Greetings Terrans, how goes it? So as you can probably tell from the title, I’ve been dabbling around on the Sludge band waggon recently – in fact my Fembruary minis were all painted with Sludge in mind. I have since painted the rest of the Black Crab minis to join the sorceress in my new army.
First up,
First up, my Army Commander plus Battle Standard:

As I painted these two, something about the amputated stump on the standard bearer, and especially the prosthetic leg on the Commander started the idea of a self-styled king who was actually a tinkering engineer type – think like the toy maker in the original Bladerunner, or like something out of the Otherlands books…The idea of the Toymaker Kinge was born – a depraved genius who travels through the decaying world of Sludge, scavenging ancient technologies and materials, recruiting followers where he can, or building clockwerke versions where he can’t. The Toymaker Kinge is equally fascinated with the machinery of the flesh, and will happily amputate, mutilate and augment followers in the pursuit of knowledge, and is even rumoured to be skilled enough to bring the dead back to a semblance of life with the aid of machinery.
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Next is the Kinge’s Bodyguard:

While both appear organic, they are actually examples of the Toymaker’s genius with creating clockwerke followers. However, rumours abound that they are not entirely machine, and that there is a grisly organic component to the bodyguards… Whatever the truth, they are unflinching in their defence of the Kinge.
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Next is this creepy trio, known as ‘The Triad’ (‘chaplain’ & body guard):

The true origin and nature of The Triad is known only to the Toymaker himself, but while they never talk, eat or sleep, the unmistakable smell of rotten flesh follows them wherever they go. Whatever the truth, they excel at driving the Kinge’s other mechanical followers to greater efforts in executing their orders.
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Finally my first unit – The Cursed (Arcanists):

The Cursed truly are the most pitiful of the Toymaker Kinge’s followers so far. These creatures were encountered during the Kinge’s travels through the world of Sludge, and were captured & pressed in to service purely because of their unnatural ability to use forbidden magiks to manipulate reality to give the Kinge’s troops a vital edge in combat. Tortured into obedience, The Cursed are a truly disturbing sight on the battlefield.
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Anyway, that’s it for now – next up it’ll be time to add some troops to this army!
I’m sorry the face on that bodyguard is the stuff of nightmares!!
This whole freaky warband is!
Great painting and modelling here, they look fab… in their own macabre way!
Thanks Jenn, they are a freaky bunch of minis & no mistakeโฆ wait until you see their latest Kickstarter!! ๐ณ
These minis are incredible, your painting is amazing and I absolutely love the concept of the Toymaker Kinge. Excellent stuff all round!
And yes, those bodyguards are effing terrifying!
Cheers mate, glad you like โem & that youโre digging the concept! I do like it when the minis inspire their own backstory ๐
Stunning painting!
Hey, thanks mate, glad you like โem! ๐
Excellent work throughout Alex, and the background totally suits the models and painting.
Cheers mate – Sludge has quite an engaging set of concepts behind it so easy to get the creative juices flowing ๐
They all are as unsettling as spectacular. Awesome work.
Cheers dude!! ๐ค๐
Brilliant- love the Triad.
Cheers,
Pete.
Cheers mate, creepy buggers eh? ๐
Great work Alex, the range of these figures is excellent and I love the face on the commander. ๐
Cheers mate, the faces are ace arenโt they? Loads of character ๐๐
Wow, these are deliciously weird. I’m really impressed with the way you’ve played around with the browns here; if I’d done this it would just have looked like the results of a 3 year-old making mud pies.
Ha, Iโm sure thatโs not true mate! To be fair, these kinds of minis really suit my quick & messy approach – they really didnโt take too long ๐๐
The Triad sure look horrible!! well done mate.
Cheers mate, they are horrible! ๐
They look great/terrifying. Love the lore behind them. Great work!
Cheers mate, glad you like โem ๐๐
Whoa! This is awesome mate and I love the background. As soon as you said clockwork it made me think of those clockwork minis you built a few years back. I canโt remember what they were called but they were orange and you included cogs and things. Iโm wondering if you canโt incorporate those into this army.
Cheers mate, oh dearโฆ I think I might have a thing for clockwork ๐
Haha just donโt get into clock and cog torture
Very cool indeed. As previously noted I have all of these, and they’re on the priority list too, so I should be tackling them soon, especially if you keep inspiring me like this. ;-) I must give Sludge a look too, it sounds intriguing.ย
Cheers mate, yeah, it looks to be an interesting game that gives you a whole new genre to play in & a great excuse to buy up some cheep Perry miniatures plastic kits!! ๐
Amazing stuff (yet again) those sculpts certainly bring a very different feel to the whole “dark fantasy” thing without the silliness of some other ranges/IPs. In a sense, they remind me a lot of what the Warhammer Fantasy fiction and background used to “feel” like from the background and flavour text in the books, and some of the old novels in the early 2nd, 3rd edition) days before it got all brightened up for a more mass market appeal in 4th, then 5th+.
So that’s the sculpts, but your paint on them (and the others you’ve shown in previous posts) is rather exquisite – dark and brooding without the whole “I drybrushed everything in grey and brown” look that seems to be the popular/easy way that people make their fantasy and 40k models “grimdark”.
You also highlight up to near-white on selected areas and manage to pull it off – which is one of the things that makes me dislike James Wappel’s work – he’s a technically gifted painted, but when you highlight *everything* to white it just looks silly and unrealistic – but not so on your models where you make it work by being much more selective and restrained.
Kudos, mate! :D
Wow, cheers mate! Thatโs some very kind words for a fairly easygoing paint job ๐
Sometimes less is more eh? ๐
Not at all, mate! It’s not how much “technique” you use, or which ones you use, but how well and judiciously you chose to use them!
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