Tag Archives: Oldhammer

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!

Skumbo Number 5!

01 Saturday Dec 2018

Posted by in OldHammer, Scuplting, Wolf Time

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Greetings Terrans! Ok, so dodgy post title, but I wanted to share some progress on my Scumbos for the Wolf Time campaign and it just kinda popped into my head… the ‘5’ in the title is misleading – there are way more than 5 of the buggers! As a reminder from last time, Skumbos are the generic name for the 30 cannon-fodder Orks that inhabit the top floor of Gov’ner Kulo’s fortress in the final scenario of the campaign. They are armed with bolt pistols & swords, and are described as being ‘low-caste’. I decided to use fantasy Orcs for the majority of my Skumbos – partly to get across the whole low-caste thing, but also because there are only a handful of actual bolt pistol & sword Space Ork minis of that era. So far, so simple, right?

Weeellll… turns out that chopping up 23ish Orcs and sculpting in all the pistols, swords and/or scabbards, plus the pouches and various other doo-dahs needed to hide cuts & make good is quite a lengthy process… My respect for professional sculptors has risen steadily throughout this project, but it bloody sky-rocketed during this phase! I’m just glad I had a few actual Space Orks to hand and didn’t have to convert the full 30… 23 was quite enough! But hey, I’m done with all the conversion work now, and we’re all based & ready for undercoating. I just thought I’d share a few pics of the work so far – before the paint goes on:

 

So there we have it – all those brown bits are done by yours truly! I don’t think any pro sculptors out there need to worry just yet, but I reckon these guys will do me just fine. I definitely feel that my technique improved as I went along – some of the early efforts are noticeably rougher than later attempts for example, and I found my speed improved significantly as well. The guns were the trickiest part, but I think they read as bolt pistols well enough… They may be a bit rough around the edges, but these Orks feel more ‘mine’ than any mini I have yet converted, and I’m super excited to get painting! At the end of the day, I reckon that’s about as good as it gets.

Until next time dudes! :-)