Orctober - Giant Orc Chief and Bodyguard

A 1986 Citadel Flyer introduces a Giant Orc Chief and his Bodyguard (LE11) to the public and some 32 years later I’ve got to put some paint on them. I never owned this pair back in the 80’s and only purchased these in my attempt to collect all the miniatures from the Citadel Goblinoid Combat Card range. I didn’t love them before I painted them, but you kinda get intimate with the lead when handling it delicately for a few hours as you turn the plain metal cast into a character. And I’ve now fallen for the couple.

I often think about the sculptors intentions when they made these models, as I paint. Was he given a brief to make these two characters, was there a bigger picture (perhaps some scenario to play them with) or were they purely two orcs sculpted and subsequently put together and the theme added later? I always assumed that the horned character is the Orc chief, but he’s hardly giant or imposing enough to be a chief. The supposed bodyguard is just the same size and has a much sterner facial appearance, perhaps there’s been a switch of role here; the chief in disguise? In fact why would such a renowned giant Orc chief even need a bodyguard? Is he worried about an attempt on his life? Does he have lots of enemies within his war host? I can imagine this being the case, just think of all those dastardly orcs (and goblins) sneakily plotting to remove him from the head of the horde. All of this conjecture of course adds to his character and has me yearning to invent some narrative game where the Chief and his bodyguard have to survive the assassination attempts of a variety of foes. Could be an idea for a future BOYL game...

Anyway; to add to the character of these orcs,  I decided to use the influence of Fraser Grey’s style on my shield designs; those puffy, rounded and sleepy faces protruding from the shields have always seemed  apt for these orcs and Grey’s style left a lasting impression on me from seeing his work in early White Dwarfs.

Goblinoid Combat Cards - sculpting shields

As I toil away on a few other, quite large projects, I decided this weekend to have a break from painting and break out the greenstuff. I wanted to make the shields on my recreations of the Goblinoid combat cards, in relief, as I've always admired the shields of Kev Adams and Fraser Grey who did this originally. It's a chance to test my sculpting skills and to add my own twist to the iconic Goblinoids rather than a direct copy of the originals, which is what Jeff is doing in his same project (he started way before me though). The skin colour, when I come to paint these, will also be in my own style rather than the lurid greens on display on the cards.

When sculpting, I used very small blobs of greenstuff in the way that I watched Kev Adams work last summer. Building up in small increments from lowest areas to most raised seemed to make sense. Using some small sculpting tools I was able to shape the forms of the face before adding a last layer of detail when all the base work was complete and solid.

So first up, with an actual bead for a beady eye; a jolly shield, winking at us:

Followed by a backhanding, horned skull:

(Halfway through sculpting this, I realised that the horned skeleton was posed giving a backhand slap - needless to say it was way too difficult to sculpt this!)


And then the epitome of angry and evil:

And finally a burning skull:

This was a fun few hours/afternoon's worth of work and working on such a small scale has given me some added confidence going forward with my sculpting. The next shields I'll sculpt will be more in the Fraser Grey style, much more rounded, smooth and exaggerated features...

Retinue Table: D6 Orcs (and the end of Orctober for me)

I finally managed to get the final 3 orcs painted, just about in time for the month end of Orctober, and to complete the D6 Orcs entry on the Lost and the Damned retinue table.

For these 3 I wanted to create some old school shields with a bit of greenstuff, some beads and seeds for eyes and warts - and I ended up with these 3 shields (strongly based on Kev Adam's and Fraser Gray's designs from the 80's):

And here are the three of them with a finished paint job:

I've stuck with my usual paint scheme for the skin (graveyard earth, brown wash, graveyard earth plus increasing amounts of rotting flesh to highlight, then a fine glaze with green ink) but tried to use a bright range of colours for their outfits rather than getting bored with different brown and leather tones.

 For the rust I've been experimenting with a boltgun metal basecoat some highlights with chainmail and then a chestnut / brown ink wash. The rust is a dry oxide pigment with a touch of matt medium to keep it together, just dabbed onto the metal.

And here are the final 6, led by Spike the Feared:

What I would like to do next with my Greenskins is to make a Warband, using Erny's excellent Orc Warband generator (http://ernysplace.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/warlor-battle-in-badlands-guidelines.html) and eventually make an Allied Force to accompany my growing Nurgle Army.... One day, one day......