A Great Unclean One (based on the LatD illustration)

There's an Oldhammer project happening at the moment which is to create something from one of Tony Hough's amazing illustrations. Now a lot of his work is 40K based and therefore not for me, but having scanned the wonderful images in the Lost and the Damned, I came across one of his illustrations of a Great Unclean One, on page 12. It's certainly an illustration which I'd seen before but it's not until I have a ulterior purpose that I actually stopped and studied it properly, even more the case when I'm about to create a sculpted version of it. 

Now I'm not usually one to post wip photos, but I'm particularly happy with this as it's taken a fair amount of work, thought and observation. 

Part of the thought process for this type of project, is about what materials, parts, bits, models etc to use. I already owned an incomplete classic, 3rd edition Citadel GUO and I had the head of one of the more recent ones (from some old project many years ago). Now it's a head I don't usually like but I could see a resemblance to Tony Hough's drawing, both in terms of the wide shape of the head, the wide, toothy grin and the shape of the horns. Hopefully you can see that here:

To complete the scene I needed a couple of naked admirers and found these courtesy of Hasslefree miniatures. Both have had head swaps, the female heads being snipped away and a skull and a Tyrannid(?) head replacing them.

With the miniatures all gathered it was time to do some cutting and sculpting. The classic GUO legs section was far too narrow for what I had in mind, so I sawed through it, off centre in an area lacking in details, in order to space and then bulk out the gap between. I then wanted to change the pose of his left arm so made a snip at the wrist, so as to reposition it. I didn’t own a right arm and looked briefly on eBay but wasn’t willing to pay £15 for one, so decided to fully sculpt that appendage. As always Nurgle sculpting, thankfully, is quite forgiving!

The next stage was to start to put it all together, to see whether I could actually realise my intentions and keep it as close as possible to the illustration. This involved a fair amount of careful drilling and pinning to join respective parts together and to make a solid base for all the sculpting to follow. Here you can see that I chopped off the original horns and inverted them so that their shape was more reminiscent of Hough’s illustration and removed his goofy bottom jaw so the head sat more comfortably on the torso without any sign of a neck. You can also see the armature for the right hand here. I had the torso of the GUO ready to go without any changes (yet). The left leg had to be substantially repositioned, so an admirer could fit on his thigh, this created quite the gap and quite the forward step, but I figured I could reduce the space by extending the belly outwards to fill the gap.

Thus began the process of sculpting. I started off with milliput to bulk out the model and fill all the gaps (sorry no photo here, I was in a sculpting frenzy and didn’t want to stop the flow) and then green stuff for the details and texture. You can see that I’ve added a plastic tongue (from the Giant set?) and lots of postules made from dried seeds, pushed straight into the wet green stuff. At this stage I had to make a crucial decision - do I sculpt over the lovely mouth belly to maintain the Hough homage or do I keep it exposed for nostalgia sake? Obviously the former won out. Here you can also see me experimenting with the GreenstuffWorld green stuff roller to create some of the ribbed intestines protruding from his open belly.

There are lots of little details in the illustration that I wanted to include in the sculpt, so I will share those here too, as these are intrinsic to trying to capture Hough’s style of work. When an earlier wip photo was shared on the Oldhammer Facebook page, it highlighted that the illustration seems to be quite renowned for the uzi toting Nurgling that hovers in the top left corner of the picture. So I found an old spore (?) model and sculpted over it to create the Nurgling. The top hat is made from a plastic tube off cut and a circular bit of plasticard for the brim. The uzi is the nozzle from a gun off the Gaslands sprue and a snip off a cable tie:

Here you can see, in more detail, the lounging admirer. A greenstuff tongue was added as if to lick the man breast and some hair and spikes adorn her head. Her left leg also had to be snipped and repositioned at the knee to both fit on and to represent the illustration. You can also see a tendril wrapping itself around her other knee and the completed belly, sans mouth.

A close up of the head shows some tiny rolled maggots infesting his horns as well as a four legged, hairy skull creature on top. I was really pleased with the sculpting of the GUO’s head, I think I hid the goofy, quizzical look of the original sculpt and created a more sneering, malevolent look of the illustration. You can also see the sculpted bile coming from his mouth, this will be added to with some stringy UHU glue after painting. 

I had to think carefully about how to create all the webs and strands of organic goo that drape off the GUO. I had a eureka moment when the vacuum cleaner got clogged with a long, thin piece of string, so used it here, soaked in pva to make it solid. I also found some tiny roots from some moss that I had in a baggie and used them to dangle from his right hand. 

And from the back, not quite so much detail here, but you can see some beads squished into the milliput sculpting.

The last part was the base. Now this is me breaking my own rule (to a degree). I’ve never really appreciated display plinths, much preferring models to be properly based, but I was given this wooden one and decided to use it here. I’ve compromised by also basing the model on a round 60mm base and then magnetising both so that he can be separated from the plinth. It seems to be a sound solution...

Both bases required some added detail and interest, so I got to work with the greenstuff roller and made some more worms to scavenge around in the foreground and hit the bits box for a range of organic looking bits. In fact I delved to the very.p bottom of the box and pulled out some interesting shapes of off cuts and unwanted pieces, including bits of horn, a pouch, some sort of lip thing and bits of resin skull. On the left is part of a GW familiar, on the right a resin chap with gas mark that I was given at a meet up, sorry I can’t remember who. Obviously there is an old Nurgling at the forefront because it’s just too cool and a mistake of Tony Hough’s not to include one there!

So there we go, the model is made. I’ve just undercoated him today with a zenithal undercoat of grey and white and my intention is to monochrome him (adding a dark wash for shadows first) then with just some washes of very subtle colour, in an almost illustrative style. Hopefully my skills are up to the job, we shall see!

New barbarian recruits

On my last post I forgot to mention my love of Frank Frazetta's art and how my h this was inspiring my ideas for a Barbarian warband, well I've painted some more, hopefully evocative of his style.
Three more to be precise, added to the warband; another Hasslefree model, but this one with a ice dynamic running pose, a Red Box game miniature with a head swap (the original looked far too small and besides I had this nice Spacewolf head going spare in my bits box) and a Reaper Bones wild dog to finish off:

And so you can see where some of my I spiration has come from, some classic Frazzeta:

The start of a Barbarian Warband

This is all going to be about musculature and flesh-tones. To help me with this project I have gone full method acting; last night I re-watched Schwarzenegger's "Conan the Barbarian", I've started reading Robert E. Howard's titular book (not enjoying it so far), I had a protein shake this morning for breakfast and I'll be hitting the gym tonight (maybe). Oh and I've [carefully] looked for different skin tone painting techniques that I can try out on so many scantily clad Barbarian models.

You saw my Bob Naismith Thrud and friend and here I've gathered a couple of his friends that I have previously from Hasslefree Miniatures as well as a Citadel "fan" and a Reaper Bones leopard:

To add to these, I've captured a couple of very cheap old Citadel lead Tribesman from ebay (£1 per model!), Big Momma and a Dwarf beserker, also from Citadel, another Hasslefree model with a nice dynamic pose and a Red Box games (which I've head-swapped) model too. Additionally a plastic kitbashed model to create a Shaman and another Reaper Bones wolf. I'll share these next time if I can find time between my gym and protein shake routine.

Helsreach mercenaries - Adelei Niska

"Good work, you brought her back without a scratch and sorted my little headache out proper for me; here's your pay.... but we ain't done yet. This is a big one. I reckon y'all up for this one, but to be sure I'm coming wit ya. We're gettin' ourselves a ship, a proper ship. We're gonna be all sneaky like and I've got the plans down, meticulous like, but there's gonna be some shootin' and I want to make sure we're shootin' straight, so I'm leading this one. Gather ya stuff up, load up on what ya need  - this could be our last mission on this shithole cos if we get this ship we're outta here and you're my crew. In?

So this little post-apocalyptic mercenary gang is done for now, finishing with another great model from Hasslefree. I've converted him slightly, removing his original weapon, which was some sort of power axe and gone for an understated bolter type of weapon. I've obviously added a pet lizard on chained leash, which is very much inspired from an illustration in the Rogue Trader rulebook and Asslessman's great version. I decided to add some additional colour to his face, some faded/washed away eye shadow and slightly red lips. I think I should have added a tattoo which matched the logo on the car from my last post, I'll come back to that.

And here's the crew in their entireity. For my first bash at Rogue Trader/ Post-Apocalyptic I'm really happy with how they've turned out. Next time I'll be including more conversions as I enjoyed the car building the most and have always preferred that aspect of the hobby more than the painting, but heavy conversions do slow me down somewhat. Also the models I chose here are all new to me and I was quite happy with how they looked out of the box. I'd like to futurise some fantasy models next, I've an idea for some Nurgle/Steampunk based on the original classic champions and I've also got a little collection of Bob Olley space adventurers (plus Dinosaur) that I'd like to paint up... More to come..

Helsreach Mercenaries - Abdul Goldberg

"I was just minding my own shit, taking my sweet time over my warm milkshake, just feeling the vibe of the tunes playing from the kitchen of Greasy Kim's Bar and Diner. I'd been on the drugs for a while so I was feelin' pretty spaced out and fluffy, not really sure how long I'd been there, or even why I was there. And then "boom!", I nearly shit meself. Not expecting that. Out of the smoke arrives this crew of tough guys, guns out, shouting all loud like. They rough me up asking where some guy called Abdul Goldberg's at. It's a name I'm only just familiar with, maybe a few weeks ago, he's been winning gambles with the best of 'em here and fleecing some of the town's tough guys. They've been looking for him. It's a name you can't forget once you've heard it. He's got a rep now. Anyway I tell these guys that I've never met the fella, no idea what he looks like; not sure why they're bugging me about it, all I'm doing is just tryin' to chill. Apparently he was here earlier, relaxing with his crew. I tell 'em that I kinda remember a group relaxin' and chattin' in the corner,, looking all smug like, but I don't know when they left or where they went. I get a smack in the face for that honest information. Fuckers. I'm pleading with this big thug, sayin I know nuthin and then out of knowhere this crew comes in and shoots the place up, all these thugs around me now slumped over, blood everywhere. No idea how I got missed by all that shootin. And then through the carnage steps this fella, he was the fella I saw earlier in the Diner. I'm focused now. He's all calm and serene like in his movements, real elegant with his long coat swishing behind him. I look into his eyes as he approaches me and somehow his eyes flicker between  hard arse, piercing like and then like the whole things a joke, I didn't know how to read him. Shit meself properly this time. Anyway he comes up to me, pats me on the back, slurps my milkshake and yells out to the kitchen that I need a new, cold one. One of the thugs groans and he sticks him in his gut with his sword, not even looking at the guy, but looking at me. I swear he made it look like the whole thing was one big joke. He clicks his fingers and he and his crew walk out all silent like. I promise this is the truth, exactly what happened, no bullshit. This happened. Who is he then, this Goldburg, really, I wanna know?"

My version of Abdul Goldberg, using a very cool Hasslefree miniature. I'm not sure that he entirely fits my imagination of what Goldberg looks like (based upon the cant information in the Rogue Trader rulebook), I imagined a slightly portly, fun loving gangster with a hard edge. I've caught the hard edge with this mini, but didn't have time to sculpt a belly onto him that would have made him perhaps slightly more jovial.. I was tempted to add some blood and gore onto the sword, but decided he was already tough enough looking and was worried it might go over the top.


The backstory is based on the information given in on pages 243-244 of the Rogue Trader rulebook, where the sub-plot generator is located. This is the excerpt I used to give me some context:


"Abdul Goldberg has crossed you for the last time - it was pure luck that your paths should cross on this isolated planet outside of imperial control. He and his crew are relaxing down at Greasy Kim's Bar and Diner, unaware that you and your crew are ready to pounce. The diner is mostly deserted, with only a few lonely vac-heads and spacers to witness the fight."


Obviously I chose one of the vac-heads/spacers to give his account and changed the outcome slightly, imagining Goldburg to be way too savvy to be caught in a diner by a group of thugs..

Here you can see Goldburg with his crew, post diner chillax, a proper bunch of rogues.

Adventures into 40k: Mercenaries for Helsreach

Aside from a few bolters and my scratchbuilt Freeway Fighter model, I've always steered clear of 40k. Partly because my mind is only capable of being immersed in one fantasy world and partly because I quite simply prefer swords and chainmail to Lasguns and Exo-Armour (I'm not sure if that's even a 40k thing). But inspiration found in the blogging sphere and also my new-found love of sci-fi/post apocalyptic films (in particular Firefly and Mad Max), I've slowly been seduced and convinced myself it's time to embrace Rogue Trader and all it's possibilities. Well initially some if it's possibilities as I explore the setting.


To make this be more than a hollow promise to myself, I've signed up for Whiskey Priest's: Logan's World - Helreach at BOYL 2016. So I now have a specific deadline and outline for which to work towards. So here's what I'm going to do; a band of Mercanaries with a Mad Max-esque car:

From left to right, Copplestone, Foundry, Copplestone BOYL2015 mini, Hasslefree with Citadel dragon (very much inspired by illustrations from the Rogue Trader rulebook and JB's wonderful version), Hasslefree, Foundry and Copplestone.

I don't have any 40k figures lying around, so the idea was to quite simply choose some of my favourite sculpts from a range of online retailers, focusing on characterful and dynamic sculpts. It feels satisfying to buy from small independent companies and I didn't want to scour Ebay for old Rogue Trader models, mostly because I don't have any nostalgic attachment to the old sculpts.


I'll be painting these up with a dusty, worn and battle-hardened appearance.


But this crew need a vehicle, or at least I have the itch to kitbash and modify a model car into something dark and futuristic:

1:43 scale works best I've found and I got hold of this Heller Peugeot really cheap. I'll use the chasis and futurise it with some wheels and exhausts from the plastic Ork Warbikes. Amongst this lot you can also see some guitar wire (perfect for tubing), some old computer components (perfect for raised engines), some platicard, plastic rods, my tiny collection of 40k guns, some gauze and some Zinge Industry bits to help modify the car.

 For inspiration I've been looking at the following inspiration from Google Images (apologies for giving no credit to the original owners):

 

So my version will be loosely based upon these, but generally made up as I go along with what "feels" right within the limitation of the bits I have gathered. The biggest modifications will be raising up the vehicle, cutting away the back to create a gunning platform and adding a roof rack.

My very first obstacle was that the plastic Ork bikes come with 4 different wheels and only one of them seemed suitable for making the car more of an off-road, raised buggy. Initially I was exploring just buying the bitz separately, but then I remembered I had some InstaMold lying around. Perfect opportunity to use it again (last time was to mold some plaguebearer stomachs for my beastmen):



Hot water to soften the Instamold, the bitz embedded in the mold and some tweezers.

The impression left by the wheel is pretty sharp. A little bit of detail is lost but these wheels will be weathered and muddied when painted, so no biggie.

And with the cured greenstuff removed from the molds, crisp enough for me. All I need to do now is smooth down the backs, join them together and fill any gaps. Another couple of sets to do, enough so I have  spare wheel to add to the baggage.

 

Next up I'm going to paint a few of the figures and cut and build the shit out of that car!

Warbands! Part 1: Family Adventurers

As stated in my end of year review; 2016 will start off for me all about the warband, which admittedly is not a huge change considering a lot of my 2015 work was focused on the Realms of Chaos. However I'm expanding my horizons away from 3rd Edition Warhammer and towards some new games systems; chiefly Frostgrave but also Dragon Rampart and Songs of Blade and Heroes. And at the same time using my miniatures for a bit of Family Heroquest too. All these games require a small quantity of miniatures (which means I can lavish more attention on them both in terms of painting and background story) and my first stop will be with the exciting game of Frostgrave (just without the snow). I like the fact that it has inspired me to make some more scenery to add to my town of Rensburg (more on that in a future post).



So my first three painted miniatures of 2016 are additions to my Heroquest family, which now have enough models to become a Frostgrave warband; those new miniatures being a Witch, an aged Barbarian (representing the grandparents) and our Cat Tom who will represent a warhound in the warband. Here are the 3 new additions:

The Witch is from Heresy miniatures, the aged Barbarian from Hasslefree and the cat is a slight conversion (in that the tail was clipped and resculpted to look more feline) from Reaper Bones.

And here is the entire warband, ready for some Frostgrave (or possibly Heroquest) action, exploring the City of Rensburg (read Frostgrave):

So the main spellcaster is the Witch (Grandma) and her apprentice (200gc) is Lily (my daughter). These two are ably supported by myself and Grandad as Barbarians (100gc each), Tom the Warcat (10gc), Sebastian the Infantryman (50gc) and finally Rosie and Willow (wife and daughter respectively) as the Thieves (20gc each).










Further Warbands to follow will include my 3rd Edition Orc warband, my Nurgle Warband, an Empire Warband and a Fighting Fantasy warband. Watch this space...

Family Heroquest: Reinforcements; the rest of the family

Having played a few games of Heroquest with my daughters, it was time to bring in a few other characters into the mix, namely Mum, Dad and little brother! 

The rest of the family ready to explore some dungeons. I've been on the steroids

 These wonderful miniatures are from the Hasslefree range, and they are just so easy to paint because of the clean crisp sculpting. My wife and son do own clothes similar to what the models are wearing (son wearing his jeans) but I can't say I own any cow-skin ankle chaps.

I was quite pleased with the addition of moss between the flagstones, usually I'm weeding those out

And here are all the family together, including the two sisters, ready to protect the little one (even though he's quite lethal with his flail) and bash some dungeon monster's heads, through a combination of sword, dagger, sorcery and sulking:

Many thanks for looking and I'll post up another family game of Heroquest at some point in the future!

ps if you haven't ever painted a Hasslefree mini, try one, they really are that good!

Family Heroquest!

So following on from my earlier post about getting hold of Heroquest with the intention of playing with my daughters: 

http://thelostandtheverydamned.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/heroquest-another-project-but-cool-one.html

 I have painted up the two Hasslefree miniatures that will represent them on the gaming board:

I've tried to stick with the colours that my girls suggested in their sketches, which were based on clothes they actually own. Yes my oldest does have pink trainers. Yes my youngest daughter does strop in that pose (sans the knife!). 

These two miniatures were a pleasure to paint and I can now see why they are called Hasslefree, because there really is no hassle in painting their miniatures - the details are clear and crisp. I originally thought they were named so because they are a company that are easy to deal with and this is also the case (there were also some free maoam sweets in the package when it arrived swiftly after payment!). 

So if you haven't already, I'd strongly suggest you head over to their website and have a look at their excellent range of miniatures: 

http://www.hfminis.co.uk

Meanwhile I'll be playing my first proper family game of Heroquest tomorrow and I'll share the pictures here. 

Heroquest (another) project.. But a cool one.

At last I've got my hands on a copy of Heroquest, I've been wanting to get a replacement for the one I had as a kid for ages, primarily so that I can start some gaming at home with my kids (and maybe wife..), but also because I've got a dream of making a scratchbuilt dungeon and scenery to play on with some really well painted miniatures. I'm resolute in making it happen at some point in the nearish future.

So I've now got the game (I was so excited upon opening, exactly the same as when I opened my original some 25 years ago - ripping open the packing paper, carefully removing the lid and then picking up the miniatures and pieces to study closely with a revered awe and imagination running away with me with all the possibilities..:

In anticipation of this new dawn in my hobby life, I also ordered some excellent miniatures from Hasslefree to represent my family as dungeon explorers. From left to right; obviously myself on steriods (I am bald and will even paint my tattoo on), my wife giving an icy stare as she calculates her next move, my two daughters (one in full on strop mode and one who always has a book in her hand) and my son dressed up in oversized armour with a flail ready to join in the action. He's 2 and a half and quite likely to hit one of his sisters (I'll write this into his character description):

Both my daughters wanted to design their colour scheme for their model representation (I helped them a bit with the outline) and this is what they've chosen for me to recreate when I begin painting:





I quite like the idea of yellow and white striped tights! My eldest even wrote out the levitation spell she would like to cast on the floorboards to lift her up - there's definitely potential in her rpg skills....:

When these are all painted I will photograph them and make their own character cards with traits and stats etc to help them immerse themselves into their character. I'm convinving the wife that by playing this as a family it will help the kid's imagination, problem solving, literacy and numeracy  skills and that I might need to "invest" further in this as a project for "them" to get the most out of it!

Obviously I'll keep you posted here, especially after we take our first adventure into the game itself, perhaps next weekend.