back, I think it blends quite well with the rebreather backpack that was already there.
I added a space marine double purity seal to the bottom inner lining of his coat (inspired by the old necromunda bounty hunter) and a rubbush homemade greenstuff purity seal on his belt buckle ( you can just...just about make out the inquisitorial I its supposed to have on it) I had a few 40mm scenic bases knocking around from the blisters of black cat bases I had bought for my astral claws, and nothing to use them for so I decided to use one on this. I know he's meant to be on a small base, but as the inquisitor is usually the centerpiece of the warband; I dont think it matters too much.
The staff/pole behind him is another conglomeration of bits thats meant to be his Inquisitoral mandate on display, the bottom is a space marine combat blade, the haft is part of a chimeras antennae array, the main boss and tassels are the top of the plastic banner from (yet again) the cadian command sprue, with the decoration on the top cut off and repaced with a skull from a space marine back banner. The mandate itself is a fairly common space marine decorative bit.
On the stone floor of the base itself I painted in the edge of a khornate mosaic, the idea being for it to look like he's standing in the smoking wreckage of a very recently destroyed cult hideout. Overall im reasonably pleased with the end result, but not 100% by a long stretch. For example im pleased with the 'flow' of it, how the purity seals and tassels are all gusting in approximately the right direction, but I think its a bit unbalanced with all the action on his right side (prehaps I should have mounted the mandate pole on his left to compensate for the oversized fist/gun combo) Secondly, the paint job doesn't really do justice to the crisply detailed forgeworld base model, I really need to invest in a wider range of colours, im fine muddling through on basic infantry, but when it comes to more individual, less regimented and uniform models, my palette is definatly lacking. After downloading the inquisitor rulebook free from gw and reading some truly great stuff on the conclave forum and the tears of isstvan blog, Im thinking I could use this guy as a basis for a warband that could be used in both 40k and inq28 (seperate to my ordo malleus warband of standard gw minis) and ive been inspired to try and come up with a background for my inquisitor, im starting to put a backstory and motivation together and will post it up at a later date.
Next up a group shot of the inquisition mini's ive painted so far, ordo hereticus on the left and Malleus on the right. On the far left is the first of my Cadian special security detachment, there will be five in total as a bodyguard for my Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor, in the best tradition of captain kirks endless supply of nameless red shirted ensigns to get killed on away team jaunts "Hes dead, Jim!" All five are assembled and in various stages of paint, and I have a Metal Ordo Malleus Inquisitor undercoated and waiting for some attention, but my astral claws need some love, and the unbuilt chimera box that I need to finish my Lancers infantry platoon is staring me in the face, so at the moment im not really sure what will be next.
I thought I'd paint over the eye holes, to make it more of a 'death mask' I thought having no visible means of seeing was more sinister.
