Sirins & Alkonosts

Despite being quite distinct, my Slavic 'counts-as-Fell-Bats' are still supposed to be one unit - that's why I will show them together too. After some bad experiences earlier, I wanted them to fit together even when placed in direct contact with each other. It forced some larger variation in their poses, so that's a double plus!

There are also separate posts for Alkonosts and Sirins and the WIP post can be found HERE.

Alkonosts

First set of my 'counts-as-Fell-Bats' miniatures - Alkonosts. They are made after Slavic mythical creatures. I didn't like any of the minis that could fit Fell Bats well so I converted my own - these are built on bodies from Mirliton SG Giant Eagles. The whole conversion process can be seen HERE. It was quite interesting to paint them - the pale faces, very light hair, greenish feathers - very different from the usual undead standard.

Those ladies together with their much gloomier sisters Sirins can be seen HERE.

Alkonosts are the giant mythical bird-women from the Varsavian folklore, but seeing how tightly are they related to the Death God, they do respond to the right summons called by the practitioners of necromancy. While they may appear noble, closer inspection quickly shows something else. With their pallid skin and wicked blades posed as a mockery of a crown, they are the messengers of the Death God, fond of diving from high upon their unsuspecting victims. The folklore says that to see one and not instill its wrath brings luck.

Alkonosts & Sirins - WIP

You can find those painted HERE.

This is a project I started back in May 2014 when I wanted some Fell Bats in my army. I didn't like the ones offered by GW or other companies so I decided to make my own - and I looked into Slavic mythology for some ideas. There are numerous versions of birds with female heads in it and I choose two kinds of them to serve as my Fell Bats - THIS picture was especially inspiring for me.

I bought two kinds of birds for this - Giant Eagles from Mirliton SG and Wood Elf Warhawks from GW - two of each. Sawing their heads away was much more difficult than I thought - it was the first time I had to do such a conversion on a metal model. This is the first rough sketch of my idea for them.

Then I thought - I can make this even more Slavic! Instead of mounting them on gravestones, statues or other kinds of rubble I decided to make some Slavic sculptures for them, wooden ones, depicting mostly old, pagan deities. To spare on greenstuff I made the first rough shape out of plasticine and then covered it with two separate layers of greenstuff. Nowadays I just use cheap milliput for the 'core' part.

This is how they looked after I sculpted real bodies on those birds - still before adding eyes and other details.

And this is the final version, with details, hair, decorations, mounted on beforementioned sculptures. It was the first time for me to sculpt whole heads and that amount of detail - and while they look a bit wonky it was still a very good experience.

Varsavian Bats

Some bat swarms painted in August 2013. Models are from Mirliton SG. I bought them because I wanted to use them in the game, not necessarily because the models were especially pretty... Originally they were completely flat, so I bent them a bit to make them less flat... but they are still kinda flat. Back in the day, those were my most elaborate bases ever! Fences are made of balsa wood and gravestones are plastic.

Bats were always drawn to those blessed with the vampiric blood and they, in turn, were fond of using bat images in their visual arts. Thanks to that blood bond, even lowly vampires are able to summon some amount of them. Bats of Varsavia weren't as big as those of Sylvania, but they are still eager to do their part by creating a chittering, biting and confusing cloud of creatures around the vampires' enemies.