Kit Bashing a Rare Mordheim Carnival Plague Bearer 1

So, I've got a nice little collection of the Mordheim Carnival of Chaos.  But, I don't have any of the really rare pieces.  In particular, the guy below, on the left:

To Be or . . . wait, is that a maggot on my lunch?

I used to have a bit of a love/hate relationship with William Shakespeare (long story), so the Hamlet-esque sculpt really appeals to me.  However, I'm not shelling out mad cash for an ounce of old pewter:

WTF. 

So, what's a cheapo hobbyist like me to do?  Make one!

After a few days of searching eBay, I came across this Shakespeare keychain, which appeared to be roughly the correct size and selling at a price far, far less than any Mordheim mini you'll find on eBay.

The bard himself.

I'd estimate he's about 35mm scale, a hair larger than "heroic" scale.  If he were to remain human, he'd be too big to fit in with the local villagers.  But Nurgle knows no scale! So, off with his head!

Reminds me of Nearly Headless Nick.

At first, I thought of using a '90s era metal Plague Bearer, to match the other Mordheim guys, but I didn't have the patience to go eBay fishing again, and I just happened to have a few spare modern-era Plague Bearer bits laying around.


Now, to get the arms correct, I needed to do a bit more chopping than I'd hoped.  And, for his right hand, I had to use a left hand, so needed to switch the thumb to the other side.  See the tiny little hooked thumb below, under the Shakespeare head?

That thumb was very tiny.  Luckily, I didn't sneeze!

Snippity, bippity bop, all clipped up and ready to rock!  After some glue (and glue related accidents) we have our starting point:

To be or not to be?  That would be the question . . . if I weren't so busy planning to spread plague and pestilance across the ravaged lands of Mordheim. 

Me thinks that Billy was a handsome man.

I wonder what Shakespeare would have thought of Papa Nurgle.  Seems like he'd fit right in with Macbeth's witches or Puck from a Midsummers Night.

And one last shot for scale purposes . . . you can see he's on the tall side, but I think he'll fit in well with the warband:

Next up, some green stuffing to clean up cracks and fill in the back of his head, then onto priming and painting.  Wish me luck!