I’m still in the mood for converting star players. Had been buying parts and cool models for a while and was just in the mood for that, been experimenting with casting and sculpting with greenstuff too for some pretty decent outcomes.
I’m aware pics of grey plastic with some green sculpted bits do not make for the most exciting blog and do intend to get back to painting at some stage. There are a few more stars I am working on at the moment and once they are done I intend to either paint up some of the stars I have built or begin a new team.
Captain Colander
The halflings had a lot of cool and interesting stars added in their Spike, including a golden era star. The illustration in the Spike magazine had him in a very similar pose to one of the normal hopefuls holding the ball. So I used that as the basis for his body, legs and left arm. I carved off some details on his chest since the Captain went bare chested and sculpted a torn bit of cloth as well as his right pec. His right arm came from another fling, the head was from a hefty and the colander from another hopeful with the handles repositioned. His cloak was chopped from the leader of the Godsworn Hunt underworlds range.
Other details were added with greenstuff or plastic such as his elbow pad, hair and the face guard. This was some of the most complicated sculpting I had done so far, normally I use it for casting, gap filling and minor additions like hair, but for this I had to sculpt parts of his body and clothing, which was quite a challenge.
Madcap Miggz
I had initially planned to make him from the squigs that came with the underworlds night goblins, then later the plastic squig hoppers and even bought both boxed sets. But then the loonboss came out and I loved the model, but had wait ages for it to be available separately. I could have just used the model as it was aside from a simple hand swap, but wanted them to be clearly Blood Bowl players.
So I added a kneepad to the squig along with a face mask from the Gorbeast, I also chopped down the base and modelled the toadstool as a spiked shoulder pad. The goblin didn’t need much change, just a head and arm swap.
Hubris Rakarth
I had already made a version of Hubris based on the 40k Dark Eldar Drahzar model, but that more little resemblance to either the illustration, nor the old model.
One of the things I like most about the new warcry sets is the variety of models in each box, you get dwarfs, beastmen and ogres along with lots of different human body types, both male a female. This really helps with converting as several of the dark elf stars have mostly bare chests but it had been hard to find appropriate sources. They were either super buff humans which looked odd on elves or really skinny, which was fine for catchers, but less so for blitzers like Hubris. I drew inspiration from the new illustration and the old Hubris model (which in my opinion is still one of the worst sculpts GW ever did).
His legs came from an elf union player with knee pads from a Spire Tyrant and loin cloth from a wood elf lineman. His torso was from an untamed beast member with the straps round his waist made of greenstuff and the skull belt from a mummy, the disk on his back was cut from the arm of a space marine.
The top part of his arms were from a Cypher lord, the forearms from dark elf linemen and spikes from a savage orc. Extra detail was added in greenstuff. I sanded and added detail to his shoulder pads from linemen to match the illustration as closely as I could. His head is from a tree-revenant with hair from a wood elf lineman.
He ended up being a very time consuming model with almost no actual dark elf parts on him.
Elijah Doom
Whilst working on Hubris I’d spent a lot of time looking at the Dark Elf spruce and Spike and decided to finish off the other outstanding stars.
The illustration of Elijah only showed a small part of him and his stats and description didn’t tell me much aside from being a solid, no-nonsense lineman. His torso and legs were from standard lineman and didn’t need much change, I did switch legs from another model so he’d be standing in a more intimidating pose.
The bare arms came from another Untamed Beast Warcry model with the forearms from a lineman. It took a fair bit of work to try and get the crossed arms to look right, since plastic models won’t bend in the same way as real limbs would. I did try and get his cold one skin decoration to match the drawingby using green stuff and bits from other models.
The main parts to get right were his helmet and should pads. I added extra decoration to his helmet from a witch elf to make the pronged decoration. The hardest part was to get his shoulder pads right, as no existing pads I had looked anything close.
I had planned on using pads from a rotter as the basis, but ended up casting these as greenstuff sticks better to itself than plastic. I then sanded and sculpted details onto this and cast 2 copies, those these needed a little trimming and then filling to fit the model exactly.
Jeremiah Kool
He is another golden era star, a unique player that has fulfilled a catcher, thrower, runner and blitzer role in the past.
I though the illustration of him in the spike looked cool, but it only showed his top half. I found a classic illustration from 1st edition that I used as inspiration for both his legs and for a more dynamic pose.
His legs are from a normal dark elf runner, I added studs to these using greenstuff and took his belt from a Kharadron overlord. His torso was from another Untamed Beasts warcry model and greenstuff was used to add some extra straps to him. The spikes on these straps come from chaos warriors.
His head is a wood elf BB player and his hair from a pro elf, with greenstuff to fill gaps and pull his hair back. The weird topknot uses the pommel of an empire pistol which I carved down and sculpted some hair on.
His arms are from wood elves with the right guard being from a dark elf lino. Should pads are cast from greenstuff and then sanded to the right shape with borders sculpted on. The spikes come from dark elves.
Valen and Lucien Swift
Forgeworld released a nice pair of models to represent these stars, but I did find it confusing to tell who was who. Also the running pose didn’t really fit Valen as a thrower.
To fix that I chopped his legs off and used those from an Elf Union thrower. Then chopped his left arm up to be holding the ball.
Lucien was left as is.
With these guys completed there are just 14 stars I have not at least built yet. There are 4 stars to complete and once they are done I’ll have all those from the first 4 Spike magazines ready to go.
I’m thinking my next project will either be finishing off crp by doing Vampires with Crazy Igor and maybe some of the new undead stars who can play of them. Or maybe one of Chaos Chosen, Dark Elves, Nurgle or Shambling Undead using the GW team with all the stars I haven’t painted yet. That might be the next NAF team I do, though I am well ahead as the Human team is done aside from basing and some extra details and won’t be needed until spring 2021.