Ok here's even more of my undead. When you buy Mantic skeletons you get a dog and half of a skeleton. When talking to my friend whom I play against he said he is cool with using them in our battles as normal skeletons. So I chose the two dogs and the better looking half-guy. I gave the latter a GW spear. I also want to show y'all that banner bearer as an example for my second set of mantic skeletons and because I made him a special banner out of a Hexwraith scythe. ...so now I had three more skeletons. Time for more... but how? I remembered that in each GW skeleton box there is an additional ribcage, and of course enough arms, heads, shields, and weapons. So I assembled those and that got me two Skellies without legs.... ...so I built them skirts! I am not a good sculptor, so this is what I did: I made the skirts from paper and then added some structure using liquid green stuff. Then I put the half-skeleton on a short pole made of a sprue part and put it all together. For decoration purposes I added a leftover Seraphon parts and one swarf I found somewhere. Then I painted the whole thing. ...those skirts look a bit goofy and also a bit impractical but I got two more Skellies that way and they were fun to make. Five skeletons... could I make another five somehow to get a full increment of ten? Stay tuned!
The need for five more skeletons made me look through my sprues again. ...and I stumbled over some Hexwraiths. I had built the Black Knights so the other rider parts were still there. My initial idea was to just take those upper bodies and do the skirt thing, but then I wondered: can I convert those riders to infantry? So here's what I did: I took the rider legs and instead of assembling he two halves I rotated one half by 90 degrees. Then I glued them together and cut off parts that didn't fit, and filled the holes with liquid green stuff. I also gave the insides a bit of structure that way. I decided to cut off all the braziers to make them look less like Hexwraiths and painted them red and black. The weapons they carry are kitbashed from skeletons, Hexwraiths, and spare parts from Black Knights. Here they are. They look like crazy monk-warriors and they look like they are really angry. Quite dynamic poses and also a bit goofy. I was laughing all the time while building those. One of them has his hands raised so weirdly over his head, I just had to give him that raised shield with the arrow in it. So now I have 10 Skellies more to use. That makes 70 in total.
And you see that it's easier than most people think... you just have to be creative... And brave enough to completely destroy a intact miniature to make something really cool out of it... Also great idea to make skirts out of paper and using "hidden poles"... always good to not use green stuff... to expensive to not use cheaper alternative materials...
Lately I watched a video by LukesAps and he explained that air drying polymer clay (like Das or Fimo air) can be mixed with PVA to make it more smooth and use it like Green Stuff. It is less toxic and considerably cheaper. I have to try that. ...soon...
I just noticed I never put any of my Seraphon models into the gallery threads. Will do that shortly. At least the ones I am kinda proud of. As for my further plans: maybe I can really finish my Saurus Guards this week... Here are a few WIP pics: I already like how the skin turned out, although the drybrushing made it a tiny bit chalky. But you only notice it when you look very close. Of course still missing most of the shades and details.
Worked a bit on my Guards last night. No pics sorry. But man, those have a lot more details than Warriors! I seriously underestimated the amount of time needed yo make them look good.
Thanks! Some might say they look a bit too classic and maybe too bright and clean, but somehow I like that look on them. I went for the old and grimy look with my Undead instead.
I always love an economical use of re purposed bits to make extra models! Well done eeking out a few extra skeletons!
Thanks! It was just an idea that came to mind so so just tried. Conversion without pressure since those were parts I wouldn't have used at all otherwise.
Working on the shields and weapons now. Also almost finished a terrain piece today. Might get it done tomorrow since it is German Unification Day which is a national holiday. More time to paint!