Sheila 'Shocks' Steinman

[Brother_Brimstone]

Wicked Willie Wants A Wife! Not a new tongue twister, nor a new television programme, but part of the concept behind my new character (I apologise... i lost my composure.... I couldn't resist beginning with alliteration... i'll be good now; I promise).

The character has been one i've been wanting to implement for a while - Sarthuul's equivalent of an enforcer or judge, but I wanted to make the concept sufficiently different in order to really stand out, both as a model and a character. The inspiration, admittedly, came when I went to see Iron Man 2, and was reminded of an old comic book character I used to like. In the new film it's Whiplash, based on the male whiplash, who in the comics was a man named Mark Scarlotti, but the character Whiplash got me thinking about an old, less well known, female x-men character named Whiplash; a woman with wrist mounted omnium cable 'whips' (http://marvel.wikia.com/Whiplash_%28Leeann_Foreman%29). Anyway, when I got home I looked her up, and felt that her outfit, in a small way, resembles that of Enforcer Barbaretta. It made me decide to create a female enforcer based on her, who dual wields Neural Whips. The concept from there evolved into her still being that character, but also being Willie's love interest, and eventual wife (it's more important in fluff terms than gameplay or modelling terms, although I will say this; digi-wedding-rings, anyone? ).


Anyway, so far, I decided to repose Barbaretta, and use the Lucretia full helm head, to make her look more sinister. I'm eventually going to model a ponytail coming up out of the top of the helmet (resembling the Dark Eldar Rever Jetbike rider's helmet) to add to this sinister feel, but thought i might as well up what i've done so far. The reposing was a bigger job than I predicted, and i still have some work to do on getting those legs looking right, but i'm now fairly happy wih the basic pose. You'll also not that he is missing part of her right foot - it was bent at the toe, so once again, re-posing is needed.

Anyway, after this, I plan to add the arms, with some home-made neural whips, and I have a feeling I'll probably have to end up re-posing them too. This is probably the most difficult conversion I've tried yet (more difficult than Severin, as Severin was meant to look like a 'crude job' and 'badly put together', but here I have to try and resemble a natural pose). Thus, any comments/criticisms are both welcome and appreciated.











EDIT: The lean did annoy me... I've fixed it.

[Alyster Wick]

Like the concept, very excited to see Iron Man 2 myself.

As far as the model is concerned, the legs themselves look well repositioned but the connection between the legs and the torso is kind of a mess.  My suggestion would be to completely scrap what you have and start over.  Get rid of the tops of the legs and carve up Barbaretta's lower body. 

Just cut that part of the model out and commit to re-sculpting it from scratch or else it will never look natural.  Her rear end will look far too flat for a standing straight pose  and currently her legs look far too long (and as though they've suffered a compound fracture). 

I know it's intimidating to redo that whole area from scratch but it's far easier than it looks and will be very fulfilling when you're done.  Remember, you can always sand down or trim GS once it has dried so just go for broke, you'll get it right sooner or later. 

I'm also sure that Marco will be along soon to give you proper measurements for those legs

[MarcoSkoll]

The concept from there evolved into her still being that character, but also being Willie's love interest

Interesting - what made an Enforcer and an Anarchist fall for each other?

For that matter, what made an Enforcer decide to follow Sarthuul?

and eventual wife (it's more important in fluff terms than gameplay or modelling terms)

It would be, yes.

But I'll share a couple of points from my own backgrounds. The non-marriage of Inquisitor Skoll and his long term (14 year) partner is important in its own right. While utterly dedicated to one another, they've been in more than enough scrapes where it was a very good thing that their relationship was not publicised*. After all, when you're an Inquisitor, you really don't want to make it obvious that you have a weak-point.
Although actually trying to use a inhumanly strong cyborg staff sergeant as leverage over a man who can break the laws of physics using his mind... how could that possibly go wrong?

It's worth thinking about that aspect of things, and how that might affect a story.

Anyway, regardless of those reasons, Silva would probably lose a wedding ring in minutes. It wouldn't grip her metallic fingers properly.

digi-wedding-rings, anyone?

Could work, although digi-weapons are pretty rare pieces of equipment, so there should be a story behind how they got hold of them.

I'm also sure that Marco will be along soon to give you proper measurements for those legs

Well, I don't do heroic proportions in my work, so I'm not great on them.

However, GW's female Inq models seem to be a little less "bulked up", so I suppose the trick is to go with normal proportions, where the legs are about 45% of the overall body length.

[Kaled]

I've reposed that model a couple of times now (most relevantly, Valdez), so have some idea of how difficult it is to get looking right.  It looks like you've done a pretty good job or straightening the left leg, however her kneecap looks like it needs filing down or removing and rebuilding.  The main problem seems to be with her thighs/hips/groin.  The top of the armour on her thighs should be about level with the bottom of her groin - in other words, you've extended her legs too much.  I think there's nothing for it but to redo that section.  Also, when you're resculpting that area, I'd do it in two stages - I'd use enough greenstuff to make sure the pose is right and to strengthen the model around where it's pinned, then come back once that's hardened and sculpt on the top layer.  It'll be easier to get it smooth if there's something solid underneath.  That all said, you'll note that my model has a long coat - the coat was always part of the plan, but also it conveniently meant that the back of the model didn't have to be perfect!  You don't have that luxury unfortunately...

Otherwise, I like the concept - what are you going to use to represent the neural whips?

[Brother_Brimstone]

@Marco - To sum up the story of her employment with Sarthuul, in a book I read about Necromunda, it said there was one gat which led from the Underhive to the Spire, and that all day every day there were desperate people trying to get through it (to escape their poverty, debts etc...), and there were constantly a team of enforcers who defended the gate. The story is that Sheila is one of these enforcers, but after a while, the killing starts to get to her... She can't stand that she has to hurt and even sometimes kill all these poor impoverished people. Enter Sarthuul 'blah blah blah the will of the people, blah, blah, blah free from imperial imprisonment.' Sarthuul had approached her as he wanted a rebellion to make it through to the Spire so he needed someone 'on the inside'.

Sheila fell in love with Willie because he was exactly the kind of man she felt guilty for killing/harming. She saw the inherent 'humanity' in those she'd kept down, and I suppose that she wanted to become one with the people she had once persecuted. That, and the both of them are psychotic revolutionaries (they fight 'the good fight' side by side, hand in hand...).

As for being 'married' i daresay it isn't official by standards of the Imperium (after all, they certainly won't have registered the marriage with the Imperium). The idea of their relationship was inspired by 'Natural Born Killers' and the wedding scene from that was very much what I had in mind (the man marries himself to the woman on 'his own authority').

@ Alyster and Kaled - I agree that he legs look too long. I think I was trying to preserve too much of the original detail, at the expense of extending everything to go around it. I'll try re-pinning and GSing. For the neural whips I intend to use regular 'tube' handles, with lengths of thick guitar wire coming out (suitbaly bent to look like whips). Then when it comes to painting, I'll use a similar technicue to that I used on Sarthuul, to make it look like they're glowing with energy. I was originally going to connect them to a power pack on her back, but I figured it would just look too much like Severin.

Thanks for everyone's comments.

[MarcoSkoll]

So a very disillusioned Enforcer then. A few questions...

- How long had this disillusionment been going on? Did any of her colleagues notice?
- If they didn't, then how did Sarthuul know?
- If they did, then how did she avoid "re-education"* on the matter?

*By which I mean anything from mental reconditioning up to servitorisation or even execution

[Brother_Brimstone]

Her disillusionment wasn't extremely pronounced until she met Sarthuul (or necessarily even existant in the same form as it was after she met Sarthuul) - in fact I would go so far as to suggest that he was the one to 'sow the seeds'. He needed someone on the gates to be 'friendly to his cause'. Sheila was the one he caught when it wasn't her shift (perhaps drowining her sorrows at some dingy underhive bar). She was perhaps dissatisfied with her job, but not to the point where she would rebel or quit, just insofar as she was more a 'stoic law giver' than a 'rabid fanatic who loves to punish'. Sarthuul simply had to sidle over to her, buy her a drink and 'persuade' her that she was working for the 'bad guys' (whenever refering to Sarthuul's methods I only ever say 'persuade' - it's up to you to imagine whether he might choose to use mundane methods - i.e. his very well trained 'silver tongue', or psychic methods - I like to imagine it's a sort of combination of the two; he has powerful words, but with an irresistable will behind them; you hear them, and even if you initially don't agree you somehow feel compelled to carry on listening... Or perhaps he opens with mundane words, and if he doesn't feel they are working he decides to perhaps 'up the game').

While enforcers are the 'Emperor's Arm' in the Underhive, they're still just human, and I don't imagine it unlikely they should frequent the odd Underhive bar for a drink, and as you may have noticed from Willie's recruitment story, bars and pubs are Sarthuu;'s favourite location for his activities (the reasoning for which is fairly straightforward i think, people are drunk and rowdy, there's a lot going on so he is less conspicuous, the people there are generally going to be the type who have gone to 'drown their sorrows' etc...).  One meeting with Sarthuul was enough to turn her (Enforcers may be exceptional fighters and people, but they cannot match the will of a daemon - especially not a daemon of manipulation), and Sarthuul organises a riot on the gates during Sheila's next shift, during which, she will assist them however she can.

Distracted by the particularly large and angry mob, it wasn't particularly hard for Sheila to put down her former co-workers (perhaps at this point she's actually entirely under Sarthuul's control - as per 'puppet master', but perhaps she has just finally snapped). Either way, once they're dead and the hive is tearing itself apart, there isn't much left for her there. Sarthuul considers that such a talent would be a waste to leave behind, and decides he may as well bring her with him, with the reasoning that if she outstays her usefulness he can simply kill her (he stands at little to no conveniecee with the possibility of a minor to moderate gain). Once they've made their way out of the hive to Zophar's transport, she meets Willie, who's been waiting on-craft. Things just go from there...

Really, I perhaps gave a false impression when I said that Sarthuul came after she 'couldn't stand her job any more'. If it weren't for him, she probably would have contuinued it for the rest of her life, with naught but a nagging feeling at the back of her mind that maybe she was in the wrong. However, when she met Sarthuul, he made her feel like it was her fault. She was part of the reason why the poor were poor and the suffering were suffering. She was part of the reason why the rich laughed and the poor cried. She had been the problem, but now she could redeem herself by being part of the solution. Afterwards, she was, of course racked with guilt, both over her years of being 'one of the bad guys' and over killing all her co-workers. However, now it was 'too late to turn back'. So like all of Sarthuul's lackeys she now believes it falls to her to be a hero. She has to save people from the desparate situation their Imperium has left them in. As Severin was a slaveand he now seeks to free all from slavery, Sheila was once a 'betrayer of her fellow man' and now wishes to try and bring down what Sarthuul has convinced her is an Imperium which encourages throat cutting competition.

It may be useful to point out that the band Sarthuul leads are essentially diluded communists (i'm not going to start a debate about communism, and neither am I saying all communists are diluded, but this group certianly are). Sheila embodies the part of Marx's manifesto which claims that 'capitalism alienates man from his fellow man' and encopurages a competitive mindset, provoking conflict where there should be peace. Sarthuul has convinced her she used to enforce this conflict, and now she must repent. She blames the Imperium for her having to keep the poor people out of the Spire, but also for forcing her to kill her co-workers. If the Imperium had not put her in that situation, maybe they'd all still be alive, and living together in peace. I agree it sounds like a very sappy, misguided, foolish notion to us. but we have not been effectively brainwashed by a daemon.

I like my characters to have interesting psychological sociological and political motivations, and for Sheila, it's a mixture of 'survivor's guilt' and naive revolutionary ideals. That's part of what has bound her fate to that of Willie; they are both 'fighters for equality' in an unfair system.

Anyway, hope that answers your question, and i hope that people don't minded em adding that much about fluff in the painting and modelling section - i'll redeem myself with pictures as soon as i've got time to work on the legs.