Kitbashing a Necromantic Witch

The conversion I've been slowly chipping away at since October is finally complete!

 

I wasn't quite sure how this project was going to turn out when I began. After building Olivia and the Wight Queens, I was left with significant pieces of those models, and thought I might be able to combine them into a new necromancer– A necromantic witch. I had the top half of a banshee, and the bottom half of the Anasta Malkorion vampire. 

 

 

The banshee's waist was a pretty good fit for the vampire skirt. I just needed to trim away the stomach area.

 

 

I pinned the torso to hold it in place while keeping it removable for the different bits of sculpting that I might come up along the way.

 

 

That was a pretty solid start to the figure. 

 

 

With all the banshees I'd made, I had yet to use the ACTUAL banshee head in any of my projects, so it was the perfect choice for a witch with long, stringy hair. At this stage in the project, I wasn't yet sure what I would do with the arms, so I trimmed away the hand with the knife and touched up the detail of her hair where the hand was removed.

 

 

The head and outstretched arm was perfect for a witch casting a spell or summoning the dead, but the fact that the hair was blowing while the skirt hung perfectly straight bugged me a little.

 

 

To add a little more motion to the skirt, I used the sleeve bits from the Empire Wizard kit.

 

 

I trimmed away the sleeve openings to create extensions for the sides of the skirt that wouls flare out a little more. I also saved the parchment scrolls for later.

 

 

The additional cloak fit surprisingly well, with minimal trimming required.

 

 

Once I puttied the seams, it looked like they were part of the original model.

 

 

With the putty still wet, I fit the torso in place to create a perfect impression for the parts to line up later.

 

 

Now the skirt had a little more motion to match the hair.

 

 

The hips were a little rough on the sides, as the original vampire model was intended to have armor covering the joins. I came up with the idea to use bat wings to make a waist skirt. This would serve the purpose of adding more detail, covering the seams, and creating a layer for the long flowing parchment to come out of. I cut a portion of the wings from the large Cursed City Direbat.

 

 

They were okay, but looked a little big. And the tops didn't quite have the attachment I was looking for.

 

 

Here you can see what I had in mind for the flowing parchment– It was supposed to be attached at her waist, underneath the wings and armor. It was all just adding too much mass on her bottom half. I liked the idea of a witch with a big skirt and lots of stuff decorating it, but this was throwing off the flow and silhouette of the model.

 

 

I ditched the Direbat's wings and went with the medium-sized bat from the bat swarm.

 

 

These were a lot better, and had the added benefit of the wing membrane curving around her hips to connect in the back.

 

 

I was a little concerned about them potentially looking like little winged arms protruding from her waist, but after playing with the positioning for a while, I finally settled on a position I was happy with. I also shaved down some of the material on the underside to get them to sit closer to her hips.

 

 

I filled in the space between the wings with putty and then sculpted ties and stitching so it was clear that the wings were something she was wearing, and not part of her anatomy.

 

 

With the body worked out, I turned to her arms. I had my eye on the leftover hands from Neferata. I still hadn't decided whether or not I would give the model a staff, but I settled on keeping the outstretched open left hand (it was kind of the inspiration for the entire figure, after all), and giving her the curved blade with the fingers gesturing as part of some incantation.

 

 

Neferata's robes had originally attached to her forearms, so I needed to resculpt a little of the detail on the bracers. I pinned the parts of the forearm, the original banshee's sleeve, and the torso so I could secure the parts and play around with the positioning before gluing them.

 

 

The left arm needed matching detail, so I used the other bracer, pinned to the elbow. To attach the hand, I drilled out the end of the bracer and shaved away the forearm, leaving a peg on the wrist. 

 

 

The hand was inserted onto the bracer, and I decided to turn her hand palm up, as though she was commanding her minions to rise from their graves. (More likely, she would be throwing up her hand in disgust at my terrible dice rolls!)

 

"A two?!  Oh, come on!"

 

The final step was to add the parchment and change the detail on the front of her skirt.

 

 

I shaved off the two fangs handing from the chain, and sculpted a leather strap in place of the chain. I had a bunch of pieces that I was considering for baubles to add. I really wanted those keys in there somewhere, but they were just too big.

 

 

The winner was the skull and bone necklace of the ghoul king from the Terrorgheist/ Zombie Dragon kit. In this image, you can also see the putty I added at the sides as attachment points for the parchment. 

 

 

With a little putty work, the parchment fit in perfectly as I originally envisioned. The one on her left side needed to be cut and angled at the bottom to be more in line with the flow of the model's "wind." 

 

 

Here she is prior to basing:

 

 

I added some ballast, a zombie, and small tombstone to tie her into my basing scheme.

 

 

It was a long road, but the Necromantic Witch is finally finished, ready for painting:

 

 

'Til next time!