I'm pretty happy with my first attempt at a scratch built Skaven model. Well he's not really scratch built but hes got a scratch built spear shoulder pads helmet which for me is a step in the right direction.
actually it's a huge leap, gotta take the plunge and improve my meagre skills before tackling skitarii, alpha legion and renegades!
I think this is how he would've turned out had he come out as a multi part plastic set and so we'll start here:
There definitely was a method to my madness when it came to assembling the halberd it was very simple;
I used a 1/16 drill bit and bored through the entire fist. I put a dollup of green stuff in the hole and fit in the long straight section of a paperclip.
From there it was just wrapped with extremely thin rubberized wiring, you don't have to be neat just keep the loops tight, grab a modelling knife and slide them up or down til they meet the fist.
The bottom end cap was taken from an old chaos beastmen plastic standard. Once these parts were assembled I pinned the arm in place; again with a paperclip. I used superglue and gave it a generous drying time.
Only then did I pin the blade. I think it came from an old orc charioteer. I wanted the weapon to look as though it had two dedicated hand grips. I see the Skaven as being a much more hunched over tripedal race only raising up and clenching two handed weapons once their enemies are near. To emphasize that I wanted a metal disc base used for misleading unit numbers on charges and feints. I've also liked the look of thick rope surrounding the haft of two handed weapons and if you look closely it's nearly as thick as his forearm, pretty hard for a sword to hack through, and easy to trap a dagger in, leaving his opponent at his mercy, not something the Skaven are known for having in spades!
The shoulder pads came from four rounds of trial and error all I can say is work in thin strips, let it dry (cure) and liquid green stuff is your friend. Liquid cement is not. If u ever need to glue something into green stuff efterwards I would recommend superglue.
The rivets in the armour are again from an old nail decoration kit my wife discarded.
Don't get me wrong I still love my metal figs but I'll definitely be putting some cool little conversions into my next unit: the deadly (not really) +2 shock elite stormvermin with some plastic goodness.
Did I say Skaven finished by end of May? Well we are tricksy aren't we?
And I still gotta finish those nunchaku armed gutter runners. It never stops!
