Plague Priest Scrabis-Tocsinous

One of the things I've enjoyed doing with my Skaven is representing specific magic items and artifacts on my characters.

 

The Bilious Bell in the list of Clan Pestilens artifacts offered the perfect opportunity to model a unique Plague Priest, and allowed me to tick off my box on the Hobby Bingo card. In this post I'll take you through my process of converting this model.

 

To make the Plague Priest, I started with the Skaven Warlord from the Island of Blood starter set and one of the monks from the Plague Furnace. The plan was to combine the legs and skirt of the warlord with the spiny top half of the monk.

 

 

The Death Guard Noxious Blightbringer's spine and bell would be added to the model to represent the Bilious Bell. The fly-chimes inside the bell were trimmed down so I could paint them as shards of warpstone. I was able to save the warlord's head, which I kept for another conversion. Never throw anything away!

 

The Blightbringer also had a small spine with two bells, which I wanted to add to the model. The larger spines would combine with the smaller shoulder spines to create quite a prickly priest! The left arm from a different Plague Furnace monk fit best for the pose I wanted, and the bell hanging on the rope would eventually make its way onto the model's staff. I settled on a head from the Plague Monk kit which added to the number of bells on the figure.

 

The left arm's hand was removed and replaced with the censer from the Furnace Priest. The large spines were pinned and their placement decided, but I kept them separate while I puttied the joins around the neck, shoulders, and waist.

 

Here you can see the spines and censer fit in place.

 

The right arm is from the Plague Monk kit. A paper clip was pinned through the bell's wrapping and into the warpstone tip, which was taken from the barrel of a Warp Lightning Cannon. Some extra wrapping and a wooden texture was sculpted over the paper clip armature.

 

On the bell, I removed two of the skulls and sculpted a Skaven symbol on their place. I sculpted a matching symbol on the opposite side.

 

Here's the staff arm in place. I wanted to keep it separate for painting, so I needed to find a way to attach it without the seam being visible.

 

The solution was to use the torn flaps from where the spines poke through the cloak to cover the shoulder join. The tears were sculpted all around the spines. I also added a scroll from the Plague Monk kit.

 

Here's the finished conversion work. The staff arm and the censor hand weren't glued, so they could be kept separate for painting. The only thing missing is the long parchment hanging from his belt. I added that just prior to painting because that area in the back seemed a little empty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I worked on-and-off for a couple of weeks to get the model painted. Here's Brother Scrabis-Tocsinous, ready to spread the word of Clan Pestilens:

 

 

 

 

 

 

'Til next time!