Orcs & Goblins o' the Old Skull Tribe - Jun. 28: big pic dump p.2

[Blackwolf]

Lovely painting

[zorg]

Huge thanks everyone, I'm really glad you like them!

Thanks and no, not a tattoo artist.    You know, the design is from the Warhammer Armies hardback circa 1988, so several possibilities exist. The artist may have been influenced by a tattoo, either one he saw or one he saw in a book of flash designs, or maybe the one you saw was on a big orc fan, or maybe coincidence. As Hannya points out it looks like a Japanese Noh mask, maybe the inspiration for both the tattoo and the shield.

Yes, the face on the shield is a classic and somewhat popular tat design.

Now you need to do a few more orcs with dragons, foo dogs and koi on their shields!

[Spooktalker]

A couple more members of the core gang for you today. I'm putting these two together a) for size comparison and b) as so far they have pretty much remained in base-to-base contact through the games of Mordheim I've played with them so far. At least until Morbog died, that is. After that there was really no one around to keep the big fella in line and he took to standing about moping.









Figure: Stone Troll (075398/9 Stone Troll with Stone Axe and Bone Club; 075398/5 Stone Troll Head 2)
Base Markings: [none]
Release date: 1992 or 1993
Sculptor: Michael Perry
Date painted: 2009





Range: Orc 1 Warror Orcs
Figure: Samig
Base Markings: ?
Release date: 1986 or 1987
Sculptor: Kev Adams
Date painted: 2009

I spent a few hours converting the stone troll. The neck is extended and his nose was cut off and redone. The necklace is scratch-made from flexible brass wire flattened in a vice to represent a leather strap. The stones are greenstuff and they have been tied on to the brass strap with thread, which is to say the knots are actually knots. The gloss blood is Tamiya Red Clear, and the eye also was given a gloss varnish. When these trolls came out around '93 I thought them too muppety, but later got the bug to do them up in a meaner, more menacing style to at least mitigate the muppety flavor a little. I intentionally painted it in tones that might actually serve as camouflage it it's stony natural environment, and it was a limited-palette exercise. I was using some Brian Froud illustrations as inspiration for the colors and that's where I picked up the idea for the necklace as well. I should say I also gathered reference for the meet and bone and surely wouldn't have achieved it as well I did without having done so. Despite the lack of attention-grabbing colors the figure won best conversion at the Kublacon painting awards in 2010 and a group of him and several dozen orcs won a gold master class award.

BTW if I wanted to contribute a painted goblin for Goblin Aid what would be the best way to do it? One option would be a raffle I heard about and I also hear mention they might just ebay stuff directly? I don't Facebook. I realize it may be too late to join the bandwagon.

[**GS**]

Hi, those are two fine looking figures!
Well done, keep 'em coming!

GS

[DeafNala]

Both the Troll & Orc are BEAUTIFULLY painted & based with a SPLENDID choice of colors. The Orc's shield is OUTSTANDING! GREAT WORK

[aggro84]

Amazing work sir!
Very impressive.
Your painting skills are a real inspiration.
 

[beefcake]

That is awesome. I love the new nose.

Give dags a pm about the goblinaid thing.

[Damien]

As per contributing to Kev Adams, I think the best place to ask would be the 'Kev Adams stabbed' thread over at the Open Talk board; I am sure they will be able to help.

Now about the painting, everyone (including me) loves your painting style, and I for one am not surprised that you have won painting awards but I want to talk to you today about your bases. I love your bases! There is something about their simplicity that makes them look realistic and suit the minis perfectly. By simplicity, I mean there is no grass or tufts or flowers etc, just some rocks but the bases look like they are straight from Mordor or some such evil place. To review: miniatures painted to a top level but really loving the bases.


Cheers,
 Damien

[Imp522]

Sigh, every time I see what you've done it makes me dislike you just a little bit more Your work is fantastic and inspiring. The Troll is simply awesome.

[einarolafson]

Fantastic conversion!! But the painting job is stunning!!

[Spooktalker]

Thanks all, glad you like these!

Thanks for the heads up re goblin aid, Damien and Beefcake!

Now about the painting, everyone (including me) loves your painting style, and I for one am not surprised that you have won painting awards but I want to talk to you today about your bases. I love your bases! There is something about their simplicity that makes them look realistic and suit the minis perfectly. By simplicity, I mean there is no grass or tufts or flowers etc, just some rocks but the bases look like they are straight from Mordor or some such evil place. To review: miniatures painted to a top level but really loving the bases.

Cheers, thanks! You know originally I started doing these bases because my Dwarven Forge had that new resin smell and I have always been planning on using my Citadel figs in dungeon crawls as much as outdoors. The low profile was so they can stand next to furniture without looking out of place/out of the scene, and the ground effect was my best attempt (out of dozens) at terrain that could equally be above or below ground. And John Blanches figs pictured in the book Ratspike (and now shown on the web in various places like Eldritch Epistles and Dave King's blog) were a source of inspiration.

Anyway, thanks very much for the vote of confidence!

Still, I have to say lately, though I really dislike some things about slottas, I feel myself pulled inexorably back to them.    And pulled too toward doing the usual plants and gravel or the mossy old school effects Dave King and Orlygg at the Realm of Chaos 80s blog do so well. I actually was doing them pretty much that way way back all those years ago. I have even thought of pulling these orks off and rebasing them.

Dang it, I really truly lose sleep over these things!    It was so easy, by comparison, picking a base scheme and base type for my D&D figures. That's the real reason the D&D project has been getting more of of my time than this one!

Also, I think I mentioned it already, but if you want to try it ... I use sculptamold and woodland scenics talus and ballast to get the effect. Absolutely minute bit of sculptamold with a drop of water and some white glue, applied with a tootpick and brushed in place with a damp brush. Sculptamold is really good for natural-looking textures.

[m4jumbo]

Very nice work as usual.   I like the low profile bases and the minimal ground clutter looks good and fits well with the less cluttered style of these classic miniatures. 

[Spooktalker]

Dumping all I've completed so far. Too many for metadata but they are all Perry, Adams and Morrison figs from circa 83-91.

[Spooktalker]

Really happy with the yellow and black scales. I did the scales yellow and came back with the black. Ian Miller was the inspiration with his colorful scales. I wonder what I could do with colored ink and technical pens on future figures to try to capture his look and feel in a miniature.










I  spent ~ an hour converting the crossbow on the crossbow guy. It's one of the old Citadel black plastic ones but is totally carved up and redone. I think I'll be getting some Foundry ones for the rest of the squad if I can as I'm not doing that ten times!




One of only two or three pre-slotta orcs in the European collection is the one with two handed sword with his tongue out. I think I had to fix up his feat, and I definitely did a tiny bit of work on the tongue. It's funny to think how great these sculpts were so early on. Check out those gnarly severed heads strapped to his back.

[Spooktalker]

Another Perry favorite is the wolf pelt guy with the Dwarf head. Really happy with both those features. Can't recommend enough, when you paint a wolf, be looking at a wolf, don't fake it, even when your desired result is somewhat cartoony.