As I have noted before, I have several undead armies based around various themes, including an undead Classical Greek army.
One thing that I have always wanted for that army is an undead Herakles (Roman: Hercules). I've kind of been waiting for some company to cast one, but it hasn't happened yet. So I've always thought of creating one myself.
It shouldn't be too difficult, I'd hardly have to make one from scratch. All you need to do to make a regular skeleton (well a larger skeleton) into Herakles is to give him a lion-skin cloak and a club. Both representative symbols of Herakles.
Of course, I have zero sculpting skills. For all the time I have been collecting and painting, I have had little experience with conversions. I've done simple head and weapon swaps, and my use of green stuff has been limited to gap filling.
But eventually, you have to dive in if you want to get what you want. So I watched a lot of videos, read a lot of blogs, bought a few tools to augment my normal hobby tools and figured to try and make myself an undead Herakles.
So this is what I am working with. The three skeletons are from the sadly departed Spartan Games' Heroes of Myth and Legend line (Skeletons Pack B). They are 40mm figures, which make them weird for 28mm war-gaming but perfect for an ogre sized hero. The plastic bits are part of Games Workshop's High Elf White Lions Chariot set. I got the set just for these bits. I wasn't sure about the sizing but I figured I could make either the heads from the lions pulling the chariot, or the lion head shoulder pads work. The actual lion heads are way too big. But the lion head shoulder pads actually are just about the right size for a 40mm skull. I also thought maybe I could use the cloaks as well, but not really. Besides they look more like bear cloaks.
Here are the lion head shoulder pads:
And here's the model I'll be using as a base. Axe (soon to be club) upraised, shield away from the body.
Now I laid him out on some parchment paper and drew some lines with a pen that I could use as a rough guide for sizing the cloak and shaping it.
Here he is primed with Krylon almond spray primer.
Here he is with the first basecoat.
More advancement with an Agrax Earthshade wash.
And here is the more or less final Herakles, painted, washed, highlighted and ready for inclusion in the undead Classical Greek army!
One thing that I have always wanted for that army is an undead Herakles (Roman: Hercules). I've kind of been waiting for some company to cast one, but it hasn't happened yet. So I've always thought of creating one myself.
It shouldn't be too difficult, I'd hardly have to make one from scratch. All you need to do to make a regular skeleton (well a larger skeleton) into Herakles is to give him a lion-skin cloak and a club. Both representative symbols of Herakles.
Of course, I have zero sculpting skills. For all the time I have been collecting and painting, I have had little experience with conversions. I've done simple head and weapon swaps, and my use of green stuff has been limited to gap filling.
But eventually, you have to dive in if you want to get what you want. So I watched a lot of videos, read a lot of blogs, bought a few tools to augment my normal hobby tools and figured to try and make myself an undead Herakles.
So this is what I am working with. The three skeletons are from the sadly departed Spartan Games' Heroes of Myth and Legend line (Skeletons Pack B). They are 40mm figures, which make them weird for 28mm war-gaming but perfect for an ogre sized hero. The plastic bits are part of Games Workshop's High Elf White Lions Chariot set. I got the set just for these bits. I wasn't sure about the sizing but I figured I could make either the heads from the lions pulling the chariot, or the lion head shoulder pads work. The actual lion heads are way too big. But the lion head shoulder pads actually are just about the right size for a 40mm skull. I also thought maybe I could use the cloaks as well, but not really. Besides they look more like bear cloaks.
Here are the lion head shoulder pads:
And here's the model I'll be using as a base. Axe (soon to be club) upraised, shield away from the body.
Now I laid him out on some parchment paper and drew some lines with a pen that I could use as a rough guide for sizing the cloak and shaping it.
Now I liked the way the green stuff cloak came out, and personally was rather gratified by how well I did on what is essentially my first ever sculpting project. However, I had some problems. First, the nature of green stuff worked a bit against me. It has more "stretch" than I had anticipated, so with the work I was doing, it always seemed to stretch the cloak more until it ended up being more of a cape. Also, it's not very stiff. I wanted to have the cloak flying out behind him, but the "cape" kept falling flat against the body due to gravity.
Therefore, I pulled up the initial green stuff "cape" and sculpted a cloak out of brown stuff. I also repositioned the lion head "cap" and began to craft the mane out of green stuff to blend the cap and cloak together. Also I snipped off the axe head and bulked up the shaft with green stuff to form a club.
Here he is primed with Krylon almond spray primer.
Here he is with the first basecoat.
More advancement with an Agrax Earthshade wash.
And here is the more or less final Herakles, painted, washed, highlighted and ready for inclusion in the undead Classical Greek army!
