Step 1: Build an Awesome Model. Not everyone likes to convert their model, but this collection focuses on those who go all out to make unique or brand new models from spare bits, lots of putty, and pure imagination.

These are my collection of Good Reads 2016 Building Articles pulled from my bi-weekly Good Reads post, emailed in links that I missed, and a few posts of my own. Click through and check them out, bookmark it for later, and don’t miss the other Good Reads 2016 Collections:

• Good Reads 2016 Main Page
• Good Reads 2016 Painting Articles
• Good Reads 2016 Inspirational Articles
• Good Reads 2016 Gaming Articles
• Good Reads 2016 Humor and Story Articles

Dark Eldar Incubi Conversions

The clever and amazing NafNaf has put together yet another crazy cool unit for his Dark Eldar, a carnival themed army of creepy clowns and circus monsters. The new unit is a fantastic conversion of Incubi with top hats.

In fact, NafNaf is making such creating stuff, that Thor from Creative Twilight also featured his Incubi in a Blogger Showcase.

Thousand Sons Jetbikes

Modian is a machine when it comes to building and painting armies. This time, he is back to his Thousand Sons (third take now?) and included clever jet bike conversions using High Elf chariots.

Creating Rock Bases

Scott has been painting up a bunch of characterful models from Super Dungeon Explorer and creating fantastic looking bases for them. In a two-part series, he shows how he built and painted the rocky outcropping above. Though he kept the secret of the flowers out of this post.

A Little Village

Everyone dreams of battling over a fantastic table, covered in great looking buildings that set the scene.  John Stiening decided to do this for his Bolt Action games and create almost a whole town of plaster buildings. The cool thing about doing them in plaster is he has created a number of ruins out of it as well.

Custom Models Through Kitbashing

As part of the Dreadtober series of tutorials, I wrote up some tips on kitbashing models with pinning, minor sculpting, and simple conversions – taking the Blood Angles Furioso and turning into a Mentor Legion Ironclad.

Making Mud

James Wappel is best known for his ‘shaded basecoat’ technique and painting amazing models super fast. He does some great tutorials around the other aspects of the hobby including this great look at how he made very convincing mud basesfor his Bolt Action tanks.

Building a Thermoplasma Generator

With spare parts and a bit of foam, Marc built this cool looking Thermoplasma Generator for his Dark Angles to fight over. I like the little touches like the tool box and hammer sitting next to the control panel.

Cleaning Resin

I’ve personally only done small accessories in resin, but I’ve seen plenty of problems with building and painting with it. TheBigGoldFish put together a post on cleaning resin kits to make sure that all your hard work stays put.

Magnetising the Stormhawk

The new Stormhawk is a fantastic addition to the Space Marine flyers, adding that hard and fast flyer to their fleet. Corrm from St. Andrews Wargaming wrote up how he added magnets to the weapons and how his thoughts on the new flyer with the updated flyer rules.

Custom Grot Bikers

Do you have some spare bits that need a model? Blazmo shames us all with his amazing creation of custom Grot skorchas built with scrap. Some awesome crazy mek work there – and hard to tell where some of the pieces come from, and when you do, the creativity required is impressive!

Slaughtersmith

Combining fantasy (or Age of Sigmar I guess) models into the 40k world can create some awesome characters. Thomas took the Slaughterpriest and created a custom Warpsmith for his army. Shows what you can do with spare bits and some guitar string.

Magnetizing a Knight

Mike has finished up his White Scars (only for the moment, I’m sure!) to build up a Knight Titan. But he wanted to do ALL the knight types… Solution: magnetize every bit of the Knight. He shows how with a ton of pictures so you can give it a try as well.

3D Printed Halftrack

At some point 3D printing may take over miniature production and Cadaver shows how some details and a nice paint job can make it easy to overlook the rough printing.

Keeper of Secrets

Not one to wait another dozen years for the model, WestRider converted his own Slaanesh Demon Prince from a Vermin Lord. It’s an incredible twist on the Dark Princelings.

Getting the Right Lighting

Having the right lighting for your hobby space is critical. Wolfsherz reviews the Triple Tube light and how it works for his hobby space.

Magnetized Hills

Creating scratch terrain isn’t as common as it once was with the plethora of gaming companies creating awesome sets. But hills are always a great addition and fairly easy to make. Dagger and Brush put together a guide for creating hill with magnetsto hold on trees.

Building a Boat

I’m not sure how this fits into our hobby, but I thought it was a cool diversion. Alex created a step-by-step tutorial for how he built this boat from wooden coffee stir sticks. Now that’s scratch built!

Building a Custom Base

A model’s base can be tricky business. Make it too simple, and the model looks simple, make it too busy, and it drowns out the model. One solution is to buy some of the amazing resin bases on the market, but sometimes you want to create a custom base yourself.

Making Wargaming Trees

Peithetairos creates artful scenes for his wargaming tables, with trees being a big part. It’s not a typical tutorial, but he gets a ton of advice for taking basic plastic/wire trees and turning them into realistic forests. A ton of reference shots and little details to add in.

Forrest Themed Bases

Adding a bit of color to your base is a nice touch, adding flora to a forest dwelling army is an extra special touch. Giving some tips in doing so, is The Fantasy Hammer’s Night Goblin Basing Tutorial. With a collection of different materials you can create a nice looking scene for them.

Lots of Nurgle Green Stuff

Rory is at it again with sharing one of his buddy’s work, this time with Svartmetall and his custom sculpted Nurgle army. There is a serious amount of awesome there that you really need to check out. My favorite is the Helbrute above, but there are a ton of other conversions in there as well.

Trying to Make Snow

Add snow to bases is one of the ways to add a story to where the models are fighting. But to make it looks believable can be hard. Wanting to test out some ideas, The Fantasy Hammer built up 8 ‘bases’ and tried different techniques on each. It’s a nice way to try something new.

Chaos Trolls

Not happy with the standard Troll models, GuitaRasmus put his crazy-awesome conversion skills to work and built up a trio of Chaos Trolls and a Soul Grinder. Some amazing creativity in these models and all those extra limbs.

DIY Candles for Scenery

In the gothic world of 40k or craziness of AoS, candles add a nice touch. Nazroth put together a nice tutorial on how he adds tiny candles to his bases – with and without flames. Other than trying to drill a teeny hole in a toothpick, they look super simple to do.

A Blood Pack Too Far

Big Boss Red Skulls has been on a building crazy between INQ28 models, Silver Tower conversions, and now this Blood Pack bio tank monster! Some amazingly creative conversions in there.

Building a Golden Demon Winner

As part 1 of this series, Rory shares how Kirsten built her Golden Demon winning duel between a Dark Eldar Wych and a Seraphan. Did you realize it was a metal model perched up top there?

Mountain out of Molehills

Need some huge line-of-sight blocking terrain to hide from those titans? Want it quick and cheap? Grenn Dal relives the great days of DIY hobby and pink foam with these mountains of rock.

Adding LEDs to Your Model

I keep planning on adding LEDs to a few of my vehicles and appreciate Andrew’s article on how simple it can be to add lights to your tanks. It’s a great way to add some extra cool to already neat miniatures.

Budget Buildings with Realistic Look

For those who think they need to buy all sorts of expensive plastic kits to fight over, Clyde reminds us that you can make nice looking terrain from cardboard and plaster. With a little work you can have nice looking containers to block line of sight and fight over.

War Torn Bases

The model’s base can add drama to the scene or help characters stand out. The Fantasy Hammer out together this nice tutorial on building rubble strew urban bases. By using layers of different material you can build up a nice looking base yourself.

DIY Tyranid Bastion

What do you do if your army doesn’t have it’s unique terrain kits to build a bastion from? Well, Warhammer39,999 took a toy tree monster and turned it into a massive bio-beast-fortress. With plenty of extra bits and plenty of green stuff this looks great.

Wrap Up

I hope you enjoyed a look back at some of the AMAZING things your fellow hobbyists have done and shared through their blogs. Make sure you visit as many as you can and leave them a comment with your thoughts and encouragement.

And don’t forget the other Good Reads 2016 Collections:

• Good Reads 2016 Main Page
• Good Reads 2016 Painting Articles
• Good Reads 2016 Inspirational Articles
• Good Reads 2016 Gaming Articles
• Good Reads 2016 Humor and Story Articles