Mages of Dalend: Tower Staff Conversion

[kristof65]

Last year/this spring I painted up a force for myself based on the kingdom of Dalend in my role-playing setting of Iskitaan.  When I went to use that force recently for a game of Song of Blades and Heroes, I realized I had no mages. 

This, of course, required a shopping trip to the Reaper website, where I picked out these two:

So why is this in the sculpting section?  Well, that's because I've got a "simple" conversion planned, and I'm hoping to get the thoughts on the best way to go about it from a couple of the pros around here. 

The theme of my Dalend force is that they all have capes and shields, like these two:

 

While these mages have capes, they don't have shields upon which to put the tower symbol.  So I am going to incorporate the tower by sculpting it in 3d on the top of each staff. 

So here is how I think I'm going to do them, unless someone has a better idea/sees problems/has advice on various steps:

- start with a plastic rod or tube
- use my drill as make shift lathe to rough in the shape of the tower
- cover it with a thin layer of ProCreate and smooth it out

- press/carve the stone work into the putty
- let cure, then drill a hole (if I didn't use a tube) into the bottom of the towers and glue them to the top of the staff. 

[kristof65]

Finally got a chance to work on this again. 

 

Found a piece of plastic tubing about the right size among my hobby supplies and slipped it into my makeshift lathe:

 

Found that it was a little too flexible,  but fortunately I found a piece of brass wire that was the exact diameter to fit inside.  I cut that a bit short so that I'd have a hole to mount the tower on the staff with.

 

After turning. 

 

I was originally going to put a layer of putty over this, but I'm pretty happy with it as is, so I went ahead and mounted it on Joeliyn's staff:

 

I will use some putty for the crenulations on the battlement.

[Darcstaar]

The shape is right on.

But, to be honest, it seems a little bulky.

[Brother Jim]

Maybe she uses it as a two handed mace when things get too close.

Especially if she wants them to feel like they've had a building dropped on them.

[kristof65]

11 hours ago, Darcstaar said:

But, to be honest, it seems a little bulky.

That just means she fits in with 95% of the minis out there. 

 

15 minutes ago, Brother Jim said:

Especially if she wants them to feel like they've had a building dropped on them.

Funny you should say that. 

The history of the kingdom of Dalend involves a famous siege, in which a demi-goddess named Cerelia used a powerful magic sword named WallBreaker to end the siege, by bringing the walls down upon the attackers. 

This is why their symbol is a tower.