Plague Drone conversion, part 1

I'm a fan of Father Nurgle. I like to see rusted and decayed things. I like most of the artwork. And I really like the Forgeworld Blight Drone. However, I do not have the funds to buy one for Inquisitor (or Killteam) and to be honest, it is a bit big! But according to the fluff Blight Drones come in various shapes, so I assume they come in various sizes too :)

I spent some time online to see if people made look a like conversions before (they did) and if I liked them (up to a point). People use the more affordable Plague Drones for this, and I picked out 2 conversions that I liked the most.

This one:

What I like:

• It's a tutorial video. Someone has taken time to make one so other can make it. I call that cool :)
• The idea for the eye

What I don't like:

• Weedy engines, and much too clean
•  The tail
• For some reason the inverted pose makes it feel like a slow and lumbering bumblebee. 
• Why hide all of the details of the abdomen!

But there is also this, The tale of Spunky

What I like:

• Big engines!
• Pose, if a bit hunched
• Guns like the original

What I don't like:

• I like the idea, but it is missing something. It doesn't feel complete to me.

So, what did I do? Well, make up my mind first. I liked the first one better for some reason but it needed bigger engines, so I ordered the Robogear vehicle that has them (only 3.50 euro for the entire kit) and some Plague Drone bits like the body and a set of legs from a bits supplier for 8 euros. The carapache I already had. These other bits arrived 2 days ago and tonight I finally have the time to sit down and play with the bits.

But it didn't do anything for me. Drat. Now what? I wanted one cause it looked cool, I spent money on parts and it just doesn't click. So back to looking at pics of the Blight Drone and playing around with the parts that I got. I had already opened up the abdomen and inserted some srpue bits, so I turned the entire thing around, in the original Plague Drone position.

I then got the Space Marine turret hatch bit (mine is the Chaos one) and reversed that so it now had top cover for the eye. Now the armour plates are mostly ok, I will just need to sculpt a new cover one for part of the SM Turret hatch bit. Since the number of Nurgle is 3, why not give it 3 eyes, but not 3 infront, but 1 in front and 2 on the sides (or maybe even more?). I fillled in the sprue bits with superglue and maizena and set it aside to dry in the upright position, so I could now dryfit the engine parts till I found that the slightly tilted forward and exhausts tilted outward, away from the sides works best for me.

And then I dropped 1 of the bloody engines on the floor right in between a pile of boxes underneath my cluttered desk. Cue swearing and sweating while I bend underneath a table in the hot exhaust of my pc with a little handheld light, searching for the damned thing. After 15 minutes Kim came up to see what I was doing, and she asked if she could help. I gladly accepted and 5 minutes later she fishes the thing out of a box in the pile that I'm sure I searched twice. Shows what I can do.

After thanking her she started asking questions about what it is I'm making. After a short Chaos gods in 40K course I came to the shortest , apt, description I could find. A big mechanised fly that shoots back when you try to swat it. There. Apt enough?

Anyway, I stuck the engines on with bluetack and took some shots of how it stands now.

As it stands now, more upright, and the head bit angled downwards towards normal sized miniatures, I feel it looks a lot more menacing then the other conversions.

What I need to do now is:

• Let the idea fester in my head :P
• Resculpt the top armour a bit so it covers the head bit partially, leaving most of the cabling exposed.
• Add 3 or 4 gun(barrels) underneath the head, not too much, I don't want to overpower it.
• Add cabling from the engines to the top and bottom hole
• Add leggs to the first 2 holes in the body (this means ordering more legs)
• Greenstuff up the engines so the look more organically armoured and suitably Nurgle, Also, add spike coming from the center angled downwards.
• If I'm ordering up more bits, why not add the parts for another one? I'm quite enjoying this :) (meaning no I can't cause I don't have any money right now, unless I sell more stuff. But not needing a Carnifex carapache does bring the costs down a bit.)

Quite chuffed now, I am :)