I am not one for converting minis much. Mostly because I am not very good at it. I do not really have the eye to recognize what mini would look great as something completely different with additional parts. Plus, I REALLY suck at sculpting. However, every once in a while I see work that someone else does that makes me think, “hey, I could do that!” That was the case a week or so ago when I saw a great and simple conversion that someone posted on the Facebook Blood Bowl Community page.

It is worth pointing out that Andy Hoare has said that Zara will not get a reprint in the new Blood Bowl rules because she really does not fit in with the fluff of the game. The only reason she was ever included in the first place was that Jervis Johnson who created the game was reportedly a big Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan. Zara is basically a Blood Bowl version of Buffy. Why would I go through the effort of converting a mini for a Star Player that will not be included in the new rules? The simple answer is that the NAF has said that Zara will continue to be allowed at NAF approved tournaments.

Now, on to the conversion! I started with a 40K Dark Eldar Succubus mini.

The Succubus will be about ninety percent of the final mini. The pose is fairly close to the original Zara mini pose so the conversion will not require any changes to limbs or major sculpting work. The biggest changes that I needed to make to the original mini was to remove all the spikes and studs that scream out Dark Elf/Eldar.

I started with the legs. I needed to remove the big jagged heel spike and the lower leg studs on the leg on the left of this pic. I also needed to remove the small thigh spikes on the leg on the right.

Those were snipped and filed down without too much effort, and the results looked pretty decent.

The short cloak was next. At first I did not intend to keep this piece, but it had half of the succubus’ back molded into it, so it stayed. It had another big spike on the shoulder that has to be clipped and filed down. I will need to fill in the spot in the center with green stuff, but I will worry about that later.

Starting to take shape! The arm positions were good, I just needed to replace the 40K weapons with stakes.

Goodbye whip! Hello stakes!

I had some round plastic sticks laying around that were about the right diameter. I figured that these would be the easiest thing to use for the stakes. I cut them to length, shaped them, then pinned them into place on the hands.

We need two stakes, right?

Even though I am only slightly better than useless with green stuff, I knew that a little bit was needed to make the stakes look more realistic.

Once they are painted, they should look good enough for a guy who is terrible at sculpting.

Next up is the head. This was the easiest part of the conversion, yet the most important part in making the mini really look like a Blood Bowl player.

I simply used a boxed set human thrower head. I had to do a little trimming and shaping, but that was done easily enough, and the result ends up being far better than you might expect.

Like a glove!

Looks great with the arms attached. Since there are not really any facial details visible thanks to the face mask, it is easy to believe, for me, that this is a female player through and through. To add to the effect, there was even some flowing hair from the original mini that I snipped off and placed as if it were coming out from the bottom of the helmet in the back. I will have to paint it separately so it is only held on with poster tack for now, but I am happy with the effect.

I think the only thing that I am going to change is to make her fit in with all the other new minis, I am going to put her on a 32mm base instead of the 25mm base she came with. For all my older minis, I actually already have an original Games Workshop Zara on a 25mm base.

That is it for today. I will write another post once i get around to painting her, but no promises on when that will happen!