I hope all is well for everyone reading this and that you’ve been able to finish painting an army or two while isolating yourselves at home. In this Concept to Crate, I’ll focus on your your next painting project, Issyria, Sybil of Dusk!
For this incarnation of Issyria, we were looking for a Victorian vampire feel. In her original model, she’s elevated by her cloak, so in this version, we thought we could play up the vampire aspect and give her a mass of bats, a cape, or skirting that elevates her so she appears to be floating. The idea behind most MiniCrate models is that they should be cool on their own beyond the context of the WARMACHINE and HORDES settings but still have a dash of the Iron Kingdoms aesthetic thrown in.
I sent several reference images with the description off to Scott Altmann, and we were off to the vampiric races!
In this first round of sketches, we focused on using the skirting to elevate her off of her base to keep the feel of her existing design.
With notes in hand, Scott worked up the following sketches. For the costume details, I requested big and bold details and to have the dress/skirting lifting her off the ground. We had to push the silhouettes in order to get it to read, and even more so, the outfits really needed to read as steampunk Victorian.
It turned out that floating bats idea also wasn’t going to work for this piece, as they’d have to be separate parts, and our goal was to make this miniature with as few parts as possible. What I had in mind was something like a mass of bats swirling around her like a skirt, blending up into actual skirting. In hindsight, that effect would be too difficult to pull off in 35mm, so I decided to focus on steampunk/Victorian style skirting to elevate her off of the base.
Above are a couple of rough sketches I worked up to help reinforce my written notes.
Scott then sent these sketches along. Unfortunately, adding in the rocks would also add material cost and another part, so instead, we opted to bump up the detail density and add in Iron Kingdoms’ flair by way of buckles, straps, and corset trim details. The 45-degree belt on the middle version of Issyria was a step in the right direction—other additions would include trim elements, adding to the inner layers where we see a shirt that then has a fringed trim, adding filigree on her skirting, unique cuts on cloth that help break up shape language, and trinkets that help add life to the character. Those trinkets could be elements like a choker, a bracelet, decorative jewelry piece hanging off the hip, etc.
From the previous notes, Scott sent along the following revision. The basic notes now were that we wanted to extend the train on the dress and broaden the collar, and I included a photo reference for the pose.
The quick sketch above shows the requested adjustments. At this point in the process, the concept was approved to move to final with the character in pose, including a back view.
At last, above is the final concept for Issyria, Sybil of Dusk that was given to studio sculptor Doug Hamilton to work his magic on!
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about the concept art development process for her and seeing the challenges throughout the design process. Issyria is available now through the MiniCrate site, so secure your copy today!
