XV. The Nurse

Another human member of the Doctor's retinue. My Nurse is a stern lady in her late fifties. She was the wife of a country doctor, who died not long after the War had begun. As she is a widow she wears a black dress under her protective clothing. The Nurse is much devoted to her husband even after his death; when she left her home to join the Plague Doctor's staff she took with her his skull (the miniature shows her holding the skull).
 

The Nurse

The base for the conversion is Wyrd's Molly Squidpiddge. I guillotined her and sculpted a whole new head. I also put an apron over her dress. To make the base more interesting I built a small section of deteriorating wooden fence out of balsa. The choice of colours and the red cross on her hat tie her in with the rest of the gang.

The human part of the crew.

XIV. The Assistant

Converted yesterday evening and painted this morning - the Assistant:

It started as Wyrd's Sebastian, Morgue Assistant. He just needed an anti-miasmic mask and a red cross armband. The fellow sure makes one hell of a mess with that bone saw...   

XIII. Release The Hounds!

Last weekend I finished two more Hecatian Hounds. One is another Reaper wolf, and the other is the OOP GW Chaos Warhound. They were not modified much; the former just lost its mandibula and the latter its chaotic horns. Here they are with the one I made earlier:

XII. Pestarzt In History And Miniature

I present the Doctor; painted and based:

I'm very pleased with the result, and the paintjob was as simple as it gets. Making this miniature made me wonder how many plague doctor miniatures there are out there, produced by various miniature companies. I was already aware of some, like this one from the Carnevale miniatures game,  Shaking Sean from the delicious 50mm Smog 1888 range, or Goblin Gas Blowers from Confrontation. After a quick search I found some more: Mr Crippenghast by Darkling, The Cutter from the Disturbia range, one from Reaper Pathfinder range and one from Brother Vinni's, a rather rustic one from Lead Adventure, and a whole pack by Foundry. Of all the new ones I thus discovered, there is one I particularly liked and am getting at least one copy of. It's this Plague Doctor by C-P Models.

Some notes on historical plague doctors:
They were hired by town/city authorities in times of great epidemics to treat  infected people and record the numerous plague victims. The special outfit some of them wore was invented by Charles de L'Orme in early 17th century. It consisted of a long overcoat, gloves, boots, a hat and a mask. The protective suit was made of waxed leather, and kept the physician safe from fleas, rats and patients. The mask had a curved beak filled with various aromatic items, and served as a filter for the "foul air". People believed in those times that desease was caused by "miasma": putrid, bad-smelling air. The doctor would also carry a wooden cane for pointing, poking and keeping people away. Being a plague doctor was not a promising career. Paracelsus and Nostradamus were famous plague doctors.

An engraving showing the characteristic costume with bird-beak mask, worn by some plague doctors in the seventeenth and eighteenth century.

Apparently those who didn't opt to wear the bird-beak would put on something even more grotesque, such as this weird-ass thing...

   

XI. Converting The Doctor

I've done some work on the leader of my plague-fighting gang. The conversion is based on Kassalis Venin for Rackham's Confrontation game. I gave him a plague doctor's beaky mask and a hat, and removed some pointless trinkets he had hanging from his belt. I omitted the mechanical claw things that should stand on the original mini's back. He may need just a bit of smoothening out before painting, but this is pretty much it.   

And the bits for my second Flesh Abomination arrived this week:

This one is actually smaller than the first one, though I thought it would be bigger. I'm not sure I'll be working on it yet, I think I'll make some more Hounds first.

X. Corpse Counters

Last weekend I made these Corpse Counters for Malifaux:

The master sculpt was made out of greenstuff, used to make a press mold which was then pushed into polymer clay. After baking they were glued onto 30mm lipped bases and painted with acryllics.

I got the idea from this photograph by FalseMaria on Deviantart:

"Mortality"

You can find more stunning photos in her gallery (falsemaria.deviantart.com).