I undertook to write this tutorial for a couple of reasons… First, I dislike the current Kislevite range by GW. I find the figures awkward, bulky, cumbersome, uni-pose and just plain uninspiring.
Second, I like working with plastics and creating new projects for myself. Third, I do not want to depend on the availability of figures and bits from GW. It is so much more fun to make by yourself what has only been available commercially previously. Gives you a sense of freedom and possibilities…
Anyway, ‘ere we go…
The participants:
Everything is pretty straightforward here. Plastic shields you see were made from Plastruct plasticard (If you look at the workshop section of my website, you will find the exact product number you can use. Thickness is the same as banners). Two of the shields were left flat, and two were cut out of the piece of plastic I curved using a heat gun. The idea is the same as described in my banner-making article, except that you use a heat gun instead of a stove as the source of the heat.
The shields were inspired by various eastern European 16th century shields, such as this Hungarian beauty from the Metropolitan Museum in New York:
The flat shields had a semi-convex piece of Plastruct plastic glued in the middle to create a central ridge. Here is a close-up:
The swords were cut out of plastic strips (Plastruct again!) with curved scissors. Tangs were cut out with an X-Acto knife, to be inserted into the hand. A wire-thin piece of plastic was glued to the center of the blade to simulate the fuller ridge:
Wire was used to create guards and quillons for the sabers. I hate the current crude Kislevite scimitars. I wanted to reproduce something more sophisticated, so opted for some Polish and Hungarian Karabela sabers, aiming for something like this:
Another close-up:
The handguards were glued to the plastic saber with ordinary superglue. Additionally, the ends of the quillons were given a drop of superglue as well – both to hold them well together, and give them nice, rounded quillon-like endings. The center ridge can also be achieved by gluing a thin piece of metal wire in the center – the effect will be the same, and the metal wire may actually strengthen the plastic blade. I just happen to like plastic.
At this point I had to worry about the important part – reproducing a Kislevite head. After a quick scan of the net, I had an idea of what I wanted:
A Catachan head was used for this purpose. The top was stripped/sliced off and a piece of plastic was glued, with the top roughly rounded up with a hobby knife. A very thin strip of plastic was heat-curved and glued around the brim, to represent the fur flaps:
I know, I know,… not much to look at – so far! Here comes the fun part. I wanted fur. I wanted to avoid working with the green stuff, because I am not particularly good at it. And then I realized that the SAME EXACT EFFECT – fur texture - can be achieved with SAND! Here are the results:
The plastic brim was painted with Elmer’s white glue and the head was dipped into a sand container. It looked a bit rough at this point, so I knocked off excess glue, added drops of glue where there were gaps, and added more sand to those areas… and it became a lot more presentable. At this point, I glued the same thin plastic wire (see sword-making above) to a thin piece of plastic cut to look like a feather, heat-curved everything, and glued the resulting “feather” to the front of the head:
At this point, the next big challenge was the feathered wings, used by the Kislevites. Well, I decided to boldly go… Again, curved scissors were used to cut out the general shape, which I had previously traced with a Sharpie marker around the actual wing:
I went over the edges with a small file, applied some plastic glue to melt the rough spots a bit, and the general shape was ready. Since I had no way (so far I haven’t come up with anything satisfactory) to reproduce the feather pattern like you see on the original wing casting, I decided I will simply paint it on during he painting stage.
Time to put everything together… This is where the real fun begins!
Wings glued on here:
And, finally, the big one – time to prime! When the new creation consists of such different parts, I anticipate the priming stage with some trepidation, as the primer will unify the previously disparate parts and move the project closer to what my imagination depicted originally.
Kislevite Winged Dragoon primed:
I think he looks dandy! Rough, dashing, and violent, much like his Polish-Hungarian historical counterparts. I am really looking forward to painting him! And his shield will be a nice testing field for those Kislevite decals I am planning to design.
Another, older more experienced warrior just off the modeling table…
To be continued (hopefully) with more models and painting…
