Orc Warboss on Boar - WIP

Continuing the theme of old minis, here I am with another classic greenskin. This one is extra special!

While I sold off most of my oldest collection when I was needing the money, this one I kept, because it's the very first model that I bought for WFB. While I had to scour many old toy boxes in search for parts, I was able to get most of him - which makes me very happy, I am a sucker for authenticity.

Of course, that didn't mean I would change a thing about him - it's like architectural restoration of an old ruin, some parts could be improved upon. The shield was lost, so I got him a fancier one, as well as the boar's tail and tusks. I also wasn't a fan of the original fur texture on the pig, so I sculpted it anew - to suggest that it's a very venerable mount, like the mini itself! Original standard pole was also lost, so I improvised something similar and added a plasticard banner as well (I never liked those paper ones that were popular back then).

The base is still in old size, as I am waiting for official ones in the right size. The painting will probably wait comfortably until The Old World is released.

Classic Goblin Shamans

Recently I painted a miniature with my son, he's 3, so it wasn't anything too complicated, but it made me feel things I haven't felt for a long time. I remembered simpler times when painting had no rules, no techniques, it was just putting paint on cool miniatures. Now there is a big thought in everything, a right way to do everything.

Obviously, one cannot go back, but this wave of nostalgia made me remember my oldest army - 5th edition WFB Orcs and Goblins. I still have quite a lot of old minis for that army, so I decided to work on them again.

The idea is, to make them as bright and garish as they were in 5th edition. Lots of checkered patterns, reds, yellows, very green skin, no weathering, simple bases. While I'll still use all my skills and tools to make them look good, I'll definitely won't make too much fuss about them, to recapture some simpler times.

First attempt, two goblin shamans, one warboss, painted simultaneously. On 25mm bases to conform with the new WFB, because why not, let's mix it up.

Hod the Chief Trumpeter

After Horik the Lord Commander and Knutr the cranky old slayer it's time for the third one of the heroes I painted for my 'Hill Dwarfs' project - Hod the optimistic trumpeter! Just like with the previous ones, it's a middlehammer dwarf on a bright green base, a nostalgic trip to the times when I was just starting with Warhammer.

The model is officially named 'King Kazador', but seeing how I want to make my 'hold' an unimportant, backwater one, I decided to downplay his royal characteristics and reduced him to being just a thane with a fitting role - the main trumpeter of Karak Valldar. In comparison with the previous ones, this one looks the most classic - with a simple pose and weapon held high, so to do him proper justice, I tried painting him as colorful as my painting style allowed for - he was pretty simple in the end, but enjoyable nonetheless.

Now that those three are done, it's time for some troops - and war machines too! Still, seeing as this is a slow project in a particularly slow time in my life, it will take some waiting...

While subterranean dwarfs can rely on their strong lungs and good acoustics of their tunnels for communication, the hill dwarfs of Karak Valldar must use some help in that regard - that’s where trumpeters come into action. Using impressive horns, they sound elaborate calls that help their leaders command the troops on expansive, grassy hills. The current Chief Trumpeter in the hold is Hod, a relatively young Thane serving under Horik. What sets him apart from all his comrades in Karak Valldar, he is earnestly enthusiastic about his work here, immune to the grumbling attitudes of older dwarfs. Lacking resources, goblin raids, irritating inspections from their superiors, Hod can find something positive in all of that and more. Hill dwarves can laugh at his naivete, but secretly they admire his view on life and find some kind of comfort in it during all the hardships.

Old Knutr the Slayer

Next installment of my 'Hill Dwarfs' project - a colorful Middlehammer force with a whole backstory of a hilly, grassy fort no dwarf wants to visit for too long - all to explain bright green bases and vibrant tufts.

While Horik was my favorite model from the whole Dwarfs range, this slayer here was easily the second favorite - and it was like this ever since I saw him on an old GW website. I got him some time ago and now he is one of the three models to kickstart this project - and just like them, I managed to take photos of him a day before I found myself without time for hobbying!

Unlike the Lord Commander, this guy here doesn't have any armor on him, which allowed me to try a little bit harder on the hair, skin and various freehands. Other than trying to devise what is what on this model, he was a real pleasure to paint! Also, probably the first time when I had to paint so much red hair!

Once every few days a grizzled slayer comes down to Karak Valldar from the surrounding hills, dirty and weary, to restock his supplies, tell some stories and go back to the wilderness. While not a part of the ‘Hill Dwarfs' officially, the old slayer Knutr grew to be an integral part of the 'fort' - and one of the reasons why the service here is so unexciting. With a hardened, veteran slayer who spends his days wrestling trolls and busting orc tribes, it’s nothing strange that the younglings here are so bored. Well, at least they can entertain themselves devising various backstories for the mysterious Knutr, every one more colorful than the other - and trying to confront them with the slayer without getting his axe in the face for their trouble.

Horik Raloffson, Lord Commander of Karak Valldar

Today I am glad to start and present you a whole new long-term project here - middlehammer Dwarfs! I always liked their style - with big heads and no knees and lots of beautiful metal models. That and a lot of nostalgia from the times when I was facing them on the battlefield in 5th Ed. WFB.

The main idea of this project is to embrace the old style of GW miniatures while applying modern techniques - so the color palette is bright (at least brighter than my usual), the bases are juicy green and the metals are shiny - all done with my current skills and more elaborate bases.

To justify Dwarfs standing on green grass I have spun a whole backstory for them - of a small contingent of Dawi warriors stuck in an unimportant fort in nice surroundings of rolling green hills. It will be only moderately serious - and you can read the first installment below.

The Lord I am showing today is their leader - and the first model that I bought for this project - I always loved this guy. There are not many colors on him, so he's serving as a middle ground between my usual grimdarkness and the other dwarfs that will follow.

Although it’s unbelievable, not every transgression against dwarven law requires taking a Slayer oath - sometimes it means getting promoted! Horik is one such example. The third son in a powerful noble clan, he got involved in ‘youthful foolishness’, for which he got transferred to Karak Valldar to serve as an officer there. Only when he arrived he understood his elder’s intentions - “Karak” Valldar was a small, mostly surface-based fort overlooking a wide, hilly area of minimal importance. Amongst the ‘real’ holds, the crewmembers of this fort were mockingly called “The Hill Dwarfs”. Still, Horik wasn’t going to appear weak, so he took his new job as seriously as he could (albeit begrudgingly). Now, after a thousand years (or so he always says - time seems to go really slow in Karak Valldar), a much older and experienced dwarf, Horik holds the position of a Lord Commander here, still angry about his situation - but still too stubborn to actually admit this fact. The only hint to that is his helmet, which he commissioned shortly after coming here - officially it’s supposed to be a terrifying, warlike visage - while in reality it just reflects how mad he is all the time.

Alarich Schwering

Some time ago I showed you my necromancer conversions - to be seen HERE - and now it's time finally start posting the painted ones. First comes Alarich, who I imagined as a crazy survivalist necromancer, one that has some Lore of the Beasts theme to him.

He is the most converted one from the whole group, but also the most straightforward one when it came to painting - just some more of my standard dirty, green color scheme. Well, that and a tiger on his back - those freehands were some added value - gems too, I haven't painted those for a long time now.

When Hautfell met Constantin von Greifen, he was the most powerful magic user in the band and enjoyed great influence thanks to it. Yet, his position was getting weaker and weaker with every new vampire coming to aid von Greifens and with wights becoming more independent than ever. And while his apprentice Krebs was easily manipulated - that means “reliable” - he lacked a true talent that would be needed when all local tensions will finally burst. That’s why he needed someone capable to help him in this fight for Varsavia, so full of undead to be controlled. With the help of the mysterious Haughr found the right person in Alarich Schwering - an old Necromancer residing deep in the Troll Country. Even though he got a little strange after all the years spent alone in the wilderness and was almost blind, he was surely skilled enough to survive in the land full of skaven and monsters - a quality that Hautfell was looking for. After some creative convincing, Schwering moved to Varsavia, ready to push vampires and wights out of it and rule over the undead there with other necromancers.

Varsavian Hermits

The unpainted version can be seen HERE.

As I wrote in the WIP post, I never really liked those old bedsheet Spirit Hosts that GW was selling before upgrading them in 2014. Even so, when I noticed some of them on ebay recently, I realized that I actually want them! They possessed enough oldschool charm to add them to the collection, but that didn't mean that I wouldn't convert them. To make them more Slavic and also add some variance to the unit, I decided to fashion them after hermits that lived in russia in old times. The whole idea, together with a painting that inspired me, can be found in the WIP post, linked above.

I painted them in the same way I did with my last banshees - only this time I wasn't sweating as much about detail. Well, they aren't as much detailed as the banshees too. I wetblended them first - dark green on the bottom parts and light green on the top parts. When that was dry I highlighted the top with a white paint and added several layers of black shade on the bottom parts, especially in the recesses. Then I added some Coelia Greenshade, mixed with Vallejo Glaze Medium on the middle parts to blend two extremes together. Then it was just a matter of some refining touches, like on the hands or on their faces. In the end, it was pretty quick to do, I remember that banshees were more labor-intensive.

Faith in the harsh land of Kislev values frugality and abstinence - and while common people remember about it only a few times a year, some people take it much, much more seriously. Those ascetic hermits can be found all over Kislev, but they are especially common in dangerous Varsavian forests, where they can really test their bodies and faith. Here they preach spirituality and peace, sometimes acting as quite effective neutral mediators between warring chieftains. The problem was, Constantin wanted the Varsavian chieftains to wage endless wars between themselves, to make them easier to control and contain - and to have a steady supply of dead to be raised in the vampires’ armies. Because of that, he had Sorin and Ioana hunt down every single hermit hiding in the forests. Violently murdered despite their innocence, their disturbed spirits were easy to shackle down, to serve their killers even after death. Vampires find them useful both on the battlefield and to haunt the countryside, ruining the hermits’ reputation for years to come.

Varsavian Hermits - WIP

While I have been working on the dragon, I managed to fit a small WIP project to have something new to show this week.

For a long, long time I really disliked those old bedsheet spirit hosts of old. That's why I used LOTR minis for my own ghosts. But about a month ago, when I was looking through eBay I noticed three bases of them being sold cheaply and I realized that I actually like those goofy bastards and I totally want some.

Seeing as they are dressed in robes, have bald heads and use ropes as belts, I wanted to have them as some kind of monks - and mix them that way into my story. But their remaining hair is long, so that theme wasn't perfect. So next, I thought of the Russian ascetic hermits of old - I would only need to sculpt some beards and hats. The picture that inspired me is below the photos. This idea was also great to add some differentiation too - for all their oldschool charm, those ghosts come in only three variants and are rigid enough to make them unposeable. Besides that, this also instantly gave them some Slavic feel and made them fit better into my army and story.

EDIT: Painted ones can be seen HERE.

And here you can see the painting that inspired me the most on how to make them - "Hermit fathers and the immaculate women" by Mikhail Nestrov, 1932.

Berthild & Erentraud Hautfell

Two old banshee miniatures from Games Workshop. I have been seeing those on eBay for a long time now and only recently it came to me that those two are actually really good sculpts and I want to get them - I already have one miniature I use as a banshee, but it definitely won't hurt to have more!

As you can see on that old banshee of mine, I always painted my ghosts rather uniformly greenish - which has a great advantage of being really quick and easy to do. Then I saw these ones and I decided to try something similar - a gradient going from dark on the bottom to light white on the face. It involved quite a bit of wetblending, glazing and refining, but I think that it turned out all right in the end. It creates a much stronger illusion of them being etheral and those glowing faces are pretty spooky too.

I bought recently some old spirit hosts too - those that look like bedsheet ghosts - I'll try this gradient scheme on them too. EDIT: They are painted now and can be seen HERE.

Back when Alexander Hautfell was still a normal citizen of the empire, he was the black sheep in the family. His parents were making sure that it would be his older sisters that would inherit the family wealth and influence and not the vengeful, twisted wizard acolyte that Alexander was. His eldest sister, Berthild, was a rare woman officer rapidly advancing in the imperial army and the second sister, Erentraud, was a woman full of charm and grace with a promising future on the imperial court. Ready for anything to further his own position, Alexander began spinning a cruel web of plots to destroy his sisters’ position and inherit the family fortune. After everything was said and done, Erentraud, Berthild and their parents died as broken shells of their former selves and Alexander lost all the shreds of humanity he still had. Because of the powerful emotional connection and their undeserved fates, it was easy for Hautfell to summon the ghosts of his sisters as very powerful banshees. While they are magically bound to be obedient, those tortured spirits are just waiting for someone stronger to break the spell so they could rip Alexander’s body and soul to shreds.

Alexander Hautfell

A Heinrich Kemmler miniature from Games Workshop painted in October 2013, finecast. Probably my favorite necromancer model, I looked quite a bit for it and when I finally got I tried to make at least a bit special. That's why he got those skeleton hands and a freehand on his cloak.

While von Greifens excelled at close combat, subterfuge and diplomacy, they lacked a really good practitioner of Necromancy in their midst. They could manage like that for a while, but when they needed to face real opposition in Varsavia, they needed numbers and magical support. After some searching and initial disagreements, Constantin managed to ally with an exiled imperial nobleman and a master necromancer, Alexander Hautfell. While the mage was ready to help the bloodsuckers in exchange for their protection, he was way too proud and arrogant to let this situation continue indefinitely. Sooner or later, he will wring control of this land from them.