A Flurry of Blades and Bats

In this post I cover the armament and final assembly of my new Vampire Lord:

I decided to completely re-arm the vampire, and decided to have him dual-wielding a longsword and a parrying blade. The swords are from the mounted Knight of Shrouds and the Chainrasp Horde, respectively. His head, by the way, is from the face of a Corpse Cart driver, with the head, neck, and ears sculpted from Procreate putty.

 

Because the hand and wrists are too tiny to pin or even properly glue together, I decided to use classic zombie arms and drill into the forearm to create a "sleeve" that I could insert the wrist into.

 

I angled the paperclip pins at the shoulders to fit into the model, and then used those same pins to attach the arms to a wooden dowel for sculpting.

 

First, I sculpted the armor over the arms, leaving a gap for the opening at the fold of the elbow.

 

Once the first layer of putty was cured, I sculpted more detail over top, including the scalloped cuff and the elbow guard. When those had cured, I used a bit of Green Stuff putty to add rivets and chain mail. 

 

Here are the finished arms, before attaching them to the figure:

 

For the shoulder pads, I sculpted curved blocks as the under structure. I made these narrow to allow room for the surface layer to add width and thickness.

 

Once cured, I sculpted the scalloped shape over top. I started with the center ridge, and worked my way out, pressing each groove into the putty and shaping it so it would taper from narrow at the top, to wide at the bottom. They looked a bit like seashells when I was finished, but would eventually be trimmed down to the size and shape I wanted.

 

After they had fully cured, I popped them off the card and cut the back edges. Then, I trimmed and filed the outer edges to the size I needed.

 

I shaved the undersides concave with a hobby knife so it could fit over the arm and shoulder, and used a round needle-nosed file to file the scalloped shape between each ridge along the outer edge.

 

On the model, I added some putty to stick the shoulder pads to, and sculpted chain mail in the gaps.

 

Here are the shoulder pads in place, with a small rivet added at the base of each one:

 

When the initial putty was hard and the position of the shoulder pads set, I added more putty underneath to fill in the gaps and add extra stability.

 

And here's the finished Vampire Lord in all his glory! With the paired swords and no shield, I'm imagining him as an offensive fighter, hacking down his enemies The bats swirl about him, distracting his opponents and obscuring him from shooting. I'm definitely looking forward to painting this guy!

 

'Til next time!