Performing Micro Surgery

I've had my eye on this model of Sekhar from the Soulblight Gravelords– Her Lahmian aesthetic fits right in with the Tomb Kings, so I grabbed one to convert into a Royal Herald. I figured it would only be a matter of sculpting some bandages and removing the vampiric blood-drop iconography, but the project quickly became more complicated... 

 

 

The conversion started off simply enough– I sculpted some bandages on her hips before attaching the legs. 

 

 

Then I noticed that her toes were part of the base! An easy enough fix; I could cut around the section with her feet and fit that onto a 25mm base. But that would come later. At this stage, I also glued on her breastplate and sculpted bandages on her back and shoulders, and on the backs of her knees.

 

 

First, I would address her head by slicing off the blood drops coming from the snakes' mouths, and I scraped and filed the center icon smooth. The skull was sliced off of the front of a Tomb Kings banner icon.

 

 

At this point, I started to feel like her face was too vampiric. In fact, she had way too much flesh for a desiccated, mummified corpse. I made the decision to replace her hands and face with skeleton bits. After double and triple checking that the GW skul bit would be appropriately sized to fit in the helmet, I used a knife and pin vise to carefully drill and carve out the miniature's face, taking care not to damage the helmet itself.

 

 

While the face of the skull fit the opening, the cranium was too large to squeeze into the cavity. So, I carved away most of the back and top of the skull so the face would seat properly in the helmet.

 

 

Since I was going full skeleton, I also cut away her neck and replaced it with the neck from a skeleton horseman. (If I had made this decision before gluing the chest piece in place, I could have saved myself a lot of grief. The chest bit has a circular collar that slips over the neck, and I had to meticulously cut away her neck and insert the new skeleton neck without damaging anything.)

 

 

Now, that is a proper godess of death!

 

 

At this stage, with the model mostly assembled, I realized how tall she really was. Her lanky proportions are one of the things I like about the model, but she stood a full head and shoulder above my other skeletons and Tomb Prince Selketta. This wouldn't be a problem if she was mounted in a chariot where her stature wouldn't be as obvious, but standing side-by-side in the front rank of an infantry unit, she stood out like a giantess. (Regrettably, I didn't take any photos, but trust me, her hips were practically shoulder-level with a skeleton!)
 

I made the painful decision to shorten her. I only hoped I could reduce the height without losing the lanky appearance. To achieve this, I made three cuts– above each ankle, and up under the armor across her right thigh. I took out about 1/8-inch at the ankles and a thin slice on the thigh. I couldn't get at the left thigh with the cloak in the way, but fortunately, these cuts were enough.

 

 

I pinned all the pieces back together and puttied over the seams.

 

 

That did the trick! She's still tall, but it's not as extreme, and I still retained her lithe pose.

 

 

The last bit to deal with on her body was the icon on her chest. I sliced away the two outer drips, and shaved the center blood drip smooth. Then, a tiny skull icon that I had cut off of the Sepulchral Stalkers' spines was glued in place.

 

 

I selected a shield for her from the Tomb Guard kit. Now, I needed to swap the blade to her left hand.

 

 

On the inside of the shield, I completely removed the arm and straps, and etched in some wood grain. The the skeletal hands I used were from the plastic Grave Guard's great weapons. Using a sharp hobby knife, I sliced Sekhar's dainty hands from her armor, leaving the bracers intact. I trimmed and glued the skeletal hands in place. For the shield grip, I kept the weapon shaft in the hand, and shaved it down mostly flat, and attached two bits of fine styrene rod for the rivets.

 

 

The back of the hand was shaved flat so it could fit against the inside of the shield.

 

 

For the sword arm, I drilled through the weapon handle in the hand, and inserted a fine wire to use as a pin for attaching the blade and the skull pommel. The skull was also taken from the Sepulchral Stalkers, in this instance from one of their beards. For the finger guard, I used a piece of styrene rod. The section of rod actually had an air bubble in the center (as they sometimes do) which saved me the trouble of having to drill a hole. I also, separated the elbow, and straightened her arm a bit to get a more natural pose with the sword.

 

 

And here is her final assembly, as she'll appear ranked up. Since her cloak stick out so far to the side, I took care when positioning her to ensure it would fit behind the model next to her and in front of the model in the second row. Thank god for 25mm bases!

 

 

'Til next time!