Regal beauty from the smoke of Nuln..
For my next trick, something I'm currently working on.
Emmanuelle Von Liebwitz is the current Elector Countess for Wissenland, including the former realm of Solland and the City State of Nuln. Whilst Nuln is a city of mass produced machinery, cannons and black powder, Emmanuelle is not an Elector known for "leading from the front".
In the novels beasts in velvet, and the Gotrek and Felix series, Emmanuelle is shown as a gracefull, prettied figure that revels in court intrigue, spies and politics. She would be unlikley to lead an army of state troops to war in the way that say, Graf Boris Todbringer or Valmir Von Raukov would.
Even so. I've long wanted to make an Emmanuelle gaming peice. I tried to think of a reason for her leading an army, and I think at the Emperor's behest, she might take to the field with a number of trusted lieutenants. Certainly, the Emperors "request" (largley backed up by Ludwig Schwarzhelm's insistance,) has dealt with matters concerning unwilling Counts before. (See how Marius Leitdorf, the mad count of averland, was told how to behave in no uncertain terms.)
So she might embark to show willing, and lead her people in a time of urgent need.
I also thought, she wouldn't be walking. This is a Countess. So, either shes riding, or being carried. Theres no current game add on to a "general of the empire" to enable the latter so its a warhorse for you my gal. Or not - whats more graceful and, well - femenine, than a pegasus? (sorry Bretonnia, its just true.) I can imagine Emmanuelle flying about, showing favour to Captains, generally keeping out of harms way whilst her army got on with it. Might not work this way game wise, she would be a warmachine or mage hunter - but visually at least I think the backstory works.
So I bought a bretonnian pegasus knight, which seems to be the only viable Pegasus model in the GW range these days, sadly. After some debate and discussion with staff in GW Burton I also plumped for another Bretonnian model to use as Emmanuelle, the mounted sorceress. This also meant I have a nice model on foot spare from the blister, and a warhorse. Funky.
When home, the work began in earnest straight away. I built and cleaned the pegasus almost completley as standard barring a couple of details. Any obvious Fleur-de-lys were removed, either cut or shaved away. This was mainly the one in the pegasus' tail, some on the barding and one hanging from the saddle.
They were too big a visual draw to just remove - I needed to either fill in the holes or add something to replace the missing parts. In some places, I sculpted more hair over the cut marks or abrasions. In others, like the tail and saddle, I added simarite symbols to alter its obvious allegiance. (A twin tailed comet, and some bells, respectivley, both from the flagellant box.)
I also added a griffon from the Hellblaster volleygun to the head peice.
I drilled a hole in the rear right flat hoof, and pinned it into a similar hole drilled in a big sheer rock I pinched from a local park. It looks like the pegasus is leaping from a sheer rock face before beating its wings.
Coming to the Sorceress model, the same Fleur removal programme was initiated. This takes more time on the metal model, being quite petite I was being carefull to not thin down areas like arms too much so they looked unnatural. I added extra plumes from the Empire soldiers box, and gave her a holstered pistol to the rear of the pegasus' barding straps.
The Fleur on the end of her staff was replaced by a Twin comet from the head of a sythe in the flagellant box, in my mind now representing a staff, or baton of office of some kind.
This brings me to another point. As Emmanuelle is obviously a lover (of many) and not a fighter, how the hell is she expected to heft the regions Runefang? Following the recent update of the Empire range, the Runefangs are no longer short swords with pretty patterns - they now resemble, and in fact outsize, 40k terminator captain/sergeants power swords. This thing is BIG. Shes not waving this around in a hurry. I think gamewise, she can still use it, but I didnt want to model it as I thought it would just look ridiculous. So, she has the staff, which she is pointing suitabley, and I gave her a Runefang, just stapped up safe.
I took the spare runefang I had in the generals kit. Its still too big to model on, and it has no scabbard. I tried to make a scabbard, but failed. So - hmm. I hit upon a comprimise.
Using the empire knightly order scabbarded sword, which is a big cavalry sabre type scabbard, but about the right size for Emmanuelle - I cut away the hilt, pommell and grip. I cut a peice of plastic, (the tapered end of a lance, actually,) to make a new, longer grip, and added the original skull pomell from the Runefang. I cut the hilt ends with their inset gems cleanly from the Runefang and added those to the old hilt, to make what, if you look properly, is a small sword with a huge hilt. But model wise, its obvious enough what it is without looking silly.
Oops, not got the photo of that anywhere! I shall upload that ASAP.
Emmanuelle Von Liebwitz is the current Elector Countess for Wissenland, including the former realm of Solland and the City State of Nuln. Whilst Nuln is a city of mass produced machinery, cannons and black powder, Emmanuelle is not an Elector known for "leading from the front".
In the novels beasts in velvet, and the Gotrek and Felix series, Emmanuelle is shown as a gracefull, prettied figure that revels in court intrigue, spies and politics. She would be unlikley to lead an army of state troops to war in the way that say, Graf Boris Todbringer or Valmir Von Raukov would.
Even so. I've long wanted to make an Emmanuelle gaming peice. I tried to think of a reason for her leading an army, and I think at the Emperor's behest, she might take to the field with a number of trusted lieutenants. Certainly, the Emperors "request" (largley backed up by Ludwig Schwarzhelm's insistance,) has dealt with matters concerning unwilling Counts before. (See how Marius Leitdorf, the mad count of averland, was told how to behave in no uncertain terms.)
So she might embark to show willing, and lead her people in a time of urgent need.
I also thought, she wouldn't be walking. This is a Countess. So, either shes riding, or being carried. Theres no current game add on to a "general of the empire" to enable the latter so its a warhorse for you my gal. Or not - whats more graceful and, well - femenine, than a pegasus? (sorry Bretonnia, its just true.) I can imagine Emmanuelle flying about, showing favour to Captains, generally keeping out of harms way whilst her army got on with it. Might not work this way game wise, she would be a warmachine or mage hunter - but visually at least I think the backstory works.
So I bought a bretonnian pegasus knight, which seems to be the only viable Pegasus model in the GW range these days, sadly. After some debate and discussion with staff in GW Burton I also plumped for another Bretonnian model to use as Emmanuelle, the mounted sorceress. This also meant I have a nice model on foot spare from the blister, and a warhorse. Funky.
When home, the work began in earnest straight away. I built and cleaned the pegasus almost completley as standard barring a couple of details. Any obvious Fleur-de-lys were removed, either cut or shaved away. This was mainly the one in the pegasus' tail, some on the barding and one hanging from the saddle.
They were too big a visual draw to just remove - I needed to either fill in the holes or add something to replace the missing parts. In some places, I sculpted more hair over the cut marks or abrasions. In others, like the tail and saddle, I added simarite symbols to alter its obvious allegiance. (A twin tailed comet, and some bells, respectivley, both from the flagellant box.)
I also added a griffon from the Hellblaster volleygun to the head peice.
I drilled a hole in the rear right flat hoof, and pinned it into a similar hole drilled in a big sheer rock I pinched from a local park. It looks like the pegasus is leaping from a sheer rock face before beating its wings.
Coming to the Sorceress model, the same Fleur removal programme was initiated. This takes more time on the metal model, being quite petite I was being carefull to not thin down areas like arms too much so they looked unnatural. I added extra plumes from the Empire soldiers box, and gave her a holstered pistol to the rear of the pegasus' barding straps.
The Fleur on the end of her staff was replaced by a Twin comet from the head of a sythe in the flagellant box, in my mind now representing a staff, or baton of office of some kind.
This brings me to another point. As Emmanuelle is obviously a lover (of many) and not a fighter, how the hell is she expected to heft the regions Runefang? Following the recent update of the Empire range, the Runefangs are no longer short swords with pretty patterns - they now resemble, and in fact outsize, 40k terminator captain/sergeants power swords. This thing is BIG. Shes not waving this around in a hurry. I think gamewise, she can still use it, but I didnt want to model it as I thought it would just look ridiculous. So, she has the staff, which she is pointing suitabley, and I gave her a Runefang, just stapped up safe.
I took the spare runefang I had in the generals kit. Its still too big to model on, and it has no scabbard. I tried to make a scabbard, but failed. So - hmm. I hit upon a comprimise.
Using the empire knightly order scabbarded sword, which is a big cavalry sabre type scabbard, but about the right size for Emmanuelle - I cut away the hilt, pommell and grip. I cut a peice of plastic, (the tapered end of a lance, actually,) to make a new, longer grip, and added the original skull pomell from the Runefang. I cut the hilt ends with their inset gems cleanly from the Runefang and added those to the old hilt, to make what, if you look properly, is a small sword with a huge hilt. But model wise, its obvious enough what it is without looking silly.
Oops, not got the photo of that anywhere! I shall upload that ASAP.
So you can see from these pictures the other modifications I've made. As part of the strapping I made from .5 mm plasticard for the sword scabbard, I tied in a lance which I shaved the Bretonnian knights arm and the pennant from. The pennant would have been blowing in the wrong direction in its final position. On to that I added a two sided banner, hand painted, using heraldry from the new Empire book (well worth investment for this sort of project.) Once attached, I added more paintwork to blend it into the model, like painted the white edges where the paper meets etc. I attached the banner using plasticard belts. The base had an old twig added as a tree growing alongside the rockface, and I'm experimenting with adding water effect to the base over gravels and stones to represent some kind of mountain stream.
I'm now onto painting the model, and I had to make that initial decision - NMM or metallics? With normal troopers for my upcoming Nuln army, I'll probably stick to traditional metallics, but in Emmanuelles case, shes a striking, ceterpeice model and deserved the extra treament. You can see my initial work on the griffon at the front of the headpeice. I'm trying to stick to the overal Nuln/wissenland colours, so predominantly greys, reds, and black.
Comments
Post a Comment