Tuesday, December 23, 2014

We won't take any Bull


Here's another look back at my 2012 Civil War Dwarf team tournament army.

I made two units of Bull Centaurs, mostly scratch built.

I used plastic bull figures from a craft store, Ogre Kingdoms bits, and lots of Aproxy Sculpt!


Here's a post showing how they were constructed:


You can probably tell from those images that I abandoned the Ogre banner for my own printed versions.  As with everything else in this army, I had to match what my partner had done with his army.

He had created a ton of printed banners for his Iron Brigade, so that meant I needed to mirror that.
It was still very fun!


These units were mostly for flavor... since what respectable Confederate army would not have JEB Stuart?


I am hoping to get back to these and do much more finishing detail on the figures.


In the meantime... the Wretched Alliance of Appomattox continues!


A thin blue line


Time for one of the bigger group shots of the horsies!


More are still to come...


But this gives you a little idea of what they look like together!


I want to try to make some movement trays for them (these are already magnetized), but I have never gotten any info on how they would be ranked up in a game.


I based them all individually so that it would be easier to paint them, and deal with them as a whole.


It's scary to see these pictures!


It's been a long time in the making...


Aside from my skeleton horses for the Tomb King army, this is by far the largest batch of horses I have ever done!


I painted eight horses for my Khandish chariots, but it still does not match this herd!


Wait until I add a dozen more to this mob!


Monday, December 22, 2014

Blind in one eye...


Another Thrall!  I will be very curious to see these little guys next to their massive transport!


The usual glowy stuff


And the beat goes on!


That Really Grinds my Gears


Let's create another set of Steampunk/Sci-Fi/Wild West style bases!  This set will have more deck plating and gears!

I glued a variety of plasticard textures directly to the Burn In Designs wooden "punch outs".


Square Polystyrene rods were used to trim out the corners...


And my sculpey rivets were placed in a few key spots to finish off the base!


This process was repeated using other kinds of deck plating textures.


Each one was trimmed in the same manner with the square polystyrene and rivets.


Some of you might recall the plastic gears which I used on the RJ-1027 power generator.


Some of you might also remember how I used the left over plastic sprues on the original Wayward Eight bases.  They proved to be an excellent material!


I even combined them with the Happy Seppuku moulds again.  There are several articles on those bases!


Once again, rivets added for a touch of additional texture.


Looking more and more like a set of bases!


But let's not forget those very cool gears!!


Yet another set!!

Here's one of the previous sprue posts:



Sunday, December 21, 2014

This old man...


This old man is Sircan Abner, a leader of the Holy Order of Man faction.


He may be old and slow, but he's one mean SOB.  You can establish some synergy with him along with other underbosses and sidekicks, as well as the hired hands.  The Spica hired hands of the Holy Orders are more jack of all trades, which makes it a little easier to match up a broader range of characters with them.


This was also a very fun miniature to paint!  The draping of the cloak was just right to allow me to work in the slight reflection of the blueish tones in the shadows, particularly towards the bottom parts of the garment.

It is always neat to see the depth created when you juxtapose the warmer light colors with the much cooler shadows.  That can be important when you have to work in a narrow value range on white cloaks!  I can get contrast in a way besides pure light and shadow.

This does not overpower the rest of the figure, but connects it to the base... as if the blue is rising up from the base all the way to his glowing blue eyes!


Saturday, December 20, 2014

One more Charge!


These horses just never seem to end, don't they?


Many more on the way too... in fact, some big group shots are coming!


Ride along...


Marse Robert shall lead them


This was one of the most unique armies I have ever made.  A few years ago, Marty and I decided to do the WFB team tournament at Adepticon.

He had already made a sizeable Fantasy Dwarf army themed after the Iron Brigade.  He sculpted thier very unique hats, made specific unit flags, and so on.

We thought that it might be fun to do a crazy allied army set of Dwarves and Chaos Dwarfs.

The concept was that as the two enemies fought constantly against each other, many other races had infested their territories.  They were both pushed to Appomattox Court House, where the Wretched Alliance of Appomattox was formed.


The 'Union' side would provide more pure firepower, while the 'Confederate', or Chaos Dwarfs, would dabble in magic!


I have a number of posts on the construction of this army, including posts showing how these dwarves were converted...



Each one was given different equipment, and I tried to vary the colors on each one, in true butternut and gray fashion!


I had to change my painting approach with these guys to match what Marty had done.  Most significantly, that meant using metallic paints.


Yes, you heard that right!  I also had to simplify the usual color arrangements.  If I ever get some free time, I do want to rework them and get more details, etc.


In any case, it was a tremendous amount of fun!  We also had a blast making the display board!



The big finish!!



Here's Bobby Lee!!  With Traveller...


I con't remember which spells he ended up using most.  There were not too many chances to do that :-)

More posts from the army on the way!  Stay tuned.