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I am about to start a conversion of a Khorne Lord on Juggernaut to lead my Iron Warriors. The base model wil be from the Skullcrushers pack and completed with various chaos bits.
The tricky part is that I want to add a cape of skulls for him to wear similar to Skulltaker's cape, which looks like this:


Right now, my idea is to use greenstuff to build the cape and then add skulls from the GW pack of skulls: http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440122a&prodId=prod1630115a

The pack of skulls is resin, so I think I will be able to chop and cut what I need to fairly easily.

What tips would you give to help me make this a quality conversion. Concerns I have are:

1. Making a quality cape. If the cape is modeled poorly in the first place, everythign will be off. I've been looking at various tutorials. Any suggestions for ones that have helped you in the past?
2. Blending the skulls together so that they don't appear out of place or just like pieces haphazardly glued in place. I want it to look as organic as possible.
3. Alternatives to GW's pack of skulls. Can I get small skulls like this cheaper elsewhere?

Thanks for your help. I am not opposed to spending some serious time building this guy and making him the badass centerpiece to my army, but any helpful tips and tricks to make this project go smoothly and the final result look outstanding will be greatly appreciated.

You could always cut skulltaker out of his cloak. Since he's now finecast you could warp it under hot water to fit your lord.

1. Looking at the cape you obviously don't need to hassle with fold. So you probably can just use metal foil or plasticard as a base for the cloak. and i'd probably add the outer folds after the skulls are in place.

2. I don't know. Maybe file them flat and glue them on with a little displacement.

3. Secret weapons Sack o Skulls for example: http://www.secretweaponminiatures.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=230

But using the model itself like Tarthenal suggested might be a good way. It isn't the cheapest way but looking at the model you can probably use not only the cloak for your lord but also the sword, the shoulder guards and maybe the burning skull in his other hand. You'll have to do a little bit of resin carving and cutting but i imagine it isn't as timeconsuming as building the whole cloak from scratch.

Your best bet is to start by creating the shape out of milput, this will dry a lot stronger than GS if left to cure properly for a day or two,

then add a layer of GS to the top, and press the skulls into it while its still wet,

if you have any that fall out once the gs has cured super glue them back in the hole they left

just an idea for you

You know, since the GW skulls and Secret Weapon skulls are both about $15, I'm leaning towards buying Skulltaker and using his cloak . For just a few dollars more, I get the look I want and in a meterial that is fairly easy to work with.

As far as molding finecast using warm water, what are the reccomendations there?

Well usually for finecast parts that are slightly warped (normally weapons or thinner parts) running them under the hot water tap for 30 seconds is enough to soften the piece enough to warp it back, then you just need to hold it till it cools or dunk it in some cold water.

Skulltaker's cloak is about an inch thick, if not more, in a couple of parts so you may need to experiment a little as to how long you leave it in and how hot the water is.