Converting an old school Dwarf Thane
The first guy I made - Dwarf Thane. The recipe is as follows:
-1x white dwarf classic & collectors edition
-1x chaos marauder shield
-20 cm of wire - half a square mm
Since Thane in my army list carries a great weapon as well as hand weapon and shield I wanted to add a shield to his back because of wysiwyg.
A few years ago (editor’s note: 20 years now, give or take), a totally epic dwarf army came out in the WD with chaos marauder shields on its back -> idea.
I chose the shattered shield because I liked the idea that a veteran like Thane had equipment that was an indicator of his battles and exploits.
I removed the spike from the middle of the shield (too Chaos-like), made a ball of GS, left it for 24 hours to achieve full cohesion and then cut it in half and glued half in place of the spike.
To make the model look as realistic as possible, I didn't just want to stick a shield on his back, but I decided to make a rope that would hold it in place. First of all, I determined the places on the dwarf where the rope should go around the body and with a pin vice I drilled holes into which the rope I was about to make would enter.
Making the rope itself is a pretty straight forward job -> I cut a piece of about 20 cm of wire half a square mm cross section, removed the insulation and folded the wire in half. I squeezed the ends that are now next to each other with a vice, and on the upper side I pushed the toothpick between the wires and started winding. As you spin the toothpick the wires wrap around each other, and it’s up to you just to determine how much winding density you find most realistic. I didn't want it to be a bare rope, so to break the monotony I added a knot and a piece of string on which I pasted a medal taken from an old dwarf warrior banner.
After cleaning the figure and greenstuffing the cracks where the fists with the axe join the rest of the figure, I made a base - some sand, some stones, some static grass ... same old, same old ... with an accessory that I like to put on bases because if it is made as it should look very realistic vegetation -> dark green sponge (modelling, torn on chunks) is glued to the base and then well sanded with super glue. After the glue dries and the sponge stiffens, a light drybrush goblin green is added and then superficially to parts of the drybrush bubonic brown - even if you haven’t tried it, I highly recommend it, it looks great to me.
Painting: black matt coat, I painted the shield before gluing it on the back, painted the dwarf, added the shield to it, added the rope, painted the rope ......... not to lengthen, here is the photo:
Honestly, I’m not overly pleased with some parts of the figure. I painted the beard twice and twice it turned out a bit muddy, the axe (blade) ended too thick - I'm still looking for the right technique for painting metal, I'm still not happy with the way my skin looks, my eyes disaster .... but not to bitch myself too much, this is after all the first figure I’ve made after a full two years break and I believe things will fall into place when I get a little harder into the job.
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