Rhinox Cavalry conversion

by Ross on 2009-01-14 (Wed) 11:47PM

Yesterday a very exciting package arrived at my door..

the long awaited Ogre bitz from my cousin! inside I found a random lot of ogre bits n bobs, but the highlight was a gnoblar scraplauncher ^^ The prospect however of assembling another of these monstrosities was a little too daunting..im still in recovery from the last one, so I thought i'd take a stab at converting the Rhinox into a cavalry unit.

My first thought was to make it a centrepiece for my army, so i wanted to go to town on the base as well. So instead of the normal Ogre base I opted for the chariot base ( After later checking the rules for Rhinox cavalry, it appears that Bull rhinox should be on this base anyway..result!)

The first thing I did was hunt around the car park for a suitable rock on which to base the model, 5 minutes later and a good sized chunk of concrete, and I was ready to go!

I added the goblin kid from the scraplauncher set as well. I love the look of this model (picking his nose, and in apparent oblivion to his surroundings) and his sitting position looked to good on the rock to pass up. This led me to consider a small diorama. I added a barrel with some skulls (thanks David ^^ ) and a human model recieving the Rhinox charge. Who better to stand his ground than King Theoden!

...Umm...yes its him, old beardy from LOTR's...

The pose fit..

Next up was converting the rider. I used one of the plastic bull bodies my cousin had sent. I started by repositioning the legs using a hack saw and some modelling putty (tamiya green stuff). I then added a saddle (of sorts) and a bed roll to add extra support, both with putty. The gut plate is an extra from the Ogre Hunter model, and the head an extra ogre Tyrant piece.

The Fur trim cape was sculpted from green (grey?) stuff.

The last parts I added were the arms, weapons and chains. the chains were from a 100 yen shop, ladies boot strap (leftovers from the battering ram).

The right arm is just a normal Ogre arm with the weapon removed. The Left arm im a little more pleased with. Its the Standard bearer arm, repositioned (using putty and knife) The bottom was cut off and replaced with an Orc spearhead (thankyou again David for the donation!) and then the removed bottom piece attached to the other end.

I considered leaving the rock its natural colour and not painting it, but at this point it looked a bit odd unpainted , so i went for it. It feels bizarre painting an actual rock to look more...err.. rocklike >_<

I also added a few bits of static grass to it, hoping it would look like moss. It didnt. oh well.

The finished base.

The hinox wouldnt sit happily on the rock with all four feet, so I added some putty, shaped roughly stone like, around the feet. Thats the last unpainted part, and will do so tomorrow.

The (mostly) finished piece.

Finished in roughly 1 afternoon! and fairly happy with the outcome. I'd still like to redo some of the paint job, but now im knackered, and need to sleep!