CXVI. The Cult of Vvolos: Skeletons and Apprentice

From left to right: Ieronym, Albrecht, Ikorid, Wilhelm, Kettelhelm.

The Cult warband steadily grows. Last time we saw the meatier fighters of the group. Now they are joined by miserable bone puppets. And one of their yellow-robed controllers. 

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IKORID, NECROMANCER'S APPRENTICE

Ikorid follows his mistress and works hard on learning the craft. Some day, when the time is right, he will assassinate her and take over her House... 

The base was a classic chaos Stabb the Acolyte figure. I replaced his sword with a staff and did a few little changes here and there to make him unique.

His mistress, the Necromancer leader of the warband, will be converted from a Skaven model. What I need to achieve through conversion and paintjob is to make them fit together visually. A good trick, among others, is to repeat some details across both models. This will be very clear when I'm done with the Necromancer and I'm able to show them sidy by side.

Front and back shots.

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 SKELETON WARRIORS

Skeletal minions of the necromancers. Unlike living warriors, skeletons have the advantages of needing no food nor rest and never feeling pain. However, the magic that animates them requires a certain effort to maintain and their gear and bones ask for periodic cleaning and repairs. The latter is normally the task of apprentice necromancers. 

I really had fun painting them. I wasn't sure what to do with the quivers on the two archers. They begged for freehand but gave me a very limited and oddly shaped space. They ended up with tributes to two great artists: the left one has Albrecht Dürer's monogram, the rigth one a part of Hieronymus Bosch's signature. I took this into account when giving them names.

The archer pair used to be standard bearers. High elf bows and quivers replace banner poles. Pretty straightforward.

Kettelhelm's shield was painted before I even started the conversion. Shields are great for having fun with freehand.

The demonic face on the shield comes from this piece by Ian Miller. I just love this image. It's bonkers.

A group shot of skeletons with their higher undead comrades.