D&D Character Minis - Francis (part 1)

I recently started a new D&D campaign.  This time we are using 5th edition and playing in a home brewed world, Teramarr.

New characters deserve new minis, so I'll show off the minis we are using, starting with Francis, the fairly standard human fighter.
Francis is male, and starts with mail armour, shield, crossbow and axe.  I didn't have anything exactly matching that, so it was time to get out the bits box, knife, drill and glue and create something.

I began with the old WotC D&D pre-painted mini, Zhentarim fighter.

This is the mini we used for the first session, as most of the fighter types I could find wore far more armour than this.  It's not a bad mini either, though the sword is a bit bendy, and the colour scheme isn't very inspiring.  I understand that when these minis were made there was a correlation between a mini's rarity and the number of different colours used.  This is a common mini; it actually makes good use of the the three paint colours and the black plastic, but I want better for Francis.

Until I looked closely, I hadn't even noticed the crossbow on the back.  It's a bit puny, and seems to me to hang at an odd angle.

To turn the mini into Francis I had to, at the very least, swap the weapon.  I have loads of sprues of different hard plastic minis, for this project, the Frostgrave Soldiers sprue proved very useful.  

The axe was taken from an arm holding it and the sword cut off the Zhent.  The hand was drilled through and a wire pin inserted that took the axe and its pommel.  

I didn't like the head on the Zhent; maybe it's the 'bunny ears' on the helmet, I don't know, but it had to go.  I also did this so that if or when Francis is upgraded, perhaps if he gets heavy armour, using the same head will tie the new mini into the character.  The new head also came from the Frostgrave Soldiers sprue, so there will be no problem sourcing a new one for 'Francis Mark II'

I wanted to make the mini more obviously an adventurer, so I added a backpack, again from the Frostgrave Soldiers sprue.  There are several pouches and ropes on it as well, but I was happy with just the pack.  I'll keep these in  mind for the rest of the party though.
I wanted to replace the crossbow, but the various ones I tried looked too big and didn't fit well under the pack, so I'll just paint it as is.  I also tried a quiver of crossbow bolts, but it looked bulky and made the mini look cluttered.

So that's Francis, built and waiting for paint.  Once I'm happy that the glue is dried I'll give it all a wash then undercoat it.
Once painted, I'll base on a clear acrylic base, but I'll get the paint and varnish done first.

You can see the complete Francis here.