Converting the Shaggoth

By Tom K, aka subversive

I started out this project because I was working on a Chaos list that used two Shaggoths (yeah, OUCH!). It seemed pretty boring to me to use the same model for both, so I got to thinking about what MY Shaggoth would look like if I were the one sculpting him. The Shaggoth model is, in my opinion, one of the best large models made by GW. My only real gripe with it is the tiny little fore-legs that look like atrophied T-Rex claws. So what to change?

Well, the first thing that always pops into my head for conversions is the weapon. In fact, I generally don't even consider swapping a weapon to be a conversion, as such. Looking at the box, I liked the look of the chain in the lower left hand corner of the picture.

I wondered what a Shaggoth swinging a big chain would look like... then I got to thinking about what should be at the end of that chain... and I found my idea. My Shaggoth was going to be swinging a huge rock on a chain! If that's not intimidating, I don't know what is.

So after that, I decided that my Shaggoth needed some armor. Sure he's already go that great scaly skin save, but a little extra armor never hurt anyone! Then I got to thinking about the old Dragon Ogre models, and how I really liked their helmets... and how it would be pretty cool to put a big old helmet on my Shaggoth. The next time I was in my game store of choice, I happened to be browsing the 40K stuff, and noticed for the first time that the Defiler model had a face! Not being a big 40K player, I hadn't ever seen one up close before, and had no idea whether it would actually work or not... Since I do play chaos when I play 40K, I decided that it was worth it to take the leap of faith and pick the thing up. To my pleasant surprise, not only did the Defiler come with a mask/helmet that was the perfect size, it came with THREE different ones! I now had some options!

Finding the right sized chain proved a little more difficult than I thought. I searched about a dozen modelling sites for anything that would come even close and got very little. The hardest part was getting the scale right. I found a couple of places that had plastic chain that looked bulky enough to feel like the right weight, but when I checked on the actual size, it was way too small. I made a stop at metalliferous one day like 3 minutes before they closed and grabbed a couple of chains that I thought might work, but when I got home I realized that they were a little wimpy in scale - the links were just not heavy enough. A week or two later I was able to get back over there and give the inventory a more thorough look-through. It turned out that there was a whole section that I missed which had the perfect stuff. The only thing that remained was to get the shiny copper chain to have a nice weathered steel look. More on that later.

So here were my assorted bits:

I had the chain and helmet, and I would make the big rock at the end of the chain either by sculpting it or finding an appropriate real rock. Other armor bits would be done either with green stuff or by swiping bits from other sources. I had the idea of strapping Bretonian knights directly to him, but I thought that would be a little too silly on an otherwise serious model.

Gentlemen, Start Your Dremels!

For the next imstallment, I should mention two of the most important tools I've used for this project:

1. My Dremmel. There is no way I could have done this and kept my sanity without it. I used two different bits for grinding down unwanted metal, as well as a couple of standard drill bits for your plain old vanilla holes. The griding bits are pictured below:

2. My Canon 20D, which took all of the pictures you see here. We use it in the studio for all sorts of stuff, but there's nothing like a super hi-res miniature shot to truly show off how great a camera it is. All of the photos in this series are cropped down pretty tightly, and then reduced in size to about 1/4-1/3 their original resolution.

Anyway, on to more interesting stuff. The first step I decided to undertake was adding the mask. Unfortunately, while the mask was the right scale, it didn't fit perfectly over his face, which would necessitate some metal removal, so I dug out my grindy bits and fired up the ol' dremmel, judiciously removing a little bit of metal at a time, and testing as I went to make sure I didn't remove too much. My skills with green stuff are still developing, so I didn't want to make too much of a mess for fear of not being able to fix it up all nice and pretty again. After a while I got to a point I was happy with. Here is the Shaggoth, sans face:

And here he is again, with his new scary mask:

I did a little clean up on the mask afterwards, and in the process, I noticed the little dudes riding around on his back. The other Shaggoth in my list is a much more friendly guy, and I'm sure he wouldn't mind some freeloaders. This one, however, was the meaner of the two, and he would certainly NOT want anybody riding around on his back. A couple of clips with the wire cutters later, they were mostly gone. I hit them again with the heavier grinding bit, knowing that I would have to learn how to sculpt hair sooner or later, so it might as well be sooner.

The next step was adding the chain. I thought through my process on this for a while. After clipping the head off his axe, I dremmeled out a hole that I thought would fit the chain. Alas, the chain didn't look quite right just sitting in the hole. There needed to be a link actually coming out of his fist, or it looked un-natural. Fortunately, this also solved a structural problem where glue alone wasn't going to hold it in all that well. I solved the problem by drilling two smaller holes in the main hole, and sticking a bent paperclip (my pinning material of choice) into them to form a link-cum-anchor for the chain to attach to.

This left me with:

The next bits were a lot harder than I expected. I had to pull the same paperclip trick on the butt end of the chain, and then I had to figure some method of connecting the chains in the middle. I didn't want to do clips again, mostly out of laziness, but partly because I had already glued the hands in place, figuring that it would be easier to get the chain between them that way. As it turned out, I was right, but that didn't make it easy, just easier than the alternative. I ended up drilling a small hole for one piece of chain fragment in the right hand, which served a similar function to the paperclips in the previous examples. Zap-a-Gap (CA glue) provided the rest. I was less concerned about structural integrity in the inner chain parts, as there wouldn't be as much man-handling of that area as the outter bits.

When I was done with the chain, here's what he looked like:

Green stuff!

I've been gradually working up my skill with green stuff, starting with simple gap fill-ins, working up to more complex gaps and minor sculpting, and now some actual detail work.

In my last installment, I mentioned needing to sculpt some hair to cover some areas where I had removed significant metal. The hair proved to be a lot simpler than I expected it to be. I started with thick strands of green-stuff, similar to the dreds that Ernie had put on his minotaurs. This didn't look right on the Shaggoth, as he already had some more flowing hair. My next attempt was to try a trick that I had seen where a japanese noodle maker took a wad of dough and proceded to stretch it, then fold it, then stretch it, then fold it again, until he had a mass of stringy noodles. Green stuff doesn't stretch that well, so I didn't get that far with this technique, but it gave me a base of pre-textured putty to work from. I slapped that down, and then proceded to go at it with an exact-o knife. Apparently, this is exactly what the sculptors did when making his hair in the first place, as I couldn't tell the difference between their areas and mine (except that mine were green, of course...).

I also added a big old piece of metal with rivets, because, well, rivetted metal just looks good. I also used a bit of green stuff to fill in some of the gap around his mask, and attempted to smooth the mask into the horns. I won't know how successful that part is until I hit him with a coat of primer. Here's hoping!

Priming and painting!

Well, with NEWCC only a few days after my last entry, I was unfortunately unable to maintain my step by step documentation of this process... instead, you just get the finished product. I'll be posting pics soon!