Converting Helbrecht into an Iron Warrior Warsmith

it's become quite a theme on my channel to take kits that game's workshop have sent me to review and then convert them to a purpose that was very different to what the kit was originally intended for this high marshall halbracht is no exception in a twist of irony i've decided to modify this iconic character into the sworn enemy of the black templars progenitor chapter the iron warriors specifically i'll be building a warsmith the current model is looking a little dated so i think it's time to give it a facelift but before i go on let me just give this guide a quick three dead anal bits out of five i'll be using parts from a few different kits alongside plenty of trimming but there won't be any sculpting involved so i began with the hal breck kit and clipped away the main parts the bits that go into building the arms torso and legs once removed these parts were then cleaned of their mould lines and sprue tabs the first step in this conversion was to remove any black templar or imperium-specific iconography or details unfortunately there were a lot of them some parts i could just emit from the build but others like the shoulder pad needed the sculpted on detail to be removed i began to make a few shallow cuts into the surface of the maltese cross and continued this way until the bulk of the cymbal had been cut away i followed this up with a kind of polishing action which saw me hold the blade of my scalpel perpendicular to the surface as i dragged it across the shoulder this smoothed out the surface and returned it to a featureless surface that i could make my own modifications to later on this process was repeated over the tabard 2. it was a little tricky this time due to the cloth fault but with some careful and steady cutting i was able to remove the second cross as well another decidedly imperial feature was some of the scroll work and purity seals for those on the lower right leg i first used my clippers to remove the overhanging parchment and more prominent parts of the seals before shaving the rest back with my knife i then cut in the detail that would have been behind the seals recreating the segmented armor with a few careful cuts the belt buckle was much more straightforward and simply involved clipping away a small trinket and then tidying up the cut with a knife the parchment around the left forearm was also fairly simple most of this was hidden behind the cloak so i quite easily clipped away the bulk of the parchment and only focused on tidying up the areas that were still visible beneath the folds of the fabric the sword trinket hanging from the tabard was a little harder to remove though like that across the chest the fabric makes it trickier to restore but also the inset position of the trinket also compounded the problem however with a little clipping and some very careful and progressive trims i was able to remove the saw trinket whilst retaining the chain with all the trims completed i could go ahead and glue the torso and the legs together i wanted to add some crude augmentations to the warsmith that would also help to break up the otherwise clean looking torso i began by using my pin vice to drill a few holes into the lower left side of the torso into these i would attach some old guitar strings but first i wrapped them around a paint brush handle to incur a little bend into them it's much easier to do this before you glue it to the model once i'd achieved the desired shape i then cut the wire into a couple of lengths and glued them into some of the drilled holes i still had a few holes left and so into these i glued some lengths of a one millimeter plastic rod once fixed in place i clipped the rods away so just the millimeter or so was left protruding the result was that of intake ports or caps for cables to be attached to completing the cybernetic lock for the left hand i wanted to keep the chain that the original part came with but i didn't want the lantern so this was clipped away and trimmed leaving as much of the chain intact as possible in place of the lantern i chose to attach a trophy i settled on a primerous helmet but before i attached this i first clipped away the neck joints and trimmed the underside flat in addition to this i also added a few cuts and scrapes to give me that battered war-torn look after prepping the helmet and chain i glued everything together including the left shoulder and the part of the cloak i wasn't super happy with the left shoulder though it looked a little blend so i decided to add some studs i've covered this in much more detail in another video which i'll link to above but the basic principle is as follows i first marked out a few evenly spaced points across the shoulder pad using a ruler and a pencil into these points i then drilled shallow holes of around 0.5 millimeters deep using a one millimeter bit once all holes had been drilled i then placed a small amount of super glue into each hole using a length of wire finally one millimeter diameter ball bearings were then placed into each of the holes by only drilling down half of the diameter of the ball the result was that of a rounded stud this played nicely into the iron warrior theme while also helping to add a little extra detail to the blank shoulder pad for the weapon i swapped out helbrecht sword with that of a hammer from the house warlock arms master which is a part of the necromunda range i started this weapon swap by first removing the hammer head from the handle using my knife once removed i trimmed the cut flat before drilling a two millimeter diameter hole into the bottom of the hammer you may find it helpful to drill a smaller one-millimeter pilot hole first with the hole drilled i then glued into it a length of two millimeter plastic rod to create a new clean handle i now needed a new hand to hold onto this hammer and one of the mechanical hands from the original handle would work perfectly alongside the bionic right arm that i already had in the original helbrack kit i first clipped away the right hand from the pole and cleaned up either side of the grip this was followed by yet more drilling first with a one millimeter bit and then with a two millimeter so the rod could be inserted through the palm i clipped the rod down to make it easy to work with but made sure that it was still slightly longer than i thought i would need just in case the hand was then placed onto the handle and the arm was glued to the torso following a little trimming around the wrist this would serve as a reference point for the position of the hand on the hammer later on the hand wasn't sitting quite at the right angle against the wrist so a little trimming was performed to create a better fit and a more realistic angle with this done i could begin bringing everything together the rod was clipped to a reasonable length for a hammer of this size and the hand was glued to the rod at the correct height for the arm i made sure that the bottom of the hammer sat in line with the right foot for my scenic basin later on i finish off the hammer by removing the original pommel and gluing it to the new handle as this conversion was an iron warrior it was a perfect excuse for me to dip into one of my favorite kits the mark 3 space reset from here i liberated a head and shoulder pad but after testing out the head fit i could see that it wasn't quite fitting properly against the gorget so i did a little bit of trimming once again to the front of the helmet and inside of the gauges until the head was fitting a little better at which point i glued it into place finally the shoulder pad was attached to the right arm the final step in building the warsmith was the backpack i still needed a mechanical arm to really get that warsmith flare and fortunately for me the havox kit had a perfect option i grabbed a missile launcher backpack and clipped away the pipe coming from the bottom without the missile launcher this pipe wouldn't be leaning anywhere so could be removed once done i glued the two backpack paths together but kept the arms separate for now i dry fitted the arm and backpack against the body but the pipe on the arm was preventing a good fit so i did a few incremental trims to help flatten out the pipe i didn't need to remove much here only a millimeter or so after checking the fit again i glued the arm to the backpack but i decided to keep the backpack separate to make things easy to paint with the model built i just needed to work on the base as the right leg is slightly raised i would have to include something to mount it on so why not stick a dead imperial fist on the base this is done by grabbing the spare primers torso the head of my bits box and clipping away the back half this would allow me to place the torso flat against the base and create the appearance that the corpse is within the rubble around it rather than just resting on top once i removed some of the legs i glued the torso to the base for the surrounding rocks i reached to my ever useful cork floor tiles and tore them up into some rough edged chunks with a little super glue i placed the larger pieces up to the base first placing it next to the space women's corpse with these in place i added a head and a right arm to the corpse to help fill out the base a little i then grabbed some texture paste and painted it into and around the rocks this not only helped to fill out any empty space but also gave the base a little variation in its textures this was also painted onto the severed limbs of the dead marine to give him that blasted and burnt off appearance finally to help better fix the warsmith to the base and to fulfill my pinning quota for this video i drilled a hole into the underside of the wall smith's left foot and into the base at the point where i would attach it into the hole in the foot i super glued some one millimeter steel wire i cut this to be a lot longer than i needed for the pinning so i could use it as a holder when i came to paint the model speaking of which i began painting my warsmith by applying a black primer the aim here is to create an even surface that will allow the paint to better adhere to the model as the colour scheme would be quite dark starting out with a black would help this along and meant i wouldn't need to worry about the deeper recesses as these would just appear to be in shadow i applied this primer through my airbrush but this wasn't necessary feel free to use a brush on or aerosol based primer instead the first paint that i chose was mahogany and this would be used to create a dirty weather look to the watersmith steel coloured armor unfortunately something went wrong with the footage so i'll just skip ahead to showing you the paint that i applied after this initial layer just make sure that if you're repeating the scheme that you dry brush the mahogany first before applying the dark silver i use dry brushing for both of these steps in order to create some nice texture and to help speed up the paint application i added the paint to my wet part and dipped my brush into it before working the paint evenly through the bristles with just a little paint on the brush i then use some quick strokes across the model's surface as the brush wasn't laden with paint this action caused it to quickly form on the flat areas and raise details of the model whilst leaving the black primer and mahogany still visible in the recesses creating the appearance of shadows as well as a dirty and rustic colour to the steel continuing with the metal i first created a mixture of dark silver and silver which resulted in a metallic that lays somewhere between the two i then use this as a highlight which meant that i focused the application along just the hard edges and details i sharpened up some of these edges a little further by using some silver on its own again i applied this as a highlight but only tackled the sharper edges and corners using some copper i then painted over some of the banding on the model this included areas like the helmet shoulder pad power pack and the hammerhead by using a slightly watered down mixture here i was able to benefit from the shading created by the early dry brushing and highlights following the step i made sure to clean out my brushes and swap out my paint water this just prevents any of those metal flakes from contaminating my other paints with the armor completed i could start to work on the cloak i wanted to give this a heavy leather appearance and so i began with an all-over coat of black brown i made sure to apply a couple of layers of water down black brown to get a good solid starting point from here i created a glaze of black brown burnt sienna and some water with this thin orangey brown mixture i started to apply the paint to the raised folds of the cloak leaving the recesses untouched i built up the glaze gradually allowing it to dry fully between each application which resulted in some nice gradual gradients following this i then applied another glaze but used some burnt sienna on its own i further reduced my area of coverage to continue the gradient i began in the last step i finished off the cloak with some edge highlights of burnt orange i also use this to paint on some small perpendicular lines emanating from the edges of the cloak this created the appearance of damage and tearing perfect for a leather cloak such as this with the cloak finished i could begin to work on the tablet which i'll be applying the iconic iron warrior hazard stripes too to create an even base coat here i began with a coat of blue black the cooler tone of this paint would create a great degree of contrast against the warmer yellow stripes helping them to stand out even further to mark out the stripes i began with some bold titanium white that i thinned out with water i first used this to outline and then block out the light that they went from the bottom right of the model to its top left for the slight fold in the tablet i reverse the direction as it will be showing the rear side of the fabric over these white guidelines i painted on some golden yellow the whites provided an excellent base coat applying the paint to so only a thin layer was needed here to highlight the black bars i created a mixture of the original blue black alongside some dark grey blue this was applied to the top edge of the bar so that it was adjacent to the darker parts of the yellow stripes to paint the helmet i opted to use some burnt red so i could represent an imperial first sergeant i painted the hole the helmet but left the silver dry brush visible over the metal parts and the scratches and dents i'd added earlier the helmet was then highlighted using some bold pyrol red this was also used to paint the walls lenses in his helmet i then mix a little of the red and yellow together and use this to dot the center of the lenses and with that the war smith was complete but i still had the base to paint to paint the dead imperial fist on the base i wanted something that would create a worn and weathered look whilst also being quick to apply i started out with a dry brush over the whole armor using some burnt sienna this orangey brown first coat meant that when i hit the armor with a golden yellow dry brush the yellow covered much more easily and resulted in a brighter final color to help with that scorch look and to create a little stronger definition in the purefest armor i took some transparent black and diluted it with some water this thin wash was then applied over the whole armor where it flowed into all of those recesses and darkened them down i also used some undiluted transparent black and use it to block out some of the details such as the chester queen pipes and other non armor items this wash was pretty strong and quite similar to contrast paints when undiluted so covers these areas really nicely for the rocks i wanted a rich iron oxide appearance so i started with a burnt red dry brush over this i then applied a slightly lighter dry brush of burnt orange to give the base a much more realistic ground texture and to help blend the base into the rest of the model i grabbed myself some light rose pigments from mig using an old brush i applied the dusty pigment across the whole base making sure to get into all the recesses in the rock and around the dead space marine you have to go a little heavier with this particular step because when you apply varnish you'll find that the pigment loses its intensity a little bit in addition to applying this to the base i also brushed it around the bottom of the war smith focusing mainly around the feet low legs and the bottom edge of the cloak these small steps go a long way to tie the model into the location i'm trying to depict them on with the pigment applied i could go ahead and vanish the model so that both the glossiness was eliminated and the miniature was protected i did this through an airbrush but an aerosol spray works too just make sure your first coat is very light you don't want to saturate the pigment with the varnish as it will lose that dusty effect so lightly apply your first layer give it a chance to dry and then just build up the varnish steadily with the varnish clean i added some glue to the wire nearest the foot and inserted it into the base adding a little more glue to the underside from here i clipped away the wire and repeated this process on the backpack however i did scrape away some of the paint from the contact points to ensure i achieved the best possible bond with that done i was left with this [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] and here we have the completed iron warrior war smith converted from high marshall halbrecht of the black templars seeing the finnish model i'm really happy with how it came out i think the replacement of the sword with a giant hammer work particularly well i could maybe have gone a little heavier on the chaos theme with this guy but i think the dead primaries on the base and the hazard stripes across the tabard clearly sing this guy out as an iron warrior i'd love to hear what you thought about this guide and if you have any ideas for other conversions you'd like to see me tackle in the future videos then let me know in the comments below all the paints used in this guide are from the pro kill range and i'll include a list of them in the description along with some affiliate links so if you're looking to try out some of these things for yourself while supporting me in the process i would be extremely grateful speaking of which let me say a huge thank you to my ever generous supporters currently my top supporters on patreon are jonathan hart berserker daniel dowling dakota destroyer jake jeremy kelp jesse smith casper lindborg merrick mr grimm sweden and tim so big thank you to you guys and if you also support me on patreon buy me a coffee or you just use my food's links then it is a kind-hearted people such as yourselves that allow me to fund the kits and tools required to build these conversions i've also added some merch rewards to a few of my patreon tiers too so if you want some pete the wall gamma branded stickers mugs or clothing whilst also helping me out in the process then be sure to check those out in the links below and so until next time thanks for watching and goodbye [Music] you

Channel: Pete The Wargamer

Views: 152,924

Keywords: Wargaming, Miniatures, Warhammer, Games Workshop, Tabletop, Tutorial, Guide, How To, warhammer 40k

Id: LQekJxkQtOY

Length: 18min 20sec (1100 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 13 2021