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So last night I finished up a conversion on my Spriggan. I always liked the way the torso and arms looked on the old metal one, but the legs and upper arms just looked so dinky. So, I got some parts from my second Beast-09 I had acquired in a trade and went to town. This is the third time I have assembled this guy because I wasn't happy the last two times. I have been taking a break from Warmachine for a bit (last group at the store I have been playing at pretty much all moved away and people stopped showing up to play, and the store i really liked playing at closed it's doors sadly), but it has given me some time to go back and pull things apart to pin them with brass rod and convert them.

The first time i assembled the Spriggan the only thing I changed was that I used Devastator arm pistons to extend the arms. I liked the way the arms looked, but the already short legs looked even shorter and it was pretty much dragging it's knuckles on the ground. Didn't like it and pulled it apart a few months later.

The second time I put him together I used the Devastator arm pistons, and Karchev's legs and waist. The legs were definitely longer, but now it has this crooked pose kind of like what Karchev has. Didn't like and the arms kept getting loose, so after about six months I pulled it apart and went at it a third time.

The now third and final time I have assembled my poor Spriggan, I decided to go all out because I was sick and tired of building this thing and wanted it to look just how I wanted. The parts used in this conversion was the Spriggan body, Devastator arm pistons, Spriggan weapon arms, Beast-09's legs and waist, knee armor from a Devastator, groin armor from the Spriggan and seven large brass pins.

How I started this conversion was by taking Beast-09's waist and shaving off the ball socket from the top to make it flat. Than I extended the flat area on the bottom of the Spriggan's torso where the legs went on, opened some of the area where the chin armor goes on the Spriggan to allow for the thicker pistons of Beast's to fit in. Than I had to file a round cut out in the chin armor for the pistons as well. After test fitting the waist and torso together, I than drilled about quarter of an inch into the torso and same for the waist, cut a piece of brass rod to fit and glued it together.

I moved on next to the legs and ran into a slight issue. I wanted to try and match the original pose of the Spriggan so I was determined to make it have a walking pose. But, Beast-09's legs are not in that pose. I drilled through the waist from side to side, and drilled into the legs. I than realized that it would be easier to cut Beast's groin armor off and to fit the Spriggan's before pinning and and assembly, so I did that next and got it to fit and set it at the angle I wanted to Warjack to be when walking so that the groin armor doesn't look out of place. Than I got the legs in the angle I wanted and cut the toes off of the left foot to reposition. I cut some brass rod to fit from one leg to the other through the waist and got it glued together. After drying i drilled two holes into the back half of the left foot, and two holes into the toes. figured out the angle I wanted the toes to be at and cut two more pieces of brass rod to secure the toes and so that the left foot hopefully wont break on me when using it. Waited until it was dry and went back with Milliput to fill in gaps between the toes and foot. I test fit the knee armor from a Devastator, and found that it fit onto Beast's knees quite well, got them glued on and glued the Spriggan to the base.

I realized that I made life for myself much harder by mounting it to the base before drilling into the left shoulder to pin it. I didn't want to screw anything up after all that work, so I centered the drill bit in my pin-vise as close to the center of the hole that the arm mounts into and drilled in about quarter of an inch at a forty five degree angle. I stopped there for a second and pinned the shield arm to the arm piston after drilling into the shield arm about quarter of an inch, and halfway through the arm piston. I drilled throught the upper half of the arm piston to mount it to the shoulder after carefully bending a piece of brass rod to go into the shoulder at the forty five degree angle and go straight into the arm piston and got that all glued together. Thankfully the right arm that has the lance in it was very easy to get to with the model mounted on the base, so I drilled into the shoulder about quarter of an inch, all the way through the arm piston by drilling from one side to halfway, and the same on the other side, and about quarter of an inch into the lance arm. Cut one long piece of brass rod to run from thew shoulder to the lance arm and got it all assembled.

The goals I had with this conversion, was to try and make it match the original sculpt as close as possible, and make it look like there wasn't a lot of conversion work done on it. I wanted the parts to look like they belonged there. Didn't realize how big it had gotten until after everything was together and dried. I like it a heck of a lot more and it looks much more Khadoran that the original with the dinky legs and arms. I know it would have been far easier to do this all with the plastic model, but I have had this metal one for a long time and it has served me very well on the table top. Decided it was time to give it some love. Sorry for the long winded write up, and crappy cell phone pictures, I will take better ones once I get it based and some paint on it. Next, onto doing a leg swap on Beast-09!

Here are mine.

Female Fenris is a personal favourite.

apologies for the horrendous lighting.

I've got Pin Up Sorscha. Converted from a corvus belli caledonian volunteer. Frostfangs head is from the original metal sorscha, and its shaft is from 2 kroot rifle barrels.




Great Bears: stock models, with GW bestigor axes.


Beast(au) 09. Stock model, with Vlad2s shoulder pads, and some crisis suit thighs for upper arms/legs, and tau flamers for beasts lower legs.



Epic Irusk. stock model, with Space Marine scout arms, sword swapped to right arm, classic irusk head, pistol is converted from a kroot rifle.


Doom Reaver(ettes). converted from sister repentia models. 2 squads of these beauties.


Doom Reavers converted to have bare heads. chaos marauders supplied the bits.


Doom Reavers converted to have axes. chaos bestigors supplied the bits.


Converted Bokur and Wardog. Bokur is the Legion ogryn model, with bokur shield, witch siren sword as a trophy in the left arm, spriggan head, and an uhlan tail for his pony tail (not really seen)


Femris (female fenris). stock model. (yes, its a legal conversion!) with daughter of the flame midriff and tharn bloodtracker upper body.

Nice, I remember seeing those in the last conversion thread i Started. Love 'em! Not sure if you remember the derpy ass pose that Spriggan was in the last time i converted it. I will have to see if I can find an old picture of it to post up as a before and after.


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Hah, found a picture of it with legs from Karchev. I think it looks a lot better. And, I don't remember seeing your Beast-09 in the last thread. He looks great! I will have to keep what you did in mind when I start reassembling mine.

I'll just leave this here for eBadger...

http://plarzoid.com/2014/05/hms-griffin-gun-carriage-to-gunship-conversion/

Hah, I love that Gun Carriage conversion. It never gets old.

Those are some great conversion... Thx for sharing