Me and my mate bought Rangers of Shadow Deep (RoSD) as soon as it was available and I have been slowly building and painting my Ranger. I knew right away my Ranger had to be based of the PS4 game Bloodborne. I have been enthralled by this digital gem for 3 months now and it feels like a digital version of RoSD (link to the trailer for the uninitiated:
). So that makes an excellent match.
So my Ranger has to be a 'Hunter', a group of fighters who are sent to hunt people and monsters overcome with the beast plague. Hunters are armed with a melee weapon and a ranged weapon. In the video game my character wields the Hunter Axe, so my Ranger needed that weapon. I had to decide whether to use the regular version or the transformed version. Basically, most Bloodborne weapons are 'trick weapons' which you can transform to a bigger, slower and more powerful version with one button. I decided to go for the transformed Hunter Axe, which looks more like a halberd.
For the left weapon I went with the Hunter Pistol. In Bloodborne ranged weapons are not used to cause damage, but to stagger an opponent during their attacks. This interrupts their move and allows you to do a visceral attack (basically, you rip out their guts with your right hand). RoSD doesn't use gunpowder weapons, so I decided I would count it as 3 throwing daggers: short range and low damage.
To realise this in 30mm, I used the metal Desperate Mercenary from Malifaux as the main model. Malifaux' Victorian style fits Bloodborne very well, so that gave a good start. Next, I made the Hunter Axe from two Kindom Death weapons and hand. I had to add the bindings with putty...not that great, but I'm just not very good with putty
. For the left hand I added a hand with pistol from Confrontation. Simple and effective. And finally I made a tricorn hat (with the typical flayed edges you seen in the game) with putty.
For paint I kept true to the video game and kept it quite muted and dark (this was my inspiration:
http://img1.ak.crunchyroll.com/i/spire1/a04ecde0c9139ce7ed5862361218e48c1438437305_full.jpg). He was a lot of fun to paint! And he's done...so time to get down to paint some companions (in Bloodborne style of course!).
