I don’t think there has been a podcast that I mentioned these guys on besides maybe saying I had more plans for conversions after the hellsteed vampire. I’ll probably mention them in Episode 53. These are two vampire models I did some conversions on that were pretty quick and easy but made for some really cool unique models.
The first one I had the idea for was the clawed female vampire inspired by Lady Death Strike of the Marvel universe. I got the idea for her when I started working with the Terrorgheist kit; at one point it just came to me looking at the pieces on the sprue. I didn’t have intentions of using the ghoul king model at all as I don’t prefer the rules or fluff for them. The claws on the model though gave me inspiration to make this chick.
Once I had the idea I had to find the female vampire body to suite. I only made a couple considerations and that was just between Isabella von Carstein and the aristocratic lord model. I only considered them because I haven’t really seen anything from other manufacturers that I liked the style of. I haven’t ever liked the aristocratic vampire and really only considered it because I already owned it. The Isabella model quickly won my pick; it is a really cool model. I love the corset armor with the cowl and dress like cloak thing it has going so I quickly picked one up the next game night at the store.
Once I had the body it was on to the actually converting. This was my first finecast model which was interesting and I wasn’t impressed. It seemed strangely light and soft, the sword was bent which I here can be fixed but I wasn’t using it so didn’t mess with it. The only other defects that affected me were an air bubble in the cowl and one on the shoulder armor, but they were easily filled.
It was really easy to just chop the hands off at the wrist for this. I did switch her left and right arms around to get pretty much the pose I was looking for without any extra converting effort. The hands were pinned on respectively and when the arms were attached to the model I confirmed a feeling I had when I started that the hands are a little disproportionately large. I determined that I was okay with this because it is fantasy and larger weapons are pretty standard and this just makes the model stand out more. I did green stuff the frilly shirt cuffs coming out of her gauntlets that were cut off and this helped the size difference between wrist and hands as well as put a nice finish to the join.
One thing I didn’t want on this model though was the hair. I thought about possibly trimming it off and sculpting some which might of gone alright but I opted to just cut the whole head off and do a swap. I got the head from the Coven Throne/Mortis engine kit I have around for another conversion. It is the one hand maiden that doesn’t also have huge hair. It wasn’t the ideal fit because it doesn’t have a lot of detail or a yelling pose like I would of liked. I didn’t come up with an alternative and I already had this one on hand. In the end it worked out good; the rose in her hair ties it in well with the dress and I liked the braid as it is a little Tomb Raider like and battle field practical. I consider adding a yelling mouth but it would be some pretty fine sculpting to put in fangs/lips and probably not worth messing with.
Swapping the head on was a rather easy conversion too. I had to do some trimming to get the neck the proper shape on the body and also re-positioned the braid. I was originally hoping the braid could flow down the front of the model next to the arm but it was to big for that. I put it off to the side flowing with the cape and that looks well enough. The remainder of the conversion was a little green stuff to match the braid and neck together as well as under the arms. I did have to pin her to the base through her foot mounting point because I left the dress not touching the base and the single finecast point snapped off the first time I got her out to put on the table.
The other model was somewhat a side effect of the female vampire. It came about because I wanted to play a hero level vampire with the flying horror vampire power. I thought it made most sense to me to have this vampire be more bestial. I know at the beginning of this I said I had no intentions of using it but now the perfect fit for the bill was the ghoul king model from the terrorgheist kit. But I just chopped his hands off, OH NO!! This wasn’t really a problem though after thinking about putting wings on the back or in place of regular arms I chose the latter. I originally wasn’t sure how I would form those wings into arms to fit this model. Here is where the side effect from the other model came into play because I had his original arms ready to transform into wings. The wings I used are the varghoyles second smaller set, they were the perfect look and size. I definitely didn’t mind scavenging them as I thought they were pretty dumb in their original use.
The conversion came down to just clipping off the arm part of the wing about halfway up. That was the best looking point to join them to the forearm making the wing skin ended appropriately close to the elbow. I didn’t pin these at all so hopefully I don’t regret that later. There is a decent amount of surface area though and I have dropped it by now and it hasn’t come loose. It did take a little green stuff to blend the joint but this was such a perfect match and fit! They look exceptional and even the spikes coming out of the elbows now fit as though the wings are still forming or in mid transformation.
That done it was almost just assembling the model like normal. I was originally thinking I would mount this guy airborne but it worked better/easier not too. Having him on the ground I could leave his pose near stock. I just re-positioned the left leg hip joint a bit and bent the right slightly to give a running pose. This made the standard arm positions of one front and one back work. It did need a pin in the tiny foot to mount it to the base sturdily. The wings don’t allow him to rank up perfectly well but they are actually not too bad and similar fashion to a lot of ordinary models.
These two models were really easy conversions for the most part but they ended up rather unique and very cool. I have really liked fielding each of these guys along with my hellsteed vampire. I have been running the women as my vampire lord. The winged guy is a hero who starts with my ghouls but will fly out to charge bunkers or other mages hanging out in the back lines. I have only been able to use him to that effect once in the 5 or so games I have played since completing him. He didn’t get his prize but made the mage flee and spend time getting back into spell range. Ideally I was hoping for him to do this when the opponent stays near the board edge so can’t flee without running off the board so is hopefully torn up in combat. I also like having this strigoi type vampire to tie my ghoul unit into the army since they seemed a little out of place before.
Thanks for looking! Sorry for the long winded write up, apparently I had a lot to say. I didn’t think it would be much for a single post each is why I combined them but didn’t want to edit the pics to make them work separate after the fact.
Please feel free to email me at [email protected] or follow this link to the WWHFB forum if you have comments or feedback.
-Brian