Mikal van Leeuwen has created some incredible conversions in a kitbashing lair located in the Netherlands and we just had to show some of them off. If you’re a fan of John Blanche’s iconic Warhammer illustrations,* the Adeptus Mechanicus, or just cool conversions and paint jobs, take a look at the results of Mikal’s hard work.
Mikal: The illustrations of John Blanche are what drew me into the Warhammer 40,000 universe back in the 1990s. The Black Templars on the box art of the game’s third edition and the illustrations on the first couple of pages of the rulebook defined the epic scale and oppressive darkness of the universe. I love his character illustrations, and especially the landscape works.
The Catechism of the Autoculus of Mars was high on my list to use as inspiration for a conversion. It’s the scale that does it for me, ranging from humble servants at the front to monstrous Titans in the back. When I started planning, I knew I had to include the Tech-Priest Dominus on the left and the floating biomechanical horror on the right. I also wanted to include some of the ‘lesser beings’ from the drawing as an entourage.
I started by staring at the painting for a long, long time, letting it sink in. The plethora of little details, together with the impressionistic nature of the work, gives a lot of room for interpretation and remixing. For instance, The Twins are based on the two scribes at the bottom left. In the art, there’s no indication that they are connected. But when I was looking at them, I wondered what if they were linked. After that, I couldn’t see them as anything other than The Twins, who became my favourite part of the gang.
I built all of the robed figures from the Necromunda Cawdor Gang kit – a fantastic start for any religious fanatic, even the cyborg ones. Mixing that set with Skitarii Rangers will instantly give you some convincing priests of Mars and their servants.
The Tech-Priest Dominus deviates the most from the artwork. I wanted him to be bigger than the others, but he’s not that much larger in the drawing. I used the body of the Cawdor Leader with the tracks from the Kataphron kit. I also wanted him to have some kind of big machine behind him, hinted at in the artwork.
Inspired by all the creepy jars with stuff floating inside them, I thought it would be cool if he had the head of his predecessor in a tank behind him. That would allow him to suck all the knowledge he needed out of his mentor’s shrivelled head. I made the tank from a tiny glass jar, a Cawdor head mounted on a Sicarian leg and some tinted, clear resin.
Then came the thing that filled me with dread. The nightmare. That biomechanical monstrosity. The Autoculus? I mean, what the heck is an Autoculus? My mind just put that label to the floating thing, combining two unknowns into a single icon of weirdness. I had no fixed plan for it but started by making a small shaped ball of aluminium foil and sticking parts to it that resembled what I saw in the painting.
I used the torsos of an old plastic Chaos Cultist (heresy!), a Sicarian, an Electro-Priest, and a Sisters of Battle Cherub. The rest was a dive through my bits box and heaps of modelling putty. The thing on top is an old blown fuse with a sculpted brain inside it. When connections between parts got too complicated, I just covered them in cables.
It flies thanks to three strong metal wires, one hidden inside the tail and two inside the thick cables that drag backwards. The metal wires stick through the base and hold everything in place.
The female Tech-Priest assassin is inspired by character sketches that fitted well with the main piece. The core of the model is the Genestealer Cult Magus, with loads of sculpted cables added.
I tried to keep the base decoration simple, adding skulls, cables, and spots of Agrellan Badland and Agrellan Earth. I stuck quite close to the colours of the artwork for the painting – dark red, dark gold and black iron. I got the warm, burned gold by washing Retributor Armour with Agrax Earthshade, followed by a wash of Seraphim Sepia.
The black iron was an experiment. After a coat of Leadbelcher, I washed it with Nuln Oil and then Basilicanum Grey. This turned out nice and dark but still convincingly metallic.
There is one place I really deviated from the art. John Blanche hardly ever uses blues in his works, but I wanted a good contrast colour to make the miniatures pop. So I painted the skin a pale blue, using a layer of Aethermatic Blue over a Grey Seer base, followed by some glazes of Apothecary White.
Thanks, Mikal! If you’ve made your own conversion based on a piece of Warhammer artwork, we'd love to see it – share it with us on our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages.
* To see him in action, check out this episode of VoxCast.