Teeth fixed (again).
Car badly damaged.
Long story short, deer jumped out in front of my vehicle earlier on this week and one of them struck the front of my vehicle. I was slowing down as I'd seen them but one of the animals collided with the right hand side of my car. Even at such a low speed, the stag flew through the air and smashed in the panel work and lights. Incredibly, it got up and ran onwards into the night. I thought I too had got away with it only to discover my door wouldn't open.
Fast forwards a few days and the car in in the repairshop and it is all a matter for the insurance company. So I have a little time to spend in the workshop and these figures were next in my restoration journey. Many of these models were crushed, had detached limbs, backpacks and so on and were covered in scratches. It was quick. pleasant work to rebuild and restore them over the last few hours and I even had a little surprise underneath the foam insert to make my day...
More about him later.
This first model was a classic of the Silver Age and I am sure all of you know it well. Brooding with menace and power, you wouldn't want to mess with this fellow on the dark battlefields of the 41st Millennium. He was part of a Deathwatch unit that I think I was including with my Witch Hunters army as an ally around 2004-5.
Here are the rest of the squad I was able to repair. I have another model who is too badly damaged to include. I am quite fond of the colour scheme: black, silver, red and bone. Certainly one to apply to something more classic in the future. What attracted me to the Deathwatch was the fact that each marine came from a different chapter and retained their own iconography.
Here are some early free hand shoulder pads I included on some of the models. Keen eyed enthusiasts will note a few classic Skeleton Horde skulls on these bases. This is were my original models must have ended up! Beheaded and binned in the early 2000s for use on these bases. At the time I though the bases looked fantastic, now I feel they are too cluttered and dense and distract from the figures.
What do you dear readers think?
More skulls adorn this base. Which I am still happy with. I wanted this assassin to appear to be clambering over the remains of his enemies which I think still works. Obviously, the base didn't receive the same level of attention as the figure and is something I would change if I redid this model today. But this isn't a remastering project. I just want to repair and restore these figures as they were when they were originally painted.
I know that are not from our chosen period but I hope you can appreciate them just the same. After all, they all all pushing a quarter of a century in age so surely they can be classified as 'old'?
And to end things today, I have managed to repair this incredible chap. He is truly 'old' and must be the older painted figure in my collection. A lone survivor from my original Skeleton Army from the late '80s and early '90s with the original paint job. What a classic for my archive. I was so pleased when I found him and I was able to just about repair him. He isn't going to last very long if I poke him around but what caught my eye was how terrible the painting was.... but not as bad as I started painting again last year!!!
He still has my dad's old railway flock on his base too. So this model was built before I realised that sand was a handy tool for decorating bases.
What struck me the most was that I took the time to string the bow. I am sure I got this idea from an 'Eavy Metal figure in White Dwarf. Now I have accounted for skeleton archers in my Horde but boy do I want some now. When I finally get around to doing a few models in this style I'm going to tie on some bowstrings as I think it looks really effective.
If memory serves, I borrowed this beige string from my mother's sewing box. Luckily for me, MFM also enjoys this hobby so some future thread should be easy to source (;
I can see that my colour scheme for skellies hasn't changed much either. Its still a brown wash, Orc Brown with the Bleached Bone highlight. These were drybrushed and it looks like my paint didn't have enough water in the mix. Of course, at the time I thought he looked magnificent.
Right, I am off to fix up that Witch Hunter and his retinue. The models are getting progressively more damaged as I work through them and there are less and less easy fixes. But it is enjoyable work... with half-term around the corner I might also find some time to paint up some classic models too.
Speak soon,
Orlygg
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