Ned Stark, Warden of the North

With the expected imminent arrival of baby, I've not had my paints and tools out for a few weeks. With the expected delivery date for baby having been and gone though, I decided to put the finishing touches to my Ned Stark conversion:

Pow, 1 year, 7 months and 5 days from conversion to finished paint job! But hey, I had lunch with my mother today and she told me that she recently found a half-made cushion that she started twenty years ago, so I guess that's where I get it from...

And yes, I did go back and add grey hairs to his beard after re-reading his wiki page... 

Tally - 6 vs 0 = +6

House Stark marches to war in the New Year!

Having chipped away little by little, I've managed to get the 5 House Stark conversions that I'd previously posted finished:

Which brings my Stark forces to 13 minis total - I should really finish up statting up the various troop choices so that I can paint to a points limit or force organization of some sort rather than just what I fancy building at any particular time!

Tally:

5 vs 0 = +5

New year, new Starks!

Trying to stick to the plans of the year before last, here's a wip pic of some House Stark troop conversions I've been working on:

The archers are mostly from the new Perry Agincourt sprues, whilst the rest are a mix of Fireforge and Gripping Beast bits to get the look I was after. My possible favourite of the bunch would maybe have to be the mace wielding chap, as he looks almost sad that he's about to have to brain someone...

House Stark musters for war!

I know, you're as surprised as I am, I finished painting some miniatures!

My first 8 finished miniatures for the Stark forces for the A Song of Ice and Fire project - a mix of Perry, Gripping Beast and Fireforge bits to get the look I was after (much more rugged than my Lannister troops!) and a Wargames Foundry champion to lead them (from their Baron Wars range, originally a Citadel sculpt iirc). And yes, the chaps in the back rank have the Wolf's head shields that I previously made a one part push mould for:

As my 'knight' miniature (knight in inverted commas, as the Northmen don't have knights per se as the Southern types do, if we're going to get mega nerdy) had a large blank shield, I took this opportunity to try using a waterslide decal for the first time. Ever. I know, it's kind of weird to be this old and have never used a waterslide decal before, but what can I say, I've never really needed to before and kind of shied away from trying them for fear of ruining a paint-job right at the end...

Filled with the spirit of experimentation and adventure, I did a quick bit of internet research and soon settled on making my chap some unknown son of House Cerwyn, and dug out the necessary bits and bobs:

I was originally going to use an axe decal from the Bretonnian Men-at-Arms sheet, but when borrowing a pot of gloss varnish to prepare the shield from Uncle Johnny, he offered me these, which were better (I think) than the ones that I'd originally planned on using.

A quick coat of gloss to prepare the surface, some poking with a wet paintbrush and minute adjustments where the decal split where I had perhaps over-zealously trimmed it, and a touch up with paint (and an application of static grass, it seems, as I forgot to take an 'after' photo at the time) later, we have a chap holding a suitably emblazoned shield:

Huzzah!

These chaps take the tally to:

13 vs 16 = -3

That sweet zero is so close now, I might even reach it! I suppose I should probably sort out some stats and point values for the ASOIAF project soon, so that I can start painting towards playable skirmish warbands rather than my current approach of 'a little bit of this, a little bit of that'...

In other news, Uncle Johnny gave me some random GW sprues (from 1998, if the tab on them is to be believed) that he thought would come in handy with conversions for the ASOIAF project, that I'd never seen before:

Has anyone come across these before, and know what they are?

Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell

So, amidst converting some more Stark warriors, I thought I should probably make a start on converting a miniature of the guy that they're going to be dying in droves around: Ned Stark, Lord of Winterfell, ably portrayed in the telly series by Sean Bean (spoilers - he has the life expectancy of a character played by Sean Bean).

The base of my conversion was a Lord of the Rings Boromir miniature, as it had a tiny Sean Bean visage and  I quite liked the coat. The whacking great shield on his back had to go though, as did his somewhat cricket bat shaped sword and the horn of Gondor:

Which left me with this, Boromir looking slightly 'armless (teehee).

I read an interesting online discussion about who would win in a straight fight out of Jaime and Ned, had their duel not been interrupted, which raised the point of whether Ned would be carrying his Valyrian blade Ice while he's mooching around King's Landing. Conventional wisdom suggests no, but I reckon he would probably keep it with him at all times, for fear of losing it or needing to swiftly despatch some justice with a personal touch, so he got a new sword from a Ral Partha fighter (who is pegged to become the basis of a  Vargo Hoat conversion at some point):

Some gentle bending was required to reposition the sword arm to get it to fit. He also got a new left hand (from the Perry Mercenaries command sprue) - in the end it came down to a choice of two hands, a clenched fist from the Gripping Beast Vikings or this one, and my other half voted for the 'Bitch Please' / 'I Need Everybody to Just Calm the Fuck Down' hand...

As I'm sure you can't fail to notice, Ned also got a new cloak, to cover the scars left from removing the shield that was originally moulded to his back:

Instant Mould + Mordheim Middenheimer sprue + Greenstuff = new cloak! Truth be told, this was probably the result of the seventh or eighth attempt, as I was a little overkeen and kept trying to attach it before I'd left it to cure for long enough...

Once the cloak has finished curing overnight, I'll go back and use liquid Greenstuff to fix the slight gaps at his wrist and hand, as well as adding some detail into the indent that I made to show the cloak being affixed at his shoulders.


A while back, I mentioned to Rob that I was looking for some Warriors of Rohan to use as a basis for some Stark conversions, and he said that he might have a couple of spares knocking around. Then this week he brings me this:

You wouldn't think it, but you can fit fifty miniatures into an old GW box it turns out... as well as half a skeleton and a Lizardman shield. Also pictured is the replacement Legolas I'd been waiting for, which takes the tally to:

19 vs 431 = -412

Stark shields - one part moulding continues...

As you may have seen in my previous post,  the shields I'd ordered for my Stark troops turned up, so it's moulding time again:

Instant mould and boiling water leads to the usual unappealing looking Turkish Delight:

Which trims down to a much more appealing looking stamp:

Unlike previous attempts, with this mould I was able to transfer the greenstuff wolf head directly onto the recipient shield:

I think my previous attempts failed as I was trying to transfer detail that was too thin, but this wolf head is oldschool gw - nice and thick! Plonk the filled mould straight onto the shield, pop out the greenstuff, and then a quick clean up round the edges with a sharp knife and pow, the shield is ready to go. Multiple shields are ready to go, in fact:

Well, that was last night. Today was an unusually sunny day, and as my mother told me so often during my youth, you should go outside and get some fresh air - so I did:

Alas, some of the neighbours were enjoying the pleasant weather more traditionally, with thumping drum n bass, but I had Les Trucs to try and cancel out the noise... Much (much) filing of integral bases later (oh how I hate integral bases), a retreat indoors for dinner and some cutting and glueing later, and we have the beginnings of my House Stark warband:

Fireforge Men-at-Arms bodies with converted Gripping Beast Viking arms (my favourite being on the leftmost spearman, carefully removed from the body it was originally attached to to get the pose I wanted) and a mix of Fireforge and GB heads. The bowmen were already done (Fireforge bodies with Perry arms and accesories), I only actually got four miniatures built. Not a load, but it's a start - I'll probably add another chap with a sword and one with a spear, as well as a couple of guys with two-handed weapons, and maybe a knight or two (even though in the North they don't really have knights, but you know what I mean). Then I should probably start working out some stats and points values for these guys, before adding an Eddard Stark miniature so I can game the Ned/Jaime showdown:

I know, it was added for the TV series, but it's cool and easily gameable at skirmish level, what's not to love? As previously alluded to, I already have a miniature lined up for a Jaime conversion, and it turns out I forgot to add to the tally the miniature that arrived to be the basis for my Ned:

Oh Sean Bean, how handy it is that there's a readily available tiny metal version of your face. Alas, [spoilers] this conversion won't get much use [/spoilers], but still. Also pictured is a Rohan chap that was cheap from the same seller, that may or may not end up as the basis of a Robb conversion.

Actually remembering to include these two brings the tally to:

19 vs 382 = -363

Experiments in one part moulding...

So, having finished a handful of Lannisters, I thought it prudent to knock together some Starks for them to brutally hamstring. After putting together a couple of archers, I started thinking about some sword and spearmen. Now, I quite like the style of the shields used by Stark troops in the TV series: 

and thought they'd make a good jumping off point. I found an old GW shield with a wolf's head, and cleaned off a viking shield to attempt to transfer it to:

(the hole is because I thought the easiest way to clean the boss off was to just drill out the whole thing and reconstruct it later). I stuck the donor shield to a square of plasticard ready to make a one-part mould:

And then... had second thoughts about using the viking style shield, and ordered some hoplite shields to try out instead.

Somewhat disheartened, I turned back to the rightful heirs to the Iron Throne - the Lannisters! With a bit of fiddling, I managed to convert a pair of spear-holding arms to be wielding a pike:

But then, rather than actually going on to integrate this part into an actual miniature, due to my tiny attention span sound tactical thinking, I decided I should probably finish up some straightforward hand weapon and shield warriors. I got as far as sticking a head onto a body:

rather than doing some detail work tidying up the join, I focused on working on carving away what remained of the miniature's original shield. Much cutting and filing later, it was time to make a new shield - aha, this post has come full circle! Again, I turned to the TV series for inspiration:

I like the image of the oval shield for Lannister House Guard, although non-House Guard troops will probably get more traditionally medieval looking shields. So, in order to get this effect, I needed an oval shield (from some plastic Romans, cheers John!) and a lion - I dug out a Bretonnian shield from my bits box, and we're back on the path to making moulds!

Huzzah, Blu-Stuff!

Which made a mould:

Which was trimmed down for ease of handling (both in terms of width, so that I could line it up to the receiving shield, and depth, so that the detail part of the mould would actually touch the receiving shield!):

And then filled with liquid green stuff:

Now, despite how straightforwards and working things have appeared thus far (due to the magic of post-production), this is where the wheels started to fall off... This one wouldn't turn out, so (despite the claims that nothing sticks to Blu Stuff) I tried again with some vaseline as a mould release agent, but still no dice. As the detail was fairly shallow, I tried a thicker layer of green stuff, reasoning that if I could actually get it to transfer onto the shield I could then cut it down and tidy it up...

However that plan relied on it turning out...

I thought maybe thinning the mould would make it a little more flexible (as Blu Stuff makes firmly fair moulds, not the flexible rubbery type I had envisioned when I originally ordered it)

But that didn't work wither. Somewhat frustrated, I turned to Google to see if there was a readily available ready-made lion shield that I could use... and was reminded of a lion shield (with deeper detail!) in the Advanced Heroquest set. Much dragging out of boxes later, and I have one in hand:

Cue more making of moulds (note the filled mould in the background - I thought I'd try letting a filled mould set before trying to transfer it)

(spoilers - the detail was still still too thin to be of any use)

[Brief diversion] - while all this was going on, my wife to be got silver ink on my copy of the LOTR SBG rulebook that she was using to lean on, and trying to wipe it off only made things worse:

To cut a long story short, the new mould was then trimmed, thinned, greased, filled, clamped to the receiving shield and left overnight to set. 24 hours later, I expectantly open the clamp, to find:

Sadness abounds.

Aidez-moi wise internet personalities, where am I going wrong?