Elves and Spiders and The Vulture Legion

I haven't posted much recently but I've painted a fir bit. I keep putting off posting things so that I can make each post a bit more interesting. So I've been putting things aside and now I have a whole bunch of stuff finished.

First! ~ I finished a box of Oathmark Elves. The unarmored/light elf box. These are great figures and I wish I had made all the armoured elves to be spearmen but I did some of them as archers. I would prefer to use these unarmoured figures for missile troops and keep the armoured figures as heavy infantry. But too late now, I have a mix of each. Maybe one more box of armoured and one more of unarmoured and I'll have enough elves to call them an army (at the moment I have enough to call them a pretty large warband).

I made them up as 16 archers (two lots of 8) and one group of 12 swordsmen/medium infantry (so I have two left overs). I made the banner with strips of thin plasti-card. I'm not really happy with the design or colour but it's okay. The shield devices are left over 15mm Macedonian shield decals.

A few weeks ago I painted a couple of giant spiders and a couple of days ago I painted some more. After the first few came out okay, I put out the word that I was after some more of these GW things and a friend from my club, Ants' had some spare figures on hand. Thank you very much! I've said it before: I am a hopeless arachnophobe and even half decent models of spiders scare the crap out of me. However, these figures don't. For some reason they look, to me, like stylized crabs and I'm okay with crabs.

So, I wanted something to act as cavalry to go with my orcs and these fit the bill perfectly. As it is the more I can get the better because I'll turn them into a nice big evil cavalry element. Goblins on wargs is so predictable nowadays.

And then... I painted more Granbretanian Vulture Legion figures. I did some previously and I've had a bunch of them sitting on my bench for a while. These figures are not easy to paint. They could be easy if you wanted to paint them all the same colour but I don't want that. I designed and sculpted these figures for Eureka a few years back and my concept for them was that they should look like Landsknecht mercenaries. In Moorcock's Hawkmoon books, from whence they originate, they are Muscovite mercenaries so the tip-of-the-hat to Landknecht seemed fitting. But it does make them bloody difficult to paint.

When they are put together they look really colourful and a bit crazy. But that's how they're supposed to look. I've got a bit more of a handle on how to approach painting them now which makes it easier. Instead of trying to batch paint them 6, 8 10 or 12 at a time they need to be done 2 or 3 at a time otherwise the individual colours get overwhelming and it's hard to keep up with what I've done and what I need to do.

Anyway, I now have 24 of them which is enough to fill 3 sabot bases or enough for 3 units of warriors for Saga ~ AoM. Whenever I can manage to get back to Eureka I'll see about getting more of these. At least enough to make up another few bases as well as a unit or two of their "flame lances" to add some ranged weapons to their ranks. 

Here they are ranked up on some sabot bases. I think they look better this way. One thing however; these figures are hefty and they make the sabot bases pretty heavy. If you just go by weight alone, then these guys mean real business!

It's all bull, I'm tellin' ya!

I'm locked away like everyone else with the difference being that semi-isolation is my usual state of being. Which, if you've ever wondered, is why I manage to get quite a bit of modeling and wargaming stuff done so quickly when I put my mind into it.

So, what have I got that's new?

I have a bunch of Bull Legion Infantry. What are these you may ask? I sculpted these for Eureka a few years back for their Moocock/Hawkmoon range. I've had a couple of hese sitting on my desk for a couple of years with the intent to paint them and I finally did. I decided a half dozen would make a good Elite Foot unit for Dragon Rampant. Heavily armoured guys with big hammers.

They are fairly hefty figures, all armed with heavy striking weapons like hammers and axes. But there's only three variants. The one with his weapon over his shoulder has empty hands and can be fitted with various weapons. He comes with the hammer as shown but I did make a weapon sprue with a 2 handed sword, battle axe, spear and a basic flamelance.

I also made up a couple of extra Oathmark orc archers to make up a 12 figure unit of bow (or two 6 figure scout units). Like the others that I did a few weeks back, these have been painted fast and rough because I think this style gives them a course and dirty, orcish look.

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I also started a new blog - If you look above at the heading you can see a new button called A Ranger of Shadow Deep. Clicking the button leads to a separate blog where I'm going to chronicle my Rangers of Shadow Deep solo campaign. It seems I chose the right time to start solo wargaming.

The Rosy Knight & the Autumn Elf

Roses are red,
Dragons are blue.
And elves can be dressed in their fine autumn hues.

As usual I have a bunch of figures from variety from a few different sources. All of them are very nice and some came as a bit of a surprise and turned out better than I expected.

So, I may as well start from the top with this lovely model from Reaper. Once again this is a Bones figure. For the low cost you can't go wrong & the ease of working with the Bones material made this an absolute dream to work on.

I already had a good idea of the colour I wanted to paint the knight. It was just a matter of taking the plunge and hoping it would work out okay. On the other hand, I took a fair bit of time to work out what colour to paint the dragon and after looking at a whole bunch of art work I decided on blue. I was keen on green but thought it might just blend in with the other greenish creatures I've already done for my army, so blue it was to be.

This lady is destined to be a champion for my Army of Faerie ~ The Rosy Knight and Blue Flame (the dragon name is apt to change at this stage).

The Autumn Elf is a is a really nice Reaper metal figure. I did get a couple of other Bones elf archer figures and they're not very good. Well, not as good as I expect. This one, on the other hand, is beautiful. I don't recall what the real name of this figure is but I decided to paint him a bit different to the regular green/brown/grey ranger pallet. The forest isn't always green so I chose a different season for this guy. So that's how he became The Autumn Elf. 

This is going to be my character for Rangers of Shadow Deep.

These next figures are from Eureka. They are part of their Moorcock/Hawkmoon range. In the past I did sculpt some of the figures for this range but I didn't sculpt these ones. They're really nice and I've had them for a while. I think they'll make really nice men-at-arms types for Frostgrave or RoSD.

The captain is a very nice figure. I think he's a bit plain for use as a character figure but as far as a Frostgrave or RoSD captain, or any other sort of fantasy Captain of the Guard role he's perfect. 

More Vultures and a Wolf

Here's some more of the Moorcock/Hawkmoon figures.

This is the first Wolf Legion figure I've painted. It was interesting trying to do black on top of black on top of black. He came out okay but looks a lot better in the flesh.

The Carrion are Gathering

After my last effort to paint up a bunch of forgotten figures I decided to go one step further and revisit some figures that have been sitting, undercoated and part painted, on my table for a few years.

The figures below are from the time when I started this blog. They're some samples of the Moorcock Hawkmoon/Granbretan figures that I made for Eureka Miniatures. I made somewhere between 50 to 60 figures and they were never officially released. I'm unsure of the reason why.

Anyway, I had these ones sitting on my desk so I brushed the dust off them and gave them a paint job. I think I might get more of them and make a Dragon Rampant sized fantasy army. I'm also wondering if I should expand the range - Between these guys and the Prussian Landwehr from last week, I may just get my sculpting mojo back again.

These figures are from the Vulture Legion - A mercenary band that wear vulture masked helmets. In the Hawkmoon world the Granbretanian Empire all wear animal masks for some class related reason. I've seen a few other people's take on these figures (don't get me wrong, many of them did get sold regardless of official release) and they've all done them with dark (evil) pallets. I sculpted them with outlandish colour in mind. Something like the colours of landsknecht during the Renaissance with a bit of a Medieval feel. So I painted them as they should be painted ~ Colourful!

I've prepped another batch with different weapons. The original idea was to make them so that whole battalions of pike blocks and other weapons could be fielded. These ones below have a scythe weapon. This is not something mentioned in the novels but more of a signature weapon for the miniatures range. It looks pretty cool but would probably be completely useless in reality.

A minor leader type.

Hawkmoon Redux

I'm getting ready for a sales day at my wargaming club this coming weekend. Whilst sorting through the vast amount of wargames junk I've accumulated over the years I discovered a bag full of metal figures. Amongst this treasure trove of delight (most of which is destined for the sales table) I discovered a few castings of a figure that I made for Eureka Miniatures several years ago.

For those unaware, this blog started as a diary of my miniature sculpting (thus the 28mm title). I made a whole bunch of figures for Eureka for a range of figures based on author, Michael Moorcock's Hawkmoon series of books (The Jewel in the Skull, The Mad God's Amulet, etc.). The figure I found was an unreleased figure of the main character Dorian Hawkmoon.

So I decided to paint him up to see how he came out. I think he looks pretty nice and I'm happy that I found him. Well.. several of him!

There be Dragons (Rampant Ones)

Well I relented and, out of sheer boredom, I downloaded Dragon Rampant by Dan Mersey on my Kindle.

And I really like it!

I've played his other game Lion Rampant quite a bit and Dragon is, of course, pretty much the same game but with a fantasy element added. What I liked in the reading was the old D&D feel of the whole thing. I use to be a big fan of fantasy wargaming but I've been very put off in recent decades by something that I can't quite place my finger on.

So, I decided to make a warband based on the Granbretan figures that I made for Eureka. It even inspired me out of my long time funk to start sculpting them again. So there will be more figures to add to the list in the future.

Anyway, I decided to start by finishing off this little chap that has been sitting on my painting table for the last 12 months or more. He was 99% finished and only needed a couple of dashes of paint, some varnish and a nice base. He is Astrovak Mikosovar, leader of the Vulture Legion and he'll be the commander of my first Dragon Rampant warband.

Hawkmoon ~ New sculpt

Well folks, Christmas was busy and I managed to sculpt a whole bunch of Runestaff figures. Unfortunately the breakdown of my pc and the loss of photoshop means that I didn't manage to get any pics of them. I made an Order of the Wolf foot knight, Baron Kalan - Master of Time, the final Vulture Legion troops and modified the Vulture cavalry (they now have wings like the medieval Polish Hussars).

However, today I finished Dorian Hawkmoon, Duke of Koln and got a couple of decent pics (using a different editing program). I think Hawkmoon is going to be a controversial figure as most folks are going to have a very specific idea of how he should look. Keep in mind that this is Hawkmoon arrayed for battle.

I tend to think of Hawkmoon as a pretty tough customer. Unlike many of Moorcock's heroes, for the most part he only has his wits, fortitude and his combat skills as a to rely on. It's not until later that he weilds the Sword of the Dawn. With this in mind I made him look like he was ready for a fight.

I decided to make his armour very different to anyone else in order to make him stand out & his helmet makes him appear quite tall (but he's still smaller than my thumb). He has a mix of armour from a pseudo 2-piece sculpted torso (ancient) to chainmail and bronze scalemail. The helmet is more reminiscent of the Renaissance (or maybe a Napoleonic dragoon). On the other hand his shield is more like that of an ancient Greek hoplite.

A strange mix, certainly. But he is a fantasy character and should look like one.

He is a two part sculpt: Body and shield arm.

(there is a blob of blutac holding his shield arm in place)