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Author Topic: 'Old Citadel Nostalgia' - an ongoing project.  (Read 100584 times)

Online Cubs

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Re: 'Old Citadel Nostalgia' - an ongoing project.
« Reply #60 on: June 27, 2018, 12:09:53 PM »
Well I do commission work for various peeps all the time - Conquest Games are currently on the desk, but there's also NorthStar, Lucid Eye, Great Escape Games, Bears Head Miniatures and last but not least Bad Squiddo who I've done fairly recently. I also pootle about doing the odd bit of Bolt Action, Red Box, Gripping Beast or Foundry stuff for myself as the whim takes me.

But the newer Games Workshop stuff leaves me cold to be honest. As technical achievements they're great, showing off the ability of newer design methods, newer casting methods and newer materials. But aesthetically … I really don't have any interest in them whatsoever. These old sculpts have an emotional pull on me.
'Sir John ejaculated explosively, sitting up in his chair.' ... 'The Black Gang'.

Paul Cubbin Miniature Painter

Online Cubs

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Re: 'Old Citadel Nostalgia' - an ongoing project.
« Reply #61 on: October 13, 2018, 01:03:35 PM »
So if we're halfway through Orctober, does that mean we should post Half Orcs? I almost put them in the 'Old School Fantasy' thread, but decided I'd spammed that enough as it is.

This old range often has broken weapons and indeed the swordsman has a replacement sword blade (made from a ground-down piece of old tweezers) and the hammer dude has the front of his hammer replaced with greestuff. The entire left side of his face was ruined by a lump of miscast metal as well, so I had to roughly drill it to the approximate shape and then paint in the detail as best I could to match the other side. Not a bad illusion is it?

These lovely old Half Orcs are a recent infatuation for me - I never really liked them as a kid because they weren't 'monstery' enough for one thing, and they didn't really have anything in their stats or rules to make them stand out.

But over the last year I've started to grow very fond of them,(quite probably their cancellation by Games Workshop has a lot to do with this), and set out to collect as many of the pre-slotta C series Half Orcs as I could. Having just purchased the final one online today, I think I've managed it.








Offline Hobgoblin

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Re: 'Old Citadel Nostalgia' - an ongoing project.
« Reply #62 on: October 13, 2018, 04:11:16 PM »
Superb! Really lovely in their unloveliness.

These lovely old Half Orcs are a recent infatuation for me - I never really liked them as a kid because they weren't 'monstery' enough for one thing, and they didn't really have anything in their stats or rules to make them stand out.

Yes, it was odd that they dropped the one thing that made them stand out - the assassin special rules - almost before they got started. In second and third edition, they were almost a liability - punier than orcs but almost as expensive in points, yet much more expensive than goblins.

It's also true that the preslotta range was much better than the slotta-based range that followed: less cartoony and nicely unified by those great shields, despite the variety of the models. I like how some of the faces are fairly human, though ugly, and others are quite orcish (e.g. the bald-headed assassin).

Do you have the 'mounted and foot' half-orc hero?


Online Cubs

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Re: 'Old Citadel Nostalgia' - an ongoing project.
« Reply #63 on: October 13, 2018, 04:29:44 PM »
Do you have the 'mounted and foot' half-orc hero?

I do, and I think it was the foot version that began my Half Orc collecting spree. He was in a job lot of other stuff I bought and then of course I needed to find the mounted version, and then it just sort of snow-balled. Fortunately I'm not that fussed about the slotta versions either, so I can leave it there!

Offline Admiral Benbow

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Re: 'Old Citadel Nostalgia' - an ongoing project.
« Reply #64 on: October 13, 2018, 06:14:25 PM »
Damn fantastic work on lovely minis, Paul!

Offline JollyBob

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Re: 'Old Citadel Nostalgia' - an ongoing project.
« Reply #65 on: October 13, 2018, 08:38:22 PM »
Beautiful painting as always.  8)

I had to do the same thing with an old preslotta dwarf face once, lovely sculpt but no quality control in those days!

Online Cubs

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Re: 'Old Citadel Nostalgia' - an ongoing project.
« Reply #66 on: January 07, 2019, 02:51:38 PM »
A couple of random Orcs have been completed, something of a 'between-work' project to keep me amused over the Crimbo period.

These guys represent my favourite Orcs and what constitutes the 'classic look' in my little world. The loping, stooping gait, the jutting jaws, the wiry frames … that's proper Orcy to me.

The guy with the scimitar is a figure I confess I brutally 'converted' in my early days. I ground off the flail chains with a drill and replaced the sword with something or other (I forget what) clumsily glued on, which inevitably fell off and became lost. This fella is a replacement model who had also lost his sword blade (a common mishap with this model I think) and a new blade fitted as close to the original size and shape as possible (made from ground-down tweezers).

I was messing around with a different skin colour as well, just for a bit of a diversion. I found a Paul Bonner illustration with Orcs sporting a greyish complexion with pinkish patches, which is what I've tried to emulate here. The joy of painting Orcs is that there are any number of skin colour schemes you can put on them, all in the same unit. In fact the more variety the better they probably look.










Offline Andym

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Re: 'Old Citadel Nostalgia' - an ongoing project.
« Reply #67 on: January 07, 2019, 04:23:46 PM »
Cracking colours! Those skin tones are superb! :-*

Offline Vanvlak

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Re: 'Old Citadel Nostalgia' - an ongoing project.
« Reply #68 on: January 07, 2019, 04:46:55 PM »
Grand bit of work there - love the shield, and all the rest too but that shield is simple and incredibly effective.  8)

Online Cubs

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Re: 'Old Citadel Nostalgia' - an ongoing project.
« Reply #69 on: January 07, 2019, 05:35:09 PM »
Thanks dyoods, it's all a bit of fun. The shields for my Orcs are mostly this simple black and white check scheme, which I think just suits them somehow (I don't really know why Orcs and check goes together so well). In my mind, they're all part of my warband based around a group of travelling ne'er-do-wells following Kaleb Daark and his Chaos/Anti-Chaos master Malal. The black and white is part of Malal's badge and I like the anarchic nature of them fighting most everyone for no apparent reason.

Offline Bloggard

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Re: 'Old Citadel Nostalgia' - an ongoing project.
« Reply #70 on: January 07, 2019, 07:39:44 PM »
your style / colour-palette / whatever it is, is so distinctive and one of my favourites, like a top-class fine-art illustration as a 3d figure.

the chiasroscuro (well done me if I've spelt that right) is just what I'd aspire to if I thought I could possibly achieve it - which I don't.
« Last Edit: January 08, 2019, 03:22:32 PM by Bloggard »

Online Cubs

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Re: 'Old Citadel Nostalgia' - an ongoing project.
« Reply #71 on: January 07, 2019, 08:25:12 PM »
your style / colour-palette / whatever it is, is so distinctive and one of my favourites, like a top-class fine-art illustration as a 3d figure.

the chiasroscuro (well done me if I've spelt that right) is just what I'd aspire to if I thought I could possibly acheive it - which I don't.

Shit, I had to Google it! Posh word for light-dark shading innit?

Thanks, I've been really trying to concentrate on getting a good depth of shade onto models lately and putting the colours into the areas I think the light would hit. It sounds obvious, but I think we (and by that, I mean I) all too easily will simply apply the colour layers by rote onto the more raised edges - the more raised the edge, the lighter the highlight it gets. But light doesn't always work like that. Sometimes a part will catch the light much more than another part which is higher up. There's a lot of guesswork and rubbing of chin really.

Offline Hobgoblin

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Re: 'Old Citadel Nostalgia' - an ongoing project.
« Reply #72 on: January 07, 2019, 09:00:45 PM »
Terrific work on those!

I did a double-take on that one with the mace and checked shield, as he's so close to the pinker version you did a couple of years back.

Those Fantasy Tribe faces are hard to beat - especially that elongated beauty with the amazing dentistry.

Online Cubs

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Re: 'Old Citadel Nostalgia' - an ongoing project.
« Reply #73 on: January 08, 2019, 08:02:52 AM »
I did a double-take on that one with the mace and checked shield, as he's so close to the pinker version you did a couple of years back.

It was only when I had started to paint him that I realised he was a duplicate of one I'd already done! I've got loads of unpainted ones and the one I pick I've already painted! Typical ...

Offline Bloggard

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Re: 'Old Citadel Nostalgia' - an ongoing project.
« Reply #74 on: January 08, 2019, 03:29:55 PM »
Shit, I had to Google it! Posh word for light-dark shading innit?

Thanks, I've been really trying to concentrate on getting a good depth of shade onto models lately and putting the colours into the areas I think the light would hit. It sounds obvious, but I think we (and by that, I mean I) all too easily will simply apply the colour layers by rote onto the more raised edges - the more raised the edge, the lighter the highlight it gets. But light doesn't always work like that. Sometimes a part will catch the light much more than another part which is higher up. There's a lot of guesswork and rubbing of chin really.

that's a rather strong appellation for a chap, Cubs old bean, it's just Bloggard, not S*** Bloggard (although others may beg to differ)  lol

and, aye, that's what I was getting at in terms of your elaboration -  it's a painterly feel / eye at work, and very much at your discretion per figure I suppose.
Certainly a rather different effect to some other top-class (in terms of brush control and Technique*) figure painting I see, which (at least when shown in a 2D way, i.e. magazine or monitor) has the curious effect of looking more like a 2D 'illustration' than a figurine ... I'm not putting that very well, and am not going to try to link to an example here for the obvious reasons.
(*and I hope it's obvious that this comment isn't implying you don't have 'brush control' etc  ::) !)

anyhow ... love yer stuff  :)

... and as I've prob. opined in other posts, don't think Citadel did much better than the fantasy tribe stuff (Dwarves still not bettered imho).
« Last Edit: January 08, 2019, 03:36:42 PM by Bloggard »