Sokolov Halberd Regiment - WIP

The Sokolov faction is by far the smallest one in my little Varsavian chronicle - represented by just two characters! They may be fairly impressive, but that's still not much of a faction. I bought some additional models for them during the years, but they never got too much attention.

Now I am starting with the most basic core troop for them - skeletons! Because I have a big unit of them already, I wanted to do something different. The first change was to convert them into halberdiers - making them more similar to the Empire army, on which Lady Sokolov bases her forces. I stole this idea from the 9th age army book for their skeletons - I found that idea really neat and I like halberds too. The second change - I want to flex my freehanding muscles and paint the faction's coat-of-arms on their shields - so I cast copies of Bretonnian shields out of greenstuff for them - a much better canvas than ragged, round shields of normal skeletons. Finally, I will paint them with the Sokolov color scheme, relatively clean and with lots of red - I saw skeletons like that many times and I always wanted to try doing something similar.

I am currently working on some characters for this faction, so that is coming too. I will also do a similar unit of skeleton pikemen for them, but this will probably take some time!

Blood Bowl General Staff - Anirion the Weather Mage

One of the reasons why I love Blood Bowl is how much extras there is to the game - coaches, staff, cheerleaders, markers, inducements, bonuses, dugouts, scoreboards, etc. While it isn't necessary to the game, it's all a great modeling opportunity - or an excuse to paint a model I wouldn't use in my collection otherwise - like the miniature shown below today.

I noticed this guy when I was browsing Reaper Miniature's range some time ago - and I really liked the model, but I couldn't fit him anywhere. Then I remembered a cheap staff member one can employ for a single match - a Weather Mage - added in the Spike! Magazine Vol. 2. The effect of such a mage is negligible in most plays and I don't expect to use him very often, but that was enough for me to buy and paint this model.

The sculpt of the mini is really good, but when it came to painting, I didn't have any idea how to represent a 'weather mage'... After some thinking, I decided on adorning the various layers of his clothes with representations of weather, especially those appearing in Blood Bowl - so his hood represents a nice, blue sky, his cloak - rain, sleeves - snow, and the lower robe - sweltering heat. Everything's kept in a relatively muted palette - as I imagine those not-very-useful and poorly-paid guys to be humble and subdued.

Overall, a very enjoyable painting experience - more unexpected miniatures will follow.

After spending many, many years in the Ulthuan, learning the art of controlling the Winds of Magic, Anirion was ready to join the exclusive society of researchers and mages, working tirelessly to understand the fickle nature of Chaos. Unfortunately, he was so single-minded in his studies, he completely dismissed the networking and soft skills needed to reach the position he dreamed of - no matter how often he tried, he was rejected by the elitist masters. Bitter, but still in need to make a living, he applied for a position of a mage amongst the brutes playing and enjoying Blood Bowl. He never cared for the flashy spells used by the Sports Wizards, so he joined the Weather Mages - changing the monumental forces of weather was something much more fitting for such a skilled adept of magic. Only later he learned that the salary is meager, fame non-existent and the chances for networking slim… Well, at least it’s honest work!

Gudvanger's Homunculi

Back when I was working on Haralamb Gudvanger I added two small 'helpers' on his base to improve the composition a bit and make the base seem less empty. They were made out of some random gnoblars with ghoul heads - and they worked surprisingly well! I thought to myself back then that I could make a whole unit of them, a whole gang of little nice helpers of that pleasant character.

Years later I actually bought some gnoblars and even later than that I finally managed to finish painting them! Gathering some extras from the Ogre kits, bits collections and an actually bought unit, I gathered 30 of them and used almost all of my ghoul heads on them. Beyond that, no conversions were made, so I didn't bother with posting the WIP version.

I went through them a bit rougher and faster than I do on my heroes, but those little buggers still took more time than I expected! During the painting process, they were quite colorful (which worried me a bit) but after several layers of grime, they achieved a proper look. Perhaps even too much - they blend together as a monochrome mass, but I think I can live with that - and I'll leave the judgment to you readers.

Despite the irritating process of painting such a (relatively) big unit, I am pretty happy with them - they kinda look like the creepy 'little men' from the forest - just as it was intended for them.

Anyone unfortunate getting lost in the Black Bog - or foolish enough to wander there of their own volition, will find themselves carefully observed by little men, the homunculi of the foul Flesh-stitcher Haralamb Gudvanger. Created through unclear means and materials, they are his loyal and very nasty servants. They study the newcomers from afar, judging if their body parts or equipment could be useful to their master. If not, the little constructs will try to lead them out of the bog - not without playing some mean tricks on them before, of course. If yes, then the homunculi will torment them for an extended amount of time time, leading through the treacherous bog, before finally descending upon them to literally hack them down to pieces. Besides having sheer numbers, they are also surprisingly strong for their size - they have tricked thus many foolhardy adventurers. Still, they are cowardly by nature and prefer to dispatch intruders by leading them into other, much more dangerous creatures living in the Bog.

First, the whole nasty mass:

And then the individuals (most of them) - they may be small and disposable, but they have enough character to warrant showing them a little more up-close.

Blood Bowl Chaos Renegades - Conversions WIP

New year, new Blood Bowl project! I actually got it half a year ago and only now I finally got around to working on it - and it's still much faster than it usually is with my projects.

This merry bunch here is an Alastoran Malice Team from Greebo Games - made to be used as Chaos Renegades/Chaos Pact team for Blood Bowl - a very hit-and-miss mix of various monsters and creatures. The bulk of the team is made out of standard human marauders, supplemented with a single goblin, elf, orc, skaven (with all their quirks included) and rounded off with an ogre, troll and a minotaur, a triple serving of Big Guys - packing a massive punch, but also very prone to all their negative traits.

I wanted them since I read their rooster and rules for them, and even considered making extensive conversions of GW miniatures, but then I found this exceptional range from Greebo and casually mentioned that it could be a super nice birthday present (which I got, thanks for that!).

Here is the whole team. I tried my best in photoshop, but metal, unpainted miniatures are really hard to photograph well (or at least I cannot do it) - the upcoming painted photos will hopefully remedy that.

And here I showcase all the players that got some conversions. The miniatures are very nice so I left them as they are in most cases, only adding minor flavor or something that signifies their upgrades and mutations.

First, the orc got some disgusting boils, ogre a helmet to make him more sporty and the goblin a second gnoblar head on his back to make him a dodging nightmare for the opposite team. Then, there's a horned skaven, a multi-armed marauder and a wolverine'y marauder with claws. On the final photos, there's a marauder with a mohawk (to remind me that he has the same skill as dwarven slayers), a dark elf with a helmet ornament (to make him similar to the Dreadspear Dragons) and a female marauder that I modified a bit to make her a Thrower.

Once again, sorry for the photos, the glare on that metal is just unbelievable.

Sculpting Tips - Mounted Model's Cape

Two weeks ago I presented you a mounted vampire, Viktor von Greifen - he is a kitbashed model sitting on a horse from a Chaos Lord and I wanted to give him a very similar cape. It took me some time to think out the whole process, but in the end, it wasn't that difficult, so I decided to record and share the process.

I started with the cavalryman completely ready, only without any cape or pauldrons.

A long time ago I thought that sculpting capes is easy - just make a flat shape and let physics do its job. Unfortunately, the physics work a bit differently at this scale and that's not even counting the fact that greenstuff is not a free-flowing fabric. To do it properly, we'll have to cheat and simulate the physics on our own.

I started with creating a flat shape out of greenstuff in the shape that you can see below, with the top part having roughly the same width as the model's shoulders:

Which is then placed on the model like this. You can use some super glue to secure it in place, but with so much area of connection, greenstuff should work fine on its own.

Now it's time for the proper sculpting. Here I was using the big, round clay shaper and the small, round clay shaper, depending on which could fit better. First, I smoothened out the cape along the middle part and made it fall almost completely vertically on the horse - this is the part mostly affected by gravity. When that was done, I took some flat tweezers and stretched the side parts a little - those have a place to flow down a bit. The wind would also move the edges the most, so I flanged them to the back. When the shape was done, I smoothened out any weird wrinkles with the round clay shapers. I also added some extra greenstuff to the left side to make it stand out even more - it was difficult to stretch it even more back then.

If someone wants it quick-and-dirty, this could be a possible step to call it a day and be happy with it.

For anyone wanting something more, it's time to add the parts of the cape that 'pile-up' in the middle (after the previous phase has already cured that is!). I start this step by rolling a long blob of greenstuff and placing it a little to the left, on the arch created by the cape resting on the horse's back.

Then I took the sharp, pointy clay shaper, together with flat, sharp clay shaper and started smoothing the blob out - pressing it against the surface of the cape and bringing out a sharp edge in the 'front'. You can see it illustrated on that section drawing on the right.

When the previous step is done and cured, it's time to do the same thing, only adding the blob a little to the right, overlapping slightly over the middle part with the previous crease and bringing it out to the point too.

This is also a step when I thought to myself that it looks pretty nice already and could work as is it too.

But then, I wanted to make it look like on that Chaos Lord, with the cape having three big, vertical folds that connect the shoulders with the 'pile' down below. I started it by adding three teardrop-shaped blobs on his back, like this:

Now is the hard part, smoothening those blobs together with the rest of the cape - that's a lot of greenstuff to force into rather precise shapes all at once. I was using mostly the flat, sharp clay shaper to press the blobs against the cape, establish the deep creases between them with the edge of the tool and bring out the edges on 'top'. The bottom parts of those folds should come to a pointy triangle (illustrated on the diagram on the right), while the top parts should gradually flatten to merge with the shoulders.

When the previous part was well established, I took the flat, sharp clay shaper's edge and marked extra triangles on the bottom of the folds (illustrated with a red line on the picture above) and pressed the parts below it to create an 'intermediate' part between the vertical folds and the pile below. I also used the big, round clay shaper to flatten out the top parts even more.

I wanted to cover the shoulders with some pauldrons, skulls and other details, so I needed the cape over there to be flat, but if someone's doing it cape-only, then the creases should be translated into further folds that will go over the shoulders. I added a rough sketch over the photo to illustrate how I would do it - mostly creating folds and creases in the same way as we did so far.

While this whole part was still at least a bit soft, it was time to add the pauldrons. I simply pressed them into the greenstuff over there and when I was satisfied with their position, I added extra creases that would be created by the pressure created by those pieces - using the edge of the pointy sculpting tool, allowing for some finer touches. Pressure applied to a small area on fabrics tends to create creases radiating from the point of pressure - like I illustrated with the arrows.

With the greenstuff partially cured, it's a good time to revisit the earlier parts with the flat, sharp clay shaper to smooth out any irregularities and sharpen the edges - not-so-fresh greenstuff is a bit better at holding an edge.

And that's basically it, ready to cover any questionable parts with fur or skulls or any extra knick-knacks. Feel free to ask any questions.

Blood Bowl Star Player - Tolly Glocklinger

First post since moving back to Poland, after five years in Germany! Thankfully I prepared a small backlog to secure regular postings here during this chaotic period.

Regardless, it's time for the Nurgle Star Players for Blood Bowl - I converted/kitbashed 4 of them some time ago (you can see the WIPs HERE) and now they are getting painted. I did good Tolly first because I really liked how he turned out and because I wanted to use him in the game as soon as possible! He is a rather cheap Star Player with a 'Ball and Chain' skill, allowing him to really smash around his opponents around (with some extra randomness involved). The use of such weapons is disallowed, so one has to add some bribes for the referees to his cost to really get the most out of him.

The color scheme was chosen to fit my Putrid Punters team - so yellowish flesh, dark/black armor, and green clothes, with all the extra slime and blood that comes with Nurgle. I could exercise the last part here a little more because of Tolly's choice of the chain for his weapon.

Tolly’s story as a circus strongman and a musician turned into a Blood Bowl star is well known in the current Blood Bowl world. Even Putrid Punters remember the powerful player from before their last warp-jump. They always thought of him fondly because of his background - back in their early days, ‘Blood Bowl and circuses’ was a well-known phrase describing the folk’s important needs! Now, when the rematch with the Dreadspear Dragons was drawing near, the Punters’ coach started thinking about employing Tolly for a match or two, hoping the star could be interested in listening to the tales about ancient circuses and arenas (besides the usual monetary encouragement of course).

Also, trying to create something for the little competition on Carpe Noctem, I sculpted a Santa hat for him, so he can be jolly and jingle his bells around, fitting with the current season.

Viktor von Greifen, Captain of the Prenzlauer Guard - WIP

The Prenzlauer Guard are one of the oldest miniatures that I have in my undead collection - which means that they grew to look a bit dated to me - and I think about repainting them to my current standards from time to time. This would mean not painting new things and not moving forward, so I never actually did it. An opportunity showed itself when I found a Chaos Lord horse cheaply on ebay - it has a similar style to the Chaos Knights that I used last time, so it was perfect. Besides, I love that model. I decided to kitbash on it a leader for that unit, allowing me to try doing another take on a chaos-based-vampire.

In the end, the kitbash ended looking very similar to the original Lord - he is made mostly out of Skullcrusher bits, with a head from the Terrogheist kit, a big hammer and a shield and a cloak (which will be on the next installment of Sculpting Tips). After starting with Instagram I also found tons of cool kitbashing inspiration - and that's why he has so many little details hanging around, I love that style. It's still quite reserved, though - I will try doing something much more cluttered in the future.