"Counts As" Continued

As with my last posting I wanted to share images of my ever growing list of "counts as" models present in my Praetorian army. 

From left to right we have Gunnery Sergeant Harker, an Imperial Priestess, Guardsman Marbo, and finally Colonel "Iron Hand" Straken. 

All but the priestess were converted by Drew Olds of Garden Ninja Painting while the priestess was converted from a regular Praetorian trooper by Andrew Miles who also converted my female "Creed" and "Kell" figures.

These figures are all converted with a combination of GW parts and "green stuff" putty.  Harker is carrying a Valkyrie door gunner heavy bolter, while the priestess' Evicerator chainsword was custom made by Drew Olds from GW bits. Likewise, the mechanical arm on "Iron Hand" Straken was also sculpted from scratch.  My contributions have varied as far as directing how the conversions of these figures should take effect. For Harker I had a clear idea of which Praetorian figure I wanted to use and which bits would be appropriate. In the case of Straken I left the majority of the design up to Drew because the figure required so much alteration I didn't want to step on his creative toes (so to speak).  Regardless of my level of involvement in the creation of these miniatures  I am really fond of these unique figures and thankful for people like Mr. Olds and Mr. Miles who have the talent to bring an idea to life via miniature sculpture.  Their contributions have allowed me to incorporate units into my army that I wouldn't normally be able to use due to the discontinued nature of the Praetorian range.

I am trying something new with my photos by including a desert background to make the shots seem more realistic. This is the first attempt at using such a background and while I might not use it for photographs focused on showcasing a model's paint job I do like the idea of creating "realistic" snapshots of my army for narrative purposes.

As I stated in a previous posting I have most of the characters from the Imperial Guard codex in my army. The remaining character that I was interested in adding was Sergeant Bastonne.  I really like his background story which is enough for me to want a figure of him in my army. I still haven't decided upon what direction aesthetically he should go in so for now he remains rather ephemeral.    

One last shot of the back of the priestess...I just love her wildly huge chainsword.