Kitbash Autopsy - An Offering

    I was talking with a fellow gamer and game designer the other night about kitbashing, and it got me thinking about the cycle of inspiration and discovery that comes with creating a character from component bits, so I figured I'd document that process for this model.

    So if you saw my last post, you know my foot's busted and I'm working out of a temporary spot that's set up specifically for kitbashing. Last week, Smashbash Matt (@totally_not_panicking) dropped a tasty discount code for his Patreon subscribers and I snagged a few of his sculpts that I think are really cool and also intimidate me.  Luckily I put in my order hours before the permadeath Miscast minis dropped so for once my impulsive hobby buying saved me some money. I picked up his trio of corpulent horrors, three white metal minis that come with assorted heads and hands and weapons. I grabbed these specifically because I'm intimidated by painting bodies. Big open expanses of skin and exposed anatomy are not generally my jam. But they are sick sculpts and I knew I'd have to tackle them eventually, and I've gotten a ton of inspirado and knowledge from Smashbash Matt so wanted to support him.

    Fast forward to me sitting down at my hobby outpost and picking out pits for the first kitbash of my Gimp Period. I decided this would be my starting point. Before I did anything else, I just considered the pose. The mini's arms are held out wide, which instantly reminded me of the Chaos Sorcerer from Heroquest. I decided the pose made a lot of sense for a spellcaster or ritualist. I also thought about the ritual scenes in The Witch and The First Heretic and how being naked and doing magic seem to go hand in hand.

    For a head, I settled on a Plague Marine bit from the Space Marine Heroes set, one of the very first minis I ever bought. I added a topknot that I think came from one of the Wurmspat guys, but I don't really remember. I like the contrast of the inhuman, mutated head with a very natural human body, and the hair echoes the femininity of the body.

    I continued along that theme as I made further choices. For her left hand, I used a gauntlet from a Chaos legionary holding a curved ritual blade in a reverse grip. The combination of a naked body with armored extremities is really intimidating to me for some reason. Maybe getting killed by the mancubus a bunch in DOOM as a youth. The reverse grip on the knife suggested a sacrifice, and I was super into that, so I starting throwing another mini together to serve as a victim.   

     Since the Legionary gauntlet reads 40k to me, I cobbled together an Imperial citizen having a bad day to act as the sacrifice. I paired some random Astra Militarum bits and offcuts to make a one armed, recently bisected guardsmen about to get coup de grace'd for the favor of one or more chaos gods. For his head, a screaming Catechan does pain and terror just as well as macho bloodlust, and I chopped up some green stuff tubes for some exposed viscera and bone.    

    I did some aggressive weathering on his armor to match the aggressive weathering on his anatomy, then used some Army Painter trench wire to attach the two figures figures. I also changed the angle of the guardsmen's head; the angle I initially attached it looked unnatural.    

     And that's a kitbash! At no point did I really have a plan. I just made a decision and followed my heart and it led me, as it always does, to something kind of disturbing and heretical. I'm going to base these besties up and paint them up later this week. In oils, naturally.