Blackhide Wrastler for Widowers Wood Painted

The Blackhide Wrastler for the Widowers Wood board game has a bunch of extra details that make it look really awesome in my opinion.  

Again with the rope... minions love rope for some reason!?!? I don't see what purpose all the rope on its hands serves but its there...

The net on its back holds a bunch of bones, bits of some person and a small amount of crab. Like a budget lunch box

The shell on his shoulder is the same as one half of an Ironback Spitters, I painted it in the same style as my Ironback spitter I hope I managed to match them well enough. You can see my Ironback spitter here and see how I did matching the shell

His necklace isn't as fancy as the Blind Walkers...

Better close up of the food he brings with him. I like the leg of pork especially, I imagine it was from a Farrow

His mask is made from the skin of defeated foes, you can see arms hanging down the front edges and patches with eye and mouth holes. Nice gristly details

What do you think of my Wrastler? This model is huge! Much bigger than I imagined it would be before I got it.

Blind Walker Painted

I won't beat around the bush here this was a tough models to paint! But it was well worth the effort, I really like how it turned out.

The rope... dear god the rope!!! So much of it to highlight while trying to not ruin the gator scales underneath...

I painted the head and the attached necklace separately which is unusual for me but it was well worth it to be able to paint the chest and the back of the necklaces details. I love all the little trinkets that are mixed in with the bones like a voodoo doll some feathers and a bottle. 

I like how the gemstone eye looks, the purple really contrasts with the rest of the model nicely.

I was really nervous about painting all the candles mixed in with all those bones. I wanted the choices of different colours to look random I didn't want a red, black, yellow - repeat. It would look boring and maybe a little jarring to me.

What do you think of my Blind Walker? I'm so pleased with it now its painted!

Hunter light warjack Converted for Competition winner

One of the prizes I gave out as part of the celebration for my blog turning 5 years old was a commission. Alex was the winner and asked that I convert a Cygnar Hunter light warjack to look less hunched over and squatting. He also asked for the axe to be changed as he wasn't fond of the shape of the head of it. 

The hardest step was to cut the legs apart. Once I had the conversion was underway and proceeded quickly.

I use a pipe cutter to cut plastic tube to length, this keeps the cut perfectly straight.

I also cut two small sections of a wider plastic pipe for detailing later.

First test fit of the legs, they looked too long at this point and I wasn't happy with how the pose looked. It looked too much like a lanky version of the original pose so I figured Alex wouldn't be happy with it.

I drilled into all the various parts for the project. I like models I assemble to stay assembled, so I pin everything I possibly can to make it as strong as I can.

I was able to use one pin to go all the way from the knee joint through to the leg then the foot and into the base.

I shortened the leg a little and measured it to make sure that both legs would be the same length. I also cut lengths of brass rod to attach behind the main bulk of the legs.

I added the small sections of wider pipe to the tops of the lower legs, this was just to add detail and isn't structural at all.

The brass rod then got attached behind the legs. I repeated the process with the second leg and pinned that leg to the hip joint.

I wanted to get the model into a pose that was not squatting but also dynamic enough without making it look unbelievable. To get the legs to fit onto the base I elevated the left leg onto some cork which represents rocks and posed the right leg backwards to make it look as though the warjack is striding up the rocks or perhaps taking aim.

The guidance Alex gave me about the axe was to make it more like a woodsman's axe I found this image and used it as a reference for reshaping the axe.

I cut it down and filed the cut edges to make them smoother and less obviously cut.

I added a scope to the gun to make the warjack look more like a marksman.

I did a test pose of the arms using bluetac to hold them in place, I do this to see how the finished model will look before committing to gluing. I don't attach the head at this point though as I like to use the head as a final posing option, a small tilt to one side can often change the feel of a model so I like to wait until the end to choose how to attach the head.

I wasn't happy with how the axe looked raised up like this, it looked too much like it was happily strolling around, I wanted the pose to look a little more like it was stalking its target.

Lowering the axe and tilting it inward achieved the look I was going for, it also helped to keep the models centre of gravity lower so it would have less balance issues on the table.

The pin in the left leg really helps anchor the model to the base, its running from the underside of the base through the cork,into the foot then the lower and upper leg of the model.

I covered it over with greenstuff to fully secure it.

Now I had the pose sorted I pinned the arms and head to the body to firmly attach them.

I then added an extra detail that seemed fitting, the severed head of a previous kill...

Here it is next to one of my painted stock pose Hunters, there is quite the difference in height. 

The squatting pose issue is completely solved, you can see here looking at my stock hunter what Alex was mentioning. 

I actually sent this out to him a while ago and he received it about a month ago, but I wanted him to have the model for a while before I posted about it here on my blog.

He was happy with the conversion and the name that I gave it while I worked on it.

So thats "The Huntsman" conversion complete and I am very happy with how it went.

What do you think of this conversion? Have you reposed a Hunter before? If you have let me know how you got on with it! I would love to see your work.