brotherhood of the erm... capelthwaite

 or something... Conquest Mini's do some lovely Native American figures for the French-Indian Wars (as luck would have shortly available from Warlord Games), including some cracking Last of the Mohicans figures, of which this is Magua...

I've loved this mini for years and finally picked one up a few months ago and in the best tradition of stealing (partly from White Knight over on LAF - but mainly from the film Brotherhood of the Wolf) and not a million miles away from my original Solomon Kane inspiration, I decided that a strange and dark-skinned companion would not go amiss... no doubt converted by some zealous missionary and brought back to amuse the King, he's now found a higher purpose...

now, that isn't his original musket (which would have been 100 years too advanced, but probably get awayable), as he was sadly bent in transit and it couldn't be repositioned without snapping, so off it came, I took the musket from the Warlord ECW weapons sprue (think it may actually be a matchlock) and tried to pin that in place... sadly, I couldn't get the barrel drilled and pinned, so instead pinned in the stock and built up the barrel with g/s around a very long pin - it may not be the best looking musket in the world, but by god it's all pin and damned sturdy... 

I did him in basic skins and buff leathers - no doubt his more traditional clothing would have long since gone the way of his old gods, so he made his own when called upon to fight...

so, the Witchhunter warband so far... rather character driven admittedly, need some musket fodder....

oh... and a capelthwaite is a large shape-shifting black hound from Westmorland if you were wondering... and yes, I have plans...

release the hounds...

finally got around to finishing the houndmaster and his pack... annoyingly this was a pain - firstly I needed a head... after considering the Bearded Tweedy head from Crooked Dice, I found some GW Empire soldier heads on ebay - on the whole they are too large for the Warlord plastics, but this one in a hat managed to hide that fact enough and he looks comparable to the Hasslefree head on the Witchhunter...

then I couldn't quite decide on what colour to paint his clothes, I didn't want him all in black, I knew the dogs would be tan, so another buff coat seemed silly... I had tried a faded red, but that didn't work... in the end I figured, he probably once worked for a lord or squire, someone with land who would need dogs, his family has probably been in service for generations, hence the older style hat, so some faded hand me downs seemed appropriate... the base colour is Vallejo violet brown (or brown violet)...
 

it was during the storytelling in my head (I can't be the only one can I?) that I had trouble picturing him running through hedges and ditches after his dogs on the chase in shoes and hose... so - and I hate doing this mid paint job - cut his legs off, which left him flopping about by his chain... with the boots from one of the Warlord command figures, he was reattached and all seemed well...

then the chain broke... and his hand came off... so I had to replace the chain, and getting a new loop was a pain in the arse, so it become a leather strap instead of an iron chain, the hand was repaired, the chain reattached.. and everything patched up... I hope... sadly, this may rank as one of my better conversion jobs but thanks to the hell of painting it, not my best figure overall, I can see lots of niggles everywhere... not least of which is that he's still damn shiny, so will need to touch him up with Dullcote again...