Converting the Tomb Guard

I'm finally getting started on my unit of Tomb Guard– Here's a look at how I'll be converting the unit!

 

 

 

After all the work I put into my skeleton regiment, I felt like the Tomb Guard needed a bit of a glow-up to distinguish them as an elite unit. The halberds, for instance, are very similar to the style of spears the skeletons are wielding.

 

 

I thought about using the kopesh blades atop the halberds, but it wasn't really working for me.

 

 

After some searching through my parts box, I found my sprues of leftover bits from the Grave Guard. Their great weapons would make perfect halberd blades, and some of them even evoke the similar curve of the kopesh. By using these blades, and converting the models to hold the halberds two-handed, they would definitely stand apart from the spear men.

 

 

Before working on the weapons, I needed to do a bit of work on the bodies and clean up some backfill and wonky areas on the plastics. The models in the Tomb Guard regiment kit seem a bit "messier" than the crew of the Warsphinx:

 
This is the sprue for the Warsphinx– The figures' wrappings and belts are more cleanly defined.

 

 

The Tomb Guard Kit– The wrappings and belts mix with the cloth strips, and extra armor plates, and there are some blocky areas of backfill (required to prevent undercuts in the mold) that need to be cleaned up.

 

 

One particular example is the leg on this pose– It's got wrappings extended to the top of the grieve, and the cloth below the armor plates makes the thigh appear much lower than it actually is, almost like he's got a broken or dislocated leg. I cut out those spots and now the position of the thigh is much more "readable."

 

 

To make the two-handed pose of the halberds, I carefully separated the right hand at the wrist (taking care not to damage the armor when I cut it). I also separated the halberd blade and the cap on the bottom. For the right arm, I used a regular skeleton arm. The Grave Guard great weapon was cut from its handle, ready to be attached. 

 

 

Using a thin drill bit and some floral wire, I drilled and pinned the blade, through the cap, and onto the handle, but I didn't glue it in place yet.

 

 

Gluing two-handed weapons together on a model is always the worst, and I was only making it harder on myself! Before attaching it, I drilled through the left hand with a larger drill bit, just about big enough so the halberd shaft could fit through, but not big enough to split the hand apart. I played around with the fit until I found a good angle, and then glued the right arm, and then the left, ensuring that the angle of the hole through the hand lined up with the right wrist.

 

 

Next, I cut the handle where it lined up with the left hand and glued it all in place. (The bits of the handle that inserted into the hand needed to be shaved down slightly to fit.)You'll also notice some thin styrene on the bottom of the feet– Something I've been doing to keep the skeletons' feet from getting buried in the sand.

 

 

With the weapon position set, I glued the model's head and the blade in place, and put him on a base. I essentially did this step one model at a time, so I could position everyone and make sure they all rank up properly. The first few had their halberds a little low, and the rest were angled higher so they would fit over the heads of the ones in front of them.

 

 

To finish off the left arm, I cut away the bracer from a Tomb Guard sword arm, and trimmed away the excess material, leaving only the bit of armor. I also used a round file to file the underside concave so it could fit over the bare forearm. I also cut the cap off of an old skeleton weapon to use as the new cap at the bottom of the halberd shaft.

 

 

I used a bit of putty to sculpt some wrappings on the reverse side of the grieve (sorry, I just realized as I was writing this that I didn't get any photos of that).

 

 

To make the unit champion stand out, I gave him the halberd blade from the tomb king in the Warsphinx kit, trimming off the cobra decoration at the tip of the blade.

 

 

Here are the first six guardians, armed up:

 

 

Then it was on to the shields. I struggled with this a bit, because I wasn't sure how to handle them. Even though they can't use them with the halberds, the figures are still equipped with shields and hand weapons. I decided to put the shields on their backs, but the tower shields were just too large, and overpowered the whole profile of the model. So, I cut the bottom of the shield away, sanded it round to mirror the top, and shaved off the detail. (I also cut away the arm sculpted on the underside.)

 

 

Then I attached them with double-sided tape to a dowel and sculpted detail to match the top half of the shield.

 

 

The shields on top are my first attempt. The ones on the bottom came out much better; I sculpted the radiating lines all the way to the edge, let them cure, and then trimmed them to the appropriate length and sculpted new trim along the bottom.

 

 

Here are the shields tacked in place:

 

 

The final detail was to glue the small knife and pouch from the Grave Guard sprues to represent the models' hand weapons.

 

 

That's six models built, fourteen more to go!

 

 

'Til next time!