The base for this build was one of the huge mutants holding up the chaos warshrine from
age of sigmar. It’s a lesser used model and one you don’t see converted a lot, so
I of course decided on doing the most difficult thing and turning him into an adeptus mechanicus
techpriest. One of the things I love about techpriests is the way their red robes cover
the bizarre shapes of what their transhuman bodies have become, and so I thought starting
with a model who already had a weird silhouette and then making greenstuff robes over it would
be a good way of achieving that. The first thing I did was dry fit some heads
onto the model to get an idea for his personality. Though the original mutant has three heads,
my techpriest was only going to have one, and the one I settled on was the one from
the dominus kit. I’ve always really liked it, and it was also the only one of sufficient
size that it wouldn’t look silly on his bulk.
On the back of the mutant there’s a flat cut where the warshrine is supposed to lock
in. I decided to repurpose it by slotting in a bit of cable to make it look like it
was bursting out from beneath his skin. The ends don’t fit perfect, but could be milliputed
later. I next tried to add a bunch of cables to his
neck which was a mistake because I later just cut them all off and went for a different
approach entirely. I also tried fitting on this power box to his chest to make it seem
like it was plugged right in to him. The trick to techpriests and mechanicus models
is that they look like they’re completely wearing robes, but actually their top half
is either covered in armor or machinery of some kind. This power box I would’ve taken
off and then put back in place after sculpting some greenstuff robes beneath, but I eventually
ended up discarding the idea as the build went on.
With those first touches done I decided to start thinking about what I wanted to do with
our techpriest’s left arm. There were a few key places it could go that would all
have taken the model in very different directions. The plasma canon would’ve turned him into
a heavy weapons platform, the drill given him a savage edge, the kataphron claw a distinctly
techy look, and the tech axe would’ve just looked awkward and stupid.
For his right side, I wanted to keep as much of the spindly three armed look as I could,
so even once I cut off the one going straight up I replaced it with this gun from a dominus
kit. Back on his left arm, I’d decided on using
none of the options I tried in dry fitting, and instead lopped off his arm below the elbow
so I could attach this kataphron claw. Ultimately the idea I like most for him was to have it
holding this tech axe, from a myrmidon by the way, like he was leaning on it to support
his weight, which I felt like matched his pose and reinforced the idea of techpriests
as biological husks. To enhance that idea even further I cut through
his waist and lengthened it with a few layers of plasticard so his dimensions would be stretched
and look slightly wrong. It also made him taller which I really liked as I’d kind
begun to think of him as this monstrous, towering techpriest.
I switched back to his left arm and decided to try and see if I could combine his original
arm with some tubing to make an enormous cane for him. This worked ok, but not great. It
did help me cement though a new direction I wanted to take my tech priest. I’d originally
been thinking of him as this red robed priest of mars, huge and wheezing but also cultured,
something out of an old scifi novel. But in the back of my mind a different concept had
been percolating of a kind of pilgrim mangos biologis that walks barefoot over far flung
xenos worlds stripped to the waist, strange flesh bared to the elements, secure in his
faith in the omnisiah as he studies the mysteries of weak flesh.
To match that vision, I replaced the cane with a deathwing terminator’s flail on a
pole. It gives him a slightly flagellant look, which fit much better than the tech axe I
had been planning on using. While I liked the idea of keeping his back
bare, I did want to add a mechanicus edge by having cables blistering out from beneath
his skin. I achieved that by cutting grooves in him and then glueing in various spare cables
from my bits box and guitar wire. To give him a robe stripped to the waist I
flattened out some greenstuff, wrapped it around him, and then started tearing at it
to give it a ragged and wind torn look. It didn’t quite look like a robe, but was still
pretty good for my first foray into greenstuff cloth. I cut out a section of the robe on
his lower back and glued in place a skitarii powerpack. On either side of the pack I attached
greenstuff castings I’d made of some myrmidon armor plates. To the front of his robes I
fit in mechanicus dangly bits. For the little vestigial arm on the right
I snipped it off below the elbow and replaced it with a ruststalker chordclaw. It gives
him an edge and intelligence to counteract his size. Finally, I glued in place guitar
wire to his collarbone. And with that, my magos biologis was done.
I’m really pleased with how he turned out, the way he looks like he’s trudging forward
across some windswept world, mutant and magos and iron willed.
At some point I’m going to have to make him some accompanying skittari with the same
design language and theme. If you’re interested in that hit the subscribe button, or check
out some of the other admech conversions I’ve done. Thanks for watching.