Liche Priest Conversions

In this week's post, I'll show you how I converted these two liche priests from the new kit with a handful of other parts.

 

 

I teased this first priest, Settisis, on Instagram a few months back–

 

 

This conversion is based on the Warmaster version of Settisis, with the tall hat, serpent staff, and standing atop the swirl of earth:

 

 

The kit comes with a mounted and foot version of the liche priests, but I wanted two priests on foot, so I needed to find another miniature with skirted legs. After a brief search, I settled on the Aeldari Spiritseer. The Spiritseer had the perfect pose with a skirt and a waist cape.

 

 

I cut up the skirt and cape, and sculpted some tears in the fabric. I also replaced the boots with the bare feet from the mounted liche priest, with pins running through the foot to secure it to the model and into the base.

 

 

The priest's torso was cut free from the legs, and attached to the skirt. I had to do a fair bit of sculpting to get it to fit. I also swapped the hand on the right arm to give it a gesture implying that he's summoning skeletons from the ground. 

 

 

One of the key details of the Warmaster model is its circular serpent icon. To replicate this in the larger scale, I made a ring of wire and sculpted the snakes over it. I cut the wings from the priest's staff and replaced it with the serpents.

 

 

Next, I sculpted the elemental base with Kneadatite "Brown Stuff" modeling putty, and added in some Skulls from my Skull Forge Scenics range.

 

 

I liked this bit so much that I decided to resin cast it, and I'll be offering it for sale on my Etsy shop (stay tuned).

 

 

The elemental bit was added to a 25mm base with some skeletons raising out of the sand.

 

 

Here's the completely assembled Settisis, ready for painting:

 

 

It's a perfect glow-up of the 10mm version and I was able to capture a lot of the same details like the skull on his hat and belt.

 

 

While I had a clear vision of what I wanted for Settisis, the second priest came about more organically. It all started with the legs, which were fairly cut up from the previous conversion. I was able to fit the torso from the mounted priest onto the legs with a little work. 

 

 

This guy was going to have the staff with the vulture perched on top, so I was thinking of a carrion bird theme. The belt decoration with the crossed knives and feathers seemed appropriate, but I needed to cut off the arm and carve away the hand to leave the shape of the vulture skull on the knife handle. To fit the piece in place, the old belt buckle was cut away, leaving a smooth spot for the new decoration to fit.

 

 

The other rough spots on the skirt were covered with putty and some scrolls and a sword.

 

 

I had the idea to attach the wings that were cut off of the first staff onto this priest's staff. However, when turned sideways, the skulls and scarabs were oriented the wrong way. Using a sharp hobby knife, I carefully sliced away the detail, leaving flat ovals onto which I could glue some bits of styrene rod to resemble gemstones.

 

 

Here's how they look on the finished staff:

 

 

I wanted to add more carrion birds to the model, and came across this bit I had from a Nighthaunt model. I turned the undead crow into a vulture by cutting off the head and reattaching it with a length of wire, then sculpted some feathers over the neck.

 

 

Neither of the remaining faces in the liche priest kit were really doing anything for me, so I used a classic zombie head. The back half of the head was cut away, and the edges trimmed so it could fit into the headdress. As a final touch, I sculpted some wrappings around the top of the head.

 

 

As I was working on the face, I didn't realize how much it would be looking upward once attached to the collar and placed onto the figure's body. This was a lucky bit of happenstance because, in order to give him a reason to be looking up, I got the idea to have the model casting a spell– A perfect use of the sand vulture from the Bone Dragon kit! I drilled through the arm and the bird and ran a length of paperclip through both to pin everything together and secure the thin attachment point. The cut up plastic at the back of the bird and the connection point was covered with some fine ballast.

 

 

The giant vulture was the perfect element to bring the whole "carrion bird-theme" together! The final task was gluing two classic metal tombstones under the base to add enough weight that the model wouldn't topple over.

 

 

Here's the finished liche priest:

 

 

These priests came out better than I had hoped, and really appreciate how they both ended up with large sand elemental effects so the models perfectly compliment each other.

 

 

'Til next time!