Chaos Centaur of Tzeentch
Q. What do you get if you cross a Chaos Centaur of Tzeentch, and a zebra?
A. A “Tzebra”.
Presenting Tzebra Doomstripe, the latest monster to swell the ranks of my vintage Warhammer collection.
This tzoological monstrosity was my entry into the “Make a Trish” competition in the Oldhammer Community. Challengers had a month to model and paint a Trish Carden miniature, and the Mistress of Monsters herself would pick a favourite.
Tzebra is not one actually one Trish Carden monster, but two mashed together. The MM94/1 Chaos Centaur Lord was a metal human torso designed to be fitted to the standard plastic Warhammer horse torso (henceforth: “horso”). But the plastic horso had spindly legs that looked wrong with the human torso’s majestically beefy barbarian arms, so I decapitated Trish’s MM83 High Elf Unicorn and used it as a replacement horso. This new unicorn part is, importantly, also saddle-free – Tzebra is a Lord of Chaos and tolerates no riders upon his horso.
To nudge Tzebra into Tzeentch’s visual territory, I swapped his barbarian broadsword for a scratch-built khopesh. His helmet plume was switched for a plastic Ork topknot, whose flowing lines better matched the new unicorn tail. Historically, these helmet plumes were made from dyed horsehair, meaning Tzebra has made a hat decoration out of his own bodyhair.
The skin was painted light blue at first (using a modified version of the Ur-Ghul recipe Patreon backers have access to), and had dark blue strips added afterwards. I did a digital mockup of the colours to experiment with continuing the zebra strips onto the human elements, and also to work out if the blue and white stripes that worked in my imagination would look too “Bananas in Pyjamas” (thankfully not).
Tzebra didn’t win Trish’s competition, losing out to Jonathan Marshall’s atmospheric Albion Fenbeast. You can check out a gallery of all the entries here . Thanks to Asslessman for organising the competition, and Trish for judging and providing the prize.
More tzany Tzeentch creations coming soon!
That’s one glorious model and It’s a treat to see in details like this, it looks even more impressive !
Thanks JB! I had a blast doing the shield too, coming up with an Egyptian type design to reinforce the Tzeentch theme!
It’s funny we used the same model base, and they both look like the were made for the conversions. Everything turned out seamless on yours man. All the little extra details are just perfect when if finally got a chance to tzoom in. ;)
Cheers Grove! I was a little worried you’d be doing stripes on your Unicorn too. It’s interesting how I chose it because it didn’t have a saddle, and you sculpted a saddle on yours so it could be ridden.
A wonderful conversion with an equally impressive paintjob. The patterning on the stripes looks very natural. You have a mighty talent for shields too.
Thanks Dave! I based the shield off a mummy sarcophagus I saw in a Cambridge museum, to give him extra Egypt points.
Tzerrific work! I love this one. Both composition and paintjob are awesome.
Thanks Suber!
Absolutely brilliant, Curis!
Cheers Warb!
Hi Chris, great conversion. The torso is well positionned in the axe of the front legs of the Unicorn. The gap between the two parts is well hidden too.
Paint job is awesome as usual. Zebra is a timeless patern for four footed Chaos animals. Great choice.
Thanks Nico! I’m surprised the join came off – there was only a tiny bit of gap filling with plastic putty to do, and the big strap on the original Trish sculpt disguises the transition.
I was desperate to see more pictures of this guy after the teasing single competition entry shot, and this doesn’t disappoint. The modifications are carefully considered and very natural. The painting is, as ever, wonderful – those zebra stripes are beautifully rendered. Lovely!
Thanks axiom! I was cautious modifying the sculpt, as it felt slightly against the spirit of the competition – a bit like changing the words to a song when you do a cover version. But I was desperate to make the “tzebra” joke, and had to get the miniature away the generic unaligned Chaos look. Glad I got to show that the stripes were done all over, and not just from the one competition shot. (Though I’ve done a few minor changes since the competition, like the gem on the shield and more tufts.)
This is a beautiful conversion, the added bulk of the Unicorn gives him a really heroic stature. And an amazing paint job to boot. I don’t envy painting that skin patterning, but it looks spot on.
It was a truly fantastic entry into a challenge full of wonderful figures.
I really need to do a write up of the Fenbeast for my much ignored blog. A lot of my hobby posting ends up on Instagram now just due to ease, but I think it’s something I should really try to document for posterity.
I’m still pondering what to actually do with the figure I received from Trish too, it’s got to be something special for a unique figure.
Bam! That’s you added to the blogroll!
I think the competition was between your Fenbeast and that lovely Hydra. I’m going to be studying yours in more detail when I get to painting my own casting around October time – I really like how you worked to make all the sludgy areas different and distinct, and put all the work into bulding a marshland base. It’s so much further on than the old Studio job!
Thanks for the comments! I almost went with a Gorkamorka Mutie horso (which was another Trish sculpt), but it looked to reptilian and had him look like a Dragon Ogre.
Fantastic conversion and beautiful paintwork on top of it – well done, mate!
Thanks Azazel!