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'm looking to put together a Zombie Dragon for my Death army. However, I'm not really a fan of the out of the box ZD, it looks like it's going to have some serious upper back problems with the way it's posed! It looks like a fragile old man using the rock on it's base as a walking stick..

My aim is to have two Zombie dragons, one will be the FW Carmine dragon - which I think is a great model, the. other I wanted to make myself.

One thing I will say is it needs to be mostly GW parts, it needs to be usable in GW stores and also GW run tournaments. Personally I'm only looking at GW bits, but I am willing to take suggestions for non GW bits.

Aesthetically the theme I am going for is a dragon that hasn't necessarily been dead for years and years and is rotting/decaying. More along the lines of a regular dragon, that has some battle damage or wounds to suggest it may of died. So far I have a few ideas, but am only really familiar with death kits so converting and kitbashing from other factions isn't my strong point, definitely looking for some suggestions and ideas.

[+] Head - At the moment I'm thinking Stardrake head, the quality of the new sculpts is superior to a lot of the older things and I wanted the front of the model to look fresh rather than using something like a high elf dragon head where you can tell that the sculpt is definitely a lot older.

[+] Wings - Black dragon wings from the dreadlord on BD kit, they have some damage on them which makes them suitable. I do like the Zombie Dragon wings but the fact that technically the Zombie dragon is a wyvern might make removing the claws from the wings a little bit difficult, it looks like removing the claws will leave an unnatural mound at the middle of the wing.

The body and limbs are where I really need help and suggestions, the High elf dragon seems like an easy solution but I feel like it's a very long and thin dragon which isn't quite as menacing as I would like. If I used it I would replace the cloth reigns with chains. The stardrake body looks usable with a lot of work, but the limbs have armour plating on which I wouldn't want to use so I would need some different limbs. The front arms of a carnosaur look usable but it's difficult to see from the sprues where a good place to detach the limbs from the body would be due to it's pose. Also been looking at the magmadroth but can't figure out how chunky the body would be without the limbs etc.

I have much the same issue with the stock Zombie Dragon as you. I converted mine all from the Zombie Dragon/Terrorgheist and a bit of green stuff Pictures spoilered below). I don't know if you're any good with green stuff, but it might provide some inspiration:



As far as kitbashing dragon kits goes, the reason why I didn't look for parts outside the box is that stylistically the serpentine dragons GW historically made don't go well with the beefier Zombie Dragon, in my opinion. Even the wings of the Black Dragon, while no doubt spanning wide enough, aren't particularly long (front to back, not talking about wingspan). Okay for a serpentine dragon, but for my taste not substantial enough for anything based on Zombie Dragon bits or the Stardrake for that matter.

Kitbashing should work with the Stardrake, although I have to say that I'm not particularly familiar with the kit. I don't have enough Sigmarines to justify having one (yet ). The armor bits are a bit of a pain, but have you considered using the Zombie Dragon's skeletal bits to fill in the holes removing the armor leaves? I know you wanted the front intact, but (here's the question about green stuff again) putting bones in there with a bit of green stuff work for frayed flesh and hide might solve that problem.

From looking at the sprue pictures, it seems the armor parts aren't attached to the body (for the most part), so it wouldn't even entail a lot of cutting. I do have another suggestion, though. You could make your dragon asymmetrical and zombiefy someparts while scraping off the SIgmarine insignia on others (if you're so inclined), notch the armor plates around the edges and perhaps add some more damage on the surface, and thus have some rusty old armor plates on the dragon to add to the bony sections and reinforce the idea this dragon isn't particularly healthy anymore. Again, rusty armor (not so much battered armor, I guess) goes against your idea of a freshly slain dragon, of course. Just an idea I had.

Removing the claws from Zombie Dragon wings shouldn't actually be much of an issue. I don't exactly remember how the kit is arranged, but if you cut or leave off the digits, you should be able to scrape or sand down the bony mound quite easily, and maybe need minimal gap filling. Keep in mind plastic is nice for reshaping because you can carve lines in it, so getting a new joint out of the sanded down bit is easily done.