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I thought Feora sounded like a cool warcaster, and her abilities sound like a nice mix between front-line beatstick, and ground control, so I wanted to give her a go. The only problem was, I really hate her model.

I can't stand that she has a sculpted abdomen on her armor. Seriously? Is that naval supposed to be sexy? And what kind of religious fanatics parade their priestesses around as sex symbols anyway? (Answer: the fun kind).

Also, her head is dumb. Once again, half her face is gold, and looks like a face, the rest, a chess piece. Her hat is just too silly for me.
In order to take my caster seriously, I had to fix these problems.

This is a work in progress, but I'm off to a good start. I present my very first custom mini: Feora, Mother of the Flame.

<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From Feora, Priestess of the Flame Mod</td></tr></table>

First, I replaced her head with a real head. I appreciate game fiction as much as anyone, but if the Daughters of the flame don't need to wear masks, then I'm going to extend that privilege to Feora, the order's founder.

I added putty around her midsection to cover up those stupid sculpted abs. I've never done this before, so my skills are very rudimentary. I added some vents to make it appear slightly less bland.

You'll probably also notice that I gave her some giant swords. These came with the model I cannibalized, and I figured... Warmachine loves over the top. So why shouldn't her swords be nice and large?

The whole reason I chose the Reaper "Female Samurai" model to cannibalize, was that gorgeous battle standard. That will make Feora stand out on the battle field!

<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From Feora, Priestess of the Flame Mod</td></tr></table>

The Battle Standard is mounted in a small base of putty, and glued into her backpack, and to her hair. tragic, but it's heavy, and needs as much support as I could get.

<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From Feora, Priestess of the Flame Mod</td></tr></table>

What do you all think? I'll be sure to post additional pictures as I get her painted.

The swords look a bit big IMHO, but the rest looks excellent. I am very curious to where this is going and I will follow the thread...

That's actually a good head swap there. Nice conversion for certain.

Paint her up!

I like the banner. Nice chop chop.

Got the first coats of paint on her! That's 2 tones of white, her base reds, and some of the gold.





And that side view.


I'm not sure how I want to paint the banner. Originally, I imagined it as a dynamic 3-toned Menoth white, but for color balance, I may need to make it Sanguine Red.
Opinions? are there any tutorials on painting faces? There's a lot of detail that I'd like to highlight, but I've never done detail on faces before.

Okay! She's Basically Complete! Feora, Mother of the Flame
The close ups are unflattering actually, but you get the gist. I'm new to painting, but i'm generally happy with how my models are turning out.
She's all done except for her base coat... any suggestions before I seal her off?
I got a lot of commentary that her swords were a little big, and after consideration, I agreed, and chopped them down.





her banner would look great with a hand painted menofix, but I'm pretty sure that's well beyond my skill.

I think her banner could use a bit of highlighting, and her robes could probably use a bit of shading. Also, a brighter metal like GW's mythril silver [or P3 equivalent] would make her swords and chainmail pop a bit better.

I really like the headswap - I was never a fan of feora's head either. Unfortunately I did like the sculpted abdomen, and I feel like you've removed a good part of the model by changing that, but you gotta do what makes YOU like your models and army.

See about the shading and highlighting though. Maybe even see what a brown wash does if you paint it into the crevices of her armor, like around her fingers and such. I think it would look good!

ooo, Brawn wash on the hands, good idea!
I think the lighting was bad in my pictured, but I did do hilighting on thw robes and the flag, but maybe you know a better technique?

for the flag i have simple p3 sanguine red flag, with a sanguine highlight dry brush. For the robes, the deep parts/ shadowed parts are menoth white, the majority of the robes are 1pt Menoth White, 3 parts menoth white hilight, and I did some edging in menoth hilight.

Is that about right?

I see the highlighting, but highlighting falls flat if there's no contrast. Get some deeper color in the folds of her robes. As for the banners, maybe it is the lighting, but I really can't see the highlights at all. Try thinning down your paint a lot and painting the highlights on rather than drybrushing, at least for the banners [it's more difficult for smaller surfaces as the water makes it run everywhere].

It sort of looks like the banner is too heavy and she's slowly toppling backwards...