Thursday, August 3, 2017

Bones 3 Shipwreck Revenant Conversion with Succubus Queen Figurehead Addition.

     Over the past week I worked on doing a big conversion on the Bones 3 Shipwreck Revenant from the Titans of the Tide add-on set.   I was never thrilled with the "face" on the Shipwreck Revenant; it always looked a little contrived and dorky to me.  So when I got the model in the Bones 3 Kickstarter, I imediately began to think about how I would like to modify it.
I forgot to take a picture of the model before I started working on it, so I snatched this shot off the web.  It's not a great shot, but gives you an idea of what the face of the piece was supposed to look like; it was just a bit of curved planking with two portholes in it.
     To me, I thought, it would have looked much better with some sort of menacing figurehead on the front.   Then it struck me that Reaper's Dark Maiden would be prefect for this.  I tried mine out, and was amazed at how perfectly it fit on the front, and how good it looked.
     But before I shelled out the money to order a new Dark Maiden, I thought I'd dig through my Bones pile and see if anything would fill the bill.  That's when I hit on the Succubus Queen from the Bones 3 Stoneskull Expansion.    She had a plain enough pose that she looked like she'd be a good candidate for a figurehead.  And as I played around with bending her wings back, I realized if I flipped them over they closely mirrored the curve of the prow of a ship. I thought her demonic appearance would help sell the evil feel of the Shipwreck Revenant as well.
     So the first thing I did was carefully pry the wings off the back of the figure, and test fit them on the prow.
     I then gave the Succubus Queen figure a quick and simple greenstuff top, so I could use the finished model in family friendly games.  I also cut off her right hand so I could later affix one that would be holding a sword.
     Next, I hunted through my plastic figure stash for a piece of sprue that had the right curve in it for me to use to make the front center beam of the prow of the ship.  I then drilled some holes in it, because I knew I would have to pin the Succubus figure to it in order to get her to hang properly in the curved figurehead position.
     I then glued the wings to the front of the model.  It took very little modification to get them to fit.  I simply had to carve down some of the inner wing spines to help them lie more closely to the existing hull.
     I then pinned the Succubus to the prow's center beam and glued her with some superglue; clamping the figure to help hold it into position while the glue hardened.
     I then glued the assembly to the front of the ship by inserting the little tabs on the wings (which I trimmed down) into the slot in her back where the wings had originally been mounted.
At this juncture, I cut some sections of coffee stirrers to make some planking for the prow; then after wetting them I set them under some weights to warp the wood into a curved shape suitable for constructing the ship's prow.
     My next step was to construct a bowsprit to insert into the hole where the face had originally mounted.  I glued it in place so it ran just over the top of the Succubus' head.  I also glued a bit of decorative shape cut from a GW Wood Elf banner to give the prow beam a touch of artistic scrollwork.
     I then glued my warped coffee stirrers into place, affixing one end of each plank under the wings, and the other end to the prow's center beam.  I didn't attempt to rebuild the entire prow, just enough planks to help anchor the masthead, and give the impression of a rotted ships prow.
     I finished off the prow by adding a sword-wielding hand to the figurehead.
     The second part of the Shipwreck Revenant that I really didn't like was the silly tiki head on the back.  I felt it didn't really fit in with the shipwreck motif.    So I sawed it off, and replaced it by a bit of dowel stuck in a half of a plastic barrel; with the idea it would look like a stump of broken mast.  I also added an old broken ship's wheel I had to help hide the lower area where the tiki head had been.
       Another thing that I was not thrill with on this model was the shear abundance of coral. One of the ways I hoped to reduce this was to make it look like the skeleton "driver" was laying in a pile of treasure, and not coral.  So I covered the coral around the skeleton with some white glue, and glued a bunch of glitter down to look like gold coins.  My plan was to paint over the glitter, as I was really only using it for its coin shape; it was mush too bright to look like old shipwrecked treasure in it's natural state.
       Then, just for fun, I added a section of greenstuff barnacles to one leg to help cover a bit of coral.
    I thought I was finished at this point, but then I noticed that, just from gravity working on it as it hung attached to the side of the model, the harpoon arm had begun to bend downward.
  So, I cut way some sections of rope running along the underside and glued in a section of bamboo skewer.
     I then used some more greenstuff to re-sculpt the missing rope over the skewer addition.
     At this point I declared the model done.  My next step is to prime it, and then begin painting it.  I will be posting that article separately.  I will try for Monday, but I can't promise it will be done by then; so perhaps the Monday after that.  Be sure to tune in for the exciting conclusion!

8 comments:

  1. Honestly, the base figure is sort of weird, but your version is a huge improvement! Should be great for that pirate expansion for frost grave.

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    1. Thanks, Lasgunpacker! Yeah, the base model was only a conception sketch on the Kickstarter page when it was offered, so it was a bit of a gamble as to what it would end up looking like.

      Yes, I had originally pledged for this back when this Kickstarter was running, thinking it would be great for Frostgrave. Little did I know Ghost Archipelago would come along and make the model even more usable! :)

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    2. Yes, Archipelago, that is the word I was unable to spell even close enough for spell check to figure it out...

      Since you are going at least in part for the "broke up ship" look for the front of the beast, you may want to have a couple of broken coffee stirrers in the prow.

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    3. Yeah, that's not a bad idea! Unfortunately, the figure is now 90% painted, and I really don't want to try and retrofit the broken planks in and try to glue them to already painted surfaces and then try match them color-wise.

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    4. Ha! Yes, do not do that. Hopefully it is done for Monday then!

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    5. That's what I'm hoping for, too! If the weather holds for some outdoor Dullcote spraying tomorrow, we should be good to go.

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  2. Great job. Really like the idea of making the top a treasure pile!

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    1. Thank you! Glad you like the modification I did to the top.

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