A Bit of Converting for Mordheim

 It looks like we're going to be doing a short Mordheim campaign at the ol game club, and I would dearly like to play a Cult of Possessed warband. That means I need mutants, which I'm using as an excuse to get some models from the very bottom of the leadpile built and painted. I don't remember at this point where I got either of them. Their history is lost in the legends of ancient lead.

This one is a very lumpy sculpt that has always pleased me with its sheer vibiness. He got a scorpion tail mutation.

This next one is an actual, honest-to-god Mordheim mini, albeit technically intended for the Carnival of Chaos faction (lest you think I was about to correctly use an official mini for a games workshop game XD). But he was missing a hand, which I gather is pretty common for this mini. So he got a giant claw courtesy of the Shadowlord instead. I tried to go for a more mandibular look on the sculpt here.

It'll be thrilling to finally get some paint on these guys and put them on the table.

Vento Servitas: Converting the Windy City Wizard

The guys at CSW had the wonderful idea of doing a Secret Santa miniature exchange at the end of last year. As, very unusually, I took the time to document the process, I thought I'd do a step-by-step on how I went about converting and painting my contribution.

But first, the inspiration. Gifts were to be painted miniatures tailored to the recipient. I drew Tim as my giftee, and I remembered seeing his Fairy army in the pictures of the club's Kings of War game.

That got me thinking of Summer Knight: Dresden Files Bk IV in which the eponymous Harry Dresden, a hard-bitten wizard private detective, participates in a battle between fairy courts.

...and that got me thinking about how a wizard would make a great character for a KOW army. Fairies...wizards...Chicago...wind... 

So I embarked on this conversion of Reaper's Keiran Tallowmire, which I had sitting around unpainted. I could have just painted it straight, but I like giving my figures a twist if I can. I decided on a nice, big, weird shaped banner to make the wizard stand out from the massed regiments of fay.

First step was to remove the head of the staff, carefully leaving the hand of the familiar sitting on the wizard's shoulder as intact as possible. I then drilled back into the base of the staff and inserted a suitably large and twisted bit of brass rod. I happened to have another weird little bones familiar that I decided to use as a banner-topper.

And it was good. But when I went to add the cross beam, I realized I would need some further ornamentation. I dug through my bits box and came out with a GW dwarf weapons sprue.

The obvious move would have been to use axe heads, but it didn't feel quite right. Eventually I hit on the idea of using the hands themselves to cap each end of the cross-piece.

A couple snips and a careful bit of drilling and carving and I had some nice, empty fists to use.

These then went were drilled and glued on:

The thing with making custom banners is that it can be very difficult to make them sturdy; however, with a little experimenting, I hit on the following rock-solid method using sewing thread and superglue.

First, cut a nice, long piece of thread (like, at least a foot, maybe two). Position the elements and tie them with a criss-cross of thread. This won't be very stable; you'll be able to slide the pieces until you have a configuration you're happy with. Seal it with a drop of superglue.

Continue to carefully wrap with thread, using a variety of patterns: up, across, and diagonal. Make the wrap pretty tight. Every once in a while, saturate the growing knot with a few more drops of superglue. This should harden the thread into a solid mass.

Eventually, you'll get something like the above; a solid, sturdy join. When you're satisfied with it's strength, trim any excess thread and coat in a final application of superglue.

As long as I was experimenting, I decided I'd try using baking soda and superglue as a new basing material to create a fine, stone-like texture. That done, I brushed on some mid-gray in anticipation of undershading.

Now that I had the pole made, it was time to design the banner itself. I placed the figure against some Vellum and traced how I wanted the banner to fall.

I've always really liked the goofy mottos on Old Skool banners, and in this case, there was really only one choice for what the banner would say. In the book series, one of the most common spells that Harry Dresden uses allows him to control the wind. And since this is the Windy City...

Vento Servitas!

I drew up the image in drawing pencil first and then went back in with waterproof ink. I called it a night at this point while I let that dry, and went to bed incredibly excited about the project. It's amazing how just a small grain of inspiration can turn a figure in which you have little interest into an intense, multi-layered project.

Stay tuned next time for how I painted the Windy City Wizard using undershading and W&N inks.

In the meantime, let me know what you think!

Mayhem Machine

After playing a couple of games of Nuclear Renaissance with my first post-apoc/scifi vehicle, the Tar Eater, I realized that the Slagscape Conservation Collective had a small hole in their fighting corps...

...an armored-truck-shaped hole.

Fortunately I had this bulky, but rather low-detail, rescue ambulance around (another gift from Karl). The original vehicle was pretty open and pretty obviously out of scale, but with the addition of a lot of plasticard 'plating,' it comes across as an imposing ad-hoc land-fortress.

The rear wheel wells were made from a coke cap that was very cautiously sliced in two. The rest is pretty much all plasticard, variously layered, drilled, bent, and glued until I was satisfied.

The railings and rungs are just bent jumbo paperclips. I made sure that the howdah at the top was big enough for two figures.

The slit in the front blast shield was pretty easy to make once I realized I could drill a hole at either end of the slit to the desired width, and then cut between them with an xacto blade. A handy trick.

By the time I got to the painting, I really couldn't be bothered to put in too much effort. I just used a grungy melange of inks and paints applied haphazardly over the whole gray-scaled model to convey a rusty, all-metal behemoth.

Below is a picture of the Slags getting ready to move out after a day of sightseeing near the Liquid Crystal Cascades in the foothills of Beer Bottle Mountain.

Let me know what you think by placing your comment in the specially-designed, armored comment compartment below.

Tar Eater!

My fellow CSW member, Karl, has a fun habit of just giving me stuff sometimes. (He's not the only one, either. I'm lucky enough to game with a group of guys who like giving me things. I'm certainly not going to complain.)

So when I was looking for a vehicle to use in Nuclear Renaissance and it turned out that Karl had a '57 Corvette he wasn't going to use...

I've long been a fan of Carmen's awesome custom post-apocalyptic death racers, and this was the perfect opportunity to try my hand at making one of my own.

I removed the undercarriage, which allowed me to attach the wheels directly to the body, lowering the ride sufficiently to make sure the car would scale at 28mm. Then I glued the windshield in place, fashioned blast shields from plasticard and a hood-mounted cannon from a ball point ink reservoir and the tip of a pencap. Then I started to get a little whimsical, and gave the sucker jet propulsion using the other end of the pencap glued to a superglue cap, with guitar string fuel lines.

In the above couple of pictures, you can see it primed and drybrushed in gray-scale. Here's an Amateur Tip if you decide to do one of these yourself: the wheels are made of a soft plastic that gets really sticky after spraying, so I recommend either masking or undercoating them before priming.

Painting was very basic, pretty much just covering the whole model in a diluted rust-colored glaze made from W&N inks. I then painted up the windshield, attempting to follow this excellent tutorial on SpacemanSpiff's blog, ending with a red glaze for both the windshield and the blazes on the sides—to reflect the red, glowering atmosphere of the slagscape through which this beast must hurtle.

The last step was the christening, above. Not just a name, an imperative. An expression of a need, the need for octane, the need to chew up road and spit it out in ribbons, to sear across the landscape and watch it bend and blur as though—maybe, possibly—it might not be real. In the ruined future, there's only one way to be...

...and that's fast.

Thinking of leaving a comment? Don't bother. Words are meaningless, velocity is everything. Put the pedal to the metal and fly.

Synntowne Abbey Manglers

Still digging through the old backlog, and in so doing I found the in-progress photos I took of my Chaos Cup 2014 team, the Synntowne Abbey Manglers. This was a teamed formed by the rambunctious monks of the monastery at Synnetowne. Their enjoyment of the thrill and violence of the Gorious Sport was such that it became encorporated into their spiritual life. Never is a monk of Synnetown closer to God than when he is pushing an opposing player's face into the pitch.

Above is the undershaded team. Since I had to paint these guys in record time for me (something like two or three days) I was relying very heavily on the undershade and glaze/wash technique. (Nevermind that I've been assembling this team for literally years.)

And here's the guy I purchased specially from Reaper to round out the big guy slot on the team. His mangled mug just screamed athlete to me. Of course, I had to do some work to make him pitch-ready; I hacked off his club (and carefully filed it in my bits box for future use) and sculpted up a little football, leather helmet, and jock strap.

If you've ever played Blood Bowl, you'll know that it's not very often that an Ogre gets to handle the ball, but the pose was so perfect and the idea so amusing that I just had to go with it. 

So the monks took in Prodigious Groat as an initiate. It's true he was not the most pious, nor the most community-minded. But he surely was a useful fellow to have on the Line of Scrimmage, and that would give him some grace with the bloody deity of Synnetowne Abbey.

As turn counters, I slapped my extra 2014 Chaos Cup model onto a washer and rigged together a banner pole for a team flag:

Below is a (rather blurry, sorry) picture of the finished team. If you look close at the flag, you'll see that the Order's motto is Ora et Pulta (meaning pray and pummel), a spoof of the Benedictine motto of Ora et Labora. 

Thanks for looking. Next time I'll post a quick tutorial on how I painted the skintones on Prodigious Groat. 

For the curious, below is the roster I used in the tournament. The incurious but talkative may skip down to the comments box and let me know what they think. Those who are both incurious and untalkative can do whatever they want. It's their life.

Dwarves Don't Worship Beer

I get it. It's cute, they're funny little pseudo-vikings, waddling around being drunk and stubborn and murdering orcs. I get it.

I just happen to think it's kind of stupid.

I recently purchased the above Reaper Bones figure and in the package, as in the photo above, it was impossible to tell that emblazoned on his shield is a tiny little picture of a foaming beer stein.

Which is fine. This is extremely common across manufacturers, and would not have deterred me from buying the figure. But it did get me thinking. Why on earth (or one of its suitably elaborated, imaginary surrogates) would a dwarf decorate his shield with a mug of beer? Shields should be emblazoned with ferocious things, or heraldic things, or things that embody the spirit of the dwarf-at-war.

Which led me to conclude that the whole beer iconography with dwarves is just one of several conventions for (lazily) representing dwarf 'culture.' (Q: "What makes dwarves different, you know, as a race?" A: "They really, really like beer." Q: "But how do we clearly represent this rather obscure fact of their imaginary culture?" A: "I know! We'll put it on their shields!")

But that's another thing... really liking beer isn't a trait that sufficiently establishes a cultural identity. Particularly not when you are trying, as all fantasy settings these days seem inevitably to do, to make an imaginary race. Many cultures widely appreciate beer, but this does not define them. Culture is too abstract for that. So to say that an entire race can be defined by its love of beer is just silly.* 

It is NOT EVEN like saying all humans love drinking Soda, which definitely isn't true but might seem true to an outside observer, on a first glance, before they could get down to cases.

It IS like saying that all humans love drinking soda BECAUSE THEY ARE HUMANS. A-and that's where the whole idea starts to get really creepy. And so do all the others. Dwarves being slow, or stubborn, or bearing grudges...it all starts to sound uncomfortably like certain modes of racial stereotyping--which may be fine if you are trying to model that kind of thing in your game as an element of the story (this is big in RPG games, I'm told), but is less fine if you find that you are the one perpetrating stereotypes without thinking.

The kicker here is that dwarves are simply more compelling when they aren't conceived as a race anyway. Same with elves, and orcs, and whatever. Because what our monsters really represent (at least in my conception) is an utterly alien and incomprehensible force that nonetheless resides in the human psyche. Or rather, the very idea of monsters exists as an attempt to understand that force. The advantage to fantasy is that those monsters become literal in the game.

This makes sense to me. Because then the story of the game is not human vs. monster, or good vs. evil, but rather human vs. the most troubling aspects about himself. That story sounds more compelling.

So I sculpted right over that beer emblem. I decided that this guy has a magical shield which tells him secrets in blank pentameter. The sculpting was rough, but I wasn't in the mood for anything elaborate.

I also decided that there are no dwarves in the warbands I create, or on the Wyrdwold in general. Instead, there are Hunchymen.

Hunchymen was a term originally applied to those peasants who were forced to work in the drear and dangerous northern mining collonies of the Magnifex. The miners soon become stooped and mangled in the dwimmerdark--for they did not know what they were mining, and it was often deadly. When the peasants, after a few scant years of labor, could no longer work, they were forced out of the colonies to seek out vagrant and beggarly existences.

The term is now used by those in the grubby townships of the Wyrdwold to describe those who choose to dwell on the open land. These include, most commonly, veterans of the many wars of the Magnifex who, as meager compensation for their ruined lives, have been granted allotments of stony and twisted ground on which to stead; but also hermits and outcasts, roving banditry and peddlars, and less defineable, more troubling creatures which stir only at night. Hunchyman in this context is used to communicate that the individual is a stranger, is potentially dangerous, and is quite possibly mad.

Hunchyman is also used very loosely in the townships as a general derogatory term for the poor, the lowly, the dirty, or the openly lecherous. It's use in this context generally conotes that the hunchyperson is not wanted and not welcome.

To let me know what you think, go ahead and build yourself a shield and then paint upon it an emblem that you think best represents the gist of your thoughts. Or just put a comment in the comments box.

*Don't get me wrong, I love beer. But how do dwarves even grow grains up in the mountains? Environmentally, one would think that grapes would do better. It is at least conceivable that some dwarves prefer wine.

Another Dwarf and his - Slightly Larger - Hammer

Here we have another of the converted dwarf warriors, all painted up and ready to splinter iron-banded doors, bust the hinges off be-plated ne'er-do-wells, and test the reflex reactions of giants. 

What must it be like to be a bone-weary adventurer whose only worldly possessions are a super-massive hammer and a cloak made out of shag carpet? Tiring and warm, I'd bet.

Overall, I'm pretty pleased with how the figure came out. But here, as always, is where the litany of errors begins.

For one thing, the non-metallic metal, while marginally better than on his stout compatriot, is still kind of laughable-- not that I'm discontent, you understand, but one must recognize areas that need improving.

One other such area is in my model preparation. Specifically, I should really take more care and patience in removing mold lines. There are a couple here which do not show that much on the table, but are painfully obvious in the photos.

A further such area is in my hair sculpting. I really like the way the matted fur texturing came out, but the hair really looks flat by comparison.

The NMM on the hammer head is particularly ineffective. The rest just looks more or less gray.

On the plus side, I'm really starting to like the puddles on the bases. They're getting close to what I envision...just need a touch of something to capture that murky-but-reflective brilliance of unhappy pools under a wrathful sky.

Anyhow, go forth little bearded one. Hammer what needs hammering.

If you have any comments, just use your own hammer to bop the little button below. It's like whackamole.

A Dwarf and His Hammer

The dwarves of yore made mighty spells,

While hammers fell like ringing bells,

In places deep, where dark things sleep,

In hollow halls beneath the fells.

--Over the Misty Mountains Cold, J.R.R. Tolkien

For some reason, that particular verse of that particular poem was echoing on loop while I painted this figure. I love that internal rhyme.

Anyway, here's one of those converted dwarf warriors all painted up. Above is a good example of the puddle effect I am developing for bases. Still needs work, but I'm getting there. You can also see the rudimentary non-metallic metal I tried to employ, especially on the shield below.

NMM is a tricky technique to get used to because it takes a lot of careful thought and a lot of patience with the blending...and honestly, I wasn't willing to take too much time on these particular figures. So I used paint that was a little thicker than it should have been and made transitions that were a little too abrupt. The result doesn't really look like metal, but it does have some contrast so I'm content.

I also need to work on brush direction. This is a basic principle that I always forget to follow, but it is one of the easiest ways to improve one's blending. Simply remember to draw the brush in the direction of the gradient of increasing pigment intensity (e.g. towards the brightest spot on a highlight.) The brush will naturally leave less paint at the beginning of the stroke than at the end. That way, one makes transitions rather than blocks of lighter color (which are instantly recognizable by the lines of their boundary--see the cloak highlight above.)

But that's why it can be nice to just churn out figures sometimes. It gives you ample mistakes from which to learn.

I'm sorry if this post was a little boring and obvious for some readers (among whom I know there are some excellent and experienced painters) but writing these things down helps me remember the things I need to work on.

Thanks for reading! Please share any tips you might find invaluable by painstakingly painting them into the comment box below.

A Couple Burly Conversions

As promised, here are the other two converted dwarf warriors. Pretty much the same stuff as before, but this  time I was a little more adventurous.

I wanted a heavily armored dwarf, so I gave this guy some BURLY SHOULDER ARMOR. This armor is important if you spend a lot of time in fantasy battles because if you don't have it, your opponent can cut you. RIGHT IN THE SHOULDER. They are a little lumpy due to my lack of patience in trying to create a hard edge in Apoxie Sculpt/ Green Stuff.

I also wanted him to have a shield, but the ones supplied on the plastic dwarf sprue were definitely not burly enough. (If you couldn't tell already, "burliness" is a real theme in this post.) So I added a little extra around the edges...

...Plus some wood-grain for the back. Nothing fancy.

Now THIS guy took some work. Obviously, the two handed hammer needed something. What was it? Oh yeah. BURLINESS. I mixed up some Apoxie Sculpt and G.S., formed a rough cube, let it cure, and then ran it over fine-grit sand paper to get the sharpish edges.

Unfortunately, the arms provided on the sprue were not burly enough to accommodate a two handed pose with said hammer. (Weird that they would provide a piece that doesn't fit, but whatever...) I had to severely elongate the model's left arm to make this pose work. I lengthened the arm with a bit of paper clip, and then sculpted a simple vambrace over it. Never mind that it doesn't match! I didn't have much patience after all the chopping, as I also had to dislocate the shoulder because the arm was THAT short. This left a gaping hole where the arm socket was.

...which led me to the decision to burly up his cloak a little bit. I decided to do some matted fur so I could practice my texture sculpting. And there it is. I think I did a pretty good job of using the fur cloak to fill the gap in the shoulder, though there is an angle on one side where it looks a little weird. Oh well. I wanted idiosyncrasy.

Seriously, though, I really like it. And I'm excited to have a couple of heavy hitters for my little band of lost dwarves.

And here's dwarf number one again, after an unfortunate paint job and an even less fortunate strip job, in which the winged crests of his helm were lost forever (God! What a fiddly kit!). So I sculpted him up some nice, asymmetric horns. Perhaps not burly, but certainly unique.

Which brings me at last to this distinctly non-dwarven bit of putty magic. This is one of the used figures I picked up for Christmas. He was missing an arm, and I thought it would be no problem to sculpt him another (I was wrong, it was very difficult) but then the horns on the dwarf above gave me the idea for the weird, twisty claw thing. HETERODOXY! He will probably have the "Mutant" special rule from Song of Gold and Darkness. Unless you can provide a better idea, by using the fancy button below.