The date is set…. and 26th November 2017 will soon be upon us so I guess its time to start preparations for for this year’s Warhammer 40,000 Golden Demon competition.

Having a quick look through the 7 categories available this year I’ve decided to enter Duel. It’s a fun category to do and I enjoy the extra challenge of making two miniatures look like they are smashing chunks out of each other as well as trying to produce two well painted figures that will catch the judges eye.

With all the amazing figures flying out of Games Workshop at the moment and the recent launch of Warhammer 40,000 8th Edition I thought it would be a great little project to use the two heroes from the Dark Imperium boxed set.  I must admit I was a little hesitant to take a scalpel to these two fantastic sculpts at first, but it seemed like a good challenge to get me back into the hobby.

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First task is to come up with a ‘dynamic pairing’ where these two heroes look like they are actually fighting to the death instead of just two miniatures standing near one another on the same base. Time to break out the blu-tack and try and work out some ideas.

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These are really rough poses and they will almost certainly have to change as I pin everything in place and start to re-sculpt details on each figure but for now I’m pretty happy with these poses though… especially the Nurgle hero with his open pose so I can show off all the amazing gut details.

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I’ve started to remove details that were getting in the way of the new pose so I can begin pinning the figure. I think there is going to be a lot of re-sculpting of details on this guy as his pose is being changed so much, but should be good fun to do.

I’ve also taken opportunity to remove his trophy from his back as it’s going to be easier to paint separately now the axe is going to be raised in front of it and I’ll pin it in place at the end.

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I’ve added some armature wire (I find paperclips are great for this) ready to start setting the pose of the arms and secured it in place with some Green Stuff epoxy putty. I’ve also removed the foot as I wanted to re-sculpt it in a slightly different angle so help with the new pose.

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Sadly I’m going to need to wait until the Green Stuff had hardened, so I’ll pick up things again in the morning.