The Crystal Lord (WIP)

The Crystal Lord (WIP)

It's been a while since I posted something, and it will be a while before I post something finished as I try to finish up my professional work this year.  So I decided to post some WIPs for a bunch of projects I am working on and here is the first.

The Concept

Recently I tried to come up with several cults, each with their own personality and gimmicks.  Inspired by Greg and Andy Wier's Crystal World work, I thought an interesting concept would be for a cult where the leader controlled their followers by infecting them purposely with a crystal disease. 

In my version of the crystal disease, the crystal would have some kind of mutagenic properties, leading to benefits and penalties worsening as the infection proceeded.  Perhaps greatly enhanced strength, but reducing willpower and mobility. 

The leader would have to represent the epitome of what could be obtained by surviving the infection in order to persuade others to follow his example, and here we get The Crystal Lord.  He appears not to have a single patch of uninfected skin, but most of it is unusually fine, apart from the larger crystals on his shoulders, apparently not affecting his mobility.  I have played with the idea that he may not actually be infected at all, but all of it is makeup or an illusion, allowing him to gain an army without the risk to himself.

The cultists would range in the severity of the infection, usually indicating rank.  Except the Monstrosities, brothers that have succumbed to the maddening crystal disease ravaging their bodies.  Huge and misshapen, they function as berserkers for the cult.  They could use crystal weapons, cut from the fossilized bodies of the dead infected, so that players run a risk of getting infected themselves during fights.

I probably should have made some of the minions first so I could test making crystals but I got too excited and went headlong into the leader.

 The build

Multiple bits here came from random bits off eBay.  The is probably the most distinctive as from Games Workshop's Stormcast eternals.  The chest and arms are GW's Tzaangor's.  The legs are a copy made from Frostgrave Cultsists body with the torso mostly removed, which served as a base for sculpting the torso.  

Sculpting the abs, shoulders and back was quite a challenge and I definitely need to work on my anatomy!  I think I passable job which I hope I can cover up a little with the paint job.  Laslty, I used some twisted wire and GW Eldar accessories to make the belt.  I might make one of them an item that allows the guy to survive the infection or something when I get around to fleshing out the encounter.

The most fun was the crystals on the shoulder.  First I started off with the Exacto-knife sculpted plasticard rods and pressed them into the still-soft greenstuff, allowing me to press together the greenstuff to make the crystals look like they are coming out of the skin.  

Then, I plastered the shoulder area with superglue and sprinkled on crushed glass.  BE VERY CAREFUL WITH CRUSHED GLASS, that stuff can go everywhere!  Do this in a container or something and keep away from kids.  Anyway, enough of the PSA, after the superglue dried, I used a brush to remove any glass that wasn't glued down securely.

So, there he is, I have already mostly painted him but I don't want to post him up until he's done.

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!

Um the Barbarian (Goldar Conversion #2)

Um the Barbarian (Goldar Conversion #2)

Here is Um the barbarian, my second conversion of Goldar the Barbarian (See my flesh golem for the first).

First a look at the finished miniature:

How it was done...

Digging through a large pile of GW Dispossessed Dwarf bits from eBay I found an unhelmeted head I could actually use, though I had to trim down the blatantly dwarven beard and iconography.  Also added are two dwarf hands with two-handed axes (I later replace the right battle axe with a twin of the left).

Moar bitz!

I originally was going to leave the model as it is, after filling in the elbows, but I could still see too much Goldar in him!  My saviour was finding an old chaos fur shoulder which I carved out and made a copy of with a mold.  Then I filled it out with some greenstuff to make the fur come down over the front of his shoulders. I also added some dwarven shoulder pads as elbow pads but I regret that as I had to sculpt the cape around the arms, which covered the elbows.

  

The Paint Job

 I tried to actually use some colour theory here. With all the skin showing, fleshtones (aka orange-ish) was a main visual, colour theory suggests green and purple.  

I had help with a couple of tutorials here, for the eyes and beard (tutorials are much better than my minor recreations here).  I also tried a couple of new things, like using very dilute paint for blending in the cape and Citadel's Drakenhof Nightshade for the tattoos, and though I wish I had planned out the tats better beforehand, I'm quite happy with how they turned out.  

 

What I would have done differently?  

I should have planned out the tattoos better and I wish I had done them on a different part of the body because it hid a bunch of work I did on the skin underneath them.  Also I wish I could have painted the back of the miniature without the cape and added that on afterwords, but that's one of the problems with making these miniatures haphazardly as I do.

As always C&C welcome!

Flesh Golem (Goldar conversion #1)

Flesh Golem

Goldar conversion #1

Recently, after ordering a box of Frostgrave Cultists from Warlord Games, I wanted to challenge myself to make at least four very different cults with their own personalities.  One of the ideas I had was for a simple necromantic cult, led by necromancer with zombies, skeletons and human minions.  

To start with, I ended up making a flesh golem which I'm pretty happy with.  I tried a bunch of new sculpting and painting techniques and though they aren't the best, I think I'm making progress.  

But anyway, here is the final look followed by the detailed guide and WIP.

How it was done... 

The body is from Reaper's Goldar the Barbarian (see below left), but I didn't want to want to lose the original (which I have plans for in another cult), so I copied him using a mix of Milliput and Green Stuff in a mold I made (below right is a pure Milliput example after cleanup).  As far as I know, this is ok as long as I don't try to sell the copies, if this isn't the case please let me know.  The copies have messed up hands and heads, but I have loads of spares so I just replaced them.

Using a head from the Frostgrave Cultists and the gauntlets and hammer from Games Workshop's Stormcast Eternals (not sure which set, was in a bunch of bits from eBay) I wanted to adjust the original posture to make the figure not look like a carbon copy.  I separated the left gauntlet from the haft of the hammer and used paper clips to wire the hands into position, with bends for the elbows.

This required me to sculpt elbows, a cap for the hammer shaft and fill in gaps around the neck.  I originally wanted to use this guy for a cannibal tribe, so I sculpted the haft of the axe from the original model (the piece on his lower back) into a big bone.  The funny part is that this is the first time I scuplted elbows (or a bone), and this is when you realise that you don't really know what an elbow looks like... besides being a bend in the arm.  So after learning myself some elbow anatomy I was able to do a passable job.  Obviously they stand out right now but I'm hoping that when painted the same colour, they will look like a single piece.

The redo AKA the "Buggerit" moment

Thinking I was done with my cannibal brute/executioner, I started priming him.  However, I then got inspired to turn him into a flesh golem for the necromancer cult!  This required some adapting so I decided to try sculpting the stitches between body parts, and try to go further from the original model by replacing the fur loincloth and bone I sculpted with a leather belt and codpiece (Which required me to google leather codpiece for examples and I now feel slightly scarred).

Kicking myself for only thinking of this after priming, I started backtracking by scraping away the primer around the areas where the stitches would go so I could get the Green Stuff to stick.  The stitches were relatively simple.  Applying a thin roll of Green Stuff along the line of the intended seem and smoothing the boundary to the model, I was able to use the back of a knife to make a gap between the body parts and then pushed it together to make a rough seem.  Then I pushed together lines adjacent to the seem using a scalpel to make the stitches.  In hindsight, I wish I had cut up some plastic wire and embedded them into the stitches to give a better 3D effect (like the stitches in the hood) but instead it looks like the stitches have gone, leaving only scars.

The paint job.

The theme colour for the necromantic cult is purple (original I know), so the cowl and cape went that direction and I gave green glowing eyes to add contrast.

I wanted the changes in skin tone between his parts to be extreme, but, limited by the caucasion-ish tones that I currently have, I decided to make one of the sections look like it was from a longer dead "donor".  However, I used very pale colours followed by grays and washes with Nuln Oil, which turns out to be a great way to paint stone :/ .  

Anyway, the stitched seems were washed with Carroberg Crimson on the living side and Nuln Oil on the dead to make it look like the living skin did not meld with the dead well.  The metal was standard Ledbelcher and Runefang sliver with Nuln Oil.

Lastly, I used a gloss varnish for the skin to give it a greasy/living look and sprayed with whole thing with a dull coat lacquer to preserve.

All in all, I'm pretty proud for how he turned out.  The only things I would change is my paint job for the dead side obviously, but also adding physical stitches to the seems and better contrast on the purple clothing.

Frozen Skeleton Barbarian

Starting off with the first project that I am proud of, a skeletal barbarian from a frozen wasteland.

Mostly I used parts from the Games Workshop Vampire Counts Skeletons Warriors.  The legs are from Reaper’s Amiri and the hammer was made from the shaft of a spear with a plasticard head.  Lastly I sculpted the fur cloak from greenstuff and turned the left shield-bearing arm straight by cutting off the forearm and super glueing it.  The snow is simply baking soda!