UPDATE - Sculpting fun! - Spong posts some painted minis! (Pic heavy)

[Spong]

Hi all,

So I've made a few posts here since I got back into painting a few months ago but still hadn't posted any pics of minis I've painted, mainly due to my inferior camera skills and a long sequence of cloudy days and poor light.

It was sunny today though so I went outside and snapped a few pics I'm relatively happy with.

So here's my little band of Dwarves and a few fearsome Elephant Beastmen. I haven't got round to doing the bases or shields on any of them yet and some of the stuff is WIP, also this is the first stuff I've painted in over a decade (the grey-bearded speardwarf with the blue hood was the first mini I've painted since I was about 14).

Anyway, less talk, more pics:
(All the Dwarves are from Black Tree/Harlequin)
First one!:

Speardwarves:



Captain:

Billdwarves & a Macedwarf:

Axedwarves and a Macedwarf:


Axedwarves:

Elephant Beastman (MSB Toys):




Elephant Beastman WIP (Dragonblood Miniatures):



cheers.

[M Blakey]

  them elephant beast men look like mean mothers

great job

[phreedh]

Nice old-school looking dwarfs! Fix up the bases good and proper with some gravel, flock and static grass and you've got some seriously fine looking models there!

The elephan guys look massive! What'll you use them for?

[The Dozing Dragon]

Love the elephant beastmen although I'll cry if you don't get rid of the mold line on the leg! Been there so many times and got to varnishing point before finding a mold line or similar that I'd missed )

Keep the pics coming. Must visit MSB at some point!

[Spong]

@ phreedh: The elephants are about the size of most ogre or troll models. They're going to be part of an evil Saracen-themed warband which I'll hopefully be adding to in the not-too-distant future. Also I figured they'd make interesting monster encounters for RPG gaming in 'middle-eastern' style settings.

@The Dozing Dragon: Not sure how I missed that one but now you point it out its so obvious. I'll see what I can do to fix it.

Here's a new one for scale comparison - also wanted to show what the one Elephant was armed with - I didn't like his oversized axe so I scratch-built a Glaive from some bits of an old GW Skeleton sprue and the Ele's own butcher knife (which was again a bit too large for a knife IMO but just about right for a glaive head):

(Also just drybushed the metals on the Dragonblood Elephant)


Speardwarf 1: "Um, form square?"
Speardwarf 2: "Run away!!!"

[Funghy-Fipps]

Very nice stuff, Spong!  Those Elephant Beastmen look very unpleasant indeed (should certainly deter any prospective poachers...).  I look forward to seeing more of this 'Saracen-themed' war-band.  Have you sourced any other miniatures for it yet (I'm thinking Haradrim)?   Also, may I ask what ruleset(s) you're using?

[Calimero]

Very nice indeed. I really like Dwarfs figures and those BTD look better than I thought.

[Thantsants]

You must have been a great painter at 14 - these are brilliant - really striking colour schemes and those ellies look really nasty - poor old dwarfs... heheh! 

[ushistoryprof]

Those Elephant Beastmen are fantastic, great work on all the other figures too.

[Spong]

Thank you all for the kind words .

@ Funghy-Fipps: I haven't narrowed down exactly what miniatures I'll be using but I'm more or less settled on the idea of historic Islamic troops from companies such as Gripping Beast, Crusader, Perry Miniatures and the like. Mainly I think early crusade Saracens (Fatamids/Ayyubids? etc.), Moors, early Turks and perhaps a few Sassanids and Persians or similarly appropriate ancients for stuff like super-heavy cavalry or militia infantry.

I don't actually get to play at all at the moment but when I do it will most likely be adapted LoTR (i've got the player-made supplement which covers 'companies') rules, but whatever works really. For RPGs I'll probably use good old DnD, Warhammer Quest or Mordheim.

[Funghy-Fipps]

I haven't narrowed down exactly what miniatures I'll be using but I'm more or less settled on the idea of historic Islamic troops from companies such as Gripping Beast, Crusader, Perry Miniatures and the like. Mainly I think early crusade Saracens (Fatamids/Ayyubids? etc.), Moors, early Turks and perhaps a few Sassanids and Persians or similarly appropriate ancients for stuff like super-heavy cavalry or militia infantry.

Sounds good to me, 'though I would point out - if you don't already know - that the Perry stuff is on the dinky & slender side of 28mm.  I personally am not too bothered about minor scale disparity, but I know some can be. 

I've personally always harboured a fetish for Aritzan's Moorish Black Guard, but to date haven't found an excuse to pick 'em up (as if that's stopped me in the past...). 

Well, keep us updated as to your progress.

[Spong]

New stuff!

I keep getting sidetracked by all sorts of things just lately, most recently that has been sorting out all the vintage tin from 'when I were a lad' that has been gathering dust in the loft. So armed with my trusty Mr Muscle Kitchen Lemon for stripping I've been reclaiming some nice old Citadel models for my various projects. As a result I've got some stuff I'm working on to show here later.

In the meantime I've been thinking for a while about what to do for Dwarven cavalry and having found 15 plastic citadel boars in my collection I've stripped them and set about tarting them up. I didn't really like the basic look of them so I've attacked them with Greenstuff to try and make them look more like real boars. I've decided they will be ridden by Old Glory/Ghost Miniatures Dwarves as I rather like the riders, but not their mounts.

Progress so far:













This one is still WIP:






Changes I'm making are:

- mount the head forward and down from its original position as real boars' shoulders are level with or higher than their head
- fill in the gap this creates and add bulk to shoulders
- cut behind ears to create space so they are not integrated into the body
- drill out nostrils
- cut off 'mohawk' and resculpt more realistically
- sculpt a new tail which lies close to the body for greater security (the original tails keep snapping off and don't look right anyway)
- trim tusks to more realistic proportions
- rework and bulk out jaw and mouth area to look better

on some I will also:

- pinned into dynamic poses for variation
- position heads in more interesting places
- put ring through nose
- open mouths with sculpted tusk and teeth detail (also seperate front upper tusks from rear lower tusks in some cases).

Will also be adding saddles and barding later.

I feel its a big improvement but also realise the design may be made even better by details I haven't yet considered so C&C welcome. Please let me know what you think.

- Paul.

[phreedh]

One thing you might want to have a look at is the nostrlis. They're a bit too perfectly round I think. Maybe not noticable in real life, so might be a minor nitpick. =) I think it looks good over all though! Keep at it, and get them painted up soon! =)

[white knight]

Conversion looking good. 

I see you've got some yellow showing in your green. You tend to get that after a while with unmixed greenstuff when it loses freshness. Some of the yellow will harden and not mix anymore, like you see here. I'd recommend that on your next conversions you tease those bits out as you can't really work them. Although I have on occasion left them in if I'm just bulking out and they're on the inside.

[Thantsants]

Those boars are looking great - like the poses - massive improvement on the original minis!

Looking forward to seeing their riders and a bit of paint splashed on them.