Next in line...

Quick post - I love the Easter weekend, a 4 day weekend with not much going on - plenty of time to relax and do some painting...

As you can see, Smerc the thief is finished, I won't go into too many details as he's painted in exactly the same way as the rest of the warband (see previous posts) - another quick and dirty paint job, but he does the trick.  Having searched through the Stuff of Legends website (for ages), I've found out that he was originally a "Tomb Robber" (bottom group on that page).  You'll notice that Ifil Ironwolf from a previous post is entitled "Judicial Champion".

I'm really happy that I've found a use for these old miniatures - they would have stayed in a box unpainted, and that would have been a real shame, The next four are shown here ready for priming:

From left to right:

• Halnir, the final member of Brevik's Marauders for now, a swordsman wearing a wolf skin 
• Albrecht von Krull, mercenary captain, leader of the Shadow Company mercenaries (I reckon this miniature was the inspiration for the Knights of the White Wolf).  He has history with the Marauders and will provide plenty of plot hooks.
• Drago, Albrecht's right hand man
• The Necromancer - heart of darkness, soul of evil, he's going to be a classic necromancer in every way (more undead on the way too).

Also, I've put together my next Malifaux miniature, the Guild Guard Captain, mounted on another Malcontent base:

The colours will match the lawyer from the previous post.  There's also a load more on the go too, which I need to crack on with, as it's only 2 weeks until the Ancible team invade Salute 2012!

As always, comments and criticism welcome!

Brevik's Marauders: Basic Warband Complete

So, maybe a day earlier than expected, my fledgling warband is complete.  It's only the start though as I'm having a few ideas about some extra characters, but Brevik Dragonslayer and his small group are ready for the fight (not bad for a quick and dirty paint job).

I hope they give off the "classic" fantasy look I was aiming for.  I've tried to avoid the "Grimdark" look I seem to veer towards on a lot of my miniatures, and intentionally kept things a bit brighter.  The first step in doing this was to use a grey undercoat - I don't know why I don't use this more often.  This was particularly good for models with a lot of exposed skin, fur and iron/steel detail (so...barbarians then).

The gold and iron are pretty much my standard way of doing things, the only slight difference with the iron was that I blended in some Charadon Granite as an extra shadow in places (e.g. Brevik's sword near the hilt).  I tried to keep the gold as bright as possible, to act as the bright points on the miniatures.

The skin was pretty straight forward on all the models:

• Base:  Tallarn Flesh
• Shade:  A sparing wash of Ogryn Flesh (on Breggan and Juggo this was Gryphonne Sepia, but I wanted them to have a slightly different flesh tone)
• H1:  Tallarn Flesh
• H2:  1:1 mix of Tallarn Flesh and P3 Ryn Flesh
• H3:  Ryn Flesh

On Mad Ulf the wash went on a little too heavy, and the highlights aren't as neat as they should be, but on the rest it works pretty well, even really close up.

This was my first proper attempt at stubble (they're barbarians, when do they get time to shave?), and it worked better on Ifil, than it did on Ulf and Brevik, but it's pretty easy to do:

• Base:  1:1 mix of Adeptus Battlegrey and Tallarn Flesh
• Shade:  Diluted Devlan Mud - this was important to tone down the grey and blend it in to the skin colour
• Highlight:  1:1 mix of Tallarn Flesh and Codex Grey

The jewels on the helm were tiny, and I nearly painted them as iron studs, but decided it was worth the effort to paint them as jewels.  I didn't give them a coat of gloss varnish this time, as I'm not convinced it helps.

For Breggan and Juggo's hair, and Mad Ulf's cloak, I went for the wash and careful drybrush approach - you can probably guess Khemri Brown, Devlan Mud and Dheneb Stone were used. ;)

There are a couple more characters to add, a Thief/Rogue type and a Sorceror, once those are done I'll post them up with more of the back story.

As always, comments and criticism welcome!

Breggan and Juggo finished

I had a fairly productive weekend, and the first two of my barbarian warband for "Get the Girl, Kill the Baddies" are finished.  I didn't spend a huge amount of time on them, so they're not great works of art, but I'm really pleased with them, and they have tons of character.  After a bit of practice I've finally got the colour balance malarkey sorted out on my camera, next it's time to work on the focusing... 

Breggan and Juggo

So, here is a little classic (i.e. cliched) barbarian back story:

In the dense pine forests of the North, in a village in the shadow of the Shadow Mountains, twin boys were born.  The first to arrive, Breggan, was born healthy and strong and survived his first winters with little ill health.  Juggo however was born stunted and sickly and barely survived his first four seasons.  Much to his parents surprise he did survive, but as he grew, they realised he would forever be "deformed", stocky in build, but short in stature.  Mother and father counted their blessings though, for so few children survived the cold of the north.


In the exceptionally harsh winter of the boys eighth year, their village was attacked by mercenaries thirsting for revenge after being defeated in the Iron wars.  A few villagers fled into the forest, but the boys parents were cut down trying to defend their home, and alongside a few other children, they were captured  as slaves.  Like most slaves at the time, the children were taken to the great quarries, the source of rock for the new fortress in the mountains. The hard work made them strong and robust, and in their seventeenth year, the brothers were bought by a local lord, to fight in the gladiatorial arenas.


Here they learned to fight with swords and axes, and they formed a formidable partnership.  "The Bear and the Dwarf", were first laughed at, but became feared in the Black Colosseum and Arenas of the North and South.  It was in the Colosseum that they met Mad Ulf, and from there the story will continue...

OK, so not a great work of fiction by any stretch of the imagination, but it's fun to write some back story.  There's a couple of good "campaign hooks" in there, with some real cause for revenge, and several reasons for them to go off rescuing people.

I've nearly finished Ifil Ironwolf (just needs grass on the base), and I've made a good start on both Ulf and Brevik.  Hopefully I'll have them all finished by the weekend.  I'm in crazy new project mode at the moment, where my head suddenly fills up with ideas, so I need to get some stuff finished...

As always, comments and criticism welcome!