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| Eldar Wraithknight Conversion |
Barbarus waited impatiently as his warped minions scrabbled around the rusted mechanism that operated the gigantic gate in front of them. It's corroded form blocked their path leading to the gloomy interior of the cave.
"Quickly" he croaked, " Time is short and BoBo needs to be roused from his slumber"
Two cowled figures gripped the levers jutting from the wall and pushed them upwards, their muscles visibly straining as the gate creaked and groaned slowly into the gloom above, showering rust and debris onto the group below.
Barbarus strutted forward and started working on some arcane runes set into a panel at the side of the cave. As he worked sounds could slowly be heard from the gloom, whirring and clanking as chains were released and ancient machinery fired up. The din went on for several minutes and then suddenly, silence. The wracks looked nervously at each other and shuffled backwards slowly, while Barbarus felt a twinge of fear he had not experienced in a thousand years, and then his creation strode lithely into view. Eldritch fire licked around the creatures torso as a massive ball at his side swung backwards and forwards, tentacles twitching and slapping as it moved. A ginormous double headed lollipop was gripped in his right hand and a brass fanfare played from speakers to his rear. All this Barbarus knew as they were of his creation, but what fascinated him was the creatures visage. Projected in the helm of the creature was a screaming clown face, flickering in and out of view as it moved forward.
Inwardly Barbarus smiled to himself, The machinery attached to the back of the torso was working as he had planned. The glowing warp stones at the waist had been bought back at great cost from the webway, and were the cause of the madness sithin the helm. The spirit stone had been tortured over an interminable period by the infernal machine, until it was driven to its current state of madness. While the machine clunked and cranked away, BoBo the clown would be the new face of this most ancient of spirits.
Barbarus was pleased.
Well folks, I have been working on this creation for a little while now, and am very happy to be able to show you the fruits of my labour today. I managed to do the finishing touches this evening and I then cracked on with the photos to show you all.
I showed glimpses of my works in progress over the last month or so, and I hope the finished piece is as pleasing to you as it is to me :) . Below are a few close ups and a few of my thoughts about its creation.
So above is the machine that is powering the wraithknight and torturing the spirit inside to madness. I used a mantic orc truck engine as the base for it, and then got a bit stumped about how to continue. I had a rummage through my bits box and found two chaos speakers and some spikes (every self respecting dark eldar player has a few spare spikes hanging around) that would make a nice addition to the side. These were joined with some wire to the engine block and neatened up with greenstuff amd plenty of sanding.There is a large cavity at the bottom of the block that I was unsure how to fill, but after a week of two of thought (I do occasionally ;) ) I had the idea to model a crank shaft and make the machine belt driven. I used an ork vehicle bit for the spoke and the rest I cut from plasticard and chipped so it looked like a worn belt. Finally I added the star (a theme continued from my talos conversions) but it did not look quite right as it had no purpose, so I decided it would be the power source for the engine. I used my tentacle maker to create some tubing and linked it to the machine. Finally the fans were added to the protruding shafts, just because I liked the idea :). I am pretty pleased with how the engine worked out and I like how it is quite an alien addition that operates the machine and siphons off the warp energy to drive it to madness.
I had the skaveb screaming ball thingy in my bits box for years now and was itching for a chance to use it on a conversion. As soon as I got the wraithknight I knew it was going to get some use. It has a great sense of motion and looks pretty darn mean too. I added the tenatcles later on partly to balance out the space but also to make it look more like it had been worked on by the haemonculi. The giant lollipos were great fun to make, and they will loom pretty convincing once painted. I chuckle at the thought of someone getting D weaponed by a lollipop :D
A massive amount of work went into the legs and their posing. I was a little restricted by the original pose of the model, as the previous owner had obviosuly used some superhuman strength glue to bond everything together, and I just could not get them to break so the feet could be repositioned. Fortunately I was able to break the hip joints and get a decent pose on top of the beach ball, as well as a little sense of motion from the body swing of the ball. The most lengthy part of this conversion was actually removing all the gems, filling all the gaps and sanding it all down smooth again. It was very cathartic though.
Aaand finally a glimpse of the hair and bowtie. :)
So the question is, do you think it fits in with my army theme, or is still a generic wraithknight with just a few mods? Would love to hear your thoughts on it.
NafNaf :)
