Screaming Shell - A custom Skaven Sculpt

I've been trying to gather rats to graduate my Skaven army from being a spearhead force to use in full AoS games. To that end, I've been kitbashing heroes and gnaw-holes, but also, I was excited to get a few digital sculpts in there. I wanted a cool general, someone unique to my army and not the typical. I can't do anything vanilla. So I made a cool Screaming Bell!

Instead of the usual concept work, this project began with doodling. I've had some health problems recently, and was forced to rest for two weeks, staying off my feet as much as possible. What this meant was that my pen and paper were closer at hand, and I doodled all sorts of ideas for things I'd like to build once I got better.

As you can see, most of the ideas are right there in the doodles. I started sculpting, working on the shape of the wrecked ship. I was able to find a decent hermit crab model, but added a ton of detail onto it, to make it a little more realistic and interesting to paint. 

From there, I also found a simple rat and grey-seer model, and started sculpting those where necessary. I fabricated the deck and upward to be a separate part from the hull and crab. I hoped this made it easier to print such a large model, and also would allow me to paint the interior of all the wood and crab body. This proved successful, and it's definitely something I'd like to keep using in future sculpts. 

 I brought in some bells I'd made for a previous commissioned sculpt, and added Skaven runes. And then some quick masts and connecting pieces, and I was done.

I don't have a base yet (that's still being printed), but I had enough time and energy to paint the whole piece up! I'm really excited to play games using it, it's a large and striking model, and very uniquely "my army"! One of these days I'll write some backstory or an army list for my pirate Skavens.

 Anyway, thanks for reading!

- Miss Captain Bear