Any news on when we can send money to @Admiral in exchange for some of those awesome axe bros?
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I hope to dig into it during spring after health has recovered. If so, a Kickstarter may be up during summer with a bit of luck. These are top of the line for new moulds!
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Thanks bro hope all is improving
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@IronHaiden
As Admiral mentioned, they’re coming, he has all the sculpts already, and I’m happy that they survived the perilous journey through the heathen domains of Scandinavia…but as always real life comes first. But I wanted to personally Thank You for always showing so much interest in my sculpts (and for supporting Admiralty Miniatures)…thanks!
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Da Khan has been busy lately, mostly building historical military models, but on the back burner is a project I’d like to share with all of you.
The last Golden Hat was a worthy and noble subject, Hobgoblins…Lest we forget that Hobgoblins are the saviour of the Dawi Zharr (read the lore, without Hobgoblins, the CDs would be extinct at the hands of slaves).
Anyways, the last Golden Hat was an opportunity for me to try to build something worthy from the lousy GW sculpts otherwise known as hobgrots…and I also posted my converted Hobgoblins from that GH on the CDO facebook page. That post led to 14 people contacting me by facebook messenger…and the messages were interesting.
About half wanted to know if I would cast them (one person even offered to pay a considerable sum for me sculpting 45 Hobgoblins for them).
But the rest of the messages all asked the same thing:
“Is there a simpler way of making cool Hobgoblins?”
I gave this quite a bit of thought, I understand that the average gamer doesn’t want to custom sculpt an entire army.
Nor am I going to sculpt one either…it’s just too much work (which by coincidence was a very valid point mentioned in the current Brazen Broadcast).
So I looked for fast, easy, and affordable options to quickly build a more “modern” take on Hobgoblins, but still keeping some of the classic 4th edition aesthetic.
This is my plan so far…these are Frostgrave Demons, and damn I love the plate armor designs and skirted armor aesthetic:
They also have what I consider the #1 most important thing for miniatures, they’re completely modular and can be built in an endless variety of styles:
I absolutely effing hate that GW miniatures really can only be assembled in one singular pose.
Boring. Boring. Boring.
But let’s be perfectly honest, GW doesn’t want their younger audience to have any imagination, they’re fearful that gamers will strike out on their own creative initiative and find something else, or heaven forbid make their own creations.
So yeah, these Frostgrave miniatures are cool. And quite affordable.
First step (no pun intended) is to cut off the legs of the Demons, and replace them with hobgrot legs. The stupid leg positions of the hobgrots require some cutting at the ankles, and a few other spots, to get them to stand properly, but it’s easy to do.
I think even a novice model builder can do it without any problems:
Kinda crazy looking at the scale difference of the legs between the two models, isn’t it?
I think it’s a cool look, the armor has a really nice “greenskin” feel, and it has a subtle evil sneaky vibe.
Perfect for Hobgoblins.
Next to experiment with is the heads…I’ve decided to simply add green stuff to the hobgrot helmets.
Goodbye helmet, Hello Scythian cap.
And again, this is very fast and easy, no skill required, so everyone can do this with a bit of practice 
And here’s a rather quick mock up, still needs more work obviously, but he’s a very quick and affordable way to improve on the hobgrots.
Hopefully you all like it so far, more updates later, but 1/35 scale Austro-Hungarian trench raiders are on my workbench now.
Cheers
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Brilliant work, I think they really work well. I have been considering what to do about the Hobgoblins for the second half of my Chaos Dwarf plans and this looks really promising. I am particularly interested in the hat, really nice that you can just overlay it without extensive rework. I may make a mould after I am happy with a couple of hat sculpts and cast the pieces to glue onto the heads. That would probably require a jig thought to help cut the helmets at the right spot each time.
Oh you have me thinking now.
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Excellent choice the Frostgrave Demons. Just a little bit too much armored for my taste but viable option.
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You are the hob guru, man what a great tutorial, simple and extremely efficient!
They are indeed quite armored but it feels like a realistic armor some hobbastard would get his hands on and put it on till it wears off.
Like it a lot!!
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@Archer
I’m glad that you like them!
I’d love to see you (and others) trying it out, or perhaps something similar. I really focused on trying to make a cheap, fast and easy alternative to update the miserable hobgrots, with a bit of a more modern look.
Interesting idea you have of making a mold of the hats, but all you gotta do is just trim the helmet down a bit and add some green stuff. That may be the quickest way?
I’ve done a few more hats, these ones are a bit shorter (for rank and file troops), and I’ve discovered that each head is slightly different size and proportions, which may not work out for a one size fits all mold? But I’d love to see what you try!
Here’s some more hats:
And @Bassman and @Loidrial ,
Thanks guys, the both of you are amazing creators and painters, so it’s nice to hear that both of you like the concept.
I get that the plate armor isn’t quite everyone’s cup of tea, but it could easily be painted as boiled leather or something else.
Plus, the classic Perry Hobgoblin boss and hero miniatures all were pretty heavily armored:
Anyways, thanks gentlemen for the feedback!
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True, but they are also cool as F**K 
They can wear whatever they want 
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Can you create more of a hunchback on your conversions by lowering the head slightly? They would fit closer to the old ones in stature
They look great so far
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Beautiful conversion work on those and brilliant combination of kits. I love seeing clever conversions of models turned into something completely different but still with a complete and cohesive result. Well done!
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I’m always amazed by how smooth and seamless you get your green stuff
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@Bassman
They’re Hobgoblins, it goes without saying that they’re cool as f#ck 
@Jackswift
Thanks!
That’s a nice compliment, and one that I share about your work as well, I’m always fascinated and amazed at the seamless combination of kits that you do.
@Abecedar
It’s all about the finger.
And spit.
@Zoddtheimmortal
Yeah, I agree with you on the hunchback aesthetic…I think it can be done with these.
The Frostgrave Demon torso already has a humped back, it’s not as pronounced as some of the old 90’s Hobgoblins, but even those old GW Hobgoblins had a variety of hunchback sizes, some were sculpted quite big, and others were more human proportions with almost no hunchback at all.
Anyways, here’s a pic of the side, showing the hump and that the neck base is in front of the shoulders:
And just a quick mock up, but here you can see that the head can be lowered and placed forward, to give a hunchback look:
If someone wanted to, they could easily just add some green stuff to the hunchback armor plate, to make it bigger.
But for these guys, my main focus is on making them as easy and affordable as possible to kitbash, so that people could crank out a large unit without having to worry about sculpting, etc.
Anyways, thank you everyone for the comments and feedback. I always take to heart all comments (except for round bases) and your feedback genuinely guides my hobby knife.
Watch your back 
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Wow, great conversions. Such an eye for parts! 
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Nice work dude, looks so much better than the GW ones
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Alrighty, a bit more work on kitbashing Frostgrave Demons with hobgrots…
Again, I’m trying to keep these as simple as possible to make, but in order to try to keep a bit of the old school Hobgoblin style, some green stuff is going to be needed here and there.
So, I’ve added hobgrot arms to the Frostgrave Demon torsos, I just picked out whatever arms I thought would work, cut them off the hobgrot body and glued them on at the Demon torso shoulder. Another super cool thing I really like about the Frostgrave Demons is that they come with axes…and let’s face it, axes and Hobgoblins are like pastrami on rye, a perfect match.
The axes aren’t the same style as the old 90’s miniatures, but I think these look better, they look suitably evil for the most wicked of all greenskins
To cover up the hacked up shoulder/arm attached, and to get the cool Hobgoblin vibe, I just quickly sculpted 4th edition style Hobgoblin sleeves:
Next up, gluing on the earlier before hobgrot head that I modified with green stuff
I purposely glued his head on to be looking upwards, I wanted the look of him screaming dark profanities at the very gods themselves.
And an old school vintage GW shield added:
I’ll probably give him a dagger and small leather pouch, but basically he’s done.
Well, I will give him a fifth toe.
Stupid four toed hobgrots.
Grumble, grumpy mumbling.
But I’m pretty happy with how he came out, and again this is a very affordable, quick and easy kitbash for people looking to upgrade those ugly hobgrots to look more like an actual true Hobgoblin.
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They look so good, superb conversions! When they are done you should export the posts as a tutorial… 
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Damn, those are sexy!
Even if I don’t share your disgust of the unmodified Hobgrots, these conversions certainly are very appealing. Awesome!
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Yup, way better than the originals!
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