Ancalagon's Swordmasters (WIP)

[jack_frost_x]

That's truly brilliant first time greenstuffing, better than anything I've attempted.
Nice big rep.

Though, some of the photos are a bit blurry, nothing wrong with your modelling, keep up the good work!

Jack.

[chris 101]

love them great green stuffing ;Y
rep for you

[Ancalagon]

Thanks guys

I've started working on them again in the last few days now my exams are finished. I hadn't touched any models in about a month because of revision and all that, but now my days are pretty much empty I've started work on the next batch. Hopefully I'll have them done in a few days time, then I'll start the painting.

[Meish]

They look awesome so far, I can't wait to see them painted!!!!

[Ancalagon]

The next and final (for now) batch are finished! Now I'm used to this I've started knocking them out relatively quickly. I've got enough now for a unit of 12 with full command, which will run in 6x2, or I could use less. I'll do a couple more at some point so I can have 7x2, but at the moment I want to get painting again since I've been doing a lot of greenstuffing.

First up is the last regular trooper.



Next the musician. I modelled him with his trumpet slung over his back for a couple of reasons. The main one is the way I'd made the armatures. The one coming from the right shoulder runs through the right arm and up the blade, and the one from the left shoulder goes through the left arm and down to the pommel. So if I was going to model him with the trumpet in hand I'd probably want him to have the other hand on his sword, and that would have meant either doubling back the armature so that one armature could go to the blade and pommel, or tracking down a soldering iron. I also figured that he would sling it n his back a lot of the time anyway to swing the sword, so it seemed the easiest solution.



The standard bearer now. The banner pole is from the chariot sprue. I figured I could use the hands that were already on it if I cut off the thumbs which were on the wrong side of each hand for what I wanted to do with it.




Finally the Bladelord. I had to think quite hard about him, because I wasn't sure how to make him stand out from the others. I modeled him with a larger sword than the others, but I wanted to make him stand out with either a fancier helmet or a good helmetless head. Since I didn't have any suitable bare heads, I went with the helmet. In the end I used the helmet wings from the hero kit even though I thought they look a little too large. I figure that they're not actually that bulky since they're mostly just feathers and it really helps to make the champion stand out from the rest of the unit. The alternative was the head from the hero or dragon sprues, I forget which, which had the large plume on top. It fitted with the theme a bit better than the wings since all my other swordmasters have small plumes, but I though the plume on it looked to huge, heavy and unwieldy and I didn't think I would do a very good job of cutting it down, so I went with the wings. They look a lot more oversized when you view him on his own than they do when you view him in the unit.




A group shot of the latest 4



Finally, a few shots of the whole finished unit.






Well that was quite a project. I hope you like them.

I'll get a thread up in the painting forum when I've got these painted. It'll probably be in a few weeks though, because I'm going to want to take my time.

[Meish]

Looking soo. The squad came together well! Awesome job.

[Lost Nemesis]

Ancalagon, when I first saw your converted Swordmasters in that thread with swntzu's, needless to say I was excited. When I stumbled on this thread, I was even more so; these guys are brilliantly done, and I can't wait to see them painted.

My only gripe is with your champion. The only thing setting him apart is his helmet... you might consider adorning him with some other fancy things, like a sash or some gems or something. Just a consideration; be sure to let us know when you've got them painted!

[Ancalagon]

Originally Posted by Lost Nemesis

Ancalagon, when I first saw your converted Swordmasters in that thread with swntzu's, needless to say I was excited. When I stumbled on this thread, I was even more so; these guys are brilliantly done, and I can't wait to see them painted.

My only gripe is with your champion. The only thing setting him apart is his helmet... you might consider adorning him with some other fancy things, like a sash or some gems or something. Just a consideration; be sure to let us know when you've got them painted!

I agree about the champion, it's just that I couldn't really think of much I could do to make him stand out apart from the helmet at the time, hence why he got the enormous wings. I considered a cloak but I thought it would look a little daft if he was the only one with a cloak and since I've never tried to model that kind of flowing cloth it probably wouldn't turn out too well. I do like your idea of a sash though. I might try to add one, though it might be tricky to get the greenstuff off the detail on his breastplate if I go wrong.

I'll probably try it in a couple of days, since tomorrow is a big event here so I won't get anything done then. It would add a good little bit of colour as well, since the vast majority of the unit is going to be silver just because there's so much armour! Part of the plan was to try to make the champion stand out somehow in the paint scheme, perhaps by using a little more gold than on the rest of them, or maybe layering some reds onto his armour while the rest of the unit just use silver (my normal colour scheme is red gore and bleached bone with mithril silver armour). That could work quite well actually. Hmmm...I've got some thinking to do!

[Pickle]

Nice work, maybe get some milliput for the sword, it sets harder and as such is easier to file to a sword point etc.

[Ancalagon]

Originally Posted by Pickle

Nice work, maybe get some milliput for the sword, it sets harder and as such is easier to file to a sword point etc.

I probably should have done, but they're finished now and I'm happy enough. If I consider doing another big batch at some point I'll look into it