Musings and Newsings

Hello once again, and welcome back to Realm of Chaos 80s. Its been a while since these fingers last typed their way through the wastes of Chaos but there has been much going on. The end of term approaches rapidly, and as any teacher will tell you, this time of year is excessively busy. On top of that, my wife has just had to undergo an operation and has needed time to recover and we are extending our home with a new kitchen, driveway and conservatory. 

Not much time for painting, collecting, writing or research then? 

Well, yes and no. I have been sneaking off to my desk for five minutes here and there to work on my miniatures projects; namely the end of my Khorne army and the construction of the Great Spined Dragon as well as cleaning up a number of other projects, big and small. Additionally, I have been working with two ex-Citadel Golden Age employees in the hope of bringing their stories to you, and hopefully glean another new nugget of old school gold or two.

In my more general reading around the Oldhammer Scene, I have come across several posts and blogs that I felt needed a little more exposure, so I though it good timing to share these with you before I head off to pursue more scholarly things.

The Problem of Crossbows

One of Jaeckel's latest dwarfs. Bloody lovely isn't it?

Side by side comparison of Old Citadel and Foundry Crossbows. 

The exceptionally talented Jaeckel has been delighting us with his incredibly painted old school dwarfs for some months now, and his latest batch certainly continues the high standards exhibited in his work. However, he has been in cahoots with Stone Cold Lead and has explained that it is possible to order metal crossbows, of a similar size to the annoyingly difficult to get old '80s Citadel ones, from Foundry Miniatures. This service is not listed on their site, you have to contact them for further details, but it appears that for £5 plus postage you can get your hands on 16 of them. Very, very useful information indeed.

I shall be pestering Marcus Ansell for some of those in the near future, as I have chaos dwarf and dwarf crossbows on my 'to do' list. 

Some of Stone Cold Lead's Bretonnians. Bloody lovely too!

Realm of Citadel - Don Hans's Incredible Collection!

A brace of Night Horrors from the brush of Don Hans. I really like the flayed hand colour scheme, you can almost feel the clammy fingers brushing your skin, can't you? The understated ghost is also effortlessly brilliant.

Don has been stomping around the Oldhammer Scene for a while, but I have only recently spent any real time on his blog. I was glad I did, because it contains some of the finest Old School style painting that I have seen for some time. His work is original, imaginative and looks like it has just stepped out of an 'Eavy Metal article circa 1989. His colours have that realistic, believable tone often absent in my own work (no matter how hard I attempt to put such tone in there) and remind me of Steve Blunt's work the later '80s. 

Incredible work indeed. If you don't believe me, have a look at some of these miniatures I have borrowed from his site. Oh, and Realm of Citadel itself can be found here. At the time of writing Don's excellent blog only has 23 followers, which in my opinion is a travesty as there is excellent work on offer there. 

So go follow!

A Marsh Troll. Gorgeous colour and a beautiful base. The blending of the two colours on the skin are outstanding are they not?

Don has a very original approach to shield design. Regular readers will know that these designs are an interest of mine and his work is a real inspiration. 

Asslessman's Best Miniature Ever

How's this for an interesting idea for a blog? A site devoted to the discussion of the greatest old school (and beyond) miniatures. Asslessman has been contributing to some of the discussions brought up the comments section of this blog in recent weeks, and its great to see him extending Oldhammer into new avenues. Anyway, I think there are a few more hours to go until voting ends for the Greatest Old School Khorne Champion so I suggest that you head over to his blog, support and cast your vote. It can be found here. 

I went for Champion 3 by the way.

Orlygg