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by Stefano
Grave Guard
Dire Wolves
Black Knights
Grave Guard:
When I first saw the models of the new bretonnian men-at-arms with halberds, I could not resist to convert them into grave guards. The challenge was to convert these new men-at-arms to blend in with my 12 older metal grave guard models with halberds. They still lacked a command group, so that was the first thing to create.
The things I had to bear in mind for these conversions was my overall red-and-black Blood Dragon Army colours, the Bretonnian heraldry themes such as the grail and fleur-de-lis, and if possible the red dragon.
Conversions :
To
come out in the unit, I had to give the champion a bit more appearence, so I
took a dark elf spear as a right arm, and standard skeleton left arm. To nicely
blend in with the older models, I had to reject the new shields and stick with
the older bretonnian shields. I also “nailed” a scroll of parchment onto the
shield, fully made of green stuff. I chopped off the front of his left foot and
replaced it with the toes of a skeleton, and finally replaced the human head by
a skull. There I used some green stuff to create the chain mail in his neck.
For the banner bearer, the choice was
quite obvious, looking at the impressive flag in the men-at-arms sprue. As a
left arm, I replaced the whip from the skeleton arm from the Khemrian chariot
sprue by the ball-with-chain from the standard skeleton sprue. Then the head
was cut off from the helmet and replaced by a skull. Finally, some battle
damage was induced on the clothing to underline even further the worn out nature
of the model.
For the musician, I took a 5th edition empire Reiksguard on foot musician. Being in metal, it was not that easy to convert : no quick arm-, leg- or weaponreplacements. Basically, I drilled out the eyes, cut off the moustache, replaced the existing plumes on his helmet by the dragon-heraldry from the new bretonnian knights sprue and modelled a small flag on his horn. Some extra holes and dents in the armour had to finish the dead impression.
Used parts :
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Bretonnian men-at-arms command sprue
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Old Reiksguard on foot musician
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Old bretonnian shields
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Skeleton, dark elf and bretonnian knight bits
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Green stuff
Painting :
The main colours on my older finished models are black, red and armour, so to blend in well, these colours were taken to apply on the freshly converted ones. For the skeletal surfaces, I have my own way of painting that I will explain further down. Finally, all other surfaces are a mixture of different brown shades and ink. Due to the overall dark colour scheme, I prime my vampire counts models in black.
I always start with those surfaces that are the least easy to reach with a brush, simply to avoid “contamination” of other surfaces in later phases. In most of the cases, this is the skeletal face. To give these surfaces a bony, withered yet not too white appearance, I apply the following layers :
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Entire surface bubonic brown, followed by a thick flesh wash, giving it a dark stain look
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Black ink in the deeper regions such as the eye holes, nose, mouth, rib case and between the fingers.
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Slightly thinned down bubonic brown, avoiding the deeper regions and teeth.
(this leaves an overall brownish shade, especially in the little less deeper regions) -
Slightly thinned down bleached bone as a first highlighting stage.
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Skull white as a finite highlighting stage on the most upper regions such as the edges of the eye holes, teeth, knee caps, toes and knuckles.
The
result of this procedure is shown best in the picture of the
champion.
Next in line are all metal parts like weapon blades, helmets and chain mail. This is rather simple, by applying boltgun metal, then a black wash, followed by a drybrush of boltgun metal, and finished with a highlight of chainmail. In this way, the metal looks a bit unpolished, what goes nicely with the dead fellow holding or wearing it, as can be seen in the picture of the champion.
To
fit nicely next to my blood dragon vampire on foot,
some metal armour pieces received a red ink wash as can be seen best on the
musician model.
The black parts on shields are left like that, apart from a highlight of codex grey on the edges of the shield. The red parts are done with red gore, highlighted with blood red. The red gore layer is applied as two thinned down layers to be sure to nicely cover up the black primer, and to avoid thick layers of paint, which should ruin the smooth surface of the shield.
All outer clothing is done in black, followed by a highlight of Regal Blue. This looks a bit more ethereal and unnatural than the usual grey or brown highlights, if you ask me.
The inner clothes are done in red gore (again two layers), followed by a black ink in deeper regions, and highlighted with blood red.
The leather parts on weapons and clothes is done with snakebite leather and a brown wash. All other clothing and bits and pieces are done in a variety of brown colours, since this is a quite neutral colour next to black and red.
And finally the part with most of the painting fun : the heraldry ! For the command group, I chose for a mix of blood dragon and bretonnian symbols, combining their existences both before and after death.
For the musician, I repeated the attributes on his helm om the piece of cloth hanging from the horn : a sword carried by two dragon wings. The sword was painted like all other metal parts, and the wings consist of a combination of dark flesh, red gore black ink and blood red.
The champion received a fleur-de-lis on his shield, breast plate and shoulder pad. For the latter, I used the decals from the bretonnians as a start, painting it over with bleached bone, black ink skull white and ghostly grey. On the shield, the fleur-de-lis is handpainted, using the smaller decals as a reference and the same colors.
The banner bearer is currently not finished, but the idea is to put a large red dragon on the flag, together with some other smaller symbols in each corner. I’ll share it with you upon finishing.
Used paints :
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Prime : black
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Skeleton surface : Bubonic brown, bleached bone, skull white, flesh wash, black ink.
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Metal surface : Boltgun metal, chainmail, black ink, red ink.
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Shield : Codex grey, red gore, blood red
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Clothes : Chaos black, Regal blue, red gore, blood red, black ink
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Leather : Snakebite leather, brown wash
Dire Wolves
My army included ten dire wolves, but against some armies, I felt the need to have more of these fast-moving flank-charging beasties. The first ten models were made straight from the blisters, so this time they had to look a bit more dead.
What better way to look dead then to
have some bones protruding
here and there, so I started to look into my undead
bits box to come up with some left-overs of dead horses I used to convert my
black knights models. After carefully clipping away some plastic, two wolves
received a “new” spine, one some “naked” ribs, and one skeletal knee.
During the battles with my Vampire
counts host, I happened to notice the extreme magnetic properties of dire wolves
for every object that can be hurled or shot away. Keeping the bretonnian look
in mind, I chose to express this property by sticking some arrows in two dire
wolves.
Last but not least, I transformed an old
drawing into reality. The drawing depicts a hunter charged by a wolf, with his
breaking spear in the wolf’s chest, and I always wondered whether the beast or
the man was victorious. To give you the answer, my last wolf is now limping
around with a broken spear in his ribcage.
Finally, all edges of the conversions received a bit of green stuff, modelled to represent some loose fur still sticking around.
In the end, I wanted to make the wolves look like they just overran some bretonnian foot troooers, combined with some more indications of death. So I stuck some arrows, helmets and broken bows on top of the base, and I also attached some pieces of the standard grave stones (see skeleton and zombie sprues)
Used parts :
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Dire wolves blisters
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Skeleton steed and skeleton regiment sprue bits
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Green stuff
Painting :
I had to consider they were part of a red-and-black coloured undead bretonnain army , and since the ten existing models already blend in fine, I kept the same colour sheme.
As with all undead models, I started with a full layer of black primer, and drybrushed codex grey onto the furry parts. The eyes are blood red followed with a tip of blood red to give them a “reanimated” look. For the teeth and other bony parts, I used the same color sheme as for all skeletal parts (see section “grave guards”). With the protruding weaponry, I wanted to make even a stronger link between the wolves and the rest of the army, so I painted the arrow feathers and broken spear with red gore and blood read. In this way, they connect with the red clothing parts of the grave guards and the black knights.
Used paints:
- Prime : black
- Fur and gravestones : Codex grey
- Head : Red gore, blood red, bleached bone, skull white, vermin brown, codex grey, black ink
- Weaponry : Bestial Brown, red gore, blood red, boltgun metal, chainmail, black ink
Black Knights
In fact, the conversion of my black knights was my first bigger conversion project, even before the 6th edition of warhammer came out.
I first tried to create a kind of barding on the standard black knights (skeleton steeds plus metal undead model), using sheets of lead that are taken from the seals of wine bottles. However, after a first trial it did not deliver the desired effect, nor ideas to improve.
So in order to have barded undead cavalry models, I had to come up with another plan. I first considered remodelling the emperial barded horses, but then my eyes fell on the bretonnian warhorses. I really like heraldry, and with these horses I saw my chances. I still had a few knights with horses laying around from the 5th edition starters box, so off I went !
Finally, I ended up with 10 black knights, including a command group. I really took pleasure in converting the horses, the knights themselves and the heraldry. The end result can be found here.
I did not have a digital camera at hand at the time of the conversions, so no pictures available to illustrate the following paragraphs. But no worries, the 6th edition barded bretonnian steeds are even more awesome, so I started “black knights conversion : the sequel”. Because the conversion and painting methods will be roughly unchanged, I will regularly take pictures of the ongoing process and include these instead.
Conversion:
First of all, the steed ! It had to look dead, implying every “living” part of the horse had to go. The legs, belly, mouth, and ears were removed after gluing both body parts together. Then these areas were carefully remodelled with a hobby knife to create a “hollow” look. I left the belt under the belly intact, first with the idea to insert the skeleton horse ribcage later on, but finally the ribcage was left behind due to “technical problems” (note : does it show I am an engineer in real life ?). The last step on the barding was to drill out the eyes, thus creating empty eye-sockets.
The next step
on the steed was to provide it with skeletal parts. The legs were taken from
the regular skeletal steed after first gluing it together and into the slotta
base. Then the legs together with the slotta base were removed and - after
quite some trials of careful cutting, filing and fitting - glued to the hollow
barding. This was the most tricky part of the process : find a natural pose and
keep
it that way during curing of the glue. 
The mouth and tail were also cut off
from the skeletal horse and glued to the model. The horse bit was remodelled
with small pieces of plasticard and green stuff. The result of all this can be
seen in the picture.
Now that the steed is ready, we can go onto the knights. First of all, I found out all standard black knight models did not fit on the bretonnian horse, not even close. This left me with just one option : convert the plastic bretonnian knights. I took a look at my nicely filled undead and empire spare parts boxes, and took my chances !
Used parts:
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Bretonnian knights sprue
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Skeleton steeds sprue
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Green stuff
Painting:
