The wolf that one hears is worse than the orc that one fears...

... and there's no missing this lot!

So finally finished Golgfag's Mercenary Ogres (minus Champion) and another vote of thanks to Leadasbestos of the LAF! They've been somewhat time consuming but a lot of fun!

Anyway here's the pics -

Leader of the Pack...

Well progress on Golgfag and his boys moves on slowly but surely.

Next up is Golgfag himself - here's the original background behind this regiment of renown -

The wars between the Goblins and Dwarfs had just begun when Golgfag and his Ogre band emerged out of the northern darkness. Golgfag was the chief of the Rutdrogg clan, and he saw the impending war as a good opportunity to gather loot and fresh meat. The Rutdroggs shambled out of their mountain homes and straight into the employ of Bogdan Legbreak, the chief of the Goblins of the northern Misty Mountains.

After a limited period of service Golgfag had taken part in several early actions of the war. The Rutdroggs proved themselves to be excellent troops, if somewhat undisciplined. One night after an especially long and intense drinking bout Glogfag and Bogdan, who had never liked each other anyway, fell to arguing. Within moments the whole Regiment was up and blood was flowing freely. By morning Golgfag's Regiment had fought its way out of the Goblin compound and taken to the woods.

Golgfag soon found employ again, however, this time fighting for the Dwarfs against his former allies. In this capacity he and his champion Grat'hud led a Dwarf party into the Goblin's stronghold and slew Bogdan in a bitter fight. Golgfag later established himself as one of the most adventurous leaders of the war and collected a great deal of gold, loot and captives before returning to the frozen north.

EQUIPMENT Armament - Two-handed mace. Armour - Shield, Mail Coats

BATTLECRY The Ogre language in bestial in the extreme, and not easily translated. A phonetic transcription would be something like, 'Gruugh aghhhhh aghhhh waaaaaa.' Experts claim to recognise some elements and offer the following broken translation. 'Remove yourselves from your current physical location, failure to comply with our request could result in severe physical discomfort of a kind which could seriously curtail your social life.' Recent scholarship has shed new light on this strange cry. It now appears to mean, 'I get so angry when I don't have a cooked breakfast.'

DEEDS The most popular stiory about Golgfag concerns the time that he was captured by the Dwarfs. He was imprisoned in the famous Black Hole of Raven's Hold, along with several dozen assorted goblinoids. Crammed into a tiny space, with no air and hardly enough room to breath, the Dwarfs expected the occupants to die. However when they opened teh door the following morning the Dwarf jailers were aghast to see Golgfag chewing on the remains of the last Goblin. The cell was otherwise empty, although there was good deal of gore and blood on the floor. The Dwarf leader was so awed by this feat that he ordered Golgfag to be taken a long, long way away and released.

SHIELD Each Ogre carries a large round shield, this is strapped to his back in combat so as to enable him to swing the mighty war mace.

UNIFORMS Rutdroggs have long tunics down to the knee, with heavy breeches and boots. Over their tunics they wear mail armour, and over their backs they have long furry cloaks. Their skin coloration is swarthy, with longish black or grey hair.

I've carried on with the Rutdrogg/Red Wolf theme on the shields - very enjoyable painting in different tones of one colour and they seem to be turning out alright. Just got to think of something suitably impressive/vulgar/funny/brutish to go on their banner...

 

It'll be all Wight on the night....

Apologies for the terrible pun!

So more skiving off from the Orc's Drift project - seems a bit daunting at the moment when my painting time keeps getting eroded by work and involuntary evening naps!

 

To get the ball rolling again I've been treating myself by painting some minis I've had a while now and here we have a terrible triumvirate of tortured and tatterdemalion teratisms to add to the Baron's band of Lost Souls! The eagle-eyed among you will recognise them as the rather fine Barrow-Wights from the old Citadel Lord of the Rings range.

The skull beneath the skin...

Well its been a bit of a break from the painting table but after a busy few weeks at work and a very pleasant week pottering about on a narrow boat around the canals of Warwickshire I'm back into the swing of things!

As a way of easing myself back in I thought I'd have a bash at a mini I've wanted to own for years - one of the excellent old citadel chaos warriors. Don't know whether he was spawned by a Perry, a Morrison or Bob Naismith but its a great mini! 

The latest addition to Baron Kraust's burgeoning Band of Lost Souls, Koehler Richtus. With his armour encrusted with the verdigris of centuries (think I went a bit too green!) and his dessicated skin pulled tight over the deathly visage of his skull, Richtus is a warrior of a bygone era - his life unnaturally extended by the fickle whims of the Chaos Gods. 

Now all I have to do is resist the insidious temptations of painting up the other colourful and somewhat mutated creatures who follow in the wake of the Baron's scourge and finish off Golgfag's gang - not to mention the small matter of an orc tribe or too...

Red Dogs of the North...

So finally got round to painting up some of the lovely ogres Leadasbestos (another fellow LAFer!) very, vey kindly sent me a while ago - sorry they've taken so long mate!

These two are troopers from the second version of Golgfag's Mercenary Ogres - great minis and only slightly smaller than the later Jes Goodwin ogres.

Looking for another strong theme for the shields (especially as they are nice and flat and sculpted onto the backs of all the minis) I decided that the name of their tribe might be a good starting place. Rutdrogg sounded to me like it could be ogre dialect for red dog or even red wolf - a fitting image for these merciless raiders from the frozen North...

Next up will be the command group - musician, standard bearer and Goldfag himself. Just need to get hold of the champion now...!

Then I suppose I'd best paint some more greenies for Orc's Drift...

Marvellous Matt Medium...

KiltedYaksman very kidly asked me if I could put together a little how to on using matt medium and I'm happy to oblige!

A good starting point and where I first came across this technique is Dave King's marvellous blog (he makes and now sells some mean little retrolicious evil dwarfs too!)

http://kingsminis.blogspot.com/p/tutorial-undercoating-and-tinting.html

I will preface my post with a little disclaimer though - I'm not the greatest painter in the world and really only strive to get a good gaming standard with my minis - especially as I still have lots more to do to finish this project! So it does feel a bit strange giving tips out as I'm still learning a lot as I paint each mini.

So here goes...


First of all a grey undercoat -

Watered down black ink wash with a drop of matt medium in -

Skin tones - Vallejo Goblin Green with Matt Medium. I use very roughly a ratio of 2:1 paint to medium. I also loosen the mixture slightly wit a little drop of water. Play around with consistency here - what you're after is for the paint to be translucent enough to let the ink shading shine through whilst not being too watery that you can't control it or you need 4 or 5 coats to get any kind of coverage!

Leather brown for... guess what? A leather hood! Same ratio of paint and matt medium.

Other bits for the base coat filled in too...

Now onto highlighting the flesh - matt medium is very handy here too. I use a slightly more dilute mixture of green, lightened with yellow and a bit more matt medium - I try to let the dark black shadows and the darker green tones shine through in all the recesses.

Same for the leather areas - leather brown lightened with buff -

... and the rest of the mini is highlighted -

Rust up the armour - leather brown and orange fire (50/50) mixed with matt medium and watered down - dab it in the chain mail and other areas that would have rust on them. I also dab a few smaller dots of straight brown ink here and there to accentuate the lighter orange -

Now as he's looking a bit pasty its time for the inks! Again matt medium is great for, wait for it, matting down the inks - we don't want to go for the wet look for his skin! So green ink with a healthy dollop of matt medium (not too much or the ink becomes too dilute to shade effectively).

 

To get that worn and slightly shiny leather effect I use straight brown ink - slightly watered down so the highlights aren't too lost under the wash. Works well for the red leather scabbard as well -

 

Sepia ink with matt medium for the wood and fur areas. I also go back and put in the eyes and teeth once the green ink is dry - give the teeth a watered down and matted brown ink dab - orcs don't brush their teeth!

And finally once all that is dry I mix up a very watery and matted down black ink mixture and wash the whole mini. Take care not to let it pool anywhere or obscure the eyes and other recessed bits - I usually dab my brush clean and use it to spread the ink more evenly on the mini after the first wash.

 So there you have it - a pretty quick and in my humble opinion effective way of achieving a decent gaming standard paint job!