Winged Doombull Project

[Lamenter]

Hi all.

I started this project quite a while ago and have been posting on my blog but I'm going to be needing more feedback especially with the painting as I have no idea how to proceed with that yet.

After much deliberation I’ve settled on building a Beastmen as my army for Warhammer 8th edition. I like the fact they are one of the least popular forces being collected but I also think I can make them into a great looking army (most important part for me). My starting point is the theme of the army, which will be Tzeentch. Yes, I know Beastmen’s rules aren’t tied to any one God of Chaos anymore but that’s not important. I’ve always favoured Tzeentch above the other Gods and I’m a real big fan of what was done for Tzeentch in Warhammer Online (aesthetically speaking), a move away from the traditional bright primary colours and presented in the subtler form of the Raven God. As such the Chaos forces from the game will be a big influence on the aesthetics for my conversions and painting.

The inspiration for this character is an image from White Dwarf 135 of a winged Minotaur champion of Tzeentch (still one of my favourites). Trying to duplicate this simple conversion 20-ish years ago was one of my first forays into converting minis.

For those that are interested this guy will be carrying the following items.

Heavy Armour
Enchanted Shield
Sword of Swift Slaying
Gnarled Hide
Shadow Hide
Arabyan Carpet

The Carpet will allow him to fly and will be represented by his large feathered wings. The rest of his gear gives him a 1+ save and allows him to hit first with re-rolls most of the time. The Shadow Hide gift will also influence the final look of the miniature. Later on I’ll come up with a suitable backstory about this winged shadowy lone minotaur who has been chosen by the Raven God to act as my general’s personal champion.

So to start off the conversion I acquired a GW Doombull off of Ebay and started giving the project some thought. I knew the trotters for feet had to go. Minotaurs should have hooves no two ways about it. Why GW continue to make their Minotaurs with anything but hooves baffles me. I found a tail from the Be’Lakor model in my bitz box that I really want to use on this conversion. It’s lizard like but not an unreasonable addition in a beastman force and I think will help sell the idea of the Gnarled Hide mutation.



The first thing I did with my Doombull bitz was hack them up. I took the main chunk of the body and removed the legs as cleanly as I could, trying to save the chain loin cloth but not before I made a Blu-Stuff mold of the loin cloth (just in case).



I could now pin the legs (minus the stupid feet) back onto the torso and start to work out the pose. I wanted him to be charging forward rather than standing still as the standard model is. I also felt this necessary to distance the conversion from the stock model as best I could. I say this because the worst conversions are often the ones that immediately scream “Conversion!” because they look way too much like the standard model with some OTT element to them.

Next I inserted pins in either end of the legs and attached them to the torso, filling the gap with junk Green Stuff. To clarify, when you get Green Stuff in two adjoining strips it is a good practice to not use the middle bit where the two colours meet as this greenstuff has a small amount of already cured material (appears as lumps when mixed). This is what I call junk Green Stuff. However, I don’t throw this away as it is fine for filling gaps where it’ll later be sculpted over.
I then used pins in the lower legs to attach it to it’s base leaving what I thought would be enough room for new hooves. Once I’d bulked out the hooves in a rough fashion I realised I’d not left enough room, and he would end up with really stump lower legs. So with great difficulty, as I’d glued the pins in place, I readjusted the whole attachment giving some extra space to sculpt the new hooves. Unfortunately I then realised I’d gone too far the other way and now his legs were going to be too long. Rather than make do I ripped the whole thing apart and started over. Sometimes, especially with complex jobs like this, you have to be willing to take 2 steps back before you can go 1 forward, but it always leads to improvements in the final work.

Whilst working on this I decided I was going to have to heavily convert the head because the standard Doombull head wasn’t good enough for me and I wanted something of the more like classical Minotaur look. At first I was going to hack large areas of the existing head off and rebuild it, but whilst looking for some reference images I came across Bane Beasts models from Maelstrom Games. Whilst their monsters are some of the best I’ve seen, I’ve never been a fan of big monsters in my armies, but then after a browsing a little further I found their Bane Lords range and minotaur standard bearer Kaastaruk. It’s a beautiful piece of sculpting and I bought it right away simply for the head which I intend to swap with the Doombull metal head.



I had trouble with the connection of the new head onto the body and have had to sculpt a lot of extra muscle to make it look right. Took a lot of work to get it right but it’s been worthwhile and the head looks like it belongs now.
I had to remove him from the base twice more to get it correctly located (he’s been attached and removed from the base four times now). I made a duplicate of the shoulder pad to fit his other arm (Blu-Stuff mold) which I think looks really nice. The armour plating that normally fits that upper arm I decided to leave off. The arm itself I wanted to re-sculpt with all rippling muscles.
I ditched the enormous axe the Doombull came with and started work on a scratchbuilt mace reminiscent of the original inspiration model.

The mane took a bit of work to make fit as I had repositioned the head and sculpted new chunkier the neck muscles onto him. With a bit of twisting and resculpting I was able to blend it right into the small wisps of hair on the head. At first I made the hair on the top of his hair rather thick and tall to give him a mohawk, my belief that “everything looks better with a mohawk” unfortunately turned out to not be as true as I’d have liked. Still he does have a bit of a mohawk
Right from the outset of the project I was very keen to have this guy flexing huge muscles. I tackled the muscular arm bit by bit sculpting over the existing arm (that I trimmed back a bit first so as not to risk having anything sticking out of the GS). Once I had done the upper arm I attached the forearm part but found that next to his new mass it look a bit too slender. To fix this I remodelled the armour plate to “beef it up” (pun intended) and make it match up better.



I added the chainmail loin cloth back on the model by casting it in Green Stuff from the mold I made at the beginning of the project. The club itself I’m trying to have match as close as possible the original model. The rather blobby looking spikes will be cut down with a scalpel into sharp points, I just needed to get the approximate amount of GS in the right place first. The best way to achieve a sharp edge with GS is to cut it after it’s cured (with a sharp blade of course).

[Lamenter]

I added a chunkier studded belt by sculpting it on a plasticard strip and transplanting it onto the model about three hours later. I did this mainly because his waist just looked too slim with the adjusted legs. I still need to add a shield/belt bulckle. I did buy an Ogre bit from www.letthedicedecide.co.uk which physically fits nicely, but the style of armour didn’t match the armour plates he already has, so I’ll probably try something else.
I added long hair to the back of his calves (I was aiming for a shire horse look). I did this really simply by making a Blu-Stuff mold of his mane and casting that detail onto the backs of his legs.I took the Green Stuff out of the molds after about 2 hours while they were still pliable and attached them directly to the legs, trimming and pushing about a bit with a metal tool to make them fit right.



To help me get a better idea of how to proceed with the wings I printed out some on paper and tacked them onto the back in roughly the right size and position. I think doing stuff like this is very helpful when working on complex conversions. More time spent considering and planning will ultimately lead to better results.



My whole aim with making these was to make them really detailed and ruffled looking because wings featured on most other models (that I know of) are a bit on the flat side (see FW Lord of Change).

With a rough idea of the size of each feather I wanted I then sculpted a range of them on piece of plasticard (half for the right side and half for the left side). I then made 3 Blu-Stuff molds of the feathers. The quick curing time involved stopped me from making just one big mold, three smaller molds is just easier.



With the molds made I then used them about 10 times so far, to cast a pile of feathers. Taking the easy approach, I used the paper templates and attached some soft copper wire around the edge to reinforce their shape. I also gave the paper a thick coating of PVA glue just to give them some rigidity on which to build on. Starting with the largest feathers first I started layering them from the bottom upwards, fixing them with a small amount of superglue.



So far I'm about a third of the way through this. I still need to do the same on the other side of each wing and before they can be cast there will be a lot of filling in to do.

I'm still playing with the idea of making the wings on my Doombull a magnetized option because I still like my current Doombull as he is. This is one of the reasons to have them cast in resin just to help reduce the weight.

Once they are finished I'm going to have some casts made, so there will be some up on the my blog's store. They each measure 50mm across and 100mm tall and will be a good match Daemon Princes and monsters.

[Karak Norn Clansman]

Your press-moulded green stuff wings are very, very good. The cow doesn't look half bad, either.

[Tzarinchilla]

This is a seriously genius conversion/sculpt. I canno wait to see this progress as it is both extremely interesting and inspirational.

[RTGamer]

What is this Blue stuff you are using? Just noraml Blu tack? Doesn't it warp?

Really great work!

[Lamenter]

The cow doesn't look half bad, either.

I gotta admit the BaneLords/BaneLegions models are pretty awesome, I'll probably buy their latest Minotaur fig to back up this Doombull.

This is a seriously genius conversion/sculpt. I canno wait to see this progress as it is both extremely interesting and inspirational.

Thanks.

What is this Blue stuff you are using? Just noraml Blu tack? Doesn't it warp?

Really great work!

Blu-Stuff is a product I've used for a couple of years now and I find it so useful I recently started selling it. It's a silicone putty that comes in two parts that when mixed hardens into a useable mold. Unlike many other molding putties it cures firm and less rubbery which makes it much more suitable for casting in Green Stuff, although it'll work with resin also. I have a website for it at blu-stuff.com with an introductory video, and a lot of my work on masteroftheforge.com uses it if you want to look for examples.

[Tread Head]

just wow im very impressed. the feathers look amazing, inspiring stuff.

[Fanny Crowbar]

Incredible. Those feathers are amazing. This is looking really, really great. Keep it up!

[Fritzallmighty]

This is quite an inspiring project. The only thing that stands out to me as anything less than superb is the mace he's holding. The *ahem* thickness of the shaft, of the weapon, just looks strange to me. Though, given the overall level of quality of your Doombull, I'd hardly hold that against it.

[Ister Flersson]

This is awesome, can't wait to see it painted.

[Mr. Ultra]

This is the way the beastmen should look!

[wascloud]

First of all, this guy is awesome! Especially the wings, they are stunning. Quick question, how good is blu-stuff for resin moulds? I'm thinking of casting some bases up in clear ice resin, would blu-stuff do the job as a mould maker do you think?
Cheers!
Wascloud

[Student]

Those are some really impressive wings. I may have to invest in some of this Blue Stuff.

[Morten C]

Wow... Those wings are amazing truly stunning work!

The rest of the conversion work only makes it into the 'fantastic' category

[Morten C]

EDIT: damn, double post.

[Lord Azoth]

amazing, the making of the wings is awesome...

[restlesswargamer]

I can only repeat what others have stated, the wings are very impressive indeed.
I will be trying the same technique on future projects.
Your blog as some really inspirational work on it, I'm looking forward spending sometime looking over your archive.

[Sully]

What struck me with this project is the neatness, the "cleanliness" if you will, of the feather bits and the wings. It's industrial-quality stuff, I'd never say this is amateur work. I'm not sold on the whole idea, but the execution is just marvelous.

One of the best projects I've ever seen, and I've seen a few. You are a great sculptor.

[Lamenter]

This is quite an inspiring project. The only thing that stands out to me as anything less than superb is the mace he's holding. The *ahem* thickness of the shaft, of the weapon, just looks strange to me. Though, given the overall level of quality of your Doombull, I'd hardly hold that against it.

You're right of course. The thickness of the handle is three times that of his original axe. My reason for doing so is because I'm trying to emulate and update this conversion as closely as possible.
I'll admit it looks a bit unusual, but I like it. Looks like it actually has some weight behind it.

This is awesome, can't wait to see it painted.

Gotta admit I'm a bit nervous about painting him. I'm thinking natural and dirty skin tones with black wings at the moment, but I'm open to suggestions.

Quick question, how good is blu-stuff for resin moulds? I'm thinking of casting some bases up in clear ice resin, would blu-stuff do the job as a mould maker do you think?
Cheers!
Wascloud

I see no problem casting clear resin bases, just so long as there are no undercuts it could be done with a one piece mold. I don't often work with resin but I did do a small test just to make sure that the cast would still release without any additional release agent.



Two piece molds are possible as cured Blu-Stuff won't stick to freshly mixed Blu-Stuff, though because I've only really used it on small scale work I've not done any 2 part molds myself.

[wascloud]

Thanks so much man! Definitely going to be picking up some for my new bases!