Personally, I've always liked the idea of a couple of Chuckle Brothers trying to shift a piano.
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| To You, To Me... and so on until it ceases to be funny. |
This conversion has been a long time waiting, but the prospect of an upcoming SkypeBoot finale between Daemon Prince Phlothos and his dwarven nemesis gave me the impetus to crack on with a suitable Lord character.
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| He's basically carrying the weight on his thumbs. |
It was this model that gave me the idea in the first place: an old war machine crew member who appears to be in the act of lifting/loading something (or else just saying 'steady now, steady now'). Once he was reborn from Dettol, I knew I had one-half of the team.
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| A more pragmatic carrying pose - shoved under the chin. |
The other prop is a Dwarf crossbow/handgunner (it came with a choice of weapons to attach). I added some plastic dwarf hands (fortunately the one at the front is gripping something, the one hidden at the back is more a balled fist).
The shield they're using is a spare from Lorenzo Lupo, which is just big enough to fit between the two slottabases. I had to do some angling of the models to get them level with each other (I didn't mind some comic awkwardness, but the Dwarf Lord still has to balance on top somehow), and using the Astrogranite textured paint to make the ground seem uneven seemed to do the trick.
(I've also decided that this grey texture, combined with Mechanicus Standard Grey along the edges, is going to replace the 'brown rocks' appearance of my existing dwarves - it's only 150 models to rebase, I'll be done in a jiffy)
For the guy on top of the shield, I initially had an old Imperial Dwarf champion in mind, but I reckoned I needed to aim higher.
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| ... as high as Dwarves get, so to speak. |
I picked up the Thorgrim Grudgebearer model, and his throne, years ago. Sadly, none of the thronebearers were included (and damn me if I can find them separately on eBay), so after working out complicated plans for converting them, I realised I was never going to get around to it. So the High King gets demoted to a Dwarf Lord and I guess the Throne of Power is destined to be a piece of scenery.
And I'm glad I did it. Now I get around to painting it, the model is a lovely one: suitably squat and grumpy-looking (as every dwarf lord should be), and with a belly that bulges out of his tunic (as every chief carried on a shield should be). Thinking about it, I would have never used a Throne of Power, even if I got around to converting one. Whereas this shieldlord should get an outing every time I use my dwarves (which I guess would be ... WoffBoot XI?)
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| "Don't let me down, lads." |
I chose fairly muted colours for the lord, to try and make him look less regal (and less like Thorgrim): leather tunic, iron helmet and as little gold a possible (even the dragon on top has been 'weathered' with my attempts at verdigris).
I didn't want to go over the top with his runic axe, but I thought it needed something, so I tried to add a glowing effect to the central rune (I practiced on the rune at the back - and lucky I did, because I made a pig's ear of it). An outline of Ice Blue and White Scar drybrush seems to work okay on the front side.
Rather than a snowy white beard, I went with a russet colour using Vermin Fur and Leprous Brown, suggesting the younger look of a battle leader.
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| Rather than a bookworm in a bathchair (sorry Thorgrim). |
The other element of the conversion was the noble seat - the Thorgrim model doesn't have a backside, due to sitting on the throne, so I filled one in with chainmail (using my chainmail technique of poking a lump of greenstuff with a pin many times over).
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| I did, however, sculpt a nice set of dwarven buttocks. |
And so finishes the first Dwarf I've painted since 2004. A comicaly fat guy being clumsily hauled around by two goons: the stuff of heroic legend.
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| Waa-waa-waa-waaaagh! |
Very nice! I look forward to challenging him in the near future.
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