The Restless Dead - Graves, Skeleton Pirates & Skeleton Conversions

 Among my Undead army are (undead) horse mounted skeletons. Although I use much from the Warhammer lists, I don't follow it slavishly. I have an option for mounted skeletons which are weaker than the two plate armored options in the Warhammer list.

  These figures I mostly bought from fellow wargamer, Bob, many years ago. He gave them a varnish after sticking them on Airfix or copies of Airfix horses that were dry brushed white. Eventually I'll give them a more detailed paintjob but the initial finish was an effective way to get units ready. I wanted a couple of flag bearers which I should have finished for next game.

 I tried two approaches: One was giving a rider figure a spear arm from one of the infantry. The other was to cut figures off at the waist and swap torsos. The only issue with this is that the spare infantry were later copies of the originals and were a little smaller. I suppose I could say that the wizard/vampire assembled their bones willy nilly so not all are from the same individuals or I could disguise this with putty cloaks or thicken the arms.

  BELOW, at left is the arm conversion and at right the torso swap which also creates an interesting variation on foot figures.

   The larger arm on the foot figure is not too noticeable as the arm position and shield divert attention from the thinner left arm. The top left rider figure really is fairly obvious with the different arm sizes so I might hide or thicken the right arm. the mounted figure top right, doesn't look like too much of a contrast and it will be somewhat distracted from by the horse.
  I might decide to combine the torso at bottom right with a plate armored knight as I did once before to create more elite skeleton cavalry.

  The horses, themselves are obviously not skeleton ones but some red eyes will help to suggest that they are Undead 'zombie horses'.

   

    

  One of the cheap fantasy tubes I bought included zombies and graves. The rick outcrop with bones came from a different set. In any case they paint up well. The hand emerging from dirt is oversized but I can just say that was a big bloke or ogre, or something! The figure with emerging torso still has to have his teeth painted as I generally paint open mouths black first and then pick out the details. the zombies have big heads but they are characterful.

  The tombstones and crosses meant to be sone had the black undercoat dry brushed with two shades of grey. The wooden crosses had the black dry brushed brown. The flesh items had a white or bone undercoat followed by a GW wash of crimson. (I'm not sure if GW still makes them but the washes were among the most useful paints they made; Reichland Flesh is especially useful for skin and light neutral colors. The most stupid were the 'dry brush' paints that completely dried out if you more than looked at them. Now they make a 'base' and a 'layer' paint, the latter being slightly watered down paint). Everything was given a light drybrush of off-white.

   Not long ago I ordered a zip bag of pirates, made in China. They come in two colors, green and sand, and living and dead pirates. They come in some interesting poses and include lady pirates! My only dislike is they are 1/35, not 1/32 but skeletons could be expected to be a little smaller given they are lacking flesh and hair. However, they are definitely smaller than the other skeleton warriors.

  Below, you can see them painted and with card bases. I went for a simple color scheme of black and blue clothing. The bones were undercoated off-white or light-sand. A wash of Reichland Flesh was applied and eye sockets painted black.

                              These ones had weapons cut off so they could man catapults!

    This one, with telescope, is a gem. Some of those I might 'borrow the telescope arm for conversions on the 'living' but how does he 'see' with no eyes?

                                                    Weapons were removed on these ones.