Collecting John Pickford: Hell Awaits - wave 4

Devil Inside Productions is back with their 4th wave of the "Hell Await"s - again it's a KS crowdfunding campaign in support of their creation of a range of 28mm classic demons and other denizens of Hell all cast in resin.

John is hugely involved in this one as he has been sculpting 3 out of 5 pieces.

The 3 pieces are:

Devil Inside Productions: Xipe Totec
First one is Xipe Totec - Aztec Deity, the 'Flayed One'. Yes, a flayed human holding his skin suit. Probably some history behind this, that I don't know of, but it looks cool, I think.

©Devil Inside Productions

Riddler and Professor Pyg

- or what's left of him.

Don't know if it's just me, but after an "intensive" painting project (to my scale) with lots of creative thinking of new colour schemes, contrasting and harmony colours, colour temperature, focal points etc. I fell rather exhausted and it is often ending rather sudden and with a long hiatus from painting to follow. I like the creative process to a certain degree, but rather than finishing I begin to look into new projects with more unified colour schemes or just painting something more historical accurate - just like it happened with the MM90-Painting Countdown ending with painting the Jong-Un and Trump-proxy-figs, in spring 2018. It ended with a long hiatus anyway, but I'll blame the extreme warm summer we had up here for that, though. It wasn't lack of interest in continuing but the climate ruin my paints.

I did a few thing up to Christmas, but I haven't really painted anything, in 2019. Yes, I showed you the Ewal Wizards the other day, but they are actually paintings from around the same time as the Chaos Dwarf Baggage Train. So, not ending up in the same old habit I dug up another historical accurate miniature - or as close as it comes, when you are painting the dwarven Politicos sculpted by Bob Olley (and available from The Little Soldier Company). Cause, I picked up the David Cameron - or more precis, the Underking David, Pursuant of Charm and his Demonic Familiar to paint.

©David Wood

Colour of Magic

About a year ago (December 2017) John began sculpting me a pair of wizards that I could use for my Ewal Dvergar venture.
Like always, the project ended up like a jigsaw puzzle with lots of heads and hands to play around with and it's take a bit of time getting it all finished. But the miniatures has finally been cast up and its time to show you all, what I did to them.

So here the are - the brand new Ewal Patriarch and Acolyte - and if you'd like to see more, take a look here: http://claminiatures.blogspot.com/2019/01/new-castings-has-arrived.html


Ewal Dvergar: EDP-30 Acolyte

Highway to hell

I actually planned painting this for the OSM-Kickstarter announcement earlier this month but a battery change got in the way as my neuro-stimulator system was running out of power. But I am on the flip side and I have just finished what I had begun back in October - the Chaos Dwarf Baggage Train.

Such a fun piece doing. A lovely sculpt with lots of cool little details - and the casting quality is superb. Such a pleasure doing. But hey, that's what to be expected coming from Jamie and John, right?

So without further ado, here it is ... my take on the OS Miniatures Company Chaos Dwarf Baggage Train, sculpted by John Pickford

OSM: Chaos Dwarf Baggage train

Collecting John Pickford: Chaos Dwarf Baggage Train by OSM

What's a 'Chaos Dwarf Baggage Train', you might ask. Well, back in the early days of Warhammer - back in 3rd edition - there where rules for including baggage in your army and rules for protecting/capturing it.

Armies need provisions of food, clothing, equipment and ammunition and therefore would be acquiring camp-followers (sutlers, drivers and womenfolk with children etc). This is represented by a 'baggage train'. When a army enters battle, all the unnecessary personal gear is sent to the rear with the army's wagons, tents and camp-followers - aka 'the baggage'. The baggage is then protected by a rough circle of wagons and defended by those civilians, women and disabled troopers found in there.
To represent this a baggage train consisting of a wagon and 5 civilians where allowed  for each 1000 point in your army.

Game-vice attacks on the baggage influenced your game play and could have huge effect on the final result - and to many Oldhammers a fantasy army ain't complete without a colourful array of camp followers and baggage trains.

There wasn't any official release for these trains but in the early 90s trains could be found for Empire, Orc&Goblins, Dwarfs, Elves, Bretonnians, Chaos, Slann and Skaven - but non for Chaos Dwarfs :(

So, when the idea popped up in our little private corner of the inter-web in 2017 Jamie (of OS Miniatures Company) wasn't late to pick up the idea - and soon a concept was ready: 'A daemon bound cart with driver and crew'.

Collecting John Pickford: Hmm, Otherworld....?

Usually, this Collecting John Pickford-section of the blog has been dedicated to write about new Pickford pieces, lost gems found and other additions to my collection.

Today's story is a bit different, as it's more about stuff that has disappeared, in risk of disappearing or has or will shift hands.
Today's post is about John's Otherworld range. A range I'm very passionate about as it's the one range that started my journey into Pickford collecting. I knew of John's early Foundry work, but it was the characterful and beautiful Otherworld Miniatures that convinced me of John's great talent - and started a hobby I wouldn't do without.

One of my all time favourite OWs

So what's this all about?

Collecting John Pickford: Hell's Minions on Kickstarter

Devil Inside Productions are back.

After a couple of successfully funded "Hell Awaits..."  - Kickstarter Campaigns - bring us a weird and wonderful little range of denizens of Hell (for horror or fantasy miniature games and RPGs), Devil Inside is now back, trying to fund a new range of figures, this time for Fantasy Football (*cough*Blood Bowl*cough*).

They are branded as "halflings" - but if you look closely at the tiny little players, you'll see another range demonic minions

©Devil Inside Productions

 - because, just like the campaign says, Satan has decided to send his minions to battle on the fantasy football fields around the Earth! The Hell's Minions - A Demonic Fantasy Football Team! will enter the pitch :)

Now, why is this interesting for a non-sports-gamer like me, well ...? .... I guess it piqued my interest  because of the two big guys in the back.