Woah-Oh, Black Phillip Bam-A-Lam

Being unemployed is getting the back log sorted. Ok, so not very movie accurate, but they one that is available is part of a pack and I’m not buying half a dozen minis for just one, so a trip to Etsy and a more buff looking mountainy goat instead… there’s a shine to him that I just can’t dull down though.

 

Phantasmagoria

Like many I’m sure, I got the first two issues of Mortal Realms part work from Games Workshop, the shitty Sigmarines aside, I was definitely going in on the spooky stuff offered by the Nightgaunts. These were the banshees from issue 2, but I didn’t go full grim dark and just wanted floaty sheet types, so the bodies and the overly done bases went in the bits tray...

The observant amongst you will notice they are only two of the set of four that comes with the set (of course I got two issues at that price)... I had tried converting some to get some variety, but that wasn’t very successful and mistakes were made. In fact the one travelling through the gravestone was the only successful bit of fiddling I did, wish I’d done that with the others rather than having the ground contact thing on the others. The tail end of the sheet through the stone is from one of the bodies, that one was quite badly cut up by the conversion efforts, but quite pleased that I managed to Frankenstein him back together with some greenstuff. 

the Gabriel Hounds

Some supernatural beasties that have been planned for a while, but I needed the right canine body. Gabriel Hounds (also called Gabble Hounds for the noise they make as they fly across the sky - which was probably just geese) are said to be born by the death of unbaptised children and have the heads of humans. The heads in this case are from the werewolf head sprues from Maxmini, the wolf body is from MiniatureMojo's Scavenge Skirmish Survive range - they have 3 different types available, but I prefered the hunched pose.

Not my best paint jobs, I hate doing fur as it never allows me to blend like I normally do, plus I wasn't happy with the white (definitely need to buy the very intriguing White set from Andrea Color). And they had to be white according to legend, with red ears - I had planned on blending the ears in to the white, but the fur around the heads put paid to that.

If I ever get the chance to do an Akula and get my own mini's made up, these are the first things I'll have made...

Black Dog

painted the Black Dog... not 100% happy with it to be honest, the eyes work quite well, but the paintjob as a whole isn't winning me over, but I figure I better step away from it... and annoyingly it's still shiny, after several coats of dullcote...

I did resculpt the muzzle from the WIP shot though, the nose is narrower, but the snout is slightly shorter and taller, makes it a bit less wolf-life hopefully...

and for size comparison...

so, he'll do for now - I have more of the basic Wild Warg model, so can always revisit this...

Black Dog WIP

a quick WIP of the lone phantom dog...

it's a GW Wild Warg, the head was cut down, lower jaw removed, back hair removed, and generally the whole head got trimmed down to a vaguely more doggy head shape... loads of g/s so far and it's looking ok, I need to redo the lower lip as that was left from when I'd given it a thicker lower jaw, but that is thinner now to help make the snout more pointy... new ears were a quandry, as I didn't want it too wolf-like but floppy mastiff ears didn't look right and as it looks like it's stalking, the forward pricked ears helped with the body language... the problem is, I don't want it too wolf-like as they are always described as big black dogs - although the last wolf was killed a hundred years before my planned period, the sightings of the dogs go back far enough for the witnesses to know what a wolf looks like... I plan on making the feet slightly bigger, and am pondering on the tail... a short tail would remove the wolfishness of it and a bushier tale would just add to it, so a short tail seems likely... but would make it a bit more hyena-ish, but I can live with that... and of course, as it's a Warg under there, it's big, and is currently on a 30mm base...

now, the various Black Dogs are usually harmless, but mostly the theme is that they were a portent of death... in game terms, aside from some tweaking for the shapeshifting Capelthwaite, this doesn't really offer much in the way of a danger, unless of course the reason that they herald a death, is that they are doing the killing...

erm... and yes, I added the demon dogs lipstick down there as well, just seemed wrong not to... no balls yet though...

ghouls, ghouls, ghouls...

finally got around to getting some paint on my ghouls...

annoyingly, what stalled me was what colours to paint them - I'm fine with uniforms and Timelords and what have you, but as soon as I need to decide on a colour, I really do ponder too much... in the end I just picked out the earthy tones from paints, and slapped it on... so it's kind of a slap dash job to an extent as I didn't want to be thinking about the colours too much... it kind of worked - a nice surprise was the WW2 German Uniform green... will use that more for this project I think...

these three are basic Mantic ghouls (although not sure what the camera was focusing on as the faces are a bit blurry)... some minor g/s on the back for the joins...

next were four Mantic ghouls that were heavily g/s'd for the 17th century vibe... quite chuffed with the frilly shirt on the red chap...

finally, a mix and match with Mantic bits added to Warlord plastic ECW figures... the female ghoul is converted from a Redoubt Enterprises ECW villager (with buckets on a yoke thing)...


went with a green grey for the basic skin colour, highlighted up with white and washed with mainly purple, but the odd splosh of green for a unhealthy shade... not a huge fan of lashings of blood and gore and I suspect others may have gone a bit paler, but I quite like the inhuman greyness... similarly I like the all white eyes, but may try some small pupils with a rotring pen or something... gums are also purple if you can manage to see them... I also added a fallen gravestone to one of the bases to go with the priest...

ECW Ghouls...

have been slowly g/s stuff to get some ECW ghouls from the Warlord placcy stuff and the Mantic placcy Ghouls...

first off Mantic Ghouls with g/s puffy trousers and shredded Llewellyn-Bowen shirts, some of the orginal rags should make for decent enough shredded stockings...

a mix of Mantic and Warlord bits for a more recently departed (or more careful) ghoul... sadly, the Mantic stuff is a little too big for the Warlord plastics, but with the more action poses you can get away with the head and arms ok... I do have some more planned, but the pose means they may have to use the original Warlord head and I'll need to be a bit more creative... but I've g/s'd out at the moment...

and finally, the above, mixed in with some standard fantasy rag Mantic ghouls...