LPL Round 3 Entry: Green Orcs and Ham

For round three of the LPL I started a unit that I have been itching to paint for years...MM22 Marauder Orc boar riders. These are the best boar riders ever produced in my opinion. Not only are the riders full of character and style...but the boars are too. Later GW boar riders...like the savage orcs were wonderful figures...but the boars were horrible. Earlier Citadel boar riders were decent figures with decent boars...but to my eye the Marauder ones are the best.

So this entry was a lot of fun to paint and I really look forward to painting more in the future. Without further ado...here they are

And here is the studio shot

Well that's enough for now...got to get back to the painting table...round four is in play now and round five...the Tolkein themed round is on the corks...it's going to be touch and go to get it done and well photographed in time!

Cheers for now.

Blue

Lead Painters League Round 2

Howdy!

We have just started round 3 of the LPL so now I am free to post pictures of my Round 2 entry.  Here again I'm working on some figures for a skirmish band so I was able to use the nice 30mm Round lipped bases...which I must admit look really nice.

Anyway...this week I chose to work up a team of Dwarfs...The ones I picked have a very "Norse" feel...lots of Chainmail....no Puff and Slash....Big axes ect.  They didn't really fit with my other units so they are perfect for a small skirmish band.  This has also forced me to attempt a more subdued palette...which actually turned out to be a nice change of pace.

Anyway...enough Jibb-jabber...here is my entry photo

 

And here is the "Studio" shot of this crew

This group includes several of my favorite Marauder Dwarfs...(do I say that about all Marauder Dwarfs? :)) the guy with the Flail was a figure that took me a very long time to track down...and the crossbow dwarf has a wonderful expression.  The Wizard is a Citadel dwarf from the "Dwarf Adventurer" range.  Painting the Magic Sphere was a real challenge for me...Its got at least 4 coats of paint on it and I'm still not 100% happy with the results....but time was tight and I think it works with the subdued color scheme.

The dwarf Wizard and the Dwarf with the Bow are a great example of figures that were made for use with WFB but are no longer supported by the much more rigid "Fluff" that GW has forced on gamers in later editions...Thats why I'm happy to escape the Warhammer World with this Skirmish Band....it will be used with David Kings excellent set of rules "Skulldred"

Cheers,

Blue

Lead Painters League Round 1

We have just wrapped up the first round of the sixth Lead Painters League (LPL) over on the Lead Adventure Forum (LAF).  This years 46 contestants facing off on a weekly basis...and let me tell you the quality of the competition this year is quite intimidating...there are many heavy weights on the roster and they always pull out all the stops for the LPL.

Round 1 of this years LPL was a themed round...this time its was "Old Lead"...and to acquire the bonus points for matching the theme the team submitted had to date from before 1991.  Luckily for me that includes almost ALL my figures....that said I picked some of the oldest ones in my collection...a team of Marauder MM20 orcs.  We saw one of these in my Brush Slave League first entry...like those these will form a portion of my Evil Skirmish band that I am working up for Skulldred and/or other skirmish games.

This contest is also one that really appreciated the use of terrain in the photography.  This is a new area for me to explore and I'm learning a lot (mostly the hard way...:)) about what it takes to make an effective shot using terrain.

Here is my entry picture:

Click the picture for the larger version...

It looks like I could do better with the lighting...the guys on the right are a bit shaded for my liking....and the gap from where the hill meets the table annoys me...but other than that I'm pretty happy with how my terrain shot worked out.  One thing I have figures out is...I NEED more terrain...to mix things up and make more interesting pictures.

When it was unclear whether I would get the terrain shot done in time I also took a more traditional "studio" type shot...here is a copy of that.

Sadly these guys did not secure me a victory for round 1.  I was matched up with Drachenklinge's wonderful entry which shows a group of knights in training...complete with training dummies and all kinds of other wonderful little details.  His entry really told a story in a single photograph...mine is more of a studio shot with some stuff in the background....I'll file that lesson away for future use.  It was a very close contest with the final count coming out at 219 to 211 votes...pretty close for such a large voting poll.  Cheers to you Drachenklinge!

Anyway...back to the painting table...LPL round 2 and 3 are already submitted...round 4 is taking FOREVER to finish but I'm almost there...then its on to Round 5...which is the Tolkien themed round...I have 10 figures to complete for that round...and a new terrain board to photograph them on...so back to the grind stone!

Cheers,

Blue

Brush Slave League Entry #1

The beginning of March has seen the opening round of the Brush Slave League over on the Chaos Dwarfs Online Forum...and Once again the level of talent displayed by the members of that forum have really impressed me.  If you would like to have a look at this months entries please explore this link:

http://www.chaos-dwarfs.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=70

For my entry I submitted three green skins that are the first members of a skirmish band that I am putting together.  Once again I have chosen to use some of the classic Marauder Sculpts for this entry.  The Orc is from the MM20 range and the two goblins are from the MM30 series...the bat sheild is from the Marauder undead/chaos sprue.  The goblins in particular are personal favorites...the whole range is just full of character.

So without further delay...here they are:

Cheers for now!

Blue

Slayers

Howdy all,

Sorry for the long gap in posting, but as explained in my last post it is Painting League Season...so all the effort I'm putting in at the painting table right now is on pieces that can't be shown on my blog until they have competed in their respective contests.  However...I did complete one small group of figures for the monthly painting contest over at Bugman's Brewery that I can share with you.

This months theme was dwarf "specialist" which could have included elite dwarfs...artillery crew members...miners...and in my case...Slayers.  The contest also called for each entry to consist of a team of three figures.  I chose to paint a mix of classic Citadel and Marauder sculpts for my slayers.  As you can see in this pre-paint photo my team includes one citadel Slayer (left), one Marauder MM10 Slayer (center), and one Marauder MM16 Slayer (right).

While all three figures have a certain character to them...the MM10 sculpt is a bit awkward...and I'm not real fond of his teeth...which are HUGE....that said overall I'm quite happy with how they came out.  I particularly like the Citadel sculpt...he just oozes character....and may encourage me to pick up a few more of his type that will fit with my Marauder sculpts.

Here are the complete figure:

And here they are with my other painted Slayers....its starting to look like an actual unit!

Coming up:  The Lead Painters League and Brush Slave League are currently in play...and as voting wraps up for the first rounds I'll be able to post my entries here...so it won't be too long.

Cheers for now!

Blue