The Fifth Day of Citadel: C47 Skaven Command Warpeye

 

This post brings us to the end of 2025. Who would have thought a year ago I would be typing these words after a (fairly) busy year of Citadel hobbying. I'll avoid the usual retrospective just yet, it hasn't quite been a year of miniature painting as my first figure in many years was finished on the 20th of January. I'll wait to then to compare my first and latest model.

Fingers crossed I get there. 

For I have been deep in the dank sewers of my workshop trying to restore some really manky ratmen. I've cleaned most of them up and chose the figure you can see here, Warpeye, as the first one to complete. He was a challenging paint for many reasons. I've never been successful with these models, beautiful as they are. I've never felt able to do the models justice which was why I endeavoured to clean up and paint the small stash I have been given. 

Look at the state of them. I'm not sure what the muck is but it is very hard to shift. I had to use Dettol overnight to script the paint and acetone to shift the brown 'crust' adhering to the surface. A good brushing with some washing up liquid brought the models up to their best but much of the surface detail is worn down. They remind me of models that have been in a box or draw for decades and thoroughly bashed around, not that I have ever inflicted that on a miniature - honest.

The casting is also weak. All the models in this little donation are clearly from the mid '80s when the lead ran out and far too much pewter was in the mix. They are tinny and brittle which is why the detail has suffered so much I suspect. 

Beggars cannot be choosers. I have little choice but to restore other people's unwanteds. Not that I am complaining of course, I quite enjoy restoring these battered old figures and giving them a new purpose. 

Cleaned up and base coated they look okay but I've been finding it quite daunting to interpret exactly what the battered pieces of detail actually are. I have another three or four figures from the early skaven range on the desk at the moment so look out for them in the coming days. 

If any of you have any skaven related painting tips I'd love to hear them, Especially around my pet hate, getting the fur to look like actual fur. 

Warpeye was simple colourwise. I used Bestial Brown from the fur, my own Blood Red and Bronze Flesh mix for the skin on the hands, tail, face and feet. I went for the archaic bronze look I used with Daethskar for much of the metal work and Mithtril Silver, shaded with Black for the iron elements. I discovered some random green that I don't recognise from any of the Citadel sets in my stash of paints and used that for the filthy loincloth, highlighted as always with Bleached Bone. Not that you can see in the picture, but the eyes are bright red pupils. 

What do you guys think? 

I hope I've brought him back to life at least. Nothing worse than one of these precious old figures lanquishing unloved and unpainted any in some miserable place. 

There were couple more figures in this donation unrelated to their ratty friends. I've also been working on those so it is anyone's guess what whimsey will take the next time I wander down to the workshop and paint. 

Until than... Happy New Year...

Orlygg

The Fourth Day of Citadel: Skeleton Army Re-enforcements

Another pleasant afternoon was spent in my workshop and I managed to get four new skellies finished for my long running Skeleton Horde/Army project. I've long neglected the restoration of these fabulous plastic classics so it was nice to get back working on them. I've forgotten how much I enjoy the simplicity of painting these fine fellows.

They were all in various conditions when I began working on them. Nearly all the models here were damaged or snapped in one way of another. A little glue, greenstuff and a lot of time saw them properly re-built. Then it was a case of applying my usual method of painting up the bone. 

All the shields are copies made out of greenstuff or liquid resin. 

Most of my time was spent on the designs for the shields. You can see them presented here in order of painting. As you will know, I've long been a fan of the freehand skull and I have been working on recalling my skills of yore this last year. I have long employed the colourful backdrop for each skull but now much prefer the simple, black look illustrated on the shield to the far right. 

It is far more sinister.

I've also been experimenting with adding eyes to the skulls. With again, the last example being my favourite. I really need to start building up some actual reference material when I am doing these. Observing actual skulls should, I hope, refine what I've achieved so far a little further. 

I couldn't resist a snap of all of my re-animated skeletons. I have completed fifteen standard plastic models now, half of the full compliment of Skeleton Army. The remaining figures are the most damaged and fragmentary so should be fun to work with in the new year. I've added the metal figure I finished a few months back too to even the unit out.

I hope all you digital grognards approve.

Orlygg

The Third Day of Citadel: Night Horrors Imp 1986

 

Nothing takes me back to the height of my collecting days like the Night Horrors range. These were once the 'most wanted' in collecting circles and owning a full set was a dream to many a Citadel enthusiast. The range was largely ignored by me back then, being primarily focuses on Warhammer models and Realm of Chaos stuff. 

I see now that I did myself a disservice. It is such a wild and wonderful range that more should be written about it. I know the old GW stalwart, Graeme Davis, wrote several articles on his blog about some of the figures in the range... most notably the three medusas and his writings are far more worthy than mine. Go seek them out and you will not be disappointed.

This imp figure was part of a small bundle donated to me recently. Unlike the last few models, he was in perfect condition when I began (a rarity for me) and I struggled to get him to work as a figure. I began life a far stronger red and I had it in my minds eye that he would resemble one of those little devils so popular on ankles in the 1990s. Over time, his blood red skin merged into this fleshy hue by pure chance. A purple glaze here, and dapple of skin there and the fleshy, almost baby-skin look emerged. I tried to ape the metallic bronze look of Daethskar once more for his weapon and I think I was semi-successful there. 

Replicating the look of ancient bronze is far easier on a larger scale. 

I kept things simple with his horn, using my usual 'bone' mixes to give, what I hope, is a shell/horn type finish. He has shades of the Roman cherubs about him and his baby-like face was rather tricky to capture the character of. His hair is Sunburst Yellow highlighted with Bleached Bone and then washed with an Orange Ink glaze, serving well as a spot colour but matching the shade in the horn well enough. 

The imp was a challenging but rewarding figure to paint. I have memories of painting the Devil Attacking and the Wolfman and there were once part of my former collection of painted models. My top want back in those days was the wonderful Headless Ghost though the Spectre is more ghostly than many other of the spectral figures GW put out over the decades. You can almost see the goblin hiding beneath those dirty and rather tattered sheets!

Orlygg

The Second Day of Citadel: Bloodbowl Snotling

 

I knew I had another Bloodbowl figure up there! The temptation to search through the loft once more was too strong this morning and this little figure was retrieved. He painted up quickly as his size would suggest and is, like all of Kevin Adam's creations, full of malignant mischief. 

He is one of a fistful of snotlings released alongside the original starplayers in 1988. I am sure you know the set - yes the one with the little bugger doing a dump in a helmet and with another flipping the bird. Both amusing concepts now totally alien to GW's modern grimdarkTM setting of ultra-violence in a supersage corporate context. Over the years, I've owned and painted all of the figures from this small group so I am glad I've got this one to enjoy now. 

Second Edition Bloodbowl is full of humour and zany ideas well worth celebrating on this blog for many years to come. I've just noticed while I type these words that I've scuffed his boots while drybrushing the base. I'll have to put that right tomorrow. In the past, once a figure was done I left it alone but I can't help going back and tinkering with figures now. I'll improve on the quality of those boots later on. I've gone back and improved the eyes of Sanity Claws and added the glowing orbs that served Daethskar as I said I would. 

I've had another go at snapping my models with the new grey background and I'm pleased with the results. Both of my previous paint jobs look a little better. Take a look...

I tried the replicate the green of Sanity Claws on this snotling but it didn't quite work. I should have used a darker green basecoat on this lovely snot to get that level of richness. Something worth remembering next time I do a goblinoid. 

Daethskar now looks evil incarnate with his glowing, yellow eyes. I've also tried to touch up the white area around where the original lettering was placed. It looks to me to be an enamel white that is hard to replicate with acrylics but it certainly looks tidier. 

His armour looks much more archaic now too. Like the stuff you see from Ancient Greece in museums. I hope to use this kind of finish on a model I am working on right now from the Night Horrors range. Here's hoping I can replicate it easily. 

Until tomorrow, I hope you all are having or had a wonderful Christmas break and you too have found the opportunity to indulge in a little painting time. 

Orlygg

The First Day of Citadel: Bloodbowl Halflings

Happy Christmas to you all dear readers...

I'm back again with the first of what I hope will be a long series of posts about what I manage to paint over the next couple of weeks. And as you may be able to see, serendipity has struck and I have somehow managed to snap a decent shot in my workshop. It seems that using a grey background makes all the difference to capturing the colour and paintwork of my models. 

I hope you feel that I have improved over the last year. 

The figure in the middle was painted during the summer when I was struggling with my dental woes. I painted up the two additional figures today as companions to him. All were started long ago and are sadly all what remain of my Bloodbowl figures. I am fairly sure I had a few more goblins and halflings in the junk box in the loft but I have been unable to find them...

Christmas Day isn't the day to go adventuring up there. Not with MFM and I alone in our half-finished home with no kids running about for a change. 

These models are inspired by the famous models published in White Dwarf and admired by me for many years in the Ansell family collection. Look, here's a snap I took last August of them.

It is now Boxing Day, as I was typing this post we were hit by a power cut of all things. MFM and I had to sit by the light of the fire for much of the evening (not that we complained) while we waited for the electricity to return. We are used to outages here, as we are very rural and at the end of the grid. Completing this post has had to wait until now.

I am sure you can spot slight differences between the three figures. I couldn't quite remember how I achieved the green back in August. I thought it was Woodland Green but while painting I could see that wasn't the case. Initially, I was a bit worried that they wouldn't match but a quick glance at the original figures reminded me that this seldom matters when models are complete. 

I've owned multiple boxes of the 2nd edition of Bloodbowl over the years and its something I do miss having around the house, largely due to my youthful memories of playing the game in the late '80s and '90s. One day, if I am able, and this house is no longer a money pit, I may attempt to get hold of another box and perhaps field a whole team of these characterful halflings. 

Anyway, the workshop beckons and I have plenty of other projects on the boil. I quite like working in this way. Twenty or thirty figures in various states of completion with only my whim directing what gets painted next. Every painting session is a surprise in this way.

That or I'm just showing my age.

Orlygg

LE 16 Sanity Claws 1986

I cannot think of a more apt model to paint on Christmas Eve than 1986's Sanity Claws. The limited edition release model of that same year is rather loosely based on Ian Miller's fantastic White Dwarf cover. It still astounds me to think artwork of this quality was once produced to grace a mere magazine's front cover. We really were treated to some incredible artwork in the 1980s in speciality magazines. Here I think of the fantastic pieces that graced the covers of CRASH or Zzap64 alongside GM, Starburst and other mags. I find today's AI slop depressing and the generic 'corporate' fantasy or sci-fi of modern GW repetitive, limpid and uninspired. 

Sci-Fi by numbers... or should that be 'paint your own 40k'?

Still, there are the odd bastion of creativity and originality out there if you look, often in the world of indie PC games or some of the better board games that get released. I still feel we had the best of it and that fact should be celebrated. 

Here's the cover of White Dwarf 84 alongside the brilliant Christmas pudding issue graphic. Many old school fans of the RPG days of WD bemoan this issue as the beginning of the end of what White Dwarf had been. A proper supplement for role-playing games. It had served an avid audience for nearly 10 years at this point... Players of Traveller, Runescape D&D and a myriad of other dice-rollers. The sun was setting on that golden age of RPGs spurred on by the 1970s fantasy boom, and a new world was dawning... a world of the Warhammers. 

That was still a few months away however. 

Sanity Claws is a mystery. He is obviously loosely based on the figure seen here on in Ian Miller's artwork, oddly named Sanity Clause in the published material. Why he was created is never mentioned in the magazine. There are no rules or fluff to accompany him. Beyond the most likely explanation, that he was a cool sculpt by Bob Naismith and would probably sell over the Christmas period, he had no real reason to exist. 

My model was one of a large number of unfinished pieces recently returned to me. I can recall trying to paint him Christmas 2018 perhaps? But never really finding the mojo to finish him. Life was stressful and slowly unravelling and I didn't have the time to devote hours to classic Citadel lead. If I had done, I think I would have found myself out on my own a lot sooner.

Perhaps I should have soldiered on back then and finished him only to arrive here quicker?

He was very dusty and scratched when I plucked him from the shelf this morning. I'm not sure where he's been all these years but he was caked in dust. A good tickling with a brand new flat brush was enough to dislodge all that residue and I found a figure basecoated and blocked out in its colours pretty much ready to go. A green ink wash over the gribbly face, a brown ink wash over the clothing and metalwork and I was off. 

It was quite simple to work up the green basecoat using a Foundry Green I found in the attic. It has no label and it looks quite snotty and with increasing amounts of Sunburst Yellow mixed in gave me the deep, sickly Lovecraftian hue of Ian Miller's original piece. For traditional reasons I avoided the pink robes, preferring a little Christmas spirit in the deep red, highlighted with Hobgoblin Orange, that I clothed him in. Bleached Bone gave me a tatty hem of fur highlighted in Skull White after a brown ink glaze. 

I drybrushed his sack to give it a burlap feel but I'm not sure I got the colour quite right. I've done a fair bit of mixing orange with Bestial Brown and Snakebite Leather recently and I am pleased with the natural tones I am getting. I doesn't seem to have worked with this figure. 

The metal work was done as per my usual skeleton horde method. Mithril Silver, Black or Brown Ink wash and then highlighted up again. I mix blacks with the silver in stages until I use the stuff neat on the edges. 

The base is unique in everything I've ever painted. To be honest, I just used the same method I usually do from green just with blue. I think it was Electric Blue for the base, drybrushed over with an Electric Blue/Skull White 50:50 mix then pure white over the top of that. I like to think it looks better to the naked eye and that my camera is rubbish, but I am not quite so sure now.

Perhaps I am just getting past it all... Despite that, I find spending time in the solitude of my workshop very therapeutic and I have quite a pile of old battered lead to keep me going now, and more than a little plastic. Its all battered and has seen better days, very much like the author of this post, but it is pleasing to me. 

I hope it is to you too.

Happy Christmas...

Here's hoping we don't get visited by Sanity Claws tonight.

Orlygg

C35 (3C-07) or Daethskar and me

 

Daethskar snapped on the workbench. I can now see a few finishing touches will need to be made. Look at those splodges  on his toes and the green staining around his lettering. The camera doesn't lie!

Daethskar stands sentinel on the front cover of the third edition of Warhammer today just as stoically as he has ever done. Remote, indifferent, inimical... Oddly ambivalent to the chaos swirling around him. When I was much younger, I used to study the front cover of my for  hours and devise backstories about each of the characters depicted, much like I'd do with the Heroquest cover a little later in my youth. I had no inkling at that stage that many of the personalities shown there were actual models. As many of you readers will no doubt remember... we only had the rulebooks, White Dwarf, our friends' collections and the blister pack wall for reference. 

So much was easily missed.  

If only I could make him look like this!

For those of us a little older, we may have recognised the brass armoured warrior instantly when WFB3 was revealed in White Dwarf. This blurry snap was taken from my own copy of that seminal issue. He was part of the C35 range of Chaos warriors released in 1985 with the then brand new slotta bases. The range was sculpted by '80s heavyweights Bob Naismith, Alan and Michael Perry and Aly Morrison. I have no idea which of these sculpted Daethskar but if I were to guess I'd say Aly Morrison by the feel of the figure. 

He is a figure of some pedigree. He is also very difficult to photograph. None of the images I've shared on this post do justice to my paintjob but this is still the best I can do with my crappy old Samsung phone camera. I'm hoping to lay my hands on MFM's fancy iPhone one of these days and see what I can achieve with that. As you can imagine, she isn't too keen about me taking down the workshop. 

This figure has been in my collection for about ten years. I bought it on eBay in a very poor condition. The axe head had been bent off and the model was rather grimy and tired. He looked like he'd kicked about in a boxes for a very long time and got a good bashing. I repaired the break and cleaned him up but never stripped the paint from him as he'd only been based coated. I also liked the lettering that the unknown grognard who sold it to me had presumably done. Having got a small part of my collection back a couple of months ago, I've spent what little free time I've had trying to sort everything through. I have my WD collection back pretty much complete as well as all of the 3rd Edition associated rulebooks, save WFB itself! I'm sure I've seen that book amongst other possessions so here's hoping that I eventually locate it. 

Daethskar ended up plonked in a large pile of uncompleted figures and old projects. My unfinishables. Over the last couple of months I've happily tinkered out in my workshop, listening to ghost story podcasts and audiobooks and just painted on whim. I've not actually completed anything until today, I've just restarted a large number of older projects. With Christmas finally here, and time at last on my hands I have in my mind the concept of 'The Twelve Days of Citadel'. Each day of my holiday, I am going to try and finish a figure from that looming pile of unfinished models. 

Why Daethskar? Well, I've always wondered about the unknown grognard who owned this figure before me. Who might they have been? Why did they go through with the effort of skillfully painting the model's name of the slotta-base but never finishing the paintjob? I decided to keep this relict of his former owner's efforts and complete the model in the guise of the character shown on John Sibbick's fantastic piece of cover art. I assume that the Citadel staff just sent him a pack of models and instructed to paint them into the artwork. 

He is also a link to the past. I can remember repairing him in my old front room in my former life when my son and daughter were much younger. To find him once more in the remnants of my old belongings was a link back to that moment but also a sign that things are rapidly moving forwards in my new life. The heating is in and finally working (please don't ask about that odyssey- haha) while a functional kitchen will be installed in April after two and a half years without one. So to complete Daethskar is like starting again, again! 

How hard can it be to take a photograph, Orlygg? Can you spot the repair on the axe?

Painting him was quite simple. Shining Gold over the original base coat before washing over with some chestnut ink. I then cleaned up with Shining Gold. Once the surfaces were pretty consistent, I highlighted with e 50:50 mix of Mithril Silver and Shining Gold before edge highlighting with just Mithril Silver. Trouble was, he looked too clean and bright. More of a kid's knight in shining armour than a devilish and dark warrior of the Warhammer world. For a while, he sat on my paint station while I tinkered with other things but suddenly at school in some random moment it dawned on me to give him a green wash. Using my trusty '80s Citadel Colour green ink for a few glazes brought out the character marvellously. The verdigris effect made Daethskar seem more ancient and remote, just like on the cover of the WFB3. I added a further wash in places using Hawk Turquoise (a fantastic colour if I might say) to deepen this shading and then left him alone. I toyed with a final silver edge highlight but I feared I'd just end up with a figure who looked too shiny again. 

This rear shot probably gives the best sense of what the figure looks like in terms of colour. 

Having completed the base in my traditional way, I left the lettering untouched and felt satisfied that I'd actually completed a model after two months of procrastination. As I said before, trying to capture a decent image of the finished model was rather challenging. All the photos you can see here were taken on my rather basic Samsung phone camera using the lighting in my workshop so please do give me a break. 

So, nearly ten years in the making Daethskar is finally finished and the process of getting him ready to post about and energised me to get some more figures done. With plenty of free time ahead I hope to get down that workshop each day over Christmas and New Year and try and push my rusty skills a little. 

Thanks for reading,

Orlygg

Hobby Workshop Update

 

So the new central heating system is installed and working. It was an ordeal. Every room, every day. Floorboards up, dust, noise, leaks, mess... But it is done and working. We have a strange, clean heat in our ramshackle little bungalow which feels very different to the piping hot fossil fuel radiators of yesterday. The next project will be a brand new kitchen in March and April, so for a while at least things can begin to settle down back into routine. 

I enjoy one particular routine. Popping down the garden to my workshop. During the installation I uncovered several more boxes of my stuff. Nearly all of it came from my former modelling desk. I am now awash with every unfinished project from 2013-18. Plenty of 'unfinishables' there. Out of the blue, several carboard boxes were dropped off from my old life too. These were stuffed with magazines, a battered copy of 1989's Space Marine with most of the pieces intact and all of the models Bryan Ansell (and others) gave to me over the years. A neat stack of those white Foundry cardboard boxes full of treats. It was bittersweet going through them all again but I very pleased to have all those metal pieces of joy back. There is a fair bit of Citadel in there and loads of random Foundry delights too. The workshop is in a shocking state and everything is dumped in any space I can find. 

So much to do.

I found my old poster from WD100 if memory serves too. I've posted it up in the workshop for inspiration. 

Here's a shot of it's current state. I've organised everything in the boxes for proper storage later on. I've reused the former carpenter's bench and the old Co-Op shop shelf from the 1970s to be my main working area. Top shelf you should see a few old Realm of Chaos renegades, Bryan Ansell's Adventurers boxset and a pile of bits. Second shelf an assortment of Blandford Warriors, Militia and old scenery pieces. Third shelf, two of those old Britain's oak trees you can see on the Duke's wargames table in WFB3 as well as my paltry painted collection and some original Citadel brushes. Bottom two shelves are clogged with unfinished models from many ranges but mostly Foundry. My paints are all mixed up on the workbench and will eventually be sorted properly and laid out along the shelving. 

I have no idea where to begin!

A few posts back the famous Citadel Cottage was mentioned. I used the model at the front right as the backdrop to my plaguebearer. These are my surviving examples of that classic hobby project. They are certainly seen better days but I plan on fully restoring these once I can get myself in order. I'll probably respray them all in white and repaint the lot. The building on the front left needs a new roof too. 

Here's a close up of some of the odds and sods I've retrieved. I was pleased to get that Dragon Ogre back. I was just about to work on that model in lockdown when I discovered my services were no longer required. I was sure I'd left it on the bedroom window and would never get it back. It is a big temptation to start painting it as its a good sized chunky model for those of us whose eyesight is beginning to go. 

Big thanks to MisterC who sent me the long lost chariot wheel for the classic skeleton war machine. I had endeavoured to put this model back together this weekend but realised that the yoke part of the chariot is also missing! A small and vital part indeed but much easier to convert something suitable to replace it. I've ordered some florist's wire to see what can be done to complete this in the not to distant future. 

Of course, we must thank MisterC once again for his generosity to supporting my comeback into this wonderful hobby... so with out further ado... I salute you MisterC. Thank you once again and good luck with that Lichemaster project. Additionally, he sent me a couple more pots of paint you can see in the photo above. A lovely bright '80s Electric Blue and and previously unknown to me Ash Waste Grey. Again, many thanks and I promise to make good retro use of them. 

I did manage to repair these horses though. Both had been badly crushed and broken. I've reattached the head of one of these models and the rear leg and ribs of both of them. May the Dark God's bless the duo of liquid poly and superglue. I'll wait until the florist's wire arrives before putting the chariot base together. I plan on mounting it on a monster base for added strength. I was never a fan of whole model bases for figures like this.

We will await the postman. 

Orlygg

The Joy of Astrogranite: An interview with Pete Knifton

Graeme Davis, among others, shared the sad news today that another old school Citadel creative has gone. Namely illustrator Pete Knifton of 2nd Edition Bloodbowl fame. This saddened me as his distinctive, humorous style really set the tone of that game for me. I have many, many fond memories from my youth pouring over the often amusing illustrations from the BB rulebook and many of the supplements... my favourite being the goblin pogos I've headed this post with.

But as I grew older and my appreciation of that unique, peerless period of GW's history spearheaded by Bryan Ansell grew deeper and I started to connect the dots a little more. I started to notice that many of the artists who I had loved so much had actually contributed to Warhammer, Rogue Trader and beyond.

Pete Knifton was one such creative.

I am sure all of you will be familiar with this fantastic piece of work. The Pacification of Flotis III. This beautifully detailed illustration appeared in WD 113 and I can still remember being startled by how striking (and unusual) it was for the magazine at the time. Of course, I now know that Bryan was keen to try anything and everything and him being such a fan of 2000 AD he had a desire for a Warhammer comic too. Sadly, nothing would ever come for his vision though (as with many things he envisaged) GW did eventually produce such a publication.

This illustration is a fantastic overview of much of the early Rogue Trader Imperial Guard range from the 1980s. The 2000AD/Aliens style mash up that it was. I've always loved the range and foolish sold much of it off years ago... not that I'd still have it now of course. But I still consider it a very foolish thing to do as these models are fantastically imaginative. Very much like artists such as Knifton. 

A big draw to his work was the storytelling and humour so prevalent across much of his output. The comic book style, the macabre touches and the the schoolyard joking still resonate with me to this day. As I am sure it will do with you, dear readers. The image directly above came from an article from Jervis Johnson about different types of pitch to play across and helped illustrate the pitfalls. I love the improbably impaled orc head to the left... as it asks so many questions to the observer. How did the head get there? Was it the result of a particularly awkward fall? Or had the head been previously severed and was rather piquishly pushed down onto the spike? 

I guess we could discuss the storytelling in this piece for some time but let's move on...

To this funny little piece. I always loved this one with the grinning orc boy stomping the foot of the unfortunate Gouged Eye player. As I kid, we used to pinch tracing paper from the art-store in the back of our classroom and I can recall tracing this picture and amusing my friends with it for a while. 

Pete also illustrated some of the early terminator models put out before the seminal boxset and Space Hulk cemented their look. I seem to recall there were a number of issues when a series of different styles of model were released. I like the little Latin touch on the arm... translating into 'I will return' but a link to Big '80s Arnie's famous catchphrase perhaps?

Other illustrations of Knifton's didn't have such an impactful lifespan as his terminators. Here we see the MKXIV Bullock jetcycle which as seen many a fan sculpt over the years but to my limited knowledge no actual models. I loved the jetbikes in the '80s and even had a few. One day, when I'm flush with cash and time... I'll build myself a Rogue Trader army of Imperial Guard to make up for my youthful foolishness. 

Having followed many of the 'names' that graced the glory days through the decades I know that Knifton had a long a varied career. Working for Alternative Armies, drawing Transformers comics, painting front covers for thrash bands and so on... In the days when Facebook was just taking off and it wasn't a morass of AI lies, stupidity and posts about someone's cat it was easy as pie to connect with other people. Social media was much more trusting and immediate back then as I am sure you can recall. You connected with your friends and people who you admired... some times they even returned the interest. 

During my research phase ten years or go or more, I was lucky enough to share a series of random rambling chats with Pete Knifton and those conversations have simply sat in my archive unpublished. Having heard the sad news today, I though it appropriate to edit those chats into a little interview like I did in the old days to help celebrate and remember another important contributor to the world we all love.

So that's enough rambling from Orlygg, I'll hand you over to Pete Knifton so his story can be told in light of his recent passing. I'm sure many of you will have your own memories of his work for GW and the myriad other things he did. I have edited his words for clarity and punctuation as these conversations took place over Facebook messenger over a period of time. 

RoC80s: How did your artistic career begin? 

PK: I'd always liked drawing from an early age. I remember covering every scrap of paper I could find with drawings of Fireball XL5 and the Daleks. I used to go to the local printers and beg for cuts of paper. I was never one for copying pictures so I used to do my own versions of the characters I saw in the comics that I bought. Comics were very important to me as a child. At that time though, people used to say that comics encouraged illiteracy but far from it... they inspired me to read!

RoC80s: How much fantasy and science-fiction material was available to you then?

PK: There were loads of fantasy and mythology books out there. But for me it was my beloved illustrated encyclopedias. I absolutely loved them! Marvel and DC comics were more sporadically available in the '60s and I ate them up. I particularly enjoyed the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man and of course, Batman! At one point I wanted to become a political cartoonist but the influence of comics was just too strong and I managed to miss that particular artistic avenue. I did a lot of practise sketching the faces and poses of people in the public eye though, which was most useful later on when GW would give us artists their metals models to provide art for. 

Pete Knifton attending a Games Day in the late '80s sketching for the unwashed hordes. Note the Batman T-Shirt and the cheeky pint and ciggies... an '80s zeitgeist. 

RoC80s: So how did you end up working at GW during it's creative '80s heyday?

PK: Well, as I read more and more I became increasingly interested in the book covers that I was seeing. Around sixteen years of age I decided to have a go at painting one. Massively derivative of Chris Foss (his science fiction, not that other more famous book) it looked okay and I was inspired to try a couple more. A year or so later, I read about an agency in London called Young Artists. I approached Jon Spencer and he took me on. 

The Art of Chris Foss which inspired Pete's early forays into art.

Shortly after that, I started selling covers for mainly German and French publishers. When Jon left Young Artists, his successor had a good clear out of the art stable and I was among that number, sadly. I was a rubbish freelancer and kind of drifted away from the artworld. I hadn't had any proper training and was entirely self-taught. I ended up spending most of my time building model robots for a couple of years. My interests in robotics and comics put me in contact with a guy called Ian Cooke. He suggested that I phone Games Workshop to see if they had any use for me. Which I did. 

Artwork that was used to illustrate the Combat Card games published in White Dwarf. 

RoC80s: What can you recall of you time in the famous '80s 'Design Studio'?

PK: In those early days GW was a rough and ready place. Free and easy. It was packed with hippies and rockers and creatures yet unidentified. But, boy, they could all paint, and sculpt and draw! John Blanche was, in those days, a great guy and gave me a commission on my very first visit to the studio. As it was situated only 10 minutes away from my flat I could easily drop off work and collect my cheques. Ian was still doing bits and pieces for White Dwarf and all the guys there were so friendly I used to drop in for a cuppa and a chat. I used to check out whatever Tony Ackland was doing. Of course, the Design Studio at that time was full of banter and was about as chilled as you could get. Things would sadly change later on but in those early days we had no idea about what would come. 

Pete's love of comic books shone through with his enigmatic artworks from the late '80s. 

RoC80s: So how did things change at the 'Design Studio?'

PK: When I started it wasn't corporate at all. It was Bryan's vision. He wanted us all happy and urged us all to just make stupid stuff up. He was so encouraging and we even got paid for some of it! There weren't really any rules as far as the creative process went. No lore to abide by. John Blanche used to ask me what I thought of ideas they were developing when I visited and he'd often ask me to do pictures based on what I saw. Much of the Bloodbowl and Imperial Guard stuff came out of those meetings and I was always very happy to do it. It was my dream job, freelancing for GW at that time and I was able to bring in my love of comic book art with much of the work I did. Taking the lead in the Bloodbowl artwork for it's second edition was one of the greatest times of my life. I was working with a bunch of mates and creating something so original. Sure, there were arguments, disagreements but they were never serious under Bryan's watch. 

The egos hadn't landed yet.

To conclude, we have lost another one of the greats who built the imagery of this hobby we love. Imagery that lesser creatives use to this day in the very corporate and safe worlds of Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000. But there was a more vibrant age long ago, one with few rules and vast imagination. Modern painters and sculptors truly are standing on the shoulders of giants...

Pete Knifton was one of those giants.

My thoughts go out to Pete's family and friends. His work will be valued and appreciated for many, many more years to come.

Orlygg

Realm of Chaos Era Plaguebearer

 

Has it really been three weeks?

All is good with me here in Orlygg Towers. Work is gathering pace in the longstanding issue we have in replacing the central heating. We've been stuck with the smelly oil system that the house came with when we bought it two years ago. Amusingly, the boiler dates from the '80s itself and when it worked produced lovely back scolding heat when you lent back on the radiators. The kind of fossil fuel warmth that I can recall from my days reading WD against the radiator in my room.

Sadly, the whole system is well past its sell by date and will be ripped out next week. We have qualified for a government grant for one of these new fangled heat-pump so that will be installed. As with all schemes, there have been a mountain of hurdles to jump to get to this point. Hence the lack of hobby time. 

I did manage to get out into the workshop a few times. It is a lovely calming place to be and I've taken to listening to audiobooks in there. This plaguebearer was kicking about in a box and caught my eye. It was one of the very first models I ever painted. I must have got a blister pack of these figures early on and endlessly repainted the few that I had. 

I am quite happy with this figure though, and I had a lot of fun with him. I realise that my green paints leave a lot to be desired and I plan to stock up on a fair few Coat d'arms paints when I get the chance. I've spotted some of the more recent GW paints in hobby shops too, but there is never enough of a range for me to study in any depth. Next time I walk past a brick and mortar store I might have to pop in a see what greens there are these days. 

Eagled eye readers of this blog may well recognise the old Warhammer Cottage from White Dwarf fame in the background of this shot too. I've got a box of scenery bits back and found them amongst the surviving pieces. All of them need a good clean up at restoration session but I'm pleased to have them back. 

Speak to you all soon I hope.

Orlygg

Eric Umbrand Earthshaker and Ulher the Disciplined

 

A couple of new figures for you that I got finished over the last couple of weeks. I haven't been that productive (the wisdom tooth extraction area has had more woes) but I have very much enjoyed spending time in my little workshop sorting out my bits and bobs and tinkering away on a small clutch of figures. 

Eric Umbrand Earthshaker is probably the most 'chaos warriory warrior' you get hope to meet. He ticks all the motifs on the list of '80s chaos warrior tropes. Full plate armour, impressive weapon, inimitable helm and that Goodwin pizzaz that just screams Citadel quality. He is an interesting figure and he came from another small bag of bits recently returned to me. My old unpainted collection seems to slowly be making its way back, or parts of it at least, so I'm hopeful for more pieces in the future. This model had already been painted, presumably by my son a fair few years ago, but never finished. He'd painted it red and washed over rather sloppily with a dark ink wash. So instead of stripping the figure, on a whim I decided to just paint him using edge highlights to see where we got. 

It was a simple case of Hobgoblin orange, followed by Sunburst Yellow with a final highlight of the yellow mixed with a little Skull White. This little project gave me the chance to practice a little freehand on the embossed pauldron too, you should just be able to see a face despite my crappy camera. 

His weapon and chainmail was just drybrushed though I aged the grip and pommel with a little Hawk Torquoise as you might be able to make out. 

The second figure is Ulher the Disciplined and if memory serves me here is a Lord of Battle. He was much trickier than Eric and I spent sometime tinkering with how to make him look interesting. Just having a silver chap in full plate didn't look 'Citadelesque' enough for me. I matched his helmet to the golden guard on his two handed blade but that wasn't enough to bring the figure to life either.

In the end, I just painted the two pauldrons black and added white chequers. I freehanded the classic chessboard on the right hand side, obscured here by the blade of the sword, and detailed the guard on the left.

Obviously, I was struck by how similar the poses of these two figures are. Perhaps my subconscious selected something simple and comforting as I struggle onwards with a poorly face. I'm drawn back to my earliest memories of figure painting looking at the Skeleton Horde and Army (a project I very much need to resurrect- pun very much intended). In fact, I have found one of the very first metal models I ever painted in my new bag of goodies and he is on the table for tonight's session .

Speak soon, 

Orlygg

Hobby Workshop Update

 

A few weeks back I mentioned I'd begun work constructing the holy grail of many an enthusiast - a hobby room. Things have been able to progress since the council collected a considerable pile of detritus from storage. I've been able to house the log pile, our new bikes, tools and other house improvement gubbinz in one of the outbuildings leaving plenty of space in the old carpentry workspace.

I've swept it out. Boy, that was unpleasant. Forty years of dust and wood shavings in a combined space with little air flow was horrific. I had to keep quitting and leaving the space for a few days for it all to settle. The atmosphere in the room was like that of the deepest chaos wastes beyond Kislev. I'm never going to clear all of the dust from the space but have certainly made it more healthy. As you would have seen, I've reused one of the rugs left in the house when we bought it to cover the concrete floor. An old office chair is sufficient to seat myself on. 

I've got plenty of storage boxes taken from skips at school. They are lovely old 1970s wooden cabinets with plastic trays, some of which are quite substantial, all of which have decent plastic lids. Compared to the more modern equivalent boxes, these lids are like kevlar armour and will certainly withstand heavy use for the foreseeable future. 

My toplighting is good enough to work with but I've set up my old lamp for additional support. With my optivisor its now really easy and stress free to see the models I am working on. 

Here is the close up of my desk. There was an old wooden Co-Op shelf in the workshop that once held every imaginable type of screw and nail. Those jam jars of fastenings are now long gone and I plan to arrange my small but thoroughly retro paint collection on them for ease of access. Completed painted models will also be placed here to further inspire me. You will be able to spot a few recent figures in this shot if you peer carefully. I've got plenty of working space which is incredibly liberating (if a little overwhelming) after years of working in cramped corners of spare/living rooms. 

Owning practically nothing can be rewarding in its own way. Though, there will eventually become a time when the house is finished and I can start rebuilding a collection of something. When that day comes, these units and shelves can help keep things tidy. My old bureau (from which most of my original figures were painted) is still in my possession and will be moved out against the wall shortly to aid with this.  

Finally, I have this corner unit I scavenged from the original carpenter's workshop. It looks to be a 1960s kitchen cupboard repurposed with a long piece of MDF. I suspect it was once an additional workspace but thanks to the rewire it now has dedicated power and lighting. I intend to construct a simple battlefield in this space as scenery is something I can work on with minimal outlay. All of the Townscape buildings could be used or buildings from the famous Modelling Workshop WD articles. I doubt any games will be played here, it will purely be for storage, display and photography. But who knows...?

Well, there is my first update. There will of course be more over the months ahead as I make sense of the space. Any tips or thoughts of what else I could add or do with the space? I am sure some of you readers have some truly epic workstations out there I could steal a trick or two from. 

Orlygg