GrimDarkCards - a Blanchitsu miniature conversion and painting challenge

Back in January of this year, I took part in the #GrimDarkCards challenge on Instagram hosted by @theendsoftheearthart. If you like a bit of grimdark and Blanchitsu, you'll find a plethora of amazing miniature conversions and paint jobs by following that hashtag link!


The basis of the challenge was to create a miniature of the John blanche artwork from one of the deck of Dark Millenium playing cards. Once taking part you would contact the host, have a card drawn and off you go.

Below you can see the the card image I had drawn and my version of that artwork in miniature.

I made sure to take images throughout to document this conversion.

The Build:

After looking at the artwork I knew what miniature to base this on right away. The Inquisitor Eisenhorn miniature had the pose and almost the right garments right off the bat with just the need for a little modification.

• I removed the coat tails of the overcoat to make it look like one complete coat, sculpting the folds and bulk back on the rear.
• The addition of lapels and a front to the collar brought it closer to the image.
• The large skull on the shoulder I believe was from the chaos rhino sprue sans connecting chain.
• The epaulette on the other shoulder I stole from a spare plastic commissar I had in the drawer.
• And the aquila/eagle on the chest is from the Forge world etched brass sheet

I had a little trouble finding a suitable head at first, because I wanted one that looked a little fuller in the cheek, but this one I stumbled upon in my bits box I think worked out fairly well.

I couldn't quite tell what was supposed to be in the left hand from the artwork, whther it was supposed to be a torch or cane, so I made the choice to go with a cane and used the scroll-case from the Eisenhorn miniature itself to make the handle/grip.

When it came to the servo/cyber skulls, I looked at a few I had in my bits; but they weren't that fitting to my needs. Either too chunky or cables not in the right place, so I decided to build some from scratch.

Pretty simple to build, just a little fiddly with my great pudgy fingers:

• Citadel skull
• watch parts for the neck/cable socket and manipulators/tools
• water filter balls for the eye lenses
• guitar string for the cable

I needed somewhere for the cables from the servo cyber/servo skulls to connect and was able to come up with something using more watch parts bent and glued into place that looked like a spinal augment to control them. There are three holes, one for each cable to socket into.

Now the hair/wig... that was another problem entirely... I took me a couple of days thinking about my options to realise I'd just have to dive right in and give it a shot...

I made the rolls of hair from greenstuff cables I made with my cable maker tool. The cables were cut down to varying lengths and starting from the sides of the head glued together individually with superglue. The edges were given a little texture with liquid greenstuff, with a little more watered down painted over the rolls to blend them together and the two tufts of hair sculpted with putty.

The face was given a bionic eye in a similar way to the cyber/servo skulls.

With the hair/wig done everything was glued together, with the cables being bent to hold the skulls aloft. I found some cuffs to attach to the waist and sculpted a strap. One of the GW sector bases with a couple of details added, the build was ready for painting.

The Finished Figure:

The colour scheme was already in place from the card I was working from, so that came together rather quickly. I tried to keep it a little rough and painterly to go along with the artwork.

The base was painted metal and them just had washes and weathering liquids/powders applied as appropriate. I wanted a touch more colour but not so much as to detract from the figure.

That was an awesome challenge to take part in. I'd been feeling a bit down and wanted something exciting to work on and the challenge just happened to have started around the time. I had a great time working on the piece and sharing tips with others and just generally conversing and commenting on the pieces others were working on, it was a great crowd.

When I posted the finished figure it turned out there was almost a month left until the challenge deadline, so this became just the first of my entries. There was a "wildcard" build for the challenge too, the card back.

And once I get my photographs in order and start writing, there should be one or two posts coming up with a fully detailed log of how I went about building and painting The Emperor on Golden Throne of which so far I've only posted a teaser of the unfinished piece HERE

So that's that. I hope you enjoyed this peek at the build for the #GrimDarkCards challenge.
As always comments and critiques are welcome, I love to hear your thoughts.

Take care.