[PLOG]Dark Rider & other conversions (update 23 Dec)

[Vladdrak]

Although I quite like the new dark riders (except for the armour on the horses), I just couldn't help tinkering with them a bit.
I replaced the normal spear with a more organic looking one, made from bent brass tubing and the back and front end of a doomfire warlock blade. The head is a dark eldar scourge one, with the Sci-Fi stuff filed off and covered with green stuff to make it look more like a fantasy helmet.
I'm a bit miffed though, that GW moulded the legs on the horses' body halves and decided to put armour on the horses as well. Couldn't they do the same like with their vampire counts' black knights/hexwraiths that at least gives you a choice?! Now it has become almost impossible to use the horses from the scourge runner to further convert my dark riders.

[Thraundil]

First off, that conversion looks really nice! Cant wait to see a painted picture.

I do agree, however, that the model assembly option is not very good. The way the legs look, I kinda like, since it seems as if though the rider is bracing all his weight onto the spear, but it leaves very little room for converting. I'd suggest buying some wood elf glade riders (infact I made 10 dark riders using wood elf horses, only problem is the dark rider bodies that come with the standard sprue as rather short and so some of them look abit like gimps )
The wood elf horses are great. They are just that, horses. Of course they lack saddle and reins, but who cares. We are elves, we taught the horses that if they dont do as we say, we whip them when we get home!

[Artfactial]

Very nice!
It really has a kind of Native American kind of feel, which I always thought the Dark Riders and Shades were kind of reminiscent of.
Looking forward to the painted version.

[Lord_azoth]

love the look of the spear..great idea!

[strategem]

really like the spear conversion

[stuaker]

Great conversion... I'd love to see more units with this theme. Would be a very attractive army

[Phierlihy]

From what I can see the conversion looks good except I'm not digging the 80's hair.

[xFallenx]

Going to echo the spear comments. Very impressive.

[Gerner]

How thick is that brass rod?

[Vladdrak]

Thanks for all the positive comments.

@Artfact: Thank you for the Native American comparison. That made me realise the armour didn't have to be a problem at all. So I've snipped/chisseled/cut/smoothed/sanded the armour and I will be adding scales to give it a 'sea dragon cloak barding for horses' look.

@Phierlihy: That's actually plumage on the back of the helmet. I personally like the helmet because it ads even more to the whole raven look theme and it really ties in with the feathers on the cloak of the rider.

@Gerner: For the spear, I've used 1/16 brass tubing (That's what it says on the package: my calculater tells me that for us in the civilised world who are using the metric system that's 1,5875 or roughly 1.6 mm). I've done the same to replace the spears on my darkspears (brass tubing and the lance tip of a cold one knight).

[Alcidas]

Looks great!

[Gerner]

Thanks!

[Enkiel]

looks very cool on the dark rider, but be careful with the bending.

[xFallenx]

I actually really like the bends, makes it look organic as Vladd said, but if you mean so far as it being susceptible to chipped paint after the model is finished, that’s something that didn’t come to mind. I have enough issues with replacing small bits that break off in transport never mind having to retouch bends too.

[Vladdrak]

@all: thank you for the nice comments

@Enkiel and xFallenx: thanks for the warning, but since I don't really play, that's not much of an issue to me.

Since last time, I've removed the armour from the horse and replaced it with a scale cloak barding.


I've also kitbashed the new Fleetmaster. I removed the blade leg, head, left arm and monster jaw and replaced those with respectively a leg from the dark eldar warriors kit, the black guard champion's head and the left hand of the executioner champion. I still have some greenstuffing to do on the armour (neck joint), left leg and left hand, but I am quite pleased with the result so far, so I decided to show it already.


Since real life (i.e. work) has caught up with me and will continue to do so until next summer, the few hours I can spend on the hobby will very likely go towards converting, since that gets me faster results than painting, but I will try to get some paint on them as well as soon as possible. Otherwise I'll end up with a whole pile of unpainted plastic (actually nothing new there...).

[T.D.]

He looks good with a leg!

[Rowena]

Great job, I think he looks much better than the original model!

[Lord_azoth]

Removing the armor on the raiders improve them a lot..

your fleetmaster cnversion is ACE!, the original one is an awful mini with his blade leg

[Elvenstar]

I Like the dark rider, but couldn't contemplate carving all that armour off. My hands hurt like hell just from assembling 5 horses and warlocks. That said, with my next box I may try putting scales directly on to the armour to see how it looks as I'd really like to carry the scales idea throughout my army.

[Vladdrak]

@elvenstar: It takes me the better part of 2 minutes to remove the bulk of the armour with a pair of (GW) clippers. Then it costs me another 2 minutes and half a pint of thumb blood to clean up with an exacto knive. The real hassle is greenstuffing the damn thing. It took me almost 3 hours to put all the individual scales on the first model.

In the meantime, I converted the other 4 dark riders and assembled their horses and cut off the armour. Removing the mold lines and greenstuffing the scales will be for another time. Sorry for the fuzzy pictures, I will make some better ones for the next progress.

I would like to model or glue some feathers on the flag post. Does any one have any ideas on how best to do that (where can I get the feathers)?

[Vladdrak]

After almost a year of of total neglect of the hobby, I returned once more to my beloved dark elves. I constructed an entire unit of dreadspears, based on my example from a few posts ago. I'm quite pleased with them, but I'm not sure about the standard bearer. I put the standard fluttering in the same direction as the hair and pennant of the champion, but somehow it doesn't feel right. If any of you have any suggestions on the matter, please feel free to share. I hope I can get some painting done during the Christmas holidays.

[cultofkhaine]

Personally I would put the banner in the other direction - the way the banner man hair is flowing.

Nice conversions - looking forward to seeing your progress

[Amboadine]

Personally I would put the banner in the other direction - the way the banner man hair is flowing.

Nice conversions - looking forward to seeing your progress

I tend to agree with the above, banner seems to be contrary to the rest of the conversion, but overall look great.

[cultofkhaine]

Does any one have any ideas on how best to do that (where can I get the feathers)?

High Elf Spearmen/Archers come with a whole pile of feather decorations - perhaps something there might suite.

[Curse_Bearer]

Those look like they would make amazing Dreadlord/Masters on Dark Steed conversions, especially with those spears/lances!