Reaper Bones 77454 Ogre Clubber, 77455 Ogre Smasher, 77456 Ogre Guard - Palette Cleanser 8

I've not posted as much recently. I've been very busy painting, but of the room decorating variety rather than the fantasy miniature variety. Hobby productivity will be down this month, but the house will be better for it, so I'm not complaining. I'm between rooms at the moment though, so time for another blog post.

My latest Palette Cleanser is another completion job, this time three jolly ogres.

"We be ogres three, pardonez moi, je vous en pris."

Ogre Clubber

Ogre  Smasher

Ogre Guard

The Smasher was already more or less finished. The other two were at the basecoat stage. When I started these three I'd planned to properly shade and highlight the flesh, being the most obvious area on each ogre. I started with the clubber, blending up from Vallejo Extra Opaque Heavy Skintone, adding increasing amounts of Vallejo Game Color Dwarf Flesh and then VGC Elf Flesh. However, the end result was chalky and didn't look right. I know the fifth edition D&D ogres are quite pale, but I wanted something darker. I tried a wash of Vallejo Flesh Wash. The result was much better, and the reddish tint kind of ties him in with my 15mm ogres.

I never got round to finishing the other two ogres, so when I grabbed the guard out of a box of bones it seemed a good opportunity to finish off all three.

This time I just drybrushed the flesh before giving them a wash, using the same colours as I used for the Clubber. I'm not convinced there's much difference in the end. The various bits of clothing and equipment were painted fairly simply, just a dark basecoat then a couple of highlights.

Varnishing and basing was as standard.

Now these are lovely minis, possibly my favourites for D&D ogres, but they have a lot of little details, straps, bits of looted stuff, shields etc. The Clubber even looks like he has stuffed a crumhorn in his belt. They look good and tell a fun story, but they do not make painting them a quick job. This might be partly why I left them unfinished before.

Anyway, they are done now, and will be very useful once we get back to face to face gaming. I have the set with the female ogre shaman (shawoman?) and the leader in heavy armour, along with various goblin servants, and I've also got another set of the clubber, smasher and guard. Altogether they should make a great series of encounters. I might do a bit of conversion, such as weapon swaps, with the second set to give them some individuality. I can also see them coming in useful in the fantasy version of Fistful of Lead. Maybe I should include the rest of the ogres as a mini project in the near future?

Mantic Kings of War Dwarf Brock Riders

Last year I painted the orcs for a 750 point demo set for Kings of War, though as of now, I still haven't based them (you can see them starting here).

After painting the orcs I began painting some brock riders as they were the only unit I didn't already have for the dwarf army. I got the brocks painted, but I only got the riders started.

For my latest mini project I decided to finish them.

Brock Riders regiment

Colour adjusted picture to show the reddish fox fur (sort of)

Sadly I didn't take notes of paints used when I began them. One of the reasons I started this blog was so I'd have a record of paints used, oh well. But I suspect the brocks were basecoated Vallejo Extra Opaque Charcoal Grey and drybrushed with lighter greys mixed in, probably with a black wash. I do remember that the faces were painted with base colours with no attempt at shading or highlighting, I think the dramatic black and white works as it is.

I went for a reddish fox fur for the cloaks as I thought it contrasted well with the black and grey of the badgers. I think they were basecoated with Vallejo Model Color Mahogany. The photos don't really do them justice, they are far redder in real life, though I've tried colour adjusting one of the photos to try and show this. If I do another unit I might try a very pale grey wolf fur. 

I got these Brock Riders in the first Kings of War kickstarter, and they came without any command bits (Mantic now sell bits to make a standard, leader and musician). I used the orc head and a standard plate from the infantry command to make a standard, and a hammer from the Ironbreakers for a leader, though he doesn't look particularly different.

Now one of the reasons I stalled with the orcs was the basing.  I like to have a theme to an army's bases, my previous orcs are marching through the ruins of a city, with ruined walls, toppled columns etc.  I've seen some excellent bases too, T'Other One's Undead, especially his zombie horde, are inspirational, check out his ghouls here.

Now for the demo armies I didn't just want a theme to each army, I wanted something that linked the two armies as well.  I had lots of grand plans with sturdy dwarf walls on the dwarf bases, and ruined versions on the orc bases, but every time I experimented it seemed wrong.  The walls were just too obtrusive.

When I began painting the brock riders I decided to scale back my plans.  Looking through holiday photos made me think of runestones (Orkney - Norse graffiti if you're interested).  Just right for the dwarves, perhaps they are fighting in their lands, and the stones mark important places, or just boundaries or distances.  The orcs, then, would have smashed or toppled runestones.

The stones were easy to make from bits of XPS.  I tried a couple cut out by hand and liked how they looked, so then I milled some XPS to cut up into stones.  I'll put one or two on the dwarf bases (except the leader) and any that don't quite work can be broken up for the orcs.

The two runestones on the brock riders base, one is a monument to some dwarf hero.

I'm really pleased with how these came out, I'm not really a fan of the whole dwarf berserker or similar idea, but they are part of the demo army and I have quite a few.  I enjoyed painting them more than I expected.  I'll have to get some more dwarves painted now.

So, I have a basing scheme for both armies now, no excuse not to finish basing the orcs, and get on with the rest of the dwarves too.

Reaper Bones 77434 Yeti Chieftain - Palette Cleanser 7

My Palate Cleanser this time is a Yeti Chieftain. It's part of a set of yetis, which also includes a Winter Wolf. I got a couple of the sets in the kickstarter with the intention of using them as snow trolls in Frostgrave. 

I've painted yetis before, the West Wind Games ones. I liked how they turned out, so set out to paint the chieftain in a similar way. Base coat with Vallejo Game Color Khaki, then drybrushed up through VGC Bonewhite, VGC Off White to VGC White. 

However, the chieftain has a sabre tooth skull as a pauldron. It looked too much like the fur, so I repainted the fur based on greys.

Yeti Chieftain

Yes, the mould line fairy has visited.  I missed this until I was drybrushing, grrr.

Pictured with Minehost Foresc Ale

I basecoated with VGC Cold Grey, then drybrushed up through VGC Stonewall Grey, VGC Wolf Grey up to white. While I think the fur could be even whiter (the Monster Manual yeti have pure white fur) possibly starting from a basecoat of the Stonewall Grey, I'm still pleased with the result. I usually paint furry creatures with a paler underbelly, but I went darker for the yeti's belly. I was reasoning that it would have a paler back so it can lurk crouched in snow.

The skin is Vallejo Extra Opaque Charcoal Grey, the highlights are simply from drybrushing the fur. 

I'll look out the rest of the yetis for a mini project. I'm glad I did the chieftain first, otherwise I'd have stuck with the Khaki basecoat, and run into problems with the skull. 

A nice mini that will see use in RPGs and maybe in Fistful of Lead.  I'll definitely do the rest of the pack soon, along with their Winter Wolf, but not yet, I have other fantasy to do first.