Category Archives: OldHammer

A poignant fan-sculpt

29 Monday Mar 2021

Posted by in AoS Undead, OldHammer

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Greetings Terrans, a bit of a strange post today – a sombre affair in many ways. As you probably know, I’ve been working my way through my existing mountain of minis over the last year or so, trying (and mostly succeeding) in not buying anything new… (or more importantly, in not buying any oldhammer goodies from ebay). Instead I have been picking things out to suit projects that have had me excited, or occasionally painting something I just fancied painting!

Last month, I found a gorgeous fan-sculpt of an undead version of Jes Goodwin’s famous Hrothyogg Ogre Captain from 1986, (itself inspired by a Blanche piece I think). Now I don’t recall the exact circumstances of me getting the undead version – I suspect it came up in the OldHammer group, but I confess, I don’t remember for sure… What I do know is that it screamed out to be painted & here’s the result:

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Now for the poignant bit. I went looking back through the story behind this mini, knowing that I would want to do a good job in this post. I learned that the guy who sculpted it was called Justin Coutange, and sadly, that he passed away back in 2019. It sounds like he was a similar age to me, and while I didn’t know him personally, he sounds like my kind of guy. It made painting this mini much more of a reflective experience than it usually is for me – enjoyable as a painting project, but more melancholic perhaps… it was an absolute privilege to paint.

There are some very nice words on Justin here if anyone wants to check it out.

Populating Spero Secundus part 4

05 Saturday Sep 2020

Posted by in OldHammer

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Greetings Terrans, long time no post!! I thought I’d better get a quick post out to confirm that I’m not dead or ill, and that I haven’t seen the light, grown up and decided to jack in the whole hobby… Neither have I won the lottery & jetted off to my own private island. No, I’m afraid the reason for the long hiatus is a rather more mundane affair of too much work to do & too little time to do it in resulting in far more evening work than I’m used to. I’ve also been pretty fired up at the gym since lockdown relaxed a bit here in the UK, so that’s a few less hours of painting per week as well. All in all, finding time to blog, comment, follow and paint has been beyond me, so please bear with me while I navigate this lil’ patch of busy. I still love all your work and am watching with interest – please don’t be offended if I’ve been lame on the commenting!

That said, I haven’t been entirely idle… I did manage to finish a platoon of House Sevelli Guardsmen from hive Platus:

 

They aren’t my best work, but honestly, I was sick of the sight of them by the time I was finished… I’ve easily painted over 150 of these little buggers over the years, and even though they were done in Praetorian red, or the green and purple of House Malocchio, it’s still the same old sculpts… suffice to say I’m pretty bored of them by now, and I don’t think I’ll be rushing out to get any more.

Other than that, I’ve been busy building Primaris marines from the Warhammer 40,000 Conquest run of magazines… I’m adding to the Primaris Legion of the Damned I put together back in April, and I’m actually pretty motivated to put together a force to try out the new version of 40k.

Speaking of which, I couldn’t help but be amused about how ‘edgy’ some of the new Necron minis are… I reckon I was pretty damn close back in 2014!!

 

That’s all for now folks, catch you on the flip side.

Populating Spero Secundus part 3

23 Thursday Jul 2020

Posted by in OldHammer

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Greetings Terrans, I have another little trip to Spero Secundus in store for you today. This time, it’s a visit to Hive Platus, the second hive city on the planet, ruled over by the decadent House Sevelli. Here we have a small squad of House Sevelli Guardsmen:

 

The officer is a Valhallan I think – he had a head swap with an old Curious Constructs piece to give him that snazzy helmet and plume. The remainder are based on the classic Praetorians, just with a bit of sculpting work on their helmets to help them match the officer. The kneeling guy was a loader without a corresponding gunner, so I did a little more to turn him into a radio operator. I need to add an antenna, but he’ll do for now.

The painting was good fun – I experimented with the colours until I arrived at this rather French looking scheme which I think is just delicious. I also settled on a darker North African skin tone as Hive Platus is in the warm southern part of Spero Secundus… Yes, I know the sunshine levels are irrelevant when you live in a hive, but the richer skin tone works beautifully with the blue and gold, so screw you logic – I’m running with it!

I have about 24 more of these guys to do, and then I’m back to building and undercoating. Near-term plans include more mutant cannibals, (characters, including a witch), lots of civilians of all kind, and I need to crack on with my Daemon Ink warband too. Onwards and upwards!!