Warhawk Riders Update and Wild Riders continued conversion!

I'm going to make this a brief update because I'm rather tired and did a lot of work today modelling and converting.  I hammered out 3 Wild Rider conversions in about an hour and followed the same steps I did last time I converted them.  This round went much faster since I had already done this conversion once.
Finished product - ready to be primed and painted.

Next up are my Great Eagles and Warhawk Riders.  Now I have 6 Warhawk Riders but only enough trees to mount 3 of them (also I am only using 3 in my current 2500 list).  I wanted the Warhawk Riders and Great Eagles to have a rather unique look on the battlefield and so I chose to use Trees as their mount!

I plan on putting lead shot or fishing weights in the bottom of the trees to lend weight and then magnets to secure the models to my metal movement trays I will create for them.  This will be very important for the Great Eagles that will require a lot of weight on their base to maintain a stable grounding.

I was originally using copper rod and was told that that just would not do.  To demonstrate further Jeremy showed me just how bendy the copper rods got.  Not good... So I went to True Value next door to Ancient Wonders and secured a new drill bit for my pin vice and 3/32" brass rods.

I plan on adding foliage and leaves to the trees once I have the brass rods secured in the trees.  I will not be permanently affixing the warhawks and eagles to the brass rods in that I have a nice little pluck foam slot already picked out for them.  The brass rods fit snuggly and I have little worry about the models falling off.

I am currently debating on shortening the rod length to reduce the height of the birds above the trees. I'm thinking maybe an inch would suffice but i also don't want the tree leaves to get in the way or crowd the model when being viewed or trying to get it mounted on it's rod. I'm open to suggestions.  I also have the luxury of rotating the warhawks/eagles around in case I like the way they look on another tree or a different facing.  I really tried to get good angles when I was drilling so that I would have dynamic poses and I think I was successful in pulling that off.  Like I said earlier, the only thing bugging me is the length of the rod but I am hesitant to clip it if they look fine at their current height.

Here is Stage 1 of my Warhawk Riders and Great Eagles - more to come as I am able.