The Jaghar

As usual I periods of intense activity and long breaks, so it might not surprise you too much if I come up with another update, the third in just a week (must be a personal record)...

I found myself with a spare few hours before taking my flight back home so I decided to give my King a suitable companion: a dangerous Jaghar, the beasts known as the Princes of the Plains.

I know, I know, a Sabertooth is a bit of a cliché for Ghur, but since I first laid eye upon the Griph-hounds kit I have wanted to make something similar with them.

The name Jaghar is not as obvious as it could might at first sight. I imagine the Five Tribes to speak a very degenerated form of Reikspiel, the mythical language of the World-that-Was, which is basically medieval german... In my few years of german studies I picked up a few words that were very useful in my long career as a DM for WFRP and I thought it would be cool if all the names of places and animals of the plains were basically very primitive german words.

The word for Hunter in german is, as most of you probably know, Jäger, which I just twisted into Jaghar, the hunters of Ghur.

The conversion itself was pretty simple. I used the Griph-hound of the Lord Castellant as a base, just got rid of all the harnesses and proceed to resculpt the neck and muzzle. It took only a few hours but I 

am happy that my Wandere King is now accompanied by a suitable Prince!

And with that I shall park my sculpting tools for a while, now it's time to paint the King and his (un)friendly companion!

The Wanderer King - finished conversion

Very quick post just to show you guys the final result on the Wanderer King.

As you can see all I did was changing the shoulder pad to the one with the snarling lion. I was undecided until the last minute as some people raised a very good point about the eagle being an appropriate choice for a native american themed warrior, but in the end I simply prefer the silhouette of the model this way and I think it does not detract from the overall atmosphere of the model.

I also added some trophies to the spear shaft to reinforce the shamanic aura and finally tidied up the last few areas I was not too happy about.

I can say that I am very close to be 100% happy with how this turned up, which I can almost never say about any of my conversions!

I am truly excited to start painting this guy, hopefully in the next few weeks.

The Wanderer King 2.0

Hi all!

Just wanted to share my last conversion: the Wanderer King is reborn!

This was an extensive conversion, representing my outcast Stormcast Lord worshipped as a demigod by the inhabitants of the Appalathian Plains.

Orar is his name, the Son of Or, and in the legends of the Five Tribes he used to be a favourite among the children of the God-King until he disobeyed his commands and returned to his ancient lands to rescue his long forgotten people from the coils of the Four-Headed Snake.

Now he is a wanderer, forced to roam the plains of Ghur like a prophet, teaching ancient secrets of fire and steel to those who are brave and faithful. He is the Keeper of the Promise, returned to this world challenging the divine decree to spread words of hope and redemption, to tell his people that the time of Fulfilment is close at hand and Or will soon return to cleanse the lands with the untamed power of the celestial storms.

I am particularly proud of this conversion, which took quite a long tome to complete and presented some interesting challenges, like sculpting the cloak and adding lots of intricate details while still make it easy to paint. 

The idea was to transform the Stormcast aesthetic into something more primal and savage but still clearly recognisable. This particular warrior of Sigmar has spent decades wandering in Ghur, incapable of returning to Azyr and was thus forced to make do with the resources of this savage lands. His armour plates are interwoven with animal hides and leather, claws and fangs of dangerous beasts adorn his figure. I wanted to give the impression of a shamanic warrior, pulling together aspects of the civilised azyrite culture with the raw and crude garments of the rest of my Sons of Or.

Big inspiration for the model came of course from the mythological figure of Odin, who often roamed the lands of Midgard dressed as a humble wanderer, his true powers only visible to those with faith and keen eyes.

The model is not yet 100% finished. The shoulder pad with the eagle is just temporary, I am waiting for the more iconic snarling lion one to come in the post. I am also likely going to do a bit more work on his weapon, perhaps hanging some more trophies and bones to the shaft as befits a shaman of his calibre.

The pictures are admittedly not the best but I will take more before starting with the painting.

Wild men and Untamed Beasts

I had great plans for this bank holiday weekend.

The time had come to ride my bike again, bask in sunshine and hang out with friends. Of course none of this happened since I caught an awful cold and I spent most of the time sneezing in bed alongside a pile of used tissues.

It's not all that bad though as I at least had time to go back to some sculpting and painting.
Yesterday I saw the preview of the new chaos warband for Warcry: the Untamed Beasts and the idea of chaotic savages of the wilderness of Ghur awoke the inspiration to keep going with my Sons of Or.

The new Untamed Beasts fro Warcry are chaotic tribes of the Ghurian Wilderness. Image courtesy of Games Workshop Ltd.

So long story short, here you have another warrior of the Appalachian Tribes

It is again a pretty simple conversion from the golden kit of the Kairic Acolytes with a collection of bits from savage looking bits from a variety of kits (bonesplitters, beastmen Ungor and chaos blood reavers) with some green stuff to enhance the savage and wild aesthetic of the tribes.

Though I am a very slow painter the Sons of Or are a project I am very fond of, dating back to the very first days of AoS, and I still try to find the time to keep working on them and make them a playable warband. Sooner or later I will find the courage to go back to my Wanderer King and do him justice.

Here is the warband as it stands now:

A few hours later

I managed to find some time to paint! Here is the result (still WIP)

As you can see I decided to keep it really simple, which was the plan from the beginning. These are not  garish nomads or bizarre warlocks but no-nonsense fighters of the highlands. Their colour scheme should convey practicality and robustness, so I went for a very simple palette of cream, browns and dirty blue. For the metal I went for a very slight oxide tinge, obtained with multiple washes of Rhinox Hide and Mourning Brown.

It was very nice, easy and refreshing to paint a model in such a way, using many techniques developed in the past, especially on my old Bretonnian army.

The only part that doesn't photograph too well is the shield, where I used a very light drybrush that the light of my desk lamp make look a bit messy. I think in real life it looks better (and slightly yellower) than in the pictures.

Only heraldry and base to go now!

The Oaranium Ibex

An update!

It's been another long while without updates, but I am back now (at least for a while) to show you what I have worked on recently. Very early stages at the moment but here goes the green of the first model of my new gang of the Realms.

He is the first member of a new warband project I am currently working on called the Oaranium Ibex.

I have been wanting to create a warband hailing from Chamon, the Realm of Metal, for a while now. In the past I have been trying to convert something similar but all my attempts failed because of a lack of planning ahead of the conversion. This time I gave a lot more thought to what I was trying to achieve and what bits I would have used and this model, which is the first concept for the warband, is the result of these considerations.

The idea is to explore the aesthetic of the Realm of Chamon, a land imbued with the raw essence of the Wind of Metal and pulsating with alchemical powers. It seems that when people think of Chamon, they think of a steam powered fantasy setting, where the boundaries between magic and technology are blurred and where everyone owns at least a rifle and a pair of goggles.

Nothing wrong with Steampunk aesthetics to me, but I wanted to create something with a different feel that responded to the question "how do humans of the Realm of Metal look" without recurring to over-the-top clockwork technology. 

This warrior belongs to the Oaranium Ibex, a regiment of armed guards specialised in escorting mining expeditions into the dangers of the Cold-iron Anvil.  This vast mountain chain to the north of Chamon is rich in the mineral called Oaranium, a combustible realmstone capable of powering entire civilisations across the Realms. The Anvil is a very hard place though, full of Ironjaws tribes and the mutated remains of the fools who roamed too close to the realm edge. The Oaranium Guild pays well to ensure the protection of the brave pioneers who are willing to venture into those misty heights and the Ibex are one of the  regiments of mercenaries that specialised in mobile warfare and protection of the mineral caravans.

Symbol of the Oaranium Ibex

So that is the general idea: a sort of Klondike pioneers guild of the Mortal Realms. In addition to the soldiers, I am planning to convert a couple of miners, an itinerant blacksmith, a Duardin mountain guide and possibly a wizard/alchemist and an warrior/engineer of the Oaranium Guild to lead them.

Painted updates of the test model to follow, hopefully soon.

Hagen

Happy New Year!

Or as we say here, BUON ANNO! to all my friends and followers!

It has been an amazing 2018 for me hobby wise, with lots of exciting projects and experiments, collaborations and satisfactions.

My invitation from Les Kouzes for the Advent Calendar was of course the highlight, having proven an incredibly enjoyable experience which allowed me to create something with a greater sense of pourpose and work alongside some of my favourite hobbyists around the web.

So lots of nice memories but I decided that instead of posting a retrospective on the past year I should have inaugurated this new season with a preview of what will be coming next year!

Greet the Moonshine Wagon, my latest and final addition to the Caravan of the Hundred Moons!

Of course the still very much a work in progress, but the idea is there'd I am really happy with the general feel of the piece, one of the biggest and more ambitious (and expansive) conversions I ever worked on.

The Wagon is a mix of GW kits, mainly the Empire Hurricanum and the new Nighthaunt Black Coach, one of the best models I've ever seen! When it first came out I started playing with ideas on how to convert it into something that could fit one of my projects and I ended up finding it a suitable use as a big centrepiece for my Caravan of the Hundred Moons. 

I have great plans for this miniature but I already know it will take me an eternity to complete it, so you might see other projects creeping in while I will struggle with the tides of motivation and inspiration to finally complete it. My biggest difficulty at the moment is how in hell to convert the horses. As the Caravan itself is a multidimensional wandering tribe, travelling from Realm to Realm every night, I wanted the wagon to feel imbued with arcane magic. The fact that the Black Coach is flying suited my idea for the model very well, so I would like to retain this aspect, but the horses of the original model are quite challenging to convert, as I do not want them to be skeletal remains but strong stallions infused with a fraction of the power of the Katophranes. I tried with many different options but every single GW horse is simply too small to fit this behemoth of a model. At the moment I am struggling with the green stuffing of the original four horses of the BC, but it's a real difficult feat! I hope I will be able to succeed in the end, I will keep you updated!

IN the meantime I wish all of you a Happy New Year full of hobby, new challenges and projects that will push you out of your comfort zone and to always greater achievements, hobby and life wise.

Hagen