Merry Christmas

Havent really been that active (painting wise) the last couple of months, and for that I am sorry :-(

Hopefully a new year will get me back on the track.

But have done a few pieces:
WKminis: Dwarf Pistolier

A converted White Knight dwarf. Tuned him into a "do you feel lucky" kind of guy for a painting challenge at powerfist.dk.

And for the latest Brush Slave Challenge at Chaos Dwarfs On-line I did this little goblin. A gem from my impressive John Pickford-collection :-)


Sneaky Santa

Wish you all a very

Merry Christmas

Collecting John Pickford: the Zweihänders (Dwarf Great Swords) from White Knight Minis - part 1

Here's another batch of awesome Pickford Dwarfs from White Knight Miniature Imperium. This time it's the first half of the elite infantry: the Zweihänders - or Great Swords, as I would call them.

Like said it's just first half, but WK couldn't sit one these any longer and just gave preview of some rather spectacular pieces.

First off, we have the Champion - as he has the biggest feather :-)

And then, what have become WK signature concept miniatures - multipart rank and file. Static, perhaps - but the poses are fantastic and with the separated head system you get a great opportunity personalizing your units. Can't wait to get my hands on these:

Last, the first two single piece casts - slightly more characterful and dynamic:

Think the last one here is my favorite and will probably be serving as my unit Captain. Really love that proud and noble look of that guy.

Looking much forward seeing second half of the unit. As for now, looks to be: a musician, a standard bearer two more dynamic single pieces dwarfs and a 3th rank and file with separate head - but who knows what happens when these 2 guys first gets started :-)

Collecting John Pickford: Bugman's Dwarf High King

Lately, this blogs seems to be more about John Pickford's sculpting rather than my paintings. For that I am sorry. Short story is, my professional job is rather hectic right now - and then the surgery I had done (back in May) is still causing lots of "issues" - so if not working my ass off, I'm laying "dead" in bed :(

December and Christmas, will probably be even worse, but after that - thing should straighten out and things should get back to normal. So please have patients with me :-)

But while waiting lets have a look at what's coming:

Dwarf High King - a Bugman's Brewery Commemorative Miniature

The "Dwarf addicts" at the Bugman's Brewery internet forum have asked John to do them a miniature for their Grudge Match 2012: "War of the Beard" - a Warhammer Fantasy gaming event taking place at Warhammer World, Nottingham on February 13th and 14th 2012. Grudge Match is an event that aims to recreate one of the major, defining and nigh on apocalyptic battles in the Warhammer world involving the Dwarfs. This year, they will be recreating the War of Vengeance, or War of the Beard as it is known. A classic Warhammer conflict between the noble Elves and the stubborn Dwarfs.

The miniature is based on a miniature concept artwork done by Bugman Brewery forum-member Zachariah Bauer (aka "Baruke Splintersteel").

Concept artwork by Zachariah Bauer (see more here: www.zbauer.com)

A rather detailed concept for a 28mm scaled dwarf, I would say - and I was very curious seeing what John could make out of that. A lot of WIPs have been shared at Bugman's during the process and it have been very interesting following how a naked dwarf is getting "dressed".

By courtesy of Matt (aka Alebelly_Cragfist) I'm allowed to share some of the many pictures that's been shown and commented on at Bugman's during the process of creating a true King.

The naked Dwarf!

Shrek, anyone?

Awesome Norse Dwarf!

Noble!

Dragon King :-)

And here, the finished Dwarf High King on a 20x20mm base - without the Dragon Head Visor, though.

A true Warhammer Fantasy Dwarf King. Spectacular sculpt - and I'm so impressed by the amount of details transferred from artwork onto the 20mm miniature. Another excellent job by John.

This miniature are limited to the 69 community members that signed up for it - and now have shared the sculpting fee and casting costs. Each member then have had an opportunity ordering a number of additional miniatures. So, it looks like 200 miniatures will be cast for members. But to try and raise some money for the next forum miniature up till 50 copies will be sold to people interested in the miniature. Should you like one you can sign up here.

Looking so much forward getting my copy - and will post more pictures of him when he gets here, of course.

Collecting John Pickford: A Zoat for the Gaming Cantina

Earlier this year, a good friend of mine pointed me in the direction of "Axiom" - and his gaming club "the Gaming Cantina" - as he had commissioned John doing him an event-special-miniature - a Female Howling Banshee. The miniature were for their annual event - a long time running Warhammer 40.000 Campaign called: 'Eldritch Port' - and I was very lucky geting my hands on a copy of this little beauty.

"Axiom" was so pleased with last years result that he have asked John to do the 2012 miniature as well. And has also been kind enough letting me follow the project up close and have shared all John's WIP shots, with me.

The miniature, a 40K Zoat carrying an Eldar casualty is now finished and with the courtesy of Axiom, I can now share the Work in Process shots with you:

Concept art:

This awesome piece of art is done by Jon Cave

Armature:

Early WIP:

WIP:

Almost there:

The finished piece:

As reason for doing a 40K Zoat, Axiom said: "Why a zoat? In the Rogue Trader Compendium Eldritch Raiders army list you could include 0-2 Zoat terror squads; Zoats were described as being the favoured mercenary choice of Eldar. Making a figure around that basis as a mercenary bodyguard seemed like a good idea."

The miniature, including the base, will be cast in resin and will be limited to 50 copies and given to the people attending the 2012 Eldritch Port-event.

The miniature has now been added to the Gaming Cantina page at the Pickford Wiki.

Collecting John Pickford: New Goblin wolfriders and huge/giant Spiders from Otherworld Miniatures

Collecting John Pickford will be a new segment of my blog. I will start abusing my blog to plug new Pickford Miniatures I've become aware of - and stuff I've added to the Wiki-page.
Already done that when "pluging" the White Knight miniature venture, but will start doing it on a more regular basis. And "Why?", I hear you all asking? Well, because the guy is an awesome sculptor - and he deserves all the publicity he can get (so I can have even more lead for my mountain) - so it's simply just a win-win situation :-)

So, on with today's news.

Otherworld ......! cause yes, first news segment has to be about awesome, awesome Otherworld Miniatures. In November we'll see the 5th anniversary of Otherworld Miniatures and to celebrate this event Kev Adams has made a fantastic conversion kit/diorama pack to go with the first ever Otherworld Miniature - the Demon Idol done by Mr. Paul Muller. This kit will be the official 5th anniversary special, but November holds a lot of other new releases - and amongst them, the long awaited John Pickford Goblin Wolfriders. An expansion to the popular Goblins range.

John's has done a spectacular job and has created noting more than 10 different mounted Goblin's to go on - slightly converted - OW wolves/dire wolves (originally sculpted by Jo Brumby).

They come in packs of 2 core wolfriders (4 different packs), a Chieftain pack and a champion's pack - but can also be bought in a Warband pack with all 10 wolfriders.

Otherworld Miniatures: GB5-GB8 - Goblin Wolfrider I-IV

Otherworld Miniatures: GB9 - Goblin Wolfrider Chieftain

Otherworld Miniatures: GB10 - Goblin Wolfrider Champion

Otherworld Miniatures: GB11 - Goblin Wolfrider warband

But that's not all. Also out are 2 huge spiders and a giant one done by John. They will be new additions for the current range of spiders found in the Wilderness Encounters range (WE series) - started by Pedro Navarro:

Otherworld Miniatures: WE10e Huge Spider III

Otherworld Miniatures: WE10f - Huge Spider IV

Otherworld Miniatures: WE10g - Giant Spider II

All these (and quite a few miniatures by Kev Adams) are now up for pre-orders at the Otherworld Miniatures Store. The miniatures are expected to be released on the 29th November 2011.

Grab your Pickford's (part 3)

Finally found a bit of time for painting some miniatures. Have been building and painting a lot recently but all on a 1:1 scale. Wife decided our master bedroom needed a make over, and for some reason it also involved me :) But I'm done now, and in time for making a few enties for the regular painting challenges, I usually attend.

First, an entry for the OWC. Most appropriated, the theme this month was: "Grab Yer Pickfords" - meaning painting at least 1 John Pickford Otherworld model. Did plan doing something big, but as said time really didn't allow, so went for something a bit smaller - the limited/unreleased Mimics.

Otherworld Miniatures: Unreleased Mimics

 

Originally, the treasure chest was done by Paul Muller (and is also to be found in the unreleased Otherworld Treasure pile and the Otherword Giant accessories), but John converted them and turned it into these awesome Mimics.

Next, a little piece I painted for the Brush Slave Challenge at Chaos-Dwarfs.com. Theme in October was "Beast" and there would even be an additional bonus point for painting something big. Had lots of big plans, but as I really hadn't started anything on October 31th, I had to come up with something fast, so dicided to play it safe and painted on of the promotional gems I'd got from John, earlier this year.

Grab your Pickford's: Creature

Quite a typical Pickford miniature - especially the face expression gives the sculptor away :-) A wonderful creature with lots of character, and will be very useful in my dungeon.

The miniature did came with a oval metal base, but to make him more usable, I based him on one of Fenris' 30mm DS dungeon scenery bases.

Last, but definitely not least, I gave paint to the second little musician "Mustard Seed" from John's 2007 Frother's Sculpting Contest entry - the "Puck's Dance diorama". Mustard Seed is a hedgehog playing a trumpet - and to match his pink companion - Peaseblossom - I painted this guy in an albino colour scheme I came cross looking for inspiration how to do a hedgehog.

WKminis: WKHS-02: Mustard Seed

Like Peaseblossom, Mustard Seed is now available from White Knight Miniatures' Hors Série range and I can just hope, that Puck himself will find his way into that range one/some day, too. He whould be rather fun painting, too. Till then, I'll have to be content with these two, here:

Modern times

Just a quick message to let you know that "Clamshells and Sea Horses" has finally entered the 21st century and it's modern tools for Social Networking.

Some might already have seen this, but this is an official announcement to tell you that "Clamshells and Sea Horses" is now on both Twitter and Facebook.

So fell free to follow me on Twitter or maybe "like" me at Facebook

Paint an Orc

A good friend, Martin "Player1" Blirup @ the Danish Wargaming and Miniature Painting Forum (powerfisk.dk) - came up with an idea of having forum members painting him an Orc Warhammer Army. Not really into GW Orcs (I'll leave that to my two kids), so I wasn't really that motivated, but helping out a dear friend (and the fact that he threw in some prizes as well) made me volunteer for his project.

And to my surprise there wasn't only GW miniatures to pick from. On Martin's list of miniatures there was lots of cool stuff - and even some of the beautiful Wargames Factory Renaissance Orcs (now called Ogres due to their size). Wasn't hard deciding what to pick. And what better excuse could I get, to try out some of Kev Adams wonderful sculpts?


Martin sent me three wonderful Foundry miniatures - and only gave me a very few restrictions:

Green skin
Red signature colour
Black rim bases with green sand

Finished the first one yesterday, as it's going to be entered into the painting challenge at powerfist.dk, as well.

Wargames Foundry: Mercenary Ogres Gashonock the Retiring

Looking so much forward painting the other two I've got, but an interesting packed have showed up at my door step, so don't feel surprise if next update is about a certain dwarf and his pony :-)