Teenage Scumbo, baby!

12 Saturday Jan 2019

Posted by in OldHammer, Scuplting, Wolf Time

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Greetings Terrans, I hope you are all well, and that you are enjoying getting back to normal after the festive season! After a slightly disjointed Christmas, I am back into the groove with my Wolf Time project – as a result, I have a new skwad of Scumbos to share with you:

As with almost all of my Scumbos, these guys are converted from various fantasy Orcs, with lots of bits sculpted on by yours truly. I’ve given them all a weathered & scruffy look, with plenty of rust & gunk… even the red spot colour is quite subdued – almost an oxblood brown rather than a true red. I hope that the overall effect is one of a mob of lower caste of Ork, (as described in the scenario), when compared to the better equipped and presented warrior skwads. Im pleased with them, and I hope you like ‘em too :-)

In other news, my buddy Ross and I have kicked off a little side project, based on the AoS skirmish rules presented in this month’s White Dwarf. We’ve both drifted away from AoS a bit recently, but this skirmish system has rekindled a bit of interest. In addition, Ross has precious little time for painting & modelling these days, while I’ll be fitting this in around the rather demanding Wolf Time project… Long story short, the small scale of the project suits us both well.

The ‘rules’ of the project are as follows:

  • Build & paint 100ish ‘renown’ points in Feb (to include our Generals), and 25ish renown per month thereafter, up to 250 pts. This should equate to a manageable 3ish minis per month.
  • The warband must be from a faction we don’t currently collect. Ross and I chose the faction for each other, with me getting Daughters of Khaine, and Ross getting Sylvaneth
  • Set in a common realm, (realm tbd), based & modelled accordingly
  • Push the modelling & painting – AoS28 style, crazy conversions, grim-dark, etc.
  • Lowest cost possible – beg/borrow/steal, freebees, scratch build, re-use, etc.
  • Narrative rather than competitive warbands – named characters, backstories, etc.

Should be a fun little distraction for Ross and I, and of course, we’ll be pitching our warbands against each other as we go. Furthermore, you can expect a growing background & narrative from me as the project progresses – I already have some cool ideas in that direction which I hope will make for a good read!

That’s all pretty exciting, (for me at least), but I would like to share that excitement with YOU! I therefore encourage you to take part & share your progress on your blog if you’ve got a hankering to do something a bit different this year. Simply choose a faction & follow the guidelines above – simples! Looking forward to seeing who signs up & what you come up with :-)

Anyhow, that’s all from me for now – catch you all soon!

A small hobby interlude – homemade Spoilpox Scrivener

03 Thursday Jan 2019

Posted by in OldHammer, Scuplting

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Greetings Terrans, and happy new nominal start of the next orbit of Earth around Sol. A couple of posts ago, I dropped a little hint about a secret project that I had been working on… I had to keep it secret because it was an attempt to sculpt a surprise figure from scratch for my gaming bro Ross. Now some of you may know Ross’ work – he has the classic chaos daemons blogspot, and has a particular affinity for Papa Nurgle. Ross and I game a lot, including the occasional game of AoS, where he uses his gorgeous OldHammer Daemon horde, but a lot of the new Nurgle releases are not really his cup of tea… not a dissimilar issue to the one I discussed in my last post regarding Nagash in fact! One such mini is the Spoilpox Scrivener:

Anyway, long story short, I thought I’d have a crack at sculpting one up for him for Christmas – quite an ambitious decision! I made an armature from paper clips, and started building up the mini in stages over several weeks. Just before Christmas, I ended up at this point:

I’ve obviously copied the basic pose of the GW mini as a nod to the original, but I’ve tried to get more of an old-school flavour going… it’s bloody hard work sculpting, particularly getting things smooth, but the old Plague Bearers were very lumpy and misshapen, so this worked in my favour. I hooked up with Ross just after Christmas, and handed the Scrivener over with some nervousness… I knew I had done my best, but it’s not exactly a masterpiece! I needn’t have worried though, my Brother-in-Lead was delighted, and bumped it to the top of his painting queue. A couple of days later, I got these sent to my phone:

I was so relieved to see that it had painted up well, and that Ross had got it looking so amazing! I don’t mind telling you, it’s a weird feeling to sculpt something up and then have someone paint it for you – it’s such real honour to have someone appreciate all the effort you’ve put in, and then put in the extra love themselves to finish the job! I would recommend it to anyone :-)

I will certainly be continuing my journey into sculpting – maybe not too much in the way of whole minis, but this certainly gives me the confidence to take on even more ambitious modifications and conversions… I’ll have plenty of opportunity – we’re back to the Orks now, and once the Skumbos are painted, I’ll be moving on to Power Armoured guards and all the characters! Wish me luck ;-)

Not-Gash!!

29 Saturday Dec 2018

Posted by in AoS Undead, OldHammer

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Happy Deadcember Terrans, I hope you all had a good festive occasion as per your chosen proclivities! I know I did – way too much food, family visits, barely any arguments, and some solid hobby time! I’ve been batch-painting Orks for my Wolf Time project, but I also had time to wrap something up for Deadcember – an Old Hammer Nagash tribute. Now, most Grogards of a certain vintage will hear the word ‘Nagash’, and will think of this guy…

Yes, it’s the (in)famously gash Gary Morley sculpt of the arch-necromancer – widely considered one of the worst GW minis of all time. There is a strange story behind this mini – after all, Gary is no slouch when it comes to sculpting! Apparently, this was Gary’s first big multi-part mini for GW, and he was very much left to wing it… His original version had a zombie-like face, but the design team didn’t like it & sent it back to Gary for revision. Gary claims he then submitted the clownish skull face as a deliberately shite alternative, figuring that the tight production deadlines would make his original (and better) version the obvious choice. Much to his horror, the design team went with the big ol’ skull face, and this became the definitive version of Nagash right up until his reincarnation as the towering plastic tour de force that is all the rage these day. This presents something of a problem for a dedicated lead-head like me – how to have a version of Nagash that had that Old Hammer vibe while avoiding the Morley debacle! First world problems, eh?

Anyway, imagine my delight when the eminently talented Geoff (Oakbound Studios) showed me his own re-imagined OH version of ‘Gash across a beer-soaked table at the last BOYL… I jumped at the chance to grab one of the very few examples that he had cast in lead, and made a mental note to save it for Deadcember. Well, Deadcember is upon us, and so here he is – the Oakbound Not-Gash version of Nagash:

I embellished the original slightly with the addition of some spooky skulls whooshing around the place, but other than that, this mini is as intended. I’m sure you’ll agree that it is a huge improvement on the Morley original.

Anyway, that’s about it for today – I’ll be back in the new year with the last of the Wolf Time Orks before starting on the Space Marines needed for the campaign. I’ll also be fitting in the odd bit of fantasy as and when – my rather excellent Brother-in-Lead Ross got me a copy of Dragon Rampant for Christmas, and I’m really looking forward to giving it a whirl! Until then, I wish you all a Happy New Year!