The Cornerfag's Converted Black Knights

Ah, finally I have the time to publish an article about my converted Black Knights!
I've been intrigued by their ethereal movement since I got the VC Armybook, but the models... Gah, I did not stand them. So I decided to convert some myself.
Unlike some other conversions I've seen however, I decided NOT TO USE FLESHY HORSES.
Seriously, their entry in the book specifically says Skeletal Steed. So I'd be damned if I wasn't going to get my skeletal steeds, and they were going to be barded damnit!
And thus, with some Grave Guard bits I've got, some Bretonnian Knights and a few Tomb Kings Horsemen, I set to the work with knife, greenstuff and a toothpick.

Now, this was my first extensive conversion. And I did not know very much how to do, so... Improvisation was my friend.



Now, this first picture illustrates the early stages very well, regarding the body.
I've included parts of everything before and after for simplicity.
One thing I noticed rather early is that the Bretonnian horse is well scaled with the Skeletal horse. Actually, it's so well scaled that the Bretonnian barding fits almost perfectly!
So that's what I did. I removed the fleshy parts of the living horse (which sounds pretty gruesome), and cut at the sides and flanks of the skeletal horse, then just... Donned the barding on the skeletal horse.
Note that you will need to cut some parts of the skeletal horse to get it to fit well, but nothing noticeable.

Then it would look something like this:


As for the head, well.. The Bretonnian horses' heads were varying a little bit, and so would my horses heads do too.
So I just used my imagination, a bit of greenstuff and the knife for the heads.
Some would look like the one in the previous picture, which required much cutting and fitting... Patience was needed.
And others would look like this one:



And that's also how you put together the head and body. Pretty much just glue it. Greenstuff if needed. Simple enough.
And then we move to the rider.
I used the Bretonnian knights legs - but I cut them off at different part, exchanging that part with the skeletal equivalent. Sometimes, I cut off from the knee and down, sometimes only the foot, and at some times not at all.

Then, for the body, I alternated between just using the Bretonnian body (cut on the sides, my skeletons aren't supposed to be that fat), or the Bretonnian body cut of in the bottom, placing the lower ribcage and spine of the skeletal horseman there, or in a few cases I juse used the skeletal horseman's body.
On the shoulders I placed a few spare Grave Guard shoulderpads I've aquired from not putting every shoulderpad onto the Grave Guards (Leaving a few with a single, or no shoulderpad at all, gives more of an ancient, slightly shambling feeling, with a little bit more variation within the unit, methinks).

Right arm: The Skeletal Horseman's spearhand, but the area of the spear above the hand is cut off and exchanged with the equivalent lance part from the Bretonnian (with the flag cut off).

Left arm: Simply the shield arm from the Grave Guard Kit.

Head: I made a makeshift neck out of greenstuff (but since I cannot model, I pretty much made it a big lump which smeared slightly out over the shoulder, looking like som kind of cloth). Then I just used some leftover Grave Guard Heads.

All in all, it would look something like this:


And here's my unit of 5 (aspiring to be 10 someday), painted and all:


And that's all for me today!