Hello any and all, today is the start of a brand spanking new series looking at all the wonderful conversions the talented artists of this hobby produce. If you've ever sat there after an 8 hour building session, wondering how you could develop a brain tumour faster in the future, consider getting into converting. This is a skill requiring patience, imagination, and a small amount of DIY know-how. The experts of this really do produce results that are mind blowing, and they deserve a place to be featured and shown off.
Our first conversion expert is James Derwin of @derwinhobby. He is an exceptional painter, but has recently been working on his conversion project; the 'genecast'. If you haven't guessed what the combination of models are to make the conversions, I'll let your uncle take you round the back of the barn with a shotgun in hand. It's kinder that way. However, maybe we'll let James tell you about his conversions before such a drastic measure.
I started painting the Genecast in 2019. The idea of doing the head-swap came before I collected the models. I had a chaos spawn head, and I thought that would be interesting as a weird sorcerer for my Maggotkin army. However it didn’t quite go with anything and then I thought it might look good on the Lord Arcanum on Gryph-charger model, which it did. So I thought about making an evil Stormcast army from that, then as I had head-swap already in my mind, I thought about the Genestealer Cult heads which are fantastic.
The whole plan fell into place. Just using easy head-swaps I could theme a whole army. The Stormcast were readily available and quite cheap miniatures, I started off buying some Sequitors from eBay which I’m guessing were from the magazine, because they came in odd numbers. The Stormcast were all sacrosanct models which are kinda like the warrior monks. I have tried to match the different GSC heads with different unit types, such as using acolyte hybrid heads, the 2nd-gen work really well as female Stormcast, which is just ‘chef’s kiss’, or the Abbarents as annihilators to represent the larger strength and bone structure. I also tended to use the weirder heads for the characters, I like to have something in the sculpt translate to a narrative on the conversion. In the Sequitors and the Vindictors, both have a very Genestealer-esque colour scheme from different eras.
As the army started to develop, it really started to take on its own character. I love how there is a sense of an advanced xenos type culture in AOS, who possess the same kind of predatory, cold and calculating alien vibes of Genestealers but in combination with a technologically advanced society full of mysticism and social hierarchies. So then the army started to develop a narrative, in which they hail from an extra dimension where they exist in these vast mirrored ziggurats that float blackly in the void. Similar to the Stormcast they deepstrike into battle and reincarnate in the ether when destroyed. Are these the ancient forbears of a pre-Tyranid race visiting our known AOS universe or seeking to migrate into it because of some kind of existential threat. Perhaps the latter Tryanids are mere shadows of a once great race, devolved and cruel. Maybe devolution was a matter of survival or consequence from which they are trying to escape, in the AOS and 40k time line, the nature of the race becoming as ferocious as it is desperate further along the timeline. Is the ultimate destruction of all life their goal, or are they only looking to safeguard their own existence through appropriating genetic material. Whatever it is they’re seeking, the stakes are high.
Anyway as you can tell, I love the army and the rich narrative I have developed really enthuses me.
Well, can you tell? If you can't, we'll just have to refer back to your weird uncle and his gun. James has done such an amazing job in creating an overall atmosphere and lore that feels so natural within the world of Warhammer. Whilst the conversions themselves are relatively simple, mostly featuring head swaps, it's the world and story James is creating that makes this converted army so impressive. Also, it obviously helps that James is an expert painter, and the colour scheme he has chosen to use is beautiful and vibrant. Let me include a few more pictures of the 'genecast' so you can see for yourself.
Truly a fantastically beautiful army, and one that will always be completely original and unique. I think that's perhaps my favourite thing about conversions; the fact that they are literally one of a kind. I'm sure James is proud of his work, and if he's not, he absolutely should be. I'm looking forward to seeing more miniatures being added to this army. Given how many possible sculpts there are of Stormcast, James certainly has his work cut out for him!
I want to thank James for his time in writing up this little piece for us, as well as providing the imagery to go along with it. Please make sure you go and check out James' page over at @derwinhobby to take a closer look at his conversion project, and keep up to date with all his future work!
As this is a new article series, I'm on the hunt for cool conversions, so please do get in touch if you've got some converted work you'd like to talk about, because I would love to have you. You can contact me via plasticpreacher@gmail.com or @plasticpreacher on Instagram.
Thank you for reading!
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