'Eavy Metal Special: White Dwarf 120

Analysis of painted figures is always rewarding. Tricks, tips and inspiration are very easy to come by if you take the time to observe what other painters have done before. I am always doing it, and really enjoy cruising through the copious Oldhammer blogs, forums and websites in search of new ideas. In truth, we are spoilt these days. Its hard to recall what life was like in our younger days, when waiting for news or images of the latest releases revolved around White Dwarf's release into newsagents nationwide. No internet, no downloads, no pdfs... nothing. If you wanted to see painted models you had to either get out there and socialise or flick through the monthly hallowed pages of White Dwarf. 

'Eavy Metal was always the first thing I would flick to when I received my copy of the magazine. The blue, granite backdrop a welcome balm to the hurried paint smeared attempts that were my early figures. I would peer closely at the paintjobs of Andy Craig, or Paul Benson or Mike McVey and wonder impossibly about how the effects I was seeing were achieved. After all, my technique at the time was base colour and then wash with black!

Thankfully, none of my early efforts survive to this day but we can rejoice that many of the old school pieces we enjoyed in our younger years still do, either on the pages of ancient issues of White Dwarf or in the collection of Bryan Ansell. Today, we are going to take a stroll through the miniatures that were presented in issue 120 of White Dwarf.

Staff pieces begin our little nostalgic trip. Some recently released transfers seem to be the order of the day here, with the primitive marine top left being adorned with one. Only this transfer has had additional detail added through repainting. You have just gotta love that retro '80s rocket launcher! This spread is typical of the time and sees a hotpotch of different miniatures from different games, including those rather naff early '90s Marauder minotaurs. Its nice to see some epic vehicles get some love on this page too. Of note to us here is the converted jump pack marine who looks like he is standing in mid-air and the Bad Moon Noble ork, painted by Andy Craig- if I am not mistaken. 

There is lots to like on this second page. The Inquisitor top left is not known to me and I am not sure if its a conversion or an unreleased model. No doubt you serious collectors can give us further information in the comments section about that particular model. I do like its paint scheme though, the pinky red works very well with the gold of the armour and fittings giving the model a patrician look. The minotaur is a little better than the model shown on the previous page but it is still very dull compared to the models released earlier on in the 1980s in my opinion. The ratling snipers are fantastic models (by the Perrys if memory serves) and just ooze the wacky character of Rogue Trader. The converted ork Snakebite shows us the the ear of the Ork books is about to hit us hard on the pages of WD. Genestealer hybrids were also very popular at this time (and are also rather popular in Oldhammer circles in the time of writing) and various models from a personal army appear here regularly. More of the new Citadel transfers are shown off on the shoulder pads of the space marines, proving once again that the plastic box set from all those years ago is still excellent. The star models on this page begin with the excellent Palanquin of Nurgle (which I have managed to acquire recently for a very reasonable price) and the multiple mounted figures shown provide usual for the model in both Warhammer and 40k, and early example of GW doing this. Next we have the brilliant Link Angel, which I am assuming is a Judge Dredd model so please correct me if I am wrong, which looks very Mad Max and Dark Futurey - if such an adjective is possible! The stand out models on this page are the plastic skeletons because they have great shields and bases and just look totally different to anyone else's interpretation of these models. 

By this time, Paul Benson was giving up teaching (very sensible) to join the Design Studio and so more of his work starts to appear in GW publications. I have always found this page of his painting quite interesting as you can start to see his style shift away from the bright models he was famous for into models that looked a little bit gritty. You can see this with the terminator models at the top of the page. One can only assume that Paul started to undercoat in darker tones. His orcs here are top, top notch and in my opinion rival even the greatest painter of them all, Fraser Gray.

Champion - as they say up North.

Orlygg

Chaos Thug Re-enforcements for the Oldhammer Weekend

Like many Oldhammerers, I am in the teaching profession. Subsequently, I have just started the long six week holiday that is our reward for putting up with 'experts' in our field like Michael Gove telling us how we should be doing our job. With just under three weeks until the Oldhammer Weekend kicks off painting in the Orlygg household is starting to build towards an industrial scale. I plan to get a large part of the Slanneshi army I have been planning for sometime completed, and this involves finishing off a thug regiment, a chaos warrior regiment and a unit of mounted chaos warriors all of whom will serve the pleasure god.

The image above shows off my latest banner, painted for the thug regiment I mentioned before. Its a simple printer paper job attached with flaps to a wire frame. Things were a little different with this one, as the actual banner pole had to be extended as I cut it too short. I used brass wire to create two coil ties to hold the pieces together before running superglue down inside the joins. The result is really rather strong. The banner is different in style form my previous efforts as I attempted to show a figure rather than a face or geometric symbols. To this end, I did a little research into tapestries used by Christian groups here in the UK as well as the USA. Their work was often stylized and out of proportion but it run a cord with what I was wanting to achieve, after all, these followers would be intelligent and worshipful, despite being depraved, and would no doubt want to reflect their god well. I just copied the design I found and merged ideas from John Blanche's drawing of Slannesh from Slaves to Darkness. 

The actual model is a quick conversion of the chaos thug with two pistols. I simply cut away one of the arms and replaced it with a tentacle with the wire pole supported through the base and secure with greenstuff underneath. I really went to town on the skin as I felt that I wasn't really going far enough with the 'chaotic' element behind this range of models. After all, the original add for Slaves to Darkness said 'chaos thugs any colour you like' or some such.  

These two models are actually quite rare in my collection. Actual models that I owned in the 1980s that survived the two major culls I had to do with my collection to keep myself afloat financially in years gone past. They have sat at the bottom of my chaos thug collection bag ever since and I was pleased to get them finally painted up for my modern forces. They must have both been painted and stripped three or four times over the years. They also served as warm up models as I haven't had much time for miniature painting over the last few hectic weeks of school. I am always surprised about how quickly techniques fall away if you don't remain in constant practice, so perhaps one day these two will see the paint stripper once again and be met with a fresh coat of paint. 

I finished these three models last night and I must say I really enjoyed painting them, though I must admit to finding some of the effects I created challenging at the time. Still, I am quite happy with the overall look of this little group, especially when I had finished the varied shield designs. The miniature in the centre if worthy of note as it was bought for me by my HLTA at school (that's my classroom teaching assistant for those of you not in the know) after learning about my blog. He was badly damaged when he arrived in my possession and needed quite a bit of repair work as both his horns and shield spike had been badly cut away. Patient repair work with greenstuff restored him to new and here he is ready for service. I haven't had a chance to show him to her yet but I plan to take the miniature into school next term. 

For the shield designs I wanted to move away from just doing variants of the ogre face design. So, I explored a little bit into symbols used by other painters when dealing with Slannesh. All contain work on a theme, the Slannesh symbol, and follow the set of colours I had been using to bring coherency to force, namely pastel pink, green and blue. 

Right, back to the painting desk for me. I need to finish off the champion model for this unit (as well as sprucing up some of the older thug models in my collection for their paint jobs are in need of a bit of TLC in places) as well as finishing off the test piece for the unit of mounted chaos warriors. Hopefully, you will see an update soon! 

Orlygg.

Inspirational Chaos Army by Edward George Gladdis Part 3

Good morning, well its morning here, and welcome to a final stroll through the Chaos army of Edward George Gladdis. As we have seen previously, he has quite a large force made up from models take from the Citadel ranges from the early to mid '80s, with a few later '80s models thrown in too. In this first photograph we have models that fall into that criteria. These are all single piece castings from the mid '80s that didn't make it into the later famous Realm of Chaos ranges. They may not look like the traditional chaos warrior but these models are varied and imaginative even if the sculpting is less precise in places. 

Here we have the on foot versions of the models we discussed in a previous post. In fact, I have really grown to like the idea behind them. One purchase gives you two versions of the same model, one mounted and the other on foot. Its shame that this concept didn't continue as I would love to have some mounted versions of some of the later chaos champions. 

Slambo drops in to say hello before getting stuck in with his matching axes. Probably the definitive chaos warrior in my opinion and a fantastic model. The other two chaos warriors in this image are also of note as they are some of the few that suggest a more oriental origin. Chaos samurai on the left and a chaos ninja on the right? These models seem to have a slightly different colour scheme. The metal effects seem much more precise and smooth but are simple enough to match the previous tones. It is worth reminding you here that Edward has been working on this army for some 17 years so some inconsistencies are going to occur. Not that this ever actually matters when models are based and fielded of course. 

This chaos sorcerer makes a welcome change from all the chaos warriors. He is accompanied on his chaotic travels with one of the more common famous familiars sculpted by Jes Goodwin. Many of these were still available up until recently and are a joy to behold for their imagination and variety. These models are very well executed and I particularly like the green, yellow and pink scheme on the sorcerer himself. Though the red tone on the familiar is very rich and just goes to show what can be achieved with a dark basecoat. The white start on the model's forehead adds super detail that helps bring the smaller model to life. An idea well worth copying in my opinion. 

What follows are a series of photographs that show off the chaos warriors in Edward's collection. They are a mixture of slotta and preslotta much like the models we have seen previously. 

And to finish this review off a final single piece. None other than a Jes Goodwin Chaos Champion from 1987. This is a fantastic model and has really been well presented here. Two motiefs well worth stealing here are the chequers (very John Blanche) and the gorgeous flames on the boots. The yellow face with the pink lips create a good contrast with the red and black of the rest of the model and help draw attention to the facial features of this model. 

Do you have an old school army that you think we would be interested in seeing? Just let me know and I will gladly share your collection here in a future post. 

Big thanks to Edward for taking the time to post up these shots of his collection. i have really enjoyed putting these posts together and have been inspired to try some new ideas in my own work. I hope you dear readers feel the same. 

Orlygg

Oldhammer Weekend (BOYL) 2014's Goblin Green by Kev Adams!

Here is a super snap brought to you via the Oldhammer Facebook Group and the Mighty Avenging Bryan Ansell himself. It the goblin we mentioned earlier in the week and available for FREE to all attendees of this year's Oldhammer Weekend at the Wargames Foundry. 

As you can see, the model looks suitably amusing and would fit in easily with any goblin model produced in the last thirty years, though with that wildly flung sword he may be a little difficult to rank up, eh? Though difficult to rank up models are nice and old school anyway!

There is a kind of unofficial naming competition for him. No prizes I think, just the kudos of creating a suitable moniker for this little jester. My own effort was Gobhammer Jesterfest. I expect many of you will be able to do much better, so off you go and try in the comments section. 

It seems that this isn't they only craziness going on at the Foundry. Check out these strange and unusual sculpts to emerge from the desk of Kev Goblinmaster Adams!

Check these out! A chaos twig? A rosehip goblin? 

Inspirational Painted Chaos Army by Edward George Gladdis Part 2

No sooner do I publish a little article about the work of Edward George Gladdis than he posts more lovely models on the Facebook group. So I am going to have to do a second post to have a closer look at his chaos cavalry. As you will have noted in the picture above, these models follow the now familiar scheme of colour we discussed earlier with a little variation created with different coloured tassels. I like this idea and its a useful one for anyone trying to produce a lot of models for a unit in s small amount of time. 

Again all the models here are preslotta chaos warriors and the spectacular command model (with the mutated mouth) is one of those mid '80s mounted chaos warriors that came with a foot version. You can see Edward's painted version of this model in the previous post of his work. Of note here are the shields Edward has used to finish off these models. They are the rare metal ones produced by Citadel before the adoption of the plastic sprues that came in the later '80s. They are very collectible and can be quite pricy, especially the ones with the sculpted faces. For more information about this range look here. 

Okay, lets have a closer look at each of the models.

Well, I hoped that was as inspirational for you as it was for me. Considering that I have a bunch of (albeit later) chaos knights on the work bench in front of me, these images couldn't have come at a more useful time. With three weeks to go to the Oldhammer Weekend (BOYL) and holidays commencing there is plenty of time for me to get stuck into the lead pile and get some lovely models of my own completed.

Orlygg

Inspirational Painted Chaos Army by Edward George Gladdis

Its been quite a while since I posted up some models I found online here. Today, I found a collection of models that are well worth a wider share. Some of you who frequent the Oldhammer Facebook group may well recall seeing these miniatures before as they were posted there by their owner, Edward George Gladdis. 

As you will have noticed after gazing through the first image, there are a good range of classic era Citadel models on show here, including some that are rarely seen painted up. From his postings, its seems that Edward has been working on this army for about 17 years and that there are more units to share in the future. Hopefully, more images of this lovely force will wing their way towards the internet in the not to distant future. 

This dark metallic and scarlet colour scheme just goes to show how effective simple colour schemes can be. If memory serves the two knights on the left are preslotta mounted chaos warriors and the two on the right are the Chaos brothers from the Malal era, though these models were released as chaos thugs in the later '80s I am not sure if the mounted versions (shown here) were part of the release. The super retro bases are very evocative of the era and help tie the models together. 

Two classic era Realm of Chaos champions by Jes Goodwin (I think). The model with the book began life as a limited edition job but later became part of the general release. I am lucky enough to own both of these pieces and they are excellent. If you are not familiar with the range go look it up, as these models are easily part of the greatest set of chaos champion models ever released. 

The metallic and red colour scheme continues here (which is rather unusual for these Slannesh based models) though there are great touches to be found. I love the strip on the trousers (something that I want to try out myself) and the Blanchian cheques on the other. The pink tinge to the hair of the female champion is also a great idea and one I shall be most certainly stealing in the future. 

Ahhh, proper old school chaos warriors. The more I learn about this range (from 1985) the more I love the crazy variation that the models offer. Long term readers may well recognise the model in the centre of this photo in my own collection. The standard bearer is a conversion using a later plastic piece and a '80s metal shield. The model on the right is new to me and looks brilliant with that purple head stuck on the helmet. A great fun model that just oozes classic chaos! 

Orlygg

Oldhammer Weekend 2014 Kev Adams Special Miniature News!

I finished school today after a very long but satisfying year. A year made even more satisfying considering that it was heralded with the news that Michael Gove was removed as the Education Secretary, much to the delight of many a teacher here in the United Kingdom. 

Upon returning home I got some even better news via the Oldhammer Community. Bryan Ansell has informed us that Kev 'Goblinmaster' Adams is going to be producing a special model to celebrate this year's Bring Out Your Lead. It appears that there will be about one hundred castings made of this special figure available on the day.

Here's the full quote:

From Bryan Ansell:
Kevin Adams has kindly offered to sculpt a special Oldhammer Goblin for the event. He is pushing the putty as I speak. Assuming we get it cast up on time everyone will get a free one on the day. We will cast up a hundred and probably sell any leftovers off.

Well I am looking forwards to seeing what Kev produces for us and would like to publicly thank Kevin for contributing to our community in this way, as indeed I would like to thank Bryan and Marcus Ansell for casting them up for us. 

Fingers crossed everything goes smoothly!