Gnasher herd #6 – Squigs and prodders

Here’s more gnashers and a new prodder team for the herd.

These three are going to be placed on a four by four base, just so to break up the ranking and hide a little of the repeat sculpts.  I’m almost done with the WFB squigs and I’ll get a group shot as soon as possible.

This prodder team was properly basecoated and was nicer to paint than the previous one. I find the gesture of the sculpt very effective. I kept the skin very natural and had another go at the subtle cartoonish grey NMM, adding some barely visible lines here and there.

All in all I’m pretty satisfied. Been busy, though. So expect some new members of the herd, but not too soon.

Until next time!

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Gnasher herd #5 – Gobbla’s finishing touches

Just a quick before / after shot of the final highlights and glazes on Gobbla.

Here you can see that I did some orange textured highlighting on the area of the face, plus some work on the lower lip and gums.

And here, despite the fact that both pictures suck, you can see I brought out the shadows and highlights on the tail, blended the pink veins with red a little, highlighted the pale skin on the belly, etc.

The back is a bit messy, also because of the sculpt, but all in all I’m really pleased with the front, the upper part especially.

’till next time!

Gnasher herd #4 – Rackham goblin prodder

I hardly need excuses to bring another Rackham model in the Orc & Goblins project, but this one is simply perfect as one of the handlers in the gnasher herd.

It’s bigger than the other goblins, so you’ll have to assume that he has managed to survive his extremely precarious line of work for some time and made a profit. Apart from this it ticks all the boxes: it fills the base space of a prodder team perfectly, has a pointy stick and, on top of that, is well protected by armour, which is surely one of the reasons why he’s still alive. I can definitely see him pushing the bouncy red mayhem through the tunnels. The cap and bells is fitting enough, as you can imagine squigs being chased on by noise and I also have a few other models banging cymbals and blowing bagpipes to stress the idea.

As you can see, I went for NMM, but lighter on the whole than what I did before on the goblin king with the big mace. I think this works better, and it’s also easier to pull off. It may be more cartoonish than realistic, but that’s ok for orcs and goblins – my main concern is for the whole army to be colorful, yet more or less cohesive. I tried out some pure yellow glazes here and there and they look alright suggesting some reflectiveness without going too chalky. The NMM can still be improved… but I think I’m improving!

Another reason I like the sculpt is  a certain Brian Freud feel… is it just me or did you get it too?

’till next time!

Bundle purchase

Given the monumental scale of my lead pile, I usually forbid myself to buy new minis. If this post is here it’s because I just received an exception in my mailbox – in the form of a apparently haphazard bundle of Rackham miniatures – and wanted to share (literally, you’ll see) some of it with you.

There’s three Keltois warriors, one with a nasty break at the ankles. When I was a kid I had won a small painting prize with a miniature from the same army and it would be nice to try painting one again and see the improvement. Here it is.

Plus, I’m toying with a rules set in which Nordic barbarians feature prominently, so at some point I will put them to use…

Next, a bombastic fellow who is definitely losing the staff in his right arm (picture the blade as a goblin moon symbol) and serve as a necromancer, or losing both staffs and the sword and end up as a sacrificial victim.

The little one, instead, will make a nice addition on a corpse cart or some unit filler for the undead.

This other tiny mini is quite hilarious – I don’t have an idea for it yet, but it will definitely look nice as part of a big model, maybe even trying to pull the ax out of a wound on a big monster.

These two little devils with a lantern are going to be a fantastic addition to my devil-themed ungors. I could have bought the set just for this model!

Finally, two figures I can easily integrate in the ongoing orcs & goblins project: the goblin with the blunderbuss can substitute a goblin knight on a giant rat I already have and serve as a character with the Skull splitter magic weapon; the other one I can put on a chariot (he is sitting, in case you were wondering, I just propped him up so you can see the sculpt better).

This guy instead, a perfect forest goblin chieftain, is a double – I already have one and I won’t be converting it or painting it twice. So, to celebrate my good luck in finding such a good bargain for all these nice miniatures, and to thank you for reading the post to its end, I’m going to ship it for free to any of you readers expressing an interest!

Step right up!

 

Gnasher herd #3 – Gobbla WIP

Almost done… but could not quite make it in time for the Monday deadline.

Who ate the tooth fairy?

Still, I don’t mind dedicating two posts to this gnarly sculpt representing Goblin warlord Skarsnik’s favourite pet.

I still have to try to remove the chalkiness from the bigger teeth, smooth out the colour transitions on the tail, highlight the belly and push up the highlights on the gums, skin and pimples. And the base, of course…

Skin cream maybe?

This is going on a somewhat scenic base taking up the space of 4 regular cave gnashers, bringing the unit count to 12/40. I hope I’ll be able to finish before mid September, but I’ll have to pick  up the pace

‘Till next time!

Gnasher herd #2 – Gnashers and prodder team

Work, paperwork, and more work had me miss my Monday deadline, but here I am!

First, an old prodder team. As you can see from the first picture, the model wasn’t in great conditions – I think that was the second white undercoat after a couple of botched paint jobs years and years ago. I did what I can, without spending on it too much time – I like the shade on the stick and the simple nmm on the trident head. Anyway, I’ll have to paint another identical team toward the end of the project, which is in slightly better condition.

Up here, two more single-base old squig models. I tried some barely visible pink glaze on the right one’s outcropping veins, kept the skin shading as smooth as possible – again without going crazy on it – and gave some more love to the teeth.

Next, sir Gobbla in its earliest incarnation! (Let’s hope I find the time…)

 

Gnasher herd #1 – Gnashers test group

The next cave goblin unit I’m going to be working on for the 9th age incarnation of my longstanding, unpainted, first army is a gnasher herd – in oldspeak, a horde of night goblin squig hunters.

In this test group I tried out the colour scheme and a technique for the skin that is fast enough but does not compromise on the smoothness.

Chew chew, gobble gobble!

I always loved this unit as a player: two strength 5 weapon skill 4 attacks from each squig in the first rank had always been sheer evil and now, in horde formation and with the new rules that make the unit immune to psychology, they have gotten even better. Plus, since it’s not a very common unit, it often brings to it the added benefit of surprise.

From a modelling and painting perspective too, it’s a potentially very rewarding unit. I have a mix of old 1990s models and some new models from the 2000s, and though the later are clearly better, both have their charms. On top of that, I’m going to use a few Rackham goblin mutants models both as squig substitutes and as alternative handlers (or prodders, as they were called). So, I will be going for a “weird things from the caves” theme, not with a gnasher herd proper, but I’ll still be able to field a smaller unit of pure squigs and goblin handlers.

In order to reach 40 models, but more importantly in order not to crowd together the models too much, I’m going to use a few unit fillers and bases of different sizes.

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The tongue on this one is oddly sculpted: I tried to draw some red inside the maws to suggest that the tongue is actually continuing over there and not just popping out of the teeth as it would otherwise have seemed. Apart from this, it is a great sculpt and a real pleasure to paint.

Number two is one of the old models. You can see that the skin scheme works for it as well – though the red / white works better on the newer squigs. I still added some turquoise in the teeth base colour – as I did for the little squig coming with the goblin horde champion – but toned it down with gray and black, so it’s there bringing a little coolness, but without making the teeth look too weird.

I really like to paint red on a purple base, and I’m going quite often for purple shadows across the whole goblins project. I’m rather pleased with this one’s lower lip, I’ll try to repeat the effect on the other models as well, but it’s more difficult with the 90s squigs, who have very thick lips and “blocky” gums.

Finally, I chose this one for the test group because of the scales or spikes on the back and there are two more squig models (the old Gobbla and one of the newer set) that have a lot of “bone” on them as well, which I’m planning to do more or less like the scales. I might push the contrast more, but it might also be ok like this I still have to decide. I mixed some purple in the brown base and that worked out very well.

I will go with similar bases to those of the cave goblin horde of course (still working on them!), but probably put more dark coloured rocks, both for contrast with the red of the gnashers’s skin and because they dwell in deeper caves than even cave goblins do.

That’s all for today. Next one prodder team and two more old-school squigs.