Sunday, October 24, 2010

Shambling Mound

Have I been waiting for this update?

Since I first saw the greens for this model I've been so excited to put my brush to work on this guy. So this week I've spend all my hobby time painting this 'big' baby.

Otherworld Miniatures WE11 - Shambling Mound



The miniature is another old DnD Monster - a Shambling Mound - but in a new design. The miniature is made from another favourite sculptor of mine - John Pickford and is available from the fabulous Otherworld Miniatures. Must say, I have great, great respect for what Richard Scott is doing here - not only for the DnD community but also for miniature collectors and painters in general - so if you like miniatures with an old school flavour you should definitely pay him and Otherworld a visit.

Shambling Mound has been an absolute joy to paint and I can only recommend this miniature to everyone who likes painting.

Sadly, we haven't seen the sun here lately - so pictures don't do this miniature justice. Might try taking new ones - when sun is back in April 2011 :-D

So what's next? Well ..? - no idea yet :) Have a Chaos Dwarf to finish for the Golden Hat competition at CDO.  
TheBattleforge let me down here. Thought I could have a command figure (musician) from the new range - but the greens are still at the casters - so won't get here until early November - to late for the competition, I'm afraid :-(

- but other then that ... don't have a clue - but I have a Otherworld Roper and a Ral Partha Beholder starring at me - so who knows? Maybe another AD&D Monster to slap some paint on.


Sunday, October 17, 2010

A lonely dwarf

Today's miniature is from another wonderful little manufacturer The Battle Forge. The company is run by Paul Stanley. Paul has specialised doing especially Halfllings and has done a wonderful range of half men. Paul's sculpt all his miniatures by himself and do them in a rough heavy style like in the old days. The miniatures are quite cartoonish and ooze of character - exactly what I like.

I've been very tempted picking up some of those Halflings, but have controlled myself till now. Now, Paul has added new races to his ranged - both a Giants and now dwarfs can be found in his eBay-store 'From fire and flame'.

But what really got me excited is, that Paul is now planing to do a hole army of Chaos Dwarfs. And has showed me the first very promising first greens - like these:


While waiting for the first Chaos Dwarfs to be released and to feel the quality of The Battle Forge's miniatures I've picked up three of the ACW Dwarfs with Pikes - just to try out how it felt painting Pauls sculpts. Mark "Artwho9" Dixon had already done an excellent job painting them in a classic ACW style - so I did a test model for a rather untraditional colour scheme:

TheBattleForge ACW dwarf Pikeman #1





Saturday, October 16, 2010

Chaotic Evil

Finding the old Citadel and Ral Partha AD&D miniatures at my fathers house - made me start looking for a few more miniatures. Some of those that I loved but never got back then. Have found a few at eBay - but that search also lead me to the most wonderful little miniature company: Otherworld Miniatures. Otherworld do classic 28mm AD&D/fantasy gaming figures inspired by the iconic imagery of the early Dungeon & Dragon gaming books/art works - and have specialists doing monster like those that can be found in the Monster Manual (TSR 1977) and Fiends Folio (TSR 1981) - just like Grenadier, Ral Partha and Citadel did.

My first purchase from Otherworld was the awesome Shadows sculpted by the fantastic Paul Muller. Paul has done a lot of cool models for many miniature companies - but I must admit, that the Undead range he is doing for Otherworld are some of his bests - and I was very, very impressed by both sculpting and casting quality of these.

So back on topic. After finishing the Citadel Umber Hulk I wanted to do some more D&Ds - so the next painting project was these new Undeads.

Otherworld UD Series - Undead, Shadows





I love painting Undead - so Skeletons, Wights, Wraiths and Ghouls will probably be on my next Otherworld order - and hopefully Otherworld will also do me a Lich. Would really like painting one so I has been looking for a Citadel ADD94 - but without luck.


Next project is dwarfs, though. Will have to figure out what to do for Golden Hat XIII at Chaos Dwarf Online. A Chaos Dwarf Musician? - hmmm! haven't got a clue, what I'll do - or have I   :-D

Monday, October 11, 2010

Long lost monsters -

I've just recently returned to AD&D (from a painting point of view) - after finding my old box of miniatures - clearing my dads house. I had totally forgot about these. Must be at least 20 years since I last looked at them. Brought back lots of happy memories - like: being 15, playing soccer in the summer time - and Dungeon and Dragons at cold winter nights.

And when a Danish gaming (powerfit.dk) site was running a painting challenge with the theme: 'Create a Monster' - I couldn't think of a better excuse for painter the Umber Hulk - can you?

Here it is:

Citadel ADD77 - Umber Hulk (TSR 1985)



Gunline taking shape

Don't have much time for playing with my miniatures - but the dream keeps this project alive - creating a WfB Chaos Dwarf army.

So the 'Blunderbuss' unit starts to take shape. Still need to find a suitable model for the rare ranks. Thought of using old Citadel Chaos Dwarfs with plastic crossbows giving them a suitable blunderbuss replacement.

Here is the 12 man unit (thought it's only 10 man and a Swivel Gun). Mix of Twisted Tales and old Citadel and Marauder Miniatures.



 And a few close ups: