I still have the converting bug, and have been working on yet more new stars over October. I really do need to get back to painting as new Spikes keep coming out (Ogres will be in mid-December) and I’ll never be able to keep up at this rate.

The great thing about the new kits is that they come with lots of different parts and being plastic are easy to convert. This really helps as a lot of the stars are just variations of existing player types, many can be made using mostly parts from the new kits with some key details in greenstuff or from other kits.


Rotten' Rick Bupkeis

He’s a run of the mill zombie with dirty player and sneaky kit, which makes fouling his main role. The illustration gives him pretty standard looking kit, though I did use the shoulder pads from the wight since these are a bit fancier. Extra spikes from the skeletons’ helmets were added to better match. I then added a ripped t-shit and chains between the pads. His arms came from the other zombie to have the spikes and brace in the illustration. The last thing was to use the leg from a ghoul to model him with his foot raised ready to stomp on an opposing player. I may add some gore onto his boot and base when it comes to painting. I had wanted to add a fling below his boot trying to ward off the finishing blow, but the poses didn’t look right on a standard base. A 40mm sized base would be a better fit for this, maybe it could be a mini-diorama if I ever want to do Blood Bowl duel.




Withergrasp Doubledrool

Whilst there is an existing 2nd edition model for him, I am not a huge fan of the sculpt and instead decided to create a new version from other models. The great thing about star player mutants is that the key visual aspect are their mutations. Any chaos human with 2 heads, tentacles and a prehensile tail makes a good Withergrasp.

I did still want to take inspiration from the new illustration, but it only showed a small part, which meant the rest was based on the classic model.

The legs proved to be surprisingly tricky, I had planned on using those from the Wulfen originally. However these were in quite awkward poses and didn’t have the same configuration of joints. None of the beastmen models I had would fit either until I came across the Tzaangors which had been bought for the Bulla Shardhorn Conversion. These legs were in the right pose, but came with a separate top part, all of which had thigh armour. This wasn’t suitable for the model and was left off, instead greentuff was used to bulk it up and fur sculpted on. A kneepad was sculpted on a well with a plastic spike.

I did use the toes from the Wulfen model as those were a good fit, fur was sculpted onto the top of the foot and front of the ankles.

The tail came from an Island of Blood Rat ogre that I had used in other conversions. It wasn’t a perfect match for the old 2nd edition model, but was close enough.

The torso was from the Shadespire bloodreavers, it had the symbol of khorne carved into the chest which had to be filled with greenstuff. Another tricky part of the model was finding a torso that would allow 2 heads to fit onto it. There was a balance needed between having something large enough to fit these without looking too bulky for the legs and arms.

I went through a few iterations of heads and necks and ended up using the elf union necks with heads from genestealer neophytes. Some greenstuff was needed to fill in gaps and make the twin necks look right on a single neck body. I sculpted horns on the heads to match the illustration, but am worried these will come off too easily and may switch these for plastic horns glued on later.

His right arm came from a nurgle rotter, with the nurgle symbol on the glove filled in and a mutation trimmed off. The tentacles were another difficult part to source until I remembered I’d bought pink horrors for their conversion possibilities, mainly the hands. They had appendages coming out the back of their heads and I used these for tentacles with greenstuff suckers.

The final parts were the shoulder pads, these were from orks and were sanded down to match the illustration. I then sculpted the belts which hold them in place.

In the end parts from 9 different models were used for this conversion.




Bilerot Vomitflesh

I see Bilerot as a cross between a chaos warrior and a bloater. The image I had was of a fat, diseased human that would be possible in our world since he doesn’t have regen or nurgle’s rot.

The starting point for the model was the nurgle champion, he had a space for axe in his gut and this had to be filled in with greenstuff. I also filled in some of the open wounds and replaced these with boils and pustules. The idea was for him to look infected rather than rotting.

The hardest part for me was to sculpt his t-shirt. It was difficult to get this to look right as it had to be in poor condition, but also look like cloth rather than skin. I think it turned out pretty well on the front, but less so on his back.

His legs came from a mummy, but the boots were from a bloater and the knee pads from a Warcry Iron Golem model. These legs were based on the 2nd edition model as the illustration didn’t show them.

Arms and shoulder pads came from a bloater, I added a spike to his right pad and some extra rivets to the borders to better match the drawing.

His head was what had given me the most issues, it was really hard to find something that would match his chunky body. The new flings gave me the ideal solution as their heads are chubby and a large, making them a good fit. I used a bloater head as the basis for the helmet, but it needed a lot of greenstuff to get it to the right shape and add the borders. I ended up doing the sculpting with the head glued to the body to get the neck right, but this did make it harder to sculpt and sand the borders. It is always a challenge to sculpt man-made objects as they have more straight lines and sharp edges.





Curnoth Darkwold

This was another illustration where I couldn’t see the lower half of the player. Curnoth is a wardancer with a lineman style facemask and a huge mess of unruly hair.

Wood elves are one of the races I have the largest collection of models for as not only did I do a team based on them a couple of years ago but also had an army from back in the WHFB 6th edition days. This meant I had bought pretty much every boxed set and had a lot of parts to draw from.

The new BB range is a lot bulkier than previous ones which made a lot of these bits useless, but it did open up new opportunities from other parts. I had a few bare chests from the Kairoc acolytes used in the wood elf team and I settled on that for him.

I had a lot of difficulty getting arms that would work with this chest and ended up taking them from the Warcry Unteamed beasts warband with a hand from a lineman.

The legs came from the thrower that had been used for the Gloriel conversion.

The mask was from a lineman and the hair from the wild riders, though just 1 wasn’t enough and I ended up using 2 with extra hair from a tree-revenant

I used horns from the same tree-revenant and then made the antler shoulder pad from dryad branches. Greenstuff was used to fill gaps and add leaves to his hair and shoulder pad.





Anqi Panqi

The plastic Lizardman team only just came out and it had less star than previous Spikes. Gone are Slibli and Hemlock, instead they have been replaced by similar versions with new names and a few tweaks along with a fouling skink and a krox star.

Anqi is just a saurus with temple guard bits, looking at the illustration he doesn’t look that different from the standard Saurus players aside from his helm and fist spike.

Most of him was made by cutting up the bodies of 2 saurus models. I had a large collection of temple guard heads from a past lizardman team and chopped up one of those for the stegadon helm. I removed the single horn and added 2 horns from other heads and then expanded the skull with greenstuff. The feathers were taken from the skink models and slann icon.

I added some greenstuff to make his shoulder pads better fit the illustration, this had to be simplified a bit as the shape was rather complicated.

His spiked gauntlet came from an orc player and I added some lizardman decoration. This meant it looked primitive but still well made in keeping with their technology.

The final detail was to sculpt a necklace with teeth and other decorations on it.





Kiroth Krakeneye

This star is clearly based on Lokhir Fellheart, a special character version of the dark elf corsairs.

He was based off another illustration which only showed the top half of the model. From that it looks like Kiroth was very close to Lokhir in appearance with a few extra Blood Bowl elements.

I bought the Lokhir model off e-bay as it is no longer available and was going to use that with a weapons snip. However this model has a seadragon cloak like other corsairs and I really dislike cloaks on Blood Bowl models. In the end I just used his head for the conversion, which was probably a bit wasteful, but worth it for a better outcome.

The rest of the model was made from a plastic runner, I did add a finned collar and thigh guards from corsair models.

Making the shoulder pads was the hardest part of the model. These started with the normal plastic ones, sanded into the correct shape. I then cast some scales from cloaks and lizardmen shields before gluing these to the pads. Gaps were filled on these and borders sculpted to complete them. I added spikes to his left pad as a finishing touch.

The model was in a nice dynamic pose, but not really making use of his tentacled helmet. To liven him up a bit I chopped off the middle 2 tentacles and sculpted them holding onto the ball. Normally I only like throwers and key scorers to be holding a ball, but I think this was worth it to make him look unique.





I should really start painting again, since finishing the Ogres for the NAF GT team for 2019 I have only managed to paint 4 stars and lots of dice.

The 2020 NAF GT isn’t until May, but it wouldn’t hurt to get a start on things now. That way I can take things easy or spend more time adding stars, making the display base better or doing some other little touches.