Thursday, July 22, 2021

GUEST SHOWCASE: Manel's Mechanicus


The moment I came across this army on Instagram I was blown away. Manel has made such an evocative looking Mechanicus army using a variety of models, amazing conversions, and a seriously sharp looking color scheme. Not only that, but his photos of the models with their scenic backgrounds are stunning! I knew right away that I had to ask him to share his models and his thoughts behind them here on Mengel Miniatures.

Manel: I started this army about two years ago, when I was testing new rusty metal techniques using some Mechanicus models I had. I quickly found a metal recipe that I liked a lot, combining a dark metal with very bright rust spots. I decided I would paint a little Admech army using this recipe. The next step was choosing a good color for clothes to complement the metal.


I remembered a tutorial I found on this website, Kharadron Overlords of Barak-Mor, that had a recipe for green clothes that I thought would fit pretty well next to the rusty bright orange. I was quite happy with the results.


For the bases I went for something simple. I imagined this army in a desert-like environment. So I just glued sand and some little rocks so that the real protagonist was the model itself.


I like planning my armies so I can paint a big part of the model fast, and then pay more attention to some other parts that might be more interesting or representative. In this army the fast part is usually the rusty metal, then clothes and details are painted with more accurately.


Something I really like is taking pictures of the models surrounded by scenery, so as a side project I’ve been painting a whole board in this Industrial style that you can see in the background of each picture.


What would an Admech army be without vehicles though? I’ve always loved Knights so I added two Armiger Moirax, and now I’m planning to paint a big one, probably a Stiryx, that looks like a bigger version of a Moirax.


As Knights often look very steady, I slightly moved the legs for this one to make it look a little more dynamic and aggressive.


For my characters I wanted something unique, so I converted some of them, starting with my Archmagos Dominus, the one who will lead this army into battle. This conversion was made with a Tech-Priest Manipulus body, bits from Armigers Warglaives, and some pieces I modeled and printed. I usually play this model as Belisarius Cawl.


I made my Skitarii Marshal using Glaurio Ven Alten from Cursed City. One thing that played in my favour was that the human scale in AoS is slightly bigger than in 40K, so the model stands out next to all normal Skitarii models and looks even more imposing.


My favourite AoS army are Nighthaunts, and I never got the opportunity to paint Liekoron the Executioner, so I decided I would use him for this army. The bottom part and the axe is from a Tech-Priest Dominus. I also added some techno-braids on his head from Negavolt Cultists models.


That's it for this army so far. You can follow me on my Instagram to find more of my work, and big thanks for the Showcase Tyler!

Tyler: I want to thank Manel for taking the time to write this up and send me all of the pictures. I'm not going to lie, that last model with the Nighthaunt bits is what first caught my eye, and wouldn't you know, he has a great looking Nighthaunt army on his Instagram too! I highly recommend you click on the link above and take a look at the rest of his minis and armies.

Until next time,

Tyler M.

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