Sea Reiver Raid, Rivers Run Red

Recently I have made some new additions to my growing 3rd Edition Warhammer Slann army project.

I managed to paint up many copies of my own Bizaza blowpipe trooper sculpt and added in a couple of the vintage Perry Twins sculpted Citadel Slann models to break the monopose up a bit.

The colour scheme is straight outta Warhammer Armies ;P

I got the enthusiasm to finally finish off 5 Bob Naismith sculpted cold one riders. The riders themselves are Trish Carden sculpts, although I think the leader, who is a 40k Slann, might be a Perry.

Bull Slann Riders

I have heavily modified the basic cold one by adding on a fur saddle, an idea coming from Steve Beales blog. This helps me to fit the rather oddly posed riders on convincingly. That era of Slann were designed with wide open leg stances to be used as either riders or foot infantry. I also added a banner pole onto the back using brass tubing and brass wire to detail. Finished by sculpting a feather onto the top. The banner bearer is done similarly. Shields have had feathers sculpted on also. I made the long spears using brass rod, with some green stuff to simulate bamboo. The spear head is from an old Slann spear top.

Here we see our lady elf from the recent #makeatrish painting competition recently on one of the popular Oldhammer friendly Facebook groups.

Dark Elves are expert sea raiders, marching up the beach in a tight protective armoured formation, supported by fast firing repeater crossbowmen who use the main block for cover

Fast moving armoured missile cavalry

Dark Elf beach head

Cold ones surge forth in a frenzy

Bull Slann Rider Champion

Bull Slann Riders with Standard

Citadel Perry Slann

Jungle Warfare

The Venom Tribe

El Jefe waits for his moment….

….and strikes

Hail to the King Baby!

The Great Narwhal

I have another one of Doti’s sculpts to show you today from her forthcoming project, Terrors from the Deep.

The Great Narwhal is also known as the Narwhale and at times called the unicorn of the sea. It is one of the largest of the whale species, being at least 5 to 10 times as large as other whales. It is a largely benign species but will aggressively defend itself if anything is foolish enough to attack it when it surfaces to breathe.

The spiral horn, which grows magically from a tooth, measures several meters in length and is said to possess many wondrous transformative properties by alchemists. It is said to be worth more than 100 times it’s weight in gold which has tempted many a foolish whaler, and many a foolish whaler has been sent to the bottom of the drink, ships hull pierced with the mighty horn. The ancient high sea kings of the north were said to sit on thrones carved from the horn of Great Narwhals.

Bizaza – Strong Spawn Guard Unit

A unit of our own Katsina sculpts this time. The Bizaza Strong Spawn form the heavy infantry core of my own frogman army.

Bizaza Strong Spawn Heavy Infantry

Bizaza Strong Spawn – Right

Bizaza Strong Spawn – Rear

Bizaza Strong Spawn – Left

I built this banner from a pressmoulding of one of Doti’s shields, adding extra feathers, mounting it on a brass pole with some Green Stuff used to suggest the bamboo form. The warrior has had some minor conversion work to differentiate him from other versions of him in the unit. I choose a bright colour scheme for his uniform as I want him to draw attention as the focal point for the unit.

Distinguished Space Ork Boyz

Working on some Blood Axe boyz recently I couldn’t resist using some of the classic Space Ork plastic heads.

These are literally some of the first models I bought at the beginning of the 1990’s when getting into all this jazz.

It’s great value, giving the budding modeler and painter 36 test subjects to paint to a PRO-PAINTED standard. It was great as you got lots of weapons and shoulder pads and equipment to personalize them.

And here they are in all their glory with the studio paint jobs, and they looked pretty damn cool to the eyes of 13 year old me!

So I took some of those old heads and the shoulder pads and so we have…..

They are part of a larger unit of 10 Blood Axe boyz, which will feature in the army I plan to play some new 40k with later in the year.

Bizaza Jaguar Knight / WIP: Sculpting a Space Frog Man Part 2

Technically this is part 2 of this previous WIP post….

So I took that old WIP and decided to do something with it. While it looks a bit ugly, once the basic proportions on the limbs are OK, we can build on top of it with fresh detail.

Midway through – brown stuff is used to structure the form usually building up in a couple of sessions.

I had a rough idea in mind for this guy rather than a specific design. As it shapes up it tends to inform the next things added and so on. I knew I wanted to have separate hands for later weapon and shield options.

Bizaza Jaguar Knight

The Jaguar Knights are a cult of proven warriors dedicated to the Jaguar god. Apprenticeship is open to any regular Bizaza warriors who have proven themselves by taking 4 high status warrior captives in battle to honour the gods in worthy sacrifice and of course, to stop the sky falling on everyone’s heads.

They dress in elaborate costumes crafted from the big cats bodies, believing that the wild spirit of the Jaguar God will posses them in battle and bring deadly ruin to their enemies.

In the army they fulfill the role of elite light infantry. They employ a light shield slung on the forearm for protection while they shower opponents with atlatl darts. When the situation calls for close work they switch to clubs and macuahuitl.

He will appear in a future KS this year with some buddies.

Marauder Witch Elf

Conversion of a Marauder Witch Elf for the #makeatrish painting competition on The Oldhammer Community Facebook page. I choose a small subject for this one as I didn’t really have loads of time to lavish on it and I certainly wanted to contribute something in my style as Trish Carden is a major influence on my work and certainly a great pioneer in miniature but particularly monster sculpting.

Marauding Dark Elf Female

I have taken a stock witch elf model, which came from friend Curis over at Ninjabread. The unfortunate lady was missing her right hand, so I replaced it with a plastic dark elf hand and rigged her into a sword and marauder plastic shield pose.

Juvenile Treeman

I sculpted a juvenile Treeman onto the shield loosely based on Trish’s iconic Treeman design. I chose this as it’s the model that really illuminated for me just what an awesome miniature designer she is. I have modeled to look like it’s been nailed there by our fair lady to discourage whoever is shooting those arrows.

I glued some modeling sponge to the tops of the branch arms to give some nice green colour and texture to the model and which really makes the treeman pop.

The little leaves are from birch tree seeds.  They are lovely things to work with.  I enhanced the colours simply by using red, green or brown glazes on top of them.

Finally, there is a hedgehog on the base and she has surely ruined it’s rest with all her nasty doings!