Part 4
Smoke and dust fills the air, suffocating whatever rays of sun make it through the clouds. The dust and char turns to mud as freezing fog bites the skin and burns the lungs. Parties sent out to gather firewood have returned to the convoy empty-handed, unable to find anything dry. A miner’s orphan grabs the soldiers’ attention, telling them of an old mobile furnace the coal-miners used to pull their carts at a nearby pit.
Several scavenging goblins scatter in the shadows as the torchlight flickers down the mineshaft. An ogre mercenary, serving the Empire in exchange for his supper, wrangles the rusted hinges open and loads the coals; Bart the Bright Wizard blows life into the burner. Eyes widen as light floods the tunnel. Hinges screaming from rust and caked with coal dust, but still very much alive, the steel behemoth lumbers forward out of its slumber.
Having painted one of the gigantic 6th edition steam tanks, this antique from 4th edition was a breeze in comparison – and about 250g lighter. The colours could have been a bit dull on their own so I went hard on the mud and pigment with an elaborate base. Hard to see from a photo but the tank is rolling down a muddy bank to cross a rocky shallows accross a stream. The mud is soilworks SAP-007 Autumn Ground and the water is Secret Weapon Scenics – Realistic Water (this is getting hard to find so get it while you can). Doing water in several layers instead of one big pour allows you to but bits and leaves and flotsam in the water at varying depths. The orphan is from a spare Questing Knight banner. Painting freckles is an interesting process – too big+dark and they look mud-spattered, too light and you can’t see them. Painful but essential to sell the character as a genuine redhead.
Painting a lot of black and white makes you think a lot about relative value for colours – that is to say something white doesn’t have to be pure white, just the brightest point on the model. A histogram of your model should be a bell curve, where only the deepest shadows are pure black and almost nothing should be pure white unless it’s sunlight reflecting on silver.
Freehanding the bull of Ostland makes me wish the Chicago Bulls sold transfer sheets on their merch store.
The Freelancer is from an era of adding complexity to sculpts by tacking on bags, belts, bits and bobs – in this case though it makes sense, we have a nomadic sword for hire with all of his possessions inserted about his person somewhere. Don’t leave home without your lucky lance rat. I glued his arm on before I painted the lance so the stripes are a bit wonky (I have never got this effect quite right on Bretonnians either) but I think it lends a sort of organic and hand-crafted feel to it. Overall I think if a newly vindicated Johnny Depp was cast in Tim Burton’s Don Quixote, he’d look a bit like this.
My old man is a fisherman so I had a real-life reference for the shield-trout. Should be able to eat at the start of any turn to regain 1 Wound.
Bruno the mercenary captain gets to be less covered-in-shite than everyone else. Not crazy about the shield, might replace it later.
This Hunter of Sigmar prefers chopping heads over spearing spines. He’s here to kill Gors and drink schnapps, and as you can see he’s almost out of schnapps. The axe comes from a Mordheim weapon sprue.
Someone brayed their last bray. Sword is from militia.
Quite happy with how Brutogg turned out – he would not have as much uniform/insignia as the others (standard sizes don’t come in ogre and Ostland can’t afford a tailor). Put a lot of attention toward differentiating the different leathers, ropes and furs texturally so that it doesn’t all just become a mass of brown against his brown skin.
A quick note on basing:
On top of sand I am using some dark brown static grass in patches. The I add little dots of PVA glue and sprinkle some leaf scatter so that it catches on the dots (rather than clumping on top of the glue as a layer). Using Green Stuff World Micro Leaves Brown and Micro Leaves Orange in a 2:1 ratio as the orange ones are very bright.
The Autumn Ground mud effect comes out very shiny so adding some brown pigment powder (also from SWS) can matte this out as desired.