Charon Boatman of River Styx Model Complete

The boatman model is finally complete!

After a few months of putting Charon on the shelf and pulling him back off, it's great to finally have him done.  Only a few more touches will be added during painting (coins and skulls littering the bottom of the boat), but for the most part he's complete.  

Because it has been so long from start to finish, here's a montage to recap his progress.

The basis for the boat were three "U" shaped pieces of cut plasticard and plasticard planks.

A mismatch of planks filled out the decking, giving the boat an ancient, dilapidated look.

Lots of plasticard work went into the creation of Charon's boat, and the rudder was no exception.  The steer shaft started as a tube of plasticard before having green stuff added to make it look like a gnarled branch of old wood.

Charon's undead passenger (recovering vampire in the GW fiction for the Black Coach) started as three pieces of paper clip and a dob of green stuff.

The green stuff shrouds were rolled, tattered, and then finally draped over the top of each model.

To represent the coach's possible ethereal and fly special rules I positioned the boat clipping its base's column, "phasing" through it and elevating it off the ground.

Like most green stuff sculpts, the spirit host on the base started as paper clips before having skulls added to the ends and green stuff along their lengths.

And that's it, he's done.  A few hours of work over a couple of months, and a concept fulfilled from five-years back.  It's truly rewarding to see the idea come to life!

Boatman/Black Coach WIP: Sculpting Crew

Progress is coming along on my Boatman of River Styx counts as Black Coach conversion.  This week I started sculpting the crew and laid down the foundations for the base, let's take a look.

The "crew" is going to consist of a dead passenger and Charon himself, piloting the boat.  GW's Black Coach is modeled transporting a vampire in the process of regenerating and driven by a wraith, this is great because mine will stick close to both the spirit of the original model and Greek mythology (the boatman transports one soul at a time across the River Styx into the Underworld).

Like most custom sculpts I do, I started with a wire frame base for the skeletal structure of the passenger's body.

A little blob of green stuff for a head and he's 50% done!  We'll see the finished model down below when I add his funeral shroud.

Next up was Charon.  Like his passenger, the foundation for his body was a wire frame skeleton.

Where the boat's passenger will be seated and static I want Charon to look a bit different in that he'll be floating and more airy.  Charon's model will give the whole piece a strong sense of movement.

With a pin vice I made a hole in a decking board and attached Charon to the boat.  When his cloak is finished I'll cut this piece to make him look like he's floating.

With both crew models in place I set to work making their shrouds/robes.  Using the same technique I outlined in February's article detailing the WIP of my vampire lord, I rolled out two pieces of green stuff.  I stopped periodically as I rolled to stretch each shroud by hand, a few holes formed in the thin areas when this happened, but this is a good thing.  I'll work around the holes that formed to make the shrouds look tattered and worn.  To further the worn look I used a tool to cut and drag out the ends of each piece.

This is an in-progress pic, but Charon's robe/shroud will be much more tattered than his passenger (he has been doing this for all eternity after all, whereas his passenger is newly dead!).

After cutting their garments to the final shape I draped them over the wire frames I made earlier.  To depress the shrouds to their frames I used a cupped tool, gently pressing the green stuff first to the frame, then pushing it into the negative space under arms, heads, etc.

Green stuff will sag while drying, so to keep the upward curls in Charon's cloak I hung the model on its end by a clothes pin.

The passenger is hunched over and covered ominously by their shroud I was hoping this would give them a suitably depressing look.

Next week I'll go back and resurface a bit of Charon's cloak to smooth out the areas that bunched undesirably on his back.

There are three connection points between Charon and the boat: two edges of his cloak and his scythe haft.  Now that his paper clip frame piece is cut he looks like he's floating! 

To represent its other-worldliness and the Coach's in-game ethereal rule, I used the broken pillar as the boat's connection point to the base to look like its flying and phasing through intervening objects.  The final look will be achieved after I add a piece of column inside the hull.  The final touch will be a few spirits whirling about the hull.

A last touch will be two lanterns, one hanging from the bow of the boat and one from Charon's scythe.

After a little basing work, some touch-ups, and a few last details, the Boatman will be done!

Boatman of River Styx Counts as Black Coach WIP

Before we dive into this week's work in progress, I'd like to take a moment to plug the tournament that I will be running on the first Saturday of April, the 7th.  If you're in the KC metro area and want to get in three games of 40k while taking a shot at winning some prize money and a first place trophy to put on your mantle, drop by 31st Century Games & Hobbies in Olathe, Kansas.  The format will be standard force organization charts at 1,500 points per player and three rounds that will test each competitor's abilities to command the table top in a multitude of classic war game situations (objective grab, kill points, securing table quarters, etc.).  Come prepared for a great afternoon of table top fun as you battle through the veil of treachery and the crucible of battle to war game glory!

Now, to the WIP.  Last time we left off after completing the hull and basic structure of the Boatman's vessel.  This week we continue work by hollowing out those large rib sections to make them contour pieces that fit the bend of the boat.  After that, a plasticard plank was laid down the length of the boat resting on the newly trimmed ribs.  I did this for one reason: with the ribs slimmed down and the plank added we can place floorboards for the boat's decking.

While those pieces are drying I moved on to add a length of board along the seam line of the boat's hull.  This covers up where the hull planks meet in the middle fore and aft.

Returning to the interior of the boat, I cut pieces of plasticard and laid them across to create the boat's decking.  Because the boat is for an undead army, I wanted a semi-decrepit and ramshackle appearance.  To do this, I laid the floorboards haphazardly, and gave them wear and tear. 

A really cool feature of the boat is the lantern post on the bow of the boat.  I made if from many little pieces of cut plasticard, and then sanded them down to created the contour I was looking for.

The aft of the boat will also feature a rudder.  I haven't decided where I'll place Charon, the driver, either fore or aft.  If he's at the back, he'll have one hand on the rudder and another on his scythe.  If he's at the front, then I'll have the boat steering itself, it's magical after all!

The construction of the boat is rapidly drawing to a close, stay tuned next time for the finished boat and as we get started on Charon and his undead passenger!