I'll try to make these necks monsterly beauty! hehehe
Well, and finally, THE CHARACTER!
Magnus the Pious!!
Firstly, I have to say it was particularly difficult to find the bits and models for this conversion. Indeed, difficult to choose and difficut to find! I was sure that this model must be as close as posible to the both illustrtion below, the only ones we have find about Magnus. Thus, would be easy to recognize by those who knows about warhammer history (or Empire background, at least!)
He had to be mounted on an imperial warhorse, as the background says, and as he appears in the first picture. So, instead of focusing on the character, the first thing I looked for was a proper mount. Discarded the Bretonian steeds, those from vampire counts or Chaos warriors for being too different from the rest of the army horses, I focused on the The Empire range of models. There were several possibilities. That horses who pull the huracanum/luminarch are a very good update of the models of imperial horse (note that this model is about 20 years old...), although I was searching for something special, more spectacular. There are several characters with good mounts: Valten, the general/standard bearer plastic kit, and other horses whose only difference is the head. But there are three characters that clearly stand out in this aspect: Ludwig Schwarzhelm, Marius Leitdorf and Kurt Helborg.
Undoubtedly, the models of Schwarzhelm, Leitdorf and Helborg are among the best minis that the imperial collection has ever had. And yet... they are OUT OF PRODUCTION. As I was determined to use these mounts for other characters, in addition to Magnus, I wanted to achieve them all and once in hand, decide which mount was going to belong to each character. It cost me 11 months, but finally I have all three, thanks to the secondhand markets on Facebook and Wallapop.
I finally decided to use Kurt Helborg's mount for Magnus's conversion. And in fact, most of his body. The second point to deal with was the type of weapon that Magnus carried on the battle. The background indicates nothing about it and the spear of the illustration above seems only scenic. In the same illustration he also carries a sword, but we know that the Rune Fangs belonged only to the Elector Counts and they were all there, using them in the battle. So there was only one obvious choice: Ghal Maraz itself. As Valten did on The Chaos Storm / End Times, Ghal Maraz would be wielded by Sigmar's chosen one.
So I replaced his original Rune Fang by the Ghal Maraz from Karl Franz plastic kit.
And now we reach the third and most important factor: his head. Undoubtedly this is the focal element of the model and its main characteristic feature. His head must accomplish four conditions: bald head with tail, no beard or mustache, mature and serious appearance and to wear a monocle. I spent days thinking about it and checking dozens (or hundreds) of imperial heads from the bits box: from the steam tank engineer (who carries a monocle) to the greatswords or warrior priests shaved heads. And in the end I find one that, although it had to be worked, could give a nice base. It is this:
It belongs to the White Wolf extras from the Empire knights plastic kit. It's a shaved head with a hair tail; I just had to take off his beard and add the details with green stuff. So after shaving him, I cut the original Kurt's head (it hurt me more than him) and I stuck this one in its place.
After marking the scars with the cutter (modellism knife, is that its name in english?), the first thing I modeled was the monocle. I took a small piece of green stuff, and stuck it on his eye with a small drop of superglue. Yes, this is my secret. If ever a piece has not enough support, I put green stuff and super glue. I do not pin; I create cement. The trick is to let the piece harden on the superglue, so that it is totally attached to the model. Once solid, I sculp fine details with cutter. In this case I could leave the surface of the monocle completely smooth and round using cutter. On the other hand, the monocular thread is a piece of fishing thread.
Next step was to model the cape. In this case I used a needle (like Arya Stark) to create the fur.
I sculpted some more details and put a sheathed sword on his side. The original model has an empty sheath, since Kurt is wielding the sword, so I had to put a sheath with the sword sheathed.
Finally I decided to sculpt a more populated eyebrows, as in the illustrations, and that was the end point. Now, just painting work rermains!
