EARTHMEN OF BISM

Another lot of pre-slottas I painted up earlier  this year, they are Red Orcs from Citadels Fiend Factory range, I remember asking my Dad to pick me up a pack of orcs from some shop in Portsmouth while he was down there on business, and he came back with a little bag of 3 of these guys.....

Not how I imagined orcs at all, but I suspect the then very young Perry Twins were following on from Bryan Ansell's Age of Joman orcs which have the same long lugubrious faces.

Somehow I've managed to build up a unit  of these figures , mainly by getting the odd ones and twos in job lots of figures and I was wondering how to paint them. Then I remembered the Pauline Baynes cover of C S Lewis' Narnia book The Silver Chair which shows the Earthmen of Bism all looking very dejected and I thought that this look suited the Red Orcs very well.

I'm not a huge fan of the Narnia books (although I enjoyed this one as a youth), Aslan is so infuriatingly patronising and holier than though (unsurprisingly as he is supposed to be God masquerading as a lion), but I decided to get painting and here is the result.

Full unit with Giant Tusker support. Led by The Lady of the Green Kirtle (a were-snake in the story)

Close up of the Lady, a Ral Partha figure

The standard showing the Lady in Snake form (Minifigs skull on top)

Light relief in the form of Captain Arnold Grubber, his nagging wife Constance and their offspring. He has a sentient shield called Cross Watkins, but I neglected to take a close up pic of it.

Rear view shots showing the different cloth designs based on the book cover. I painted the chainmail as loose knit cloth.

Close up of the Tuskers.

Not my favourite figures, it has to be said, but quite fun to paint. Some undead coming next.

NEW STUFF ON EBAY

Greetings everyone.hope you are all having a good Christmas. I've just listed a heap of stuff on ebay if you would care to look...trying to finance a new 54mm project 1/32 Pacific War.

Hope to be back soon.

HURRAH, PROJECT FINISHED!!!

Well it's been about 8 month since I posted anything..... mainly down to my own ineptitude with a camera and computer, but real life getting in the way (as an aside I want to start a group called Parents against Homework because that's all my missus and me seem to do nowadays. I can't believe the amount our boys bring home...it's ridiculous). 

Moving swiftly on, I have finished my copy of this picture from White Dwarf 35, which I've been wanting to do since I was about 13 years old. I've had to substitute some figures I think (those are Dragontooth elves in the fort, but I have had to use Minifigs), and I believe there are some Asgard orcs in the front line, but I've subbed them with Chronicle  which Joe Dever certainly had in his collection. I am pretty sure all the figures in my version were available in 1983 plus Airfix dinosaurs and castle, Merit Trees

The 1982 original

The 2017 version (perhaps my little tribute to the late Joe Dever)

I spent as long as I could arsing about with angles to try and get the line up the same, it's not exact, but will do.

Below are some rushed shots from different angles

Hey ho. I am continuing painting pre slotta figures and will post some more soon, but I also hope to get my King Crimson armies underway , to use with Kings of War.

SLEEPY FLOYD'S CAERULEAN GURNERS

Here we have a unit of Prince August orcs. I had this mould back in the early 80's and a few of these figures were cast way back then. The rest have been done recently, and I have to say I loved the process and have since bought loads more moulds, historical as well as fantasy. The figures are very small, almost 20mm, but they suffice as runtish goblins.

For a change I used a white undercoat and no shading, just thin paint to let the undercoat show through. Very quick, and I might use it again for any more home cast figures.

Sleepy Floyd is an Archive late 70's orc....... the Brother Hildebrandt set the trend for long faced reptilian looking orcs, I'm not sure I like the idea, but this figure is quite fun.

ELUSIVE ORCS NEEDED

Time allowing I'm plugging away at my 1982 Joe Dever scene, and am almost finished really. I am missing a few figures to complete it and get it as accurate as possible

This chap is proving quite hard to find. I need about 6 and have located 2 so far.  I think he is an Asgard orc. If anyone out there has one they wish to sell, please do let me know.

RASHER AND THE BACON BRIGADE

Some orcs for my Prehammer Joe Dever armies. Classic Minifigs D&D orcs, with pig snouts and groovy helmets as depicted in the Monster Manual.

I remember seeing these in the cabinet at Games Workshop Hammersmith (1 Dalling Road) painted up in green armour so decided to do the same.

I've added the Crimson King motif in miniature to their chest and back discs to show their allegiance, and they are grey based for dungeon use too. I bought these figures recently, new from Caliver Books / Miniature Figurines, and although I am delighted Dave Ryan is re-releasing these old sculpts, the orcs here were very badly encased in great lumps of flash and excess metal. So be warned as they are not cheap.

TRILLS OR TROLLS?

These bods were sold as Trills. I'm not sure what a Trill is, but I like the figures from 1977. In fact I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion the very early Ral Partha ranges are some of my favourites. Tom Meier obviously had a penchant for classical armour, as many of his sculpts wear it, these guys being no exception.

There were 2 different figures in a bag. One with a naginata, one with a falcata. Amazingly I still had the naginata from the ones I bought in 1980, and I made another up using broken bits and pieces from the bits box. Again they sport the Vile Rune on their bronze aspis.

THE PILTDOWN IRREGULARS

I don't use drybrushing much, but looking at a few blogs of painters who do, I decided to give it a go on this mix of cavemen and barbarians that form the front line in the picture of the Joe Dever battle I am rebuilding.

It was certainly very quick, and although I'm not elated with the overall result it will do. I've since tried out a quick method of paining muscled flesh using washes which I'm very pleased with, but I guess the drybrushing gives these hairy chaps an old school not quite human look. They are a real mix of figures (as in the original picture I am re-creating). Citadel cavemen, vikings and beserkers, Minifigs cavemen, Ral Partha hillmen, Asgard cavemen, even a Barry Minot figure (did you know he made the top of the Egyptian staff in Raiders of the Lost Ark?). One of the cavemen has a pet wolf from the Ral Partha WWW range...again in the original picture.

They are under the watchful eye of their god, Uncle Magnon...... a pebble I picked up off the beach in Lynmouth North Devon a couple of weeks ago.

Uncle Magnon.

A WEIRD FORT

In the picture of the Joe Dever battle I am re-creating is a very strange little fort.

I have no idea if it's meant to be a permanent  construction, or a temporary battlefield fortification. I suspect the latter. Either way it's pleasingly asymmetrical , with odd walkways and bits sticking out here and there . I had a crack at building it with mounting card and tetrion. Here is the result.

The statues in front in the original picture are soapstone chess pieces. I guessed they might be, and after a year or so or scouring ebay for the right chess set I came up trumps with a seller about 30 miles from where I live. I had to buy the whole set, but of course now have 30 other suitable statues. It looks as if one of the pieces has had it's head knocked off, but, stickler though I am for trying to get it right, I can't bring myself to do that to my statues.

Here they are ready to be stippled with tetrion, and then painted. I've added some milliput eyebrows to make them a bit more fierce. 

THE DUNGHILL JESTERS

There are 9 of these Fantasy Tribe orcs in the picture of the Joe Dever fantasy battle I am re-building. I scraped together about 10 from the first release (about 1982?) and another 10 from later 1984 releases. I hated these figures when they came out, with their grotesque lantern jaws and tusks, and am still pretty ambivalent towards them now. Still, needs must, and they painted up pretty quickly. I wanted them to look as if they lived in some old cavern filled with midden, hardly ever venturing out unless summoned by their Overlord, the Crimson King. They are in mi-parti uniforms of red and yellow, as the Crimson King finds their antics moderately diverting.

The banner shows the Crimson King ascendant over his enemy the Sun Child. In the corner is The Vile Rune, showing the Dunghill Jesters are members of the Vile Rune Co-operative of various orc tribes. Most (but not all) of my goblinoids sport this Rune. The banner top is an old Citadel Broo head.

TIMOTHY BUBOE

As dusk falls on Trompenburg, and candles gleam through leaded panes, mothers hurry their children into bed with the words "If you don't get into bed now, Timothy Buboe will come and get you."

Timothy Buboe , the terror of naughty children, lives in the well or pond nearest to the village. He is slithy and green, covered in suppurating pustules and has iron teeth which he grinds bones to dust before using them as snuff (after having consumed the remaining disjecta membra once the victim has been torn in pieces).

What the good people of Trompenburg don't realise is that the Timothies are plural. Each village may have one lurking in a stagnant mere or murky tarn, and at times, they hunt in packs!

More figures for my Dever Wars project, these are great old Ral Partha True Trolls from 1977. If I remember they came in a bag of 2, one of each weapon. I painted them up with a green base coat and simple green wash, then painted the boils using bone and a red wash. I was pleased with the result, the shading being quite subtle. Then I gloss varnished them, and they look pretty mediocre now. Hey ho. I still prefer a gloss finish, although sometimes it can alter the paint job drastically. There seem to be a lot of these on ebay at the moment at a good price. I think they may be back in production from Iron Wind.