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Go Big, or Go Mutant!?? Chaos Giant Conversion

Since Games Workshop just released some cool new Warriors Of Chaos models for Warhammer Fantasy I thought it might be good timing to talk about creating large centerpieces for that army.

After all if you love Chaos you probably love monsters and the bigger the better! Giants are a classic monster from many ancient mythologies and legends and converting one for Chaos can be a monstrously fun project.

I’ve been collecting Chaos Warriors and all things Chaos related for both Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 since I first discovered GW back in 1989.

In fact my first ever GW purchase was a blister of Chaos Warriors similar to the blister of Chaos Renegades pictured at right from the Realm Of Chaos model range.

Initially I used them for my D and D roleplaying campaign and my first Chaos Marine models were used as custom villains for Avalon Hill’s Lords Of Creation science fantasy role playing game, but as my collection grew the models became full blown Warhammer armies.

A couple years ago I decided to update my Warriors Of Chaos collection by giving them a Warhammer Giant to call their own.

Of course, he couldn’t just look like any old Giant, he had to be a mutated Chaos monstrosity like so many of my favorite miniatures from the Realm Of Chaos. Generic looking giants may be terrifying enough for other armies, but if you’re going Chaos I say go mutant!

This meant of course that I’d have to scrounge some cool bits from my bits box and maybe use some Kneadatite (“Green Stuff”) for a little bit of sculpting work.

In this case I knew almost immediately that I’d be searching through my Games Workshop Chaos Spawn leftover parts. I also wanted to give the giant a different weapon than just the ones that come with him and the large sword from the Chaos Daemons Soulgrinder kit immediately sprang to mind. Sometimes when you’re inspired by a Chaos conversion project the powers of Chaos will lead you quickly to parts you’ll need.

Luckily the Warhammer Giant comes with some Chaos options on the sprue and I definitely wanted those parts for this project. My first step in converting was to sculpt over the upper face and forehead of the horned Chaos Giant head using the aforementioned Green Stuff and inserted a single small eyeball from the Chaos Spawn kit into it, sculpting carefully around the plastic sphere so that the end result had a natural organic look to it.

Next I used a tentacle arm from the Spawn kit for the Giant’s right hand and clipped and attached the hilt of the Soulgrinder sword so that the tentacle hand appears to be gripping it. My final bit of conversion work on the front of the model was to add one of the squid-like Chaos Spawn maws where the Giant’s navel normally would be.

Here’s a work in progress photo below. You can see the Green Stuff work on the face and a little bit around the tentacle right hand as well. The work on the hand was necessary to make the tentacles appear fully formed around the hilt of the sword. 

The photo directly below shows a front view of  the finished project fully painted. I used a bright flesh tone in this case, creating a translucent mix and blend of various Citadel paints including a little of their pale green flesh color as I wanted just a hint of unnatural sickly pallor to him.

However, I didn’t stop at the front of the model. I also added a tail and some curved spines from the Chaos Spawn kit to his back as shown in the photo below. With the hooves for feet provided in the Giant kit this monster would be touched by Chaos literally from head to toe.

I also added a pile of other models to my Warriors Of Chaos army around the time I finished this Giant a couple summers ago, but that’s another hobby article for another time. I’m also hoping to add a Warshrine and a few other new models soon.

Chaos for me is pure chaos in that I can’t stop working on it no matter how big the collection gets. Games Workshop liked my Chaos Giant enough to use it on their What’s New Today blog on January 10, 2011 (though for some reason Dakkadakka users didn’t seem to care for it much, it could use a boost if you’d take a moment to click the voting buttons).

I hope you’ve enjoyed a peek at this project as well.

I really enjoyed this project as it’s the kind of thing that’s kept me excited about fantasy modeling for more than two decades. By the way, the photo of the two-headed Giant fighting a serpent at the top of this article is a still from a 1962 fantasy film called Jack The Giant Killer. It’s a silly and fun movie with Kerwin Matthews and clearly a lesser knock-off of the wonderful Ray Harryhausen The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad that preceded it just a few years earlier. 

The stop motion animation in Jack The Giant Killer is inferior to the Sinbad film as is the story and dialogue. Rifftrax (former writers and stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000) recently made fun of it in a live show that’s available on DVD if you like a good laugh. Monster movies and Mystery Science Theater 3000 (and its successor projects, Rifftrax and Cinematic Titanic) are two of my other passions alongside Warhammer.

About the Author: BrassScorpion