The Butcher (Goldar conversion #3)

The Butcher

Goldar conversion #3

Continuing with the Goldar conversions (See, my Flesh Golem and Um the barbarian for the previous two), here is The Butcher (Original name I know).

First a look at the finished miniature (Still need to do the base but ah well).

My inspiration for this character was to be the leader of a cannibal cult and to try to get further from the original Goldar model.  As a cannibal, I wanted to have him to have an overweight strongman kind of physique and making him part-orc made his large size make sense.

The WIP

I didn't take as many in-progress pictures as I should have, but here he is pre-painting:

So starting with the Goldar copy as a base, I removed his head, forearms, tabard and shoulder armour.  This left him quite bare and when I sculpted his gut I had to also sculpt a whole new belt.  The heads and bag of body parts are random bits from eBay so I have no idea where they are from.

The forearms are GW Dispossessed Dwarves as I have an unhealthy number of spares.  The loincloth and shoulder pads are basic GW Chaos Marauder bits.  The hook is from a GW Chaos Marauder standard that I cut up, (I plan to use the other hook on a pirate character someday), and the mask is a Chaos Marauder shoulder pad.  The chest piece (not pictured here) was a last minute decision to make something keeping the shoulder pads together.  I simply cut up some jewellery chain to each shoulder pad and the central remnant of Goldar's straps.

The cleaver was the first time I made a blade using plasticard and I think it turned out surprisingly well!  I drew out a general pattern on the card, cut it out using a stanley knife, sharpened the blade using a file and then cut the notches.  The whole was easy enough to make using a drill.

When I removed the tabard, it required me to cut quite far into the model, which left me with quite the gap to fill and I was sure what underwear to give him.  So I decided to not give him any! This required me to sculpt him a whole new arse.  I honestly didn't think this hobby would lead to me sculpting a manly bubble butt but there you go.

The back of the mask was made by glueing a cut down GW Liberator helmet and greenstuff to extend the straps on to the mask at the top and sides.

His flesh cape was made by spreading greenstuff across a piece of plasticard in the shape of the cape I wanted.  To make the stitched leather look, I made indentations using a blade and then pushed cut pieces of plasticard rods laterally to make the stitches.  Unfortunately, I didn't add any 3D shape to the cape and though it looked cool, the cape came out very flat.  This required me to shape it after it was set, which popped out half of the stitches. 

Learning from my previous project, I ended up breaking the cape off so that I could paint his back unobstructed.  I also added a chain to the back of the hook so it looked like he could hang meat from his belt.

The Paint Job

I tried to be a lot more subtle with my skin painting than I had been previously, so I used super watered down paints and applied upwards of 15-20 layers.  I really like Orc skin that is not just standard green so I used combinations of Kabalite Green and Warpstone Glow to give him a bluer skin tone.  I also tried to use the highlight to make it seem like he had some definition on his intercostals so his gut didn't look as round as I had sculpted it.  I also used the watered down technique on the shoulder pads.

I wanted the mask to look like bone so I used the standard bone mix of base: Zandri Dust, Layer: Ushabti Bone, Wash: Nuln oil and highlighted with a whitened mix.  The cape was a mix of different flesh and leather tones washed heavily with Reikland Fleshshade and the stitches were Ushabti bone which also got heavily washed.

 This is the first time I have used Citadel's Blood for the Blood God technical paint and I have to say that I really love it.  I tried to make it look like he had just eaten and the blood and gore was flowing down from the mask's teeth.  I also tried to make it seem like the blood on his cleaver was flowing down his hand and dripping down.  When I get round to making the base I may include a puddle or a corpse to highlight this.

So I think that this guy is the furthest I have got from the original Goldar model.  I'm really happy with this guy and I think he will make a really cool antagonist for a one-shot.

Things I would do differently is try to put more definition into his gut so that I didn't have to try and cover up the lack with the paint job.  Also I would try to make the cape more dynamic, the pattern is really cool but the shape and position is very static.

I think this will be the last Goldar conversion I make using copies.  I'm fed up with the same issues with lacking definition of the head, arms and especially the boots.  But that still leaves me with the original metal figure which I plan into some kind of crystal-infused monster for another cult.

As always, C&C is welcome!