Drazhan the Younger

Another small update of one of the wight heroes - only this time it's not much of a hero, but rather a constructor, sculptor and an architect - Drazhan the Younger, the Magnificent Maker.

The whole idea with him was to kitbash a version of a Necrotect from the Tomb Kings roster that would fit with the aestethics of my army - the conversion can be found in the link above. I painted him in the usual color scheme for my wights - only now he's not a warrior, but a craftsman. The metal parts are rather minimal, the patterned black and yellow cloth is also small and it's the red hat that's the focal point of the composition - I tried to create an impression of an building site foreman (who also often wear differently colored headwear).

Besides being a gaming piece, he's also narratively a creator of constructs (like the Effigy of Death) and a reason to start creating my own takes on iconic Tomb Kings constructs such as the Ushabti, Tomb Scorpions and Bone Giants.

Zlyshko was very satisfied with the Effigy he managed to bring back to life, but one was not enough for his plans. The fact that all remaining ones were destroyed didn’t help. Only way to deal with this was to get their creators to make more. They may be all dead, but that wasn’t as much of a problem nowadays. A wide search was conducted - it wasn’t easy, for the architects-sculptors-engineers that made those marvels often omitted their own name out of humility. Only one - Drazhan the Younger - was honoured (or prideful) enough to be buried with all the information about him. An egocentric, brilliant creator and a harsh overseer, Drazhan was most pleased to be able to glorify the Death God with his creations once again and with them, drive away nonbelievers from Varsavia.

Gudvanger's Flying Horrors

Heavily converted Carrions from the Tomb Kings range - painted in March 2017. This was a rather spontaneous project - there was a competition on Carpe Noctem, with the topic being "Special Unit" and I found three cheap Carrions on eBay. A quick burst of inspiration later I bought them and rather hastily turned them into what can be seen here. The general concept was inspired by this artwork. The mess in their bellies represents the first try of the visceral fleshcrafting / body horror I would like to add to the Bog Dwellers faction - think something like from The Thing.

The unpainted version can be seen HERE.

Built from strange varieties of bones, feathers and flesh, held together with steel and skin, the Flying Horrors are another mad creations of the flesh-stitcher Haralamb Gudvanger. What sets them apart from others, are their bellies - in which he planted seeds from the Lady of the Bog. Amongst all the dead, necromantic tissue molded by the stitcher, those writhing tendrils of the blooming flesh are the only living parts, twisted as they are. The hungry mass of viscera catches and consumes all nearby body parts - be they alive or dead - with unending appetite. As long as the Horrors won't devour themselves, Gudvanger can deem the experiment of joining dead mass with the living flesh as successful. When they are not fighting with Wretches over waste bodies, they are useful in flesh-stitcher's modest force for scouting and terror tactics.

Gudvanger's Flying Horrors - WIP

The painted version can be seen HERE.

A rather spontaneous conversion turning old Tomb King Carrions into a mix of something from this artwork and creatures from The Thing. The heads are scratchbuilt, teeth are needles, the fleshy sack on the middle one is made out of greenstuff balls covered with several layers of Liquid Greenstuff, the rest should be rather self-evident. It was a fun project, I plan to do more of such visceral horrors in the future.

First the three monsters together:

And some closeups:

The Effigy of Death

A heavily converted Necrosphinx from Games Workshop, painting finished in May 2016. After everything I did to him there's barely any original mini left visible - the process can be seen HERE. Painting itself was messy, I was often dissatisfied with it and redoing things - especially the stone parts. In the end, I think it turned out pretty good - it fits other wights despite being rather different - a good lesson for future projects.

The Death God is known in many forms. Sometimes he allows you to speak with long-dead relatives, sometimes he raises undead to work in the fields, sometimes he demands you to perform grisly rituals for unknowable reasons and sometimes he personally wages war against his followers’ enemies. A long time ago statues were built by Varsavians to resemble that war-like aspect of their god - and after King Zlyshko was raised, he organized a search for any remaining ones. Only one such Effigy of Death was found relatively intact. And strangely enough, while it’s strictly a Varsavian creation, Lucan quickly pointed out it’s strange similarity to Khemrian sphinxes. Sculpted out of stone, shaped with wood and metal, this monument is impressive enough, but only after sacrificing a childless human inside the statue’s belly and baptizing it with blood, the construct comes to life for a short time to wreak havoc against enemies of Varsavia. And while it relies only on its physical power, it’s usually enough to best most foes. Statue’s stone body, covered in metal, is durable beyond imagination - and its blades can cut through even the toughest monsters, even if with their weight alone. Woe betide those that stand in its way!

The Effigy of Death - WIP

The painted version can be seen HERE.

Nagash was my biggest project up to date, but it was the Necrosphinx that was supposed to be converted the most. I definitely didn't want it to look Egyptian, I wanted it to be vaguely Slavic and having a similar theme to my wights.

First thing I did was to scratch off almost all of the plastic surface. What wasn't completely scratched off was at least slightly bumped. Original was way too smooth. Then I started covering the body with milliput - I wanted it to look more like a rough pile of rocks in the shape of a sphinx instead of a smooth sculpture. The effect was quite weird at this point. Also, not knowing what to do with the belly of the sphinx, I made it with a hole - to put a caged skeleton there, as a sacrifice powering the whole construct.

I added a pointy helmet because that's probably the easiest thing to get that 'ancient Slavic' look. The blades are made out of plasticard. Now I think that I should have it hold them instead of them being fastened to its arms, but this works too - makes it more recognizable as a Necrosphinx. Also, to avoid having too much stone texture and add some variation, I added Grave Guard shields to its legs. As you can see, I broke off the tail - I really didn't have an idea how to make it fit the theme, so I got rid of it entirely.

After that was done I did the wings. Cut pieces of tin-can were used as bases - on which I glued pieces of balsawood to make it look like wooden planks. I carved little ridges on each 'plank' to give them 'wood grain' appearance similar to all the wood GW makes - and then poured super glue on it - for added resilience. Still, they're rather fragile, so they're magnetized for ease of transport.

Finished conversion below. It is certainly overdesigned, but that's how I tend to do things...