McDeath: Fergus McEwman

The latest model in my McDeath project is old Fergus McEwman - Julia's champion and all round bruiser. Getting hold of him lead me to France (after an annoying internet cut at home caused me to miss out on a vital auction) but the little lead fella reached me in the end. This model was damaged on arrival and had obviously dropped from a great height or hit by a great weight at some time in it's past. A great deal of detail on the figure had being flattened being the result.

I am proud to say that the damage is in full show in the photograph above but I am quietly confident that none of you will be able to spot it. Careful filing and some careful painting was enough to cover up the damage with the minimum of fuss.

Using the Fergus token in my McDeath boxset for inspiration, I noted that this model is really just silver, yellow and flesh in terms of a colour scheme. Pretty much just a barbarian type if you look at the model out of context - he is after all also known as Hercule Throb from the Fighters Range. With this in mind, I used my tried and tested methods for painting barbarian types and the model just seemed to attract the paint from my pots perfectly.

I was keen to explore methods of painting metal on the rest of the model - with decent gold and steel techniques high on my personal set of painting targets. I was armed with a new triad of paints from Foundry and these really helped get the 'look' of gold I have been hoping to achieve for some time. The steel was also painted up using the appropriate Foundry paint triad and really made my life easier.

I cannot recommend those paints enough and I shall be investing in some more when I visit the Foundry in a few weeks.

For the first time in a long while I didn't use any drybrusing at all - preferring to use layering to capture the depth and texture of Fergus', ahem, garments and helmet crest. This was a fairly simple technique really, just a question of the base colour, ink wash and several layers of progressive highlights. I think the approach worked well and that depth and tone combine well on the model.

All in all, I was pleased to paint this little chap - especially considering that I think he was the first model I ever lifted painty brush to at a friend's house in 1987 - and get him based and on display on the Welsh Dresser. I am beginning to run out of obvious McDeath figures to paint up and its all rather sad. Still, I am not quite at the end of the collection yet and I do have the 'bigger' models to do too.

Keep your eyes peeled for more McDeath shortly.

Orlygg.