Iron Fang Pikeman IKRPG character conversion

I was digging through my bits box today when I picked out the one random Iron Fang Pikeman I got in a big trade a long time ago. Inspiration hit and I decided to make an Iron Kingdome RPG character or NPC.

I added a lot of battle damage to his shield and armour. A lot of this will show up a lot better once I've painted it.

I don't know why, but I wanted to give him a sword so I glued this sheathed one which I believe is a Nyss hunter sword for the ones who are holding their bows.

I also added a bulge in the cloak to allow for the length of the sword, this adds a touch of realism in the conversion which I like to try to do.

I also gave him a backpack, as most adventurers would not get far without the various things you need to carry somehow.

I couldn't decide which type of backpack to give him so I asked the community!

I find that sometimes when making a conversion I can get decision paralysis, so asking others can help me move on with a project.

Thanks to everyone who answered with their preference, even if I didn't end up picking what you suggested. (I did go with the most popular though)

I found these really small leather pouches and got the urge to add some behind his shield. I don't know what he keeps in them but it's sure to be something important!

I decided he needed some ranged option, so gave him a small hand crossbow with an attached quiver.

I added a thin strip of green stuff to serve as a leather strap to hold them in place.

I am really happy with how he turned out and am ready to call him done and ready for painting. If you have any suggestions on anything you would change or add before I paint I'm happy to hear it and take it in mind. 

I will be painting him to match a friend of mines Black Dragon Pikeman, as I like to tie all our local armies into the same Iron Kingdoms world when I run the IKPRG.

If you want to support my content consider taking a look at my Patreon which you can find here. I don't put any finished content behind a paywall but I do offer rewards to people who support me in ways like getting to vote on what content I work on in the future or outright just picking the next subject of an article as well as posting wip projects.

Even if it's just $1 it really helps me out!

See you all next time!

Alexia The Longest Night Diorama

This project has been sitting in my head for years now and I'm so pleased to have finished it and realised the version I had in my imagination.

Alexia is my favourite character in the Iron kingdoms. I've always enjoyed her storyline and character, as well as thoroughly enjoyed using the various versions of her in the tabletop wargame.

The size and scope of this diorama has greatly changed since my initial planning. This is the original size I was planning for the diorama. It was originally going to sit on the plinth that eventually I used for my Riot Quest "Menace versus Maniak" diorama. (If you're curious you can find it here)

I feel at this point it's important to say a big thank you to DragonPup who sold me the Alexia model. Given that she was a mini crate exclusive, and a six month VIP model at that, I simply could not afford to subscribe for six months just for one model.

The next person I'd like to thank is my friend Andrew. When I showed him my concept for the larger size diorama once I found this display tray he immediately ran back to his car came back with some graveyard terrain he had purchased for his home table. He gave me a length of fencing, and let me choose which graveyard crypt style building I wanted.

So here is Alexia, she was by far the hardest thing to paint in this entire piece. It took me quite a while to get the white dress looking the way I wanted it, but I'm happy with how it's turned out in the end.

I always paint Alexia to have glowing green eyes to represent her Necromantic powers.

This priest zombie is by Reaper miniatures. I had always intended to use it as an RPG model but it just seemed perfect for this diorama. The idea is that he is a Morrowan priest Alexia has risen from the dead.

It was quite a pain to cut the fencing out of the crypt without destroying it. I took my time and used a very sharp hobby knife, I'm happy with how it's turned out.

I wanted to use some of the original zombie risen from Alexia's Warmachine unit, this Khadoran winter guard zombie was a lot of fun to paint and has great character. I painted it in the same style as the winter guard I painted for IKRPG encounters.

(For those curious you can find them here)

The Cygnaran trencher risen is a favourite of mine as I am a huge fan of the trencher aesthetic.
I painted it to match the colour scheme of my trencher army. 

Having painted these risen I feel the obligation to go back and repaint the Alexia and the risen unit, which apparently I painted seven years ago.

I painted them in this ghostly style to save time as the idea of painting more than 20 zombies was rather overwhelming for me at the time.

(If you want to see the nearly 7 year old blog post where I show off these and talk about painting them you can find it here)

Given the expanded scope of this diorama compared to its original conception I wanted to add some more risen. Luckily I had these skeletons coming out of the ground which are the bottom parts of GW spirit host models. I originally bought those spirit hosts to make a Cryx soul counter for Andrew.

(If you want to take a look at that you can find here)

This poor little guy has a clod of earth and grass on his back covering up the lack of detail where the ghost/spirit was originally coming out of him.

I added Morrowan sunbursts to both the crypt and the fencing. Removing GW "essential" skulls they just can't make terrain without at least a hundred of the bloody things...

I really wanted to add older gravestones leaning on the back fence. I have seen these a lot in graveyards in the UK, often this is because a plot has not been paid for anymore so the stone is placed on the boundary of the graveyard and the plot is reused.

A lot of the stones I have added plants growing over them. While I did intend to do this anyway as I like the way it looks, I chose the specific stones to cover up words cast into the gravestones by the manufacturer in English. In the setting this is based in text is runic, and I didn't want to add a stupidly large amount of work carving gravestones.

If you look closely most of the gravestones are crooked in some regard, and a lot of them have sunken ground in front of them to represent collapsed coffins, something I've seen a lot in older graveyards.

The various plants growing up the fence also serve a dual purpose. Primarily they are decorative, however, they also hide gaps in the fence where I cut skulls which were embedded onto the fence posts.
Good old GW…

It's hard to see from the photographs that I weathered the crypt and stones heavily with green towards the bottom to represent moss/algae effects, and yellow/orange to represent lichen. The roof of the crypt I decided would be heavily corroded with verdigris.

It's really hard to see inside the crypt, but I carved off the symbol that was on the sarcophagus and added another Morrowan Sunburst.

If you want to support my content consider taking a look at my Patreon which you can find here. I don't put any finished content behind a paywall but I do offer rewards to people who support me in ways like getting to vote on what content I work on in the future or outright just picking the next subject of an article as well as wip content.

This project itself was picked by my patrons!

Even if it's just $1 it really helps me out!

I have pictures of the step-by-step creation of this diorama, though at the moment I don't intend to write a blog post detailing its creation. However were there to be enough demand, or a patron out right request such an article I'd be happy to do so.

See you all next time!

Khador Patrol Painted for IKRPG

Recently I have been concentrating in painting projects for the challenges on the Warmachine and Hordes painting group. Its been really fun to take part in them. (you can find the group here)

This month I've been painting a Minions battle group of Barnabas1 a Swamp Horror and an Ironback Spitter. I finished the actual painting a few days ago and have been just adding a thin layer of water effects to their bases each day. (They will be posted up as soon as the water effects clear up...)

With the challenge project basically finished and next months prepped and ready for May (I will be painting a Dracodile) I figured the best thing to do with my time is finishing up old projects which have been sat unfinished for a long time. 

This group of Khador models I picked up very cheaply a long time ago with the plan of using them to represent a Khador patrol for Iron Kingdoms RPG encounters. Roughly two years ago I painted them up but stopped either distracted by another project or I just lost interest. They have been sat on the wip shelf on my hobby desk for the last two years until now! 

This group of Winter Guard are not my "best work" but they are painted to my satisfaction for them being RPG grunt models for a party to either fight or fight alongside.

One of the eight Winter Guard I converted to represent a Jack Marshal. It is a simple conversion of adding a backpack from an old Rhulic model and putting the prybar from a Khador MoW mechanik into the bed roll. Finally putting him on a base which includes loads of mechanikal parts finishes up setting him apart from the other Winter Guard

This Mortar was missing the grunt which would normally tag along in the Wargame. This makes it basically unusable for Warmachine, but for me he works perfectly in the RPG!

The Manhunter solo was an interesting challenge to paint rough and weathered skin of a outdoorsman. Lots of leathers and fur finish off the model nicely I think.

This lone Widowmaker is missing the rest of his unit. Like the Mortar this makes him useless for a Wargame player but perfect for me!

A Destroyer is a bit of a tough thing for a party to come up against but it also adds a nice level of threat to a party and also a great way to deal with those high defence encounters with its explosive ranged attack.

The Juggernaut is a classic Warjack and it painted up easy enough. I didn't try to reinvent the wheel when painting these two Warjacks, just getting them "done" was the main goal.

I'm really glad to have these all finished, they have been sat on my desk for so long I had completely lost interest in finishing them!

They were also a good choice for me to try the snow effect texture paint which a friend of mine gifted to me.

Big thanks to him, I have plans for an interesting diorama which I plan on using it for! More on that another time....

And finally I thought I would try something new! 
Using money from my generous supporters over at Patreon I purchased a rotating display stand. I like to put the money from supporters back into improving the content I make.
I'm hoping to get better at making these over time, one thing I know I want to save for is a better camera (I currently use my phone).
Please let me know what you think of this addition to my painted model articles.
If you like it please like, comment and subscribe on Youtube it really does help with letting youtube know its a video worth suggesting to other hobbyists. (And it upsets Mike...)

If you want to support my content consider taking a look at my Patreon which you can find here. I don't put any content behind a paywall but I do offer rewards to people who support me in ways like getting to vote on what content I work on in the future or outright just picking the next subject of an article.

See you all next time!