Shiny, shiny, shiny wings of Leather...

 Following on from my post a couple of weeks ago, I dug out some more Balrogs and demons to paint in a similar manner.

Left is one of my first ever figures, a Ral Partha demon. Right is a recently acquired Heritage mini, who looks particularly nasty.

Both Heritage I think. Left hand chap

 has definite Maurice Sendak vibes, I love his slight pigeon toed stance.

I can't do a group shot with the previous demons as they have been summoned to Oakbound Studios to take part in a game at BOYL.

Ral Partha Goblins

This picture of one of Joe Dever's battles shows a unit of Ral Partha Goblin archers from the 1977 Wizards Warriors and Warlocks range ( bottom left partially in view). I think this regiment was split up and repurposed in Joe's Giak army, but I want to recreate it pre-Lone Wolf. 

These must have been some of Joe's earlier figures as the original unit is based with flock ( now faded) , rather than Tetrion or Pollyfilla. He mentions the advantages of the latter over the former in one of his Tabletop Heroes articles in White Dwarf. I only have 2 of the original regiment from Joe's collection in its pre Giak guise.

 

  But I do have a lot of this range, which were some of the first figures I bought from Forever People in Bristol around 1980, so I mustered 30 for service.

Unfortunately some of these soft lead

 figures had been bashed about and had lost their helmet spikes, so I drilled holes and added fine brass rod.

I had to repair 10, a few of which are shown above.

These will be off to the basing filler queue before undercoating. The detail is so crude on these figures I decided not to bother stripping the ones that were already painted. 

Trog and Trogmagog

 I've just finished flocking the bases of the 2 Fighting Fantasy Trolls I was prepping a few days ago. It was a bit of a slog painting them but I'm fairly pleased with the results.  

I think the green fellow (Trog) is my favourite. I hope they perform well at the BOYL game, maybe even fighting each other. It has put me in the mood to paint some early Citadel Night Goblins.....

Shadow and Flame

 ...or to be accurate, bright red paint and gloss varnish.  I volunteered to provide this flock of Balrogs for the upcoming game at BOYL, thinking I had all the figures, but on rummaging about, I found I only had a couple of them ( I had owned these all in the past, but they must have gone in my big fantasy purge of 1987). Happily the Oldhammer community stepped up to the mark and I was able to source the missing figures for zero cost thanks to the generosity of members.

The figures in the original picture are nice and shiny.

So I was pleased to be able to carry that theme on and do likewise, so they also fit in with my Prehammer and Joe Dever collection. It was very refreshing to do a simple paint job, lovely gloss varnish and a filler base again after a couple of years of painting muddy 17c soldiers.

The entire flock. Lots of lovely wings, like all good Balrogs should have.

Citadel and Grenadier.

Two Ral Partha specimens.

Citadel demon by Nick Bibby. A dynamic pose, but I had to counterbalance the base as he tips forward. He's still a bit unstable, but better.

I thoroughly enjoyed painting these. So much so I started another batch of vintage fire demons to join them. They are currently awaiting basing.

Fighting Fantasy Trolls WIP

 I picked these 2 large plastic trolls up a few years ago at Lincombe Barn tabletop sale, for a couple of quid, which was quite a bargain ( although I didn't realise it at the time). They are Citadel Fighting Fantasy figures released about 1984.

I've finally started work on them for the up BOYL game. Firstly by stripping off the flaky poster paint with which they were painted. A head swap ensued and I added a brass nail to the club one of them is holding.

Copious amounts of milliput later, the addition of some underarm hair, and a coat of the very useful Citadel technical Typhus Corrosion , they are primed black and ready for painting.

The one on the right should be bright orange to match the troll in the 3rd edition rulebook, but I'm not sure I want an orange troll in my collection. One orange troll in the world is quite enough.

Witch Hunters

Some more figures finished in the last year. Some witch Hunters to tag onto my TYW army. These guys are a tad medieval in appearance, but I suppose hanging about in torture chambers or the Bamberg Hexenhaus ( look it up, it's terrifying), they don't get to see up to date fashions.

The figures are from Gripping Beast and were great fun to paint. 

I've got a couple of 17c Solomon Kane looking figures to go with them, to help purge the Palatinate of the devil's minions.
 

Skeleton Painting Commission

A few months ago, a returning client sent me these 1980s Citadel skeletons to paint, which I thoroughly enjoyed doing. The brief was red garb and to highlight the lettering on the bases for nostalgias sake.

The glowing rune on the shield is copied from the one sculpted on the commanders chest below.

The Witch King is clad in more traditional undead robes.

I'm hoping these will appear in the new edition of Dragon Rampant ( the client was Daniel Mersey), but we'll have to wait and see..I've got a box of these sculpts myself so it was good to see how they turned out, and hopefully I'll be able to do my own figures in a similar manner.

 

Empire Archers

 Some more figures done for Geoff's game at Bring out your Lead in August. A mix of historical archers from the 13-15c. 

I wasn't that happy when the yellow, but it sort of matches the colour in the 3rd edition Warhammer rulebook where these chaos are shown deployed in front of the village WC (in case they are subject to a FEAR roll perhaps). 

Only 5 are visibility, but we are assuming they are part of a larger unit. I need to source the chap in the spangenhelm as I've just realised I haven't got him.

I picked these figures up at Devizes Attack show last year, and I think they might be recasts, or rejects from Foundry as some are quite small and there are some very pronounced mould lines , but they scrubbed up ok. 

The flag is based on a Burgundian example showing arrows forming a St. Andrew's cross. 

Hopefully they'll be able to defend the village thunderbox against the evil horde.

The unit will be for sale at £150 after the game.

Chaos Warrior Reference

 Just dumping a load of pictures gleaned from WD and Line Wolf publications for reference. All Chaos Warriors from Gary Chalk's collection. It's interesting to see the same figures popping up in different battles, sometimes changing sides in a truly chaotic manner.

Mr. Spiky shield appears as N'aarsh the undead champion in Thistlewood.

Thistlewood Banners

 I've been finishing off a couple of flags to match those shown in the White Dwarf article.

First up the Black Uruks. I painted a banner for these a couple of years ago but decided I wanted to copy the one painted by Gary Chalk. I finally worked out the banner pole shown was a Dixon samurai yari with severed head cast on, so ordered one which came in record time.

The colours I chose are conjectural as I don't think I've ever seen this flag in colour, but I copies some of Gary Chalk's other illustrations with bold bright colours.

I'm also working on Lord Vassago's flag.

Thankfully the 2 pictures I can find of it show both sides.

I cheated here, by photocopying the black and white image and painting over it so the reverse of the flag is facing the wrong way, but although I'm pedantic, I'm all for an easy life and time is limited.

I just need to paint the standard bearer now who is undercoated and waiting.

LOYAL HALF ELVES (MK2)

 Many moons ago, I finished some elves for Thistlewood (here) Since then of course I've acquired a good deal of the original figures used by Joe Dever, and among them were 15 Minifigs elves.

The army list for Thistlewood states 20 Loyal Half Elves are needed, so I knocked up another 5 ( plus leader, because I had him).

Just need to give them a gloss varnish and add the filler for the bases.

GREEN GOBLINS - RESTORING JOE DEVER'S COLLECTION 4

 In the Project Aon battle day pictures is this splendid unit of green Hobgoblins and orcs.

 It was about 60% depleted when I took charge of it, with missing or rotted figures. I've tried to replace them like for like and paint them as they were originally done. Joe used a lot of inks on these, so Citadel contrast paints were really useful. When I came to take the pictures here, I was pleased that I had a job telling which were original and which were mine.

                                        

above are the survivors, below the rotted.

below, the regiment back to strength as far as I can know. One figure is being repaired by Geoff at Oakbound Studio, and I need to work on the banner I think they had.

Below, Joe's and mine mixed. I hope you can't tell the difference.

Below, a few shots of the replaced figures on the left, and the rotted orginals on the right. I haven't shown them all, but just a few to give an idea of how I copied the paint schemes.

It was a really fun project to complete, and I hope they will see battle soon.