Dwarves from "back in the day"

 

 

Sometime in the early 90's I bought a couple of packs of dwarves to crew my dwarf juggernaut which for such a hefty lump of a war machine was woefully under crewed and ridiculously under gunned. I went for a set of crossbow armed dwarves which seemed a good idea and a set of random fighters in the hope that there'd be something interesting to add to the mix. Unfortunately the dwarves proved a little too chunky to fit comfortably on the deck of the juggernaut so they got based up as normal and saw limited use as allies to my Bretonnians that I went on to collect. 

As time went by some of the fighters got slight repaints and one of them got converted to a standard bearer (far right with sword and shield). This was long before I acquired the much fabled "pin vice" which to my mind probably looked like a miniature bench vice which was my only point of reference. So, any holes that needed to be drilled were done by hammering a drawing pin into the metal and in this case through the dwarf's fist. Fixed Hawkmoon's broken ankles that way too. 

Anyway, the years passed by and in the early 2000's when I was painting for Foundry I repainted two of the fighters to sell. The first (centre with cleaver) I think I hassled Steve Dean into selling for me as I had no idea how to sell anything. He directed me shortly after to Ebay which is where I sold the second (far left with axe and shield) for probably less than a tenner and developed a buying addiction that has blighted my finances ever since. The remaining models remained rattling around in various boxes until last year.

What I'd been doing for possibly two years was focusing on painting models I'd owned "back in the day" to get some of the more meaningful figures in my collection repainted. These are after all models that date back to my formative years of collecting and painting, and gaming. As such I decided to give these two sets of dwarves a new lease of life. Years ago I acquired a duplicate of my mangled standard bearer model so I replaced that one (still have my original) and the other two of course had to be sourced on Ebay for the sake of completion. Not the highest of priorities in life, but they were! Lead addict thinking.

 

 

When it came to painting the models I carried on with the idea I'd been following for a little while at the time which was to use my old colour schemes as inspiration, or at least what I could remember anyway. The crossbow dwarves were probably originally inspired by Wayne England's dwarves from White Dwarf which were blue and white. Although it's always possible my colour choices may have pre-dated seeing that article. I'm not sure anymore. The fighters colours mostly stuck in my memory. The two that are mostly metallics were a no brainer in general. Matched the beard colours and then it was just the shields to figure out. I don't recall what I first did with them but they did get replaced with the plain wooden shields from the fantasy regiments box which I did in purple and white halves. I didn't want to follow those colours though so decided on different designs for each. Red tabard dwarf and cleaver wielding hero were colour schemes that stuck in my memory ever since so were easy to reproduce. The shield design is a crude homemade decal overpainted. The only one I struggled with was the pistol firing dwarf. I remembered painting him in the purple and white scheme but was sure that was a repaint. Had a vague feeling I might have originally done him in yellow but may have been confusing that with a pic from a rule book or White Dwarf. Either way the yellow won and his shield is also an overpainted decal.

So there we are, ten dwarves renewed, painted mostly in the colours a younger me chose but to a standard I could never have achieved at the time. At some point I'll re-do more of the dwarves I had. The Marauder giant slayers are very tempting but also the war machines, the goblobber and Marauder artillery pieces.

Pre-slotta skeletons

 

Sticking with the undead theme, some pre-slotta skeletons. I was strictly just painting models I had back in the day but really fancied getting a few of these done. They were prepped and undercoated anyway and it helps to clear the black pile (my undercoat colour of choice). 

Originally I was never too bothered by the pre-slotta stuff. It was before my time so I was never too familiar with those ranges apart from some of the images in the good old Heroes for Wargames book I picked up in the early 90's. I took a bit more notice when people started painting up their old models and giving them a new lease of life. Finally took the plunge and picked up a handful of skeletons some years back now. There are some fantastic models from this era and these skeletons in particular I think are among the best.

It was nice to do some armoured models after the bare bones plastics and getting to add a bit of colour was also a pleasant change. Initially I was stumped by the shields. They didn't seem to suit the bare wood of the ones I did on my plastics, and cheesy nightmare iconography whilst fun would have been out of place to my mind. I kept thinking of the skeletons in Skyrim and had the idea of these models being ancient warriors so I looked up Roman shield designs and anything related that might be suggested. Tried to keep it fairly simple and these worked out quite nicely. I eschewed my dodgy homemade transfer paint by numbers technique and freehanded these.

I've got a couple more undead on the go and two more painted models that I'll show later. Anyone following my posts on Facebook will know one of the models (bit of a rescue job) and that might hint at what the other three are. ;-)

Skeleton horde plastics. A little necromancy.

 

Some old Skeleton Horde plastics I fancied painting up. Put these together a couple of years ago I think so it was about time they got a lick of paint. Got another five to do at some point. Not much remains of my original skeleton horde set. Poor storage, teenage conversions and the occasional bit of wanton destruction saw my 24 figures turn into a mere handful of models most of which were broken. I did pick up a largely complete Skeleton Army boxed set on Ebay though in later years. I dug out all the broken models and loose bits and decided to see how many I could piece together and fix up. Managed to assemble the ten without having to clip anything from the full sprues. Quite a few needed leg surgery so lots of broken models got chopped up and cobbled together. Something of an act of necromancy you could say.

More beastmen

 A couple of months ago I showed some beastmen and minotaurs that were part of a commissioned warband but I had a few extra models to do for it so here they are.

I love the old 80's beastmen and have a few stashed away myself. The bottom left model is Marauder but he fits in fairly well. I believe the warband is intended for Mordheim and a few markers were included for me to paint up as well as a random dog. 

Whilst not intended for this warband I also had a Skaven rat ogre to paint for the same customer. He goes with another warband I painted some years ago.

That's everything for now and hopefully I'll have something of my own to show soon.

Beastman warband

 Following on from the post about the minotaurs this is the rest of the warband painted up. There are some additional models I'll be painting to go with them at a later date. Nice mix of models although my favourites are the 80's era figures. 

 A couple of I think Marauder Miniatures beastmen here and a slightly latter day Citadel shaman. Not sure if the shaman is the warband leader or whether it's one of the minotaurs. 

 

Beastmen of various sorts and some chaos hounds. My favourites here are the mace wielding Khornate beastman and the archer on right. I can only recall maybe a couple of beastman archers in the 80's range so I think the one in the middle is a conversion. Lion headed guy at top middle looks like he might be an earlier sculpt as I'm not familiar with him at all.

 

 One of the 80's chaos centaurs and another pair of hounds. I was asked to paint the centaur in a slightly rotten colour so maybe he's got a touch of Nurgle's Rot. 

 

Finally there's the Chaos sheep of DOOOOOOOOOM! Well that's what I've been calling it anyway. Apparently he's the warband pet or mascot. Not sure if it's a Citadel model or from elsewhere. 

That's everything for now. Like I say, there are a few more beastmen to go with these but this is where I'm at for now. As far as my own painting goes I have been trying to find time here and there to work on a few Rogue Trader era space marines for my old Imperial Fists. Got a little slowed down with retouching the old paint jobs as a few needed a little reworking. I know 'need' and 'want' are different things but some of what I'm tweaking on them is stuff I was never happy about even immediately after painting them. I'll show my progress on those in another post.

Minotaurs

 A quick post to show the beginnings of a commission for a beastman warband. Thought I'd kick off with the big boys of the group so I painted up the four minotaurs. Great fun to paint. Anyway, on with the pics and we start off with two Marauder Miniatures MM42 minotaurs.

Then we have a couple of Citadel oldies from the 80's when they used to name their models. Bloodcry the Beast a C25 Minotaur.

And my favourite, Ox-Roar, Chaos Champion of Ultimate Slaughter a C34 Minotaur Lord. Got my own copy of this model stashed in the lead pile.

Group pic of the herd so far and awaiting their smaller beasty brethren.

Revisiting my Imperial Fists Space Marines

 I think it was back in 2005 I painted up my first Imperial Fists space marine, a plasma gunner. I'd been collecting these old marines for a couple of years and had finally settled on Imperial Fists for the colour scheme. It was more a case of having a yellow ochre colour in mind somewhat influenced by some marines I'd seen painted in either White Dwarf or possibly GM magazine from that '89/'90 era and Imperial Fists kind of fitted well enough. Over the course of a few years, I forget how many exactly but certainly by 2009 I'd painted up a full 10 man tactical squad.

 

 

I had plans to expand the force to include a dreadnought and five 'command' models including an officer, medic, chaplain, librarian and tech marine. These models were all selected, prepped and undercoated before being promptly left to gather dust. All these years later I wasn't sure what exactly to do with the squad. I recalled the painting of the armour was a little laborious and possibly over worked in comparison to how I paint now and there are some things I'd do differently if I were doing this all over again. The option of selling them and re-collecting the figures was considered. 

Recently though I dug out one of the command models I'd prepped and decided to see if I could replicate the paint work. I remembered the colours I'd used so no problems there. I've been asked a lot over the years what those colours were so here they are:

Base coat VGC Leather Brown (used to be Cobra Leather)

Main highlight VGC Scrofulous Brown

Next highlight VGC Gold Yellow

Final edge highlight VGC Bonewhite

I finished up with some ink glazes. I'll mention that in a bit. I'm not sure a glaze is currently considered the same as what I always understood a glaze to be but for me it's a very dilute wash of ink that barely tints the finished paint work.

This is the start of the Lieutenant, a model released in 1989. 

Here's a quick snap of the finished armour.

I'm quite happy with the armour colour and it's a close match. It turned out to not be as much hassle as I recalled as well. I couldn't get an exact colour match for potentially a number of reasons but I think the most likely one is the VGC Gold Yellow. I finally had to replace my original pot last year after 17 years or so and I think it's slightly different. I relied on the glazes to try and tint the paint work in the right direction. Originally I used Citadel brown ink as my finishing glaze but that's long gone now. Instead I used Winsor & Newton Nut Brown ink but the colour was still a bit off. Tried W&N Sunshine Yellow but that did nothing. Ended up using a glaze of GW Reikland Fleshshade. When the whole model is done I might add some extra sharp highlights if needed.

Not a great deal to do on this now but there are a couple of things that will slow down my finishing the model. I need to add the shoulder insignia but my old transfers seemed rather brittle last time I tried to use them. Not great when the only way to fit decals on these very convex shoulder pads is to slice them and then use decal softener to avoid creasing (followed by a certain amount of repainting). The other issue is the power sword. I'd like to paint it as a power weapon rather than just in metals but I never really got to grips with that whole thing so that could be a frustrating learning curve.

Whilst I'm not promising anything I am thinking I might get a few more of my command section done. Two more models would make a nice addition, all five would be fantastic, plus the dread' maybe to round it all out for now. Check back in 15 years to see if that comes to fruition. ;)

Genestealer coven

This was a small commission that I couldn't resist posting about because I really like all things genestealer. My own history with these chitinous, egg laying, hybrid making nasties goes all the way back to the release of the 1st edition of Space Hulk. Loved the idea of covens and cults as shown in the army lists in White Dwarf at the time as well. I had a couple of the metal hybrids and the running patriarch but that was it outside of the numerous plastics. Much later on I picked up the seated patriarch somewhere online for a real bargain by todays standards and then some years back I went on a little collecting spree and grabbed a handful of hybrids and more metal purestrains than I really should have. Of course my genestealers are sitting unpainted and gathering dust like most of my 'projects'. Adding to that are the new generation of models acquired through 3rd edition Space Hulk and Deathwatch Overkill.

For this commission I was asked to follow the original studio paint jobs. I tweaked a few things as the original colour schemes are a little garish in retrospect but I think these are pretty true to those classic paint jobs. The last time I painted a genestealer I was a teenager and it was the early 90's. Very few of my old paint jobs exist but there are a couple of plastic genestealers kicking around from those early days and I took a quick snap of three generations of painting.

On the left is one of my earliest attempts. Base coats, ink washes and drybrushing as prescribed in the pages of White Dwarf at the time. This could be from 1989, I forget when exactly I started painting these models. It would have originally been based on a metal gauze topped slotta for Space Hulk.

The middle model is from anywhere between 1990 and 1993 I reckon. This is where I discovered layering thanks to picking up a copy of Heroes for Wargames whilst on holiday. A much more sophisticated finish although still showing my lack of experience. This may have been a repaint of one of the wash and drybrush models.

Of course the one on the right is modern day with a fair bit more experience and ability behind it.

Anyway, enough rambling and rose tinted nonsense, onto the pics:

The big guy, the patriarch and magus advisor. A lot of work went into this as might be expected. A little daunting at first, especially the throne but once the base coats were on it really wasn't as scary as first thought.

A trio of magus's, magi, mag... whatever. I have to two Jes Goodwin models but not the Bob Olley sculpt. Always though there were three Bob Olley sculpts but it seems there are only two (the other having a staff)!

The classic hybrids.

And finally the purestrains, the worlds most awkward models to photograph (bloody arms in the way!).

That's it, next post should be on something I've painted for myself all being well.

Bretonnian standard bearer - revisited!

More shameless copy and pasting from my Facebook page because it's late and I can't be arsed to rewrite everything. There are two posts cobbled together here so let's get into it:

PART ONE

Anybody remember this chap?

I must have painted him a couple of years ago as part of my Bretonnian foot knight command but I never got around to painting the banner. I hate painting banners as I find it awkward in comparison to painting figures. Anyway, having decided to move onto getting some more fantasy stuff painted I thought I'd better try and finish this off and fill that empty slot in my unit.

Just base coats at the moment but thought I'd show how I've got a nice clean edge to the quarters. I use Scotch Magic Tape to mask the area. It's easy to tear by hand and isn't horribly sticky which means it's great for masking. I made sure to press the tape down hard along the edge to be painted to avoid it bleeding under. Got to make sure the painted areas are good and dry though as they can still lift off when removing the tape. It makes the process quite slow going and only once did I have to retouch a small area that peeled after not following my own advice. Make sure the paint isn't too watery to also help reduce the chance of it bleeding through but don't apply it too thickly either or you'll leave a ridge when the tape comes off.

I'll shape the banner before I highlight it. It's a piece of sheet metal (tomato puree tube) and the paint copes perfectly well with the flexing. Then I'll have to print off some decals for the lions and go through all that rigmarole. This might all get done fairly quickly or it could take a while, I've no idea but I am going to get it finished this time.

PART TWO

I'm slowly progressing with my Bretonnian foot knight standard bearer. I needed a little decoration to pop on the end of the flag pole so I decided to replicate the fleur-de-lis that I used on another Bretonnian standard.

This is the green stuff press mould that I made a few years ago. The original part was cut from a 5th edition Bretonnian standard. I used a mix of green stuff and Milliput white in the mould. A little cooking oil stops the putty sticking.

Once dry pop it out of the mould and clean up the flash. It's not a bad reproduction. If I'd used just Milliput I could have filed the edges a bit sharper but it'll look fine once painted up.

There's a quick snap of a little of the painting I've been doing on the flag too. Unfortunately the highlighting and shading that should give some added shape to the flag is completely washed out in the photo. But it's evidence that I've not dumped it in favour of doing something easier again. Still need to work on the front of the flag before printing off some lion rampant decals.

RBG Norse & things I forgot to post

As the title says, I've got more Red Box Games Norse models painted as part of an on going and quite large commission. This is a set of multipart models equipped with two hand weapons a piece. I'm not sure if these are currently available as they weren't in the RBG web store when I checked the other week. Could have been from a Kickstarter some time ago. Anyway, really powered through these to get them done in double quick time as there are more models waiting to be done for this army.

Then there are a couple of things that I forgot to post from previous weeks. There's another set of Copplestone Castings Tupi warriors from another casual on going commission. I've already done a few sets of archers and a set of chieftains. This time it's warriors with whatever those weapons are called.

Finally there's a pair of GW Black Library characters, Max Schreiber and Snorri. I've already painted Felix and Gotrek, and the female character whose name escapes me right now so these were commissioned to go with those models.

Both models were sent to me in original foil packs but there was a hilarious packing error with Snorri. I tore the top off the packet but rather than a violent dwarf being inside, two Cadian Lieutenants dropped out onto my desk top! Bemusing, hilarious and rather gutting for the owner. No chance of getting a replacement from GW on a 12 year old OOP model. Thankfully one was found on Ebay but was missing the base which I ended up cobbling together myself.