Just as the Lord-celestant is the centerpiece for my Forgesworn Eternals army, this will be the centerpiece of my Duardin army.
Now this was a really ambitious project that I worked on for quite some time, and a bunch of trials and error. I love the idea of representing the
Dwarf Lord on Shieldbearers (page 7) warscroll with a steamsuit. It fits the engineer's guild theme of my army. I have been using a 3rd party mini to represent that, as shown
here, but 3rd party minis are not allowed at the LVO because GW is running the AoS tournament. It's sort of a bummer, but it gives me an opportunity to flex my conversion muscles and make a new one entirely out of GW parts.
I have always liked the look of the
Gyrocopter kit, feeling there was some conversion potential there, but not sure what. Basically I wanted to use the Gyrocpter for something other than the Gyrocopter. Since I imagine a dwarf mech to be bulky and short, I realized I could use the main body of the Gyrocpter as the base and torso of my Steamsuit.
The torso conversion of course was easy. The Gyrocopter build remained relatively unchanged, with some shifting of some parts around, and removal of any wings and rotors. The pilot inside is still the pilot mini, but instead using one of the bearded
Ironbreaker heads, and the top crest from the
Warden King kit to give him some more of a kingly feel, and of course the banner is from that same kit. The legs and arms were definitely a challenge. I realized the
Meganob legs (kindly donated by my brother, Jarom) were just about the right size, explaining the model's 4" movement. I used some plasticard to cover up the ork pants and removed some of the spiky bits. The arms are mostly scratch built, except the hands, which are from the
Kastelan Robots kit I got off of a bits site. I reposed some of the digits to grip the hammer and his pointing finger, similar to how I did it
here.
 |
| 25mm base present for scale. |
The hammer itself took quite some time to figure out. I love the look of the original steam hammer on the old dwarf engineer (see below), so I wanted to replicate that somewhat on a larger scale. This was a hodge-podge of bits I had in all of my bins, primarily Gyrocopter bits, and the hammer head's structure is constructed of plasticard and sides of the Warden King's oathstone bit.
Overall I am very proud of the project and it definitely acts as the centerpiece for my Duardin. Now I have all of my Duardin built, and I just need to get them painted!
This is just to show the size compared to how big the original dwarf lord on shieldbearers would look (the 3 Irondrakes stacked on the left). As you can see the size is much bigger and bulkier, but at least the head heights are the same. I am also seriously considering moving to a 50mm base instead of the 40mm shown. There is no defined base size for the old dwarf lord on shieldbearers, so I think I should be ok, even if the LVO does base-to-base measuring for everything.
This marks the last miniature in my army to be painted. All that's left are the bases (which I will be putting this guy on a bigger base) and the display board if I can manage it. This is going to be tight because I have to make sure this all fits merely in a carry-on piece of luggage, which may mean my board will be too small. I'll have to see what I can manage. I also need to build miniature storage trays that fit in that same carry-on. There is no way I am putting this stuff through checked luggage.
