Conversions - Royal Guard and Outriders

 

Rohan Royal Guard and Outriders are metal models, which translates to them being fairly pricey. Whilst I will be purchasing a few just to own the official models, for variety and to save my wallet a little, I wanted to convert my own. With the models included in the starter box, and another sprue each of Warriors and Riders I'd ordered, I would have more than enough spares.

The idea was helped along by HobbyMachine's own conversions (found here), so I used their process as the basis for my own.

This Rider here has the closest armour and helmet to the Royal Guard.

All he is missing is the hood and collar, the shoulder pauldrons, detail on the arm guards, helmet plume and shield. I took to him with the clippers, shaving back the cloaked shoulders, and also removing the bow and quiver from his back, as Royal Guard do not get bows.

Then it was time to apply greenstuff to add in the missing details. I did this in several sessions, to avoid smooshing previous work and build up in places where details sit on top of each other. Considering I haven't worked with Greenstuff in a good few years, it's not the worst thing I've ever done and hopefully the paint job will help it look the way it should.

              

My one problem is the shields. As I don't yet have any of the official models, I used the next best thing and tried to cast my own from Deorwine's shield. My inexperience with casting ended up with this rather large and bulky shield, evidently Deorwine is a slightly different scale.

I'll have to give this another go, but it might have to wait until I can get some of the metal Royal Guard. Any tips would be greatly appreciated!

Thankfully, the Outriders are much more forgiving, a simple plume on the helmet will do the trick, as I'm not trying to emulate their fancy helmets. I'll be painting them differently to help them stand out as "not-Warriors".

Until next time!

EDIT:

I think the biggest issue with the shields is thus:

A standard Rider's shield is on the left. The one I used for the casting is on the right, and the size is incredibly apparent.