Collecting John Pickford: OSM presents Ewal Dvergar

Art by Mustafa Bekir (Spevna Studio) ©Old School Miniatures

This one here, today, is a bit special to me. Some of yAwou are well aware that I had my own little miniature venture into miniature design and manufacturing going. The project has been focused on creating a private army of evil dwarves sculpted by John Pickford - I've called them the Ewal Dvergar.

It was always a private project, but there's been a growing interest in getting these miniatures, a demand I was not capable of fulfilling. So, about a year ago I made a deal with Old Schools Miniatures (OSM) and gave them the license to manufacture and sell all the evil dwarfs sculpted by John Pickford as they complement OSM existing Chaos Dwarfs range very well

OSM is now live on Kickstarter raising money to complete this transfer and put them into full production and to give them a broad availability.

New gun-line

Nothing really significant here, but more volunteers have how joined the Chaos Dwarf Grenadiers - finished a rank of five Ewal Dvergar with guns - all sculpted by John Pickford, of course.

To my surprise, they are actually the first Ewal Dvergar with guns I've done! I would have sworn I've painted more, but apparently not. So, rather than mixing these in with my old Citadels, Twisted Tales and my own first dodgy attempts of sculpting, this will become front rank in a new unit of ten gunners, I think. Should I add a musician and banner bearer? Hmm, maybe I should ...

Ewal Dvergar: EDC-04 Core warriors with guns

A pair of Sjoerd Trouwee sculpts converted and painted

And speaking of Sjoerd Trouwee's return... 😀

Those of you following his blog: Evil Little Buggers would already know this, but those who don't, here's something quite special. The started of a hole batch of new chaos dwarf sculpts 😮 Not seen since the days of Twisted Tales.

Recently, Sjoerd made a decision to finish what Aly Morrison started back in 1990 when he began creating the Marauder Miniatures MM90 - Chaos Dwarfs range - and that's to do a mini-me version of 27 specific Citadel Chaos Warriors - all sketched by Aly many years ago. You can ready all about the start of this journey here and you can follow progress on his blog and on CDO, here.

Sjoerd has complete four of the dwarfs already and he is currently working on another two - and I can't held off from showing them here as well - brilliant, brilliant works😍 Hopefully these will all be moulded and get cast.

So, offered the prospect of new Sjoerd Trouwee miniatures I've decided to start practising painting his sculpts (again).

Colour of Magic

About a year ago (December 2017) John began sculpting me a pair of wizards that I could use for my Ewal Dvergar venture.
Like always, the project ended up like a jigsaw puzzle with lots of heads and hands to play around with and it's take a bit of time getting it all finished. But the miniatures has finally been cast up and its time to show you all, what I did to them.

So here the are - the brand new Ewal Patriarch and Acolyte - and if you'd like to see more, take a look here: http://claminiatures.blogspot.com/2019/01/new-castings-has-arrived.html


Ewal Dvergar: EDP-30 Acolyte

A wierd creature called Finngálkin

Those of you that follow my adventure into miniatures making will know today's painted piece, as it has already been released as part of my Ewal Dvergar project.

This one is a rather strange creature. Definitely not a classic evil dwarf creature being part Dvergr, part Pony - cause yes, he is actually a "pony centaur" - I know, a  rather stupid concept isn't it?

Back in 2005, when I returned to the Chaos Dwarfs (after abandoning them in the mid '90s), Like many, I began scratch build Chaos Dwarfs from WFB 6th edt. Battle for Skull Pass (BfSP) dwarfs.

I was rather hooked on the project but it lacked a good alternative for the elite cavalry. Some began using the Bull Centaurs from the 5th edt Big Hats but I'd never really fancied the cow-approach to Chaos Dwarfs and I didn't really think it matched the cheap, scratch building, diy BfSP-Chaos Dwarfs army project, so I started looking into alternatives.
I played around with Goblin Wolves and Orc Boars, but I never found a strong enough concept. I began looking at what others have done and saw they had turned their eyes at the pony wagons found in both the BfSP and GW Dwarf Miners boxes. I've seen much during those years, but I think the idea of a "Pony Centaur" was what nailed it and made me bag the scratch building project for good and made me start re-collecting the true original chaos dwarfs/mini chaos warriors again (those Citadel and Marauder Miniatures made in the mid/late'80s) again. Pony Centaurs .... that's the stupidest idea I'd ever heard of - and definitely hadn't anything to do with evilness and chaos (IMHO) :-)

During the Ewal Dvergar devolepment I've spoke with John Pickford about making centaurs for my project - and I was rather choked when he dared suggesting: "Pony Centaurs". At the time he and White Knight was building the wonderful Dwarf Pony Cavalry and as he had some left overs laying around, John asked me to sent my favourite Ewal Dwarf body, and he'd prove that the concept could work.

Out of that came Finngálkin  - and with the permission from White Knight this beauty has been borned:

And it certainly forced me to eat my words again as I think John really got the best out of it - helped along with the humours Cow-masked and Pony-visored helmets. Absolutely brilliant.

Clam Mini: Finngálkin

Arnórr - Evil berserker

I'm really enjoying painting with my new Rosemary & Co, Pure Kolinsky, Series 33 brushes and I have also put paint to Arnórr, the Ewal Beserkr - an evil warrior John Pickford have sculpted for my range of Ewal creatures.

Arnórr is sculpted in a true old school style and I love his heroic proportions and straighten looks a lot. And it wouldn't be a Pickford-miniature without signature demonic faces on it. John managed to fit 6 of them on this small guy - Impressive - and mad it even more fun painting :)

John did me 3 heads for this one. I went for the Spatan styled helmet on this one, but tempted to try do all 3.

Clam Mini: Arnórr, Ewal Beserkr

Ich bin geil, Rana Geil

Sorry about the title, but it was so obvious :)

I've been painting the Space Pirate/Bounty Hunter Sjoerd Trowee did for me, or actually did back in 2014 for the Froth Eisley sculpting competition (the Forthers United (FU UK!) Sculpting Competition), but later offered on to me. The miniature were mastered last year, but added to an empty slot in the production mould I've just have had made.

It's a nice, but also very clean miniature by Sjoerd and I really found him hard painting. Not sure if it's the "cleanness" or just that I'm feeling rather rusty when it comes to painting Sci-Fi miniatures. And using bright colours too, didn't help at all. But I've added some dirt and battle damage to it covering up the most dodgy paintings and obvious mistakes - and a nice busy base, to steal a bit of focus, always helps :)

Clam Minis: Rana Geil

Ayone no of the faith of the other Froth Eisley entries? Were any of the other lovely entries ever cast up and made commercially available? I'd definitely like to here about it, if so.

Till next time, take care.

Clam

Dwarf Parthfinder

I've had the brushes out for the first time in ages - and rather than finishing some of the many half-painted ones standing here, I decided starting a newly cast piece - The EDX-90 Dvergr Mountaineer from my own Ewal Dvergar range.

I sculpted this miniature myself and had it cast recently. It's always special holding a newly cast miniature in your hand, you have spent hours sculpting yourself - even more weird putting your brush to it .... actually quite a scary feeling, it is...

But mission completed - and here he is - first miniature of 2017. Hope you like it :)

Clam Minis: EDX-90 Dvergr Mountaineer

Collecting John Pickford: Arnórr and Finngálkin

A shameless plug for my own little miniature venture as I've just made another two Pickford sculpts available and I have taken delivery of a limited quantity of Arnórr - an evil human warrior (Ewal Besekr) and Finngálkin - a dwarfish centaur creature.

Clam Minis: Arnórr - Ewal Beserkr 

Arnórr is a Pickford classic. A heroic scaled evil human dressed up with lots of classic Pickford demonic face all over and a awesome living war hammer - and comes with 3 choices of helmets.


Clam Minis: Finngálkin - Ewal Dvergr Centaur

Finngálkin is a evil centaur creature raised from the furnace of doom. The Centaur is a mix of dwarf and pony and comes with two animal themed visor helmets - bull and pony.

Thanks to White Knight Miniatures Imperium for allowing this to happens.

You find these and a couple of release here at: http://claminiatures.blogspot.dk/2017/02/february-releases.html

Pucks

Finished these two the other day - or is it four?

Back in 2007 the Frother’s Unite Community ran their 4th Pro-Am Sculpting Competition. The theme for this on was, as it always is, a very open theme trying not to limit the sculptor's creativity. The 2007 Competition theme was: "The Unseelie Suspects or the dark side of Faeryland" and sculptors where to do fantasy characters, spirits and creatures with inspiration taken from the classic folklore and fairy tale without going Disney.

A young sculptor named John Pickford entered this competition and was competing in the "Satyrs and woodland spirits" category.

For this category John did a entry called "Puck's Dance" - a diorama piece with roots in classic English folklore and Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" - but with the usually little twist of evilness and humour that is seen on many Pickford sculpts. Puck was inspired by Neil Gaiman's "the Sandman" - in here Puck aids the Norse God Loki in kidnapping Daniel, and am playing a small role in the death of the Sandman.

The main figure is Puck, dancing on a rock, his true nature is revealed from behind.

With him are Peaseblossom on lute and Mustard Seed on trumpet, who provide the music for Puck's Dance.

The three of them are dancing and playing on what appears to be a pile of rocks and don't pay notice of the true inhabitant of the rock, who has safely hidden himself inside.

Clam Minis: Puck's Dance

  

The diorama was mastered back in 2007, and the rights for it given to White Knight. Peaseblossom and Mustard Seed has already been released by White Knight Miniatures, but he never did the hole piece. However, in 2014 White Knight offered me the chance of releasing the hole piece - didn't hesitate a second. And can be found at The Old Bag, now.

With the one existing master cast I got from WK came a variant head for Puck. I've cast it, though Puck is a single-piece cast. On a spare cast, I gently did the head swap and I have also painted the variant.

Son's of Siegward

As summer is still not on the cards, I don't have to feel guilt siting inside. And what better is there to do, than paint some of the latest casts from my own miniature project - and for a change it's not some of the Ewal Dvergar, but miniatures from the new Son's of Siegward - sculpted by Sjoerd Trouwee.

The Son's of Siegward is a small range of mutant stunties with special powers/abilities and will all be added as characters in my always growing Chaos Dwarves.

First, we have Grinner Dragarm. Grin has been gifted with immunity and immortality at the price of his good looks.

Clam Minis: SOS-01 Grinner Dragarm

Next is Sanqis Bigleap. Sanq has been blessed with the powers of the beast and will strike down anyone that comes between him and his demonic hammer.


Clam Minis: SOS-02 Sanqis Bigleap

Last, but not least we have Branding Hyld, Bran is a magician with the ability of flying the air-shark.


Clam Minis: SOS-03 Branding Hyld

And here are all 3 new charcters. Ready to enter the battlefield :)

Collecting John Pickford: More Ewal Dvergar

People that follow my Ewal Dvegar blog would already have seen these last sunday, but I'd really like to share them on here, too.

During the winter, John Pickford has been working on the next for my Ewal Dvergar forces - Core warriors with guns. A few weeks ago I received a nice big box with all the new greens but also a few nice "gems" from John's sculpting youth. But today's post is all about the greens :)

The new warriors are are mainly rework of the existing Crossbowmen - but for a proper aiming pose, a completely new sculpt have been made. Apart from this new aiming pose, the gunners will re-use the swappable Sallet/helmet system found on the Crossbowmen.

Here are the 3 new headless gunner-poses and their helmets:

As said, non of the excising poses where optimal for an aiming pose so we decided doing a brand new piece:

But we didn't stop there. After building command groups using the 3 different standards options on existing warrior bodies, I'd realised that I needed an alternative musician. I have made a head swap on one of the existing ones, but saw that I needed a more general change to the overall appearance - so challenge John to do another one based on the original. I think he was rather successful, don't you?