Wednesday, May 2, 2018

Stephen Joannes, Apprentice to the Stitcher

"Blah, blah, blah, there goes the old gas-bag again" thought Stephen as he ignored the Stitcher ranting about something or other. "Will he ever shut up? I swear, once I've finally learned enough from him, his old corpse will be my servant in my pleasure den..."

Every crusty old necromancer needs an apprentice right? When I first had the idea for a crazy old necromancer (well, the idea for my crazy old necromancer, not crazy old necromancers in general) I also envisioned an apprentice. And straight from the beginning I had some real life inspiration from a person I am generally acquainted with. In my mind I saw a creepy, overweight man with an obnoxious voice who has only chosen his profession because it seems like the easiest way to get power with the least amount of work. I also envisioned the apprentice having an unhealthy obsession with corpses...and not in the same way as his master. With his real life inspiration being a lawyer, I did figure I had to tone him down a bit though. 

The apprentice with his master

When it came time to build him, I knew immediately that I wanted to use the stout body from the old Bretonnian Men-at-Arms frame. The problem was, I wasn't smart enough to ever buy that when I had the chance. Thankfully, a friend of mine had some spares and sent be the body and the matching head. The head had a "friar" haircut though, so I had to sculpt some hair over the dome of his skull. But that worked great as now he had the same bowl cut as his real-life counterpart.

For his hands, I used two hands from the Crypt Ghouls frame. I liked the emaciatedness of them as compared to the rest of the body. I feel like it shows that his inherent evilness is starting to affect his body. On the end of the bone, I also stuck on a zombie hand and cut some chunks out of it. I wanted to bring out his depravity in an obvious way. I posed him on top of a fallen tombstone with a partially un-dug grave at his feet, and so the bites out of the arm make it look as if he's stopped his labor for a snack. The rest was mostly adding doodads to make it look like he's carrying magical artifacts.


As part of my Ottersricht project, I wanted to work on my blending with him. I'm really happy with how he came out. From a base of Mournfang Brown I blended up by adding Deathclaw Brown and shaded by adding in Rhinox Hde. The green was Loren Forrest shaded by mixing in VMC Dark Prussian Blue and highlighted by mixing in P3 Menoth White Highlight. However, as I wanted to play with OSL from the lantern so in some places I used a very light VMC yellow. The flesh was based with GW Rakarth Flesh that I shaded with GW Naggaroth Night and highlighted with pure white mixed in, although the yellow was used in the parts facing the lantern. Finally, I brought out the yellow in the OSL with a couple of thin yellow glazes to strengthen the highlight while also adding a little light reflection to the shades.



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