Gudvanger's Monster #13 - The Pegasus - WIP

Fifth new member of the Crypt Horror unit. This one went through numerous revisions before becoming what he is right now.

First, that was supposed to be a mockery of a vampire, with wings, a Vargheist head and claws. Then I noticed that I don't have any good clawed hands to use, so I gave him hoofs on the hands. Then it was mismatched either way, so I used horse heads, because I had some of them laying around. The wings were supposed to have some tattered membranes, but it wasn't looking very good, so I got rid of them. In the end, he turned into a mockery of a pegasus, rather than a vampire, which is also quite cool.

Gudvanger's Monster #12 - The Arm Horror - WIP

Undead stitched monsters are still going strong, here I am with more conversions.

In the original unit, there was one that I called a "head horror", covered with way too many heads. This one is continuing the theme, being an "arm horror". I gathered a lot of Crypt Ghoul arms and some extra chonky Cygor fingers to create this busy-looking creature. Simple and fun.

Gudvanger's Monster #11 - The Cannonman - WIP

Third one for the expansion of my ogre-ish Crypt Horrors. After the Skullman and the Moleman, it's time for the Cannonman.

I managed to secure some Leadbelchers and I always wanted to use one of them for this project - with some tentacles writhing inside, it's a close combat creature after all. The results are rather messy, but that is often the case with my minis, isn't it? The head was a spontaneous decision here, I wanted a tiny head on a tall neck, but during the sculpting I noticed that a whole body could fit there - so I added an extra arm there. Well, when their mad creator is stitching them together, he doesn't really have to keep the standard humanoid anatomy, anything goes.

Gudvanger's Monster #10 - The Moleman - WIP

Continuing with the unit from last week, I'm still in the build mode.

Lots of sculpting on this one! I wanted to create a mole-man of sorts, with giant, thick arms and hands, tiny head and using the Vargheist hairy back. Here you can also see my new approach to stitches - while in the olden days I just rolled a greenstuff 'thread' and cut it into small segments to be used as stitches, this time I'm using a brass/copper rod that's bent and cut. There is lot less of those stiches that way, but they are way more substantial and 3d. Hopefully a mix of two approaches will look ok in the finished unit.

Gudvanger's Monster #9 - The Skullman - WIP

Converting an Ogre Bull last week reminded me of a project that I wanted to start years ago - to expand on my 8 Crypt Horrors, which were all converted from ogres back in 2014. Since then the concept for my undead army evolved and I also could afford bigger units. Since I'm in the mood for converting, I'll try moving this project in the right direction, we'll see how many I'll be able to do! My skills also got better since then, so it will be a lot of fun to revisit the unit that taught me how to convert.

First guy here is based on an idea I had in 2014, lots of bones and that wicked Irongut sickle. Adding a skull instead of a normal head was a spontaneous decision and a one that I really like, one can clearly see it's an undead monstrosity and not just a Nurgle one.

Men-at-arms filler - Tarrare - WIP

Second filler for my ramshackle Bretonnian Men-at-arms unit. This time, it's an ogre!

I love ogre bulls as basis for conversions, they are like a blank canvas to try all sorts of stuff. An extra one was laying around, so it was a no brainer to incorporate him in the unit. I think of him as an ogre baby that was left in the countryside to be adopted by peasants and raised as an abnormally large and hungry child. That's why he has no gutplate and uses only Bretonnian equipment. This was also a perfect excuse to use that hanging cow from the giant set - brings out the agrarian theme of the unit even more!

Blood Bowl Nurgle Staff - Marggh Mawgino the Head Coach

After a really long break, here I am again with some content for my beloved Blood Bowl team, the Putrid Punters!

This time it's the head coach, a character that gives you such a rarely used advantage, he's practically useless... but he's still an important person and a great modelling opportunity. As I mentioned in the WIP post, an ogre's body was the core idea for this conversion, all to make him this absolute unit of a coach. It works, he's towering over all his players!

I had to remind myself how to paint this yellow skin, but painting him was an overall pleasant experience. I have some other small things for this band planned, so this was a good warmup.

Through all the years and many time jumps, the Putrid Punters relied on their ancient and trusted coach Oughustus. Unfortunately, the stationary life of a coach made him susceptible to growing greater and more glorious with every season, until he became simply too big to fit in the time portal. Instead, he was consumed by the warp, never to be seen again. Some journalists argue that he ascended to daemonhood, watching the Punters from the comfort of Grandfather Nurgle’s garden. Hard pressed, the team pitched in and recruited a relatively new, fresh and fit head coach Marggh Mawgino. While he’s not as experienced as his predecessor, he knows much more theory and the modern take on Blood Bowl - so maybe together with his ancient, veteran players, they’ll be able to compensate for each other’s weaknesses and achieve something passable.

Blood Bowl Big Guy - Kryp'er the Chaos Troll

I started painting the smaller marauders and humans first for my Chaos Pact team only because it made sense from a narrative standpoint. This whole time, the most fun miniature in the whole bunch was the troll, it was the one that convinced me to get this team. Now, it's finally painted!

The idea here was to do the same color scheme that Chaos Trolls from WFB used. I always liked that one, but never had the opportunity to use it. Blue skin also nicely contrasts with the orange armor, so that's a plus too.

Nothing else to say here, just a great model from Greebo. Now to paint the other two big guys, a minotaur and an ogre!

With the core players for the Kreegan Krashers found, it was time for the heavy hitters. As it is customary for Chaos Renegades teams, the headhunter Dugtig wanted to go big - as many brutes and monsters as the rules allowed! He started with the troll - after helping recruit players for countless goblin teams, he already knew a good candidate. Kryp’er was a troll with an especially vicious streak and a tentacle for an arm - Dugtig tried to pitch him as a Sea Troll several times, but the greenskin coaches weren’t convinced. Now he would gladly take him into the Krasher’s roster! Sadly, Kryp’er was way too stupid to use that appendage as aptly as Rotspawns do, but thanks to its reach, he could always reach to help his teammates in a scrap.

FKB XCVI: Size Matters - Brutogg Corpse-eater WIP

Just like last month I hosted that little game of trying to model something to a given topic, here I am participating. The topic given by Bahior was "Size does matter" - which fit perfectly with an idea I had in mind.

I actually got Cursed City when it was originally released, one of the last reasonably priced boxes... and then it stood on top of a shelf for a year. Here I am trying to kickstart it somehow.

You see, I really love the style of the minis for this game and I'll be using most minis as they are, but an ogre without a big belly and a gut-plate? I can't stand that, size indeed does matter here! I did some conversions to put some meat on those bones and make Brutogg into a chubbier chap. HERE is the original for comparison. I have some other similar small changes planned and after that I can start tackling this monster of a boardgame.

Underworlds - Mollog's Mob - WIP

Seeing the approaching 4th season of Underworlds, I decided to buy the last of the expected-to-be-discontinued 2nd season warbands that I liked - the Mollog's Mob. When they first appeared, I disliked them, they were a bit too comical for me, at least for Underworlds. Then I got into Instagram and followed a bunch of AoS28 folks and the idea on how to convert them slowly appeared in my head.

As far as I saw, one of the easiest way to make a monster creepier is to make it more human, have human attributes when one would expect monstrous ones, make the weird thing that much closer to us. To achieve that, I gave every single creature in the band, a human-like face - the troll, the squigs, the frog, everything. Because of the scale difference, every face turned out pretty distinct and characterful, an unexpected, yet good feature.

With the main man here below, I wanted to go a small step beyond - which was inspired by the great menagerie of grimdark Giants which can be seen HERE and the manga/anime Shingeki no Kyojin - where the giants are not just big humans, but humanlike creatures that were scaled up to their size, unperfectly, like in an broken mirror, or by an unskilled creator. Those creatures carry certain human features, but they are all set up wrong - so my 'Mollog' has a very wide mouth and instead of a club, his whole left hand has way too many joints and is just generally too long. The original troll's uneven proportions were perfect for this. Someone may say that this is too small for a giant, but I like my giants on a spectrum - which starts from about this size, when it can overpower an average human with size alone and devour later, if not whole, then bite by bite.

And here are the squigs, little minions of 'Mollog' - those were nice and easy conversions.

Blood Bowl Nurgle Head Coach - WIP

As you could see with the Plague Doctor already, I couldn't leave my beloved Putrid Punters alone when other teams were getting staff members - so now I'm back with that topic, bringing you a WIP version of my properly massive Head Coach for those diseased and disgusting.

I had plans for this mini for a very long time now, but just about the only thing I was sure was using an ogre's body - the rest was being invented as I was going. This naturally proved to be problematic, as I was really unsure of several design alleys that I wandered into... Still, he is as he is - almost completely covered with greenstuff, becoming almost a humanoid version of my Rotspawn, especially with that big tentacle! To give him some Roman elements, tying with the loose theme of the team, he has a laurel on his cap and a piece of cloth vaguely reminiscing a toga. It's all only superficial because he's a 'modern' character just barely trying to fit in his ancient team somehow.

I can also admit that this is the first project (or a phase of one) that I did in its entirety after getting into the "hiatus", rather than just continuing it from the olden times when I had plenty of time for hobbying.

Blood Bowl Chaos Renegades - Conversions WIP

New year, new Blood Bowl project! I actually got it half a year ago and only now I finally got around to working on it - and it's still much faster than it usually is with my projects.

This merry bunch here is an Alastoran Malice Team from Greebo Games - made to be used as Chaos Renegades/Chaos Pact team for Blood Bowl - a very hit-and-miss mix of various monsters and creatures. The bulk of the team is made out of standard human marauders, supplemented with a single goblin, elf, orc, skaven (with all their quirks included) and rounded off with an ogre, troll and a minotaur, a triple serving of Big Guys - packing a massive punch, but also very prone to all their negative traits.

I wanted them since I read their rooster and rules for them, and even considered making extensive conversions of GW miniatures, but then I found this exceptional range from Greebo and casually mentioned that it could be a super nice birthday present (which I got, thanks for that!).

Here is the whole team. I tried my best in photoshop, but metal, unpainted miniatures are really hard to photograph well (or at least I cannot do it) - the upcoming painted photos will hopefully remedy that.

And here I showcase all the players that got some conversions. The miniatures are very nice so I left them as they are in most cases, only adding minor flavor or something that signifies their upgrades and mutations.

First, the orc got some disgusting boils, ogre a helmet to make him more sporty and the goblin a second gnoblar head on his back to make him a dodging nightmare for the opposite team. Then, there's a horned skaven, a multi-armed marauder and a wolverine'y marauder with claws. On the final photos, there's a marauder with a mohawk (to remind me that he has the same skill as dwarven slayers), a dark elf with a helmet ornament (to make him similar to the Dreadspear Dragons) and a female marauder that I modified a bit to make her a Thrower.

Once again, sorry for the photos, the glare on that metal is just unbelievable.

Blood Bowl Nurgle Team - Bloaters WIP

I converted the Rotters and then some Pestigors for my Nurgle Blood Bowl team, now it's finally time for the Warriors, or how they are now called - the Bloaters. Those big, slow and bulky roadblocks are the core of the team and my favorite positionals in the team, the stars that crush the opposition with their mutated fists.

Ones available in the current GW kit are fine models, but in no way how I envision those players. After playing Blood Bowl 2 video game, I imagine them more similar to stereotypical Chaos Warrior, with armor and spikes. The most obvious choice in this situation was to revisit the delightful kit of Putrid Blightkings. I choose 4 of them, leaving one to serve as a Head Coach later and went crazy with the conversions representing their skills, just like my other players from this team.

Wanting to justify their heavy armor, atypical for modern Bloaters, I came up with a backstory that they were displaced through time by Nurgle, many, many years forward, making them living (?) relicts of the old ways. To go extra ancient I gave them roman-themed names and crests on the heads. This brings them all together as the special players and strengthens the effect of how ancient and out-of-touch with the modern Blood Bowl fashion they are.

Here are they all together:

And some closer photos.

Captain on the left was the first that I made and which gave me the least problems when deciding what to do. This is easily my favorite pose out of the Blightkings kit and came together beautifully with what I had in mind - the stone under the foot got changed into a ball, left hand was in great position to sculpt a scary pincer there (instead of some variation on Wolverine claws, I went with the classic interpretation of the 'Claw' mutation) and the outstretched hand was perfect for a 'thumbs down' gesture, bringing even more Roman themes into the whole mess.

The second one has 'Stand Firm' as his upgrade and this one took the longest to design. At first, I wanted to give him thick and bloated legs, but then it would be too similar to the captain's right leg - so I left this topic for a while. Only later I decided to turn his legs into a mass of swarming tentacles and worms - which both greatly illustrates how well is he glued to the ground but also fits Grandfather Nurgle perfectly.

Here below, the guy on the left is the one that rolled doubles when leveling - and he got 'Jump Up' which helps players get up quickly after being knocked down. To represent that, I decided to give him a lot of spider legs sticking from his back - which would prop him back easily after he falls down. His body was the most armored of all the Blightkings, so to retain some balance I decided to make him completely unarmored from the breastplate up - like rotting meat rupturing a metal can.

And the last one is the Bloater with 'Mighty Blow'. I thought about representing it quite a lot and many options were just not good - giving him a large fist could be confused with 'Big Hand' while adding a lot of spikes on it could be confused with 'Claw'. I considered giving him a heavy hand made out of stone, but in the end, I decided on giving him a thick, flexible appendage ending with a spiked ball - like a fleshy flail of sorts - with a sporty armband to keep him properly themed. Hopefully, it's heavy- and slow-looking enough not to be confused with a 'Tentacles' mutation.

There were many different topics here, so once again I did some photos of the actual building progress, to show some of the 'behind the scenes' stuff. They turned out rather long though, so to avoid extending this post to infinity and to get some a post buffer (which I could use for personal reasons right now), I will post them as separate posts in the upcoming weeks, I hope they'll be interesting enough.

I will update this post accordingly to have all those little sculpting tips together with the miniatures they are related to.

First one is about sculpting the Roman-style headcrests that all of them sport:

The second one is about sculpting sick, disproportionate, bloated arms that I did for the 'Stand Firm' guy. Followers of Nurgle allow for some leeway when it comes to anatomy, so it's both quite easy to do and a good place to practice greenstuffing.

The third and the last one is about the wriggling, tentacle legs of the 'Stand-Firm' guy. It explains the principles of doing a similar composition of tentacles, how to sculpt different kinds of slimy appendages, together with instruction on how to quickly make suction cups for those tentacles.

The Three Hunters

Today I have some Skin Wolves from Forge World. I always liked those models but I couldn't find a good excuse to incorporate them into my collection. Well, I could use them as Varghulfs, but I already have some of those and they are all bat monsters, having werewolves added to that mix didn't sit well with me. Then, when I started expanding my collection beyond just undead and came up with body-horror-themed 'Dwellers of the Bog', those wolves suddenly found their place.

They fit right in as they are so the conversions are minimal here - I added the Lady's sigil on their bodies ('painted' on with Liquid Greenstuff mixed with gloss varnish, visible at the bottom of the post) and filed off any Chaos iconography. The painting was pretty straightforward, I went with light human skin and dark wolf flesh for the contrast. Only on the hands themselves, I tried to go for the 'flayed flesh' effect to bring more attention to them and I think it turned out pretty good.

Once upon a time, there were three hunters, masters of their craft, who were trying to help their starving village during an exceptionally strong winter. Most of the game was already hunted down - everywhere but in the lush garden that belonged to the wise and beautiful enchantress. She forbade anyone from hunting on her grounds, but the hunters were desperate and they decided to try nevertheless. They fell down a great stag - but as they were rejoicing, the enchantress appeared before them. They shook with fear, but the wise woman told them that the rule was just a test to find those truly skillful and brave. In reward, she offered them a chance to become better hunters than they could ever be - strong, fast, resilient, with keen senses. They could also hunt in her gardens without restrictions and their village would never know hunger again. They just had to swear their allegiance to her. Three hunters agreed and they took the stag back home, where they were greeted as heroes. After a great feast, they woke up at midnight, horrifying transformation ripping their skin open and breaking their bones. Turned into crazed, grotesque man-wolves, hearing the Lady’s whispers in their ears, they killed and devoured every single person in the village. Ever since that night, they roam Varsavia on the Lady’s of the Bog orders, only occasionally turning back into humans to realize what they agreed to.

Gudvanger's Body Puppets

Continuing with the Nurgle theme, here is my (somewhat) non-Nurgle take on the Putrid Blightkings. From the narrative standpoint, they are supposed to be botched clones of Haralamb Gudvanger and just like he, they are bloated and distorted servants of the Lady of the Bog, not Nurgle worshippers - so they keep the bodies and mutations, but all the chaos iconography is filed off. You can see the unpainted, converted minis together with some design principles HERE.

I had a lot of fun building them and painting was the same - it was really enjoyable to paint all the different hues, reddened, mutated flesh, discolorations, boils and lesions. The basecoat was wetblended to achieve a mix of various colors from the beginning, which were then brought together with shades, glazes and highlights.

The bases saw my second use of two-ingredient water effects and I'm pretty satisfied with the results. The resin actually seeped into the sand that I used as the first layer, creating a pretty interesting, muddy impression. I also stuck those thin, long strands into some of the tufts to imitate lone strands of long grass that I noticed in the wetlands during my last vacation - and I think they help to sell the 'bog' effect a little better - what do you think about them?

The horrific Flesh-stitcher Haralamb Gudvanger may be known best for his lumbering monsters, but he considers himself his best handiwork. For countless years he has been building replacement body puppets, which continuously replace him after each death. It all started when he was still learning the secrets of anatomy by himself, fruitlessly looking for a way to cheat death and achieve immortality. Only when he started to study under the Lady of the Bog he discovered that while he can’t stop his own body from eventual deterioration in any acceptable way, he could build a puppet, a duplicate of himself - one so perfect, it could replace him without any loss at all. Since then, every time his body died, a puppet woke in its place, identical to the original, with the same memory and intellect, continuing his work as if nothing happened - everything a secret he keeps from everyone but the Lady herself. Still, the process is difficult and some results are… botched. They are unusable as replacements but those flesh automatons have their use - Gudvanger arms them and commands them to patrol and guard his domain. Thus they lumber tirelessly through the mists around the Black Bog, attacking anyone they stumble upon. To some extent, they believe to be the Flesh-stitcher too, that’s why sometimes they will hack away the hands of their victims, or try to build gruesome compositions out of their victims’ bodies. Terrifyingly strong, resilient and unrelenting in following their creator’s (their own?) commands, they are almost as dangerous as Gudvanger himself.

First, the whole group of six fleshy automatons - a little from above to make the bases easier to see:

And some close-ups of the individual creatures, the first three:

The second three:

Blood Bowl Big Guy - Sir Blubb the Ogre

While I was painting the other Blood Bowl Big Guy, Chompa the Troll, I decided to paint the ogre for the human team too. And because I stylized them as Bretonnians, the ogre had to be converted a bit - you can see it HERE. The rest of his team can be seen HERE.

The painting was somewhat unusual and interesting to me because it was probably the first time when I had so much human (not-decayed, not-vampire) skin to paint! I even had to buy a paint pot specifically for that reason. It was also a good opportunity to try painting some stubble, as well as some chest hair sticking from underneath the shirt. The rest was the same as on the rest of the players. Overall it was an enjoyable model - and looking at our last game, a true MVP too!

While it is widely known that no Bretonnian will ever stoop so low to employ mercenaries, there’s nothing wrong in being a bit creative when wrecking peasants is on the line! When the Cavaliers found themselves a bit overwhelmed with some of the more ‘aggressive’ teams, they decided to add some more serious muscle to their team. Using famous Bretonnian pastries, they convinced a brutish ogre called Blubb to be knighted - after which they promptly incorporated him into their ranks, bypassing the rule about unhonorable mercenaries. Sir Blubb may lack a bit in his manners and knightly conduct, but as long as he keeps playing this well and keeps answering every question with ‘FOR THE LADY’, no one will suspect a thing!

Blood Bowl Big Guy - Chompa the Troll

After Blood Bowl proved to be a great game to us, the next logical step was to paint the big guys. The first one after the essentials was the Troll - I actually got interested in the whole game because I liked this particular model!

At first, I wanted to paint him blue like the Stone Trolls of old, but then I thought he would differ too much from the rest of his team, so I painted him green for some uniformity's sake. Still, I tried various greens together with some ivory colors on different parts of his skin to make him more interesting and I think it turned out pretty good. That, together with the blue back-plates, clothes, armor parts, the goblin, some leather and spikes, made for some really interesting painting process.

Chompa is one of the very rare smart trolls - well, relatively speaking, at least. He can use simple words (he even gives interviews!), is capable of some strategic thought and gets his salary like everyone else. One could think that this makes him an effective and focused Blood Bowl player, unlike other Trolls, but that’s unfortunately not true. After becoming a star, Chompa found himself with more income that he could use simply for food, so he got into interior design - his cave is really an eclectic wonder to behold. The trouble is, he is thinking about new wallpapers and carpets so much, he can still stand still in the middle of a match, completely unaware of the carnage going on around him - so functionally, he’s not that different from a typical troll! Of course, he punches and throws goblins also as well as other trolls, so his position in the team is safe (as well as his salary!).

Gudvanger's Body Puppets - WIP

Not long time ago I wasn't feeling like painting, but I really wanted to build something. I looked a bit through all my boxes and found some Putrid Blightkings. I bought them about 2 years ago to accompany my other Nurgle model - Haralamb Gudvanger. They have lots of bits and are big and bulky, everything that I wanted at the moment.

My concept for them was to make them similar to Gudvanger - they are supposed to be failed replacement bodies for him. To achieve that, every single one of them has a covered face and some kind of horns. Any Nurgle iconography was scratched off - though I left any fleshy disturbances, they fit very well both the concept for them and the 'The Thing' motif I am trying to push with this faction. I got another Johann from the Giant kit, so that the central one here could hold him by the neck, screaming and handless. Their bases have also some depressed areas to put some grimy puddles there, another thing to tie them together with the flesh-stitcher. There are 6 of them instead of the usual 5, because I wanted to have a 3x2 block of them - I bought one additional torso to round up their numbers.

I heard many good things about this box and I wasn't dissapointed - it was a lot of fun to work on them. Every single one is distinct and interesting, there are no guys who are only there to take space and I could build probably another 6 of them. I had similar feelings when I was working on my undead ogres. I think I will get another box of those to build players for a Nurgle Blood Bowl team!

Daremnych the Great Liche Priest

The unpainted conversion can be seen HERE.

"Necromancer Lord" from Avatars of War range, one sculpted by Gary Morley - the same one who sculpted the old clown-style Nagash for GW - so this model can be seen as his another take on the topic, even if for another company and under a different name. I liked this mini the moment I saw it, but I still had to convert it a bit to make it fit my Slavic wights better.

And speaking of those wights, man it was good to be back to this patinated color scheme! It was more than two years since I painted anything like that and I had to remind myself of how to do it, but once I did (thankfully the tutorial is helpful to me too!) I had a real blast, kinda nostalgic! I took out two liches and a bunch of Grave Guards too - and I did the whole process on the all at once. Then I did the usual bone, blacks with freehands and reds, only this time concentrating on the giant liche here. I will be posting the rest during upcoming weeks. Daremnych was especially interesting because he had this ground with bones rising up from the base - I never painted something like this before. Well, that and flames too, even if I hate painting those!

This guy opens a new 'season' in my upcoming projects too, expect much more from this subfaction in the near future!

Alexander Hautfell and his necromancers were crucial to raising, sustaining and supporting the wight armies that were the most effective fighting force available to the undead. That gave them much independence and influence in the local politics. That lasted until King Zlyshko managed to find another well-hidden wight barrow. Necromancers, not knowing into what they were getting into, helped to raise another ancient wight. He introduced himself as Daremnych, the Grand Priest of the Death God and the Hierophant of Bones. Towering over everyone else, he was one of the rare Varsavian Giants, a powerful necromancer and a very old, experienced schemer. Centuries spent in the barrow rusted his precision of handling the wings of magic and he didn’t know the new, refined invocations of the modern sorcerers, but his incredibly powerful, if somewhat wild and unpredictable magic skills were enough for the wights to finally stop relying on the feeble, human necromancers. They could go forth really expanding their armies. Still, even if discarded and without protection, Hautfell wasn’t ready to give up yet.

Daremnych the Great Liche Priest - WIP

A small conversion work. Miniature from the Avatars of War range, one called the 'Necromancer Lord'. He was sculpted by Gary Morley, the author of the infamous oldschool Nagash model - and seeing how this model looks, it's safe to say that this one is a much subtler reimagining of that old clown. I bought the miniature because I found it really cool, even if I didn't have absolutely any use for him on the battlefield - there are no necromancers or wights in WFB or AoS that big! Still, he'll be a good excuse in my background to greatly expand on the wights and the rest of the 'Ancients' subfaction.

As cool as this model is, I needed him to fit the aesthetics of my other wights, make him more Slavic and get rid of the 'mysterious eye' symbols that were all over him. To achieve that, I gave him a pointy crown/helmet and added much more Slavic iconography. I also scratchbuilt a new sword scabbard for him, as the original one was way too weird and fantastic for me.

Also, only on the photos, I noticed that the needle in his helmet is showing - I need to fix it up! His dagger is also missing here, but I still need to consider if I need it at all.

EDIT: The finished model can be seen HERE.