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.

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.

AD&D Minotaur

I recently finished a small commission for more Oldhammer type models. This time the old AD&D Minotaur and a pack of wolves.

I've loved this model ever since first seeing it in the Spring 86 Citadel Journal which I bought on my very first visit to a GW store in 1988. It's one of Citadel's best in my eyes and I did finally pick up my own copy of the model on Ebay some years ago.

The wolves are a mix of goblin wolves and Leman Russ' Freki and Geri.

Warhammer Cottage - Still working on it

I'm still working on my model cottage. The chimney took quite a while to do so progress was a little slow there. I then had to wait a week to finish my breakfast cereal so I could finally butcher the packet for roof tiles. Reminded me of being a kid eyeing up the cereal packets for some project or other.

Anyway, chimney done and roof in place. Had to cut the roof down as it was a bit too big taken straight from the template. Also a bit of a faff fitting it around the chimney. I used a bit of a plastic brush protector as a base for the chimney pot before wrapping it in putty. I went with plastic sheet for the roof as I recall cardboard warping badly on models I'd built in the past. It could sometimes create a nice sagging effect but that would usually be countered with a horrible bulge opposite.

Roof tiles needed a bit of thought. The White Dwarf article suggests 6mm to 10mm square tiles. 6 looked way too small and 10 too big. I went with 8mm. Still have the nagging feeling they're a touch large but hopefully it'll look alright when done.

Whilst working on the chimney I got a little impatient and started a second cottage. Same basic design but with a small side extension. Notice blood for the blood god on the front wall. Bloody needle files are pointy!

Need to finish the door details before cracking on with the chimney. The plan is to speed up that process by doing a rendered finish on that to match the wall infill. I'll add a few areas of bare stone where the rendering has fallen away but that should come together a lot quicker.

Warhammer Cottage

Recently I was digging through old copies of White Dwarf and found the old Modelling Workshop articles and building plans. This series of articles started in issue 130 back in October 1990 and ran for several issues and covered a number of projects. The first of these was for the famous Warhammer cottage that I know was my first build back then and I'm sure it was for many others. I went on to make a number of buildings all of which have been lost to the sands of time now (aka. brutal clearouts). I thought it might be nice to relive the old days though and have a stab at making something. Where better to start than the cottage from that first article?!

Here the walls are assembled, timbering in place and the door has been started. I gave the balsa wood a going over with a wire brush to bring out the grain a little. I thought it might fuzz up badly doing that but it didn't which was great. I did find that a thin coat of watered down PVA helped to settle any bits down though. I also skimmed some of the hard edges off the timbers so they didn't look too machined. Could have roughened them up even more I suppose but this is my first build since the early 90's so I didn't want to get too crazy.

The infill for the walls was a new method for me. I used to brush watered down textured filler (Tetrion) onto the panels but I didn't think it would really look good enough. I decided on a mix of filler, some fine sand and a pinch of static grass (barely noticeable really) and I roughly plastered each panel using a strip of plastic as a spatula. It totally changed the appearance of the building when finished and seemed to give me the touch of realism I was after.

I also detailed the door. Something I failed to do consistently in the past. Plastic strip, green stuff nails and a piece of brass wire for the door handle. 

The next step which I'm still on was the chimney stack. The article says to make stones out of putty. Back in the day I took the easier option of just rendering the surface like the walls (quite reasonable) but I wanted to give the stonework a go this time (like a big boy!). DAS is suggested in the article but I found it useless so I ended up going with good old greenstuff. Wasn't too sure what I was doing at first but got into the swing of things pretty quickly. The article suggests placing the stones randomly at first to avoid things looking too even. Works well but I found that doing a little at a time and leaving it to dry was helpful as well. I added a bit of texture by pressing rough sandpaper onto the surface of the putty. I wasn't sure whether my stones were a little small at first but as I've added more and done some of the edge stones I think they look alright.

It's going to take a bit of time to get the stone work finished but then it's just the roof to do and then perhaps think about basing it.