Dwarf Zweihänder Greens - Part 3

With only a couple hours before sending the figures off to the mouldmaker for productionmoulding, I found myself with the choice to duplicate one of the bodies in the unitfiller set or make a set of 3 with 4 heads.

Or I could use the flambergé sword from one of the other figures and attempt a small conversion to create a minor variant...

Dwarf Core Infantry Command

For some reason I forgot to post these, although they were finished around the start of the year. They are the command figures for the core infantry, as always by John Pickford. These have been mastermoulded and productionmoulded and I should have castings ready in a couple weeks.

We've got three bodies: captain, standardbearer and musician and three heads that should be interchangeable with eachother as well as with those of the infantry set. The captain and standardbearer get some further options for customisation.

The captain has three weapon options - a sword, a pistol and a warhammer - and two different shields inspired by period iconography and the obligatory skull (it felt weird not having included one in any of the figures before as I hear skulls are the cool thing to do). His feathers will have more of a curve in the final castings:

The musican is a pretty traditional design, a drummer, 'nuff said.

The standardbearer has three different standard options, two of which reflect the design of the captain's shields. These should fit without much difficulty on the bodies of the first infantry set (WKD-01) if you like more variety and the halberds and pikes from that set should fit on the standardbearer's body, turning him into a pretty good captain or sergeant figure.

WK Dwarf sallet helmet conversions - Part 2

Following up on the previous post (and with John's consent), I have decided to follow through with the idea of converting the complete set of the action poses with sallet helmets and offering them as an additional choice for core infantry troopers. Since they are fairly uncomplicated conversions, these should be able to go straight into a productionmould, so it shouldn't take very long to get these released.

The last 3 went together a lot faster than the first one I did. Here 's a picture of all 4 of them:

WK Dwarf sallet helmet conversion

Someone was asking about the possibility to do a unit of WK dwarfs that are all wearing sallet helmets. The big obstacle to using all the available poses is that the WKD-03 set (action poses) have heads that are cast on to the bodies and 3 of the 4 are wearing floppy hats.

So I went to task to see how hard it would be to convert one with a spare sallet helmet. I took a pair of heavy duty metal cutters to the top of the head on the figure (just below the hat) and did the same with the beard peaking from under the helmet. This was followed by some more cutting with a hobby knife to remove the excess metal on the top of the head/bottom of the helmet and then a lot of filing to get a nice flat surface (head should be filed back to just under the nose). The bottom of the sallet helmet isn't completely flat, so a small gap remained on the front and the back, but a tiny amunt of greenstuff  quickly filled it. I think I spent about 20 minutes on this, most of which was filing away at the parts. It didn't even occur to me to get out my dremel, which may speed things up.

Anyway, I think the result looks pretty good and I'm now considering whether it might be a good idea to give the same treatment to the other 3 bodies and throw them in a mould for more variation.

Dwarf Army Group Shot

I've been asked several times for a group shot and I've always put it off. Well, now I had the dwarf figures out, so I thought it was the occasion to snap a few pictures.

All the currently painted dwarfs (all units are still being added to), a mix of mostly Marauder and WK dwarfs, with a few citadel ones and conversions sprinkled around:

And a closer look at the regiments:

 I will try to do some with the humans, halflings, ogres, orcs and goblins next time.

Dwarfs with Greatswords - Part 1

At long last I managed to slap some paint on some of the first mastercastings of the dwarf zweihänders and I may be biased, but I think they look bloody fantastic. It's almost a shame that some of the wonderful detail is hidden on their backs as it really helps to set them apart from the rank and file. These are clearly better paid soldiers, with access to the very best fineries and equipment.

I went for a more uniformed look to these as they are professional elite soldiers and may be subject to more strict uniform regulations. There is of course room for individuality even within the most strict corset (not that they're wearing those underneath that armour) (I hope). I think the bright colours I use throughout the army work especially well on these figures.

The Captain of the Regiment, one of my favourite dwarf figures ever:

Two of the "unitfiller" poses, standing at ease. Heads are interchangeable: