Throughout this project there have been a lot of false starts – models put together that for some reason just didn’t work. Some looked to my eye like a cheap take on a mutant – a normal guy with a tail poking out, say. Others seemed too dynamic and I realised I was aiming for a sort of plodding, shuffling, shambling warband. To be honest I wasted a lot of models in this way. Quasi and Modo were the first two mutants I was actually happy with and they set the direction for the rest of the warband.
The lightbulb moment for both these guys was combining plaguebearer legs and back with some random torsos from an Ork boy (for Quasi) and a blood bowl lineman (for Modo). This combination naturally gave them hunched poses and plodding gaits. From here the models came together quite smoothly.
Even though neither model uses it heavily, I intended to use the Ash Wastes Nomads kit as the core kit for this project. I think the aesthetic of these models is brilliant and really fits with the idea of a band of muties scraping a living by raiding and scavenging in the irradiated wastes. So throughout the project I incorporated lots of visual cues inspired by the Ash Wastes kits. The most prominent of these are:
- Jury rigged air filters hanging around their bodies and on their backpacks, connected by hoses. Sometimes the hoses are themselves makeshift ones either wrapped in or made from material that is visibly stitched or laced together.
- Filtration masks
- The so called “sky shrouds” – essentially back banners whose purpose I think might be to act as a sort of sun-umbrella? In any case, visually they’re more tattered rags hanging from makeshift banner poles
- Lots of straps/wraps/bandages
- Baggy and tattered robes, cloaks and loincloths. Often this is layered and visibly laced or stitched up
- Extensive baggage and pouches, sometimes connected in to the filtration sytem mentioned above
Quasi
Parts rundown:
- Head: Ash wastes nomads
- Torso: Ork boy (front), Plaguebearer (back) – but entirely sculpted over with tattered rags
- Backpack/sky shroud: Ash wastes nomads
- Left arm: Chaos cultists
- Right arm: Poxwalkers
- Legs: Plaguebearer
- Loincloth: Cut down cloth from an Ash Wastes part
- Rear loincloth (bumcloth?): Small Space Marine tabard bit
- Straps: Plasticard
- Grenades: Marine Scouts
- Miscellaneous pouches and filter tank, and sculpted hose and straps
Modo
Parts rundown:
- Head: Some sort of AdMech servitor, I believe
- Torso: Blood Bowl lineman (front), Plaguebearer (back)
- Arms and left leg: Warcry chaos marauder types – but heavily sculpted over in the case of the arms
- Right leg: Plaguebearer
- Gun: Ash Wastes Nomads
- Loincloth: Not sure, looks like it was probably cut from a larger cloak of some sort
- Rear loincloth: Cut from a Nomad part
- Filter tank: Cut from the Sector Mechanicus scenery parts
- Grenades: Empire gunners, I think?
- Pistol holster: Delaque
- Sculpted hose, clothing straps, pustules and holster stitching
These models were completed over the Christmas break at my mum’s in Somerset. It was a nice, slow paced job – working on little bits of strap, cloth and other sculpting twice a day, allowing the green stuff to cure in between, and gradually getting to the finish line while eating and drinking way too much.