It's Gettin Hot in Here: Unfortunate Plasma Gunner Alied Poelgeest

Hungry Ghosts has been working on a second headquarters unit, under the command of Colonel Iron Beard Schtarken, because that's exactly what you need to do instead of finishing your tanks and bikers.

Actually, our Headquarters troopers are the result of restructuring. Plasma Gunner Poelgeest was intended for The Underdeepers squadron before I decided that they would all be Perry brothers sculpts with caps on their heads, while this Squat is a Bob Olley edition.

The compact nature of this sculpt didn't leave much opportunity for conversion, so I decided to complete him in the "Gets Hot!" stage of the life of a Plasma Gunner. The exploding Plasma Gun uses tree-scenery fluff for the plasma, Japanese Cherry Blossom and white glue, with paint for the transition from white-hot to red-hot.

The explosion gave the opportunity to experiment a bit with source-lighting effects, and Spc Poelgeest has been given extra stark highlights on his face and his clothing that faces the exploding plasma. His giant rat compadre is also well-lit on the plasma side. But he already has extra legs, mysterious spikes, and open sores, so he's more likely to survive the plasma-explosion than our Gunner.

I also, of course, found some space for minor converting, adding a Battlefleet Gothic gun bit to the top of the Plasma Gun near Poelgeest's face. It helps fill the gap in the diagonal line created by the form of the plasma that leads up to Poelgeest's hat.

This front-to-back diagonal line-of-sight is also prominent from the back-left view. Where it is complicated by the creation of another diagonal along the left-to-right axis, with the gold symbol on the shoulder pad joined by the Potato-Masher Grenade (Rogue Trader Space Orks sprue) that ends with a severed Daemonette head. Because exactly what you need as a Plasma-Gunner is some grenades to amplify your meltdown.

From the front-left, Poelgeest is revealed to have a leaning backward footing, helping to give the impression that he is getting knocked back by the exploding gun. The added Daemonette head, in addition to being lunch, adds to the appearance of falling back by jutting chin-out away from Poelgeest. And also sets up another diagonal axis of view leading from the triple-layered BFG gun bit accross the triple-lined shoulder pad to the bright pink head. And I finally got to use that ridiculous Imperial Purple paint.

Here is our final view from the back, with the dead eyes of the Daemonette staring back at us. As well as the full horribleness of Alied's Brillo-pad mullet hair-style. There was also a bit of room to add more of the brass/brown hue to the mini, so I added an iron-cross symbol to his back (from a Black Templars accessory bit), snugly fitting the space between hair and grenade. Whoever is behind this exploding Squat is getting some shrapnel.

This is another mini where none of the conversion work involved cutting off anything - from this side we can see that the plasma was glued onto the Plasma Gun instead of replacing any part of it.

Here's another picture of Spc Poelgeest charging ahead of the rest of the Iron Beard Command Unit.

One more of Iron Beard and Company having some friendly rough-housing with a squad of World Eaters Space Marines. Remember when holding training exercises with the World Eaters: They are ALL live-fire exercises. Helmets on. Got that, Trainee Squad Leader Rico?