Vespid Stingwings Commission - part 2

Time to get working on the actual miniatures for this commission! In the picture above you can see both my own, old version (on the right) and the first test mini for Marticus on the left.

Now given that there's going to be 12 to 14 Stingwings split over two squads I feel I need to add some extra detailing and conversion work to prevent ending up with two identical squads. To this end I've experimented with the following little details:

- Cut the Vespid legs free of the abdomen. This is very easy to do and allows you to do some simple bending and twisting (or even fullblown cut-ups and reposing using pinning), which will go a long way to add some extra variety to the six standard Vespid poses.

- Removed the neck and replaced it with a green stuff version in order to move the head closer to the body. As can be see in the pic above, if you use the standard pose your Stingwing becomes very hunched and dare I say it, silly or even dumb-looking. Move the head closer to the body and up a millimeter and suddenly you have a menacing creature that appears to be scouting for a new prey, rather than being amazed that they have a shadow following them around.

- Added a set of charm rings to its right wing, following the same style as the more intricate charms worn by the Strain Leader.

And while we're on the topic of Strain Leaders, it looks like I have my work cut out on those. Each Vespid squad will need one of them and there is only a single, extremely distinct pose for this miniature. Naturally a simple head and wing swap to a differently posed mini will go a long way, but more work will be needed as the Strain Leader mini is quite a bit taller and has a longer gun. So it's going to be a good challenge sorting these squads out!