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Sunday, October 27, 2019

The Lady's Gardeners

After painting them for quite a while (lots of breaks and distractions), the Lady's Gardeners, mockeries of real Dryads made by the Good Enchantress are finally ready. I took the basic GW Dryads and sculpted all matter of fleshy and bony appendages on them - think The Thing from 1982. Their faces were removed and replaced with an engraving of the Lady's sigil.

Frankly, with those here, it was the sculpting phase that was the difficult one - painting was really easy. Without any clothes, weapons, hair, etc. they had basically just 4 surfaces - wood, flesh, bone and leaves - so I when I finally sat with them, I finished them pretty quickly using the assembly line method. At the end I just slathered it with gloss varnish and blood. Still, they turned out pretty horrific and disturbing - exactly as intended, a little in the AoS28 direction. Now I am wondering if a Treeman made in this style wouldn't be an interesting idea...

The unpainted WIP versions can be found HERE.


If someone were to venture into the lands of the Lady of the Bog, they would meet many guardians that will protect the Great Mistress' privacy. There is a wide menagerie of those marvellous creatures, but the Gardeners stand out especially. Similar to the treelike Dryads inhabiting Athel Loren, they are both a part of the enchanted Garden that is the Lady’s realm and its defenders. Unable to duplicate the ancient magic of the Asrai, the Wise Enchantress of Varsavia molded the trees herself and injected them with her own seeds, vines and flowers to make them able to move and act. They roam the forests and bogs, tending to the vegetation and rooting out any weeds and pests. Glory of the Lady that they are imbued with makes intruders and weak people break down in fear, but those loyal to her can rest easy, for they can also count on the Gardeners’ protection.

The whole unit of them is a hard-to-understand mess, so first I am showing you all the singular gardeners:

20 converted Sylvaneth Dryads on square bases - with their faces replaced with a sigil and with plenty of greenstuff and bits used to add red, fleshy tendrils, mouths, random limbs and spikes, creating a grimdark, AoS28 version of them. Here they are shown separately from the front. They are usable in WFB or AoS.

And then as a whole 20-strong unit - which really is a lot of fun to rank them up - and they still poke each other in some places.

20 converted Sylvaneth Dryads on square bases - with their faces replaced with a sigil and with plenty of greenstuff and bits used to add red, fleshy tendrils, mouths, random limbs and spikes, creating a grimdark, AoS28 version of them. Here they are shown as a whole unit on a tray, from several angles, slightly above. They are usable in WFB or AoS.

8 comments:

  1. Hmm, co to za ogród który ma takie ogrodniczki? ;)

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    1. Pełen atrakcji! Może kiedyś go zrobię jako kawałek terenu ;)

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  2. Bardziej niż z the Thing kojarzą mi się z przeciwnikami z gry "Dead Space". Tak czy siak, straszne paskudy. Szacuneczek za restylizację masek i płynne wkomponowanie pasożytnicznych narośli w driady. Horrific i disturbing to wszystko jak jasna cholera. Zręczne zestawienie oślizgłego różu z drzewnoburym udatnie podkreśla obrzydliwość tego pierwszego :D

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    1. Mnóstwo ilustracje z 'Dead Space' mam w folderze z inspiracjami, ale nigdy w to nie grałem i się nie znam, więc wolałem się powołać na 'The Thing' ;) Wielkie dzięki za komentarz, cieszę się, że efekt działa i się podoba!

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  3. Impressively gross and weird! You've certainly captured the feel of The Thing with these guys!

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