Dis Iz Da Way - My Mandalorkian (and Grottu)

For a while, I've thought that it would be fun to make an ork version of the Mandalorian. There's a fine tradition (well, a tradition) of making pun models out of space orks (although I have yet to see Ork And Mindy). I saw this post at Dr Mathias' Miniature Gaming Extravaganza and thought it was time to have a go myself: http://miniatureextravaganza.blogspot.com/2022/11/the-mandalorkian.html.

I started with the legs and arms of an old ork boy, with the body of a metal stormboy and a metal head from a burna boy. The visor reminds me of the Mandalorian's helmet, and his ears stick out the sides in a comical fashion. Oddly, posing him with one boot up on a rock makes him look much more upright and less like an ape.

The pistol is a chopped down slugga with a random bit stuck to it to make it zappy. The spear came from a plastic skeleton. I sculpted him a ragged cape out of green stuff. The shoulder pads were from space marines. One actually has a sculpted bull's head, rather like the mythosaur crest that the Mandalorian wears.

The Mandalorkian's little friend was made from the body of a skaven plague monk, minus the feet. His head came from a Blood Bowl gnoblar, and his arms were sculpted from green stuff. I reckon the sleeves would be long enough to hide his hands, which is fortunate for me. 

When it came to painting, I remembered the Mandalorian having blue clothing, but actually his under-suit is dirty brown, so I went with that. I gave my version blue eyes to stop him looking too drab, and a wash of blue on the metal bits. 

So here are the Mandalorkian and Grottu! Grottu looks worried - perhaps he's freaked out by the white spider on his friend's base. Bad memories.

"Bounty huntin' iz a complicated biziness, they say, which is why it needs an ork to do it. I never takes me helmet off, which is an ancient custom or sumfink and not cos I welded it to me head by mistake. Dis 'ere's me little mate Grottu, who is magic. He makes a racket but he's got his uses, so hands off me grot. Dis is da way, yeah?"

A Few More Lowlifes For Mordheim

 Here are a few more citizens of Mordheim. First up, here are two skaven, going about their short and scummy lives. They've got plague monk bodies and heads and arms from the gutter runner set, because that's what I had left over. The extra metal balls were rolled out of green stuff.

And here is a minion for the undead. The undead of Mordheim can take "dregs", wretched living humans who help them by digging (up) graves, trading with citizens and nailing the zombies back together. The chap's body came from an old metal ork doctor model, which I think was from Gorkamorka. His arms are from the Frostgrave soldiers box, and his head is a very old GW plastic zombie head, with green stuff hair.

All the stuff on his front was sculpted into the model: there's a lot of detail here. I added a rucksack, scroll, coil of rope and a knife, to emphasise his worn-down look. I really like the face: I've actually painted over his droopy eyelids, but his worn out and staring expression works nicely. I expect he's had a hard life.

"Brains, master! I bring you fresh brains!"

Wraithguard Test Model

 This is a test model for a squad of Eldar wraithguard, small dreadnought-type things with big guns. The models I've got are metal, because I owned a couple anyhow, and they were going cheap. I remember buying one of these chaps in a blister pack sometime in the late 1990s. It cost £8, which was then an outrageous amount of cash (probably about £12 now, which still seems pretty darn steep). 

I went with the standard army colours of blue with red detailing. I think there might be a bit too much red. I'm also not that keen on the beige loincloth, which feels a bit grimy and was quite hard to shade. I do like the head, though: the particular green and blue I've got seem quite easy to blend together.

Not my most exciting post!

Dark Reapers

 Once again, I'm back on the space elves. This week, it's another unit of aspect warriors, the dark reapers. The reapers reflect the subtle ways of the Eldar by, er, dressing up as the Grim Reaper and shooting things with rockets. 

The "basic" warriors in the unit are classic Jes Goodwin sculpts. One thing I really like about the old models is the lack of superfluous junk and detail: they're sleek and deadly. I did have a Goodwin exarch, but unfortunately I hacked him into many pieces years ago. And besides, I wanted someone with a missile launcher, which unfortunately the Goodwin exarch lacks.

Honestly, these are four models.

I promise.

Luckily, a later incarnation of the reapers has just that. I found the body of a more recent reaper going on ebay, and I added a gun from the box of Eldar bits that I'm rapidly accumulating. I think it comes off a Dark Eldar vehicle. Anyhow, it took a bit of trimming, but it fits now. I added a hand from a spare guardian.

Let's rock!

I don't actually like the exarch as much as the normal guys: he's got too much junk on him, and he looks too "bitty" and complex. I quite like his pose, though, as it looks as if he's about to strike a massive power chord on his gun. One of the most recent iterations allows you to take a double rocket launcher, like one of those double-headed guitars that prog rock musicians like. Anyhow, here they are.

Orktober!

 Just a quick one. It is, apparently, Orctober, which means it's time to paint an orc. I dug out this old model, which I made ages ago. 

It's not actually intended to be an ork: the main body was a Ramshackle Games cyborg bloke. I sculpted an ork head over the original one with green stuff and added some skulls from a lizardmen set.

I decided to give him a repaint and a bit more detail. He got a lot of weathering, including some weathering powder on his metal bits.

It'll probably turn out that we've stopped doing Orktober, and now it's Octogre. Oh well!

Another Eldar Venom (or maybe Viper)

While a lot of this blog is "thing of the week", I do have some models that I gradually chip away at, painting a bit here and there, until they clutter up my desk. One of these is the second Eldar venom conversion. I originally got two venoms from Ebay, and decided to make them into "nice Eldar" versions, largely by taking off the skulls and spikey bits (which might well have snapped off anyhow - how anyone stores a Dark Eldar army is beyond me).

I gave the second venom the same conversion as the first: I cut off a headlight-type thing between the two prongs at the front and put the barrel of a shuriken cannon in its place, to create a nose-mounted gun. This took some fiddly lining up, but other than cutting a hooked blade off the underside, it's the only converting I did.

I painted the second venom in much the same way as the first. The main body was blue, which I shaded up and down with lighter blues (this was quite tricky). In places, I blended in purple as a spot colour.

The model came with its canopy glued down and slightly misted up, so I decided to paint over the "glass". I attempted the same mirrored lens effect that I did with the pilot of the first venom. As with last time, I quickly felt that I'd bitten off more than I could chew, but I persisted and the result isn't bad.

 

I'm pleased with both of these. Shading isn't my strong point, and I'm glad that it's come out ok. I spent quite a long time on this ship, which probably helps, and did most of the blending in single sittings, so I wouldn't forget where I'd got to. 

Farseer

 Back to the Eldar! One of my favourite old metal Eldar models is the farseer. He's a sort of enhanced warlock, who has extremely powerful psychic powers (at least, in the background). As far as I know, only one sculpt of this chap was made back in the blue catalogue days. I think he's a Jes Goodwin model.

Like the warlocks, he's an excellent miniature with a good mixture of flat spaces and detail. He's less of an action sculpt than his minions, and he has a massive helmet that makes him seem rather little. I put my farseer on a slightly bigger, higher base than his warlocks, just to emphasise his importance.

I didn't make any conversions and I painted him to reflect the other Eldar. I tried to incorporate all the various colours I've used, so he has the dark red of the warlocks, and a bit of the blue-green I used on the dreadnoughts. His eyes were painted using the same Turbo Dork paint that I used on the Warp Spiders, to represent the magical energies reflected in the lenses (he's probably seen some sights).

I'd originally intended to paint his outer robe with a very swirly psychedelic pattern, but then I realised that this was beyond me, and so I went for blue with some little dots, like a fancy kimono. The rules on his scabbard were taken from an old Eldar codex: I feel that they could do with a bit "more", but I'm not sure what.

And here he is with his bodyguards.