Some miniatures for Song of Blades and Heroes (undead warband for Mordheim)

[DeafNala]

You do have a way with creating UBERCOOL & creepy creations. OUTSTANDING WORK!

[Hobgoblin]

Thanks, DeafNala!

Your work on medieval iconography si turning out very well: it almost remind me of Bosch! Great work, can't wait to see the army based!

Thanks! We were in Madrid this weekend and paid a visit to the Prado to see the Goyas and the Bosches. The kids were glued to The Garden of Earthly Delights and The Haywain for some time. I'd seen them before some years back, but was looking at them with different eyes this time ...

A few ideas from the Prado that I shall be implementing in the chaos hordes soon:

1. Walking heads. There are lots of these in Bosch:





2. Bird-creatures. Many of Bosch's monsters have a distinctly avian cast (see two of the examples above):



3. Scale agnosticism. As with the "walking helmet" above, a lot of Boschian beasts are deliberately "out of scale" with their surroundings.

4. Unidentifiable creatures. Although many of Bosch's monsters are hybrids of humans and animals, others are distinctly alien. Look at the things behind the fish here. It's hard to say what their faces are (vaguely piscine? slightly newt-like):



5. There's a place for the humble goblin:



6. Skull-faced monsters feature here and there:



7. Bosch's demons are often quite well dressed:



8. I really should have converted my human trumpeter so that his nose was also his instrument:



I had a quick play around with bluetack and bits last night and have got a few ideas lined up. The aim's not to copy Bosch slavishly but to take some of the points above on board. This morning, I affixed a kroot head to a Wargames Factory orc body - it looks pretty good and ticks either box 2 or 4 above. And I've been playing around with various oversized heads on human and non-human bodies and legs. But I have to get the kids' Halloween costumes out of the way first ...

[Hobgoblin]

Here's a quick kitbash for the core of a horde element. I plan to have a fair number of standards in both the goblin and chaos horde elements. This is the first. The figures are a mix of GW, Fireforge and Wargames Factory bits. I'm not quite sure about the left arm on the right-hand figure. I might place a weapon in the hand or have him leaning on one. But maybe not. Ideally, I'd have a left arm with a lowered sword pointing forwards (in secunde), but I don't have a suitable bit.

Anyway, I quite like these fellows - note the nods to Bosch in the (vaguely) avian and skull heads!

[fred]

The Bosch paintings really do have some strange and weird 'things' in them. Much stranger and more variety than the GW idea of Chaos.

I like your two figures - they get the bosch theme of the juxtaposition of the weird with the normal.

[Hobgoblin]

The Bosch paintings really do have some strange and weird 'things' in them. Much stranger and more variety than the GW idea of Chaos.

Yes, indeed. What's such a shame is that the early GW idea of chaos was quite strange and varied - the bizarre Morrison beastmen, the weird and wonderful solid-based chaos warriors and the rather Moorcockian demons - half-man, half wasp; half-woman, half-mantis.

I like your two figures - they get the bosch theme of the juxtaposition of the weird with the normal.

Thanks! Yes, that's exactly what Bosch does. What I want to take from him is the idea that many members of the chaos hordes may have gone to sleep in human form but woken up (for example) with the head of a carp. It's to achieve that juxtaposition that I want quite a few human figures scattered around in the hordes.

Here are a few more kitbashes. The lizardman one has a touch of Moorcock's Olab about it, I think. The ogre head on the human body isn't quite a Boschian walking head, but nods in that direction. The one with the forked beard might be a bit butch for the hordes, but I'll probably end up with a few "blades" elements too.

[Severian]

These are excellent. The ogre heads work very well indeed. They should look great painted!

[fred]

The two with the Ogre heads are down right scary. Spot on! Yes they certainly have the walking head theme.

I'm not really sure where you would get fish or bird parts of the right sort of size. I don't know if the big buckets of plastic kids animals would be a good source of parts?

I'm less sure about the one on the right hand side of the last photo, looks a bit too normal.

[Hobgoblin]

Yeah, he's more of a nod to the preslotta sort of Citadel chaos warrior - when they were thoroughly diverse in appearance. I think he'll form part of a "blades" element rather than join a horde. He does look pretty deformed, though - his head's practically in his chest, his build is semi-simian and he's got clawed hands and feet.

[fred]

Ok, makes sense. Its probably just the photo, especially next to the other two chaps!

[randycarter]

I like the new models so much!
The oldschool chaos GW concept (a sort of Lovecraft meets dark age folklore IMO) has been now replaced by a sport of videogame iconography, that is very flattening (is this the correct english word?  ). I think that your work goes in a good direction to counter this tendence.

[YPU]

Lovely stuff here. I'm originally from around 's-Hertogenbosch, from which Bosch took his name. They have a lot of sculpts of his critters scattered throughout the city. Your work really does do the job. You are doing some great work with analyzing his art and taking taking aspects rather the trying to replicate particular creatures wholesale.

[Hobgoblin]

Cheers!

Yes, it's very much "inspired by" rather than "attempt to replicate".

Here's the latest batch for the hordes. The lupine "walking head" is a nod to this Bosch creature. The running beastman with the oversized wolf head is a bit like a Pauline Baynes illustration of a minotaur from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, I think. I hope to get started on painting some of them later today.

[fred]

They work!!!

Not tempted to make a couple of cute little armoured dogs?

The more you look at the original paintings the more strangeness you see, like the broken jug being used as a hat, with a flower coming out.

A common theme is arrows sticking out of the creatures. You could replicate this fairly easily with the arrows from the Perry bow and Bill set.

[Hobgoblin]

I do actually have a few slightly camp Acropolis "goblin hounds" that would fit. I've also been trying to locate some Mantic elf-cats that I have somewhere, which would take armoured human heads quite well, I think.

Yes, I've been lamenting the lack of pots and branches in my bits box!

That's an excellent suggestion on arrows - thanks! I'm trying to assemble the hordes without additional purchases, but I do feel my resolve wavering slightly - the Frostgrave cultists in particular look tempting to facilitate some Bosch-style animal-headed priests ...

Here are a couple of bird-men - not as avian as I'd like, but some paint might nudge them down a feathery path ...

[Severian]

More good stuff here. On a Pauline Baynes theme, the right hand bird-man reminded me of the illustration of Tash from The Last Battle. Not so many arms, obviously, but the pose and claws...

Where are your animal heads from, out of interest?