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Inspiration hit me and I wanted to make a Wraithlord in a pose that looked predatory. I wanted it to feel as though he was stalking his prey through the ruins of the city. I needed him to be 100% legal in games (tourney or otherwise), so I had to combine the aesthetic and functional bits as best as I could.

Here are the WIP results so far:



The base he will be mounted on.
I decided to elevate him on a base to avoid any claims of cheesing his height to gain a cover advantage. I made it so that the model will stand almost exactly as tall as a stock, straight-up-standing Wraithlord, built directly from the sprue. This is where the functional part comes in.






Here he is in his crouching pose.
Both weapon hardpoints above the shoulders have had magnets added as have the wrist of both arms, hands, heavy weapons, and pistol-gripped hand.
The inspiration for this pose came from the black-and-white painting of the Striking Scorpion atop the pile of skulls in the Eldar codex, in the flavor-text sections about the various units.



The sword has been swapped from the right hand (as it is cast) to the left hand. This was done in two parts; the hilt up and the pommel and then pinned to the opposite fist. I had to remove some of the thumb to make the hilt sit flush on the hand.





Here he is in place on the base with his sword and pistol-gripped Bright Lance. This was the "lying-in-wait" predatory look I was going for.



Here he is with the open hand in place of the sword hand and the Lance shoulder-mounted. (I know the Lance has mold lines. I haven't cleaned it yet)
As you can see, when he is permanently affixed to his base in the correct location (just few mm to his left), his open hand will rest squarely on the protruding building part. It lines up just right so that the open hand is resting atop the piece while the sword hand is slightly above and behind it.




Here is a side-by-side comparison of a standing Wraithlord. As you can see, the WIP one is just a tad taller than the other. If you also take notice, I built the other one with a slight backwards lean with his legs spread fairly wide, so he isn't quite as tall as a stock model, built standing straight up.

Also, if I want to, I can use the Wraithsword off the the painted model. This will give him a right-handed sword raised above his head.






It's probably going to be a little while until I paint him up, but I will post pics when I do.



Ghidorah

Man, that is really nice looking! Keep up the good work, how can you resist making him battle-ready by painting him up? )

that is awesome all the way around. can't wait to see more.

Simply beautiful.

You've easily got that predatory feel about the wraithlord. cant wait to see it painted up, especially if that other wraithlord is anything to go by.

That is fantastic!

She's a beauty

Wow. Another great example of how switching a pose can completely change the character of a model. Bravo - I think this will be the coolest Wraithlord I've seen.

Excellent idea!
Get some paint on it, por favor!

Great crouching wraithlord. That is very smooth, I can't wait to see it painted.

Cheers

Love it!

I like the idea but have a couple of comments/questions. First, is WL's right knee dropped a bit lower than the left? If so, good job! I would consider dropping it even a tad lower (although the picture could be misleading) to give it more of a ready-to-poune dynamism. Second, I'd like to see the sword hand manipulated so that the WL is holding the blade across its chest parallel to the predatory tilt its head. Third, I can't really get on board with the raised right arm, especially with the pistol lance (although balled fist "I'll get you next time!" look is not appealing to me, either) given that the point of the crouch is to lower his profile in a tight hunting/stalking posture. Finally, I like that your basing has some depth (that hollow space really draws the eye upwards to the model) but I think you could do a little more story-telling with it by adding in some other bits (like SM corpse pooling blood). The beam that the WL can rest his hand on looks kind of awkward to me. I don't get why it would be jutting up there. Still, a very cool pose. I, too, cannot wait to see it completed and painted.

I disagree with the dead Space Marine idea, that one's been done countless times over the years and it'd need to be really fresh to avoid simply being a repeat of that old cliché.

Just an example. Make it a dead Dark Eldar prostitute, then.

Will you always be on a battlefield with said corpse? No. I stray from using dead anything on bases for armies. Showcase pieces are another story, but you don't want a dead Space Marine in a fight against an Ork army, since it makes no sense.

I read the title and thought of cheese. I scrolled down and saw the first picture and thought "Wow, that's really nicely done, but kind of cheesy." I scrolled down a little bit further, saw him sitting on the piece of ruins, then scrolled back up and actually read your first post.

Well played good sir... Well played.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

em_en_oh_pee wrote:Will you always be on a battlefield with said corpse? No. I stray from using dead anything on bases for armies. Showcase pieces are another story, but you don't want a dead Space Marine in a fight against an Ork army, since it makes no sense.

That's why you put a magnet in there, and then make a corpse for every army available to swap in when necessary.

Er, basing often doesn't make sense. Your grassy based models make little sense on an urban table. This WL isn't going to make a great deal of sense against some terrain depending on how its painted. The point behind my suggestion is that if the WL was stalking about on the hunt it'd be nice to include the fruit of its prowling. I can't speak for the Three-Headed-One but I figured he was splitting the difference between showpiece and battle ready here.

I really like the converted pose. I always envisioned the WL being able to move around much like his living bretheren. Very cool model so far.

Do a dead eldar. The wraithlord is stalking the killer to take revenge.

That is so awesome. I'm an eldar player too and that is just so awesome!

Aduro wrote: I read the title and thought of cheese. I scrolled down and saw the first picture and thought "Wow, that's really nicely done, but kind of cheesy." I scrolled down a little bit further, saw him sitting on the piece of ruins, then scrolled back up and actually read your first post.

Ahhh! Success! Precisely what I was hoping for. Yay.




Thanks for all the comments, people.
Nice to hear that I apparently did capture the predatory look that I was going for.

Manchu wrote:I like the idea but have a couple of comments/questions. First, is WL's right knee dropped a bit lower than the left? If so, good job! I would consider dropping it even a tad lower (although the picture could be misleading) to give it more of a ready-to-poune dynamism. Second, I'd like to see the sword hand manipulated so that the WL is holding the blade across its chest parallel to the predatory tilt its head. Third, I can't really get on board with the raised right arm, especially with the pistol lance (although balled fist "I'll get you next time!" look is not appealing to me, either) given that the point of the crouch is to lower his profile in a tight hunting/stalking posture. Finally, I like that your basing has some depth (that hollow space really draws the eye upwards to the model) but I think you could do a little more story-telling with it by adding in some other bits (like SM corpse pooling blood). The beam that the WL can rest his hand on looks kind of awkward to me. I don't get why it would be jutting up there. Still, a very cool pose. I, too, cannot wait to see it completed and painted.

You bring up some very good points. Let's see here, starting from the top:

The WL's right knee is in fact a bit lower than the left. I used the flat foot for the left leg and the raised-heel foot for the right, then I rotated the ankle ball joint as far forward as I could without having either foot unnaturally off of the base.

I modeled this pose based on a picture in the Eldar Codex. I posted the picture at the bottom of this reply. You can see why I chose the sword's positioning as I did.

The raised arm is again taken from the Scorpion codex picture below. In hindsight, I don't like the look of the Bright Lance on the pistolgrip. It's way too long for the dynamic of the model. I will likely use one of the shorter weapons like a Missile Launcher or Scatter Laser instead. As for the clenched fist, that will only be used in situations where I decide to take twin-linked heavy weapons. In those cases, I will be using both weapon hardpoints on his back, so I will need some sort of hand.

Like others have mentioned here, I'm not a big fan of casualties on scenic bases for playable minis. I guess I find it to be a bit too obvious and considerably trite, so I don't do it. The most I would ever do would be a piece of gear like a damaged SM backpack or a weapon or something.

The jutting beam is more function than form. I tried to disguise it's purpose (more support for the model if needed) by integrating the visual of the actual piece combined with a hint at what the WL was using it for. I thought about a bent/damaged pipe of some sort, but I didn't really like the idea of the opened end of it showing under his hand. I decided on that specific piece because it fits with the visual style of the rest of the base and it was a leftover cutoff from the CoD tiles I used. I also wanted the prop to follow the angle of the existing open hand because I didn't want to do much work to the hand to make it fit the object. For the form aspect, I thought it would give him a bit of a "poised-to-pounce" look, like he was about to launch himself off of the floor with a yank on the beam.

Why is it jutting up there? Well, I guess I figured it was a column of some sort in the structure before it was destroyed and now it is just broken and standing there. If you look at the bottom of the thing, I pinned it with two pieces of paperclip and kept the two halves apart so it looked like exposed re-bar. That's how I rationalize the tilt of the crumbled beam. Re-bar is pretty strong, right?




For those that don't have the Eldar Codex, here's the Striking Scorpion image that this WL was based on:








Looking a little closer at the Striking Scorpion pose, I think I'm going to convert that right arm to pull the lower half in closer to the upper. I'm going to close that gap so that the arm's shape is less of an 'L' and more like a tight 'V'. I think that will help negate the effect of having the arm raised, as I will be able to attach it closer to his body. It should also keep the viewer's eye from straying away from the center mass of the model, thus preserving the overall aesthetic goal. Yeah?


I will be painting it hopefully within the next few weeks. I've got so much crap on my plate right now that time for painting is in short supply.




Ghidorah

Ive loved the wraithlord before, and you made me love it even more. Very cool conversion

Looks like he's in a back alley somewhere playing craps.

I'm starting to see the "from" side of your jutting beam. It's in continuity with the line of the right arm and the tilt of the head, creating a nice vertical focus that is broken up in an interesting way by the sword so that it (the sword) is gradually where the eyes come to rest. In which case, better make sure you paint it pretty damn well! The beam also helps create foreground that heightens the sense of depth you're getting out of the hollow area.

The dead [whatever] basing method is no doubt overplayed in competitively painted models but I think it'd look cool on a playable model. My favorite idea (albeit one I have not put into practice myself) is to incorporate some facet of an actual in-game moment of glory. Say you annihilated your buddy's 'ardest list of Sallies. It'd be nice to see one of his marines crawling away in a streak of gore from that menacing WL. In any case, incorporating an enemy model into the base is just the most obvious way to generate that "storytelling" look and so the first one to come to mind.

I think it's awesome!

Breotan wrote:Looks like he's in a back alley somewhere playing craps.

HAH!

with the blade, can you rotate it at all, just curious as i think a cooler position (not that its cool already) would be for the sword in a defensive position i.e stalking prey or just landing after jumping if you can visualise what im trying to say

Gutteridge wrote:with the blade, can you rotate it at all

Well, the sword-hand and the wrist both end in magnets, so the sword-hand does rotate clockwise or counter-clockwise. If that's what you're referring to, then yes, I can reposition it at will.

Breotan wrote:Looks like he's in a back alley somewhere playing craps.

Epic.



Ghidorah

I like it!

Very dynamic.

Plus, I lol'ed at the Thread Title.

Simply awesome - and something I'd love to do too, but go all the way toward making it a Striking Scorpion Wraithlord.

Yours has certainly given me a lot to work with too though!

The Base size attracts more attention than the model itself.
The model is awesome. But on Bigger Size Base. Cardstock might work. Glue it beneath the Smaller Base